Keen touched on this and I'm going to take his advice even if he doesn't end up doing it himself! :P

I am going to sit out for the remainder of Aion beta.

Why? The answer is quite simple really: burnout.

I do not want to burn myself out on Aion because most of what I've seen so far has almost zero replayability on the PvE end. Any longtime reader of this site knows that I'm not a huge fan of PvE to begin with. I will tolerate it and even submit to it just break up my PvP, but I generally don't enjoy it.

And anyone who has seen Aion's PvE knows that it isn't groundbreaking stuff. It's not hard for me to answer this question: "Why would I spend many hours grinding a character to rank 25 just so I can test the Abyss and then have that character wiped?" I don't see the point.

The game is polished as hell and Aion beta is more of a promotional / proof-reading exercise at this point. Any comments I make on gameplay will fall upon deaf ears since the game is being developed in Korea. I'm genuinely interested to see how they plan on westernizing Aion. My guess is that they'll translate everything to English and cut the XP requirements by 25%. That's about it, I'll reckon.

I already know what class I'm going with. I'm going to play an Assassin. Why? Because every time I roll a non-stealther I get pissed off that I didn't roll a stealther. I tend to PvP solo most of the time due to my casual but erratic play schedule, so stealth is a great defensive tool to prevent getting rolled by premades or zergs. I do realize I will need to group at some point in my Aion career and I think Assassins will be good DPSers in PvE raids as well.

And it's not just burnout I'm trying to stave off. It's summer as well and there's really no good excuse to vid out when the season is so fleeting where I live. I've also got tons of RL stuff going on as well from work to home renos to baseball to Massively to quite a few other things. I'm actually a bit concerned that I won't have the time or desire to play Aion when it does come out.

We can get into a habit of playing video games. We can also get into a habit of not playing them if we fill the time with other worthwhile and fulfilling exercises. Not that I have anything someone spending any or all their free time on games because its just as valid a hobby as any other, but in the summer, I just find it harder to justify. And right now, I'm too busy to notice that I haven't really touched my gaming computer since April or May. Crazy.

Welcome to the second installment of If I were Mark Jacobs, a series I'm dedicating to the major issues I have with Warhammer Online and what I would do to fix them if I had the power.

Quality vs. Quantity

No-one can deny that there is a crapton of stuff to do in WAR. Solo quests. Public quests.  Instanced dungeons. Scenarios. Open RvR. Exploring the Tome of Knowledge. Crafting. Expanding on that, there are there is a huge variety of options to choose from when doing these things. There are three pairings, each with hundreds of solo quests and dozens of PQs. There are at least 6 instance dungeons accessible from ranks 15-40. Players have plenty of locations and setups when participate in scenarios and ORvR. The ToK is huuuge. Crafting currently supports 2 production and 4 gathering skills (not too many but not too shabby either).

The problem is that I feel Mythic has sacrificed quality for quantity.

• The solo quests in T1 are quite good for the most part but they feel repetitive and grindy from T2-T4 because they never really change get any better. In many cases, they get worse, resulting in the generic kill 10 rats formula. WAR is not a PvE-focused game, but if you're trying to make a mass market MMO to compete with a PvE behemoth like WoW, you must deliver the same kind of quality.


• Public quests are a brilliant innovation in WAR but has Mythic not heard the saying "You can have too much of a good thing?" PQs are freakin' everywhere in WAR and very few break away from the basic formula of Kill XXX easy mobs. Kill XX harder mobs. Kill miniboss. The ones that do are a stroke of genius. Mythic made PQs filler content for the most part when they could have had far fewer that were much more epic.


• Instanced dungeons are hit and miss in WAR. The first city dungeons are absolutely terrible. Gunbad and Bastion are decent the first couple times though but don't offer much entertainment value beyond that. The rank 40 city dungeons are great your first time through as well, but suffer the same fate. I haven't been in Lost Vale yet, but I hear it is good too; your first time through anyway. The problem with instanced dungeons in WAR is that you are forced through them so many times to get the gear you need and they get old fast. All dungeons also suffer from bugged encounters from time to time that just gets frustrating after your second wipe for no good reason.


• Scenarios aren't bad in and of themselves but they really highlight issues like career and population balance. They were originally too rewarding, so they were the only thing players did. Players became burned out and unhappy. Mythic decided to boost rewards in oRvR and now you're unlikely to see more than one or two scenarios pop in a three-hour gaming session. Scenarios now take a back seat to most everything else in WAR.


• Open RvR can be amazingly fun one day and then just brutal the next. Like scenarios, oRvR puts career and population balance under the microscope and to be honest, neither is very healthy. Every BO and keep siege plays out the exact same way because the content isn't dynamic enough. The old zone control mechanic resulted in too few zone locks. The new control mechanic results in several city sieges per day on some servers. Mythic still hasn't found a middle ground. Add on top of that zergs and performance issues from keep to fort to city siege and you have an even bigger mess. Tokens are a great idea but still drop too slowly. Let's not even talk about poor city siege designs (e.g., can't attack unless players are defending, can't actually win stage 2 of phase 1 if people are defending, etc.)


• The Tome of Knowledge is a really cool feature with lots of potential but it still falls a bit short. Most people get ToK unlocks purely by chance not because they were actively seeking them. A major issue with the ToK is that it is reactionary rather than giving players opportunities to be proactive about their unlocks. Without addons like Tome Titan and Dammaz Kron, the ToK wouldn't be much more than a way to unlock new titles. How many people actually have and benefit from Tome Tactics anyway?


• Crafting in WAR isn't exactly complex or interesting, even if the items gained from it are actually quite necessary. You are gimping yourself if you don't fork out cash for talismans and potions/liniments. Considering how easy all the crafts are to master, it isn't exactly hard to make the items yourself, but it is time consuming. That said, given the cheapish market for such items, I'd much rather pay for the items than make them myself. Comparing each of the gathering skills you'll also find that Scavenging is better than Salvaging and Cultivation trumps Butchery.

Solutions

• Solo quests - Look at WoW and aim for the same quality and feel. I hate to say something like that, but if you're going after WoW players you need the same quality of PvE content. Even if you aren't going after WoW players, WoW does it better than you, so why would you waste your time developing something inferior? Go big or go home.


• Public quests - Less of the same boring crap. More of the awesome PQs. Do we really need more than one or two PQs per chapter hub? Considering PQs were used as content filler, take the opportunity to introduce more interesting and exciting solo/group quests in these areas once you free up the space. Basically, more scripting all around.


• Instanced dungeons - Why do we have a three day lockout on some of these dungeons when cities are being sieged nightly? Why are you forcing us to run these dungeons 3-20+ times depending on our luck? There has to be a better way here. Instanced dungeons should give you gear that lends itself more towards PvE encounters. It boggles my mind that some of the sets gained in PvE are more viable for RvR than the RvR sets. Do an itemization pass and gaining gear from PvE won't have a huge impact on RvR. Doing so will still make the RvR sets more desirable. Oh, and for God's sake, add a token/influence system for PvE dungeons.


• Scenarios - The people have spoken. Open RvR should be more interesting and rewarding than a instanced RvR. That said, the are opportunities to make scenarios fun and rewarding again. Keep up with the special scenario weekends. Those are cool. How about this new brainwave? Run weekly or monthly "arena" style tournaments in the scenarios. You don't have to reward us with with oRvR quality set gear. Renown, titles, unique items skins, dyes, non-combat pets, mounts, trophies, pocket items, emotes, etc. would be cool enough to entice players to participate. This will really appeal to the guild groups of old (circa DAOC in its heyday). Wrap it all up in a neat little package with an online ladder system on the Realm War site and special mentions on the Herald.


• ORvR - Performance, performance, performance. That's your number 1 priority. Next, you should focus on adding some tactical diversity by expanding the siege system. I don't think I'm the only one that believes an oRvR system based on keeps and BOs should be on par or better than the one in DAOC. Towers? Milegates? Bridges? Destructible walls? Also, people should be directed out into RvR lakes for purposes other than just RvR. The recent live event proved that even a boring zone like Thunder Mountain can be made fun with a bit of PvP over PvE resources. I was a fan of the RvR dungeon entrances in DAOC.


• Tome of Knowledge - Again I pretty much stated up top that I feel the ToK should be more useful for players who wish to seek out their achievements rather than stumble upon them by accident. I'm not a huge explorer but I'll share a quick story from my second week in WAR to illustrate my point. There I was killing dwarves near this tower and I stumbled upon a big pile of dirt. My ToK alerted me that this pile of dirt was important but the description was so vague I had no idea what to do next to uncover more of the story. I spent over an hour talking to people and researching in-game and online but gave up in frustration. That simply shouldn't happen.


• Crafting - Butchery and salvaging need a boost imho. I don't mind having to butcher non-sentient mobs as long as I'm well rewarded for my time. WAR is full of NPCs but at least 75% of them in  my estimation are humanoid. So if I want to farm items for my strength potions in Dragonwake for example, I need to spend 10 minutes running to the nearest bear spawn. And when I get there, the really good ingredients don't drop at a high enough rate. Not cool. Salvaging is great in threory but suffers due to all the BoP gear in WAR. One solution would be to allow us to salvage BoP items from a trade window. Also, I think it's time for a new tradeskill or two. How about trophy/pocket item with very minor stat boosts to make them desirable? Mount taming? I'm guessing armour/weapon crafting will open up a whole can of rotten worms, won't it?

