Fight on the Flag

If you need any evidence of my recent post, “How our reward centered culture is killing the game,” please read the following screenshots of actual player dialogue within the last two days. I have blocked out player names because I am not really into naming and shaming them because it’s not the players’ faults that they are chasing the carrot:

Yes, players are advocating the renown-gain strategy of letting the Destruction take BOs so Order can cap it all back later.

None of this surprised me until this discussion just now in Caledor:

Really? Really?
/sigh

I suppose nobody should be surprised. Groups of Order have always done RVE to get renown. I’m saddened that they want to work together with Destruction to maximize renown gain.

Sorry this is a bit late, but here’s my review of the game based on preview weekend a couple of weeks ago.

Organdonar and I joined up for some fun in some of the scenarios. Scenarios are like AV or WSG in WoW, except you can queue from anywhere in the world. When you are done with the scenario, the game puts you back where you were when you left the PVE world. We initially tried to play on Destruction, but the queues were literally 45 minutes. It reminded me of the queues we had to put up with when WoW implemented the dreaded 2.4 patch. So we switched over to Order and gave it a shot.

There we reigned supreme, or at least, according to the screenshots. Actually my photography kind of sucked. I’ve completely lost my touch with all these months away from gaming. I didn’t even get some battle shots. Oh well, heres what the scoreboard looks like:

Burnination was my Bright Wizard, the class I plan to play on launch. Bright Wizards are hella fun because if you’re not careful you blow up and die. As Organdonar can attest, I did this several times without complaint.

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I’ve gotten into beta with my Collector’s Edition preorder and have taken the liberty of redesigning the main site. The forums will soon follow.

So far the game is pretty good, random crashing notwithstanding. There are definitely flags involved, so the guild name will remain the same unless others prefer to call it something else.

When I’m going to be in Warhammer I’ll be in Vent. Hopefully we’ll see some of us. Try to get on Gorfang server if you can. I rolled a destruction sorceress.

To those of us who did not get into beta, or on Gorfang, don’t worry. They’re going to wipe our characters anyway before launch so you’re not going to be far behind. From beta it’s hard to tell which realm will be overpowered or outnumbered. So far more people seem to be rolling destruction. This is expected from what I hear, and maybe it will balance out more later on.

D’oh! I just read on /. that, while Warhammer Online will ship on time, only two of the six capital cities will be available, and four character classes will not be in the game at launch.

I had high hopes for this game. I fear, though, that this shift in circumstances could affect how I and others enjoy the game. Read an announcement from Mark Jacobs on Massively.

Additionally, four classes are being removed, deemed to be in a condition unsuitable for launch. They are:

• The Choppa (Greenskin)
• The Hammerer (Dwarf)
• The Blackguard (Dark Elf)
• The Knight of the Blazing Sun (Empire)

Well at least I didn’t have my heart set on any of those.

Let’s think of the bright side, shall we? First off, fewer tanking classes = less PVE. Good, I wasn’t going to do that anyway. The only bad thing is that fewer tanks means begging for tanks in the unfortunate circumstance where you have to do it to get gear. I don’t read Warhammer message boards obsessively, and I’m still not sure how people acquire gear if they only want to PVP.

Second, fewer capitol cities. Eh, either way. It doesn’t matter to me. It’s better than releasing an unfinished game.

Third, I still plan to play this game. I have not canceled my pre-order.

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.

So Warcraft appears to be taking a page from the play book of Warhammer. Just go read this NDA-breaking blogger, Kenzi at Deathknight Info to find out. Chiefly the achievement system (check the first set of screen shots) appears to be alive and well on Warcraft.

If you browse the achievements, you get badges for winning WSG, AB, EOTS games. Not sure what the badges do, to be honest.

That’s kind of cheesy I think. But it shows Warcraft is actually concerned about Warhammer, and that’s a good thing. This does make me wonder, though, if Warcraft players are going to be complacent with the “innovations.” If many of them are holding their breath for Warhammer, will they stay with WoW becuase WoW is copying Warhammer?

I hope players can see through the smokescreen.

On the off chance that anyone from WOW is reading this, I’m going to give occasional Warhammer updates, as that is the game the core group (Perle, Pylith, Huller and Organdonar) plan to move to. If anyone else wants to come with us to Warhammer, post in the forums here. Again, if you do not have a forum account, please register, but it will take a bit for me to approve it.

EDIT: We are planning on fighting on the Destruction side (it’s kind of like Horde). However, if it looks like Destruction is going to be overpopulated, we’ll pick Order.

Anyway, here’s an update on how the guild system will work in Warhammer:

Grab Bag

Cliff notes: Guilds must be started with six people in the group. Guilds can level, just like people, and they can level with PVP or PVE experience.

(For those who don’t know what a grab bag is, it’s a list of questions asked by the community that the PR person goes out and finds answers to. I liked the system in DAOC because it showed they were actually listening.)