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.

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.

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

When Can you Officially be Wrong

Seeing this post, while making me laugh, really got me thinking. I know it's not right to review a console game without finishing it, or playing it for an adequate amount of time. And I know it's annoying to hear people bash an MMO and call it failed after only playing for the first two weeks.

But where do you draw the line at what's a long enough time to have played an MMO? Does the amount of time that comes with the game purhase count as long enough? It's a game designed to be played for months on end so there's a good chance you won't have a max level character or seen all of the content. Does this make you unfit to review the MMO? Especially since the first month (when the most people will be trying out and reviewing it) is always the worst for an MMO. Speaking from experience, the WAR that I played in the first month wasn't the same WAR that I played for the past month.

The MMO bashers may be annoying, but are they wrong? When does your opinion about an MMO start to matter? I've been rethinking about how I view the naysayers on the internet when it comes to WAR. I used to think "they just played for a few days and now they feel like snarking it up in comment_threads," but now I'm starting to doubt. When do you start/stop having a valid opinion about an MMO? After every patch? After you've acquired the best gear? Only if you play an a populated server? It's not like they played an anti-WAR, meant to crush their souls until they quit. They played the finished product and it wasn't to their liking

We can't hide behind the ever-popular "it's a great game now, they fixed all those bugs and design issues," because that's not going to cut it. The MMO tourists have moved on and the loudest naysayers will, on principal, never resubsribe and continue to bash the game. It doesn't matter how good the game gets a year after release, it blew its chance by not being good enough at the start.

What I'm trying to say is don't hate the haters, hate the game that sucked when it mattered most.

Non-WAR Activity Log. One-Shotted.

This one is a wall of text so watch out.


WAR is my first MMO and I'm loving it to death. There's nothing like a good MMO and I won't be hanging it up anytime soon. That being said, first and foremost, I'm a console gamer. And for the past week I've been console gaming. The difference between when I've got a good console game to sink into and a good PC game to sink into is my amount of time spent on a computer. See, when I'm playing on a PC, good game or not, I'm constantly alt-tabbing, checking news-sites, blogs and whatever. This goes double for WAR. But playing on a TV set, with a controller in hand and a keyboard so very far away, I just don't have the urge log in. Except to check the herald and penny-arcade. Some things I just have to do.

It's hard to explain, but when I find a really good console game to play, it then becomes all that I do in my free time. For a really good computer game, I can always save, alt-tab, or whatever. I'm just programmed that way.


So what have I been playing that has so effectively kept me from WARing, blogging and general interneting? Psychonauts. An old Xbox game I never got around to picking up because at that time, I only had a gamecube. It's been on Steam for awhile but I've only recently acquired a capable computer. Lo and behold though, I found myself browsing the Xbox Originals tab. After picking up Sega Soccer Slam (great game about racial stereotypes beating each other up while occasionally kicking a ball around) I came upon Psychonauts and remembered the ridiculous amounts of adoration it's received from the press and blogs and reviews. So I bought it.

Seeing as Psychonauts is all that I've been doing outside of school/work for the past week, and that I really want to blog about it, I'm gonna write out my thoughts.

It plays like a platformer/collectathon with some (fairly easy) fighting. The bosses are especially easy, with the final one being the easiest. The different levels consist of different campers'/asylum inmates' brains and the variety and uniqueness of them are pretty huge. The "Milkman Conspiracy" will go down as one of the best levels of all time. The game is pretty easy for the most part but then something happens. Then you get to the Meat Circus level and the game becomes nigh-on impossible with a mix of timed portions and aggravatingly hard platforming. But it's the climax so you stick through it only to end up at a boss that's easier than all of the others. And then there's a satisfying ending cinematic.

The story was light-hearted and unique, with a save the world main plot and a romantic subplot that was very cute, but weird if you remember that they're ten years old. Wasn't that still deep in the cooties age? Right from the opening cinematic, the game snagged me with its charm and genuine humour. A lot has been said about how funny the game is so I won't really add much there, but the game is real funny, not poop joke funny. In between the happiness though, there are quite a few sad moments tucked away in corners, like Milla's secret room and Sasha's vaulted memories.

The characters are endearing and memorable, even the side one-note characters. If you take the time to see it they all have their own sub-plots going that are interesting for the most part. It also helps that the game is fully, 100% voiced, and acted well too. It's rare to see a game where the kids act like kids and it stays believable. They have child-like relationships with each other and it is all very respectfully written. My favourite kid is Vernon, with his slow, monotonous voice, and his boring_stories. Also, Mikhail, the wannabe bear wrestler, has the best fake Russian accent ever.

