Steven Engle has posted an edited version of the healing changes. Small tweaks, but much, much better. I'm still not sure if the main heals are fast enough, but with the reduction in how fragile they are I can understand it being sensible to see how a half second cast time reduction pans out. Cleanse staying instant but having optional tactics to change it, well that works for me just fine.
BTW about the producer's letter, real life got in the way of me writing up much about it and I'm sure you will have read reviews from the other bloggers by now, so in brief...
I like that it didn't do the usual focus on recapping on what's happened and instead is looking further to the future. However I'm sure nobody is shocked to hear that I wish it had information on more substantial and desired changes to the game. The new things mentioned are unfortunately totally and utterly "meh", sure they're not bad things, but inspiring they are not.
I'm tried of vague comments like "expanding existing areas and features as well as new concepts to the Warhammer Online experience". Areas could mean anything from zones to in fact any major or minor component of the game. So for now it's an utterly meaningless statement, that in the past I would have latched onto with hope, but I've had my fingers burnt too many times to do that anymore. Hopefully of course it will be something significant and James will clarify soon.
One thing though...more pets? I mean seriously? Why bother? Do people really care about that? Or is it the start of moving towards a cash shop and F2P? Carrie's new focus yet to be revealed perhaps. I can't think of any other reason to waste time making bloody pets.
All told it wasn't a bad letter compared with the past ones, it's just that for a great many WAR players (myself included obviously) this is a really critical time and to retain their interest Mythic need to, well... say something properly interesting.
Over to you James.
Showing posts with label Producer's Letter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Producer's Letter. Show all posts
Monday, 31 January 2011
Thursday, 30 September 2010
Tuesday, 31 August 2010
Producer's Letter is out
You can find it here.
I warn you now, if you have been keeping up with the news from the various blogs on my blog roll or the Q&A thread then this letter has nothing new in it. There are a couple of confirmations in it, but nothing new. It is however worth mentioning that only a section of any game's players read forums or blogs, where as this letter goes out to everyone, so its not that much of a shock that it doesn't have anything other than a summary of what those of us that do read everything possible would have already seen. As such it's a solid letter for a mass mailing and I don't fault Mythic at all for not giving anything new in it (wouldn't have complained if they had mind you...), but I'm not going to bother doing my usual letter review as it's rather pointless for this one.
I warn you now, if you have been keeping up with the news from the various blogs on my blog roll or the Q&A thread then this letter has nothing new in it. There are a couple of confirmations in it, but nothing new. It is however worth mentioning that only a section of any game's players read forums or blogs, where as this letter goes out to everyone, so its not that much of a shock that it doesn't have anything other than a summary of what those of us that do read everything possible would have already seen. As such it's a solid letter for a mass mailing and I don't fault Mythic at all for not giving anything new in it (wouldn't have complained if they had mind you...), but I'm not going to bother doing my usual letter review as it's rather pointless for this one.
Saturday, 31 July 2010
Producer's letter reviewy thing
The latest Producer’s letter didn’t really tell us much that wasn’t common knowledge, however this is completely to be expected. In 3 weeks time we are going to get some big news, make that BIG news, so there wasn’t ever going to be much that Carrie could say in this letter beforehand. As such, fair enough, says I.
There were a couple of little things that were news. The Wild Hunt will be back on sometime soon as a full on live event, not just a weekend warfront. I thought that was a good event before, so while not OMFGBBQ news, it’s still good to hear. Also it turns out that for the 2 free weeks our new EU servers had three times the normal number of players… Yup, it was more than a little noticeable! I know a fair few that have resubbed too, so that’s all good. The ball is with Mythic now to try and retain these resubbed players.
I’ve not much else to say about the letter, to be honest we’re all just waiting for the mid August news to start appearing. Oh there was one thing from the developer Q&A I wanted to mention. I asked how many 1.3.X patches there are before 1.4, the answer to which was 1.3.6 is the last one before 1.4 arrives. Though Carrie said using that knowledge to calculate the release date of 1.4 wouldn’t work as things in 1.4 need to mature and it could be a little longer. Though a little birdie told me a while back that 1.4 is scheduled for October, which now sounds about right.
Oh and on the PTS right now they've removed friendly collision detection, word is its working out really well and improved performance. Note collision detection still applies against enemy players.
