Producer's letter reviewy thing

The latest Producer’s letter didn’t really tell us much that wasn’t common knowledge, however this is completely to be expected. In 3 weeks time we are going to get some big news, make that BIG news, so there wasn’t ever going to be much that Carrie could say in this letter beforehand. As such, fair enough, says I.

There were a couple of little things that were news. The Wild Hunt will be back on sometime soon as a full on live event, not just a weekend warfront. I thought that was a good event before, so while not OMFGBBQ news, it’s still good to hear. Also it turns out that for the 2 free weeks our new EU servers had three times the normal number of players… Yup, it was more than a little noticeable! I know a fair few that have resubbed too, so that’s all good. The ball is with Mythic now to try and retain these resubbed players.

I’ve not much else to say about the letter, to be honest we’re all just waiting for the mid August news to start appearing. Oh there was one thing from the developer Q&A I wanted to mention. I asked how many 1.3.X patches there are before 1.4, the answer to which was 1.3.6 is the last one before 1.4 arrives. Though Carrie said using that knowledge to calculate the release date of 1.4 wouldn’t work as things in 1.4 need to mature and it could be a little longer. Though a little birdie told me a while back that 1.4 is scheduled for October, which now sounds about right.

Oh and on the PTS right now they've removed friendly collision detection, word is its working out really well and improved performance. Note collision detection still applies against enemy players.

If you’re interested in hearing more about the Q&A session: Gaarawar has a transcript and Bruglir has a recording.

For now my friends, put aside this Producer letter not having much in it, I don’t think Mythic had much of a choice. In a few weeks we will all know why.

WAR Producer's letter is out

You can find it here.

Reading... will do the usual prod letter comment post later.

What is Destruction's most fun career for a new player?

I wasn’t sure what to post about today, I left my list of potential topics at work and unfortunately I’m sat at home with my face on fire… don’t ask. Thankfully I’ve been saved by an email request from a chap by the name of Ulli, so Ulli thanks for the mail and this one’s for you sweetie.

Ulli is thinking about starting WAR and asked if I, as a self confessed alt whore, would post about what I think is the most fun Destruction career to play. That’s actually one hell of a tricky question to answer and is immensely influenced by personal taste, but none the less I shall attempt to answer.

First off I can’t claim to be an expert on every career and as the word fun was included, I think to make a judgement I have to have played them plenty at 40. So I will only consider the ones I personally have at level 40. Those being:

Choppa
Chosen
Magus
Shaman
Squig Herder
Witch Elf
Zealot

Which means I’m not thinking about:
Black Orc
Disciple of Khaine
Marauder
Sorcerer

Though it is worth mentioning, the Disciple of Khaine and Sorcerer are without any doubt the two most powerful careers on Destruction. So if fun for you means being a nigh unkillable healing machine of death or having nukes that make the Sun look a bit wet, those two might be your thing. How fun they are to play I can’t really say.

So what makes a class (or career as we call them in WAR) fun?

For me I think it’s these 4 things:

• Looking cool.
• Based around an interesting, but not overly restrictive mechanic or system.
• Having clear purpose and roles.
• Being effective at the role/s it plays.
• Comfortable in both groups and when solo.

And this is where I hit a bit of a problem… I started scoring them to see what would win, but all of the careers that I play score highly in each area. Each has a very different playstyles and I enjoy playing ALL of them, but I don’t know which I like best. However there is one I think that is worth ruling out for a new player; The Magus. It’s almost great, but it trips over in a big way as it lacks direction, burst damage and utility compared with the Sorcerer. Unless you take the rift bot bomb route (rift is a spell that pulls enemy plays towards you, the bomb is you and your groups AOE attacks), which is a restrictive gamestyle, it’s a bit like Mythic don’t quite know what the Magus is there for. Not that it’s as bad as many make out, but really I think the other options are just plain better and certainly more forgiving for a new player.

