Angry lass on a floaty disk

I'm finding Tier 4 to be horrifically zergy lately. With 1.3 just around the corner and me not being a huge fan of zerg warfare, it's hit my motivation to play Tier 4 oRvR a bit. I'm sure it will spark my interest again soon, I'm already getting a few withdrawl symptoms, but in the meantime I'm experimenting with my Magus "Devotchka".

Officially the least popular class in the game and undoubtedly inferior to it's mirror (Engineer), but it's still the ranged DPS class I'm interested in. I got a taste for DoT based ranged DPS classes with my affliction warlock in World of Warcraft. Not totally sure why I find them more appealing than direct damage nukers, maybe it's the tortuous manner of death these classes provide their enemies. Nothing quite like DoTing the crap out of some poor sod and watching them run to their death. Embracing my inner sadist? Hmm maybe.

I hit level 28 tonight and so far still enjoying it. Right now I don't think the Magus is as bad as people make out, it's got issues that's for sure and it takes work to make the most of, but I'm doing fine in Tier 3 RvR. However, we all know that class balance can change dramatically as you move through the tiers. Perhaps Tier 4 will send me spiralling into Magus manic depression.

I'm also considering playing my Chosen more again. There are still things I'm not liking about the class right now (hopefully 1.3 will address those), but I'm finding it too wierd with people starting to call me Gash instead of Boots (my Choppa is Gashface). Been known as Bootae for 12 years of MMO gaming now and I think I'm too senile to cope with a new name :D

100 bloody posts!

This is my 100th post... Woah...

I'm a bit spun out by having hit this milestone. I only started this blog on a whim and it kinda snowballed once I realised that (for some mad reason) people were actually reading it.

I can't claim to have got anywhere near the big boys in blogging's numbers (whatever they might get), nor was it my aim to, this has always been just something to do for my own amusement, but I've been pleasantly surprised with the numbers I've had. Over the 100 posts I've had over 12,000 hits and am currently sitting with about 140 feeds on the back burner. They may well actually be low numbers, I don't know tbh, but I can tell you it's far more than I ever expected.

A big thank you to all the members and organisers of the WCPI, as well as to all the bloggers that have me on their blog roll. Also I have to give a shout out to the legendary Durtbocks who after listening to my crap descriptions over the phone, has whipped up all the best images I've used, including my banners and my all time favourite the super sexy BBW Orc...

Well if WoW can have World of Whorecraft...

You dirty rat!

Whilst chatting on guild vent the other night I asked the question “What do you think will be added first, the missing cities or Skaven as a playable race?”

The general consensus was new playable races first. Not what I expected, but perhaps they have a point. Their reasoning for this was roughly as follows… Essentially the campaign works as it is. There’s lots of fighting and Land of the Dead is only going to add to that. Sure oRvR has a load of issues and bringing the cities back could address some of those, but would it entice lots of new players to the game? Perhaps it would, but certainly not as much as the introduction of new playable races.

So I had to ask myself, what would I rather have, the missing cities or whole new zones and sneaky bastard Skaven to log in with?

It’s a no-brainer, Skaven win hands down.

If you don’t know your Warhammer lore, then you maybe wondering what’s so special about them or even asking WTF are Skaven anyway?

Skaven are a race of chaos-warped rats that live hidden from the rest of civilisation, planning the downfall of everything and everyone. They have the appearance of a classic anthropomorphic fantasy creature; imagine a pre-menstrual rage filled Beatrix Potter drawing Ratty and you’re on the right track.



They are conniving, evil, untrustworthy, self-centred and utterly malicious. They have no redeeming features of any form. And there are millions of them. They’re under your character’s pixelated feet right now, scrubbing about, preparing your doom. Seriously folks, it’s not ceiling cat watching your vinegar stokes that you should worry about…

If it weren’t for their constant backstabbing and self-destructive nature, they would have killed or enslaved the entire world long ago. Thankfully it’s unlikely they will ever act in a truly united manner, but if they did then everyone is buggered. By rats… Not a nice thought that.

