Coming soon to WAR cinemas everywhere...
We're gonna git you sucka!
New vid under construction ;)
Wednesday, 31 March 2010
Tuesday, 30 March 2010
An end to WAR - video
Kriegeur from the Order guild Crimson is calling it a day with WAR, he is realm rank 80 and achieved everything else in the game, so has decided to move on for now. Fair enough really, though I'm hoping we'll have news from Mythic soon that may entice Kriegeur and others back. Anyway, rather the standard goodbye thread Kriegeur posted a pretty damn epic video as a farewell gift to friends and foes alike.
Loves his slow motion eh? :D Very dramatic and one of the best WAR videos I've seen.
Loves his slow motion eh? :D Very dramatic and one of the best WAR videos I've seen.
Fear my Scruttock
Monday, 29 March 2010
Tomb of the Bug Lord… Mythic/GOA Q&A type people, if I may have your attention please ;)
AAAAGH!
AAAAGH!
And thrice AAAAGH!
Ok this post is not Mythic bashing, but is instead a cry for help. Please for the love of Nurgle’s festering buboes, just fix this bloody dungeon.
I’m in a fairly contented place in WAR right now, but Tomb of the Vulture Lord is doing it’s utmost to change that. The last 3 runs in a row we’ve had to quit because of bugs on the third boss. Considering its not a dungeon you can just decide to do on a whim, this situation is more than a little annoying. Also with the limited EU in-game support, whenever it goes tits up you’re forced into quitting the instance entirely. I often think GOA get an overly hard time from the player base, but sorry chaps, your CSR responses are so slow there’s no point asking for help. I don’t plan on sitting in a dungeon for 24 hours…
I would write in-game bug reports, but the text box is actually too small! So Mythic please consider this as my bug report submission:
First run
Lag spikes (for want of a better term). As ever the dungeon is affected by what is going on in the outside world. City siege? LOTS of lag spikes. Zone locks? Lag spike. A trial account player in Nordland does /fart? Lag spike. It is incredibly annoying to wipe on a boss you have on farm, just because the game has paused for a couple of seconds and the bosses attack/ability timers go all out of whack and he wtfpwns you for 14k damage in 1 second. BTW could anyone confirm: does this lag spike lark happen on US servers?
A lag spike causes a wipe on the third boss and we release, but now the doors prior to the swinging axes are locked. We wait, yet nothing happens. The way is shut. We do a /partyresetinstance which normally teleport you in-between the outer doors and lets you get back inside, but nooooooo. We get teleported to Praag??? We would have gone back, once again cleared the longwinded trash before the third boss, but a few seconds later Order lock Land of the Dead. Denied…
Second run
Lag spikes! Ugh…
Third boss vanishes below the floor…
Lag spike!
The boss reappears amongst our healers, instant bombs and we wipe.
Deja-vue… The door is again locked. Not wanting to risk the /partyresetinstance free ride to Praag again, we leave the dungeon by the exits. However, the colossus has been spawned and we can’t get in while that is going on. 15 minute cooldown afterwards as well, yay. This was followed by a series of unfortunate events that prevented us continuing the dungeon, again.
Third run
AAAAGHHHH! Lag spikes!
First boss in the carrion phase is now ignoring Quake… odd, I’m sure he didn’t before?
Third boss… Ok this might take a while…
Lag spikes screwing up the bosses ability/attack timers. Instant bombs, delayed bombs, bombs turning into teleports, you name it.
One the first attempt the bosses ranged attacks were doing astronomical damage, it seemed like he was ignoring wards.
Repeatedly ignoring taunts.
Not registering threat properly. Normally I can tank this bugger using the odd taunt and sodding Ravage, but this time no matter what I did he would lose agro and go for our Shaman (that I had guard on). After the second wipe we basically tested this out and he went straight for our Shaman even if he did nothing at all. Not clearing threat from previous wipes?
I’m standing next to the boss, yet I am getting “can not see your target” messages.
The boss sunk through the floor numerous times. Thankfully I managed to drag him out most times, though this caused all sorts of problems when combined with the threat related issues. Also on several occasions once we got the boss back onto the ground level his AoE bomb graphics stopped appearing. Alas, the bombs still worked.
Melee DPS running out of a bomb and still getting killed, despite the fact he got out so quickly and so far that he was actually BEHIND our healers at the time of death…
The boss took off and flew through the air and started attacking us from around head height.
Eventually we killed the boss and the loot plus PQ chests both dropped correctly. After everyone got their loot, the boss suddenly respawned on us. He then instant bombed, killed those next to him and started his ranged streams of poo attacks. An achievement I think, wiped by a “dead” boss… Can we get a special title? ;)
I believe it was at this point that I eloquently expressed my feelings on the matter, “fuck this shit”. No bloody way I was going to continue further in with it playing up like that. What was doubly ironic was we had a guy with us that hadn’t been to the dungeon before and up until that point he’d been saying how much he was enjoying it. What a marvellous introduction to Vulture Lord it turned into eh?
What I find particularly frustrating with all of this is I have killed everything in the dungeon before. I only need the Tyrant Chest and a couple more Funery Masks and I will have full Tyrant. Yet it is proving impossible to complete the armour set because the dungeon flits between working perfectly and being utterly broken. This run of 3 weeks worth of utterly broken is far from amusing and to be quite honest is also utterly unacceptable. I mean for crying out loud, it’s the third sodding boss, we’ve had him on farm for like a year or something. Yet now I can’t get past him because of things completely out of my control??? I’m curious though; do the American servers suffer with the same problems? Is it the dungeon at fault or is it all linked to these lag spike type issues we’re cursed with on the EU servers?
Whatever the root of the problem, it’s something that results in a poor “quality” experience for the user. And you know what, we already went through this exact same situation with Lost Vale. Would the big competitor release a dungeon in this state? One thinks not. Actually what makes this even more frustrating is Tomb of the Vulture is actually a brilliant dungeon. It looks amazing, has good boss fights and other than a few pacing problems (trash before the 3rd boss and the 6th boss fight itself) is a really fun instance. If it weren’t so bug ridden it would be considered an MMORPG classic dungeon.
To the folks from GOA and Mythic that read my rambling, whilst I’d love an acknowledgement, at the least please can you pass my list of problems to someone that can actually do something. ;)
AAAAGH!
And thrice AAAAGH!
Ok this post is not Mythic bashing, but is instead a cry for help. Please for the love of Nurgle’s festering buboes, just fix this bloody dungeon.
I’m in a fairly contented place in WAR right now, but Tomb of the Vulture Lord is doing it’s utmost to change that. The last 3 runs in a row we’ve had to quit because of bugs on the third boss. Considering its not a dungeon you can just decide to do on a whim, this situation is more than a little annoying. Also with the limited EU in-game support, whenever it goes tits up you’re forced into quitting the instance entirely. I often think GOA get an overly hard time from the player base, but sorry chaps, your CSR responses are so slow there’s no point asking for help. I don’t plan on sitting in a dungeon for 24 hours…
I would write in-game bug reports, but the text box is actually too small! So Mythic please consider this as my bug report submission:
First run
Second run
Third run
I believe it was at this point that I eloquently expressed my feelings on the matter, “fuck this shit”. No bloody way I was going to continue further in with it playing up like that. What was doubly ironic was we had a guy with us that hadn’t been to the dungeon before and up until that point he’d been saying how much he was enjoying it. What a marvellous introduction to Vulture Lord it turned into eh?
What I find particularly frustrating with all of this is I have killed everything in the dungeon before. I only need the Tyrant Chest and a couple more Funery Masks and I will have full Tyrant. Yet it is proving impossible to complete the armour set because the dungeon flits between working perfectly and being utterly broken. This run of 3 weeks worth of utterly broken is far from amusing and to be quite honest is also utterly unacceptable. I mean for crying out loud, it’s the third sodding boss, we’ve had him on farm for like a year or something. Yet now I can’t get past him because of things completely out of my control??? I’m curious though; do the American servers suffer with the same problems? Is it the dungeon at fault or is it all linked to these lag spike type issues we’re cursed with on the EU servers?
Whatever the root of the problem, it’s something that results in a poor “quality” experience for the user. And you know what, we already went through this exact same situation with Lost Vale. Would the big competitor release a dungeon in this state? One thinks not. Actually what makes this even more frustrating is Tomb of the Vulture is actually a brilliant dungeon. It looks amazing, has good boss fights and other than a few pacing problems (trash before the 3rd boss and the 6th boss fight itself) is a really fun instance. If it weren’t so bug ridden it would be considered an MMORPG classic dungeon.
To the folks from GOA and Mythic that read my rambling, whilst I’d love an acknowledgement, at the least please can you pass my list of problems to someone that can actually do something. ;)
Sunday, 28 March 2010
Another greenskin night vid
Just noticed they've finally fixed the sound on this video of an old Kill Frenzy Greenskin night. Youtube got all paranoid about permissions, etc. Video was made by Lotusblade.
Whole vid is ofc worth watching, it might start off as a standard music+action game vid but it has a bit more to it ;) Highlights include:
KF being a guild full of dirty old men and equally foul women, this video is a bit on the sweary side. Oh and the last song on there is a bit, uhm yeah... So if you're all precious about language, well you've been warned.
Whole vid is ofc worth watching, it might start off as a standard music+action game vid but it has a bit more to it ;) Highlights include:
- 2.20 - The infamous Steveo nekkid Orc roflstomping, which went on to spawn a guild tradition.
- 2.30 - Ever tried organising Orcs? This eventually leads to me having some kind of mental breakdown on vent.
KF being a guild full of dirty old men and equally foul women, this video is a bit on the sweary side. Oh and the last song on there is a bit, uhm yeah... So if you're all precious about language, well you've been warned.
Saturday, 27 March 2010
Ok this is not MMO related, but...
..you have to watch this video, well... see how long you can last anyway.
Watch out America, the new king of hip-hop is here and he's from Melbourne.
Or perhaps not.
Amazingly, it can actually get worse...
I really hope he's taking the piss, but I've a got bad feeling he isn't.
Watch out America, the new king of hip-hop is here and he's from Melbourne.
Or perhaps not.
Amazingly, it can actually get worse...
I really hope he's taking the piss, but I've a got bad feeling he isn't.
Friday, 26 March 2010
Chosen - should you go big hitty git or brick wall style?
I’ve just had another email request, but from someone who didn’t leave a name (Rivs was it you?), saying that they’re dusting off their Chosen and wondered how to spec these days. They’ve been told they should drop the shield and pick up a great weapon, but wanted my advice on this first. I started typing a response which got a bit long for an email, so figured I’d post it on here…
Great weapon spec will get you the big numbers and killing blows, but these days you can be just as effective and have more versatility with a shield spec. After a long time playing as just another GW Chosen, I went back to sword and board and tbh I have no plans on changing back to GW.
