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Elder Scrolls dev blog on creating PvP keeps
ZeniMax's latest dev blog talks up The Elder Scrolls Online's keeps and the design and engineering know-how that went into producing them. The devs wanted the game's three-faction PvP battles to "consist of multiple stages, allowing the attackers and defenders to each have several opportunities to turn the tide of a siege." Keep layouts were planned accordingly, and player abilities like knockbacks, gap-closers, and AoEs factored in as well. Read the full blog at the official ESO website.
MMO Blender: Jeremy's unholy MMO concoction
Have you ever wished MMO developers could put away their checkbooks, pluck out the best bits of their respective MMOs, and weld them together to construct the megalopolis of MMOs? We do too! So today, we're launching a brand-new opinion column, MMO Blender, in which the Massively writers will mix and match their favorite features from existing MMOs for your amusement. But do our choices create a perfectly honed machine or a lumbering, speechless frankenstein of an MMO that deserves to be put out of its misery? First up: Livestreamer extraordinaire and Contributing Editor Jeremy Stratton with a potent, sandboxy blend of Fallen Earth, EVE Online, Lord of the Rings Online, and more. Wet your whistle after the break and look for more MMO Blenders from the rest of our staff in the coming weeks!
Exclusive Interview: Going global with Fallen Earth's PvP
Two of the biggest cornerstones of Fallen Earth have always been crafting and PvP, and its these cornerstones that GamersFirst is enriching come patch 2.4. The patch, called Global Territory Control, is taking these elements and firing them up in ways that any PvPer or crafter should find exciting. We hopped on the phone with Associate Producer Asa Reed, Director of Operations Joe Willmon, and Senior Game Designer Marie Croall to talk about why 2.4 will be the patch that will change the wasteland forever -- and why you should anticipate it, whether you're a crafter or a player-killer.%Gallery-155670%
Fallen Earth's 2.27 patch introduces factional warfare
GamersFirst has patched its post-apocalyptic sci-fi MMORPG Fallen Earth to version 2.27. There a slew of additions and tweaks, but the biggest is undoubtedly the addition of new faction territory control mechanics. According to the patch notes, alliances are for losers, as Fallen Earth's version of factional warfare is a no-holds barred six-way showdown. The factional control area is north of Blaine, and it consists of 13 flag-control points. Seven of these points feature keeps that players may capture and maintain, as well as partake of various perks contained within (like the new Death Toll gear). That's not all, but you'll need to head to the official Fallen Earth website to learn more.
Star Vault reveals more Mortal Online territorial control details
A couple weeks back we heard tell of Mortal Online's territorial control update. Today, Star Vault has elaborated on the new sandbox system via a news bulletin on the game's official website. It seems that the feature is still fairly early in the development process, as the site says that internal testing is still in full swing. External testing, by way of a specially selected focus group, is planned for next week. What's that, you want to hear more about mechanics? Very well. Keeps act as a "starting point" for guilds in the territorial control system. Each keep awards control points (CP) that can be spent on towers and "various things." Keeps also feature an overseer NPC who provides extra protection, sells goods and features, and more. Finally there's the prominence system, which involves earning prominence points (PP) through various methods including PvP and PvE. There's more, of course, but we don't want to deprive you of a chance to visit the Mortal Online website, so off you go.
Alganon adding PvP functionality
Despite its checkered history, free-to-play fantasy MMORPG Alganon soldiers on. In its recently released November newsletter, Quest Online details the latest feature set added to the game in the form of PvP combat. The upgrade is scheduled to proceed in stages, with phase one consisting of both dueling and open world PvP, both of which are already available on the live servers. Phase two of the PvP integration is currently slotted for a December release and looks to add an objective system to the open-world PvP mechanics in the form of conquerable towers. Said towers will provide adventuring benefits to factional members located in the zone. Quest is also working on PvP armor sets and accessories for characters between levels 10 and 50. Keeps will be making an appearance in phase two as well and will represent stepping stones along the path to being able to enter the enemy capitol and slay the factional leader for fun and profit. Finally, phase three of the PvP master plan will bring battlegrounds to the world of Alganon. These self-contained PvP instances will feature team objectives and function similarly to the maps found in traditional FPS titles. Quest is also prepping a renown system that will feature weapons, armor, and assorted gear, as well as a resource-control mechanic. Battlegrounds are scheduled to go live sometime in 2011. Check out the official Alganon newsletter for more details.
