One Shard

Orc 1999

2010-07-19T02:55:00.000-07:00

So were have I been? I rolled 3 skulls and have been ko'ed by Blood Bowl. A friend bought the PC blood bowl game, so a few more of us followed. Then before I knew it I had bought myself a plastic orc blood bowl team from ebay stripped (guide here)the miniatures and repainted them in the theme of Space 1999.

Here is a picture of them before and 1 stripped.

This is what they look like now with the addition of some goblins.

A change is as good as a rest?

2010-06-29T04:15:00.000-07:00

As well as the game and community one thing which keeps a MMO player coming back for more is routine. For over a year now my routine has been Monday, Tuesday and Thursday nights I login into War.

A blood bowl addiction has pulled me away from War to a point. Now I only login for guild RvR nights. So at the very least I login on Tuesday night for a 4-5 hour open RvR session. But with the recent Mythic announcement for European players moving servers and progression freeze for characters for a week this will probably see a further break for me.

My subscription is still running, but I am not entirely sure if I’ll be playing War for anytime this week. I don’t think I am alone, so could this mean a dent in subscriptions as people just let War slide? I for one think Mythic might need a little enticement to get people back into the routine.

Single target choppa

2010-06-23T05:25:00.001-07:00

When there has been no set guild RvR nights happening I run some scenarios with my new choppa build. I have been running the AoE spec but these days, I am not really getting the damage or killing blows. The spec worked in a premade group with other AoE classes and healing backup, but when you’re running scenarios solo the damage just gets soaked up by AoE healing.

So I have spec’ed Hellichoppa to mostly Da’Savage tree, with strength around 950 and about 8.5k of wounds. The dilemma is what to have as my next important stat, weapon skill or toughness. It seems easier to raise my weapon skill but apparently toughness is more useful in open RvR as you face a wider range of damage. Weapon skill is most handy against melee classes, so I plan to give both a try.

The single target damage has been a fresh of air for my choppa. Jumping on the back line and actually killing people has been a revelation since my AoE build days. But I did come across a rather embarrassing defeat against a shadow warrior at the north flag in Dragon’s Bane. I was the only destruction at the flag and he rode up on his horse. I gritted my teeth to get ready for run around the flag pole, as he kited me. But to my surprise he started attacking with melee range, thinking I would win we started to dance. I left with a red face and he left with half his health.

On another note a few of my friends purchased the PC Blood Bowl game so I thought I would give it a try. So far I am completely addicted and actually thinking about buying a team of miniatures. I love the skaven but don’t really know enough at this stage to create decent plays

Would you pay to swap?

2010-06-10T04:23:00.000-07:00

Did you ever get character to level 40 and just think meh? I would pay money to just be able to swap to a different class. I would change my chosen to a black orc. Its got nothing to do with power or mechanics I just think they look cooler. I wouldn't want gear just swap my class and ranks and I’d be happy. What toon would you pay to swap?

Packed oRvR...

2010-05-26T04:37:00.000-07:00

So on my third night of oRvR I finally got to take part in a city siege it was an Inevitable City defence. We won the first two stages but lost stage 3. Their healer an archmage was very good. I loved the new city siege but I need to run it a few more times to write some more. Anyway with the new city siege came lots of players in open realm versus realm which was absolutely excellent so I took some pictures.

Organized fun

2010-05-25T05:24:00.000-07:00

Saturday night was my first play session in a week as I have been in the America. I was hoping to get to see the city siege but all I got was lovely open RvR. It was slightly frustrating as I wanted to see the new content but order prevented destruction locking Riekland on more than 1 occasion.

I tend to prefer oRvR to scenario’s for the sheer range of combat. You can go from a 1v1 to 100v100 and everywhere in between. The zerg might be a powerful force but it tends to run as 1 which leads to loss of keeps and battle objectives.

This happened Saturday night, as no guild war band was running I ran with an open war band. On more than a few occasions a smaller group prevented zone locks by sneaking to Schwenderhalle Manor or Frostbeard’s Quarry in Reikland. The Manor is an excellent place to defend with a small force. Destruction mainly moved as one (aka zerg) so a lot of the night was spent with most of Reikland under destruction control but reacting to smaller more organized order forces. The classic example is when the Manor is left open or only has a few scouts. They were able to take it and defend, against a greater force. Even when they wiped, the order war camp is close to the Quarry with enough time to take and lock before destruction zerg can reach them.

If most of my time was spent running in an open war band I don’t think my perception of oRvR would be as positive. But most of my time is spent in guild war bands that can turn on a dead goblin. Player’s follow orders and stay together defending or pushing as one and co-ordinating with other war bands to cover battle objectives. Maybe this is why my views on oRvR are so positive? You hear people call War, Waithammer or say its open world PvP is more PvE.
I think a lot if these views come from open war bands or the player bases focus as a whole. If your focus is renown and you just going through the mmo motions you’ll probably spending a lot of time guarding mail boxes or waiting for a objective/keep tick. If you shift your focus to fighting and tactics the style of oRvR changes and in my opinion the fun increases.

I wonder how many zone locks have been lost while the zerg waits for a keep or battle objective tick, or when the zone is under control and hordes of players wait it out in a keep or by the mail box. I have ran with a few excellent war band leaders who seem to always come up with new ways to mess with the enemy, from ambushing just at the right spot, using terrain as an advantage and being able to extract themselves from the fight to see the flow of battle and issue orders to push just at the right spot to roll the enemy.
I am not advocating oRvR is perfect there are lots to improve, but I think the core is there. How to improve it? Would siege weapons, city siege like mechanics in keeps or an alternative to zone locking help? In the end I am not so sure as I said player focus (path of least resistance) and open war bands (disorganized zerg) will always be there to detract from those improvements. It also seems there are a lot of smaller guilds out in oRvR as well. You have an open war band run by 3 people from a guild. They work together but war band chat is none existent, so the majority is left in the dark.

How do we reach this ‘organized fun’? :) I have said it once but having in game voice chat would go a long way to help organization. State of the realm, AutoBand and WARCommander make a war bands easier to lead could these be improved upon and be part of the main game. But how do we get smaller guilds together and move those who mainly PUG into organized war bands? Could guilds have incentives to be larger and participate more in oRvR. Maybe the new player experience could be extending to a tier 4 set of tutorials? Ones that highlight the extra stuff you can gain from being in a guild and ideas of what to do once you hit the level cap. Mythic produced this team play guide does it need to be updated to cover tier 4? I think stuff like this would make excellent video grab bags.

I think giving war band leader’s extra abilities might promote more organization. I would imagine the buffs would only come into use when the war band reached a certain number. You would not want lots of war band leaders of 2 or 3 created just for buffs. Buffs which only trigger when in RvR like slight buffs to speed for the war band when riding mounts or extra renown when the war band leader issues a rally call to fight on him. I am not talking game breaking abilities just little extras to give incentive to fight with the war band.

Don't mention ze WAR!

2010-05-15T10:15:00.000-07:00

Check out Don't mention ze WAR! They even have a video from the Squig Night (but from the dark side). The perfect banner for the sight could be an orc in a pointed helmet.

24 vs 24

2010-05-14T04:42:00.000-07:00

It has been a good week in War, we had a guild event of 24 versus an order guild of 24 in a locked zone. The aim was fun, to improve our tactics and learn to play together as a guild. The event lasted around 3 hours I fraps’ed it see below... The variation in tactics from fight to fight where cool, as each side saw what the other did in the last fight and tactics developed. Our war band had lower renown rank players and we didn’t have the numbers to swap out substitutes. But we gave a good account of ourselves and won a number of matches.
I have also been in tier 2 with my sorcerer and I was surprised again how much action there was. I was also surprised by the lack of organization in war bands. I joined around 4 different war bands and all had a silent war band leader and members not just scattered in the zone but across multiple zones.

Krosussaysburn post of win!

2010-05-04T03:20:00.000-07:00

Once in a while a post comes along which blows me away and is made of excellence. Head over to krosusssaysburn for their post on possible skaven classes. I particularly like the Moulder Rat Ogre Packmaster concept. I would dump so many of my current characters just to play any one of these.

I am the resurrection

2010-05-03T12:08:00.001-07:00

Unless you have had your head up a black orc’s behind (it echo’s in there) you will have seen the latest bomb shell that as of patch 1.3.6 you will be able to play on both sides. I am fine with it as long as it doesn’t lead to exploiting.

I don’t think it is a precursor to another faction. As why wouldn’t you just do it when the faction hits the servers (although maybe it could be used as a hint).

What I would love is if the ability to play on both side meant War moved to single shard architecture as in Eve Online. If they could create the server setup to handle this and it was done due to an improvement in server technology rather than population decline I think this would improve War immensely.

Some have said it is another nail in the coffin for realm pride. With the exception of banter on the server specific forums I have seen very little of realm pride anyway. Even in other games I have not seen this kind of solidarity. Eve Online the solidarity comes out of necessity and survival and generally steams from the need for loot/resources.

I think Mythic are fighting a loosing battle with regards to realm pride as the carrot seems to win. You can see this when it looks like half your realm in tier 4 are standing next to the mail box, or when guilds who once spent most of the time in oRvR retreat to scenario’s to grind for weapons.

If I had control and it was possible I would probably implement the following:

Emblems would be awarded for kills on a group basis and awarded on drops and to the winning side. The loosing side would still have a chance of them as long as the actually did some fighting.
Zone locking renown would only be awarded if you contributed to victor points.
I would increase the chance of armour and weapon crest drops from killing players.

On another note in my haste to participate in the guild Juice night I deleted my level 24 squig herder by accident. I thought he was lost and my characters and I would have to have a collection for our departed comrade. But I logged an appeal in game and he was restored the next day! Now that’s what I call service.

What’s going to happen to our love?

2010-04-30T04:21:00.000-07:00

So it is about that time again to post another video. This is one about the love between a herder and his squig. I imagine it’s a little more pure than that between an elf and his lion. I can picture the lion and elf sitting in front of a fire on a forest retreat talking about football to try and reinforce their masculinity. I am only saying that after the fun I had recording the footage and running into some white lions.

By the way don’t try and ask me ‘what is the point of this video’, as the only response you will get from me is a blank expression. If you don’t like ‘The Ocean’ I have a Billy free version here.

Juice Night

2010-04-27T05:20:00.000-07:00

So I moved guilds. The move was a dilemma for me as I left some nice people, but as I only have limited time I needed a guild who did more oRvR in those limited play sessions. I know this means my quest for better weapons will take longer, but I prefer the hustle and bustle of a war band.

Anyway my first night with the new guild happened to be on Friday night which they call Juice night. It seems a time when the guild just kick back and do something wacky and fun. My first night was no exception. So I create a squig herder called Mattdamon (they all had to have hollywood names) and joined a war band of squigs. It was a good night and I had lots of fun and even frap's some of it.

Memory Lane - Wood Elves

2010-04-26T04:34:00.000-07:00

A post by Blurring Shock about speculation of how they would like Wood Elves in War brought back a flood of memories. Warm Sunday’s playing Warhammer fantasy battle on a massive table in my friend’s back yard. We weren’t in the same class of an all boys secondary school, but I guess geeks somehow gravitate to each other.

I had a box set of Skarloc’s Wood Elf archers, who each week would exasperate my friends dwarfs till all was left was the elves against my third friends undead army of skeletons. His army was not made up of one of the Regiments of Renown but a box of plastic skeletons which only cost something like £4.

Jason’s (the boy whose yard we played in) mum and dad owned a seamstress shop and didn’t mind us hanging out while we painted the miniatures. His dad was a big Queen fan and constantly played the Highlander soundtrack. Classic (at least in my eye’s) Queen tracks like Don’t Loose your head and Gimme the Prize still to this day are synonymous with Warhammer for me.

