Go check out Werit's video from testing tomb of the Vulture Lord, WAR's RvR enabled instance (yay for new purge changes!). You can see a few new things in it including the (optional) combat damage/heal flashing on characters.
Also if you've not played WAR for a while or never dabbled at all, this video does a good job of showing off some of the high quality graphics inside the game's premier dungeon experience. I'm a big fan of the way The Land of the Dead and it's dungeons look. It's just so right, not one of those over-stated WoW fairy glowy crap things (which are impressive in their own way, but totally wrong for WAR), it's an ancient yet maintainted tomb of evil egyptian style buggers. Mythic absolutely nailed the Tomb Kings theme.
Showing posts with label Land of the Dead. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Land of the Dead. Show all posts
Wednesday, 28 April 2010
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. ;)
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
Wednesday, 24 February 2010
Gone in 30 minutes
Over the last month or so Karak Norn has seen a bit more life in the Land of the Dead. The tedium of city sieges has driven players into the swirling desert sands. This has been visible not only in game, but also by an increasing number of LotD related threads on our Karak Norn server forum (the WHA forum obviously, the official forum isn’t used because of the dodgy GOA website). Most of the forum threads have been taunting vanquished foes or people complaining about being killed, usual forum banter really, but there has been two consistent gripes from both factions with a bit more merit. I’ve complained about them before, but recent events mean they must once more rear their oh so fugly head...
Solo and ghost bloody purges.
A solo player can invade a full groups instance, which to the outsider may seem as perfectly acceptable, they get butchered and all is well, right? Wrong! The problem is that what normally happens is the attacking solo player (who can release and resurrect inside the dungeon) gets killed a couple of times and then buggers off, but the purge’s public quest timer continues. That timer lasts 30 minutes and if your defending group wipes whilst it’s running, the group gets teleported back to the main city. Which of course means starting a boss fight is very risky and most groups will spend the remainder of the timer’s duration just sitting around bored.
That’s bad enough, but then there are “ghost” purges… A purge starts, you appear to have been invaded, but there’s nobody there. Presumably they entered, sat around for a bit waiting to see if you wiped on a boss to give them free loot and then they left. In this situation the defending team has nothing to do for the full 30 minutes each time. A mild irritation as a one off, but when you get 4 ghost purges in a row, that’s 2 hours of boredom.
All Mythic need to do is make it so that if the attackers leave the instance, the time automatically ends. Simple no?
On another subject and as you’ve no doubt already heard, it is patch day tomorrow. As ever I’m hoping for the best, but it’s a tough one to call this patch. It really depends on how each server’s community responds to it. I’ll comment on the patch’s impact on my server once it’s had a bit of time to bed in.
Solo and ghost bloody purges.
A solo player can invade a full groups instance, which to the outsider may seem as perfectly acceptable, they get butchered and all is well, right? Wrong! The problem is that what normally happens is the attacking solo player (who can release and resurrect inside the dungeon) gets killed a couple of times and then buggers off, but the purge’s public quest timer continues. That timer lasts 30 minutes and if your defending group wipes whilst it’s running, the group gets teleported back to the main city. Which of course means starting a boss fight is very risky and most groups will spend the remainder of the timer’s duration just sitting around bored.
That’s bad enough, but then there are “ghost” purges… A purge starts, you appear to have been invaded, but there’s nobody there. Presumably they entered, sat around for a bit waiting to see if you wiped on a boss to give them free loot and then they left. In this situation the defending team has nothing to do for the full 30 minutes each time. A mild irritation as a one off, but when you get 4 ghost purges in a row, that’s 2 hours of boredom.
All Mythic need to do is make it so that if the attackers leave the instance, the time automatically ends. Simple no?
On another subject and as you’ve no doubt already heard, it is patch day tomorrow. As ever I’m hoping for the best, but it’s a tough one to call this patch. It really depends on how each server’s community responds to it. I’ll comment on the patch’s impact on my server once it’s had a bit of time to bed in.
Monday, 25 January 2010
Tomb of the Vulture Lord haunted?
It would seem so.
Yesterday whilst enjoying what started as a smooth run through the Tomb of the Vulture Lord, we got invaded 3 times in a row. Each invasion pretty much within seconds of the previous one ending. This would normally be fine, we'd get a scrap and some entertainment out of it, however the annoying thing was each time there was nobody actually invading the dungeon... Every invasion we searched the entire dungeon, but found nobody. Which meant because the timer insists on running for the entire 30mins each invasion (despite there being nobody in there), we had an hour and half wasted...
Then near the end of the third invasion our Sorcerer disconnected and when he logged back in he was inbetween the door outside the instance and the portal. Where he found an AFK Runepriest... Coincidence?
