During this last decade of Peter Jackson and Blizzard defining the general public’s idea of fantasy, it’s been forgotten that Games Workshop quietly redefined namby-pamby Tolkien stereotypes decades ago. That’s why Warhammer Online’s dwarves feel like grim warriors, not comedic Scotsmen. That’s why its orcs are genuinely ugly, not humanised. Warhammer Online is the same Light vs Dark setup as seen in, let’s be frank, World of Warcraft.

There are two opposing races/factions - Order and Destruction (basically good and evil), each consisting of three races. It’s High Elves, Dwarves and the Human Empire for the Order faction, and Dark Elves, Greenskins (orcs) and Chaos for the Destruction faction. Each race has three to four of its own ‘jobs’ (classes), amounting to 20 possible in the whole game. Though there is some definite overlapping with some of the classes, no two races have the same classes. Each of the two sides has one city to its name, Germanic Altdorf for the Order faction, and the monstrous fortress, the Inevitable City for the Destruction faction. These aren’t social or shopping hubs so much as enormous trophies and goals, the ultimate battleground for the RvR meta-game. Once one faction has a decisive upper hand on the server, they get to raid the enemy capital city. The zones eventually reset so war can begin anew, but in the meantime there’s glorious looting, plundering, and pillage to be had.

One thing that really stands out in Mythic's PvE design is the inclusion of public quests, which are basically short-story quests that players can join and end by entering and leaving a certain area of play. When a player gets close enough to a public quest area, a short message will pop up, notifying them. Public quests are completed in segments, and each segment gets tougher until you reach the last stage. Players earn both experience points toward their overall rank and influence points, which are gained by only doing public quests. As public quests are completed, players will earn enough influence points to receive standard items ranging from potions to weapons and armor. Moreover, during each section of a public quest, players will have the chance to earn loot based on their luck and contribution to the quest as a whole.

Warhammer Online’s real adventure comes from personal-player narratives, not from its pre-generated world or narratives. An intense duel with an enemy player or a siege that lasts long into the night – that’s the stuff you’ll want to relate with friends after a long session. Don’t believe those who scream that Warhammer Online is a PvP game and thus shouldn’t be compared to WoW or LotRO or Conan. It’s at least as much a PvE game as it is a PvP one – that blinking green icon marking a new quest is omnipresent, while achievements and experience points can be obtained on a near-infinite basis from quests handed out by Kill Collectors and The Tome of Knowledge’s Bestiary. This is all so long as you’re happy to grind away at infinitely respawning NPC mobs for long enough.

It’s entirely possible to sidestep the Realm vs Realm altogether, and even to go solo at the game, as a lone wolf. You’d be missing out on its best features if you were to do so, but one of the many lessons of WoW is that this is precisely what an awful lot of players want. They want Diablo. Warhammer Online tries to cater to these guys as much as to the most rabid PvPers. Trouble is, yet again, there’s this sense of tokenism to much of it. The PvE is in there and it’s hugely substantial, but it comes off more like Lineage. The quests are an awful lot quicker than that, but if you slow yourself down and actually observe what’s going on, you’ll see it’s very obviously zoned killing fields full of brain-dead NPCs who pop back into existence faster than you can kill them.

Warhammer Online makes it so everything matters and contributes to either your characters, or your guild’s progression. Players unlock abilities and special awards for killing certain numbers of enemies, for exploring uncharted corners of the maps, and for doing things that are generally out of the ordinary. The brilliance of this system is that MMOs tend to be reward-heavy games anyway, so why not make everything the players do a form of progression. For instance, killing 100 wolves could result in an unlock that gives a special weapon or special potion.

There are a lot of features that make up Warhammer Online. Most of those features aren't anything veterans of the genre don't already know and understand. And there are a complement of bugs and glitches that accompany this giant, but the core gameplay is solid. Warhammer Online isn't trying to reach a specific audience either, regardless of Mythic's original intention. Instead, it seems to be creating a whole new audience, turning and redefining players' expectations and behaviors. If MMOs are what you enjoy, Warhammer Online is one of the best on the market. It may not have a new combat system built from the ground up, or flashy next-generation graphics, but its success without those two elements is a feat in its own right.