It’s a behemoth that refuses to budge. World of Warcraft has long reigned as king of the MMOs, to the point where each new offering within the genre can only dream of amassing but a small percentage of WoW’s player base. Not only is WoW massive in terms of sales and subscriptions, but it also represents the end goal of many MMOs; tweaked and patched to (almost) perfection, the game is pretty much allowed its right to sit back contentedly as the profits roll in. World of Warcraft is the fat, replete monarch, daring anyone to come and take a slice of the online gaming pie.
Most developers realise that there’s something worth copying from WoW, and so too do gamers. We’ve gotten over those “Oh, that’s just like in WoW” moments whenever we load up a new MMO title. When a game does so many things right, it’s hard not to utilise many of its features within the same genre. That said, it’s notable that most of the recent MMO releases have actually attempted to differentiate themselves from the crowd – LOTR Online with its chapter-based story missions and custom titles, Tabula Rasa with its sci-fi theme, and Age of Conan with its real-time combat, adult-oriented presentation and concerted focus away from grinding.
Now we have Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, sporting the supremely apt acronym WAR. At first glance this game looks like a WoW clone if ever there was one, but it’s not long before its differences become readily apparent. You see, the entire meta-goal within your WAR experience is the Realm versus Realm, or RvR, conflict between the forces of Order and Destruction.
Still sounds like WoW? Okay, how about the fact that both of these factions are further divided, with multiple races paired against each other in an RvR struggle? So rather than just having one all-out war, you have the High Elves vs. the Dark Elves, Greenskins vs. Dwarfs and the Empire vs. Chaos (note: it is possible to visit the other regions of your faction to help out). This war is persistent, so it carries on even when you aren’t playing, and it is possible for areas to change ownership multiple times as the conflict continues.