Not only are they full of horrid character, but they have a wealth of options for playable classes. There’s no need to create any dubious lore stretching class like the Disciple of Khaine. It’s all there just waiting to be used. How soon we’ll actually see playable Skaven I have no idea, but I’m 100% sure at some point we will. For now just watch your backs…

The great aura scandal of 2009

If you've ever attended a busy Fortress or in fact any of WAR's other lag magnets, you may have encountered the DoT Aura of Doom. Just in case you've never encountered it, basically this is what happens.

Chosen and Knights of the Blazing Sun auras take 12 seconds to deactivate, so when you click a new aura the old one lingers for 12 seconds before turning off. It's something that is part of the class, players "twist" their auras by clicking a new one before the previous one deactivates and by doing so will often run 3 auras at once. This requires a lot of monotonous clicking or the use of the Twister add on which helps make it easier.

That's fine and just the way the class works, nothing wrong there. However when you twist your auras in a laggy environment, the game freaks out and auras do not shut down properly. End result of which is massive amounts of stacked auras. We're talking double figures... Normally this doesn't really cause any problem to anyone except the Chosen/KotBS themselves, because stat buffs don't actually stack, it's just a visual thing on your UI. Damage Over Time auras are a totally different kettle of fish. In these laggy situations they DO stack, causing huge amounts of damage to any poor soul within 30 foot... This is generally considered as an exploit.

I'm not going to argue with that, though it's not as clean cut as some may think and there is a lot of misinformation going around. I'll quickly clarify a couple of things:

- The Twister add on does NOT cause this. Actually it's a case of twisting auras in any manner whilst lagged can cause it. It's a flaw of the chosen/kotbs mechanic when the game is lagged.
- It is impossible to twist auras and choose NOT to lag stack them. If you play your class as intended and twist auras, then there is a risk of this happening.
- Once it's started its hard to stop, logging out is more than likely not going to work, so you're left with ctrl+alt+delete to shut down WAR.
- People can just choose not to use a DoT aura in forts at all... That doesn't fix the bug though, just avoids it.
- BOTH factions are "abusing" this exploit. People can deny it all they like, but if there's an option to cheat, then some people will.

Get your asbestos lined suit and factor 9000 suncream, then have a look at this thread in my server's forum on WHA: http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=289186

I'm sitting quite comfortably on the fence about the right and wrongs of that night's events. Otherwise I'll get dragged into all the rambling about two wrongs, ivory towers, glass houses and all that crap. There are some good points being made by both Order and Destruction players in that thread, but as so often with a topic coloured in dramatic shades of grey, they're being smothered by all the bile and trolling.

All this anger, rage, denial and nonsense caused by the laggy servers/code/etc. Mythic you're about to cram us all into Land of the Dead... With lag as it is, I'm not alone in feeling a little bit uneasy...

Gashface the Conqueror

Cor blimey guv! It didn't take long to get Gashface a full set of Conqueror's War Brudda's Kit. Sure there's already other choppas with Invader, but then I don't play quite as much as those nut jobs ;) Plus I'm still using Bootae and splitting time between characters, so this was pretty damn quick really. Admittedly I've been a right jammy git with rolls, but it has to be said, the new token system was a huge help and I would be forced into BB/BE otherwise.

I got the chest, shoulders and belt with tokens, the helm from guild keep claim capture loot and both the gloves and boots dropped from players. Result :)

Token system, I salute you!

There's more to 1.3 than LotD and AoE nerfs

With the 1.3 patch notes coming out; Land of the Dead, AoE and class balance is obviously getting loads of attention. Forums are heating up or exploding with joy and the blogging community is busier than a crack dealer on a day trip to Luton. But lets not forget the patch also brings us lots of other changes. I'm going to pick out a few things (not all of them!) that for me are the kinda underdog highlights, including some things I've been asking for since I started this bloody blog.

