Warhammer Online - Hands On @ Eurogamer

When we last played Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning a few months back, we came away impressed by the Mythic MMO's ideas, but concerned about its look, its basic combat mechanics and its feel. Like it or not, this is a game aimed at World of Warcraft's heartlands - a colourful, traditional, grind-happy, high-fantasy RPG romp. That means it's bound to be judged by the highest standards of quality and polish in the MMO world. If it's found wanting, the battle could be over before it's begun, and the announcement of feature cuts didn't do anything to assuage fears.
Back then, producer Jeff Hickman promised us that the game's delay to autumn this year would be used to address those areas. After a hands-on bash at E3 in the company of Hickman and his colleague Josh Drescher - playing the game on a busy live beta server - we've got to admit that Mythic's developers are getting there. In fact, they're nailing it.
There's a gorgeously slick new interface for character selection and creation, with a camera that glides between character line-ups - of race, and faction, and your own roster - that recall the Warhammer licence's roots in table-top miniatures. It's as inviting and pretty as an MMO front-end could be. The only disappointment is the basic character-customisation options - they're no more limited than WOW's in theory, but the identikit hordes charging around the game world suggest it's unduly hard to imbue characters with individuality.

Click to expand...

There is also, sad to say, still some clunkiness to the combat, although such a low-level character is hardly a fair representation. It takes a little adjusting to the shift in balance to an extremely slow, weak auto-attack, and hammering away at fast-recharging basic attack skills; the rhythm and tactile feedback still feel a little off.

Click to expand...