Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning : warhammer alliance

Warhammer Alliance Interviews Gabe Amatangelo at PAX 2009!

DoranM — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 15:17:45 GMT

WarhammerAlliance.com has posted a recent interview from PAX 2009 with the Warhammer team!

Here's a look at the PAX 2009 Warhammer Interview:

During PAX Nattfodd and Anglakhel were able to interview Senior Designer Gabe Amatangelo about his role at Mythic, the recent changes to RvR and the Land of the Dead. The interview was done on the convention floor with no pre-written questions or answers. Due to the conversational nature of this interview, some things are a bit awkward grammatically. Please let us know if any detail is unclear.

Interview Gabe Amatangelo

Anglakhel: We're speaking with Gabe now. Gabe, do you want to give us your full name with proper pronunciation and title?

Gabe: Gabe Amatangelo, and it's Senior Designer.

Anglakhel: As a senior designer, what's your job description, job role right now and in the last few months?

Gabe: Right now it's sort of in-line with the initiative of the studio, which is taking a look at... As you know there have been management shifts at the studio and we're able to re-examine a lot of the current systems and just figure out where to go in the future with them. So right now a lot of my time is occupied with that. Just going system by system and sort of proposing and shooning and whatnot.

Nattfodd: What's your favorite class?

Gabe: What do I play right? Right now I'm playing a Marauder, before that I was playing a Zealot, before that I was playing a Swordmaster.

Anglakhel: You were one of the heavy, face time devs for the land of the dead project. Were you sort of the lead man for the designers for that project?

To read the rest of the interview visit the PAX 2009 Warhammer Interview on Warhammer Alliance!

Warhammer Alliance PTS Discussion About 1.3 and Land of the Dead!

DoranM — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 18:31:17 GMT

WarhammerAlliance.com has posted an update about the PTS server and some of the happenings there for Patch 1.3. Mythic has often scheduled testing events for the PTS to try to generate the best feedback possible. "The Sands Run Red" is merely the latest PTS event in course of WAR's release. There is, however, a slight problem pointed out by the author of the article.

Here's a snippet from the post, be sure and visit the Warhammer PTS Discussion for the full article:

Lately, the Public Test Server, or PTS, has been getting a lot of publicity. Testing has been open for Patch 1.3, featuring the Land of the Dead, for several weeks and just closed earlier today in anticipation of tomorrow's release of the patch to the live servers.

We have been told many times by Mythic that the PTS is one of the best ways to share feedback with Mythic and the development team. Lately, Mythic has been hard at work trying to encourage use of the PTS and is even offering incentives, such as special ingame items, to players that spend time on the PTS and supply constructive feedback. Still, it can often feel like time spent on the PTS has no positive impact on what we see on the live servers. Testers find themselves wondering if their time spent on the PTS is meaningful, relevant and helpful.

We can look back over the course of WAR's release and even into Beta to see how Mythic has responded to the feedback of their testers, but we have several excellent examples from the testing of Patch 1.3 on the PTS. Just days ago, Mythic announced that due to player feedback from the PTS, they would be adjusting the Realm Resource Quest that will determine who controls the Land of the Dead. According to the announcement, they will be dropping the required resources to gain control of LotD from 10,000 to 5,000. Apparently, this feedback followed several PTS Events advertised on the Herald, including “The Sands Run Red” on the 9th and 10th, which was intended to test out the Land of the Dead content and gather specific data on the Resource Expedition Quest.

Mythic has often scheduled testing events for the PTS to try to generate the best feedback possible. "The Sands Run Red" is merely the latest PTS event in course of WAR's release. However, Mythic included the following note in the Herald post about the PTS event that I find extremely interesting:

Quote:

Please note that this is a hands-off event. Mythic staff will be observing the natural progression of the mechanics as both sides battle it out for supremacy. So remember to build up resources by capturing Tier 4 zones, looting your enemies, and returning the resources to your Expedition Quartermaster near your Flight Master in the capital city.

Immediately, we see that Mythic seems to be attempting to gather data about how the Resource Expedition Quest will run on live servers. They want to be "hands-off" so that they can "observ the natural progression of the mechanics." After the test was complete and they started evaluating feedback, it became apparent that the Resource Expedition Quest was too slow and needed to be more responsive to player actions. So, Mythic used the PTS feedback to alter the system and cut the needed resources in half. At first glance, this all looks very encouraging. We see Mythic engaging with their players and testers and taking the initiative to make system changes to improve the game.

Except for one glaring problem....Read More at WarhammerAlliance.com!

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 Alliance Daily WAAAGH!!! News Updates!

DoranM — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:10:46 GMT

WarhammerAlliance.com has released a WAAAGH!!! news update for the latest and greatest topics related to Warhammer Online!
Hot topics this week include the latest Community Poll, the PTS Event & Exclusive In-game Item now available, and the Blog Challenge FAQ which is a massive undertaking by Mythic to send out special codes to several fansites in order to get the community working together to solve the riddle and earn an in-game prize!