"To ensure that you and your allies can wage battle against the undead legions of the Tomb Kings (or any of the game's other challenging instanced bosses!), we have made several player-friendly changes to the instance lockout timer system. Now, players both with and without lockout timers can join forces to crush the enemy and reap the rewards of conquest. "
I'm really, really, REALLY pleased to see this. I've whinged about the current system so many times before. This is actually a huge improvement for the PvE experience. There's a lot more info about this change further down the patch notes. Basically it's the WoW system and in this case, that's no bad thing.

"The Armor Ward system has been replaced with a new achievement-based system called Sigils. Each Sigil represents a Ward that was previously awarded through the acquisition and equipping of armor sets found in the Old World Armory. The purpose of the Sigil system is to allow players to get the benefit of the Wards previously associated with the armor sets without being required to wear and use that armor set. It also allows for new methods of receiving the Ward and progressing through the game without collecting armor sets.
The new Sigil system can be viewed and tracked in the Old World Armory section of the Tome of Knowledge. Clicking on any Sigil loads a page that displays the fragments needed to complete the Sigil, and describes the tasks associated with each fragment of the Sigil. For any given fragment, only one task of those presented will need to be done. You can see the tasks associated with each fragment by clicking on the fragment icon on the left side of the screen. Also, obtaining a fragment of a higher level Sigil will unlock the fragment for any lower level Sigils. Any players who have current armor or sets that would fulfill a fragment task for any Sigil fragment will be granted credit for the fragment task upon first logging in on that character. Once unlocked, a fragment is unlocked; completing multiple fragment tasks for any particular task will not grant any additional bonus. "
This is an incredibly good move. I've posted in the past about wards and how the system has the potential to be the best PvE instance progression system in any MMO to date. On paper this looks to be the realisation of that potential.

"Respawn checkpoints have been added throughout Gunbad. In most cases, this means that when a character dies, he or she will respawn closer to the location of death instead of at the dungeon entrance.rather These checkpoints also include a Healer. "
I wanted to like Mount Gunbad and Bastion Stair, but I just found both a frustrating experience. Anyone dies, discons or whatever and it's repeat killing the same bloody trash over and over again. To be fair I haven't done either since the first month or two after launch, so maybe it's not so bad now, but regardless this is a good change. I might even take an alt through these dungeons sometime...

"Players logging out in most instances will be able to log back into the instance at the spot they left if they return within five minutes. This includes Scenarios and dungeons. "
Everytime a CTD or discon shafts us mid instance a kitten dies. The kitten community will be relieved. Another great dungeon fix. GJ Mythic.

"Guilds can now purchase the Deadbolt upgrade for their Keeps. This upgrade locks the inner door of a claimed Keep, making it so enemies cannot use Pick Lock or Bypass Defenses to gain entry into the inner Keep. When the Deadbolt upgrade has been purchased, the postern door will be named "Dead-locked Postern Door." "
Ninjas get nerfed which includes my Choppa, but still no complaints here. This is exactly what I had hoped for. Result! :)

"Players now have the option to opt-out of the loot roll at any Public Quest. Opting-out will not affect your contribution, but will bypass your character when rolling for loot, allowing others to get a chance at the loot. The following rules apply"
The community has been crying out for this since launch. Finally!

"Players who have won loot from a Public Quest, but were unable to claim it for one reason or another, will now have that loot mailed to them 24 hours later. The unclaimed loot will appear in the player's mailbox after the 24 hour period with the Public Quest listed as the sender for easy identification"
Another common complaint fixed!

"Take control like never before with improved Action Bar functionality. Show up to five action bars on the screen, and customize the orientation and number of buttons on each bar individually. "
For most of my characters this isn't so important, but for my Chosen this is great. I use a LOT of abilities, pots, items and macros on him and can't fit everything on 4 tool bars. Good news.

"We have expanded player inventory to ensure that you have room for all of the new treasures you find in the Land of the Dead. Players will be able to obtain additional inventory space for alternative currency and crafting, freeing up their existing inventory for more loot! "
Much like action bars, this is going to make my life a lot easier for my Chosen. I carry around a range of different armour and equipment for using in different situations, which doesn't leave me much inventory room.

