Tag: Warhammer

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

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.

More BetaWARs

Posted on by Nimgimli

So the open beta for Warhammer Online starts on Sunday (the 7th), but for some percentage of pre-orders, it apparently started today as a second preview weekend? Honestly I haven’t been paying attention. My gaze is firmly fixed on September 14th, when Headstart Access opens for Collector’s Edition pre-orders.

My only fear is that my guild is playing in the betas, getting to know each other, forming friendships, and I’m not a part of that. Hopefully I’ll be able to ‘socially catch-up’ when the time comes. I just am really afraid of ‘burning out’ on the early levels if I run through them yet again before launch.

I’m awfully excited about the launch of Warhammer though.

In other news, I canceled my Spore pre-order….or tried to at least. I called Gamestop too late to prevent it from being shipped, but I’ll return the game to a local store when it arrives. I’m still playing LOTRO pretty heavily, I have Warhammer incoming in 9 days, and I’m not a fan of Spore’s SecurROM copy protection.

WAR is still coming (Headstart Dates)

Posted on by Nimgimli

I haven’t seen this officially on the NA Warhammer sites, but the European site says that the Warhammer Online Headstart Program starts on Sept. 14th for Collector’s Edition pre-orders, and Sept. 15th for standard orders. Note that the 14th is a Sunday, so (most) CE pre-orders have a full day of headstart over standard buyers.

But this means that Open Beta is at most 7 days. I guess that’s enough time for some stress testing, but I’m not sure its enough time for many fixes to be developed, tested and deployed.

New isn’t always improved

Posted on by Nimgimli

Poor Sara Pickell. I did it to her again, posting a long rambling rant in the comments section of her blog, answering her post as if I knew exactly what she was basing her post on, which honestly I didn’t.

I *have* to stop doing this stuff to her. Something about her posts just gets me charged up for debate though. Maybe that means she’s succeeding. Anyway Sara if you’re reading this, feel free to nuke my comments over there, cause I’m basically going to turn that tirade into a post here.

Sara’s post, titled “Do Players Want Something New?” started thusly:

During the latest round of blogs, I’ve heard a large number of people saying “players don’t want something too new anyways.” This is hardly a new topic of thought for me, but I thought I’d go into some persuasive hyperbole on the topic.

I assumed this post was tied into the backlash against Brent at VirginWorlds. I may have assumed correctly, or I may not have, but either way assuming is never a good idea.

But I *am* going to respond to the backlash to the backlash, so to speak. It’s like a blogging tennis game or something. Here’s what I left as a comment on Sara’s post, a bit cleaned up. I’m building off a few prior topics.
Continue reading “New isn’t always improved”

The Calm Before the Storm

Posted on by Nimgimli

Not a lot happening here at Dragonchasers HQ.

I’m playing the hell out of LOTRO these days, but there isn’t a lot for me to say about the game that hasn’t been said a hundred times before. It I was high enough level to be enjoying the latest new content it’d be one thing, but I’m still hunting the Lone Lands looking for Wargs. Don’t read that wrong, I’m having an absolute blast, but I’m not doing anything ‘newsworthy.’

In the absence of real Warhammer News, blogs are turning towards navel gazing and in some cases sniping at each other. I myself spent some time arguing with Sara Pickell in the comments of her blog, which was ultimately not a good use of my time or hers, since the topic at hand seems to be an emotional one. Sorry, Sara.

Spore will be here soon, I guess next week. Not convinced it’ll be great, but that didnt’ stop me from pre-ordering. I think it’ll at least be interesting from a ‘student of games’ point of view. And then a week or so later, Headstart for Warhammer Online starts. So lots of excitement coming in.

And thanks to Grimjakk, I just ordered an “Omnibus” edition of some Warhammer novels to get me in the mood for the game. I so blindly followed his suggestion that I’ve already forgot the title. Heh.

I dunno, I’m a little sick of the hyperbole of the blogosphere. So many bloggers declaring absolutes that aren’t, citing facts that only exist in their own mind, and so on. We all get swept up in these things, I guess. But it’d be nice if we could all try to remember that just because we feel certain things are or are not important, it doesn’t mean everyone else feels the same way.

WAR vs LOTRO: Why I may try to play both

Posted on by Nimgimli

Following up on my last post, I’ve been playing Lord of the Rings Online, and looking forward to the launch of Warhammer Online. The sensible thing would be to drop LOTRO when WAR hits. But I might not. And here’s why.

You hear the term “theme park” applied to MMORPGs a lot. What it means if an MMO is a “theme park” is that the player is guided from place to place and taken on various “rides” along the way. Warhammer Online, from what I’ve seen of it, is very much a “theme park” MMORPG. You log in, you immediately start questing and fighting and progressing in various ways. It feels like a pretty high-energy game. Mythic hasn’t put in fishing or smoking or even dancing (a staple of MMORPGs everywhere, for some reason). There’s no personal housing. Warhammer is very much a GAME. And I like that. It’s goal focused. Always moving. Always getting “wins.”

LOTRO, on the other hand, has all of that, but it feels a lot more low-key, and there is a lot of what Mythic calls “fluff” in it. You can sit around in an Inn blowing smoke rings, playing a lute, and listening to people gossip. You can spend some quiet time fishing, or go out collecting wood or veggies. You can decorate your house. LOTRO is still a theme park, but it’s a much more laid back one. Lots of quests require spending time to gather a group of folks to aid you (here’s hoping Mythic’s “Open Grouping” system gets copied by other devs). There’re lots of places to relax and socialize, and in this way it feels a bit more ‘virtual worldish’ to me. Sometimes I log in and just hang around the Prancing Pony and make no ‘progress’ but still have an enjoyable time.

I like both of these styles of gameplay and I’m definitely not saying one is better than the other, though of course we all have personal preferences and one might be better suited to YOU, dear reader. I happen to like them both, so perhaps I’ll try to keep a toe in the LOTRO waters while I’m fighting my way through the tiers of WAR.