End of Beta 2 !

A LIL BIRDIE TOLD ME ....

Hey all, we took the servers down this morning and they will be down for a while as we wrap up the end of this beta phase. We'll keep you up-to-date with all the news coming from the devs as we countdown to Beta 3 and the next phase.

This is an important milestone for the beta and I'd like to thank all of you for your feedback and participation so far. You've really made a difference to the quality of the game and a lot of your feedback has directly influenced development.

Keep checking back here regularly as there'll be constant updates and information as well as all the NDA discussion you can eat!

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Swordmaster T3 PvE Video

I just did this video a moment ago of the swordmaster for you guys. Not the most exciting vid but you can still see some actions of the swordmaster, hope you like it anyway!

I must say I really enjoyed the swordmaster mechanics. I like that you first hit an ability to unlock other ability which in turn unlocks the most imba abilities.

So it feels like there is a "natural flow" with the swordmaster, the way that you will have certain combos. It feels natural to press abilities in a certain way since some are needed before you can use others. I didnt know about this until just now.

Important side note to those of you that knows anything about video compression:
I want to do high quality vids for you guys but uncompressed seems just bad since the files become so large. Anyone know what codec is good for compression that will give an "uncompressed" video feeling?

Side note 2:
I dont know what you guys want to see in a video so I just walk around killing mobs. Maybe this is not the most exciting thing to watch. I know you wanna see RvR and trust me, I wanna play RvR but right now it feels kind of dead. If there are certain abilities in classes you want to see pls make a comment in this thread so I know. I can then make a vid with for example "here are Chosen abilities" and then just press those abilites so you can see their animations and stuff.




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Ironbreaker Review

Things I will not do: Compare Ironbreaker (IB) to other tank classes that I have not tested; compare IB to anti-magic tanks; compare IB to WoW warriors, complain about mechanics they are still working on. Let’s get it on.

Generally speaking, I hate tanks. To me, they are dull and are forced to push one or two buttons just to either maintain agro in PvE situations or to pump up their puny dps in PvP situations. I have found that in WAR, this is not the case. While they are tanks and they are meant to fill the role of protecting the group through melee oriented buffs, they are hardly boring. Through various mechanics such as buff-sharing (which I will go into detail about later) that always needs to be switched in a dynamic battle and debuffing an enemy to bolster overall damage output, they become not only an important facet of the group, but play a dynamic role in combat.

I’m going to break down my review (at this point) into four parts: group/solo PvP and group/solo PvE.

PvE:
Solo:
In my experience with MMO’s I’ve always found the first few levels to be very boring since you have a limited number of abilities to use in any situation. EAMythic has tackled this problem in a few ways: they have made the starting zones very fun; they allow you to interact with your environment at an early stage; pushing you towards group play in PQs; lastly, setting you up to become very involved in your environment very quickly. I’m not saying I had an e-boner from playing the first chapter of the game, it was surprisingly enjoyable. I played my IB in the Order’s starting zone.

While the IB is able to take on multiple mobs, I personally don’t try to take on more than 3 at a time due to the downtime (although short… none is better than some). While with other classes the battles are quick, the IB’s mechanic works differently. It’s not only a matter of out-damaging the mob (same goes in PvP), but it’s more about insulating yourself from that person’s attacks so your (originally weaker) attacks become higher than his due to your bolstered defenses. There are also mechanics for you to bolster your attacks either through direct damage increase (e.g. Taunt) or through attacks that decrease the ability for the mob (or human enemy) to parry, block or dodge (e.g. [insert ability name later]).

Group:
In the past there have been complaints about melee, but in my experience with IB, which is obviously limited as only the first two tiers are available at this time, I have mostly good things to report back. In a group effort in PvE, which at lower levels is almost exclusively PQs, IB is a hugely valued asset. Using your Oathfriend ([check on ability name]) ability, you are able to chose one group member (I usually chose either the healer or the MDPS that likes to try and pull agro from me) to share some of your buffs with. You also receive grudge points every time this person is hit. This tactic is great because if used effectively, you can switch off agro between you and another tank to help out the healer.

For example, I was in a warband that was slightly under leveled for this particular PQ. We had a bunch of MPDS, caster DPS, two healers , one tank archetype with a 2hander, and two tanks. As we got closer to the end, we started to notice that not only were the healers having trouble keeping up with the heals, but I was running out of action points trying to maintain agro and contribute to DPS. The tanks had the idea that when they noticed that I ran out of action points that they would start spamming +hate abilities (they were Swordmasters so, I don’t know the skill name) and gain agro to give the healers a moment to regain some AP and to ensure that a squishy wouldn’t get wtfpwnd by a Hero or Champion mob (boss mobs). We targeted each other as our respective Oathfriend to share buffs, and at that point, we barely needed a healer after one or two switch offs.

On an added note, as far as I’ve seen, many of your debuffs can be taken advantage of by your groupmates. I don’t know about non-groupmates and I’m not exactly sure how to look into that… but I’ll give it a try.


PvP
Note: I only tested a pure tank, no dps spec. I might try that out later but I wanted a full report on a tank, as that’s what seems to be of everyone’s interest

Solo:
Honestly, this game isn’t built around 1v1 so it’s almost pointless to talk about this. All of your strong points are useless without a group. You can’t share your buffs, you can’t coordinate debuffs or FF, and it’s not that hard to pick out a solo tank… and once that happens they just ignore you because they can, for the most part, bypass you and kill your squishies. Sure it takes a long time for you to die, even when you are FF’d, but who cares when you aren’t really contributing to anything? If you are an IB and don’t have a group I suggest going into the damage spec, as it seems (from my observations) that they can hold their own and deal out decent damage.

Group:
While realm balance has been, on average, Destruction having double the numbers of Order, there are still opportunities for Order to control the realm (which has happened often in my playtime as both RP and IB). Destruction dominates PuG scenarios, but organized group PvP/RvR (scenarios and open world) balance out to a very slight advantage to the Destruction due to numbers. This is not to say that one side is innately more powerful than another, but when you are outnumbered you tend to get organized to try and last as long as possible.

