Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning : warhammer

Warhammer Alliance Commentary on the 1.3.0b Patch!

DoranM — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 16:20:06 GMT

Warhammer Alliance has posted an update about balacing the Archetypes and how the 1.3.0b patch will affect gameplay. The author of the article discusses how certain classes might be detrimental to game play and suggests possible changes for fixing these classes. Don't forget to weigh in with your thoughts about balancing Warhammer Archetypes!

Here's a look at a portion of the original post:

This week marks the release of Mythic's latest patch to balance combat in WAR, patch 1.3.0b. The patch has been heralded as a major rebalancing of WAR in two primary areas most complained about: AoE and CC. Mythic has also emphasized time and again that this patch is merely the first step in a new journey to address the issues and concerns many players have with WAR. The big question on a lot of player's minds though is: "Will this patch actually balance Bright Wizards and Sorceresses?"

Some of you may initially dismiss this claim, but I think there is more truth there than most of us are comfortable or happy with. While AoE and CC are often cited as the main problem areas in the game, chances are when you noticed how much they were disrupting your sense of enjoyment with the game, there was a Bright Wizard or Sorceresses gleefully nuking you and your warband into oblivion.

The patch we have been given attempts to solve the issues with AoE and CC in broad strokes. Many concerns have been raised about the specifics of the most recent patch, but I don't think we're going to see the real impact of the patch until we've had it on the live servers for a week or two. We're not going to see if the patch has brought the Bright Wizards and Sorceresses back down to earth with the rest of us, or if they continue to make the most dominant impression upon every conflict they enter.

To read more and voice your opinion visit the Warhammer Alliance website!

Warhammer Weekly News Roundup from WarhammerAlliance.com!

DoranM — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:44:06 GMT

WarhammerAlliance.com has once again gathered up all the hottest WAAAGH!!! topics for your reading pleasure in their Warhammer Weekly Roundup! This weeks hottest topics include New Avatars, a Tome Unlock for "The Dreamstealer", a brand new Land of the Dead FAQ, and a very thorough Overview/Preview of the Land of the Dead.

Other topics and the original article from the Warhammer Weekly Roundup are included below:

Warhammer Alliance once again brings you this week's top news, including lots of info on the now imminent Land of the Dead :

6/01

Anglakhel compared WAR with Star Trek on this WAH post, mentioning the upcoming Tomb Kings expansion and the "missing careers" that weren't included when WAR came out.

The PTS Testing Event was announced, which focused on the Resource Gathering Quest that allows players to take control of the Land of the Dead.

6/02

New Avatars were extracted from the recent trailer screenshots that were released, oh yeah, you just love having Sovereign Avatars.

The new Community Poll was unfolded, this time asking the community how Patch 1.3 and it's Stats/Contribution changes were going to affect their career.

The 1.3 PTS was updated, allowing players to "Take RvR to a new level as they fight in the fiery sands for dominance over The Tomb of the Vulture Lord!".

6/03

On this Tome Unlock Tuesday, Aeternis gave the players the secret to unlock the badass title "The Dreamstealer" !

The GOA Team released a bit of lore on The Origin of the Elves, talking about things like The Vortex, or the Dark Elf Leader Malekith.

6/04

It was announced that Career Balance was not going to be included in the upcoming Patch 1.3, and that only the new Land of the Dead content would be added with it.

6/05

The 12th Podcast Pre-Show urged the community to submit their questions for the staff members to discuss in the next episode.

The Spotlight on UI Mods featured "Group Icons", a sweet addon that makes you see nearby players in your party/warband. But also alerts you when they've been killed.

Do you need advice ? Rev. Barrows and Saleeya are here to help you ! Giving you opinions from both sides of the field. Sigmar 'n' Tzeentch baby !

The first part of the Overview/Preview of the Land of the Dead was posted by Mythic's Jeff Hickman, delving deeper into the new Tomb Kings content.

The Land of the Dead FAQ was created, taking the top questions from the players on the PTS.

WarhammerAlliance.com Posts the "Mythic Madness" Bracket! Come Play!

DoranM — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 23:43:08 GMT

WarhammerAlliance.com has got their own brand of "March Mythic Madness" with their very own brackets of Mythic Developers. They have seeded 16 of the top Mythic Devs and are counting on members of the WAAAGH! Community to help determine the winners! Here's what the bracket looks like:

Here's the official "March Mythic Madness" post from WarhammerAlliance.com:

For those who don't know, the NCAA College Basketball tournament in March in the US has always been marked by Cinderella stories, exciting brackets and matchups, and the best of the schools all around the country. They don't call it "March Madness" for nothing.

