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Games Day '09: Managing realm vs. realm combat with Jeff Skalski pt. 2
On top of that, we are aggressively looking at city sieges. On the RvR team, that's where the big focus is. The last big improvement in the open RvR arena was adding a second ramp to the keeps, but now our focus is on the city. We want to make sure that players know what's going on, like with the stages of the city. It's really three stages -- contested when you enter in, then the attackers can push it to pillaged so the warlord PQs open up, then it goes to captured and you unlock the king's instance for a set amount of time. "Our goal is to make the city siege RvR, not RvE." Our goal is to make the city siege RvR, not RvE. We want to put more focus on killing players, capturing and holding objectives, and we want that to be the front from beginning to end so there's always RvR in the game. So that's what we're looking at right now, working with those concepts and fleshing out those ideas. Any previews or details on that yet?It's really too early to say. We just started meeting with our core testers and explaining to them the ideas we have, and we're throwing things out there while finalizing what we want to do. I can say that for the players out there who are saying, "Oh, make it more epic, make it more epic," well that's what we're focusing on. We're trying to bring the quality of epic up, but at the same time we have many other things going on too. There's always bug fixing and things to work on, so we have to be careful. We want to react quickly and get it done now rather work on it for 10 months and fix it next year.What would you say to a player who holds the opinion that something like Warcraft's PvP is superior to Warhammer's RvR?This is my opinion, but I find when I talk to players who have that opinion that it's about convenience as to why they prefer the WoW model of PvP over the WAR model. We're really seeing a change. So, for you and I, we've been playing MMOs for a while. But there are people out there who have never touched any other MMO except for WoW. That game is all they know. They don't know what EQ was like, they don't know what UO was like, they don't know what MUDs are, so they don't have this broad concept. They just want stuff now and they want to get out quickly. They want instant gratification and they want to be constantly patted on the back with an enthusiastic, "Good job, good job!" "Then we added in the token system because we understand that at the end of the day you just may not get that loot roll." So when WAR was launched, we didn't have anything like the token system. We just took the approach of, "Well, you're just going to have to work for it. I'm sorry, but you have to go out, fight enemies, get through their keeps, and go for it." What ended up happening was the players began taking the path of least resistance. Players even went to lengths to avoid one another, and that really confused us. We thought they had bought our game to RvR, but they're avoiding enemies! Then we had things like keep trading and round robin keeps going on, so that's why we went to zone domination. It's why we took the rewards off of flipping a keep and put it on flipping the zone. That way you're not just hopping from pairing to pairing and going around, and around, and around. Now they want to capture and fight for that zone.Then we added in the token system because we understand that at the end of the day you just may not get that loot roll. I, honestly, have horrible luck. I rarely, if ever, get the gold bag. Now for participating you get this token. Sure, you need a lot of them, but you know you're getting somewhere.We're learning a lot about the player base. We hear all of the feedback from the players and hear what they're complaining about. When I come into work in the morning I have, from multiple sources, the top five issues of the game. And that helps me and the other producers determine exactly what we need to put our teams on. What needs to be hotfixed before the weekend, what needs to be put into the next patch, or whatever.So they game is getting better. The game is better today than it was at launch in terms of stability, performance, and how the systems are working. We have teams dedicated to it and we just keep pushing it. 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: Lands of the Dead design discussion with Gabe Amatangelo and Jeff Skalski
After saying goodbye to Paul and Josh, I soon found myself sitting down with Gabe Amatangelo, the senior designer on Land of the Dead, and Jeff Skalski, the RvR team lead, with the task of getting inside the Land of the Dead development process.What I got were some great insights into how testing and development works at Mythic Entertainment, as well as some inside facts on Land of the Dead and some great reasons for why players should come back and try out some WAR. Interested in what sparked the movement to an action RPG dynamic? Wondering what features may not have made the final Land of the Dead cut? All of that and more is inside this Games Day interview.
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!
The market crashes... for WAR's token system
This may be one of the few times a market crash is seen as a good thing. Mythic just released a hotfix that greatly reduces the pricing of RvR quartermaster token set gear, improves the drop rate of RvR set gear, and gives tokens as rewards for keep and battlefield objective defense.Players were begging for a token system shortly after Warhammer Online's launch in late 2008 and finally received one about a month ago. The only major complaint about the new system was that prices seemed extremely expensive. Some players on the forums even claimed they were leveling out of a tier before they were able to afford the gear for that tier. Rather than rush to immediately drop prices, Mythic stated they would monitor the new system and adjust prices accordingly.We think it's pretty safe to say that most subscribers will be letting out a big "Woot!" for this news. The amount of medallions required for quartermaster sets has been reduced by up to 50%. Some set items are now much cheaper while the more rare pieces of the set are only slightly cheaper. Officer medallions now drop off players rank 30 and above. Invader city gear can now be earned more quickly. Finally, the repeatable chain quests from war camps and defense of keep and BO now reward tokens.
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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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!
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!
One Shots: Time to party!