Here's the official Warhammer Alliance News Update:

Warhammer Alliance News
The latest happenings from your favorite WAR fansite!

Hotplate: Last night our very own PhoenixRed pondered developer silence. He posits that Mythic’s silence regarding exploits of the game is breaking trust. Do you trust your results in oRVR? Be sure to check it out and add your views to this important subject.

Bloggers Got Mail: Tome of Knowledge is the first to report having received a goodie package from Mythic. Pay attention to this post, folks. Do a bit of detective work and you could win a fabulous in game item. Be sure to check ToK for all the photos, including the diary entry (which will help unlock clues for navigating the LotD). Many thanks to Tome of Knowledge for sharing the goods!

Community Poll: What are you most looking forward to about Land of the Dead? Let us know in the Community Poll.

Tome Unlock Tuesdays: Who said anything about HNT? Here are some great Tome unlocks you can get for doing things in your WAR skivvies!

News From The Herald
News from the Herald compiles Herald posts from the day.

Rise of the Tomb King’s Blog Challenge: As mentioned above, Mythic is giving away exclusive in-game items through an online puzzle. Over the next three weeks, various blogs will receive different decoder fragments. Put together, these fragments will form a “Rosetta Stone” of sorts, allowing you to translate the hieroglyphs of five (5) Tomb King Cartouches. Translate a Cartouche and you’ll have a code to unlock a unique Scarab Amulet reward. You’ll have to be quick, though, as each Cartouche only has 1,000 Scarab Amulets. That means a total of 5,000 Amulets in all. This contest is for North America. EU players have their own contest, and details will soon follow on www.war-europe.com. Unfortunately, this program isn’t available to our Russian WARmates.

May 2009 Newsletter Correction: As many of you probably noted, the May Newsletter arrived full of cheery news about the upcoming 1.3 patch. Thing is, the newsletter was drafted before Mythic decided to postpone “most of the Combat and Career changes in Patch 1.3.” Yes, they did say “most,” not “all.” More on that later.

PTS Event & Exclusive In-game Item: The Tomb of the Vulture Lord is now open in Phase III of PTS! The WAR begins Tuesday the 9th and Wednesday the 10th at 7 PM. Testing will be open all week, but anyone who logs on and participates the next two nights between 7 PM EDT and 12:00 AM EDT will be awarded the Shroud of Imrathepis. What is the Shroud of Imrathepis? Why, it consists of:

"Linens taken from the burial shroud of Prince Imrathepis. Those who wrap the burial shroud about their body are protected from harm regenerating minor wounds and injuries.”

Daily Devs
Daily Devs compiles all the important Dev Tracker posts from the day.

What Changes: Andy Belford let us know that crafting changes are still in place for Patch 1.3. He also teased that “We should have some updated patch notes later today for everyone to peruse.” As of this posting, those notes have not been posted, but do keep your eyes peeled!

Blog Challenge FAQ: James has posted a helpful FAQ for the blog challenge. The Scrab Amulet doesn’t have any stats. It is just for funsies. They won’t tell us which blogs get hieroglyphic clues.

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.

Warhammer Online Executive Producers Letter - Part 1

DoranM — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 18:09:06 GMT

WarhammerAlliance.com has posted the Executive Producers Letter - Part 1, where Jeff Hickman outlines several of the things they've been working on, improvements made to the game, and some of the things we can all look forward to as Land of the Dead!

Here's a snippet of the Executive Producers Letter - Part 1 followed by user comments at WarhammerAlliance.com:

From the From the Dev Team category we have: Executive Producer's Letter - Part 1

Hello Everyone,

The first half of 2009 has proved to be an exciting time for WAR! With hundreds of pages of patch notes it's hard to remember everything that's gone live, four careers have joined the front lines, you've experienced our live events which we plan to only make better, and we've made amazing progress in improving performance allowing for larger battles and more stable servers. Additionally we've improved the UI and opened it up even more to our modding community, introduced the RvR Token System, implemented keep upgrades, and we continue to fix bugs and improve the quality of the game every day. To say we've been busy is an understatement and there's no sign of slowing down in sight, we hope you enjoy the ride.

With the release of Patch 1.3 we'll complete the Call to Arms Live Expansion. You will finally have the chance to explore the Lands of the Dead, an exciting new addition with a vast new area to explore, new rewards to earn, and the most challenging content yet!

I'll be discussing this and more over the course of the next several weeks in a three-part Executive Producer's Letter. We want you to have a first hand look at what's new in WAR and what's to come and give you a chance to share your feedback about what you would like to see come to WAR.

Source

WarhammerAlliance.com Asks About "Missing Careers" In Land of The Dead

DoranM — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 18:13:16 GMT

Have you ever found yourself wondering what WAR and Star Trek have in common? Not sure? Wondering why I would ask? Well, Josh Drescher and Paul Barnett recently sat down with Warhammer Alliance at Games Day Baltimore for an interview. Things got very interesting though when Frank “PhoenixRed” Sanchez characterized the Land of the Dead as “the first truly new content in WAR” and mentioned “missing careers”.