This is where IB shines. Between Oathfriend shared buffs, your survivability, and modifiable damage output (through buffs, self-buffs and outgoing debuffs) you become an integral part of your group dynamic. While I haven’t yet gotten Juggernaut (bitch!), your ability to increase damage output of the group and decrease incoming damage makes you a huge target. While the lines are not literally drawn like this, it’s like the movie 300 (shut up, it was amazing) where you are only as strong as your weakest man and you rely on the strength of the guy next to you. If you, as an IB get taken out, they lose their buffs and the damage they take gets increased and pretty much everyone becomes an easy target unless another tank steps in to fill your role. Even when that happens, people will die in the time it takes for the group to adjust.

Does this mechanic still need work? Absolutely. Are there ways to get around this mechanic? Yea… but that’s called strategy. If you are smart enough to use the terrain to flank a group and take out a healer with a friend or two before the group can react then g-freakin-g. That doesn’t mean the mechanic is broken, that just means that your enemy was smarter than you. The beta forum is overflowing with feedback from testers and unlike many other games, the developers are listening and have people brainstorming and working out ways to fix problems. Are the current problems game-breaking? I don’t think so at all, but hopefully we’ll be able to do another lvl 40 focus test and I can see how things are at the end of the game.

Could they use a dmg buff? I guess, but if you are looking to play a dps role, roll dps. You do respectable dmg if you spec for it, but don't expect to be a MDPS in heavy armor.

With this new implementation of taunt, people are adjusting their play styles to deal with the hundred pound gorilla with a shield before going after the 50 pound healing gorilla.

Please feel free to ask questions and I will answer them to my best ability. If I do not have the answer for you, I will do some research in and out of game, and if that doesn’t work… then… I’ll just admit that I have no idea.

I'm ok with you calling me a fanboi. I've grown to really like this game, and I'll defend its good aspects if that's what I feel like I need to do. I have no problem pointing out its flaws, but I'm not about to nitpick over something that is 1) still being worked on 2) Isn't game breaking 3) obviously going to get changed (based on past changes and progress)... that's for beta forums.

One last thing: The design and gameplay doesn't revolve around one ability (i.e. the hotly debated taunt). I purposefully tried to not mention it except in conjunction with other debuffs to show that you don't have to keybind one ability to every button and then roll your face across the keyboard.

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Warhammer Online - Swordmaster Preview ( Video)

Podcast by Paul Barnett about the High Elf Swordmasters in the upcoming MMO Warhammer Online.




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White Lion Confirmed

The White Lions of Chrace carry a large woodsman's axe with them at all times, but their true strength comes from their War Lion pet. The War Lions are trained from cubs to fight side by side with their masters. Their loyalty to their elven masters knows no bounds.


The White Lion is the High Elf Melee DPS class, but is extremely unique in its design. Coordination with the pet War Lion is a major key to the White Lion's success. The War Lion can distract opponents, attack foes from the shadows, and even grab and toss an enemy towards the feet of the White Lion.

Mastery Options

Path Of the Hunter
White Lions who choose the path of the Hunter embrace the ways of the wild and fight shoulder to shoulder with their War Lion. The two stride into battle side by side in a balanced assault that is capable of spreading damage around to multiple targets with ease. This path requires the least amount of Master & Pet coordination so damage against a single foe is lessened.

Path of the Axeman
White Lions who choose this path focus on the Mastery of their fine woodsman axes, preferring instead to use their lions as distractions as they approach from the side or rear. The path of the Axeman requires good coordination with your War Lion or your group members so you can be allowed to strike from an unguarded flank.

Path of the Guardian
White Lions who choose this path focus on diverting attention from their War Lion or group members so that they can do maximum damage. The Path of the Guardian does not directly increase the White Lion's own defenses, but focuses more on reducing his opponents damage output and distracting them from the War Lion or individual group mates.



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Warhammer Online Beta - Zealot/General Healing Review

Okay, so I figured I would do a review of the healing classes, focusing on the Zealot, not only because a few of you have been asking for it, but also because I love healing. And the Zealot is (so far) my FAVORITE healer.

I have played all of the healing classes so far, and UK2K has already provided the skills listing, so instead of dissecting individual classes and their, I will focus on mechanics as a whole, and which healer has the most impact/suvivability/general utility/healing utility/etc.

All of the healing classes have similar core healing skills. There is a hot, a group hot, a group heal, a heal + hot, a direct heal, a shield and a rez. They also have, through masteries or core skills, a "health transfer" type heal. Basically, all of the healers have quite a few heals, so when I look at it in terms of utility, it's not always healing utility. This game is not like WoW, where the healers all have different types of healing utility. There is no "master of HoTs" like the WoW druid. There is no "master of group heals" like the chain healing Shaman in WoW.

As it currently stands, I would have to say that the healer with the most healing utility is the Zealot. The Zealot has a "Prayer of Mending" type heal that jumps from player to player, which is basically what seals the deal for me. Also, the Zealot has more buffs than any of the other healers. And the Zealot has better buffs. For example, the Zealot has an instant cast buff/heal that will heal you for about 1300-1800 and then increase your hit points by the same amount. Another great utility the Zealot has is a self rez. I can't explain how great this ability is. The Zealot is quite squishy, and its always nice to be able to come back after dying and keep kicking ass. Oh, and as a side note, all of the rezzes in game are combat rezzes. In terms of more offensive utility, I like the melee healers. The melee healers (WP and DoK) have a number of cripples that are quite useful in PVP, and quite a few bleeds. Their heals are nothing extraordinary, however, and it is often quite irritating that you are dependent on "soul essences" or "righteous fury", which often runs out. Even more so now that the pools were nerfed. I find myself converting AP to Essences more often than not, and it irks me. Also, not having any ranged attacks to build "Essence" makes it difficult to healbot, though I guess that was sort of the point.

