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Games Day '09: Lands of the Dead design discussion with Gabe Amatangelo and Jeff Skalski pt. 2
Now you guys have a really interesting design going on with Warhammer, regarding the City Siege system. You've basically built in your own cap on the game's system, which is very different from other MMOs in the market. What's it like designing something like Land of the Dead with that restrictive cap in mind? Jeff: It's challenging. Sometimes it feels like we're splitting hairs, but we planned to do this type of stuff earlier on, so we left some space to design in. We wanted to make sure this was a free expansion that all players had access to that runs parallel to the tier four campaign... Gabe: It compliments many different areas of our content. It compliments many types of players with many types of gear and gives them new objectives to achieve. But the top end, yeah, it's definitely a challenge, and that's the one campaign. We have three campaigns. The Warhammer world just has so much stuff in it. There are so many other armies and other things to be inspired by to make new content. With all of that other stuff in mind, where would you like to take Warhammer if the decision was solely up to you? Gabe: There's alot. You know, when we explored the RvR gated "Darkness Falls" dungeon, we explored a bunch of different things. We explored Mordheim, we explored Skavenblight, and then we fell across the Tomb Kings. This was perfect for us, as it allowed us to explore a bunch of different gameplay dynamics. But still, I think Skavenblight is a very cool element. Then you have the whole Vampire Counts dark world... Jeff: We still got Sylvania and getting out there to do. Personally, from a visual standpoint, I'd like to see Lustria. I think it's an environment we just don't have in the game at the moment, which was one of the reasons I was really excited about Tomb Kings. I like having a completely new environment and it's a setting we don't have at all in our game. Gabe: And it also really depends on what we want to get out in regards to content. Is it a dungeon, is it a new open zone? That affects where we go with it. If it's a dungeon, oh well then we should go to Skavenblight as it's a underground thing over there. If it's a whole new mini-zone, then maybe we go to Lustria. Of course I'm talking in broad general terms, but that's the stuff that directs where we take it. Is there anything that got left out of this expansion that you wish would have made it in? Jeff: We accomplished alot, but there is that one thing we had to cut back on, as we needed to get moving with production, and that was being able to bring the Tomb Kings in as an ally in the RvR siege. In the early days of the design, we were thinking about giving the assistance of the Tomb King and his army out during city sieges. Gabe: There were several ways we strayed away from that and one was certainly production issues, but another was that we wanted the campaign system to be the campaign system. Land of the Dead is gated by the campaign, but it doesn't hinder or affect the system in any way and we wanted to leave it like that. The one for me was that we wanted people to be able to access Land of the Dead from level one. But, well, we just couldn't do that. We pushed it back to level 25. Jeff: But the majority of our players meet that requirement anyway. The other other thing that we wanted was for instances to be able to let more players in. So there's six man runs right now, but there was this "other one" where we wanted to get that number higher, but we didn't get that in. Gabe: *evil laughter* Not yet. Now one of thing some of our commenters are going to point out as a problem is the power leveling. You can be level 25, then get bolstered to level 36 in Land of the Dead, and you gain level 36 experience at level 25. Why did you guys decide that? Gabe: Well Darkness Falls was very successful as an alternate spot for power leveling. So we went and followed that form and put it into Land of the Dead. The other thing to note though is that you can lose control of the Land of the Dead, and that will cause power leveling to spike. It's another carrot on the stick for players to gain control of the area. So I don't think it's going to be a problem, I think players are going to enjoy it. Jeff: It gives you another track, an accelerated track, and it happens right at 25 for a reason as it's in that lull between tier three and tier four. It's going to be that extra push that will get people into tier four. We've done many things to help ease that lull, like new epic questlines and boosted quest experience, to get people into tier four. So, ok, let's pretend I'm a newbie to Warhammer. Why should I come and play your game? Jeff: If you want PvE content, we got the public quest system which is a trendsetter in the industry and I know we're going to see more of it pop up. Oh yeah, Runes of Magic already jumped on that. Jeff: Oh yeah, we know, and it's cool. It's just a good system because it helps get people together. From an PvP standpoint, our game was built for realm vs. realm combat. You can do it from rank one in our game. There are scenarios, there's RvR areas, they're dynamic, there's a lot of variety. We slowly introduce the player to harder and harder mechanics as they advance through the tiers, like keeps, and outer walls of keeps, and city sieges. To me, that's why players should come. If you want PvP then there's no other place to go. Gabe: With Land of the Dead specifically, it's the pyramids and the necropolis. There's no other setting like that in modern MMOs. It's the action RPG elements and working together to overcome them as a group as well as individually. There's just nothing like it. You like Zelda, you like God of War? Then check this out. 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!