The graphics hold up nicely being very stylised and cartoony. I don't know if they were touched up for the 360 release or not but the game looked really good, with a lot (a lot) of little details and flourishes everywhere. It made for a very believable, if fantastical world.

The music is awesome, and the songs are appropriate for their respective stages, though they are kind of short and loop often enough to get annoying. Especially when you're trying to find every last collectible (which is all the time). My favourite tunes are the ones from the matador/painter/wrestler level. Nothing stands out as bad, except if I have to hear the "Meat Circus" music anymore I may have to strangle someone.

Tenuous link to MMOs to keep this entry relevant to my blog: The way that the game rewards exploration. There are countless one-time only conversations going on between the campers that you can only see if you travel the camp avoiding the main plot. There are so many hidden extras and I know that I missed a lot of them, You get a different reaction from everyone every time you: levitate them, firestart them, punch them, confuse them, show them the button, show them the "claw", hit them with the brain duster and tickle them. Also with "clairvoyance," everyone (including enemies, animals and bosses) see you as something different. Don't forget to read the bulletin board after a major event as it updates often.

As a side note, when I like a game, I really get into it How much into it you ask? I have since purchased_the_soundtracks, checked out the Psychopedia, the camper`s myspace pages, and if there was an art book I would have bought it for sure. I am now eagerly stalking Brutal_Legend. And I am hunting down a copy of Grim Fandago as we speak.

A lot of love and detail went into to this game so if you haven't picked it up yet, it's up on Steam and XBLA. If you need any more reason to play it, it's a game that Yahtzee likes, and he hates everything.

While I was gone console gaming: Choppas and Slayers are put up on the PTS, a new round of server transfers start, Darkfall gets more pre-orders than they can handle and most importantly, I_got_a_one-shot.

Train Milking and Anti-Peeves

I've just recieved a wonderful link from Syp over at WAAAGH (thanks man!) for my top ten pet peeves post, but then he went and one-upped me with his top ten anti-peeves! So that I don't look like a negative nelly (I'm really not. How dare you insinuate such about me :)) and I'm all for stealing someone's idea, here are ten of my anti-peeves.

1. Your own head as a pocket item. I saw someone who said he got three. What a lucky (or unlucky) guy. Now why can't I get one? Am I too uber to not die enough?



2. Getting that big heal off just as your partner was at 1% health and then winning the battle. There's no bigger rush than that.



3. The Dark Elf quest givers may hate you but Order quests generally reward you with some thankfulness. It makes you appreciate fighting the good fight.



"I'd like to further show you gratitude in yonder tent"



4. You know how whenever there's a quest to find a lost scout or something, and they're always dead when you get there? I thought it was pretty cool that there was one Dark Elf quest to find a dead body but it turns out that he was alive. The quest giver then tells you that you should have killed him in a typical Dark Elf "thanks."



5. Reading a kill collector or Rally master's Tome unlock. They always have something bad-ass to say.
   



6. Spotting Tzeentch's little hydralisk claw for the first time. It's there in the cinematic and everything but I never noticed it until about a month ago.
   

   

This took me months to spot




7. How oppressive the atmosphere of the IC is ... to Destruction. You've got the Dread Sentries (their tome unlock is very chilling by the way, a recommended read), the constantly watching eyeballs, constantly fighting beastmen and marauders, a coliseum, and a general unfriendliness and untrustworthiness from every NPC that makes you wonder why it is that you're helping these people anyway. And then you remember that it's for personal glory, endless gifts and riches, and crushing Order scum.
   



8. How a Greenskin warcamp's outer walls are just whole, uncut tree trunks tied together. It just fits so perfectly with their aesthetic. It's rough, shoddily built and simple, all while serving it's purpose.


9. The sheer amount of patches I've seen. They always seem to aim to fix things that I've specifically seen mentioned in blogs and forums, and the speed at which they come out is good too. For example, do you know how many blog posts there were for "WAR needs its own Darkness Falls" and "change keeps so that a tank wall isn't the be-all-end-all defense"?


10. The frequency of live events. There's always something around the corner to generate buzz and chatter and there's never a time when I'm not looking forward to logging on.

And there you have it. Now it can't be said that I've never said anything nice about the game.