So I have dug out my miniatures and posted some pictures. The painting is not very good, but it was my first set.

Red Plague

2010-04-23T04:21:00.000-07:00

If you look over at PODCAST he has come up with some excellent speculation based on the latest patch notes with regards to the Red Plague here is the snippet below:

The rumors started first. Sickness. Deaths. Before long the rumors weren't just whispers but screams echoing into darkness - The red plague had come.

In response to the virulent outbreak, merchants have abandoned their routes, preferring instead to remain in the perceived safety of larger cities. The Crafting and Training Guilds have issued a decree recalling all guild members to their respective capitals rather than risk the loss of their master crafters and trainers. For the first time since the war began, experienced Order and Destruction forces must now head to Altdorf and the Inevitable City in order to consult with career trainers, craft masters, and merchant kings - for until a cure is found no sane man will travel the battlefields of the land alone.

Yitu (the link is wrapped in the google translator)an excellent german blog has been following these rumours for some time.

I would love to see the Skaven make an appearance as a playable race in War. After reading Skavenslayer (A Gotrek & Felix novel) which I would fully recommend. I came to like the race which almost seem have to even more character than those lovable green skins. Not to spoil the book but the Skaven use plague to weaken their foes before they surface. Wouldn't it be cool for Mythic to use the same tactics.

Need on Use

2010-04-19T05:05:00.000-07:00

I did have a long post on patch 1.3.5, but it got binned as most has already been said. I am looking forward to the changes. It looks like queuing will be the same as scenarios, so you can get in as groups which is not totally in the realm of pug status but still gives to an inkling of control. It may be a happy medium between PUG vs War band premade. But then again it still means I may have to leave that war band which I just spent to last few hours locking zones with.

Blaze from wargorfang.blogspot.com made an interesting post on Entitlement. Basically he thinks casual gamers should not be able to get end game gear. To an extent and as a casual player (around 6 hours a week) I sort of agree with him. Renown rank 80 should not necessarily be a given, and access to Sov gear should only be accessible by the right renown ranked people.

In our guild we have roll rules. Depending on your rank you may only roll need on crests when you are around the right renown rank. This allows the people who actually need the crests get them a little quicker.

With the new city changes it looks like I might be able to see the end game with my main who is only renown rank 48. I would like to see end game content, but I would not want to deprive others who actually need the crests and gear. Maybe the usable mechanic could be extended to renown range instead of just class.

Maybe the real problem is the amount of content available once you reach level 40. If you look at the amount of content in tiers 1 to 3, it seems disproportionate with how long you spend in tier 4. I am not saying we need more tiers, but the 2 other cities could be handy. Today I’d settle for more varied keep mechanics in tier 4 to make each keep take different. Could those mechanics in city sieges be used in keeps?

Positivity YES... Have U had your plus sign 2 day?

2010-04-13T09:18:00.000-07:00

If you have read my blog for any length of time you may have noticed my posts don’t always follow the current stream of news and also tend to be positive (points to those who get the song reference). We all know what has gone on over the past week, so I don’t think I need to visit the subject as the internet is already filled with maggot ridden finger pointing. I do wonder though how many of those neutral MMO blogs who posted about the billing issue and if they also posted topics on what War has done right of the past few months. But I guess that’s just the nature of the stone throwing MMO community.

Anyway I am straying away from what I wanted to cover. As of late, it has been good to be a War player for the following reasons:

Endless trail

This has been a good move by Mythic to let you play the game in tier 1 for as long as you want. If you want more positivity head over to the following threads on the US and European forums and check out the people converting to subscriptions.

War went free!

Yes, you no longer have to buy the retail box to play the game, just convert your existing trial account to a full account and start paying the subscription.

New War bloggers

The amount of new arrivals to the War blogging community is excellent. I don’t think I have seen this many new faces since the WCPI started back in February of 2009. Have I missed any? Please comment if you have more.

http://supereffectiveteam.blogspot.com/

http://infamousballz.wordpress.com/

http://blurringshock.blogspot.com/

http://kruelhand.blogspot.com/

http://kitelikehell.blogspot.com/

http://erbsegoesmmo.wordpress.com/

http://doktordre.blogspot.com/

http://rudepox.posterous.com/

http://talknerdytomeilllisten.blogspot.com/

http://keagen.wordpress.com/

Bloggers visit to Mythic

The guys at Mythic yet again reached out to their community and invited them to ask questions about up and coming content. I really appreciate it, when they make the effort to interact with the community. We have seen it on a number of occasions from the 12 days of Mythic to the Land of the Dead blogger initiative, were they posted bones to players.

Additions to the game

Since around patch 1.3.2, we have seen a lot of positive steps in War’s game play and features.

Improvements in responsiveness, and reduction of lag in large scale 100+ encounters.

Apprenticeship system to allow you to play with your friends.

Graphical enhancements

War report which takes you to the action quicker.

New user experience

Balance fixers for crowd control and fixers to the AP(Action Point) system to make War more tactical.

Coming Soon

Also we have lots of great stuff on the horizon, the city siege improvements for 1.3.5 look very exciting indeed. I thought they were just going to tweak and change the odd thing. But they look to be far reaching.

If you have not already seen it, Mythic are also looking to bring back fortresses and will be looking for feedback from the players.

Imagine a world with RvR driven city sieges and new fortress mechanics together with the improvements we have seen of the past few months.

Returning to War: The video podcasts

2010-04-08T04:58:00.000-07:00

Now I don’t know if your family is like ours. In the midst of the cucumber butties, scones and barrels of real ale in our back room we have an effigy of Paul Barnett placed on a purple velvet rug surrounded with candles and a cassette tape continuously playing the sound recording of Paul’s speech on the complete hobby experience. But if you are new to War and have only recently tried it through the medium of the endless trial you may be unaware of the video podcasts made by him. So below I have linked a selection of my favourite.

Here are some links to Paul's best bits.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-15TzSoU1Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9CrovsAvcg

White LioooOOOoooN dum de dum

2010-04-06T04:41:00.000-07:00

Over the past weekend I have been trying to put together a War video based around the squig herder and their love for the squig. A not so epic tale of origin and conflict, therefore I have been spending a lot of time in tier 3 scenarios with my HUD hidden.

I have enjoyed the herder as he plays differently my other classes. I don’t really play him for the big damage numbers but to make a nuisance of myself by snares and hitting people when their health is low.

A new enemy has arisen though, one I have pretty much ignored with my choppa or chosen. The new enemy has been the white lion (every time I say ‘white lion’ the Ultravox record White China plays in my head and I replace the chorus with white lion).

One white lion in particular was the bane of my existence throughout the scenarios I played. I think I became almost a speed bump made out of plasticine as they used what I think is Pounce and immediately spring bordered next to me and carved me up like an iceberg lettuce. It was fun and even now I am frantically searching for white lion killing tactics.

Returning to WAR: Leveling in Land of the Dead

2010-03-31T09:24:00.000-07:00

With a lot of people returning to War I thought I would post the odd guide. @Werit (Hope you don't mind me stealing your title)

Today’s post consists of some good spots to level in. I have also posted, so more people come to know these spots. As they are excellent for PvP and ambushing. Nothing breaks up your rhyme than the blade of a Witch Hunter. Check out the maps for the locations, you will see my character marker showing the position.

Area of effect spots.

The following is a list of good AoE leveling spots. A good group should consist of an area of effect (AoE) DPS a healer and a tank. The simplest tactic is the tank and DPS sit in a central spot and the healer who has a tanks guard on him just runs past mobs and due to the guard the tank draws the aggro. Once a sufficient amount of mobs have been gathered the DPS spam’s his AoE attacks and you all get to watch the experience roll in.

River Drakes (map link) - Relatively close to the destruction war camp. Also good if you have Butchering as a craft skill.

Bandit Scouts (map link) - You can use the underground building to try and minimize the chance of getting jumped on by a Witch Hunter.

Skeletons (map link) - Off the beaten track and is sometimes not as busy as the other spots. The Skeletons spawn just by the covered entrance.

Also...

Champions of Sebok (map link) - Good spot for single target DPS, you need to watch out for the AoE damage from the champion as it can hurt a lot...

Words of Warning

With rested experience you can probably churn out a level an hour but this means your renown rank will not keep pace with your level which could mean you spending a lot of time in tier 4 just playing catch up.

If it is your first character I would not recommend this, as you miss out on all the excellent content in the other zones. As well as excellent Land of the Dead public quests which are a blast.

Don't forget this game is about War and hitting other player's in the face!

WCPI: Super Effective

2010-03-30T09:49:00.000-07:00

Check out Super Effective she seems to have the same alt weakness as me with 4 characters almost at level cap. Not surprisingly though, she has a better handle on the English language as well :)

Play War without buying the game!

2010-03-26T10:28:00.000-07:00

It looks like Mythic are doing another first to allow people to play War without having to buy the box and just directly upgrade a trial account. See the details here.

I think this is a smart move as it removes 1 more obstacle for free trial players to convert to subscribers. About a year ago I gave World of Warcraft another look and to my surprise I had to buy both expansions and a months subscription to play with my friends. In the end I didn't buy both due to the extra cash.

On another note my shaman 'Slapit' hit 40 yesterday which is my third character to the level cap. You might think I would concentrate on 1 of my 40's. Maybe my main 'Hellichoppa' and raise his renown from 46 to at least the 50's so I can wear Warlord gear.

Not on your snotling, I have my squig herder who has just broken into tier 3 called 'Toenail'. I gave him a run today and it was so much fun, not having to heal or be in the thick of it as a MDPS being targeted by everyone and their auntie.

101

2010-03-24T05:24:00.000-07:00

This was meant to be my 100^th post, but the hint of any sort of War expansion trumped it. I never thought I would make it this far as my usual attention is like my choppa’s life span charging into a war band in open RvR(very short lived). For this post I thought I would look back and try and pick out my favourite posts. These are not the ones with the most hits or comments, just the posts were I liked the ideas. To my surprise I was spoilt for choice and had cut the list short.

Third faction and a single vision

Around patch 1.3.2 the cries for a third faction were very loud. They seem to have subsided now as the player base may have accepted the way Mythic are heading with fixing the core game and incremental fixers to RvR.

Realm pride by statistics

These numbers are available and I still think graphs showing the number of keeps and objectives taken, tinted with guild information could help realm pride.

Breaking up zerg

Order numbers are still high on our server and king captures are relegated to early morning raids. Together with a large amount of the player base trying to get crests through scenarios means open RvR is up and down at them moment.

Defence sabotage stage for keeps

The changes for keeps have made the fighting in keeps a little more dynamic, but when greater numbers are involved keeps start to become little more than speed bumps. I have seen a varied amount of tactics involved defending against greater numbers from morale building tactic and meeting them in the open. Defending from the top and hoping just to gain renown to forming a tank wall at the door. Mythic have a great base and could add a lot to keeps to improve them without investing too much and by just including mechanics which are already in the game such as public quests and siege weapons.

Tier 2 revisited

I still to this day like playing in tier 2. Any time I get jaded with the masses or pre-made groups. I can just pop to tier 2 were levels fly by and open RvR becomes more manageable. This was also one of the earlier posts.

Hallelujah War Expansion news!

2010-03-19T14:26:00.000-07:00

Bootae found it and it looks like we have real news of a War expansion!

I have never continually sub'ed and made it to a MMO expansion, could War be my first? Well it was the first which kept my interest to make it to the level cap twice.

By the way this was also my 100th blog post and what a post to make!

