StuntyStomper (Choppa) back in business

It's been quite a while since i played my Choppa. Initially i started him to try out the Choppa (yeah, i like Orcs in WAR) and to set him up as a proper AoE Butcher-Collector. During the last three days i played him again. The initial setup (hotbars etc.) was a pain and after weeks you feel quite "rusty", but its easy enough to get back into the proper fighting style again. I started him again after we realized we don't really have an active Butcher in the guild anymore. Less talking more chopping i fired up my Choppa and a guildmate dragged me through LotD where i quickly advanced from 160 to 200 butchering. Talking about butchering: Anyone got a good spot to butcher high-lvl hero/champ mobs for 200 armor ingredients? Poke me. ;) I leveled Stuntystomper up to r31 so far. Its fun for a while to be able to quest again and have something to do (not so much on my main since there is zero solo content for high-levels once you reached a certain threshold). Playing the Choppa is fun, but after some time it feels like a grind to go through the content again - which basicly is the same in every MMO. Of course you see a few new things every now and then or take a different approach.

I tried to quest/kill as high above my level as possible for the additional challenge. Depending on the mobs i can easily kill 2-3 that are 4-5 ranks above me. I'm surprised how much rested XP my Choppa got... seems to be a few levels worth all in all. Very nice, speeds up things a lot. If you are rank 30/31 here is a hint for you if you want to grind mobs for XP: Inside the Sacellum Arena are lots of 34-38 mobs with a very fast respawn timer. Many of them fight each other inside the arena. The XP given from them seems to be a bit shaky tho: If you kill mobs that are already damaged by another NPC - usually (not always dunno why) you get the full XP as if you'd have killed it all by yourself. Since the mobs roam around you have to be very careful and look behind you, but its a great place to grind a few levels. Also I'd like to mention the rank 31 weapons from LotD are uber for that level. Grabbing a few silver scarabs is very easy (you get bolstered in LotD to r36) and the weapons have high DPS plus talisman slots. Grab those, its cheap! Overall its been fun to deal with my Choppa again since it feels like you can develop your character and are eager for the next skill or the next gear upgrade you can use.

This weekend is another beta event for the Aion MMO. I'll try to play some more to get a better feeling for a few things and the game in general. If you're waiting for the beta to start, check this status page to see about servers. There is also a nice trailer for the new 1.5 content. In addition, should you have problems with the download speed for the latest patch, here you can find some mirrors to speed things up.

Ragbag with Choppa and EU Forums

Tonight will be the EU dev chat on IRC. We'll probably be in Lost Vale so i won't attend and i assume someone will post a transcript. I don't really expect anything major new, but its nice the chat is taking place. We'll see how the Mythic developers will influence the EU forum later on.

My Choppa Stuntystomper is meanwhile rank 23. Soonish I'll see if i can gather a group for Mount Gunbad. Since we have access to the direct MG teleport scrolls, it should be easier to convince people. Despite having an easier time to move around with the Choppa due to Charge & Sprint, i'm glad i can use a mount meanwhile. Since so many players create alts at the moment, you can sell all the greens you find during your adventures for easy money at the AH. I think my Choppa alone made around 70g and i dye every piece of armor i wear and spend enough for gear at the AH and bought my mount etc. Since this is a ragbag i won't go too much into detail about my Choppa now, but intend to write a longer post about him in the upcoming days. One particular post i found useful: Choppa Influence Reward List

The super-screenshot feature is still broken. Until Mythic fixes it i won't create any further wallpapers, just not worth the time. I PMed Andy (Mythic CM) more than a week ago about it but did get zero response back from him, not even a simple "no idea". From my experience with the community teams so far Mythic vs GOA is 0:1 I've to say. Maybe the US CMs are too busy sending out USB drives with pictures, who knows. *shrugs*

Finally i was able to log into the new official EU forums. Apparently its possible to use some html code, which is nice. If you need pointers how to edit your signature or post pictures, check those guides people posted. If you need html color codes check here. Did you realize there are server forums, they're just not expanded by default? EU EN server forums here. BTW, if you want to edit your message you need to use the options menu to the upper right of your post, from what i saw at the forum many users missed it. The waaagh button apparently is a way to say a certain post was a good contribution, possibly some way to try and track good posts/posters for GOA.