Perhaps, but I wonder was this guy invading our instance solo, then immediately leaving and sitting AFK waiting and hoping we wipe on a boss? Coming back after 30 minutes to repeat it over and over? Would the game mail the loot if we had wiped with him outside the instance? I don't know, but it was certainly strange to be invaded like clockwork 3 times in a row, by nobody... Something wasn't right whatever.
Spooky.
Yesterday whilst enjoying what started as a smooth run through the Tomb of the Vulture Lord, we got invaded 3 times in a row. Each invasion pretty much within seconds of the previous one ending. This would normally be fine, we'd get a scrap and some entertainment out of it, however the annoying thing was each time there was nobody actually invading the dungeon... Every invasion we searched the entire dungeon, but found nobody. Which meant because the timer insists on running for the entire 30mins each invasion (despite there being nobody in there), we had an hour and half wasted...
Then near the end of the third invasion our Sorcerer disconnected and when he logged back in he was inbetween the door outside the instance and the portal. Where he found an AFK Runepriest... Coincidence?
Perhaps, but I wonder was this guy invading our instance solo, then immediately leaving and sitting AFK waiting and hoping we wipe on a boss? Coming back after 30 minutes to repeat it over and over? Would the game mail the loot if we had wiped with him outside the instance? I don't know, but it was certainly strange to be invaded like clockwork 3 times in a row, by nobody... Something wasn't right whatever.
Spooky.
Thursday, 19 November 2009
Colossal Colossus
Couple of days ago I got my first experience of fighting the Colossus in Land of the Dead. In case you’re not familiar with this particular beastie, here’s the low down. When a group successfully clears all 8 bosses in Tomb of the Vulture Lord and the PQ outside is then completed again, it activates a special public quest that has excellent rewards. With a boom the giant statue outside the tomb collapses and its colossal upper torso hits the ground. The statue's crippled remains come alive and is very, very angry. The public quest is to kill it.
It’s quality boss fight and one that I think Mythic have got very right. The boss has a range of abilities and requires certain tactics to fight, however unlike so many boss events in MMOs, it’s arranged in such a way that you can quite quickly work out what you have to do. You probably won’t beat it first time (we didn’t anyway), but unless you are special you will at least learn the fight and be confident for the next time. It’s not even vaguely tank and spank, but there’s no need to search the interweb for obscure tactics. It really is a very well presented fight.
This style of PvE event is what I would like to see more of in WAR. There’s no need to instance everything and have us buried away in dungeons. Give us more large scale PvE bosses that feel like big events when they’re activated. Use the PQ contribution system to share out good rewards (read not like the crap on lair bosses), so these events have incentive beyond the first kill. And have them in places where we have to keep our eyes open for enemies. A healthy mix of gaming excitement and paranoia please!
And now I must temper my enthusiasm with a rant...
OI MYTHIC!
Do NOT link great events like this to bug ridden bloody dungeons, where clearing it is as much about sodding luck as anything else. I posted the other day about how my return to TotVL was cancelled by bugs, well… the other guild group that went that day ALSO had to stop because of bugs. Third boss was moving with his legs inside the floor, which meant the bomb animation was not visible. Then when they wiped because of this and ran back they found the door to the boss room was locked for half the group and open for the others, so that was the end of that.
OI MYTHIC!
Do NOT link great events like this to bug ridden bloody dungeons, where clearing it is as much about sodding luck as anything else. I posted the other day about how my return to TotVL was cancelled by bugs, well… the other guild group that went that day ALSO had to stop because of bugs. Third boss was moving with his legs inside the floor, which meant the bomb animation was not visible. Then when they wiped because of this and ran back they found the door to the boss room was locked for half the group and open for the others, so that was the end of that.
When ToTVL came out, for the first few months Kill Frenzy was one of the guilds with the furthest progress (6 boss kills quite early) into ToTVL, but then we stopped going because the bugs were so annoying. Now that we decide it must have had enough time to get sorted out, we find the opposite. It’s very hard to motivate people to go when it’s generally seen as a waste of an evening. The bosses won’t drop Tyrant because of the ridiculous loot rules (I’ve seen 4 pieces drop ever) and it will bug and screw up everything anyway.
Honestly, I have to /salute the guys that are persevering night after night to get it cleared. I can’t log on that much anyway, but even if I could… fair play to you chaps. I’ll happily fight that Colossus though ;)
Sunday, 15 November 2009
ToVL is STILL a buggy pain in the neck
I'm writing this while waiting for a CSR, but it's been a while so I think I'm stuffed. We wiped at the third boss and now the instance has bugged, the doors in the first room are locked and we can't back in.
