Graverobber’s Weekly

Disclaimer: My activity level on this blog (and in game) has been dismal of late. With class heating up just before it winds down, I’ve had trouble finding time for anything else, and I apologize for that. This period of relative inactivity will unfortunately continue for the next week or two. I will, however, pick up the pace a little bit.

I’ve really enjoyed writing about my static group’s adventures in ToVL, so I’m going to turn it into a series. Each week after our run, I’ll do a little write-up on how it went, any goodies we pilfered, and anything we learned about the dungeon. That last part might be important to some of you. After six weeks of running this dungeon with varied success, I have learned a trick or two every single attempt. The effort behind this series is to provide some entertainment, a little humor, and spread some information about a dungeon that few people see very much of.

I was going to start with Episode 1 this week, but due to some extenuating circumstances, we didn’t have a complete run. Not to worry, though, because next week will see the kickstart of the series. Also, as far as the 1.3.5 patch notes are concerned, I’m sure you’ve read them by now. In the next day or two I’m going to take some of my favorite and least favorite parts out of the notes and write an opinion piece. There’s lots of excitement going on right now with WAR, and I’m really glad that I’m being pulled away from the game before the patch hits rather than after. See everybody later!

Extras!

Who doesn’t like extras? This is later than I’d have liked to put it up, but it will work. TheWARCAST has officially launched its first episode! This is, as the narrators themselves have said, a preamble to the real deal. I’m going to be subscribing via iTunes, and thankfully the iTunes account is now up and running. You can get to this episode through TheWARCAST’s main website, or searching for the show in iTunes. Give this show the following it needs to become a big part of the WAR community. There’s good things to come.

Update

Hey guys! Been too long since I’ve released a full fledged post, and it’s going to have to wait at least another day. For now I’ve got a forum threat for you to check out. I think most players can agree that they want new content in this game. Well, someone on my server has put together a small thread that’s got a few kudos already. Give it a read, and maybe throw a kudo his way.

Also, I’m going to be writing about all my ToVL experiences, which will probably be the next post I put up. It’s almost halfway done, but I’ve been decimated recently with year-end work. I’m not going anywhere, it’s just a down period in my blog activity. Go kill some people in WAR.

And in with the new

Here we are, people. April 13, 2010. The day that the new city changes were first announced in detail. I was sitting in a rather boring lecture this morning, whipped out my phone, and saw Shadow-war’s new post. After class, I hurriedly found my real life WARbuddy and told him the news. We were both confused, though, because Andrew’s post seemed to answer questions that required a bit of knowledge already. That curiosity was sated as soon as I warmed up my computer.

The new city looks great on paper. I’m going to save us all the monotony of typing up an exact replica and just point you here. Instead, I’m going to give you my opinions.

The Good

Before ever seeing it in action, before ever reading an opinionated post about it, I like these changes. While looking at the notes, I remember thinking to myself, “This city sounds like an actual epic encounter.” An encounter that is gripping, fast paced, and mechanically sound.

Each stage looks like it’s going to be an individual experience, and by that I mean it’s not the same old thing for two hours. I really like the idea of a fight across the city, rather than turtling up at one or two BOs. There seems to be real strategy infused with the fight, and that is also a good thing. As for Champions, all I can say is that I’m pumped.

I believe that the introduction of Warlord and Sovereign rewards for defenders is a plus, as is the incentive to stay in your own instance. Not only that, but the VP pool is no longer tied throughout every instance. The King could die in #1 and over in #2 the attackers might not even catch a glimpse of the palace gates. This, I believe, is a great move.

The Bad

Well, the first thing out of many people’s mouths will be, “It’s Mythic. Look at what they’ve done to this game before. Don’t get your hopes up.” It is very true that this game has a troubled past. Mythic wouldn’t put a post out if it didn’t come dripping with excitement. It’s their job to get us excited (see: pre launch mania). With that being said, it’s obvious that whatever they say out the city will be tailor made to hook us in. Given the track record, they really need to pull through with this patch.

In an effort to wrap this post up, the final verdict is: this update looks great, but we need to wait and see. I’m going to keep an optimistic attitude and say that this patch will address some sorely broken issues about the city siege. I don’t feel like I’m writing too well today, so I’m going to end on that note. Be sure to check out the four big WAR Blaaaghers and their new Q&A’s going up soon if not already. You can find P-O-D-C-A-S-T, Werit, Shadow-war, and Gaarawarr in my blogroll.

Out with the old

Today, similarly to Thehealeroftru (Welcome to the blogroll), I experienced my first ever Altdorf stage 2. To be quite honest I was my first ever Altdorf stage one as well. My previous experience was from the perspective of a sub 40 choppa with a framefrate approaching zero. I decided that since this content was leaving soon, I might as well get to experience some of it. Boy, it’s good that it’s going.