In a recent GDC 2010 interview with UGO, BioWare's Dr. Ray Muzyka said of Warhammer Online, "Right now it's [a] really profitable business unit within my group." Muzyka went on to say they've actually seen more people come into the game since enacting the free-to-play model on the game's earlier levels, and that he personally felt they were working.

In fact, by the sounds of it, Warhammer Online is due for some interesting announcements in the future. Another of Muzyka's comments on the title was, "We have new content planned and all kinds of cool expansions for it." We don't know how much more clear cut a message can be than that. And hey, it's good news! We're looking forward to our playable Skaven and Lizardmen, Mythic and BioWare.

An’t no boils on me!

2010-03-18T06:23:00.000-07:00

Over the past few weeks my experiences in War have seen ups and downs. I am currently levelling my Shaman to 40, as of today he sits at 35 so almost at level cap. This means I’ll have 3 characters at 40. The Shaman has been the easiest character up to now to keep his renown near to his level, so much so he is nearly ready to wear full Annihilator which beats the pants of the PvE gear available. He is not far off beating my Chosen on gear who had been 40 a while now. I still find the levels between 30 and 40 troublesome. PvE wise you are sorted, there is plenty to do but then this means you renown starts to lag. PvP wise in tier 4 you are almost a leper even being a healer. Few want you in pre-made scenario groups and pug war bands start to become scarce as most of them are alliance only war bands.

But when there has been an alliance war band running, it has been epic. Renown and experience flows and the fighting has been excellent. A good few times with have sat at a battle objective of ¾ of a war band holding out for the final few seconds trying to keep a horde of order at bay and prevented a zone lock. Those times are truly precious.

We have also tried the tactic of defending a keep by build up morale 4’s against the siege pads. Then when the horde of order turns up at the gate we immediately run out and push them back. A few nights ago it looked like an almost certain zone lock when instead of defending 2 keeps we stayed at the north keep in Chaos Wastes and used the above tactic. We managed to push and wipe them 3 times before they completely gave up.

Dwarf Boat (Karaoke Version Goblin Style)

2010-03-13T03:05:00.000-08:00

I didn't get 20 comments. :( But the hits to the blog and other peoples links were cool. So here it is, I am not responsible if your ears bleed and green chaos mucus dribbles from your nose.

Dwarf Boat (Karaoke Version)

2010-03-10T04:07:00.000-08:00

It is a bit late as my time is usually split between edit or play and playing War tends to win. Hope you like my footage of the Ironclad scenario to sing along too. I do have another version with me singing a terrible goblin impression but it was to awful to post. Then again if I got 20ish comments on this post I might feel obliged to post it but that will never happen :) as my max is around 3.

If you would like a reminder how the song is sung before you go and impress you friends with you own rendition have a look at the original here.

Try the fish. I am here all weekend.

2010-03-01T04:51:00.000-08:00

The stars aligned which meant I actually got to play War at the weekend (wife went out), could this be fate or coincidence that patch 1.3.4 hit the servers only the day before. Scission my chosen alter ego slapped me across the face with a gore soaked metal gauntlet and shouted ‘Thank the changer!’ I was just a glad to have an evening sitting in my pants in a pre made scenario group.

I got to play in a range of teams from the standard PUG to alliance and guild groups. My focus was to play in an organized group and not just get gear for my main character. So I swapped between a choppa, chosen and shaman alts to best support the group makeup as we lost and gained members. This also meant I got to play Ironclad the latest new scenario in War from varied points of views.

First off I had a complete blast, the close quarter fighting and 6 man groups meant you played a much greater role in the success or failure of the instance. The extra shinnies on offer meant the scenarios popped all night long.

The scenario is intense, if I had to sum it up in one sentence it would be like trying to sleep in a dustbin while a black orc constantly kicked and rattled the metal bin.

Only a few of the matches went completely for or against, though we never got spawn point camped. Most of the matches seemed even with lots and lots of fighting. The better groups where able to mix up taking the flags and keeping an organized group who stay together the run around.

When I played my healer it was constant AoE heal spamming. Then until I learnt to hide and keep mobile, I spent match after match with at least two people trying to pound me into the ground. So my roots and snares were used in full force. Once I got the hang of it, it was a case of either sticking with the tank hidden just around the corner or playing hide and seek with the melee DPS. It is a small boat but there is a lot hiding places and corridors to run round in.

My chosen loved this scenario, as it was almost impossible to take him down and he died once in about 5 matches. The close proximity of a healer and the ability to get out of sight of any ranged DPS couple together with limited numbers meant he could almost saunter around the boat checking out the hors d'oeuvres and winking at the witch elves.

Lastly with the choppa, again it was excellent but a little squishy at times. The AoE was excellent after you had played hide and clobber with the opposing healer and the witch hunters had little or no area to sneak around you. A quick AoE attack usually brought them out of hiding as they crept up on your healer.

I really enjoyed the 6 man scenario and had a lot of good balanced fights.

We also played a few of the other scenarios as well, and ‘came a cropper’ in Reikland Factory which may end up being the new Thunder Valley. About 4 times on the run we joined the scenario late after people had quit, finding the main group of order camping the first flag while smaller groups capped the flags. We tried going around, but at times it was hard just getting out of the spawn point.

Dishwasher Safe?

2010-02-26T04:51:00.000-08:00

I love tat like this. You can pre-order them here. So wish they would do Games Workshop miniatures of the classes in War. I would end up spending a lot of money.

Short Choppa gear video

2010-02-25T05:38:00.000-08:00

Here it is and now begins the long road to Warlord.

Patch 1.3.4 Ding!

2010-02-24T04:36:00.000-08:00

So patch 1.3.4 is on its way for Thursday so hopefully this might mean our guild starts more oRvR and scenario runs to get the new kit.

Hellichoppa my Choppa just hit renown rank 45 so he gets to equip all his Conqueror gear. Woot! I have kept all my set gear throughout the tiers so a video will soon follow showing them all.

Should ‘Land of the Dead’ have been free?

2010-02-17T04:32:00.000-08:00

I have just finished listening to show 58 of Shut Up. We're Talking, which they discussed when is it alright to charge for downloadable content? They discuss and rightly so that Mythic charging for the missing classes was not optional and would have made a lot of people angry.

But I am wondering if giving us Land of the Dead free a good decision in business terms. I don’t remember if Land of the Dead was meant to make it in on release and could have been a prime contender for DLC without the gated system. As it works as a separate zone, gives you access to new content and gives players of 25+ a good place to power level.

Today’s MMO market is vastly different from the days of regular free updates and large paid expansions. Lots of games are offering $10 pets, so could they have got away with charging us $10 for account access to Land of the Dead. Then would War's numbers then appear more positive and offer potential in Electronic Arts eyes.

If it meant more regular content and a rosier future for War with regards to funding with this model in place I know I wouldn’t mind paying.

Fun, fun, fun

2010-02-12T04:20:00.000-08:00

Over the past week oRvR has been quite active as our guild Nightfall has joined forces with Aes Sidhe. Aes Sidhe is a good guild with plenty of active players. I don’t know any of them personally but have played with them throughout Wars life. I used to be in a TOG guild (The older gamers) and both guilds where in the same alliance back in the day. So I spent a little time talking to them on Ventrilo while we ran scenarios.

So the past few nights we have been able to put together nearly 2 war bands of players which is a lot of fun. Order on Karak-Azgal are around tier 4 in abundance so you can usually find around 8 war bands spread across two zones. This has meant huge battles of 100+ players with plenty of battle objectives and keeps swapping hands in some epic battles for zone capture.

We tried bombing them at the gate for keep defences which order bought about 3 times before they started to pull back. But as more order joined the attack we became little more than a speed bump. As they seemed to be running round mainly in one group we decided to try and move quickly to slow them down by capturing objectives. A little while after the rest of destruction turned up in Chaos Wastes after locking Dragonwake. They immediately went for the south keep as we just capped the two northern objectives.

We joined them as they hit the inner door of the keep and went for the keep lord. Just as the main order group came in the south keep gate to defend. The Lord went down with 100+ of enemy players (I am guessing of course) inside the keep to wipe any destruction.

Our forces wiped and we re-spawned and went straight to the north keep to take it quickly. So in the space of a few minutes the zone went from 1 red battle objective, to two red keeps and 3 red battle objectives. Just shows what can happen fighting superior numbers with a little luck and timing.

Throughout the night we only noticed a single time when the server started to groan, which is excellent performance. All the time I was able to use abilities with little or no lag with multiple war bands on the screen at one time. It looks like Mythic are trying to push this even further have a look at Werit video below, or go and visit Shadow-War for more information on Mythic’s stress testing.

Importance of a guild

2010-02-08T04:39:00.000-08:00

For me one of the most important aspects of any MMO is finding a guild early on in you characters life. It always improves my knowledge of the game, and will keep me playing the game for longer. I have found without being part of a guild I end up jumping from game to game, never really getting past the mid leveling stages.

While I played Eve Online not being in a corporation (guild) usually meant the destruction of your ship. As without friends (unless you played the forums) you tended not to be aware of politics within an area of low sector space or have the multiple eyes of your friends around the various systems. So at any time you might find yourself at the mercy of pirates or in the middle of a war. Where anything not alliance colours is the enemy.

As a casual War player (about 6 hours a week if I am lucky) I find being part of a guild even more important. I know I will never be part of the guilds inner circle of players or have the best armour. But having a regular set of players to call upon is vital especially in War. Most nights when I login there is already a fully functional alliance war band in the thick of battle which I can just join and sign into Ventrilo and start chopping away. If not and no people are doing city PvE instances or power leveling in Land of the Dead you can quickly get a scenario group together.

You also get to see guild/alliance chat and see questions you did not even know to ask, never mind knowing the answer.

Voice chat also comes in to play in most of the guilds I have been part of. This is also crucial in War as it allows a war band to move as a tight-knit group and turn on a coin. There have been times when the whole war band has hidden behind a rock at a moments notice, or the war band leader has decided to flank the enemy or try a completely new strategy to win the day. When you are part of a guild the leader knows each member of the war band and knows they can rely on each member to follow orders even when it looks like certain defeat. Sometimes it does end in death but more often than not it ends up in fun and a shared unique experience which otherwise the game could not offer.

As well as all the above War also offers special mounts, access to recall scrolls and access to the Viper Pit. So if you not part of a guild, how come?

Busy news week

2010-02-05T05:20:00.000-08:00

So it has been a busy news week for War. With the new 1.3.4 patch going on the test servers and news is trickling out about 1.3.5 from Werit.

Patch 1.3.4 seems to be a love and hate patch. Everyone is drooling over the new RvR weapons (check out Gaarawarrgabs for screenshots), and screaming over the removal of so many scenarios (see Grimnir reply to Mythic).

I never really liked the idea of removing content in the first place, and I wonder how bored a new player would get after playing Nordenwatch over 40 levels. Lack of choice is never a good thing but at them moment I don’t actually care about the update. So trying to write a post about it almost seems futile.

I don’t care as I think it won’t have that much of an effect against my current game play (short sighted I know). My current game play is oRvR and levelling the odd alt. I know they are streamlining and polishing to trying and attract new potential players but as a long time player I tend to look past the warts now and mainly concentrate on either following war band orders or learning a new class.

What I do get excited about is even more improvements to large scale RvR performance; check out Shadow-War’s post detailing 420 players in one area. Could this also mean a possible return of fortresses as they have made a lot of improvements since they were taken out.

I think the not caring also stems from no big expansion news yet. I am with Bootae and wish Mythic would give us hints at least on the future instead of just tweaks and polish. Some people are just never happy are they. ;)

Hamster Overload

2010-01-30T02:30:00.000-08:00

Now I don’t know if War is gaining subscriptions or whether it is down to server consolidation. But the amount of players running round in tier 4 on Karak Azgul is getting a little crazy. When I logged in Thursday night both sides population were high.