It's really, really annoying. The group I'm in with tonight is mainly people that have never been here before. We were showing them how the place worked. Even after all this time, it would seem it still works "badly".
Bit like LV...
Mythic, pls give up on PvE and focus purely on RvR :P
It's really, really annoying. The group I'm in with tonight is mainly people that have never been here before. We were showing them how the place worked. Even after all this time, it would seem it still works "badly".
Bit like LV...
Mythic, pls give up on PvE and focus purely on RvR :P
Tuesday, 6 October 2009
Open the gates!
Land of the Dead… it’s a great looking and very atmospheric zone. It’s also, and excuse the lame pun, utterly dead.
![]()
![]()
This would reinvigorate the entire zone and as an extra bonus, would give us something else to do during city sieges. They could even add a funky 6vs6 desert themed scenario to the zone.
There you go Mythic, a little bit of tinkering and the Land of the Dead expansion would no longer be something to look back on as a mistake.
Other than a tiny number of people power levelling alts up on PQs and people inside Tomb of the Vulture Lord, there’s nobody there. Why? Numerous factors. The primary one being that there’s nothing to go there for! You probably won’t find any enemy players, the PQ loot is poor, PQs as an experience are only worth doing once anyway and other than that there’s nothing to do outside of the instances.
I think that sparking the zone back to life would be relatively easy. First remove the gated access, so that LotD is available to both factions all the time and then add a wide variety of Battle Objectives. Majority control of those BOs could give a realm wide 10% renown buff. Much like relic control used to do similar realm wide buffs in DAoC. If there was plenty of different BOs, then that would mean people can’t just zerg them all and people have to spread out, which would make for better widespread small scale fighting.
There you go Mythic, a little bit of tinkering and the Land of the Dead expansion would no longer be something to look back on as a mistake.
Monday, 6 July 2009
Land of the Dead review – first follow up comments
There has been a most definite RvR resurgence on Karak-Norn. Since I wrote my first review of LotD I’ve seen a steady increase in activity outside of LotD, which includes people that have gained access to LotD staying to fight in Tier 4 instead of running for the flightmaster.
MYTHIC! FIX GUILD CHAT
Recently my guild had some epic battles in Praag against much greater numbers of Order and I have to say we performed amazingly well. We only had 2 and a half groups in our warband, but we managed to repeatedly wipe 3 times our number outside the Destruction warcamp in Praag. The old Rift bot / Chosen / various AoE combo was in full effect and resulted in an insane amount of loot :D After a while Order wised up and started sending large numbers around to flank us, which got a bit hairy as warbands hit us from multiple directions. We refused to run and fought to the death :D Great fun. Also I have to salute all the Order we fought in Praag that night, when they gained LotD access they stayed put and kept fighting. We had a great couple of hours fighting and I’m really looking forward to more.
MYTHIC! FIX GUILD CHAT
Moments like this becoming more regular again bodes well for LotD’s long term impact on WAR. I can see it settling in as a nice alternative optional thing to do, rather than being the entire end game in a zone. It’s been particularly pleasing to see Order (and to a limited extent Destruction) gain LotD access but still go on a big T4 RvR offensive, instead of just vanishing into the desert. I’ve taken part in some decent sized fortress battles, which actually ran pretty well too. Possibly this is a side effect of players being spread out across the game world more and the zones not being so stretched, Mythic would have to confirm that, but whatever it was a refreshing change.
MYTHIC! FIX GUILD CHAT
Unfortunately due to a bunch of our healers being on holiday/stuff I’ve barely got to the Tomb of the Vulture Lord again. The one time recently that I did get in there we had a bit of a sods law moment, which demonstrated another thing with the Invasion system that I think could do with some tweaking. Order invaded the instance seconds before we wiped on the boss, which meant we couldn’t respawn. That’s a bit poor really, if we get invaded I’d like to at least have a chance to fight the Order. I’ve no problem at all with being purged and kicked out of the zone by the Order killing us, but being booted out purely by Order entering the instance is frustrating. Perhaps if we get invaded during a boss fight, we could have a one off respawn somewhere near the boss. Then we’d actually get a fight. A minor gripe perhaps, it’s not going to happen all the time or anything, but a frustration none the less.
MYTHIC! FIX GUILD CHAT
Anyways, things seem to be settling down with LotD, which is all good. For me the only thing I'm really interested in with LotD is the Tomb of the Vulture Lord and the odd skirmish, but should I fancy popping into some Lairs or doing a few PQs, then it is nice to have more options.
