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New developer Q&A looks at the next stage of WAR
Some things in life are so regular as to be dependable: the eruption of Old Faithful at Yellowstone, the frenzy of Black Friday shopping, and a Mythic developer Q&A Ventrilo session when a new patch goes up on the test server. Following a similar Q&A session from a week ago, Mythic devs returned to chew the fat with Warhammer Online players about anything and everything under the virtual sun. Mythic's Carrie Gouskos, Nate Levy and Mike Wyatt fielded a large range of questions, from class balancing to destructive environments. A lot of focus was given to the upcoming 1.4.X patch, the next major step for the game. Mythic was coy about topics like player housing and improved crafting, offering up a "no comment" when the devs were asked about them. One player wondered if fortress sieges would ever return, to which Mike replied: "Hopefully, at some point. There's a lot of problems with how we would like to implement it, usually with population density and the server not being able to handle the load. So we're looking at ways to bring them back in some fashion, at some point." The full transcript is available at Gaarawarr Gabs.
Warhammer Online devs bare their souls in a recent public Q&A session
It's a rare treat when MMO developers take the time to sit down with fans and allow them to pose questions in a public setting, so it's great to see Warhammer Online's dev team doing just that. On July 30th, the devs opened the doors to BioWare Mythic's Ventrilo server for players to come in and submit one question to be answered, which resulted in dozens upon dozens of responses. Burglir's Blog recorded the Q&A session, which was subsequently transcribed by Gaarawarr Gabs for all to enjoy. While some of the questions covered the same ground as the recent Producer's Letter (including a new 6v6 scenario and additional Live Events), most of them got into specific inquiries regarding classes, balancing and RvR. Some of the topics included magus/engineer pets, group heals, Linux support (spoiler: not going to happen), crowd control, cross-server scenarios, new races and something called "lolsquig speak." One of the players even admitted to naughty exploiting when he asked about the Kraken Sea zone (of which he got a peek). Nate Levy shot back an interesting response: "The very, very short answer is we build out a lot more of the game than we ever end up using and sometimes there are things like that." You can read the beefy transcript over at Gaarawarr Gabs.
Nate Levy explains WAR's action point fix
Mythic developers just fixed a major bug that has been in Warhammer Online since launch and it's having a big impact on players. Action points (AP) are the one-size-fits-all resource used to cast spells, perform damage attacks, and tank. Suffice to say, a change to the way AP works affects every class in the game. This bug fix makes it take a little longer for AP to regenerate as originally intended. Many players claim that the time-to-kill in beta was much higher than it turned out at release, and while a dozen or more variables play a part in this (e.g., better gear, higher crit rates, newer strategies, etc.), AP regen can be counted among them. You see, after the game released game update 1.3.1 came out, players had a nearly limitless AP pool. In fact, AP regen potions were useless aside from getting a quick boost after sprinting. This led to many players getting in the habit of button-mashing their abilities without fearing a complete AP drain. Now that the issue has been corrected, there's been a bit of an outcry from players who have become accustomed to playing WAR not as intended for over a year. Mythic stresses that this change is for the better but will continue to monitor the situation and adjust accordingly. Check out Nate Levy's developer diary for all the details. Update: This bug was discovered in 1.3.1 but we are unsure of when it originally made its way into the game. We apologize for jumping to conclusions based on our own experiences.
New WAR dev interviews have a slightly different tone
MMO studios are often chided, if not outright derided, for sounding as though their words are being translated by a public relations or marketing babel fish. Fans must commonly navigate on-message superlatives while trying to seek out nuggets of real information. Mythic Entertainment has never been entirely immune to this, especially during their Warhammer Online pre-launch communications.Frank of the the Overly Positive blog recently picked up a slight change in tone from the WAR developers though. In a series of interviews with Gaar, it seems as though they are cutting through the marketing-speak and discussing things plainly and openly. Some might claim that it's too little too late or that Mythic has finally come to terms with their current situation, however, few can argue that it isn't a breath of fresh air and a step in the right direction. Step One is to admit there is a problem, right?As for what you'll learn from the interviews themselves, there's actually quite a bit. Josh Drescher shines some light on Mythic's thought process moving forward with the game and Nate Levy explains some of the issues the Combat & Careers team are dealing with specifically.