Anyway, with the other careers different play styles and abilities balancing themselves out in the fun stakes, I think the best thing for any new player is to take advantage of the free trial. Make one of everything, level it up to 11 and get a feel for each career, it won’t give you the level 40 lowdown, but at least you’ll get a flavour for it.

Bah I can’t bottle it like this. I need to choose…ok ok…

It’s the Choppa.

They look awesome, like totally brutal... Their rage system is simple, effective and well balanced, and they also have lots of abilities that are worth using, if played correctly this is no single ability spamming career. Choppa also have a very wide range of viable ways to spec their mastery points (talent lines, specs, whatever you want to call them), with each of the 3 mastery lines working perfectly well. You can AoE bomb with them, be a single target damage dealing monster, buff friends and debuff enemies. If you spec for it you can even self heal! They have a bit of everything, but with the ability through mastery points to be more than a jack of all trades. Also as a later addition to the game, it seems to me that Mythic had learnt a few lessons about itemisation when the Choppa was introduced, so gear wise you have a lot of options. There is nothing about the Choppa that I don’t like.

So there you have it. If like Ulli you’re considering starting WAR, but are unsure what to play and want something that will be good old fashioned fun, I would recommend the Choppa.

What to do with 2 weeks of double influence, renown and XP?

That was the question inadvertently put to every player on the EU servers recently, myself included. At the beginning of the 2 weeks I was all set on doing the sensible thing; getting my Chosen main (who was at RR68) as close to 80 as possible. Within just a few days I was up to RR72 and the renown was still flying up, but then with a resounding thud, I fell off the pixel painted wagon.

My name is Bootae and I’m addicted to alts.

That’s the reason why my Chosen was only renown rank 68 after 2 years of playing WAR. I’m just so easily distracted. It’s learning how other careers work, revelling in their different appearances, styles and themes. It’s being able to really understand other player’s career concerns and issues, finding out if the allegedly gimped is really gimped or just grass is greener syndrome. Plus it’s always a nice challenge seeing if I can be competitive with low renown alt versus all the 80s.

So over the last 2 weeks I got my Squig Herder to 40 and discovered what a fun class it is to play at 40, even in annihilator/devestator armour. One of WAR’s most atmospheric and entertaining careers to play for sure, I highly recommend. Having got the Squiggy to 40 and with my Black Orc building up rest XP, I figured I might as well finish my Witch Elf off. I levelled her to 33 a looooooong time ago, then for a reason I don’t remember I stopped playing her. She was then pretty much forgotten as I was distracted by the (at that point) newly released Choppa. With these 2 weeks of boosted XP I figured “what the hell” and levelled my Witch Elf from 33 to 40.

It was then that the unexpected happened. I discovered that I bloody love playing my Witch Elf. It’s awesome fun, not because of it being over powered, it’s actually pretty well balanced (versus other careers, though debatably underpowered versus its own mirror). The Witch Elf is fun because it is squishier than the squishiest squishy squish, hittier than the hittiest stick of hittydom and all wrapped up in a bundle of sneaky pie. The career really suits my play style too, since I do quite a lot of solo roaming. Not only is solo roaming fun and challenging generally, but it’s also a great way to learn a career. If you want to be able to consistently win 1v1s and stand a chance in 1v2+, the only way is to get out there and fight on your own, lots. Having said all that, on a bad day solo roaming can be very frustrating. You just have to learn to roll with the punches.

My little WE with one of KF's well known roamers Biggsie (For Norn people; yeah he's been grabbed by the green).

Anyway, I ended up playing my Witch Elf a lot, getting to the mid 40s in renown rank so far and my plans to hammer up Bootae’s renown rank some more failed. Not that I care to be honest, as I’ve been a bit worried about running out of carrots for my Chosen. I’ve only got one bit of Tyrant and two bits of sovereign left to get, at which point there’s little left to achieve. Other than grinding scenario weapons, but other than with the ladies, I’m not good at grinding. Easily distracted… So all in all the 2 weeks of boosted XP, etc worked out well for me. I now have a slightly bonkers 7 level 40 characters and a new Witch Elf obsession.