So there you have it. WAR doesn't suffer from a lack of content imho, just execution. I think all these changes would help make the game more fun to play and more accessible for new players to join. People say WAR is an RvR game, but I see no reason why it can't feature impeccable PvE content as well. As long as the rewards from PvE don't trump those gained in RvR, you can provide an excellent experience for both gamer-types.

Also, I'd really like to pitch my idea for scenarios. I think it would bring an amazing new dynamic to the game without ruining its original flavour. Actually, it will pay greater homage to WAR's roots. My idea for scenarios would be a huge shout-out to the setup of GW's tabletop game.

I was expecting T1 to be full of lowbies due to the release of the slayer and choppa, free trials, and retrials, but that just isn't the case on Ostermark. People who finished Bitter Rivals got access to the new careers last week and everyone else got access this week. Free trials have been available for two weeks and retrial notifications were sent out last week.

How come my rank 10/10 shaman has no-one to fight? Shouldn't the lower ranks be bursting at the seams? I hear reports that T2 is fairly decent but T3 is as dead as T1. Am I simply behind the curve? Even if that's true, it doesn't seem like the curve is all that steep.

I'm just a bit surprised is all. I would have thought right now would be the busiest lowbie period in the game since launch, but it doesn't seem to be the case (on my server anyway). What about yours?

Oh well, at least my shaman can solo battlefield objectives, so influence gear isn't too hard to come by in T1. It does kill my desire to play him any further though. Not only am I craving lowbie RvR, character progression kind of depends upon it or you'll be forced into a horribly boring PvE grind. No thanks.

Reading Werit's piece this morning reminded me of something someone said in our Alliance vent chat last night.

"So I hear Mythic is going to add a third faction but they're going to make them NPCs."

Paraphrased for the innocent.

Shortly after saying that we were jumped by a zerg of Order, so the discussion was cut short. With revenge on ours minds we actually forgot to bring the idea back up again. I have no idea where he heard that or if he was just making it up.

So here's my random question for the day: What do you think about that concept?

Apparently NCsoft is taking this approach with Aion. There will be playable Angel and Demon races and a third NPC Dragon faction that is aggressive to both of them. If either side starts to dominate (Angels or Demons) the Dragon realm will become more aggressive toward the dominant faction. It's like a self correcting balance system.

I have no idea if this idea will actually work since the game isn't out in NA/Europe yet but Korean players seem to think its a winning formula.

Could this work in WAR? It would cut down on the need to give the third faction any sort of starting/PvE area. You wouldn't need to make them a siegable city either. Basically, they would just be raiders constantly trying to muck up your plans.

It sounds like there's a lot of potential to spice up RvR with this system as well:

• They could raid and claim undefended keeps and BOs while you were too busy fighting each other


• They could jump into the battles you're already having with each other


• This would mean there is almost always action in the RvR lakes


• It could provide a lot more "PvE" threat in the RvR lakes making things very unpredictable


• It would liven up the RvR lakes, making them feel less empty

There are issues to address as well:

• Should they be worth RvR influence or renown?


• How strong should you make them?

Can you imagine a third faction of rabid Skaven running around? What about an NPC alliance of Skaven, Vampires, and Ogres? Talk about RvR diversity!

Food for thought...

So I've been whining about my lack of an Annihilator or Sentinel helm for a while now. All the other pieces came somewhat easily but this last piece had eluded me for some time. Well, last night I finally got an Annihilator Sguignoggin from a keep raid. I came upon the keep with the second door at 50%. I helped take it down and also took out an Engie who was trying to get in. Silly git, use the back door! I rushed the keep lord with 22 other people in the warband and focused on him as much as I could. I was probably in the top 3 damage-dealers on him but I didn't expect to get top contribution. Low and behold I did and won a second place gold bag. I closed my eyes, prayed, and pulled out  a helmet. Yay!

Now, this doesn't actually complete my set, but it does give me OPTIONS! My ideal set is made up of 4 Sentinel for the 66 Ballistic/66 Wounds and 2 Annihilator for the 63 Ballistic set bonus. Before this, I only had 3 Senti pieces and 4 Anni pieces (missing the helm from both sets). This basically meant that I was forced to get the Senti helm to complete my set or get the Anni helm and then be able to get either the Senti shoulders, gloves, or helm for my set. Options! Obviously, I'm now on course for the latter, which is good because my chances are improved of getting a Senti piece I can actually use.

My only complaint is that the Anni helm looks like crap, especially compared to the Senti helm, so I'm still gunning for the second one. If I manage to get the shoulders or gloves instead, I'll just hide my helm and happily focus on RvR 100% because my stats will be awesome. Yes... I'm one of those min-maxer jerks!

If I never have to run those stupid random loot IC dungeons again I'll be a happy man. It's funny how lame loot mechanics can spoil otherwise wicked dungeons.

Nobody I know wants to do them. What's the deal?

I really don't know much about lairs to be honest. I know that they are located in both PvE and open RvR areas. I know they contain big bosses (hero or lord). I know there's usually a trick to access them, whether it be stump-hopping or hidden object-interaction. I know they supposedly drop some great loot. I know you can usually take most of them out with a mixed group of T4 people or fewer rank 40s. I know they have long respawn timers (12-24 hours).

That's about it though. Are the drop rates low? Are they more hassle than they're worth? I was actually very excited to go on a lair-killing spree when the game first launched. It was actually one of my motivations to reach max rank. Then I started asking people if they wanted to do them and the answer was always "No thanks."

It's kind of killing my motivation. Is it simply that people would rather RvR or run dungeons than focus on lairs?

Or at least that's the impression I get when the RvR lakes are completely deserted lately, and doing a /who 40 yields a result of almost everyone on your side in Lost Vale or the city dungeons. Welcome to Ostermark—a balanced server.

Give us tokens. Screw this borked contribution/vegas loot system where you "compete" against several dozen to several hundred other people for a gold bag that might not even give you the item you need.

No wonder everyone is in the PvE dungeons. People seek the past of least resistance. This should be obvious by now given half of WAR's issues since release.

Pssssst. Hey Mythic. I heard that WAR was an RvR game. What's the dilly, yo?

The noise of this GRINDstone is hurting my ears.

One of my guildies presented me with an awesome gift on the night I reached rank 40.  My trade window popped open and I was surprised to find a Sentinel Pouch Holda in the offer box. At first, I was elated. Then I looked at the Sentinel set bonus and my skin began to itch. My eyes watered. My fingers twitched.

I was filled with a deep sense of urgency to raid the Inevitable City dungeons and seek out more Sentinel gear because the stat bonuses are just amazing! His innocent gift set my mind racing into calculations of + symbols to this stat and - symbols to that resist. What would be the optimum setup if I got 4 Sentinel pieces and 2 Annihilator pieces. What then if I could add in a few RvR influence weapons and jewels? Would this AH cloak be a good fit until I could replace it down the road?

Gaaah! Five minutes after reaching rank 40, and my inner min/max beast began to grumble! Thanks a lot Jahara! :P

But it's all good. This is why I love RPGs. For me, a huge part the experience is about the numbers! I know... I should have become an accountant. I'd get to do something I enjoy AND siphon off money into Swiss... er. Maybe it's a good thing I chose another career path.

Anyway, raiding Bloodwrought and Bilerot in the IC became my first priority at rank 40 and I was lucky enough to get into two amazing groups in two days!

Bloodwrought Enclave

My first trip to this dungeon was with a Black Orc, Chosen, Witch Elf, Disciple of Khaine, and a Shaman. Both tanks were fully warded and I was sitting pretty with 4/5 Annihilator and 1/6 Sentinel (the belt), so I guess you could consider me fully warded as well. Actually, the belt doesn't give a ward. Thanks Leez!

The trip was a breeze with each trash pull falling before our might within seconds. Each boss strategy was laid out for me just before we took them on and everyone executed their roles perfectly. The first boss died very easily without any of us dying or even really getting into trouble. The final boss, Barakus the Godslayer, was much harder to take out and we actually had two people die during the fight, but we got them back up via combat rez. We skipped the right wing because we heard it was bugged.

We cleared Bloodwrought without wiping and I managed to win Sentinel Squigkickas and a couple rare dyes. These replaced my Annihilator Squigkickas, so I now had 3/5 Annihilator and 2/6 Sentinel.

Bilerot Burrow

This is the much tougher dungeon of the two city dungeons, but you wouldn't have known it our group. Two of us were on our first runs of Bilerot and our group consisted of two Chosen, a Shaman, a Zealot, a Sorceress, and myself. Again, both tanks were fully warded, which apparently makes a huge difference.

Bilerot also takes longer to complete than Bloodwrought, and we cleared it in about 1.5 hours compared to 30 minutes for the easier dungeon. The trash pulls are much more challenging and there are more of them. We almost wiped when we nabbed FOUR Plaguebeasts instead of the normal two, but excellent healing and tanking kept us alive. There were also several crazy Plaguehounds that you needed to kite around the room as you burned them down. If they caught up to you, you were dead. That was quite fun!

The first boss was pretty easy once you got past all his Plaguehounds. The second boss was a bit more challenging because he would toss this weird DoT that would eventually spawn nurglings that would do big AoE damage if you weren't carefully spaced apart. It got kinda hairy at times, but he eventually fell without a single one of us dying too.

