Waging WAR: Battle for Badlands season 3 finale

With so many awesome things happening for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning lately, with the Verminous Horde expansion, the new store, patch 1.4 and all the rest, Greg has decided to turn his all-seeing eye sideways, to a land called the Badlands, and take Waging WAR along to explore a community-driven event that has been held there for nearly a year now with great success.

Since launch, WAR has enjoyed a great community. With every great community, a great event is inevitable. I've been around the block since WAR was released and have experienced the game on several different servers. I originally rolled my first character, a Swordmaster named Xiimmel, on Iron Rock. Later, I rolled an Archmage named Feiyen on Dark Crag, who I eventually moved back to Iron Rock where she was renamed Veeo. I never did get a chance to explore Phoenix Throne, which was collapsed along with Dark Crag some time ago. Recently, I joined the Badlands community on the side of Destruction with a variety of new characters, and the community there has been good to me so far. Part of that experience the last few weeks has been the opportunity to participate in a community-driven phenomenon known as the Battle for Badlands. Since this is all quite new to me, I decided to do a community spotlight on the event in today's Waging WAR.

Read on past the cut where I play 6Qs and deliver the details about the Battle for Badlands while I try to answer your 5Ws and maybe an H.

On January 5th, 2010 something special happened for the Badlands server. Originally hosted by the Order guild, "The Gaiscioch Family," what had started out as a weekly event on the Phoenix Throne server known as "Open PuG Night," became something for the people of the Badlands server to participate in and enjoy. Now the Battle for Badlands is in its third season, and the finale is set to be held this coming week, on Tuesday, November 16th, 2010. The current score is 352-326 in Order's favor, and since the finale will be held over Tiers 2 & 3, with a total of 12 keeps and 24 objectives to take and defend, the battles are sure to be fought fiercely, and it's anybody's game at this point.

The Gaiscioch Family (pronounced Gosh-Kia) itself has a long and illustrious history of gaming and RvR. The guild started on November 11th, 2001 (Happy 9th Birthday, Gaiscioch Family!) in Dark Age of Camelot -- the birthgame of RvR -- on the Nimue server and has since expanded to several different games and genres. The guild nurtures a family style, with but a single rule: no member shall ever attack another in any way. Violating this "Blades out, not in" rule results in banishment. Otherwise, they promise to welcome all players and have no commitments, expectations or requirements of their members, except that they have fun.

The Gaiscioch is generously contributing ventrilo for the event, and has provided leadership in the past, but this coming Battle for Badlands finale will be led on the Order side by Bloodburner from the guild "Knights of Order". He is ranked 5th overall among warlords, and will lead for both tiers 2 & 3 against the Destruction leaders: Nuituran in T2 from the guild "Brutal" and Bloodrider in T3 from the guild "DA'nt Give a Shi't". Nuituran is the top ranked warlord for this season, and this will be Bloodrider's leadership debut. Of all the many participating guilds this season, "Brutal" is the top scoring guild for Destruction. While "Armyn ab Treanid" is the top ranking Order guild, they are ranked 3rd overall.

Not only is this the season 3 finale for the Battle for Badlands, but the event also marks a special time for WAR. With all the exciting things coming soon with patch 1.4 and the Verminous Horde expansion, this Battle for Badlands finale could very well mark the end of an era for WAR -- one final chance for everyone to experience truly epic RvR in Tiers 2 & 3 as it is now, because soon, things are going to change. Indeed, the game is set to change in such a way that screenshots and memories of its current state will be conversation pieces for years to come. It will be interesting to see how the Battle for Badlands event will evolve and change along with the new RvR rules. I'm sure the event will continue on, in some form or another, but I'm also certain that the game won't be quite the same.

And if that isn't enough incentive for you, there are prizes too! The top warlord for the season will receive 100 gold and the top warrior will receive 50 gold. Best of luck to all of this season's top players! May the best men and women win!

Everyone from any server is welcome to participate. It's not too late for players stuck in T4 to roll up that class they've always wanted to try out and join the fun. In fact, if you work at it hard enough over the weekend, you might even be able to get yourself to level 30 or 31, where you'll be able to help out and participate in the action on both tiers at the same time and still be considered effective, without any "fowl business" (i.e., turning into a chicken) to worry about. And while registration isn't necessary to take part, if you want a chance at the prizes, you'll have to head over to the event website and register. From there, you'll be able to claim points for yourself and your faction and maybe even make a name for yourself on the Badlands server. Oh, and a special thanks to Scottevil from Brutal for all his help!

Battle for Badlands Season 3 Finale
• November 16th, 2010. Meet and greet on ventrilo starts at 5pm PST / 9PM EST.
• Battles begin an hour later at 6pm PST / 10pm EST.
• Badlands server, Tier 2 & 3
• Optional registration at http://www.battleforbadlands.com

Comments, questions, and suggestions are always welcome below.