Warhammer Online: Cataclysm

There were quite a few “similarities” from Warhammer that started popping up in talks about Wrath about the time that years Blizzcon.  The first time an entire zone would be dedicated to PvP, various quests you could complete in the area, and even an instance that would open up that you could raid while it was active.  Not to mention coins and honor that can be exchanged for items that you could only buy from activity in this area. 

Somewhat of a wildly new addition to the game, oddly similar to what WAR was promoting and beta testing all over the place months before that.  Even more strange is that Wintergrasp in WoW is the *only* actual place with  pvp going on while the developers have been harping about “putting the War in Warcraft” for about two years now…

But tell me if this doesn’t sound familiar:

“Spell Ranks – Spell ranks will cease to exist. All spells will have one rank and will scale appropriately with level.”

Looks like something Warhammer’s been doing since Beta and beyond, again.  Let’s not forget the Tome of Knowledge.  Aye, Warhammer Online wasn’t the first to do it, I’ll admit to that as well.  But did you hear a word of it out of Blizzard *before* WAR?  No, you didn’t. 

Since the very beginning WAR said it was in their game, hell it IS their game.  Every time you check the map, a quest, stats, bestiary info, item sets, check to see how many times you’ve killed a certain class, or any time you join a scenario, you are reading out of your War Story from the Tome of Knowledge.

And the one that really seals the deal:

“Mastery – This is a new stat that will allow players to become better at whatever makes their chosen talent tree cool or unique. It’s directly tied to talents, so what you gain from improving this stat is entirely dependent upon your class and the talent specialization you choose. We’ll talk more about specific Mastery benefits in the future.”

Mastery?  Really?  You even had to steal the same NAME?   You too busy counting subscriptions to think up anything else?  Amazing.  Let’s compare the WoW Mastery with the WAR Mastery.

In WoW you will put points into Talents.  The more points placed in a certain tree will automatically increase your character in certain ways based upon what spec it is.  Holy pallies will probably get a boost to healing (spell power) while Ret pallies will get a boost to strength or holy damage.

In WAR it’s the exact opposite, but since both combine in the end you get the same results.  In Warhammer you put points into your Mastery tree and depending on which spec it is, those particular abilities will do more damage/become more helpful to you by a certain amount per point.   Once you spend enough points per tree you unlock the option of putting a point into a new ability, talent, or morale ability.

In short, spend points on talents in WoW and increase your abilities.  Spend points on your abilities in WAR, and gain access to new talents (skills). Here’s a link to a Warhammer Online version of a talent calculator.  Notice when you add points to the tree of your choice, the core abilities listed increase in power and become stronger automatically.  This is a preview as to what specing is going to look like in WoW come pre-Cataclysm patch.

Mind you I’m still going to play Cataclysm, I’m just beefed that they have such gall to steal it so obviously.  Based on the little trash talk between WoW and WAR bosses at WAR’s release I wouldn’t doubt that this is a not too subtle jab at Mythic on Blizzard’s part.  Almost a “Well, we gave you a year…looks good…so we’ll be taking this, only doing it right.  Thanks a ton!  Totally saved us sixty hours of testing and troubleshooting!”

Advertisement