When it comes to healing impact, I feel as though all of the healers have an equal impact on the game. Healing plays a HUGE part of RvR, and currently on the beta servers, one of the best things about playing destruction is the healers. The zealots and DoKs do a great job keeping people alive, and rezzing people as soon as they die, and it makes a massive difference. I have, as a lone zealot, kept 7 people alive while they were being pounded by BW spam. Ive kept alive a marauder as he ran into a huge group of order and sliced them all up, because everytime they managed to take a chunk of his health down, I would just heal him back up to full. I dont know why they never came after me. I've been a sorc and a witch elf, taking people out with my feeble amount of hit points, but never dying because some very focused disciple was doing an awesome job of keeping me alive. On the other hand, when playing order, I often have to beg for heals and rezzes. There have been times when I have died, and waited the entire 30 seconds before being respawned, continuously asking to be rezzed for the entire 30 seconds. I'm not really sure why that is, but I've found that destruction is usually dominating order, and I think that healing has a lot to do with it. After all, if you dont let players die, then how will the other side win?

Next, I thought I would address survivability. From what I have seen, both the Archmage and Zealot have poor survivability in terms of hit points. However, the Zealot has the better survivability of the two because of two things:

1. The instant cast Demonic Fortitude buff, which heals the Zealot for about 1300-1800 and increases the Zealot's HP by the same amount.
2. The Zealot self rez. Because even though the Zealot is squishy and lacks hit points, she can always come back to fight again.

I feel like the melee healers probably have the best survivability in terms of sheer hit points, and armor. My DoK/WP has about 1400 armor and 5000 wounds, which is quite good. The melee healer's heals, on the other hand, are nothing special, and nothing is more annoying than trying to cast a hot while running, realizing that youre out of righteous fury/soul essence, and having to stop to create more.

Lastly, I thought I would address offensive capabilities. When it comes to offensive capabilities, I have to say that the ranged healers are my favorites. The Zealot and Archmage don't do amazing dps. However, they have the advantage that they can strike from at a range. They can stand in one spot, throwing heals and casting offensive spells, while the DoK and WP have to actually enter the fray to do any damage. In a PVE situation, this is not that much of a problem as long as the tank has his aggro under control. However, it completely changes in PVP. In PVP, everybody stays back and the ranged nukers basically duke it out while the healers stand back and heal. A few melee dps/tanks usually make their way forward into the massive opposing crowd while the healers spam heals on them in a desperate attempt to keep them alive while they get mauled by the crowd. Considering the mexican standoffish-ness of PVP, its generally better that the melee healers just stand back and heal rather than charge into the opposing realm and put even more strain on the other healers.


Well, that's all for now. I hope you guys enjoyed the review, and I will be posting some pictures to accompany this huge wall of text soon.

if you are looking forward to Warhammer online just as much as I am, I would recoment you to check out this Warhammer online guide page. It is the most up to date site on the net on warhammer online atm.


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Ability Results

Ability Results:
----------------
Ability Failed.
Interrupted.
You were disrupted.
Critical Hit!
Invalid Target.
The ability is queued.
You are disabled.
You are dead.
Not enough Action Points.
Not enough Morale.
Ability not yet ready.
You must have a ranged weapon equipped.
Target is dead.
Can't use that on yourself.
Target is not attackable.
Can't use that on a friendly.
You have no realm? WTF.
Your target is not PvP flagged.
Taht target is temporarily immune to PvP.
You aree using the wrong kind of weapon.
You can't use this ability when stealthed.
You can't use that ability when mounted.
You are not Beserk.
You need more Waagh!
Requires Shield.
That is a passive ability.
You must be wielding a hammer.
You must be Guarding your target.
Must target dead ally.
You can not Guard your self.
Requires Great Weapon.
You must be a member of a group.
You have reached your limit on bombs.
You may only have 1 active pet.
Your Oath Runes are already at their maximum amount, or the target already has 2.
Your Master Runes are already at their maximum amount.
You must have a pet alive to use this ability.
Your target is already holding that Rune.
Your Runestaff is fully charged.
You must be using Squig Armor to use this ability.
You must be in combat to use this ability.
You can only apply Runes to players.
Your target may not gain another Mark yet.
Your Marks of Chaos are already at their maximum amount.
You have reached your limit on turrets.
Must be at your target's side or rear.
You can only apply that effect 5 times.
You can not have more Harbingers active at a time.
Left hand must be empty.
Requires Block or Parry.
Requires target to have Blocked.
Target must be facing you.
Target be facing away from you.
Requires at least 1 builder.
Requires 1 Builder.
Requires 2 Builders.
Requires Taunt on target.
Requires Block.
Requires Parry.
Your Runestaff is not empowered.
You have already selected an Oath Friend.
Only usable on group mates.
Not enough Grudge.
Requires Disrupt.
You may only have 1 Oath Of Rebirth active at a time.
Not usable while inside your Squig Armor.
Only usable on a target that is Burning.
You may only have 1 Mark of Remaking active at a time.
Requires any Mutation.
Requires Gift of Savagery.
Requires Gift of Brutality.
Requires Gift of Monstrosity.
Only usable after an enemy Disrupts one of your spells.
Requires 1 Righteous Fury.
Requires 2 Righteous Fury.
Requires 3 Righteous Fury.
Requires 4 Righteous Fury.
Requires 5 Righteous Fury.
Righteous Fury is already full.
Requires Accusations.
Can not be used in combat.
Requires Pistol.
There is nothing here to burn!
This ability only works on a specific creature.
The creature you're summoning is already nearby.
Requires Accusations and a Pistol in your left hand.
Frenzy - Requires Blood Lust.
Can not be used on that target yet.
Target is already affected.
Execution - Requires Accusations.
Invalid Banner ID!
Builds 1 Blood Lust.
Target can not be knocked back again so soon!
Target can not be knocked down again so soon!
Target can not be rooted again so soon!
Target can not be silenced again so soon!
Target can not be disarmed again so soon!
Target can not be stunned again so soon!
Leads to Improved Balance.
Requires Perfect Balance.
Leads to Perfect Balance.
Leads to Normal Balance.
Requires 1 Soul Point.
Requires 2 Soul Points.
Requires 3 Soul Points.
Requires 4 Soul Points.
Requires 5 Soul Points.
Requires more Soul Essence.
You can not bestow vitality upon yourself.
Requires at least 10% health.
Requires at least 15% health.
Target must be Cursed.
Your Action Points are already full!
Grants Prowling.
Target must be below 50% health.
Target must be below 20% health.
Requires Scout Stance.
Requires Assault Stance.
Requires Skirmish Stance.
Requires Scout or Skirmish Stance.
Requires Scout or Assault Stance.
Requires Assault or Skirmish Stance.
Target must be Diseased.
Your target is not Maimed.
Target must be Ailing.
Requires Prowling.
You may not charm that target.
Requires Incognito.
Requires Incognito. Can not be used against objects.
Builds 1 Accusation.
Requires Gift of Savagery or Brutality.
Requires Gift of Monstrosity or Savagery.
Requires Gift of Brutality or Monstrosity.
Builds 5 Accusations.
Target must be Ignited.
Target must be Hexed.
Requires an active Harbinger of Doom.
Not enough Righteous Fury.
Requires Dreadful Aura.
Requires Corrupting Aura.
Requires Discordant Aura.
Target has not Blocked or Parried.
Grants Dreadful Aura.
Grants Corrupting Aura.
Grants Discordant Aura.
Grants Gift of Savagery.
Grants Gift of Brutality.
Grants Gift of Monstrosity.
Requires 155 Righteous Fury.
Requires 180 Righteous Fury.
Requires 80 Righteous Fury.
Requires 120 Righteous Fury.
Requires 35 Righteous Fury.
Requires 70 Righteous Fury.
Requires 115 Righteous Fury.
Requires 60 Righteous Fury.
Builds 25 Combustion.
Builds 20 Combustion.
Builds 25 Righteous Fury.
Builds 40 Righteous Fury.
Builds 45 Righteous Fury.
Builds 50 Righteous Fury.
Builds 55 Righteous Fury.
Builds 75 Righteous Fury.
Builds 60 Righteous Fury.
Builds Righteous Fury.
Builds 80 Righteous Fury.
Builds 95 Righteous Fury.
Soul Essence already full.
Requires 155 Soul Essence.
Requires 60 Soul Essence.
Requires 120 Soul Essence.
Requires 35 Soul Essence.
Requires 180 Soul Essence.
Requires 80 Soul Essence.
Requires 45 Soul Essence.
Requires 70 Soul Essence.
Builds 25 Soul Essence.
Builds 30 Soul Essence.
Builds 40 Soul Essence.
Builds 45 Soul Essence.
Builds 50 Soul Essence.
Builds 60 Soul Essence.
Builds 70 Soul Essence.
Builds 90 soul Essence.
Move while casting for 3rd Failure server message.
Maybe requires this text.
Might need this text as well.
Grants Scout Stance.
Grants Assault Stance.
Grants Skirmish Stance.
Grants Vengul.
Builds High Magic.
Builds 10 Dark Magic.
Builds 20 Dark Magic.
Builds 25 Dark Magic.
Builds 5 Dark Magic per second.
Target is out of range of your pet.
Pet's target is invalid.
Your pet is disabled.
Your pet doesn't have enough Action Points.
Your pet was Interrupted.
Your pet was disrupted.
Your pet critically hits!
Your pet has the wrong item wielded.
Your pet's ability has been countered through another's actions.
Target outside your pets cone of fire.
You pet's target is retreating.
Your account is flagged unable to attack.
Your pet's target is not PvP flagged.
Your pet's target is temporarily immune to PvP.
Your pet can't attack an alliance target.
Taht must be used on an enemy.
That must be used on a pet.
Your pet is using the wrong kind of weapon.


