What a Week for WAR

It's been potentially the biggest week for Warhammer Online since launch and I've not posted a soddin' thing so apologies for that but life has been busy with the launch of a new project at work and weekend just seems to have conspired against me to sit down and get time to write. On the upside I have a few good ideas for filler posts which you should see each week now, at least it'll tide me on until the new year.

So what has this week brought us? Well the big news was the release of 1.4 which I have to admit was much smoother than anticipated so a big WAAAAGH to the Mythic team for putting the hours in to get it going and we also had a great Dev Q&A on uStream which was very well done as well, much preferred the laid back style and felt much more chatty and fun. I hope to see more of these soon, preferably on a Friday or Thursday when I don't have work the next day *hint hint*

Back onto 1.4 though, and yeah it launched well, smoother than expected but not without some concerns. The main one that I think everyone is talking about though is the speed of the campaign, it's actually going much faster than before, to the extent that I doubt we'll see a 5* city again until they adjust the amount of resources required/produced. Also there seems to be a campaign bug which lets you capture bo's and keeps even when the zone is locked and even the whole pairing which was really confusing.

The RR80-81 Renown increase is really sneaky as well, gives you an OMG LOTZ O' PURPLEZ ON MAH SCREEN!!! which gives you one heck of a rush to see a 20k scenario, the sudden drop to normality will hit soon at 81 though and then the real grind begins.

So what will yet come for WAR? Well we know 1.4.1 is a bug fix patch so I'm not holding out for anything exciting really, after that I'd really like to see a focus on balancing classes a bit more again. WP/DoK are still the apex healers without a shadow of a doubt, the others don't even come close, best heals and best survivability will trump anything sadly. I'd also like to see more care and thought into the other less viable careers but I'd prefer that other classes get nerfed down rather than buffed as continually buffing of classes will leave certain ones way far behind and less enjoyable to play. It's a fine line with balancing classes but I hope that Mythic open up discussions with players on how best to tackle the changes.

The Skaven themselves are offering an interesting option to go alongside a warband but we certainly would never get a player to change to one due to limited usefulness. Currently we've found the Gutter Runner to be the best due to the passive scouting he offers players in the area so there's no need to sacrifice a warband member for it. Being able to see a warband sneaking up on you has saved us and turned a rout into a victory a few times already. I would however like to see a counter spying mechanism so if you have a skaven 'switch off' his scouting by using an ability he can plant false information making other skaven unable to feed back as well.

There's interesting times ahead for WAR that's for sure, if this expansion has been a success and the players returning to try it out for free choose to stay then we're onto a winner for sure.

The other items in 1.4 that we'll see

Well by all accounts if you're a WAR player you know about the 1.4 release coming on Thursday and there has been a lot of noise over Doomflayer and Warpforged armour sets as well as the new scenario weapons for 81, 90 and 100 but what about between those ranks?

Well on the PTS last night with an organised guild 3groups (well as organised as we can get on a Friday night) we went out out to the lakes to test it out. I wont go into the detail, my feedback can be found in the dev discussion forum but I was happy to discover that decent loot drops for the in between portions of those ranks, the scary thing is that the RR80 greens are better (item v item) than sovereign, however they don't come with bonuses but it should be a good way to introduce new parts into your armour rather than waiting 10 ranks thankfully. Here's a couple of screenshots I grabbed of loot that dropped in RvR (and thankfully someone put some greens on the auction house). I didn't see any weapons drop but I'll come to that in a minute.

Thanquols Invasion Bag Loot
Now we know that gold bags on the second and third boss drop doomflayer and warpforged respectively however the green bags on boss one (there's no gold), blue from boss two and purple from boss three also have loot inside them, so lets take a look at the hidden shinies:

All these items seem to fit a very nice gap in the gear progression (everyone like progression!). The weapon is very nice as well, giving you an upgrade over the RR81 weapons but letting you save tokens for the Doomflayer ones. I'm not sure if armour drops in the blue bags or if weapons drop in the others but I'm sure someone will mention it or we'll get a better idea closer to the time. In the meantime of course, I'm sitting here wondering if I'll be running about in green items again for the first time in about 2 years

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

Warhammer Online: Island of Blood

I recently found out that Warhammer the board game has recently had a new version brought out (I stopped playing the board games a long time back), it's up to 8th edition and is just a rulebook. However Games Workshop have also announced that there will be a boxed set expansion type thing for the game in September featuring two armies.. High Elves and Skaven.

