Why Are You Here?

I'm feeling a bit on the curious side here. What got you to start playing WAR? Are you a die-hard Warhammer fan and Dawn of War just wasn't cutting the mustard for you? Are you a hype gobbler/ compulsive MMO tourist. Did you want Dark Age of Camelot: Now With Squigs? Did the Free Trial hook you in (while also giving your friends precious, precious vanity pets)? Or were you a World Shaper who tested the game way back in beta?

I was a launch day buying, pre-launch hype-gobbler. I got especially enamored on WAR from Rock Paper Shotgun's coverage of the game. I had never played an MMO before, but all of a sudden, something just clicked in my mind and I had to try one out. I didn't want to start playing WoW because of the negative stigma that my circle of friends have for it (despite all of us having played every Blizzard game since Warcraft 2). So, on the word of RPS, WAR was my game of choice, and I haven't stopped since.

Hot Fix: Lords Are Now Of Sane Mind

I like that Mythic is being a tad playful about it's announcement for fixing a bug that's been causing outcries since the first fort take.

"Fixed an issue that could sometimes cause Fortress and Keep Lords to display erratic behavior, abandoning their guards and fighting alone on the ground floor of the Keep or Fortress. Lords will now remain on the appropriate floor with their guards during the entire battle."

Because it was the Lords' fault all along: they had gone crazy and decided that they didn't need any guards and that it was their house; they could go wherever they wanted to.

The Post Where I Brag About How Good I Am

With 15 levels under my belt, I feel like I can give a proper recounting of my Choppa's 1v1 experiences so far. For those keeping score I'm using a 2 hander and am pretty well geared at all times with either blues, greens or PQ set items. An important detail I should mention is that these took place entirely in scenarios so bolster is applied to both sides unless otherwise noted.

Slayers: Equal win-to-loss ratio. I found that I had more luck against duel wielding slayers than 2 handed slayers.

Full-on zerg on zerg, the Choppa seems to win out slightly more over the Slayer, but I think that's just because I remember the victories more than the defeats.

Rune Priests: Don't have a chance. They can't outheal at this level, and, with no CC to speak of (while Choppas get their snare and Charge early on) it's not even a challenge.

Archmages: Same as Rune Priests.

Warrior Priests: They win more often but I have killed some 1v1. Sometimes they are too focused on doing damage that they forget to heal themselves. That's when I pull out my exhaustive blows and finish them off. Choppas win more in T1, but WPs fare better in T2

Bright Wizards: Hah!

Engineers: I've killed a lot of higher leveled Engineers (like rank 14 vs 20) if I can get close to them before they see me. Otherwise, I've been kited, rooted, knocked down by land mines and knocked back skillfully enough that the Engies end up winning. Most of the time, what makes or breaks these fights, is in how well-timed the root is, if I have Charge! ready to be used, and if I can kill them fast enough that they don't gain access to their lvl 1 Morale Super Knockback.

Shadow Warriors: Advantage goes to the Choppa. If the SW can kite, root and DoT me up long enough before I get in close, they can switch to Assault stance and finish me off just fine. Most of the time the Shadow Warrior is unskilled though and I just plow through them.

White Lions: I didn't get any opportunities for a 1 on 1 but in the group melee scraps, they seem to go down just as fast as Slayers and Witch Hunters.

Witch Hunters: These fights are always the most interesting and the most fun. If they can get the jump on me with their Incognito skill they will more than likely win. If I get the drop on them it's a pretty even fight. More often than not, the fights ended in a tie (meaning one would die, then the other would fall because of a DoT). These fights never end with the winner at more than 25% health and are more dependant on who gets they're exhaustive blow/ accusation / sever nerve off first.

Tanks: Didn't fight any 1 on 1, but I do remember a lvl 21 KotBS lasting a long time against 3 lvl 11-13 Choppas, killing one and leaving another at 50% health. It was quite a frustrating fight.


These are entirely what I've experienced so far and in no way should be taken as stone-cold fact.

As a final note, my favourite attack is Weaklin' Killa. No other exhausting blow even matters.

Truly Heartfelt.

To: Fellow Community Members
From: Me
Subject: I'm Sorry

The community has shown me some love and I ignored them. I lagged behind on my blog and WHA checking and it turns that on the 8th, I was part of the Warhammer Alliance's front page WCPI spotlights. Big thanks for the spotlight!
Other links I have missed are the Bloody Twenty, and Ghazghkull.
If anyone else out there has an unacknowledged link to me that I've missed please comment so that I can give proper thanks!

