A Good Game?, Layoffs, Shadow Warriors and more

[Morreion]

Producer Josh Drescher no longer employed at Mythic (Massively)

Of Layoffs And Bad Game Design (The Company of the Wolf)

I also hope that one day they will sit down and look at the train wreck they helped create in a realistic way, and that EA will understand that you can not have a subscription based MMO that is basically Halo with swords, that you need to appeal to a broad base, of players PVPers, Crafters PVE players and socializers, etc. the companies that got it right and are successful (as in will still be here in five years) understand that, the companies that don’t produce harebrained catch phrases, and pour zippo fluid on a game that is already burning…. I think the last nail in the Warhammer Coffin is when at the Febuary Baltimore Gamesday Erik Mogensen more or less apologized for the game, and assured people that would never happen to another Games Workshop License again, he seemed more than a little agitated as he spoke those words….

WAR: Successful. (The Skuz Blogs)

As of June 2010, I declare Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning a successful MMORPG.

Let me make it clear what I just said. I did not declare it a successful PvP MMORPG. It is the single best PvP MMORPG to come out since DAOC, that’s my opinion, but it’s just too much game to lump it all into one I’m also not saying that it’s a successful PvE MMORPG, because if you only PvE, I can’t imagine it’s very good.

I believe WAR is successful because it isn’t the best total game on the market for your general MMORPG player. Mythic wanted WAR to be a little less niche than DAOC ended up being, and let’s face it, they failed at that goal. That’s the only goal at which they really failed.

WAR has hundreds and hundreds of hours worth of content. Is most of it kinda grindy? Yeah, why not? You seem to have no problem remembering older games and talking about how big the grind was BUT it was a great game… well, stop your whining. 40 ranks are content. 80 renown ranks are content. Scenario weapons are content. Wards are content. Content does not mean little places you go into with your warband and spend 3 hours in a night killing heavily scripted bosses after reading about exactly how to complete it. RvR doesn’t work that way.

RvR is player driven. You. Are. Content.

Warhammer Online's 100% RvR city siege outlined in development notes (Massively)

WAR's new city sieges now have a maximum battle time of two hours, feature a respectable 24v24 population, and offer plenty of rewards, including a PQ-style chest roll for the winners. Once a player joins the fray, they'll be automatically put into a warband and pointed toward the battle.

City sieges take place over three stages, each with specific objectives and a time limit. In stage one, the invaders will attempt to breach the palace gates while the defenders try to stave them off. This is accomplished on both sides by waging war over linked control points that function as a tug-of-war between the forces. Moving on to the second stage, each side has the win condition of either escorting their warlord to the palace gate or defeating the enemy warlord. Depending on how stage two ends, stage three will take place either in the palace or at the city's gates, and involves killing the enemy's king. One of the neatest parts of this final stage is that four players on each side will be chosen to be "Champions" -- highly buffed characters with a special new ability.

Waging WAR: Elitist alliances and RvR (Massively)

More recently than that, another controversy occurred during a Tier 4 Inevitable City push. This happened just a few weeks ago, before the introduction of patch 1.3.5 to live servers. While the realm was gathering on the Maw preparing for the siege to begin, one of the guilds made a suspicious declaration in general chat: that they were "running out of gold" and suggested that they might need "donations" to hold the keep they had claimed long enough for the zone to flip by domination (a condition that occurs when all keeps and objectives in a zone have been claimed by a realm for a certain amount of time without being retaken). A few snickers and joke replies later, the realm chat returned to normal, friendly banter. Finally, only a minute and a half from the zone flip, with at least two warbands waiting for the invasion to begin, Zimmeron's Hold was released and immediately re-claimed by the same guild that had made the suspicious announcement only minutes before. Having reset the timer for domination and preventing the zone from flipping (and thus, the city push itself), the leader of that guild announced that they had found some extra gold "between the couch cushions" and were well-prepared to hold the keep for the next domination period (two hours for keeps, thirty minutes for objectives). The realm was outraged, but ultimately powerless to stop the campaign subversion. When called out on their actions, the leaders from that guild blatantly stated that they were, in fact, well-prepared all along; they had chosen to interfere with the city push because they wanted to give their own guild membership enough time to get online to join the fray.

Waging WAR: Patch 1.3.6 and the proverbial DPS-Healer (Massively)

Let's start by clarifying the main issue and the proposed change. Currently, the other healing careers (Archmage, Shaman, Warrior Priest and Disciple of Khaine) have their mastery paths organized by the role which they might play (i.e. damage focus, healing focus, etc.); whereas, the Zealot and Runepriest don't. Their mastery paths are organized by the delivery method of their healing (i.e. over time, direct, or area). The problem is, after deciding whether to specialize offensively or defensively and gearing to that role (a freedom of choice that they should be given), the Zealot and Runepriest are left with only one-half of an effective skill-set -- the other half of their skills being rendered ineffective by role choice and gear itemization. To bring these careers in line with their archetypical cousins, a new mechanism is proposed which gives Zealots and Runepriests a chance to retain some effectiveness in skills that are outside their chosen role.

The suggested solution is to introduce a stance toggle that grants a 2:1 stat conversion for willpower and intellect, healing power and magic power, and healing critical chance (%) and magic crit. When activated, healing stats would be converted to damage stats, and vice versa when toggled off (damage stats converted to healing stats). However, the proposed change comes with a caveat. First, the existing Zealot skill "Harbinger of Doom" (which currently debuffs a target's corporeal resistance) would be reworked to become this stance toggle and renamed to "Harbinger of Change" when in healing stance, or "Harbinger of Doom" when in damage stance. Second, Runepriests would have a new skill added to mirror the re-written Zealot skill, called "Rune of Breaking" (for damage) or "Rune of Balance" (for healing) -- depending on the stance state. Essentially, the Zealot loses something old and familiar (along with the corporeal resistance debuff) and the Runepriest gains something fresh and new.

Waging WAR: The Nagaryth Chronicles, part one (Massively)

Finally, the damage output from the shadow warrior felt lacking in most cases, especially when compared to the numbers that a squig herder is capable of. There were two situations during scenarios that I recall as remarkable; although they would never stand as proof, I will certainly remember them as being outstanding. In one case, at the end of a scenario, I ended up being second in total damage done. I was level 10. A level 2 squig herder was third, scoring only a few hundred points of damage less than I did but with a similar number of kills and death blows. Although the gap was a full eight ranks, that squig herder was able to shore up almost identical numbers. I didn't know how to react; either I was terrible or the player with the squig herder was absolutely amazing. Either shadow warriors are effectively broken in terms of how their damage scales through levels, or squig herders are overpowered in that respect. I suspect it was some strange, alchemical combination of all four reasons that could produce those results