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)

Wot Arm... Blog Roll?

As you may have seen (both of you that visit the blog) I've done a mass upgrade on the blog roll. Lots of new bloggers and lots of new articles to read so updated it from what I've managed to find over the last couple of days and hopefully not missed anyone. If you're not there and run a WAR blog or gaming blog with a significant amount of WAR articles then please let me know and I'll add it in.

A guide to Black Orcs - Part 1

"Armed and armoured to fight in the thick of melee as a warrior and tanker, the Black Orc matches physical hardiness with a down and dirty brawler’s fighting style that makes him the heart of any war band. With choppa and shield in hand, he can face down any foe unshaken. However, it is his unique approach to fighting that makes him as deadly with his fists as with either of those tools. He’ll knock you down so you can’t fight back, and then kick you while you’re down. There’s no honour among Greenskins, and there’s no such thing as a fair fight – and that’s the way he likes it!"

Black Orcs are the Greenskin army tanks. Huge, hulking and green they are an instantly recognisable sight on the battlefield and are (in my opinion, which may be biased) the best 'feeling' class in the game through looks, abilities and background. People may laugh at you if you charge in with a chosen screaming about change for the raven god as a Chosen.. People cheer when you charge in as a Black Orc screaming "WAAAAAAAAAGHHH!".

This first Black Orc guide is not about how to level up your Black Orc, or where to quest and what loot is best, that may come later on; this is simply an introduction, to give a bit of background and understanding to our class and mechanic. We are huge, lumbering Greenskins, encased in metal with spikes sticking out from our armour. We have vast amounts of hit points and toughness and although we lack the technical skills such as high levels of parry, block and reduction in being critically hit that the Chosen or Blackguard have, the raw survivability stats can make the Black Orc a formidable foe in RvR.

The Black Orc - sometimes known as a Borc or Bob (Black Orc Brawler/Boss) - has two class mechanics, Bellows and Da Plan so lets look at those first.

Bellows :

Bellows are self buffs. You get a choice of three, all of which do different things. The difference with a standard buff though and bellows is that all bellows are based on procs (when there's a chance that something will happen rather than a guarantee). Two of the bellows (Biggest and Toughest) are a 25% chance of activating when hitting something and the last (Greenest) activates when being hit (again a 25% chance). We’ll look at each type of bellow individually.

Da Biggest: This is the bellow from the brawler tree, it’s a stat stealing proc which has a 25% chance when you hit a target to steal a random stat (other than wounds) from all enemies within 30 feet of you. Since this is a steal you and your party within 100 feet gain the stat you’ve stolen for 10 seconds. This does unfortunately mean that sometimes you will steal ballistic skill from a warrior priest but other times you’ll steal strength from a slayer. Fully specced at rank 40 in Brawler and you’ll be stealing 120 points where a rank 40 without any brawler points will steal 75. This is an excellent bellow for threat as well as the de buff that the mob receives will take a decent amount of threat from you and when you’re AOE tanking a big swing can be enough to de buff multiple targets keeping them locked on you.

Best Use: Da Biggest is the RvR bellow of choice due to the de buffs and buffs provided.

Da Toughest: Toughest comes from the toughest tree and is a self heal bellow. This heals the black orc between 300 and 480 wounds (depending on how much you have in the toughest tree) when it procs. There is a 25% chance upon hitting a target that this will proc however it’s on a 10 second cooldown which means at best you will heal yourself every 10 seconds and at worse it could be every 20 seconds or so. This is commonly used in situations where you are without a healer or you need a fairly constant trickle of health. It’s not the best for PvE tanking due to the low proc rate and low health regained (and lets be honest if you need to rely on 480 health every 10 seconds then you have issues with your healers. Even in RvR tanking the heal is minimal so it adds no benefit to your war band or scenario group (providing you have healers).

Best use: Solo grinding, duels or scenarios where there’s no healer.

Da Greenest: Coming from the boss tree this is a situational bellow. It relies on you getting hit for it to proc (25% chance) and it will give you and your group within 100 ft a resist buff or armour buff for ten seconds depending on what hit you. This sounds like a great bellow other than the crucial fact that tanks are generally the last targets on the battlefield to be targeted so your bellow doesn’t help as much. Add in the fact that most people will be or are already close to hitting the soft cap on resists and the buff doesn’t add as much protection as you’d believe. It’s certainly not as useful as the biggest bellow, however it can be good for keep sieges or battlefield objective defences where you will be in the front line hopefully buffing yourself and your group as you get assaulted.

