Returning to Warhammer Online:

It's been two weeks since I started my journey back to my most-enjoyed MMO, so I feel another update is due.

A problem I have with pretty much any game which allows you to dictate the class you play as is that I want to try them all. Warhammer Online has proved to be no different. At the moment I'm playing three characters each of a different MMO archetype. A Black Orc (which is a defensive tanking class), a Choppa (melee DPS), and a Shaman (healer).

At this moment I've just realized that all three of these are Orc classes....

I say they are "Orc classes" because each race has it's own set of classes, which is nice when compared to something like WoW, which has the same small handful spread amongst all it's races. There ends up being 24 classes total, although that number is basically cut in half due to each class having a mirror class on the other faction. Either way, they all feel distinct, even the ones that are basically the same.

I've gotten these three characters into Tier 2, which is when the open world RvR really takes off and introduces the taking of Keeps. However, a lot has changed in my time away from the game. There used to be boss encounters within the Keeps themselves, a Keep Lord and a few other NPCs that you'd have to kill to take the Keep, in addition to holding off the enemy players. Sadly, Keep Lords are a thing of the past and now after the initial struggle of ramming down the door, once you're in you're in.

This leaves it up to the players themselves to defend their Keep, and this occasionally leads to massive battles and pushes with what feels like hundreds of players all fighting for control of this building. When you're victorious, it feels great. When you get denied or if they take your Keep, you feel you've let your faction down. It's something I haven't experienced in many games and I'm surprised the sense of accomplishment these massive fights can bring.

I'm also surprised at how much the community for this game is still so alive. Before I came back I had thought, like many of you probably do, that this game was pretty much dead. Even in the middle Tiers there are plenty of players all getting together and taking down Keep after Keep, which is good news to me since I'm almost out of T2 with one of my characters.

TL,DR: I'm still really enjoying this game, and the community is very much alive.