Games Day '09: A moment with Paul Barnett and Josh Drescher pt. 2
So, I know this is on many player's minds. Is this going to replace city raid content?Josh: No. Ok then. Josh: Well, I mean the short answer is no. Paul: My answer is totally no. "This is a long term, total commitment from our studio to our players and to our newer players coming along." Josh: Long answer, I've been with Mythic for eight years. I was here before Camelot launched and we know what this type of content does to a greater RvR campaign. While the RvR campaign is certainly more diverse and larger in Warhammer than in Camelot, but we know pragmatically that by tying the content to the campaign and requiring success on the battlefield to gain access to this content, that success may push you towards capital city content. Even if RvR is not your focus and your focus is to get down into the dungeon, you're going to wind up working your way towards the capital city. It just happens organically, so we're really not concerned about that too much. At the end of the day, if people end up deciding that they enjoy this content more than city capture, we never felt that we need to integrate the players into the game in one set, specific way. Personally, I really love scenarios over everything else. I don't have much time to play, so for me, 15 minute scenarios are the way to play. That doesn't mean I won't engage in RvR, but overall I get 15 minutes here, 15 minutes there, and scenarios will always be my core fascination. But there are other people who like large-scale raid content, who don't like RvR or PvP. This is a great way to have them go down and get that Disney Land experience while running through well-thought out content, but there's also that added danger that at any moment enemy players can swarm in. Also, as Paul likes to say... Paul: I don't like building fart balloons. *Laughs* Paul: It's like the extended cut of a great movie. You have the main core of the movie, but you also have that extended stuff. You can watch the main core of the movie, but if you really want to obsess and you really want to see all of the detail you can watch the extended cut. It's more of the same, but it's new and cool. That's what it is. The movie is still the movie, our game is still our game, regardless.Ok, so, this is basically a small expansion, honestly. Where do you see Warhammer going from here?Paul: Go straight, go straight, go straight, go straight. This is a long term, total commitment from our studio to our players and to our newer players coming along. Try it out, it's never going away, it's only going onwards and upwards.Josh: I agree with Paul. Our boxed expansion schedule, such as it is, is probably going to mirror very closely to what we did in Camelot -- an alternating sequence of free expansions via patches and then boxed retail expansion content. Almost certainly you will see retail expansions in the near future, but you will certainly keep seeing free expansions as well. "To go to a person at a time like this when unemployment is rampant, the economy is in the tank, and retirement funds have gone away and say, "Hey, can I have 10 to 15 dollars of your money every month to play my game?" is actually a pretty bold request." We've always felt the relationship we, the developer, have with our players should be something more than just simple money extraction. At least 50 percent of it should be grateful generation of wonderful things for them to have for free.All right. Now the hard question. 300,000 subscribers -- how do you guys feel about that? It's the number you started with, and it's the number you currently hold now.Josh: There is no start and there is no now. Now, as a company, we're legally not allowed to comment on those numbers any further than what was reported, but we're very happy with the enthusiasm and continued dedication of people all over the world who have played Warhammer for the last nine months.It's been a really difficult time not just for the games industry, but for everyone. To go to a person at a time like this when unemployment is rampant, the economy is in the tank, and retirement funds have gone away and say, "Hey, can I have 10 to 15 dollars of your money every month to play my game?" is actually a pretty bold request. So for people to come to us and say that the commitment we've shown and the game that we've built is worth that kind of display, we have nothing but thanks for those people. We are unbelievably grateful that they've stuck with us and we hope that this type of content that we've been developing for the last nine months is an indication of our dedication to our end of this type of interaction. They trust us to do this, and we're trying to make good on our end of it and bring great things to them consistently.We are very happy with where the game is. We would obviously love to have more people try Warhammer, which is why we have the trial out...Paul: Which you can download right now!Josh: And we're very happy to continue on into the future. Also, this event is the last thing I'm allowed to do before I go get married. I'm very excited, I'm getting married next Saturday.Paul: It's an exclusive for Massively!Josh: I love you Aubrey, please continue marrying me. Put that in big bold letters. Breaking news: Josh loves Aubrey. I will totally do that. Josh, Paul, thank you so much for your time! 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!
