Again, making Black Orcs da biggest again.

Someone sneakily asked in the RvR pack Q&A about Black Orcs getting bigger again and got the following response by Andy at Mythic.

"Appalled wrote...

Thanks for the thread Andy, I have one question and one only that keeps me awake at night;

Will the Black Orc be the size of an enraged Choppa by the time this RvR pack comes out? If not, have MYTHIC begun to put serious consideration in to this community request so that we are in accordance with the lore? (Get what I did there? :P)"

I've been trying to convince the Art/Production team to do this for over a year now. I'll keep hammering away at them.

I also just noticed on Erknuffels blog he asked the same question when getting a chance to speak to the devs at Gamescom

http://erdknuffel.de/2010/08/interview-von-der-gamescom-teil-iii/

Erdknuffel: Do you have any plans on making the Black Orc da biggest Orc again?

Andy: Well if it’s up to me: yeah, because that’s something I’m constantly bugging these guys about. So Carrie, the community really wants for the Black Orc to be the biggest Orc, because it matches the lore.

Carrie: I think we can look into that.

The hope is still alive fellow Black Orcs! Don't let our Waaaagh go un noticed!

I've also updated the original request post with the new Bioware site instead of the GOA and old Mythic forum stuff

http://mmmmmgud.blogspot.com/2009/03/waits-jus-minute-us-black-orcs-are.html

Also feel free to post your support on a fantastic YouTube video that was made @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uKCc4NSrkE

Alternatively, if you have a blog or website and you'd like to support our plea then pelase rip my "Supportin' Black Orcs" tag to the right there and post it somewhere

A question of alts.

So I've made mention a few times on tweets to other bloggers about no purple numbers showing anymore or double xp weekends being meaningless to the 40/80 player and it's always been brought back to alts, and it's a perfect chance for them.

But I don't play alts... I do HAVE alts, (rank 7 squiggy and a 40 shaman and 40 choppa) they all started as bank alts and then two levelled up for butchering mats and eventually scavenging. Is this really an alt? I have no link to them, I log them in and always feel strange not seeing Lokax there and look confused at my toolbars until I remember one button that does stuff and just hit it. I have no empathy to the characters and don't enjoy using them for gathering mats, so I don't count myself as having alts. The Choppa gets logged in once a month to grind out armour mats and the Shaman gets logged in every few weeks and then to check if I can be bothered getting scavenging levelled on him (answer every time being no).

Many do have alts though, it keeps the game fresh for them and I have no problem with that. I've put a lot of work into Lokax to hit 40/80 with good gear, unlocks and what not. It's not easy getting to that level with a Black Orc but it was worth it. If I'm bored and in WAR I'll either log out or go and do some quests, unlocks or look for new armour/weapon skins to add to the collection I have built up. In WAR especially there is quite a lot of other things you can do.

I like thinking up new specs, going out roaming in the lakes on my own or friends who are also RR80 and do the same as myself. I'm not a fantastic gamer, never have been, I can pick things up and play with them and work out bits and pieces but I'll never be in the elite. Spreading my time over alts seems to 'weaken' me, I forget rotations and certain aspects of the character if I'm not playing them so I like to put effort into one character and keep with them. I personally feel that I get the most out the character by learning more about them.

What's interesting is that I've always been like that in MMOs. In Ultima I had my Fisherman and the obligatory mule. In DAoC I had a Bonedancer. In SWG I had a Creature Handler/Bio Engineer and in WoW a warlock. I always focused my time and effort into them and didn't bother with any others unless something came up where I had to.

I guess it's why I'm always a little dissapointed when I see double xp/renown weekends, or lake buffs to grant more xp/renown. It doesn't affect me, I feel like I'm missing out as people get excited about shiny numbers rocketing on characters as I sit there wondering "Purple numberz? Wutz dat?". It IS my choice however to not have alts so there's certainly no reason for me to complain (and I try not to), but I wouldn't say no to seeing a little something added in, even if it's just a small chance of say a blue level dye or above dropping which can only be looted by a 40/80 (random example).

So really, the end of this little musing is that, is it odd now a days for a player to not have any alts, sitting at max progression and gear and not being bothered about it?

First bits of concept art now appearing for the RvR pack

We really need to get a name for this don't we?

Anyway, this link was popped on over at twitter by one of the writers at GameReactor a Swedish based website and retweeted by Carrie Gouskos

http://www.gamereactor.eu/news/4654/Warhammer+Online+concept+art/

Looks fairly standard but the painting of the underground tunnels would be a nice background image

I rescind my hate on turtle builds

I've been running a turtle build recently despite hating it to see how effective it truly is. I'm 'lucky' in that I have full Sov, 4/5 Tyrant Glyphs and RR80 so I can make a fairly decent build out of it. Currently using 7 piece Defensive Sovereign, the four Glyphs and an Invader tanking choppa nets me 388 HP every 4 seconds, combined with Da Toughest bellow and the dirty new You Got Nuffin (basically a 340 HP heal every 10 seconds) and it basically works out as 716 HP regained every 4 seconds (if I've done my math right).

