WAR Chri...Gorkmas List

Over at Werits lovely little blog he posted his WAR Christmas List, so since it's the season of smushing and all, I figured I'd jump onto a good idea and post my WAR Gorkmas List. As with Werits, this will be fairly reasonable list.


Oi Gork,

Dis year, I been gud at smushin Stunties, Oomies and dem Pointy Earz. I set fires all over dat big city place and went to the big dusty place an' also wrote lots of wurdz to say how gud you are. So wud yer be a gud Gork and gies me dis stuff? Or do I 'ave to bash yer 'ead in and go 'n' yell at Mork instead?

1) Nemesis System: Quite a bit was mentioned about this a while ago but nothing ever came of it. Having a few nemesis players (almost like an enemy list instead of friends list) which would give you rewards and what not upon helping to defeat them on the field of battle. Guessing it's one of those things that was shelved due to being difficult to implement but I was really looking forward to it.

2) Expanded ORvR Influence Rewards: Give us a reason to fight in Thundercrap Mountain (this zone is always ignored on Norn, only Elf and Human pairings are ever pushed unless both are capped). The high end renown tokens drop so rarely that it's more luck than effort to get them, give us an expanded system reaching into high renown ranks so we have more to aim for.

3) Fixing Stupid Terrain: Starting to get annoying getting stuck on fences, falling into inescapable holes and riding down Dragonwake towards Ember only to lose 75% health because of THAT STUPID GRADIENT OF THE RAMP WHICH SENDS YOU FLYING TO YOUR NEAR DEATH EVERY BLOODY TIME

4) State of the Class: Lets do a state of each class and it's mirror, speak with the players about concerns over the class, bugs, broken mechanics and what the devs think of the class currently. Invite players to submit feedback on the classes and sit down and speak with them, there's a great community forming for WAR, it's time to tap into that knowledge

5) Revisit the land of the dead: Because it's almost a dead zone already. 6 months or so down the line and barring the odd venture in to check on a Colossus spawn or to venture into Tomb of the Bug Lord. I'd actually love to see the high end RvR influence rewards be in this zone, get more high renown players to fight here, bonus influence for purging and defending of course! But it's time to see what can be done to stop the place being a PvE and levelling zone.

Thunks!

Lokax

Whatever happened to sieges?

From the towering Wilhelms Fist to the underground Badmoon Hole, keeps are impressive pieces in the lakes, surrounded by the battlefield objectives and are central to taking control of the zone. So what happened to them? Where did the siege warfare go? I cannot speak for each server, but certainly over in Karak Norn (EU) the keeps are simply a time sink for the attacking force. Very little actual warfare takes place over them now. Before the addition of the extra ramp you could defend a keep at the lords room with a wall of tanks, now with the addition of an extra huge ramp up to the key, vital, heart of the keep (yeah, because it makes sense to have your local architects design that) a tank wall is all but useless due to it being stretched so thin and a mass of players will just rip through a keep without the chance of a smaller force being able to hold back the mass tide the keeps fall quickly now and without much incident.

Siege weapons have remained an absolute joke for the last year. Sod all damage, too expensive and completely ineffective at contributing anything meaningful to a siege (rams not included). The guards, even as champions are nothing more than a passing thought as they disappear in the aoe. Rewards for defending the keeps are pretty much pointless as you gain more tokens from general RvR than a slim chance of defending a keep and getting a reward bag, not to mention getting the part you actually need.

The battling over a keep which would have me on the edge of my seat as I sat in the tank wall waiting for the surge, or the breaking down of the final door to charge in to meet my fate or find my glory has gone, keeps right now seem to be nothing more than a time sink. What once was a possibility of a small force holding out against massed ranks has now descended into a glorified battlefield objective.

It's not about rewarding people for taking or defending keeps. It's about making the sieges enjoyable yet tense, defendable with smaller numbers but takable with the correct tactics and having players feel they are contributing to the siege on an impressive structure rather than standing about in a flimsy cardboard box.

1.3.3 Notes and a look beyond to 1.3.4

Well first of all, we're still waiting on the server going live in Europe so this is only a look over the notes without any first hand experience.

1.3.3...

Underdog System: Looks good so far, might need a bit of tweaking but I think it's all but impossible to tell how it will pan out until it's on unbalanced servers. Only point I would like to see is that it seems to favour sides who can push to stage one of the city no problems but never lock it down. Does that make a server unbalanced enough to warrant being included in an underdog system?

Ooooh Shiny: One for those who have imba PC's, I'm sure mine can run it nicely, but not in mass scale RvR, but with a new PC on it's way in the summer (saving my shinies up) I'll be looking forward to trying this out a lot. (Will be sure to take some nice screenshots in full on shiny mode)

WAR Report: Ooooh nice idea, brilliant for those who are looking for some instant action as it saves the (not all that much really) hassle of getting to the war front when you first log in. I can actually see a variance of this being implemented in other games as I think it's a cracking idea. Though I have to admit, I'm not sure how much I'll use it for the simple reason that where there is a lot of action I'll be going with the guild, so wont be instantly as I log in, where I would instantly go for some quick smushin' I'd go to a quieter area to roam about on my own. Still, love the idea

Balance Changes: Meh, nothing here or there of any use much past bug fixes, but as I said before, I wasn't expecting any major class changes this patch (and this close to the winter holidays), there is still a lot of work to be done on classes (NO class should do more close combat damage than close combat characters for example *cough* bomb *cough*)

Sovereign Jewel Drops: Mmmm, more shinies to collect, sell and eventually chuck out my backpack when I have no more room. Still at least they're dropping again.

