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Archive for August, 2010

Appearance system part 2: compromise – Warhammer Online

27 Aug

In response to my last article, there has been some resistance from people who feel that they will not try as hard if they scan over someones gear and it appears they are not in end game equipment. This makes them upset that they could be tricked into losing.

My opinion on this this is pretty simple. If you don’t try your best against everyone you fight, I have little sympathy if you lose. This is not a “hardcore” stance, this is just a “realistic stance for a mmo fight against other people.

Others have mentioned that people do use the information for tactical reasons, like running away if they feel they are outgunned. This is somewhat valid and I can at least accept that gear can be useful for people who want to know if they are out matched and make decisions based on their risk tolerance.

I have instead decided to offer a compromise. I would like to suggest that a visual way of determining the relative gear level to your oponent be put in. Allow appearances to be set any way you like and have that be viewable by all. Perhaps a colour coded “con” system or star rating for which people to tell someones approximate rank or approximate relative rank compared to yours. An exact number would not be required, just a general range based on RR/Wards. People could then use these as indicators of gear level and not be cheated out of winning battles they are capable of winning because they didn’t try. Realm titles do show under the character names, but perhaps this isnt “visual” enough.

I know Bioware/Mythic put a lot of work into the new appearance system and the way it stands right now it feels incomplete and it is getting laughed at because it can only be seen by yourself and realm. I understand why Bioware/Mythic is hesistant to put this in full scale for both sides however, there are a decent number of people against it. More then I would have expected.
I like having some mystery about my oponents, and I like that people can customize their apperance for all to see. An opt-in sort of option may work, but it still seems weak. For people to get on board and fully enjoy the new appearance system, it needs to not hinge on someone from the other realm checking a check box somewhere for it to work.

 
4 Comments

Posted in Bioware, EA, Mythic, Warhammer

 

WAR solves gear issues for healing Zealots/Rune Priests

26 Aug

For a long time (since day 1) I have hounded Mythic make it so that Zealots, Rune Priests (and other healers) could itemize inteligently and functionally for healing without having to do a ton of PvE instances. Up until now, annihilator served as a decent set, but once you hit 40, your first RvR set healing update comes partially in the form of Warlord, and then Sovereign. For almost every healer, PvE instance gear is the standard and the most functional healing gear you can find.

An update announced today will solve this long time problem. Stats will be moving to 1:1 ratio with the heal mode/dps mode mechanic for zealots and rune priests.
I immediately and excitedly hit up WarDB to check out how the RvR sets in the huge gap from annihilator and Warlord would fair as healing upgrades and I was very pleasantly surprised.

I have not included all stats/bonuses, just some key stats for quick reference. Obviously mixing and matching these sets may yield even better results and results more tailored to your favorite bonuses.

Heal Zealot: Sentinel Set
318 wp + 21 heal power
51 tough
100 wnds
5% heal crit

Heal Zealot: Conqueror Set (wow!)
378 willpower +20 heal power
37 tough
112 wnds
8% heal crit

Darkpromise: Heal Mode
352 wp
129 tough
35wnds
8% heal crit

Invader: Heal Mode
341 wp +24 heal power
55 tough
120 wnds
5% heal crit

In summary, it looks amazing, the rvr sets look at least equal to PvE equivalent and depending on your perspective, they may be better. Zealots, like all classes still have a few remaining issues, but I am amazed at the progress they have made recently.

Imo, this should be a pretty huge boost for people looking to roll a healer. I have written in previous articles about how a healer is often a hard sell because of the amount of PvE that is required to gear it properly. Now that you can play the game mainly just doing RvR and stay in top gear for your level, it can’t do anything but make zealot/rp a pretty attractive option.

