Overall this changes seem to have deep impact and I’m not sure how they connect to each other.. The first one is the previously mentioned consideration of weapons dps for healing and magic. Overall I think that the idea is good, but the presented numbers are way out of proportion. I’m not sure how much the weapons dps adds to melee damage, but healing gets a huge boost. Just as an example Andy posted:

Rune of Regeneration, with 750 Willpower:

• Current (1.3.4 Live) – 2171 total healing
• 1.3.5 with a 68 DPS staff – 2465 total healing
• 1.3.5 with a 101 DPS staff – 2654 total healing

I’m not sure if this is in line with melee power. In general I still like the idea because it gives a bit more of variety on choosing the weapons, it’s not just pure healing-crit for a healer.

Now comes the tricky part.. It’s planned to buff the Zelots and Runepriest.

Overall I think they get the right spells for buffing, because right now they are too weak.  I tested a spec with focusing on Grungi (single target) spells and used the crit-tactic from the Grungni spec-line.. you have to exaggerate to call it underperforming. It’s way too weak. On the other hand.. Lowering the ap-costs and increasing the base healing value from 200 to 270 ..combining this with the dps-boost ..well that seems a lot and I will definitely try a more Grungi spec line with that. It gives Runepriests and Zelots a lot of mobility and makes them much more valuable in RvR.

This changes will change the way battles work in a big way.. I’m not sure if it’s too much and we need a general toning down of dps and heal and not the other way..but we’ll see.

Full post: WarhammerFeeds.com

In development for 1.3.5

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Anyways, yesterday I pugged Sarth. It was the weekly. And the pug raid was very well geared, so they went for the Twilight Zone Achievement, which we got using the zerg ’strat’. On the first try. With 2 lonely mages left standing. Iceblock FTW. My DPS wasn’t too shabby. Lagging behind the mages and hunters but better than all the other hybrids and even the token rogue. Cutting to the chase, for about a half-hour’s worth of raiding I got a rather coveted title – Twilight Vanquisher (it’s still pretty rare), 5 Frost Badges due to it being the weekly raid, and to top it all off I won one of the best DPS trinkets available, Fury of the Five Flights. Been losing out on Whispering Fanged Skull every week – either a rogue/hunter/ret pally/something else wins it, or it doesn’t drop, and we’ve kinda ceased doing TOC 25man which is a pity, I’d love to get my hands on Death’s Choice. QQ. Barring those two, running Greatness and Five Flights is the best in slot available to me right now.

It’s pretty odd how an off night raiding a pug with a bunch of randoms worked out more lucrative to me than grinding ICC10 with my guildies, and really does serve to illustrate how this game has changed since Burning Crusade where, if you wanted to see any kind of raiding content at all, you had to be in a guild. Today, it’s only really the top tier content that requires you to be in a guild and even that’s not necessarily ironclad, I see people organising ICC runs in tradechat every day. Today guilds are strictly there for social reasons and strictly progression.

But for Gearing? Farming?
Go Pug.

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Pug It FTW

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• Economy Improvements, 
• Weapon DPS applied to all damage and healing.
• Upcoming class balance changes for 1.3.5.  

I’m still digesting the info, so I’ll refrain from posting opinions until tomorrow. I will now quote the great sage, Meat Loaf.  “Two out of three ain’t bad”

Full post: WarhammerFeeds.com

Mythic wants your feedback

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Of course it sucks many players out of the RvR and into the sc to farm those tokens, but this is a chance..at least on Drakenwald. With fewer people in RvR the campaign gets slowed down to a speed that feels somewhat comfortable to me.

It’s not city siege after city siege. Those occur right now rarely in prime time. Most of the time it happens on the early evening or late at night. Most of the time not at all ..at least at the times when I play. It’s more RvR than standing at flags in a city.

This is a good thing … City sieges are imo one of the worst parts in the game. Keeping more RvR and scenarios open is just more fun. Though I prefer the first more than the latter, both are better than city sieges

The speed of the campaign and zone locking was way too fast and earned way too fast and easy renown ..getting this slowed down was one of the things I wished for some time now. Funnily it’s done by something I don’t like in the first place..

-

Zizlak (doomdiver.wordpress.com)

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Those side effects

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Last week I posted about getting more out of your pet (Turret, Lion, Squig and Demon).  To do that, I used the Loyal Pet add-on.  That seemed like a great one to use for the first video. 