Stage one was simple enough. Identical to the IC stage one that I’ve taken part in countless times. After finding an alliance-only warband (shout out to Forsworn!) we made our way into the Bright Wizard College. We had some wise and wizened contenders in the warband who led all the noobs through the content. There really wasn’t much content to be had. The first encounter was a rez frenzied clusterf%$@, followed by a broken boss encounter that left us throwing axes for nearly 10 minutes. The three Bad Moon members present all recieved pieces of Warlord, represent. Shortly, the penultimate endgame PQ left much to be desired, but we will get to that later.

The warband then rode to the palace. We were told that we could make it through some of the minibosses for Royal Crests even though our warband wasn’t even close to fully excel. We downed Captain Jamus and whatever the other guys name was in due time, after another frenzied clusterf%$@ of rezzing. That was far from the end of the hilarity, though. The Shadow Warrior sub boss is probably part of why SWs everywhere cry themselves to sleep at night. She’s got a friggin’ ninja kick. If I played a SW I’d be pissed that I didn’t have a friggin’ ninja kick. On top of that, she’s got some pretty powerful moves whose power levels are over 9000 when you don’t have excelsior wards. Someone joked in vent that, “this boss probably has the most kills of any NPC in WAR.” I’m not going to argue. Our entire warband literally ran up to her, smacked her once, got cleaved, respawned, and repeated that process ad nauseum. It was worth the Royal Crest though.

Ok, I was light on the details because most of you who care have probably been through that content before. The real reason for this post is to give you my opinion on the current state of things in WAR’s endgame.

It sucks.

I’ll say it again, it sucks. I’m so glad that they are removing that crap in the next patch. To be quite honest, what they have said so far is head and shoulders above the content I experienced this morning. What have they said so far? It’s going to be completely RvR based. Yep, that’s it. Warhammer was billed as the PvP game to play. It was the next best thing. I’ve heard the stories that the endgame doesn’t contain PvP, I’ve never liked hearing that, but actually experiencing it was enough to drive that nail in. The endgame doesn’t have PvP. It is because of this that I excitedly say out with the old. Trash that bunch of broken PvE before all these new players get their hopes diminished by it. Not only did this morning show me how bad the current endgame is, it made me realize how excited I am for the new patch. I really want to like cities. Of course real life will probably never match what I imagined when I first read about this game, but they can at least infuse some PvP into it. PvP in WAR is super fun. Make us earn that Sov gear, and have fun while we do it.

Update, more to come soon

Hope everyone is having a good Friday today, got a little tidbit to pass along to you guys regarding TheWARCAST. I neglected to mention in my first post that this podcast will be available both on YouTube and iTunes (rejoice now). Some of you may be chomping at the bit for any news coming out of TheWARCAST camp, so here’s a bit. The show was approved by iTunes and that page can be found right here. Also, there’s an introductory video guiding new users to the YouTube channel where most of the audience’s opinions will be sent in. Here’s the video.

I’m well aware that four of the WAR Blaaaghers finest were down in Virginia yesterday. A few of my questions have already been answered in the quick posts they were able to get up. I’m going to hold off on doing a full opinion of the event and the information that came out of it until all the answers are laid bare. Stay tuned!

Edit: I used the word “bit” in some form or fashion three times in the first paragraph. I’m going to leave it like that, but I need to go get some food. Enjoy yourselves today

TheWARCAST

If you read this blog often, you know that I love supporting the community. Well, the community just got a whole lot more exciting.

Podcasts are my personal favorite part of the community in any MMO. Unfortunately, WAR hasn’t had a single podcast, let alone a good one, in a very long time. That will hopefully change with the release of TheWARCAST, a brand new effort to revitalize the already growing WAR fanbase.

“It’s purpose is to deliver new information revolving around Warhammer Online and also discuss it. We want players to be intrigued and interested in their fun experience, but we also want players to be aware of what’s behind it. Upcoming patches, new content, Warhammer Online Classes, RvR, PvP, PvE, and all other topics that make Warhammer Online a game, need to be discussed…. Listeners will be able to hear numerous perspectives and insights from TheWARCAST host and co-host alongside episode guests and possibly even YOU!”

This is simply fantastic news. Everyone has taken notice of the explosion of growth that this community has seen over the past month. Hopefully TheWARCAST will serve as a springboard by which the community can continue to grow.

There’s even more, TheWARCAST has released a promotional trailer to get the ball rolling. You can view that trailer here. Also, the original forum thread can be found here. Keep your eyes on these two sites and this blog for any new information regarding this upcoming podcast!