Damage wise you can still do quite well, simply because you can still stack a lot of strength. With my PvP shield gear and auras running (I twist strength, tough and resist normally) I will be running at roughly:
Str 770 (plus about 200 bonus attack power from items)
Tough 820
Wounds 9.5k
Uber skilled players aside, there is nothing I can’t kill 1v1 and I regularly take on multiple players at once on my own and win.
I’m at work so can’t link to a wardb spec, but my current spec is like so:
Mastery Points
Corruption – Oppression, Downfall & Mixed Defenses
Discord – Quake & I think the heal debuff aura, though I don’t use it that often unless there’s another chosen in my group.
RvR tactics
Rugged, Mixed Defenses, Power from the Gods, Warped Flesh (this is an amazingly good tactic for Chosen)
After the first couple of seconds in a fight you can easily have activated Suppression and Oppression (which you can keep up pretty much constantly), plus Mixed Defenses and Warped Flesh will also kick in. For me this means I’m now running at (from memory…) 34% block, 65% parry, have another 1k armour, have 15% damage reduction on ALL attacks and because of my high tough and armour, warped flesh will completely mitigate an attack every few seconds.
So in summary, I’m hitting very hard and am incredibly hard to kill. A GW spec Chosen can not get anywhere near my survivability. Having played both of the Chosen game style for long periods of time, I would say it does take more skill/practice/whatever to be dangerous with sword & board though. It is also much more gear reliant. It’s quite easy to get high strength and crit with great weapons and get those big numbers, but for a sword & board to get decent damage and defensive stats, you will need to be in a minimum of invader/warlord or tyrant/invader.
Having said all that, GW spec is still excellent and is certainly easy to do well with, but like anything takes practice and gear to become a proper PvP monster. You can put out some comedy slaughter though, a friend of mine runs with over 50% crit and around 1k strength. He’s an absolute bloody beast, albeit rather squishy if people actually target him.
Mastery Points
Dread - Rending Blade, Crippling Stikes and Oppresive Blows
Discord – Quake
Extra points into whatever you fancy.
RvR tactics
Rugged, Crippling Strikes, Oppresive Blows and Power from the Gods
Though a lot of people like to use focussed offense for even more damage, personally I don’t like the extra squishiness that this brings.
Oh one final thing, if anyone tells you to not take Quake, ignore them. Quake is the single most powerful ability we have. If used cleverly, even with PUGies and their stagger breaking crap, a 9 second cone AoE stagger can be used to shut down enemy healers for long enough to provide the difference in a fight. When soloing it’s the ability that gives you a chance of taking on multiple players, lets you catch kiters and makes you an all round pain in the arse.
Great weapon spec will get you the big numbers and killing blows, but these days you can be just as effective and have more versatility with a shield spec. After a long time playing as just another GW Chosen, I went back to sword and board and tbh I have no plans on changing back to GW.
Damage wise you can still do quite well, simply because you can still stack a lot of strength. With my PvP shield gear and auras running (I twist strength, tough and resist normally) I will be running at roughly:
Str 770 (plus about 200 bonus attack power from items)
Tough 820
Wounds 9.5k
Uber skilled players aside, there is nothing I can’t kill 1v1 and I regularly take on multiple players at once on my own and win.
I’m at work so can’t link to a wardb spec, but my current spec is like so:
Mastery Points
Corruption – Oppression, Downfall & Mixed Defenses
Discord – Quake & I think the heal debuff aura, though I don’t use it that often unless there’s another chosen in my group.
RvR tactics
Rugged, Mixed Defenses, Power from the Gods, Warped Flesh (this is an amazingly good tactic for Chosen)
After the first couple of seconds in a fight you can easily have activated Suppression and Oppression (which you can keep up pretty much constantly), plus Mixed Defenses and Warped Flesh will also kick in. For me this means I’m now running at (from memory…) 34% block, 65% parry, have another 1k armour, have 15% damage reduction on ALL attacks and because of my high tough and armour, warped flesh will completely mitigate an attack every few seconds.
So in summary, I’m hitting very hard and am incredibly hard to kill. A GW spec Chosen can not get anywhere near my survivability. Having played both of the Chosen game style for long periods of time, I would say it does take more skill/practice/whatever to be dangerous with sword & board though. It is also much more gear reliant. It’s quite easy to get high strength and crit with great weapons and get those big numbers, but for a sword & board to get decent damage and defensive stats, you will need to be in a minimum of invader/warlord or tyrant/invader.
Having said all that, GW spec is still excellent and is certainly easy to do well with, but like anything takes practice and gear to become a proper PvP monster. You can put out some comedy slaughter though, a friend of mine runs with over 50% crit and around 1k strength. He’s an absolute bloody beast, albeit rather squishy if people actually target him.
Mastery Points
Dread - Rending Blade, Crippling Stikes and Oppresive Blows
Discord – Quake
Extra points into whatever you fancy.
RvR tactics
Rugged, Crippling Strikes, Oppresive Blows and Power from the Gods
Though a lot of people like to use focussed offense for even more damage, personally I don’t like the extra squishiness that this brings.
Oh one final thing, if anyone tells you to not take Quake, ignore them. Quake is the single most powerful ability we have. If used cleverly, even with PUGies and their stagger breaking crap, a 9 second cone AoE stagger can be used to shut down enemy healers for long enough to provide the difference in a fight. When soloing it’s the ability that gives you a chance of taking on multiple players, lets you catch kiters and makes you an all round pain in the arse.
Thursday, 25 March 2010
Pretend WAR re-review at mmorpg.com
So mmorpg.com has done a re-review of WAR. And unfortunately it's another one of those online reviewing mini-scandals where it's blatantly obvious that they didn't actually play the game. Factually incorrect left right and centre, it would seem the reviewer only played in tier 1, if he played the game at all. I could pick the whole thing apart, but I won't bother since Shadow-war has a done a cracking job already.
But before you suggest I'm being all fan boy about it, check out this one line in particular that shows without ANY doubt that the guy quite simply didn't play the game, didn't do his research and has no idea what he is talking about.
"The current Tier 4 End-Game events rarely occur, as they literally require hundreds of players to ‘lock in’ the four racial parings in order to conquer the opposing realm’s Capital City. "
LOL! So for the last 6 months or so we've been saying that city sieges happen far, far too often. I remember posting recently in fact about 6 in one day. So there is no way you can make that statement and claim to have played the game in tier 4. If you've not played tier 4 then you can not comment on the end game at all. His statement above is complete and utter bollocks and as such suggests the entire review was based on hearsay rather than gameplay (yikes they sucked, damn you reality turd TV). Oh and it's 3 racial pairings, not 4. Comedy gold.
As my regular readers will know, I'll happily give Mythic a hard time for the game's problems, but I wouldn't ever consider just making negative shit up or pretending to play if I wasn't. It's a shame that a website as renowned as mmorpg.com has done so, I just hope he didn't get paid to do that pretend review.
PS just had this line pointed out to me: "On a personal note, I would love to see the inclusion of the Vampire Counts and Empire, for the sake of variety."
Dude, seriously... Empire are in the game and always have been :P
But before you suggest I'm being all fan boy about it, check out this one line in particular that shows without ANY doubt that the guy quite simply didn't play the game, didn't do his research and has no idea what he is talking about.
"The current Tier 4 End-Game events rarely occur, as they literally require hundreds of players to ‘lock in’ the four racial parings in order to conquer the opposing realm’s Capital City. "
LOL! So for the last 6 months or so we've been saying that city sieges happen far, far too often. I remember posting recently in fact about 6 in one day. So there is no way you can make that statement and claim to have played the game in tier 4. If you've not played tier 4 then you can not comment on the end game at all. His statement above is complete and utter bollocks and as such suggests the entire review was based on hearsay rather than gameplay (yikes they sucked, damn you reality turd TV). Oh and it's 3 racial pairings, not 4. Comedy gold.
As my regular readers will know, I'll happily give Mythic a hard time for the game's problems, but I wouldn't ever consider just making negative shit up or pretending to play if I wasn't. It's a shame that a website as renowned as mmorpg.com has done so, I just hope he didn't get paid to do that pretend review.
PS just had this line pointed out to me: "On a personal note, I would love to see the inclusion of the Vampire Counts and Empire, for the sake of variety."
Dude, seriously... Empire are in the game and always have been :P
Wednesday, 24 March 2010
Questions of cost
This week I received the following email from a chap (or chapess) going by the name of Dorath:
Great work with the Bloody Blog! I wanted to submit a couple questions regarding the free-to-play and subscription models for WAR that you might use as a topic or topics.
1) What's your current take on how the free to play portion of the game is working out? Are you aware of people who try then sub?
2) What are your thoughts on the following subscription model:
* T1 access, rr to 20 = free
* T2 access, rr to 40 = 5/mo
* T3 access, rr to 60 = 10/mo
* T4 access, rr to 80 = 15/mo
-Dorath
Interesting questions and certainly you often see Free 2 Play being suggested on forums and other blogs. However you may (or may not) have noticed that I’ve never commented previously in any way regarding the F2P concept for WAR. The reason for this silence is quite simple. I just don’t like F2P games. That said, the questions Dorath has posed are sensible ones and well worth discussion, so I will attempt to answer both.
1) What's your current take on how the free to play portion of the game is working out? Are you aware of people who try then sub?
I think it’s worked out very well, tier 1 is buzzing almost constantly and there seems to be a constant stream of new characters appearing. However I am wary of the F2P section being scaled up beyond tier 1. As an introduction to the game I think it works perfectly, but beyond that I am very wary. I really don’t want WAR turning into another of those hideous F2P games with crappy content and progression defined by how much you spend in a store. That’s not to say it couldn’t be done, but I don’t really see the point. The game is profitable now, so why risk changing the payment model further?
As for players subscribing after their trial periods, it’s most definitely happening, though I have no clue on the numbers. While mooching around in tier 1 I’ve met a lot of people that said they are going to sub and have also seen lots of people saying so in region too. However, there are also a LOT of people going into tier 1 and trying to sabotage the game by spouting WAR-hate in region. Quite often based on out-dated views of tier 4, which makes one suspect some of the free trial players are ex-WAR players from 2008 with an axe to grind. Why people make the effort to do this I don’t know, but they clearly are, the nonsense being spouted is pretty obvious. As such I would recommend people treat everything said in tier 1 region chat with a large pinch of salt.