Oh and one more thing... MYTHIC! FIX GUILD CHAT
MYTHIC! FIX GUILD CHAT
Recently my guild had some epic battles in Praag against much greater numbers of Order and I have to say we performed amazingly well. We only had 2 and a half groups in our warband, but we managed to repeatedly wipe 3 times our number outside the Destruction warcamp in Praag. The old Rift bot / Chosen / various AoE combo was in full effect and resulted in an insane amount of loot :D After a while Order wised up and started sending large numbers around to flank us, which got a bit hairy as warbands hit us from multiple directions. We refused to run and fought to the death :D Great fun. Also I have to salute all the Order we fought in Praag that night, when they gained LotD access they stayed put and kept fighting. We had a great couple of hours fighting and I’m really looking forward to more.
MYTHIC! FIX GUILD CHAT
Moments like this becoming more regular again bodes well for LotD’s long term impact on WAR. I can see it settling in as a nice alternative optional thing to do, rather than being the entire end game in a zone. It’s been particularly pleasing to see Order (and to a limited extent Destruction) gain LotD access but still go on a big T4 RvR offensive, instead of just vanishing into the desert. I’ve taken part in some decent sized fortress battles, which actually ran pretty well too. Possibly this is a side effect of players being spread out across the game world more and the zones not being so stretched, Mythic would have to confirm that, but whatever it was a refreshing change.
MYTHIC! FIX GUILD CHAT
Unfortunately due to a bunch of our healers being on holiday/stuff I’ve barely got to the Tomb of the Vulture Lord again. The one time recently that I did get in there we had a bit of a sods law moment, which demonstrated another thing with the Invasion system that I think could do with some tweaking. Order invaded the instance seconds before we wiped on the boss, which meant we couldn’t respawn. That’s a bit poor really, if we get invaded I’d like to at least have a chance to fight the Order. I’ve no problem at all with being purged and kicked out of the zone by the Order killing us, but being booted out purely by Order entering the instance is frustrating. Perhaps if we get invaded during a boss fight, we could have a one off respawn somewhere near the boss. Then we’d actually get a fight. A minor gripe perhaps, it’s not going to happen all the time or anything, but a frustration none the less.
MYTHIC! FIX GUILD CHAT
Anyways, things seem to be settling down with LotD, which is all good. For me the only thing I'm really interested in with LotD is the Tomb of the Vulture Lord and the odd skirmish, but should I fancy popping into some Lairs or doing a few PQs, then it is nice to have more options.
Oh and one more thing... MYTHIC! FIX GUILD CHAT
Monday, 29 June 2009
Land of the Dead review type thing
Well then chaps, we’re a few days post launch of Lands of the Dead and now seems an appropriate time for a little review of how things have gone so far. Please note this is based on my experiences on Karak-Norn which is one of Europe’s busiest servers, but this may not be the experience of other people. More than in most MMOs your experience of WAR can vary dependent on server population.
A general note before I go off though, things would be working a LOT better IF GUILD CHAT BLOODY WORKED in LotD. Seriously guys, you hot fixed various little things and left that still broken? Sort that out pls :) Okies now I've got that shouty bit out of the way, onwards...
Has LotD delivered the RvR heaven we were promised?
No. In fact make that a resounding no, with a daemonic reverb effect and 100ft flaming letters. So far LotD has proven to be primarily a PvE experience with small bursts of RvR thrown in. Alongside that it has drained the tier 4 zones of players and I can no longer log in and RvR whenever I want. This is bad, really, really bad. Previously WAR was an RvR game with PvE as an alternative option, right now on my server it’s a PvE game with some RvR now and again.
If you are not currently subscribed to WAR then you might wondering how this expansion has basically stopped RvR, seeing as the key selling point for it was a thriller of a RvR zone. Basically what happens is… Order are in Land of the Dead, Destruction are on their own in the normal tier 4 zones. Destruction has to PvE lock zones to gain access to LotD. Due to the fact there’s very few (if any) Order to fight, this can take an hour or so. This also means you spend most of your time doing nothing, once you’ve claimed the Battle Objectives and Keeps you’re left just watching timers tick down. You can’t get any skirmish or scenario points, as there are no players to fight. Then when Destruction gets access to LotD they all rush over, quickly purge any Order that can be found and are then left with PvE in LotD. Order that got purged are then back in tier 4, it’s now their turn to PvE the zone locks and Destruction are PvEing. Annnnnd repeat…
This isn’t purely the design of LotD’s fault, it contributes of course, but more than anything it boils down to what players are choosing to do. Our greed for flashy new loot and something new wins through. People are choosing to be in Land of the Dead instances or buried away somewhere else PvEing amongst the desert sands. A lot of people are staying in Tomb of the Vulture Lord trying to beat it. They could of course decide to stay in tier 4 and fight each other, but whilst LotD is all new and shiney this hasn’t been happening and it won’t stop 'till people get enough.