Waging WAR: Coming soon, to a theatre of WAR near you
We interrupt this week's scheduled career spotlight on Waging WAR to bring you Greg's impressions of the latest and greatest news from the floors of GamesDay: UK regarding Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning and the new RvR content coming soon to a theatre of WAR near you. OK. So. Take everything you know about the Tier 4 RvR Campaign in WAR and press the "Delete" button right now. In fact, press it a few times. Actually, keep going. Keep pressing it until all you're left with is three pairings with three zones each, each zone containing four battlefield objectives and two keeps, and two cities as the capstone for each realm. OK. Now access that part of your brain that stores silly words and euphemisms regarding "the problem with WAR." See that entry for "Waithammer?" Delete it. "PvDoor?" Press the button. Actually, just go wild. Take every criticism you've ever had for WAR's endgame and just throw it out. We're talking total tabula rasa here (and not the ill-fated game). OK, stop. That should do. With an open mind and absolutely no knowledge of in-game mechanics, you're now primed to understand what I'm about to describe regarding the changes that are on their way, and more importantly, why I believe those changes are so critical to the glorious future of WAR. If your curiosity is even remotely piqued, click the "Read more" button.
Major keep redesigns in Warhammer Online
One of the biggest complaints Warhammer Online players have about RvR is the static nature of keep siege. Usually, attackers zerg the front door and once inside, zerg the main stairway leading up to the keep lord. This provides a slightly (read: very) annoying chokepoint and little room for strategy. To be fair, Mythic's reasoning for the initial design was that keeps are designed as defensive fortifications. Why wouldn't defenders want to funnel attackers into a single chokepoint? Unfortunately, it isn't very fun from a gameplay perspective.All that is about to change with the new keep designs coming to WAR in patch 1.3.1. The most significant change is that all keeps are getting a bigger footprint and will feature a second set of stairs leading up to the keep lord. They are also making a number of structural tweaks (e.g., more space near the oil pad). Interestingly, it sounds like some of the keep will have their locations moved within the RvR lakes too. Pairing these new changes with the keep upgrade systems and guild claiming bonuses introduced back in April should make sieging a lot more fun and strategic than when the game first launched.
Blizzard gives preview of the Isle of Conquest battleground
Blizzard community manager Nethaera has announced some more details of the new battleground coming to World of Warcraft with Patch 3.2, Call of the Crusade.The "Isle of Conquest" will be a new place for Horde and Alliance to face off in forty-vs.-forty PvP across different locations offering their own unique challenges and rewards. Blizzard has put together a preview site for the Isle of Conquest explaining about the battleground and its objectives and resources that the Horde and Alliance will struggle over. Each location will have a certain advantage, ranging from Glaive Throwers and Catapults to an airship that allows players to parachute into the enemy keep. Have a look at the Isle of Conquest preview site for more on what to expect from Call of the Crusade's battleground. One of Azeroth's millions of citizens? Check out our ongoing coverage of the World of Warcraft, and be sure to touch base with our sister site WoW Insider for all your Lich King needs!