Set Reference:

Conqueror
1100 armour
144 wp
37 tough
46wnds
12 init
102 int
4 disrupt, 3 ap, 3 magic crit, 2 reduced armour pen, 20 heal pow

66 int
66wp
66wnds
5% magic crit
10% chance to gain 50 morale

Sentinel
1100 armour
144wp
51 tough
34 wnds
8 init
6 wep skill
108 int
11 hate reduction, 14hp, 3 crit reduce, 21 heal power

344 elemental
66 wp
66 wnds
5% heal crit
10% chance on hit to form a 126hp barrier on hit

DP
1209 armour
163 wp
57 tough
35 wnds
11 init
7 wep skill
117 int
3 ap, 3 morale, 2 reduced armour pen, 2 reduced chance to be disrupted, 3 heal crit

72 willpower
5% heal crit
72 toughness
5ap sec

invader
1209 armour
162 wp
55 tough
48 wnds
7 init
8 wep skill
107 int
2 morale, 15 hp, 24 magic pow
3 reduce crit

72 int
72 wnds
5% magic crit
10% on hit to recover 41 hp
+120 increased range

 
1 Comment

Posted in Bioware, Mythic, Online Gaming, Warhammer

 

Character customization great, but needs to be seen by all – warhammer online

13 Aug

I would also like to begin by saying that I really like the way they have implemented appearance altering. I suggested a long while back that they go off the armoury and allow you to set appearances of any item you have unlocked in your tome, but this expands and improves on that in several ways.

However, my focus today is on a pretty big drawback to this addition and that is that it can only be seen by your realm, not your enemies. More directly, this post is aimed at the reason posted today on the items and appearances article. I love all the guys over there at Bioware Mythic, so in a way it pains me to call them out like this, but unfortunately this is part of the reason I created BSD.

A couple years ago, my cell phone company sent me a letter in the mail, saying they were modifying my plan to include some extra charges that were not optional, for my convenience. I got a good laugh out of that because the most convenient thing for me would be to not pay the extra money for the same service.

This snippet from the post today explaining why the enemy realm can not see armour customizations reminded me of that, in part because I feel there is probably a good and valid reason kicking around somewhere why they do not want to implement it as showing to both sides, perhaps a performance issue, but instead we get a reason which seems to imply that players would prefer it this way.

    “In light of the fact that we do not want players to use this system solely to confuse the opposing realm in RvR, the appearance you apply to your equipment can only be seen by players of your own realm. Players of the opposing realm will see the equipment as if no alternate appearance has been applied to it.”

Lets take a look at this from two different perspectives, both the Warhammer tabletop side of it, and the Warhammer Online practicality side of it.

Warhammer Tabletop: While I never played the tabletop version, one of the biggest selling points of the game seemed to be the ability to customize your figurines and paint them as you like. If you were a good artist, you could make them look pretty amazing, if you were not, your army would look pretty rag-tag. Either way, when you played against other people everyone had their customized armies on the board. Would anyone complain that it was unfair that they lost to a poorly painted army because they didn’t expect them to be able to fight as well as an army painted by a professional?

Warhammer Online: Imo, any person that is running into a battle, evaluating the equipment level of the people they are fighting, then adjusting the effort and concentration they put into winning the battle based on that equipment evaluation, deserves whatever outcome they get. Fight the player, not his gear.

Adding the customization should be a patch that adds the tabletop feature of making yourself look how you envision with the different pieces in the game and dye jobs available, but I feel it is important to reflect that appearance to your enemies as well for the full effect of taking pride in doing that to come through.

I really enjoyed the old way of doing things. In DAOC you knew very little about your opponent beyond his race. You had to fight your hardest no matter what and you had to expect the unexpected. With the gear sets and weapon restrictions/itemization in this game and the looks of the characters, most classes are easily distinguished. A bright wizard can not really be mistaken for a warrior priest etc, no matter how you customize it.

In conclusion, I would just say that if the reason posted is the actual real reason and it is being restricted to help the players out, toss up a poll for players and see how it turns out. I know how I would vote and I -think- I know how it would turn out, but I can’t say for sure. What do you guys think out there?

Read all about the appearance changes here: http://herald.warhammeronline.com/warherald/NewsArticle.war?id=1218

 
6 Comments

Posted in Bioware, EA, Gaming, Online Gaming, Warhammer

 

Want to transfer? Stop paying for 3 months? -Warhammer Online

11 Aug

It seems like many people I know are unhappy with their current server and attempts to move to a different server are all receiving the same response from customer server, “unsubscribe for 3 months and you will be granted a free transfer to any server”. They then incorrectly lash out at the service/support people who are just enforcing the policy. Everyone has a reason why they should be the exception to the rule, but it even one person gets around the policies in place, you can easily imagine the chaos that would come of that.

