City Siege Testing 4/29 – Videos (Now with commentary!)

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!!!!!!

City Siege Testing – 04/29 (Update)

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… 

City Siege Commentary and Screenies

So there I was standing in the Maw…anxiously awaiting this moment that I had been yearning for with such unrivaled anticipation.  I was planning to vid the entire thing of course, and so I hammered away at the video key for XFire and discovered with a growing sense of dread that nothing was happening.  I tried reloading and realized that my failure was because I was logged into the test server.  So yeah….

Alas, there will be no video here tonight.  What I can do, however, is give all of you good people a summation of the experience along with the screenies I took.  I apologize for my vid failure and I will have that all sorted out for the next round of testing on Thursday.  So on to the new City Sieges…as tonight we would be testing the Inevitable City.

We gathered together at the entrance behind the Maw and begun the stalwart tradition of hurry up and wait.  Organizing all of the Warbands was no small feat, so we spent a good bit of time just waiting for Andy and the rest of Mythic to get everything sorted out.  As most of you already know, the new City Sieges are 24 v 24 battles involving three stages.  Once we were given the go, we zoned in to find Emporer Karl Franz standing before us in all his glory.

The first stage involves breaching the palace gates and battling over 6 different control points.  Each control point is armed with siege weaponry and once that is destroyed, an NPC called a Sapper will run in and set a bomb that will take the control point for either side once it explodes.  So we charged forth from the gates and made our way to the first control point…expecting to see a herd of rabid Destro at any moment…

The Sapper is highlighted with a shining beam to help distinguish him from a crowd, and once you down the weapons he will come stampeding towards you to set his bomb.

We did not run into Destro for some time at the beginning, as I think Mythic wanted to make sure the mechanics were all working correctly.  But it did not take much longer before we finally met our foes in heated battle and the result would be a portent of things to come.  Some of the control points are positioned in areas surrounded by hazard, as they stand just above the narrow walkways that litter parts of the Inevitable City.

With nothing preventing you from being launched off, knockback abilities became devastatingly powerful as many were catapulted into the abyss.  Positioning can be key here, and I was fortunate to meet my maker from enemy fire and not from the latest onslaught of Order tossing.

The goal here is to take the points leading up to the palace gates, then downing the gates as quickly as possible.  There is another mechanic to help you do this faster, but since we never quite got that far I am unable to comment further on Stage 1.  So far, the entire experience did feel like an improvement even if we were consistently being thwarted by UI problems and occasional bugs.  With Destro winning Stage 1, we gathered back up next to Karl Franz as the realm Warlords prepared to enter the fray for Stage 2.

For Stage 2, each realm has 2 Warlords who emerge and make their way to the palace gates.  Your mission is to escort your own Warlords safely or defeat the enemy Warlords before they reach their destination.  These Warlords can be healed and ignore player attacks.  It should also be noted that as the Warlords proceed through the city, if they happen to bump into each other during the journey they will fight to the death.

We did our best to defend our Warlords but they fell rather briskly to the Destro forces.  One of the issues we had during this Stage was spawning, as we kept respawning back at the middle control point where the entire Destro warband was busy carving our limbs into fashionable decorative arrangements.  So this became a spawn-camping fest that did not go over well with some.  We were told later that this will be looked at, as Andy reminded all of us that the purpose of testing was to evaluate how things were working.

Once again, the entire process felt much more refined and personal than it did before.  All three stages happen no matter who wins, as both realms acquire victory points from the various City Siege instances in order to decide the outcome.  I like the very specific objectives that we were tasked with here.  It was more far more interesting than the current sieges at this point.

With Destro winning Stage 2, the war moved to Stage 3 at the main entrance to the city.  If Order had been victorious in Stage 2 then this fight would have taken place inside the palace itself, I believe.  We huddled next to our King as he attempted to rally the troops with his best Aragorn impression.

Once Karl Franz was finished stretching his lungs, he chose 4 Champions among us, one from each archetype (tank, ranged dps, melee dps, healer).  This happens with both realms, followed by each King leading his 4 Champions and the rest of the warbands into a glorious climactic battle with the fate of the city hanging in the balance.  One thing I will say is that the 4 players chosen as Champions must have promptly guzzled some of that juice that Merry and Pippin smuggled to buff their size.  Once you are selected as a Champion you morph into hyper-inflated version of yourself!