Large scale RvR can be fun and epic feeling, but the hamsters keeping the servers rolling make some awful creaking noises. (Just in case you didn’t know the European servers are powered by hamsters in wheels.)

I have posted before about splitting up the zerg, here which might take a little effort. But maybe they could introduce some mechanism for double capping. If two battle objectives or both keeps get capped within a described time of each other you get an extra renown bonus. This would need organization on the region scale, but could also break up multiple war bands.

Forged by Chaos

2010-01-29T04:05:00.000-08:00

So I have just finished reading ‘Forged by Chaos’. It has been my favourite out of the 3 Warhammer Online novels. Even though the first book called ‘Empire in Chaos’, did entice me to roll a warrior priest.

The book follows the tales of the 3 destruction sides from Warhammer Online in their quest to retrieve the Spear of Myrmidia and that’s about it. The book is basically a dungeon crawl with a little bit of characterization. I wouldn’t be put off by this though, as we are here for the combat and insight into destructions point of view.

Chaos and the Dark Elves are represented reasonably well. The two main characters in the book Kormak a marauder and Beblieth a witch elf have consistent stereotypical storey lines and managed to build a hate, hate relationship.

What shines throughout the novel are the green skins, I looked forward to any time they appeared in the book. They also have some of the best lines in the book such as ‘It was up to him then, one black orc against a few hundred humans and their elf sorcerer. Gorgut considered it fair odds. Gorgut also had a hard time understanding numbers bigger than twenty.’

The combat is fast paced and flows well with loads of enemies and blood with lots of enemies from Bastion Stair such as Thar'lgnan and Lord Slaurith. If I had a complaint about the book it would be the amount of characters. As a reader I can not handle too many weird names thrown at me and I was glad as the numbers started to thin out.

If you have some spare toilet reading time, I’d definitely give this book a quick flick through.

Large Scale RvR

2010-01-23T10:46:00.000-08:00

Werit posted the video on Friday, I just had to repost it because it shows the large scale RvR so well.

What is the goal of a premade scenario group?

2010-01-21T10:38:00.000-08:00

I imagine the goals are varied from farming PUGS, fun, to the challenge of meeting a similar group. A lot of the premade groups you will meet will be bomb spec’ed. Are these groups just in it for the farming or are they just using the most effective tactic to win? What would happen if scenarios as well as the blind queues, offered group/war band listings? So you could put your group up and accept challenges from other groups.

Would the premade groups still choose to just farm the PUG’s or would you get teams playing against each other.

But does this stray away from the point of ‘War’ which is the RvR campaign? The scenarios would still contribute to campaign but could they also add more? Then again would this kind of e-sport help ‘War’ gain subscribers, and if it did would it ultimately spoil the campaign shifting focus away from oRvR. You could then see this e-sport vocal minority calling for changes to classes to support the smaller scale team based combat.

I know there are more questions than answers. But that’s what scenarios do to me…

I always envision the premade group as the elite champions of your army, but shouldn't’ they be out on the field of battle and if they are not what’s keeping them in the scenario and off the open field?

Am I examining scenario’s too closely, are they just meant for the occasional distraction? Or to hide from the zerg when you don’t have the numbers and again I have more questions…

Patch 1.3.4

2010-01-20T10:47:00.000-08:00

So we have some details of the possible 1.3.4 patch here below are the snippets with some thoughts.

We will be introducing an entire new line of weapons earned via RvR (this is the "feature players have been asking for"). These weapons will be purchasable via a vendor and will not be bought using medallions or crests, instead utilizing an entirely new currency system earned via Scenario gameplay from tiers 1-4. More information about these new items and how they're earned will be forthcoming in a Dev Diary with Developer Sean Bosshardt.

I hope ‘entire new line’ also means new models as I would hate to see existing weapons with just new stats. My favourite part of ‘War’ is oRvR and I mainly do scenarios when there is none about while levelling. Then with my level 40 alt’s I play scenarios even less as generally PUGS and tier 4 scenarios equal little or no fun. But the introduction of RvR items for scenarios could mean my guild start to put together more premade groups and those equal lots of fun. Especially when you meet a similar pre made group.

We are completely reworking the current structure of Scenarios by removing some of the less popular and streamlining the tiering of Scenarios. There will be more details upcoming in a Dev Diary from Content/RvR Lead Mike Wyatt next month.

I don’t like the fact they are removing content as less choice is never a good idea. I’d prefer them to examine each scenario and try and improve them.

The last tidbit is a change to the way that the campaign functions. Starting with 1.3.4, once a Contested City flips into the Captured state (otherwise called "Stage 2") the Open RvR Campaign will now restart, leaving the realm sieging their enemies city with a tough decision: Stay in the city, possibly defeating your opponent's King, or retreat back to the open field to defend your realm?

I feel quite positive about the city siege changes and as it’s a pain standing round with no opposition waiting for the zones to unlock, so we can get back to oRvR. It also might help the under dog realm, while the dominating realm are still in the city maybe the other realm can get a head start and lock zones with less opposition.

Aldreter the Warrior Priest

2010-01-19T05:51:00.000-08:00

It has been a little quiet in the guild of late so I thought I would see how the other half live so I have been playing a ‘Warrior Priest’ called ‘Aldreter’ on the European ‘Karak-Norn’ server. The ‘Warrior Priest’ is my favourite looking ‘Order’ class. I think it is the bulky armour and hammer.

I have not done much PvE except for the odd PQ so her level and renown rank are still the same. Returning to play ‘Nordenwatch’ with her has been fun. Usually when you get completely wiped at the ‘Fortress’ flag it is a forewarning to a scenario of pain. But I stuck with the group and we went to the ‘Barracks’ flag to try and cap that. There was me, a ‘Witch Hunter’ and an ‘Engineer’ and we managed to hold the flag for most of the scenario.

She is only level 12 so I am not sure if I’ll look for a guild yet but it would be good to see how people react to the ‘Destruction’ classes through guild chat and ‘Ventrilo’. As I said I have been mostly doing PvP but if you know of some good public quests or other PvE content I must see please point them out. It was weird seeing ‘Altdorf’ in the peaceful state as I am usually trying to kill people in the streets with my Choppa.

P-O-D-C-A-S-T

2010-01-18T04:45:00.000-08:00

Just incase you have not come across this beauty check out ‘P-O-D-C-A-S-T’. It’s a ‘War’ blog with a difference, the difference being it is a series of video podcasts with some excellent information which is also entertaining. I would like to access it through ‘YouTube’, but then I suppose there would be no need for the site.

Splintered

2010-01-13T04:32:00.000-08:00

Play time over the last week seems to be splintered and varied. Do you ever have one of those nights were you play about 3 alts and none of the time with them seems to stick. The scenario’s you enter are filled with bomb squads and all you have are pugs, and even half of them head for the exit once they see the guild names above the opposing team. So you try another alt but the zones have all been captured by your side.

Then you think of playing alts on another server and your enthusiasm wanes as what you really wanted to do was make progress with the first character you logged in that night.

Well that was me until we got a group together for ‘Land of the Dead’ and just started to farm experience. I have never seen my experience bar go up so fast, within about an hour I had gone up a level on my Shaman. I don’t do it very often but grinding mobs sometimes can be very relaxing. It’s like the Earl Grey tea of MMO’s predicable and relaxing. You can actual learn something about your character and have time to chat with guild members.

Freedom!

2010-01-08T04:26:00.000-08:00

‘GOA’ has lost the ‘Dark Age of Camelot’ licence. I am not entirely sure if this is down to their management of DAoC but might be down to the fact the cost of having someone else run your game. As I imagine most distribution is done digitally and support might be much more cost effective when it is done in house. Obviously this is pure speculation.

I don’t imagine ‘War’ will follow suite anytime soon as the contract probably lasts more than just a year, but I would love to see ‘Mythic’ take the power back with ‘War’. Even if it meant getting the patches a week later I would much rather have the same forum and perks as the USA.

Hell I’d love ‘Mythic’ to completely take the power back and go solo from ‘Electronic Arts’ and have the power to say and release what they want. ‘Werit’ made a very insight tweet “I've never seen a MMO so afraid of itself as ‘WAR’ is”. A lot of the time you get the feeling from the staff that they want to howl from the hill tops what is coming up but a very tight leash seems to choke their voices.

Mythic the impossible, possible.

2010-01-07T04:50:00.000-08:00

Around this time of year, blogs tend to come up with lists. Not wanting to be left out I thought I would come up with my own list with regards what I would like from Mythic. Now this list is purely selfish and completely unreasonable and in no way needs to benefit the wider player base or even attract other MMO players to the game.

An alternative mount

My Choppa is getting tired of looking cramped on a boar, and would love a different/bigger mount. For comedy value maybe a Troll gimp mount complete with Orange (fruit not the colour) mouth piece harness so my Orc can ride on his shoulders.

More siege weapons

I want to be able to climb on a catapult with a group of friends and be launched over a keep wall in oRvR. I want a slowly moving destroyable armoured siege tower to push up against a keep wall.

City siege scenarios

I’d like scenarios based on ‘Altdorf’ and ‘Inevitably City’ siege warfare, as an alternative to the instances. These scenarios need to be themed around the siege with capture the city entrance (flag) to hold off the invaders. Pollute the cities water (like the Serpent's Passage mechanic) by carrying the tainted water to a point on the map.

In game guild mail/forum

Able to send/receive mail from my guild as a group mail and have our own in game forum… While you’re at it… have it accessible through a browser as well.

War camp warfare

The ability to attack the opposing realms war camp and take out their flight masters for up to 2 of the 3 points in a single paring.

Fortresses back

I would love to see these back after the improvements they have made to performance.

Human Cloning

Mythic need to implement human cloning, so I can get to play some of my Order alts.

Siege defence with a difference

2010-01-05T09:43:00.000-08:00

So what did everyone get for Christmas? Was it a ‘Millennium Falcon’? Well that was probably my favourite gift when I was a child.

I have not played much of ‘War’ over the holiday break as my wife got me ‘Dragon Age Origins’ as a gift. I like it, but it just feels like ‘Baldur's Gate’ with cut-scenes and without my cherished ‘DnD’. For me this does not bode well for ‘Star Wars: The Old Republic’ as I don’t really want the same MMO formula with voice-over’s and dialogue trees. If you can tell me a story through game play and quests instead of scripted dialogue and text it may win me over.

‘War’ could do this if they build on the public quest mechanic. I would love to see more of the ‘Land of the Dead’ public quests where the kill x defeat n are wrapped up in more unique events.

Back to ‘War’…so my first major play session was a city siege defence with a difference. Instead of queuing up for the instances a large contingent of destruction decide to defend the city gates on ‘Karak-Azgal’ lead by a rather famous server player called 'Nitro' who seems very apt at getting the masses to function through region chat. We managed to keep the gate up and even push order back on a number of occasions. It was a lot of fun.

Heartless_Gamer also made an interesting post about a ‘War’ prediction ‘Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning will be sold or shut down by EA.’. I am not sure this will happen but the thought does not fill me with dread either. ‘War’ has a very solid base and anyone with money could easily use this to build a very successful game. I still don’t believe MMO’s are built in a year (after release) and take time to mature and grow to their full potential. ‘Electronic Arts’ just need to see this and not let ‘War’ fall by the waist side.

Happy Christmas

2009-12-25T12:46:00.000-08:00

Happy Christmas!

Try not to eat too much of your chocolate selection box and drink too much of that single malt whisky.