Player Armour Parts: Sadly I don't think this means I'll be able to make armour from dead stunties :(

Armour Set Changes: Nice to see some fixes to the warlord set but a shame the Borc Warlord set is still absolutely pish past the 5% extra block.

1.3.4...

Ooooh well, for who haven't seen. There was a chat on the US PTS from the devs about some aspects of the game but all I'm focused of right now is a little bit of text...

"More high-end weapons and trinkets are on their way and will be achievable via RvR. They may potentially make it in the 1.3.4 patch notes.

Andy clarifies with: "More to the point we're listening to the feedback provided by players who want more RvR item rewards and are looking at the ways we can deliver those. Aside from that, we're not divulging any specifics regarding this, however we are hearing what the players are saying regarding this loud and clear.""

Yuuuuuuuuuusssssssss!!!! *does the Waaaagh dance!*

Ok, so no patch notes last week...

But with the PTS event tomorrow on the US to test out the Bloom and HDR (seriously, you need an event to test someones graphic settings?) there's a good chance we'll see the notes today. I don't expect anything for the careers other than minor bug fixes so I think this will be a fairly low key patch release. But still gives us something to moan about right?

Now where's our nemesis system, increased RvR influence rewards and Black Orcs getting bigger as they progress in renown....

And now time to make Lokax

It's something that's been brewing in the dark, stinky and fungsy recesses of my mind for a while.. A Warhammer model of Lokax. Now back in my younger days I loved Warhammer and enjoyed painting. Although I never played the tabletop game more than a couple of times with a friend I loved Blood Bowl and played and painted a lot of models for it so i still have the odd paint and bits and pieces from left over projects stashed in my cupboards which have moved house with me.

So it was back in the summer I noticed a hobby store opening near me and picked up a pack of plastic Black Orcs (who knew that moulded plastic could be so expensive) and it's now that I've actually decided to do something with it. So to force me along this project I'll try and get an update to it every week, if not for anyone else, then for me.

So the idea is to turn these:Into this...


Wish me luck!

1.3.3 Patch notes are a coming!

Another one of these posts you find on that Twitter malarky. This time from Andy at Mythic (he's the guy that does the stuff... you know.. stuff... posts.. n stuff.. I dunno, I'm a European we don't get Mythic interaction) Anyway, he just posted this last night so (I'm guessing) we should see the patch notes by the end of the week: Andy_Mythic's Twitter:

"Just finished my first edit of the 1.3.3 WAR Patch Notes. "

Oooh.. stuff!

"Secret Stuff"

Found this on Josh Dreschers twitter

"Over the past few weeks, I've been writing 10+ pages of STUFF* nearly every day. My hands are tired. *"Stuff" is code for "secret goodies". 2:11 PM Nov 20th"

Now I'm not one for following Twitters, I don't have an account and don't have the time to check them as well as blogs etc but with the recent EA layoffs and news about Mythic losing some of the staff I had been doing some digging about to try and find anything to report. Not a lot came of it (and some of it was subsequently removed by the authors so I honored that and did not re post) but Josh has left this up for a few days now and whether it's just me getting desperate for news or reading too much into it (it could be that national novel writing month thing...) I hope it's 'stuff' for WAR... make of it as you will...

Get to da Choppette ?

This was a piece of artwork (well texture and possibly model) of a Female Choppa done by one of the recently laid off artists by EA in his spare time at Mythic (good luck, and best wishes in the future). Always love seeing the little extras and creativity that never make it into a game.

Maintenance mode? Absolutely incorrect.

Future Plans for WAR?

by Kaxzane

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Meztli wrote:
It can be understod as this game is now in maintenance mode as well. But okey, lets not be too pessimistic. :)

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Absolutly incorrect, WAR is not in mainetance mode and developement is continuing in all areas

Yeah, it might 'just be a European CM' but you have to believe they know more than what's been thrown about by the plebians (including me) recently.

I've just realised what kills WARs enjoyment for me sometimes.

Helplessness.

When your realm is out numbered on the battlefield, out geared and out skilled you CANNOT do anything against it. Your only counter is to try and get more numbers to zerg but when the numbers in tier 4 seem to be dwindling as each city siege and king kill happens and when you don't want to be or can't be in a zone with 500 people fighting (the other night we had reports of a keep being attacked by 253 order) then what can you do?

I can admit my own failings, I can admit when we messed up a fight we should have won, but trying to fight a force which is simply beyond your capabilities is stupid.

Warhammer is a game which is in the hands of your opponents not you. It's based on RvR and when one side dominates to an extent that people reroll on another server you know the parity between sides has gone. In Warcraft I knew that it was me and 24 other people against a raid boss, we knew it was our fault if something went wrong and we worked it out and dealt with it, but the key thing was.. It was US at fault. In Warhammer we have no control over the skill level, gear level and numbers of our enemy in RvR.

Would a third realm have helped this? Indeed. But for that it's too late now, I cannot even see a third realm being added in an expansion due to the total rewrite of the game which would be required (imagine the art needed... done by the art team which basically doesn't exist anymore).

So at the moment we're stuck looking at PvE and making a quick zone hop whenever the zerg appears (you can literally see the lag spikes as the mass of players arrives in a zone). I await the details of the underdog system with bated breath but I don't think it will recognise skill and gear that we're faced against....