Fight on the Flag

In every game the members of FOTF play, no matter what realm or race, we notice similar things about the underdog side.

The unending complaints and excuses for why they are not winning bind them all together.

First, blame the other side for:

• Hacking
• Cheating
• Using cheap tactics and/or OP classes
• Alarm clock raids to avoid a fight
• Cross realming
• (This is contrasted with our side’s desire to play legit and get a good night’s rest)

Second, dehumanize the other side because:

• They are in school and have nothing better to do than play a video game during their ample free time
• They have no social lives and/or live with their parents
• They don’t have a girlfriend/boyfriend or spouse or are too fat to get one
• They don’t have a job or are on unemployment
• They have cancer or some other terminal disease that allows them to play so much
• (This is contrasted with our side’s ability to get jobs, have social lives and families, and we also don’t live with our parents, have good hygiene and work out)

Finally, criticize your own side, shift blame and minimize the helpful things that could cause you to perform better

• It’s everyone else’s fault but yours
• Class balance favors the other side
• Developers don’t play our side so the other side is OP
• The uber guild won’t let us join their warbands, therefore we can’t work together to win
• Perle is a big meanie and won’t let us join her warband because we don’t use Vent. Vent doesn’t really help anyway (actual conversation during a city defense):

Do you know of other excuses people use for why the underdogs lose? Feel free to post them below and I’ll add them to the list!

To kick off this post, I wanted to share a screenshot of the text message after Order kicks Destro out of Altdorf:

(Just in case you cannot read the text in the picture, “Altdorf stands strong! The city is Recovering. No mercy for the straggling Order.”)

For those who haven’t surfed the forums relentlessly, Istaflyiii on Gorfang discovered a bug that basically hands Destruction the keys to Altdorf three times a day. By just respirating oxygen into carbon dioxide, Destruction can flip zones and get to Altdorf.

And order can do nothing about it. In fact, if Order tries to do something, it actually works in Destruction’s favor.

Wow. What a disincentive for RVR if you have any shred of realm pride. Fortunately, Mythic says they are working on the bug, though the timeline for a fix is sketchy at best.

One player on Gorfang wanted to try to quantify the gear and renown haul due to the VP bug, and Destro of course, say it’s not a big deal (though there are the few who are calling attention to this).

Case in point: Cald noticed that Order owned one keep in Thunder Mountain. We claimed it, noticed we had about six people and called in T4 channel for help. Anyone who wanted to defend with Ventrilo could join our warband and we could try to prevent Destro from taking the keep.

I wish I had taken screenshots of what some said to me (and I would blur the names to prevent too much humiliation). I got several tells from people saying “Don’t defend it only flips to the city faster” who were actually ANGRY at me trying to defend our lands!

Of course I didn’t listen, and we led about three groups from TM to KV to try to defend. It was all in vain. We were up against 5 warbands at one point (90 on the keep and another warband defending BOs).

Morale on Order side is very low. Let’s hope they fix this bug soon.

There’s been a lot of discussion about cross-realm scenarios, especially from underpopulated realms. Gorfang does happen to be one of those realms, unfortunately. And while FOTF and TS tends to find our fun, it would be nice to find action at any hour of the day or night.

If you think we should have server moves, head over to the official warhammer forums and kudos Ironholden’s post.

I think eventually they will merge the servers, and I figure it’s probably a better idea to merge us sooner rather than later so we can catch up to the rest of the player base.

Saturday and Sunday were the first two days I really had to play in T2. Mostly before, I was PVEing during the week before work. Mornings are never a good time to find action. Order did not disappoint. We had a group-and-a-half of Fight on the Flag queueing together for much of the day Sunday.

It was such a blast!

Fighting on the flag in Phoenix Gate

And on some occasions, we managed to get nine of our guildies in the same scenario! Sorry Order, I felt sorry for some of you guys. You definitely put up a great fight.

(more…)

I’ve always been a big fan of playing the underdog realm. Mind you, not too
underdog. Playing on Mid-Pellinor was rough in DAoC when Mid was only 15 percent of the three-realm server. But according to a poll by the Warhammer Alliance, there is roughly a 60-40 split of Destruction vs. Order. Thegreenskin.com analyzes the results here.

I can’t say I’m surprised. Most PVPers seem to want to play an uncharismatic race:

They’re also marketing their game as RvR and most recently, “hardcore.” A game like this is naturally going to appeal more to the people who traditionally play “evil” races in other MMORPGs. In World of Warcraft, it’s no mystery that Horde players fancied PvP more than Alliance.

So keep an Order class in mind, folks. We don’t want to be roaming in RVR looking for a fight all day because other groups get to the bad guys first. I’d personally rather play the underdog, even if I have to look cute to do it.