Games Day '09: Managing realm vs. realm combat with Jeff Skalski pt. 2
On top of that, we are aggressively looking at city sieges. On the RvR team, that's where the big focus is. The last big improvement in the open RvR arena was adding a second ramp to the keeps, but now our focus is on the city. We want to make sure that players know what's going on, like with the stages of the city. It's really three stages -- contested when you enter in, then the attackers can push it to pillaged so the warlord PQs open up, then it goes to captured and you unlock the king's instance for a set amount of time. "Our goal is to make the city siege RvR, not RvE." Our goal is to make the city siege RvR, not RvE. We want to put more focus on killing players, capturing and holding objectives, and we want that to be the front from beginning to end so there's always RvR in the game. So that's what we're looking at right now, working with those concepts and fleshing out those ideas. Any previews or details on that yet?It's really too early to say. We just started meeting with our core testers and explaining to them the ideas we have, and we're throwing things out there while finalizing what we want to do. I can say that for the players out there who are saying, "Oh, make it more epic, make it more epic," well that's what we're focusing on. We're trying to bring the quality of epic up, but at the same time we have many other things going on too. There's always bug fixing and things to work on, so we have to be careful. We want to react quickly and get it done now rather work on it for 10 months and fix it next year.What would you say to a player who holds the opinion that something like Warcraft's PvP is superior to Warhammer's RvR?This is my opinion, but I find when I talk to players who have that opinion that it's about convenience as to why they prefer the WoW model of PvP over the WAR model. We're really seeing a change. So, for you and I, we've been playing MMOs for a while. But there are people out there who have never touched any other MMO except for WoW. That game is all they know. They don't know what EQ was like, they don't know what UO was like, they don't know what MUDs are, so they don't have this broad concept. They just want stuff now and they want to get out quickly. They want instant gratification and they want to be constantly patted on the back with an enthusiastic, "Good job, good job!" "Then we added in the token system because we understand that at the end of the day you just may not get that loot roll." So when WAR was launched, we didn't have anything like the token system. We just took the approach of, "Well, you're just going to have to work for it. I'm sorry, but you have to go out, fight enemies, get through their keeps, and go for it." What ended up happening was the players began taking the path of least resistance. Players even went to lengths to avoid one another, and that really confused us. We thought they had bought our game to RvR, but they're avoiding enemies! Then we had things like keep trading and round robin keeps going on, so that's why we went to zone domination. It's why we took the rewards off of flipping a keep and put it on flipping the zone. That way you're not just hopping from pairing to pairing and going around, and around, and around. Now they want to capture and fight for that zone.Then we added in the token system because we understand that at the end of the day you just may not get that loot roll. I, honestly, have horrible luck. I rarely, if ever, get the gold bag. Now for participating you get this token. Sure, you need a lot of them, but you know you're getting somewhere.We're learning a lot about the player base. We hear all of the feedback from the players and hear what they're complaining about. When I come into work in the morning I have, from multiple sources, the top five issues of the game. And that helps me and the other producers determine exactly what we need to put our teams on. What needs to be hotfixed before the weekend, what needs to be put into the next patch, or whatever.So they game is getting better. The game is better today than it was at launch in terms of stability, performance, and how the systems are working. We have teams dedicated to it and we just keep pushing it. The sands of the Tomb Kings are coming as the final release in the Call to Arms live expansion, the Land of the Dead approaches! Massively has your back with coverage from Mythic Entertainment at Games Day '09, so get your WAAGGGHHH ready for RvR mayhem as Massively re-arms for WAR!
Warhammer Online community claims contribution system a sham
One of the first and often touted systems being developed by Mythic for Warhammer Online was contribution. Anyone who's played a through a few Public Quests or Keep captures knows the contribution system is supposed to monitor how everyone plays and then dole out a proper score before a dice roll is applied to give it all a twinge of randomness. Well, a post over at Wizards & Wenches claims that they've discovered the secret formula to contribution: it doesn't exist.The claim -- which has discussions threads at forums, along with screenshots -- is that when a player enters a zone, they are given a dice roll that applies to them until they leave the zone or log out. This means that a player who gets first will continue to do so, no matter what, until another player with a higher roll comes along.