If you’re interested in hearing more about the Q&A session: Gaarawar has a transcript and Bruglir has a recording.
For now my friends, put aside this Producer letter not having much in it, I don’t think Mythic had much of a choice. In a few weeks we will all know why.
There were a couple of little things that were news. The Wild Hunt will be back on sometime soon as a full on live event, not just a weekend warfront. I thought that was a good event before, so while not OMFGBBQ news, it’s still good to hear. Also it turns out that for the 2 free weeks our new EU servers had three times the normal number of players… Yup, it was more than a little noticeable! I know a fair few that have resubbed too, so that’s all good. The ball is with Mythic now to try and retain these resubbed players.
I’ve not much else to say about the letter, to be honest we’re all just waiting for the mid August news to start appearing. Oh there was one thing from the developer Q&A I wanted to mention. I asked how many 1.3.X patches there are before 1.4, the answer to which was 1.3.6 is the last one before 1.4 arrives. Though Carrie said using that knowledge to calculate the release date of 1.4 wouldn’t work as things in 1.4 need to mature and it could be a little longer. Though a little birdie told me a while back that 1.4 is scheduled for October, which now sounds about right.
Oh and on the PTS right now they've removed friendly collision detection, word is its working out really well and improved performance. Note collision detection still applies against enemy players.
If you’re interested in hearing more about the Q&A session: Gaarawar has a transcript and Bruglir has a recording.
For now my friends, put aside this Producer letter not having much in it, I don’t think Mythic had much of a choice. In a few weeks we will all know why.
Thursday, 1 July 2010
June Producer's Letter reviewy thingywingy
Yesterday we got to see the latest producer’s letter and as such, today is the day when the Internet starts picking it apart, reading too much into things, being overly critical and all the usual RAGE! HAPPY! RAGE! lark.
In an attempt not to write a monstrous wall of text and considering you’ve probably already read it after I linked yesterday, I won’t quote the whole thing, just bits I feel particularly need it. Which is really only the very first paragraph, it’s an interesting statement dripping with potential joy or disappointment, depending on your general outlook on WAR.
“Through these communications I’ve emphasized how we listen to the community and take your feedback seriously while planning the future of WAR. For the most part, the “P-Letter” (as I like to call it) is intended to be a short term look at the next version or two, giving you a look forward at the months to come. However, it’s very clear that there is a lot of desire to hear about long term planning. We hear these requests loud and clear, and it is our desire to give you a better sense of WAR’s long term plan by the end of summer. Our detractors like to make fun of us for “being really excited” and “itching to tell you about” some “really cool things” (yes, we read the snarky posts), and in this case we want to shout it from the rooftops…but not just yet.”
Some people have chosen to read this as “we acknowledge what you say, but we’re still not saying anything, so like whatever...”. I think that is more than a little harsh. I’ve been at the forefront of calling for proper and solid news for the future of WAR and it seems to me that the time is ripe to do so. However I understand that there may well be reasons, that I am unaware of, that prevent Mythic from saying anything until a certain point. Actually if you think about what's coming out over the next year from Blizard who love to shaft other MMO news releases, betas, etc (poor FF got it this week), perhaps Mythic are right to be cautious. What the above statement does do is confirm that there are major developments in the pipeline beyond the ORvR campaign improvements we’re starting to see now, certainly “shout it from the rooftops” doesn’t allude to something small and crappy.
Everyone, who isn’t being negative for the sake of it, will have read that as meaning there will be an expansion announcement made at the end of summer. Mythic must know we’ll do this and they’ve dropped clues elsewhere (“its Red, a Plague and probably a portent”, etc), so this latest comment will have been a calculated decision to tease us more. As such my no doubt unsurprising prediction is at the end of summer we will see announcement of the Red Plague expansion. Of course this leads to all manner of questions about what the expansion will be (Skaven obv, but how/what/where?) and the big question of when actually is the end of summer? That last one has a very varied answer depending on what country you live in and which form of measurement you sign up to, ranging from the beginning of August to late September… So we’re waiting a couple of months at least for the big news.
Moving on… There is mention of the EU players transferring from GOA to Mythic, no shock there and it’s not dwelled on too much, which makes sense as plenty has been said already.
