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LotRO Book 12 introduces Delving of Frr PvMP dungeon
Along with everything else we've talked about to be expected with Book 12, the official Lord of the Rings Online website has now confirmed that a brand new PvMP dungeon will also be introduced with The Ashen Wastes. It will be called the Delving of Frór, and is reached by going through the Ettenmoors -- but it won't be as simple as just walking in. Either the Freeps or Creeps will need to control a minimum of three out of five points in the Ettenmoors before they will be allowed access. Even while one faction is inside, leader status can change hands, resulting in the flushing out of one faction by the other. The former controlling faction inside the dungeon will no longer be able to receive reinforcements from outside, and death will cause them to respawn outside as well.There's plenty of reasons to want to gain entry to the Delving, as there will be five raid bosses, more than fifteen group bosses and even lots of solo content inside. Anything killed inside will not only have a chance to drop the same loot as Ettenmoors mobs, but there will also be a new set of barter items to collect. Freeps use these for new weapon and armor sets, and Creeps can obtain new skills (full list posted after the break). This whole system is very reminiscent of Dark Age of Camelot and Darkness Falls, which also centered around controlling areas to be allowed access to a dungeon with great rewards, and the inevitable flushing out of an opposing faction when control changed hands. Nevertheless, it looks as though this will provide lots to do for fans of PvMP when Book 12 hits.
WAR vs WoW: Keen and Graev compare
This is definitely a topic that will continue to come up throughout the year of 2008, so get used to seeing it. Keen and Graev attempt to get the first (and probably the biggest) part of this issue out of the way quick; it's not about which is the better game. They continue on with their topic comparing the two games' differences and similarities. One such similarity is posted above this text; the graphical appearance of the games. The argument here is that both games have a "cartoony" look to them, but that Warhammer Online's style is a bit more "grungy". We're not entirely sure if that picture above (not taken by Keen and Graev or us, mind you) illustrates much of a similarity, unless Blizzard is the only company allowed to use red in their MMOs now.Aside from that, the article lines out the huge difference in PvP between the two games. The biggest difference of course is the Realm vs Realm combat where conquering your enemy has a real in-world cost; your land as well as your pride. Something that is very related to RvR that we happen to be very excited about is Keeps and Siege Weapons, which were originally in Dark Age of Camelot. A suggestion that Keen and Graev make that we think is a good idea is to check out the official podcasts made by the dev team. They explain many aspects of WAR in fun, informative and often entertaining ways (we're looking at your Mr Barnett).
EA Mythic picks up a new Director of Community Relations
EA Mythic has filled the top-spot in their community ranks by inviting Robert Mull to lead the way as their new Community Relations Director. Mull's new duties revolve around everything community, especially overseeing the Community Coordinators for Warhammer Online, Dark Age of Camelot, and the recently absorbed Ultima Online. What grates on my nerves are community personnel that don't really play MMOs, which isn't as uncommon as one might think, any player can definitely tell when that big-head community rep replies on the forums doesn't even bother responding to important posts because they don't know jack about the game, and is instead jollying around in off-topic talking about the latest CSI episode. Well, according to his personal welcoming address on the Warhammer Herald, Mull is a long-time MMOG player and his past roots include working for Wizards of the Coast supporting Avalon Hill, Axis & Allies, Dreamblade, Duel Masters, and other products. Nice, roots. We here at Massively, would like to extend a welcoming hand to our new EA Mythic community overlords. (I am attempting to gain faction for beta invites for our readers when the time comes – if it comes!) If you have been out of the Warhammer loop for the past week, please be sure to check out all our recent Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning coverage.
DAoC's birthday gift
While most news surrounding Mythic these days has the words "Warhammer Online" somewhere in the title, today we spend a little time to celebrate their other great fantasy MMO: Dark Age of Camelot. DAoC has recently hit the six year mark, as was recently acclaimed by the game's producer Chris Rabideau in a letter to the readers. The game still has quite a following after all this time, and it is for that reason that he also took the time to talk about a few changes coming into the game in the coming months. Think of it as a DAoC birthday gift from the devs to the players, rather than the other way around. The devs are adding in an experimental test environment to their server structure. While this isn't the most medieval item to bring to a birthday party, it will enable the dev team to test some more robust technical elements that their current test server isn't capable of working with. I was hoping for some party favors and perhaps a hat or two, but I guess a new test server will do, at least for now. But where's the party, Mythic? Where's the party?