In honor of this event, we're holding a Mini-March Madness Tournament, only instead of favorite teams, you're going to be voting on your favorite Mythic Developers! We've seeded 16 of Mythic's finest according to the great Google and our own forum results, and we want you to decide who wins in the tournament! We are going to be running Daily Polls from Today until April 2nd, where we will have our final head-to-head matchup to determine the Mythic Mini-March Madness Champion for 2009!

The polls work with majority of votes determining the winner, who will survive another day to match up against someone else.

If you want to see the full bracket matchups, look no further than this URL:
http://www.warhammeralliance.com/for...pictureid=8281

We'll be starting our first poll momentarily, so be sure to participate!

WarhammerAlliance.com March 18th Updates From the WAAGH Front!

DoranM — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:20:27 GMT

WarhammerAlliance.com has posted the daily news from March 18th! The post includes several updates from the Herald, recent Developer Posts, and Warhammer related news from around the net!

Here's the Warhammer Alliance official post:

News from the Herald
'News from the Herald' delivers the latests news from the official Warhammer Online Herald

Suffer Not the Heretic to Live: The Heresy of War
The tale begins with insight on heresy: war, corruption, and sin. Just after, it flashes to a man we learn is Ulrecht, a possible heretic. We find him chained up in a cell, momentarily conscious, and then struck unconscious once again. Through means of torture, the Witch Hunter Van Holsecht attempts at a forced Confession, and if Ulrecht denies his doom is surely upon him.

[EU] Beta Forums Official Release
They are pleased to announced that the Beta version of GOA's official forums are now live! As it is, only people with accounts are able to post but anyone can view. Head on over to the forums and check them out!

European Community IRC Dev Chat - 3/19/09

Mythic announced today what GOA did a few days ago, an IRC dev chat will be hosted tomorrow. They neglected to say the time, however, which is at 19.00 CET. That's 18:00 GMT, 11 AM PDT, 3 PM EDT.
Server: quake.net
Room: #wardevchateu

No guarantees on the Daylight Savings Time conversions. I hate DST...

Sounds of WAR

James apologizes for the delay, but it's here. The Sounds of WAR, music inspired by Warhammer. Kiss My Axe (While I Drink My Beer)!

Straight from the Source
'Straight from the Source' reposts all up-to-date, helpful Developer Posts

Darkland Servers Connection Issues Being Fixed
Andy at Mythic wishes to let everyone know that the server connection issues that are present with the Darkland servers are being actively worked on currently, and thanks everyone for their patience.

Casting Lag Fix in the Works

IstTirVex from the IGN posted a work around for the global cast lag and explains in detail what the problem is. In response, if you check out the source post from the Official Forums, looks like something official may be in the works,

Quote:
" We have some updates that have just entered our internal testing process and play test evaluation. These changes will be rolling up to the Public Test server as a part of our 1.2.1 version update. "

Mark commented as well, though with some differing information. You can check out the full topic from the above links.

Around the Net
'Around the Net' captures all of the latest news and interviews floating around the Warhammer community

Interview with Mark Davis featuring Live Events
'WAAAGH!' managed to snag an interview with Mark Davis, a manager of the Live Events team, which analyzes a few of the past Live Events such as 'Witching Night' and 'Keg's End', some of the possible future Live Events, and the 'Bitter Rivals' live event all while managing to twist humor and facts together for a fantastic read.

Paul Barnett: What are they up to today?
Another video brought to you by Paul, with special guest Mike from Korea! Throughout the majority of the video, Mike and Paul press hints that a large portion of 'stuff' is coming our way. From floating spheres with lines, checkered patterns, strange-titled documents, and sounds! Any clue as to what it may be? Go ahead and post your ideas!

WarhammerAlliance.com March 17th Updates From the WAAGH Front!

DoranM — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 02:37:14 GMT

WarhammerAlliance.com has posted a recent update regarding the latest news from The Herald and some recent Developer Post comments! Developer post comments today focus on the dying of armor and some of the improvements that will be made to them over the next few months, and some of the recent trouble with Guild Vaults.

Here's the Warhammer News Update:

News from the Herald
news from the European and US Warhammer Online Heralds

Server Update 3/17/09 - All Servers

All North American and Oceanic servers were back online at 12:45 PM EDT; opening up the Choppas and Slayers to everyone.

[EU] Herald: Official Forums opening and dev chat with Mytchic

GOA is opening the European official forums tomorrow. It will be in the beta phase as is the US official forums. Also, there will be a European IRC chat with some Mythic Developers this Thursday, March 19th. More info on this in the upcoming days so stay tuned!
Source

New Russian Server Launched!