As the letter starts to focus on 1.3.6 we get a few interesting bits of news. First there’s word of a dev diary on its way to explain in more detail about the new armour appearance system. Not much to say about this, other than I look forward to hearing the details. Now we start getting to the stuff that will get the speculation going. In the letter it refers to the ORvR changes coming in 1.3.6 as “the less significant portion of the work”, and it’s pretty clear that Mythic have some big changes in the pipeline for ORvR, so what pray tell are the more significant changes going to be? Larger RvR lakes? Missing Cities? Fortresses? A change to the zone locking system? Hopefully we’ll hear more soon.
Defenders of the Mailbox… Ahh bless, so you’ll have to go into the RvR lakes and risk being attacked while you’re busy AFK leeching renown. Of course I’m sure you’ll find somewhere to hide, but now we should at least be able to hunt you down and slice up your AFK buttocks.
Carrie also talks about “Against all Odds”; a new system that gives you bonus XP, renown and influence when you are outnumbered in a RvR area. Having pondered and discussed this a bit, it seems that this is one of those changes that has a lot of potential, but I’m not entirely sure how it will actually play out on live. It doesn’t encourage you to fight away from your faction’s zerg, it encourages you to fight in a different zone to your zerg. That is an important distinction. For example say Destruction outnumber Order and everyone is fighting in the Chaos Wastes, if I chose to lead my group away from the zerg and try to fight Order in different parts of the zone, then Against all Odds does nothing for my small group because we’re in the same zone as the zerg. However if lead us to a different zone, Against all Odds will still do nothing for me as it makes more sense for the outnumbered Order players to stay in Chaos Wastes and fight the zerg for increased renown, so we won’t find Order elsewhere. Therefore whilst this system does have potential and I don’t think it will really cause any harm, I’m not sure that potential will be realised until further campaign changes are made that properly require us to spread out across different zones at once (i.e. the changes I’ve been banging on about for a while!). Of course once Mythic reveal the full extent of their ORvR changes, perhaps this will work out very well.
And finally, the new options for Sovereign armour. There will be alternate versions of Sovereign armour you can trade yours in for that provide different stats and bonuses, so a DPS Shaman can have DPS Sovereign and a Healer a healing version, etc. This is a good thing. A lot people I know that have Sovereign don’t bother with it and this may change that.
All told it’s a decent letter, sure I’d like more concrete future news, but at least we know it IS coming. 1.3.6 is shaping up to be a half decent patch and I’m intrigued to see what else the Summer of WAR brings us.
In an attempt not to write a monstrous wall of text and considering you’ve probably already read it after I linked yesterday, I won’t quote the whole thing, just bits I feel particularly need it. Which is really only the very first paragraph, it’s an interesting statement dripping with potential joy or disappointment, depending on your general outlook on WAR.
“Through these communications I’ve emphasized how we listen to the community and take your feedback seriously while planning the future of WAR. For the most part, the “P-Letter” (as I like to call it) is intended to be a short term look at the next version or two, giving you a look forward at the months to come. However, it’s very clear that there is a lot of desire to hear about long term planning. We hear these requests loud and clear, and it is our desire to give you a better sense of WAR’s long term plan by the end of summer. Our detractors like to make fun of us for “being really excited” and “itching to tell you about” some “really cool things” (yes, we read the snarky posts), and in this case we want to shout it from the rooftops…but not just yet.”
Some people have chosen to read this as “we acknowledge what you say, but we’re still not saying anything, so like whatever...”. I think that is more than a little harsh. I’ve been at the forefront of calling for proper and solid news for the future of WAR and it seems to me that the time is ripe to do so. However I understand that there may well be reasons, that I am unaware of, that prevent Mythic from saying anything until a certain point. Actually if you think about what's coming out over the next year from Blizard who love to shaft other MMO news releases, betas, etc (poor FF got it this week), perhaps Mythic are right to be cautious. What the above statement does do is confirm that there are major developments in the pipeline beyond the ORvR campaign improvements we’re starting to see now, certainly “shout it from the rooftops” doesn’t allude to something small and crappy.
Everyone, who isn’t being negative for the sake of it, will have read that as meaning there will be an expansion announcement made at the end of summer. Mythic must know we’ll do this and they’ve dropped clues elsewhere (“its Red, a Plague and probably a portent”, etc), so this latest comment will have been a calculated decision to tease us more. As such my no doubt unsurprising prediction is at the end of summer we will see announcement of the Red Plague expansion. Of course this leads to all manner of questions about what the expansion will be (Skaven obv, but how/what/where?) and the big question of when actually is the end of summer? That last one has a very varied answer depending on what country you live in and which form of measurement you sign up to, ranging from the beginning of August to late September… So we’re waiting a couple of months at least for the big news.
Moving on… There is mention of the EU players transferring from GOA to Mythic, no shock there and it’s not dwelled on too much, which makes sense as plenty has been said already.
As the letter starts to focus on 1.3.6 we get a few interesting bits of news. First there’s word of a dev diary on its way to explain in more detail about the new armour appearance system. Not much to say about this, other than I look forward to hearing the details. Now we start getting to the stuff that will get the speculation going. In the letter it refers to the ORvR changes coming in 1.3.6 as “the less significant portion of the work”, and it’s pretty clear that Mythic have some big changes in the pipeline for ORvR, so what pray tell are the more significant changes going to be? Larger RvR lakes? Missing Cities? Fortresses? A change to the zone locking system? Hopefully we’ll hear more soon.
Defenders of the Mailbox… Ahh bless, so you’ll have to go into the RvR lakes and risk being attacked while you’re busy AFK leeching renown. Of course I’m sure you’ll find somewhere to hide, but now we should at least be able to hunt you down and slice up your AFK buttocks.
Carrie also talks about “Against all Odds”; a new system that gives you bonus XP, renown and influence when you are outnumbered in a RvR area. Having pondered and discussed this a bit, it seems that this is one of those changes that has a lot of potential, but I’m not entirely sure how it will actually play out on live. It doesn’t encourage you to fight away from your faction’s zerg, it encourages you to fight in a different zone to your zerg. That is an important distinction. For example say Destruction outnumber Order and everyone is fighting in the Chaos Wastes, if I chose to lead my group away from the zerg and try to fight Order in different parts of the zone, then Against all Odds does nothing for my small group because we’re in the same zone as the zerg. However if lead us to a different zone, Against all Odds will still do nothing for me as it makes more sense for the outnumbered Order players to stay in Chaos Wastes and fight the zerg for increased renown, so we won’t find Order elsewhere. Therefore whilst this system does have potential and I don’t think it will really cause any harm, I’m not sure that potential will be realised until further campaign changes are made that properly require us to spread out across different zones at once (i.e. the changes I’ve been banging on about for a while!). Of course once Mythic reveal the full extent of their ORvR changes, perhaps this will work out very well.
And finally, the new options for Sovereign armour. There will be alternate versions of Sovereign armour you can trade yours in for that provide different stats and bonuses, so a DPS Shaman can have DPS Sovereign and a Healer a healing version, etc. This is a good thing. A lot people I know that have Sovereign don’t bother with it and this may change that.
All told it’s a decent letter, sure I’d like more concrete future news, but at least we know it IS coming. 1.3.6 is shaping up to be a half decent patch and I’m intrigued to see what else the Summer of WAR brings us.
Friday, 4 June 2010
I would do good to remember: no news is not good news
The problem with posting immediately after reading something is you post your immediate reaction and not a more considered opinion. This is exactly what I've done with the producers letter. I was pondering on this today and then I read war4scrubs and it really made me want to revisit my post.
The removal of sponsored cross realming and the much improved armour system are 2 things that are important for me personally and as such I was so smothered in Happy Juice that I completely ignored the fact that this letter does not cover the things that I actually spend most of my time ranting about. Those being the ping-pong campaign, Zerg clumping terrain/zones and the WAR gamer's desperate need of rock solid news for the future.
However I'm not sure if the producers letter is actually at fault here. After all in it's current state it's meant to be a brief "this is what we've done and this is what we're doing" monthly update. Perhaps the problem is at the moment, as ever with WAR, there is just so much we need information (and in fact reassurance) about.
We've seen Mythic allude recently to sorting out oRvR, but it was all very loose and watery. We don't know anything at all. A lot of people are not convinced anything IS going to happen, perhaps after the city update that would seem overly cynical, but then so much was promised even before launch and MMO gamers have very long memories. Maybe the WAR community want too much info too fast or maybe Mythic just haven't got anything to say. I doubt the latter very much, but I do think Mythic need to stop playing Secret Squirrel and give us a real glimpse of the future.
With Age of Conan getting an expansion and not a sniff of news of that scale for WAR it's no wonder people are getting twitchy. Unless you count the Red Plague rumours, but that could just be a sign of our desperation. All we really know is that the Red Plague IS coming, but if it turns out to just be a live event or other such mediocre thing, well... Yikes the disappointment will be physically tangible. And that will be the fault of people like me that hyped it, but then what else have we got to go on? A bit worrying really, I don't want to be part of hyping a huge let down.
So it's not really the letter itself, it's the whole situation. We need Mythic to not rest on their city siege laurels and lay the smack down with more epic news. And soon.
No pressure Mythic.
The removal of sponsored cross realming and the much improved armour system are 2 things that are important for me personally and as such I was so smothered in Happy Juice that I completely ignored the fact that this letter does not cover the things that I actually spend most of my time ranting about. Those being the ping-pong campaign, Zerg clumping terrain/zones and the WAR gamer's desperate need of rock solid news for the future.
However I'm not sure if the producers letter is actually at fault here. After all in it's current state it's meant to be a brief "this is what we've done and this is what we're doing" monthly update. Perhaps the problem is at the moment, as ever with WAR, there is just so much we need information (and in fact reassurance) about.
We've seen Mythic allude recently to sorting out oRvR, but it was all very loose and watery. We don't know anything at all. A lot of people are not convinced anything IS going to happen, perhaps after the city update that would seem overly cynical, but then so much was promised even before launch and MMO gamers have very long memories. Maybe the WAR community want too much info too fast or maybe Mythic just haven't got anything to say. I doubt the latter very much, but I do think Mythic need to stop playing Secret Squirrel and give us a real glimpse of the future.
With Age of Conan getting an expansion and not a sniff of news of that scale for WAR it's no wonder people are getting twitchy. Unless you count the Red Plague rumours, but that could just be a sign of our desperation. All we really know is that the Red Plague IS coming, but if it turns out to just be a live event or other such mediocre thing, well... Yikes the disappointment will be physically tangible. And that will be the fault of people like me that hyped it, but then what else have we got to go on? A bit worrying really, I don't want to be part of hyping a huge let down.
So it's not really the letter itself, it's the whole situation. We need Mythic to not rest on their city siege laurels and lay the smack down with more epic news. And soon.
No pressure Mythic.
Tuesday, 1 June 2010
Producers Letter is out and this time…
…I’m liking it quite a lot. You can find Carrie's Producer Letter here. As our main source of future WAR news, it’s actually somewhat lacking in the amount of things we get to hear about, but there are two very cool bits of news. At least from my perspective they’re very cool to hear, but those expecting to hear about expansions, red plagues and the removal and public humiliation of Bright Wizards and Sorcs… well you’ll be disappointed, but ah well :P
One of the things I’m liking about Mythic, particularly in recent times, is their ability to put their hands up and say ok that was a bad idea. I’m sure some people will wish they did that a bit more regarding certain careers and so on, but then that’s probably a bit harsh and to be honest change is often best as a gradual thing. Anyways, the reason I’m waffling on here is because Mythic have listened to the serious concerns raised by myself and many others about the plans to let people play both factions on the same server.
“Because of this, we gauge player reaction through many outlets to make sure that our vision for the game aligns with community sentiment. In the last producer’s letter I told everyone that we would be allowing players to play both realms on the same server. There were reasons for this decision, however community sentiment about the impact this would have on Realm pride was, to be blunt, mixed. As a result of this mixed community reaction we have reevaluated our decision. The intent behind this feature moving forward is to only allow the option to play both Realms in the case where there is only one server to choose from. In smaller language markets our only option up until this point has been to merge them with other markets of different languages, or allow them to play on one server but force them to choose which realm they prefer playing. This feature allows us to achieve our goal of offering the best possible gameplay experience for all markets.”
As far as I’m concerned this is excellent news and I’m 100% with Mythic on this decision. As a solution for languages covered by 1 server it makes perfect sense. Great job. I'm sure some people will now cry about them not doing this, but I geuninely think it would have been terrible for the game and the tattered remains of realm pride.
