Mythic’s ward system on armour is a strange beast… I like that it creates a clear path of dungeon progression, so I don’t need to worry about getting stats to some magic number like most games for the next level of dungeons. I just get the next level up of 5 Wards and I’m all sorted.br /I think it has the potential to be a really good long term system for dungeon progression, but there’s a few things that bother me.br /br /strong1) Dungeon lock out timers/strongbr /City dungeon lock out timers being 3 days is a real pain in the arse. I can’t go to Lost Vale because I don’t have enough Greater wards, but for the next 3 days I have NO way to get more Greater wards. I’m stuck waiting for Bloodwrought Enclave and Bilerot Burrow to unlock.br /br /strong2) Random drops/strongbr /Combine the lock outs with the random drops and mix in my history of crappy luck, and you get… AGGH! I might not make it into Lost Vale for a while.br /br /Now I understand why developers put in the random loot, it’s to drag things out, keeping us playing and subscribing, but it doesn’t have to work like this. I’ve got a LOT of issues with WoW’s heroic badge system, but the basic idea is sound. If you have crap luck you’ll still get a token, then save up enough and you can exchange for a good item. Why not have something like this in WAR so you can exchange them for the Sentinel bit you’re missing?br /br /strong3) Availability of Lesser wards/strongbr /This is impacting on open RvR and encouraging RvE. Keep Lords drop lesser ward gear, the fastest way to kill a keep lord is if there’s no defenders, therefore… A lot of people will drop anything to go take an undefended keep. Even if it means leaving a zone under serious attack undefended. When I was struggling to get lesser wards I too would go for any keep I could. Most of my guild was doing the City Dungeons and as a Tank I have to have lots of lesser wards to go. It sucked to have to do that, maybe I should have been patient, but there you go.br /br /It’s also encouraged people to try and take keeps on the sly with their own small group. This is fine when nothing much is happening, but when people do it while others are distracted on Battle Objectives it can lead to bad feeling amongst your faction. And unlike WoW you can’t beat the game with just your guild, instead in WAR the community on your server is of extreme importance. Your faction needs to work together, this should be encouraged at all times and not hindered by bloody loot.br /br /Of course Bastion Stair is an option for lesser wards, but I’d rather punch myself in the face while watching a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnmWVFmZ8ik”R Kelly’s “HipOpera”/a. I hate fast respawns as much as I hate pony arsed fiddlers with delusions of grandeur.br /br /br /strongSolutions?/strongbr /br /I’m really hoping that when the missing cities are added, that they include 2 city dungeons in each and each city’s dungeons offer alternative greater ward sets. If that happens then the 3 day lock out doesnt matter, different city each night until you get your ward set. I think this would also negate the random drops enough to keep me sane.br /br /As for lesser wards. I’ve no problem with them being available in RvR, I think that’s a good thing, but they must be more reliable to get (again tokens perhaps?). Also as an aside there should be bigger incentives to take defended keeps.

I mentioned a couple of days ago that Mark Jacobs posted about their plans for fortresses. In case you’ve not seen it here’s the key info and a link to the source.br /br /br /emspan style=”color:#ffcc66;”/span/embr /emspan style=”color:#ffcc66;”Over the next few weeks, we will be working on a number of initiatives that I can now talk about. /span/embr /emspan style=”color:#ffcc66;”br /First, the team will tweak the settings for the Fortress Lords to make sure that their power is in line with the current numbers of players expected to participate in the siege. Second, the team will continue working on optimizing the code’s performance in large-scale battles so we can increase the population cap over the next few weeks. Third, the team is looking at additional tweaking of the pop cap to ensure that it is where it needs to be in order to allow these battles to be as well-balanced (from a design perspective) as they can be.br /+++br /Most importantly, the team will also be looking at moving the fortress areas out to their own zones to allow an even a greater of number of players to participate, while also maintaining a high level of performance. While they are doing that, they will also be looking at ways to enhance the fortress areas to take advantage of having their own dedicated zone.br /+++br /However, we won’t move the sieges into their own zones unless we are sure that we can get either some deign and/or performance improvements by doing so.br /+++br /Oh, and expect a major announcement from us at the end of the month regarding our plans for the next few months and beyond. It’s going to get even more interesting around these parts soon. /span/embr /emspan style=”color:#ffcc66;”br /br /emspan style=”color:#ffffff;”Source:/span /span/ema href=”http://vnboards.ign.com/warhammer_online_age_of_reckoning_general_board/b22997/109912617/p1/?0″http://vnboards.ign.com/warhammer_online_age_of_reckoning_general_board/b22997/109912617/p1/?0/abr /If you have read this already and it’s old news, sorry, have a picture of the world’s sexiest Orc.br //span/embr /br /em/span/ema href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_YbXHpJPLjjM/SWqTIMr4gwI/AAAAAAAAAAc/HhgNPoo7YM0/s1600-h/big-ebony-booty-6.jpg”img id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290202481353589506″ style=”DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 232px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center” alt=”" src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_YbXHpJPLjjM/SWqTIMr4gwI/AAAAAAAAAAc/HhgNPoo7YM0/s320/big-ebony-booty-6.jpg” border=”0″ //abr /Orc artwork created by the genius(?)of Durtbocks…

