Help coming for low population servers in Warhammer Online

Posted on October 8, 2008 by SynCaine

Picked up this little gem on Warhammer Alliance.

For instance, the WAR effort in Europe has only begun. Some retailers have already sold out, but these boxes will be replaced by additional waves, supported by a marketing campaign of epic proportions. Naturally, we’ll continue recommend low-population servers to new players, but more importantly, there will be very real incentives for new as well as established players to roll on low-population servers such as yours. More on this soon enough.

So it seems Mythic does have something up there sleeve to help out low population realms, and it also sounds like Warhammer Online sales have continued to hold up after the initial rush. Good news on both fronts. Hopefully Thorgrim has more Order players/guilds roll in soon, CoW could use a challenge!

Posted in Warhammer Online | 2 Comments

When to borrow, and when to ignore.

Posted on October 8, 2008 by SynCaine

While yesterdays post was done more for humor than anything else, the reaction has brought up an important point I would like to talk about here today. The overall idea that ‘borrowing’ ideas from other MMOs can only be a good thing is a bit misleading, and often results in disaster. There is a massive difference between borrowing an inventory layout and borrowing game focus.

For instance, I don’t think ANYONE would really mind of Mythic ripped the mailing system from WoW and put it into WAR, as only good things can come from that. It’s a simple feature, it should work smoothly, and we should never think about it. Same goes for improving the auction house UI, or chat interface, or general UI customization. All of those are the nice trimming that goes around the MMO core, and for all I care, it might as well be standardized at this point.

Now if Mythic took a look at WoW, and started ‘borrowing’ WoW’s end-game raiding, or even considered throwing in a few raids ‘just for variety’, I don’t think that would sit well with people. Actually if you followed the development of WAR, you probably remember the instant nerd rage that flamed up whenever the mere thought of a raid in WAR was brought up. Even if it was completely optional, MMO veterans can image what would happen to WAR if Mythic decided to toss in a few raid (see Trials of Atlantis in DAoC, something Mythic is still apologizing for).

Which brings me back to yesterdays post; if I was still playing WoW, and I was playing it for it’s strength (PvE), news that development focus has shifted to ‘borrow’ WAR’s RvR model would leave a bad taste in my mouth. In 2004 WoW featured exactly one PvP element, PvP servers. No BGs, no honor, no PvP gear, no rankings, nothing. Day one, ground up, WoW was built for PvE, and clearly it delivered on that promise in spades, and continued to deliver with each patch bringing new raids, more fleshed out questing, and other PvE enhancements.

Slowly (and I mean slowly even by Blizzard standards) PvP was tossed in, first with an ultra-elite ranking system that made raiding look casual, and itemization that while nice, was still far below raid gear. At some point (TBC?), it was decided to shift balance and itemization split 50/50 between raiding and PvP, and WoW was divided into those who hate the honor grind, and those who hate the raid grind. Arena fans complained about imbalance due to raid-function skills, and in turn raiders complained about nerfs related to Arena balance. The entire system was/is a giant clusterfuck of tokens/ranks/honor, and any move made for one side pissed the other side off. Problem was, it rarely pissed people off ENOUGH to quit and go to another MMO, and so Blizzard had zero motivation to actually focus and solve the issue. Why balance shamans/paladins when you can just take the easy way out and give them to both sides, right? Yay ‘hero’ Deathknights and all that…

The point is, sometimes NOT borrowing ideas leads to a better game than trying to be the jack of all trades MMO. PvE in WoW has lost a great deal of what made it great due to Blizzard trying to appeal to PvP fans, and by trying to force a PvE engine to play nice in PvP. In LoTRO, does anyone really care for the PvP? Do people even know it HAS PvP? A game that is almost exclusively focused on story and PvE, and you have to wonder how much development time/money was wasted to include a ‘We have PvP’ bullet point on the back of the box. What if EVE added raiding, would that be viewed as ‘great new content’?

Going forward, I hope Mythic stays away from the ‘me too’ model of patching/updating, and instead remains focused on what makes WAR great, RvR. Yes, clean up the little stuff like the mail system and the auction house, but stay overall focused on RvR and continue to improve that. WoW had great PvE in 2004, and my guess is if they stayed focused, they would still have that same great PvE in 2008, rather than two separate games vying for attention. Here is to hoping we have great RvR in 2012, and not Trials of Atlantis-hammer™!