You can find Loyal Pet at Curse.  To install, just download it and unpack it into your Interface/AddOns directory.  Once in game, you can access it using: /lpet gui

NOTE: Loyal Pet also needs LibSlash to run.  

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Tools of WAR: Loyal Pet

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It would be nice if Blizzard actually read that. I don’t arena myself, but a little bit of tooling about in Battlegrounds over the past couple weeks as an experiment in DK PVP viability has more than illustrated about a zillion different faults with this class. About the only viable spec seems to be 0/19/52 Shadowfrost, and all it seems to be able to do is root people and do a little bit of pathetic ranged damage, with the occasional 5 second silence to annoy a healer. Everything else sucks, survivability sucks, damage sucks, utility sucks.  Playing a DK in PVP feels like being a mosquito. You’re a mild annoyance, and your sole reason for existence is to buzz around and try and distract people from the real threats (ie warriors, rogues, and just about every other class in the game)

Anyone would agree that a plate class that has to play as a ranged class because it’s ranged abilities hit harder than it’s melee abilities, is completely fucking stupidly rubbish. It’s not even that our ranged hits for a lot. Just that they hit harder than our 41+ point ranged talented main strikes. Spend 10, 15 seconds lining up death runes to queue 3 SS’s and blow a 4 minute ERP and hit for 800, 1K, the occasional 2K crit? In a world full of people running around with 1k+ resilience and 30K+ health? Are you fucking kidding me?

It’s gotten so bad that spending 1 lousy talent point for Scourge Strike is seen as a waste. And, frankly, version 3.3.3 Scourge Strike isn’t going to fix that at all, and might in fact make it worse.

This class needs to be completely overhauled for PVP. It’s an outright abortion as it stands. No ifs, ands or buts, and instead of defending the undefendable, Blizzard needs to make some hard calls.

Until then, I’m boycotting PVP with this class entirely. Solid PVE DPS, mediocre/bad but workable tanking, but utter downright total garbage at PVP. It was a an interesting but ultimately unrewarding and in fact downright disappointing experience. There’s nothing ‘deathy‘ about the Death Knight, at least not in PVP. At this rate, they may as well change the class name to LoLKnight.

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Everything that’s wrong with DK PVP

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Steve Danuser (Creative Director at 38 Studios) recently left a comment in one of my posts:

“Gamers need to stop thinking that press releases are written for them.

Press releases are written for reporters, investors, and executives. They are meant to grab the attention of low-attention-span suits who don’t have time to really understand anything about games besides whether or not they will make money…”

An understandable sentiment, although I have poked holes in it before.  Let’s ignore the whole side of press releases where things announced make it onto feature lists, etc. etc., and focus on another angle.  These releases which are supposedly not written for gamers, yet pasted onto every gaming news site out there and publicly available for the world to see, do carry with them influence and relevant material for the players whether or not they’re intended for our us or not.

As a player, here’s what I see:

On 38 Studios’ main page, and many subsequent pages for that matter, you’ll now find a big fat EA logo.  Note the placement of said logo.  It is at the top.  Note the size.  It is the biggest of the logos.  Am I wrong to read into this?  It seems silly to ignore history when it is reenacting itself right before my eyes.

Clearly 38 Studios needs the money and/or channels provided by EA or else the partnership would not have been made.  No one says, “Hey, I think it would be fun to partner with EA!!” — doesn’t happen.  As a prospective player I am immediately seeing warning signs that I’ve seen in other games such as Warhammer Online.  EA has a way of forcing things to release.  EA has a way of acquiring their partners.  EA has a way of influencing and directly controlling the design of the games they publish.  These are facts.

Perhaps EA will remain hands off and simply publish.  Perhaps EA won’t sneak its way into other titles from 38 Studios such as their MMO.  Perhaps hell will freeze over.  Good luck on this one guys… I’m afraid I already know how this one will end.

So, if these press releases aren’t written for gamers, then why is this one speaking to me ever so clear?

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EAt 38 Studios

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To put the situation into context… We had a 2 and a half group warband in the city siege instance and I was in the third group consisting of 3 players. The moment I refer to above happened when my 3 man group moved to scout and claim the Temple objective, whilst our other groups recapped the Monolith over on the far side of the map. Shortly after entering the temple we got jumped by the aforementioned 12 Order and in seconds my 2 squishy companions were eating the dirt. Yelling for help on ventrilo, I tried to buy as much time as possible before my inevitable demise. Futile surely as my comrades were in relative terms miles away.