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The Tome of Knowledge

In the same way that everyone on the Warhammer team seems to be suffused with passion for the game, Tome of Knowledge lead Carrie Gouskos couldn't help but pass on information about one of the game's most innovative features. Equal parts achievement system, quest log, faction-tracker and storybook, the Tome of Knowledge is unlike anything seen in other MMO titles but will be immediately familiar to players of games like Lord of the Rings Online ... or even Xbox Live fans.

If you're unfamiliar with the Tome, Carrie has a lengthy explanation on the official website. That resource should be able to fill in your need for information and (of course) we'll have more context for you on the concept later. For today, Carrie offers up a fascinating insight into the emotional connection that the Tome can create between player and avatar. She also explains (vociferously) why Xbox Live achievements lead directly into the Tome's development. Gamerscore junkies and lore hounds, read on for your fix.

It was mentioned in one of the production podcasts that you'd had a gentleman down from one of the other EA studios, and he'd been very impressed with the Tome of Knowledge. He talked about forming an emotional bond to his character through it, and we thought that was very interesting.

I'm really glad to talk about that. It was always our intention to make this compelling beyond the statistical value of it. I feel like we still have a ways to go, but the intent with the Tome is that as you're playing through, as you're discovering things, you really feel that it's further enriching your character. In my opinion I think what makes MMOs particularly compelling is the player's relationship and investment in their character. I think what a lot of games don't do enough of is allow them to really make their character unique. We try to do that with a lot of different things; we can talk about the trophy system or the dyes or the customization.

With all those things you say "okay, I have formed an initial attachment to my character by customizing what he or she looks like. I have built that by leveling my character and customizing the abilities I give him or her. I continued to develop that by getting certain kinds of armor and all that stuff. That's all fairly fundamental. What I think games do that's interesting is allowing a level beyond that. Every game has abilities and statistics and all this stuff, but there are varying levels of that. Pushing as far on that as possible allows you to really say "this is me." It allows you to say, "I don't care that there happens to be another guy that happens to have the same armor on and happened to dye it the same color ... that's just going to happen. But this is who I am because of all these Tome facts about me.

I think one of the things he was talking about specifically was ... you start to get the initial Tome unlocks. I've started this Empire character in the beginning zone, and I've gotten one of the initial Tome unlocks. I've encountered a member of the Empire, these are sort of the fundamental elements. As you're playing the game, you're going to get very basic ones. By killing monsters you're going to get monster kills by doing quests you're going to get quest complete unlocks.

The intention is just to keep adding layers. By doing that you're forming experiences and memories about where you are and who you are. Just as an example this is the beginning of the first chapter for Empire. I don't know if people know this ... I've seen people in here before ... but you can go into this building. I think there's a quest that sends you in here, but you may not get it or want it. There's not a lot to do in here ... except there's a couple of tome unlocks. You get one just by going to the bar, and then you go upstairs like this and you can get an unlock from this book.