YakUI Addon

2009-12-23T04:50:00.000-08:00

I am constantly tinkering with my user interface to try and squeeze every ounce of my meagre PvP skills out. A while back I tried the YakUI release of add-ons, which are excellent. But to try and improve frame rates I deleted them all. I recently just upgraded my graphics card so went back to re-install YakUI.

I was hugely impressed by the installation and ease of use this time round. After you copy the files across the add-on sort of installs itself. It describes what you must do to scale your resolution and fonts then logs you out.

Then when you log back in it gives you a menu of the extra enhancements you might want to make and also gives you a tour of your new swanky UI with little arrows explaining each part. I think Mythic should give the creator a job as the whole installation was excellent!

I moved my war band grid to the middle of the screen in this screen shot as when I play a healer, I like to see what is happening and the little green bars at the same time. I plan to move guild chat in the right space.

Battle Kegs

2009-12-22T09:12:00.000-08:00

I was playing in tier 3 today and we were trying to take a keep, the outer door went down and we piled in only to be stopped by a keg in the door way. You can run and jump over it, but the more people get stuck the more congested the door way gets. Some are calling this an exploit, but I love the ingenuity of players and thought it added a little extra to a standard keep siege.

Once ‘Keg End’ is over I wonder if ‘Mythic’ could actually introduce a barrier which can be constructed by players. I think it would still need to be jumpable, and take a good minute to construct and should only be allowed to have 1 in a given distance to another one, but it could add an extra element to PvP.

Maybe they could even extend the idea to have pools of damaging lava, or explosive aoe traps to slow players down. All the above needs to take time to plant and maybe even take the effort of a group of players, but you can imagine it being used as traps in troughs of terrain or at choke points.

I can just picture it now… you’re standing just over a hill with your war band goading the other side, then they charge with a bomb squad only to be slowed down by a snare trap and decimated by your ranged DPS.

12 Days of Mythic - Wrap up!

2009-12-21T05:02:00.000-08:00

So they have done the wrap up and the winners get some cool stuff. Every so often I keep my eyes open for a price drop on the collectors edition so I can get the extra stuff, like the comic and figure. I wish Games Workshop would bring out more limited edition figures of the classes in War.

10 days of War

2009-12-19T07:33:00.000-08:00

Heartless_Gamer is trying out the 10 day return to ‘War’. He is up to day 2 of his return, and both posts seem balanced and come with some excellent observations. I wish I could write stuff like this.

One observation is copying the Land of the Dead mix of PvE and PvP and duplicating it throughout the game. This works for LotD as it doesn’t attract the zerg because it does not contribute to the main RvR zone locking mechanic.

Would the public quests and small scale RvR still work as well if there were part of the zone locking? Or would the public quests and small scale PvP just get lost in the hordes of players?

Grumpy

2009-12-18T05:50:00.000-08:00

To be honest I am a bit grumpy with War this week. I have been trying to play my Squig Herder and Shaman, and they keep getting stuck in looping animations which don’t fix until I change zones. So when it happens at the beginning of a scenario or doing a dungeon it can be very annoying.

The ‘1.3.3 Producers Letter - Bruce Maclean’ didn’t really inspire and spent a little too long dwelling on the past.

My effort to give away a 60 day time card also epically failed with not one entry, so I guess I’ll just use it myself.

I’m off to torture a goblin; I wonder how long its entrails will stretch out, so I can use them for catapult wire to launch a Snotling at a keep wall. Maybe the sounds of TWANG.., "Ouch!", SPLAT! Will put a smile on my face.

Warhammer Alliance Podcast Episode 21: One Shard, One WAR

2009-12-15T04:54:00.000-08:00

The latest Warhammer Alliance pod cast is up and I had the pleasure to fill the fourth spot. I would like to say a big thank you to the podcast team for making me feel welcome. I wish I could just put on my slippers and don a bubble pipe and turn up each week and listen to all the chat and murmur agreement.

Listening to my own voice though, makes me want to crawl into ‘The Bile Lord’s stomach and pull his intestines over, so I can hide.

Kiss the rock

2009-12-09T05:03:00.000-08:00

For a few months now, Destruction on ‘Karak-Azgal’ has been dominant. But since the transfers from ‘Eltharion’ it has flipped and massive Order war bands are everywhere and it is lots of fun.

This means our guild might not always be able to take/defend keeps but we can always find a good fight. Tuesday was no exception the number of players in ‘Caledor’ was staggering. After a few hours you feel like a ‘Snotling’ being repeatedly smashed into a rock by a ‘Black Orc'. But like the sick ‘Snotling’, I secretly like the attention and violence.

Spin

2009-12-07T05:35:00.000-08:00

I have been playing in tier 1 a lot lately with a friend who is trying out the free trial and I have been surprised by the amount of people running about. Even when I played in tier 2 the number of war bands and battles around were the most I have seen.

I know War has seen a decline in the player base, but I wonder how many players the unlimited free trial has introduced to the game. Over the next month or so I could imagine Mythic releasing a press release based on this. DDO did it with announcing the increase in player based by percentage. Lord of the Ring did it with the amount of characters created.

Mythic could spin it any number of ways to percentage increase in people trying the game, new characters created or new accounts. Even when these announcements are just spin, it still creates a positive murmur around the community and gets your games name in the press.

60 days European Prepaid Key Competition

2009-12-04T04:16:00.000-08:00

I was browsing in my local Game (UK Gaming retailer) and came across a Warhammer European prepaid 60 day game card at a slightly reduced price. So I bought it and plan to give the code away. So if you want to have a chance at winning the code you need to do the following:

Write a post similar to this one or this, outlining key strategic points about either a battle objective or keep.
The post should be around 100-500 words and in English.
It should also follow a similar layout with looking at its location, terrain, and engagement possibilities.
Only enter if you don’t mind me reposting it on this site (of course I’ll also state who wrote it.)
Email your entry to 'oneshard@googlemail.com'.

My favourite will receive the 60 day prepaid code sent by email and have their entry posted on the blog. The next 5 runners up will get there entries posted on this blog over the next few weeks after the winner has been announced.

The competition deadline for entries is 18^th December 2009.

Don't turn around.

2009-12-01T04:58:00.000-08:00

Trying to login to my main character of late has been difficult. I have 3 more destruction alt’s on the go. A Disciple of Khaine and a Shaman who are both 20 (I wanted the Cold One and Wolf mounts) and a Sorcerer around level 10. I am also undecided which healer to take to 40 as both have completely different play styles.

A few of my friends are also trying out the endless trial. At the moment they seem to like the accessibility of scenarios. We even rolled order alts on Karak-Norn. So I now have a level 7 Witch Hunter called Thlint (Flint was taken). So if you see me feel free to stand still and give me sweet renown.

The endless trial seems to be working well for tier 1 as most of the public quests have people running them and scenarios are popping like crazy. Last night on our order characters I don’t think we spent more than 20 seconds out of the scenarios. It is good to see how the Witch Hunter class works as well as they have killed my Choppa enough times.

Fight long fight hard all the way from level 1

2009-11-29T13:46:00.000-08:00

Thought I would make my own Warhammer Online video showing game footage from level 1 to level 40. It is not to advertise any kind of uber skill but to try and advertise the game. They say player word of mouth can do more for a game than expensive marketing, I was able to capture the game play after the improvements Mythic added in patch 1.3.2. Please watch and add some kind comments and ratings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_Re40YJJaI

Third faction and a single vision.

2009-11-18T05:36:00.000-08:00

Over at ‘Warcry’ there is an interesting article about ‘World of Warcraft’s’ 5^th year anniversary. The interview comes across as quite honest and open. Something I’d expect from ‘Mythic’ rather than top of the heap ‘Blizzard’ (remember when Jeff Hickman talked about War’s mistakes).

http://www.warcry.com/articles/view/interviews/6773-Five-Years-of-Warcraft-Speaking-With-Blizzards-Rob-Pardo

It was interesting how ‘Warcraft’s’ vision has changed since development in its launch and even up through its 5 year life. This seems to be shifted due to time constraints, player demand and the market.

Even in War’s short life span we can see this in a magnified way, from the loss of cities due to release schedule. Too the inclusion of RvR influence system and players dropping tokens in an effort to entice more players into RvR while they level.

What I think we are yet to see is ‘War’ changing due to other MMO releases. I am not sure how many times it has happened in ‘Warcraft’s’ life cycle. The only contributing effects I think have been the release of ‘War’, (please feel free to point out others) with inclusion of PvP experience and battleground queuing from anywhere.

This might be the fact that when the likes of ‘Darkfall’ and ‘Aion’ were released 'War' was too young and had only just been launched. Or as with the release of ‘Aion’, ‘War’ seemed almost glad not to be in the spot light so they could concentrate on none sexy improvements.

The article also mentions the decision to take ‘Warcraft’ in the e-sports direction and the problems they faced. I wonder if ‘Mythic’ ever wished they had stayed with the three faction model like ‘Dark Age of Camelot’.

What I also took out from it that an MMO’s vision and direction can be quite fluid. I remember the sales pitch ‘Warcraft’ had with inclusion of world PvP. Could ‘Warcraft’ been a better product if they had just stuck to PvE content. Maybe the constant balance issues and efforts taken up by PvP might have been used in improving its world and PvE offering. I imagine we might have seen more classes and even more hero classes.

If I was ‘Mythic’ I would take these lessons and pick a vision and stick to it. Forget PvE and focus on RvR and add variety. Even with the inclusion of a third faction, would this improve RvR as this later stage in ‘War’s’ life? Could effort wasted in creating a new faction and new zones associated with this go into creating a more varied experience. Does ‘War’ need siege weapons and realm balancing? Would it be better to hone the city sieges and make fortresses a key part of the campaign rather than a third faction with new classes?

I know the third faction seems important at the moment. But as an existing player, do I want another side to reroll as, or just more to do with my level 40 characters. Even if we got the third faction what would all those returning players once they hit 40 in the new faction find? I guess the same game but with more sides. ‘Mythic’ has shown us in the past they can think out of the box, maybe it is time they show us a new shining light which is not the third faction.

Denial, Waaagh and Revenge

2009-11-12T03:49:00.000-08:00

So this is my third try at writing this post since the news about the redundancies at Mythic. I have gone through the classic symptoms of denial, Waaagh and revenge. The letter from Jeff Hickman did little to alleviate my concerns as it made no mention of that ‘still getting funding’, ‘hope for the future’ word… expansion.

My heart goes out to the staff that had to leave Mythic. But at least they can say (though I imagine it gives little too no comfort) they contributed in making War such a great product. Not many games released of late can say they contributed to the original ideas pool for MMO games.

I am not a maintenance mode player but for the moment I am staying on the roller coaster ride of War as the game is still a lot of fun for me. Saying that I actually think War has spoilt me with regards to my expectation of an MMO. I am no longer willing to accept playing through all the levels to reach an end game which is a totally different experience. War has shown you can have a game which is fun and accessible and does not necessarily need to change at level cap.

In resent months I have looked to see what has changed in the other games I used to play. I gave ‘Age of Conan’ and ‘World of Warcraft’ a month each, the later to play with my friends in instances, but I always just wanted to login back to War.

Like I said War has spoilt me, in those other games my choice of what to do is limited. I can quest, do their versions of scenarios (which are both limited) or wait around looking for a group in an instance. War for me at least offers so much more variation, and it is immediate! I can login for 20 minutes and feel like I have accomplished something. Whether it is getting my influence for a public quest or just 20 minutes of killing, the whole experience is friendly to the casual player.

So as I look across the MMO landscape I don’t seen much hope for other games which can offer the same accessible, fun experience like War. Aion looks nice, but I don’t fancy having to PvE through lots of levels to get the chance to PvP (before War I might have give it a go…).

