Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (PC)

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On September 18, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning finally launched, opening its gates to massive numbers of players (Mythic claims 500,000 to date) who proceeded to kill one another in bloody glory with only a few technical hiccups. This is how it's done -- Mythic should be commended for releasing a top-shelf MMO right out of the gate, despite the delays and the late trimming of content (which will hopefully return at some point).

WAR is special for the flexibility it provides its players. There are WAR players who have barely touched a player-vs.-player (PvE) quest and are playing solely on the frontlines via RvR combat. And this is a realm-vs.-realm (RvR) game at heart -- the various races are constantly fighting over contested territory in a never-ending struggle for supremacy. With that comes the responsibility of killing enemy players in these contested zones. The fights are frantic, confusing, intense, vicious and most importantly, a hell of a lot of fun. Charging headlong into a wall of Dwarfs with your screaming Black Orc and several Greenskin buddies is about as good as MMOs get. You can play the entire game, literally, by sticking to the designated RvR areas or by playing instanced "Scenarios" in which you must also kill enemy players.

Like much of the game, though, server population plays a huge factor in the amount of fun you'll have. RvR combat is great if you play on a popular sever, and it's worth waiting in line in order to play on a high-population server. Without that heavy population, and since the game world is huge, many designated RvR zones are completely barren. It's sort of sad-looking, really, when you wander into an area that should be teeming with players only to see a couple of enemies. In one admittedly funny situation, I wandered into an RvR zone, came across an enemy Dwarf player, and we looked at each other and decided, "Why bother?" In other zones, the action is hot and heavy, but a lot of people are opting to play the 15-minute scenarios in order to earn their Renown bonuses. This is less of a problem on high-population servers -- if you are into RvR you should steer clear of low-population servers at all cost.

But WAR doesn't confine you to an RvR straitjacket. There are many MMO fans that don't enjoy player-vs.-player combat and would rather play either solo PvE or tackle quests together with a group of friends without the fear of being stalked by an enemy Witch Hunter. WAR allows this, though the PvE is unbalanced for the solo player. Take my Black Orc tank as an example: The chances of him dying or even reaching 50 percent health during any PvE quest are quite slim. The quests usually throw only one enemy at you at a time, and the pull area is way too small -- so your chance of pulling many enemies your way is pretty low. Without the danger of being attacked by multiple enemies, the thrill of the quest itself is lessened. As a result, while playing the game solo is certainly possible, it's not nearly as much fun as it should be.