Here's the interview and an explanation from Josh Drescher about the "missing careers":

Quote:

Frank: So let's talk about Land of the Dead for a second. It's the first truly new content in WAR because missing careers were supposed to be in release, but were -

Josh: I'm going to cut you off right now and address that misnomer or misrepresentation. There were no missing careers. We removed things from the game that we felt were detrimental to the game. When a filmmaker makes a movie and he looks at the footage that he's recorded and he goes "you know what, that shot just doesn't work" or "it made sense in the screenplay, but when we put it in, it's too long, the flow's off, the movie is too long, this character we don't actually need", people won't go "you've stolen valuable content from my movie!" You know, JJ Abrams I'm sure has a bunch of extra Spock footage that he didn't put in the movie and nobody is banging on his door going "You made me pay ten dollars, I know you've got 15 extra minutes of Spock and I want it now!"

Now, we obviously wanted from number angles, one of them being balance, one of them being sort of aesthetic, to add things back in, but we were never going to put things into the game that we thought weren't great for the game. The Hammerer is a good example for that. We never got to a place where we were happy with the Hammerer. We weren't going to just put the Hammerer in because at one point we put a slide up that said "There will be Hammerers in the game". It's the right thing to do. It's the only way to conduct yourself professionally. You never try to drive in your design according to commitments you have made in passing in marketing presentation.

So the game launched the way we wanted it to be according to the things we had developed. The things that we have expanded since that time, 4 careers that we've added to the game, they are additions. They're not things that we removed or were taken away or missing from the game. They are additions to the game that fit with a much larger understanding of where we want to go and it will always be that way. Any content that we add or don't add to the game, it will always be because it's the right choice in our mind for the kind of product we're trying to build. You may now ask the second question.

Frank: *laughs* You've been reading our forums.

Paul goes on to talk about how the problem really is that fans want information and we're holding them to ideas that were "loose" or "sketchy." He even mentions that at one point they considered a career system with 256 careers, but no one is asking where all those missing careers went. You can see the full interview here.

When I hear Josh and Paul justifying the cuts again it makes my skin crawl, much like it did when Mythic first announced the cuts. Frankly, it's spin and marketing doublespeak. But why does it matter how Mythic views the cuts? What happened, happened. The four careers were cut from release and now Mythic has made good on their promise to get them back into the game. Why do I care whether or not Josh considers them "missing careers" or "new content"?

I’ve been going over the issue trying to figure this out and it comes back to the value of the design and the importance of the Archetypes. Mythic created an elegant design to deal with a lot of issues with making an MMO based upon Warhammer. The Warhammer IP has dozens of Armies with hundreds if not thousands of potential Careers. It is very easy to imagine well over 200 Careers based upon the Warhammer IP, but it would have been a balance and labor nightmare for Mythic. Trying to capture all the Armies and Units from Warhammer for the MMO would have been an impossible task. Games Workshop themselves only tackle a few Army revisions every year. They simply couldn't do it all at once. It's too much work. Mythic needed a strong design to translate Warhammer into WAR.

Mythic looked at the Warhammer IP and wisely chose to focus. They created a design that called for two broad factions: Order and Destruction. Then they looked through the dozens of Warhammer Armies and decided to focus on the three oppositions they felt were most central to the world of Warhammer, settling upon the Empire vs Chaos, Dwarfs vs Greenskins and High Elves vs Dark Elves. Now, with the focus on just six Armies, they had to decide how to best transfer the many different types of units in Warhammer into Careers for WAR. The design they came up with was to define four essential Archetypes: Melee Tank, Melee DPS, Ranged DPS, and Support. From all the options available in each Army List, Mythic would create four Careers based upon these essential Archetypes.

But this means that having 24 Careers wasn't some accident. It wasn't just a random number plucked out of the air. 24 Careers were the result of deliberate design decisions made by Mythic. That number is a direct result of basing the game around the four critical Archetypes and needing for each of the six available Armies to have access to those Archetypes. Had Mythic changed the number of Races available, the design would require the number of Careers to change. Had they changed the fundamental Archetypes and removed or added an Archetype, again the design would require a new number of Careers.

My problem is that Mythic wants to have it both ways. They want credit for the design of the game but don't want to take responsibility for blowing the implementation at release. Josh uses making a film as a metaphor for the process of designing WAR. In Josh's metaphor, the careers were cut from WAR to preserve the integrity of the "film". He wants us to believe that cutting the careers preserved the essential goodness of the game. It's like trimming a few minutes of Spock's footage to make a tighter and more compelling film.

The film metaphor has a lot of value, but I absolutely disagree with the parallels Josh draws. Looking at JJ Abrahm's Star Trek, I am certain that along the way decisions were made in bringing Star Trek back to the screen about which characters were necessary and which plot elements were necessary. Klingons get talked about in the dialog but never appear. Spock gets used, but none of the rest of the original cast. The process of designing the film requires thousands of decisions to be made about budget, cast, location, plot, effects, etc.

