Also today.. RvR Adjustments in 1.3.6

ZOMG! Double post day!!

http://forums.warhammeronline.com/warhammer/board/message?board.id=dev_discussions&thread.id=10655

We'd like to announce some upcoming changes for RvR in v1.3.6. As stated by Carrie Gouskos in a recent Producer's Letter, there are many upcoming changes for ORvR in the near future. While some of these changes do affect ORvR, they do not conclude the list by any means. We are vigilantly working on much larger improvements to be released in a later version.

• ORvR: Victory Points for PVE and Prior Tier have been removed. New pool values are as follows:
  • Tier 1
    • Objectives: 40%
    • Scenarios: 40%
    • Skirmish: 20%
  • Tiers 2 & 3
    
    • Objectives: 45%
    • Scenarios: 35%
    • Skirmish: 20%
  • Tier 4
    • Objectives: 45%
    • Scenarios: 30%
    • Skirmish: 25%

• ORvR: Zone capture rewards will now only be awarded to players within the RvR lake or an associated Tier's Scenario. Players will remain eligible for rewards for 5 minutes after leaving the RvR lake or an associate's Tier's Scenario as long as the player is within the appropriate pairing.

• Against All Odds: in the event that an army is outnumbered within an RvR lake, members of the outnumbered army will receive a scaling bonus to Experience, Renown and Influence. This bonus becomes active on qualified players after being outnumbered by 20% or more. The bonus cannot surpass 400% and requires at least 6 players of each Realm to be present within the RvR lake.

• Scenarios: players with the "Quitter!" debuff will no longer suffer a penalty to Experience and Renown but will now be unable to queue for a Scenario until the "Quitter!" debuff has faded.

• Contested Cities: Players belonging to the Realm that lost Stage 3 will now always be properly disabled by the Routed ability.

• Contested Cities: Portals leading out of the Khorne War Quarters and Slaanesh Chambers no longer check for combat status.

• Contested Cities: Guards will no longer spawn at the six objectives within Altdorf and The Inevitable City.

• 
  

This is all quite a lot of info to digest. Against all odds only gives xp/renown/influence so wont impact the actual fighting (I initially misread this part, so apologies if you read something else here :D ) . Quitter change looks decent as well and how many people will we see hiding just inside the rvr lake but still close enough to the warcamp to get guard protection? Fair few I bet,

Picking flowers on the field of battle

So there I was on Monday morning. Charging through Dragonwake, yelling Waaaaaaaaaaagh! and with the intentions of slaughter and carnage, when I realised how quiet, serene and picturesque it was. So i stopped off my boar, let him snuffle about and decided to pick a small flower... Den i crushed it under me stompas!

Why are so many of the T4 RvR lakes (I don't run any alts right now so can't remember the others) designed in such a way that they look like tranquil landscapes and not war zones? Praag is actually the only one that feels as if there is a war going on with raging fire and burnt out shells of homes with the occasional NPC in battle with another NPC to give a sense of a warfare. You can be running with a warband through an empty, desolate zone and it feels very fake. Certainly not adding to the sense that you've entered into a battle zone.

So what do I feel could be done to make the RvR lakes more of a battleground?

In my opinion, the best place to feel like there's a war going on is actually all the way back in Mount Bloodhorn at the Kron Komar PQ and camps. The ambient sounds of warfare add so much to the zone, hearing cannons blast, Orcs shouting. To see explosions and enemies dying with two sides engaged in constant warfare. It feels like you're on the front line about to charge in. Now I don't expect Mythic to fill the lakes with NPC's and explosions due to lag reasons but surely it might be possible to add a few in, certain spots in the lakes where you can have two sides of NPC's locked in eternal combat (make them invulnerable to players to avoid them being farmed). Even better, and I have no idea if this would be possible, but have a system in place that plays louder and more frequent ambient warfare sounds (explosions, sounds of steel on steel, shouts and death cries etc) the more action there is in a lake, make it feel like you can hear the battle from a mile away. There's no need for it to get louder as you get closer, but make it feel as if you're stepping into a battle zone and not a landscape painting.

Scar the landscape some more with the marks of war. Sorry a keep with a bit bashed out the wall while the rest of the landscape around it looks like a summer field such as we have just now doesn't count. Craters with corpses, more ruined buildings and items around battlefield objectives (I always remember Nordenwatch at the Destruction starting flag with the fishing huts, being able to run around and feel as if you're in a small camp). The BO's still stick out like a sore thumb, something randomly placed. spice them up with war and blood!

Now I'm not saying that the whole zones must be littered with corpses and craters, or explosions and elves but a bit of world re-design would go long way to make it feel like WAR!