June 26, 2009

Loading WAR...

The LotD hit WAR and i figured its time to go back into the game and get a look for myself what going on, if i should keep my subscription active and get back playing or not. First thing was an "orgy" of patches and updating addons, which nearly gave me a headache. I'm still in the process to set up my UI again, since a few mods i used for hotkeys etc. are not working anymore i have to redo it completely, meh. When i logged into the game the first things i checked out was the enhanced bag space (nice!) and the new ward system. Hmm.. at least its very viable for me to get the Darkpromise Wards without getting the drop. At least something... Although i saw so many people running around in Invader gear and even bits of Warlord, it would take ages for me to get the required renown level. If i understood right you need to equip the gear to get the ward, right? Just having a warlord item in my inventory won't be enough, or? I checked the AH if there were any new items to buy, but nothing of interest for me. Of course due to me not login into the game for such a long time all my mailbox stuff (loads!) decayed and is gone. Ah well, i still have enough gold left to get back on my feets and due to some recent bugs that made it possible to make thousands of gold coins easily i hear the inflation is hitting WAR badly anyway atm. Probably as there is not much else to buy with gold still. Strangely one of my characters got "duplicated", i have no idea why and its just a low level with not much stuff on him (8g, yay!).

I traveled to the Land of the Dead and checked out the "starter area" but due to my UI being messed up so badly i could not go on further. I'll have to fix that first and hopefully will have some time during the weekend to have a proper look.

What happened in the meantime? Mark Jacobs left Mythic. A lot - and i mean a LOT - of WAR blogs closed their sites due to people not playing anymore. GOA did send some bloggers letters, finally, like the US did, maybe the less and less blogs are the reason it was only three blogs? Well, we will see how this translates over the near future, but i was quite shocked to see so many blogs close. People lost interest, time or are waiting for Aion (I only had a brief look and could not decide yet if that would appeal to me). What is the status about the EU merchandise programs or even the announced WAR veteran program? Anyone knows? Is there anything important to know for crafting or a Black Orc that happened during the last two month? If so, feel free to share with me and point me into the right direction to get me up to speed again.. ;)

Edit: Talking about Aion, i just saw that Eurogamer is handing out keys for the next beta-weekend. Check here. In the comments is a link that will let you download the client before.

6 comments:

Slurms said...

Welcome back!

I look forward to your opinions on the LotD Thulf.

James said...

Read this:
http://herald.warhammeronline.com/warherald/NewsArticle.war?id=843

Either you'll like what you see and want to see how it plays out, or you'll decide that's too little too late and go your way.

Some folks are complaining that LotD has destroyed RvR, but with only 3 days of actual playtime in there, I still think it's too early to tell what the long run implications will be.

And finally, I stopped updating my blog because I was too busy playing WAR. YMMV

Grimnir said...

LotD has made some seriously game-changing inroads to the battlefields of WAR. So far on my server at least, the zerg warfare has died off quite a bit. Whereas it used to be 3 warbands taking a zone at a minimum, it's down to 1-1/2 or 2 at the most. Skirmishing in the desert is always more common that zerging through PQ's, as they're really only built for around 10 players. More than that and people miss out on rewards.

Crafting has changed again. Some things are simpler, Liniments last only 30m, all crafted Talismans are permanent, and there's more level requirements. There's a bunch of new stuff in LotD to craft with, but they cost a good amount of Scarabs (LotD Medallions).

I think a week or two into the release will really show how this will play out. Hope you're enjoying your time back!

Raclaw said...

Hey Thulf! Raclaw your old Tank colleague here :)

You should check out Aion if you can. Its quite good, though it could use some better character customization as theres no actual talents tree for the classes. The thing that really appealed to me when I logged in on the first beta event with like 300 people in the starter area and max graphics was... No lag what so ever, and thats a feat alot of mmo's cant compete on.

Ailuridae said...

yea raclaw, that's probably because the graphics are essentially texture magic only. The 3d modelling/animation outside of characters is horrific.
Personally after playing the ripoff that is lineage 2 (which Aion merely looks a clone of + few extra shinies) and seeing how NCSoft fucked over the player/fanbase because it wasn't a 'smash hit' like L2. There is no way in hell I'm supporting such a shoddy label. They make SOE look good.

Thulf said...

Yo Raclaw!

I got a beta key for the upcoming weekendevent, so i'll check it out. ;)