Shallya, a new core server is open for business in Russia.

Sing a Song of Slayers!

The development team at Mythic had a visit from Eric Bloom (well-known gamer and Level 40 Sorc on Ironfist server!) and Richie Castellano – WAR fanatics and members of the legendary rock band Blue Öyster Cult

Straight From the Source
Posts and comments around the net from Mythic's dev team

Nate LaMartina, the Character Art Lead tells us in response to a concern with the dying of certain armor pieces that an improvements will be rolling out over the next few patches.

Source

Andy Belford, Community Coordinator addressed the bugs some people are experiencing with Guild Vaults. The issues are being worked on but no time frame on when they will be fixed yet.

Source

today's Spotlight on the way shortly

WarhammerAlliance.com March 16th Updates From the WAAGH Front!

DoranM — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 19:04:28 GMT

WarhammerAlliance.com has posted their weekly round-up with all of the updates and information you need from the past week in updates! The biggest update is that Slayer and Choppa become available to everyone next week!

Here's the Warhammer Weekly Round-Up:

This week saw the introduction of the Slayer and Choppa classes and Tier 1 once again was the place to be. Next week the classes open up to everyone so Tier 1 should still be going strong.
Mythic was also forthcoming with a couple of interviews giving insight on what to expect with WAR in the future. There were some hints as to the next major patch as well with thumb drives arriving to few select with some interesting artwork. All and all it was a good news week for WAR.

3/9

Recruit-a-Friend Improvements were implemented where existing players each receive 6 tokens that can be used to recruit friends to a 10 day free trial of WAR. Rewards for getting the new recruits to sign up include exclusive in game items as well as free play time credit.

Source Server Transfers - Round 2 was announced further explaining the server consolidation plans.

Syp scored an Exclusive Interview with Carrie Gouskos, the Production Lead for the Tome, UI, and Forum Development at Mythic. His blog WAAAGH! gave us her thoughts on 1.2, the official forums, and UI development.

3/10

A package arrived at Lagwar containing a thumb drive containing an image “WAR Exclusive Image 1”. Rainbow MMO got a similar package.

Warhammer Alliance Podcast 6: A Healthy WAR Breakfast was published which highlighted 1.2 and the Bitter Rivals event among other topics.

GOA announced it’s [EU] Final Source Server Transfers, with the closing of old source servers and consolidating them to existing destination ones.

Server Maintenance - 03/10/2009 included the server consolidation and new careers for those who unlocked the head start. The downtime was scheduled for up to 14 hours.

Anglakhel brought us today's Spotlight on: Guides - Irinia's Guide to Modern Apothecary. Check out a fantastic community resource for all those Apothecaries out there. Learn how to get the most out of your Potions and Dyes.

3/11

Mark Jacobs: State of the Game was released. Much revealed, but mush left out as well. A few interesting points made on RvR improvements in the works.

Syp at the blog WAAAGH! recently had in interview with Josh Drescher . Looks like lots of good things on the horizon.

WAR Community Promotion Initiative #8 highlight various player’s blogs insights on the game.

GOA beats Mythic with a Chaos God Guide detailing the various gods of chaos. Give blood to the blood god and enjoy the exquisite pain.

GOA released Two New Videos on the latest additions to the game.

3/12

A massive reenlistment effort began to get people back to the WAAAGH! Full details on the Call to Arms: Re-enlistment Program can be found here.

Mythic released it’s Chaos Feature to know the gods of Chaos. Khorne, Nurgle, Slaanesh, and Tzeentch are amongst those detailed.

With such a big patch and server consolidations as well, Mythic had some Patcher Authentication Issues.

Jon Wood of MMORPG.com interviewed Jeff Hickman . An interesting feature being added that was discussed is the "Rally Call".

The Spotlight on Fan Art by Ariwyn Spotlighted Monsters with some awesome pencil drawing of a Choppa, and the Photoshopped version afterwards. All of you Choppa lovers, and Choppa haters, make sure you check it out!

3/13

WARDB.com began testing a new feature on the Warhammer Alliance forums. Many to come, but the first one involves a character avatar that will be visible on a poster’s comments. Good stuff.

If you're one of the people who were force-moved to another server with the recent closings, and are having problems switching to another server with your free Server Transfer, James mentions that it should be fixed with today's Account Center maintenace.

Ariwyn once again brings you the Friday Folly, this time highlighting some images from Josh Drescher's Tumblr in honor of his puke-your-guts-out trip in Korea.

