When I was in high school I saw my first game of Warhammer played on a giant miniature battleground taking up two fold-out tables. It was a stunning display of dedication, strategy, and cash expenditure. Previously I’d played many tabletop RPGs with miniatures, but this was like watching grandiose G.I. Joe battles taking place over a whole back yard with organization and rules. It was on such a massive scale that I was instantly interested.

Unfortunately when I ventured further into the world of Warhammer, attempting to learn the game and build an army, I was hindered by my cash flow. It was expensive to build an army, and the prospect of painting all of these tiny little things was intimidating to say the least. While I never did end up building a full army or battling anyone I was always interested in the game and aspired to one day actually get further involved.

As a brief background for the unacquainted, Warhammer is broken up into two main games: the first is a high fantasy setting similar to Dungeons & Dragons, the other is Warhammer 40k which takes that same setting and essentially transplants it into the future. Personally I find Warhammer 40k more interesting because it’s not every day you get to fight space goblins and undead with nuclear capabilities. What they share in common is the massive sized armies of miniatures for combat.

When Warhammer: Age of Reckoning (cleverly abbreviated as WaR) was announced as an MMO I was still a bit skeptical on the whole genre and only listened to the exuberant EA Mythic PR with half an ear. Recently Patrick Klepek of MTV Multiplayer convinced me to pay a bit more attention to the game because of the way that WaR will handle large scale public battles. Also, since the game’s announcement I’d become more open and welcoming of the concepts of MMOs. So I began to poke around a bit about more details on WaR.

After looking around it turns out that what I kind of invented in my head about WaR is nothing like the game is going to end up being. From what I’m reading it’s going to be very much like World of Warcraft, but with the foreknowledge of what is “wrong” about that game. Everything that WaR will bring to the table is going to either be “just like WoW, or better” or it is “fixing one of the inherent problems with WoW.” Essentially the game views itself as “the next WoW,” which, to me, spells overall failure.
See, one of the greatest advantages of using the Warhammer IP is the armies and the large scale combat. WaR will put the player in control of only one character: as soon as I learned this my interest level dropped from fairly high to quite low. The experience of building an army to play real people on fold out tables covered with green felt and miniature landscapes is something that most people can’t obtain. The chance of playing an MMO where you are the commander of an army you built yourself was something that seemed perfect for me. It even made sense within the rules of MMOs.

Dream a little dream with me if you will. You start out as just one hero, a commander without an army to command. The first ten levels or so involve completing quests which gain you prestige. After a certain point you can start to recruit your squad with one or two soldiers. Which character types you pick, how they’re equip, and what color you paint them is basically how the class-system would work. When you hit the maximum level the player should have a large squad to bring into combat with a few vehicles in their control as well. The world of Warhammer would allow for very unique level of customization based on what race, type of squad, and weapons you focused on training.

Now for the “end game.” You have your squad nice and strong so you join an Army (rather than guild) and you play out your role commanding your squad in large scale army combat. My imagination tingles with the possibilities of dynamic emergence this game could have. But that’s not what WaR is going to be and it just feels like wasted potential.

This isn’t saying that the game will be bad, it’s just that I’m disappointed. Because of this I decided to pick up Age of Conan: an IP and world that interests me and it seemed that the game is trying to be something other than “the next WoW.” The depth of combat and involvement attracted me to AoC rather than waiting a few months to see how WaR ends up. To quench my desire to control and fight huge armies I picked up the 2004 PC RTS Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War and a couple of the expansions off of Steam. While not the best game ever made, it does satiate my wonton lust for large scale combat nicely.

Maybe I just need to wait until someone uses the Warhammer 40k IP for an MMO to get the game I want.