Each Champion has extra abilities as well, though I do believe some people were not able to access the icons necessary to perform them.  This will be looked at I am sure.  But the goal in Stage 3 is simple, you must take out the 4 Champions of the opposing realm and then topple their King.  The battle was intensely chaotic, with all manner of spells and abilities being slung about in every direction.

At the end of the day, Destruction completed their clean sweep of all three Stages and defeated us.  So with that being said, let’s get to the heart of my first reaction to the whole experience.  We all know how maligned the current City Sieges are and how we all wish they were different. The sense of disappointment from within the player base has always been palpable with regards to this subject.

Some expectations are probably impossible to meet, as I’m sure that many players envision huge lag-less battles involving  hundreds on each side.  For those more rational, we just hoped that Mythic would go back and tend to their endgame.  We prayed for a day when they would craft their sieges into something that would truly feel rewarding at the close of a hard-fought campaign of zone control.

For those in the latter category you can now breathe a sigh of relief.

This entire City Siege just felt more relevant this time around, its impact more immediate than the current versions.  There were opportunities for strategy, there were specific goals to complete that felt more involved than the current sieges…the entire feeling I got was one of vast improvement.  Every moment felt just a little bit more engaging with the new design.  The sinking feeling that so overwhelmed my thoughts back when I first saw the City Sieges after launch was completely absent.

The majority of testers seemed to be genuinely enthused by the proceedings.  There were particularly loud howls on vent as the Champions were chosen in Stage 3 and we all surged forward against the enemy King and his Champions/warband.  I had never heard that kind of joy on vent during the sieges we have now, and that speaks an awful lot to the progress Mythic is making here.  This is a step in the right direction.

With our appetite for exploring these new City Sieges barely sated, we held a feedback session with Mythic once all of the instances were complete.  This was just the first step in the testing process and there are certainly a number of bugs to fix.  But I walked away from this event with a deep smile etched onto my face, which is a noticeable enhancement from my reaction the first time I witnessed the current version of Warhammer’s endgame.

A huge thanks goes out to Mythic and my fellow Gaiscioch testers!  I can’t wait to get back at it this Thursday!!!  And yes, this time there will be video.  I promise! 

Order, what happened to thee?

So I spent a few hours running Scenarios again today and the results were fairly typical for the Badlands server.  Destruction won every single Scenario by huge margins.  I am not really sure what to say about this anymore.  Whenever I try to run Scenarios it seems that Order wins about 1 in 5 on a good day and about 1 in 10 on a normal day.  I won’t even hazard a guess at the numbers on a day like the current one.  So to put it bluntly, what in the hell has happened to Order on Badlands?

Where are all the good players?  Because crappy teamwork is the problem here, I assure you.  I go into these Scenarios and the overall strategic genius of the Order side involves a lot of people running around like they are high on LSD and can’t figure out what they are supposed to be doing.  Most of the time I stand there looking something like this…

No one targets healers or focus fires, no one moves as a group, and half the time we don’t even have two full groups because people que up and then decide that they don’t really want to play.  It all leaves me with a desire to log out and refuse to log in again for 24 hours.  I can’t say that I have seen anything comparable to it in my 10-year MMO history.  Sure, sometimes you are on the losing side or just have one of those days.

But Order on Badlands doesn’t have bad days anymore.  It’s more like they are locked into a perpetual state of mediocrity and laziness.  So where are you, Order?!  I’m calling you out!!!  It’s time put up or shut up!  I refuse to believe that Destro is overpowered because the lack of true cohesion on the Order side is painfully obvious.  No one seems to have realm pride anymore and that’s a shame.

I fear that we have become a community of players in search of the letter “I” in team and can’t figure out why it isn’t there.

You can’t cure stupid

This post is mostly for entertainment purposes, so I am playing myself a little more over the top than usual.  I am sure some of you have had similar experiences so feel free to share them in the comments!

