Fantastic! I get home from work and discover that Patch 1.3.5 has been deployed! Then I check the Herald and find out that Badlands is now down for maintenance until 9pm EST. *sniffle* Aww hell, this is still the best news to hit WAR in some time! New City Sieges are upon us!! Woohooo!!!
So why are you still here? Get out there and WAAAGGGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!! 
Unless you are on Badlands or Volkmar, then you can join me as I…
Just finished the Altdorf siege tonight and things seem to be running very smoothly. I have loads of work to do at the moment so I am just going to make a few comments and throw up a little vid from Stage 3. The siege ran very smoothly tonight and things are looking better and better for our new endgame. They added the ability to see the Sappers on the map during Stage 1, which was much appreciated.
They also seem to have pinned down the issue that was causing some people to not turn into Champions when they were supposed to in Stage 3. I’m sure all of you are looking forward to the open testing they will be holding soon, and I am confident that you will not be disappointed. One last word, however, regarding the attitude of some of the players I have seen in testing. The following picture will give you an idea of what I am talking about.
This has been stated repeatedly by a number of people, but I guess the brains of some are just far too thick to understand. Our job right now is to test these new sieges and make sure they are working properly. It doesn’t matter who wins the fight because that is not what we are here to do. But don’t try telling some people that, as I witnessed more crying tonight than I even see on some of the live servers.
People are bitching in chat, people are snapping at each other in vent, insults are being thrown, and I am wondering if some of these folks are just staying up too late past their bedtimes. Perhaps proper medication is not being administered to these people, or maybe we just have a few escapees from the local nuthouse. I don’t know what the problem was with the whiners tonight, but allow me to ask them something.
How do you expect to win when all you do is bitch, insult, and whine when things don’t go your way? How do you expect to coordinate effective teamwork and strategy when you fail to treat your team with respect? I have never heard a good answer from anyone and I suspect that is because one doesn’t exist. But seriously, folks, some of you need to grow up. That is all I have for tonight so enjoy the vid! I apologize for the lack of sound, but I was multitasking something fierce and had to turn it off while recording.
I will be back with Gaiscioch for more City Siege Testing tonight at 8:00pm EST. There will be commentary and media to follow, so stay tuned!
Another City Siege Testing video for you all, courtesy of the Gaiscioch Family.
Update: RL just got in the way of my free time so I will not be able to take part in the City Siege Testing tonight. I should still be able to attend the one on Thursday, though. I’ll update this post later if anything changes.
I will be testing the City Sieges both tonight and Thursday, so be sure to check back here later for videos/commentary! The testing begins around 8:00pm EST and I will have some videos up as soon as I can get them uploaded.
WAAAGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!
I updated the 4/29 Videos post with commentary, so scroll down a bit if you haven’t checked it out yet. I’ll be back this weekend with some more thoughts. In other news, we have a new April letter from WAR Producer Carrie Gouskos.
http://herald.warhammeronline.com/warherald/NewsArticle.war?id=1086
My biggest takeaway from this is that EA Mythic’s next focus after 1.3.5 will be be Open RvR at last. This is exactly what I have been talking about lately. Once you get the City Sieges into a fun, playable state, the next step for Warhammer is tweaking the games Open RvR system. Things just aren’t as interesting or dynamic as they could be (particularly in Tier 4), so I am really excited to hear what Mythic has in store for us.
This is an exciting time to be a WAR player. It fills me with a great sense of joy to see things improving. RvR is the staple of WAR, the calling card of its developers, and their greatest claim to fame. The system has to work and fill players with a sense of glee at the possibilities. Open RvR must be packed with variety and strategy…it must be engaging and bring about a sense of ownership in the world and realm pride in the playerbase…and most importantly it must be fun. Right now there are times when City Sieges and Open RvR can be enjoyable but they are few and far between.
This is especially true once you have taken a zillion Keeps and Battlefield Objectives. There is just too much repetition in the current design and not enough investment in the game world for the players. EA Mythic has seen the results of this and now they are focusing their attention on the proper game elements. As I have said all along, if they can get City Sieges and Open RvR flowing and thriving the way they should then everything else will begin to fall into place.
I for one, can’t wait to see what the future holds. I’ll be back for some more banter this weekend. Happy gaming!
Ok guys, here are the first batch of videos I have for you. The quality is not the greatest but I will work on that. RL is downright crazy right now, so I won’t have any commentary up until later. We had two sieges last night, one in Altdorf and one in Inevitable City. Plenty of random vent banter can be heard in these videos, so that should be entertaining for you on top of the footage. During the Inevitable City siege we had two Mythic devs in group with us, Andy and James. So you may be able to spot their voices every now and then if you listen to what is being said. More to come later today…enjoy!