2) What are your thoughts on the following subscription model:
* T1 access, rr to 20 = free
* T2 access, rr to 40 = 5/mo
* T3 access, rr to 60 = 10/mo
* T4 access, rr to 80 = 15/mo
I think there could be some merit in a staggered cost, but not at those prices. Out of principle there is no way I’m paying £15 a month for tier 4 and why as a veteran WAR player should I be punished? That’s more expensive than an EVE online account, which is in a position where it can justifiably be a bit more expensive, plus that cost also includes 1-2 free expansions every year.
With some tinkering though this idea could work. I would suggest:
* T1 (restricted as it is now) = free
* T2 (with access to IC, etc so just level capped) = £5 a month
* FULL access = for the existing £8.99 a month
The thing is though; I just don’t see WAR’s payment plans as an issue. Not even vaguely. WAR’s problems are:
It still has a reputation for game, performance problems, despite them being primarily fixed. How Mythic combat this perception I don’t know.
Some times the EU servers suffer badly from random lag spikes, particularly when the a city gets sieged, a zone locks, etc.
PvE instances are still too buggy and on EU servers and are dramatically effected by the above lag spikes despite being unrelated “instances”. I think these 2 points are GOA’s issue, I’ve not heard of the US servers suffering in the same way.
The game has been active long enough now that veteran players are running out of content.
There needs to be further encouragement for small scale play, less zerg warfare and to make more use of the game’s zones, instead of shoving us into a handful of areas at any one point.
It must be said though, WAR has come on leaps and bounds. Mythic have made massive improvements, particularly to performance and there are now a wealth of ways for the new player to progress their character. If WAR had launched as it is today, then I think we’d be seeing a much larger current population. So considering that the game is now pretty damn good, it is making a profit and has future content planned. I don’t really see any benefit of going F2P.
Sorry Dorath if that’s not the answer you were hoping for! I’m just a nasty F2P hater :D
Great work with the Bloody Blog! I wanted to submit a couple questions regarding the free-to-play and subscription models for WAR that you might use as a topic or topics.
1) What's your current take on how the free to play portion of the game is working out? Are you aware of people who try then sub?
2) What are your thoughts on the following subscription model:
* T1 access, rr to 20 = free
* T2 access, rr to 40 = 5/mo
* T3 access, rr to 60 = 10/mo
* T4 access, rr to 80 = 15/mo
-Dorath
Interesting questions and certainly you often see Free 2 Play being suggested on forums and other blogs. However you may (or may not) have noticed that I’ve never commented previously in any way regarding the F2P concept for WAR. The reason for this silence is quite simple. I just don’t like F2P games. That said, the questions Dorath has posed are sensible ones and well worth discussion, so I will attempt to answer both.
1) What's your current take on how the free to play portion of the game is working out? Are you aware of people who try then sub?
I think it’s worked out very well, tier 1 is buzzing almost constantly and there seems to be a constant stream of new characters appearing. However I am wary of the F2P section being scaled up beyond tier 1. As an introduction to the game I think it works perfectly, but beyond that I am very wary. I really don’t want WAR turning into another of those hideous F2P games with crappy content and progression defined by how much you spend in a store. That’s not to say it couldn’t be done, but I don’t really see the point. The game is profitable now, so why risk changing the payment model further?
As for players subscribing after their trial periods, it’s most definitely happening, though I have no clue on the numbers. While mooching around in tier 1 I’ve met a lot of people that said they are going to sub and have also seen lots of people saying so in region too. However, there are also a LOT of people going into tier 1 and trying to sabotage the game by spouting WAR-hate in region. Quite often based on out-dated views of tier 4, which makes one suspect some of the free trial players are ex-WAR players from 2008 with an axe to grind. Why people make the effort to do this I don’t know, but they clearly are, the nonsense being spouted is pretty obvious. As such I would recommend people treat everything said in tier 1 region chat with a large pinch of salt.
2) What are your thoughts on the following subscription model:
* T1 access, rr to 20 = free
* T2 access, rr to 40 = 5/mo
* T3 access, rr to 60 = 10/mo
* T4 access, rr to 80 = 15/mo
I think there could be some merit in a staggered cost, but not at those prices. Out of principle there is no way I’m paying £15 a month for tier 4 and why as a veteran WAR player should I be punished? That’s more expensive than an EVE online account, which is in a position where it can justifiably be a bit more expensive, plus that cost also includes 1-2 free expansions every year.
With some tinkering though this idea could work. I would suggest:
* T1 (restricted as it is now) = free
* T2 (with access to IC, etc so just level capped) = £5 a month
* FULL access = for the existing £8.99 a month
The thing is though; I just don’t see WAR’s payment plans as an issue. Not even vaguely. WAR’s problems are:
It must be said though, WAR has come on leaps and bounds. Mythic have made massive improvements, particularly to performance and there are now a wealth of ways for the new player to progress their character. If WAR had launched as it is today, then I think we’d be seeing a much larger current population. So considering that the game is now pretty damn good, it is making a profit and has future content planned. I don’t really see any benefit of going F2P.
Sorry Dorath if that’s not the answer you were hoping for! I’m just a nasty F2P hater :D
Tuesday, 23 March 2010
Charge of the light (green) brigade
There were hundreds of the buggers… a monstrous zerg of Order red names sweeping across Black Crag like a swarm of locusts with the munchies. The armies of Destruction were nowhere to be seen, that is apart from my 5 man group. The odds were indeed utterly stacked against us. Yet there was hope, not of victory, but of fun...
What do you get if you combine a giant horde of Order and a 5 man group consisting entirely of Choppas? A game of WAAAGH Target™ of course!
What do you get if you combine a giant horde of Order and a 5 man group consisting entirely of Choppas? A game of WAAAGH Target™ of course!
The rules are simple. Make sure your group is mounted, have one person pick a target in the middle of the enemy zerg (it has to be the middle for the challenge), ideally the target should be someone well known. Then as a unit you charge across, spamming /waaagh at the target as a signal of intent (the enemy must be able to recognise who you are going for). From then on it’s simply a case of doing everything you possibly can to kill that target. You will die, no question there, but a successful charge will earn you more renown than you give the enemy and provide you with much comedy on vent. It’s the community on your server that makes the game tick, but it doesn’t always have to be a serious rivalry, so why not give your enemies a bit of a laugh and a few WTF moments as your green WAAAGH charge takes on insane numbers. Pointless? Utterly.
More fun than logging off or guarding mailboxes? Totally.
Last night there was much /waaagh and we got our target with every charge, plus a few extras on some occassions :D I don’t remember all the target names, but a special /wave to Moonthief, one of our first targets and a long time member of the guild's fave Bright Wizards. ;)
Monday, 22 March 2010
DOOOOOOM!! Oh good news? NAH! DOOOOOOOOOM!!!!
Since Ray Muzyka’s comments about WAR, the big debate appears to be around the context of his use of the word “expansions”. Some people choosing to see that as him referring to the usual use of “expansions” in MMO terms, as in paid for (or LotD style) expansion packs. Where as others are seeing it in a more literal sense of the word and just meaning adding something to WAR, be it merely a new tool tip or an extra pixel on Karl Franz’s arse.
My first assumption was he meant proper expansions, simply because someone so experienced in the gaming world would surely understand the normal context of the word in relation to MMOs. However, having read a great deal of sensibly expressed argument against this, I’ve been blatted round the head by the doubt-stick. So I think for now I’m going to sit comfortably on the fence and say I’m not sure.
That said I refuse to see the news as anything but positive. I know I shouldn’t be, but I am surprised by the amount of stubborn negativity being posted by WAR’s detractors on forums. How Ray’s comments are a sign of bad news I just don’t know. I mean come on, the game is making a profit and new content (of some form) is being developed, how is that bad news? Ahhh you’ve not played the game in a year, so have no clue about what the game is actually like now, but you still feel the need to justify your hate for it by posting on WHA every day? Of course… silly me, profitable and new content is obviously bad news, I imagine the game will be closed by Christmas 2008. Oops! You meant 2009, oh no sorry 2010?
Anyways, hopefully we’ll get some more news soon on what content we are going to get. I’m not going to get my hopes up too much, as that will most likely lead to disappointment, but whatever happens at least we know WAR’s future is assured.
My first assumption was he meant proper expansions, simply because someone so experienced in the gaming world would surely understand the normal context of the word in relation to MMOs. However, having read a great deal of sensibly expressed argument against this, I’ve been blatted round the head by the doubt-stick. So I think for now I’m going to sit comfortably on the fence and say I’m not sure.
That said I refuse to see the news as anything but positive. I know I shouldn’t be, but I am surprised by the amount of stubborn negativity being posted by WAR’s detractors on forums. How Ray’s comments are a sign of bad news I just don’t know. I mean come on, the game is making a profit and new content (of some form) is being developed, how is that bad news? Ahhh you’ve not played the game in a year, so have no clue about what the game is actually like now, but you still feel the need to justify your hate for it by posting on WHA every day? Of course… silly me, profitable and new content is obviously bad news, I imagine the game will be closed by Christmas 2008. Oops! You meant 2009, oh no sorry 2010?
Anyways, hopefully we’ll get some more news soon on what content we are going to get. I’m not going to get my hopes up too much, as that will most likely lead to disappointment, but whatever happens at least we know WAR’s future is assured.
Friday, 19 March 2010
WAR expansions confirmed!
First off here is the link to the confirmation from Bioware/Mythic's top boy in an article over at massively.
And now if you cba to click the link, here is the info:
In a recent GDC 2010 interview with UGO, BioWare's Dr. Ray Muzyka said of Warhammer Online, "Right now it's [a] really profitable business unit within my group." Muzyka went on to say they've actually seen more people come into the game since enacting the free-to-play model on the game's earlier levels, and that he personally felt they were working.
In fact, by the sounds of it, Warhammer Online is due for some interesting announcements in the future. Another of Muzyka's comments on the title was, "We have new content planned and all kinds of cool expansions for it." We don't know how much more clear cut a message can be than that. And hey, it's good news! We're looking forward to our playable Skaven and Lizardmen, Mythic and BioWare.
Oh yea of little faith! In your face doubters! ;) Though I bet the usual negative troll brigade pick holes in this, even though you can't get much more of a solid confirmation.
And now if you cba to click the link, here is the info:
In a recent GDC 2010 interview with UGO, BioWare's Dr. Ray Muzyka said of Warhammer Online, "Right now it's [a] really profitable business unit within my group." Muzyka went on to say they've actually seen more people come into the game since enacting the free-to-play model on the game's earlier levels, and that he personally felt they were working.
In fact, by the sounds of it, Warhammer Online is due for some interesting announcements in the future. Another of Muzyka's comments on the title was, "We have new content planned and all kinds of cool expansions for it." We don't know how much more clear cut a message can be than that. And hey, it's good news! We're looking forward to our playable Skaven and Lizardmen, Mythic and BioWare.