Not Impressed

Today, I saw 2 full Order Warbands, after pushing us around the lake for a while, hole our one WB up in Mandred's Hold. I then saw them break through the door in about no time flat. I then saw them pull the Keep Lord down to the ground floor. In Tier 2. Even though they clearly had the upper hand. We prevented them from getting their loot bags, but they still wiped us pretty quickly anyways. I have to say I wasn't impressed. I didn't think people were still doing this In Tier 2 of all places.

Choppa: The Early Years

A few days ago I may have mentioned that I would be playing WAR less due to my nerdy tunnel vision pointing itself in other, non WAR directions. This was false. I don't know why I thought that the Choppa wouldn't pull me in but that was a bad call on my part. All of my free time has been dedicated to chopping with no signs of slowing down. It's been a blast.

Since I'm so tired of leveling exclusively in ORvR, I'm leveling Chopzaloz with a mix of everything, but generally avoiding the RvR lakes. From all of the PQ and influence rewards, I've forgotten what it's like to get blues and greens constantly flowing in, instead having to wait for the renown gear. Easy PQs are my new best friend.

Heals? Who needs heals when we can outchop anything that stands in the way of our Waaagh!

Do you know which scenarios I used to hate? Phoenix Throne, Khaine's Embrace and Stonetroll Crossing. Do you know which scenarios are really fun now that half of the players are MDPS? Phoenix Throne, Khaine's Embrace and Stonetroll Crossing. Now that everyone has high damage and low health, they move at a brisk pace and the tides are constantly changing. The Gates of Ekrund scenario also plays much differently now that no one is on the top floor nuking the middle.

For crafting I've taken up Salvaging and Talisman making. It fits well with all the PQs I've been doing. I've breached the level 50 mark on both of them.

Chopzaloz, sneaking up on a surprisingly well detailed sparrow.

Chopzaloz is level 14 now and I'm thoroughly enjoying my time with him. My Zealot needs some love but he can wait.

Music Soothes the Soul and Wastes the Time

Another thing that's been keeping me from WAR, or taking up all of my alt-tabbing time while playing WAR, is sorting through the new OCRemix cd: Summonning of Spirits. Tales of Symphonia was my first ever JRPG and it holds a very special place in my heart. So special in fact that I haven't picked up the sequel, for fear that all of my fond memories of Symphonia are just nostalgia and the fact that everything was new and awesome back then to me.

This new CD is such a time-sink to me because whenever a new OCRemix collaboration CD comes out, I always end up trolling OCR's and vgmixes' archives looking for lost gems. This time is no exception.

This is a high quality remixing job and everyone should pick it up. It is free after all.

Definitive Link to Gaarawarr

My WCPI spotlight will be towards Gaarawarr and his extensive armour set guide. He lists, he explains, he defines, he extensifies and most importantly, he does all of the work for you. It really is very helpful and I'm using it to plan out how my first T4 character will level so that I can have the best set gear the earliest.

Cheers to you Gaarawar wall-of-texting for all of us.

Tell Them Your Name

The good folks over at Sore Thumbs are collecting some research on gaming pseudonyms and why you choose them. I'm looking forward to the resulting article and I hope that anyone who reads my blog can add their own stories. To help you folks along I'll share my deep, dark origin story. No family members were killed but I assure there was much emotional trauma. This is the e-mail I sent out:

Hello, my name is PQQ

This tale has a few steps to it so it requires some back story. I used to game at my friends house alot because I had a Nintendo Gamecube, but he had a PS2 (much jealousy on my part). He also had a very small TV which will come into play later. All of my friends were Diablo II fans to some degree so it seemed like the purchasing, playing and enjoying of Champions of Norrath was a done deal. It was but that's not the point.

The point is name creation. I'd chosen an elf character and I wanted the name to sound elfin. I also wanted it to start with a P because my real name does. I also wanted it to be funny, and dirty. So I started with Poo. I worked it into Poosalot. I ended with Poozaloz. This was elfin enough and many a hero (male and female, the name is gender neutral) would pick up the mantle and do great things.

Except for James Bond.

He was too real of a character to receive an elf's name. When it came to 007: Nightfire's multiplayer, every one needed to create their own profile to save control schemes and such. These profiles needed a name. With impatient friends surrounding me, I had to think quick. I also had to uphold my crass tradition so I'd decided on my first idea back in the Norrath days. I named my profile POO. Well, I thought I did.

Remember when I mentioned that my friend had a small TV? Well the game had an even smaller font and an awkward circle function to select letters. The end result was me choosing the wrong big, round letter next to P. My profile was now PQQ.

The rest is history. It's my gamertag and online handle, While Poozaloz is what I rename main heroines in RPGs to. It is also what I rename Epona too in all Zelda games, unless I decide that she should be LowRida.