Of Banner Taking and Tutorials

So I stole my first banner awhile ago. I was part of a group (about half a warband) that snuck up on about 5 guys trying to take a BO by themselves. Needless to say we wiped them. In the confusion I went for their banner, because my partners don't really need heals now do they? They can heal themselves. So I squatted for 15 seconds and then BAM! A renown bonus and morale boost. The thing is, that no one else in the group could figure out where the bonus came from. I told them it was from capping their banner, only to be met with the internet equivalent of a blank stare. "You can do that?" one of them asked.

To be fair, their stares were pretty blank to start with

Is this one of those things, like what to do during a city seige, and what wards are (actually got asked this today), that players just don't know? I remember learning about how to capture banners from a herald post somewhere, but how many players (especially new ones) read through the herald's archives? I think that there are definiety some things that need either a revamped tooltip, a tooltip in the first place, or one of those tutorial pop-ups that everyone turns off after their second alt. Sometimes, there are players that aren't familiar with every manual, dev post and FAQ page. Sometimes, the game itself just needs to hold your hand that little bit more.

Pet Peeves and Eye Twiches

I have certain pet peeves when it comes to WAR. These aren't the earth-shattering, make you want to quit, "Why Mythic, why?!?!" kind of grievances. No, these are just the kinds that make me twitch without knowing that I'm twitching. These are the kinds that have no bearing on the game and don't need a bug report to fix, but that I wish I could. I'll make it a list. A top 10 list.

1. Killing the same White Lion's pet 10 times in a row, without seeing a hint of the elf himself. Would it kill you to show your face once in a while? Well it probably would bit it's still annoying.
   



2. Getting focus fired. Would you guys stop it already? There's like 8 others guys around me, do they not look good enough to you?
   



3. Having a "Defend the Keep" quest with 19 out of 20 kills done when the siege defense ends. Because great, now I have to wait for them to siege it without it being a ninja siege all over again.




4. Witch Elves that wear capes. Why do you gotta block the view? What else am I supposed to look at while waiting for a BO to cap?
   
   
   
   
   

   One of these Witch Elves knows where it's at
   




5. Moving up a Tier without a maxed out oRvR influence bar. What am I gonna do, go afk as a chicken during keep and BO captures? Because that's bound to be fun. I guess I could roll in an RvR-server, but then that would solve my problem and this list isn't for finding solutions.
   



6. In an RvR server, being ganked by groups of lvl 20s in Tier 1. Is it really that much fun? Does getting kills labelled as "trivial" really feel worth your time and effort? (Well, lack of effort anyway.)
   



7. How Dark Elves never thank you for doing any of their quests. It's always "You did alright, I guess" "I still think nothing of you," "I guess I'll have to watch my back now that you know my secrets," and "You were only my pawn, used so that I didn't have to dirty my hands. Idiot." Anyone who can stick it out and level in DE lands is seriously masochistic.
   



8. Capture Points and BO flags blocking your Line of Sight. Listen, I know Elves are skinny and all, but to be able to hide behind a pole just seems ridiculous. Black Orcs are easily ten times the width of a flag, but I guess I can't see him? Mythic must think that their characters are loony toons.
   
   
   
   

   This cat knows how to hide behind a pole
   
   



9. The run from Spite's Reach to Cascade's. It is a brutal distance between keeps, and it's in a tier where almost nobody has mounts. Having to release while attacking or defending it is a brutal affair.
   


10. The look of the Zealot's first helmets. A headband with beads? What am I, a hippy? Now the later helmets look pretty cool, but maybe that's just because anything would have been an improvement.
    *Update* I also have up a list up of my ten_anti-peeves.

The Challenge so Far. A Parting Story for Dok Karaz.

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been leveling a Zealot by doing the RvR-Only-Challenge. This means that you can only collect xp through scenarios, open RvR, grit, determination, and waiting around a lot. It has been quite the experience. I think I'm going to regale you with my experiences.

Tier 1 flew by. I gained a level every two or three scenarios at the start, then started mixing it up with some RvR lake action. By lake I literally mean only one lake: Empire/Chaos. I had still managed to max out my influence in the other two zones, but that was entirely from musical BOs. Actual oRvR kills came from Festenplatz zergs, and the winner was decided solely on which side was fielding more people at the time. Most of my time was spent camping warcamps, or being camped at my warcamp. As a healer, T1 was boring except for scenarios. Except Khaine's Embrace. That one can suck my nuts for all I care.

Tier 2 took place in all of the zones. Musical keeps was in abundant supply, but never constant. Whenever we owned most of the tier, Order would keep a death grip on Mandred's Hold and never give it up. A lot of my time was spent looking up at that keep. I did a lot more scenarios this time, but I enjoy all of the T2 ones. Especially as a healer, because they're rarer and you just feel extra useful and loved.