Are the forums necessary?
Here's something I'd like to hear all your thoughts on. Glue from Nagrand quotes the fact that "only a small portion of the playerbase read the forums," and he claims that those people are the most important players Blizzard has-- they care enough about the game to visit the forums and voice their opinions. But I'd like to play the devil's advocate on this one. What if (and stay with me here) Blizzard deleted the official forums completely?Do we really need the official forums? They do help-- besides giving us all kinds of fun reads and, yes, occasional insight, they're the main link between the CMs and the player base-- patch announcements and upcoming changes all are made known mostly through the forums, and day-to-day player feedback and questions are centered there. But they don't have to be-- Mythic's Dark Age of Camelot actually runs a daily blog featuring community news and game updates and changes. And it would be just as easy for Blizzard to announce things on their own website, and get player feedback and questions from sites just like this one.And getting rid of the forums would wipe out all of the lunacy that appears on there-- all the insensitive comments, the jeering and rickrolling, the flaming, the drama (well, actually I'm down for keeping that one), and all of the other wackiness that goes down there every day. If the CMs didn't have to deal with that stuff, wouldn't they be able to spend more time communicating player ideas to the devs? If Blizzard didn't have to pay Timbal to ban rickrollers, couldn't they use that money to come up with a new 5man, or Heroic Deadmines, or any number of other ideas they've had but couldn't carry out? If we lost the forums, wouldn't we have a better game?Food for thought. It's highly unlikely (at the very least) that Blizzard would ever shut down the official forums. But, even though they may have been necessary in the beginning, WoW's community survives in many other places now. Are the forums really necessary?
Bugs show a little emotion
Sorandra over on Livejournal has an interesting bug happening when she runs WoW in Vista-- her female draenei is showing a different skin in different situations. Out of water, she's got the face you see up on the left. But in water, a different face appears. It looks like her toon just really hates water.Of course it's just a texture error (a known one, at that), most likely fixed by updating her video drivers. But it does kind of make you wonder a little bit why Blizzard doesn't bother implementing something like this for real, and making characters actually show facial animations. Sure, the mouths move, but we can't actually frown when we /frown or smile when we /smile. If it's this easy to change the face textures, it seems like it would be just as easy to show displeasure for real.The only obstacle might be that they'd have to design different textures for each gender and race, which would take a bit of time (time probably best spent on the actual patches and expansions). Still, a little more emotion would be fun to have. If Blizzard ever gets around to doing a graphics overhaul (much like Dark Age of Camelot has done with one of their expansions), hopefully something like this will be on the list.
Reasons for fishing
Nightshift from Lightbringer has a great question over on the forums (forums back up ftw). He asks, "HOW I MINE FOR FISH?" No, just kidding, he asks: Why fish?I've always been puzzled by this too. First Aid is really the only secondary skill I've ever bothered to level up (because it's necessary for almost any class). Cooking and Fishing have never held interest for me. I tried both of them out-- on my hunter and warrior especially I thought they would come in handy. But the time (fishing) and cost (cooking ingredients) involved in both never seemed to compare to what I got out of them.Players in the thread claim you can get a lot out of fishing: special food, alchemy ingredients and recipes, and a chance at treasure that you can't get otherwise. But for the time commitment or cost, I've always found it's easier and cheaper to just pull what I need out of the AH. Fishing reminds me of crafting in Dark Age of Camelot-- if you ever played that game, you'll remember that higher level item crafting took longer and longer casting times (until, at high levels, it took like five minutes of meter watching to make one item). Both cooking and fishing seem like neat gimmicks, but in terms of gameplay, I've never really found them necessary or even interesting.I do have a Nat Pagle's Extreme Angler FC-5000 sitting in my Shaman's bank, however. Is there a good reason I should get it out and start angling? And if so, is there any way to make fishing more interesting?
