Back again, again and again... The long story.

[Frankie]

Hail and well met, forum dwellers!

This one is my 3rd return to this game if I remember correctly, not counting my first attempt at WAR, and I don't know the exact reason why I feel somewhat emotional this time around, but I'll try to write it out of my head so I can ease that restlessness regarding my thoughts about this game as a whole and to let the world how much this one game means to me. There is no TL;DR version, sorry! I do not expect people to read through the wall of text I'm about to drop, all about my personal life and experience nonetheless, but I'd be happy if others would find it mildly entertaining or I'd be able to meet some old friends long forgotten found again.

I remember I was slightly jealous of some of my friends who were fortunate enough to able to finance their WoW fix. Back when it came out I was in my early 20s. Attending university with the little allowance that I was able to gather from the few occasions that could net me some money and doing some summer work, saving up enough to have the proper hardware and monthly fee the game required was out of question. University student lifestlye is costly, and in Hungary if you weren't rich by proxy of your parents, you had to choose. Couldn't be life of the party AND a gamer geek simoultaneously. But than came a bit more tumultous period in my life. I was craving more independence from my parents, was already one leg out of the university (switched from law studies to humanities and that didn't fascinate me much more) and coincidentally Hungary just joined the EU, so there was an opening for working abroad. Had my first taste of adult freedom and steady income. After missing 2 semesters I came home, and a good friend of mine from high school and the uni introduced me further to the Warhammer universe (I only played Blood Bowl before that). I spent 2 more summers in the US (CO), the top 2 of my best summers of my time, the 3rd nowhere to be seen behind. But after the second stint my girfirend broke up with me which took the last waft of wind out of my sail of a university degree aspirations. My brother called from the UK, he was by then a mid-manager and lived in a lot more safer area in Kent than our previous experience in SE London. I had enough money saved up to move there, and just before I left my friend showed me WAR, which just has been released. That set my priorities...

Took me a couple months, but I gathered enough money for a PC that was just strong enough to be able to play WAR, then bought a CD copy of the game a week before my hardware's arrival. I think that is the only game CD I still have to this day in a cabinet in my old room at home full of memories, even though they all ended up there just because I deemed them valuable at the time, the cabinet accidentally became sort of a time capsule. ANYWAY! As a first time mmo player, I sucked at it terribly at first, even the hasty game-texting was totally new to me (dps, incincinc, pvp, pq, kotb, etc...). And though I never become anywhere near as good, I still had just taken off with the gaming time of my life. I loved pugging in T2 especially. No addons to help organize our little zerging but I have so many visual memories burnt into my brain with the attached feeling of game-induced adrenaline rush, no other mmo came nearly as close! We played as long-range specialist engineers (with that addon that allowed target sharing, whatever its name was), and just the sheer thought that we managed to turn a simple destro steamroll into an hour long defense of epic proportions (in no small part thanks to our sniper duo with keen target selection) still gives me goosebumps. Or the time we sent order to bed (playing as a BO-shammy duo this time) right from the walls of Spite's Reach. But rvr was just half the story of these days. I've thought about dabbling into WHFB before, but I was always more fascinated by the lore than the game itself. And I may be in the minority when I say that PVE was great in WAR and is good in RoR, but that is a hill I'm ready to die on. I roamed through the realms, fell in love with grimdark. Places such as the Tree of Beards ("The Tree of Beards is a holy place for the Greenskins and a shrine of unspeakable insult to the Dwarfs.") or the forlorn journey from Praag to the Chaos Wastes that rivals the madness of Apocalypse Now. The best immersion the Old World ever had to offer among video games. And it's not the great writing, that was quite basic, but that HUGE Tome of Knowledge and all that well-hidden unloackables through the map... I get distracted by occasional tome-hunting to this day.

