I never wanted to be an MMORPGer...if that's even an acronym you can supply an -er suffix to.  The time involved in having a decent 'toon just turns you into a zombie...and over the last 3 years, I might as well be the leader of the dead!!!

So it's no surprise that I ended up jumping into Warhammer to check it out.  I told myself I'd wait a month or two and let things die down, but then I realized that it's very RvR-based and that completely defeats the purpose of the game.  Luckily, the gaming center I work at (http://www.lansharx.com  and I'll whore that address out 'til the cows come home!) got a ton of free 7-day trial account keys.  YAY!  Playing for free never hurt anyone...right?  o.O

At Rank 3 on my Chaos Marauder, I decided I'm quitting WoW.  It's not necessarily that WoW is a quote/unquote "bad" game.  It's just that it's broken as all Hell after being fucked with so much.  There is no way to balance it out now, so Blizz just has to fork shit in and come up with new ways to nerf warriors to the point of non-existance.  =  /   Nonetheless, Warhammer just does the things that WoW does in a better way.

Let's be honest, though:  Warhammer is essentially what you would get if Everquest, Guild Wars, DAoC, and WoW all got together and had a ritualistic blood orgy that spawned an illegitimate fuck-child.  You can dye your armor...like GW.  You have RvR...like EQ and DAoC.  You have grey, white, green, blue, purpz, and orange gear...like WoW.  Mythic just did the almost-impossible and made all of it work together.  Is it perfect?  Hell no.  Texturing issues, pop-ins, frame rate issues, and for being a relatively low-end graphics engine, the thing chugs on high even with a 2 year old high-end machine.  The layout editor is a godsend, because now you don't have to download 700 mods.  As a matter of fact, I think the only thing that ISN'T in Warhammer Online is...literally...a kitchen sink.

Even at Rank 11 right now (after about 20 hours of play and some hardcore RvR and PQ action), I have to say that it doesn't feel like it's moving fast at all.  After all, you have a Rank 40 cap on your player...then a Rank 40 cap on your GUILD...then your Renown cap...then your City Ranks...and when it all comes down to it, there's tons of stuff to do.

Mythic figured out the ultimate strategy.  With a little more polish, I don't see why Warhammer can't be a serious contender against WoW.  Is it a WoW killer?  Eh, maybe.  Personally, I'd like to think of it as that fun job you always wanted but never could get.

A little history about me and video games:

I started playing games when I was 3 years old.  No joke.  My parents bought me an 8-bit Nintendo and a Sega Master System, and I haven't really let up from there.  My favorite games as a kid were Wall Street Kid and Back to the Future on 8-bit.  Why?  I don't know.  I just enjoyed them.  I also played a lot of Cabal and Astyanax.

As I grew up, my love of games grew.  I was there for all the big stuff:  the creation of the ESRB, the beginning of E3, the evolution of gaming into an "art form" or whatever people wanna call it, all of the big stuff.  I may have missed out on Atari and a lot of the early arcade stuff, but it's not like I got to choose when I was born.

My brother and I spent almost an entire year playing nothing but Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004.  That's how hardcore I am.

Eventually, my love of video games turned into an editorial job.  I was offered a writing position at an independent gaming webzine called BonusStage.com.  Eventually, I became the Editor-In-Chief of the website and ran all of the major operations on it.  The only game we ever gave a perfect score was Resident Evil 4 on the GameCube, and that was all during the time of Halo 2 and God of War being released.  Not even Half-Life 2 got a 10 from us.  Unfortunately, after 3 years of work, we were forced to shut the site down due to our asshole owner not having the balls to tell the game companies to shove it.

Apparently, when an indie place gives a bad review to a game that is generally liked, the game companies want to stop sending you products to review.  =  /

I also happened to have an article featured on then-Disney-owned Movies.com, highlighting the Best and Worst Movie-To-Game Translations.  Of course, Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay was #1.  And as well, I have to put my love of Back to the Future into the article.

Nowadays, I work at a PC and Xbox 360 gaming center called Lansharx in Waco, Texas.  Since I work there, I don't actually own a PC or 360, as I don't really need to when I'm in a room for 8 hours a day with 32 gaming PCs and 20 Xbox 360s on HDTVs.  = D

What I hope to do is write some reviews here on Giant Bomb and, hopefully, convince the powers that be (i.e., Jeff, Ryan, Brad, and the gang) to just break down and finally give me a job.  You can only send so many e-mails before you just have to prove your worth, I guess.  lol

So, howdy y'all.  My name is jakob187.  Hope to hear from you soon and often.