Now what possible tie in could happen with a certain online game that we play?

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/blogPost.jsp?aId=11500028a

Nothing even mumbled from Mythic of course, but it'd make an almost perfect opportunity to announce an expansion whether live or paid. Fighting over resources or some such for the war against a Skaven horde. Now we just need to find out some background on this Island of Blood and what the story is behind it, could it be linkable?

Quick thoughts on the red plague.

If you read WAR blogs you already know about the teasing of the red plague that has been passed around. Is it an expansion? Is it bringing in new player races? Skaven? Brettonians?

In my opinion, none of the above.

Going by what Mythic has done in the past with DAoC and Ultima Online, I'd actually expect this to be a summer campaign much as Land of the Dead was. Maybe no new zones, but a new live event each month with rewards, titles and random things that will go in your bank. I will put this out right now though: there will be NO new playable races.

My live event item has ran out so we're due a new live event soon, this red plague will be the start of an arcing chain, the summer campaign which will take us to different zones etc but please don't hold your breath waiting for the announcement of an expansion or new race. It's simply not viable right now with the clearing up Mythic are doing in WAR.

What it doesn't stop me from doing though is imagining a "What if..." expansion/live content....

I would see a fourth race for each realm, however this is known as "Dogs of War" (for those who don't know much about Warhammer, the dogs of war were mercenaries of various types that could ally to almost any army. The dogs of war wouldn't be shared but would feature a new playable character which doesn't fit in with the other three races. In particular they'd be mirror classes as well. So what would I have for the two classes?

Bonedancers! Erm, I mean.. multiple pet classes. Now Bonedancers in DAoC were my favourite class, being able to summon different types of skeletons for different tasks. You got a slot limit and could fill up those slots with the skeletons. Healers, warriors, archers, casters and the commander (which you had to run). I might be a little flaky on that as it's been a while since I played DAoC. So lets skip the nonsense and bring out my proposal for the "there wont be so it doesn't matter" classes. Both classes become 'unlocked' after reaching rank 40 and renown 40.

Destruction: The Skaven Pack Master

Clan Moulder is one of the four Great Clans of the Skaven. They use foul mutations induced by Warpstone to create their charges of battle. Clan Moulder armies are typically led by Master Moulders and then field Clanrats as well as Skavenslaves as the bulk of their troops. The armies then include masses of their 'experiments' such as the Rat Ogre and Giant rats. These fighting beasts are also sold to other Skaven Clans for the highest price.

Archetype: Multi Pet (5 slots of pets). Physically very weak and must rely on powerful pets
Pet Types: Giant Rat (1 slot - weak melee DPS), Skavenslaves (1 slot - weak ranged DPS (slings)), Plague Rat (2 slots - dots/debuffs), Warpstone Slave (2 slots - medium melee DPS), Rat Ogre (5 slots - Tank)

Trees: Master of Rats (buffs the giant and plague rats), Master of Slaves (buffs the slaves), Master Moulder (buffs the Rat Ogre and the Player)


Order: The Grail Knight

The Land of Bretonnia is a feudal, traditional society where the peasants serve the knights in return for protection, while the knights are bound to militarily serve their lords in return for certain rights and titles. At the top of this feudal hierarchy is the King. Beneath the Kings are the Dukes. Beneath them is another layer of nobility, the Marquess's, the Earls, the Viscount's and the Barons in respective order. The King, Dukes, Marquess, Earls, Viscounts and Barons are also each the lord of a number of Knights, who are the lesser nobles. Each Knight (including the higher nobles) has his own force of Men-at-Arms chosen from the most physically-abled peasants. In return for serving his knightly lord, each peasant is given a small tract of land for his family and can be expected to be called upon for service in times of war. The Knights' forces typically consist of the stronger Men-at-Arms and the more lowly Bowmen levies. The lands of Bretonnia are also ruled by spiritual and mystical leaders, the Fay Enchantress, her Damsels, and the Grail Knights, who are all faithful servants to the Lady of the Lake.

Archetype: Multi 'Pet' (5 slots of pets). Strong and uses weak pets to enhance abilities
Pet Types: Peasant (1 slot - very weak melee DPS), Bowmen(1 slot - very weak ranged DPS (slings)), Man-At-Arms (2 slots - melee debuffs), Squire (2 slots -buffs), Knight Errant (5 slots - Tank)

Trees: Chivalry (buffs the Man-At-Arms and Bowmen), Honour (buffs the Peasant and Squires), Nobility (buffs the Knight Errant and the Player)