(TBC)

[Frankie]

(CONT)

And then THE guild. I can't remember either of the servers I played on, but boy how lucky I feel about bumping into a couple players from The Asgards one day. My buddy already gave up on the game (he never takes losing lightly, and there were many of those in WAR), so I was missing some gaming company and the standard zerg train that could work in T2 was found lacking on higher levels. It was a small social guild early on, but we grew and became proud members of a "2nd tier" alliance on the server. That was right around the time the Necropolis of Zandri came out. I just loved that time. It was like a gold rush era and felt like one. I really, really wanted to get the full armor set that those dungs dropped, but they were quite hard, and like I said I weren't very good at the game and neither lucky with the drops. Getting that remains a bold item on my bucket list, I was elated to see you guys put the necropolis back in the game with a great spin on the previous dull PQ system. I trailed off again, can't think of a good segway to get back on track. Nevertheless The Asgards were the first and the best experience I ever had in any game. Literally friendly atmosphere... for an introvert such as myself I look back at that time I was involved with inter-guild politicking seems like a different person to my old self. But I lived it and loved it. Destruction was a lot stronger on that server, so we had to coordinate real hard to make a push for the IC and those victories were all the sweater by the effort we all made. I can hardly recall any names from that time, except for the guy who joined a couple weeks after me and became the guild leader eventually, Soredemar. I'm pretty sure he moved on from gaming entirely based on what he said many years ago when I managed to somehow catch up with him, but shout out to him anyway! He managed to convince his then gf Ali to play the game and even she became better than I was. Though for obvious reasons people tended to help her and even carry her through profitable dungeon runs more than me. There was also a rather strong willed gal in an allied guild... Erika maybe? It's fun to reminisce about these times, I swear I haven't remembered her not to mention her name, but I'm pretty sure it was Erika.

Of course the game was criticised a lot and it had lots of shortcomings, starting with the era's techincal limitations server-wise for example and the near-constant disconnects. Wireless mouse and keyboard was also rather new back then and it worked alright for certain things that didn't involve competitive gaming as me and my wireless keyboard both found out the hard way. For me, it was dieing in a duel with my WP because of the dazed keyboard, for the dazed keyboard it was that ninja-like backthrow that shattered the evil thing into bits. Have to admit, I'm still proud of that move. I value items that are useful and reliable but finishing off those that doesn't work as intended is a liberating exercise... Sorry for trailing off! Like I said, the game had many issues, but frankly the biggest ones were in my opinion at the top of management thanks to EA, and that's not just a cliché.

But that actually is the luckiest thing that could happen to me and everyone else loving this game. Free of restrictions, no person in his/her right mind would criticize such an effort. I read the "About" story around noon and frankly, this might be the best one "about" story I ever read. I'm really happy for you guys and most grateful! This time my main shall be a Zealot and since I'm not big on x-realming I'm going to stick to destruction. I never before played it thoroughly before, I just had my first sacellum run ever two days ago, so I feel like my teenager self again, all thanks to this game, and everyone involved in it. Talking about youth, as I started out with a long winded story about my personal life, I finish this... whatever it is with another one. I had my ups and downs since I returned to Hungary, went back to the UK one more time and came back yet again. Mostly downs, but all those bad things just made me prouder of where I am now and what do I have. As a late bloomer, just had my first son just over half a year ago. As the adorable little tyrant he is, he demands a lot of my previously gaming time, but I'm happy to comply. I have dream, that about a good 15 years later if I'm still kickin', I'd have the pleasure of doing some rvr, some sc, a bit of pve roaming and sume dungeon binging together with him.

May this war never end! Thank you!


Frankie, a.k.a. Gergő, a.k.a. Gottlob

[Culexus]

I can't believe I actually read all of that

Welcome back to WAR! Time to create some new memories to look back on.

Since you main a Zealot you will pretty much always have a place in most groups as you are currently the best healer class on destro so will always be in demand. The best advice I can give you as a new player is to learn your class then get yourself in a good guild. As you know, this is an old school mmo and playing in an organised group with great people will make or break the game for you. Although it's possible to play solo in just pug groups, the game isn't really designed for it and you'll have a much better experience playing with an organised group. You can play solo as a solo-roamer, but that's kind of it's own (awesome) little world and is not really connected the the wider scope RvR.

[ChatGPT]

TL;DR:

Spoiler:

The text is a personal reflection on the author's journey with the game Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR). From financial struggles as a student to discovering the game abroad, the author fondly remembers his experiences, particularly in a guild called The Asgards. Despite the game's flaws, he's grateful for its revival and hopes to share it with his son someday.

[Frankie]

I can't believe I actually read all of that

Welcome back to WAR! Time to create some new memories to look back on.

