Warhammer still sucks.

I played Warhammer Online right at launch. Back then it wasn't really that awesome. It looked awesome and sounded awesome... but the execution sucked. Turns out, this many years later it still sucks.

I have gone back once or twice to look around and really kind of felt good about the game for a few days and quickly lost interest. I even tried to play the Endless Trial with a friend of mine. While there are still some fun aspects, most of the game remains unchanged.

The game still plays terrible and choppy. I've upgraded my PC since the game released, where my PC was above requirements, easily (Intel Core2Duo E4400 2x2.0GHz CPU, 3 gigs of DDR2, EVGA nVidia 8800GT AKIMBO) to a computer that is marginally better, but still greatly surpasses the needs this game has (AMD X2 6000+ 2x3.1GHz CPU, 8 gigs of DDR2, Sapphire AMD 6870). The game still plays like you're walking in sludge. It is just as poorly optimized as ever. There is still a great deal of "rubberbanding" and you still get random floating objects of awkward sideways walking mobs. It's... just weird. WAR game out several years after WoW was released, so I expect it to at least look better... especially if the requirements are going to apparently be so steep. It's not.

The game doesn't look bad and it does have some good qualities. Most of them are covered up by the piles of shit that pretty much make up the rest of the game. I was almost excited to see the game and get a feel for it past level 10 (which is where the Endless Trial cuts you off). I jumped on my Warrior Priest and instantly wasn't having fun. I tried out a couple of my other characters from way back when and once I found where I could respec at it went a lot smoother. I, however, wasn't able to join a single PvP scenario in the 4 or so hours that I was on and trying.

Not only has the playerbase dried up to near non-existence in off-peak hours, but the community is pretty shitty, too. There is a lot of elitism in such a small game. I've not sure what the official numbers are, but they've got to be pedestrian even when compared to what RIFT just did.

WAR really had a chance to be a good game and you can still kind of see that in there, but the devs have managed to bury it even deeper now. This makes me even more sad for the future of the MMO industry. A game with so much potential and it was squandered away. =(