Against average players I can literally hold up six people and they cannot kill me, decent players or those using nerfed buttons with pre programmed interrupts as soon as it picks up that you are channeling an ability or have an ability will have an easier time but still, it's fantastic to 'feel' the rage building up in players as they beat on you, unable to kill you and in fact the more that appear to beat down on the Black Orc the more he seems to be regaining health.

I've literally just come out of a scenario where my view for most of it was the following:

(click for bigger pic)

This actually allowed the other 11 players in the scenario to turn a 200-20 losing scenario to a 500 win because the rest of Order were badly outnumbered as 5 focused on me.

So turtling, it's fun for now but no doubt the novelty of being almost immortal will wear off soon enough, however even in this spec I still managed to take out a Bright Wizard (a good one) and a random White Lion at the same time and finish on full health.

Oh and this is how the scenario ended:

(click for bigger pic)

All aboard dat Twitter Waaagh!

Well I finally signed up and started getting setup with a Twitter account for Mmmmm Gud. It'll make 'micro blogging' easier as I often have a lot of little things to say which really doesn't make either any sense to post in the main blog or I'm nowhere near a PC and forget to do it (yay for iPhone and Twitter app). So you can now follow me under the URL below.

http://www.twitter.com/mmmmmgud

Slowly adding folks from the WAR community and those that write about WAR whether it's blog or general MMO news.

It's also possibly a good chance to annoy the hell out of people by sending them messages over it...

Mythics secret announcement - Bringing back the MMO Imperator?

From Superannuation:
http://supererogatory.tumblr.com/post/945189389/domain-name-imperatorthegame-com

The domain www.imperatorthegame.com has been registered by Mythic Entertainment in December.

Registrant:
Electronic Arts
Domain Hostmaster
209 Redwood Shores Parkway
Redwood City, CA 94065
US
Email:

Registrar Name....: CORPORATE DOMAINS, INC.
Registrar Whois...: whois.corporatedomains.com
Registrar Homepage: www.cscprotectsbrands.com

Domain Name: imperatorthegame.com

Created on..............: Tue, Dec 15, 2009
Expires on..............: Sun, Jun 24, 2012
Record last updated on..: Sun, Dec 20, 2009

Administrative,Technical Contact:
Electronic Arts
Domain Hostmaster
209 Redwood Shores Parkway
Redwood City, CA 94065
US
Phone: +1.6506281500
Email:

A previous MMO by Mythic put on hold, this game was about the Roman empire that still exists in a futuristic Earth, you can check out links at IGN and Gamespot for more information about it:

http://uk.pc.ign.com/objects/483/483577.html

http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/imperator/index.html

Are we about to see a new MMO announcement from Mythic and EA?

Two things are clear here though...

1) Mythic have registered a new domain for a previously canned MMO.
2) Mythic have a special announcement next week.

Updates:
Update 1: Here's some ALPHA footage of the game from 2005. Don't judge it in the slightest.



Update 2: Also to add to imperatorthegame.com there is also http://spcqr.net/ which is very close to SPQR which is a term used for the Roman Senate (if I remember rightly..)

Update 3: Ok, more digging about, and a lot more URL's have been registered for Imperator.

imperator-online.com
imperator-online.net
imperatorherald.com
imperatorherald.net
imperatoronline.net
imperatorthegame.com
voximperator.net (Created in 2004)

(edit, apologies, the formatting of the email is a bit wonky, at least on my screen. It reads hostmaster@mythic.ea.com
Edit: 2. Added 2005 Alpha gameplay footage
Edit: 3. Also added http://spcqr.net/
Edit: 4. Added more domains regarding Imperator)

"We'd rather make the Careers more similar than less similar"

From the latest Q&A posted by Gaarawarr there was a question posted about Shamans and Archmages, but the answer does relate to Black Orcs somewhere down the line, you can tell which part by the title (which I purposely misquoted to make it sound better).

Q – Any plans on evaluating the parity between Shaman and Archmage DPS specs?

Nate - The only thing I can really say to that is what I have said a couple of times before. All things being equal, I’d rather make the Careers more similar than less similar. But I really don’t have an answer beyond that.

Now it looks fairly innocent enough, but we've already started to see that happen in the boss tree where we got the swordmasters group heal instead of our anti detaunt (which was a nerf to Black Orcs.. and for the record, we still never got a reason for the change). So I thought I'd have a look at what else is in the equivalent tree to see if we could make Boss mastery a better choice.

Now, the Boss tree is meant to be an AoE/Group Buff tree which does very little of either it has one decent tactic in it (Big Brawlin') and the rest of the tree can be happily ignored forever. Swordmasters have it as an magic/anti magic tree.

