You might think that MMO players are quite well catered for, with a game to suit every taste. From the EVE hardcore crowd to the dedicated Lord of the Rings Online brigade to the no-introduction-necessary World of Warcraft, still presiding as the very backbone of the online space. There is, however, a glaring niche, and one that Mythic once occupied so well with the solid yet largely under-appreciated Dark Age of Camelot: the player vs. player focused MMORPG experience.

In recent years Mythic has been poised in the periphery, observing the Blizzard mastermind at work and avidly taking notes, this time with EA's irrefutably deep pockets aiding their cause. Whilst other MMO developers may take umbrage at the suggestion of being influenced by WoW, Mythic has taken the opposite and more pragmatic approach, ultimately using it as the driving force to better their own creation. And so it's finally upon us, the much anticipated Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR).

The Warhammer licence, which is no doubt as equally valuable as it is mind-bogglingly daunting, with a wealth of history and lore to abide by, brings with it two major factions, Order and Destruction, as well as six distinguishable races. These races are split off into pairings: Empire versus Chaos, Greenskins vs Dwarfs and Dark Elves vs High Elves. Each race has numerous class choices (known as careers) and no two are strictly the same, though they all fall into four broad archetypes; melee damage dealer, ranged damage dealer, tank and healer. There's a good selection and some interesting variations on a theme, such as the Empire's pistol-wielding Witch Hunter, adding some much needed coolness factor to the Order team, and the Chaos Magus, a defensive magi user who floats around on a demonic circular surfboard. Each class is a capable leveller and all seem finely tuned towards group-based combat.

"WAR is everywhere" has finally made the transition from marketing slogan into a living and breathing reality - and it turns out it's pretty accurate, too. As soon as you have familiarised yourself with the user interface and got your bearings it becomes immediately apparent that you are part of something big. From the very instant you enter the game, a quick click of a button tucked away above the mini-map has you queued for a scenario, the game's instanced player vs. player (curiously rebranded realm vs. realm or RvR) battlegrounds. You suddenly find yourself thrown in side by side with other characters in your level range, fighting for your faction and earning Victory Points, which go towards your faction's overall war effort. By the time your character hits Rank 2 you will likely have built up quite a kill/death ratio and fought against more players in the first ten minutes than you will in the first ten hours of the average MMO. And yes, that's right, you can level up your character in RvR, all the way to the Rank 40 cap, in fact, should the notion take your fancy. The XP bar is joined by the Renown Rank bar, which is essentially a PvP rank, with corresponding gear and rewards for those who work their way up its 80 ranks.

The action isn't just limited to the fixed scenarios though, with open world RvR areas built straight into the starting zones as well as each and every zone that follows. They aren't mandatory, however, and are entirely avoidable for the pacifists amongst you (of which I doubt there will be many!) This freedom to level as you want is one of the game's finer points, whether it's purely through RvR, the more conventional questing and exploration, or - my personal favourite - dabbling in a little bit of everything. And whilst questing does adhere to convention for the most part, it also has one rather large trick up its sleeve: the public questing (PQ) system. These are areas of interest that range from monolithic Chaos altars to seemingly humble Dwarven taverns, where you work alongside members of your faction to complete one super-sized quest. And they're superb. Whilst they initially tend to be of the mundane 'kill a set number of a certain creature variety', they often develop into brilliant set piece extravaganzas, whether it be lighting torches on a bonfire and gradually burning down an entire Dwarven encampment in order to provoke and ultimately dispose of its leader, or taking part in a large hillside battle, protecting groups of NPCs from wave upon wave of cavalry, then regrouping in the final stage to take down a huge and altogether unpleasant dragon.

Following this you will encounter another of Mythic's new ideas - the PQ loot distribution system. When all the bedlam has subsided you're greeted by a small pop-up window containing the names of those who took part, with a number attached - known as contribution - based loosely on how much work they did. This number is then added to a roll of 1 to 1000, with those ending up with the highest overall score being at the top of the board and getting the best loot. It's an incredibly random system at times, resulting in a just-one-more-go feel to the PQs and also serving as the source for much amusement when the top contributor only rolls a two and is stuck with nothing. If you do end up on the unlucky side of that amusement then do not fear - Mythic has you covered. Just partaking in these PQs garners you influence toward that chapter, which can be used to buy increasingly powerful items back at camp. Complete more PQs, get more influence, buy better weapons and armour - sounds good to me.

Each pairing contains twenty-two chapters, totalling a staggering sixty-six for you to get stuck into, each with multiple unique PQs. Not all chapters are born equal however, with some being considerably larger than others. The overall size of the world becomes startlingly apparent when, after completing nine or so chapters in your own pairing, you realise that you've only completed the one - there are another two sat entirely untouched. Feeling a little tired of your surroundings or running low on quests? Then jump to another pairing via a flight master and off you go again. The Greenskin chapters were favourites of mine, with a great combination of interesting, original quests and plenty of witty goblin-related humour thrown in for good measure.

It's around Rank 10 when it hits you; stop for just a moment to pan and zoom your experience, viewing it as one sumptuous whole, and WAR's genius really hits home. The combination of influence, renown and experience is utterly compelling in its synergy and it's exactly this concoction that will keep you glued to the screen. It's odd, because the progression of the pairings is relatively unremarkable and linear, but the multitude of things to do with absolutely zero downtime or grind, coupled with the game's willingness to reward you for your efforts, all stacks up and just shouts "play me". In fact, it's hard to play for any length of time without achieving something - something big, something small - but always something. And that's exactly where another major feature comes heartily into play.