Games Day '09: A moment with Paul Barnett and Josh Drescher (also, Josh loves Aubrey)
Even with all of the excitement occurring at Games Day, Mythic's Paul Barnett and Josh Drescher still had a moment to sit down with us at Massively and talk a little shop about Warhammer's overall status, Mythic's future direction of the game, and why players should come back and experience the Land of the Dead. But they're tricky folks, Paul and Josh! They even tried to turn the interview back around at us at some points! But we stayed strong for you readers, and were able to get some interesting answers out of them regarding Warhammer Online. Also, we have exclusive coverage that Josh indeed loves his fiancee, Aubrey. Yay marriage! Interested in the full interview? Hit that link and read on!
Games Day '09: All about Warhammer Online's live events with Mark Davis pt. 2
How long does it take to put together your average live event? We usually take about three to six weeks for brainstorming and conception. Then there's the approval process, where I send the ideas to my boss, who sends them to "The Hickman," who sends them upstairs, who sends that to Games Workshop to make sure we're staying true to their concepts. Plus we have to coordinate with all of the other departments, like RvR, the items team, and Combat and Careers. Then the production side takes another three weeks to maybe seven weeks on top of that. We'll be planning and producing the event usually the version before the live event is scheduled to take place, otherwise it would never be done in time. Then after that we'll have the playtesting and the QA sessions to make sure the bugs are worked out, and that takes another week to two weeks. So, in short, you're looking at three months of work from inception to the final event. And these aren't available on the test server, right? Well... they're not suppose to be available on the test server. They're suppose to be hidden.. *smiles* But we have little breaks where the live events show up on the test server for a couple seconds. "Just the sheer joy these events provide players should be reason enough for another developer [to make them.]" It amazes me because in that short period of time when the live event is available, somebody will screenshot all of the objectives for all of the quests and then have that up on the internet before we can get the live event down. We try our best, but it always seems to slip out for a matter of seconds. We want to be secretive and we want players to have a sense of discovery with our live events, plus they really can't be tested publically in such a short window. Live events focus on the whole world, and getting testing and feedback done is not all that useful to us. What's your favorite part about the most recent live event? From a developer's perspective, it was the opening cinematic to the RvR public quests. We did a custom cinematic with an airship flying in and exploding which results in the start of the RvR PQs. That was surely my favorite part, it was glorious! From a player's perspective, it was the RvR that occured because of the live event. We created a center point for RvR in the event in Thunder Mountain. There were a number of different tasks that centered on this one area and that area was a hot spot for RvR the whole week. From the warcamp landing to the hot spot, the travel time was only about 3 minutes, but people in my warband would be killing others the entire way there. Thunder Mountain was locked most of the time when I was fighting in this event, but the RvR was just hot all the time. Whenever I was looking for a fight, I just went to Thunder Mountain because I knew it would be there. We had warbands coming in and attempting to camp the area, but they could only hold it for a small amount of time before another warband came in to unseat them. It was a lot of fun. Many other developers don't bother with live events. Plus when they give out exclusive items, they always seem to show up later and become unexclusive. So what would you say to another developer who was thinking of doing these exclusive live events? Just look at the metrics. For our game we get more gameplay, more people in the game, and a lot of positive feedback. These events are only a limited time, so players come in and play and the realize all of the possiblities our game has to offer in that limited time. Just the sheer joy these events provide players should be reason enough for another developer. "Live events gets to take all of that great stuff and put it all together into this nice package of fun." We even see all of this in the cold metrics. Look server population the day of the event and the day after the event, and the event population will be higher. Every game has its niche. For Warhammer, it's the RvR, the public quests, the living guilds, the city sieges. You hear us harp on this stuff over and over, because it's what we do. Live events gets to take all of that great stuff and put it all together into this nice package of fun. We bring to the front what we do the best through our live events. We've got events planned for the rest of the year. We just put up the Northern Watch weekend event, and it was immensely successful. There was only a title offered as the reward, and it was easily one of the most successful events we've done. Any sneak peeks you can give us as to what's coming? Ah... well I can't really say anything because we need to go through all of that long approval process first, but the live event in the summer is going to be doing something that I don't think any MMO has done before. Ever. It's that level of magnitude for that event. We're going to challenge what people have come to expect out of our live events, I will say that much. Ha ha, sweet! Ok then, let's end it out. Order or Destruction? Order all the way. Engineer, baby! I feel like the combat and careers guys made that class for me. You blow stuff up, you shoot people, you have explosions! What could be better? 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!