Bringing WAR to the web
Any massively multiplayer online game built around the twin pillars of PvP and territorial control can't go wrong by providing realtime status updates of the struggle via the web. Warhammer Online has endeavored to do just that with the Realm War site, as addressed in a dev diary by the title's Web Development Lead, Scott Stricklin. The dev blog touches on what Mythic has accomplished thus far with bringing WAR to the web, and what they hope to accomplish in the future -- namely, podcasts, community news, and character and guild profiles. While they have no shortage of ideas about how to expand WAR outside of the client, their first objective has been to bring Realm vs. Realm data to the web. That goal has now been realized, and Stricklin walks the reader through the features of the newly revamped Realm War site.Players now have access to updated information about the overall campaign and the status of each capital city, Stricklin writes. This information is also presented visually, with each capital city's look changing based on its status, ranging from peaceful to besieged. This can all be kept in a pop up box in your browser to provide continual updates for when the tide of battle turns. Further information is provided through selectors which represent a server's racial pairings, giving a snapshot of what's happening with each tier's zone control. An added bonus to this are influence maps for each zone, similar to the in-game maps, which show the status of the various RvR objectives and allow a player to mouse over keeps, seeing when it was last captured and by which guild. Have a look at Scott Stricklin's dev diary for more on the Realm War site, or better yet, just head over there and try it out for yourself. Did you enjoy this? Make sure to check out our Warhammer guides: Massively's Character Creation Guide and our WoW Player's Guide to Warhammer. Plus, don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!
WAR's phase two experience enhancements
Man, these guys just keep on rollin' with these updates. After the first phase of Mythic's "experience enhancements" players in their 3 and 4 found themselves with an overall improved experience gain in those zones. Now Mythic has taken the next step in phase two by allowing players to receive not only renown, but experience from capturing a keep -- assuming they're the proper,(non-bolstered) level. The Warhammer Online Herald lays out the tier requirements as such, "In Tier 2, players will begin to earn this bonus when they reach rank 15. In Tier 3, the minimum rank required is 25, and in Tier 4 it is 35. Players will notice a diminishing return from keep captures if their level approaches the top of that tier." All in all, it seems like Mythic has put some serious thought into this decision.We're happy to see them giving players more reason to participate in open world RvR earlier in the game. Scenarios are fun and all, but there's definitely something to be said about some good old keep capturing.
Massively's WAR Camp: Capturing and defending keeps
From Tier 2 onwards, players of Warhammer Online have the option of mustering an army to go forth into the RvR lakes and capture keeps. There are numerous benefits to capturing a keep -- renown bonuses and set-piece loot await a victorious party, as well as a chance to claim the keep in their guild's name, and push the zone control meter forward for their realm. Of course, if the opposing realm has some backbone about them, a quick capture can turn into an all-out war, with siege weapons and countless casualties. One can only hope! Join us as we take an in-depth look at all of this, in our gallery guide to capturing and defending keeps. Capturing and Defending Keeps %Gallery-34148% Did you enjoy this? Make sure to check out our Warhammer guides: Massively's Character Creation Guide and our WoW Player's Guide to Warhammer. Plus, don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!
Massively goes to WAR: Wrap-up
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/The_latest_on_Warhammer_Online_from_Massively_s_Mythic_visit'; All week long, Massively.com has been offering up feature after feature on EA Mythic's in-development MMO, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. The Massively goes to WAR feature series has taken you front to back through almost every moment of our time at Mythic's Virginia headquarters. To wrap it all up, we've got a handy-dandy clickable guide to the series. Whether you're into hardcore PvP, dungeon delving, crafting, or are a total MMO newb, we've got you covered. Click on through, and explore the world of Warhammer. %Gallery-21881%
Massively goes to WAR: Sieging keeps and assaulting fortresses
Today's the last day in our ongoing Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning coverage and we've saved one of the best conversations about the game for last. RvR Lead Designer Brian Wheeler and Producer Jeff Skalski sat down with us on Friday to go through Keep capturing and siege gameplay. It's one of the most compelling parts of Realm vs. Realm combat from Dark Age of Camelot buffed, shined, and retooled for the Warhammer crowd Read on below the cut for details on this expansive system. We'll discuss what exactly the point of Keep gameplay is, why it wasn't initially included in the game's design, and how all of this combat is merely the precursor to the ultimate act of sacking a Capital City. Call out the guards, and read on.
