WAR Update 1.1 - Black Guard Arrival and MOAR

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Khel
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WAR Update 1.1 - Black Guard Arrival and MOAR

Post by Khel »

Mark Jacobs and The Dev Team wrote:Warhammer Online Patch 1.1 Preview

Folks,

After over three years of work and one of the smoothest launches in MMORPG history, WAR is moving quickly towards the end of its first month. This is a perfect time to take a look at where we were, where we are and where we are going. First, on behalf of everyone at Mythic, I would like to thank you for your interest in our game. While it is impossible for me to personally thank all 750K+ worldwide account holders, please know that we are grateful for your support to date and the support we hope you will show us in the future. It’s been a long road to get where we are today but it has been a worthwhile journey. While I might be tempted to say that the future’s so bright we have to wear shades, as you’ve seen from our podcasts, we’ll even wear those indoors.

So, as to where we are today, WAR is doing fabulously. We are one of, if not the, fastest selling MMORPG out of the blocks and we are also one of the most highly rated MMORPGs of all time. While the game is off to a great start, we still have a long way to go before we can declare WAR a major long-term success. That success will only come by being focused on making a great game even better. How we are going to accomplish this begins with our first major patch (1.1), the subject of this State of the Game message.

While WAR is truly a glorious MMORPG, it is not perfect and over the last month our primary focus has been to correct bugs and tweak a few things here and there. We’ve stayed away from major feature or career changes until we’ve had plenty of time to gather and analyze the data from our players. Having done that, we can now move on to what we are going to do over the next couple of months, culminating with the release of patch 1.1 later this Fall.




Let’s start with what we know is some truly exciting news. I’m happy to announce that in December, the Black Guard and the Knight of the Blazing Sun will officially be part of WAR. We have very special plans around their appearance and in our next newsletter we will provide full details about that exciting and rather novel event. When they were cut from the game launch plans earlier this year, I said that the Black Guard and the Knight would be part of WAR only when they were great and deserved their place alongside all of WAR’s other compelling classes.

I also said that we would not charge any additional fees for this new content or put it in a separate expansion pack; that’s not how we operate. We’ve kept to that plan and with the introduction of these two classes, Mythic shows that once again we are happy to keep giving players more value for their subscription dollars than any other MMORPG developer.

Creating an MMORPG, especially an RvR-focused MMORPG, which runs perfectly on all types of PCs, is one of the most challenging technical aspects of game development. While the performance of WAR is great on most higher spec machines, we know that we can improve its performance on lower spec machines. We’ve been working non-stop to improve that performance and we’ve got a number of things going into the game between now and 1.1 that we expect will help to address everything from crashes to desktops (CTDs) to stuttering. We have a number of other client changes that will improve things such as propagation and ghosting.

Thanks in part to WAR’s success; our mail system that worked well in Beta has been straining to keep up with the heavy demand placed on it. It’s functional and it works, but it can also be slow and cumbersome to use. In all fairness to the team, the system’s problems have been magnified by the demand of having so many servers and players using it at the same time.

That’s not an excuse though and we are working hard on deploying a substantially improved mail system for this patch. We will continue to enhance WAR’s mail system until it is one of the best mail systems found in any MMORPG.

Moving on to some more good news for our RvR players; we have brought additional resources to bear on, and augment, our RvR gear and overall itemization.

In 1.1 (and beyond) we will be doing a myriad of things for our RvR players, including improving gear drops, increasing drop rates, and implementing an RvR-influence system to compliment the current PvE-influence system. We will also be giving players more incentive to engage in open RvR by improving the rewards for both assaulting and defending in RvR. WAR is an RvR-centric game and we will continue to do whatever is necessary to encourage people to join in RvR and reward them when they do so.

Other changes for 1.1 include major additions to the chat system (item linking and more) as well as continued work on our targeting system, including adding Main Assist and Target of Target. In addition to the server balancing methods that have worked so well over the last week, we will also be offering the first server transfers to our players to continue to help even out the server populations. These transfers will be free of charge but they will be limited to moves off high-population servers to select mid-population servers or off of low-population servers to a selection of mid-population servers.