Oh yea of little faith! In your face doubters! ;) Though I bet the usual negative troll brigade pick holes in this, even though you can't get much more of a solid confirmation.
Thursday, 18 March 2010
The impact of 1.3.4 and the great carrot problem
Now that 1.3.4 has had a little while to bed in, I think it’s about time I posted about what it has meant for WAR on my Karak Norn EU server.
Unless there’s an organised king push on (which is about 3 nights a week) the RvR lakes are very, very quiet. The solo and small-scale roaming scene is almost non-existent, there seems to either be Order in zergs or no Order at all. My guild has a lot of solo and small group roamers, it’s something we’ve always done and in the past more often than not you can find plenty of fighting. Alas, everyone is complaining about how hard it is now to just find an enemy to fight. Even the player designated duelling area is empty. Last night myself and 2 guildies spent about 2 hours trying to find people to fight and only saw 4 Order roaming about, that is other than a 2+ group warband trying to lock zones. Though even they decided to guard their warcamp’s mailbox after the 3 of us with a handful of other Destruction (and in total we were still outnumbered) killed them once... I’m not one that normally flames my opponents, but sorry guys, that was just pathetic.
The nights where Order are on a push for IC are different and at those times there are plenty of enemy players to fight in the RvR lakes, same as ever really. It’s zergy of course, particularly when Destruction warbands have turned up to fight too, but it shows there’s still plenty of people active. Also there’s some smaller fighting to be had around the edges on these occasions, its not all zerg. Damn shame this just isn’t regular right now. Oh and I’m not blaming Order for this, Destruction are just as bad with their regular as clockwork morning King raids. It’s a bit like people have decided to let the enemy kill the king on certain days, especially since it gives you underdog points regardless if you are actually an underdog, it’s just convenient.
On the other hand, our people doing regular scenario groups are really liking this patch. Scenarios pop almost instantly and there are plenty of great fights to be had. Despite earlier concerns, pre-mades are not dominating any more than they were before, I’ve been in a great many successful PUGs (randomly formed Pick Up Groups) and a just as many crap ones. When doing pre-mades I’ve won far, far more than I’ve lost and I imagine this is the same for most guilds doing pre-made scenario groups. Simply because so many people are doing scenarios that you’re going to go up against a lot of PUGs and players less experienced in scenarios. Pre-made vs Pre-made can go either way, but is often defined by who is in your side’s second group. Poor quality comrades against quality opposition can easily lead to poor results.
For me the improved scenarios are of course a positive, but the reduction in oRvR is a huge negative. However this is NOT Mythic’s fault as such. It’s down to the player base choosing to do scenarios instead of open RvR. They could choose to do oRvR normally, instead of only trying to PvE zones down quickly when there’s King loot to be had. It’s people’s materialistic thirst for shiny new pixels grabbing them by the knackers and creating a temporary obsession for scenarios. Just like when Land of the Dead was released, until the novelty wears off it turns the normal oRvR lakes into unpopulated deserts. This isn’t a phenomenon specific to WAR, remember the impact of Arena weapons in World of Warcraft for example, but in WAR it does have more pronounced effects because the game is utterly reliant on it’s community to function. However the novelty isn’t wearing off quite as quickly as I would have hoped. People are not showing signs of returning to regular oRvR just yet.
That’s not to say this situation is entirely down to the player base, because it quite simply isn’t. You have to look at the bigger picture and ask why people are quite so obsessed with the new scenario system. Obviously it’s the loot, but it’s not necessarily because of the quality of the items or a must have uber item X, Y & Z thing. For many players the new items are more of a sideways progression, they give options rather than any huge increase in power. They also take a lot of time to get, unless you dedicate your entire gaming time to doing scenarios. So we have items that take a lot of time to get and for a great many players are not that much of an upgrade (if at all), in which case why the obsessive scenario farming? It’s because they’ve reached the end of the stick and eaten all the carrots.
So many players are in the 70-80 renown bracket now that they’ve more than likely got everything they want and have run out of things to work towards. If you’ve got full Sovereign and/or Tyrant, got the glyphs and fancy weapons, you’ve exhausted your character’s progression options. Which only leaves you with scenarios and the new loot. I can see it in my future with my Chosen, I’ve got the Tyrant Chest and cloak to get, then I just need a few more funery masks to get the rest of the Tyrant drops. Now that I’m doing Tomb of the Vulture Lord regularly again, that isn’t far away. I don’t have any Sovereign armour, but this is actually by choice as I dont go on my guild's king farming warbands, because I don’t like the Sov graphics and don’t need the stats. We’re also almost at the point of downing the Colossus as a guild, so I’ll be able to farm that should I want to. Which means all that will be left for me are scenario items. Now I’ll still play for the fighting alone and I’m a filthy altoholic anyway, but long term MMO experience tells us most people aren’t like that. They get all the gear, quit the game and go off in search of achievements elsewhere.
And this I think is the biggest impact of 1.3.4. It is a good patch, it has added to and improved the game, but more than anything it has highlighted how long term WAR gamers desperately need real new content. Mythic need to add a new dungeon, a new zone, whatever, just more things of real substance. We need things to achieve and not Blizzard style earn 5 million gold crap by the way... ugh
Mythic’s supply of carrots is dwindling. If 1.3.5 really does fix the city siege crap but it doesnt bring new carrots as well, will it be enough to get people out of scenarios and back out in oRvR?
I sure hope so.
Unless there’s an organised king push on (which is about 3 nights a week) the RvR lakes are very, very quiet. The solo and small-scale roaming scene is almost non-existent, there seems to either be Order in zergs or no Order at all. My guild has a lot of solo and small group roamers, it’s something we’ve always done and in the past more often than not you can find plenty of fighting. Alas, everyone is complaining about how hard it is now to just find an enemy to fight. Even the player designated duelling area is empty. Last night myself and 2 guildies spent about 2 hours trying to find people to fight and only saw 4 Order roaming about, that is other than a 2+ group warband trying to lock zones. Though even they decided to guard their warcamp’s mailbox after the 3 of us with a handful of other Destruction (and in total we were still outnumbered) killed them once... I’m not one that normally flames my opponents, but sorry guys, that was just pathetic.
The nights where Order are on a push for IC are different and at those times there are plenty of enemy players to fight in the RvR lakes, same as ever really. It’s zergy of course, particularly when Destruction warbands have turned up to fight too, but it shows there’s still plenty of people active. Also there’s some smaller fighting to be had around the edges on these occasions, its not all zerg. Damn shame this just isn’t regular right now. Oh and I’m not blaming Order for this, Destruction are just as bad with their regular as clockwork morning King raids. It’s a bit like people have decided to let the enemy kill the king on certain days, especially since it gives you underdog points regardless if you are actually an underdog, it’s just convenient.
On the other hand, our people doing regular scenario groups are really liking this patch. Scenarios pop almost instantly and there are plenty of great fights to be had. Despite earlier concerns, pre-mades are not dominating any more than they were before, I’ve been in a great many successful PUGs (randomly formed Pick Up Groups) and a just as many crap ones. When doing pre-mades I’ve won far, far more than I’ve lost and I imagine this is the same for most guilds doing pre-made scenario groups. Simply because so many people are doing scenarios that you’re going to go up against a lot of PUGs and players less experienced in scenarios. Pre-made vs Pre-made can go either way, but is often defined by who is in your side’s second group. Poor quality comrades against quality opposition can easily lead to poor results.
For me the improved scenarios are of course a positive, but the reduction in oRvR is a huge negative. However this is NOT Mythic’s fault as such. It’s down to the player base choosing to do scenarios instead of open RvR. They could choose to do oRvR normally, instead of only trying to PvE zones down quickly when there’s King loot to be had. It’s people’s materialistic thirst for shiny new pixels grabbing them by the knackers and creating a temporary obsession for scenarios. Just like when Land of the Dead was released, until the novelty wears off it turns the normal oRvR lakes into unpopulated deserts. This isn’t a phenomenon specific to WAR, remember the impact of Arena weapons in World of Warcraft for example, but in WAR it does have more pronounced effects because the game is utterly reliant on it’s community to function. However the novelty isn’t wearing off quite as quickly as I would have hoped. People are not showing signs of returning to regular oRvR just yet.
That’s not to say this situation is entirely down to the player base, because it quite simply isn’t. You have to look at the bigger picture and ask why people are quite so obsessed with the new scenario system. Obviously it’s the loot, but it’s not necessarily because of the quality of the items or a must have uber item X, Y & Z thing. For many players the new items are more of a sideways progression, they give options rather than any huge increase in power. They also take a lot of time to get, unless you dedicate your entire gaming time to doing scenarios. So we have items that take a lot of time to get and for a great many players are not that much of an upgrade (if at all), in which case why the obsessive scenario farming? It’s because they’ve reached the end of the stick and eaten all the carrots.
So many players are in the 70-80 renown bracket now that they’ve more than likely got everything they want and have run out of things to work towards. If you’ve got full Sovereign and/or Tyrant, got the glyphs and fancy weapons, you’ve exhausted your character’s progression options. Which only leaves you with scenarios and the new loot. I can see it in my future with my Chosen, I’ve got the Tyrant Chest and cloak to get, then I just need a few more funery masks to get the rest of the Tyrant drops. Now that I’m doing Tomb of the Vulture Lord regularly again, that isn’t far away. I don’t have any Sovereign armour, but this is actually by choice as I dont go on my guild's king farming warbands, because I don’t like the Sov graphics and don’t need the stats. We’re also almost at the point of downing the Colossus as a guild, so I’ll be able to farm that should I want to. Which means all that will be left for me are scenario items. Now I’ll still play for the fighting alone and I’m a filthy altoholic anyway, but long term MMO experience tells us most people aren’t like that. They get all the gear, quit the game and go off in search of achievements elsewhere.
And this I think is the biggest impact of 1.3.4. It is a good patch, it has added to and improved the game, but more than anything it has highlighted how long term WAR gamers desperately need real new content. Mythic need to add a new dungeon, a new zone, whatever, just more things of real substance. We need things to achieve and not Blizzard style earn 5 million gold crap by the way... ugh
Mythic’s supply of carrots is dwindling. If 1.3.5 really does fix the city siege crap but it doesnt bring new carrots as well, will it be enough to get people out of scenarios and back out in oRvR?
I sure hope so.
6v6 Event video
This video was made by the guys from Crimson, one of the Order guilds that took part in the 6v6 event.
If you want to watch it in higher resolution the direct link to youtube is here.
They've got footage from them fighting a few different Destro guilds, including them beating Kill Frenzy (boo hiss!), though this was after I logged off so obviously that's why my crew lost. :P Or maybe I'm just lucky that I was elsewhere by then and as such don't have to watch my pixel based demise. ;)
If you want to watch it in higher resolution the direct link to youtube is here.