A Re-Enlistment Reminder from Mythic, if you re-enlist your eligible for a 10 day free day look. Now that that the bugs have been worked out the free character transfer service, now’s a good time to come back and see what’s been happening with WAR.

3/15

WAR Community Promotion Initiative #9 - 03/15/09 brings you more insights from the WAR community blogs.

Frank “Phoenix Red” Sanchez gives us a different perspective. The WAH, 3/15/09 - The Hate of the Game's Address gives some opinions as to what the State of the Game address is missing.

Was the more news? Probably, and there will be a lot more coming down the pike as 1.2 has been up and running for a week now and the new and returning players log in to play the new classes and their feedback comes.

Warhammer Online WAAAGH! News Update from WarhammerAlliance.com

DoranM — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 16:50:06 GMT

WarhammerAlliance.com has posted a daily news update for everything WAAGH! Recent news includes Part 2 of Trade Skills Features, a few Hot Fixes, an official Re-Enlistment Reminder, and some interesting stuff from the Around the Net section!

Here's the official WAAAGH! Daily News Update:

News from the Herald
'News from the Herald' is designed to bring you the latest updates from the official Warhammer Online Herald

Trade Skills Feature: Part 2
The second write-up, following the 'Trade Skills Feature: Part 1', Gary Astleford and Phillip Chan once again bring it back to briefly tell about Scavenging, Talisman Making, and Salvaging. A definite worth-reading piece for those new to them!

Oceanic Server Maintenece
All Oceanic servers were brought down at 4:45 PM EDT for an Immediate Server Maintenance, and will be brought back up at approximately 8:00 PM EDT. Also at this time, the Account Center is undergoing a maintenance at 6:00 PM EDT which shouldn't last more than one hour.

Hot Fixes
Another set of Hot Fixes for this weekend, fixing a few items and the rate at which Guild experience is earned*.
(* This is a temporary fix, and will be resolved in the near future.)

Re-Enlistment Reminder

A reminder from Mythic, if you re-enlist your eligible for a 10 day free day look. Now that that the bugs have been worked out the free character transfer service, now’s a good time to come back and see what’s been happening with WAR.

Around the Net
'Around the Net' delivers the Interviews and News from various forums, blogs, and places in the Warhammer community

Warhammer Online: Going down?
This Editorial, brought to you by ZAM, analyzes a quote from Mark Jacobs back in August 2008:

Quote:

The corollary to that is if you've seen a game consolidate servers, you know it's in deep, deep trouble - that's not a healthy sign for an MMO," he said, citing Sony's January-released "Pirates of the Burning Sea" as a recent example. "It will be the same for 'Warhammer.' Look at us six months out. Look at us six weeks out. If we're not adding servers, we're not doing well."

Does this predict Warhammer Online's future, with their recent closing of 63 server due to lack of population, the past layoff rumors, and the heavy decline in players since release?

Straight from the Source
'Straight from the Source' reposts official Developer Posts that could be helpful

If you're one of the people who were force-moved to another server with the recent closings, and are having problems switching to another server with your free Server Transfer, James mentions that it should be fixed with today's Account Center maintenace.

Source

Friday Folly: Because We Just Can't Pimp Josh Enough

Ariwyn once again brings you the Friday Folly, this time highlighting some images from Josh Drescher's Tumblr in honor of his puke-your-guts-out trip in Korea.

WarhammerAlliance.com March 12th Updates From the WAAGH Front!

DoranM — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 23:20:23 GMT

WarhammerAlliance.com has posted an update from the Herald. Updates include a massive effort by Warhammer Online to get players back to the game, informative posts and insights from Mythic/EA Devs, rumors about what might be up and coming, and a spotlight on recently updated fan art! To comment on these and all updates visit the WarhammerAlliance.com for the best coverage of Warhammer Online!

Here's the official update from Warhammer Alliance:

News from the Herald
News from the official Warhammer Online site Herald

Call to Arms: Re-enlistment A massive reenlistment effort is under way to get people back to the WAAAGH! Full details on the Call to Arms: Re-enlistment Program can be found here.

Select Server Downtime - 3/12/2009 Select servers were brought down again for a third day in a row to complete the server mergers. All servers have since been brought back online.

Chaos Feature Get to know the gods of Chaos. Khorne, Nurgle, Slaanesh, Tzeentch are amongst those detailed.