Posted in EVE Online, Lord of the Rings Online, MMO design, PvP, RvR, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | 17 Comments

Blizzard’s new focus for WoW, just as soon as Mythic finishes it.

Posted on October 7, 2008 by SynCaine

Blizzard, being the inventive genius shop that they are, have some rather revolutionary ideas in the works. Hold on to your hats, this could change EVERYTHING! I’ve gone ahead and edited a recent Bliz post, as they must have been in a hurry and forgot some key details. The ‘missing’ text is in bold.

Actually, we have been discussing new battlegrounds quite a bit lately. (since WAR sold so well and it seems this wacky idea of PvP might actually work, despite our best efforts to force everyone to grind raids) Wrath of the Lich King will feature Strand of the Ancients (attack/defend) as well as Wintergrasp (non-instanced, world PvP) (Which is not a BG, but we wanted to mention it during our talk of BGs. We realize this means we are adding exactly one new BG, just like we did with TBC, but we have not had enough time to play the upper tiers of WAR yet to see what we will do for our BGs, give us time. Our version of RvR will also likely be a pointless token grind, but hey… open PvP…)

But past that, we are exploring ideas that would involve expanding our Battleground content in future patches and beyond. (Once we see what WAR did in T3-T4) We believe we (Mythic) have some strong ideas for improving Battlegrounds and PvP as a whole in the game and we’re definitely going to focus on improvements in the future. (Especially if WAR continues to sell and gain ground, otherwise it’s back to raiding!) Now, it’s very early to be talking about some of this stuff but I think it’s important for the community to know that it’s on our minds. (To rephrase, we have not seen RvR work in T4 yet, so we can’t exactly say what features we will copy, but as soon as T4 starts up, we will be there with note pads and cameras)

Our general thought is that we could provide more BG content over time. (We could have done this in 2005, but we were too busy designing raiding tiers and ways to split guilds) The BG content that we could provide could be of higher quality with a higher degree of accessibility. (Sorry for being super vague, but again, we have not seen tier 4 in WAR yet) Overall, we’d like to have more content and variety. (We like having three scenario options per tier, starting with tier 1) We also want the gameplay experience in the BGs to be better directed. (We still can’t figure out how to solve WSG becoming a flag camp fest, or how to fix AV from being a rush to the npc game, sorry. Try our raids!) We’re also exploring the concept of a complimentary “competitive” bg system as well. (E-sport servers, now with BGs! Only a one time micro-transaction fee of $20!) Over time, we’d like the focus of PvP to shift back to being more BG-centric and more focused on Horde versus Alliance — the core of our game. (And by core, we mean the general theme that we abandoned in 2005, then later over-killed with Arenas and jointly owned cities in Outland. We want to go back to our stolen Games Workshop IP roots and do that wacky war theme again)

We’re also planning on improving some Battleground and PvP features in general. (Like making it easier to AFK farm honor) For example, we want to give you the ability to queue for Battlegrounds from anywhere in the world. (We just thought of this, totally random, despite having players wait around in Ironforge for the last 3 years and doing nothing about it) We’re also going to explore EXP gain through the PvP system as well as low level itemization to support that. (We intend to kill all twinks, who happen to be the only ones playing lower level BGs. We also want to address the fact that our itemization for PvP pre-70 has been total shit. In our defense, it’s only been total shit for 4 years, so you know, not that long in Blizzard time)

Please don’t take this post as a promise. (Mythic might make other improvements we might have to copy, ask them) This won’t be an overnight process. (Copying takes a lot of time) Not all of these things are set in stone and guaranteed to happen. (Again, blame Mythic) It would take us a while to shift in this direction. (Anyone know if anyone left Mythic recently? We are hiring) But these are some of the current thoughts on the (Mythic) development team. I think it’s important for you guys to know some of our thought process in regards to PvP. (and please don’t quit and play WAR. Stay around, grind honor/rep/tokens until we can steal enough ideas away to actually provide any worthwhile content. Look new raids with power ranger epics, come get them! Free ponies for everyone!)

(And before we get too far, I fully understand companies ‘borrow’ ideas from one another. It just struck me how blatantly ‘me too’ this post sounded coming from Blizzard. The other issue is that Blizzard never acknowledges anyone else in the market, and anything they do, it’s as if they are brining it first to the only MMO out. I love the company’s games, but the overall attitude is a bit much, and it won’t kill them to at least give credit once in a while)

Posted in MMO design, PvP, RvR, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | 68 Comments

My thoughts on the Disciple of Khaine.