They've got footage from them fighting a few different Destro guilds, including them beating Kill Frenzy (boo hiss!), though this was after I logged off so obviously that's why my crew lost. :P Or maybe I'm just lucky that I was elsewhere by then and as such don't have to watch my pixel based demise. ;)
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
An alternative dilemma
Oh me oh my, what to do? I’m suffering from indecision, which is not something that normally affects me. Indifference, apathy, random hatred, the raging horn and mild obsessions yes, I’ve got those well covered. Just ask my long-suffering wife… but indecision is not usually my scene. And so you may ask what is this incredibly important dilemma perplexing me so?
I can’t make my mind up which character to level next. Yes indeed, a decision of such great importance that it’s right up there with which useless expenses stealing twat I vote for at the next election. If only Jesse Ventura was British, and my local MP… then at least my voting choice would be easy. Alas Britain’s only Double-Hard-Bastard™ politician, Paddy Ashdown (ex-SBS) has retired.
Ok so here’s my current Destruction character list:
Chosen (40)
Choppa (40)
Magus (40)
Shaman (40)
Witch Elf (33)
Squig Herder (26ish)
Disciple of Khaine (in the teens somewhere)
Marauder (10)
Zealot (10)
Sorcerer (10)
There are things I like about all the potential candidates for 5th level 40.. You’ll notice Black Guard and Black Orc are missing. Whilst I like the imagery of both, I tried them and didn’t like their play styles compared with my Chosen. So that leaves all the ones in yellow above to choose from. I think I’m leaning slightly more towards the Marauder or Squig Herder, though obviously the Marauder is a long way from 40. Yet every time I see one of those mutations ripple into different forms, or watch Biggsie’s Marauder video, I become more and more tempted. Of course the overpowered uberness of both the Sorcerer and Disciple of Khaine should be tempting, but to be honest I’ve never picked a class because of how good it is. Play style and imagery are the most important, which makes it more complicated as both of those classes are also fun to play, plus the DoK’s emo stance makes me laugh and my Sorceress has epic norks. Then there’s the Zealot, the red-headed bastard step child of Destruction and very intriguing because of that fact alone. I’m not impressed with mine so far, but I know they get damn good later and are always in demand. And then finally there’s the Squig Herder. It’s a goblin, which earns huge points, it has Squigs for even more points, it’s a goblin, it’s sneaky and it is a lot of fun to play. And it’s a goblin. Did I mention it’s a goblin?
The other part of this dilemma is I’m bored of the PvE grind, I’ve done it too many times now. So the other option is to purely RvR grind my way up, but I don’t have enough gaming time for this and my main character. RvR grinding is too slow for me personally right now. I don’t mind the lower tiers, but I’m an end-game player at heart. To me levelling is just a means to an end. I want to be in tier 4, building armour sets and balancing stats ASAP. I could get friends to power level me in Land of the Dead, but I don’t want to waste their time, so whatever I go for it has to be the right choice.
Any suggestions?
I can’t make my mind up which character to level next. Yes indeed, a decision of such great importance that it’s right up there with which useless expenses stealing twat I vote for at the next election. If only Jesse Ventura was British, and my local MP… then at least my voting choice would be easy. Alas Britain’s only Double-Hard-Bastard™ politician, Paddy Ashdown (ex-SBS) has retired.
Ok so here’s my current Destruction character list:
Chosen (40)
Choppa (40)
Magus (40)
Shaman (40)
Witch Elf (33)
Squig Herder (26ish)
Disciple of Khaine (in the teens somewhere)
Marauder (10)
Zealot (10)
Sorcerer (10)
There are things I like about all the potential candidates for 5th level 40.. You’ll notice Black Guard and Black Orc are missing. Whilst I like the imagery of both, I tried them and didn’t like their play styles compared with my Chosen. So that leaves all the ones in yellow above to choose from. I think I’m leaning slightly more towards the Marauder or Squig Herder, though obviously the Marauder is a long way from 40. Yet every time I see one of those mutations ripple into different forms, or watch Biggsie’s Marauder video, I become more and more tempted. Of course the overpowered uberness of both the Sorcerer and Disciple of Khaine should be tempting, but to be honest I’ve never picked a class because of how good it is. Play style and imagery are the most important, which makes it more complicated as both of those classes are also fun to play, plus the DoK’s emo stance makes me laugh and my Sorceress has epic norks. Then there’s the Zealot, the red-headed bastard step child of Destruction and very intriguing because of that fact alone. I’m not impressed with mine so far, but I know they get damn good later and are always in demand. And then finally there’s the Squig Herder. It’s a goblin, which earns huge points, it has Squigs for even more points, it’s a goblin, it’s sneaky and it is a lot of fun to play. And it’s a goblin. Did I mention it’s a goblin?
The other part of this dilemma is I’m bored of the PvE grind, I’ve done it too many times now. So the other option is to purely RvR grind my way up, but I don’t have enough gaming time for this and my main character. RvR grinding is too slow for me personally right now. I don’t mind the lower tiers, but I’m an end-game player at heart. To me levelling is just a means to an end. I want to be in tier 4, building armour sets and balancing stats ASAP. I could get friends to power level me in Land of the Dead, but I don’t want to waste their time, so whatever I go for it has to be the right choice.
Any suggestions?
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
You can tell it's another city siege when...
...your guild roster looks like this:
Not that going to Tomb of the Vulture Lord is exactly a hardship, well... apart from those all too regular times when it turns into bug-mageddon. I think most of it's problems are server lag related, it does seem to go a bit wonky if say a zone locks, a siege starts or a player logs in somewhere or presses something on their keyboard. :P Maybe sometime I should list all the bugs I still regularly see in TotVL, might do Mythic a favour... things like 3rd boss still randomly vanishes into the floor, 4th boss wont let players release from the trap things, 5th boss random line of sight issues (healer gets no LoS messages even when standing next to you), 8th boss standing still letting you kill him but the PQ not completing... oh you know what, I can't be arsed :P
Anyways getting back to what was meant to be a the brief and simple post:
Cor blimey guv and other such cliche mockney expressions. I hope Mythic's 1.3.5 plan is 1) made of awesome pie with proper English custard, and 2) here soon!
In other total bloody awesome, but utterly unrelated to WAR news; Dan Le Sac & Scroobius Pip's new album is out. Their first album was pure win with classics like Thou shalt always kill, a letter from God to man and of course Look for the woman. Those links are a few videos from the aforementioned albums, well worth a look if you fancy listening to some music that actually has a point. Plus Scroobius has an epic beard, which ofc means he is a man of genuine wisdom.
PS yes its stupid o'clock and I couldn't sleep
Monday, 15 March 2010
Create your own live events
Sunday night on Karak Norn was a good one with plenty of hot RvR action, but this was not the normal free for all campaign lark, oh no sir. Whilst the random masses went to Altdorf (shock horror), a load of us had a great time at a player organised roaming 6v6 event. These events happen fairly regularly on Karak Norn, once a month or so with a selection of different people that organise them. Attendance varies, but thankfully last night had a good turn out from both factions.
The events are held in a zone that is locked, so you don’t get too many interruptions from the general population and the organisers will move the event to another locked zone if the situation changes. The event itself has a few simple rules and as such works really well. It basically works like this:
To save confusion, spectators have to be naked and mounted. Otherwise expect to get hit.
Teams are limited to 6 (duh), but can have any composition within that.
The teams roam the zone and engage any enemy teams they encounter. No need to /wave or anything, just charge in. It is a roaming PvP event.
No adding into other people’s fights.
If you see an enemy team that have just finished fighting, give them 30 seconds or so afterwards to heal up, get action points and cool downs sorted.
No banners, resurrection potions or pocket items.
The event is competitive for sure, with top teams from both sides appearing, but there is room for experimental set ups and more casual teams and everyone knows they should expect to die lots. I also am pleased to say I’ve always found them to be very sporting events with a good atmosphere.
As for how I got on… Well our team was cobbled together 5 minutes before the start, which is obviously less than ideal and not something I would recommend normally. My personal preference is for melee themed groups and I got lucky, as there were two of KF’s Marauders online. Marauders that IMHO are two of the best on our server. So with the people available we built a group consisting of:
Chosen (sword and board)
Black Orc (sword and board)
2x Marauder (AP drain specced muhahahaha)
Disciple of Khaine (heal specced)
Zealot (uber)
Some of the fights went on for ages; one in particular was about 10 minutes of utter carnage. Our opponents fielded all manner of different set ups, from the classic slayer/ironbreaker DPS of Doom, to kiting 3 healer chain ressing nightmares. Different challenges, difficult fights and a boat load of fun. We finished with 8 wins and 5 losses before I was summoned elsewhere.
/salute to all involved
If your server doesn’t have player-made live events like these, then I would highly recommend you think about getting one organised. They make a great change from the norm.
The events are held in a zone that is locked, so you don’t get too many interruptions from the general population and the organisers will move the event to another locked zone if the situation changes. The event itself has a few simple rules and as such works really well. It basically works like this:
The event is competitive for sure, with top teams from both sides appearing, but there is room for experimental set ups and more casual teams and everyone knows they should expect to die lots. I also am pleased to say I’ve always found them to be very sporting events with a good atmosphere.
As for how I got on… Well our team was cobbled together 5 minutes before the start, which is obviously less than ideal and not something I would recommend normally. My personal preference is for melee themed groups and I got lucky, as there were two of KF’s Marauders online. Marauders that IMHO are two of the best on our server. So with the people available we built a group consisting of:
Chosen (sword and board)
Black Orc (sword and board)
2x Marauder (AP drain specced muhahahaha)
Disciple of Khaine (heal specced)
Zealot (uber)
Some of the fights went on for ages; one in particular was about 10 minutes of utter carnage. Our opponents fielded all manner of different set ups, from the classic slayer/ironbreaker DPS of Doom, to kiting 3 healer chain ressing nightmares. Different challenges, difficult fights and a boat load of fun. We finished with 8 wins and 5 losses before I was summoned elsewhere.
/salute to all involved
If your server doesn’t have player-made live events like these, then I would highly recommend you think about getting one organised. They make a great change from the norm.
Friday, 12 March 2010
All mew no pew
As you’ve no doubt seen, Mythic have posted some changes they are considering.
Career changes
DPS changes
This includes the nerf to an overpowered Sorcerer ability and the removal of a different overpowered Bright Wizard ability which is then being replaced by the aforementioned nerfed Sorcerer ability. Shock, shock horror, this has resulted in forums and chat channels being smothered by Sorcs and BWs mewing like injured kittens. Apparently the nerf of these single abilities is the end of single target specs for Sorcs and BWs and is all round doom and gloom. /yawn
For a start both Bright Wizards and Sorcerers have been top of the pile for a long time, so if this does work out as a nerf, well… I find it hard to be too sympathetic. Same as when our Ravage got nerfed to be honest.