So at last I find myself in a competitive Scenario with the score sitting at Destro 458 – Order 452.  Order has the Lighthouse, Destro has the Fort, and the Barracks are up for grabs.  A huge battle is raging at the Barracks so I sprint back up to take the Fort while the mob of players is engaged.  I get there and see a Witch Hunter standing near one of the rocks.  “Excellent,” I think to myself.  He will come in handy when the Witch Elf pops on me, which is almost sure to happen.

With the groundwork of the story complete, I am now going to employ a sophisticated technique known as foreshadowing.

The score now moves to Destro 488 – Order 487.  I am standing at the Fort with the Witch Hunter and we flip the Fort to Uncontested.  I watch with fervent anticipation as there are no Destro in sight and the ownership bar slowly fills up.  Then the unthinkable happens…using his undoubtedly ingenious tactical knowledge, the Witch Hunter decides to run off.  And so he goes, as useless as a writer on a movie set.

Does he not realize that I am a Shadow Warrior!!??  You can’t leave us alone!!!  We are like lost puppies by ourselves!!  *grins*

So I am left to fend for myself at the Fort while the crowd is still engaged at the Barracks.  I start to say something to the Witch Hunter in Scenario chat when…you guessed it…a Witch Elf pops out of stealth.  I die in about 5 seconds, she retakes the Fort, and boom…Scenario over and Destro wins.  So I would like to take a moment and say to said Witch Hunter…

I understand the plight of the moronic…I truly do.  It’s not your fault that you were born with a deficiency that prevents you from processing logical thought patterns.  So the next time you get distracted by a fly would you mind taking one little step off the edge of that bridge over there?  It’s completely safe, I promise.

*sighs*

Clear blue ocean…clear blue ocean…

This is how we WAR

That’s right, the Gaiscioch Family rolls something like this…

In the words of our fearless leader, it was 36 against 79 with a Keep loss on the line for the lock of the HE/DE pairing.  At Arbor of Light we used an outer Pandora and pushed Destro out.  Within two hours we locked Caledor down.  Way to flip a zerg on its head, guys.

In my own words I can only say one thing.  This is how we WAR. 

Pugs and your will to live…a symbiotic relationship

I was going to begin today with an epic wall of text regarding the trials and triumphs of the Shadow Warrior, but I am going to put that on hold.  The main reason for this is I don’t feel that my current experience is reflective of max-level Shadow Warrior gameplay.  I have been absent from WAR for a long time and am only RR42.  I’m currently operating in gear that was adequate the last time I ventured into the lands of WAR over one year ago, but now that same gear is woefully outclassed.  I am in need of more power…

There is also another statement I would like to make at this time.  Pugging Scenarios can demolish your will to live faster than a…

I sometimes wonder if this is one of the primary reasons that so many people complain about class balance in WAR.  While I do agree that class balance is a problem, I think this is compounded by the fact that many Scenarios end with one side facerolling the other and nothing in between.  It’s amazing how ugly it can get out there.  I ran 7 Scenarios this morning and Order got absolutely hammered in every single one.  I felt frustrated, perplexed, and ready to throw my keyboard out the window.

I was trying my best to analyze how I could do better and wasn’t coming up with much.  I am a Scout Shadow Warrior and my gear has talismans to reflect that.  I have tried many different builds in the past, from Assault to Skirmish…but I find that Scout just suits me best.  If I wanted to be a melee dps class I would have rolled one, and my current gear is just not good enough to run with Skirmish…I simply die too quickly.

It’s no secret that the main problem with Shadow Warriors is SURVIVABILITY. Get used to that word, Mythic, because you are going to be hearing it from me ad nauseam until SW’s get a little more of it.  I’m going to wait until I get better gear before saying more, but I am confident that my primary concern for the Shadow Warrior will be the same even then.  But as for these Scenarios…I was just at my wit’s end.

Run just one more, I kept telling myself!  Surely my luck would have to change sooner or later.  So against the pleas of my wiser angels, I dove into the Scenario fray one more time.

