Finding the right pants.

Does anyone else have trouble finding the right guild for them? You know the one with the racing strip and correctly warn holes...

The guys at Mythic have recently introduced the guild search functionality, which is excellent. I also wonder if we will ever get a Alliance/Guild Recruitment chat channel. 

Eve Online has one and it was always good to monitor the channel when you needed a new corporation. Even just to see what questions other people and guilds posted so you could further get an impression on what type of guild were out there.

The main problem is none of my friends play Warhammer and I am casual player. I get about 3 decent play sessions a week which is usually to little for the good organized guilds. So you end up looking at the casual guilds.

I find that the casual guilds end up being PvE focus looking for players to run the city dungeons. 

Gaarawarrgabs

Some people say the only good stunty is one who's face is mashed round you choppa. Well that is not necessarily true in this case as it is one of my favourite blogs. The main reason is his passion about the game oozes through his posts and they are incredibly informative.

Check it out...

http://gaarawarrgabs.wordpress.com/

Adopt the position

Before I tell you about today’s subject I need you to adopt the Warhammer epic position. You need to hold you imaginary guitar playing the high cords and sing “Epicccc” in a high pitched 80’s rock voice. If you have long curly hair all the better. If you need more here is Prince also adopting the position, I reckon he plays a Witch Elf.

Anyway now my Chosen is at renown rank 33 I thought I’d give my Choppa some love. (innuendo intended)

He is level 23-ish now and I took part in a (adopt the position ) “Epicccc” siege defence. My role was to sit behind the tank wall and spam my AoE chopping. The siege just on the inner ramp lasted around 45 minutes. With order planting themselves half way up the ramp. They came so close to wiping all destruction a number of times, only to the pure excellence of our healers and their skill in resurrecting. One particular Disciple of Khaine must have resurrected me around 20 times.

I love the siege mechanic of War, and think with time it can only get better. I have read they are working on second ramps for keeps, but what would be cool would be a wider variety of siege weapons. I have not seen ladders in War, so maybe that would be a lot of effort for little reward.

But maybe we could have small movable towers like in the second Warhammer trailer which appear on a siege weapon pad 20 foot away from the walls then they slowly move toward the wall. The attackers have to repair and defend it, and the defenders have to destroy it before it reaches the wall.

I know this would still be a lot of work, so maybe as a quick bang for buck player catapults could be place in the attackers siege pads. I know this mechanism is already in the game, my Choppa did it as one of his first quests in the green skin zone.  To make it more viable maybe it could load 5 players on it and fire them to the top of the keep.

If you have what you think are “Epicccc” moments in War I would love to hear them.

Nemesis System

Check out the latest MMO Report, this is a special edition with Jeff Hickman and Paul Barnett. These guys are excellent and provide a soft sticky centre like an Éclair to the usual hard to swallow toffee MMORPG developer.

My favourite bit is were Hickman talks about the Nemesis System, and talks about people who he hates in-game I wonder if the Black Orc or Sorcerer know if they are Hickman’s nemesis. 

As I am not really leet enough to have a real nemesis, I just have the Book of Grudges installed which lists who killed you and who you have killed.

Now I am spending more time in tier 4 there are certain order players on our server who have a reputation for their skill. You hear their names called across Ventrilo when they show up and players travel across zones just to fight them. I love this aspect of War, Eve Online has its own rock star players and I am glad War is getting them on a server basis.

I would love the data in the Book of Grudges to be available on www.wardb.com. So you could have a who's, who of skilled players.

On the server I play on, there is a Bright Wizard called ‘Jenna’. Just last week I had the privilege of having my behind handed to me while she kited me and a Black Guard (see picture) and eventually killed up both twice. I loved the fight and hope I have more in the future.

WARP

Patch 1.3 is out but I have never been a min/maxer and could never contend with the excellent coverage by Gaarawarr Gabs or Mmmmmgud. So I thought I would take a look at the WARP podcast.

Since I started to play Warhammer at release I have also listened to the WARP pod cast done by the Dead Workers Party. So I thought I give them sort of a mini review, I would also recommend to any new players to go back and listen to their old pod casts. Some of the details will have changed but like with a lot of pod casts I think the show, presenters and game all grow together.

The early shows give you a lot of tips and deal with a lot of the early content and early growing pains you will have as you hit the levelling curve.

The shows started with 5 presenters, (Eric, Brent, Wes, Spencer) but sadly Eric did not last beyond the first few shows. Personally I think the other presenters probably assassinated him, or he just moved on to another morg. At least in my head it ended up in a Kung-Fu fight to the death.

