It’s alive!

I got to do my first instance of the new city siege yesterday on Gorfang. It was the first for our server if my sources are correct, and my guild had a good time. It wasn’t particularly challenging for us, on which I partially blame myself. We faced off against uncoordinated groups who hadn’t done this before, compared to our 12 members, led by myself and another player who was in the closed testing. We won handily all three stages, and I even got to be a champion, which was very cool. That said, the BEST experience of the night was finding out what the fix was to stop the punting from the bride outside the The Inevitable City’s palace gates. The trampoline feature was a glorious amount of fun. I took some video and some screenshots that I will try to compile this weekend. Like for real this time.

So, the patch is live, and kicking, and working almost flawlessly. Cities are being pillaged, players are learning the ropes, and the reception seems to be positive on almost all accounts. Despite the expected server-downtime hiccups that no one but a few players are really surprised or demoralized over. Europe wisely waited 24 hours to deploy their changes and let us Yanks beta test it for them (one of the few advantages of GOA service), so I hope you guys get to smash face today and have the same fun we did.

Enjoy your weekend everyone!

Rock that city

1.3.5 is coming today. In fact, servers come down not 16 minutes from the time that I am writing this. If you follow the second link to the herald post, you’ll see a nice splash page that goes over the broad ideas of what this patch is brining and some neat screen captures from the game as it relates. Follow the first link to the notes themselves for a far more in-depth explanation of all the changes coming, and this patch is a beast of an update, coming in at 10,124 words. Yeah, reading it all will take you some time, so I’ll try to hit the highlights.

Tonight, tonight!

Tonight, good people, you get your first look at the city changes. The public is being allowed in to stomp around the new end-game instances and feel what it’s like to destroy the competition in a true battle that relies on you and 23 of your closest minions. So, make sure you get ready by copying your characters over now, while it’s still easy and there won’t be any wait. Load the server to bursting with your presence, and rampage through enemy territory in some of the most fun you may ever have. Stick around after for the Q&A session with Nate Levy, Carrie Gouskos and other potential guests, with Andy Belford playing the role of ringmaster.

Get your test on!

New City Infoz

The “z” makes it edgy and hip (really, I just couldn’t think of an interesting title).

Andy put up another set of bug fixes for night 4 of the city testing. While not as robust as the changes for night 3, I think there is one key area that is going to make many of those who expressed worry and concern have their fears allayed. The biggest gripe that was echoing across the forums was about players who went link-dead, or crashed in the middle of the city event, and then being forced to eat a lockout timer for all three instances. Well, they’ve implemented what they call a “lifeline”. We were all confused at first when, with no preamble or segue, Andy said, “Okay testing the lifeline”. He was met with a lot of “Ehh???”.

So, we all broke up into individual players, ran toward the city like a bunch of kids hearing the ice cream truck from the living room. We played in the city, happily smashing people’s faces in, romping around with wonton care of the safety of our environment, and then, told to summarily force-crash our clients. With great reluctance (because this has been FUN), I alt-tabbed, and told Warhammer to turn the fuck off. That’s right, you heard me, turn off Warhammer. It protested, and didn’t want to cooperate at first, but I showed it who’s boss by implementing my leet ctrl-alt-del skills. I win! Happily, the lifeline worked and I found myself in the same instance I had left from, with only one minor hitch. It took me two tries to log-in. I think my client started back up too quickly for the game to recognize that I was actually out of the game. So, I went through the loading screen, then immediately back to character select. I told you it was minor.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder

I hope so, otherwise, this multi-day sickness of the lungs I’ve had may have been for naught. I’m back, mostly healthy. I’m only spitting up small chunks of phlegmy chunks of yellowish-green mucous. Mmmm…visuals. So, if you’re wondering why I haven’t been posting, that’s why. I’ve been playing some, sleeping a lot, and the energy to be creative and insightful was about as hard to get a firm grip on as the whole inhale/exhale thing was for the time period. But nevermind me, and the boring “who-gives-a-flying-fuck” details of my life, let’s talk about WAR.

1.3.5 and Bonuses (Bonusi?)

As I’m sure you saw on the herald, 1.3.5 is now on the test server. The patch notes have been released. And people are slobbering over the new 100% bonus to RR and Exp from the apology. My plans to cool my heals on my Order characters have been officially postponed. My guild leader talked to me yesterday about my frustration and it gave me an ear to vent to a bit at least. I still want to play my Blackguard some more, but getting my Knight to 80 is the primary goal, and this bonus is going to help make a big dent in that.

With that out-of-the-way, here are my thoughts on the patch.

The Big Q’s

Man, I just thought of a much better title for my post on the city thanks to this one (The Big Queue). Sigh, inspiration often comes late.

This will be the final set of questions from my time at Mythic on Friday with Carrie (or Dagny as I will forever think of her now). This was an interesting conversation we had, in two parts. It’s very clear when speaking with her that she is passionate about the game as a whole, and that her outlook on gaming is slightly different from some of the others we had spoken with. She, by nature of her new role, has to take a broader, long term look at the game as a whole, and craft where she sees it going. Frequently when answering a question, she would close her eyes, and you could see them darting back and forth as if reviewing documents or information on a computer screen. It struck me as a form of conscious REM sleep, where there is so much information that it is necessary to block out the surroundings and visually sort her thoughts and memory. So, here is the low-down, I’ll be SW as usual, and Ms. Gouskos will be CG.

I <3 Bandy Belfords

I shit you not, "Bandy" is a sport. Similar to ice hockey.

This will be the final set of questions from my Q&A with the Careers and Items people, Nate, Steve, and Sean (i.e. “Item Guy” or “The young one”), that I might have left over from my live blogging that took place on-site. As well as an interview with Andy Belford, the last of our interviews while there.

I’ll start with this absolute GEM of a quote from Nate Levy. We were talking about add-ons in general, and how it relates to class/game balance. I’m a huge fan of add-ons as anyone here should know, and have a perverse pleasure when participating in the numerous threads that pop up every week to “Ban nerfed buttons and auto-focus, zomg!”

“If there is something an add-on does that is grievously bad for the game, then we can just stop the add-on from being able to do it. Not rebalance the game for it.” 

The City Siege, and how it Works

As you should be aware from the blitzkrieg of information coming to you, the working city changes have been released. They cover an absolutely massive chasm in a shift of the way that the end-game is going to work. A complete and utter over-haul. The transmission was ripped out, and the engine block was revamped. So, our old charger has been revamped into a beast of a muscle car. Sexy and big, ready to eat up whatever gets put before it.

Okay, maybe the car metaphor strayed a bit, but keep reading anyway.

In-Development!

Read city changes here!