Vamping it up

As I mentioned recently, I already know what I want for a Live Expansion... I want Sylvania and Drakenhof Castle.

Sylvania is the home of the Vampire Counts, specifically the Von Carsteins, warhammer's classic Dracula style vampires. Being Warhammer they are a bit more aggresive than Bram Stoker's vampire, with world domination and an eternity of night well and truely on the agenda. The land they call home is the classic European vampire setting, dark, decaying, gothic and oh so very atmospheric.

I would want 3 zones. The main countryside outdoors, the crypts and dungeons as a huge underground zone and then  Drakenhof Castle itself as the third area. All of which would be fully RvR enabled and NOT instanced. There would be boss PQs like the Colossus requiring players to work together to activate them, also lairs and other epic feeling events, but all of which would have the risk of enemy players attacking. There would also be lots of RvR themed PQs that would affect movement within the zone itself and add a further tactical element. Bridges to destroy, caves to collapse, that sort of thing.

I would suggest lots of things that could be done communally, not just with 1 group. Perhaps to activate major boss events and special RvR activities. Then the big crunch would be in Drakenhof itself, some kind of hard to reach and hard to win event that would have a positive impact on the faction that manages it. Something that would be worth the effort, but at the same time is not over powered.

The basic concept is full RvR, non-instanced zones that don't lock, are not gated and have loads of fun things to do. A place where all PvE has a risk of PvP attacks, but has rewards that merit the risk for all involved, both those trying the PvE and those attacking them. Everything organised and spread out in such a way that it promotes small group play and limits the effect of zergs.

Not exactly a new concept, but one that will do me I reckon :)

Update: I forgot to pimp Oneshard's WAR video. It does a good job of showing how much better the game runs now and if you've not played WAR before, it certainly gives you an idea of how you can PvP all the way to 40 :)

Podcastastic

A week or so ago those nice folks over at WHA invited me to take part in their podcast. Despite copious amounts of Dutch courage and me being a dirty saaaarthen English git, somehow I managed to avoid swearing. I think anyway... Can't check it right now as I have pig pox and am writing this on my phone whilst the bloody coughing fits keep me awake. Anyways here's a link:
http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=317887

Complacency beats KF to death with their own shoes

My guild "Kill Frenzy" has always been pretty good in scenarios. In the past when we did regular premades it would normally result in a night of wins, with at absolute worst only a handfull  of competitively fought losses. Order publically respected our groups and I can say without ego bias that we had earnt it. 

Over the last few months we haven't been running premade scenario groups, other than a few random occasions. People got distracted by other games, or alt characters and we pretty much dropped out of the scenario scene.

This week we returned!

And we got our arses kicked really, really badly. You see, we came back thinking we're good, just cobbled some groups together and went out there all confident. On two seperate nights we had 1 healer and 3 lowbies per group, plus there was no synergy in our set ups. Yet we were surprised when we lost in horrific fashion. In other words we got cocky and extremely complacent. Unintentionally we were probably disrepecting our Order enemies and we paid the shameful price. I was bloody livid, at myself mainly for letting us get so damn slack. One doesn't simply walk into Mordor...

I guess sometimes it's easy to forget the red names are other people, people who may be just as good as (or better than) you think you are. Having had this wake up call we've decided from now on with our pre-arranged guild RvR nights we'll only do scenarios with serious groups. Though other times we'll mess about more, but no more 2 random KF groups in one scenario.

There is no place in PvP for complacency, as my sore buttocks can testify to.     

Thorn wishes Aegis, the colours of space

The idea of a true Warhammer 40,000 MMO is one of those dream games. Travelling the galaxy as Rogue Trader exploring, fighting, trading, just trying to survive… Or perhaps as servants of the Inquisition, scouring the galaxy of heretics, xenos and worse. Or scrubbing about as a Hive Ganger, trying to score big and get out of the damned lower hive. Whatever the details, we’d be paving our own way in the brutal, uncompromising and vast 40k universe. How glorious it would be!

Shame it’s never going to bloody happen. Too many people would want to be sodding space marines or tree hugging pointy-eared space gits. Before you know it, the game would get all superhuman and any real chance of character development is stifled. When the 40k MMO currently in development arrives it’ll be something shooty, where we get to play the uber warriors of different races and don’t have to think too much. Probably something, more like Planetside, which in many ways is no bad thing, but it’s a shame we’ll never get to experience the real 40k “universe”. Within the lore itself Spacemarines, Eldar Aspect Warriors, Necrons and so on are meant to be very rare; the vast majority of imperial citizens would never see them. Obviously they’re all very appealing, full of character, awesome imagery and pew pew lasers, but they lack freedom.

A spacemarine is a spacemarine, is a spacemarine. He has a bolt gun and a knife. Some of them have other guns, but not many of them and at the end of the day it’s all very prescriptive. He doesn’t go where he likes, he has no social life or freedom, he follows orders and that’s it. Aspect Warriors? Just like spacemarines really. They train and they fight as ordered by their Farseers, nothing else. Necrons? They… uhm… stand still for millennia, wake up, shoot things, stand still for millennia, wake up, shoot things…. These characters are fine for a shooty game, but they are no good for an mmoRPG. Players of WAR with it's Warhammer Fantasy setting will know that it also has a selection of dedicated warrior types, but their lifestyles are not as restricted as those in 40k. To allow the RPG element of our characters to flourish we need to have lifestyle choices and WAR gives the RPer in us (no matter how small) at least a chance of player freedom, it wouldn't be so easy with 40k.  Not without butchering the lore and then it stops being Warhammer.