(Update)
Ok…so we were first presented with the Altdorf siege. Mythic did things a little different this time around, as they decided to have most of us just pug our way through to test out how the game would disperse everyone into the instances. This certainly made for a more interesting time in some respects, and that’s both a good and a bad thing.
The important thing to remember here is that we are testing and our job is to make sure these things are going off without any glitches. The first stage of Altdorf moved along just fine at first, but things quickly became interesting in one major area…player tossing and the lack thereof. In the Inevitable City siege, tossing players into the abyss off of the high walkways is an easy way for defenders to derail an attack with relative ease.
In Altdorf, we do not have that option and Vent quickly became filled with chatter on this balance issue. Andy from Mythic let everyone know both during the siege and after, that Mythic is aware of this discrepancy and they are looking at ways to address it. The rest of Stage 1 went off without a hitch, aside from the fact that we got rolled for the majority of it. We did put up a strong stand at the palace gates, though, and here is some video of it.
Altdorf – Stage 1
We were able to push back the Destro rushes several times, and the tide of battle for Stage 1 looked to be firmly in our corner. But a lack of coordination on our part led to an eventual defeat. But other than the knockback problem, I would say the Stage 1 of the new City Sieges looks to be progressing very nicely. Into Stage 2 we went, but once again, a lack of cohesion was our undoing.
Altdorf – Stage 2
With our back up against the wall, we rallied our comrades and brandished our steel, for the clash of the titans awaited us…with Champions from both sides charging forth with their warbands and Kings. This fight is my favorite I think, and the potential for pure, bloody joy is just all over the place. We would run into some hiccups in this phase later on however, and I will get to that in a moment.
Altdorf – Stage 3
After Altdorf was finished we learned that another run through Inevitable City was in our future. So we saddled up, rushed through the Maw, and paced back and forth in front of the gates like a pack of hyenas on raw hamburger. Mythic let everyone know that we would be pugging it once again, so we took a moment to mentally prepare ourselves for the horror. The event began with another smooth Stage 1, and the warfare would drag onward to the waning seconds, with Destro just barely holding onto to their gate before the time expired.
Inevitable City – Stage 1
Once again, Stage 2 proved to be a problem, as Destro rolled through both us and our Warlords with little problem. It was once again time for the duel of the Kings, and as we sprung forth from the gates and met the enemy with brutal result…we realized that none of the Order side had been granted Champions. This was an obvious bug, and sadly we just had to play through it as best we could. So Order lost this one, though we at least made it mildly interesting before the mighty Karl Franz met his maker.
Inevitable City – Stage 3
Aside from a few bugs, I would once again call the new City Sieges a smashing success. This is how the endgame should work, this is how you should pit us against each other in a desperate struggle to defend our homes. The primary criticisms remaining are the player knockback issue, Destro’s dominance against Warlords, and a general concern that City Sieges will still happen too often under the current system. I’m not sure if Order has won Stage 2 yet either, but the three times I have run it wasn’t even close.
But our job is to test this content and I think it has gone beautifully so far. Andy from Mythic also explained that they are aware of our concerns regarding the frequency of City Sieges and are looking to make some changes. They know a problem exists and are looking to find ways to improve the system as a whole. As far as I’m concerned, Mythic is doing some good work here. I think you will all be very pleased with these new sieges once they go live. Until next time….
WAAAGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!
We’re getting ready to go as I speak and are being told to sit tight until 8:15pm EST. We’ll be testing the Altdorf siege tonight. I’ll see you guys back here later once things have wrapped up!
9:47pm We have just finished the Altdorf siege and are now going to do another run through Inevitable City. I have plenty of videos and will work on getting them uploaded as soon as we’re done.
11:25pm We just finished up with testing for this evening. I am looking through my videos and will begin uploading some right now. I can’t stay up late tonight as I have an appointment in the early morning, but as soon as I get the chance I will have a write-up and videos for all of you. Till then…
Hey all. I have an interview for a new job this afternoon so I won’t be posting much during the day. But I will be back tonight with more commentary on the second round of City Siege testing. This time I will be frapsing everything so I’ll get those videos on here as soon as they are uploaded. The testing will begin around 8pm EST just like Tuesday.
My first experience with the new sieges was definitely positive, so I am really feeling the itch to jump back into the fray. I’ve also been pleased to see so many other people reacting to the new design just as I did. Once the testing is complete I will work on another write-up while the videos are uploading. Until then, happy gaming and wish me luck…
WAAGGGGGHHHHH!!!!
As a companion to my write-up a few posts below, we now have a video framed by the fearless leader of the Gaiscioch Family, Foghladha. Full credit goes to him for putting this together.
Foghladha has also been working on a new recruitment video. I will throw it up here for all to see, along with a link to our website following!
http://www.gaisciochnaanu.com/
nightwreath