Something I was really hoping would not be in WAR that featured heavily in WoW, was the old must have class X to do instance Y. You know the bit where you have to take a Warlock because a certain boss needs something banishing, or you need a hunter for tranq shot, or bloody mages and sheep. It’s something that can be really frustrating when your class isn’t perfect for certain instances and you struggle to get groups (unless you’re in a good guild that’s not full of numpties).br /br /It seems WAR almost escaped it, but a bit has sneaked in. Bilerot Burrow… Thanks to thier monstrous damage dealing aura type thing, those bloody Plaguebeasts are only really doable if you take some ranged DPS. Not so long ago there was a night where we had no ranged DPS online, but we tried Bilerot anyway with just melee DPS. As anyone that’s been there before will know, uh uh, bad idea. After enduring repetitive pain not dissimilar to an a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq_Bao_AJDc”N-Dubz/a track (nice hat btw.. init), we gave up. Other times I’ve been to Bilerot those mobs have been a pain at times, but with some ranged DPS they’re easily kiteable, or with a bit of luck and good gear, you can just tank and spank.br /br /Which sucks for melee DPS players that are not in a decent and/or active guild. If it’s anything like WoW then random pick up groups just wont take them along… Surely it’s not impossible to put in mechanics to the fights that a melee DPS could do, say having something in the environment they could trigger to do damage, a puss bomb of doom or something.br /br /I’ve not been able to go to Lost Vale yet due to crap luck with Sentinel drops in Bilerot, but at least as a tank I can get groups no problem…

a href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_YbXHpJPLjjM/SWgJ86ua3QI/AAAAAAAAAAU/CMUjV1WepGI/s1600-h/j8ck87.jpg”img id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5289488704507403522″ style=”FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 87px” alt=”" src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_YbXHpJPLjjM/SWgJ86ua3QI/AAAAAAAAAAU/CMUjV1WepGI/s320/j8ck87.jpg” border=”0″ //abr /diva href=”http://i43.tinypic.com/j8ck87.jpg”/abr /br /div/divbr /br /div/divdiv/divdiv/divdiv/divdiv/divdiv/divdiv/divbr /divI saw this advert on Warhammer Alliance the other day and thought why the hell not /divdivThe guys at a href=”http://blogwarhammer.net/”http://blogwarhammer.net//a have an initiative going to help new WAR Bloggers get started. So if it’s something you fancy having a go at, or you just want to find some new blogs to read, go check out their website./divdiv/divdiv/divbr /diva href=”http://blogwarhammer.net/viewtopic.php?f=6amp;t=146″http://blogwarhammer.net/viewtopic.php?f=6amp;t=146/a/divbr /br /div/div/div

One of my guildies was in Caledor with his Witch Elf yesterday when he got jumped by 2 Witch Hunters. While the fight was going on, a Swordmaster strolled up and watched. The guy from my guild is well known on our server as a good player, and managed to kill both Witch Hunters, but as you can imagine he had barely any hitpoints left. So the Swordmaster walks up and kills him. Fair enough, this is WAR after all, but then the guy feels the need to spam /laugh and /point emotes at the corpse.br /br /Of course we’re all on ventrilo and hear about it, and as I’m in Caledor anyway, as soon as I see the Swordmaster I chase him down and start hitting. Turns out that I kill him with very little difficulty… The guy was doing stupid crap like running in circles around me (the mighty strafe turn! Reminds me of Mechwarrior 4 ), despite the fact I put Touch of Palsy on him 3 times…br /br /I’m not complaining about it, it was funny as hell for us and made him look like a proper tool, but why is it the cocky twats that spam emotes on people almost invariably turn out to be… well, a bit rubbish School bully syndrome?