The Scenario was Caledor Woods and I entered just a bit after it had begun.  Order was backed up to their camp on the little hill and things did not look promising.  I ran up to the collection of terrified Order on the hill and thought, “Pugs…crushing your will to live since 1997.”  I stared at them for a fragile moment while nothing was happening.  I could not understand what they were waiting for…we were all there so why not jump the hell down and make a fight as best you can!  And so I did, leaping gleefully down into the frothing mouths of the Choppas that awaited me.

This sparked several other to jump as well, and before you knew it we were all there screaming at the top of our lungs with weapons swinging wildly.  Several melee were on me in a flash, and I thought for sure I was a goner as I switched to Assault for the disarm.  To my utter and complete shock…I was still alive as I spun about, disarming the one and using Whirling Pin to slap the other into place.

I retreated as the heals flowed through me and moved back to Scout…debuffing and dotting up my target as I popped Von and UF for the Festerbomb.  I followed with a Fell the Weak as a few others chipped in and the Choppa was down.  But our victory was short-lived as the other melee was on me, announcing his arrival with an axe to my left nostril.  I thought for sure it was over, but again to my bewilderment the heals erupted into me, buying me time to get a little distance while we melted the target beneath a hail of damage.

These guys weren’t too bright for focusing on me instead of the Warrior Priests, but I wasn’t complaining.  “So that is what getting heals is like,” I thought.  I had quite forgotten after all that pugging.  The battle soldiered on as the two sides swayed back and forth like a branch on the cusp of the wind.  We ultimately lost, but to my astonishment I did not die once.  As a Shadow Warrior that is no meager feat.

So I decided to end my run of Scenario pugging on a high note and moved on to other things.  After 8 tries I had finally found some healing and a group that acted as if they had actually played the game before.  With a restored will to live and determined focus to find premade groups for Scenarios rather than pick-up ones, I logged out of Warhammer Online with this lesson well in hand.  Until next time, folks. 

Now that is what I call WAAAGGGHHHH!

Shadow-war has put up his question/answer session from day Two, so feast your eyes upon the goodness!! 

http://shadowwar.wordpress.com/2010/04/13/the-city-scoop/

A big hearty thanks goes out to our bloggers and Mythic for putting all this together.  I think it’s a great step towards enhancing the dev-community relationship.  It’s a shame that the billing issues struck when they did and stole some thunder away from this trip.

But now it’s time to move on to the much-anticipated City Siege info!!  Mythic has finally thrown down the gauntlet with a meaty post on the Official Forums regarding the new 100% RvR Driven City Sieges.  Now I need a little bit of time to digest all of this information, but my first reaction was something along the lines of…

Have a look for yourself…

http://forums.warhammeronline.com/warhammer/board/message?board.id=dev_discussions&thread.id=8243

Now like I said, I need a little time with this…but it really does seem as if Mythic has laid out a clear recipe here.

New 100% RvR Driven City Sieges

4 lbs. of kick ass

1 lb. of awesomesace

2 doses of pwn

A pinch of dirtnap

Add WAAAGH to taste…

This version of City Sieges sounds so much closer to what I originally imagined when I listened to Hickman, Drescher, and Barnett talk about them.  Color me pumped… 

Why underdogs rule

Sometimes you stare across the battlefield and you see that numbers are on your side…and this makes you bold.  Sometimes you stare across the battlefield and see that numbers are even…and this makes you hopeful.  Sometimes you stare across the battlefield and see that the numbers are against you…and this makes you scared.  Then there are the times when numbers are so heavily stacked in your opponent’s favor you that you just want to crawl into a fetal position and cry.  But you don’t and keep fighting anyway…and this makes you stupid.

So this was one of the stupid times. 

Though I do have to say…

That being the underdog…

Was just too awesome!!

And yes we ate it.

Badly…

So I heard that Warhammer Online was dead

At least that’s what the forums would have us believe.  Thankfully, I’ve been around the block far too many times to allow the trolls to get me down.  Since I much prefer seeing things for myself as opposed to having someone else tell me what to think, I dove back into WAR to see how things were coming along.  I am happy to report that Warhammer Online is doing quite well!  My home is on the Badlands server and has been since launch, when I ran with a guild called Beast during WAR’s early days.  I play on the Order side *save your groans, Destruction, you guys are OK too when you’re not slobbering all over things* and my first character to max level was my Shadow Warrior.