Quote:

"Only fools believe themselves able to understand Chaos, for it is neither human nor understandable. The mortal scholars and mystics that dare debate about its nature only succeed in drawing the attention of the vile creatures upon them; they call down terrors and doom upon themselves and those they love. Many wise men were carried, alive and screaming, into the morgues of the Inevitable City, where they could eternally “debate” with demons of torture. Some scholars claim that Chaos, in its multifariousness, has spawned an endless number of gods. Others say all those seemingly different deities are nothing but aspects and manifestations of a single supernatural being: the nameless horror, the abomination, the unspeakable beast, the Undivided Chaos. But its true nature exceeds each and every imagination. No mortal can ever hope to understand such madness and he who values his very soul should strive to remain ignorant about the gods of Chaos; their fights, their rivalries, their endless wars."
- Unknown author

Read More on the Herald

Straight from the Source
Informative posts and insights from the Mythic/EA devs

Grab Bag Questions Needed! has once again been posted by Jess. This one is slated to be wide open, no holds barred, anything about WAR Grab Bag; well, anything that's been announced or currently in the game now that is.

On the Horizon
Rumors about what might be up and coming

Mythic Producer Destin Bales on the Dev Tracker made an interesting comment about possible up coming features to aid in searching for and finding a guild.

The question was asked:

Quote:

This is probably something everyone already knows, but I have been playing WAR for about a month and I have leveled a bunch of different characters to level 10 and found that I like my WH, which is now level 20. I want to find a guild I can join with to work together as a group, but I have no idea how to do that.
Can you tell me the obvious solution I must be missing?

Destin replied:

Quote:

We have some excellent in-game features in the development pipeline regarding this question!

Don't know what, but what I've seen in other games it may include website functions, in game search, top 100s, etc. This is all idle speculation and only time will tell.
Source

Around the Net

MMORPG.com interviewed Jeff Hickman recently. An interesting feature being added that was discussed is the "Rally Call". All in all, a good read.That's it for now. Check back for any updates as we get them.

Spotlight on: Fan Art!

Ariwyn Spotlighted ll Monsters ll awesome pencil drawing of a Choppa, and the photoshopped version afterwards. All of you Choppa lovers, and Choppa haters, make sure you check it out!

The Warhammer Weekly Round-Up

DoranM — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 17:58:16 GMT

Warhammeralliance.com has posted several links detailing all the recent happenings in WAR for the past few weeks. If you haven't been reading there has been a lot of things going on. This post will get you up to date! Everything from the first WAR live expansion to the ComicCon '09 in NY. Here's the post from WarhammerAlliance.com:

There has been a lot of news from the WARfront these last couple of weeks. From the announcement of the Official Forums at the end of last week which brought it's own share of praise and criticisms to the earnings press release and the number of current subscribers, it's been turbulent at times.

Not all news was controversial though. Before The Night of Murder event went live, Mythic was once again having fun with the with the blogging community before announcing the event this last week along with the upcoming Live Expansion, Call to Arms featuring the much anticipated Orc Choppa and Dwarf Slayer.

Below is a brief summary of what transpired these last couple of weeks.

1/21 "Age of Blogging": Paul Barnett Interview by Fires of WAR

1/22 PhoenixRed uncovers some of the Mythic Social Networking blogs

1/22 The Greenskin's "Interesting" Mythic Package is the first of many

1/22 Choppa & Slayer Classes Un-Confirmed Rumors abound around the net

1/26 Ariwyn helped pull the community together by asking the question, A Vicious Valentine's Event?

1/29 The WAR Herald announced The First WAR Live Expansion "Call to Arms"

1/29 MMORPG.com Zone Control Interview with Mythic goes over the new system

1/29 Some info snippets from the TTH Dev Chat

1/30 Ariwyn posts the first Friday Folly: Paul Barnett "IRL". Some of Justin and Angie Webb's http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=243261" target="_blank"> YouTube behind the scenes of Paul Barnett.

1/30 Official Forums - An Introduction posted by Mark Jacobs. His take on this "necessary evil" as it's been coined by others.

2/2 IGN's behind the scenes tour of Mythic Entertainment

2/3 Podcast Episode 3: We Know Where You Live

2/3 Layoffs, subscribers, and earnings announced, discussed here and here.

2/4 Josh Drescher briefly gives his brief comments on the layoffs

2/4 Mark Jacobs address the state of WAR

2/4 WAR Launches in Russia

2/4 Paul Barnett on YouTube gives us some insight on what we might see at the NYCC and that WAR is doing well in Russia

2/5 Eurogamer Interview with Paul, Jeff, Rob and Destin with questions from drop in subscription numbers to the new 'Tomb King" dungeon.