Of course I now have a new problem… I’m curious about levelling a Black Guard, but I’d have to delete either my DoK or Marauder. Doh.

New WHFB rule book confirms Order vs Destruction groupings

This month saw the release of the new Warhammer Fantasy Battle rulebook, only its 8th edition in 25 years of Warhammer, so a big deal for gamers. If WAR was your introduction to the Warhammer world and you’re tempted to learn a bit more about the background and lore of Warhammer, the latest book is well worth purchasing.

Whilst perusing the book one thing I spotted of interest for WAR games is a proper confirmation by Gamesworkshop of which races are aligned to Order and Destuction. With Mythic being locked pretty tightly into following the official lore and needing agreement for changes from Gamesworkshop, this new section in the rulebook (which Mythic will be well aware of) sets the boundaries for new races that may one day make an appearance in WAR. Whilst each of these races can fight each other, I suspect this official grouping into Order and Destruction pretty much rules out a third faction in any form.

This is the official breakdown as detailed in the new WHFB book:

Order
High Elves
Dwarfs
Empire
Wood Elves
Bretonnia
Lizardmen

Destruction
Warriors of Chaos
Orcs & Goblins
Dark Elves
Beastmen
Skaven
Vampire Counts
Daemons of Chaos

Non-aligned forces
Ogre Kingdoms
Tomb Kings

What else is interesting with these groupings is that there are 6 Order and 6 Destruction races that could feasibly be made playable (Daemons of Chaos are quite simply not an option for many reasons). As such this could, in theory at least, mean Mythic have the option of 3 expansions that add a new playable race to each side from the yellow highlighted races above. Lots of possibilities there, should Mythic be in a position to take advantage of them.

And perhaps Ogre Kingdoms for a future Land of the Dead style zone? I hadn’t considered that as an option myself before, but there’s no reason why not.

Anyways, whatever may or may not happen in the future, this official grouping solves a few forum debates about alignments.

How many Mythic devs does it take to make an expansion?

As people talk about WAR’s future, or lack thereof according to some posters, you often read comments about how Mythic couldn’t afford to make an expansion, that the company is too small now. I don’t know about this, it seems to be packed with assumptions and I’ve never seen any real evidence to confirm either way. So the thing I’m wondering about this is this…

Back in the old DAoC days Mythic brought out a lot of expansions, all of these were of considerable size and impact, but one of the earlier ones in particular stands out: New Frontiers. Mythic completely changed the ENTIRE ORvR landscape, the zones had the same names, but the graphics, layouts, structure and how they worked were utterly transformed. Which leads me to the following question:

Was Mythic a smaller company with fewer resources than today when they made the huge "New Frontiers" expansion for DAoC?

I suspect they were smaller then, but I don’t know for sure. Certainly this was before WoW launched and MMOs truly exploded and if Wikipedia is to be believed (don’t laugh :P) subscription numbers were around 250,000. Mythic now have UO, DAoC and WAR, but subscription numbers are not available. Not that sub numbers alone would indicate if a company has more or less money to throw around. Of course in the past they also didn’t have EA’s backing, nor Bioware’s involvement, which I presume puts them in a better place today. Of course those comments are just based on my own more positive assumptions...

So I wonder, have the naysayers assumed too much or is Mythic really in a worse place than in its regular expansion making past? Could Mythic surprise a lot of people and deliver what many consider impossible? I've heard a lot of interesting stuff recently, stuff I can't confirm and as such don't want to post, but if rumours and "stuff" are to be believed, Mythic have got something up their sleeve and it smells of warpstone…

Unless its all bollocks and we're doooooomed! DOOOOOOOOOOMED! Need more rats for the doom wheel!

1.3.6 patch chatty posty post

Right then, as I posted yesterday the 1.3.6 notes are out and I’m guessing most everyone has had a good look. As ever this means its time for me to have a little rambling chat about the potential impact of the patch.
 
Lets get the character stuff out of the way first… 1.3.6 has a fair bit of character balancing, so in that respect it’s going to be controversial patch for those with characters that get hit in a negative fashion, though I have to say that in general it looks pretty solid to me.  I’m not going to go into every career’s changes, just a few I feel like commenting on.
 