But no… I managed to hold off all 12 Order and stayed alive long enough for my requested reinforcements to arrive from the Monolith. I then took part in the slaughter and walked away with their sweet renown.
This should not have been possible.

I think it’s fair to say I’m quite good with my Chosen, I’ll give most people a good fight, but I wouldn’t go so far as suggesting I’m one of the best Karak Norn has to offer, far from it more likely. So this wasn’t down to my uberness or any epeen bollocks. My gear is fairly good; Tyrant and Invader (or Warlord depending). Nothing unusual though. I also play completely straight. I don’t cheat, won’t use the more dubious add ons and loathe the idea or exploits or any such thing. I operate a strict no cheating policy within my guild anyway.

So how did I do it?

“I” didn’t. I simply did the sensible things for that situation, the same things any half experienced Chosen would do. The reason I survived the fight was down to what my enemies did, or in this case didn’t do.

These days I’m a sword and board Chosen, which means I can block and parry very effectively to the front. In fact with my current spec, once Mixed Defences activates (once I block) I will be running at around 32% block and 63% parry. Combined with my high armour, resists and toughness that adds up to a bloody tough bastard to kill head on. However a HUGE part of my mitigation is ignored if you attack me from the flanks and rear. Do that from multiple directions and Chosen like me is in a lot of trouble.  

Of course if, like my opponents in the Temple, you decide to just hit me head on and not even try to flank, well… A minute or two later you end up as a bloody mess all over my shield once the lads have WAAAGHed your face in I think in WAR sometimes people focus so much on just hitting hard and ability spamming that they forget to spare any thought for their opponent. Yet good movement, at the right time and against the right enemy is one of the key things that seperates the good players from the rest.

Witch Hunters are a classic example. I know bucket loads of Witch Hunters that hit hard, probably because that part of being a Witch Hunter is easy. Stack the right stats, hit the abilities, job done. It’s the same with my Witch Elf. But there are a much smaller number of Witch Hunters that are difficult opponents. They are the ones that know how to survive if their initial burst doesn’t work, they are the ones that are hard to hit, but know how to maximise their chance to hit you. Basically, they are the ones with the fancy moves.  

Full post: WarhammerFeeds.com

Smooth movers win fights

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With all of the excitement surrounding Game Update 1.3.4 the WAR Blogging Community has been a-Twitter (ba-dum-pah) talking about all of the changes. The Mythic Community team wanted to take a moment to recognize some of our veteran bloggers and to welcome some new faces to the crowd!

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Community Spotlight – WAR Blogger Roll Call!

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The expansion pack adds a new race to the game, called The Order.  They are on a crusade to convert everyone else to their religion (similar to the Ori in SG1).  They bring with them a bunch of new toys for you to cause mayhem.

Let’s start with the ships.  The pack comes with 11 brand new ships ranging from fighters up to the big cruisers.  The art and design for these ships is amazing.  They are pretty original as video game space ships go.  I really like how they use a beam to hold themselves together rather than some solid material.

There are several new weapons, some of which can only be used on Order ships.  A common theme for The Order is radiation.  Two of the new weapons deliver this nasty payload.  In MMO terms, it’d be a DoT.  If you can get it through the shields, you will cause some nice damage over time.

The expansion pack also has two new maps in which you can fight.  The first is a survival scenario.  Survival maps are like arcade games.  You will face an endless wave of enemies in your quest for the top score.  Of course, what good is a high score without a high score list?  The second is a regular battle map, but with asteroids. 

The pack itself doesn’t change much about the game itself.  Gameplay will remain largely the same, except for more toys to play with.  If you are a fan of GSB, it is likely worth the money.  If not, it probably won’t change your mind. 

Overall, I liked the expansion pack.  The new ships are great and add some more replay value to the game.  The pack will set you back $6, so it is cheaper than a movie. It is a digital download, so go here for more information.  As of this writing, it is not yet available on Steam but would be found here.

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Werit takes on The Order

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We will be bringing all North American servers offline tomorrow, 3/9/2010, morning at 9:00 AM EST for maintenance. At this time we anticipate that all servers will be back online no later than 1:00 PM EST. As always, please be sure to check the Herald for up to the minute information regarding this downtime.

Thank you for your continued support.