"New weapons that can be customized with special talismans from the Land of the Dead! "
At the moment the only top end weapons come from Lost Vale, with no RVR equivalent. There's quite a few mid range end game weapons from Bastion Stair, the remnant weapons or RvR influence rewards, but nothing that compares with the good Lost Vale drops. Hopefully the new LotD weapons will be on a par with the best that LV has to offer.

=][=

On paper 1.3 is looking like a very good patch. It bring us the wonders of Darkness Falls 2 in Land of the Dead, the AoE fix the game was desperate for and the rebalancing of single target damage. All of which are very good, but it also brings us loads of things that improve the general experience of playing WAR and relieve many of it's longest serving frustrations.

I'm sure there will also be new problems and no doubt performance headaches whilst the patch settles down, yet for me the content of this patch clearly demonstrates that Mythic are not only listening, but also understand our frustrations. They took their time with some of these changes, but 1.3 is shaping up to be a huge step in the right direction. Credit where credits due.

1.3 patch notes are out and it's on the US PTS

Link : http://herald.warhammeronline.com/patchnotes/index.php?id=2009_1-3-0#_50

I'd copy it all here, but there's such a huge amount of info it will take too long to format :P You'd be better off reading the official page linked above.

There's loads of interesting things aside from the stuff we knew about too, just a few examples would be:
Public Quest Loot Roll Opt-Out
Auto Roll Tab
Large-scale Keep fights will now have the possibility of awarding additional gold bags for attackers or medallions for defenders.
Seizing an upgraded Keep will now yield additional gold bags, depending on the Keep's level.
Additional Ordnance Weapons
Crafting Inventory Improvements
Respawn checkpoints have been added throughout Gunbad. In most cases, this means that when a character dies, he or she will respawn closer to the location of death instead of at the dungeon entrance.rather These checkpoints also include a Healer.

Unfortunately it appears the Chosen is one of the classes included in this statement:
Due to the wide scope of these changes, we will be rolling them out on a career-by-career basis over the next few patches. Careers that did not get damage adjustments in 1.3 will be receiving them in the next update.

Ahh well, at least it's on its way.

Bring on the EU PTS pls!

AoE IS being nerfed, single target damage improved

Mythic have started posting up their previews of class changes in 1.3, the first one I looked at included this all important bit if information:

Patch 1.3's major balance changes focus on the balancing of direct damage vs. area-of-effect abilities. All careers should expect to see AoE effectiveness reduced across the board. This reduction can come in a change to damage/healing, AP cost, or effect radius, and will vary from ability to ability.

Bloody great news! I had heard rumours of course, but I'm really pleased to see it confirmed by Mythic. Hopefully if we get some single target damage again it could mean playing a Chosen will make us enough of a threat that we're more than just a glorified buff bot for DPS classes.

Not all the posts are up so I can't link them all yet, but here are some examples of the sort of changes we're getting for Marauders and Bright Wizards. Also there's nerfs to AoE healing which we can see for example with the Warrior Priest changes.

To me this all sounds very promising. Everyone knows the game has become too AoE dependent and it needs to be addressed. For me, the sooner these changes go live the better. However I expect to read plenty of rage quit and general mewing threads soon :D Awesome ;)

Update: I forgot to mention is ninja Keep takes are being removed for upgraded keeps.

Land of the Dead does not replace the main campaign

Land of the Dead looks awesome.

All very exciting and it’s going to totally turn the game on its head. However what exactly it will mean for the vanilla WAR campaign is not really clear. It’s not been made redundant that’s for sure, as access to LoTD is reliant on the vanilla campaign, but will people drop it the moment LotD access is available and jump into an Airship? When one faction gains access, will the faction left behind spend their time RvEing until they too can get into LotD? Will we see attacks on undefended Fortresses and ghost town cities?

In the first few weeks I would say most definitely. We’re all going to be desperate to get in LotD and sample the wonders of the ancient world, but the novelty will wear off. When it does the big question will be; Is the vanilla campaign interesting enough to draw us back or will it become just a chore whilst waiting for LotD again?