But once the decisions start getting locked down and the plot put in place, once the "design" of the film gets hammered out, certain things become necessary. Had Abrahm's been approaching release and looked at the film they had shot and suddenly decided Spock wasn't good enough, or that the Romulans weren't "working", it would have set the film back months. They would have been forced to reshoot, rescript, redesign. It would have cost the studio millions and millions of dollars and months and months of time. The design process is long an involved. Almost all the major design decisions for a film are settled before a single frame of film is shot.

In my mind, the Archetype system in WAR is part of the core design of the game. It's the foundational material of WAR's "screenplay". It's the stuff that should be hammered out long before a single frame is captured in film. Sure at one point Mythic may have talked about over 200 different Careers making it into WAR, but then they sat down for serious scripting, casting and budgeting and figured out 200+ Careers would be a mess and never work. So they came up with a tight screenplay that called for 24 Careers.

I think the design for WAR was rock solid. I think the planned interaction between the Armies and Archetypes was a clever solution to the problems presented. However, Mythic simply started running out of time. They couldn't get all the content planned for the game finished by the date they had apparently decided upon with EA. There was nothing wrong with the design. They needed more time to get the final four careers right. This may have meant changing from the Hammerer to the Slayer, but the core design of four Archetypes for each of the six Armies was in no way flawed.

Here is where Mythic and most good films took a different approach though. Rather than taking the time they needed and getting the four Careers right, Mythic made changes to the core design of WAR. They made deep cuts by removing four Careers, but then tried to act like they never really played an essential role in the production. Mythic pushed out WAR knowing that it wasn't "working" as they had designed it to function. Knowing that they didn't get around to 4/24 of the intended Careers and that four of the Armies were missing essential Archetypes. They created the game around the interaction of these Archetypes and when they removed access to these Archetypes it hurt how the game was experienced and played.

Can you imagine JJ Abrahms cutting the Spock entirely from Star Trek and then promising that we would see him in the DVD version of the film? No, because the film as designed doesn't work without Spock. He was placed into a central position of importance and the film wouldn't work without major, major reshoots if Spock wasn't working.

The Archetype system is at the core of how WAR is designed. But the spin and marketing doublespeak make me wonder if Mythic actually gets it. I cringe every time I read the statements they made at the time they announced the cuts or when Josh talks about how they didn't cut content and how it's the same of trimming a few minutes of footage from a film in editing. Josh is right that decisions must be made, shots chosen, dialog trimmed, sometimes even a character or subplot cut from a film. But when film starts cutting into the core structure, ideas, and major characters, it's a sign that the film is in trouble. Editing is not removing four Careers that the design called for anymore than Editing would have allowed for JJ Abrahms to remove Spock or the Romulans entirely from his Star Trek.

The Archetype system is at the very core of WAR. It shouldn't have been sacrificed to save time and resources at release and it should play a central role in how the game progresses and develops. Mythic needs to get back to the design that they created and stop making excuses for failing to properly implement it. As we see Patch 1.3 being tested on the PTS, I still see Mythic not fully grasping their own Archetype system and making sure they balance the game around the four roles they themselves defined. That's why it still gets to me when I hear Josh and Paul defending the cuts as good for the game. I worry that they actually believe that. I worry that the don't really get how important their intended design is to making WAR a great game.

WAR was fundamentally harmed in the early months of release by abandoning their design. People that played as a member of the Greenskin, Dwarf, Dark Elf or Empire Armies had a worse experience than they should of had if the design has been properly implemented. Kudos to Mythic for following through and getting this content into the game, but don't try to tell us that it wasn't designed into the game. Don't try and tell us that delaying these four Careers didn't have a detrimental impact upon WAR. It was your design and you should be proud of it. But not following your design caused WAR to be a lesser game on release than it should have been.

Warhammer Alliance's Games Day Baltimore Coverage Summary!

DoranM — Fri, 08 May 2009 17:15:18 GMT

Games Day Baltmore is this weekend and as we've previously posted Warhammer Alliance has a man on the ground! During the weekend they have several meetings planned with developers and community managers, and will be getting lots of answers about what's coming for Warhammer specifically regarding Tomb of Kings and Land of the Dead! We'll continue to post updates as they pour in through the weekend and don't forget to visit the Warhammer Alliance Forums to discuss topics like this one!

Here's an update regarding the Warhammer Games Day Coverage Summary:

With Games Day Baltimore coming up rapidly for this weekend, Warhammer Alliance has the following details to release regarding our intentions for coverage. You're definitely going to want to keep your eyes on our site! Technical problems, unforeseen circumstances, and natural disasters aside, you can expect the following this weekend:

Live Blogging via Twitter:
Follow Frank via Twitter account PhoenixRed for all the micro-blogging goodness all weekend, from start to finish. Need to know the latest? Want to follow WAR at Games Day Baltimore? Then click the follow button, watch for the #warbaltimore posts, and enjoy!