The Tome of Knowledge (ToK) is brilliant. There, I said it. So brilliant, in fact, that I can't imagine playing another MMORPG without it. I now know, as of the time of writing, that I have killed exactly 10,681 High Elves, gained over 340,000 experience points from Tome unlocks alone and played what can only be described as an unmentionable amount of hours. Oh, and if I kill another few hundred Daemons then I'll get a trophy that I can display proudly on my character's armour and a groovy title to tuck neatly under my name. And when I do it'll all be logged in my ToK amongst the others; it simply gets more interesting by the hour! "He's mad," you're thinking - and you're probably right - but it's this exact OCD-ish madness that achievement-driven systems prey on, and which is a characteristic of so many MMO players. If by any chance you don't fit into that category then you can completely ignore all the statistics and figures and get on with a bit of what you fancy. The same can be said about the game's Lore, which, due to the wealth of back history that comes with the source material, is present in bucket loads. For every quest you undertake and every major NPC you meet there's a short novel's worth of well written, engaging back-story.

Exploring the world itself is a mixed bag. Yes, it's huge, and yes, it looks pretty good, but many of the areas still somehow manage to feel a little under populated and sparse (particularly in the Elven pairing), with vast expanses that contain very little in the way of interesting scenery. This comes in stark contrast to other areas such as Black Crag, with its complicated terrain and magnificent Ironskin Scar Keep hidden amongst rocky overpasses, all to the backdrop of the deep rolling Greenskin war drums and distant grunts and groans of battle. This inconsistency is apparent in many of the game's spell animations too, with the majority looking appropriately powerful and deadly but a few seeming like they were made in MS Paint. Funnily enough, it tends to be those that are less fetching that seem to bug and stick to your character for all to see. It's nothing that a quick relog won't fix, and, knowing Mythic, no doubt it'll be patched out before I even finish this review.

So where are the real casualties in this WAR? Well, there are some, but none are particularly devastating. One of the most common complaints is of the combat system's unresponsive feel. This is, however, mainly due to a few core differences to other MMOs. It has a Lord of the Rings Online-style action queuing system, which reduces the need to spam abilities in order to get them off at exactly the right split second, but until you get used to it can feel a little delayed. Once you do though, it's just as capable a system as any other I've seen. More likely criticisms include those aimed at the professions system; my very own talisman making has a user interface that is barely fit for the purpose and ends up being fiddly and frustrating to use, with even the most basic of functions requiring unprecedented levels of focus and determination to get right. This is a shame because the products themselves - the talismans - are very useful. Other professions seem to tell a similar story, so there's a definite sense that they were an afterthought but hopefully one that Mythic will improve upon over the course of the next few months.

Death is far too cheap of an exercise, allowing it to be used as a cheap travel mechanism. Why run slowly back to camp when you can simply jump off the nearest cliff, cough up five silver to the healer and have done with it - though ironically enough this adds to the non-stop feel of the game. PvE dungeons come in under-whelming quantities and questionable quality, but I could never really mark the game down for it - they're there, they're fun, and they're full of loot - and PvE is simply not why you play WAR. You play WAR for WAAAGH! as the Greenskins so eloquently put it; you play it for the RvR.

And that's where the game really performs: large scale, group vs. group action. Whether you are capping flags and escorting a teammate in a scenario or conducting all-out open warfare on the many battlefields throughout the game, the action is thick, fast and accessible. Just the other night on my home server, the open world RvR on which much of the end game is based on culminated in a battle the likes of which I've never seen before in an MMO. The final tier of the game became a warzone as warbands from either side went head-on amongst the narrow straits of Reikland's RvR zone, with the Destruction team pushing forward in a head-on assault toward the Order's capital city of Altdorf. There was much to-ing and fro-ing with frantic fifty-a-side battles over the last few defensive keeps as the Order tried to keep their foes at bay. Should they falter their entire city would be overrun by the forces of Destruction, albeit temporarily, until the borders reset.

Unfortunately, this experience was overcast by severe lag, disconnects and client crashes. This is a real shame, as Mythic made a point during development about the integrity and efficiency of the large scale RvR they were offering. It wasn't all bad and much fun was had by all, but it's clear that there is still plenty to do to provide the experience that their player base desires. They'll have to move fast, too - not Funcom fast, turning out scores of patches, each one with as many things fixed as broken - but fast enough to keep the demanding hordes of players content. It's a challenge and a half to say the least. We've seen this time and time again, Age of Conan being the prime example, which is still struggling to shake its under-performer status as it continues its relegation into the past tense. Luckily, all indications are good, with two sizable patches already released and a well-documented third on its way. It's worth noting that, as development companies go, Mythic is amongst the most responsive and pliable, listening to its user=base where possible, a good characteristic should they want to remain successful.

It's clear that much of Mythic's efforts have gone towards creating a balanced and inclusive PvP MMORPG and, for the most part, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is just that. Never has it been so easy to meet new players and get stuck into the action and never has the action been so consistent, refusing to slow at any point along the game's lengthy levelling curve. Never has a game been so eager to reward you for your efforts or point you in the right direction. So can they keep it up? Well, if anyone can stay afloat in this now ultra-competitive genre, Mythic can - and what a great start they have made.

Reviewed by Martin Oddy for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).