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Server Maintenance – 3/9/2010

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What happens when that feeling is not present?  It can be missing in various ways from the start of a game.  It can also be present but then be removed or destroyed.  In the case of Allods, the feeling that I was committed to my character was definitely there until the rollercoaster of bad news/good news began.  The most recent bad news has been that, while perfume costs are down, the mechanic has been changed so that you must consume many of them at once.  Without burdening you with too many unnecessary details, it has effectively made me no longer think about the future — I’ve stopped caring.

I heard the following analogy that fits:  It’s like knowing the train you’re on is going to crash later — you’re going to get off before it does.  There are several things to note about this.

The game is not even broken -yet- but people will stop playing because it’s going to be.  Those that do keep playing will be depressed (unless clueless to the whole situation) and will likely not play the same way.  No matter what, the community shrinks and begins to plummet.   At this point, even if the future problem is averted, people have already detached themselves from their character and the game to the point that returning is easily overlooked.

It’s probably the absolute worst position that a game can be in because no matter what happens you’re screwed.  The only way to avoid it is to not let it happen.

Perhaps one of the most sorely lacking qualities in today’s MMO’s is stability.  I haven’t felt stability in any launch for many years.  Is the game going to suck?  Will X ruin the game down the road?  Will the company survive or go bankrupt?  Bottom line: Is this game here to stay?  There is a definite loss of faith in the companies and/or games being released that is squashing our ability to commit to these games.   Not even studios that have released gems in the past are able to replicate their success.  What a horrible state the industry has sunk into.  In many ways this is exactly why World of Warcraft remains the #1 game of choice for most people.  Regardless of their meta-game end-game, they’re stable and you know what to expect and that they’re going to be around.  This stability will transfer over to their next title.

We continue to place our trust in new developers and old developers nonetheless.  Unless we stop getting burned, and feel like we can trust the developers again to deliver that stability, companies like Blizzard will remain as the providers of a dominant gameplay style.  The resulting “clone” effect is then expectable and the cascade effect of that puts us into a vicious cycle.

The cycle can be broken.  No, the answer isn’t to stop playing new games or to stop playing WoW  as many will quickly jump in and proclaim.  This whole “the players are in control” stuff is nonsense.  One way, perhaps THE way, that the cycle can be broken if someone will develop a polished MMO that provides a feeling of stability — a feeling that is a direct result of quality and common sense from those who have a clue.

Full post: WarhammerFeeds.com

Stability is the cornerstone missing in recent MMO’s

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You will probably get a different answer depending on the server.  On Badlands, I think the system has worked great.  Prior to the patch, Destruction would routinely push to Altdorf while Order only rarely made it to the Inevitable City.

If you look at Badlands now, both sides are getting to their enemies city.  I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a -3 Underdog rating, usually at -2 the opposing realm is able to start a city siege.  All this without really punishing the winners for winning.  I was skeptical, but in the case of Badlands I am pleased with the results.

Of course, not all servers fared as well as Badlands did with 1.3.3. Where there was a wide population imbalance the same issues still remain.  Population is a tough problem to solve.  A bonus to exp and renown does not seem like it is enough to have people switching servers. Even though 1.3.3 helped, there is still some work to be done.

How are things on your server?  Has the Underdog system helped at all?

Full post: WarhammerFeeds.com

Does the Underdog System work?

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6 sieges in one day, the big 40 and getting nekkid

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One of the first things you should do is take the quest offered by the trainer.  If he doesn’t show an exclamation mark above his head just talk to him, a quest should show up as a chat option.  The quest will bring you to three places.  Remember them!  Doing the quest should get you to a skill level of 60-ish.

You’ll need to raise your skill level before moving from Nezebgrad (for Empire) to the Igsh Military District.  The easiest way to do this is to mine Rock Chips directly behind the Mining trainer until you hit skill level 90.  You can then move to the second area the quest brought you to.  From Bort Quarter head to Boiler Camp.  I stopped gaining levels at 101 and moved to the next area.  From Bort Quarter head to Hadron Quarter.

Here’s a map of the city with these areas marked:

Something to keep in mind is you can only be a skill level of 10x your character level.  I had to stop at skill level 110 since I was only level 11 at the time.  That proved to be a high enough skill level to move on from the city.

At character level 20 (and 30 and 40) go back to the trainer and purchase an upgraded Pick.  Supposedly, you will get better quality gathers with the higher quality tools but that’s not 100% confirmed.  If you have the money you might as well buy them, better safe than sorry.

