Vamping it up

As I mentioned recently, I already know what I want for a Live Expansion... I want Sylvania and Drakenhof Castle.

Sylvania is the home of the Vampire Counts, specifically the Von Carsteins, warhammer's classic Dracula style vampires. Being Warhammer they are a bit more aggresive than Bram Stoker's vampire, with world domination and an eternity of night well and truely on the agenda. The land they call home is the classic European vampire setting, dark, decaying, gothic and oh so very atmospheric.

I would want 3 zones. The main countryside outdoors, the crypts and dungeons as a huge underground zone and then  Drakenhof Castle itself as the third area. All of which would be fully RvR enabled and NOT instanced. There would be boss PQs like the Colossus requiring players to work together to activate them, also lairs and other epic feeling events, but all of which would have the risk of enemy players attacking. There would also be lots of RvR themed PQs that would affect movement within the zone itself and add a further tactical element. Bridges to destroy, caves to collapse, that sort of thing.

I would suggest lots of things that could be done communally, not just with 1 group. Perhaps to activate major boss events and special RvR activities. Then the big crunch would be in Drakenhof itself, some kind of hard to reach and hard to win event that would have a positive impact on the faction that manages it. Something that would be worth the effort, but at the same time is not over powered.

The basic concept is full RvR, non-instanced zones that don't lock, are not gated and have loads of fun things to do. A place where all PvE has a risk of PvP attacks, but has rewards that merit the risk for all involved, both those trying the PvE and those attacking them. Everything organised and spread out in such a way that it promotes small group play and limits the effect of zergs.

Not exactly a new concept, but one that will do me I reckon :)

Update: I forgot to pimp Oneshard's WAR video. It does a good job of showing how much better the game runs now and if you've not played WAR before, it certainly gives you an idea of how you can PvP all the way to 40 :)

Keeping the faith

Assuming all is actually well with WAR and it has a positive future, I really do think Mythic need to announce something big and exciting if we are to keep the faith.

I've been pondering what I would consider as big and exciting enough...

Third Faction
This is the obvious one, but its also by far the biggest, most difficult and probably least likely. That doesn't stop it being the best thing that could happen to WAR.

Fortress Relic Raids
This could be great, but perhaps it would need a bit of extra spice to satisfy everyone. If the forts go back exactly as they were just with the relic to steal, then it could be seen as a bit of a lazy addition. Whilst it will be a welcome distraction from the campaign mess we have now, I'm not sure how the community would react to this one. Is it enough?

Live Expansion
A second Land of the Dead sized expansion would certainly be a sign of continued growth. There are so many things that could be done, from Sylvania to the Ogre Kingdoms, the Warhammer world is rich in untapped content. But what manner of live expansion would people want? RvR based, PvE or a hybrid? I know what I want, but that's another topic to post about :)

Expansion with new races for the existing factions
Skaven and Lizardmen... New zones to fight in and new careers to play. As much as I would prefer new races in a third faction, I would still be happy with this. And there would be no arguing with it as a statement of Mythic's ongoing commitment to WAR.

It's all good and well Mythic denying the claims of maintenance mode, but for everyone to believe it they need to give us a bit more to go on. The world is an increasingly faithless place (in all respects)...

Mythic! We need a sign.

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

Thanks to Werit for spotting this first.

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

Video Games - E3 2009 - X-Play

I am now officially "hyped" for LotD.

UPDATE! video 2

Video Game - E3 2009 - X-Play

Info about the Live expansion and new classes

Eurogamer has posted up an interview they did with a whole load of the guys from Mythic. I highly recommend you take a look at it here.

Meanwhile I'll pick out some highlights relating to the live expansion...

Tomb Kings or The Land of the Dead is a massive zone which is broken up into two parts - The Necropolis and the Tomb of the Vulture Lord.

It is RvR-gated. In other words, each realm must fight for ownership and the dungeon is expected to change hands nightly...
It is full of new and interesting PQs, new lairs, refreshing game mechanics, new rewards and loot and generally awesome new stuff.

Many of the great things from Darkness Falls will be built upon. Tokens, other loot methods, wide level range, and the thrill of your enemy always breathing down your back. Lots of opportunities for RvR within the dungeon itself.

I presume The Necropolis is the main zone and then the Tomb of the Vulture Lord is the Darkness Falls type main dungeon. Be very interesting to see how this is all laid out, tbh there's so many possibilities it's hard to guess.

Tokens? Great, if it's like the DAoC token system that is all good.


You can be attacked anywhere in the Land of the Dead. There is a huge open-world area, but also some instanced areas. In ANY of these areas, your enemy can hunt you down and fight you (as long as they gain control of the dungeon while you are in it). Even the instances are not safe.

Now that sounds very cool. Obviously with a Darkness Falls style the open areas would be dangerous, but the instances not being safe as well when control is lost? Awesome, probably ;)


It is accessible from around levels 25 and up. The Tomb of the Vulture Lord is actually a super high level area designed to supplement our end game content after Lost Vale.

Good move. Level 25 is about when Tier3 turns into boredom central, so this can only be a good thing.

Woah! Mythic's schedule works for me ;)

First off; leading up to their big announcement, I have to say I've really liked the way Mythic did the teasers with the parcels they sent out. A bit of creativity in marketing is always good. Anyway...

So basically we're getting everything I hoped for in my post: Bring on the 29th ! Well except the Cities, but then I was expecting Darkness Falls to be in a paid expansion. Result IMHO ;)

If you've not seen it already, go check out: A call to arms!
And then a post by Mark Jacobs with a bit of extra confirmations here.
I'll post about the new classes, live events and Tomb Kings later, but here's my thoughts on the numbered topics in Mark's post:

1) Bug fixing AND 4) Career balancing
Obviously we were going to get bug fixes and character balancing (why some people assumed there wasnt going to be I don't know...), but I was pleasantly surprised to read there'sa whopping 15 pages worth of "bug fixes/balance changes patch notes" coming our way. There's a range of things I'd like to see addressed, but in particular I hope the CC/disorientating effects get sorted.
I'm sure every player has been effected by bugs, but then that's MMO launches for you. Up to now, Mythics patching has been pretty good. Lets hope it continues.

2) RvR code fixes
I totally understand that they need to get the stability of Fortresses sorted out first, but I really hope they then go on improve the layout and general meh of the fortress design. They currently feel just like bigger versions of the other keeps, this is not good. They need to feel more epic, be more interesting and not just a 3 frames per second zerg headbutting session.

3) RvR changes/improvements
I have high hopes for Zone domination, it should break up the zerg. Great for guilds like mine where we like to work as a unit away from the zerg.
Keep upgrades I presume will be like DAoC where if a guild owns a keep it can upgrade the NPC guards, the strength of doors, etc. Good start, but let's get some destructable walls ASAP please. Though of course I'll be interested to see on this "rather lengthy list ".

5) Changes to "quality of WAR" such as new armor and mount color diversity for high-level guilds.
I am VERY pleased to read this. The way a player's character look is so key to getting the player to feel attached to it. More diversity in appearance can onlybe good. And mount colours, yay ;)


On a side note, there's been some really unpleasant shite spouted in reaction to Mythic's news on this. Usual doom calling, naysaying stuff, but bloody hell some folks take it too far. It's like people are trying to stop Mythic communicating on forums. If you're looking to see what WAR's like, don't let those forum ranters drag you down. WAR's certainly not perfect, but it's also not anything like the overly vocal Mr Angry minority make out.

I'm feeling pretty damn positive about WAR at the moment and I'm still enjoying playing it right now. The new content and improvements coming our way should only make things even better.