On the positive side there are signs that this is changing, Tier4 RvR is on the increase, but it needs to improve fast. Big name players are quitting, guilds are dying and even within my own guild I’m seeing people getting very negative about LotD. And it’s fair enough, most of us play WAR for RvR, if we wanted PvE we’d go elsewhere. The big question is will enough players decide to kick start the RvR campaign themselves, or will Mythic have to respond with something off the wall?
Is the RvR in Land of the Dead any good?
Yes. The RvR doesn’t last long because after being killed if you release it’s only the controlling side that will respawn within Land of the Dead. The other side respawns in their home city and are locked out. It’s all gone too soon. However the fighting within LotD can be great, particularly inside invaded instances. I remember the time we trapped some poor group of Order against a huge skeletal boss, then slowly cut them apart and another classic moment where I was alone against 5 Order as we desperately tried to shove each other into the swinging axe trap, the rest of my group stuck on the otherside could only try and keep me healed and cheer me on over ventrilo (it ended badly for me :P ).
There’s also been some very cool group/warband scale skirmishing. My guild tends to keep away from the zerg and this has led to some great run ins against Order doing the same thing. Seriously if you wanna be startin’ somethin’ then you need to get away from the zerg and hunt down people across the zone, it’s much more fun.
What about the Public Quests?
There’s a few that aint so hot, for example the jar collecting ones are dull, the carrion one is rather glitchy and the roaming PQ Ricci’s Raiders is a bloody myth, but the majority of them are a huge improvement over all the PQs we’ve seen in WAR so far. I’ve not got the names of them in front of me now, but I’ve quite enjoyed most and there’s several I really like. The one down south with the huge skeletal giant surrounded by scaffolding is very cool, as is the Simon Says combination game outside the Tomb of the Vulture Lord, though if you’ve got idiots there you can’t win. In general the PQs are well thought out, engaging and make mob grinding (which essentially is all that MMO PvE ever is) enjoyable.
Lairs worth a visit?
It would seem so. Instanced lairs are the right way to go, I hope Mythic consider reviewing all other Lairs and making them instanced too. I’ve only done 2 so far and as such I can’t comment too much, though feedback I’ve heard has been very positive. From what I’ve seen myself so far I’ve been impressed with their design and think Mythic are on the right track with lairs here, but I’ve not been at all pleased with the buggy boss in the Tomb of the Sun. A one mob dungeon should not be bugged, this makes me want to scream.
So how was the Tomb of the Vulture Lord?
It’s great. This is the big instanced dungeon where Tyrant armour drops, the place with the infamous traps, enemy player invasions and difficult new bosses. I’m not going to say too much and spoil it for people, but from my experiences in there so far it has some excellent boss events and brilliant atmosphere. I love the traps; I’ve not had so much fun being frustrated by something in ages. Not since the wife decided to… uhm, in fact I’ll not go there.
It does need a bit of work with invading, there seem to be a few bugs with the invasion PQ ending and the loot appearing at all, plus there can be a lot of waiting around if the enemy poke their head in and then just leave. Also for people that are more into PvE, with the invasions you may end up saying just leave me alone.
To summarise...
Land of the Dead is atmospheric, has great graphics and has made some big steps forward with WAR’s PvE. It brings us good new instances, easily accessible loot and a wide range of things to do. However it hasn’t yet revolutionised RvR and instead is having a negative effect on PvP across my (and other’s) server, but I’m hoping that will not be a long term issue. It seems like players are already filtering back to tier 4 for some more reliable fighting, but “seems” is not enough, it must happen. LotD should be a sideline, not the main game. The tier 4 campaign and the RvR within is the core of this game, if you’re out in tier 4 looking for a fight, then you need to know that you are not alone and that you can get a PvP fight when you want.
LotD is cool, but I don’t think it’s gone to plan for Mythic. It’s black or white really, we need regular and reliable RvR back or people’s copies of WAR will just go in the closet. But instead of it being down to Mythic to fix, perhaps this time its us as players that need to sort it. Time for us all to look at the man in the mirror.
A general note before I go off though, things would be working a LOT better IF GUILD CHAT BLOODY WORKED in LotD. Seriously guys, you hot fixed various little things and left that still broken? Sort that out pls :) Okies now I've got that shouty bit out of the way, onwards...
Has LotD delivered the RvR heaven we were promised?