Tip of the Day: After Mythic enhanced the quest log to two pages there is a problem at a certain point when new quests don't show up as marked areas on your map. Looks like the quest tracker can only show quests for one page, but not two. So make sure you eg. untick the ones not in your area and then sort quests after the zone column and check the ones you would like to track.

Choppa Fire Sale in T1

Yesterday evening the servers came back up and everyone wanted to try out the Choppa & Slayer. Everyone? Holy Moly... everyone and their mother! T1 was insanely busy yesterday night. There were so many Choppas running around it was awesome. Downside was the mailsystem stopped working at all in T1 greenskin zone, i had to fly to the Inevitable City to take some stuff out - mailbox there was working properly. The first PQ behaved irratic as well with all the people standing around, the last bodyguards bugged out and were running around before you could attack them. Took a while but then they could be killed. Stuff died so fast: You're not eligible for loot. *lol*

We were running several groups for scenarios and luckily some guildies decided to create healer alts. BTW, we're in the process of a guild merger, but I'll write more about this some other time. Going back into the Ekrund scenario or Nordenwatch was really fun, has been a while for me. Doing the newbie quests, running scenarios and afterwards doing all the quests in the Inevitable City gave my Choppa, called Stuntystomper, enough XP for rank 9. And seriously, a minute after i took the screenshot i got shoulders. One thing i noticed, Mythic fixed a bunch of bugs and odd behaviour on the starter quests since i ran them with Thulf. For example when you have to bait a wolf in the woods and before people could attack him when he started running for you, but now he only becomes aggressive once he reaches that bait.

Funny to see are all the people that wear the promotional hats, masks and everything else you can put on your head. Until you're high rank enough to wear the first helmet with stats it doesn't matter. Looks great as people look so different. I also like the fact they enabled the "paint"-tattoos, which make the Choppas look like Savage Orcs. Although it seems to many watched Lord of the Rings and 50% of the Choppas are running around with their face painted white. Annoying was the spam in region chat. Sheesh... every second player was so excited he had to spam the chat how he'll chop some stunties or what a badass his Choppa is. I turned region chat off after 20 seconds into Mt. Bloodhorn. Overall it was a very fun evening and it seems to be a great time to level an alt.

Since the promotional Choppa/Slayer heads for EU are still MIA, I got another idea in my head. Maybe I'll find the time tonight to do it, we'll see... and yes, i will tell you about it once its done. ;) I hope i can chop some stunties together with Regis from Wizards & Wenches, as he rolled a Choppa on my server. Yes, its mine... i paid for it.

Ragbag & Bitter Rivals

Since the EU servers crashed completely (again) and we're stuck at the initializing screen since quite a while, i thought i'll update my blog with a new ragbag. Some of the pics are from wierd bugs i encountered after patch 1.2, seems it was just temporary glitches tho as i did not encounter them again.

Talking about glitches: On Karak-Azgal a group encountered a weird bug... they wiped at the skeleton sub-boss in BWE and afterwards the tank had an aura that attacked friendly mobs. After some killing of other players and aggroing the large ancient protector bird inside IC, this resulted in killing the whole leadership crew inside the Eternal Citadel. He wanted to become king instead of the king. Forum thread is here and there is a youtube video as well. I thought this was funny, worldfirst kill of a king. Although IMO now we have to shoot him, being a traitor to Destruction and all... i know others had the bug as well and some got suspended for abusing it to kill other players.

The Bitter Rivals live event is close to an end, so better finish the remaining tasks now if you want to flag your account for Choppa/Slayer access or want those titles. To flag your account with max event INF you can leave two tasks out. The Twisting Tower scenario had some really good ideas in it (base jumping, transformation, etc.) but the layout could have been better IMO. The Reikland Factory had a very good layout concerning access to all parts. Did you know that you can just jump off the tower if you want to keep your transformed state a tad longer? With the pie throwing back in game, its also possible again to obtain the two titles "Pie Assassin" (killing blow with a pie) and "Death by Pie" (get killed by pie).