Games Day '09: All about Warhammer Online's live events with Mark Davis
Mark Davis knows Warhammer Online's live events well. He should, because he's the man behind them! During Games Day '09, we had the chance to catch up with the live events lead and discuss some shop talk with him -- including a look at the newest live event, "Rise of the Tomb Kings," and a little about what goes on behind the scenes.How long does it take for a live event to be produced? What are some of Mark's favorite moments? What can we expect in the live events to come? And, most importantly, what are we going to find in the Rise of the Tomb Kings? All of these questions, and more, are answered within!
Games Day '09: Our impressions of Warhammer's Land of the Dead
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/Massively_s_impressions_of_Warhammer_s_Land_of_the_Dead'; So we've been over the cold, unfeeling facts about Land of the Dead. It's big, it's a throwback zone to action RPGs, it has RvR and PvE, and it's filled with mummies. But you don't want the facts, right? You want to know how it plays and you want to know if it's worth your time to pick up Warhammer or resubscribe to the game.During my time at Games Day, I got the chance to participate in a bunch of the PQs in the new zone and try out a few areas of the Tomb of the Vulture Lord, the capstone dungeon of the whole experience. I got to be shanked by swinging blades, pierced by surprise dart traps, and I even got to wear the Sovereign armor set, the pinnacle armor of the game. (Yes, it looks completely badass.)
Games Day '09: Our impressions of Warhammer's Land of the Dead pt. 2
Get caught in one of the clouds and you'll find yourself teleported to the bottom of one of the nearby tombs, stuck in a sarcophagus, and taking damage from the curse. Your friends can't get into the tombs due to barriers that are placed over the doors, turning this into a race to get out of the tomb before you die. These moments were filled with frantic cheers and laughter as we all danced around trying to avoid the dust clouds, accompanied by laughs of anguish as people would get caught and stuck inside of the tomb. Overall, the PQs are really enjoyable and a nice step away from "kill, rinse, repeat." Even if they involve killing monsters, there's usually some sort of trick to the PQ that makes it into a very active experience, rather than a strict button mashing period. Plus if that last boss battle sounded crazy, think of how it could go when the zone flips sides and the enemy begins running in. Now you have a boss, enemy players, and dust clouds. Fights in the tombs while curse is in effect, anyone? Luring enemies to stand in the way of dust clouds? Eventually though, we were taken away from the PQs and had the chance to step into the Tomb of the Vulure Lord itself -- testing our mettle against the various traps. The first one that stood in our way was a hallway filled with swinging pendulum blades. These blades were stacked very close together, with little room between them to stand without getting yourself sliced in half. One hit kills you, so don't try running through aimlessly because it's not going to end well. This trap is all about timing, placement, and pattern recognition -- a classic console adventure trap. What I liked the most about these traps was that they don't require the whole party to make it. Three people is all you need out of your group of six, and dying in the dungeon will just respawn you at the entrance (as long as you maintain control, of course.) "It's very different, and it's alot of fun." Eventually making it past that trap gave us access to the Terracotta Army hall -- a room filled with terracotta statues of soldiers and chariots. The whole room could be categorized under "things that never end well" because, as you would expect, walking next to some statues causes them to come to life. This whole encounter is a hybrid PQ/boss battle, as killing enough soldiers will awaken the final boss of the room, an angry skeleton who switches between different stances while you do battle with him. Overall, I have to admit, I wasn't expecting this. I was expecting an area and a dungeon filled with standard MMO trappings of trash mob pulls, boring grindfests, and RvR mixed in with all of that. What I got was a very carefully crafted zone that caters to all types of MMO players and merges PvP content with PvE content in a really inventive fashion. Even the Tomb of the Vulture Lord doesn't feel like a traditional MMO dungeon. It's an adventure through a tomb rather than a series of trash pulls with scary bosses. It tells a story and immerses you rather than just throwing themed encounters at you. Sure, this mystique will wear off over time, but I don't see this dungeon becoming something like other MMO dungeons. It's very different, and it's alot of fun. Land of the Dead is totally something you need to experience. 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!