And also this MEW! MEW! MEW! MEW! is despite the fact that Mythic have also announced they intend to buff ALL magic damage and healing by linking weapon DPS to spell effects. Which means whilst people can theory-craft to their hearts content, in reality we can’t be sure of the actual impact of these changes. It might actually work out as a huge buff, it certainly looks like it at first glance! Don’t get me wrong, I’ve no problem with people having concerns, but based on the little info we have to then start writing off classes, mastery trees and the changes themselves is a little bit of an over-reaction. Over reactions on the internet? Surely not :P
The changes could be total turd, but likewise they could actually work out well. I’m interested to see what the impact is on melee careers, as whilst I’m not sure, I think some of my Chosen’s damaging abilities are not effected by weapon DPS. Things like our damage aura, blastwave, quake, etc I suspect are not using weapon DPS now, but will they in future? Then thinking about other classes, is this the damage buff Magus so desperately need? Or because of the increase to presumably ALL magic damage and healing, will it mean Magus damage remains poor, relatively speaking. In fact we have to wonder how will this change the balance between melee and ranged damage? Could this change re-write the WAR rule book? That doesn’t necessarily concern me as such, since shaking things up now and again can freshen up combat and break apart the cookie cutter group set ups.
Whilst I really don’t see the the individual spell nerfs as something that will kill single target, the one thing I am going to MEW! MEW! MEW! about myself is will this DPS change increase the effectiveness of AoE bombing? Bombing isn’t as bad as it once was, unless you’re fighting one of those Sorc/BW/Slayer/Choppa critical mass warbands where the stacked damage instant kills of course, that’s just a case of who bombs first wins, but in more general terms it’s still rampant enough to be tedious. We were forced into activating bomb mode last night in fact. We only had a 2 group warband (for most of the night anyway, at one point we peaked at just under 3), and everywhere we went we would run into multiple Order warbands zerging. I don’t recall a single fight where we weren’t outnumbered at least 2-1. Unfortunately in those situations all you can do is bomb, single target tactics just won’t cut it. And sure, it was effective and in most fights we killed far more than the numbers we brought to the fight. Still, it’s depressing to do, since bombing sidelines certain classes and simplifies the play style horribly.
So for me, whatever the outcome of these changes, I just hope it doesn’t boost AoE again. AoE has always been WAR’s biggest failing. Mythic, exercise caution please…
Career changes
DPS changes
This includes the nerf to an overpowered Sorcerer ability and the removal of a different overpowered Bright Wizard ability which is then being replaced by the aforementioned nerfed Sorcerer ability. Shock, shock horror, this has resulted in forums and chat channels being smothered by Sorcs and BWs mewing like injured kittens. Apparently the nerf of these single abilities is the end of single target specs for Sorcs and BWs and is all round doom and gloom. /yawn
For a start both Bright Wizards and Sorcerers have been top of the pile for a long time, so if this does work out as a nerf, well… I find it hard to be too sympathetic. Same as when our Ravage got nerfed to be honest.
And also this MEW! MEW! MEW! MEW! is despite the fact that Mythic have also announced they intend to buff ALL magic damage and healing by linking weapon DPS to spell effects. Which means whilst people can theory-craft to their hearts content, in reality we can’t be sure of the actual impact of these changes. It might actually work out as a huge buff, it certainly looks like it at first glance! Don’t get me wrong, I’ve no problem with people having concerns, but based on the little info we have to then start writing off classes, mastery trees and the changes themselves is a little bit of an over-reaction. Over reactions on the internet? Surely not :P
The changes could be total turd, but likewise they could actually work out well. I’m interested to see what the impact is on melee careers, as whilst I’m not sure, I think some of my Chosen’s damaging abilities are not effected by weapon DPS. Things like our damage aura, blastwave, quake, etc I suspect are not using weapon DPS now, but will they in future? Then thinking about other classes, is this the damage buff Magus so desperately need? Or because of the increase to presumably ALL magic damage and healing, will it mean Magus damage remains poor, relatively speaking. In fact we have to wonder how will this change the balance between melee and ranged damage? Could this change re-write the WAR rule book? That doesn’t necessarily concern me as such, since shaking things up now and again can freshen up combat and break apart the cookie cutter group set ups.
Whilst I really don’t see the the individual spell nerfs as something that will kill single target, the one thing I am going to MEW! MEW! MEW! about myself is will this DPS change increase the effectiveness of AoE bombing? Bombing isn’t as bad as it once was, unless you’re fighting one of those Sorc/BW/Slayer/Choppa critical mass warbands where the stacked damage instant kills of course, that’s just a case of who bombs first wins, but in more general terms it’s still rampant enough to be tedious. We were forced into activating bomb mode last night in fact. We only had a 2 group warband (for most of the night anyway, at one point we peaked at just under 3), and everywhere we went we would run into multiple Order warbands zerging. I don’t recall a single fight where we weren’t outnumbered at least 2-1. Unfortunately in those situations all you can do is bomb, single target tactics just won’t cut it. And sure, it was effective and in most fights we killed far more than the numbers we brought to the fight. Still, it’s depressing to do, since bombing sidelines certain classes and simplifies the play style horribly.
So for me, whatever the outcome of these changes, I just hope it doesn’t boost AoE again. AoE has always been WAR’s biggest failing. Mythic, exercise caution please…
Thursday, 11 March 2010
Mythic in blog linking frenzy and tease on city changes
Over on their Herald website Mythic have gone on a blog linking frenzy and given a shout out to both the new and veteran WAR bloggers amongst us. I really like to see Mythic recognise our efforts like this, it’s only a simple thing for them to have done, but it shows they do read and are aware of their community. Of course the cynics out there will say that whilst it shows they read, it doesn’t mean they listen. But, for those of us trying to blog regularly it is nice to be acknowledged and it certainly gives you some encouragement to get tapping on that keyboard.
Mythic linked to me with the following comments:
“Bootae brings us his across-the-pond perspective on naked city sieges and why he feels like there are too many city sieges happening on the EU Server Karak Norn. Not to worry Bootae, 1.3.5 is on the way and it will change the way we look at cities forever.”
You will notice I’ve highlighted the last sentence. That’s a pretty damn bold statement by Mythic. And whilst we’re still not getting any rumours of what I really want to hear about (live/paid/whatever expansion), this one sentence is on the right track. If 1.3.5 really does revolutionise cities for the better, then this would go a long way to improving the whole WAR experience and give more than orange pixels as an incentive to attack or defend cities. Hell, with luck it could even be the thing that brings back realm pride and even some emotional attachment to the campaign. As long as Mythic follow up that one sentence with the magnitude it implies.
Soooo, what do we know about 1.3.5 city changes? Not a lot other than:
The focus will change from PvE to RvR.
Mythic have said previously that 1.3.4’s changes to zones unlocking once a city is captured was a requirement for the city changes in 1.3.5.
Questions…
Will this mean absolutely no PvE in the city sieges?
If they are fully reliant on RvR, how will it work if there aren’t enough enemies to go round?
Will we see NPCs bolstering under-strength sides?
Why were the zones unlocking a requirement? What’s the relationship?
Will there be a reduction in how often cities are sieged?
Or are the changes so dramatic that I have no real clue what I should be asking?
Hmmm, hmmm and thrice hmmm.
Mythic linked to me with the following comments:
“Bootae brings us his across-the-pond perspective on naked city sieges and why he feels like there are too many city sieges happening on the EU Server Karak Norn. Not to worry Bootae, 1.3.5 is on the way and it will change the way we look at cities forever.”
You will notice I’ve highlighted the last sentence. That’s a pretty damn bold statement by Mythic. And whilst we’re still not getting any rumours of what I really want to hear about (live/paid/whatever expansion), this one sentence is on the right track. If 1.3.5 really does revolutionise cities for the better, then this would go a long way to improving the whole WAR experience and give more than orange pixels as an incentive to attack or defend cities. Hell, with luck it could even be the thing that brings back realm pride and even some emotional attachment to the campaign. As long as Mythic follow up that one sentence with the magnitude it implies.
Soooo, what do we know about 1.3.5 city changes? Not a lot other than:
Questions…
Hmmm, hmmm and thrice hmmm.
Tuesday, 9 March 2010
Smooth movers win fights
Not so long ago I managed to get myself into a bit of an uneven scrap. To be precise it was 12 Order versus me on my lonesome. I know there were 12 because I counted their corpses...
To put the situation into context... We had a 2 and a half group warband in the city siege instance and I was in the third group consisting of 3 players. The moment I refer to above happened when my 3 man group moved to scout and claim the Temple objective, whilst our other groups recapped the Monolith over on the far side of the map. Shortly after entering the temple we got jumped by the aforementioned 12 Order and in seconds my 2 squishy companions were eating the dirt. Yelling for help on ventrilo, I tried to buy as much time as possible before my inevitable demise. Futile surely as my comrades were in relative terms miles away.
But no... I managed to hold off all 12 Order and stayed alive long enough for my requested reinforcements to arrive from the Monolith. I then took part in the slaughter and walked away with their sweet renown.
This should not have been possible.
I think it's fair to say I'm quite good with my Chosen, I'll give most people a good fight, but I wouldn't go so far as suggesting I'm one of the best Karak Norn has to offer, far from it more likely. So this wasn't down to my uberness or any epeen bollocks. My gear is fairly good; Tyrant and Invader (or Warlord depending). Nothing unusual though. I also play completely straight. I don't cheat, won't use the more dubious add ons and loathe the idea or exploits or any such thing. I operate a strict no cheating policy within my guild anyway.
So how did I do it?
"I" didn't. I simply did the sensible things for that situation, the same things any half experienced Chosen would do. The reason I survived the fight was down to what my enemies did, or in this case didn't do.
These days I'm a sword and board Chosen, which means I can block and parry very effectively to the front. In fact with my current spec, once Mixed Defences activates (once I block) I will be running at around 32% block and 63% parry. Combined with my high armour, resists and toughness that adds up to a bloody tough bastard to kill head on. However a HUGE part of my mitigation is ignored if you attack me from the flanks and rear. Do that from multiple directions and Chosen like me is in a lot of trouble.
Of course if, like my opponents in the Temple, you decide to just hit me head on and not even try to flank, well... A minute or two later you end up as a bloody mess all over my shield once the lads have WAAAGHed your face in :P I think in WAR sometimes people focus so much on just hitting hard and ability spamming that they forget to spare any thought for their opponent. Yet good movement, at the right time and against the right enemy is one of the key things that seperates the good players from the rest.
