Bouncing

Last night in tier 4 on Karak-Azgal the RvR was bouncing. Eataine was on the brink of a zone lock for quite some time but Order kept popping up too steal an objective or two. Our own alliance managed to form a full war band and Order was everywhere so we had some good fights.

A few people on Ventrilo suggested this post might have shaken order up who have been complaining about the destruction zerg for weeks. I am not exactly sure how much of a role the server forums take in War. I for one rarely visit the official forums and instead lurk around the Warhammer Alliance ones, which for me have more of a community feel. The main reason for this I think is the forums existed before the game was released therefore a community has longer and more reason to establish. I think the official forums came too late and they might have been better off actually linking the Warhammer Alliance forums and establishing some kind of official link.

The real reason for the renewed activity in War could be the live event as we all know Order are loot whores but in my opinion it is patch 1.3.2 and the action point fix have made a huge positive difference in tier 4 RvR. No longer do I just spam abilities. Fights are lasting longer and I have to actually think more and be more careful, to come out alive.

Welcome back to War

A while back I posted an entry on how I thought War was on the up and I still think that patch was a good start. It was the time when Mythic stopped adding and started fixing. Since then we have had a number of patches which in my opinion has improved War adding polish and improvements as well as tweaks to the game to improve things.

I agree with Werit and Bootae it is a good time to come back to War, but I might suggest just wait one more patch. As I think between now and then things will only get better, Mythic even seem to be hot fixing improvements now, which for me is better than big patches spread out.

When I created an alt and logged in for the new player experience I was greeted with the following screen, which outlines all the improvements they have added. I think my favourite addition has been the second ramp in keeps. All the keep sieges I have participated in have been manic!

Just thought I would also add my favourite screen shot I have at the moment which became the blogs banner. I seem to have caught Scission in an almost deflated state. This with the dark clouds approaching from behind almost tells a story of foreboding.

Realm pride by statistics

When you speak to most Dark Age of Camelot players if they are not endlessly harping on about 3 factions they gush over the feeling of realm pride.

Now I don’t to even pretend to know the answer to instilling more realm pride into War. If you are winning at the moment most people just point to the zerg and if you loosing there seems to be common theme of I quit remarks.

The War web site does have statistics on what the current snap shot of the realm looks like and it does have leader boards. But these are cumbersome to use and don’t tell a story of those epic struggles to take an objective.

Over at www.worldoflogs.com I jealously explore the amazing amounts of statistics they collect from World of Warcraft instance runs.

Take this example it shows DPS against a boss in an instance. You get to see how the group has done and it even shows markers throughout the boss fight. Of course the statistics can be viewed in a multitude of ways which can be DPS done and damage taken, healing statistics and a whole lot more. The whole web site is so easy to use and quickly brings up any statistics you want.

Imagine if War had this kind of log site. You might be able to take a particular objective and show the flow of battle. Then post the links on the server forums of a battle were your war band managed to hold out against insurmountable odds. Maybe have bragging tables of the most active and successful guilds over the past week!

War's facilities

So a lot is happening in War at the moment. I could comment about the interesting musings over at Bootae about possible expansion leeks.

Maybe I could join Zizlak looking at 1.3.2 and make comments about the War patch?

Instead… I was in tier two and notice Mandred's Hold has its own toilet. With one fatal design floor! They placed it outside the keep. Some of those sieges can take hours! What is a goblin to do when nature calls and the forces of Order are trying to break down your keep door?

Sometimes I wonder why I write this blog. But now I am wondering if any other keeps have there own facilities. All I need to do take out my tier 4 character on walk about, so I can get round quickly… I knew once day it would bite me on the behind! Damn you chicken mechanic! Damn you to hell!

New user experience video's

So the new user experience is here! So I rolled a Witch Elf to see what it was about. As stated every race starts in the same zone, but you also get a cool scroll which transports you out of the new player experience. I played for around an hour and thought the experience did well to help the most green of none MMO players get to grips with the game. Hopefully bringing more people into the War fold so we can kill them over and over again until they scream into the night and clutch their teddy's.

I took a few videos and posted them here. Note you need sound for the posh voice.

What would have been good to see was the same posh lady describing what to do at the start of each scenario in tier 1, and maybe even a little blurb on your character class role.

Recruit a friend

So the new user experience is on its way and the price for War has been lowered (which are both good). So what is missing to bring more players to War? Well in Europe we still don’t have the recruit a friend that has been running in the states for what seems like years. With the patch 1.3.2 on its way this would be a good time to recommend a friend. I have already bought two friends copies of the game we just need to organised a week of computer’s, booze and RvR.