Then there was the Bile Lord. He was really fun, challenging, and ironically built for a Quick Shootin' Squig Herder due to all the running around you need to do. Basically, as you attack him, he spawns these crazy AoE puddles of ooze around the room and if you get stuck in one, you're dead. You also aren't able to use combat rezz in this encounter, so staying alive is key to victory (when isn't it, right?). Well, we got him down to 20% life without any of us dying at which point he gobbled us all up. We took a lot of damage before getting eaten and the initial stun inside his belly nearly wiped us, but we managed to survive it. After attacking his innards, we were spit back out and had to face him again. This time his health was much easier to make a dent in and we took him out without a single person dying. That was quite an achievement!

According to the group leaders, this was the first time they ever raided Bilerot without a single wipe, so they were ecstatic. On the downside, the loot we won was pretty lame. Only a single piece of usable Sentinel gear dropped for the careers in our party, but I did walk away with two new gems that upped my wounds by a fair amount without sacrificing much else. One boss actually dropped TWO Magus chestpieces... Booerns!

Bad luck with loot drops in Bilerot aside, I really like these dungeons and I hope future runs go just as smoothly. I'm still looking to nab myself the Sentinel Squignoggin and Sentinel Bitestoppas, which will put my set at 2/5 Annihilator and 4/6 Sentinel, which is the perfect balance of set bonus for a Squig Herder imho. Obviously, there are better set bonuses down the road, but those are much less achievable by someone with my play schedule. Add in a couple RvR influence weapons, gems, and talismans and I'll be uber! :D

My only complaint is that each dungeon has a 2 day and 20 hour lockout timer. I understand why the mechanic is in place, but it prevented me from participating in a second Bloodwrought raid last night. Given the group I was in, we would have steamrolled it very quickly, so I'm kind of disappointed to miss out on the opportunity for easy l3wtz! Ahh well.

More details to follow when my eyes aren't burning so badly! My brain is also quite mushy after 3 hours of PvE in Reikland.

WOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! :)

Here are the top 10 things I think Mythic should prioritize for Warhammer Online in 2009; a checklist of new year's resolutions if you will.

10. Announce the First Expansion

Mythic doesn't need to release the first expansion in 2009, but its development needs to be firmly underway. If there's one thing Mythic has, it's an amazing marketing department, and the announcement of a new expansion will go a long way toward re-hyping the game into 2010. We understand the first few months after release were rough and I don't think anyone wants or expects an expansion before 2010, but we do want to know the future direction Mythic is taking with Warhammer Online.

9. Free Content

In the four months since release, we've already seen four new live events and two new careers (technically they were old careers but I'm not complaining). I would love to see a continued effort put into releasing more quality live events in 2009. Also, it would be great if they could give us the two final careers (Choppa/Slayer?) and the final four cities (Dark Elf, High Elf, Greenskin, and Dwarf) in some fashion. Additional freebies include new tradeskills (crafting), scenarios, tome unlocks, the "fame system," and PvE elements (e.g., easy PQs). I predict 2009 will be "the year of the content patch," with WoW, AoC, and WAR hoping to keep their players interested and entertained.

8. More Refinements to Open RvR (but don't forget scenarios and PvE)

The "game" of WAR is made up of three main parts: open-world RvR, scenarios, and PvE and I believe there is a way to make them work in perfect harmony. Currently, PvE is the most solo-friendly way to progress your battle rank, yet it is the least dynamic or fun experience and it ignores your renwon rank. Scenarios are "balanced" RvR minigames that can offer great renown and XP if you're winning, yet they are instanced, which sucks players out of the open world. Open RvR affects the primary campaign most of all, yet it is often the worst way to gain renown or XP. Making each aspect of WAR fun, dynamic, challenging, and rewarding is key to a balanced gaming session, Warhammer's long-term success, and re-playability (alts and newbies).

7. Eliminate Stuttering, Hitching, and CTD Issues

Warhammer Online has listed minimum system requirements but I definitely wouldn't want to play this game on that kind of a computer. Then again, even people with beastly gaming rigs experience odd graphical issues and random crashes to desktop. Many strides have been taken to improve graphical performance in 2008, but it can still get better. Obviously, designing a game for thousands of various hardware permutations can be a challenging process, but no-one said designing a space shuttle was easy, and yet we can still do it. I don't mean to sound flippant, but this is still an important issue for many people.

6. Advertising

The word-of-mouth hype leading up to release was unparalelled in the history of MMORPGs. If I remember correctly, Warhammer Online broke a record for the fastest selling MMORPG ever. And then it kind of came crumbling down because negative word-of-mouth travels even faster and farther than the positive variety. With a strong effort, I believe most of the game's biggest flaws (see #1-5) can be addressed by the end of Q1 2009. This will likely coincide with the burnout many World of Warcraft players will start feeling with Wrath of the Lich King. When this happens, I believe the time will be ripe for a concerted marketing push. Refer-a-friends. Free-trials. Resub your old account for 15 free days. Buy up advertising on the web. Reach new audiences by hitting up television ads (I can't count the amount of GTA4 ads I've seen). Show yourself off at the big gaming expos and tradeshows. Open yourself up to new markets (Asia?). Basically, pimp your game.

5. Enhancing the Keep/Fortress Siege Experience

The keep and fortress sieging game in Warhammer Online is a very poor attempt at capturing the epic objective battles found in its predecessor, Dark Age of Camelot. Its current state is somewhat forgivable because keeps and fortresses weren't a part of the original game design and were added very late in beta. However, in 2009 I want to see new siege weaponry (offensive and defensive) that actually makes a difference in the fight (e.g., ladders, tunnels, orcapults, doom-divers, etc.). I want to see destructable walls and repairable keeps (e.g., doors and walls). I want to see Battlefield Objectives have more of an impact on keep siege (e.g., controlling a BFO will unlock new siege options). Highly challenging supply trains (groups of keep-friendly NPCs) that roam the RvR lakes would also add a layer of complexity. There is much room for improvement.

4. Fine-Tune Class and Realm Balance

On many servers, Destruction is the dominant realm. On many other servers, Order is the dominant realm. I'm not the biggest fan of a two-sided war, but given the setup in WAR, Mythic must continue balancing the realms by offering incentives such as realm buffs for the weaker side (faster XP/renown gain to start and higher stats if necessary). Class balance was given a major overhaul in 1.06, but there are still many tweaks that could be made in this area. Mythic needs to do all this by avoiding the major buffing and nerfing pattern they got into with Dark Age of Camelot. I didn't say it would be easy, but that's what you have to deal with when your game has a two-sided war and 20+ careers!

3. Beefing up Server Populations

This goes hand-in-hand with #4 but it deserves its own section for the sole reason that Mythic billed Warhammer Online as a game where "WAR is Everywhere!" While this might be the case on high/high population servers, it certainly isn't on many med/med or low/low servers. Mythic needs to consolodate as many of these smaller servers into high/high servers as they can. I appreciate that they are stubbornly avoiding forced merges, likely due to pre-release comments by Mark Jacobs that any game merging servers so soon after release is not in a good place, however, at some point Mythic is going to have to bite the bullet. The simple fact is that they launched WAR with too many servers that had lower-than-necessary population caps, increased those caps, and then lost many players to Wrath of the Lich King shortly afterward. That's the reality; deal with it. The current strategy of offering free server transfers is taking too long and breeding discontent. I dare you to click the "more servers" button on the server screen in-game. The spam of low/low servers outnumber all others. Tell us Mr. Jacobs, is that "in a good place?"

2. Polish, Polish, and Polish Some More

Polish makes everything look great, doesn't it? A new car shine. A rich hardwood floor. A glimmering piece of jewelery. The same goes for MMORPGs. Areas Mythic needs to pay special attention to are itemization and the plethora of bugs found anywhere from broken quests to broken abilities to incorrect tooltips to lingering graphical effects to an often unresponsive UI.  The world of Warhammer is huge and there are many places for bothersome gnats to hide. This is easily my number one complaint about WAR; 95% of the game is wonderfully polished, but the remaining 5% stands out like a six-inch long key mark on the hood of a red '69 Mustang.

1. Fix Endgame Performance Issues

Finally, the biggest priority Mythic should have for WAR in 2009 is fixing the endgame performance issues. No more zone crashes. No more server-side lag. No more frame-by-frame slideshows. If people don't enjoy your endgame content or the large-scale battles you've been pitching us all these years, your game will fail. We don't care what you need to do to fix this, but seriously, fix it. Get some better servers? Overhaul your code? Continue to optimize client-side performance. Heck, even if you have to add instancing or population capping, it's still better than getting 1FPS, watching your commands lag by an additional 5 seconds, and eventually crashing the server. Many people came to WAR for large scale RvR. Please deliver on this promise in 2009.

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There you have it folks. That's my top 10 list. What's yours? If you're no longer playing, what would bring you back to WAR in 2009? What kill keep you around if you're considering leaving? Oh, and make sure you check out ChaosCast #9 (dropping tomorrow) because Keen, Syp, and I have a hearty discussion about the top #5 issues specifically! You don't want to miss it!

Just a little quicky:

I cracked my Librams of Insight last night and dove deeply into Chaos Ch.21 PvE. After doing some vanilla quests and grinding kill collector mobs for a bit less than 1.5 hours I went from 39.01 to 39.39.  Not too shabby, especially considering I have a whackload of rested XP left over! At this pace I'll be 40 before the weekend is over! :)

I would have played longer except that Keen, Syp, and I had a recording date for ChaosCast espisode #9. Hopefully, it will be ready for you all on Friday! When we first set the agenda for discussion, it was filled with a LOT of filler stuff because we didn't think there was much to talk about given the holiday slowdown. Well, by the time we added the recent developments in crowd control, fortress caps, and all your listener questions, we actually had to cut out the filler content to make it all fit within a decent amount of time.