Behind-the-Scenes Articles and Impressions:
We'll be crafting our own opinions, impressions, and balanced feedback articles about everything Mythic's got planned for us for Games Day Baltimore, including the roadmap for the future of the game, the first peek at all the new Land of the Dead content, and all the dirty details of each.

Closed Press Event Coverage:
We'll be bringing you multimedia coverage of the invite-only Press Event that Mythic has generously invited us to, along with Massively, MMORPG.com, and Ten Ton Hammer. As much as we'll be allowed, we'll give you an all-access pass to the details that we'll be the first to know about. Sights, sounds, and text - it's all on the table, and we'll be trying our best to get you a look at as much as possible.

Interviews with Mythic - Featuring your Questions!:
We've confirmed interviews and face time with many of the Mythic studio, spanning areas such as Community, Live Events, Combat and Careers, RvR, Dungeons and Encounters, and more! Armed with the best of your questions, we'll be asking for the information you want to know. Thanks to you, we have softballs, fastballs, and curveballs for queries, and we'll be going after Mythic for all the answers.

Coverage Collaboration with Lagwar.com:
Ziss and Brilen from fellow fansite Lagwar.com are going to be at Games Day Baltimore with their own plans for coverage, and Warhammer Alliance is going to be partnering with them to bring you a unified front of information goodness. We're talking about a possible podcast, video, audio, and other treats and tidbits from all things WAR in Baltimore. Stay tuned to both sites!

Again, we hope you'll keep an eye out on Warhammer Alliance for all the Games Day Baltmore madness. Thanks to Mythic for the invite, Lagwar.com for the partnership, and most of all, you the fans for visiting.

Warhammer Alliance Goes to Game Days To Meet Mythic In Baltimore!

DoranM — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 21:26:07 GMT

WarhammerAlliance.com reveals that they will be attending a workshop with Warhammer Online at Game Days in Baltimore! This should get us tons of juicy new tidbits about Tomb Kings and other developments in the world of WAAAGH!!! We'll be covering the event here at Curse through our correspondents at Warhammer Alliance! Stay tuned for lots of good information as this event comes to pass.

Here's the official Warhammer Alliance Goes to Games Day in Baltimore update:

Greetings WAR Community,

We're happy to announce that we have been granted a special opportunity to bring you the latest and greatest in all the happenings surrounding the Warhammer Online universe!

As you may know, the Games Day Baltimore event is upcoming, and WAR is going to be there. The Games Days are Games Workshop's series of events highlighting the best of the Warhammer Universe, including Warhammer Online. Attendees will get to experience the upcoming Tomb Kings content, have a chance at some really neat prizes, and hopefully meet some of the dedicated and hard-working developers for the game.

In support of the community, and in recognition of the fansite element of WAR that has been such a huge and significant part of the game's development, EA and Mythic Entertainment have graciously invited Warhammer Alliance out to Baltimore to bring you the inside track on all things WAR. We'll be joining other great and amazing sites such as Massively, MMORPG.com, and Ten Ton Hammer to get you all access and coverage on Tomb Kings, the current state of the game, and tons of impressions and thoughts from Mythic on the ever-changing WAR. For this journey, I plan on being your guide, mouthpiece, and doorway into all of the juicy info Mythic will be spilling!

We're still finalizing things for all our nefarious plans to bring you coverage of WAR at Games Day Baltimore, but here are some possible teasers to whet your appetites:

Behind-the-scenes coverage/previews of Tomb Kings, including never-before-seen details and new information
Live blogging of Games Day Baltimore over Twitter (follow PhoenixRed)
Interviews with Mythic's finest, with many of the questions coming from you, the community!
Detailed impressions, praise, and criticism of all of the latest WAR info at Baltimore
Tons of photos and visuals from the event

We would like to offer our thanks to Mythic, GOA, and EA for this great opportunity to gain access to some of the best WAR has to offer, and hope that support will continue for all the great fansites in the WAR community. That being said, our thanks also has to go out to all of the WAR community, without which we would never have been where we are today. You've been a huge part of us getting this chance to be in Baltimore, and we plan on paying you back in spades!

Specific threads will be posted on Warhammer Alliance to solicit thoughts and questions for our coverage - so keep an eye out!

Warhammer Alliance Daily News Update: The Herald, Straight From The Source, and More!

DoranM — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 16:35:52 GMT

WarhammerAlliance.com has posted a daily news update regarding everything WAAGH!!! Topics include their recent analysis of the community poll for Tomb Kings, a top-secret WarhammerAlliance special project, news and updates from the Herald, and of course the straight from the source piece about population caps on Fortresses.

Here's the official Warhammer News update from WarhammerAlliance.com:

One more week in April, and the news rolls on!

Warhammer Alliance News
The latest pieces found on WA!

Community Poll Analysis on Tomb Kings Anticipation

The latest community poll analysis takes a look at what last week's Tomb Kings question turned up from the community. If you posted something, you might even be mentioned! Be sure to take a look!

Nefarious Plans Afoot!

