Category: MMO

Warhammer for nerds

Posted on by Nimgimli

Last night I started messing around with the Apothecary skill in Warhammer Online. I had a backpack full of ingredients I’d grown, and not a clue as to what to do with them all. I just knew my packs were full of smelly herbs and slimy fungi and I had to use ’em or sell ’em.

Even for a nub like me it was easy to figure out I’d need vials, so I bought some of those. I got the cheapest ones possible because I had this vision of flinging them at monsters and I wanted them to break easily (ok ok, I just assumed low skill level = cheap ingredients).

OK vial. Check. Now I needed a main ingredient. I had half a dozen or so of those so I added one. “This potion will surely fail.” says my Home Apothecary Kit. Try another. Same result. Another. Same. Slowly it sunk in; I needed something other than a main ingredient.

Applying my keen logic skills, I thought “Well maybe I need a liquid to make a potion.” so I bought some cloudy water. Bought it. After traipsing through bogs and ponds and rivers, now I’m buying rank water from some vendor. But oh well, when in Rome, or High Elf Land, or wherever you are…

So vial. Check again. Main ingredient. Check. Cloudy water… “This potion will be volatile at best.” Well, volatile sounds good to me. I want to see fireworks, baby! So I make it and get a weak-sauce potion of something-I-now-forget. Try again using 2 cloudy waters, and now I get a slightly better potion. I’ll try 3 cloudy waters! And I get the same as when I used 2. Damn.

“Well,” I think to myself, “I have these other non-main ingredients. I probably need to add a cloudy water or two, and one of these other ingredients. Heck, how am I going to keep track of this stuff?”

And then my inner nerd woke up and shot to my frontal lobe.

SPREADSHEET!!!!

I then spent the next hour carefully experimenting with ingredients and making note of all my results in a spreadsheet. While my inner nerd (which, lets face it, isn’t very “inner” on my least-nerdy days) gleefully listed ingredients, my rational self was yelling “This is a waste of time; some even bigger nerd has already compiled these lists and put them online somewhere!” But I didn’t care… using one of those lists was like reading a nerd spoiler. I wanted to figure out the logic behind this process.

All night I made maybe half a level. I did take part in a couple of RvR Scenarios with the CoWs and proved once and for all that nerds suck at RvR, but the bulk of my time was spent mixing ingredients and filling out a spreadsheet. And I had a great time doing it!!

Plus I now have potions that let me breathe fire, which is fun for effect if not all that deadly.

Warhammer server distribution puzzler

Posted on by Nimgimli

I’m glad I’m not responsible for the Warhammer servers, because there are forces in play that defy explanation, at least to me.

This morning SE Headstart began. I logged in just to look at the server list. Virtually all the NA Core servers are at Low/Low population this morning…except one (Badlands, iirc…should’ve written this down) which was Full/Full, and one other that was High/High.

What draws so many people to a particular server? Mythic has RP servers and Oceanic servers and other ‘flavors’ of server (I say this because in other games one server will be, for instance, the “Unofficial Roleplay” server and that’ll make it stand out and attract more players). The only thing I can guess is that Badlands is an “Unofficial North American European Server” for players in Europe who don’t want to play on GOA’s (?) servers?

Anyway, my greatest fear is that I’ll come home tonight to find the server my guild is on has become super-populated with long queue times. I have an even greater fear of that happening on the 18th. Nothing to do but wait and see, I guess.

Hammer of War Online

Posted on by Nimgimli

So there’s this new site called Hammer of War Online, which bills itself as “The Unofficial Source for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.” Some people I know are writing for this site. I truly hope they’re getting paid, since it is an ad-supported site.

I’m not going to talk about the content of the site because people I know write for it. But let’s talk business practices. As I said, it’s an ad-supported site. And what are the ads for? “Gold Farming Secrets.”

Talk about poisoning your own well. Granted, it isn’t quite a “Buy War Gold” ad, but it’s as close as exists right now. Apparently a guide to help you become one of the people selling the War gold.

I urge you to write to the site owners and tell them how you feel, if you think selling gold farming tools on an enthusiast site is wrong. This isn’t a call to boycott the site or anything like that. I just hope that they can find better advertisers who send a more positive message.

UPDATE: I contacted Hammer of War Online with my concerns and very quickly got this response:

Pete,

Actually, they are offering secrets on how to make money for your character, not advocating the buying and selling of gold for real money. They just use the term “gold farming” to catch your eye. Hammer of War Online does not nor will it ever support any company that advocates the buying or selling of gold or in-game items with real money.

Hope that answers your questions, and thank you for reading Hammer of War Online!