2/6 Mythic's Ryan Shwayder's Nerfbat blog addresses Garthlik, our site administrator, directly about the official forum announcement

2/6 Love Is in the Air, Night of Murder event goes live until 2/15

2/6 Grab Bag No. 10 - Night of Murder Q&A

2/6 Patch 1.2 Sneak Peek goes into some details on what's coming with the Live Expansion, which addresses quite a bit; from crafting to RvR and of course the new classes with the live event "Bitter Rivals"

2/6 Ariwyn's Friday Folly: What to Expect at Comic Con '09 featuring a puppet of Paul Barnett...

2/7 Ariwyn Reporting from NYCC! with a link to her Twitter. Be sure to check that out as well as her write up for day one with video of the upcoming Choppa and Slayer classes.

With all of the news and how busy Mythic Entertainment has been lately, we have a lot to look forward. After the the Live Expansion we're sure to get even more news and announcements, and as is news' nature, some good and some bad.

Not all of the news was good, but none of it was bleak. So all I can say is WAAAGH!

CE Headstart Begins!

Kody — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 21:05:42 GMT

As of 12:01 EDT the Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning Collector's Edition Headstart is officially underway! Tens of thousands of eager players are now hitting the servers as Mythic Entertainment passes a milestone from beta to their special pre-release headstart phase for pre-order customers.

With that in mind, we'd like to remind you that we've worked over the past year or so (and longer in some cases) across the entire Curse Network to ensure we've deployed the proper community support to help guide players through their adventures in Warhammer Online. For those of you that may have missed our news a few days ago, we'd like to once again remind everyone that much the same as World of Warcraft does. Here's a quick recap of all of the Warhammer Online services you'll find across the Curse Network as you prepare to dive into the game for the first time!

Curse Client -- Allows easy management of your game AddOns (currently both World of Warcraft and Warhammer Online are supported), as well as the ability to upload gameplay data (quests, items, NPCs, etc.) to WarDB.com.
Warhammer Online AddOns -- Change the way your User Interface looks with ease! Warhammer Online allows installation of LUA AddOns, and we've provided full support for them on Curse.com
WarDB.com -- A comprehensive Warhammer Online database offering a plethora of tools for your out-of-game planning, including a Career Builder, Renown Builder, Battlefield Maps, and much more.
Warhammer Alliance -- The largest Warhammer Online discussion community in the world, featuring discussion forums frequented by developers and players alike, unique content, and much more with a dedicated staff of moderators and administrators.
TheWarWiki -- A wiki created by the Warhammer Alliance team, and contributed to by the community of players who make Warhammer Online their gaming home.

We'll continue to provide any support necessary to ensure a successful and enjoyable experience for anyone who decides to step foot into the Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning world, and we look forward to any feedback or suggestions the community has to improve our services!

NA/Oceania Launch Servers

Kody — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 06:02:52 GMT

Thanks to the Warhammer Herald -- Mythic Entertainment's official news website for Warhammer Online -- we have the finalized server list for the launch of Warhammer Online! We've quoted the explanation for the server rulesets below.

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.

Core Ruleset

Core servers are just what you’d expect. These are servers that have everything Warhammer has to offer, with no special changes to the normal ruleset. RvR is confined to lakes and Scenarios, and there are two opposing realms engaged in the WAR. Players may only engage in Player vs. Player combat when flagged to do so in specific areas around the world. Select a Core ruleset server for the original exciting gameplay experience that WAR was designed to offer.

Open RvR Ruleset

The Open RvR servers feature RvR flagging everywhere except for the Tier 1 Chapter area and the surrounding PvE content. Once players leave this area, they will be flagged for RvR anywhere in the game. Open RvR servers are perfect for those who want to add an extra challenge to their gaming experience. Players must constantly watch their backs or risk attack by enemies everywhere they go! Only members of opposing realms may attack each other; the Open RvR server still focuses on Order versus Destruction.

Rules:

Players are always RvR flagged from the moment they log in
Chapter 1 hubs and capital cities are safe
There is no bolster buff in RvR lakes
Players will be chickened when entering an area that is two tiers below their level (ex. A Tier 3 player entering a Tier 1 area.)

Roleplay and Roleplay/Open RvR

Any server flagged as Roleplay will follow the same rules as above, but with an additional set of guidelines. These servers are for those players who enjoy truly immersing themselves into the Warhammer lore by acting as their characters’ personalities in-game. Players who opt to participate on a Role Playing server must agree to far more specific rules regarding naming, and it is suggested that players would adhere to WAR or high fantasy conduct and behavior.