Curiously, would you rather hear 30 minute episodes of ChaosCast twice as frequently or 60+ minute episodes at the same frequency we have now (about once every 2-3 weeks)?

My precious. I kept you tucked away in a cool musty vault since release; "Head Start" to be exact. I used you once, died in a scenario, and lost your plentiful aura. I vowed to be more wary from that moment forward. I would only use you for the last push; a final convulsion before the birth of "endgame."

The time is nigh. Tonight, my precious. I shall unbind you. Open your weathered cover. Gaze upon the insight you bestow only to the most devoted of collectors.

Hark! This is my ode...

I hit rank 39 last night, which means I'm almost there! Some might argue that you really shouldn't feel rushed to get "there," but I disagree! Once I get there, I'll be able to join in Bilerot/Bloodwrought raids with my alliance! Once I get there, I can focus solely on RvR! Once I get there, I can put questing behind me for good! Once I get there, I won't be as gimp as I was before! :P

There = rank 40 btw.

I've made up my mind to focus solely on PvE and guild group scenarios until reaching rank 40 because it's simply the quickest way to get "there." I spent about 2 hours in PvE last night and earned  50%+ of my rank. With a bit of effort, I should be there in time for this weekend's IC dungeon raid. Thank you rested XP and holiday bonus!

I think these entry titles are becoming more and more of a stretch. Oh well, +10 hipster points for the David Lynch reference anyway!

This post will recount my adventures from ranks 33.5 to 38.2. Yes, I'm almost there!

• Still quick shootin'


• Lots of guild group oRvR and scenarios


• The almost-annihilator


• Embracing PvE


• But not Keg's End

[caption id="attachment_1824" align="alignnone" width="596" caption="Santa Snafzg had too much milk and cookies this Christmas."][/caption]

Still quick shootin'

I'm still enjoying the quick shootin' spec and have adapted my playstyle to the many nuances of twitchy, mobile combat. I'm not convinced it's the most effective way to play a Squig Herder, if you measure effectiveness by maximum DPS, but it sure is the most fun!

Considering most of my attacks are instants or 1-2 second builders that can be fired on the run, I'm rarely stationary. This is great for both offence and defence. There are few attacks more devastating than popping your rank 3 AoE morale, Explosive Shots, and then chasing down a squishy target surrounded by friends while firing off your 1-second Run n' Shoot ability. And even though your primary attack range is reduced by quick shootin' skills, the fact that you can fire while strafing and snaring is not only excellent offensively, but defensively as well.

Once I hit rank 40, I'll do some refined Big  Shootin' vs. Quick Shootin' comparisons, but until then, I'll stick with what's most fun and save the min-maxing for max rank.

[caption id="attachment_1825" align="alignnone" width="596" caption="This is kind of creepy... I thought this was fixed?"][/caption]

Lots of guild group oRvR and scenarios

My guild has been coming along quite smoothly. We are nearly guild rank 22 and can usually form one solid group for RvR on any given night. Enmity has also been recruiting, and we hope to have several new members in T4 shortly. Ideally, we'd like to be able to put together two solid groups for RvR.

I'm quite happy with our alliance as well, as they seem very active in oRvR and the two founding guilds do a very good job motivating people. There are usually several organized alliance events per week and RvR every night from T2-T4.

Most times we play together in RvR, things go well for us and if they don't, at least it's more fun to lose with friends than randoms. Three members of our guild were in the top 10 renown earners for our server last week (both realms), which is an impressive feat. Making it on those lists will be unlikely for this Squig Herder since the competition is pretty fierce and I don't play nearly enough, but it's still nice to keep company with such skilled and respected players!

[caption id="attachment_1826" align="alignnone" width="596" caption="My official MySpace pic (angles and overexposure ftw)!"][/caption]

The almost-annihilator

[caption id="attachment_1827" align="alignnone" width="596" caption="So close, yet so far away!"][/caption]

All I need is the Annihilator Squignoggin to complete my Lesser Ward set. Technically, I don't need that last piece to continue, but I'd like to get it regardless. At rank 40, I should be able to raid Bilerot and Bloodwrought with an incomplete Lesser Ward set because I probably won't get hit as an RDPS career anyway. I can't wait for the Sentinel Squig Calla's Kit because the set bonuses are just insane... I hear the dungeons are pretty fun too and don't take very long to complete.

I am currently using the Bloodlord Stabba and Bloodlord Twanga just because they look cool and have great names. I've actually found green drops with better stats than these two items, but the DPS on the Bloodlord gear is still superior. I'll eventually replace the spear with something that stacks +wounds/tough since I rarely whip it out for attacks, but it isn't a major priority at my current rank.

The oRvR renown items are pretty good for Squig Herders but it will be a hell of a long time before I ever see those. In terms of jewelery, I'm just using quest and RvR merchant stuff to boost my resists for RvR. Some of the bestiary unlock item sets look sweet, but you won't find me grinding out 1,000 of a particular mob anytime soon.

My only complaint about the Annihilator Squig Calla's Kit is that it looks a bit bland compared to some of the other items that are much easier to get (quest rewards, drops, etc.). The chestpiece and shoulders especially look very similar to what I was wearing at rank 15...

Embracing PvE

[caption id="attachment_1828" align="alignnone" width="596" caption="Grumlok and Gazbag in the Inevitable City"][/caption]

I can't believe I've been playing this game since beta and this is the first time I ever ran into Grumlok, Gazbag, Malekith, or T'charzanek. I'm obviously not much of an explorer! Well, in my "quest" to embrace PvE lately, I did indeed stumble across them, and they are a part of some pretty decent quest chains.

PvE really is the quickest and most efficient way to progress in T4. Scenarios can be quite good too, but only if you're on a winning streak. PuG scenarios  are extremely random on my server, but on average, I'd say Order wins at a 60:40 ratio. A win may give you 20k XP for 15 minutes of work but a devastating loss (like 500-10) could reduce you to a 1k XP reward for the same time investment. Considering I gain an average of 1k XP per PvE mob (2k with rested XP) and I can kill two mobs per minute, it isn't difficult to see which is the most efficient use of your time (20 mobs in 10 minutes = 20k XP or 40k with rested bonus). Farm kill collector mobs and you'll get another 50% bonus! :P

You can also factor in that each completed quest is giving me an average of  12.5k XP. That's not too bad when you need ~900,000XP from rank 38-39. When you add in all the quest + mob XP, it takes about 36 quests to reach the next rank. There are about 12 quests per chapter hub in each pairing, so it's really not too bad.

Then again, I'm taking advantage of the 20% bonus "holiday" XP right now. Let's hope Mythic decides to make this a permanent gift; it actually makes PvE bearable for a change!

But not Keg's End

[caption id="attachment_1829" align="alignnone" width="596" caption="The perfect height for an ogre's girlfriend (oh no he didn't)!"][/caption]

I gotta say, Keg's End isn't really doing it for me.

Why? Because the grind is almost as bad as Witching Night. There's no way you're going to complete all the tasks for this event unless you spend a very long time farming. At first, I tried approaching it very casually and I got almost nowhere. Sure, the fireworks are pretty easy to get since they drop quite frequently in RvR but 100 kegs of beer? Yeah, toasting/boasting every career in the game isn't too hard if you put your mind to it, but killing 20 Massive Ogre Tyrants (hero-con)?

I then tried approaching it hardcore mindset, but got burned out on the mindlessly repetitive nature of it all and just decided to ignore the event entirely.

I think Keg's End was primarily designed for highly social gamers. It's a lot easier to kill all them explosive goblins, drunken gnoblars, and brew-thirsty ogres if you're running around in a large group. Those heroic ogres are a nasty lot as well, even though a friend of mine could solo them on his Black Orc (didn't you know this was WAR: Age of Tankening? :p). I guess the social requirement goes along with the theme of the event (one giant party), but I didn't really feel anything motivating about the tasks or the event as a whole.

The Battle Brew Backpack seemed pretty decent until I started fighting against rank 40s and realized that T4 RvR is all about crowd control. I can literally be chain disabled, knocked down, knocked back, stunned, and rooted in the span of a few seconds. Given the massive amounts of CC I must contend with in RvR, I much prefer the Harbinger's Cloak from the Heavy Metal live event for its anti-CC /use ability.

[caption id="attachment_1830" align="alignnone" width="596" caption="I'll give this live event one impressive firework instead of a magnificent one!"][/caption]

Well, that's it for this journal entry. I'm less than two full levels away from the magical rank 40, which makes me pretty happy. Stay tuned for more adventures in the days and weeks ahead!

You know... I haven't touched a Public Quest in over a month and I'm actually caught up with a good portion of the leveling curve. I've even been heavily focused on PvE lately, yet can't be bothered to join in a PQ. What's up with that?

WAR has been winning a lot of awards lately and many of the award-givers cite PQs as one of the best features of the game. They may sound great on paper, and even execute fairly decently in game but there is much room for improvement. In my "humble" opinion, they aren't even really worth your time at the moment.