I’d still personally advise the advertiser that using “gold farming” to catch an MMO gamer’s eye is something akin to using “How to be a Pedophile” to grab attention, but I’m heartened by the broader message that Hammer of War Online has a firm policy against hosting ads that advocate buying or selling gold.

Kudos to them!!

Warhammer pre-orders through the roof

Posted on by Nimgimli

FAIRFAX, Va.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Mythic Entertainment, an Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) studio, today announced that the highly-anticipated MMORPG, Warhammer® Online: Age of Reckoning™ (WAR), will ship tomorrow to retail stores across North America, Europe, and Oceania in preparation for launch on September 18th. WAR set a company record for the most retail pre-orders placed by consumers for a PC title in EA’s 26 year history. Overall, the company has sold 1.5 million units of WAR to retailers.

[source & complete press release]

Read it carefully, it doesn’t say 1.5 million pre-orders, it says “most pre-orders place by consumers” and then it says “sold 1.5 million units of WAR to retailers.” A bit of marketing number twisting, granted, but still its safe to say that a helluvalotta copies of WAR are going to be going home with angry Destructionites and pompous Orderers this week.

Waaaghhh!!

Warhammer Day 1 a day late

Posted on by Nimgimli

So after my ennui of yesterday morning, I did log into the Headstart shortly after noon yesterday. First things first, I have to eat my words; the servers came up at noon, an hour before previously scheduled, and as far as I know they stayed up all day.

I rolled a Shadow Warrior and was puttering around doing quests when I saw Esri run past with a CoW tag, so I shot a /tell to JoBildo and bam, I was in the guild. I never did get around to starting Vent though, so my session in the early afternoon was pretty quiet. I think most folks were focused on tweaking their UI and learning their skills and stuff; I know I was. I did max out my Influence in the Chap 1 Public Quest and won 1st place once and 3rd place twice. I did the RvR scenario early on and we got trounced; I decided then I needed better armor and more skills before I tried any more RvR (melee characters were 2 shotting me in my ‘born-in’ armor).

After lunch, there was football to be watched. I made it to half-time in the living room then had to get back to War. I rolled a second character — a Witch Hunter — on an RP server. I was half-playing, half-watching the game, so figured it was a good time to solo. The vibe on the RP server was a lot nicer than on the ‘Core’ server that CoW is on (setting aside guild chat, I mean) and I played a lot more slowly, reading through all the Tome unlocks and really drinking in the atmosphere and the lore. On the CoW server I’d felt a need (totally self-imposed) to level as fast as I could, but on the RP server it was just the opposite.

After dinner I went back to CoW, taking my new “relaxed” play style with me. Did a bunch more PvE quests. CoW was doing RvR and asked for volunteers, and I offered my services, but it never panned out. My comment was probably just missed, and I didn’t repeat it since it was pretty late already. Honestly its a little embarrassing how clueless I am about some parts of the game considering I was in the beta as long as I was. But most of my beta time we were plunked down in an area and told “Fight this battle”. So I had no idea how to get to the RvR area!! *blush*

First day recap. Game ran pretty well. One CTD. Some pathing issues with the mobs still. But lots of fun. The Shadow Warrior isn’t as interesting as the Witch Hunter at early levels and solo. My SW has only 1 melee skill that isn’t positional, so fights are a couple of arrow shots then spam my melee skill until the dude is dead. The Witch Hunter is lower level and already has 3 Stances with a variety of skills and techniques. But I’m not judging either class yet, since I’m something like level 6 and level 5. And, in theory at least, I’ll be rolling with CoW most of the time with the SW and those backstabby skills will be a lot more useful. 🙂

I have to say the ennui has been swept aside, though. I’m looking forward to playing some more tonight. I hope the servers are as stable this weekend (I’m taking a 4-day weekend). Waaagghhh!

WAR arrives

Posted on by Nimgimli

So today is the day that (hopefully) Collector’s Edition pre-orders get to start playing Warhammer Online. Originally the servers were going to open at 7 am, but that’s already been delayed once to 1 pm. Five hours to transition from Open Beta to Launch? I’m anticipating another delay personally.

But WAR *is* coming, and I’ve waited for this day, in a sense, since last February. And now it is here and…

…I’m feeling rather apathetic.

And I’m not sure why. I’ve been playing a lot of LOTRO lately and it could be I’ve just burned out my MMORPG desire. It could be that playing Spore has reminded me of how enjoyable it is to play a game where I can just start up the game and *play* without spending a lot of time traveling or looking for a group. It could be the emphasis on voice chat with my new guild, Casualties of War (and my LOTRO guild). Neither requires voice chat, but both strongly recommend it. Which means most people will use it, which means written chat will be silent. I dislike voice chat in my games, but that’s a topic for another post. But I spent a lot of time yesterday screwing around with various microphone set-ups and Ventrillo options and thinking “This is not fun. This is another hassle to add to my life. Why the hell am I doing this to myself?”

