Warhammer Alliance Weekly News Roundup! Get Caught Up On Everything WAAAGH!!!

DoranM — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 16:05:30 GMT

WarhammerAlliance.com has once again made keeping up with Warhammer Online a piece of cake with their Weekly Roundup! Highlights from this roundup include the new Community Poll, the continuing scavenger hunt as part of an ongoing campaign by Mythic, and another interview with everyone's favourite Live Event Lead Mark Davis!

All Warhammer News updates from the past week at WarhammerAlliance.com are listed below:

Another week, another Roundup! Warhammer Alliance once again brings you this week's top news, including our newest creative content as well as Mythic's and GOA's latest news on the game!

6/08

In this week's Hotplate, PhoenixRed tackled the issues of exploits and Mythic's policy in dealing with them, sparking not only a constructive discussion but also a response from Mythic's very own Andy Belford.

The May 2009 Newsletter, full with information and media goodness about Rise of the Tomb Kings and Land of the Dead in general, arrived in inboxes around the world, and was to be slightly corrected the next day.

6/09

Tome of Knowledge was the first to receive a mysterious package from Mythic, starting yet another viral marketing campaign involving the playerbase that would keep players (and fansite staff) trying to solve the riddle for the rest of the week!

The new Community Poll was unfolded, this time asking you what you were most looking forward to in Patch 1.3

Tome Unlock Tuesday, one of WA's new content features, showed you some tome unlocks you surely don't need high end armour for.

6/10

While the news was mainly dominated by the continuing scavenger hunt, one thing was not be missed: Mythic "]put out the call for dedicated testers[/url] to give detailed Feedback for Land of the Dead, introducing the Guild Focus GroupTesting.

6/11

Thursday was all about the continuing scavenger hunt, with several new hints and discoveries made!

6/12

Via Massively, the community finally received a set date for the coming of Rise of the Tomb Kings: players ought to start watching the skies on June 16th!

Here at Warhammer Alliance, we scored another interview with everyone's favourite Live Event Lead Mark Davis, giving all the finest last minute details on Rise of the Tomb Kings.

Friday was a night of dancing, as both the Friday Folly and the Fan Vid Spotlight highlighted the awesome dancing skills of the Warhammer community!

In Grab Bag Number 18, Jess Folsom answered key questions about Lands of the Dead.

The Patch 1.3 Pre Download was put online, saving time for all of us who are not blessed with a fast internet connection.

6/13

In a rather unusual installment of the Warhammer Alliance Podcast, an equally unusual cast of hosts discussed matters such as the 1.3 Career Changes pushback and single gender classes in WAR.

Exclusive Interview: Rise of the Tomb Kings with Mark Davis

DoranM — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 19:41:20 GMT

WarhammerAlliance.com was recently able to sit down with Mark Davis and get all kinds of answers about the upcoming expansion Tomb Kings!

Earlier this year, Mythic announced "A Call to Arms," a Live Expansion for Warhammer: Age of Reckoning. A Call to Arms is comprised of three Live Events, building a continuous story arc that will introduce a brand new RvR Zone: the Land of the Dead. The first two chapters, Bitter Rivals and Beyond the Sands, are now behind us and Chapter III, Rise of the Tomb Kings, is rapidly approaching. With the Rise of the Tomb Kings about to begin, Warhammer Alliance managed to persuade Mark Davis, the Lead for the Live Events team, to answer some questions about the final chapter in "A Call to Arms".

Here's the Mark Davis Tomb Kings Interview:

Warhammer Alliance would like to extend a warm thank you to Mark for taking time out of his busy schedule to give us a sneak peak at Rise of the Tomb Kings, A Call to Arms, Chapter III.

Tell us how this particular Live Event is going to build on previous Live Events for Tomb Kings.

This is the third and final chapter to the "Call to Arms" event story arc. In Chapter 1, “Bitter Rivals,” players learned that agents of Destruction were attempting to acquire plans for an airship, something capable of traveling to the far southern sands. In Chapter 2, “Beyond the Sands,” we saw the results of those plans as Destruction airships returning from the Land of the Dead crashed into the RvR battlefields, spilling their stolen cargo and resulting in a Public Quest that revealed a very unhappy Liche Priest.

And now, in this final chapter, players on both sides will race to acquire the resources needed to build airships for their side to carry their troops to the Land of the Dead. The first realm to do so gets to claim first stake in the desert!