Your faction’s guilds pull together, Keeps fall, Objectives are claimed and scenarios are won. The tier is locked and the enemy fortress is there for the taking… You battle inside, slowly of course because the 3 FPS lag has kicked in, but the Keep Lord is in sight! BLAM! Zone crashes. Doh!br /br /Mythic’s original plan for Fortress takes didn’t work out. Hardly any (defended) fortresses have been taken, on our server it’s only happened once I believe when the Keep Lord bugged down to the lower floor. It’s been a big disappointment for a lot of people and as one of the big sells for WAR, quite understandably. However, people (Mythic included) should have realised this wasn’t going to work straight away. It was always going to need testing in a live environment before it could get sorted out. You simply cannot get 500+ players in a small area like that without making servers and code cry. I can’t think of any MMO that’s done it successfully yet.br /br /For me it’s been a bit of a let down, but not the OMFG WAR EPIC FAIL crap spouted by some. For a start it was no shock as I’d played things like DaoC and Planetside from beta/launch and I was expecting it to take a good few months for it to stabilise or for an alternative solution, but a big factor is because the server I play on is very active. Keep takes don’t happen very often because both sides aggressively defend to stop the enemy getting to that point. Whilst this means it’s probably a bigger disappointment when we get to a fortress and it crashes, it also means I’m having a great laugh in the rest of the oRvR (Open Realm vs Realm combat), which actually takes up the vast majority of my game time. Though I’m sure given time it would become more annoying…br /br /Thankfully Mythic are acting. Their interim solution has gone live and they have confirmed they are throwing everything at a long term solution and have also apologised and acknowledged the problem. They certainly put more effort into communicating than I ever saw from Blizzard, SOE or Funcom to name a few. Of course now they have to deliver on what they’ve said…br /br /It’s going to be an interesting few weeks as we see how this interim solution pans out.br /br /Just found some more news too. Check this link out br /br /a href=”http://vnboards.ign.com/warhammer_online_age_of_reckoning_general_board/b22997/109912617/p1/?59″http://vnboards.ign.com/warhammer_online_age_of_reckoning_general_board/b22997/109912617/p1/?59/abr /br /Sounds promising for sure. Also the “emOh, and expect a major announcement from us at the end of the month regarding our plans for the next few months and beyond. It’s going to get even more interesting around these parts soon/em.” is more than a little intriguing…

I’ve been on beta and launch for most of the major MMOs since Ultima Online, I have to say other than GOA’s open beta cock up, this has been the smoothest MMO launch I’ve ever been on. The servers are very stable (with the exception of fortress raids, more on that later), the classes amp; factions are much better balanced than you would expect at launch and the CTDs (Crash to Desktop) were nothing compared with the likes of Age of Conan… Following on from the launch day Mythics patching has been excellent. Content of the regular hot fixes and larger patches have been well communicated, and noticeably have rarely introduced other problems. So certainly in my mind, the best launch I’ve ever been on. However in this post WoW age, is this probably best ever MMO launch good enough?br /br /The veterans of other MMO launches were playing games with subscription figures of up to around 430,000 subs (EQ for example), but with WoW you’re talking over 11 million subs! Today’s MMO publishers want a piece of that 11 million pie, so when launching a new MMO a developer is now dealing with WoW’s monstrous subscription numbers. But the vast majority of those WoW players haven’t been on an MMO launch before; WoW was their first MMO… They don’t give 2 shits that this is a great launch, even when compared with WoWs, they weren’t on the WoW launch anyway. They are comparing WoW NOW with WAR at launch. They expect WAR to instantly be on par with a game that’s had 4 years of patching and live testing, so that’s barely any bugs and 4 years of patched content included please! Clearly that’s just not possible, but is the new breed of players from the WoW age wrong to expect this?br /br /Yes and no. WoW’s horde of new MMO gamers are here, they expect their MMO to be faultless (anything else would be EPIC FAIL!!111), they’re very loud about it and they are paying your subs fee. If you want to compete then as a developer you must accept that and deal with it. It is what it is. Which means you need a damn well polished game and a shit load of content. But those gamers that write off WAR because it’s not as “polished” as WoW (yet) are also missing out. If they chill out with the rage about the odd bug or things working differently, read up about MMO launches, listen to what Mythic are saying (and importantly are doing) and look at the game objectively, they’d see this game has massive potential. Potential that on active servers is starting to be to kick in. Of course people just argue, they’re paying for this game, so why should they care about MMO history.br /br /It’s impossible to launch a flawless MMO, but it seems to me that these days only a flawless MMO will be an instant hit, if what qualifies as a hit is judged against WoW’s subscription numbers. A new MMO needs time to develop in a live setting, but it’s now imperative that development is of a high quality. It needs to be tempting people away from WoW, not just an alternative, it needs to be a temptation.br /br /br /However, I think WAR will end up having millions of subscribers and establish itself as the clear second place MMO. EA are not stupid, they know that Mythic are on the ball, they know that they’ve got the best licence in gaming and they sure as hell will understand the MMO world today (EA owns Ultima Online for example). If you are on an active server the game right now is awesome fun, I’ve had more memorably epic moments in the last few months than I did in all 4 years of WoW. Then if you look at the content additions we know about for this year… we have 4 major cities to be added, which judging by the current cities should mean another 4 end game and 6 mid range dungeons for each faction. And then we’ve got the last 2 missing classes apparently coming in the next few months. That’s sure as hell going to draw some attention.