Much like we are doing now, we will select certain mid-population servers and let people transfer there. Once they reach a certain population level, we’ll remove them from the list and give their spot to another server. We will publish the list ahead of time so players can plan their moves accordingly.

While that might seem like a lot for a month, we’re not done yet! We’ll also be adding more exciting content to the game, including fourteen entirely new quest chains, two new Lairs, and many more Tome of Knowledge unlocks! This is only the first of what will be our ongoing content updates to WAR and it is a great start.

So, that about wraps it up for this first annual State of the Game, so without further ado…

Okay, so I was joking, we’re still not done. Over the last month the team has been looking at all the careers and building up a list of issues/concerns to address. Almost every career is going to see some changes and love coming their way and there are very, very few changes that will be seen as reductions to a career’s abilities.

The Combat and Careers team has spent the last month looking at the changes that they want to make with an eye towards making improvements and buffs, not removing or weakening abilities. I won’t go into details here but the vast majority of careers all have nothing but love coming their way. Of course, we will continue to monitor and track all the class data so expect, like every other MMORPG, changes to the careers to be an ongoing process.

Well, that just about wraps my first WAR State of the Game and I hope that it has given you some insight into what we are going to be doing over the next month or so.

This is by no means a comprehensive list of everything we are working on and I won’t go anywhere near talking about general bug fixes. The items mentioned above are just some of the highlights of our first major patch and I hope you agree that there is a ton of good stuff coming down the pipeline.

As required by lawyers everywhere, here’s the usual disclaimer that this letter is a guide to what we hope to include in this upcoming patch and not a guarantee of any kind. We are working on many things right now and my letters, as always, are just the tip of the iceberg.

Fellow WARriors, we have a lot more big surprises coming your way that I will address in my next State of the Game message and it’s going to be a doozie.

Once again, I thank you for your support, patronage and interest in WAR.

Mark Jacobs

VP, GM Mythic Entertainment


(Paragraphed and spaced for your convenience)

Eat it up kiddies!

HUZZAH!

Thanks to Iskiab for a general heads up.
Saldrimek Xenan - WS6 / S4 / T3 / D5 / I3

Equipment: Executioners Axe (Rune of Beastslaying - Heroic Killing Blow), 2 Scimitars (Rune of Speed - Always Strike First), Dagger, Rune Branded Leather Armour, Executioner Helm, Fine Set of Throwing Knives (x4)
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Post by Dreske »

I’m happy to announce that in December, the Black Guard and the Knight of the Blazing Sun will officially be part of WAR.


And there was much rejoicing!
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Highborn on black dragon
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Post by Highborn on black dragon »

Am I the only one disturbed by the fact that there are female Black Guards and that Mythic are seriously screwing with our fluff?
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Post by Lordanubis »

I'm curious. Does it honestly matter that there are female Black Guards or male sorcerers? Does it affect people's enjoyment of the game that much?
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Dalamar
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Post by Dalamar »

Neither female black guard nor male sorcerers screw up our fluff...
so where's the problem?

Give me one indication from GW that Black Guard are *just* male.
They're not, they're infants (sex not mentioned) taken from their noble homes to serve Malekith.
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Post by Crawd »

I don't see any problem with Female Black Guards.

On a side note, I don't know if this patch will save WAR but I know that it won't bring me back to WAR. I cancelled my account because of the lack of players... I may return if things change but for now, I quit.
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Post by Kiatra »

it was the 'lack of players' the server transfers maybe was implemented to handle, the paragraph about 'free migration' is how they're likely saying we overestimated how many servers we needed at startup...
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Post by Dalamar »

Actually they already said, they underestimated the capacity of their own servers and launched with more than they really needed. So once the population more or less settled, even the most populated servers could still handle more.

They might remove a couple now after those rounds of free transfers and that's good. this game needs massive population to be fun where it counts.