Obviously a company having a policy where people need to stop paying them for a period of time in order to solve their problem is mind boggling, but there is a reason for it and it does solve potential problems that can arise, I just think it solves it in a crude way that could have improvements or additional options.

If character transfers were allowed for everyone that wanted them, Bioware-Mythic would have no control over server populations and would not even be able to “attempt” to monitor and regulate the gaming experience they want to provide on their servers. Even if it was time restricted, you would still immediately have a lot of high end guilds decide to pile on one server, which snowballs to include alliance/following guilds as well. Even if they detect at some point that people are piling onto a particular server, how can they stop it or cut it off? They would ophan people from their friends/guilds and that would be even worse of a situation.

Any solution to transfers that could be considered by Bioware-Mythic would have to include something that shows a serious comittment by the player that they are not just server bouncing. The demand for a solution to this is definately out there so I hope that ideas and options are being explored.

A few ideas I would kick around:

Allow players to purchase ($$) an unlock for their account for 24hrs, allowing them to move characters between servers in that timeframe.

Pros: -You do not lose a sub for 3 months, and with people dead set on transfering you would end up making what amounts to more then a full boxed product in revenue.
-Most people would happily pay a fee to transfer to get back with friends etc..

Cons:-You lose some control, because assuming you have a lot of players with a bunch of extra money, they could immediately start moving around. The fee amount would need to be carefully chosen.
-You also have an issue with how some players would perceive this. In times like now, where many players feel their servers are unplayable, announcing a transfering fee just seems like the server issues were not solved so that they could grab at money for transfers. I honestly feel for them for this situation, as it would be an amazing solution, but only once servers do another round of population balancing.

Require a player to level a character up to level 25? 40? on their intended destination server and side, which would unlock 1 – single use transfer to that server. Possibly even overwrite/replace the character they leveled up?

Pros:
-You dont lose a sub for 3 months.
-You have the player show a commitment to their intended server.
-Population stats for servers -may- remain more reliable/predictable due to having to roll and level up a character on that server.

Cons:
-None really at this point. It would seem a bit meaningless to some players, but I think most players set on transfering would choose this before unsubbing for 3 months.

 
2 Comments

Posted in Bioware, Gaming, Mythic, Online Gaming, Warhammer

 

High level dropped and repairable items – Warhammer Online

09 Aug

My Warrior Priest on Badlands hit 40 this weekend and I started looking at gear options to try to get him in something somewhat good before working up my RR.

I did a bit of research and searching on the AH to try to find the different search keywords for decent gear and repairable items, for those interested, here are some good keywords to search to try to find some good bridging gear to the dungeon/rvr sets.

Green Quality: Antiquated, Staunch, fallen explorer
Blue Quality: Favorable, Relic, Remnant, Desert Storm, warden
Epic Quality: Priceless, Sandstorm, watcher, primeval, overlord, ancient

Hope this helps out!

 
3 Comments

Posted in Bioware, Gaming, Mythic, Online Gaming, Warhammer

 

BSD Predicts merger will combine US and EU servers – Warhammer Online

02 Aug

I am going out on a limb, but I am going to predict the next round of server merges will mix EU and US players.

If you follow developers and Bioware/Mythic staff comments, you know several statements have been made about how the playstyles of US and EU contrast, and even how they would love to see them collide. Foreshadowing? Who knows, but it makes for a neat prediction.

Combined with Carrie’s comment from the Dev Q/A that seems to imply that Iron Rock (and probably others) are looking at mergers at some point (soon I hope), I think this would make for an interesting way of doing it. It also seems like it would be a great way for the Bioware/Mythic staff to experiment with players like rats on a battlefield.

This is just a unsubstantiated prediction on my part. It may not even be possible to combine a US and EU server due to latency etc.. I am no network engineer.

 
9 Comments

Posted in Bioware, Mythic, Online Gaming, Warhammer