This is hard for me to do, but the intention is, "Okay, pretend you're a player. You walk into this room, and you're the inquisitive type." What are you going to do? You're probably going to go behind the bar, to see if there's anything interesting back there, and then you're going to go up the stairs to the end of the walkway. In a lot of games you go to the end and there's nothing here. There was no reason to.

Obviously we can't do this for every location, or we'd have Tome unlocks all over the game. But just the same, we want to reward that experience. "Oh, I found this, that's so cool." And now this story, this information, is in this guy's Tome. Not only that but there's a list of checkmarks and he has two of ten. You want your character to have all this information, you want him to be the kind of guy that has this all filled in. I care about my character and what he's doing and who he is; I enrich him by engaging in this activity.

Now, I'm a self-professed non-reader, I don't read this stuff. I just want to have it. I don't care what it is, I don't even know what this one says. Thankfully, we have someone else working on the lore. They do all the fun lore-y Games Workshop kind of stuff. There are a couple great ones I have read that are pretty funny. There's one about a skeleton of a dead Greenskin. He's hanging out of the skeleton of a dead whale. It's the story of a goblin convincing an Orc to attach himself to a rope an jump in the water. It's playing upon the relationship of the characters, the world, and the history of the franchise.

Because of these kinds of things, when I go to play this game, my character has everything I can provide for him. It becomes a sort of dialogue between you and the character. The other night I was playing, and I was participating in a Public Quest, and at that point I'd already gotten all the rewards I could have. But I kept playing because I really wanted my bar to be full. I just wanted my character to have all his public quest bars full. It's sort of compulsive. I think that compulsive nature that people have is a way people form an emotional attachment. Your Tome unlocks prove you have an investment in the character.

We're sort of winking at you, you know? We're saying "oh, we know what you're going to do." You're going to run around in this corner and find these hidden spots. If you ever see something in the game that looks like text on a scroll, a lot of times you can get close and zoom in and really read what's there. Little things like that - we want you to have fun. We can't do that with everything, but I think it's the sort of thing that brings a lot of joy to the play experience.

See, this is an example. There's this scroll on the door here, but it's one you can't read. For the kind of person that comes over to investigate, though, there's a Tome unlock. If you look at the unlock's text, it says what's written on the scroll. It's a notice about a plague. That's the kind of player I am, I'm the kind of player that runs in circles and searches out hidden passages and all that stuff. We built the game with that in mind, and there are all sorts of elements like that throughout the game.

That's the emotional element for me. I really want people to love it and connect with it, and every time that notice pops up they really feel good about it. "Oh, that's really cool. I didn't even know I was finding something."

One of the major philosophies has been that it's equal parts people seeking out unlocks, and parts of unlocks just happening to players. With stuff like the bestiary section of the Tome, we don't show it all right away. It's revealed over time. The first time you encounter a Rat Ogre you kill it and you get the first reward, but you'll also see that there are more things to do. You know you're going to get something for killing 25 Rat Ogres ... looks like it's a Tactic. Then you'll get something for killing 100 Rat Ogres, if they want to do that.

Then there's the achievement section. There's a whole section about Guild gameplay, teamwork. And here's an example: kill 10 guild leaders, kill 100 guild leaders. The idea is that you don't know it's coming. You can look it up on a website someday, and I'm fine with that. There will be people that look them up and seek them out, and that's totally okay. But there are going to be people who don't want to know. You're going to be killing people in RvR and this guild leader unlock will pop up and you'll go, "Whoa! I didn't even know I was doing that!"

I think we have a good balance between these two styles. Whether you choose to seek out objectives or just go out and do it, that's up to you. We're making some of these goals impossibly hard ... killing 10,000 guild leaders? I have no idea how long it would take you to do that. I don't even know how long it would take to reach 100.

As long as you're getting another level of enjoyment out of the game, we don't begrudge you either playstyle.

That kill 10 guild leaders one is pretty funny. I don't think anyone's ever seen that one before. There's another one ... I mentioned this one in Paris, but I don't know if it's made it back to the US press. There's a Tome unlock for completing a PQ with no clothes on. You can use your weapons and your accessories, but as long as you don't wear armor you'll get an unlock.

From a broad perspective, what are some of the inspirations for the Tome? What lead you to this concept?

The original concept came from Mark Jacobs, but I was a natural fit for developing the Tome of Knowledge because of my utter obsession with Xbox Live achievement points. I was part of a race with a couple of my friends, and as of a year ago I was at the 30,000 point mark. To me it became this obsessive thing, and I wrote a paper about it, about the Xbox Live achievements. I talked about which ones are good and which ones are bad, which ones are interesting.

Take a game like Madden, where you can get all of the Achievements in one go. That's actually really interesting because I bought it and got all of them in one game. I just picked Madden are random, sorry, not trying to pimp out EA games. I would never have touched Madden if it were not for that, if I had known the points were easy.

There are other games that I didn't like, that were really hard to get achievements in. But still, I played them for like 70 hours just because I had to have all the points. Other games I never would have played - games based on kids movies, mind numbingly dull. But I needed the points. Then there were the games that did the points really really well.

Take Dead Rising. It had this great approach, because the achievements force you to play in different ways. At the end of the day I realized I'd played through Dead Rising eight times. The reason was, every time I played through it differently. One time I was playing to save every person in the mall, one time I was using all the weapons in the mall ... the way they had established these goals not only lead me to play the game over and over again, but it compelled me to play in different ways.


It just seems to go hand-in-hand with an MMO. You're obviously not beating the game and starting over, but you do seek other things to do. Too often we ask players to create those things for themselves. How much more fun is it to give players something to do, "go, have fun, do this." That's the goal of the game, to have fun in different ways.

Thanks so much, Ms. Gouskos.

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Runepriest skills

Skill tree

Core abilities list



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Warhammer's crafting system

Many of the systems developed for Warhammer Online focus around the art of war itself. Realm vs. Realm combat, Keeps, sieges ... the bread and butter of the game is combat, adventuring, and excitement. Which is not to say that a few moments of quiet time aren't appropriate even in the harsh world of WAR. The most recent newsletter unveiled a new production video from none other than Mark Jacobs himself, talking all about crafting.