Massively goes to WAR: How to conquer a capital city
The keep and siege gameplay of Warhammer Online all leads up to just one thing: sacking the opposing race's capital. Weeks, perhaps months of gameplay all leads up to one final confrontation between the forces of Order and the forces of Destruction. But what happens once the final Fortress falls? How to players bring the capital to its knees, the better to chop off its head? Join us as we explore the final, ultimate state of Warhammer Online's RvR combat.
New WAR beta update focused on defense of Altdorf
Ever since Warhammer Online slipped from its precarious perch in the mud, it's been something of a struggle for Mythic to keep our attention in lieu of more current, relevant-feeling fare. After all, there's only so much speculating you can do before you realize it's still months away from being in your hands. Still, as nuts for the Warhammer lore, we take notice any time a beta update hits our inbox, because it means another chance as at sweet, sweet immersion.This News From the Front focuses on the battle on the skirts of Altdorf -- those scenarios that would manifest themselves if the forces of the Empire began to cede to the tide of Chaos and their Dark Elf allies. The beta had both PvE and PvP phases, and prominent among the features being tested were the Keeps and Sieges dynamic, which Mythic wanted to test for fluidity and fun. And of course, what update would be complete without a handful of written lore thrown into the lot as well. If you're still interested in WAR and haven't sold your soul to Krom, it's definitely worth checking out.
All you need to know about WAR's keeps and sieges
There's a new FAQ at Ten Ton Hammer that looks at the keeps and sieges of Warhammer Online. It answers a nice chunk of questions that people might have about this aspect of the Realm versus Realm gameplay which was looked at in the February newsletter. The process involved in capturing a keep will be to first breach the exterior walls, then the interior walls, and finally to slay the Keep Lord.Along the way you'll be able to use a variety of siege weapons, and both the attacking and defending sides will find these siege tools useful. When the Keep Lord is taken out, all remaining guards at the keep will despawn, and the Keep Lord will respawn as an ally to the sieging party, ready for when the other faction tries to re-capture the keep. It's a big, messy circle. Check out the rest of the FAQ for more on how you can attack or defend a keep in WAR.
February Warhammer newsletter offers crispy fried dwarf recipe
The 28th issue of the Warhammer Online newsletter rolled into mailboxes this week. Blood, fire, and Chaos energy rippling from the seams, this latest warmachine bears a king's ransom in information for Warhammer-in-waiting fans. We've already noted the podcast all about the epic amount of voice acting coming to the game, but there was so much more! Personally, the highlight of the letter is a full rundown on the keeps and sieges system. Even though the addition of Keeps to the game came during the Beta process, their integration seems seamless. Siege weaponry especially sounds entertaining, with the opportunity to boil some stunties in their own boots particularly delicious for this Greenskins fan. Other high points include: A full explanation of the Realm vs. Realm renown system. Renown will be your currency for buying abilities and pieces of awesome from your faction, and it's definitely something you're going to be dealing with. The second episode of Scenarios 101 covers Talabec Dam and Stone Troll Crossing. An overview of the Saphery zone. Gotta love Those Wacky Elves(tm). Player quotes from Beta. A Beta giveaway in the Warhammer comic book. Career masteries for the Bright Wizard and Zealot. Profiles of the leaders of the Order faction. And, as always, Paul Barnett's excellent video podcasts round out the entire information dump. You can sign up on the official Warhammer site to get these newsletters in your inbox; who wouldn't want a warmachine of news delivered via email?