Wes generally plays a Zealot in game, and comes across as a more PvE centric player. Although I think that is down to play time and not chose. He also seems very knowledgeable about Warhammer lore. A lot of the first sets of shows had plenty of excellent information on lore and story which I personally think is lacking in later shows. A few segments delved in War’s back story and how the chapters tried to flesh out that story. 

Brent throughout the majority of the shows plays a Black Orc and seems to act as the glue of the show. He provides information on Tome unlocks, and comes across as the happy medium between PvE and RvR.

Spencer main seems to be the Witch Elf and as well as Brent has been trying out the Choppa. His dry sense of humour and critical eye adds balance to the show. He also seems to be more RvR focused.

The shows format tries to follow a general what they like to call a battle plan and is balanced with information, entertainment and what is happening in the game. I think the pod cast gives a fare reflection of the game and the common player. Except me who general joyfully bouncing along in blissful ignorance (we have already established my none min/maxing), kicking stunties in the nuts, well until lately (casts an accusing glance at the War Buddy episode).

Just to reinforce this (a lot of the players currently playing in T4 RvR) they have recently added a new presenter Bill, who again is knowledgeable in RvR, but on an Alliance level.

I love the show and think it is relevant, informative and entertaining and an essential part of the War community.

Variety is not the Spice of Life.

I have a roving eye, if I see something else which is shiny I almost find it almost impossible not to re-roll.

My Chosen is the first character I have gotten to level cap and he is one bubble away from renown rank 33 and the ability to wear my Annihilator chest piece.

But watching the Games Day Baltimore - Land of the Dead Hands-On Gameplay over at Warhammer Alliance the Engineer caught my eye. I know this is a test of character and loyalty to my character and guild as well as just willpower. I already have a level 11 Warrior Priest over on Eight Peeks waiting for a rainy day.

Can I resist the Spanner?

Scenario Groups

Since the late 30’s my scenario play time for my Chosen character was very limited as a way of levelling or gaining renown. The reasons were between have a pure tank spec, running in to premade groups and being shouted at when victory points were needed for a zone lock.

Joining a PUG group for a scenario would see me get a pitiful 300 renown points, which became the main goal once hitting 40. 

I have been in premade groups, well by premade I mean a few people on Ventrilo shouting at each other which really is not much of a step up from a PUG. 

The other night I actually got a step closer to a proper premade group, by this I mean a group which is focused, balance and using specific tactics. We had 6 people 2 Chosen, 2 Sorcerers, a healer and a Witch Elf. 

I recently re-spec my Chosen to be more of an anti caster/disruption build which you can be seen here. By no means would I call this THE spec as I am still feeling around for one to suit my taste and role.  If anyone has comments I would love to hear them.

Anyway, my job was to protect one of the Sorcerers with Guard and try to protect them when needed. While they got close up to the enemy when their morale 2 ability Focused Mind was able to be triggered and spammed there area of attack abilities. As my aim was disrupting/buff/protecting and not damage I found my focus and play style felt more rewarding and to my surprise substantially more rewarding in real terms. I saved my rank 3 and 4 morale abilities when things got a bit sticky for the Sorcerers health bar in the vain hope it would give the healer that little extra time, and it seemed to work on a number of occasions. 

So from my pitiful 300 renown points I was topping the scenario charts with 3.5K to 4.5K renown points while our side continuously held order at their own spawn point over 4 scenarios. I imagine this is probably old news for a lot of players, but to me it has been a revelation for my Chosen who now even in PUG’s glues himself to a DPS class. 

Also if you check out the WARP post cast episode 34 they also talk about how renown and experience is distributed in a group.

I spy

I was in a war band and we had been taking objectives in the tier 3 zones. But as we moved on to the next zone some of the objectives were flipping, reports came in a small order war band was in one of the zones. So again we went through each of zones again taking all the objectives making them destruction controlled.

Once complete, we were left with a war band and all destruction controlled objects, so while the war band stayed in the green skin zone the war band leader went to the chaos zone and I went to the elf zone. 10 minutes later all the zones were still destruction controlled and I was just about to fly back to the war band when I noticed a flag had flipped control, so I communicated this back to the war band and they started to wrap up what they where doing. 

I travelled to the next logical object and hid behind a tree so I could see when they arrived, they didn’t so I checked out the map again and they had travelled south. So I followed them there and approached the objective by hiding behind stone columns. I don’t think they saw me, at least they did not send anyone to attack me. I reported numbers, then direction once they left. On the way I was spotted a few chased me down and I spawned back at the camp. Just in time to meet the destruction war band arriving in the zone and we travelled straight to the objective the order war band where heading. They took the objective but we where there soon after to wipe them out and flip the objective again.

Land of the Dead trailer.