No. In fact make that a resounding no, with a daemonic reverb effect and 100ft flaming letters. So far LotD has proven to be primarily a PvE experience with small bursts of RvR thrown in. Alongside that it has drained the tier 4 zones of players and I can no longer log in and RvR whenever I want. This is bad, really, really bad. Previously WAR was an RvR game with PvE as an alternative option, right now on my server it’s a PvE game with some RvR now and again.
If you are not currently subscribed to WAR then you might wondering how this expansion has basically stopped RvR, seeing as the key selling point for it was a thriller of a RvR zone. Basically what happens is… Order are in Land of the Dead, Destruction are on their own in the normal tier 4 zones. Destruction has to PvE lock zones to gain access to LotD. Due to the fact there’s very few (if any) Order to fight, this can take an hour or so. This also means you spend most of your time doing nothing, once you’ve claimed the Battle Objectives and Keeps you’re left just watching timers tick down. You can’t get any skirmish or scenario points, as there are no players to fight. Then when Destruction gets access to LotD they all rush over, quickly purge any Order that can be found and are then left with PvE in LotD. Order that got purged are then back in tier 4, it’s now their turn to PvE the zone locks and Destruction are PvEing. Annnnnd repeat…
This isn’t purely the design of LotD’s fault, it contributes of course, but more than anything it boils down to what players are choosing to do. Our greed for flashy new loot and something new wins through. People are choosing to be in Land of the Dead instances or buried away somewhere else PvEing amongst the desert sands. A lot of people are staying in Tomb of the Vulture Lord trying to beat it. They could of course decide to stay in tier 4 and fight each other, but whilst LotD is all new and shiney this hasn’t been happening and it won’t stop 'till people get enough.
On the positive side there are signs that this is changing, Tier4 RvR is on the increase, but it needs to improve fast. Big name players are quitting, guilds are dying and even within my own guild I’m seeing people getting very negative about LotD. And it’s fair enough, most of us play WAR for RvR, if we wanted PvE we’d go elsewhere. The big question is will enough players decide to kick start the RvR campaign themselves, or will Mythic have to respond with something off the wall?
Is the RvR in Land of the Dead any good?
Yes. The RvR doesn’t last long because after being killed if you release it’s only the controlling side that will respawn within Land of the Dead. The other side respawns in their home city and are locked out. It’s all gone too soon. However the fighting within LotD can be great, particularly inside invaded instances. I remember the time we trapped some poor group of Order against a huge skeletal boss, then slowly cut them apart and another classic moment where I was alone against 5 Order as we desperately tried to shove each other into the swinging axe trap, the rest of my group stuck on the otherside could only try and keep me healed and cheer me on over ventrilo (it ended badly for me :P ).
There’s also been some very cool group/warband scale skirmishing. My guild tends to keep away from the zerg and this has led to some great run ins against Order doing the same thing. Seriously if you wanna be startin’ somethin’ then you need to get away from the zerg and hunt down people across the zone, it’s much more fun.
What about the Public Quests?
There’s a few that aint so hot, for example the jar collecting ones are dull, the carrion one is rather glitchy and the roaming PQ Ricci’s Raiders is a bloody myth, but the majority of them are a huge improvement over all the PQs we’ve seen in WAR so far. I’ve not got the names of them in front of me now, but I’ve quite enjoyed most and there’s several I really like. The one down south with the huge skeletal giant surrounded by scaffolding is very cool, as is the Simon Says combination game outside the Tomb of the Vulture Lord, though if you’ve got idiots there you can’t win. In general the PQs are well thought out, engaging and make mob grinding (which essentially is all that MMO PvE ever is) enjoyable.
Lairs worth a visit?
It would seem so. Instanced lairs are the right way to go, I hope Mythic consider reviewing all other Lairs and making them instanced too. I’ve only done 2 so far and as such I can’t comment too much, though feedback I’ve heard has been very positive. From what I’ve seen myself so far I’ve been impressed with their design and think Mythic are on the right track with lairs here, but I’ve not been at all pleased with the buggy boss in the Tomb of the Sun. A one mob dungeon should not be bugged, this makes me want to scream.
So how was the Tomb of the Vulture Lord?
It’s great. This is the big instanced dungeon where Tyrant armour drops, the place with the infamous traps, enemy player invasions and difficult new bosses. I’m not going to say too much and spoil it for people, but from my experiences in there so far it has some excellent boss events and brilliant atmosphere. I love the traps; I’ve not had so much fun being frustrated by something in ages. Not since the wife decided to… uhm, in fact I’ll not go there.