Mark Jacobs did a very nice little video that came out in the newsletter yesterday that covers pretty much all of the stuff I would be talking to you about, so I'm going to try and see whether we can find some other little things to talk about that he just mentioned in broader terms. I think the best way to talk about crafting is first of all to admit that there's gathering, and then there's crafting. There is how you get your stuff, and that's how you turn your stuff into other things. The skills that we're talking about at the moment, we have four gathering and two crafting. The two crafting are Apothecary and Talisman-making, and the four gathering are Butchering, Scavenging, Cultivating and Salvaging. Some of them function like skills you might have seen in other games, like Butchering, and Scavenging is extracting stuff from corpses.


Cultivating is a pretty new idea for an MMO. Essentially you start off with something useless and spend some time and attention, nurture with love, and water. Eventually your seeds can grow into something that is much more useful and someone else will want to buy off you and use to make potions. You can, of course, use your own materials. Salvaging is taking something that you have, that maybe you don't want, hitting it with a hammer lots of times so it breaks apart. Then you have some stuff left over. Apothecary is potions lotions and powders, it's essentially our combat consumable creation system. Talisman-making is making stuff that goes into slots, where those slots are on weapons and amour. I don't think Mark touched too much on how those skills basically interact with one another, I've seen a few people asking questions about that.

Just as an example of how resource gathering works. Butchering is where I go out into the wilderness and see a wolf or a boar, and I kill it and some flies start buzzing around it, and I interact with it. Then I get some loot! And the kind of loot you get from Butchering is - mostly - going to help you out with the apothecary system. So ingredients you might get to make potions are like guts and blood, and goo and all kinds of disgusting things. Scavenging on the other hand feels basically like the same kind of skill except that you're doing it on predominantly player races. Anything sentient, like Mark said "anything with pockets". When you Scavenge from them you get things that are slightly less disgusting, things like gold teeth, you might get fleas and ticks, that sort of stuff that's stuck to their body. Generally, the stuff you get from Scavenging will help you out in Talisman-making.

There is a bit of crossover, if you do Scavenging there are some things you use in apothecary that aren't available elsewhere, aren't as easily available elsewhere. The same thing with the other two resource skills. Cultivating is growing stuff, and stuff you grow in Cultivating generally ties in to apothecary too. Salvaging - that stuff generally ties in to Talisman-making. So we give players a choice, they can have one gathering, one crafting. At very low levels there's enough to just get started at your local crafting vendor. Once you get above that, you need to go and do stuff on your own. With your one gathering skill you can pretty much get just about everything you need, but there are going to be some times where you need to trade with other players.

You only have the option of choosing one gathering and one crafting? You can't do two gatherings?

No. Definitely one and one, Mark replied to someone asking that question on one of the boards today. The primary reason is just that we don't have that many skills at the moment. The other thing we've tried to do with all of these skills is - I'm not a big fan of chasing yellow dots on a radar screen. When I play our game I want to get into a scenario, I want to get into a keep siege and I want to kill people! I don't want to be doing rings around the edge of the zone or looking for yellow dots on my radar to go and interact with not-people. I want to get in to RvR and kill people. So - developing the entire crafting system, which is based on Mark's design, we tried very hard to make sure that if you want to do crafting, it's not going to impact your ability to do RvR. It's not going to soak up time, you're not going to have to go to specific places and do it. If you want to do it, you can just do it. If you've got 10 seconds downtime? Make a potion, or start something growing, while you're waiting for the scenario timer to kick off so you can get in and start killing people. That's been a very important, conscious choice for us. I think we've pretty much hit it on just about everything you do in the game to do with crafting.

So if we're talking about how they feel to use ... Butchering and Scavenging, the way they play out is very reminiscent of World of Warcraft's skinning. Salvaging shares some similarities to WoW's disenchanting, some of the things you can do in Salvaging. Let's say I have my staff, I don't want it any more, or it dropped and I don't use it, and so it's got Wisdom and Intelligence on it. When you go to salvage it, it'll give you the option to choose which one of the bonuses you'd like to extract. Once you've made that choice, the end result, the stuff you get will actually be different depending on your choice. Then, you take one of those things and plug it into your Talisman-making. Let's say you chose intelligence, if you use that as your core ingredient for Talisman-making, you'll make a talisman that boosts intelligence.

Mark in the podcast was emphasizing the exploratory nature of the system, and that's the sort of thing we've been trying to ensure all the way through. We don't want the system to be as simple as in some games, where if you find a recipe or unlock a recipe then it's the same set of four items you need to make it. In our system, there are many different ways to arrive at an end product. The interesting choice we give to the players is to kind of figure out the best way to get the ingredients they need to make that, based on their own play-style.

I've artificially given myself 100 skill at Cultivating, which has opened up three of my four plots already. The first thing you do when you get the cultivate window to open is you stick a seed in a plot. The low-level stuff grows pretty quickly, and you can have multiple things growing at the same time. When you back out, it shows you which state which ones are - all of these are at the beginning stage at the moment. There's an overall time, there's a time per stage. What we can also do is input additives that will reduce the time taken as well.

You can use one additive per stage?
Yes, at specific times. Basically what happens in Cultivating is, you're growing stuff. We'll also fill in some little surprise things in, like you can have criticals and supercriticals, and the chance of those happening can be modified by the additives that you use. If you find a special sort of soil, maybe that makes criticals happen more often, or maybe it makes supercriticals happen more often. We're also trying to do things like hybridization. Essentially most of the seeds you grow give you ingredients that you're going to use to make something. We are reducing the amount of types that you can immediately get, and make them happen as a result of say a supercritical in cultivation. So you might say "oh, let's grow a respiration plant" and then grow ten of them, and one's a supercritical and suddenly it gives you a healing seed. You haven't been able to make healing potions before, and you can't find them anywhere.

