1.1b..come out and plaaaaaay…

Sorry I’m a little behind on the posts since last week. I was a bit under the weather and only got in about an hour each night this weekend.

But anyways, servers are being patched as I type this for 1.1b. This almost seems like a hotfix more than a patch, but hey, there are SOME improvements in it. By some I mean 2. And here they are:

 

– Renown, experience, and Influence rewards have been added for attacking and defending Fortresses.  I’ll have to see how much of a difference this makes tonight, but any addition to xp/rp/inf gain for keep defense is a big YAY in my book. I wish when they added something like this that they would explain how it works. Not to the point of giving the formula away, but at least give some stipulations as to when you will incur these bonuses.

– Renown gains: This patch includes a significant fix to the amount of Renown gained in both open Realm vs. Realm combat and Scenarios. The intent of this change is for players to gain Renown based on the differential between a player’s Rank and Renown Rank.  (You can read the examples and the rest of the patch notes here.) Basically they increased the amount of renown you get in ORvR by X wheras X = lots. This is all well and good, but I wish this patch note said, “This patch includes a significant fix to the amount of Renown and experience gained…”

I guess we will see how this works tonight. Or maybe we won’t…

I love that the ORvR system is being looked at so heavily by the Dev team. But it doesn’t matter how much better they make it if the Destruction players on Volkmar don’t come out to play. The last two nights I have done nothing but  participate in Open RvR, and its been a bit dissapointing. Both nights, we formed warbands and took back BO’s only to find little or no resistance. It just seems that destruction (who are supposedly overpopulated) are low in number when it comes to people interested in fighting. Time will tell I guess, maybe they are all in T4?

See you in game!

Ooh ooh 1.1…

1.1a? When did we switch from the double dot naming convention? Shouldnt this be 1.1.0?

Anyways, It figures that right after I post the message about being excited for 1.1,….they patch for it! Thanks Mythic!

Cliky here for the highlights.

I’m on track to hit 19 tonight, but I may be postponing my leveling affair for the RvR….or maybe an easy PQ (yeah, can’t wait to see how easy it is with 100 other people there all trying to check it out – instances please!!!)

Or I may go to bed because I hit 18 at 4:30am today because of being sick and not able to sleep.

See you in game!

 

P.S.  Should Patches the Official Doppler Patch Notes Cat remain? Or do we get a new mascot? Any suggestion? Im up for posting my eye-patched mugshot or photoshoping something (not that im good at it)

P.P.S btw, Pirates don’t PvP,…Pirates ARRR VEEE ARRR

Guild XP gain…

…a.k.a “There goes my Theory”.

For a while now I have been wondering why guild XP moves so slow. You could say that, in our case, its probably due to the low number of active members we have in the guild. I still think this is partially true, but there is one aspect of guild XP gain that I have felt was acting against us, but it turns out I was wrong. I had thought that if you had inactive members in the guild, that it actually slowed the pace at which your guild would gain XP. A la’ “if you have more inactives or alts, you gain less XP based on the number inactive while XP was being gained by those active”. Or something like that. BUT over on the Warhammer Alliance forums, a Dev popped in to set the record straight:

Q. My fellow guild officers and I are having a ‘discussion’ about whether or not we should alts in the guild. How does guild leveling work, exactly? Would having a bunch of extra inactive characters cause our guild to level more slowly than if we were all active?

A. No, having inactive characters in your guild roster won’t slow down your guild advancement. A guild gains experience and ranks through the actions of its members. Anytime members earn experience and/or renown the guild earns experience as well. So having a battalion of inactive alts is not a detriment to your guild’s ability to level.

You can read the entire post here:

Missy from Mythic discussing the guild XP system

Unfortunatly, she doesnt give any juicy details on how XP is actually calculated (other than to say that you can get it from gaining XP or Renown. She didnt want to give any details on it due to the possibility of the system being exploited. Which basically means that there IS something specific that can be done to increase the pace of your XP gain, and if you figure it out, you get the cuffs!

I have seen guilds with 15 members be rank 20 and guilds with 100 members be rank 15. I have yet to come accross anyone who has stated they found the magic way of gaining guild XP, but id be willing to bet that its simply a matter of guild members grouping frequently, and completing events (scenarios/keep seige/PQ). Who knows, but all I know is…

I just want my cloak.

Player Statues, a closer look…

Mythic (via Developer James Casey)  just posted a Dev Diary about the player statues that are comming in 1.1…

Click here to read it.

