Fury: Final Impressions

For all the people begging me to write more about Fury, here you are.  For all the people begging me to stop writing about Fury, this will probably be my last post on the subject for a while, unless the software improves enough for me to actually participate in the Challenge.   With Fury's release on the very near horizon, it's only fitting to make sure that the expectant masses have at least a reasonably accurate idea of what to expect.



To begin with, a piece of advice:



Don't Pull any Conclusions from the First Hour (i.e. Raddy <3)

I feel pretty safe in saying that nobody would enjoy WoW PvP at level one, so it's not really fair to make any assumptions based on low-level combat in Fury either.  I generally try to think in the long-term, so instead of getting turned off by the initial 6-8 ability PvP I immediately started considering the potential of the system as a whole.  Yea it sucks to start out, spam only 2-3 buttons, and get ******* rocked by people levels above you, but that's the whole point of the character advancement system.  It really doesn't take long to advance in Fury (Zecks hit Grand Master in two days), and the gradual advancement helps you learn the game in smaller steps.



The Software

Pretty quickly after writing my earlier complaint about Fury's compatibility issues, I got a private message from Alex Weekes asking me to post on their public forum so they could work to figure out the problem.  To me, this suggests a lot of commitment and a pretty aggressive interest in dealing with the issue.  Beta versions of most games end up being pretty sketchy, but it's safe to assume that Fury will end up with a pretty stable release.  The FPS I get currently makes me want to stick my head in a light socket (unfortunately it won't fit, I'm not Ming), but I'm sure it will run fine in a couple weeks. 



The Scope

When it comes down to it, the scope of Fury isn't anything like WoW.  This may seem like a critique, but that's actually a fantastic thing for the niche of players who are specifically interested with what Fury has to offer.  The game is basically one city and the battleground/arena instances, so problems are easy to fix.  If there's a PvP imbalance, you just ******* balance it, you don't have to have a six-month discussion of how any potential change will screw with PvE... you just make the change.  "ZOMG MUST NOT NERF WINDFURY 'CAUSE IT WILL MAKE ILLIDAN 2 HARD!!!"  **** that, nobody in Fury gives a **** about PvE.



It won't take six months for the newest PvP patch to come out, because every patch will be a PvP patch.  The developers won't spend three months creating a new raid instance that will only take two weeks for Nihilum to clear, they'll be too busy making new PvP content. 



The Movement

Another major complaint is the movement system, and I can definitely understand it.  Coming from WoW, character manipulation in Fury seems pretty weird... but it's not like I was immediately comfortable with WoW either.  Yeah, the movement system in World of Warcraft is amazing, but anything can become intuitive once you play enough.  WoW currently feels a lot better because I'm used to it, but after I play Fury for a few days... who knows.



Something to Complain About

Yes, that's right.  I'm not here solely to sell Fury, and I actually do have some problems with the game.  Fury will have to do a LOT to make me switch from WoW, and here's one of my current complaints.  From what I can tell, the solo ladder really isn't a "solo" ladder.  The best way to score high as an individual is to queue up with a team that effectively supports you, and to me that defeats the whole point.  Finding other people who are as serious about PvP as you are can be a pain (as anyone not on Tichondrius would know), and the whole point of solo PvP is that you can do it alone.  I'm not 100% sure how the final solo ladder will work, but I don't see anything in the current system to keep people from padding their "leet stats" with the aid of guildies and friends.  I'm not even sure how you can prevent this, but it's something that probably needs to be done if you're going to even pretend that you have a solo PvP ladder.