You've created the healing seed as a hybridization byproduct of the respiration seeds. Cultivation's also going to be a way that we can put in more weird stuff. You might be growing some particular plants and you might get an insect at the end of one of the products, which you can grind down and use as a pigment, Or, you get a sap or some goo that you can use as an ingredient for something else. Once it's fully grown, at the end you can harvest it. Oh, I got one of those back. I'll try to see if it's in a stack ... I got a failure! There's a common mushroom there, which ultimately will get sold to a vendor.

Some of the seeds can also come from Scavenging, some of them come from just killing particular types of animals. Usually ones that have hair, because thematically, it's stuck in their hair. We have the starter stores mostly as a customer service for our players. Once they get into they game, they can start out and get their first few skill levels in a particular skill, at no risks, the guy in the store will just sell you as many of the skill level 1 stuff as you want. Then when you outlevel that, you're on your own, and you have to go find stuff. So particularly potent or rare seeds, find more PQ bosses, any particularly hard piece of content, as well as regular drops and Scavenging.

So not only do the gathering skills work with the crafting skills, but they also overlap with each other?
Yeah - there's a little bit of overlap all over the place. Like earlier on, when I was saying Scavenging mostly helps you out with Talisman-making; there are edge conditions and all sorts of weirdness that we put in. Hopefully players will find it interesting, particularly like killing someone and finding they had a leech on them. Then you loot the leech and you say "Oh, this can be used to make healing potions, because it's a leech!" Stuff like that. So apothecary is a potion-making system. As a skill level one player I learn this skill from a trainer, and then I go to this guy here and he can give me some stuff. First thing I need to do is put it in a container, and then put in my main ingredient, and then there's a little thing that tells me whether the mixture is stable or not.

So it's completely stable with these new additives. I press 'Brew', and we get a potion out at the end. It's real quick to make something as an Apothecary. Now the really cool thing about the system is we have a main ingredient which goes in that slot, which basically can determine what kind of potion we're making. In this case, you can check on the tooltip and know that this guy always makes intelligence potions. However the problem with the main ingredients is that they're very, very unstable. So as soon as you put them into a container, you are going to have a battle to make sure the overall stability of the concoction is positive. So, to do that, I've just used the three basic ingredients that I know have good stability. Other ingredients can also do other things, like the two basic other types which I'm going to show you today can increase the length of an effect on a potion, and increase the number made. It's a little bit difficult to be designing potions early on. Once you get into the swing of it, and you are starting to find more gatherables and you also have more money, you can buy stuff and you can can trade from players. It enables you to start designing the sort of potions that you want. Mark used a really good example in his podcast where he said "I'm going to make some potions for my guildmates ...

What are we doing tonight?" "Well, we're just going to run a bunch of scenarios. We're going to be doing RvR." In RvR, you don't survive very long, it's just a fact of life. You die every five minutes. It's fun, but you die every five minutes! So, it would be pointless for me to use my ingredients that lengthen the effect. Every time I revive, I take another potion. So, instead I'm going to concentrate on adding extra potency in, or maybe, concentrate on adding ingredients that will make more potions. Conversely if I'm going to solo, if I'm going to try and get a couple of levels tonight, do a couple of quests, maybe join some other people in PQ. I'm not really expecting to die all that often - it's PvE! So, I might concentrate on my ingredients that super-lengthen the length of the effect. Instead of making intelligence by ten, for ten minutes, I might make intelligence for ten, for two hours. In which case, I only need to drink one, and I can save all my ingredients for when we go RvRing and make the short powerful ones.

Is there a similar mechanic on the Talisman-making side? You mentioned breaking down materials based on their item bonuses, but is there any sort of balancing that goes on there?

It's similar, but it's... it's the same system, but there are some differences. For example, for apothecary - apothecary is all about managing your stability, making sure your overall stuff is stable, and we give the players a little bar on the side. For Talisman-making, it's all about making this minor object of power as potent and powerful as they can possibly make it. So there's no real stability involved in that, it's just brute force power. Conceptually it's very similar, you're sticking four things into a container, pressing a button and hopefully awesome pops out the end. The types of things you need to make a talisman is a fragment, which is the thing you get from Magical Salvaging. Presumably as a player you've already made the choice about which bonus you're trying to make. Then you need some gold essence, gold in Warhammer is traditionally the color of hedge-wizardry, talisman, magic, that kind of stuff.

We're going to require you need some gold essence. Gold essence is the thing that is created by apothecary people. We'll allow you to have some really crappy gold essence probably from the store or from some early on PQs. That said, to get the superpowerful talismans, you're going to want to have a friend that's into apothecary. Talismans thematically are kinda like good luck charms. It's funny ... in the Warhammer world, they're not necessarily inherently magical themselves. They're magical because you believe they're magical - which is kind of a weird concept to get your head around initially. The Empire soldiers will nail two brass pennies to the front of their shield as a good luck charm. Are the pennies actually magical? No, they're not, but because they think they are, they become magical. It's like a lot of trust and belief and all kinds of nonsense.

So talismans work a bit like - thematically they're a bit like that. If you believe all this stuff's going to be magical, you can make something cool. So the third things you need, we call them curios, they're things you get from Scavenging. Like you Scavenge some player races, they might have in their pocket a lucky charm - a rabbit's foot pendant or a four-leaf clover. The third ingredient for making a talisman is something that someone considered to inherently have some power to it. Then the fourth thing is another magical type of essence that predominantly occurs as a byproduct of Salvaging. Take all this stuff, squish it together, and if you have the best versions of each one of those four things, you get a really good talisman at the end of it. If not, you get a crappy one.

What kind of support does the Auction House offer for people who want to offer their goods and services from these kind of products? Is there an easy way to run down a potion based on the length of time?

Yes. Our Auction House functions like you think it would. However, we have extra levels of filtering available that you can use to search for. There's not just a pulldown that says "Potions" and it will show you all the potions in the Auction House. You can actually get down to the level of clarity that you would need, given that the crafting systems themselves can create stuff of that level of granularity.

This is obviously a question looking out a bit ... do you guys see adding in more crafting elements as the years go by?

I think we would be foolish not to!

It seems like you're aiming to launch with a very tight, very core element...