In the last Live Event, placement of objectives next to warcamps was an issue. Have you rectified this with Rise of the Tomb Kings, and if so, how?

In this event, the resources in the RvR areas are plentiful and located in multiple locations. Supplies are located in the open battlefield areas in all pairings and tiers, as well as inside the Reikland Factory scenario!

Some players might not be as excited about Land of the Dead as others. What can you tell us about Rise of the Tomb Kings that will help get players motivated to participate?

While there aren’t any personal event influence rewards for this event, there ARE rewards. And this is an event that won’t come around again. It’s a one-time thing. Many months or years from now, when you sport your event reward or title and someone asks you “Hey, where’d you get THAT!?” you can say, “During Rise of the Tomb Kings--weren’t you there?”

If people are looking to give feedback about Rise of the Tomb Kings, what specific metrics are you interested in measuring to make future Live Events better?

We’re extremely interested in how much fun the event is, how long it took to complete, and if that duration felt too long or too short. And, of course, any tasks they particularly liked or disliked.

You've said that the "winner" of the resource challenge is going to have early access to Tomb Kings for a full day. For the "losing" realm, how will you ensure that they will receive access in due time? There is the possibility on some servers that if the resource meters go back to zero after the Live Event, the "winning" realm will lock the zone again.

Once the event is complete, the “normal” mechanism for capturing the Land of the Dead kicks in. The system is built to ensure that one side will eventually gain access over time, though how successful they are in capturing zones and killing players will dictate the speed. So yes, it IS possible that, after the event is over, the same side might win access again--but they’ll be competing for it while some of their forces will be plundering the Land of the Dead of its treasures.

Give us a hint about a cool easter egg or an interesting piece of lore that you've woven into the Rise of the Tomb Kings Event

We love adding Easter eggs in our live events, and Rise of the Tomb Kings has its share! In RvR, players will notice that strange glyphs can be taken from fallen enemy players. Those glyphs can unlock a powerful treasure that was brought back--oh, I almost forgot, you just wanted a hint!

How soloable are the tasks for Rise of the Tomb Kings? Give us an example of the level of soloability that this Live Event will have.

This event is unlike most events, because our other events have been much more personal in nature. This event is won by your Realm, so, for many of the tasks, you’ll need to work with others. For example, the player-favorite scenario “Reikland Factory” must be won to gain points for your side, or an Airship in your capital city public must be successfully completed to gain points. To do these things, you’ll need to work together. But there are also solo tasks to achieve. Collecting resources from the battlefields and completing the event quest line are just a couple of examples.

What's the approximate time that you expect players to spend to complete all ten tasks for Rise of the Tomb Kings?

It can vary slightly, but in normal conditions we expect the tasks to be completed in roughly 8-10 hours. Though many of the tasks are meant to be repeated over and over again, we anticipate a lot of Realm pride to surface, and get lots of folks working together to beat their enemy. Even if they don’t want to go to the Land of the Dead, at least they can take the opportunity to steal a victory from their enemies!

What is the relationship like between the Live Event Team and Games Workshop when planning the Live Events? Is there a significant amount of interaction or consultation when conceptualizing Events? Can you give us an example from Rise of the Tomb Kings?

We work pretty closely with Games Workshop. By the time this event was being dreamed up, the Land of the Dead was well into production. We work up our ideas, put pen to paper, and then take that to Games Workshop for their approval. They liked most of what we came up with, but had improvements and changes that needed to be made to protect the IP--changes which we were glad to make. We’ve got a great relationship and the changes always improve the event and the content.

What's on the horizon for the Live Events team? For example, will we ever see the Factory or Twisting Tower re-emerge, or are Twisting Tentacle Pies the rarest commodity in WAR?

I believe I’ve spoiled the answer for this question; I’ve already spilled the beans on the Factory making its triumphant return to the live game. The Twisting Tower isn’t just twisting in the wind, either! Oh, no, we haven’t seen the last of that freaky tower. We’ve got more weekend events planned and a big event planned for around the end of summer. That’s all I can say for now, but it’s going to be awesome!

To discuss this interview visit the Mark Davis Tomb Kings Interview thread!

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning : mark davis tomb kings interview

Warhammer Alliance Weekly News Roundup! Get Caught Up On Everything WAAAGH!!!

Exclusive Interview: Rise of the Tomb Kings with Mark Davis