Warhammer Online US open beta: The experience of an European

Abriael^M_084
Inserito originariamente da Abriael

It's been two long days since the beginning of open beta, and I have to say it's been a great ride so far. I'm already in tier 2, even thanks to the headstart of the preview weekend plus.
On top of what I said about it (most of the few bugs have already been solved), I wanted to give some insight (since many asked) on how it plays, latency-wise, for me, that I'm connecting from Italy.

Well, even if the game doesn't have a latency meter, I'm happy to report that the situation is (predictably) the same we had with DAOC. very low latency, and extremely efficent press-to-action delay (IE: No delay at all). There's still some ghosting here and there, but that seems a synchronization problem server side, since even american players suffer from it. I doubt that'll survive open beta.

Comparing with other betas i have played (quite a lot) both based on the US and in Europe (and in Asia), and with the European beta for WAR (which is not bad, but still laggier than the US one), I can say this is one of the most stable and smooth I ever tried. Mythic confirmed that they definately know their way with their servers.

Just to give you some data, I tried with my usual 20 Megs DSL, with a 7 Megs one, and with a 7.2 megs HSDPA collection. All three performed great (the provider was Alice for all three, for the ones hailing from italy that know what i'm talking about).

I'm playing in the Tyrion server, which is the most populated one (so population density isn't an issue). The community seems quite friendly (most definately better than WoW's, by a long shot), cosmopolite and quite well distributed around the clock. While there is definately a surge in numbers around my 11 'o clock PM, there were more than enough people to have scenario queues no longer than 30 seconds even during my afternoon.

So, if you're European, and don't feel like trusting GOA (understandably), I can definately tell you that the US servers are a more than viable alternative. I would, personally, identify them as the best solution overall.

On the other side of things, looks like panic is spreading across the internet between the fanboys of other games (mostly WoW and AoC). I have to say it's pretty funny to see them run around flailing their limbs and uselessly trying to persuade the world that the game "sucks" or that it's "a wow ripoff". I never saw such a panic before the release of a competing game, and this definately testifies that Warhammer Online is a fearsome competitor in the market.

As a further appetizer while many of you still wait for the release, here are more than 50 new pictures coming straight from the open beta.