I have tried Lord of the Rings but again I think I am tired of this generation’s type of PvE where quests are just a hub of exclamation marks. I only actually use quests in War while no RvR or scenarios are popping or I just plonk myself in a public quest. Even Eve Online which I consider to be the greatest MMO out there requires significant play time to be involved in PvP.

I hope EA know the gem of a game they have and continue to fund its expansion. With ‘Star Wars, The Old Republic’ for PvE and ‘Warhammer Online’ for PvP they could have two very cool offerings in their MMO portfolio.

City Siege Action

2009-11-05T10:43:00.000-08:00

If you look at the War blogs and forum’s there is a lot of negativity around the changes to the removal of fortresses. A lot of servers are experiencing multiple city sieges a day. This was not really intended for the game so Mythic are introducing some more changes to try and alleviate the problems. It is a shame the removal of fortresses coincided with the performance changes as the performance fixes brought a lot of positive aspects to War, so much so I have actually been able to successfully Fraps a lot of the action in game.

My play time is limited at the moment therefore I missed out on city sieges in the past and the change has actually allowed me to participate with my guild to attack and defend the cities.

Monday night in particular was an excellent session, we had fought in Dragonwake managed to crash the server and on at least two occasions battle objectives bugged out and took a second count down to flip but destruction managed to lock the zone so as an alliance war band of 2 and a bit groups we all joined the same instance in Altdorf. We were out numbered in the instance so we accepted the fact we would loose and just played to have fun. Moving quickly to flip flags and hide in buildings to pick off smaller straggling groups from the main order masses. Sure we got caught a few times and order started to notice a pattern in our movement which just meant more skirmishes and death. It was one of my favourite nights in War from epic zone battles to mini instance skirmishers.

Bouncing

2009-10-27T06:44:00.001-07:00

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

2009-10-22T09:33:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-21T04:57:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-16T11:32:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-16T05:26:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-15T08:46:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-10-14T09:31:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-10-07T07:01:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-05T04:39:00.000-07:00

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?

2009-10-02T04:51:00.000-07:00

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.

Loveable?

2009-09-23T23:50:00.000-07:00

At the moment my time in Warhammer has been limited. I am still playing I have a Shaman who I am comparing against my Zealot.

I find him more amenable. His starter zone is better and he has a touch of the comical about him. Early on his mechanic seems more interesting, and reading on the forums the views tend to be positive about them later on. With posts like 'I love my Shaman'. Which I think is a first for a MMO class.

Bootaes Blogger Challenge! What is YOUR ultimate MMO group?

2009-09-14T04:47:00.000-07:00

Bootaes has issued a challenge so here is my ultimate MMO group.

Tanks

Spot 1: Warhammer - Black Orc

This was a difficult selection as the Chosen looks so good. But ever since I rolled a Warrior Priest and saw a Black Orc lumber over the hill dwarfing and annihilating all who got in his way I fell in love. Who could argue with an ability called ‘Right in Da Jibblies’.

Spot 2: Age of Conan – Conqueror

So here you have a tank that can use two weapon fighting. Anyone who is a fan of Drizzt Do'Urden will know wielding two swords is cool, doing this and being a viable tank at the same time must give them points.

Healers

Spot 1: Dungeons and Dragons Online – Cleric

Their versatility is excellent, they could also tank for you if your group were in a tight spot. The Warrior Priest from Warhammer nearly made it, but they are probably next generation Battle Clerics.

Spot 2: Missgideon (World of Warcraft - Priest)

For the single reason she was the only character I had who made it to the level cap in Vanilla WoW.

DPS

Spot 1: Eve Online - Megathron

They have everything, looks and style and filled with blasters as a Blasterthron would rip anything to shreds.

Spot 2: Age of Conan – Barbarian

They don’t actually have huge amounts of DPS as the moment, but would look good doing it. Blood splattering… heads flying all over the shop and the single fact you can pretend you are Conan and issues Arnie one-liners.

Pebble beach warfare?

2009-09-11T04:40:00.000-07:00

Firstly I’d like to look at a few possible definitions’ of the word “Zerg”. You can pick one or dispute them if you like.

Definition 1

“The Zerg Swarm are a race of fictional insectoids and the overriding antagonists of the StarCraft series. Operating as a hive mind,….”

Definition 2

"Overwhelming an enemy with numbers - going for quantity instead of quality, by rushing your opponent with hundreds of millions of players that have little skill.”

Now I have been trying to par-take in some RvR this week and the “War” zerg doesn’t seem to even live up to any of the above. Rarely have I seen any focus, or even a goal of the PvP and there has been certainly no idea of rushing an opponent to overwhelm them with numbers or any inkling of a hive mind. (By the way I am not blaming Mythic for this; I am putting the blame squarely at the average player.)

I have joined a few war bands and a lot of the players are not even playing in the same zone. Then when I have run to where the main clusters of players are, you find a massive group of order and destruction just fighting in one spot. My best attempted at describing this is pebbled beach warfare. Each side has a turn at being the water, a wave of players smashing into the pebbles dissolving into nothing remotely meaningful.

Now I still consider my relationship with War meaningful, but this kind of PvP is like having dinner with your other half and finding a ginger hair in you lovely prepared chips, sausage and egg, when you both have brown hair.

What has happened to us? Are people just trying to grind renown, is it the fact flipping zones and taking keeps only gets you “Annihilator” gear, and most people and their dog already have this? One member of the guild did suggest moving to another zone, then some one pipe’s up they don’t want to do PvE RvR (taking keeps without opposition).

Before this post just descends into a rant, I will try being constructive.

For me, the only way to have a truly organised war band or scenario group is with Ventrilo or Team Speak. No matter how fast you type you can not respond to the flow of RvR without it. As well an integrating voice communication (I’d do what Dungeons’s and Dragons Online did and get the experts to help you integrate it, I seem to remember they used the gamespy people.) I would make it configurable and have 3 types of people in a war band. The leader, scout and member, allowing the war band leader able to assign roles and turn off mute depending on your role. That way you could have voice communication so only the leader and scouts can chat and the rest listen.

Should a war band leader get more renown or a gold bag, which significantly helps to flip a zone? A player already gets more renown on a tic if they took keeps and objectives. If you’re a war band leader with over a certain number of members could you also get something extra? A gold bag to re-distribute or more renown? This might make more people step to the front and try and lead as doing so actually requires thought and effort.

Do we need a war band leader only chat channel which spans regions? The region channels tend to get spammed therefore could leaders use this to coordinate themselves?

Mythic have done lot’s to try to coerce players to take objective and keeps, with extra renown and gold. But as far as I have witnessed a lot of the population for that past few weeks any way seem to be happy with the pebble beach warfare.

PVE - Hunter’s Vale

2009-09-09T04:39:00.000-07:00

It has been a mixed bag of PvE this week. From trying to see the Wild Hunt instanced dungeon Hunter’s Vale with my level 9 Zealot to doing Bloodwrought Enclave and Bilerot Burrow with my Choppa. It seems with most MMO’s if you want to see all the content your best rolling a healer or tank as DPS classes are ten-a-penny.

Even trying to go through Hunter’s Vale with my Zealot has been difficult with limited time, as having just one healer in the group isn’t enough to tackle the hero’s.

Again with time and circumstance being limited, I have not been able to get into a decent group for Hunter’s Vale with my Choppa. Guild members have either already done it, are out doing RvR or want to do city instance’s.

I don’t blame them, so I joined them in two of the city dungeons and enjoyed myself. As a bonus I even got two pieces of Sentinal gear.

What I got to see of Hunter’s Vale was good though, and I enjoyed it. Though there was an annoying bug with my Zealot. Party members seemed to show up as dead or with depleted health, when they seem perfectly fine standing right in front of me.

WCPI:Grimnir’s Grudge

2009-09-03T05:20:00.000-07:00

Over at ‘Grimnir’s Grudge’ he made an excellent post ‘Why you are going to (or already do) miss WAR?’. It is a simple question but the post covered so many topics from people leaving and how they do it, problems with the game to finally what he see’s as the essence of the game. It gave me so much to think about and made the boils in my brain bleed.

I have been away for a week and getting back into the swing of any MMO can be difficult. I think it’s the sun and sand which makes you forget why you played the time sink in the first place. ‘Grimnir’s’ post helped me see the essence of ‘War’ again. I logged in Tuesday night and thought right I need to complete the tasks, instead of thinking not lets carve some healers up. Consequently I only spent an hour and a half before I went and played ‘Batman Arkham Asylum’ (which is very good by the way).

‘Grimnir’s’ post helped me see why I play these games. Now if I quit a game I am not one of those people who wriggle on the floor in convulsing death throws on the forum spewing out hate and oily tentacles trying to take people with me. Or after I have died continually leave poisonous ooze to drive people away to what ever is my new shinny orb I am worshipping. I have always been the silent type who just moves on which a sourcey wink to the game “Catch ya later baby!” but I wonder what ‘Mythic’ prefer? At least the poisonous chaos beasts leave feedback, the most feedback they get from me is a closed subscription.

So getting back in the game can be a tentative time, with so many other games nudging each other for your time. I am not really talking about the newer games either… like ‘Champions’ or ‘Aion’ which at the moment don’t float my boat.

There are the also console games which I am not going to talk about here. But my two other MMO loves which are ‘Age of Conan’ and ‘Eve Online’, which in essence are in my view are quite similar to ‘War’.

‘War’s’ gems of play like ‘Grimnir’s’ states are the speed and bloody battle of war. I also think it brings with it the tactical combat of a well oiled war band that can use terrain and tactics to carve open the opposing side.

Then we have ‘Age of Conan’, I have not experienced it’s PvP as I only made it to level 55 with my barbarian and left before the PvP patch. But ‘Age of Conan’ actually excel’s in bringing this blood through its PvE combat. If you don’t believe me take one barbarian and sprinkle 6 bad guys and watch the blood fly. It is seat of you pants PvE combat with the barbarian knocking back and stunning foes… heads rolling and blood splattering. You make it out the other side with a sliver of health, but with the power in your lunges to shout down the wondrous ‘Hyborian’ valley with battle lust.

Lastly we have ‘Eve Online’. If you listen to ‘Channel Massive’ they call it gaming by spreadsheets. But I don’t imagine they have played the smaller fast guerilla style warfare of small ship combat. Imagine being 15 star gate jumps inside enemy territory (which actually takes real time and organization to achieve) and your cloaked scout has spotted your prey, a larger ship transporting some cargo. You spring your trap with a warp bubble and start to take him down. But this prey is not with out his own friends. Before you know it, scouts report in coming targets and your exit routes through star gates get closed off and a cat and mouse chase starts. You don’t have the coppery splatter of blood across your face but the eye stinking sweat and heart palpitations of the fight for survival are all too real.

But what is the point of this post, well it’s to give kudos to ‘Grimnir’s’ excellent post but also when you quit or play a game to try and remember why you play it. Push those bugs and niggles to the back of your mind and just savour the fear of your enemy.

Wild Hunt Video Guide-ish

2009-09-02T04:56:00.000-07:00

Just in case you can not make it or all your guild members have already done it, check out this video to see the detail about the live event The Wild Hunt.

Video: Warhammer Online - Präsentation von The Wild Hunt auf der Gamescom 2009 (5:31)

None War post incoming.

2009-09-01T04:20:00.000-07:00

So I am back from my holidays and I am looking forward to the Wild Hunt live event. But I just had to make a post about the book I read on holiday The Empyrean Age an Eve Online novel.

Now if I have a first love in the MMO genre it is probably Eve Online. (The name of this blog is a salute to the Eve server architecture.) Internet space ships for the win!