One thing I’ve noticed: once you leave the city the nodes do not act the same.  In the first three zones, one node (or glowing orb) equaled one gather.  Outside those zones 4-6 nodes equals one gather.  You CAN fail an attempt at mining and that’s when the multiple nodes comes in handy.  Only one will disappear if you fail to gather but once you are successful all the rest of the nodes in that one area will disappear.

If I find out anything else I’ll make sure to update this post.

Hope this helps!

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Allods Online: Mining

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The game is very similar to Mario Kart.  Up until this point there really hasn’t been a comparable title that would make me ever think about which one I like more.  In many ways Sonic Racing could be ragged on for being too similar to Mario Kart, but honestly it doesn’t bother me.  The recent Mario Kart title for the Wii, while a good racer, bothered me with some of the gimmicky Wii-things.  Sonic Racing on the Xbox360 is the quality of Mario Kart (especially some latter versions) but in a more straight up way.

Sonic Racing has ~24 racers (just a quick count, may be inaccurate) all of which have their unique racer.  Some have motorcycles, light/medium/heavy cars, and some even have a unique vehicle resembling something from their game in the form of a hovercraft or spaceship.  There is a drift mechanic in the game that will feel familiar as well as aerial tricks that, when done in succession, can give a good speed boost.  Each character has a unique special ability called an All-Star move that gives them a cool ability and a straight shot down the course to help them catch up — racers not doing so well have a higher chance of getting the item.  The controls are very tight and top notch which makes driving any of the racers very intuitive and comfortable.

The tracks are well designed and diverse.  The theme for the tracks matches some of the games represented by the cast.  There are Sonic, Samba de Amigo, The House of the Dead, and Monkey Ball maps that I can recall off the top of my head totally around 24 tracks.  Some of them are a bit crazy (especially the Sonic casino maps…) but all of them are fun.  The Monkey Ball maps are actually quite a challenge for me and I find myself flying off the track half the time.  You’re going to be challenged enough that you’ll have to pay attention and learn the maps.

Many of the racers and tracks are locked and must be unlocked by purchasing them with Sega miles.  These are earned simply by playing the game.  If you come in first you may earn 3-4k miles.  A character can cost tens of thousands of miles and the tracks run 5-15k on average.  This gives the game replayability since unlocking characters is a carrot that then rewards you and gives you another to strive for while enjoying what you just earned.  Playing through the Grand Prix, Single Race, Time Trials, as well as playing with a friend split screen

The one downside is the battle maps.  There are only three of them and the modes are a little disappointing. The three maps are a bit underwhelming in their design and since everyone is giving unlimited supply of boxing gloves to spam at each other, there becomes little point in going after the other weapons.  The modes of king of the hill, capture the chu chu (or chao or something), collect the emeralds, and arena.  Graev and I don’t bother with the battle mode and just go straight to the racing because the tracks are great and racing against hard computers is challenging and fun.

It’s a great racing game that I like more than the latest Mario Kart.  It doesn’t try to add any gimmicky additions nor does it really stretch what is already a successful fast pace and crazy racer game style.  Setting the other racers to easy mode makes the game enjoyable for even young kids and setting it to hard will make the adults and veterans struggle to win.   It’s worth playing if you enjoy these types of games.

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Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing

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If you were amongst those affected by the issue with the revoking of the Tome unlocks, please refer to the email you have received regarding this issue. For those players who are appealing regarding the “Faded Memory” trash loot items which were acquired due to illegitimate currency gains, we will not be exchanging these for any form of RvR currency, so we ask that you please discontinue your appeals regarding these items.

If you have recently purchased an RvR weapon or trophy after the recent fixes and are still experiencing issues with the unlock allowing you to progress to the next level of RvR Currency, please file an in game appeal and Customer Support will address it as soon as possible. Please be aware that it may take up to 72 hours to respond to your appeal.

Thank you for your cooperation and patience!

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Player Advisory – CS RvR Weapon Support

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We’ve got a whole new reason for your to say TGIF with our second Weekend Warfront: Spirit of WAR! This weekend you and your allies can do battle in the High Pass Cemetery scenario as you crush and humiliate your foes no matter what tier you’re in – and while you probably don’t need any more motivation than that, we’ve made the rewards for participating in High Pass Cemetery that much more…rewarding.

So join us this weekend and every weekend as all 4 tiers get to participate in a different Weekend Warfront each week!

Weekend Warfront: High Pass Cemetary
Start: Friday, March 5th 2010
End: Monday, March 8th 2010

Have fun, and we’ll see you on the battlefield!

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Weekend Warfront! – Spirit of WAR

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