Becoming self aware

A conversation I had with someone from across the realm border last night provoked this post. We talked for a short time about what makes a good player, good. I’m staunchly in support of the “field awareness” theory. Again I’ll reference my Guild Wars days, if you didn’t know how to watch the field you couldn’t play any class well. That principle is lessened in WAR because of the much greater numbers (Guild Wars was mainly 8v8), it is still painfully obvious to me who can, and who can’t.

There are a number of techniques that a good player will always do. Quick assists and not overextending are two of the most simplified. We all know what those are, and hopefully can do them. More advanced (and less noticed) tactics include pre-kiting (NOBODY can do this), smart target switching, and a general awareness of the fight going on around you.

Pre-kiting should come naturally. I play an MDPS, so it’s painfully obvious who possesses this unique talent and who doesn’t. If you see me running toward you and you don’t want to die, go ahead and start running. I’ll let you in on a little secret here: I have to be in melee range to hurt you! If you start making distance before I even get next to you the chances of your survival begin to skyrocket. Here’s a little tip for all you MDPS out there. Don’t charge right at your target like a torpedo to a fat little submarine. The quickest route between any two points may be a straight line, but it’s not always the best. If you know someone is going to pre-kite you, make it look like you aren’t going for them.

Something else that bugs me is when someone will continually bash on a guarded target or pretend like that detaunt didn’t just happen. It’s OK if your target doesn’t die! No, really, it is! If they’re guarded then chances are you aren’t going to kill them by yourself anyway, so book it and find another squishy. Detaunts only last about 15 seconds, but for that duration your damage is completely useless. Go kill something else, come back in 15 seconds, and teach dat squishy that you aren’t afraid to save him for later.

This last one, a general awareness of the field of play, is probably the most important. First point: tanks. Everyone screams about not hitting tanks. Why are you beating on the tanks? Well, this message gets dragged through the mud and contorted a little bit. Should the tanks be your first target killed? No. Should you let those same tanks run right by you and unleash their menagerie of CC on your backline? Also no. In Guild Wars, the act of peeling melees of your backling was termed, “backlining.” Learn to backline. Learn to love to backline. Your healers will learn to love you. Now, this does require that you have that whole “self aware” thing going on. You can’t start seeing red and ignore everything except that juicy bag of arrpees (see: almost any Archmage). This applies for pretty much everything. Is there a Bright Wizard free casting off to the side of the fight? Go stabbity stab on him for a bit. Stumpy little Runepriest hiding behind a rock and AoE healing his ass off? Knock him out of his hiding spot. You get to be creative with this tenet of good playing. See something that needs done? Go do it. And for God’s sake, don’t run straight into the guarded and SE spamming Bright Wizard. That will never, ever end well.

This post is obviously written from a Destruction MDPS point of view. However, the general concepts that I’m talking about can be applied to both sides equally. (Except for Runepriests being short, you guys have the monopoly on that one) Moral of the story, be smart. Take the blinders off, get a full view of whats going on, and be a better player.

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Ability list has no ETA except when it’s done. I’m probably going to pull a Blizzard on this one. It’s ready when it’s ready.

BLAAAGHER Representation!

I said earlier that this was a slow news day, that has since changed. Andy at Mythic posted this to the Herald about a half hour ago, stating that four of the best, brightest, and least sober (oh, Friday) of the WAR blogging community will be traveling to Mythic HQ! There four are as follows: Gaarawarr, Werit, Shadow-war, and Mykiel from P-O-D-C-A-S-T.

These very lucky four are going to be graced with the opportunity to sit down and talk face to face (something we all wish we could do) with the WAR developer team about future patches. Like Andy goes on to say, what does this mean for the rest of us? Well, follow each and every one of them on Twitter and starting on Thursday you can tweet your very own questions in! These questions will then possibly be picked and asked directly to a developer.

That’s the news, now for how I feel about it. I love this idea. It’s been said before and not just by me, but the community in Warhammer is the best one out there. Also, disregarding your personal opinion of Mythic and their practices, it’s impossible not to admit that they are very communicative with their subscribers. The fact that they are bringing the community right to them and (hopefully) being straight up to all the questions is a great sign for the game. It’s impossible to say that they don’t care. Let’s hope they pull through.

Alts: A learning process

So, I just recently hit 40 on my second character ever. Yeah, I’ve been playing since beta and I only just now maxxed my first alt. If you’ve been reading for a while, you know that I can barely stand leveling. This is actually the first traditionally leveled MMO that I have two characters at level cap in. As such, it adds a new dimension to my gameplay that I’ve never had to deal with.

Now, when none of my friends are online, I’m left with a dilemma. Do I play on the alt and get insanely fast renown while learning the intricacies of a new class? I really enjoy the learning process. But, if I choose the alt then that’s X hours of gameplay that my choppa isn’t getting. I’m getting ever closer to the big 70 and 6% more crit.

That’s my story, take it or leave it. It’s a slow news day and scenarios are winning. Go play some WAR