James says that the system will be dynamic, but unfortunatly doesnt specify exactly what about the statues will be dynamic.  He says “art was commissioned for statues of every class in game in both male and female varieties (where applicable). ” So, the “Top Ten” statues will update themselves as players hit the top of the chart. Does this mean that there is 2 statues for a Bright Wizzies (1 male 1 female), 2 statues for Warrior Priests (1 male 1 female) and so on and so on? If the statues actual look remains the same for any 1 class/sex regardless of who it is, I think the system is….poo. If all that will be changing is the name on the plackard, then just have a spot with visable leaderboards in game rather than waste time with a statue that doesnt look like me.

If the “dynamic system” actually DOES change the look of the statue based on my current gear and/or hair style choices, then I say BRAVO MYTHIC!!

What do YOU think he means? Would you be let down at all if the statue doesn’t look like you, like if you wear an eyepatch but the statue has a good pair?

Inquiring mind(s),….mine….want to know!

1.1 Patch hits the test server…

This is what will be comming our way in a matter of a week …

Clicky for the patch highlights (no official notes yet)

Thoughts on the highlights in the highlights:

– The new Tanks will become available to the general public – We all knew it was comming. But I wonder how many people will be making knights at this point after seeing the massive influx of new characters made so far this week due to the early release for those who completed the Heavy Metal event. It mas almost comical seeing 9 or 10 Knights of the Blazing Sun and 9-10 Black Guard in one scenario at a time. It was like watching a pee wee soccer game and all the kids running together like a school of fish after the ball. Except the ball was any healer including me because I was on my Warrior Priest. 😦

– Open RvR Influence System – Im stoked that they are trying to make improvements with RvR. I hope this works because, if I had my druthers, I would have my characters level by nothing but RvR. BUT I still think there needs to be better rewards for defense. I thought I posted an idea about it but I cant seem to find it right now. IDEA: Let there be quest givers at the keep which give repeatable quests for XP/Coin (maybe 1 repeatable to kill X number of enemy players in the RVR lake, and one quest to perform a certain task within that zone). This could make holding a keep mean something and make it more difficult to take due to more players being present at any given time. I HONESTLY think this could solve a ton of issues with no activity in ORvR.

– Easy Public Quests – I like the idea of a soloable (or small group) PQ, but wouldn’t that make it…not a PQ anymore? I want more details…

– Chat Hyperlinking – We finnaly get a feature that has been asked for since day one. Want to show off that fancy new sword or helm? Now you can via chat (just like in WoW). HUZZAH!

– Main Assist – Will it be used? Yes, but,I honestly think a feature like this will make more of a difference in PvE than in RvR. I think so many things can change during a battle in RvR that its not going to get used as much as they would hope.

– Player Statue System – Want all to know of your badassery (at least on a week by week basis)? Then get out and kill some folk! If you are among those with top honors you will have a statue erected in your honor in the main city. I like this a ton. In a game focused on RvR and where items dont really make you stand out (lets face it, the armor skins dont have alot of variety per tier) this could be a incentive for some.

Theres a few more that I didnt give thoughts on, go check em all out and let me know what YOU think…

See you in game!

1.0.6…

Well, it’s the big day! The day when players may come back to WAR to see how the class changes/balances and the tank additions will change the game. A day which will see those people and the current player populous re-evaluate the systems that Mythic has put forth for us. More than anything, I’d say this is the perfect day, if not the perfect couple weeks, to sit and think about what you want to be doing with the game. If you are like me, you are starting to hunger for endgame, if for no other reason to just be done with the grand quest of having a max level character. Or, you want that level 40 so you can rate the endgame of WAR, see if the oRvR is worth the time spent, or if you should just roll around in T1 and T2 with various alts until the system becomes more robust and worth your time. You can ask yourself if the character you are currently running is the “fit” for you. If its not, these two weeks provide you with the perfect opportunity to reroll a class that you think makes more sense to you.

Me? I’m still not sure. There’s a big part of me that would rather play a more healing support role (a la Warrior Priest), but I have so much fun playing the Engineer that I don’t know if I want to go though two and a half tiers of the same stuff I’ve already done to get a WP to the point I’m already at. But, seeing as the majority of the player base WILL be rolling for one reason or another, I think the next couple weeks will give me an opportunity to play around with a couple lowbies if at least for a break from the Engineer. It should either show me that I need to stick with my guns (engineer pun intended) or seek other options.

For those about to rock…

And so the next live event begins with todays patch. Im actually somewhat excited about this one. It seems that the team made the tasks pretty easy to do, so anyone with any desire to try out the classes a week before they are available to the open public should be able to obtain the reward. (that means you Marv!)

