WAR in 5 minutes

I feel an odd sense of deja vu.

From my utter abysmal failure to download a client decently via bittorrent technology, to my first taste of the world only being 5 minutes snatched before having to run off to work.

Hopefully, this time around, things work out a little better. Like, actually being able to download the client at a decent speed from Fileplanet, thanks to preview weekend. And not having the Live game start right after I come back from work. I'm assuming it will still be preview weekend in WAR...

As for the first snatched impressions: Well, the veneer is extremely WoW-like. The UI and design of the inventory items all look like WoW. I did see, if not have time to experiment with, options to alter the user interface.

Graphics are WoW-like, with a touch more realism. I'm somewhat let down by the current quality. I hope they improve the lighting before launch. Things still seem blocky and un-anti-aliased to my Age of Conan spoiled eye. And if I bought myself a spiffy graphics card, I expect that to be rewarded by being able to crank up to eye candy. Now I haven't had time to crank it up yet, but the default graphics still leave somewhat to be desired. Even after putting screen resolution to the appropriate setting.

There's some lag. I suspect this is due to the hundreds of people running amok in the newbie area. It better be. If it's "lag" due to framerate, I'm going to be a very unhappy camper for said reasons due to graphic card.

I'm amused by the Tome of Knowledge. I've hit a few unlocks just by going around talking to unmarked NPCs, and poking my nosy head into tents. Which is all very cool. Haven't had time to read any of it, but still a nice touch for Explorer lore-types.

The Open Group system looks promising. After searching around for the button on my UI, I checked it and saw about 10-15 Open Groups within 10 mins trek time of me. Didn't join any for said reasons of time, but yeah, seems like a more proactive way to find groups than wait for a blind invite or spam channels. (I fear the onrush of gold spammer bots who will join, spam and quit though.)

Combat. Sigh. I picked the Chaos Marauder - melee DPS, because I thought I didn't want to spoil my greenskin journey too fast. And I wanted to see just how fast a melee DPS can kill stuff, so that I had an idea of the fastest combat.

It's slightly worrisome because it feels like some sizeable chopping is required. If I simply relied on auto-attack alone, it would be about the speed of a normal all-skills dom takedown of a CoX boss. I made this 'mistake' because I had triggered off a mutation to get a "path of savagery" claw - but there were no skills for it yet at level 1. So auto-attack. :(

By turning the claw off, and using the "path of monstrosity" skill that was also in my skill tray, I could now do a skillspam of that one power, in between autoattacks, for a slightly more decent lieutenant dom takedown pace. But certainly, it's not a one-hit-kill kinda thing. More like ten, or even twenty.

On the bright side, I only had to kill 4 'starter rats' (okay, skeletons in a graveyard). Probably because the fight was meant to take a bit longer.

It'll be interesting to see how this works out as we gain more skills and powers (hopefully those, rather than ranks. I hate WoW ranks, increase in numbers over increase in options.) If the battle gets too strategic, I might end up getting bored. Dunno.

It's only the first five minutes. Looking forward to going home and trying out more of it to grok it better.