I think potentially the answer is a positive one, but it will need some livening up to avoid feeling stale compared with LotD and it’s full on RvR. LotD is going to open people’s eyes to the joy of Darkness Falls style zones and I think going back to the segregated PvP/PvE will be a disappointment. How then, can Mythic reinvigorate the vanilla campaign?

Cities
Guess what? Bring back the missing cities! Come on, you didn’t think I wouldn’t drop this one in eh? ;) Seriously though, if the entire campaign wasn’t locked down, we’d have the option to go fight elsewhere if we can’t get into Altdorf or IC. A huge topic this and one that I’ve gone into a fair bit lately, so I’ll move on.

Aside from wanting the extra cities, the current city instances need lots of work. They’re not enjoyable enough and the queuing system we have now is annoying. It’s got to the point now where I’m sick and tired of our groups being left outnumbered in instances with the uber opponents that nobody wants to bloody fight. Even our enemies have acknowledged this happening to our guild. I have to admit over the last few sieges I got so sick of it that a few times I just changed instance myself and went to one where people were farming Invader. I hated doing that, but I couldn’t face another hour of being farmed at our spawn by 3 times our number.

There's all sorts of things that could be done here, but just sorting out the lag and how you get in to the instance would be a great start.


Fortresses
They need a complete revamp. They need to be separate zones entirely to the one leading to them and on different servers (or however it works) to help prevent lag./crashes. The forts themselves need major changes to improve game performance and make them more than just another keep take with a bigger wall. I’d say these should be almost like RvR enabled dungeons, with various objectives, capture points and things to spread people across the fortress. Maybe including instanced areas, scenarios or even RvR events like Altdorf or IC. Certainly it would be better than the current glorified keep with a player limit.

Whilst I’m here, a few words about the player limit teleporting people to warcamps.

It’s very frustrating to travel all the way north through Kadrin Valley, only to get ported back to the warcamp in the far south and have to repeat this journey over and over again until a spot comes up. It’s also causing problems before the fort where people refuse to guard the Battle Objectives & Keeps furthest from the Fort. This can make zone locks a pain and causes friction between guilds. On my server guilds reputations are being tarnished because some players mysteriously ALWAYS decide to guard the BO nearest the fortress… Of course if they then whinge at other people for not defending the further BO, well… it does provide some comedy in region chat when it all kicks off. :P

However putting that comedy aside, it’s the game mechanic at fault, people just want to get in the fort, but they won’t be able to if they do the decent thing and guard the more distant objectives. This is wrong. We shouldn’t be penalised for fully defending the zones. The player limit has reduced the frustration from zone crashes and it sure is better than it was, but it has brought new frustrations with it.

There’s so much that could be done with a Fortress. It doesn’t have to be just another keep with bigger walls. I would seriously consider separate zones, more objectives and instancing.


Tier 4 zones
Once you hit 40 you’re effectively stuck in Tier 4 forever, so why is half of each zone irrelevant to a level 40?

The current RvR lakes limit our movement too much, which puts emphasis on zerg mentality. More options and routes around the zone will dramatically improve small scale RvR. If you travel through the PvE areas of any tier 4 zone, you don’t see many (if any) people. So do we really need all these empty PQs? Perhaps if Mythic changed some of these PQs to have more of an RvR slant and more relevance to the campaign, they could then enable RvR over a much larger area.

Considering how fast it is to level in tier 4, keeping such large amounts of the map for safe PvE XP grinding is a poor reason to have such small RvR lakes for the main game. Yes, the PvE areas cater for people that only want to do PvE, but I’ve not seen any of these people myself. Anyone really interested in pure PvE would be playing something like Warcraft, Everquest 2 or Lord of the Rings Online. WAR’s end game zones should be totally built around the game’s focus of PvP and RvR.

I suggest Mythic should seriously consider making all tier 4 zones fully RvR enabled and adjust the PvE elements accordingly. LotD is bringing us full RvR zones; maybe WAR should embrace that concept and apply it to the rest of Tier 4.