Now we share the same opening tactic so that's fair enough, we can skip straight to the first action. I dont know a lot about Swordmasters so any SM's please correct me as I just write this out from WARDB.com

Swordmaster: Aethyric Armor - 35AP - The power coursing through your blade is extended to your armor, increasing it by 660 and increasing your Disrupt chance by 5% (is this a permanent buff, the WarDB tooltip doesn't show any duration etc)

Black Orc: We'z Bigger - 45AP -20s cool down. Needs middle plan -- Deals 176 damage. Increases the armor of all groupmates within 20 feet by 429 for 20 seconds.

Both are fairly meh and don't stack with armour pots or any other armour buff making it all but useless, I've never used We'z Bigger but when compared to Big Swing + Big Brawlin' it's pointless for groups. I'd suggest both sides get the following:

40AP 20s cool down. Needs middle plan/stance -- Deals (low) damage, increases resists by 200 and disrupt chance by 5% for all group mates within 60feet.

Swordmaster: Calming Winds (tactic) - Increase Disrupt chance by 10% when in Improved Balance, and 20% when in Perfect balance.

Black Orc: Big Brawlin (tactic) - Big Swing now Snares for 40% for 5 seconds and Disorients, increasing build times by 25%.

I'll happily give Big Swing to the Swordmasters making it affect Wrath of Hoeth, disrupt fits in with the anti magic side of things for SM's and the aoe side for Black Orcs.

Swordmaster: Protection of Hoeth - 25AP - requires first balance - 10s cool down -- You call upon the magic in your blade to form a barrier to protect you, absorbing up to 825 damage for up to 5 seconds.

Black Orc: Rock 'Ard - 35AP - 10s cool down - requires first plan -- Deals 77 damage. Activates protective shield that absorbs up to 160 over 5 seconds.

As a Black Orc I'd happily take a bubble that didn't require me to hit the target first even if it meant I didn't do damage on the attack (it's low anyway). So yeah, give Borcs a copy of Protection of Hoeth plz.

Swordmaster: Blessing Of Heaven (tactic) - Path of Hoeth abilities will place an effect on your target for 10 seconds. During this time, any allies who strike the target will recover 132 health over 3 seconds.

Black Orc: No Choppin' Me (tactic) - Follow 'me Lead will also buff all group mates within 30 feet of the defensive target.

This is another one where I'm fairly... Meh about both tactics, BoH looks nice but when you look at the amount that gets healed it's fairly pathetic to get any solid use from it. No Choppin' Me is one of those tactics that IF you're in a melee group is very nice, IF your group stays within 30 feet if your defensive target and IF you could justify using it over an armour debuff. Honestly though, it's in our soddin' buff tree and Mythic give it a pathetically low size to effect people.. Meh, at least double it, even up to 100 feet and it'd be better, though maybe still not worth picking that high up the tree. Any SM's or Bobs have a better idea to replace this tactic?

And finally...

Swordmaster: Whispering Wind - 20s cool down - requires 3rd balance -- You release two swift blows that deal 153 Spirit damage each, interrupting any building attack and will Silence your target for 4 seconds. The winds then aid group members within 100 feet for the next 10 seconds by decreasing the cool down of abilities used by 5 seconds

Black Orc: WAAAAAAAGH! - requires 3rd plan -- Deals 246 Corporeal damage to all targets within 30 feet. Also reduces target's Corporeal resistance by 160 for 20 seconds.

The iconic ability of WAR, the one that is screamed daily by players and developers alike... WAAAAAAAGH! is a pile of shit. Even specced up to max in it the damage is still no more than our core AoE attack Da Big Un. Whispering Wind is a fantastic action for warbands and scenario group and I'm seeing more and more SM's in top level warbands these days specced for Whispering Wind. In fact it's such a nice action that it fits in perfectly as WAAAAAAAGH! instead of our rotten one. So I'll happily leech WW of you SM's and rename it to WAAAAAAAGH! :)

WAAAAAAAGH! -- You shout loudly causing two shock waves dealing 153 Corporeal damage each, interrupting any building attack and will Silence your target for 4 seconds. The shouting then 'inspires' group members within 100 feet for the next 10 seconds by decreasing the cool down of abilities used by 5 seconds

Sounds good huh? Well to me it does being a Black Orc. In all honesty though, this is just a look at the one mastery I'm not overly keen on for Black Orcs and is possibly favoured a bit towards us, however there are actions and tactics in other trees that I'm sure Swordmasters would happily copy from Black Orcs as well. While we don't want clones so classes must be somewhat distinct there needs to be a bit more parity for sure, after all I'm not sure either class wants to be Swordmasters of Gork.

Werit shows us the new Black Orc shields

Got home from vacation yesterday and sadly contracted Nurgles Rot so having to take the day off work as my head fills up with snot and blood. In the meantime though Werit has kindly posted the new shields you can get at early ranks. Much the same as Werit said, the target one is my favourite. Hopefully I'll be able to get onto the test centre over the next couple of days.

http://www.weritsblog.com/2010/08/136-black-orc-shields.html

Cheers Werit!