The biggest changes are to Zealots and Runepriests, changes that I think maybe fairly positive. Prior to the patch I had a steadily increasing sense of doubt about them, I was worried about being toggled for damage gimping the self-presevation abilities of DPS Zealots, but I’m intrigued by the potential of the new transference tactic. With every single damaging spell healing you (or your defensive target) for 50% of the damage done, this might work out ok. However, whilst I have a level 40 Zealot, I’m not that experienced with him for DPS, so I can’t say with total certainty. It will be interesting to see how this works out.
 
The change to close quarters will do nothing to prevent the dominance of mass stacking PBAoE. A 25% damage reduction is of no relevance when you regularly face such large numbers of Bright Wizards or Sorcerers, it will still be instant death stacked AoE. As such while I think it’s a step in the right direction, unfortunately on it’s own it’s a pointless change and will achieve nothing. PBAoE should not hit harder than most people’s primary single target attacks, end of story. Though I do think examining the potency of both team heals and the guard abilities should be included in any real solution to AOEhammer.
 
Magus changes are interesting and pretty good, but I’m not sure they are enough. The class needs more damage or something to give them more influence on the battlefield, without becoming rift-bots. And what on earth is the point of buffing Strengthen Thrall??? Unless the Daemonic Fire debuff is truly monumental, Magus pets will still be used primarily as land mines. In particular I’m disappointed to see the Havoc tree not getting buffed, but at least Mythic are making some headway into sorting out the Magus.
 
Stealth fixed? At present more often than not stealth is utterly useless, so making it harder to spot stealthers is good, but have they also addressed stealth breaking for a vast range of stupid reasons like being buffed, having guard put on, etc, etc. It’s not mentioned in the patch notes, but I’m hoping for a stealth fix to uhm stealth… Other than this there’s nothing for Witch Elves or Witch Hunters… Which is odd when I’m told that Witch Elves have a tactic that only works if you are SOUTH of your target, I’ve forgotten the name and can’t log in to check right now, I think its called baneful touch or something?. Whatever, that’s just LOL. Fix it please ;)
 
 
Shadow Warriors… I’m really pleased they’ve been buffed. Of everything in the game I think they needed it most. The changes look great. I’m not complaining about the knock on effect to Squig Herders either!
 
Marauder. Ok seriously? The brutality tree is still ignored and completely useless. I do not understand why this is not being addressed.
 
Moving on from characters…
 
The new armour appearance system rocks. I tried it on the PTS and it’s spot on, I’m very pleased with this. Though I’m told that the graphic updates for armour that we were meant to also be getting have not been included. Which would mean for my Chosen that actually I don’t have much to choose from, since many of our armour sets use the same graphics… Still, a fairly minor gripe, it’s a great system and exactly what I had hoped for.
 
Sovereign armour changes. Good move, nuff said.
 
ORvR changes. Against all Odds, no more mailbox guarding and no more prior tier or PvE contribution to the campaign. Love it, great stuff and a big step in the right direction. I’m not going in to great detail about these now, but these changes are potentially the biggest changes in the entire patch and these alone make 1.3.6 a good patch for WAR.
 
I fully support the changes for Land of the Dead access. While summoning being turned off will make it a bit more awkward when sorting out Vulture Lord groups, on the other hand not having to piss about with the Public Quest will save time. And regardless, the overall benefit for Tier 2 and 3 when combined with the new increased XP/renown from the Skaven stuff in the RvR lakes, more than makes up for a little inconvenience for my occasional dungeon runs. If it results in busier T2-3 then it is good for the game in general.
 
There are loads of other things in the patch, but I’ll be writing all day if I cover them all. There’s one interesting little thing though… “The /assist command is no longer accessible by 3rd party add-ons.” Wow, a big nerf for people relying on auto focus and other such mods. Great move! People will use macros instead of course, but at least it removes some of the brainless gameplay.