Posted on October 6, 2008 by SynCaine

Having now played my Disciple of Khaine to rank 16, I think it’s a good time to do a little class write-up and let everyone know how the class plays, what it does well, and what are the current weaknesses.

The Disciple of Khaine (DoK) is a dual wielding Dark Elf melee healer. Your attacks (up to Rank 16 remember) consist of a double sword slash, a bleed, a strength leech (you gain an equal amount of strength that you remove from the enemy), a conditional single target snare attack, and a channeling, multi-hit combo that heals while you deal damage. As for healing itself, you have an insta-cast HoT and a 1.5 second cast HoT. For moral abilities, rank one is either an insta-cast single target big heal, or an insta-cast life drain. Rank two you get a point-blank AoE damage skill that also heals you and your group for the amount of damage dealt.

The DoK is the Destruction version of the Warrior Priest, and both share some, but not all abilities. Where the WP used a slow two hander, the DoK dual wields swords. Both have the option to carry a stats-only offhand, which servers to boost your healing at the expense of dps. The DoK falls somewhere between squishy armor and tank armor, and also between the dps-focused classes and the support/tank/healing classes in terms of damage.

In solo combat, the DoK is a beast, able to solo any class in the game other than a warrior priest, which results in a no death draw. The reason for this is that the DoK never runs out of healing as long as you are dealing damage, and the HoTs will keep you up regardless of who you are fighting. Only hero level NPCs at the same level will give you trouble, as soloing champion mobs is a breeze with the DoK. That said, a DoK goes down quickly if the incoming damage is higher than the healing of your HoTs, and as you don’t have a non-HoT heal (other than the moral ability), you can’t do much to give yourself burst healing. This same strength/weakness carries over to healing a tank. If the tank is taking more damage than your HoTs add up to, there is little a DoK can do to reverse this. On the other hand, if you ARE able to keep up, you can heal a tank for an infinite amount of time. What this means is that a DoK does very well in Public Quests, as you only need a tank class to handle the hero mob in phase 3, and eventually you can grind it down.

Playing a DoK in RvR is rather tricky. On the one hand, you need to be on the front line to do your job, but on the other hand focus fire melts you. Finding just the right moment to engage is key, as it must be after your tanks have draw attention, but not so long that you can’t support them with your HoTs and melee combo heal. The strength leech is also a very nice debuff to cut a hero mobs DPS down a bit, and give yourself or your tank a nice dps boost, perfect for holding agro. With some support, a DoK in scenarios does very well, keeping his team up while also dealing his fair share of damage. Simply put, you can’t ignore a DoK hitting you, but without focus fire you won’t be able to bring one down.

I’m really enjoying playing the DoK, and the mix of dps and healing is spot on. You never get the ‘heal bot’ feeling, and the dps is high enough that you can’t be ignored. The class also has some utility with buffs/debuffs/auras, but again in moderation so as not to become a buff-bot. Mythic created a great hybrid class, without the usual ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ that most hybrids suffer from. Hopefully the class remains interesting up to and during Rank 40, but so far so good!

Posted in Warhammer Online | 9 Comments

Sometimes waiting does not pay, and the coming war in Warhammer.

Posted on October 6, 2008 by SynCaine

The more jaded section of MMO veterans have an unspoken “3 month” rule for any new MMO, in that they wait until the early bugs are squashed before they buy and start playing. The first few months of any new MMO are always filled with patches, hot fixes, tweaks, and changes. Depending on how bad the MMO was at launch, the game 3 months later might be completely different, and entire classes might have been revamped. If you liked the original, and hate the revamp, that’s going to burn you hard.

But while in most MMO games being 3 months behind is fine, I wonder how that will play out in Warhammer Online. In 3 months tier 4 will be alive and active, and the intended ‘end game’ will be in full swing. The earlier tiers, while I’m guessing they will still be populated, assuming WAR continues on it’s early success and new players continue to sign up, will be viewed as the build up to the end game, rather than the actual focus like they are now. Currently, with the majority of the population still in tiers 1 and 2, the war in Warhammer is still focused on those earlier areas.

Skipping an MMO launch you naturally miss all of the ‘oh that’s new’ moments that happen in the first month or so, when everyone is new and still trying to get a feel for the game. Unique to WAR however is the buildup to tier 4, the feeling that you know at some point, city sieges will occur somewhat frequently and the focus of the game will dramatically shift from random Keep raids and scenarios to a focused, realm wide battle. For those leveling right now, going through the buildup, it’s similar to waiting for an MMO release. The closer you are the higher the excitement level, until that excitement turns to release and you finally ‘get in’.