The Land of the Dead trailer has been released, it looks awesome and I am looking forward to it late June. The dungeon mechanics sound interesting and the massive bosses look epic. A few places seem to have jumping mechanics to avoid traps, this sounds good but also concerns me, how will this operate under lag and also the War landscape has a habit of trapping your character.

Warhammer Alliance also have an excellent video here.

They discuss a lot of the mechanics like the ward system, lock out times and level bolstering. I am glad my mid level alts (25) will be able to get bolstered to level 36. But I wonder how many war bands will let you tag along if level 40's also want to join.

The new backpacks sound excellent they mentioned the Warrior Priest one which is lots of scrolls all staked up.

Land of the Dead trailer

I just got up and checked out my War blog links and Werit (very good blog) has a link to the Land of the Dead trailer.

I have not been that bothered about the instanced dungeons as I have been doing RvR lately, but the Land of the dead looks the best of both worlds.

The prospect of using the dungeon traps against the enemy makes me salivate.

Variety is the spice of life.

Like WAAAG ROOTS I thought I would post my 5 favourite things about War…

1. Realm versus Realm

One of my previous games was Eve Online, which has an excellent balance of PvP and PvE content. The only problem is the PvP is for keeps, you die and days/weeks of work can go down the pan and the game punishes you for even a small amount of ‘taking your eye off the ball’. Though this makes for heart in mouth PvP, as a casual player it can become quite expensive in in-game money. 

The RvR in War feels more like a first person shooter game, but with more character progression and skills.

2. Start game = End game

I love the fact that right from level one I can get involved in open realm versus realm, join scenarios and play this way all the way through to and beyound the level cap.

3. Experience from killing players

I am surprised it has not been done in other games eons ago.

4. Variety

Before War I was playing Age of Conan and I did not experience any of the crashes which plagued other players. I loved the lore, combat and heart of the game and only tried War to see what all the hype was about. The sheer variety of game play and multiple paths to the level cap completely drew me in and I never went back.

I love the fact that all my alts can have completely different experience's while levelling from multiple zones, questing, public quests, scenarios and realm versus realm.

5. Mythic

Like the Eve Online developers they seem to be players too and try to react to issues quickly. Video podcasts constantly have developers star in them. That coupled with Paul Barnett putting himself on the front line helps you feel closer to War's creators.

Tier 2 revisited

The first time I went through tier 2 was at launch. This was before the RvR influence system, tokens and the unseen pressure of keeping with the player base levelling curve (it is almost like a land grab to see who reaches the end content before everyone else gets bored and leaves for the next flavour of the month).

Anyway this time I rolled a Choppa and tried it at my own pace and without the need to reach the level cap.

These 10 levels was the most fun I have had in War since I subscribed. Levels seem inconsequential and the current RvR objective and killing was all that mattered. Night after night I just logged in to play the game, not focus on progress or loot just the intense action of battle and camaraderie of war bands.

Before I knew it, I had all my Obliterator gear, almost full influence in each tier 2 zone and I had just hit level 20. They say time goes fast when you having fun, I almost don’t want to go back to my level 40 Chosen and just role another alt to experience it all over again.

New city ideas

So currently we have the city sieges in Empire made up of public quests, so after all the open realm versus realm play to capture the city you end up in the games PvE mechanic.

I imagine Mythic would not want all their hard effort wasted and thrown away. But we also still have two city pairings left to come. To vary the end game as well as Land of the Dead the next two cites follow a different mechanic in their capture.

How about creating the Elf pairing cities based on a scenario city siege mechanic?

Break the city into lots of smaller instance scenarios which tell the tale of a city siege. You start at the outer scenario maybe based on the battlements then work you way through a string of scenarios which take you through houses, palace grounds to the throne room. Fail on one scenario, maybe you have to redo it or it moves you back down the chain.

Use the scenario types (capture the flag, objective control…) in the tale here are a few ideas:

Objective control of scenario situated on city battlements. The scenario had various control objectives like gate house and anti siege weaponry.

Scenario based in the nobles houses of the city which have magical wards which protect the inner city. Like the ‘Stone Troll Crossing’ you have to take a crystal and run through each of the houses placing the crystal on each ward to disable the barrier. The action would be very close quarters, maybe you could have the ability to use ranged ability through windows of the houses.

After reading Malus Darkblade novels describing the city Naggarond the complex streets and towers would lend themselves to an excellent range of scenarios.

Introduction

Hopefully this is going to be the first of many posts, so I thought I would write a brief introduction.

I am a long time MMORG player and have been playing Warhammer Online since launch. I have a level 40 Chosen and two main alts a Choppa and Disiple of Khaine which are in tier 2.

After going through a lot of the PvE content getting to 40 my main focus has become open realm versus realm.