Land of the Dead looks brilliant. I’m really looking forward to it and I’m expecting pant-wetting excitement. But it doesn’t replace the traditional WAR campaign; it’s an addition to it. We will still have to play the vanilla campaign. So if WAR is to reach its true potential (a slice of epic pie, with custard, served by a naked Kelly Brook and you’re wearing sex panther), then we need more than flashy live expansions, no matter how great their content maybe.

WCPI - Land of the Dead info at Gaarawarr Gabs

A load of Land of the Dead info over at Gaarawarr Gabs, be sure to check it out.

BTW I've updated my post below with the second video from Xplay.

Land of the Dead video. It's dead good. hur hur

Thanks to Werit for spotting this first.

It's new (to me at least) Land of the Dead video with some great footage of actual gameplay. The *cough* secret *cough* boss in this video looks abso-bloody-lutely awesome.

Video Games - E3 2009 - X-Play

I am now officially "hyped" for LotD.

UPDATE! video 2

Video Game - E3 2009 - X-Play

Ping! Pong! Ping! Pong! Ping! Pong!

It’s a tribute to the balance and quality of the guilds on Karak-Norn (EU) that we have one of the few servers where neither side dominates. On several occasions we’ve seen Destruction rampaging through the streets of Altdorf and then Order returning the favour in the Inevitable City, within 24 hours... Almost every day there are multiple fortress sieges, one day it’s Order on the offensive and then the next it’s Destruction. A frantic defence can be transformed into a major offensive, the tides of battle changing as the day goes on. We’ve had a fort falling to each side, leading to a battle for the last fort so large it brought the server to its knees.

Of course it’s great that the war flows like this and I can’t stress enough how great the battles leading up to the cities can be, but there’s a problem nagging at a lot of us. Surely Mythic didn’t plan for it to go quite so quickly?

We raided Altdorf 3 times in one day recently, 3 bloody times on a balanced server. I’ve also seen Order doing multiple IC raids in a single day. That can’t be right. Weren’t city sieges something that you would build up to slowly? Getting to the enemies city should be a big deal, an epic achievement we can gloat about for days. Yet on my server I get to do IC and/or Altdorf more often than I can sodding Bilerot Burrow.

So is this a good or a bad thing?

Pros
· You have more chances to get your hands on some Invader armour, or at the very least some Invader Crests.
· For the more casual players, it’s a lot easier for them to be involved in city sieges.
· Event organisers can plan a full offensive for one day. If it took longer it would be a lot more difficult to manage due to late night/daytime activity.
· The fast zone locking means faster renown for everyone involved.
· More zone locks means more zone capture loot for guilds with claimed keeps. This can make it worth the cost, beyond just achieving the lock.
· It stops us sitting in the same zone all week, so that we get a regular change of scenery.
· Different scenarios become available.

Cons
· It dilutes the entire campaign’s importance. It’s going to reset in a bit anyway, so why care?
· As we’re racing through with our VP locks, for me its yet another thing reminding me how small the RvR lakes are. Not that locks taking longer would prevent this feeling, but it’s still there.
· Lots of identical keeps in quick succession highlights… lots of identical keeps…
· As soon as a city is under siege, the entire campaign locks down and there’s nothing else to do (in RvR anyway).
· City sieges still have a lot of problems. It’s slowly improving, but they need a LOT of work. Do we really need reminding of this every day? Familiarity breeds not only contempt, but also a large dose of apathy.

So we have a situation that is good for material rewards (in pixel form anyway…), good for renown levelling, is accessible and provides variety. On the negative side it sometimes feels hollow and is emphasising the games weakest area (city sieges) and the copy+paste keeps.

All told I think despite it not being the pace I expected from the game, it’s actually working out better than if it were to be slowed down. The RvR lakes are too small to keep us entertained fighting in one zone for days, we need the variety to stop it being dull. That said, if the RvR lake size and quite a few other issues were to be addressed, it would make me a lot more comfortable with the feel of the campaign. That's worthy of a post in itself, so I think those issues and ideas can wait for a future write up.

Land of the Dead arrives in June; it could potentially turn a lot of the negatives above into non-issues. However, it would be hopelessly optimistic to presume it will make everything perfect. We’ve seen the forum rage enough times already after each “wonder” patch, this time we should know better and not expect the world.