The live event overall was okayish i would say, but i really wish Mythic will put some more work into the event tasks. Its the same boring stuff all over again most of the time. I know some kill tasks and collect tasks are designed to draw people into oRvR and try out the new scenario, but why not come up with something more unique? It would be easy to spice up some tasks with scripted events. Like the Slayer/Choppa attacks, but a bit more. Beside the cool "Stuntie Stompa" title, i thought the "treasure map hunt" was a great addition. There are three different map pieces to obtain: Bloodstained Map Piece, Glyph-covered Map Piece and Sand-stained Map Piece - those you can get in RvR, from some champ/hero mobs and also from the Slayer/Choppa NPCs that roam the greenskin zones. Once you finished the map, you can use it to start a small quest chain. At the end of the quests you'll get the title "Navigator of the Sands" and the final map as a pocket item, that does nothing (yet?). Would be cool if the map will obtain some kind of function once the Land of the Dead zone is released.

What more to mention about Bitter Rivals? The Slayer/Choppa NPCs can also drop a Broken Axe, using it will give you the title "Oathrender".
A sidenote on the Stinky Troll Bait reward (from event INF): When you use it (has 5 charges) it will generate an extra item inside your bag, called Boulder Throwing Troll - that is a huge kickass troll "siege engine", throwing boulders. Awesome! I have this idea stuck in my head about using those for an ingame game called Bouldertroll™, maybe I'll work on this further. ;) Just don't use it before you need it, else you'll be stuck with additional items. I used one and they look really cool (see picture). The Choppa/Slayer NPCs can also drop Redfang Grog sometimes.

Meanwhile the EU got a 10 days trial offer for WAR as well. Makes me wonder if/how we'll be able to get access to those recruit-a-friend pets the US has. If GOA works out a similar program for the EU *after* the trial offer, it will be hard to get those as people will have used the trial offer already. Hum...

While i haven't engaged in any capitol combat after patch 1.2 i hear some rumours about the first PQ acting very shaky and the boss mobs being a bit overpowered now.

There has been some heated discussion about the pick lock ability (you can bypass the postern door) in addition with the banner rez, as apparently some people exploited it and rez people inside the keep when all doors are still strong. Having an additional rez ability at hand for non-healer classes can be nice sometimes, especially in PvE. The main ingredient for the new rez potion meanwhile cost 15g at the guild vendor. I doubt i like anyone enough to spend that much gold on them. ;)

Should you not have realised it yet: Everyone can meanwhile read the official US Warhammer forums. They are still "beta" and some layout/color scheme issues IMO need to be improved, but at least they work alright from the looks of it. My personal guess is we'll have to wait until they move out of beta before the EU gets their own forums.

With patch 1.2 there are some addons that stopped working or some function that were disabled by Mythic. Luckily many of them got fixed to work properly: zMailMod broke with the patch. I saw this coming and cleaned up my mailboxes before the 1.2 patch. But rejoice: Despite z00g not playing WAR anymore, he uses a trial account right now to fix the mod. The first version is up already, tho the mass collecting function seemed shaky to me, not sure if it was the mod or the mailserver. If you're a cultivator, you should check out the new & improved version of Miracle Grow Remix from Irinia, which has some awesome improvements like queueing additives and such. Also check out the thread with the latest beta version here. If you use Crafting Info Tooltip, there is a beta version (with eg. the new seeds included) available here.

Talking about addons, i found this addon recently: Bloody Mess. The mod adds a gore effect to all damage done and received. While i don't use it myself i thought its creative nontheless. :)

On a personal sidenote: I started trading 175/200 apothecary mats for rare hybrid plants. If you're interested to acquire some of those plants you don't have access to, especially being a Butcher, poke me if you want. Maybe we can work something out.

Did anyone else noticed that apparently the super-screenshot feature stopped working? WHY? *sobs*

Grab Da Choppa! - Wallpapers

Since the EU players are waiting for the 1.2 patch to be applied, what can you do in the meantime? Maybe clean up your desktop and apply a new wallpaper? Since so many players are eager to get their hands on the Choppa, i used the last day on the PTS and created a few Choppa wallpapers from the rank 40 templates that were provided. The wallpapers are not panorama style, but i created them with the super-screenshot feature and they still should be high enough quality to be usable. Enjoy!





You can download the large files containing 1920x1200 and 1600x1200 versions here (choose free user).

PTS Patch 1.2: Guild Crafting Materials and High Guild Rank Mounts

Tonight on the EU PTS a larger zone domination test was organized. As part of it, GOA created a guild (highest rank) and people could join it. While i had no time to stick around for the RvR, i managed to sneak into the guild long enough to check out all the guild benefits you can buy from the guild vendor. The first screenshot collage shows you all the mats you can buy from the guild vendor (those need different guild ranks) and in addition some potions you can brew with those mats. The rez potion (cost you 62.44s in mats) is really cool - being a standard bearer i can also rez with the banner, but could prove useful. You also see that the snare potions are not fixed and the resulting potion will always have the same effect. In addition to what you can see on the screenshot you'll be able to buy different seeds (only different in level not in type from what you get at every other vendor) and also different containers and curios for talisman makers.