However, due to unforeseen technical difficulties…

I was unable to tolerate the continued lackluster feeling that the Shadow Warrior gave me on a daily basis.  It’s not that Shadow Warriors are useless, as their spike damage can actually be rather decent.  But they truly do lack any kind of “pop” feeling to the way they play and their survivability/utility hovers right around zero most of the time.  So my return to WAR has inspired me to walk a different path.  And so I thought to myself…I played the red-headed stepchild of the Order Ranged DPS classes so where to next?

But of course, I thought…I shall embark upon a journey with the red-headed stepchild of the Order Tanks, the mighty Swordmaster!  I must be a glutton for punishment or something.    To be honest though, it has been a good ride thus far with my SM and he currently sits at Combat Level 14 – Renown Rank 12.  I’m also having one hell of a good time roughing it up with Destro in Tier 2.  Warhammer Online’s gameplay is split up into Tiers that are paired to your character’s level.  Tier 1 is levels 1-11, Tier 2 is levels 12-21, Tier 3 is levels 22-31, and Tier 4 is levels 32-40.  Anthien is my SM’s name, and here he stands awaiting the mayhem to begin this evening.

I will post up my re-review of Warhammer Online later on when I have had more time to play it…but so far the reasons why I was drawn to the game originally are providing me with plenty of entertainment just as they did before.  Warhammer Online is a PvP-first game.  If you love PvP then this might be a wonderful home for you, as WAR pits you against your opposing faction almost from the outset.  The RvR (Realm versus Realm – Order against Destruction) in Tier 2 tonight was hopping and is still raging on into its 3rd hour as I write this post.  My guild, Gaiscioch na Anu (Divine Warriors of Anu), which is actually a collection of guilds known as the Gaiscioch Family…hosted simultaneous RvR raids into Tier 2 and Tier 3 this evening with a great deal of success!

It all began in Troll Country, as we staged the taking of each battle objective which paved the way for the capturing of both keeps in the zone.  Destruction was not organized yet and so our initial job of locking everything down was rather easy.  But fear not, as the natives became restless in no time and soon they were assaulting Mandred’s Hold with reckless abandon.  We quickly placed some healers and ranged up top while the rest of us huddled in the lower room just by the keep door.  Outside was Destro in solid numbers…hammering down our keep door with foam pouring out the sides of their mouths.

We were planning what we call a Pandora’s Defense of the keep.  In Warhammer Online, players cannot pass through one another as if they were not there.  In most MMOs, players are not solid and anyone can magically run right through anyone else regardless of where they are.  In WAR players are solid, which provides the opportunity for more realistic tactics in situations like this one.  So we stood our healers and ranged far back from the door and all the tanks and dps lined up on either side.

The plan was to draw Destro in once they broke the door down and then have the tanks and melee dps jam in behind them just as they burst inside…forming a tank wall and cutting off the invaders from the line of sight of their healers.  The plan worked flawlessly and wave after wave of Destro was cut down by our fury.

The order was then given to pour out of the keep door and chase the heathens from our territory…which we did with great zeal.

What followed was a thrilling and continuous exchange of battlefield objectives and keep assaults, as Order and Destro assailed one another for several hours.  Fun was indeed had by all and Destro put up some grand fights once they learned that they didn’t have the numbers to take our keeps with a direct assault.  They quickly used mobility to their advantage and began to spread out…hitting BOs and trying to split up our forces.

I’d like to thank my Gaiscioch Family for hosting this event and I look forward to many more battles in the future.  But back to my original point…if you heard Warhammer Online was dead or dying then you might want to pop your head back in and see the truth for yourself.  I can’t speak for the other servers but Badlands seems to be in pretty good shape.  Both Warhammer Online and its developer, Mythic, have been through an awful lot this past year.  But a war is still there to be fought and it looks like both the players and developers are still on hand to fight it.  The ongoing warfare I saw tonight reminded me a lot of how things were just after WAR launched.

Until next time, game well my friends!