Games Day '09: An overview of the Land of the Dead
You've heard us talk about it, you've heard us discuss it, and it's now time for us to tell you exactly what it's all about. Land of the Dead is not your father's MMO dungeon -- it's a dungeon that is something more than just a dungeon. It's an entire zone filled with activities and sub-dungeons, all culminating in an epic instanced dungeon that features a face off with the first leader of the Tomb Kings himself, King Amenemhetum. (Try saying that five times fast. Heck, try saying that one time fast. Not even Gabe Amatangelo, one of the chief designers, can say that name properly. He got close to it though during his Games Day presentation.)So how do you get down to test wits with the Tomb Kings? What public quests and objectives are scattered throughout the zone? What changes and improvements are coming with this addition to the game? Read on warriors, and find out!
Games Day '09: An overview of the Land of the Dead, pt. 2
All of this culminates in the Tomb of the Vulture Lord, a massively long dungeon filled with 7 public (in this case, your group) quests and 8 unique bosses. Between these events are your standard trash pulls, but there are also rooms filled with Indiana Jones-esque traps. For example, one hallway is littered with swinging pendulum blades while another has columns that shoot darts. Three people need to successfully clear these action/movement oriented traps so they can be shut down for other players to pass. Even to get into the instance you need to complete a public quest "puzzle" that involves your group attempting to open the doors of the tomb. Also... the final boss battle... let's just say that it won't be the last time you'll be seeing the king once you defeat him. You'll see him again very, very soon. Finally, there's the infamous "purge" mechanic that occurs when the Land of the Dead changes hands over to the opposing realm. As mentioned before, when the zone changes hands, the prior owners lose the right to respawn. They will be alerted of the switch in ownership, but they will not be kicked out of the zone. Their new task will be to defend themselves as the new realm recieves quests to purge the enemy from the public quests and destroy the other realm's base camp on the other side of the map. Purging the enemy gives lots of experience and rewards, so it's a very lucrative thing to do, especially as you have free respawns and your enemy doesn't. "Mythic has built in a purge mechanic for the instances as well -- giving the enemy the option to invade your instances while you're still in them." At this point, smart players are thinking they can hide in the various instanced lairs and the Tomb of the Vulture Lord. Wrong. Mythic has built in a purge mechanic for the instances as well -- giving the enemy the option to invade your instances while you're still in them. Don't think of trying to do cooperative realm dungeon clears either, because the minute your enemy hits your boss, he'll no longer reward experience or loot. Dungeon crawling players will be informed that their instance has been invaded by the enemy, and they'll recieve the new objective of "survive for X minutes" while the other players have the sole objective of "destroy all enemy players."If you're invading the Tomb of the Vulture Lord, beware! Defenders may not be able to respawn, but they do have the ability to reset the traps they've cleared in the dungeon! Players who progress further will be able to reset more traps to bide time against the invasion, allowing them to continue to clear bosses while the invading enemies wiggle their way through the traps littered in the instance.Finally, it all comes down to loot. Land of the Dead will be offering loot that will be on par with and a little below the endgame gear offered in city sieges. This will come from drops, but it will also come from the various tokens that will be dropped by literally everything in the zone, from public quests to players. The big change comes with the new sigil system that's going to now encompass the prior ward system.Wards will now be pieced together to form character-centric sigils, which are placed inside of the Tome of Knowledge instead of on the armor itself. These sigils are always active, no matter what armor you're wearing, eliminating the need to carry the right wards on the right parts. Prior players who are loaded with ward gear, do not fret! Your wards will combine together to form sigils right off of the bat, so you won't be outdated when the new system hits. Even if you don't have the right wards to get a sigil, you can now unlock "pieces" of the ward by completing achievement objectives, like defeating a boss that would give you that piece of ward armor X times. So even if it never drops for you, you'll still get it eventually.Overall, the Land of the Dead is a very active zone with much going on inside of it and for it. Token drop system, new sigils, action oriented design, and crazy RvR objectives are simply a gloss over what this place has going on inside of it. Come back later in the day, when I'll be speaking on my direct experiences with the "dungeon zone" and what I enjoyed inside of it. WAAAGGGHHH!! 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!