Best Use: Situational defences where tank walls are formed up or high lag situations where you can't do much other than hold the line.

So to summarise, in almost every situation it’s best to use the biggest bellow to not only buff yourself and group but also to debuff your enemies. By all accounts play with the other bellows and see if any of them fit other situations not described but you can’t go wrong with more stats!

The Plan Mechanic:

The plan mechanic is the basis of how we attack our enemies. There are three levels of plan, No Plan , Da Gud Plan and Da Best Plan. Most of our actions fit into one of these three and can only be used after the previous plan has been activated. This leads to chains of attacks which grow in power as they get to the end of the chain before resetting back to the first plan. Actions in our last plan cost no Action Points and are generally the most powerful abilities we have.

However there are downsides to the mechanic. The nature of the mechanic means you lose a lot of flexibility in your attacks - you cannot guarantee to be able to use the attack you want to use as you may be in the wrong plan, that archmage might already be out of range by the time you get to the plan which lets you snare, silence or knock him down. Although the last plan is no action point cost, it’s offset by the first two plans being higher than average costs. These two disadvantages are by design however one which is not by design and which can be critical is unfortunately lag. In high lag situations the games takes a long time to realise what plan you are in, this unfortunately can mean that in mass RvR you are stuck spamming first plan attacks until the game realises you’re in the next plan. The Black Orc can be very frustrating to play and is not an easy mechanic to understand compared to the hate of Black Guards or the auras of the Chosen, however work with it and understand the limitations and you can play the Black Orc well.

Summary:

With the Black Orc you don’t have a one button killing machine, you have to deal with a complicated mechanic and rely on procs for any of your buffs. You need to plan ahead and know what you’re doing. A Black Orc has to be in control of the battlefield or at least know what will be happening in advance, he cannot react to it as quickly as other classes so you lose a lot of effectiveness. However if you master this and have confidence in your abilities to understand the battle then you can be a key piece in a warband. Think of yourself as a rock. You might not be the most flexible, but as an almost immovable object you can get the rest of the world to adjust to you.

Black Orc questions from the blogger meet

Big thanks to the bloggers who asked all the questions at the meeting. Some great info about there. I am loathe to link to one blogger over the other so I just suggest you visit Gaarawarr, Mykiel, ShadowWAR and Werit to see all the details. For now I'm going to just put the questions that were relevant to Black Orcs up and then have a small rant after each one.

Q) Is there any chance of a tank on the Order side getting a tactic where they can’t be detaunted?
A) Probably not…seeing as we just removed it from the Black Orc.

No actual reason given yet for the removal of an ability from the Black Orcs. They may have replaced it with a crappy group heal, but no-one will slot it so they have basically flat out removed an ability and given us nothing in return. Bad form Mythic, if you're going to remove tactics from a class, then you would be wise to remember that you promised to COMMUNICATE with your COMMUNITY better - currently you've not communicated with the Black Orcs since justifying the toughest bellow úber nerf.

Q) Is the Black Orc mechanic going to be reworked at any point in time?
A) No, they’re not going to be totally reworked. They are a little more limiting than we originally wanted, but I don’t have an answer (other than that) for you right now.

The problem is, every Black Orc and Swordmaster knows our mechanic is broken to pieces. Mythic seems to know it's broken despite putting on the worst attempt at political speech I've seen in a while "a little more limiting". A little? A LITTLE? Do they even play these classes in any high lag situations to know how impossible it is? The concept of the mechanic is fine (there I said it) the execution of it however is not. The most effective fix barring a total reworking of it (which will not happen in the next few years lets just put it that way) is to change the locations of some abilities on the plans, at least that will stop it being a limiting factor rather than a tool to work with.

The more I read the answers to those two questions (and although one wasn't directly about Black Orcs we were rather brutally mentioned) the more I believe Mythic is completely detached from the class. The longer it goes without help from our developers the less people will play the class which in turn leads to less developer support. This is the sort of situation which makes people leave the game when they realise that all the hard work put into the character is basically a waste of time and the pleas for help are met with an apathetic or negative attitude to the class from the developers.