For me, the minor bugs in Warhammer are nothing compared to the buildup, the feeling that at some point, on my server and all others, the real war in Warhammer will truly begin, and I can’t wait to be a peon on the front line, ready to die (often) for a chance to burn down Aldorf.

Posted in MMO design, PvP, Warhammer Online | 10 Comments

Warhammer Online patch 1.01 quick thoughts.

Posted on October 2, 2008 by SynCaine

New patch out today for WAR, and it has an impressive list of fixes. Not bad for one week, eh?

• Players no longer need to scroll down through the EULA when logging into the game. The window now defaults to the bottom, and players need only check the Agreement box and click accept.

This never bothered me as much as it did some, but I’ll take it.

• The war against the gold sellers continues! We have made improvements to the Appeal system to allow players to report spam messages from gold sellers more quickly.

I’ll have to actually see what they mean by this, but hopefully it’s something close to a right-click name / report feature like LoTRO has. The easier it is to report gold spammers, the higher the chance a player will do it.

• TAB-targeting should now more consistently select the nearest enemy in the player’s field of view.

This is actually a very nice change for me, as I change targets often as a DoK, both for new enemies and new healing targets. Anything that improves this and lets me focus more on doing my job, rather than making sure I’m targeting the correct person is a huge plus.

• Corrected an issue that was preventing players from adding new friends to their friend list even while the number of existing friends was below the list’s size limit.

Never noticed this issue, but a fix is a fix.

• Fixed the issue that was causing players to sometimes get stuck in a particular animation state.

Woot! So my DoK won’t be twisting in painful ways half the time now. Hopefully this also fixes the spell animation bug that at times would leave rocks at my feet, or a raven over my head. Very annoying to look at a flapping raven over your head for an hour.

• Monsters which change velocity while moving in combat should no longer return “Target is Out of Range” sometimes when attacked by players.

Sweet, hopefully this finally fixes the remaining mob pathing issues, which have been rather sparse since the infamous Preview Weekend pathing disaster.

• The /ignore command will now work more consistently.

I never got a ton of gold spam, but this will hopefully go a long way to help those with major spam issues.

• In response to player feedback, we have made improvements to player pet movement and behaviors.
• The Pet window should no longer disappear when its master is zoning or entering the game.

Yay for huntards… oh right, wrong game.

• We made many UI fixes including a new “autoloot” feature requested by many players.

We all knew it was coming, nice that it’s here in under two weeks. Wonder what the other UI fixes include. Hopefully the scenario group view has improved.

• Guild cloaks will now display their heraldry properly.

This was a bug…?

• We have made several improvements to the chat window, and it should now be more intuitive to use and set up. A number of chat window issues were resolved in the process. We are continuing to work on your requests about chat, with more improvements to come in the future.

Hopefully this change goes a long way to curing WAR of it’s terrible silence. I still think one of the reasons WAR is so silent is because the character downtime is so short, and usually you have something frantic to do (PQ influence, RvR), but the chat window certainly needed some love.

Overall a good start to the patching process. Tonight I’ll see it all for myself, and hopefully no new issues have been created by the patch. I’m just happy my DoK will stop twisting himself into a pretzel.

Posted in MMO design, Patch Notes, Warhammer Online | 4 Comments

The MMO space, and the oddballs that occupy it.

Posted on October 1, 2008 by SynCaine

Sorry for the lack of updates, but I guess when you just play an MMO and enjoy it, you don’t have a lot of blog-worthy stuff. Maybe I should pick up AoC….

Watching the blog space take in WAR has been somewhat interesting, in that if you knew nothing about MMO games you would think WAR was this alpha-status POS that everyone hates. On the flip side, if you are someone who has been around the MMO block a few times, you appreciate that the game actually works when it comes to being fun, and accept the fact that any new MMO is not going to have every last feature from all MMOs before it, while still scratching your head at some of the mistakes (no easy way to deal with gold spam, really?) I don’t think any other genre in gaming has quite the level of expectations or understanding that MMOs do. We both hate on the details and accept the major flaws, so odd…

Posted in MMO design, Warhammer Online | 7 Comments

Holding Warhammer Online’s Public Quests to a higher standard.