Anyway the one reason I know isn’t true is the game itself. I haven’t played WAR in about a month now and I left it ‘hungry for more’ and the anticipation has been building since. Maybe it’s been building too much. Maybe I short-circuited my internal hype-ometer. But I remember the first Christmas when my mother had to come and get me out of bed because I was more interested in sleeping more than opening a bunch of presents, and this morning feels a bit the same way…

Warhammer Online Server List released

Posted on by Nimgimli

Just a quick cut & paste as I’m at work at the moment:

WAAAGH!!!

Servers, servers – get’ya servers! Below you will find the server names we anticipate being available at Launch. These will begin going live Sunday, September 14th with the Collector’s Edition Head Start and will continue to roll out leading up to Launch on September 18th.

Players will be able to choose from four server types: Core, Open RvR, Roleplay, and a hybrid Roleplay/Open RvR ruleset. We will continue to open up servers supporting different server types as the need arises.

Check out the list here

Garth Agarwen

Posted on by Nimgimli

Last night in LOTRO my level 30 Champion set foot in Garth Agarwen for the first time. This is my first time there as well; this is the highest level I’ve managed so far in LOTRO.

Our group was hardly ideal, but up until now it has felt like just about any group composition works in LOTRO, as long as its a full group and you aren’t fighting way over your head. But last night we had 2 minstrels, 2 lore-masters, 1 captain and 1 champion. And my champion died constantly.

Now granted, it wasn’t the most well disciplined group in the world, either. We had a couple of eager beavers that kept aggro’ing multiple groups of mobs. My champ was doing his best at tanking (he’d just learned to wield a heavy shield and had learned the ‘tanking self buff’) but that meant less DPS in a group already light on DPS, and I think that was our biggest problem. We had plenty of healing, at least in theory, but the minstrels were trying to add to the DPS of the group too.

Ah well, live and learn. I finally finished Book II of the epic quests, and that was awesome. I don’t want to spoil anything for those who haven’t played, and there’s a section in that last chapter of Book II that really captured the feeling of being in an epic adventure.

This is my last weekend of hardcore LOTRO since a week from today Warhammer Headstart begins. And today football season begins. So I’m not sure how much farther I’ll get in this ‘go’ at LOTRO. But I’m sure enjoying the game an awful lot these days.

Bit of Goofy WAR fun

Posted on by Nimgimli

At the character creation screen of Warhammer Online you can rotate characters to see what they look like from all sides. Pretty standard stuff.

But if you spin them back and forth really quickly, the character will stagger and slump over, sick from the dizziness.

Totally pointless, and I’m probably the last one to discover this, but it made my chuckle.

Blog Comments/discussions: Worth it?

Posted on by Nimgimli

[NOTE: Contents of this post have been edited heavily to focus more on the topic at hand, and less on the topic that spawned my consideration of the issues. Also derailing comments have been deleted.]

So this morning I was reading at post over a Pumping Irony where Scott was talking about LOTRO Executive Producer Jeffrey Steefel’s interview of a couple days ago. I thought Scott made some good points (which I won’t re-iterate here, but I encourage you to go read the post) so I left a kind of an ‘atta boy!’ comment.

But being a dumbass, I couldn’t stop there, and questioned some of what another commenter had posted. Which began a back and forth of us each spinning our wheels and getting nowhere. Now don’t get me wrong, it was a civil discussion, but ultimately pointless and a waste of both our times. He wasn’t convincing me and I wasn’t convincing him.

It’s not worth regurgitating the whole debate, which spilled over to this blog and devolved even further. There’s no structure in blog comments, no ‘rules of engagement’ and meanings of common terms are often not clearly defined. To take the time to define them is cumbersome when you don’t even know for sure the other party is coming back.

It was a frustrating discussion for me; it was like the other party was from a totally different culture and we had no common ground to base the discussion on. Some of his points made as much sense to me as someone saying “We have corn flakes when moon dust wallows green penguins irately. ” First he would say one thing then he’d say completely the opposite, or so it seemed to me. It got to the point where I could only surmise he was debating for the sake of debating, not worrying about reasoning or consistency, but just trying to be an irritant. Perhaps he felt the same way about me.

Anyway, my point about this, beyond just needing to vent my frustration, is to ask this question:

Are comments on blogs really of any value, or are they just a place to fritter away time talking to each other, but not listening to each other? I don’t mean to vilify this dude, because the fact is I was certain of myself too, and he wasn’t going to budge my opinion either.

So what’s the point? Have you ever been swayed by a discussion in blog comments? Or are they all just a waste of bandwidth? Should we all turn them off and save ourselves the hassle of combating the spammers?