If you are looking for a quick, satisfying experience, this Gauntletish RPG is a great game with lots of promise.
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Free to Play
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Before I get straight into the game, let's consider the market that this game lives in. "Free to Play". This market is pretty much saturated with games that are advertised as "Free" but then proceed to force players to pay money to proceed in the game once a certain amount of progress has been made (Progress Locks).
Warrior Epic is the FIRST F2P game that I have ever played that really does seem to be... well, free. Initially I was suspicious of them selling things like health potions, but came to realize that effective players do not need health potions at all. The strategic aspect of this game completely nullifies the necessity of stocking up on recoverables... so my suspicions of the game requiring you to purchase potions with real money as an attempt to force users into paying subsided.
They don't even charge you for effective gear. There are a lot of vanity items, but those only have an effect on what your player looks like, not their stats. So, you can't buy power either.
Essentially, Warrior Epic is completely free if you do not want to pay anything... this fact drastically increases the value of this game.
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Graphics and Performance
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I have heard of other people having connectivity issues, but have not experienced any myself. I downloaded the full client from the game website and have never had a problem connecting, logging in, downloading patches, etc. The first closed beta (before TGI entered the picture) was more of a pre-alpha test. They used to have server load test days known as "Play Days" where lots of users were piled onto the game servers in an attempt to break them. They were fun, but the game was unplayable. Since the official release, I have experienced VERY little lag.... regardless of the number of people on the server.
The P2P distribution system can choke out bandwidth, but if you press ctrl + alt + z in game, and set your bandwidth restrictions that issue can be resolved.
Warrior Epic runs on my dads laptop... which by any standard is an amazing feat in and of itself. It's a 5 year old toshiba satellite with integrated graphics. It was shocking to see him get 100FPS on that thing, Warrior Epic runs better than any other game we have tried loading on that computer. The type of graphics card you use doesn't really seem to matter, I'm not sure how they pulled that off.
Art in the game itself is pretty good. The monsters are imaginative, spell effects are nice, map layout is good (even though they seem to be randomly generated), and you can play the game in full screen at any resolution. At first it was annoying to me that I had to keep setting the full screen mode... but then I realized I could just double click the bar at the top of the game window to "maximize" it. It even plays smooth as silk at 1920x1200. In fact, you can actually drag the corners, while in window mode, to increase/decrease the size of the window WHILE the game is playing and it just re-adjusts the resolution in real time.
So... with lots of cool in game art, impressive rendering, good spell effects, impossibly low system requirements, and because its Free.... I give the graphics and performance a 9.5.
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Gameplay
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Diablo? WoW? Everything I have read about Warrior Epic, especially in the interviews with Brice, Possibility Space has been consistent in saying that Warrior Epic is completely different from those games. If I were to make a comparison between Warrior Epic and another game I would say "gauntlet". One of the biggest successes of Warrior Epic is how it plays... and I think that once many of the bugs are worked out that the game play really will be excellent.
The strategy and motivation to play in teams really adds to the whole experience. They are spending a lot of time balancing the classes so that soloing a quest is pretty much not even an option. I like this because, like gauntlet, each class brings a different value to the battlefield. It also forces you to think with your party members safety at the forefront of your approach to a level. If you lose your devotress (healer) part of the way in, it could mean certain doom for the entire group. There is definitely quite a bit of balancing work to do, and there are still bugs in some of the skills... but overall, the team play and group instancing is quite enjoyable.
Speaking of the instances... NOT having to travel for half an hour to get to a dungeon is a bit of a relief for me. You just join up and start a quest. Quick, simple, mindless. The lobby is a bit odd (kinda like starcraft from battlenet), but I have heard rumors on the Possibility Space forums that they are about to release a patch that puts everyone in a 3D world, as opposed to the lobby system, where you can meet and join quests together.
The game play in Warrior Epic is solid, and again, keeps getting better with every patch. As classes are balanced and things improved, Possibility Space is really instilling confidence that they are in this for the long haul... regardless of their publisher. Which brings me to the community aspect of the game.
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Community
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One of my biggest attractions to the Free to Play games are the communities. When I first heard about Warrior Epic over a year ago, I joined their forums and found one of the best communities I had ever interacted in. Everyone was incredibly friendly, inviting, and loved getting on a personal level. Even though the first closed beta last year was wrought with game breaking deficiencies... it didn't matter because everyone was just happy to be a part of it all. The community manager for Possibility Space, held all kinds of ridiculous contests like the "Favorite Food" and "Something with Wheels" contests. Everything just felt... well, fun.
People shared their creative writing, art, music, game ideas (which possibility space actually put into the game if they were good enough), and the devs actually hung out there with us and posted their own stories. I'm serious when I say that Warrior Epic had the most amazing community.... a lot of that changed, however, when TGI came in and took over the Warrior Epic website. They took down the old forums, and then locked out people from Europe (they were redirected to a separate Warrior Epic website when they tried to access the forums) which changed things quite a bit.
However, Possibility Space built a new website and community forums with the same community manager running things. Now, we can post our bugs and suggestions directly on the developer's site and they respond very very quickly. The community on their site feels like it did on the old WE site... everyone is helpful, and inviting. It's a very cool place... other games should learn from how they treat the people that play their games.
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Overall
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Warrior Epic is a fantastic value. Yes, there are bugs in the game.... but the dedication that the developer has shown to the community is proof that they are going to continue doing everything they can to make it awesome. If you find yourself comparing it to Diablo or WoW... just remember that you are comparing a Free 2 Play game to a game that likely had 10 times the budget (and cost you money to play)... which speaks volumes about Warrior Epic. If you are looking for a quick, satisfying experience... this Gauntletish RPG is a great game with lots of promise.
Graphics: 8.5
Gameplay: 8.5
Sound: 8.0
Technical: 8.5
Overall Value: 8.5
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Average: 8.4
Bonus for Being Truly Free 2 Play: +1.5
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Total: 9.9