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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."
Lands of the Dead vs. Darkness Falls: Don't mess with perfection
Mythic recently announced plans for a huge "live expansion" called Call to Arms that would span several months and culminate in the release of a new mega-zone called Lands of the Dead. LotD has been described by the developers as a spiritual successor to Darkness Falls, a dungeon that is considered by many as the best thing to ever come out of Dark Age of Camelot.This announcement has many people drooling and speculating on the possibilities because we haven't been given many details to work with. What we do know is that players will have to fight for control of it. The zone will be called Lands of the Dead (aka Nehekhara) and themed on the Tomb Kings. Controlling the zone will give you access to public quests, instance lairs, and a massive dungeon that holds secrets of something called the Casket of Souls (similar to the Ark of the Covenant).If Nehekhara is going to be as good for Warhammer Online as Darkness Falls was for Dark Age of Camelot, I believe Mythic must mimic its predecessor as closely as possible. Continue reading below the cut where we'll discuss how they can succeed and how they can fail.
Mythic's official website highlights the new Call to Arms expansion
All through the mid-day we've been talking about the newly-announced Call to Arms expansion coming for Warhammer Online. It's impressive stuff, with brand-new classes, an enormous new mega-zone, and a brand-new holiday event slated all for the next few months. That ambitious schedule and the great information we've had on the site today is great to read through.For more details, head on over to the official Mythic website for their take on the events. Their preview of the expansion itself gives a great timetable on the events: Call to Arms: Bitter Rivals Live Event (March): The Orc Choppa and Dwarf Slayer answer the Call to Arms and join WAR! (March) Call to Arms: Beyond the Sands Live Event (April) Call to Arms: Rise of the Tomb Kings Live Event (May) Land of the Dead Opens (June) They also have more information on the Bitter Rivals event (including some hints about the tasks we'll be taking on). And as for the Night of Murder, well, they have a bunch of information about how we'll be marked for death come Valentine's Day (as in the picture above). Head over to the Herald for more of those great WAR-related details. Mythic has announced the first expansion to Warhammer Online! Check out the announcement itself, the two brand-new classes coming to the game, and the enormous new dungeon/zone slated for a few months away! Plus, don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!
Mega-dungeon called the Lands of the Dead coming to Warhammer Online
Darkness Falls. Those two little words conjure up amazing vistas to players that delved deeply into Dark Age of Camelot. The release of that content in that game - an enormous dungeon fraught with danger and loot, and disputed by vicious PvP skirmishes - is arguably the finest hour of Mythic's development. Hearing Warhammer Online's Jeff Hickman talk about new content that harkens back to that style of gameplay may mean a return to truely rare form for the still-struggling title.In the same discussion with Mr. Hickman where we unveiled the new classes coming to WAR and the Valentine's Day event, he walked us through the capstone of the Call to Arms expansion. The Land of the Dead, a massive egyptian-themed zone, will be unleashed on the armies of Order and Destruction sometime around May. We have full details on the expansion's crown jewel below the cut, including why they went in this direction and what you're likely to see the first time you set foot in the zone. Check it out below!%Gallery-43282%
Mythic announces the first live expansion to Warhammer Online!
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/Warhammer_Online_first_expansion_has_new_classes_huge_zone'; Massively.com recently had the chance to speak with Warhammer Online Executive Producer Jeff Hickman. Mr. Hickman laid out for us the much anticipated 'bombshell' news for their PvP-focused MMO: an entire expansion being released over the next few months as live events. Warhammer Executive Producer Jeff Hickman: We've been launched for four or five months now, and all we've done for this time is looking at the game, listening to our players, playing the game ourselves. We've been drilling down into all of the little pieces that weren't quite right for us. We've been looking at client/server stability, what we can do with the RvR system, introducing the two new classes ... we've drilled down on any and all concerns that players might have to perfect the game as it stands right now. With that starting to be under control, we looked ahead and said to ourselves, "we have about four or five months to do some really interesting, cool new events." We're calling it a live expansion. We're trying to hit really hard for players that haven't tried Warhammer, or perhaps players that tried it and then went off to play Lich King or something like that. We want them to come back, see all the improvements we've made, and all the new content coming up. We're calling it "a Call to Arms." Read on below the cut for full details on the expansion, head over to the official site for their take, or click through to one of our related posts for further information: The Choppa and Slayer enter the game in "Bitter Rivals" The Land of the Dead recalls Darkness Falls in an all-new mega-zone Valentine's Day gets bloody as "The Night of Murder" %Gallery-21882%