The Daily Grind: What are you going to do in Land of the Dead?
We have a bunch of Warhammer Online coverage lined up for you this week, with everything from exclusive interviews with some of the staff of Mythic Entertainment to a complete overview of the new Land of the Dead zone that will be heading to WAR subscribers everywhere thanks to a free game update. With all of this new information comes more hype, so we want to know exactly what you're feeling about the new dungeon coming out.Are you excited about the release of the spiritual successor dungeon to Dark Age of Camelot's Darkness Falls? Are you going to be jumping in to the new RvR zone with glee? Are you interested in the slew of new PQs that will be in the Necropolis, or are you looking forward to that new instanced dungeon? Or, maybe it's the tweaks to tier 4 that's getting you all excited?Whatever it is, we want to know about it. Throw your comments in here and let us know!
The cake of WAGGGGHHHH!!!
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/Ace_of_Cakes_s_Chef_Duff_makes_an_awesome_Warhammer_cake'; This last Saturday was Games Workshop's Games Day celebration, and Massively.com was on site to get you the latest Warhammer Online coverage straight from Mythic Entertainment. Want to know more about Ultima Online's Stygian Abyss expansion? Curious about Land of the Dead? Interested as to the future direction of Warhammer Online? Do your favorite devs play on order or destruction? Find all of these answers and more in our full coverage of the event starting tomorrow, including our hands-on impressions of the new mega-dungeon, Land of the Dead!In the meantime, if you're hungry for coverage, let your eyes feast on this awesome squig herder cake, made by Charm City Cakes. You know, Chef Duff from Food Network's Ace of Cakes? Yeah, he would be the guy who cooked this bad boy up. The cake lasted for the entire show, but we think there might have been some squig pieces shared amongst staff once the event's doors closed.Excited? Come back tomorrow and check out all of the tasty coverage. The squig is only the icing on the cake! Ok, we're done with the bad puns now, we promise.
Winds of Change to blow through Warhammer
What's the worst case scenario for an MMO pitting hundreds of players against each other in epic large-scale RvR combat? Lag. Crashing. Rollbacks. Unfortunately, many Warhammer Online players have experienced all these issues while participating in open RvR. Mythic has been working on server stability since launch and now plan on taking a more aggressive stance by testing a new mechanic called The Winds of Change (WoC).The WoC will basically teleport certain players to the nearest PvE safe spot (warcamp or chapter hub) when the server determines it is under enough stress to soon buckle. If people do not voluntarily leave once the WoC message is broadcast across the zone, dead players in the effected area will be teleported first, followed by the severely wounded. On the plus side, at least those players who qualify will still have a chance at rolling for rewards.Some players believe the solution is not ideal because it forces people out of RvR, the game's bread and butter, but Mythic says the WoC only be a temporary fix until they can solve their server stability issues once and for all. One has to wonder if that is even possible given the game has been on the market for over 7 months already. Still, we remain cautiously optimistic. A more permanent solution may arrive with The Land of the Dead as we predict many players will flee the original open RvR campaign for RvR in the desert.Update #1 - Mythic has released a server maintenance announcement.Greetings!Today, 4/29/09, all North American and Oceanic servers will be brought offline at 9:00 AM EDT for an update. We anticipate all servers to be back online by 1:00 PM EDT. This update will improve City Instances and server stability; in addition the Winds of Change feature will be removed from Dark Crag during this downtime.Thank you and as always keep an eye on the Herald for the latest news and information during server updates!Update #2 - GOA's Nilax has released this statement on the official European forums."After reviewing the metrics and community feedback Mythic have removed the Winds of Change feature from Dark Crag. As they will continue to look at this or similar options to improve stability I will leave this thread open for now."
Warhammer: Where are all the gank groups?