Cheers, PQQ.

As a side note on my blog here: I haven't used either of these names in WAR. Poozalaz I didn't think would get past the name censors (I have since found out that you can be called Assblack and Critoris and not get flagged). I didn't want to assign a character my official PQQ tag for fear of not liking that class and having the name go to waste.

What, dear readers, are your naming habits? Do you use the name you gave your first D&D character? Do you rename RPG characters after crushes* or loved ones? Do you go with what you used to sign arcade machine high scores with? Is it a variation of snipe or master chief like half of Xbox live gamertags? Let me know.

*Lol to anyone who did this to Aerith. Double lol to anyone who did this to Aerith even after knowing what happens to her.

What I'm Up To. A Promise to Return

So I've secured early Slayer and Choppa action and I've gone back into hibernation. Not for getting bored of the game at all (I'm still enjoying every day that I get to log in) but because I'm deep into my other nerd pursuits.

Since Psychonauts, I've gone on an adventure gaming binge and it'll be a while before I'm done with that. I've replayed all 4 Ace Attorney games which let me tell you, was no small feat. I finally finished off Hotel Dusk to get sweet, sweet closure. Hyde was an interesting character. I then finished Time Hollow in 2 days, but I have mixed feelings about it. I enjoyed the premise and the mystery, but thought that the characters were all so uninteresting. So very, very uninteresting. I only finished the game out of an instinctive need to.

Right now I'm playing through Grim Fandango, A Vampyre story, and the not so recently translated Fate/stay Night. I won't be writing any blog updates on these as I want to keep this a WAR-centric blog but now you know what I'm doing with my gaming time.

Also, with the new Watchmen movie out, I've pulled out and reread most of my trade paperbacks and picked up new ones so I'm also on a comic book binge right now.

Bear with me, because soon, I'll be catching up on all of the anime I've fallen behind on or forgotten about. The cycle that is my obsessive impulses will return to focus on WAR, but right now it's secondary. Or tertiarty.

Dark Elf Quest-Giver Flowchart

I'm a big fan of frivolous flow-charts so it was only a matter of time before I concocted one myself. This one here is a light-hearted take on how much Dark Elves hate the people who do all all of their work for them. It's a subject I touched on before in my pet-peeves post but I feel like I can lay it to rest here.

Click for full-view

Twisting Tower the Best Part. Swearing at Witch Hunters

My experiences so far with 1.2 have been mostly positive. Too much info for full paragraphs so some quick bullet points here:

• My Hoeth specced, S&B Swordmaster still rocks the house in damage.
  
  
• Twisting Tower scenario is sweet: 18 people? Hell Yes. The easiest to PUG and still win. It is also the hardest scenario to heal in I've ever seen. LOS is always getting broken.

• Disregard my last comment about healing if you spam group heals. You will be in heaven in this scenario.
  
  
• Speaking of PUGing, Order's strategy most of the time is to zerg the top-most room, feeding off of a slow trickle of diversionary kills, while destruction caps the points and wins by more than 200 points.


Me taking one for the team



• The Greenskin oRvR lake PQ would be awesome if I could ever get a group going for it.

• The exp bar now shows all of your rested exp. It looks great because I have a ton (the benefits of casual play).



• The choppas and slayers duking it out make for a great place for Black Orcs to hide.

• I didn't realize how many people pronounced slayers "slayas" until I spelled it that way by accident just now. This needs to stop. Dwarves wouldn't be caught dead speaking orcish so lets all go back to pronouncing in "slayERS" like we were meant too.



• Squared addon is wonky now. It doesn't refresh right anymore. This isn't Mythic's fault but it's still annoying.



• I've picked up 20 Glyph covered map pieces, but none of the other two kinds *sad face*.



• Zone Domination hasn't visibly changed T3 oRvR for me. In_T4_though, it seems to cater to off-hours capping very easily.
  
  
• Witch Hunters getting through posterns have ruined all of my attempts to solo defend a keep. I screeched like a little girl the first time it happened. I'm deeply considering leveling up my Witch Elf before counter measures to this become commonplace.



• I don't see very many Witch Elves anymore. I'm lucky if there is two per warband.



• Being able to hear my Zealot say "Bollocks!" on command with the new /swear emote makes me entirely too happy for such a little thing.

That's it for now. More updates as they happen

Wide Eyed Wall

Picking up my Sticks

Here it comes. I can't wait. When there's a new big patch coming out, I tend to hibernate and not play for the week leading up to it. It recharges my batteries and I get to catch up on any other games or books I've been leaving behind. But I'll be playing my heart out for sure, SuperScreenShotting everywhere. See everyone then.