In the spirit of constructive criticism, here are my five main issues with PQs and how I think they could be fixed:

• Lack of scaling: The way it currently works, a PQ has a set difficulty and it becomes easier the more people you bring to the fight. I think the next generation of public quests should constantly be adjusting in terms of difficulty depending on how many players are participating and how good they are, especially in stage 2 and beyond. A scaling system like this would increase PQ accessiblity and offer a more fun and challenging experience. If you are doing really well and/or have a larger group, why not make the mobs tougher and smarter? If you are playing poorly and/or have low numbers, why not dumb down the mobs and make them easier? Adjust the difficulty organically and on the fly, so people can't exploit the system.


• Poor itemization: Rewards. They're all the rage in MMOs these days, aren't they? People won't do X if they get a better reward from Y. We've seen this with scenarios vs. open RvR (which has incidentally been tweaked for the better in recent patches) and we're seeing it with normal quests and public quests. The rewards from PQ influence take a steep nosedive around the upper half of T2 when compared to mob drops, player drops, and quest rewards. Since the upper half of T2, there hasn't been a single influence reward that actually made me go "Oooh. Aaah!" because I was already wearing better stuff. If the PQ items aren't any better than the items I'm currently using, where's the incentive for me to get them? Give me better items and I'll be more inclined to do PQs.


• Too much influence needed: You say potato, I say potaughto. You may not look at PQs as a grind, but I surely do, well, after I've done one 6-10 times anyway. You must finish a PQ twice in chapter 1 to earn the elite reward; that isn't so bad. In chapter two, it increases to 4 times; not horrible but getting there. Unfortunately, the number of times you must complete a PQ continually goes up as you rise through the ranks. Those examples are if you do PQs with a group mind you. If you do them solo, the repitition is just as bad or worse because you can usually only complete stage 1 over and over again by yourself. This could be fixed by scaling, making the PQs more interesting, or better yet, decreasing the horrendous amount of influence it takes to earn the rewards. The XP and renown curves aren't so harsh in this game. Why is the  influence curve?


• PQs are kind of boring: Like a vanilla keep raid, once you've done one PQ, you've done 'em all. Actually, that's unfair because I've come across a few standout PQs that were insanely fun because they broke the standard PQ template. Unfortunately, there is a template that most PQs in WAR follow and it goes like this: Stage 1 - kill 50-150 non-champion mobs, Stage 2 - Kill 5-10 champion mobs, Stage 3 - Kill 1 hero mob.  It's almost always tank n' spank with very little strategy or difficulty involved (if you have enough people). How can we fix it? Quality over quantiy. Instead of giving us 4+ boring PQs per chapter, give us 2 really awesome PQs per chapter. Make them scripted. Test our mettle. Scale them for difficulty... etc. etc. etc.


• Not the best means of progression: You can get some pretty decent XP from a PQ, but only if you're in an AoE farm group or grinding stage 1 mobs that are tied to a kill collector quest (this is probably the fastest way to XP in the game). However, in most cases, PQs are slower XP than spamming the scenario queues or hammering out as many normal PvE quests as you can. Give PQ mobs at 5-10% XP bonus and/or give a larger XP bonus for each stage you complete.

Public quests are an amazing concept and can really enhance the PvE side of an MMORPG, but I feel they are still "1.0" as implemented in Warhammer Online. I don't know if Mythic will bother "wasting time" beefing up their quality but I think it will go a long way toward enhancing the experience of new gamers who try out this game in the future. I'm sure future MMOs will make major improvements to this core system.

It took years for games like DAOC, EQ, and WoW to become unfriendly to the newbie player due to new expansions, but I feel as though WAR is already getting close to that stage after only a few months. Ignoring low-level content is a sure-fire way to scare new players away from your game, especially when they don't have many others to experience it with. Heck, I'm rank 38 right now and any desire I have for an alt has been obliterated by the repetitively boring and slow state of T1-T3 (on my server anyway). So far, T4 has taken the cake imho.

They are taking a good step by adding PQs in T1 that can be completed by 1-2 players. This will help a lot when the earlier tiers of the game become much less populated, however, as you can see by my above list, I think they can still push the envelope even further.

That's what it feels like anyway... Yeah, yeah, "what's the rush," right? Well, it's been a solid 3 months since release and I'm still sitting at rank 34.5, while most of my guild is at 40. It also feels mind-numbingly slow since I've started to participate in more T4 oRvR and less PvE/scenarios.

You see, I want to keep my renown rank up there with my battle rank and the only way to do that is to kill players and take objectives. Since the RvR influence system was added, scenario pops have fallen drastically, which is working as intended. I'm actually happy for this! The drawback is that oRvR is simply horrible XP compared to scenarios and I'm not at max rank yet, so XP is just as important to me as renown.

Oh, the irony right? I can just imagine the dev chat over at Mythic: "They wanted less scenarios, so we incentivise oRvR, and now they complain about not having scenarios to power-level themselves in! Sheeeeesh!"

Actually, I'm happy the emphasis has been taken away from scenarios; I'd just appreciate it if Mythic made the XP progression in oRvR a lot better. I believe I read somewhere that Mark said something to the tune of: oRvR is where the players will want to be. It will be THE BEST way to progress and gain rewards for your characters. Well, they've done a great job making oRvR the place to be for everything except XP.

I would rove around solo or in small groups if I could actually find fair and decent competition instead of large warbands steamrolling over me/us, but I can't seem to find it on my server. I would participate in the large warband vs. warband combat if you didn't actually have to split 5,000 XP per kill with 24 other people making the gains negligible. I would take and defend more keeps if the XP wasn't so "meh." I am still doing all these things when I log in, but I'm gaining an inch of XP per login session, which is pretty darn frustrating.

Can we please find some way to make the XP gains in oRvR comparable to what it is/was like in scenarios? You've already got us interested in oRvR... but I can find better XP grinding in PvE and scenarios, neither of which I'm too keen on.

Why are scenarios such wicked XP? Basically, because you kill so many people in such a short amount of time, you aren't splitting that XP with too many people, and diminishing returns aren't applied in scenarios for recently killed players. You also get nice bonus XP depending on your overall scenario score.

Can you guys think of any ways Mythic could improve XP in open RvR?

The quickest way to rank 40?
( surveys)

Here's a little recap of my journies from rank 30-33.5.

• A respec to Quick Shootin''


• Bastion Stair


• Heavy Metal


• General RvR


• Progression (scenarios, quests, and kill collectors)


• 1.06 career patch

'E was a good lad...

I'm shootin' more quickly

Kinda. I've been Big Shootin' spec ever since I started my Squig Herder and I really wanted a change of pace. Back in beta, Quick Shootin' was what made me choose to roll a Squig Herder over the other two Greenskin careers because it allowed for a much more twitchy and elusive playstyle (since you can shoot on the run a lot more effectively).

It took a lot of experimentation, and I'm still not certain I have it figured out completely, but I'm somewhat happier with how my Squig Herder is playing out in RvR. My original intention was to focus on mobile AoE damage with Run 'n Shoot + Splinterin' Arrers, but it was pretty weak overall in both RvR and PvE. This was pre-1.06 mind you, but I didn't feel like I was really putting out enough damage to really take anyone out. It was wasted in PvE as well because pulling too many mobs will usually kill me in quick order. I could probably find some ideal camps of non-melee mobs where I could easily take out large clusters with a Gas squig and my AoE shots, but it's not common enough to rely on. Also, looking back at Big Shootin', I think that mastery line is more suited for bigger AoE damage anyway.

Instead, I have focused more on being an annoyance by stacking DoTs, snares, and giving a bit of extra Oomph! on the assist train. The Strength in Numbas tactic really helps me to build up my morale abilities quickly, which are some of my most effective abilities (Squig Goo and Explosive Shots especially). I did buy the rank 4 Morale ability from Quick Shootin' but I have found it to be mostly useless. It barely makes a dent in the enemy and I can do much more damage with my rank 1, 2, or 3 morales. Also, to force myself to get into the action a bit more, I equipped the Expert Skirmisher tactic, which has probably hurt me just as much as it has helped! :P Finding that sweet spot of <45 feet of range can be quite tricky, especially when your targets are usually moving and protected by a line of heavy tanks that can easily tear a Squig Herder to pieces. But when I can find that sweet spot, look out!

My RvR tactic set currently consists of Expert Skirmisher, Strength in Numbas, and Run Away because when you quickly get into the mix, it's nice to be able to quickly get out when things aren't going so well.

Nice artwork... just look at the wall relief.

Raidin' the Bastion Stair

You can read a more detailed account of my first Bastion Stair experience here. I don't really know how keen I am to go back any time soon to be honest. The Bloodlord stats aren't that great for Squig Herders and the newer RvR Influence items in 1.1 may be better. Bastion was kinda fun, but the level of co-ordination and effort it takes to pull off a full raid isn't really worth it unless the rewards and and drop-rates increase imho.

Headbangin' to heavy metal

Overall, I found this event to be pretty successful. The tasks were extremely easy to complete compared to the Witching Night live event, but it was a very welcome change of pace. I quite easily managed to keep up with the daily tasks and I completed all the remaining tasks in less than an hour when they lifted the "daily" restriction for American Thanksgiving weekend. Given the elite influence reward, I think they wanted to make this live event as accessible as possible so the more casual folks didn't feel screwed over by not being able to gain early access to the BG and KotBS careers.