I thought the book scratched two of my itches. The first it follows classic (in my view) science fiction traditions. By this I mean taking a look at humanity as it is now and the human condition and putting a futuristic spin on those events. The next itch it plunges you into the Eve universe which is gritty and unforgiving. I could almost feel the mix of dirt, blood and pod fluid under my finger nails.

Renown/Jolly Hols

2009-08-20T04:49:00.000-07:00

Now my Choppa has hit the level cap logging into War now comes down to the serious business of renown gain. It seems I have a few choices here I can:

1. Join pugs and wait on the capture of battle objectives and the little renown they give and join the odd keep attack.

2. Join alliance war bands and do they same, the renown probably ends up a little higher and is more fun but our alliance has gone a little quiet of late.

3. Try single PvP in duels with other players. I have heard this gives the most renown, but I doubt I have the skill or min/maxing to do this.

4. Join PUG scenarios, this seems to give decent renown. I can usually get from around 1.5 to 3k per scenario. In the old days of KDS this would have been a nightmare of constantly loosing scenarios. But it seems of late especially on Karak-Azgal the matches are more balanced. I have been in a lot of matches were both sides where around the 400+ points.

5. Join pre-made scenarios. This is where the renown and fun flows like wine in War. You can’t beat being a Choppa with guard and a pocket healer…

Have to say one of my favourite abilities is the Choppa auto resurrection ability. So many times I have just been beaten by the tiniest slivers of health and I get the lovely auto rez dialog pop up. I wait for the other player to turn their back on me and go for the soft spot.

This is just a quick note to say I will not be posting for the next week as I am off on my summer holiday. I hope I get back in time for the Wild Hunt event, did I mention I wanted the stag cloak.

Defence Sabotage Stage for Keeps

2009-08-15T07:55:00.000-07:00

An article has been posted on the official War site detailing what they needed to do to improve keep design. This hopefully will say goodbye to the single point of combat at the top of the ramp to the lord room. Over at thatsskarwithak they rightfully voice concerns at what this means for smaller groups of defenders but they also comment this may mean city sieges become regular events.

Hopefully this may mean the fights within keeps become more dynamic, with multiple tank walls needed. The reduction in AoE might also help to make keep combat more interesting.

But could there be more additions to keeps to make them even more interesting? I have already posted a few ideas on possible simple solutions for siege weapons. When thinking about ideas I always try to make them simple to include. Mythic probably don’t have the time to include whole new structures and mechanics not already part of the game in some capacity.

In keep combat the end is usually when the lord is killed and the almost immediate wipe of the defending side. What if this wasn’t the end, there is third floor and a lot of the keeps have outer siege pads with single bridges to them. Smaller groups could further defend these points. Taking this idea I came up with the following possible stage two keep encounters:

Keep Cleansing Stage

This is the simplest idea, once the lord is down and the doors respawn. The lord and champions don’t immediately respawn. Instead the opposing side have given amount of time to completely wipe out the defenders to eradicate their taint within the keep walls. Who ever wins within this time frame, would get further tokens or renown tick.

Supply Line Sabotage Stage

Again once the keep lord is dead, small barrels/containers spawn around the keep, at the top or along the keep walls. If any defenders still live they have the chance to taint the supply barrels to the keep reducing the hit points of the new NPC’s giving them a slight advantage when they decide to try and take the keep back.

Defence Sabotage Stage

As before once the keep lord is dead, explosive crates spawn at each of the walls above the inner and outer doors. If the defeated defenders can protect this spawns for a limited time they explode and reduce the hit points of the keep doors, again giving the loosing side an advantage when trying to take the keep back.

I am not suggesting all keeps would have all three mechanics; maybe they are spread out making each keep attack unique within the zone. It also might provide smaller groups an extra incentive to hide around the keep defending parts and bring even more dynamic combat to keeps.

Turn around for War

2009-08-12T05:06:00.000-07:00

If you have been reading the forums and blogs at the moment you would be hard pressed to find positive thoughts on the game. Anyone would have thought the Raven God himself was demolishing the very foundations of War.

To be honest half the time I think this is down to the usual trolls and rage quit posts, by people who think just because War didn’t suit their needs must be doomed to failure. In my little mutated world all has been fine from release and has only gotten better. Yes classes have been imbalanced at times (with zergs throwing themselves at the bomb squads) and city sieges broken. But as a player I just accept them and have faith the people at Mythic love the game as much as I do and will one day fix the issues. I just work around the areas I don’t find fun and do the stuff I do enjoy.

Anyway for all those doom mongers it looks like things might be looking up, there are a lot of positive reports on the city sieges (see below). The guild I am part of got to take part on PTS to test the city sieges. Everyone agreed that it was a great improvement and seemed to be fluid and fun. As for the last AoE patch, again that seems to have been well received. I for one am not dying time and time again to Bright Wizard bomb squads (did I just admit to sometimes being part of those mindless zergs?).

By the way I also just hit level 40 with my Choppa. This again is a first for me having actually two characters at the level cap, the only other time I ever hit the level cap in a morg was in vanilla World of Warcraft with my level 60 priest. Those last 10 levels in WoW killed me even though I had the help of friends to quest with.

What is more surprising for me is the lack of the sinking feeling. You know that feeling that you never want to go through that levelling process again, and the end game doesn’t appeal. On the contrary I am ready to go through it all again with my Zealot, and a few hours in tier 1 and 2 scenerios always seems to refresh the game for me.

I think she will be more of a part time alt, as I actually plan to play my Choppa and climb the renown and gear ladders.

DRANNATH'S ZEALOT LOVE

Werit

Warhammer Blog Times

Serrate

2009-08-06T10:11:00.000-07:00

With my ‘Choppa’ approaching level 40 I need a new alt to keep me occupied when I am not doing RvR in tier 4.

After hearing on the guild Ventrilo ‘Zealot’s’ are quite easy to level through AoE in public quests I thought I would create one. I already have a level 5 ‘Shaman’, but I am keeping him in case my friends ever try ‘War’. I plan just using him as supporting character to keep them up in scenarios and public quests to try and make the experience as painless as possible.

Anyway… introducing ‘Serrate’ currently a level 4 ‘Zealot’. Currently I am not sure about her as she does not seem to have a funky heal/damage meter like the ‘Shamans’ WAAAGH mechanic.

I have done a few scenarios with her, and enjoyed them a lot. Running around the buildings next to the ‘Barracks’ objective in ‘Nordenwatch’ with a ‘Knight of the Blazing Sun’ on your tail while trying to keep party members alive is fun. I am glad the Raven god blessed us with key binding, now if he could only make those skulls the Zealots use come with slots in the top so you could toast your bread.

Active in RvR

2009-08-05T10:44:00.000-07:00

Over the past week, our guild has been back in RvR as organised alliance war bands and it has been glorious. The amount of order around has been astounding, which means for a smaller organized war band you can pick and choose your fights.

Some of the best fights where around Eataine between Defensive Boon and Healing Boon. Due to its hilly nature and the buildings around those two points you can sneak up behind with your war band and hit them right in the healers. (Maybe that should be a new euphemism)

I have just hit renown rank 33 and level 38 so I can wear all my Annihilator stuff, which makes him better equipped than my Chosen.

On this subject does anyone have any suggestions what I do on the long road to renown rank 40? Are there any specific weapons I need to get to help me on my way?

Wild hunt

2009-07-31T04:27:00.000-07:00

War’s 1 year anniversary is fast approaching and the excellent guys at Mythic are giving us what looks to be an epic live event, I have added the video below. Stuff like this keeps me playing and the knowledge War is here to say for a long time. I soOOoooOOOOo want the cloak!

Missing the fun?

2009-07-31T04:09:00.000-07:00

I wandered into a dangerous mind set for me over the last week. It is one were progression becomes my main focus, which means the act of actually playing the game takes second fiddle.

This is largely due to the fact my Choppa is level 37 renown rank 31. What happens is I end up grinding PQ’s just to try and use a 1 and a half hour play session effectively. Even questing becomes too slow, as I become impatient because I have to travel or read text. Let alone stand in a keep for half an hour with guild members defend.

This means I end up actually missing all the fun stuff, and not engaging with my guild members. So I have pulled my self out of the progression pit and told myself 40 will happen so stop trying to make it happen. So last night instead of the PQ’s I joined a pug war band and had loads of fun.

War band is probably a bad term as there were at least 4 of them which is more of a zerg. It was only an hour’s play session, but instead of following I tried to make sure I was one the front line. Which does wonder’s for you character ego. I just charge and when I have casters in my range I stick on Git To Da Choppa and because there so tightly packed in just watch those damage numbers fly up. I know the zerg is not skillful but sometimes all you need is to stick your choppa into as many faces as possible.

Paul Barnett Part 2 - No Prisoners, No Mercy

2009-07-29T04:32:00.000-07:00

Check out the Paul Barnett interview part 2 over at No Prisoners, No Mercy.

The thing which made my chaos mutation itch was the ‘High Noon’ part of the show were they got Saylah to discuss why she left and the sisters talked about what had improved with War.

It had me shouting at my mp3 player in the car, saying but what about this… what about that…

Obviously I was on the sister’s side but they did not mention any of the following which has improved in War to help leveling easier.

Repeatable quests at Battle Objectives and Keeps, and also just having different quest icons to point them out.
Influence RvR system, this is one of the main reasons why you get more people in the RvR lakes as the sets are so much more accessible.
Easy public quests, as well as just providing more information on the map so you can tell straight away what kind of group you need to attempt the PQ.
More experience given for killing players.
Free trial, with a greater influx of players you have more people to play with.

Are there any over improvements I have missed? That's better, the roaming mutated eye on my elbow has stopped irritating me now... phew...

Destruction in Altdorf

2009-07-23T10:33:00.000-07:00

It has been out for some months but I only just came across it. I love it when people do this stuff for online games.

Careful I bite

2009-07-23T04:01:00.000-07:00

Over the past week a lot of our main open RvR leaders are trying the free trial for Dark Age of Camelot.

Those who are left have decided to level alts. My Choppa is 4 levels of 40, but has run out of rested experience. So this week has been made up of power levelling other guild members with my Choppa and taking my Squig Herder out for a run ‘Toenail’ is level 16, and I forgot how much fun the path of Quick Shootin was. Kiting multiple mobs with my Squig and snares makes for very fluid dynamic combat.

We have just been queuing for scenarios and running public quests, I love the fact you don’t need to go near questing to level.

WCPI

Check out Gaarawarr Gabs and his latest post, it is an interview with Josh Drescher. How does Gaarawarr do it? He is not even playing the game at the moment yet his blog still remains relevant. I think, he one of those people who is a natural blogger and will only go on to greater things. For now I am just pleased he playing the game I love.

The Patch 1.3.0b is here on the euro servers. I know they have temporally gimped a lot of classes. But for my Choppa this just gives him an excuse to try out another spec.

I think this patch is a step in the right direction, together with the extra ramps in keeps, defending one will result in an interesting challenge.

Reikland: Runehammer Gunworks: Defensive Boon

2009-07-21T09:04:00.000-07:00

Location

Map Link

This is objective is in the middle of the map fairly close to the destruction war camp. It is also very close to another objective, so can be taken in conjunction while the defence timer is running (If an active order group is not around.).

Terrain features

The battle objective is located on a plateau with 3 steep sides and a gentle slope to the west. As the objective is higher up and you can see the approaching enemy and can easily run or defend depending on numbers.

Defending the objective can be fairly simple against equal numbers if your melee dps and tanks can hold the ridge, while you healers hide out of line of sight. If you are against larger numbers and they attack all sides you can quickly be overwhelmed.