Warhammer Alliance is plotting something, according to a vague tweet by PhoenixRed. Stay tuned for more details this week!

News from the Herald
Today's news from Warhammer Online's Herald

Beyond the Sands Ends

The Beyond the Sands event is over, but the race to the Land of the Dead has just begun. Be sure to keep and eye on the Herald for all the future details!
Winds of Change on Dark Crag

In a test to improve stability for the RvR system, the Winds of Change system is currently in testing on the Dark Crag server, one of WAR's most populous communities. The mechanic will trigger only in the most severe of server situations and teleport out small numbers of players dead or severely wounded to the nearest warcamp or chapter hub. If you're on Dark Crag, be sure to leave feedback in the forums!

Straight From The Source
highlighted dev posts, interviews and features

PBAoE concerns

Several players have expressed concerns on the official forums over PBAoE not receiving the same treatment as AoE spells such as Rain of Fire and Pit of Shades. Andy Belford from Mythic has posted a thought from the developer standpoint of the risk vs. reward with PBAoE spells.
Population cap on Fortresses

On the official forums, Andy continues to address player questions, this time on a perceived population cap drop in keep sieging since 1.2.1. Andy informed the community that since keeps appeared to be harder to defend since the patch, that adjustments were made. The number of defenders able to be present was raised while the number of attackers was lowered.

WarhammerAlliance.com: New Community Poll For Tomb Kings

DoranM — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 19:49:16 GMT

WarhammerAlliance.com in their weekly quest to bring you the most controversial polls regarding the hottest Warhammer Topics deliveries a knockout this week with a recent poll about the Upcoming Tomb Kings live expansion. The question asked was "What Is The Best Part Of The Upcoming Tomb Kings?" The possible answers were "New dungeon/content", "Live event", "rewards" and "nothing" as well as "everything". Please bear in mind that the poll was started before this week's details on the expansion were released.

Here's a look at the Tomb of Kings poll and the community discussion following it:

Today's poll analysis takes a closer look at April 17th's poll about the Upcoming Tomb Kings live expansion and the buildup to it. To be precise, the question we asked you was: "What Is The Best Part Of The Upcoming Tomb Kings?" The possible answers were "New dungeon/content", "Live event", "rewards" and "nothing" as well as "everything". Please bear in mind that the poll was started before this week's details on the expansion were released.

With the turnout slightly lower than on the last poll, participation clocked in with 539 votes on Warhammer Alliance (WA) and 83 on the Warhammer Vault (Vault).

The results on this poll were crystal clear: Here on WA, "New dungeon/content" was the most popular choice with 275 users, followed by "nothing" with 124 and "everything" with 95. Trailing behind were "Rewards" (27 votes) and the "Live event" (18 votes).

Vault's voting showed similar results, with "New Content" leading the poll with 27 votes before "Everything" and "Nothing", which were tied at 24. Just like on WA, "Rewards" and the "Live Event" were the least popular choices, with 5 and 3 votes respectively.

With the new dungeon being such a prominent feature of Tomb Kings, it comes as no surprise that this is the part most players are looking forward to. After all, unlike the Live Events and the rewards, the content and dungeon are the parts that they will spend the most time seeing and experiencing.

Judging from the comments in the poll thread, it seems that quite a few players are placing their hopes on the RvR aspect of the new dungeon. Hacienda of the Team Conclave on Karak Eight Peaks, for instance, had this to say:

Quote:

Voted new content I'm hoping the PvP gated dungeon will be more entertaining than the dog nest that is T4 RvR

Devourer of Pancakes from Burlok commented:

Quote:

I'm quite looking forward to the new content. Fighting bosses in an RvR enabled dungeon? That's like a keep siege, without the part where you spend 10 minutes pressing the same button while targeting a door with a big bucket of oil over it. Lots of RvR fights - where melee gets to participate due to lack of fortifications - and boss fights without the dreaded stairs bottleneck. Basically all the awesomeness, without the meh.

Just like the result of the poll in general, these expectations for the RvR part come as no surprise when one looks at Dark Age of Camelot's Darkness Falls, which is being handled as the spiritual precursor to the new dungeon. After all, it not only supplied players with PvE content, but also PvP dogfights that have left an impression in many DAoC veterans.
Many former DaoC players and those who have heard of DF through them probably share similar hopes with Slurms on the Circle of Trust on Phoenix Throne:

Quote:

I do have a hope that the LotD will supply us with a little of both worlds like Darkness Falls did in DAoC.

As we could see from the poll results, however, there is also a significant number of players who feel discouraged and are looking forward to "nothing", as they voted. Most of the time, this seemed to tie in closely with the opinion that rather than focus on introducing new content, Mythic should focus on improving and fixing what is already in the game. Let's look at a few comments. This is what Leoman of Red Eye Mountain, shawnee, and Fusko of Iron Rock had to say, respectively:

Quote:

Who cares seams to be the way most people are thinking. Why are they doing all this new content when the old stuff is still broken? So there is more broken in the game?