Reikland Factory was amazing and I shot a scenario video with narration here. I hope they bring this scenario back at some point because the pacing is just amazing. Rather than encouraging the zerg, it encourages smaller groups of people to work as a cohesive unit, communicating well over chat and taking/defending the various objectives at the right moments. The terrain was absolutely awesome as well, allowing you to fight inside the building (from the main level, rafters, or tunnels) and all around the building. The building itself had several entry and exit points, which made for some exciting surprise attacks and escapes. Finally, both teams usually achieved a large sum of points. Many of the matches ended with extremely close scores. Even if you lost, you would gain a fair bit of XP and renown!

A+++ for Reikland Factory.

Go kill yerself some wights in High Pass to get dis cloak!

RvR at the top and bottom of T3 and T4

I went into some detail in an earlier post, but I can't say I was overly enthusiastic with my oRvR experience at the top of the food chain in T3. I had just respecced to Quick Shootin' and I really hadn't figured things out yet, but I felt severely underpowered in most 1v1 situations, even vs. rank 22-25 oppontents (when I was rank 31). Again, this was all pre 1.06, so I'm sure things would be different if I was rank 31 and participating in oRvR today. That said, I'm much more happy to be in T4.

I feel like more of a threat in T4 than I ever did in T3, even though I'm being buffed by the "bolster" effect. I had a few decent keep/BO sieges in T4 but I have to say, they got pretty old fast. Keep siege just isn't very dynamic in WAR. It's a sad fact that if you've done one keep raid, you've done them all. DAOC had more interesting siege warfare with the towers and destructible/scalable walls. Keeps in WAR seem very tacked on (even though they're beautiful) and that's because they are tacked on. Most people know or should know this by now, but keeps were never part of the original game design for WAR. They were added due to beta tester feedback, but too late in development to actually do anything great with them. I've been reading reports about the Lake Wintergrasp keep sieging in WoW that says it is actually more fun and dynamic than WAR. I haven't played it myself, but I dislike how WoW siege limited to one zone (that will get boring fast) and only accessible at certain intervals (and locked at other times).

There is hope to improve keeps though, and I think it lies in Siegecraft, a little tidbit I heard one of the developers talking about recently. Basically, they are giving some thought to a new crafting skill in WAR revolving around siege weapons. Let's hope they allow us make some siege towers/ladders that will help us scale the walls, doomdivers that will let us drop in from the sky (heck, even make us suffer a 50% health drop when plummeting to the earth), and some sort of digging mechanism that will allow us to tunnel under the walls. If possible, I'd also like to see some kind of high-powered cannon that will allow us to blast through walls. There is a lot of room for improvement here, even on the defensive side of things, and tying it to crafting will kill two birds with one stone! :)

Also, despite some valiant attempts, Destruction has yet to completely lock down a full T4 pairing on my server. The same goes for Order. According to the 1.06 patch notes, it's supposedly easier to lock a zone, but I haven't noticed much improvement. Most of the time we capture all the keeps and BOs and then start queuing for the scenarios en masse. At this point, Order flees the zone or refuses to engage in RvR and we start creeping toward zone capture. After about 30-45 minutes of sitting in a non-popping scenario queue and grinding public quests I get insanely bored and frack off to go do other things. If it takes a feat of dedication to lock a zone, I guess I just don't have it.

I realize they don't want people to be able to take a capitol city in a single day/session, but that's been the flaw with this design since the beginning: Players don't want to wait around wanking it for days or weeks to accomplish something, and yet they tied the ultimate accomplishment in this game to the sacking of someone's main city, which isn't well suited for a quick-capture design. I really don't see how they're going to fix this. If they allow captures to take place every couple days, it will trivialize the accomplishment. If they force people into a weeklong grind to get a city, people will get bored and pissy. Couple all this with the fact that the RvR campaign heavily favours the overpopulated side (if both realms' skill are equal) and I just don't like the campaign concept at all. Never have.

Stunty meets Stuntybreaka!

I like Prog-rock!

Kill collectors. Best levelling tool evah! How can I not have used these to their fullest potential in the past? If you can find a good kill task in a PQ, you're double-set (e.g., Ch16 canyon dwarves in Badlands)! The most I ever got in a single turn-in was 32,000XP at rank 32. I had three quests that took me into a PQ area that had just reset. Stage I was to kill 100 humans and I could take out an average of 3 mobs per minute because they were quick kills and densely populated. Knowing there was a kill task for humans in this zone, I decided to grind out all 100. I made a huge dent in my XP bar that day!

Regular quests are also starting to reward a lot more XP in chapter 16/17 and it doesn't feel as horrible a grind compared to all the previous chapters. I very rarely complete any PQs these days unless they're tied to a kill collector because the rewards are total crap. Seriously, I have better gear at rank 33 than any of the rewards from PQs up to chapter 19. Booerns to itemization. But yay for not being forced to grind the PQs for 5% better gear! :P

Finally, I've been doing a lot of Serpent's Pass lately, which can be quite fun and challenging and also extremely frustrating. I've had games with us winning 500 to 50, close matches where the winner is only up by ~50-100 points, and horrible experiences where we lost 500 to 2 (way more often than I'd like). There are several things I've noticed about SP on my server:

• Rank 40 Order love to queue for this scenario. Most matches have 3-5 rank 40s.


• Rank 40 Destruction hate to queue for this scenario. It's rare to see more than 2 rank 40s, and usually there's only 1.


• Overall, Order players outrank Destruction 3/4 of the time.


• Rank 28-33 is the largest group of Destruction players in almost every run of this scenario (yes, I am part of the problem)


• Destruction loses way more than it wins in Serpent's Passage


• Serpent's Passage is about the only scenario Order queues for, most likely because of the previous bullet point.

Order just seems more organized most of the times I've played this scenario. They also play it more gutsy by taking the middle as Destruction starts slowly backing off. Rarely do the Destruction PuGs play with any confidence in SP and I think a big part of that is that we usually have fewer healers in each run.

On the other hand, every time I do a run with my guild, things go a lot better. We have fielded some 4-5 man groups on a few occasions and we usually end up topping the charts while giving Order a hard shove in the other direction. Let me tell you, /assist is your friend. It will be pretty interesting to see how the new main assist UI feature in 1.1 will help people focus-fire their enemies down. We made some /assist macros and assigned a MA in the last run we did and it worked amazingly well. It's not a new concept, but if you're lazy, it's not somthing you usually take advantage of. Let me reiterate, it makes a huge difference.

Our guild just reached rank 20! Not bad for only having 7-10 "active" members, eh?

1.06 - Am I supposed to feel more powerful?

To be quite honest with you, I haven't noticed any drastic improvements on my Squig Herder since the 1.06 patch, but maybe that's because I recently respecced to Quick Shootin', which isn't the most "damaging" mastery path. One thing I am happy for is the Run Away! ability from Quick Shootin' as well as the Run Away tactic (I guess they couldn't come up with more unique names) because the nerfs to Sticky Squigz (my root) would have totally nuked my survivability otherwise. Not only is Sticky Squigz now on a 30-second cooldown, it also breaks much easier than it did before and there is a grace period between root applications on enemy players. Given that I also have two snares in the form of Squig Goo and Stop Runnin', I can usually keep myself fairly safe from one or two melee opponents.

I have noticed an slight improvement in the morale and ability responsiveness, however, 1.06 introduced a new bug(?) that adds a 0.5 second animation delay to many of my abilities. My ability animations transition a lot smoother now, but the half second delay really makes things feel clunky and I'm usually forced to press a hotkey several times before it will fire in a hectic RvR situation. It's equally as annoying in PvE, even though I am rarely in dire situations.

I really enjoy that all my pets summon at the correct rank now, which makes them all quite potent for specific situations. I have noticed myself using the Spiked Squig a lot more now that I'm Quick Shootin' for the 5% increase in ranged crit, the crit debuff that I usually try land on BWs, and the ranged attack capability which is great for when I quickly change targets on the fly. It was kind of annoying switching targets with the Horned squig because it would need to get into melee range before it could attack. This wasn't very useful if I was switching targets 75+ feet apart. This Spiked Squig also augments my Not So Fast ability, which reduces an opponent's Initiative, increasing the chance they will be critically hit. Simply put, I crit a lot more now!

Again, I think if I were Big Shootin' spec, I'd notice a much greater increase in my damage due to the wider array of more damaging AoE abilities (Explodin' Arrer and Shrapnel Arrer with their respective tactics), Plink at 1 second (with the tactic), and Lots o' Arrers, but I'm not willing to trade the versatility of Quick Shootin' for more damage just yet.

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Okay, that was an absolute monster of a post. Please let me know if you would like to see these diary posts in a large format like this or split over several individual posts instead. Whew!

I haven't had this much fun in weeks! It wasn't all candy and roses, but it was a pretty good overall experience.

Respec

I finally made the switch from Big Shootin' to Quick Shootin' on my Squig Herder. I've noticed a significant drop in burst damage and obviously the range at which I can plink away at, but I have gained a huge amount of mobility as well as AoE damage and damage over time. I made the mistake of forgetting to learn a key defensive ability that would give me a lot of protection in RvR, but I'll be able to learn it next level and it wasn't worth the 3g 20s respec cost to pick up. I'll get more into this in my next Squig Herder diary post. To sum it up though, my character has become much more engaging and fun to play.