What also looks good is the 1.3.2 patch seems to bring with it performance improvements! Check out Werit and Shadow War for more details.

Healing in a keep.

You may have noticed I started a Zealot alt a while back. She was enjoyable to play but did not have a glitzy mechanic like the Shaman, or have the personality of the green skins.

A while back I created a Shaman to use if my friends ever tried War. He was still waiting at level 5 so I decide to give him a spin. 10 enjoyable levels later and I am still finding it fun and easier to level than my Chosen. I am keeping all the staffs I find and putting them in my bank as I find they, like the race have a lot of personality and a lot of work seems to have gone into them.

Today I got into RvR for the first time in tier 2 with him and found myself a war band leader. Like most of my outings in tier 2 it was extremely enjoyable, we swapped objectives and keeps with order in the chaos coupling. We won a few objectives and managed to beat order back. Once all the objectives were taken we decided to take the keep, which was fortified with order. We got to the keep lord and wiped due to a strong order defence. Instead of the usual stragglers being taken out as your side get whipped into submission the war band grouped up outside of the keep and tried again together moving as one force. We made it to the lord again and again order wiped the war band. The third time was a charm, and order again tried to wipe us, they succeeded but the lord fell in the last moments, the Raven god must have smiled on our lost souls. So we returned to clear out our keep, 2 epic hours later we swept the last of the enemy from the doors of the keep.

Healing in a keep attack and defence has given me new respect for healers in War, the whole 3 hours was quite stressful and full on. When I have played a tank or melee DPS you get time to take a breath in these situations, but not when I played as a healer. There was always someone taking damage or needing resurrection. The layout of the keeps doesn’t help as well with dead and dying players around walls or down stairs. That coupled with team members over extending themselves out of healing reach, calling out for resurrection without location details or just my ineptitude. The job is difficult and challenging but enjoyable.

A can of warrior priest.

So my venture into the Da' Savage tree for my Choppa, just didn't seem to cut the mustard for him. He doesn't want to return to the path of Da' Wrecka so soon after leaving, even if it is as fun as using a dwarfs beard to clean your pots and pans! ( while it's still attached to the dwarf )

So still wanting to explore ways of killing (it's not as if it can explore it's feminine side) we would focus and go for single target damage on healers. Who knows what a warrior priest keeps inside that armor! (could it be a toy?) So here is the spec, our only regret is there are no specialized two handed weapons for this job (see picture). The main focus is using lot's of bleeds and No More Helpin' to try and stop them healing themselves and if they try to run, they will still be taking damage while you catch up.

What do you think, any suggestions would be more than welcome.

While we are here somethings on my mind (you might want to close the door or pull the curtains over). Imagine a Choppa wanted to explore other avenues maybe to do with keys and a bowl. As your can't start a boar with keys (there is no ignition) do they just throw in their Choppa's and if so... what does that even mean?

Daemon Moon Rising

So we are getting to that time of the year when the twin moons Morrslieb and Mannslieb are high in the sky and the blood in your ooze ridden veins makes you do things even more horrid than sprouts with the roast dinner or skin on your gravy.

Mythic are giving use a new live event called Daemon Moon Rising. It has a few items from the last year’s event Witching Night and a new public quest ‘The Daemonball Rally’. It gives a nod to blood bowl and lets you kill and play skull football.

I am glad they are not just re-releasing last year’s event which looks positive for future events.

Breaking up the Zerg?

For a small organized war band the zerg can be annoying. You try and take a keep or lock a zone and the whole of the opposing side tier 4 players are all over you like mucus on a well used blade.

The tier 4 zones are a decent size, but the problem is each has a flight path smack in the middle. So any force can respond very quickly, which is good as Mythic’s aim has been War War War… But it also means the zerg might as well stay together as once they wipe a war band the other is only a snotlings throw away.

I wonder what would happen, if 2 out of the 3 flight paths in a race coupling was disabled or moved to a far flung PvE camp. Could this slow the zerg down or at least split it up. The smaller war bands then could at least try and take two objectives out at a time and have a little more time before the zerg wave crashed over them.

If we wanted to add a little more strategy to the campaign we could even allow the players to disable up to 2 of the flight paths by completing an objective near the camp. This might help split up war bands to respond to multiple threats but still allowing the War War War to happen.