Oceanic Server List

Core

Darklands
Ironclaw
Lucan
Marius

Open RvR

Anlec

Roleplay

Lustria

North American Server List

Core

Badlands
Drakwald
Drifting Castle
Heldenhammer
Ironfist
Monolith
Red Eye Mountain
Saphery
Sea of Claws
Sea of Malice
Skull Throne
Sylvania
Thorgrim
Volkmar
Wasteland

Open RvR

Artois
Bugman
Dark Crag
Hochland
Praag
Southlands
Stoutheart
Wolfenburg
Wurtbad

Roleplay

Avelorn
Phoenix Throne
Skavenblight

RP/Open RvR

Chaos Wastes
Tower of Doom
Vaul's Anvil

As a reminder, don't forget about all of the Warhammer related resources found on the Curse Network!

Warhammer AddOns
WarDB.com -- Warhammer Database
Warhammer Alliance Discussion Forums

Did you know? WAR supports AddOns!

Kody — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 05:27:41 GMT

This has not really been documented by Mythic Entertainment at all, but Warhammer Online supports AddOns just the same as World of Warcraft does, and we're fully supporting it with a Warhammer AddOn section here on Curse.

Those of you in Open Beta may want to check it out -- there are quite a few very cool AddOns already popping up -- with more no doubt on the way as the game inches closer to release. Below are just a few of the "must haves" that players will find extremely useful as you dive into Warhammer Online for the first time.

These are just a few of the AddOns currently available, and more are being added every day, so head over and check them out!

The new beta key validation system

Zyuu — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 00:48:46 GMT

The English Community Manager of Warhammer Online, Iain 'Requiel' Compton has posted extended information about the new beta key validation system.

As a lot of people seem to be a little confused over this I'm going to post up some quick Q&As. If you have other questions then please post them below and I'll try to answer them, please don't post anything else other than questions in this thread so that it's easy to find the important info.

Q: I can't log into the site, I get the 'Authentication servers are offline message'

A: Yes, you do not need to login to the site to use this page. Simply go to here and fill in your details.

Q: Who can use that page?

A: Anyone who already has a beta centre account - this means anyone who created an account to apply for the closed beta or to recieve the newsletter even if they didn't get a closed beta invite. In addition, anyone who created an account on our site yesterday and has received a confirmation email.

Q: I don't have an account yet, when will I be able to use my key?

A: We are bringing a new account centre online, at the moment we have no ETA for this but we will keep you informed via the news.

Q: I put my details in, now what?

A: All you need to do now is to wait for an email from us. This email will either confirm that your validation is complete (in which case you can log in and play) or that there was a problem with your details (in which case you need to go back and resubmit your information).

Q: Why are you doing it this way?

A: To reduce the load on the database server we have an asynchronous system. What this means is that when you put your details in, the system will store it, another system will then check it and confirm the details to you. This means the whole system is much smoother.

Q: How long before the confirmation emails arrive?

A: This will depend but the current turn around seems to vary between 1 and 2 hours.

Q: Is there a difference between the link posted today and the link posted in the news yesterday?

A: No, both are the same system.

If you have a question that hasn't been answered, head over to Warhammer Alliance and post it!

EU Open Beta Situation

Zyuu — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 00:42:44 GMT

An employee from GOA has posted an open letter regarding the current status of the European Warhammer Online Open Beta which experienced many problems as it opened its doors yesterday. Furthermore, the CEO of GOA also went out with an announcement.

Iain 'Requiel' Compton - English Community Manager said:

Firstly let's get the obvious stuff out of the way. Yesterday was in no way, shape or form a success. A lot of things went very wrong. Funnily enough however they didn't go wrong in the way most people thought they would or for the reasons that were being thrown around.

The website and our entire platform got hammered yesterday - which we expected. We knew how many open beta keys we'd given away and what sort of traffic to expect as a result. We got a lot more than we were expecting and yet the platform held up, the site slowed down (which was inevitable with the sheer volume of traffic, even a basic HTML page would have been slow under that onslaught) but everything stayed up. This is pretty much the big ray of sunshine that we took away, our datacentre took the onslaught and survived unscathed.

The account system broke. This wasn't down to the traffic (although that was a factor), nor the fact that the page was in Flash. There was a problem with our database server which didn't surface during testing. As you can read in the news, we have been working on this all night and we expect this to be resolved soon. Ultimately the system didn't work but we're glad we found the issue now in beta rather than before the headstart or live begins. Many of you criticised the decision to bring the account pages online the same day as the beta began but this was not the cause of the problems. While yesterday was a very painful day for us, there is a silver lining because it means that our headstart and live launch will be significantly more robust.