Keep Siege(s)

Our original plan was to start a run of Bastion Stair at 8PM EST last night, so I logged on a bit early to respec my character and participate in a couple scenarios. I received a guild/warband invite the moment I logged into the game and they told me they were sieging the northeastern keep in Kadrin Valley (Order had all keeps and BOs). I quickly joined them after my respec.

Our warband was pretty small, about 2.5 groups, so I decided to watch the north postern door. It wasn't long before I was jumped by three Order rushing to defend their keep, so I shouted for some help. A few of my allies showed up and we took care of them. For the next 20 minutes or so, more and more Order kept trying to make a run for the postern door and we were successful in taking them down before they could get in. Most of the time we were pretty evenly matched but we eventually got overwhelmed as a few started trickling into the keep before we could stop them. Well, I guess no-one was guarding the south postern door because within a few minutes, it all went to hell. Easily one full warband of Order spilled out their front gate and north postern door, and because we were so divided up, we fell pretty easily. They outnumbered us by 1-2 groups anyway.

We failed in our siege but the skirmishes at the postern door made it all worthwhile. We then went to siege an undefended Praag keep while we were waiting to form up our Bastion Stair group. We made it to the keep lord with half a warband, but I guess there was a group of Order standing up with the merchants on the roof waiting for us to engage the heavy-hitting NPCs. They stormed down and completely destroyed us. Failure number two, but oh well. We respawned in the camp and formed up for Bastion Stair.

Bastion Stair

We entered Bastion Stair with 3 full groups and a few alternate tag-alongs in case people had to leave. Our goal was to clear all three wings. Most of the first wing went off without a hitch. We completed two or three public quests before making it to the Lord portal at the end of the wing. Apparently, you are required to have the first bubble of influence to enter the first Lord instance, the second bubble for the second Lord instance in wing two, and the third bubble for the final Lord instance in wing three. Interesting concept and after having spent only 30ish minutes in the dungeon I had my first bubble plus 25% more.

The first wing boss was acting a bit buggy and I was concerned at times that we wouldn't finish him. Apparently, he will knock the highest aggro person into a pit with all his mangy demon mutts. The more mutts you kill, the more he gets healed up. Pretty cool concept. To pull the lord, you first need to pull one of his dogs. Well, he didn't come after one dog. Not after two dogs. He eventually charged us after killing 8 of his dogs. The buggy part was that even though he didn't have any dogs left in the pit, and we didn't kill any more of them during the entire fight, his health would keep filling back up after getting him to about 50% life. We were slightly concerned but after 3 self-heals, he finally stopped healing himself and we took him down without an issue.

I didn't win any great loot but a guildy in one of the other groups managed to get a Bloodlord Stabba, which he gave to me. I can't wield it yet, but once I can it will be awesome! :)

We then cleared everything in the second wing, where three more rank 33 Squig Herder items dropped. I'll be nicely decked out in a couple more levels! The trouble came when we got to the second Lord. Five of us, including myself didn't have the influence requirement to make it in, so we had to wait outside. After a few other logouts and crashes, that meant we only had two groups capable of entering, which was fine, but it meant others had to wait outside and wait. This would have been fine if the second Lord fight went off without a hitch, but apparently the strategy for him changed because neither group could kill him and wiped three of four times each. I started getting bored after waiting around for 45-minutes, so I disbanded and suicided out. I picked up my first tier influence reward and ran off to Black Fire Pass because and Order keep was lit up on my map.

The dungeon was a bit repetitive but the bosses came very quickly. You had to maybe kill five or six camps of trash mobs before you made it to a PQ boss and after two or three PQs, you made it to a lord. This is exactly the same as Mount Gunbad. I like this kind of layout for a dungeon. Our group of mixed 31-40s easily churned through the PQs but that second Lord posed a problem. If think the ideal number to run with is two groups so the dungeon is somewhat challenging, but you can still move along at a decent pace.

After two more failed attempts and almost everyone but one group bailing out, I heard that they finally managed to beat the second Lord, while I was in skirmish RvR. They definitely showed some perseverance and I was happy for them, but I didn't feel like sitting around any longer. I will definitely go back though!

Skirmish RvR

Black Fire Pass was pretty sweet with very small skirmishes around both BOs. I initially went out solo and fought around the edges, but destruction wasn't really working as a team and I died a few times pretty quickly (damn rank 31 Witch Hunters... I just can't beat 'em unless I get extremely lucky). I also blame the fact that I was still getting used to my new spec and playstyle! Yeah, that's right...

One big complaint I have is that both White Lions and Squig Herders are very reliant on our pets (many of our abilities won't work without them and our classes were balanced to have pets around to boost our DPS), however, each time we mount up, our pets die.  I'm basically forced to resummon a squig (2 seconds but it has a high knockback if we're getting hit) everytime I dismount to engage in RvR. This has always been a complaint of mine but recently it has become much more problematic as more and more of my fights begin from the mount.  I don't think it's fair that we should be gimped when we decide to mount up to chase down an enemy or when we're jumped while mounted.

Anyway, I finally joined up with a Shaman and Black Orc from Shadowclan. We ran around between our warcamp, Bugman's, and Furrig's and actually did quite well for a time. None of us died and we sent about 10-12 Order to their (temporary) graves. We then added a Sorc to our group and played a bit of "bait and trap." I would pretend to be a lone Squig Herder between Bugman's and a huge rock formation that hid the rest of my group. This worked only once because the second time they swarmed me with 6 Order. I called on my group for assistance and we fought a bloody fight that resulted in us four eating dirt, but three of them as well.

In the final fight I participated in, we re-took Furrig's as a small but steady strem of Order rushed to defend. Our group had grown by two at this point (total of 6 now). During the two minutes we were there to defend it, another larger Order group rushed us. We fought another great fight where I actually used Squig Battle Armor for the first time evar (just for the hell of it really, not because it made me any better). At the end, we were victorious, with only two of our group left standing. I wasn't one of them and it was getting late, so I called it a night.

I gained just over a bubble of XP in 30-40 minutes of skirmish RvR and it was glorious fun. Maybe that's because at rank 31, I was the top dog, but if you've ever fought a Squig Herder before, that doesn't mean very much. I still died to two rank 22s with bolster when I started off solo.

Good times.

FYI: This was written a couple days ago.

By the power of Greyskull!

It has been a long time since my last diary post and in that time, I have raised from rank 23 to 30. That's about a month for seven ranks. Most of the people I know can average one level every two or three play sessions, but not this guy... I found the last seven levels to really challenge my interest in the game, which you'll have noticed if you've read any of my posts since the last journal entry.

The main reason I wasn't writing WAR Diary posts for each or every few ranks was because nothing of much import actually happened. I didn't find much of it interesting enough to report on, so I couldn't imagine any of the readers finding it interesting either.

Here my highlights from ranks 23-30:

• Witching Night - This really got people interested in oRvR in T3 and every time I logged on I could find some pretty decent fights in Black Fire Pass. Yeah, some, if not most of it was zergy, it sure beat grinding out scenarios and quests over and over again.


• My gear finally got some new skins by rank 30 (T4 quests and RvR drops), which is a welcome change from the same boring textures I've been used to since the beginning of T3. Dyes are a great way to customize your character, but would it hurt to have more than two skins and weapon models per tier?


• My guild finally achieved rank 15, so we picked a background style for our heraldry. Once we hit rank 21 we can finally add an emblem to make us truly stand out. Unfortunately, there appears to be a graphical glitch that prevents me from actually seeing the heraldry on my cloak half the time. It's about a 50/50 toss-up as to whether or not my cloak texture will show up every time I load into a new zone/scenario.


• I can finally join T4 scenarios and participate in T4 oRvR. Serpent's Passage seems to load a lot and apparently Order heavily outranks Destruction on my server, so it's usually five or six rank 36-40 Order guys with a couple of rank 39 and a ton of rank 28-33 Destruction guys.


• Rank 30 finally unlocked a new backpack and two more tactic slots. Woot.

I got vertigo... and I threw up a little.

Here are some of the lowlights from ranks 23-30:

• You'd think with all the morale abilities, career skills, and tactics I would actually learn something new and cool at each rank. This doesn't seem to be the case. Often times I would gain a new rank and not be able to learn anything at all. Most of the time I would gain a new rank and be able to train some trash abilities (I still have about 8 untrained career skills/tactics/morales because I know I'll never use them). I have only found a skill/morale/tactic worth training three times since rank 23.


• I am so damned sick of grinding away at Public Quests, solo or in a group. I have levelled a few alts lately and I really miss how quickly the influence bar seemed to move in chapter 1 and 2. Why must they make the latter PQs (chapter 15+) so brutal? It's not like the rewards are itemized very well anyway... Half the time I don't even want the junk they consider rewards.


• Kill ten rats. Collect five foozles. Go talk to this guy. And then go talk to that guy. Go scout this area. Mythic has shown some glimpses of brilliance with quests in earlier chapters, but it really starts to wear on you after doing it for so many ranks.  I like to balance my oRvR with scenarios and with PvE. The PvE just isn't engaging at all anymore.


• Scenarios. There are six of them. Yet I only ever get into two or three with any frequency - Tor Anroc, Temple of Isha, and Doomfist Crater. All three are fairly fast-paced, but it is easy to get dominated early in them and become unable to recover. Mostly this is a PuG issue. Half the time people are running around like challenged folk with protective headgear and when you try bring a little organization via scenario chat you are either ignored or called an idiot. The remaining three unplayed scenarios are even worse in PuGs because people play them so defensively.