It does need a bit of work with invading, there seem to be a few bugs with the invasion PQ ending and the loot appearing at all, plus there can be a lot of waiting around if the enemy poke their head in and then just leave. Also for people that are more into PvE, with the invasions you may end up saying just leave me alone.
To summarise...
Land of the Dead is atmospheric, has great graphics and has made some big steps forward with WAR’s PvE. It brings us good new instances, easily accessible loot and a wide range of things to do. However it hasn’t yet revolutionised RvR and instead is having a negative effect on PvP across my (and other’s) server, but I’m hoping that will not be a long term issue. It seems like players are already filtering back to tier 4 for some more reliable fighting, but “seems” is not enough, it must happen. LotD should be a sideline, not the main game. The tier 4 campaign and the RvR within is the core of this game, if you’re out in tier 4 looking for a fight, then you need to know that you are not alone and that you can get a PvP fight when you want.
LotD is cool, but I don’t think it’s gone to plan for Mythic. It’s black or white really, we need regular and reliable RvR back or people’s copies of WAR will just go in the closet. But instead of it being down to Mythic to fix, perhaps this time its us as players that need to sort it. Time for us all to look at the man in the mirror.
Saturday, 27 June 2009
Should Land of the Dead be open ALL the time? Or should it be this, or that...
"Should Land of the Dead be open ALL the time?" is a question that lots of people are asking.
At the moment the oRvR and scenario scene in vanilla Tier 4 zones has almost totally dried up. Zones are being locked without any enemy to kill, they're all off hitting skeletons. No surprise there, people were always going to want to spend time in Land of the Dead when it came out, there's a load of cool things to go see.
But how long until the novelty wears off?
Until it does, it looks like the vanilla Tier 4 campaign will remain a predominantly PvE experience and Land of the Dead has already proven to be as much (if not more) about PvE as it is PvP. Short dramatic bursts of PvP followed by PvE.
When undefended cities' star ratings plumment and players realise they're not gaining much renown in LotD, will they be naturally drawn back to fighting in the RvR lakes of Tier 4? I hope so, otherwise the current back and forth access to LotD could prove to be more of a hinderance to RvR than a reason for it. It will probably be a while before we see how this will work out, but should LotD prove to prevent RvR, then Mythic may have to consider leaving the gates open.
A fully RvR enabled zone, with constant access available. Masses of fighting whenever you want! No more tumbleweed tiers! Sounds great eh?
Ahhh... but then would that mean the PvE content would become utterly impossible due to constant attacks by the enemy? Would we have one giant clusterfuck of every player in one zone? Oh bugger...
At the moment the oRvR and scenario scene in vanilla Tier 4 zones has almost totally dried up. Zones are being locked without any enemy to kill, they're all off hitting skeletons. No surprise there, people were always going to want to spend time in Land of the Dead when it came out, there's a load of cool things to go see.
But how long until the novelty wears off?
Until it does, it looks like the vanilla Tier 4 campaign will remain a predominantly PvE experience and Land of the Dead has already proven to be as much (if not more) about PvE as it is PvP. Short dramatic bursts of PvP followed by PvE.
When undefended cities' star ratings plumment and players realise they're not gaining much renown in LotD, will they be naturally drawn back to fighting in the RvR lakes of Tier 4? I hope so, otherwise the current back and forth access to LotD could prove to be more of a hinderance to RvR than a reason for it. It will probably be a while before we see how this will work out, but should LotD prove to prevent RvR, then Mythic may have to consider leaving the gates open.
A fully RvR enabled zone, with constant access available. Masses of fighting whenever you want! No more tumbleweed tiers! Sounds great eh?
Ahhh... but then would that mean the PvE content would become utterly impossible due to constant attacks by the enemy? Would we have one giant clusterfuck of every player in one zone? Oh bugger...
It's all very easy for us bloggers and forum posters to criticise Mythic and come up with our own amazing solutions (something I'm obviously guilty of), but in reality evolving a live RvR themed MMO game to find that perfect balance between PvP and PvE must be a total nightmare. Maybe our ideas would work, but maybe they'd do even more damage and we're too naive to realise.
Not that knowing that will stop us thinking we know best. Just like when watching the football... I know that we should be playing a 4-4-2, why can't that twat of a manager see it? It's obvious.
Friday, 26 June 2009
Brief comment on Land of the Dead first impressions
YAY!
Purge was great fun.
PQs were cool.
Level of gear dropping for me was meh (cos of my existing gear).
Guild chat not working bug is ridiculous. How did that get in???
Tomb of the Vulture Lord was awesome. Didn't get that far, but my group loved what we saw.
Can't wait for more! Time for work alas :P
Purge was great fun.
PQs were cool.
Level of gear dropping for me was meh (cos of my existing gear).
