Choose My Adventure: PvP and RvR bring reward and rage in Warhammer Online Return of Reckoning

It was pretty darn clear what you folks wanted me to experience next in the Return of Reckoning rogue server for Warhammer Online, and honestly I’m not too surprised at the result. For a while there the voting seemed to be much closer than I expected, but PvP as the focus won the day by a hefty margin by the time all was said and done.

So how did my primarily PvP’ing stint go over the weekend? Well, not too bad! But also there were some pretty major grievances that came up, and those primarily had to do with my first real action in RvR.

Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves, though; that comes later. First, I want to talk about my experiences as a Black Orc in the PvP battleground instances, and I have to say that most of those were pretty positive overall. The battleground PvP is really first-class in my experience, and most of the time that comes down to how unbalanced things seem to be. I know that’s anathema to the “real” PvP players, but to someone just looking to hop in and have a fun little scrum or five, RoR’s balance is perfectly imbalanced.

Now I do have to point out that this often works against me – Mourkain Temple is almost always a guaranteed loss for the Destruction side it would seem – but just like last time, the low stakes, fast action, and easy to follow mechanics of these instances were a great time, which all helped me to better digest that being a Black Orc or really any melee-focused character just isn’t a great idea. Even so, I was racking up some kills.

I was racking up the rewards as well. I clicked on the War Report page that pops up when the game fires up and was tossed to a location that I really had no business being in level-wise, but I eventually made my way back to Mount Bloodhorn and by pure accident found the PvP gear and renown ability vendors. This allowed me to cash in and kit up, granting me some damned impressive gear for my level and class. I only wish it looked a little bit better, but perhaps some of that Orcish panache comes later down the line.

The XP earnings continued to flow pretty nicely as well, which in turn opened up some interesting abilities for my Black Orc to use, particularly in the form of some buffs like Hold The Line and Get ‘Em, which provided me some manner of group utility, even if they felt a little underwhelming to use.

Of course, I was still enjoying some of the PvE activities as well, taking part in public events and eating up quests as I waited for my next PvP queue to pop. At one point during a public event, another person who was partaking informed me they were opting out of rewards to ensure I had a fatter loot bag waiting at the end. For those several hours, all was pretty well. Even though I managed to get pushed through the floor during a match in Pyramid of Settra.

And then I headed to Ekrund.

Once again, I arrived here by accident, quite literally taking a wrong turn, but that wrong turn ended up being fortuitously timed as I arrived just as the next RvR fight for control points in the area was just about to kick off. And so, in the interest of trying to get a more complete picture of the PvP life in RoR, I decided to join in.

My very first impression of this RvR battle was definitely different from the last time I was here. This time around, I wasn’t just capping objectives by myself; I was surrounded by lots of other players moving in herds from location to location in order to lock down objectives and start generating points. This was a very far cry from the time I was literally by myself. This naturally also meant that I had to participate.

And participate I did! I was basically following the flow of other Destruction players, which saw me mostly help out with capping points on the western side of the RvR map. It started off kind of dull, but it also gave me a taste of what larger scale PvP and group activity was like. I still don’t know that I was doing much as a Black Orc – or at least I wasn’t sure if what I was doing was helpful – but it also granted me the opportunity to learn.

As the time slipped away and the bars for both sides slowly started to fill up, I felt myself starting to grow a bit more fatigued. I was not expecting these RvR fights to go on for so incredibly long. Perhaps it’s because most of my PvP’ing to this point was battleground queue-focused, but this felt like an eternal slog or a raid that far overstayed its welcome.

This was not helped by the fact that during the final closing length of the fight, the warband I joined started to fall apart. I was putting most of my effort into the tug-of-war that happened at the eastern side of the map, while it seemed like most players were dawdling about on the western side. This saw Order pretty much lock down objectives with almost no resistance, and in the waning few moments we even saw them camping our spawn area with near impunity.

I did have a few enriching moments, however, like the one time I helped hold the line at the cannon battery or the other time another player and I sneaked up to the tower to cap it while Order focused on the battery. In the end, though, we ultimately were defeated, and I kind of felt furious about it. I started off curious, slowly grew intrigued, and then got invested by the end of the whole ordeal to the point that I was getting good and sweaty over the way the battle played out. It was unfortunate. It also didn’t seem to be that rewarding in the moment, though looking back at it in hindsight I did get a couple of career and renown levels.

Still, my very first true RvR experience was one of exhaustion and frustration. I felt as if being a melee class was an even bigger handicap than before. I resented how little it seemed the Black Orc made a difference. I developed a deep-seated, roiling, venomous hatred of the Engineer class. Perhaps I’ll come back to RvR later, particularly as one reader noted that the mid-tier battles are more fun, but right now I’m not sure that activity is for me.

So, now that I’ve had some more time acclimating to PvP things, I think it’s about time that I try out the Order half of the table. So naturally that means this week’s poll is all about starting up that new character that I had asked about in last week’s poll, which in turn means it’s time to select a class. Except Engineer. I will never debase myself and stoop to the low of playing that piece of trash. Or anything Dwarf, for that matter.

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Polling closes at the customary time of 1:00 p.m. EDT on Friday, July 14th. In the meanwhile, I think I’ll put this one on the shelf in the interest of managing my blood pressure and salt levels. For now, anyway.

Welcome to Choose My Adventure, the column in which you join Chris each week as he journeys through mystical lands on fantastic adventures – and you get to decide his fate. Which is good because he can often be a pretty indecisive person unless he’s ordering a burger.