*sigh*Just another zone cap against no defense.

If you're wondering about what gear I've gotten out of all of this it is: the Obliterator set (the boots were given to me though), oRvR influence rewards, and jewelry from renown vendors (I've picked up no drops). Out of the 25 keeps I took part in taking (I only know this because of the title I just got), I'd received 5 gold bags. Oddly, none of them came from when I placed in the top three for contribution. I am a terrible roller.

If you keep turning in kill quests and are constantly queued for scenarios, you'll level at a pretty good clip. The problem is that you can't play during off hours. At all. If there's no one in a lake, and no scenarios are popping, your only option is to... make potions? This is my only gripe with the challenge. I can't do anything when it's not prime time. During prime time is great (hence the word prime) but sometimes I still want to play after hours.

All...By...My...SeEelf

So I'll use an alt to get my PvE questing fix (I love reading the quest text and the sometimes odd objectives). This didn't last very long. I just couldn't do it. AI mobs just weren't cutting it for me. I could feel myself getting sleepy every time I repeated an attack rotation. I'm also very tired of T1 right now (so many alts in so short a time.) PvPing for so long has spoiled me, with its constantly changing partners, enemies and situations. The ups and downs are just incomparable. It isn't that PvEing is boring, it just doesn't compare to pitting yourself against a live opponent. There's a lot of intangibles involved, but it mostly comes down to "am I having fun?" The answer is a resounding yes. I'm gonna miss being the big dog on campus but here's hoping for more tales in T3.

I'll finish with a true story about my undying passion for a keep.


Dok Karaz. O how I love You Dok Karaz. I made it a personal mission to attack or defend you every time there was a hint of action taking place. There was no real reason for this, other than after having defended it once, I didn't want to give it up until I had too. There were three times where I didn't start defending you until your door was already broken in, rallying murderous fighters along with me, forming a stalwart platoon of 7-10 people each time. We'd rush through the ranks of Order massed on the ramp so that we could stave them off from your Lord's room.

Sometimes they had already gotten past that, and they were trying to fight your Lord out on your ranged siege equipment pad. Well my platoon was having none of that and we whisked them off of your walls with steel, spittle, and more stalwartness. When they tried for a second go before we could rebuild your door, we pushed them back again. Best of all, when they tried to gain reinforcements from the dwarven ironclad, We chased them down and stalwartly killed them there too. Twas a great day to not be a dwarf.

This is only like, a fifth of the attackers. Swear to god. I beat them with just my bare hands

*Update* War'nPieces also has his writeup of the rvr challenge, while linking to yours truly. It may not be a race, but I have to say, my toon's farther than his toon. Well his twoons. I still win alright?

I Love A Challenge.

This is the post where I give a shout-out to my favorite ability in the game: Champion's_Challenge. I love Champion's Challenge to the core of my being. I love the little electric fence that shows up, seeing your target jump and use Flee futilely, and making yourself immune to knockbacks for ten seconds (a use that many overlook). My favourite strategy in Tor Anroc with it is too stand near an edge, capture the first enemy to come by, squishy or not. Now that I'm Knockback immune, I wait for other targets to run by me and knock them off into the lava. I know this is against the popular view of hating CC, but I'm a rebel anyway. Seriously, I shower in my aviators.

Above: Success

A Horrible Person's Lament. Bring Back The Hammer

I know I'm terrible for thinking this but there's something I miss from the game right now. Gold spammers in chat. Not for what they are but for what they caused. It's great that they're gone but anyone playing from launch can vouch for one thing that really increased immersion, they're faith in Mythic and the awesomeness of WAR: the banhammer messages. They were sweet, stylish and badass. If they were brought back to, say, announce the banhammering of the mailbox goldspammers I will be a very happy man.

Order Gets No Waaagh! Doesn't Cry About It

Despite what I said in my last post there are still more Destruction players than order, and at release there was a lot more. I have a theory for why this is true. The answer is about Waaagh!. And Order's lack of it. At the end of most promotional materials for the game, such as herald posts, the warcry Waaagh! is put. This is great fun and all and it gets your blood pumping and ready for a fight, but does it make you want to kill orcs? Or be an orc and chop everything in your path?

What Order needs is their own warcry, like the dwarves' "For Helga" or maybe even just a rousing call of Aaaaaargh! That should do the trick.