Posted on September 29, 2008 by SynCaine

One of the early issues to arise in Warhammer Online is the games high reliance on population numbers, and the great importance they play in things like PQs. If you don’t have enough players in the area, they don’t function as planned, and in turn are viewed as wasted content. What I find somewhat surprising is that WAR gets a lot of criticism on this subject, when it reality it is nothing new to MMO games.

Public Quests are in a lot of ways basically re-interfaced group quests. PQs offer higher rewards than normal quests, just like group quests do in other MMOs. PQs require a group, again the same as group quests. The major difference is they are more ‘in your face’, as anytime you walk into a PQ area, the interface instantly tells you about it and shows you the current status and progress being made. Group quests just sit in your quest log, and are far easier to ignore and drop.

This is also true when you compare instanced dungeons to PQs. Both again require a group, and give generally higher rewards while having you face generally more interesting monsters. But like group quests, instanced dungeons don’t yell ‘enter me’ when you are within 100 yards of them, nor do they say ‘hey only 4 more kills and it’s phase 2, finish me!’ If you are a solo-only MMO player, you can skip instances and group quests and never really notice the missed content, while that is next to impossible in WAR.

It’s natural to feel that sense of loss when you can’t get a group for a PQ, especially because they offer a great experience when you DO have a group. But it’s somewhat unfair to hold PQs to some ‘higher standard’ then we do group quests or instanced content, especially because WAR offers such easy to use grouping tools.

Another issue, in my opinion of course, is the shunning of group content until the level cap. Blizzard removed almost all group quests in WoW pre-70, and added solo-friendly methods of acquiring dungeon quality loot pre-70 as well. This teaches many MMO players, especially the WoW-only crowd, that you play 1-69 solo, and then get to the ‘good stuff’ once you ‘grind out’ the level game. In WAR, you are doing the fun stuff right away, and you should not feel the need to grind out 39 Ranks to get to the real stuff. Old habits are tough to break however, and I feel too many players are trying to play WAR is if it’s WoW, and it’s just a completely different setup.

Personally I’ve almost never had an issue with PQs and finding a group, but part of that is due to being in a large guild full of people always looking to help out. Just yesterday we got 10 or so players together and completed all three of the PQs for Chapter 7 of the Dark Elf lands. The design of WAR once again comes through, in that all 10 members were able to quickly fly over to the area, and within a few minutes we were good to go. No quest sharing, no ‘I’m not on that part of the chain’, no race/class/group size barriers. Just join up, fly over, and start earning experience, money, influence, and bag item rewards. We had a great time, and people were able to join us midway through, as well as drop out at any time and still get something for their efforts. Simply put, the ‘barrier of entry’ for group content in WAR is as low as possible, it’s up to the players to adjust now and figure it out.

Posted in MMO design, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | 19 Comments

We talk bugs, but we play greatness.

Posted on September 26, 2008 by SynCaine

The never-ending debate about how ‘done’ a game needs to be before it’s shipped is often seen on blogs or gaming forums. We all know it’s impossible to ship a perfect game, as even the most rock solid titles have kinks and minor errors, yet we still expect that perfection. Or if not perfection, we expect OUR gaming experience to be near-perfect. As long as OUR video card works, it’s ok. As long as the servers are up during OUR gaming time, it’s ok. Any error is a minor error until it affects us, and then it’s ‘ZOMG THE GAME SUX!’

Warhammer Online had a great launch by MMO standards. The servers were up, the game was very playable, and most features worked. The average gamer was able to log in, create a character, and go off to enjoy a PQ, RvR, Scenarios, or just good old questing, without really noticing anything seriously weird. In MMO land, on day one, that’s very rare.

But WAR is not without it’s flaws, it is an MMO after all. The auction house is there, but actually getting what you want is more difficult than it should be. Crafting is in the game, but is somewhat lacking and uninspiring. PQs are terrific, but some are far too easy, while others are amazingly difficult, and the whole risk/reword ratio is a bit off at times. I’m sure you could name other issues as well.