We wanted to concentrate on - I don't want to use the word 'consumable', it's not an all-encompassing term - wanted to focus on the things that are the most going to help players out in RvR. Viscerally. Like - drink a potion, and suddenly you become stronger on the battlefield. That's the kind of effect you want to have. One thing about talismans is I'm not sure if it's been mentioned - is while some of them last forever, some of them don't - and that enables us to put better abilities in them because we know they're not going to last. They're not going to stick around for that long. So, with that respect, they're also consumables. We want to give players as much ammunition for augmenting and specializing their characters for RvR.

The choice to not include a weaponsmith or armorsmith is interesting. Was that based on just how the designers wanted to itemize the game, or was it so you didn't have people doing really passive activities in the game?

I think every game I've ever played, I've always been a little bit upset with how blacksmithing / weaponsmithing works, in that they never give me the end results that I really want. A lot of games there'll be the discussion whether crafted stuff should be better than the stuff I get elsewhere. Not necessarily even high-end content, but just my normal, going about my business doing quests kind of thing. I don't remember ever playing a game where I thought that mix was "right". Personally, I'd love to put in a system where you could do crafting and that was the pinnacle of stuff in the game - but there are other aspects to take into account. I'm not sure the main reason why we didn't do it. From my point of view, being in charge of the team that had to do it, we know we have this awesome exploratory system of apothecary and Talisman-making. We have the associated gathering skills, and we just want to knock those out the park first. We'll give you the tools that impact your initial RvR experience the most, early on in your lifetime in the game. After that, we'll see what happens. We're probably going to be around for ten years, it's going to be five or six expansions ... we've got to hold something back!

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Everything you want to know about mele combat

This is taken straight from close beta forums at mmOverload

Ok compared to the previous phase I think melee combat feels much better with the tweaking of the melee range. Of course when server lag settles on normal servers these things will probably won't exist.

On the other hand something came to my attention. If you try this combat that is called circle strafing combat you will see that while your opponent is at your lefr/right shoulder at about 90 degrees from a theoretical straight line extending in front of your head you cannot hit him anymore. You will need to actually turn a bit towards him to fall in a 90% or 120% degree melee hitting field. At least this is how it felt....you cannot hit someone that he is within all of your 180 degrees view range from left to right shoulder. Why is that? Is it intentional? Certainly it does not promote realism....yes to hit with melee someone that is behind you is something meh...but atm I cannot hit someone that is standing at my shoulder getting a message like "out of cone blabla". That should be corrected imo. I don't know if it is created due to lag and the fact the person is not anymore at the position I am looking at him or if it is intended. All I am saying is that it needs to be looked at.

Unfortunatelly I get the same feeling about what hits you can parry. If the hits are comming towards you from this 120 degree you can...if they are comming from the rest 240 degrees you cannot. Imo it should be 180 degrees and 180 degrees and maybe 360 degrees for some classes. If it is already 180 degrees it does not feel like it.

Any comments and thoughts on this would be appreciated



I definitely think the vision cone should be widened, it certainly feels too narrow at this stage. Numerous times due to either lag or just sheer movement of combatants I get 'outside vision' errors, when frankly I should still be able to hit the mob.

I think Mythic need to be very careful not to make Melee combat too irritating. By this I mean not being constantly spammed with various messages while trying to fight in melee range. Either due to microscopic out of range errors or vision cone errors. No, you shouldn't be able to hit people behind you, but a 180 degree cone certainly feels more appropriate.



I agree, the out of cone message is absolutely irritating, not the message itself but the fact that the area of attack is too narrow and too easy for an opponent to just take a step and be out of the narrow cone. Its frustrating to say the least.



I have a thought, how about you stop trying to circle strafe while attacking and just fight properly. The first mmo to prevent this stupid feature will have my money forever.


Quote:
I'd like to see circle strafing/run-through force the player to fall over and loose 10% health for doing so. Would be a nice fix to an annoying trick on the mechanic.

+5 second stun. Oh yes. What other ridiculously annoying aspects could we add to this for revenge




Nate mate...circle strafing and run through someone is completely different. With collision detection I don't think run through can be applies....on the other hand circle strafing is actually somewhat of the circular combat moves the combatants use in RL combat as well...so I don't see why not circle strafing. And I did say melee combat cone...so it should have nothing to do with SW skirmish at all.



Well, not really. Because by that point in time, 3 of his mates will be aiming through walls with sniper rifles and you'd be dead. Trying to make a game feel like real life is stupid, it's a game for a reason. I can't comment on any cone of vision/attack because I haven't paid attention to that, but circle strafing and running around in circles in fights is idiotic. I want moves to trip you up and stamp on your eyeballs everytime people do that, it's ridiculous.

Ps, agree about the kangaroo fps crap too.



its disingenuious to compare rl fights to cricle straffing just because you would try to time dodges to get blindside etc in rl sword fights or martial arts ..

but then you have a complete range or positional moves and counters from every angle to counter this ..

in games like this all your trying to do with circle straffe or jump around , is expose the games mechanics that stop 90% of your moves triggering becasue u just left the melee cone.

if we had the full range of moves like tekken or soul calibre etc.. with heaps of grabs and moves that execute from any position , then fair enough. but thats not the type of game we,re playing
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aye thats it ,

i,ve long since accepted i cant or dont want to run around like a headless chicken trying to get a mage on a pogo stick to stay in my cone of combat long enough to get to poke them with my sword.
and it annoys me when tanks in full plate armour can bounce around like chimps on speed and not tire out , its just a mouse and keyboards competiotion then .

the only classes i think that should base combat on diving in and out or loads of fast positional blows are rogues and maybe monks ,, but theres none of them in wow.




theres a very simple way to counter strafe , moving backwards while atacking.

with some practice is very easy to do it.
I do this backwards hits all the time and is very effective counter
Btw pvp is not pve , you just cant face the other and trade blows this isnt how it suppose to work.

You simply cannot ask everyone to fight by your taste of combat style.

Id like to strafe i think it takes skill to strafe and counter it also its my privillege annoying or not , try improve your skills than aksing everyone to fight like you.

As for melee combat in general , although it much improved , it still need work in the line of fire , animation and reaction time.
Last i beleve snare needs longer timers.

Its annoying running all the time to hit someone especially when everyone shares action points and have the same flee button




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