West Karana

I admit it, life before Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning was fairly bland and meaningless. My life before I became consumed by WHOOOOAAAAA was just a shadow — a shadow OF a shadow, really. Before Public Quests, how could I really do a quest? Before the Tome of Knowledge, how would I know what to do? Before Open Groups, how would I ever find a group? MMOs before WAR were mostly people just standing around, without direction, without anything to do.

WAR changed that, and changed it forever. Changed it to death. From now on, no other MMO developer will ever dare confuse players by not telling them exactly what to do and when. But really, when you already have WAR Everywhere, what do you even need other MMOs for?

It’s time for all those other game companies to really examine their lives, to just sit back and wonder why they are even in this crazy business when the one game to rule them all has already been written? They should all roll up those masters of high elven magics, those twisted sisters of arcane allegiance, the Archmage, and go WAAAAAAAAA on someone.

Simulated Warhammer screenshot.

Your basic Archmage is always doing the wrong thing. When its just trash mobs everywhere, the Archmage is making them light up like fireworks at Christmas. When the boss is up and the Bright Wizards are all lighting up the bad guy, doing their part, the Archmage is looking for people to heal.

“We’re BURNING here, Ossandra-the-Amazing!”

“Wait, Lego Lass has a nasty scratch, be right with you!”

*Crunch*Crunch* boss picks Lego Lass up in one meaty hand and bites off her head. Ossandra brightens up. “See?!”

The Bright Wizards laugh and nuke the boss dead while Ossandra gathers her magic for a huge blast — finally. “Um, where’d he go?”

Archmages are famous for fighting the wrong mob at the wrong time. They bring dobermans to cat shows. They drive in the carpool lane without anyone else in the car. They show up to birthday parties a day early and send the present a month later.

Playing an Archmage? Here’s a news flash. Nobody wants your cruddy heals. Just toss a few around to build up the power for the nukes you were hired for and try to ignore the Bright Wizards doubling over in laughter. Your guild leader has a clue in the guild bank just for wild cannons like yourself. Go get it.

Gandalf would have looked damned silly trying to get some quick heals off on Samwise so he could fight the Balrog.

Get over yourself. Archmage is the high elf word for ‘hopelessly confused’.

—

Wow, has this really been three weeks of Straight Talk Warhammer? Very nearly! Three weeks since all our lives were changed forever. This is also the last Straight Talk Warhammer — for now, anyway. I’ve enjoyed doing them very much, and they’ve made me want to pick up the game and give it a try. But there are other games out there that need a pin in their balloons, and satirizing every class in Warhammer just to do it is definitely taking a good joke past the point where it’s amusing. Starting next week, Stout Henry will be back with his twisted take on MMO combat with ‘Stout Henry Goes to War”.

For those few of you who stuck with STW this long, thanks :) Your laughter and comments made this worthwhile!

There’s just so much to say about Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning that people don’t even talk about. I’m don’t mean innovations like Public Quests or the Tome of Knowledge or Open Groups or stuff like that, but stuff that really makes you sit down and go, “damn, why hasn’t any other game ever done this?” It’s that “I coulda had a V-8″ forehead slap moment.

I’d have liked to have been in that meeting where some nebbiish dev looked up from his books and said, in a quavering voice that would change the direction of the game forever, “why don’t we have DWARFS in our game?”.

The sound of helicopters… the tragedy of bunnies… Every person’s mind was immediately gripped by the tale of the dwarf Alderich, who forged a magic ring deep within a volcano’s maw, a single ring that would rule the entire world.

“Nobody has EVER done THAT,” agreed everyone else. “Nobody’s gonna figure out that we stole the idea from an OPERA!” And thus, the race of dwarfs was born, and among them, that stalwart example of dwarf obstinacy, the Ironbreaker.

Simulated Warhammer screenshot.

Standing four foot high on tippy-toes and waving their stubby little arms above their heads, you’d be forgiven for thinking the best way to deal with an Ironbreaker is by treating them like your annoying kid brother, who wants the toy YOU have, that you keep tossing back and forth with your sister on the other side of the room.

“Mine! MINE! I WANT MINE!!!” screams the Ironbreaker, his face going all red and cute, but he just can’t get the toy, can he? Can he? Here it is! Whoops! Over to Sis! Awwww.

Ironbreakers are the whiny little brothers of Warhammer, forever running around, hoping people will hit them so they can run and tell Mother. “MOTHER!!!!” cries little I.B., “He HIT me! And then SHE hit me! And then all these OTHER people hit me! MAKE THEM STOP!!!” and Mother comes out, looking like she wants to hit the little urchin, too.