Wut 'appened?

Alright gitz. Not been on me thinkin' stone for a while and at one point was going to abandon the blog as I just couldn't get the motivation after a long period of busy work but the wurdz are stating to come into me noggin again!

Basically Mmmmm Gud will be back soon. Going to do a bit of redesign work on the blog, clear it up and might also shift focus to Black Orcs a bit more and what goes on and how to survive our constant nerfs.... I'm still keenly playing Warhammer, enjoy it and have managed a few accomplishments since I last posted so there will be lots to talk about. This time though there will be no promises for regular posts, just when I want to put them up rather than feeling I have to write something for the sake of it.

There WILL be a new post this week, it'll be the first part to my Black Orc guide which was actually written back in February before work got busy but never posted.

Anyway gitz.. Go forth, Waaaaaaaagh and may Gork be with yer!

Still 'ere. Work = Busy :(

Been hammered at work the last week and a bit and next week is likely to be busy as well.. Ok, I say busy, what I mean is working later than normal. Off this weekend though so will try and write up a few posts to tide over the coming days. It's been an interesting week in WAR for sure and I'm gutted I've not been shoving my opinion in peoples face for it.. Grrr

Details on the night of murder and scurvy dogs.

The latest WAR Europe newsletter published some sneak peaks of the upcoming live events as we welcome in the night of murder on February the 10th (though since it lasts a week maybe it should be the nights of murder? week of murder?). It also gives us a little more information on the scurvy dogs event. So for those who are yet to see it, here's a copy/paste job.

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Live Event:	Night of Murder
When:	February 10th – February 17th, 2010
What:	Love em to death!
Rewards:	Basic – Butcher’s Blessing (+10% xp/renown/damage/incoming healing) and lasts for 3 in-game days Advanced – Well-Mounted Skull – Places a pike next to the body of a fallen foe, topped with their head Elite – Khaine’s Caress – Event Slot item with Career-specific stats World Drop Item – The Noggin & Burning Blood Potion (that is to say, Khaine’s Regard, the ring, no longer drops)

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Avast , me mateys - for the Scurvy Dogs are upon us! If plunderin’ be your port of call then prepare for a weekend of plank walkin’, swashbucklin’ and bare knucklin’ as WAR hits the high seas!

Scurvy Dogs introduces a new scenario – The Ironclad! The forces of Destruction seek to silence the cannons and bash some stunties as they invade from their makeshift pontoons. Be blasted into the air by sea mines in 6 vs. 6 close-quarters combat. Gyrocopters and Zeppelins fight to dominate the skies as you work with your team to control key areas on the Ironclad.

Become a dread pirate as you unlock the weekend events achievements within the Tome of Knowledge and see if you can earn the title “Dread Pirate”. And if that doesn’t sate your appetite for booty then 25% more medallions might put some wind in your sails!

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Both events sounds pretty good as always, hoping we don't have an emote spam live event and the 6v6 is always good fun, and with more medallions then I can see a weekend of mass scenarios (though typically I work Saturdays so that's one less day for me.. grrrr). Overall though, no complaints from what I see there... Now we just wait on the 1.3.4 notes...

Mythic clears up some bits on 1.3.4

Will just post this here, will comment later on as smushing order at the moment :)

Link:

Some of the Scenario currency will be obtainable for characters who are Rank 40 during Keep capture/defense as well as successfully winning both Stage 1 & 2 within a city's Contested state. While the bulk of it will be obtained within Scenario play, you are also gaining it for participating in certan ORvR activities.

Please keep in mind that this design is expansive and malleable. Due to Scenarios introducing the "new shiny" - we fully expect to see a drop in ORvR participation at first but then balance itself out. The rewards (ones being released with this patch as well as planned rewards in the future) have been carefully crafted to complement, not overshadow, those obtainable in ORvR.

As Andy has mentioned - he has brought up the premade situation to us on a number of occassions. While we are investigating means to provide a more balanced play experience for everyone, it's not a situation with a simple solution. We definitely hear your complaints and are looking into it, however.

