The Warhammer mythos is one that was spawned from table top miniature combat. Wargame fans the world over delight in the rich fantasy world of dwarves, elves, orcs, goblins and the forces of Chaos.This contains two installation DVDs, the manual and the initial one month's free subscription. The manual is pretty basic, containing only the barest of information on the races and gameplay. The Warhammer franchise is well known for its wonderful artwork and colourful documentation, and we have to say the black and white offering (although pretty standard in the industry) is not up to the quality we would have expected from the franchise. Those who splashed out the extra coin for the Collector's Edition won't be complaining about the beautiful art book and graphic novel included in that box, though.It's worth noting that this game has had a lot of build up. It has been years in development by EA Mythic, and it has been eagerly anticipated by Warhammer and MMO fans alike.In doing this review we are aware that there are fundamental differences between the games, but it is necessary to compare where similarities do exist - if only to add to the debate on whether this is the "WoW-killer" that fans claim it to be.This review has been completed on the standard retail copy.

Installation for our copy of the game was a nightmare, and an inexcusable nightmare at that. The long load time (during which the progress bar appears not to move at all) had us looking at the task manager to see if in fact it was working, and the very business-like load screen was nothing compared to the absence of an executable file at the end of it. Once you have mastered the basics in the early quests, you can move out into other questing areas (called chapters) and this is where you find one of the more curious game features. Each of the questing hubs is pretty much fully featured with the trainers you need to progress. There is no need to make your way to a capital city to train or up-skill your profession. It's early days yet, however this decision may be one the designers will regret. Although convenient, it comes at the expense of creating a sense of community. In other MMOs, hanging around the capital city, chewing the fat with your mates, forming guilds, showing off gear and so forth has been fundamental in creating a game community. Dispensing with the need to congregate in one spot will make this community building so much harder. We're not sure if the lack of in-game chatter may be a product of this as well.