Since you main a Zealot you will pretty much always have a place in most groups as you are currently the best healer class on destro so will always be in demand. The best advice I can give you as a new player is to learn your class then get yourself in a good guild. As you know, this is an old school mmo and playing in an organised group with great people will make or break the game for you. Although it's possible to play solo in just pug groups, the game isn't really designed for it and you'll have a much better experience playing with an organised group. You can play solo as a solo-roamer, but that's kind of it's own (awesome) little world and is not really connected the the wider scope RvR.

Thanks for the advice! I'm already a proud member of the Unforgiven, they seemed friendly enough and in turn I try not to wear them out with my relentless noob questions. I love the challenge that RoR presents. It's a lot of internet legwork, for example I've spent over 4 hours messing around with my UI and addons, got screwed by them and embarrased myself, but I think I got it alright for the zealot at least. I was always a team-first person (after WAR I switched to another legendary community/fan-made game: Project Reality), and this was the first that got me hooked on that playstyle. Looking forward for all the goodness!


While I was trying to remember which servers I played on, I found this video. Sums up nicely what I said about our guild...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=deskt ... metalvenom

[Frankie]

TL;DR:

Spoiler:

The text is a personal reflection on the author's journey with the game Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR). From financial struggles as a student to discovering the game abroad, the author fondly remembers his experiences, particularly in a guild called The Asgards. Despite the game's flaws, he's grateful for its revival and hopes to share it with his son someday.

Thank you, ChatGPT! You're a godsend!

[F4llen4ngel]

Hello Gergő!

Üdv újra itt Welcome back, I was really touched about the intention playing with your kiddo later, as i had the luck to do this with my two sons, awesome experience to be able to share this game with them. On a side note, you may not need to wait 15 years, my kids started at age 6-7-ish , the older one already have a rr80 WE butchering ppl better than me. Just throw a msg ingame if you need anything.

Cheers mate,
András/ Bicska

[Frankie]

Hello Gergő!

Üdv újra itt Welcome back, I was really touched about the intention playing with your kiddo later, as i had the luck to do this with my two sons, awesome experience to be able to share this game with them. On a side note, you may not need to wait 15 years, my kids started at age 6-7-ish , the older one already have a rr80 WE butchering ppl better than me. Just throw a msg ingame if you need anything.

Cheers mate,
András/ Bicska

Köszi András! There's a good chance I'll be knocking on your in-game door one day with a request.

Must be awesome with the kids! Gotta be a lot easier bonding with boys with video games. Kinda selfish, but we're having a blast it's win-win. I'm sure my son will be better than I am (though the bar isn't set too high), at this stage he's already analog-debuffing my laptop and mouse when I play.

[F4llen4ngel]

at this stage he's already analog-debuffing my laptop and mouse when I play.

LOLed

[BoriqOne]

yup, a destruction fan, i knew it . i started to look for it in all that salad of words. and i wasn't wrong. roflmao. well in all reality who can say such nice words for playing on Order, it's a mess. balance to what ??? All want to be on Destruction, how nice. balance in this game is getting to the point it is becoming boring. i pity destruction, PVD is all im seeing. this rework or whatever destruction to Order they call it, is not fun to play Order, reason more play on Destruction, better classes, better fuctionality with spells and all.... why play order ? this has become stale/boring. unless there is a plan to make this a GW2 look alike. then i'd understand. all destro classes are better and WAY more enjoyable then orders....get fixed. even the playing field already to all classes, make one side work just as fine as the other. EX-Order player sigining off. yes Ex -Order, im playing Destro now, have no other option, it sucks on Order. only xrelamers keep this trap alive. for what ? they come order give you 2 keeps, then back to destro and complete annihilation for the rest of the day, evening and night. AND to you Frankie, you chose correctly my friend, don't touch Order, it's not for the faint at heart, it's gotten toxic beyond help. they are the new forsaken. stay Destruction enjoy the game, have fun bud. congrats for your child, be a good father, long, life too you & yours. Now time to go and kill off some weak high elves, chump Dawi's and malnourished humans! ... they're all probably huddled in a corner waiting to be sieged in their keep, all 9 of them, ROFLMAO! ...US 3 warbands strong.... WAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHH!