Thanquol, you are a sodding tosser

AAAGHH screw you Thanquol and your poxy incursion! Despite our group having people in the top damage done, none of us are getting even a chance to roll on loot as it says we didn't contribute enough. First two bosses just now, same thing and we've logged off. Third bloody time this has happened to me in TI and it's annoying as hell.

 

Man this dungeon thing needs work. Barely any Skaven in it, barely any enemy players in it (or other times far too many), barely anything to do in it and all told, just hugely disappointing. For me it’s the biggest let down with 1.4 and the RvR packs. Mythic have some changes in the pipeline for TI, but man oh man it needs to be more than just a few tweaks.

 

It needs to have:

• Reasons for players to be spread around, fighting in the tunnels in EVERY stage, with points to control, activate, attack or something.
• LOTS of Skaven NPCs running around, even if untargetable or pathetic low hitpoint ones. Without them there’s just no Skaven atmosphere.
• A contribution system that works.
• A queueing system that works and actually gets equal numbers of players inside.
• A complete review of how and when we gain access to the dungeon, combined with how we are notified of it. We should be gagging to get in there. 

Lots of potential, totally wasted right now. Chop chop folks, make it good please.

Hotfix details...

...can be found here or pasted below.

General Changes and Bug Fixes
General
•The new dye options available to players who have purchased the Personality Pack have been reduced in price.
•A new dye color, Badab Black, has been made available to players who have purchased the Personality Pack.
•Corrected an error with colors on some Magus Disc Mounts.
•Fixed an issue where Thanquol’s “Warp Lightning” ability would occasionally not properly display.
•Fixed an issue where players eligible for veterans reward (WAR Double Aegis) were not properly receiving their reward item in the mail.

Realm vs. Realm
Open RvR
•Siege Weapons destroyed within a Keep’s area will now grant Contribution.
•Aerial Bombers defeated within a Keep’s area will now grant Contribution.
•Various improvements have been made to Contribution earned while participating in a Keep Siege.
•The Resource pool threshold for Tier 4 RvR Keeps has been increased. Keeps will now require additional resources to increase in Rank.
•The health for Tier 4 Keep Doors has been increased.
•Fixed an issue where the Skaven ability “Running with the Pack” incorrectly had a Renown Rank restriction.
•The Skaven/Giant Rat camps in Tier’s 2&3 Empire vs. Chaos have had their levels adjusted to be more appropriate to the new Tier restrictions.
•Fixed an issue which could, in some cases, prevent additional instances of the Thanquol’s Incursion RvR Dungeon from being created.
•The Quest “Release Control” granted by the Excavated Skaven Device has been disabled. Players will now be required to exit the RvR Lake or die to remove the Play as Skaven buff.


Contested City
•Fixed an issue which could, in some cases, prevent additional instances of Contested Altdorf or The Inevitable City from being created.

Scenarios
•Adjustments have been made to the Scenario Matchmaking system.
•Fixed an issue where Scenarios were not properly triggering.

BTW I will be posting in the near future with some thoughts about the introduction of 1.4, its just been delayed by me not getting enough time to properly play the game and get a good enough feel for all of the changes to live.

Dungeon, Lair or Scenario?

I’ve not been able to test the new Skaven dungeon “Thanquol’s Incursion” yet. Unfortunately real life has clashed with PTS events and given me slim windows of opportunity to get on and when I did manage to sneak, both times there were issues that prevented me getting in the instance. Bloody sods law.

Reading the feedback on the forum from the first test events gives a rather bleak outlook on the dungeon and the direction taken. However since then I’ve also heard some feedback directly from people I know and trust that went to last night’s PTS event. Their feedback was more mixed with a generally positive outlook, but tempered by many major things that need sorting out.

I’m not going to post the details of what was said; since I’ve not got in the dungeon at all I’m bound to get things mixed up. But in general people seemed to have had a good time and are hopeful that if Mythic continue to tweak things (considerably) then it could work out to be a lot of fun.

Bit of vague post I know, but that’s what I’m left with. There’s too much blind sycophantic or mindless hatred opinion being posted for me to trust much of what’s out there right now. With luck I’ll get a chance to test it out sometime before it goes live.

I do think though that from what I’ve seen so far it doesn’t seem to be what I think of as a dungeon (big place, stuff to explore and fight over), more like a scenario with mobs in the middle, or perhaps a RvR enabled instanced Lair would be a better description? Not that that is necessarily a bad thing, but I’m trying to get my head round what this place really is.

I think people will have very set ideas about what the word dungeon means, particularly when you put RvR near the word. Memories of Darkness Falls leap to the forefront of your mind and while I think much of them will be rather rose-tinted (particularly on the PvE vs PvP balance), the sense of scale associated with those memories is pretty damn epic and accurately so. The RvR dungeons in DAoC are not dungeons, they are DUNGEONS!

But then new Lair or Scenario isn’t exactly going to set the world alight and perhaps is far underselling what the new Skaven instanced thing is. Maybe its somewhere in between. I’m really not sure yet.

To be honest if it’s fun I won’t care too much and it’s important to note there are both positive and negative things being said about the PTS events, but I do wonder how much the negative stuff is being influenced by expectation related to the word dungeon. If true though I don't think that is a reason to write those negative comments off, since managing player expectation is a big part of running and evolving a MMO. You could probably find all sorts of debate over what RvR means too. Opinions... such a pain.

Thanquol's Incursion, will folks stay and fight?

OK so I’m presuming everyone has read Mythic’s post on the herald with more info about the new Skaven RvR Dungeon “Thanquol's Incursion”.

I was hoping for an RvR zone more than a dungeon, though I’m not entirely sure what I had envisaged; something huge and open, perhaps akin to DAoC style zones. Yet a while back I came round to accepting that WAR will never be DAoC2 and it certainly will never be UO2 (my other dream game…), but I still enjoy it and play WAR most nights, so perhaps while I think I want a return to those games, maybe I wouldn’t be quite so happy going back. Dunno for sure. WAR does work perfectly for someone like me that is balancing a family and gaming. Being able to log out whenever without hassle is essential if you want to maintain a relationship with a non-gaming wife. WAR is wonderfully friendly to the older gamer doing the hardcore casual thing.

Anyway, part of WAR’s different style is the instanced 24vs24 City siege and it looks like Thanquol's Incursion is very much going to be a similar experience. 3 stages and a focus on RvR, mixed with NPC interaction that isn’t quite normal PvE. The city siege is still a fun experience, at least when people aren’t quitting the instance to avoid tough opposition. Though on that topic it’s a little more understandable when solo queuing and you get into a half way finished instance with your spawn being camped and barely any friendly players there. Plus despite what people’s internet personas and egos may allow them to admit, I’ve seen premade groups/warbands from every single well known guild from both factions drop out when things went bad, actually I tell a lie, there’s one exception and it’s not who Norn players would expect.

OK that’s a tangent, but it’s relevant because if Thanquol's Incursion uses the same system to join as the city, then we will most likely see similar things. Which will mean when it’s good, it’s great and when it’s not so good, it’s a bit meh. Yet, any PvP game will see things like this happen. There’s always a load of people that will always go for the path of least resistance, no matter how dull. That’s why the term leechers is so common in MMOs.

So the big questions for me for anyone that goes to tonight’s (or for me early morning) PTS Skaven event is:

Does joining the dungeon work like the city siege?
And if so how much fun will this instance be to play with erratic opposition?
Or does it work in such a way that people will stay for the fun/fight/whatever?

It’s a tricky one to balance as if you make the Bosses too involving it becomes too much PvE when you’ve got a proper fight on. Maybe Mythic have cracked it though. Mythic learnt a lot from the City siege, tonight we’ll discover how that gets applied. Alas I can’t make this first test, work tomorrow and all that, but I’m looking forward to hearing what people discover.

Other random thought, I bet Warhammer lore fans are wetting their panties about this famous pair below.