Guild chat not working bug is ridiculous. How did that get in???
Tomb of the Vulture Lord was awesome. Didn't get that far, but my group loved what we saw.
Can't wait for more! Time for work alas :P
Tuesday, 16 June 2009
Mythic's top 5 and Land of the Dead goes live tomorrow (in the US)
Jeff Hickman has posted part 2 of his letter from the producer here. It highlights some of the other good bits about the 1.3 patch, there's certainly more to it than just Land of the Dead. The dungeon lockout changes are a key point for me. Also I was particularly pleased to see this:
...we've already begun assembling focus groups from guild leaders to solo players. We're asking what makes you tick and what you want to see next. The feedback we gather from these groups, the forums, blogs and those of you we play with everyday in-game is very important to us and helps to shape the game every day. I thank everyone who’s taken the time to talk to us – it really is appreciated!
Based heavily on that feedback, our current “Top 5” areas that we are giving significant attention to are:
1) Addressing concerns related to Crowd Control and Area of Effect abilities.
2) Continuing to improve client and server stability and performance.
3) Strengthening and improving the Tier 4 experience.
4) Improving server population distribution – both in terms of overall population and realm balance.
5) Improving itemization and the overall distribution of “carrots” (rewards) throughout the game.
I would say that is exactly right. It goes to show that they are listening and actually do acknowledge the game's problem areas. If they back up that acknowledgement with action, then the future of WAR looks very positive.
And then of course the big news. 1.3 is live in the US! Hopefully us Euros will only be the usual 24 hours behind. I can't wait to get stuck in :)
For my fellow Euro gamers, make sure you check out the pre-patch download GOA are providing. Should save us all some hassle on patch day.
http://www.war-europe.com/#/prepatch/?lang=en
...we've already begun assembling focus groups from guild leaders to solo players. We're asking what makes you tick and what you want to see next. The feedback we gather from these groups, the forums, blogs and those of you we play with everyday in-game is very important to us and helps to shape the game every day. I thank everyone who’s taken the time to talk to us – it really is appreciated!
Based heavily on that feedback, our current “Top 5” areas that we are giving significant attention to are:
1) Addressing concerns related to Crowd Control and Area of Effect abilities.
2) Continuing to improve client and server stability and performance.
3) Strengthening and improving the Tier 4 experience.
4) Improving server population distribution – both in terms of overall population and realm balance.
5) Improving itemization and the overall distribution of “carrots” (rewards) throughout the game.
I would say that is exactly right. It goes to show that they are listening and actually do acknowledge the game's problem areas. If they back up that acknowledgement with action, then the future of WAR looks very positive.
And then of course the big news. 1.3 is live in the US! Hopefully us Euros will only be the usual 24 hours behind. I can't wait to get stuck in :)
For my fellow Euro gamers, make sure you check out the pre-patch download GOA are providing. Should save us all some hassle on patch day.
http://www.war-europe.com/#/prepatch/?lang=en
Thursday, 4 June 2009
Character changes removed from 1.3
Yup read it here: http://forums.warhammeronline.com/warhammer/board/message?board.id=pts_announcements&message.id=53#M53
Sensible move, should have been done that way in the first place instead of one monster patch. Unfortunately now that we've all been built up to having some freedom from AoE of Doom, a lot of people are going to be feeling rather let down. Hopefully people will be distracted enough by Land of the Dead, but I'd advise Mythic to get their tin hats on! I can smell the forum rage quitters from here...
Edit: I've heard that some of the AoE changes WILL be going in with 1.3. I've not yet found any official post confirming this, but I'll link soon as (or if...) I find one. In the meantime, here's a pyramid and cool sky effects..
Sensible move, should have been done that way in the first place instead of one monster patch. Unfortunately now that we've all been built up to having some freedom from AoE of Doom, a lot of people are going to be feeling rather let down. Hopefully people will be distracted enough by Land of the Dead, but I'd advise Mythic to get their tin hats on! I can smell the forum rage quitters from here...
Edit: I've heard that some of the AoE changes WILL be going in with 1.3. I've not yet found any official post confirming this, but I'll link soon as (or if...) I find one. In the meantime, here's a pyramid and cool sky effects..
Monday, 11 May 2009
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.
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.
Sunday, 10 May 2009
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.
BTW I've updated my post below with the second video from Xplay.
Saturday, 9 May 2009
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.
I am now officially "hyped" for LotD.
UPDATE! video 2
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.
I am now officially "hyped" for LotD.
UPDATE! video 2
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
About Me
- Bootae
- Half man half pixel. Music obsessive, likes a drink, occasional bastard.