You will commonly find gank groups in many PvP games. Gank groups are simply organized, pre-made groups, usually formed by members of the same guild that work extremely well together. Usually, a gank group will destroy a pick-up group (PuG) and zerg because they employ smarter tactics, keep cooler heads, and communicate more effectively.Gank groups were very common back when I played Dark Age of Camelot from 2001-2004. These 8-man special-ops teams would sweep in at high speed, disable as many enemies as they could with crowd control, and then quickly pick off targets one or two at a time. Most PuGs and zerglings would panic, which made the job that much easier.The true challenge would come when your gank group met an enemy gank group in the open field. The outcome would come down to a combination of skill, gear, timing, communication, ability timers (realm and master level), and even luck. Taking part in a gank group vs. gank group skirmish was probably the most adrenaline-inducing MMO experience I have had in an MMO and one I have been searching for in every new PvP MMO I try.
Warhammer: Where are all the gank groups (part 2)?
I'm sure many players are applauding the fact that Mythic has systematically eradicated gank groups from the RvR experience in WAR, however, it is saddening for many others. Gank groups were the elite of the elite in DAOC, and whether you liked them or not (or died to them or not), they played a huge part in the RvR scene. Put aside for a moment all the crashing cities and fortresses, overpowered crowd control abilities, class balance issues, and general bugs and performance problems in WAR. Does it not seem that for a game that was supposed to take RvR to the next level, it actually seems to have devolved it? If the holy trinity of class-balance is healing, tanking, and DPSing, it is my humble opinion that the holy trinity of RvR is the zerg, PuG, and gank group. I'm simply left wondering, where have all the gank groups gone? The previous paragraphs illustrate what is hindering gank groups from gaining traction in WAR. With a few minor shifts in design, I believe it is possible to reunite the RvR trinity. Step one is to overhaul crowd control. Every class should not have an arsenal of debilitating CC abilities like they currently do because combat becomes less about strategy and more about button-mashing CC when many players gather together. Step two is to place fewer rewards on objectives and more rewards on player kills. Step three will arrive with Land of the Dead if properly implemented. Hopefully, the zergs and PuGs fight over the main RvR campaign and there will be incentives for gank groups to do well in Nehekhara. Either way, the dual-endgame focus should split up the zergs substantially. The final step lies with the players. Mythic can only guide us so far and unless more guilds are willing to organize 6-12-man gank groups, they simply won't happen in WAR. A PR push from Mythic might help but the best chance for this to blossom will come when a few pioneering guilds take up the mantle and own it. Open challenges on server forums are highly encouraged! << Where are all the gank groups?
Warhammer's Beyond the Sands event now live
Starting yesterday and continuing on through Monday, April 27th, Warhammer Online players have access to the next phase of Mythic's Call to Arms live expansion, Beyond the Sands. The event focuses on both factions competing over artifacts of the Nehekharan Kings and to defeat their undeathly Liche Priests. According to Mythic, this particular event focuses primarily on RvR but does contain a dash of PvE as well.Although those looking for more PvE content won't be waiting too much longer, as this is all leading up to the Land of the Dead update which is purportedly bringing new instanced dungeons. Then again, it's also bring a large new RvR zone as well, so all things in balance we suppose.The content just keeps on coming for Warhammer Online players, and that's never a bad thing. With the biggest content still yet to come, there seems to be plenty about this game to remain excited about.
Land of the Dead draws nearer in Warhammer
Warhammer Online's Call to Arms live expansion has been rolling along for months now and players are getting mighty excited about the prospects of the Tomb Kings and The Land of the Dead mega-zone. One WAR blogger is so fired-up he has an on-going guide feature dedicated to it.Greg Moran, a fan favorite webcomic artist and owner of the Tome of Knowledge blog, just released part two of Bring Out Yer Dead. In it, he uses a hearty blend of Warhammer IP knowledge, Mythic promotional evidence, and speculation to provide details on what players might find once set loose upon the sands of Nehekhara. Part one gives an excellent primer on Tomb Kings history and lore.The feature is supplemented by a number of fantastic original illustrations and links to external resources. We suggest you watch part one and two of Mythic's very own Land of the Dead production podcast at the very least. Part three will be released in the May newsletter. There's also a new Beyond the Sands live event running in-game from April 20-27, which will reveal many secrets leading up to the full-scale zone launch.