Witch Hunters are a classic example. I know bucket loads of Witch Hunters that hit hard, probably because that part of being a Witch Hunter is easy. Stack the right stats, hit the abilities, job done. It's the same with my Witch Elf. But there are a much smaller number of Witch Hunters that are difficult opponents. They are the ones that know how to survive if their initial burst doesn't work, they are the ones that are hard to hit, but know how to maximise their chance to hit you. Basically, they are the ones with the fancy moves.
To put the situation into context... We had a 2 and a half group warband in the city siege instance and I was in the third group consisting of 3 players. The moment I refer to above happened when my 3 man group moved to scout and claim the Temple objective, whilst our other groups recapped the Monolith over on the far side of the map. Shortly after entering the temple we got jumped by the aforementioned 12 Order and in seconds my 2 squishy companions were eating the dirt. Yelling for help on ventrilo, I tried to buy as much time as possible before my inevitable demise. Futile surely as my comrades were in relative terms miles away.
But no... I managed to hold off all 12 Order and stayed alive long enough for my requested reinforcements to arrive from the Monolith. I then took part in the slaughter and walked away with their sweet renown.
This should not have been possible.
I think it's fair to say I'm quite good with my Chosen, I'll give most people a good fight, but I wouldn't go so far as suggesting I'm one of the best Karak Norn has to offer, far from it more likely. So this wasn't down to my uberness or any epeen bollocks. My gear is fairly good; Tyrant and Invader (or Warlord depending). Nothing unusual though. I also play completely straight. I don't cheat, won't use the more dubious add ons and loathe the idea or exploits or any such thing. I operate a strict no cheating policy within my guild anyway.
So how did I do it?
"I" didn't. I simply did the sensible things for that situation, the same things any half experienced Chosen would do. The reason I survived the fight was down to what my enemies did, or in this case didn't do.
These days I'm a sword and board Chosen, which means I can block and parry very effectively to the front. In fact with my current spec, once Mixed Defences activates (once I block) I will be running at around 32% block and 63% parry. Combined with my high armour, resists and toughness that adds up to a bloody tough bastard to kill head on. However a HUGE part of my mitigation is ignored if you attack me from the flanks and rear. Do that from multiple directions and Chosen like me is in a lot of trouble.
Of course if, like my opponents in the Temple, you decide to just hit me head on and not even try to flank, well... A minute or two later you end up as a bloody mess all over my shield once the lads have WAAAGHed your face in :P I think in WAR sometimes people focus so much on just hitting hard and ability spamming that they forget to spare any thought for their opponent. Yet good movement, at the right time and against the right enemy is one of the key things that seperates the good players from the rest.
Witch Hunters are a classic example. I know bucket loads of Witch Hunters that hit hard, probably because that part of being a Witch Hunter is easy. Stack the right stats, hit the abilities, job done. It's the same with my Witch Elf. But there are a much smaller number of Witch Hunters that are difficult opponents. They are the ones that know how to survive if their initial burst doesn't work, they are the ones that are hard to hit, but know how to maximise their chance to hit you. Basically, they are the ones with the fancy moves.
Monday, 8 March 2010
6 sieges in one day, the big 40 and getting nekkid
When I heard last week that we’d hit the 4th siege of the day on Karak Norn, I planned on writing a blog post that would sneak in lyrics from Crowded House’s song “four seasons in one day”, however it was not to be. The server community ruined this glorious opportunity for a tribute to jingly jangly Australian nineties music by having another 2 bloody sieges. Still it’s worth posting about anyway. Six city sieges in one day. SIX! V sodding I! 3 each for Altdorf and the Inevitable City. If ever you wanted proof that WAR’s campaign is totally FUBAR, this is it. In fact I’d go so far as to quote a friend of mine when he says the situation is “ricockulous”.
In other news, my guild Kill Frenzy finally hit guild rank 40! It’s taken a while, but then we don’t restrict alts or anything like that and as a result the guild shows as being about 140 members, when in reality it’s actually about 30 actives with a mix of casuals and hardcore. In case you don’t know, the more characters in a guild, the more guild renown you have to earn to level. This is why you can power level guilds by stripping it down to just 6 members and then farming PvE instances :P I couldn’t be bothered with that myself, so thanks to my stubbornness KF earned their ranks the hard way.
Finally and this is a real shock… I actually did a city siege for the first time in months! IC got invaded, I had a warband of 15 Kill Frenzy and we thought sod it, nowt else to do… So in we went and found ourselves against 17 Order, who other than one group from my new fave order guild “Uprising”, appeared to be a random collection of players. We brutalised them horribly, obviously with us on vent together and them being randoms, but at the end the fun began. We spotted Steveo, a famous Bright Wizard, on his runepriest alt. We like Steveo, he’s always played with good humour and we once ganked him with naked Orcs, which sorta turned into a guild tradition… whenever we see his corpse the whole guild will drop everything to jump on his corpse.
After one of our Marauders had pulled him into us a few times, Steveo reacted with true style and went for the only real solution that didn’t involve quitting. He got naked. This then snowballed, as everyone stipped off and suddenly the streets of Altdorf were full of naked characters dancing, fist fighting and generally larking about. Good times.
I’ve not got any pics myself, but there maybe a video appearing at some point…
In other news, my guild Kill Frenzy finally hit guild rank 40! It’s taken a while, but then we don’t restrict alts or anything like that and as a result the guild shows as being about 140 members, when in reality it’s actually about 30 actives with a mix of casuals and hardcore. In case you don’t know, the more characters in a guild, the more guild renown you have to earn to level. This is why you can power level guilds by stripping it down to just 6 members and then farming PvE instances :P I couldn’t be bothered with that myself, so thanks to my stubbornness KF earned their ranks the hard way.
Finally and this is a real shock… I actually did a city siege for the first time in months! IC got invaded, I had a warband of 15 Kill Frenzy and we thought sod it, nowt else to do… So in we went and found ourselves against 17 Order, who other than one group from my new fave order guild “Uprising”, appeared to be a random collection of players. We brutalised them horribly, obviously with us on vent together and them being randoms, but at the end the fun began. We spotted Steveo, a famous Bright Wizard, on his runepriest alt. We like Steveo, he’s always played with good humour and we once ganked him with naked Orcs, which sorta turned into a guild tradition… whenever we see his corpse the whole guild will drop everything to jump on his corpse.
After one of our Marauders had pulled him into us a few times, Steveo reacted with true style and went for the only real solution that didn’t involve quitting. He got naked. This then snowballed, as everyone stipped off and suddenly the streets of Altdorf were full of naked characters dancing, fist fighting and generally larking about. Good times.
I’ve not got any pics myself, but there maybe a video appearing at some point…
Wednesday, 3 March 2010
What my cat and (some) Bright Wizards have in common.
Guild members and friends of Kill Frenzy visiting our ventrilo may have heard me whinging about my cats. You see my wife, bless her bonkers cotton socks, is training to be a mad cat lady. She’s got the mad bit covered and is now working on the cat part with us currently owning 3 of the feline gits. And I’m pretty sure they are out to get me. One of the ways I can tell this is how the swines make my designated WAR gaming nights difficult. For some strange reason the little buggers always have their toileting “accidents”, their strolls across the keyboard or general moments of Furry Arseholeness™, exactly as we pull a vulture lord boss or a scenario pops. Coincidence? Hah! Their Puss-in-Boots style big eyes do not fool me; I can see the malice and cunning lurking behind that cute façade. It’s like Pinky and the Brain with claws.
We’ve had a problem lately with other cats coming through the cat-flap and into the house. This is not good. Other cats smell and it causes all sorts of feline related aggro, so having had enough of this foul situation, at the weekend I sealed up the cat-flap. No more visits from some neighbours festering moggy now. So, how does this relate to (some) Bright Wizards then? Well you see one of our cats “Jasper” is a complete moron. Somewhat reminiscent of Brick “I love lamp” Tamland from Anchorman, he’s nice enough, but there just isn’t much going on upstairs. Poor retarded Jasper is struggling with the concept of a sealed catflap and on Sunday he spent 5 hours trying to head-butt it open, only pausing once every 30 minutes or so to meow in furstration. I was near pissing myself on vent with the constant THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD! MEOWWWWW! THUD! THUD! THUD! rumbling out of the kitchen.
This ‘idiocy despite the obvious’ reminded me of the Ironclad scenario and the many bombing Bright Wizards I encountered. It seems a great many Bright Wizards just can’t get out of their bomb mentality. They’ve had it so easy for so long and their PBAoE spam is so ingrained that the concept of it not working is utterly beyond them. Problem is if you’re facing decent opponents in the Ironclad, unless your group is both set up and coordinating perfectly, bombing just won’t work. Over and over and over again at the weekend I butchered Bright Wizards. The same red names repeating the same blind button spam and getting nowhere. You would have thought they’d learn after the first scenario against groups like ours, but no, they just kept running up to me (a sword and board Chosen) and tried their best to bomb my health to zero. And like poor little Jasper head butting a sealed cat flap, all they got out of it was a sore head.
I see this sort of thing regularly when out solo roaming, it’s always funny and it always fails, but this scenario really highlighted the comedy as I saw a whole load of names that I’ve never seen doing solo or small scale before. I can only presume that all they do is run with zergs and spam AoE. Of course there were other Bright Wizards that used their little grey cells and changed tactics. Also there were others that did have effective bomb groups, with excellent healing & guards, which mainly led to a stalemate as neither side could out-DPS the team healing spam. Those Wizards with a clue were all names I’ve learnt to respect beforehand anyway. However the vast majority were just free renown… over and over again.
I wonder if Order players had the same experience with Sorcerers? I’d expect so, since mindless play is not restricted by career, it’s down to the individual. It just becomes more obvious with popular careers, particularly if they have a huge flaming spell effect everywhere they go. New players flock to the easy to play and powerful classes, that’s why people call them FOTM (flavour of the month) after all, and as a Destruction player I get to fight a LOT of Bright Wizards.
I think on Destruction the most popular class is probably Chosen, for similar reasons to the Bright Wizard. They can just spam Ravage and be quite effective whilst facing poor players or when hidden amongst a zerg. However if that Ravage spammer has to face a decent player, well… perhaps it’s not just the aforementioned Bright Wizards that remind me of my moronic moggy.