In regards to the feedback about the cities and campaign - we have a large scale plan for the cities we hope to get into the patch following v1.3.4. The adjustment being released with this patch is a dependency for this plan. It has never been our intent to reset the campaign after a city's Contested state, dust off our hands, and leave it at that. We're not prepared to go into the specifics regarding the details of the plan just quite yet, though.

More 1.3.4 goodness.

By now everyone has read and posted about the 1.3.4 sneak peak we got yesterday. So... uhm... yeah.. I'm late doing it but when the post went up on the US forums we were in Vulture Lord (damn you 8th boss, down to 14%) and then I basically couldn't be arsed typing anything up at 11pm :)

So here goes my wee look over what was announced

At this point the plan is to have 1.3.4 on PTS by the first week of February or (at the latest) early the second week of February. Patch notes, of course, will accompany the opening of Warpstone.
We know this, but it's good to have it confirmed and more importantly when we can expect the full patch notes which we're all keen on.

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.
Ahh, so I'm wrong (there's a surprise, my track record isn't the best). My money was on the Warlord weapons being purchasable with warlord tokens and the sovereign dropping from the Kings. The mechanic sounds good though, although it will lead to a lot more scenario fights this will help those who prefer smaller premade battles, though it's worrying for the pugs who will get steamrolled by the top end premades. I can see the currency being much as they do for WoWs battlegrounds. For each scenario you get a generic currency but for winning a scen you get three special tokens (drawing or losing would be one token) based on that pairing. So you might find that some weapons may cost 20 Greenskin tokens and 100 Generics.. Best hope your party likes the greenskin scenarios...

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.
Streamlining the tiering sounds... interesting. Some have commented that it probably means adding rank 40 only scenarios as well.. Wouldn't that be adding more rather than streamlining them? Though thinking about it now they might go for 1-15 being tier 1, 16-30 being tier 2, 31-39 being tier 3 and tier 4 scens for rank 40's only... Maybe... We'll have to wait and see, one thing that is almost guaranteed though.. Thunder Valley will be dissapearing (about time, it's dreadful)

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?
This is actually pretty neat, the attacked forced could (in theory) lock down the opponents city if the underdog points are high enough, highly unlikely but would be amusing to have both kings dead. But seriously, it's a nice idea, gets people back out to the battlefield quicker. It's more renown from one zone lock than an hours worth of empty city instances. Hopefully this also means scenarios will open up fully and we can put the Reikland Factory and Twisting Tower scenarios during stage one of a city siege.

Looks decent enough so far. But, we're waiting about a month for the actual patch notes so it may yet change. As others have stated and so have I, it's highly unlikely this will be a huge combat and class update, I don't expect any nerfing of classes or abilities in this patch, that will come in the next major I believe. Anything else mentioned on forums etc is just pure speculation with no solid proof.

What happens when you've done everything?

Yesterday morning (well 11:30 ish) we killed the King. For most of the guild this was now no big thing as they've been there a few times now, but for me it was one of the 'big things' in my list to mark off. I came away with two Sovereign pieces and I'm now starting to realise that although I'm only Renown Rank 74 that's still only 6 more renown levels to go and I should or be very close to full Sov by that time wiping another end game item off my list.

So what do you do when you're RR80 in full Sov?

I know for some RR80 is the kiss of death as the motivation to spend time fighting disappears when there's no personal gain (and lets be honest about it, everyone wants to get something from WAR). Others can carry on fighting away without bothering that there's no more purple numbers floating about but I don't think people know what they will feel until that time comes.

I look at the guild and I see multiple people over renown rank 70 with sovereign gear and I wonder... What's in WAR to keep these people interested after the next couple of months pass? With more and more people in general now hitting the caps Mythic needs to talk openly with the community about plans or what people would like to see once they're 40/80. The obvious is to expand the renown ranks and level but might this be better for an expansion (which right now doesn't look to be happening until at least the two year birthday).

Personally I'd like to see an expanded Influence bar open when you're 40/80 which requires vast amounts of influence (gained from killing players only, so no zone locks etc) but offers not only weapons, armour and accessories but special trophies, titles, mounts and even some non combat pets mixed in as well. Of course, this influence bar would only be open for as long as there is a 40/80 cap, when that lifts then the influence bar disappears and the chance to get those items disappears with it...