There's something to be said for successfully defending your home from the invading hordes of Destruction in Warhammer Online. Aside from just the knowledge that you've played hard and fought well, there's the inevitable bragging rights - and the chance at some tasty goodies too! Today's Warhammer Online One Shots comes in to us from Rumil Silverdawn, a Swordmaster from the guild Prophecy on the Phoenix Throne server. Rumil writes in: Here's a screen of me and a few of my Order friends after a successful fortress defense. As you can tell it was quite a party with the loot chest being the guest of honor! (You can't see it but it's in there amongst all the bodies.) Oh and as a shout out to all the Destro... Thanks for the RPs!!If you've got a moment of smacktalking you'd like to pass on, feel free to email it (along with a good battle shot!) to oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name and the name of the game. We'll post it here and relay the taunt - but we make no guarantees you won't get dogpiled by the other side for it. %Gallery-9798%
Aika to be first free-to-play fantasy RvR MMORPG
Move over Dark Age of Camelot. Step aside Warhammer Online. There's a new realm vs. realm MMORPG on the block, and it's free-to-play! Gala-Net, Inc., a leading free-to-play online game publisher, recently announced their partnership with HanbitSoft to publish Aika Online in the North American market.Having watched some videos and read some reviews, the game appears to share several similarities with both of Mythic's aforementioned RvR innovators. Aika will feature quests, item crafting, gender-locked classes, and yes, large scale RvR including keep sieges. The publishers claim they can handle battles up to 1000 vs. 1000. That will be quite a feat considering the detailed graphics and animations.That's about where the similarities seem to end though. Aika is an MMO of South Korean descent and definitely has the look and sound effects. The MMO will also be free to play (just how free, we don't know yet), boast sophisticated voice-overs, and come packaged in a tiny 300MB download. And then there's the interesting (some might say creepy) "Pran system." Prans are kind of like pets from traditional MMOs, except that they are young girls. According to one review, you can interact with your Pran, dress it up, give it dolls, help it grow, and boost its intimacy/relationship rank.
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 (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: 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.
WAR patch 1.21 may be interim, but its beefy taste surprises
Mythic is patching Warhammer to 1.21 today, and while the number suggests that it is an interim patch, its beefy flavor suggests otherwise. In true WAR fashion, this new patch boasts a number of big additions and improvements, including upgrades to keep siege, tweaks to combat responsiveness, and a brand new RvR token system.Guilds that claim keeps can now upgrade them in various ways. Players can upgrade doors, add special merchants (e.g., siege, door repair, guild banker, etc.), add special guards, and increase the overall guard patrol sizes. On the other hand, attackers can now use a special new currency called Ordnance to purchase new and improved siege weapons.Combat responsiveness issues have plagued WAR since launch and Mythic keeps promising fixes with each new patch. Hopefully, they have nailed it this time around. Players should no longer experience casting bar delays under normal RvR conditions and animations will be improved if everything goes according to plan.Phase one of the token system introduced in 1.21 will focus on the RvR campaign. New medallions and crests will drop off players of appropriate renown throughout all tiers, which can then be exchanged for RvR set gear (e.g., Annihilator, Invader, etc.). Tokens will also be rewarded for capturing keeps, zones, forts, and completing various stages of city siege.For more information on these items and much, much more, read the official 1.21 patch highlights as your client updates.
WAR: Order bites back, tearing down the Inevitable City
Are North American Warhammer servers too competitive or are the players just lazier than their brethren across the pond. Europeans can boast another world-first in WAR as Order members of Eltharion took down Tchar'zanek only a couple weeks after K8P took down Karl Franz.One of the biggest pre-launch worries about WAR was that Destruction would boast a huge population advantage over Order and continually dominate. Players were a bit worried when Destuction was first to capture a city, but, albeit on a different server, this return strike by Order bodes well for the game's future in terms of realm balance. The true test of balance, however, is whether or not Order on K8P or Destruction on Eltharion can capture a city.We will call this capture legitimate even though Mythic announced that they are making some changes to the king encounters based on what happened after K8P took down Franz. Tchar'zanek was killed before the new fixes could be implemented.Ironically, this marks EU's second world-first even though some EU players feel they are treated as second-class citizens when it comes to WAR. Congratulations seem to be in order *cough cough*, so cheers! Oh, and to you NA players... hurry up, why don't ya!?Video after the cut![Via: Bio Break]
First legitimate city capture in Warhammer Online
This world-first was over six months in the making: One of the realms finally managed to overtake their enemy's capital city in Warhammer Online without any known form of exploitation. Destruction of Karak Eight Peaks (EU) defeated Karl Franz over a 14-hour marathon run this weekend and successfully captured Altdorf.In dramatic fashion, the Third Realm alliance finished the necessary public quests gating the king instance with only two minutes remaining. After a number of wipes, they had Franz caged and ready for rotten fruit and vegetable target practice. They were rewarded greatly for their efforts.Taking out the king in WAR is no easy feat as it requires hours upon hours and luck upon luck to gain the necessary gear to do so. Hearty congratulations are definitely in order (no pun intended). Mythic recently announced plans for a new token system that should help players get into the necessary warded gear faster than before. However, it's hard to say how long it will be before we hear news of another city capture. Was this sacking a one-off or have the floodgates opened?You can watch a video of the king fight after the cut.