Wait. YOU’RE an Ironbreaker? Sorry, I didn’t see you right away, crouching there behind the rock. Oh? Well, standing behind. Oh? OKAY. Standing on TOP of the rock, waving your hands. Well, so you’re an Ironbreaker, are ya?

Well, your job is to stand places. Yup. That’s it. Stand over here, stand over there, and be all whiny so people will hit you. You want to be hit. You CRAVE being hit. You want people to give you a real BEATING. To walk over to where you are, standing still, and then HIT you.

Yeah. You like being hit. Every bruise is a badge for you. You live for the moment when Mother walks up and you can say, “SEE what they did!? And I didn’t cry, not once!”

You’re one whiny, sick, Oedipal bastard.

—

Wondering what your Warhammer career says about your personality? You won’t find that hot info anywhere else than here at Straight Talk Warhammer, where we know you better than you know yourself.

Ever since Blizzard created the MMORPG genre with World of Warcraft, generations of people wondered if the genre they invented would end with that game — it was just so good, such a shining gem of perfection, that to add or subtract any one thing to that game would just mar its sublime beauty.

And then Mythic dreamed of a new game, one as polished as WoW, but with things WoW had never imagined, like two sides forever at war — at WAR! — and battlegrounds where the two mortal enemies could meet in order to take on well-defined challenges for points. The name of this paragon of innovation?

None other than Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. That’s WO:AoR, which is kind of like how a ghost would say “war”. And there’s no WAR class better at turning people to ghosts than WAR’s own little mad bomber, the Dwarf Engineer.

Simulated Warhammer screenshot.

A dwarf engineer walks casually out of a post office, schoolhouse, shopping center, whatever. He scratches a match to fiery life on the back of his knuckle, lights a cigar, and — BOOM! — terrified screams are brought to a sudden end as the entire building goes up in flames. He takes a deep drag from the cigar, smiles, and walks slowly away.

Because Engineers don’t kill people one at a time. An Engineer isn’t happy unless he is killing people by the dozens. An Engineer isn’t happy unless he’s destroyed the peace and happiness of an entire nation.

Try and turn away all dwarfs at the border, and they protest and call it ‘profiling’ and tie up the international courts for MONTHS. The is why you must fight dwarfs THERE so you don’t have to fight them HERE. Take the fight to them. That’s the only way to kill an Engineer. Hit them where they live, hit them fast, and hit them hard.

And you don’t even want to KNOW what an Engineer can do with an eight ounce bottle of Listerene. Three ounce bottles of Listerene are okay, though. They can’t do anything with those.

Dwarfs are really pretty skinny — not many people know that they are wiry little guys and gals. Why do they look so round?

Reloads. A Dwarf Engineer was once apprehended by the virtuous agents of Chaos and found to be carrying three shot guns (one with a sawed-off barrel), ten grenades, enough plastic explosive to level a city, three bandoliers with two hundred shells each, a dozen detonators, two rolls of duct tape and a hundred meter spool of copper wire.

They would have had more, but they’d just been running down to the corner store for matches.

—

Holy smokes! We’ve come to the end of another edition of Straight Talk Warhammer! Come back tomorrow, same time, same place, when we discuss the Dwarf Engineer’s less psychotic cousin, the Rune Priest. Remember, if it’s Warhammer, and it’s Online, there’s only one place to get the Straight Talk about it.

Do you remember what life was like before Warhammer Online: The Age of Reckoning? I sure can’t. Well, sometimes it comes in little bits and pieces… a world where to do a raid or join a group, you had to talk to people, and sometimes, make friends. Brrr. We’re all pretty glad THOSE days are over! The exciting new Public Quests and Open Groups and Scenarios keep things nice and anonymous — just like watching porn in a movie theater! And that is the mastery AND mystery of Mythic’s groundbreakingly innovative new MMO that will forever change what we think of, when we think of MMOs — Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.

The is the AGE where we will be RECKONED. And who will perform the Reckoning?

None other than the Empire’s shining light, the Warrior Priest.

Simulated Warhammer screenshot

Take your hands off the character creator. You’re not GOOD enough to be a Warrior Priest. Just go ahead and log in with your dwarf engineer or whatever and go about your business. When you join a group with a Warrior Priest in it, don’t think you’re getting any heals, ‘cuz you’re not. The whopping you take will be ATONEMENT. And you should thank him for not letting you suffer life as the insignificant worm you are.

Life for a Warrior Priest is simple. You are either a SMOTER or a SMOTEE. And you know the WP heals might as well be self only.