However would enough people be interested in a 40k game where we played character types with more control over their destiny? Bounty hunters, Inquisitors, savants, Arbrites, ex-Imperial Guard veterans, Rogue Traders, hive scum, etc, etc. Would people want to play a 40k MMORPG themed around those type of characters? Or would they just complain about the lack of spacemarines? Sure, I would love to run around blowing up alien scum with a bolt gun, but I’d also like something immersive, something with that sandbox MMO depth and feeling.

I’ve often pondered on a Necromunda themed MMORPG. The hive gangs and noble houses in the upper spires could make perfect player clans, there’s a monstrous range of character class options and the hive city has incredible potential for PvE and PvP. It really could make a unique and compelling sand box game. However the one I’d really love to play would be themed around the Inquisition. A galaxy spanning with different playable factions, something like the Inquisition and various chaos xenos cults. Fighting a secret war across the Imperium, heh I guess it would be the ultimate cops and robbers MMO. But it’s just that lack of damn spacemarines… both ideas are probably too niche for a developer to even consider taking a punt on.

I'm sure I'll like the 40k MMO when it arrives. It's Warhammer and I'm a sucker for that gothic goodness, but I think I'll always have that nagging feeling, it could be so much more. This is the curse of Warhammer, be it 40k or Fantasy.

1.3.3 patch notes are coming soon

I'm not really sure what to expect from it.

It's gonna have the graphic improvements, but other than that...

Will the underdog system be in place?

Big career changes?

Anything global omfg it changes everything?

Keeping the faith

Assuming all is actually well with WAR and it has a positive future, I really do think Mythic need to announce something big and exciting if we are to keep the faith.

I've been pondering what I would consider as big and exciting enough...

Third Faction
This is the obvious one, but its also by far the biggest, most difficult and probably least likely. That doesn't stop it being the best thing that could happen to WAR.

Fortress Relic Raids
This could be great, but perhaps it would need a bit of extra spice to satisfy everyone. If the forts go back exactly as they were just with the relic to steal, then it could be seen as a bit of a lazy addition. Whilst it will be a welcome distraction from the campaign mess we have now, I'm not sure how the community would react to this one. Is it enough?

Live Expansion
A second Land of the Dead sized expansion would certainly be a sign of continued growth. There are so many things that could be done, from Sylvania to the Ogre Kingdoms, the Warhammer world is rich in untapped content. But what manner of live expansion would people want? RvR based, PvE or a hybrid? I know what I want, but that's another topic to post about :)

Expansion with new races for the existing factions
Skaven and Lizardmen... New zones to fight in and new careers to play. As much as I would prefer new races in a third faction, I would still be happy with this. And there would be no arguing with it as a statement of Mythic's ongoing commitment to WAR.

It's all good and well Mythic denying the claims of maintenance mode, but for everyone to believe it they need to give us a bit more to go on. The world is an increasingly faithless place (in all respects)...

Mythic! We need a sign.

Open RvR Closed

The Eltharion server is about to go bye bye.

GOA will shortly start transfers away from the last open RvR server in Europe. Eltharion's player base has only Karak Norn and Karak Azgal left to choose from. It’s always a shame to see a server die and WAR has certainly had more than its fair share of server deaths, but this closure brings us to a very unimpressive 2 English speaking European servers. This news raises lots of questions and isn’t exactly the positive news we wanted to hear after all the Mythic lay offs.

Will this be the last transfer?
Is this a consolidation of a stable population?
Or is it only a matter of time before we have 1 European server?
Will the future see us being transferred to US servers?

I don’t know the answers, but let’s just say it’s hard to put a positive spin on this. Mythic really need to announce something big to promote confidence in the game’s long-term prospects. An expansion announcement is about the only thing that would do to be honest. Unless the fortress replacement is bloody amazing, but their last comments about forts gave the shocking impression that they’re undecided on what to do with them…

As for the here and now… I don’t know about Azgal, since my Order alts are on Eltharion, but Norn is still very busy and it will be interesting to see what effect the transferred players will have. I just hope we get more new Destruction than Order. Norn still has both cities being sieged, but Order most definitely has an edge and from recent events it would appear an advantage in active and motivated numbers. It would be tragic if our server had its balance ruined by a mass of Eltharion Order arriving. That would no doubt accelerate us towards a single European server.

Right back when WAR launched we came very close to starting our guild on a oRvR server, but people who were in beta for longer than I were saying the chicken mechanic made oRVR a joke, so we decided not to risk it. A shame really, because over time it seems it was nothing more than scare-mongering. There’s little difference between core and oRvR to be honest (other than levelling), it still has masses of wasted terrain outside of the central RVR lakes due to the lack of objectives or incentive to go there. Anyway it’s a shame it’s going, I had some fun messing around in the lower tiers with my Order alts.

All in all, another bleak few days for WAR.

[ update ] Something I'm wondering after a discussion this evening...
How many active European servers are there in total?

I'm looking at the server list now and I can see:
4 English language
4 German
1 Spanish
3 French
1 Italian

The list is odd, since it includes Karak Eight Peaks which is a dead server having had transfers off it and tbh I thought was already closed, it's certainly marked for death. Obviously it's still got Eltharion on it for now... but in reality it will very shortly be 2 servers only. So how many of those other language servers are actually active? Anyone know?