So last night I got together with some guildies to do Tier 1 Open World RvR in Warhammer Online. This was the first time I’ve done ‘organized’ Open World RvR since launch, and the first time I’ve done it with a character I’d ‘grown’ naturally. (We did a lot of RvR in beta testing, but it was always with an insta-leveled character that I never had a good feel for.)

Short version of the story: It was a blast!

Long version: There was a bit of give and take early on, as some folks really wanted to do scenarios even though the ‘scheduled event’ was open world RvR. Nice thing about War is that this wasn’t a deal breaker. Some of us went one way and others went another. We swept through all three pairings taking objectives. Sadly only Nordland/Norsca was heavily contested and thus that pairing was the most fun. But it was the first outting for several of us and getting out there to get a feel for the lay of the land of each zone was entertaining and helpful. We left our Warband open and some random folks joined in the fun. At least one of them asked if the guild was accepting new members (they asked me via private tell) and I had to let them down gently. For now our recruitment is closed.

Anyway, all of this led me to the question of Scenarios vs Open World.

I seem to be in a minority in preferring Open World RvR. In fact, some people think Tier 1 RvR is broken. and maybe it is, but I haven’t noticed. I personally find Scenarios to feel awfully “flat” and while they’re a nice change of pace, I think I’ve already had my fill of the T1 Warhammer Scenarios. This is definitely a personal preference and plenty of people are still *loving* the scenarios.

Y’see, I’m a role-player at heart, even if I’m not on an RP server. By this I don’t mean I have some elaborate backstory for my character. But I mean when I’m playing, I AM my character. Maybe I should say I’m a VR junkie rather than a role-player. Immersion is important to me, which is why stupid names and Chuck Norris jokes bug the hell out of me: they strongly remind me that I’m playing a game.

And Scenarios do that too. Every one starts the same and ends with a big fat score-card in front of my face. Scenarios are a sport, and I’m not much of a sports guy. They feel like a video game and I don’t want a video game: I want a virtual world to lose myself in.

Open World RvR is random. You head out and you don’t know if you’re going to encounter an overwhelmingly powerful force….or no one. I LOVE that. That’s like a big old Christmas present under the tree for me. Surprise!

The downside is, well, I’m an aberration. The vast majority of people seem to prefer Scenarios, and I can even understand that: they’re quick to get into (on our server at least…a five minute wait is a long wait on Averheim/Order) and you *know* there’s going to be competition. And they give lots of experience, and mostly people are eager to gain new levels. Scenarios are a very “theme park” feature, and as we’ve seen, Theme Park MMOs are very popular.

Hopefully this mindset will change in higher tiers. I’ve done only one Tier 2 scenario: Phoenix Gate. PH is a “Capture the Flag” scenario and to me… well, cleaning the toilet starts to sound like fun when compared to Capture the Flag in any and every computer game I’ve ever played. I just despise CtF as a theme. Again, totally a personal preference. Probably has a lot to do with sucking at gym class when I was a kid. Chasing a flag carrier and not being fast enough to catch up brings back a lot of bad memories. 🙂

But the point I’m trying to make is, I sure hope either other scenarios are more interesting in T2 and beyond, or there’s more Open World RvR up there.

And I’d love to see Mythic add more incentive to OW RvR. Maybe if instead of just telling us how much personal Renown we’ve gained for taking a control point (lots, btw, I gained 5 renown levels in a few hours) we also got a more concrete indication of how much we’ve moved the “Realm Control” needle when we capture a zone? I mean, everyone loves the ‘kapow!’ of our side capturing a tier, right? Not to mention that nice Victory Call buff?

Anyway, another wall of text. I’m going to make an effort to try to organize more Open World RvR in our guild, and I’m going to try to find some good Destruction Guilds on Averheim and call them out when I do so. Let’s do what we can to make that “War is Everywhere!” battle call to be true!