Okay, now you went and did it, you didn’t listen and you rolled up a Warrior Priest. Fine. If you’re gonna be one, start shouting “FOR SIGNA!” at appropriate times. Like, on a bus. In the bathroom. While stapling papers. It’s okay. “FOR SIGNA!” <staple><staple> “LET THE PURIFYING LIGHT” <staple> “CLEANSE THIS FAX” <fold>.

Sit up. Actually, stand up. Chin up in the air, 45 degrees (pi/4 radians if you’re Canadian). Eyes forward. Take your sword and start swinging it wildly, with great force. It doesn’t matter if you can’t see what you’re swinging at with your chin up like that. Friends would know to get out of the way. Enemies will either run or perish. Because you’re one bad priest, and the complete loss of peripheral vision is a small price to pay for being RIGHT. All the time.

“The enemy approaches!” whispers the forward scout. The hunting party looks to the Warrior Priest, who silently, but with great strength, shakes his head. “No enemies,” he rumbles.

“No, it’s a whole bunch of orcs and goblins and even a Dark Elf Witch!”

“You lie,” grumbles the Warrior Priest. “I think you are the enemy. I think it time you die.” The WP stands up, lifts his mighty hammer, sticks his chin up in the air at a 45 degree angle, and begins to smite the scout. Except the black-feathered arrow from a Chaos bow kills the scout first. The WP quickly kills the rest of his team to build up healing power, gets some good heals going on himself, and runs off, once again, the lone survivor.

Warrior Priests are the lone survivors of battles with disturbing frequency.

—

OMG! Six issues of Straight Talk Warhammer, and you’re still here! We hope you have enjoyed this latest entry in the only Warhammer guide that dares tell the truth about life and adventure in the Lord of the World of Warhammer Online: The Age of Reckoning. Come back tomorrow, when we reveal what the Dwarf Engineers are building in that locked room they never let you into. The astonishing truth will shock you.

We’re baaaaaaaack…..!

Warhammer Online: The Age of Reckoning, brought public quests to a public quest-less world, Tomes of Knowledge to the forgetful, open groups to the friendless, and in all ways has transformed the world.

Warhammer Online has twenty unique classes or ‘careers’, and each one plays like no other class in any other MMO, proving once again that WAR’s innovative and unique game play will have every other MMO dev yelling to their computer, “Why didn’t WE have something like that!”

It’s because it took until now before someone got the idea for a robe-clad magic user who summons fire from the skies, something called, “Bright Wizard”. Now that WAR has blazed the trail (sorry), every other MMO is sure to implement something similar.

Simulated Warhammer screenshot

The Transportation Safety Authority has a special wing in Guatanamo for Bright Wizards. See, they set up in a major airport, like Chicago or Atlanta, and they get on the PA and ask Blaze McCharmander or Ash Daboominator to pick up the white courtesy phone, and then when they do, they’re like, we heard Bright Wizards couldn’t set a match on fire if it had been soaked in gasoline and gunpowder for a week and was dangling over a pool of lava. And then Cinder Blastitall will start shouting about “Gonna burn that! Burn! Boom! Hahahaha! Light ‘em up! BURN! KILL! BUUUURN!!!!!”

And that’s when they take them away.

When Bright Wizards watch Lord of the Rings, they’re cheering for the Balrog and wondering why Mount Doom didn’t get more screen time. Pompeii? Early Bright Wizard convention.

Get one of these in a strategy meeting and when the Bright Wizard raises his hand, the guy at the head of the table sighs a little inside and tries to change the subject, but the Bright is always going, “oh me me me pick me oh me me” and then the head guy says, “Okay, WHAT. And you better not just be suggesting we set the whole thing on fire.” And the Bright kinda lowers his hand and looks away, muttering, “well I didn’t want to come to Susie’s surprise birthday party ANYWAY.” And then he’s all pouty until you promise him a puppy for Christmas. And THEN he’s all like, “Ooooh! A PUPPY! I’ll hug him and love him and name him George!” And then you give him a long look until he promises not to feed the puppy anything that will make him explode.

These guys are always asking the DJ to play Disco Inferno and writing to Stephen King asking when the sequel to Firestarter is coming out. These are the guys who dream about being stuck in a burning building and wake up smiling. These are the guys who eat nothing BUT chile con carne because they heard about this heartburn thing and it sounded like a good idea to them.

Need to find a Bright Wizard? Just follow the flaming trees.

—

Looking for information about Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning careers, cities, public quests, Tome of Knowledge, open groups, and how you can make concrete burn? Well, then, you’ve come to the right place! Straight Talk Warhammer is the only blog series that gives you the Straight Talk… about WARHAMMER! Online. Age of Reckoning.