Yah, mule!

WAR “fans” are, currently, a very vocal lot. A casual amble along the VN board, Warhammer Alliance forums or one of any of a dozen popular Warhammer blogs and you’ll notice one current common denominator. Complaint. Running thick and fast. Complaint, and demands. We want things fixed and we want them fixed now. I can’t help but wonder if we’re a fickle lot. The game is barely 2-and-a-bit months old. I’ll let that sink in a bit. 2 Months. 8 weeks. 56-odd days. Should we really be making these unrealistic demands just yet? Take a look at the snail’s pace with which the resident 800-pound gorilla, Blizzard, approaches changes. The smallest of fixes can take weeks. Months. Or longer. New features? Years. And yet people are largely fine with that. They appreciate Blizzard’s ‘when it’s done’ approach. Why then can we not afford Mythic the same priviledge?

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I have a theory

A thought crossed my mind while analyzing the way in which people are levelling. I think that WAR has become “hardcore”.

It’s pretty obvious that ORvR isn’t working in Tier 1 through 3. However, in Tier 4 it most certainly is being attempted. There are problems with keep trading and zone flipping, but it’s obvious that in Tier4 people are embracing it.

Here’s my reasoning. There are two groups of people right now. Those busily levelling, and those who’ve hit Tier4/cap. Those at Tier4 are already working on endgame gearing and looking at how they’ll seize the enemy city. There are a couple of horror stories about the mammoth effort to flip T4 zones, but they’re busily jumping into it, which shows that, at the very least, Tier4 ORvR is being explored.

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Can RvR work

There’s some talk on the WAR blogosphere and various forums about the actual, real feasability of the concept of RvR, and whether or not it can actually function.

I think it can work. It definately can. I’ve seen it work. I’ve also seen it fail miserably.

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Wrath cleared. All of it. Already.

So 25November cleared all of Wrath’s raid content. 3 days after launch. Hmm.

<breaks out into song…> careful what you wish for…

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Skurmish in Tor Anroc

Skurmish vol 1

A quick and dirty vid of some escapades in Tor Anroc.

Granted, Tor Anroc is about as fun as a kick in the balls after the ten thousand and third time you run it… nothing else seems to pop in Tier 3 scenarios. Why is it so popular, with it’s seemingly insta-death lava and pretty unimpressive design?

Well, simplicity and fun I’d wager. There’s a rather simple goal of ‘get thingy, kill guize’. It’s for much the same reason that Mourkain Temple is the #1 scenario in Tier 2. Both of these scenarios rarely turn into camping grounds ala the CTF scenarios, and there’s no confusion as to how to win like Highpass Cemetary or Khaine’s Embrace. And while dying in the lava might be incredibly frustrating, tossing someone else into said molten rock of fiery death is quite satisfying. It’s that combination of both great risk and great reward that galvanises players to leap wholeheartedly into Tor Anroc. Mythic would do well to learn from what it got right. Coz I’ll tell you half the reason people don’t RvR : The reward isn’t that great and the risk is essentially non-existant. Defending a keep grants you nothing, and sieging one is only really doable if there is no player based defense. Sieging a keep for an hour only to run into a wall of players camping the throne room is for the epic mega loss. But methinks this is a rant for another day. The point of this post is, scenario’s, actually, rock. And right now, I’ll rather be doing them. No dumb, slideshow lag, no mindless zerg, and room for individuals to shine. Bring em on!

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Wrath me? Wrath, meh.

Maybe it’s too early to say with any real authority, but what the hell, first impressions count…

My initial and short jaunt through the DK starting zone and a little bit of Borean Tundra left me with the unequivocal impression that, ‘this is typical World of Warcraft, but with extra ‘stuff”.
A bit disheartening for someone whose sick of the Warcraft formula, but I’m sure the legions of fans who love it will find exactly what they’re looking for. No need to fix what ain’t broke after all.
Me? I did the quest grind thing for maybe two hours, got bored, logged off, and did something else. I’ll probably give it a few more goes/chances to grab me, but my feeling right now is very much, “Meh. Would rather be playing Fallout/Deadpsace/Warhammer.”

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Been there. Done that.

So, we’re on the eve of the WoW expansion. Around me people are frothing with anticipation. I see countdowns on forums, countless polls and threads about what you’re going to do, where you’re going to go. My attitude towards all the ridiculous hype is… apathy. After tooling around in other mmo’s for a short while now, all the glistening ‘amazingness’ of WoW starts to…well… tarnish. I see people preparing for an expansion farming gold and I can only sneer in derision. It’s a game. Working your ass off to ‘prepare’ for an expansion?

Brain goes ‘wtf?!?!’.

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Don’t Nerf Me Bro

It’s refreshing to be able to do actual damage and be a threat, as a tank, in a mmo game, for a change. I generally push out anywhere from half as much total damage done to just under that of the Bright Wizards and Sorcs. But people have to understand that the reason isn’t because of massive burst, but survivability and presence. With some healing, we’re in the thick of it keeping sustained damage on the enemy team. In fact it’s healing that empowers us. Without it we’re about as OP as a puppy dog savaging your ankle.
Which is what we’re supposed to be doing. Being an in your face threat, and ‘comboing’ with other players/classes/roles on our team as opposed to being one man armies (eg: WoW rogues).

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Skurmish goes to Gunbad

Got your attention? Good…

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Jaded

I’m copying and pasting a forum post I made today because I’m lazy.

This was made in response to a post at Hardcore Casual about WAR’s servers emptying, and why it’s happening. And why it’s not even because WAR is bad (hint: it’s not).

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