When attacking getting members south without being seen can be a good ploy, then use your main force from the north you can get into there healers quickly if they don’t post scouts on the south ridge.

Engagements

I have had some of the best fights at this objective. If you have two massive war bands there is plenty of open space but with the added advantage of using the slopes or the building at the east of the plateau to de-aggro yourself.

Paul Barnett - No Prisoners, No Mercy

2009-07-15T09:42:00.000-07:00

They used to be a Warhammer Online podcast before they moved to a wider spectrum of topics check out No Prisoners, No Mercy - Show 38 as they have an interview Paul Barnett.

If you are expecting nougats of information your best bet is just to re-reading the state of the game letters, but if you just want entertainment and like the enthusiasm Paul and the two sisters bring with them, then you will not be disappointed.

Edit: 9.42 Or check out the new letter here.

The beautiful game

2009-07-15T04:01:00.000-07:00

Last night we defended a keep in Caledor against a large contingent of order, and managed to push them back twice in different ways.

When they first attacked we had our Choppa’s and Chosen behind the keep door about 6 or so, every time we pushed out we got wiped and our healers had to resurrect our burnt bodies. A little later on we had a greater number of players, and a count down went out in region chat. The push was successful, but required lots of work as we had to get past the tanks and AoE damage. The majority of the order war band were killed and the rest scattered. The count down helped, but I think in the end the numbers worked in our favour.

The second time our war band leader ordered us to mount up on the postern, while other members notified when it was clear. We exited the keep and hit the invading war band at their healers flank.

It is hard to describe but it was like one of the kitchen cleaning advertisements on television, were they clean away the dried in stain with one wipe. The invading war band completely crumbled, so much so I think their tanks at the door where still manning the ram probably wondering were their war band had just gone. They had little time, to fight or flee.

This is not meant to be a bragging post of how destruction won the battle or at superior skill as I think I am only just approaching competent, but a focus on how there are multiple ways to get any one task done and that numbers are not always the way to go.

Regular feature

2009-07-11T04:51:00.000-07:00

I thought I would try a new regular feature with the blog. Spending a lot of time in tier 4 and playing a lot of open realm versus realm you slowly get to know the zones and how PvP plays ebbs and flows at certain points on the map. The guild I am with is a decent set of players and the war band leaders are always trying new tactics to try and beat the other side, so I thought I use the experience’s I am have to break down the objectives and keeps throughout the zones.

This may end with one feature or expand (if successful) across all the tiers. The first one is here. I will try and keep a common layout, and as my soul is sold to Chaos the details will be destruction focused. If you have any comments on views please post.

Reikland: Frostbeard's Quarry, Artisan's Grift

2009-07-11T04:30:00.000-07:00

Location

Map Link

This objective is very close to the order war camp, from destruction point of view it is a bit of a lone objective and is used by order to ninja the objective before destruction can make it in time and maybe preventing a zone lock.

Terrain features

The battle objective is situated in sort of a crater with a path leading down and around, though a quick root in and out is available by means of a slope. Getting up the slope can be tricky but you just need to approach it from the right.

This objective can be a death trap for the smaller war band as it is a dead end and any approaching enemy can get a very good view of you war band numbers, without having to engage.

As the slope upwards is tricky it can be used as a farm point for ranged dps if they can taunt and pull the stupid lone war band stragglers up the slope.

Engagements

For destruction this can be a quick way to a war band wipe. Order can trap you at the objective, and any dead can quickly spawn back if their healers are pressed. My advice is hope the objective caps before order arrives and either quickly move up the slope or work you way round and push order closer to the war camp and then break off once you have sufficient numbers to make it away. So choosing when to cap this objective can be at important as fighting at it.

See more pictures here.

Stonetroll Certified Warhammer Online Podcast

2009-07-09T04:27:00.000-07:00

This is a shout out to Ziss from lagwar.com, for Stonetroll Certified Warhammer Online Podcast #31. At the moment there is a lot of negativity in the War community and he put out a positive show which made me smile.

I agree with him War is what you make it, if you using the same tactics all the time or standing in the capital city waiting for the Land of the Dead to open for your side yes the game might get repetitive or feel like a grind.

Why don’t you, try the following?

Stop and have a look round. The world Mythic has created is beautiful and contains so many nooks and crannies and beautiful spots. I love the tier 3 Empire battle objectives or the tier 4 the elf areas.
Put a group together and try and run some RvR.
Has the door on the outer wall fallen, instead of running to the keep, push out at the postern and catch them from behind. Does the keep have buildings contained inside the out walls? Hide in them and pop out when they least expect it.
Have you have just joined a scenario group, with an enemy premade in it? Don’t just leave the scenario, try and form your own group and use the same tactics, or operated some avoidance tactics taking objective without running into that bomb squad.
Go and explore that zone you have not tried and or that public quest you never completed.

If you continually just follow the zerg or AoE the same mob to power level the game will only get dull and repetitive.

Goodbye tier 3 hello tier 4.

2009-07-06T04:59:00.000-07:00

I have just reached level 32, so it is the final few levels till the cap in tier 4. I am planning to do most of my levelling through RvR and scenarios. With the occasionally visit to public quests throughout the zones.

This time round, I have managed to keep my renown rank relatively close to my level, as it currently stands at 28. I don’t want to reach forty again and have to grind 10 levels of renown rank just to wear the annihilator stuff (renown rank 33).

Running keeps in tier 4 without with the level 30 renown rank ability to bypass the postern, sounds like I’ll be as much us as a chocolate Bright Wizard staff.

Gotrek and Felix: The first omnibus

2009-07-01T04:55:00.000-07:00

So I finally finished the ‘Gotrek and Felix: The first omnibus’ novel. I started reading it before Christmas, but I got the Malus Darkblade Chronicles and Gilead’s Blood novel as a present and I could never resist Elves whether there are evil or just melancholy.

Since starting to play Warhammer I have been slowly working my way through the novels to pick up lore and gain more of a feeling about the world in Warhammer Online. It has been slow, as when it comes down to it whether I pick up a book or play War the later usually wins.

I enjoyed the Gotrek and Felix novel and found myself more drawn to Felix than the slayer. I like the fact he is more fallible and unsure about his predicament and seems to more fumble through the book than his doom questing friend. The books story tended to move quickly in an action adventure style. Especially more so in the first novel which has almost a pulp comic feel about it. It seems to settle down in Skavenslayer and you get more of a feel for the world and the main characters.

The way the Skaven were portrayed was probably my favourite thing through all three novels. Their inability to see their own failings and master race mentality made me want to play one even more (if they ever saw the light of day in Warhammer Online).

Though I enjoyed the books, I couldn’t help feel I had read the story before. The Warhammer Dwarfs are well… Dwarfs and didn’t seem to stray far away from jokes and sarcastic one liners with who ever they were fighting at the time. There were points in the books when you got to know about the Book of Grudges and their fascination with gold. But that is still general Dwarf story fodder, maybe the slayers past is to be kept for further novels.

WCPI: The cycle of life

2009-06-28T14:28:00.000-07:00

Just thought, I would post a goodbye and hello to two War bloggers.

Goodbye to Tome of Knowledge an excellent blog with some good art work. You can check out an interview with it's writer at www.lagwar.com.

Hello to Stunty Stomper an old hat who seems to have returned, it provides an excellent resource for all thinks PvE.

First look at land of the dead

2009-06-28T00:59:00.000-07:00

It’s 4’oclock in the morning, and it starting to get light. Everywhere is quiet and I am hot and can’t get to sleep, so I creep into the office and fire up my computer and luckily destruction have control of Land of the Dead. So I start to explore…

I have a go at one of the easy public quests. This particular one seems to fire a beam which keeps my Choppa in berserk mode. The skeletons rising out of the ground are level 40, and I am only 30 but being bolstered to level 36 they still deadly when you select them. So I try and pull one and he goes down in a few hits as I am in berserk mode. Then wham 2.5k from the kill, so I spend the next half hour killing skeletons and gain half a level and hit level 31. I stop as I don’t want to level to 32 as I am not quite finished with tier 3 oRvR.

What do I do… go back to tier 3? No! For some reason Land of the Dead almost begs me to explore, the whole place feels different… foreign. I try to swim across the river, which is a big mistake as the skin falls away from my body. I try and slay a vulture, and then I am picked up and dumped in a nest.

The whole area and monsters feel that little extra polished, and what is the main refreshing change to the area which makes me want to explore besides being just new content are there are no people in the hub with quests(what the funk)! Somehow I felt it free my character to take it up him self to see what is out there…

I took plenty of pictures which you can see here.

Guerrilla warfare

2009-06-26T04:57:00.000-07:00

Could guerrilla warfare be coming to War? With the release of Land of the Dead, could we see smaller groups choosing hit and run tactics?

The opposing side is almost about to kill the boss from the public quest and you take down the healers and watch their tank get pummelled into the ground by the public quest boss.

When it comes to the purge, will the aim of organized alliances and guilds be to hide and choose hit and run tactics to disrupt the invading side until you recapture the zone.

Your pre-made groups in scenarios could be your training ground for the real deal.

Splat

2009-06-25T09:05:00.000-07:00

It has been a weird few weeks; I have squeezed some time for playing between decorating my house. But had little time to surf and write so here is a Chaos cannon like splurge of my game play.

Thursday

This was my first attempt as Bilerot Burrow, a city dungeon. I was off tank, but Scission is only equipped with 4 lesser wards. We also had a better equipped tank, a marauder, squig herder and 2 disciple of khaine's. We where fully aware of the problems we faced with the party make-up but when the sewers of chaos are waiting all you can do is dive in.

The night was fun, even though we only managed one boss, and I did not win any gear. But learnt a lot and got to see some new content.

Monday

This was a night meant for open realm versus realm, and I was not disappointed. We had an excellent war band leader (see picture), which probably made the difference to the whole night. She threaten a war band kick when people did not follow orders as the war band was moving through zones. Organized groups to guard posterns and organize groups to do public quests and scenario’s to lock zones. Out of the whole night we must have locked two zones took 5 keeps and a multitude of battle objects.

Tuesday

With a smaller play session I opted to run scenario’s all night. I had a great time and had some good group on group fights. This is were I am finding the key binding paying off the most.

Warhammer University

2009-06-21T00:35:00.000-07:00

I wonder how many new and trial players spend a few hours in War going through some of the PvE and come across a few empty public quests and put the game back on the shelf?

Could War could benefit from newbie University Guild on the odd trial server? Due to its steep learning curve Eve players put together a specific corporation to help the new player survive called Eve University.

I know War’s learning curve is not steep but the experience is better with other people and playing a scenario or doing open realm versus realm with other players sets War apart from its competition.

What sparked this idea was a conversation with a trail player and roaming the War official forums and noticing a very helpful community. The trial player asked questions about gear and its acquisition and how many times should they run public quest. I think tier 1 can be over in a few hours and a lot of Wars merits can be totally missed in this short time span.

The idea would be it would actively recruit new players in tier 1 and 2 and try and provide the following:

Help with all aspects of War, and try to be as active as possible on region chat to answer any questions.
Provide regular help with public quests.
Organize tier 1 and 2 open realm versus realm.
Organize scenario groups and providing pointers.

The idea being by the time they reach 22 and are released to the big wide world they have a good idea of how to play in an organized group and have knowledge of the server’s political landscape.

Now there are a few problems with this, alts gain levels and leave tier 2. No one wants to spend all of their time in the lower tiers when there is content to explore and renown ranks in tier 4 to earn.

So guild officers would have to keep alts in the lower tiers, and the guild would have to be a little more flexible maybe run with a larger number of officers operating like a collective. With a commitment to take 1 play session a week from their main character to roam tier 1 helping newer players and organizing events.