• Aside from Witching Night, T3 oRvR has been quite dead. Most of the time I log on we already own all the keeps and BOs, so there's nothing to do but wait for something to go under siege. Unfortunately, I think the majority of Order is in T4, so T3 isn't very important to them on my server these days.

What am I looking forward to?

• Heavy Metal - Depending on the daily tasks, this event might actually be quite fun. They did a great job with Witching Night even though there was no way I could possibly fill the Live Event influence bar on a casual schedule, even after maxing out on Lords, Crones, and Spirits and doing a ton of oRvR. I hope to fill the Heavy Metal Live Event influence bar and participate in the new scenario.


• A potential respec to Quick Shootin' mastery. I've been training in Big Shootin' since rank 10, so I welcome a change in playstyle, especially one that keeps me a moving target instead of a stationary pin cushion.


• The 1.06 Combat and Career patch that will finally address a number of my Squig Herder's balance issues.

Cheating the system - going back to the chapter 1 PQ for a Daily unlock and a bit o' revenge.

Maybe the outlook isn't so bleak afterall? The fact that I'm looking forward to a few things has to be good, right?

Okay folks, the posts haven't been coming as frequently these days, so forgive the lengthiness here! Pretend this is three posts in one! :P

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One of the more common Warhammer Online gripes around the community lately is centered around WAR's lack of immersion and game world. Simply put, many people feel like they are "playing a game" when they play WAR and are not experiencing the same kind of immersion they've felt in past MMORPGs. They don't feel connected to their characters or the world. Here are some of the reasons people have been citing:

Tier-based, disjointed world

This is a pretty cool way to set up your over-arching RvR campaign so that everyone from rank 1-40 can contribute, however, the drawback is that you divide your game world up into segments. Add that each of these tiers are divided by a loading screen for performance sake and you break the flow from tier to tier. The fact that you can also fly to a completely different continent with a 2-minute loading screen also makes the game seem disjointed. Remember running up to your capitol city in many other MMOs in awe of the high walls at a very low rank? In WAR you fly there and can't even really see it from the outside until you're in T4.

Lack of community and chat

The strides Mythic took to making grouping a quick and easy processs seems to have had an unforeseen counter-effect on community. With open grouping you can simply add yourself to anyone's group from anywhere in the zone and start doing your job. Because they take the personal contact out of the process of joining a group (/send hi, do you need a rank X ?), it's just as easy for people to quit a group because there is no mutual understanding of commitment.

As for chat, the chatbox is actually quite powerful once you get the hang of it, but the original two windows we're given when we first start the game are a spammy mess. Just to keep everything under control, I personally use four chatboxes and even then I don't use my party/warband/scenario/guild/tell/say chat as my primary window because there are other important bits of information I need to keep up on in my other tabs. I haven't fully cusomized my UI or looked for client mods, but I'd like to see my chat window beside another important information window (side by side at the same time). That should be the default layout for everyone (set the chat tab as primary/active and the other as passive so you can quickly reply via chat rather than having to click around too much).

Lack of death penalty in PvE and PvP

This is a tough one because if you penalize death too much, people won't be willing to die or even engage in RvR unless the odds are heavily in their favour. That would be bad news in an RvR game. But if you don't penalize it at all, then death becomes meaningless (in WAR you respawn right beside a healer and spend a few silver to completely remove any ill effects). Death is so meaningless in WAR that it's the most efficient way to travel! Finished with your quests and want to quickly get back to a camp to turn them in? Just suicide and you'll respawn at the camp, saving you 5-10 minutes of optional travel-time. Meaningless death that doesn't affect your character definitely kills immersion. I want to actually fear death in an MMO. Otherwise, where's the risk and/or excitement?

Obviously linear progression (chapter to chapter)

This is great for funnelling people together into the same areas, but since the community aspect of WAR is pretty bland (read: non-existent outside of guilds), it doesn't really achieve the desired effect. You are rewarded with some ToK unlocks for exploring the areas in between the red quest circles on your map, and in a way, that does promote immersion, but overall, knowing that we are supposed to go from chapter A to B and then to C is kind of like playing the game with a strategy guide in your back pocket. The breadcrumb of red circles leads the way to where they want you to go next. You can veer off that path, but it isn't very rewarding and let's face it, we're mostly reward-based gamers. That said, it's convenient as well and I would personally be using WarDB a lot more if they didn't show it to me in game.

Instanced scenarios reminiscent of FPS fragfests

The RvR scenarios are mini-fragfests, no different than Team Fortress 2. You have an objective and the most efficient way to get that objective is to slaughter the enemy faster than they can slaughter you. Personally, I like the genre blend, but because a) scenarios are (mostly were) the most efficient way to gain XP and b) people want to progress as fast as possible, only two scenarios per tier get played with any frequency - the most rewarding ones. So many of the other scenarios are beautifully designed where you can use a lot of strategy for an immersive team-based RvR experience but because you don't gain as much XP and renown in them, they are completely unpopulated. The fact that these are also instanced experiences, taking place outside the game world give us the feeling of "gamey-ness." A mini-game within a game if you will.

I hate to suggest giving people something for nothing, but if they really want to boost the use of scenarios other than Nordenwatch, Mourkain Temple, Tor Anroc, Doomfist Crater, etc. then they should implement a minimum reward for participating in them. Let's say minimum 5k XP and 200 renown for something like Highpass Cemetary? Otherwise they'll sit there unused for all eternity...

Cut the fat - There's very little in the world that serves no purpose

Here are some easy examples:

If I enter Avelorn, I'm bound to find plenty of boars, bears, wolves, stags, elvish swordsmen, elvish bowmen, elvish magicians, etc. I would wager that there is likely a quest, public quest, or kill task tied most if not all of these mobs. There's not much in these zones where the sole purpose is to add flavour.

And what's with the lack of mobs in RvR lakes? I think these would not only spice up the strategy people would use in RvR but also give us the feeling that we're not the only creatures that inhabit the area. It's like they put up an electric fence around each RvR lake (I've experienced so far) to deter any other creatures from loitering.

Finally, you get a real sense that your race is at war with an enemy race in T1 due to all the NPC interaction and turmoil going on around you. As you progress into T2 and T3, much of this is lost. Yes, you still have quests to go out and collect 10 dwarf beards, but the mobs further off on their own just meandering around just waiting to be killed. It would be a challenge to sustain the polish of T1 throughout T2 and T3, but it doesn't even seem like they tried very hard. I can't comment on T4 because I haven't been in it since closed beta.

Lack of downtime

Much of the missing chat and lack of a sense of community can probably be tied to the fact that there is very little downtime in WAR. There are no long flights a la WoW or horse rides a la DAOC. You can queue for a scenario while PvEing to maximize your time. The process of crafting is very quick and you can do it on the run. There are no long corpse runs or downtimes as you await your death penalty debuff to wear off. PQ mobs respawn insanely fast (often too fast for a solo person) and so do PQs in general.

Mythic devs have admitted this. One of their primary goals was to minimize forced player downtime, so people could actually spend more time playing the game. WAR is a game you can log into for 30 minutes and actually accomplish something (usually two scenario runs...).

It appears that unless you force downtime on players, they won't actually take it on their own. A lack of forced downtime for many means that if they aren't maximizing their available time, they're falling behind others. People don't like being left behind. Forced downtime, while a hinderance to your min/max of online play time, is definitely a community builder.

MMOs don't really mystify like they used to

I hate to say it, but on many levels if you've played one MMORPG, you've played them all. So many of the game mechanics are either only slightly modified or completely the same. Much of the environment is recycled over and over again (forests, tundras, mountains, deserts, etc.). Their UIs are all pretty similar. You play them the same way. They are starting to feel the same.

Part of this is because most of the MMOs since 1999 have been fantasy-based, but even the current sci-fi MMORPG have a number of commonalities. It's very hard to get completely immersed in and awed by something when you've done it for hundreds of hours before.

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Now all that might sound pretty negative, but to be honest, I'm not looking for a Second Life; I'm looking for a game. After a long day at work and entertaining the family and friends, I want to mindlessly mash some buttons and get a bit of an adrenaline rush while doing so. I don't care about losing myself in my character.

Do I get the same kind of adrenaline rush in WAR than I did in WoW PvP? Nope (I'm not kidding - WoW was much faster-paced and blood-pumping even if horribly balanced and meaningless). How about WoW compared to DAOC? Nope - DAOC was way better. How about DAOC compared to my first PK MUD? Nope - that MUD used to actually make me sweat bullets and it was only freakin' text.

The same could be said for the PvE in these games. Doing my first run-through of Moria in the MUD was an absolutely terrifying experience because I had so much to lose and the dangers were ever-present. Somehow, I don't think the Mines of Moria expansion for LOTRO would instill the same kind of fear and excitement...

The affect of this genre is definitely wearing off. The more recent games are always a bit more bland because we've become desensitised by everything before them. As we get older and as we gain more experiences, it's just harder to grip our imaginations.

Why bother trying to spend all this time capturing what little is left? Don't we all just want to play a game? Maybe Mythic is on the right track here?

On the other hand, I'd be very curious to read the impressions of people for whom WAR is their first MMORPG experience. I doubt there are many of them, but I'd guess that it would be quite positive. You see, they'd have no basis for comparison and the awe-factor would be in full effect. That would be a great crowd to attract to your game and there are hundreds of millions of them out there. I don't even want to think about the challenges of getting them to try out your game though.