Crawd wrote:I don't know if this patch will save WAR


Uhm... save? save from what? considering the biggest MMO in the world just launched an expansion pack... WAR is doing amazingly well.
Just look at AoC (the other recent MMO) for an MMO that needs saving.
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8th Edition army book W/D/L:
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Post by Khel »

This thread certainly flared up. Female Black Guard doesn't breach any fluff rules, I've never heard or read anywhere that a Black Guard can only be male. Yes, I would say there is a majority with males. But I can easily see females within the Black Guard.
Saldrimek Xenan - WS6 / S4 / T3 / D5 / I3

Equipment: Executioners Axe (Rune of Beastslaying - Heroic Killing Blow), 2 Scimitars (Rune of Speed - Always Strike First), Dagger, Rune Branded Leather Armour, Executioner Helm, Fine Set of Throwing Knives (x4)
Inventory: Amulet of Darkness, Poison Vials x7, Deadly Poison Vials x8
Mount: Dark Steed
Gold: 163
Skills: Ambidexterity, Frenzy, Two Weapon Fighting, Ride
Class: Khainite
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Post by Raneth »

Still hoping for a male Witch Elf patch (Assassin).
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Post by Dalamar »

Raneth wrote:Still hoping for a male Witch Elf patch (Assassin).


stop hoping then. it really won't happen. There isn't even a slightest indication of it happening.
7th edition army book:
Games Played: 213
Games Won: 114 (54%)
Games Drawn: 33 (15%)
Games Lost: 66 (31%)

8th Edition army book W/D/L:
Druchii: 36/4/16
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Post by Anglakhel »

Highborn on Black Dragon wrote:Am I the only one disturbed by the fact that there are female Black Guards and that Mythic are seriously screwing with our fluff?


There is no official source material for Warhammer that states the Black Guard are male only, to the best of my knowledge. Considering the explicit mention of women being considered as equals amongst druchii soldiers, it stands to reason that the Witch King would be willing to have his personal guard drawn from both male and female infants.

The primary source for the idea of male only Black Guard is the criticalhit website. In the description of the Black Guard there it states they are male only and all other children in the family must be slain as a sacrifice.

Again, criticalhit is not official and introduces all manner of ideas that conflict with Games Workshops published material throughout the years. While the ideas are evocative and interesting at times, they are by no means the final say on druchii custom and culture.
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Post by Dalamar »

heh, that critical hit idea is silly really. No one would give their kids to Malekith if they *also* had to kill all others.

Black Guard are trained from infants given *voluntarily* to Malekith in hopes of gaining his favour (which obviously doesn't always work).
7th edition army book:
Games Played: 213
Games Won: 114 (54%)
Games Drawn: 33 (15%)
Games Lost: 66 (31%)

8th Edition army book W/D/L:
Druchii: 36/4/16
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Post by Anglakhel »

I completely agree, Dalamar. There is no way the most powerful druchii Houses would sacrifice entire families to get their first-born sons selected to serve the Black Guard.

It sounds like a "serious" idea, but when you try and give it some context and imagine how it might affect a society, the idea falls down completely.

There is no way the Black Guard could possible sustain a full military regiment with those requirements for its recruits. First born sons of the greatest noble Houses AND all other children of the family must be sacrificed?

How are you going to find more than a few hundred Guard, much less fill twenty towers with recruits? It's already a tall order when we're told the Black Guard savagely struggle against one another with huge mortality rates through the training. It's just not at all plausible.
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Post by Rabidnid »

Highborn on Black Dragon wrote:Am I the only one disturbed by the fact that there are female Black Guards and that Mythic are seriously screwing with our fluff?


Why shouldn't there be female black guard?

Malus kept tripping over competent, violent, females evereywhere he went in the books so their isn't any physical reason whay they shouldn't be in the Black Guard. Did Malakith make a decree to keep females out of the Black Guard as he did the Convents?

I don't see any issue with it myself.
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Post by Arkazath »

i know this is kinda threadomancy, but i have a point on male sorceres stuff. it was mentioned in this thread.

there is no fluff against male sorcerers. yes malekith doesnt like them, and yes he damn near wants most of them killed. however, if they could boost his millitary numbers of the convents, and then be killed as per stated in the DE prolouge in game, i don't see a problemo.
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