We’ve had a problem lately with other cats coming through the cat-flap and into the house. This is not good. Other cats smell and it causes all sorts of feline related aggro, so having had enough of this foul situation, at the weekend I sealed up the cat-flap. No more visits from some neighbours festering moggy now. So, how does this relate to (some) Bright Wizards then? Well you see one of our cats “Jasper” is a complete moron. Somewhat reminiscent of Brick “I love lamp” Tamland from Anchorman, he’s nice enough, but there just isn’t much going on upstairs. Poor retarded Jasper is struggling with the concept of a sealed catflap and on Sunday he spent 5 hours trying to head-butt it open, only pausing once every 30 minutes or so to meow in furstration. I was near pissing myself on vent with the constant THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD! MEOWWWWW! THUD! THUD! THUD! rumbling out of the kitchen.
This ‘idiocy despite the obvious’ reminded me of the Ironclad scenario and the many bombing Bright Wizards I encountered. It seems a great many Bright Wizards just can’t get out of their bomb mentality. They’ve had it so easy for so long and their PBAoE spam is so ingrained that the concept of it not working is utterly beyond them. Problem is if you’re facing decent opponents in the Ironclad, unless your group is both set up and coordinating perfectly, bombing just won’t work. Over and over and over again at the weekend I butchered Bright Wizards. The same red names repeating the same blind button spam and getting nowhere. You would have thought they’d learn after the first scenario against groups like ours, but no, they just kept running up to me (a sword and board Chosen) and tried their best to bomb my health to zero. And like poor little Jasper head butting a sealed cat flap, all they got out of it was a sore head.
I see this sort of thing regularly when out solo roaming, it’s always funny and it always fails, but this scenario really highlighted the comedy as I saw a whole load of names that I’ve never seen doing solo or small scale before. I can only presume that all they do is run with zergs and spam AoE. Of course there were other Bright Wizards that used their little grey cells and changed tactics. Also there were others that did have effective bomb groups, with excellent healing & guards, which mainly led to a stalemate as neither side could out-DPS the team healing spam. Those Wizards with a clue were all names I’ve learnt to respect beforehand anyway. However the vast majority were just free renown… over and over again.
I wonder if Order players had the same experience with Sorcerers? I’d expect so, since mindless play is not restricted by career, it’s down to the individual. It just becomes more obvious with popular careers, particularly if they have a huge flaming spell effect everywhere they go. New players flock to the easy to play and powerful classes, that’s why people call them FOTM (flavour of the month) after all, and as a Destruction player I get to fight a LOT of Bright Wizards.
I think on Destruction the most popular class is probably Chosen, for similar reasons to the Bright Wizard. They can just spam Ravage and be quite effective whilst facing poor players or when hidden amongst a zerg. However if that Ravage spammer has to face a decent player, well… perhaps it’s not just the aforementioned Bright Wizards that remind me of my moronic moggy.
Tuesday, 2 March 2010
If you could change one Warhammer career…
…what would it be and how?
I would do a complete overhaul of the Magus. You see the problem with Magus in WAR is they’re nothing like the tabletop and background story version. In Warhammer the Magus (and in fact all Chaos Sorcerers) are heavily armoured; they wear Chaos armour, which is actually the same as Chosen. Also traditionally the Magus has very powerful nukes, but they are only short to medium range. And to top it off, the Magus is also not too shabby in melee combat.
So essentially you have a heavily armoured, short ranged nuking, power house. Which is exactly what I would have made the Magus in WAR. OK I wouldn’t make them as tough as a Chosen, but I would have made them significantly tougher than traditional casters. After all, they would need to be to stand a chance of performing their medium range nuking role. Then I’d try to make their spells actually reflect those from the lore, so it’s bye, bye DoTs and hello huge nukes and uber debuffs.
Just because MMOs normally give every faction a long range nuker, it doesn’t mean they must have one. Attacking Keep walls a problem? Well sorry this is Chaos, their whole theme is meant to be melee and short range. Plus that’s what their War-machines are for. If the ones in WAR were good enough I guess. Hellcannons are such a disappointment.
Oh, and no more summoning Nurglings, that’s just sodding silly.
I would do a complete overhaul of the Magus. You see the problem with Magus in WAR is they’re nothing like the tabletop and background story version. In Warhammer the Magus (and in fact all Chaos Sorcerers) are heavily armoured; they wear Chaos armour, which is actually the same as Chosen. Also traditionally the Magus has very powerful nukes, but they are only short to medium range. And to top it off, the Magus is also not too shabby in melee combat.
So essentially you have a heavily armoured, short ranged nuking, power house. Which is exactly what I would have made the Magus in WAR. OK I wouldn’t make them as tough as a Chosen, but I would have made them significantly tougher than traditional casters. After all, they would need to be to stand a chance of performing their medium range nuking role. Then I’d try to make their spells actually reflect those from the lore, so it’s bye, bye DoTs and hello huge nukes and uber debuffs.
Just because MMOs normally give every faction a long range nuker, it doesn’t mean they must have one. Attacking Keep walls a problem? Well sorry this is Chaos, their whole theme is meant to be melee and short range. Plus that’s what their War-machines are for. If the ones in WAR were good enough I guess. Hellcannons are such a disappointment.
Oh, and no more summoning Nurglings, that’s just sodding silly.
Monday, 1 March 2010
The first Weekend WARfront done
It’s been a busy couple of days for WAR, patch 1.3.4 went live and last weekend was the first of the all-new Weekend Warfront events. As such its time to have a little ramble about how it all went.
First off, it’s too early to tell what implications 1.3.4 will have on server activity, because as expected the entire server went ape-shit for scenarios. Any patch with new features will provide a potent dose of shiny new toy syndrome and on this front 1.3.4 most certainly delivered. This weekend has been scenario popping, Ironclad-tastic. Which leads me to the first topic for discussion, the Ironclad scenario.
I like it. The small zone, tight corridors, 3 objectives and 6v6 player limit put great emphasis on group organisation. I had some excellent and very tight battles against other pre-made groups, some truly epic battles there, but I also took part in (and fought against) some really good PUGs (pick up group). That said, when facing very random PUG set ups, unfortunately for them it was always a quite brutal massacre. The Ironclad does need some tweaking though, in particular:
The spawn guards are not tethered properly and on numerous occasions after someone accidentally pulled them, they then rampaged through the ENTIRE ship…
Order healers can use group heals from their spawn and still in be range of most of the ship. Yes Destruction players can do the same from the rooftop objective, but they don’t have NPC spawn guards defending them with 30k instant kills.
Other than those 2 issues, I didn’t have any problems in the scenario and thoroughly enjoyed it. I’ve got a feeling these weekend events could be a really nice spark of life for the game. An event every weekend is nothing to complain about and even if it’s an event you don’t like, it’s only a weekend and surely its better than nothing?
Then we have the patch itself… hmm what to say... It seems ok.
I like the new scenario list and I like the new weapon rewards, though the amount of emblems needed looks rather high. I gather the 30minute rebuilding phase at the end of city sieges has been removed too, that’s good news. Not noticed any game performance changes as of yet, but then WAR runs fine for me anyway.
On the negative side, for some reason Mythic has changed the melee combat sound effects, this is proving to be deeply unpopular as to quote a friend “it sounds like you’re fighting using cutlery”. I dunno myself, as it’s not really bothering me, but then I quite like the idea of using a spoon to bludgeon Elves to death. Would a 2 handed spoon be a ladel?
The helm/cloak turning off thing is annoying. Oh and I discovered even after almost 2 years, Mythic are still able to introduce new bugs to Lost Vale. We had a targetable, but un-attackable, “invis something spell effect” slowly wipe out our whole group yesterday. It looked like a round shadow on the ground and no matter what we did it wouldn’t stop. Admittedly it was funny watching a goblin running in terror from an angry shadow. There were many LOLs at his slow death, until it went after the rest of us... Then the Spider boss went all weird and started doing CRAZY damage (without any of the little spider buffs) on our tank, which meant we had to give up. Considering this tank can main tank full 8 boss kills Vulture Lord runs, that was a little odd. But it wouldn’t be a WAR patch without something breaking in Lost Vale eh? :P
Anyways, all told I’m feeling positive about this patch. It’s just a case of Mythic hotfixing the mild irritants quickly (they're normally pretty good here) and then seeing how the server develops with the city and scenario changes. Fingers and other bits crossed.
First off, it’s too early to tell what implications 1.3.4 will have on server activity, because as expected the entire server went ape-shit for scenarios. Any patch with new features will provide a potent dose of shiny new toy syndrome and on this front 1.3.4 most certainly delivered. This weekend has been scenario popping, Ironclad-tastic. Which leads me to the first topic for discussion, the Ironclad scenario.
I like it. The small zone, tight corridors, 3 objectives and 6v6 player limit put great emphasis on group organisation. I had some excellent and very tight battles against other pre-made groups, some truly epic battles there, but I also took part in (and fought against) some really good PUGs (pick up group). That said, when facing very random PUG set ups, unfortunately for them it was always a quite brutal massacre. The Ironclad does need some tweaking though, in particular:
Other than those 2 issues, I didn’t have any problems in the scenario and thoroughly enjoyed it. I’ve got a feeling these weekend events could be a really nice spark of life for the game. An event every weekend is nothing to complain about and even if it’s an event you don’t like, it’s only a weekend and surely its better than nothing?
Then we have the patch itself… hmm what to say... It seems ok.
I like the new scenario list and I like the new weapon rewards, though the amount of emblems needed looks rather high. I gather the 30minute rebuilding phase at the end of city sieges has been removed too, that’s good news. Not noticed any game performance changes as of yet, but then WAR runs fine for me anyway.
On the negative side, for some reason Mythic has changed the melee combat sound effects, this is proving to be deeply unpopular as to quote a friend “it sounds like you’re fighting using cutlery”. I dunno myself, as it’s not really bothering me, but then I quite like the idea of using a spoon to bludgeon Elves to death. Would a 2 handed spoon be a ladel?
The helm/cloak turning off thing is annoying. Oh and I discovered even after almost 2 years, Mythic are still able to introduce new bugs to Lost Vale. We had a targetable, but un-attackable, “invis something spell effect” slowly wipe out our whole group yesterday. It looked like a round shadow on the ground and no matter what we did it wouldn’t stop. Admittedly it was funny watching a goblin running in terror from an angry shadow. There were many LOLs at his slow death, until it went after the rest of us... Then the Spider boss went all weird and started doing CRAZY damage (without any of the little spider buffs) on our tank, which meant we had to give up. Considering this tank can main tank full 8 boss kills Vulture Lord runs, that was a little odd. But it wouldn’t be a WAR patch without something breaking in Lost Vale eh? :P
Anyways, all told I’m feeling positive about this patch. It’s just a case of Mythic hotfixing the mild irritants quickly (they're normally pretty good here) and then seeing how the server develops with the city and scenario changes. Fingers and other bits crossed.
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About Me
- Bootae
- Half man half pixel. Music obsessive, likes a drink, occasional bastard.