There was some miscommunication as well which falls entirely on us. The confusion over people with war-europe accounts not needing to create a new beta account was the main issue, other than that the team who were in the office yesterday worked very hard to keep you updated. Magnus and the other CMs who were working yesterday were in the office from 7:30am through to 3am this morning. During that time our teams were working on several different situations at once and the situation was often in a state of considerable flux. We had technical teams working on various solutions, management teams dealing with our partners and, for the most part, these people were busy fixing things rather than writing status reports that were likely to be out of date by the time they hit the CM team. Despite that, Magnus and the others posted what they had, when they had it both on the official news site and around the various fan forums.

Overall then, some things went right - not many to be sure and the important things certainly didn't. We made some mistakes, we expected many problems and we found some entirely different ones. We disappointed many of you by not letting you get into the open beta when we said you would and for that I am sorry. All of us are disappointed that we couldn't bring you the service you expected. I wasn't at work yesterday, Magnus was the man on the scene covering the situation, but I did keep a close eye on forums and was in contact with the guys in the office. A lot of what was said yesterday here and on other forums was entirely out of line. Of course you were disappointed and criticism is certainly warranted but frankly many of the posts made about the situation were borderline sociopathic. If having delayed access to a beta test really drives you to such depths of anger and fury that you felt compelled to make the death threats, racial slurs and other deeply unpleasant posts then - and there is no polite way to put this - there is something wrong with you.

Today we have a lot of people at the office who are preparing to put in a long week after a long weekend to make things right. This isn't magically going to make yesterday alright but we are very much committed to making sure that you aren't disappointed again.

Ghislaine Le Rhun, GOA CEO said:

Dear all,

I rarely address players directly, but I wanted to write you as too few of you have been able to access the open beta today.

As my team explained in the previous post, although we have opened the servers and corrected numerous issues during the last 24 hours but we have not yet solved the issue of saturated Open Beta key activations that we’re currently experiencing. I am sincerely sorry for this, and I understand all the frustration the situation has spawned.

Today was a dark day. We expected a massive influx of players, but reality was even harsher.
I personally commit that we will communicate to you as clearly as possible on the resolution of these current issues. My goal is to give Warhammer Online the success it deserves. Be ensured that all GOA teams, with Mythic’s support, are working hard to bring you the best possible game experience.

Are you having problems accessing your European Warhammer Online account currently? Share your experience!

Open Beta Update - Day One

Zyuu — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 00:30:20 GMT

Mythic Entertainment has posted an update about day one of the beta and the overall experience is positive. Read it all below. And don't forget to check out WARDB and Warhammer Alliance for all your information needs.

Folks,

So, while today has been incredibly stressful for our European brethren, I have lots of good news to share with all WAR fans. Here are the early results from the first day of our North American + Oceania Open Beta.

Incredibly stable game experience:
- 47K total users playing concurrently. We're not up to where DAoC was at peak yet but we're off to a good start eh? When Europe comes online we hope to shatter DAoC's numbers before we launch.

- 27 servers deployed and running smoothly. We have 23 servers in NA, 2 in OC and 2 more Test severs.

- Client CTD's are very low on average (lower than PW). However, some people seem to crash more often, primarily when exiting or entering scenarios but we're hot on the heels of this one.

- Zero, none, zilch Tier 1 region crashes since Open Beta started this morning at 7AM. No total server crashes either.

Lots of top reported issues already fixed with hot patches (no server reboot):
- PQ completion tuning. As always, tuning for now, subject to continued tuning.

- Loss of hot-bar abilities on leaving scenarios. Let us know if this still happens though.

- RvR equipment pricing, power and availability. Whoopsie. Well, something always goes unexpectedly wrong.

- Pet UI disappearing. Like we needed more pet issues? Luckily it has been resolved (we hope). Let us know if it happens again.

We've fixed several of the top reported issues and they will go in tomorrow morning's patch unless those damn Dwarfs start singing again:

- Continued improvements to monster "lagginess" when being hit by a ranged attack. Monsters will respond much more quickly to aggression. Ranged monsters won't constantly pause at odd times without attacking.

- Fixed an issue in seeing loot sparkles in RvR that were unlootable.

And thanks to everyone's help, we're hot on the heels of two more:

- Crashing when leaving scenarios.

- Unattackable monster states. Hopefully we'll get this one locked down soon, it really is a pain in the butt.

So, that's the quick update. Having almost 50K players in the game currently and no game crashes makes this quite a successful start to the Open Beta. We'll open more servers as necessary and continue looking at all the major issues. Please keep reporting bugs and answering surveys that's how we get some of our information.

As always, thanks for your patience and hopefully soon your patronage.