Quote:

get things fixed whats in game already before adding more stuff tbh

Quote:

I think Mythic needs to get its priorities straight. A new zone is good and all, but theres already so much to be fixed or tweaked. I mean, I would prefer having all the cities implemented before this.

This argument - introducing new content versus improving the old - is something we have seen a lot since Tomb Kings was announced. It is clear that parts of the community seem divided on the topic. Personally, I believe that a good mixture is what would help the game. But since we aren't here to discuss my opinion, let's take a look at the other popular choice in the poll to bring things to a close: those who have voted to let it be known they are looking forward to "everything".

Bugmans Best thinks so, for example:

Quote:

Everything: A lot of excitement for the live event - these injections of stimulus really gets the action going - as well as always immensely enjoying taking on a whole new bestiary from the world of warhammer and seeing what they're made of.

And so does Ymrar of Karak Norn:

Quote:

Looking forward to all aspects of LotD. It's looks like from the podcast that it will boost activity in t4 RvR, as that will open the zone. Also you fight in the zone also, so it gives more places to fight in. They have finally figured a way to link Lairs more interestingly and I'm hoping the new PQs are all scripted as good as the best in the current content. Ofc I'm also waiting to see the new dungeon as the TK theme with traps and all is very cool.

All in all, the majority of voters seem to be looking forward to the live expansion. However, there is also a significant part that doubts that it is the right way to go. In the end, I think, we will have to wait and see how the expansion plays out. What do you think about the poll? If you forgot to vote or your opinion has changed by now, be sure to let us know in this thread!

Don't forget to vote in this week's poll either! It asks what priorities you would set for the next patch, which is 1.2.2!

WarhammerAlliance.com: Latest News from the WAAAGH! Front!

DoranM — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 16:34:50 GMT

WarhammerAlliance.com

News from the WAR front has been a bit quiet as of a late. Most of the attention seems to be being put on the testing on the Public Test Server and the 1.2.1 patch. Today we've got a spotlight on new screenshots again from Ashelyn, they rock pretty hard btw, news from the Herald, and some development posts form the War Dev Tracker!

Here are the latest WAAAGH! news headlines from WarhammerAlliance.com:

Spotlight on: Screenshots!

The Spotlights are now in an open forum, so be sure leave your feedback. The Spotlight today is on Screenshots. Community member Ashelyn had some very nice ones to share.

News From the Herald
News from the US and EU Warhammer Online Heralds

Squig Herder Feature

Both the EU and US Heralds featured a write up on Squig Herders. A career that gets passed by sometimes and not rightly so. Overall a good write up.

Straight From the Source
"Straight from the Source" details important Developer Posts from that day's Tracker

Apparently there has been an issue with guilds either claiming or releasing their claim on keeps. James Nichols tells us that CSR's cannot assist with Standard Bearer issues so in game petitions will not help. He anticipates that these issues should be resolved by the time 1.2.1 goes live, which is soon.

Source

James Nichols also addressed cleave and other undefendable attacks. He says they have a fix and should be out by the time 1.3 is on the servers. Not quite sure what that is at this time.

Source

Adam Gershowitz acknowledged that the AoE radius and such is still bugged on test as well as on live.

Quote:

Originally Posted by AdamG_EAMythic

We're aware of this item, in actually AoE now has the same "grace" range for checking for hits that Direct damage and Melee abilities have. This can add up to an additional 10 feet in radius to the ability. If you want to get an idea of how much extra range this really is you can easily grab any character turn on auto attack and then back up (from a stationary monster / character) until you cannot auto attack anymore. This is essentially 0 feet range, b/c auto attack has no range on it.
We're continuing to watch how this effects RvR and the player response to the issue and will likely make an adjustment to AoE radius in the patch after 1.2.1 as part of our ongoing steps to work AoE into a useful but managable role.

Source

Around the Net

Although not WAR related, I wanted to say farewell to Dave Areneson. The co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons lost his battle to cancer yesterday at the age of 61. Both him and Gary Gygax who predeceased him last year in March have made much of what a RPG is today, in both pencil and paper as well as video games. He will be missed.

WarhammerAlliance.com New Weekly Poll Analysis Section!

DoranM — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 16:24:28 GMT

WarhammerAlliance.com has posted a new Weekly Poll Analysis section that will compare and contrast opinions from the War community. Polls have been posted in conjunction with WAR Vault which will provide a broader scope of user opinions. The analysis of the two sites will be done separately and then together when comparing the results. The first poll being analyzed is Last week’s poll, posted March 20th, asked you “How Much Has the Introduction of the Slayer/Choppa Affected RvR?” Options included: “It has greatly affected RvR,” “It has somewhat affected RvR,” “I’m unsure of how it has affected RvR/Waiting and seeing,” “It has only affected RvR a little,” and “It has not affected RvR at all.” The total number of votes between Warhammer Alliance and WAR Vault was 526.