Sometimes they really are cheating

Bloody hell! Arseholes are on a mission to ruin other people's fun by installing the latest cheat add on for WAR. But this time it's not a little thing, it's a huge game breaking, OMFG thing that Mythic need to address NOW.

Worryingly I'm hearing that if people post about their concerns on the official forums, Mythic ban them! Seriously... it's the internet, you can't play head in the sand, ignore it and hope it goes away. If people want to cheat, they'll already have this installed. Far better to have someone senior reply to the decent people playing the game, raising very valid concerns and confirm to them that you're dealing with it. Blizzard sued the bastards that made that botting tool, pay attention to that I'd say.

To get the low down on this and what you need to watch out for, I urge you to go listen to the excellent WARP podcast. I've just seen a video of this cheat on youtube too, woah... Not hard to spot it would seem.

If you see anyone using this crap, please for the good of the game screenshot it, report them and hopefully they will get banned.

Embracing my inner git

Over the last few days I’ve had what could perhaps be an epiphany. I’m going green.

I’ve always liked my Chosen. It looks great, has a solid feel to it and performs well. It’s a good class and I’ve had a lot of enjoyment from playing it. Only recently I was saying how the Chosen would remain my main character and my Choppa would remain just an alt. Wrecka spec was great and all, but it never really grabbed me by the short and curlies. I’m not into playing a class or spec because it’s uber or the current flavour of the month, I just want it to be at least moderately competitive, have a cool appearance and most importantly be a good laugh to play.

As I posted before, this week I hit 40 on my Choppa, but decided to respec away from path of Da’ Wrecka. Sure Da’ Wrecka is the uber Choppa spec of Doom for large scale oRvR and it’s AoE damage in PvE is immense, but I just wasn’t enjoying it enough. No disrespect meant to the VAST amount of people using it, but I was finding it a bit boring. This led to me changing to path of Da’ Hitta and since I’ve had a bit of time off work this week and few evenings free, I managed to get a lot of practice in.

I’ve had an absolute blast.

It’s been immense fun and the playstyle instantly clicked with me. I’m still learning obviously, but already I’m very competitive and had some great fights against some decent players too. It’s not that the Da’ Hitta is stupidly uber or anything, but it seems to be the perfect spec for me. I think a lot of this is because it feels very similar to an Arms spec Warrior from World of Warcraft. I played a Warrior throughout my years in WoW and most of that time I was Arms specced. I went Fury at level 70 in the Burning Crusade, not because of enjoyment, but because fury was so dramatically superior for DPS. Even so, whenever I went PvPing I would respec back to Arms.

All of which gave me a bit of a dilemma. Do I carry on with Bootae (Chosen) as my main character, or switch to Gashface full on? A tougher choice than it may seem, since I've put a lot of time, thought and effort into Bootae's progression. After much pondering and several changes of heart, I've decided to switch to Gashface. I'll still be using Bootae for PvE with my LV group and log him whenever needed in RvR of course, but for general play I'm gettin' to da Choppa.

Teasing me with your Orcy goodness. Ya gits! (updated!)

Not going to be quitting my campaign for bringing back the missing cities, regardless of how fruitless as it may prove to be. Just in case you've not had a butchers around the Orc Fortress, if you go for a look behind it this is what you see. Click the image to see the full picture...



The gate to the Orc city... Just sitting there, teasing us with it's magnificent Orcy glory. What a waste :(

Want it! Want it now!

UPDATE!

Thanks to Kolapz for sending in some screenshots of the Dwarf and Elven City gates. Check these beauties out (again click for the full picture):

WCPI - It's all about the green

As even occasional readers of my blog will know, I'm a bit into writing about ideas for improving WAR. I'm not alone in this and the mighty Snazfg from the Greenskin has just started a new series of posts called If I was Mark Jacobs.

The first of these posts is about the problems of gear grinding and as ever with the Greenskin, it's well worth a read. So chop chop, get a move on :)