It’s easy to forget, especially if you read the forums, that the most important thing in WAR, RvR, works. And not only does it work, it works so well it can be called revolutionary. Not because it features a new gameplay style, or because it has an all new, all awesome combat system, or because it has jaw dropping graphics. It’s revolutionary because it pulls MMO players away from solo grinding quests, gets them into groups, and keeps them fighting with there realm/guild mates for hours on end, against other players doing the exact same thing. It’s not about a flawlessly scripted raid encounter you finally mastered and defeated, it’s about that player on the other side saving a Keep by dumping burning oil on half your guild. It’s about raising your guild’s banner on a Keep after an epic 2 hour battle, a battle decided by clever strategy and not who has the most epics. It’s about logging on, asking what’s going on in guild chat, and actually having people respond with invites and not ‘the raid is full’ or ‘we don’t need that class’ or ‘you’re too low for that’.

So while we might bitch (it’s what we do!) about the side stuff being broken or in need of a tweak, the fact is we can still log in, ask what’s going on, and get sucked into a great social gaming experience night in and night out, instead of putting in more time ‘grind x’ to reach some carrot we never really wanted in the first place. And while the idea of gaming with others got lost for a bit during the solo-MMO reign, I for one am glad social MMO gaming is back in the forefront!

Posted in MMO design, PvP, RvR, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | 8 Comments

RvR joy comes in the form of burning death.

Posted on September 24, 2008 by SynCaine

Videocard update: (if you are sick of hearing about it, image how sick I am of dealing with it) Went to Best Buy with the 9600GT that was purchased about 2-3 months ago in the hopes of exchanging it. The girl working the return counter gave me some crap about it being beyond 30 days (she was right…) and that I did not have a receipt. Playing dumb, I said all I wanted was to exchange it as that one was faulty (clearly it was), and finally she agreed. Off I go to grab the last 9600GT by BFG Tech, and once back ask if it’s at all possible to get a different model because I don’t want to risk the new one being faulty. She talks to another employee (and this kid had NO clue what was going on, but faked it anyway), he agreed, and back we go to grab a 9800GT by BFG Tech instead of the 9600GT. Price difference was $80 due to the 9600GT being on sale at some point for $150 and not the $180 I paid for it before, and the 9800GT was $229. Sucks to pay a bit more, but I was just glad they were letting me exchange the 9600GT for something else, when they clearly could have said GTFO and had me deal with BFG Tech to send it back for a new one. Got home, put the card in, drivers done, played WAR for about an hour without an issue. Too early to say 100% that the comp is going to play nice now, but so far so good.

Switching computers (the one with the issue is the older one, and hooked up to a 21″ monitor, the newer is my Alienware hooked to the 24″ beauty) I logged in as my warrior priest, and as usual in WAR, RvR was going down. A quick /join, followed by a short flight over to the Dwarf/Greenskin tier 2 area and it was time to get down to business. Casualties of War had a nice sized warband going, sieging a keep as I got there. With minimal resistance, the keep soon fell and our banner went up on the walls.

The group then flew over to Troll Country (Empire T2) and started capping objectives. Slightly more resistance this time, but still not enough to stop us, and soon enough another keep was ours. It’s at this point that things got interesting. More Destruction players were showing up in the RvR area, and for a while they were unorganized small groups that got rolled by our warband. Objectives secured, we turned our attention to the second keep, and noticed it was swarming with Destruction players, both on the walls and in front of the gate. We laid siege, deploying cannons and clearing out the space in front of the gate. It was tough going, as the Destruction players rained death on us from the walls, both with their own siege and with their ranged dps classes. They would also skirmish out from the keep with melee classes, breaking up any momentum we had going on the keep gate.

The back and forth bloodbath lasted for about 30 minutes, at which point the tide looked to be turning in our favor. We had the entire space around the gate cleared, and our ranged dps was doing a good job keeping the enemy on the walls busy. Lacking a ram for the door, myself and 7-8 other CoW members began beating on the keep door, getting it to about 60% in short order. And then we died. Quickly. In the span of about 2-3 seconds, all of us save the Ironbreaker lay dead at the keep door, burning oil covering us. Seems the Destruction players had a trick up their sleeves, and we paid the price. After that moment we never really recovered, and while we kept at the siege for a bit longer, we never managed to get another good push at the gate, let alone take it down.

That single moment, dying rapidly at the keep gate from burning oil, has been the highlight of WAR for me so far. It was just an extremely in-your-face example of RvR, Keep sieges, guild groups, all that stuff working together to make one of those amazing MMO moments. Right after it happened, instead of hitting release and running back, I just looked at the screen, the bodies laying around me, the siege in the background still firing away, the Destruction players on the walls raining death, and the keep door defiantly still standing. Pure MMO awesome.

Posted in MMO design, RvR, Warhammer Online | 4 Comments