Here's the results and the official WarhammerAlliance.com Weekly Poll Analysis announcement:

Welcome to the Weekly Poll Analysis! This is a new feature implemented by Warhammer Alliance, and looks at the previous week’s poll and at the results it had. Recently, Warhammer Alliance has been posting polls in conjunction with WAR Vault, providing us with a broader scope of user opinions. This analysis will look at both polls as separate entities, and then together as a general playerbase. Since this is the first of a series, please feel free to make suggestions for future posts!

Last week’s poll, posted March 20th, asked you “How Much Has the Introduction of the Slayer/Choppa Affected RvR?” Options included: “It has greatly affected RvR,” “It has somewhat affected RvR,” “I’m unsure of how it has affected RvR/Waiting and seeing,” “It has only affected RvR a little,” and “It has not affected RvR at all.” The total number of votes between Warhammer Alliance and WAR Vault was 526.

Unfortunately we at Warhammer Alliance (WA) had only 220 votes (come on people, we need more votes!), but they yielded some interesting results. Overwhelmingly, you voted that you were waiting to see how these two new classes would affect RvR. This option held 78 of your votes, totaling 35.45% of the total votes. The “second place” options were very close—51 of you, or 23.18%, voted that the Choppa/Slayer somewhat affected RvR, and 50 of you, or 22.73%, voted that they have greatly affected RvR. It’s interesting to see how close those two are, given the substantial difference between “greatly affected” and “somewhat affected.” Following behind in fourth is affecting RvR “a little” with 23 votes (10.45%), and in fifth with 18 votes (8.18%) is that the classes have not affected RvR “at all.”

Comments on Warhammer Alliance seemed to cover a little bit of each topic. Some responders commented on faster scenarios, to new utilization of other classes. Others remarked that although it seems like there may be large changes now, later on things will probably balance out. It's important to note what class the person is while reading the comments as well. Tozen, who has a Magus, but is also playing a Choppa remarked:

Quote:

Exactly. As soon as the Choppa hits T3 it becomes food for both ranged classes and tanks while AoE healing WPs negate its damage. I'll probably stick things out to T4 just to see if Git to the Choppa' makes a big difference, but I can safely predict that the Choppa is not going to make a significant change in RvR (which is probably a good thing to be honest).

Chuck Bronsun, an Ironbreaker, mentioned that the classes are greatly effecting RvR because its deterring players from other classes:

Quote:

It has greatly effected RvR mainly because there is now one more class people would rather play than a healer. Not sure about the rest of you, but both of the servers I currently play on are desperately lacking healers on the Order side of things in every tier.
With the game not doing so great these days with subscriptions, people don't need another reason to bail.

Although not many people commented on WA, those who did gave great insight to the result of WA's polling.

Warhammer Vault’s (Vault) poll was similar in some regards, yet strikingly different in other regards. Vault had 306 total votes, with the leading response (91 votes) being that the classes “somewhat affected” RvR. In a relatively close second was “wait and see,” with 84 votes, followed by “greatly affected” with 76 votes. Interestingly, in fourth place was “not affected at all” with 41 votes, followed by “somewhat not affected” in fifth place with 14 votes.

Bearing in mind that Vault’s poll had 86 more votes than WA’s at the time of this article, there is some interesting data here between WA and Vault. WA voters believe that they need more time to decide how these classes will affect RvR, most probably because at the time of posting, as Siberwulf points out:

Quote:

Um, the class has been open to the general public (not live event completers) for all of...3 days.

However, more Vault users seemed to notice immediate effects from the classes, since they predominantly voted that it had somewhat affected RvR. Perhaps one of the reasons voted that way is because, as Nnucifera put it on WA:

Quote:

The only affect I've seen of the new classes in RvR is there are so many of them (Tier 3) that there's not enough of the other classes to go around. Like, half the warband will be choppas then we'll be lucky if we get a healer or two. Not to mention a majority of the players don't know what they're doing. Was hoping the retards would be weeded out before Tier 3.

I know I have seen my fair share of Choppas and Slayers in scenarios, and it seems like I’m not the only one!

The most interesting factor of this week’s poll is the discrepancy between WA and Vault on the “not at all” option. It seems that most voters on WA believe the new classes will have an effect over time, and in some way—whereas a significant amount of Vault voters saw otherwise. According to my calculations, 8% of WA users claimed the classes wouldn’t change RvR while 13% percent of Vault users claimed the same. This 5% margin shows a distinct difference between the thinking of WA’s userbase and Vault’s userbase.

When the results of the votes are combined, we can see the large impact that WA’s number one and Vault’s number four has. The combined percentages (based on the number of votes) are 31% for “Waiting,” 27% for “Somewhat,” 24% for “Greatly,” 11% for “Not at all” and 7% for “a little.” Simply put, it seems that this poll was too early for a concerned playerbase to adequately respond and surmise how these classes will make an impact.

Next week’s analysis will cover a poll about AoE, which came out merely hours before the 1.2.1 Preview! It’ll be interesting to see how the upcoming changes affect the results of the poll. Please make sure to go vote and comment—perhaps your comment will show up in the next analysis.