Im not sure about needing the final reward, but the idea of obtaining a trophy and a sweet looking cloak interests me:

 

On a side note, they have held off on updating the game with the class balances untill after the live event. SO, this means we will see one more patch (1.0.6) before the big 1.1 release. Wait…so then what was 1.1 again? Wasn’t 1.1 supposed to be the game balance/class adding/mail fixing/everything under the sun patch? I guess Mythic figured its best to fix things based on priority. Good thing! You can see today’s patch notes here…

1.0.5 part duex

and the reasons and current plans for 1.0.6 here…

From the desk of Mark Jacobs 

I like that they are re-evaluating the 3 biggest concerns that people had from the initial patch notes. Good news for Runepriests escpecially seeing as your HoTs will now not be touched and the GRANDE HEAL has had its cast time lowered in order to lower the chances of the heal being reduced by combat. So, they turned the nerf,…into a buff!

They are also doing more tests with the Ironbreakers, Bright Wizzies and Sorcerers to make sure that dont over-nerf. I hope they get this all figured out before the new tanks are available for play (since the Black Guard uses a similar mechanic as the Ironbreaker).

In honor of the “Heavy Metal” theme, I plan seting up a nice playlist on my iPod and rocking out as I play tonight. You may even see the return of DJ Slurm over vent.

LETS ROCK!

1.0.4b…

I believe Mythic wants to make certain that 1.0.5 is done right and will test its brains out. But, its seems that there are some goodies that Mythic knew we didnt want to wait for and are releasing them via 1.0.4b.

Heres the patch notes.

-First off it seems that Mythic has taken my suggestion to add more loot bags for keep taking. (yeah im sure it was just me that suggested it AND they read this blog…naysayers!) I say Kudos, I think If 1 full group could possibly take a keep, each member deserves a bag, but regardless of how many people are on the raid, you now have twice the chance at a nice reward.

-Population balance between Scenarios?!?!? YAAAAY! Hopefully this will put them popping on an even keel. I’m actually quite thankful before we get our rerolled characters to tier 3. I played some scenarios in T3 with the Witch Hunter and I can attest that YES, Tor Anroc is the only one that pops during peak hours….and I dont like it. I have had the chance to play a couple of the other T3 Scenarios are they were a BLAST! Cant wait to get the Engineer to 22 and start rockin’.

-And the only other fantastic news was the addition to Rally Masters at all Warcamps….HOORAH! Only question I have is: Are there currently Warcamps in zones that we could not fly to that will now enable us to fly there? (did that make sense?) For example: There is a Elf Zone that we could not fly to as Order, is this now open to us? Because I’d love to do some Questing there, I just never went because it made me feel somewhat stuck there. (I hate running after tasting the speed of a mount). Regardless….this addition of flight paths will surely quell the anger of our grand poo-bah.

See you in game!

1.0.5 goes to the test servers…

Well the big update that most of us have been waiting for is one step closer to hitting our patchers. No, I speak not of the 1.1 patch which will bring us 2 new tanks, I speak of the first batch of class buffs/nerfs. We can now see what Mythic has been working on behind the scenes to ensure a good balance for the classes. Heres the link…

1.0.5

It seems most of the classes got increases in damage to some abilities (some more than others of course) and the only real nerfing that went on was the insta-cast root/snares used by all the ranged DPS classes. The roots now have a longer recast timer, but a decreased AP cost….I don’t really see a problem with this I guess, the primary purpose of this ability on design was to get out of sticky situations, and now it will most likely be used for just that.

Overall I think the nerfs/upgrades seem well done, but I’ll let you guys review the notes and decide for yourself.

*edit* Going to agree with Grom, I dont think DoT ticks should have a chance to expel the AOE Roots, and if they are going to let damage take away a root, they shouldnt have lowered the immunity on it.

See you in game!

Heavy Metal…

Mythic has used the money spent by the gold spammers (well, the money leftover from the purchase of Marks new car) to expediate the tanks that were once removed from the game and reintroduce them in the best way possible…another live event!!

HEAVY METAL

oops wrong kind of heavy metal…

aahh here it is…HEAVY METAL!!!

Seems like a good idea. Im honestly don’t think I will be busting my hump to do a weeks worth of daily quests in order for 1 week of extra play time on the new tanks. (im not sure if I plan on playing either of them anyways), BUT if there is anyone in the guild who would LOVE to make a Knight of The Really Long Class Name (im telling ya you shouldve went with The Knights Panther Mythic!!!) and has admirations on making this a possible main, I am willing to blow the dust off of the lvl 6 Warrior Priest if you’d like some healing.

One note I crinkled my nose at was that the new RvR scenario (Reikland) will only be open for the duration of the live event. BOOO (i guess no open RvR that week)

All I can say is if Mythic can keep churning out live events once a month, then I dont see me finding another home anytime soon. (but just make them better than the Witching Night thx!)