More Land of the Dead details emerge from WAR dev
We've been hearing a slow trickle of details from Mythic these past few months about the new Land of the Dead zone in Warhammer Online. In his recent developer diary entry, Gabe Amatangelo, Senior Designer, Dungeons & Encounters Lead, shares new information about and inspirations behind the new Tomb Kings area.We learn that Gabe was given the go ahead to conceptualize the zone in September 2008, shortly after launch and that it will come in two forms: The Necropolis desert, which is an open, non-instanced zone and The Tomb of the Vulture Lord dungeon.Control over this dungeon will depend on a new Expedition Resource system, which will come as a blend of zone control and open RvR kills. Not only will you fight over the new dungeon, you will fight in it as well and the only safe spot will be the zone-in spot. The dungeon will have instanced encounters, but players will actually be able to storm instances and chase after enemies.As a PvE expansion to their newly announced RvR token system, monsters in The Necropolis desert will also drop tokens, which can be used to purchase powerful gear and crafting materials. If any of this sounds interesting to you, keep your eyes peeled for the April newsletter.
WAR 1.21 patch hitting the public test server this week
Mark Jacobs stopped by the official Warhammer forums to give players a list of highlights from the 1.21 patch hitting the public test server later this week. While the patch number suggests this won't be a major patch, the highlights suggest otherwise.Most people agree the biggest issue on Mythic's plate right now is combat responsiveness. Currently, players experience a sigificant "stretch" or "pause" when executing longer duration abilities (animation glitches don't help matters either). Mark says this issue will be fixed in under "normal" gameplay conditions, but may still exist to a degree under high server load.Other items of note are improvements to the keep siege system that will allow guilds who claim keeps to upgrade their defenses, a Beyond the Sands live event, more bug fixes, and special versions of the Gates of Ekrund and Nordenwatch scenarios.The balance issue with stacked ground target area of effect damage spells introduced in the previous patch is not touched upon in Mark's highlights, but Adam Gershowitz made a post on the Ranged Damage Dealers forum detailing the changes coming in 1.21. Overall, this is looking like a solid patch as fans await 1.3.
Mythic talks Warhammer Online's Land of the Dead
Last week, Mythic unleashed info regarding several "live events" for its MMO, Warhammer Online. One of these live events is titled Land of the Dead, a zone that features new public quests, instances, items and a pyramid housing the Tomb King (the dungeon's focal point). With the event set for a June release, we'd thought Mythic told us everything it possibly could about the upcoming expansion. Well, not the case, as Jeff Hickman and creative director Paul Barnett revealed some new details to the folks at Eurogamer.We now know that the Land of the Dead will include content from level 25 onto endgame raiding and that the "Land" mentioned in the title is a place where the Order and Destruction factions constantly wage war. Once in, players can find themselves under attack by a rival faction at any time, even when in an instance. Jeff explains that the Land of the Dead will include two areas: The Necropolis and the Tomb of the Vulture Lord, and that since it's RVR-gated, each faction must fight for ownership of the dungeon. He fully expects the dungeon "to change hands nightly," so if you're in there raiding and a different faction gains ownership, you could suddenly find yourself under attack. This place isn't for rookies, however, as Jeff emphasizes this really is for levels 25 and up and "designed to supplement our end game content after Lost Vale."Before the zone is opened to the public in June, Mythic will hold a race allowing one of the factions early access to the zone for a short while before release.
Mythic announces 'live expansion' for Warhammer Online
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is getting its first major booster shot just six months after its initial launch. Titled A Call to Arms, the changes will come to the game in the form of a number of in-game events held over the course of a few months -- the devs are calling it a "live expansion." Our ninja-looting sister site Massively has all the details about the upcoming events as well as an in-depth interview with WAR executive producer Jeff Hickman, but here's a basic breakdown of the events, and the additions they'll bring: Call to Arms: Bitter Rivals (Late Feb.) -- The Bitter Rivals event features quests, tasks and RvR activities which will allow players to unlock the once-canceled Orc Choppa and Dwarf Slayer classes. Players who don't participate in the events will unlock the two classes a week later. Call to Arms: Beyond the Sands (April) and Rise of the Tomb Kings (May) -- Hickman didn't share many details about these two events, only explaining that they would eventually lead up to the launch of ... The Land of the Dead (June) -- An internal dungeon (with accompanying external zone) which realms will compete to control. It will feature new public quests, instances, items and a pyramid which houses the Tomb King; the dungeon's focal point which Hickman promises will incite "crazy epic adventures."