Ok the next bit of lovely jubbly news is 1.3.6 will not only feature the much delayed new armour set graphics, but will also include a system to choose what armour style is displayed on your character.
“Our solution is to introduce a new system that will let you set your armor and weapon appearance independently of your armor stats, so that you can look how you want to look and yet keep the statistics that you personally prefer. The goal is to give players the added benefit of having the new armor sets available to them, but the ability to change their appearance if they don’t like the way they look.”
I really, really like this. Perfect solution and I can’t see how anyone could not be pleased. The look of your character is hugely important to your subconscious bond to it as a player, so giving us more customisation options and the ability to not look shite because we got an armour upgrade, is all very good news. With this change we get our cake and we get to eat it too.
Ok as players we are expecting 1.3.6 to be the BIG career balancing patch, I'm not sure why, I believe Mythic said as much... but I can’t remember where. Confirmation anyone? Regardless of that, there is only one bit of class changing information discussed which is to do with Zealots and Runepriests. It sounds like quite a dramatic change in play style, the exact details of which the letter does not confirm, but basically the Harbinger of Doom is to become THE HARBINGER OF DOOOOOM! I’ve just got my Zealot to 40, so I’m very interested in seeing more info on this.
And finally the much anticipated blogger video is out. Alas it's nowt to do with expansions or other moments of wonder, instead its regarding the new loading screen tips. However it's well worth a watch and is a good way of introducing the competition. Mykiel you are comedy gold mate.
One of the things I’m liking about Mythic, particularly in recent times, is their ability to put their hands up and say ok that was a bad idea. I’m sure some people will wish they did that a bit more regarding certain careers and so on, but then that’s probably a bit harsh and to be honest change is often best as a gradual thing. Anyways, the reason I’m waffling on here is because Mythic have listened to the serious concerns raised by myself and many others about the plans to let people play both factions on the same server.
“Because of this, we gauge player reaction through many outlets to make sure that our vision for the game aligns with community sentiment. In the last producer’s letter I told everyone that we would be allowing players to play both realms on the same server. There were reasons for this decision, however community sentiment about the impact this would have on Realm pride was, to be blunt, mixed. As a result of this mixed community reaction we have reevaluated our decision. The intent behind this feature moving forward is to only allow the option to play both Realms in the case where there is only one server to choose from. In smaller language markets our only option up until this point has been to merge them with other markets of different languages, or allow them to play on one server but force them to choose which realm they prefer playing. This feature allows us to achieve our goal of offering the best possible gameplay experience for all markets.”
As far as I’m concerned this is excellent news and I’m 100% with Mythic on this decision. As a solution for languages covered by 1 server it makes perfect sense. Great job. I'm sure some people will now cry about them not doing this, but I geuninely think it would have been terrible for the game and the tattered remains of realm pride.
Ok the next bit of lovely jubbly news is 1.3.6 will not only feature the much delayed new armour set graphics, but will also include a system to choose what armour style is displayed on your character.
“Our solution is to introduce a new system that will let you set your armor and weapon appearance independently of your armor stats, so that you can look how you want to look and yet keep the statistics that you personally prefer. The goal is to give players the added benefit of having the new armor sets available to them, but the ability to change their appearance if they don’t like the way they look.”
I really, really like this. Perfect solution and I can’t see how anyone could not be pleased. The look of your character is hugely important to your subconscious bond to it as a player, so giving us more customisation options and the ability to not look shite because we got an armour upgrade, is all very good news. With this change we get our cake and we get to eat it too.
Ok as players we are expecting 1.3.6 to be the BIG career balancing patch, I'm not sure why, I believe Mythic said as much... but I can’t remember where. Confirmation anyone? Regardless of that, there is only one bit of class changing information discussed which is to do with Zealots and Runepriests. It sounds like quite a dramatic change in play style, the exact details of which the letter does not confirm, but basically the Harbinger of Doom is to become THE HARBINGER OF DOOOOOM! I’ve just got my Zealot to 40, so I’m very interested in seeing more info on this.
And finally the much anticipated blogger video is out. Alas it's nowt to do with expansions or other moments of wonder, instead its regarding the new loading screen tips. However it's well worth a watch and is a good way of introducing the competition. Mykiel you are comedy gold mate.
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About Me
- Bootae
- Half man half pixel. Music obsessive, likes a drink, occasional bastard.