Now the juicy stuff: New guild rank mounts! Since the test guild "Eternal Destruction" was of the highest rank, not only could we buy the guild rank 25 mounts, but also the new improved mounts (faster & lower dismount chance) you can get at guild rank 37. The mounts you can buy from the guild vendor have three additional colors and the faster ones are slightly armored, but have the same color then the other ones from the guild vendor. While normal mounts have 50% speed increase, the armored ones have a 60% speed. So people don't need to worry that it will make such a difference in RvR. 10% is not that much tho, we had a short race and it was a tad faster, but not very. Here are the pics of all the guild rank Orc boars:





The cost of 150g is really cheap for the better mounts IMO. It's just that guild rank 37 is not that fast to reach. Thirst is at rank 29 currently, still some levels to make. I know not all will ride boars, so here is a screenshot of an armored dark elf mount. I also met Oziriz, a reader of my blog, inside the Viper Pit and could convince him with a few coins to show of the Chosen steeds (1,2,3,4,5). Talking about blog readers, i met quite a few during my adventures on the PTS. If you play and see me standing in IC, say hello... :)

At the start of todays RvR event i was also able to catch Magnus (GOA) for a few words on his Black Orc in full Conqueror gear. He was joining the fray to fight Order in Praag himself. Overall i've to say that the atmosphere on the EU PTS is very relaxed and people are willing to test things out. Hell, I've send a huge chunk of bug reports myself. The more i see from the patch 1.2, the better it looks. While crafting has been easy before in WAR, after the patch it will still be easy, but much better to understand for people and they ironed out some bugs. And finally crafting will be useful, all of the trades. Personally I'll need to switch around my trades a bit (due to the BoP seeds/plants), but that's fine.

PTS 1.2 Crafting, Mounts and more

The character copy works now on the EU PTS. So i was able to transfer Thulf over and check some stuff. To my surprise the model for the Sentinel helmet changed. O.o You can dye the helmet now, but tbh i liked the old helmet better... wtf? It's still not possible to dye Black Orc Sentinel properly on the PTS. The Vomitous Choppa got a new model and looks very cool now. Many of the higher level Choppa weapons got a new (all the same) model as well. The rest of my items looked the same from what i can remember.

I toyed around with crafting some on the PTS. Apothecary, Cultivating and Butchering are much better now. I can only assume (did not test the other professions), it's similar with the rest. They fixed a lot and streamlined the process, which makes it much easier for people to understand. Cultivating is finally a useful profession and its rather easy to level now that you don't have to grind for seeds. Basicly you buy lvl 1 seeds from a vendor and use plant reaping (Ctrl-Right-Click) to produce 2-4 seeds from it - this process will also yield resins (stabilizers). Usually Cultivating will yield you 2-3 plants from that seed, a super-critical success will also grant you one plant from the next higher tier plus dye pigments. You then convert that higher lvl plant into seeds and start over from there. It's much faster to train then right now on live. Stimulant ingredients seem to be bugged right now, at least i could not make any use of them during my quick test. Seeds & Plants will stack up to 50 now. yay! It looks like there will be some cool/weird potions you can brew with 1.2, like resurrection potions, increased crafting skill potions, +morale and a few others. From the looks of it all apothecary potions will have proper "rare" tiers. The ingredients to multiply or enhance potions work out of the box. Don't bother to much with crafting before the patch, some eg. existing healing potions were downgraded through the patch.

In the capitol cities you can visit your scavenging/butchering trainer and pick up a quest to convert into the other skill with your same skill level. Crafting mats that are not ingame anymore can either be converted into the same skill level "new" ingredient or will convert into some rotten parts, 20 of those can be converted into Chaos Black Dye. Because of this and the other changes to loot tables, dyes will be much more accessable after the 1.2 patch. I already heard about the first new dye from crafting, liche purple.

With the funds Thulf brought to the PTS i was at least able to buy the new "standard" mounts. To check out the other ones you need guild rank, which does not transfer over. The old boar is the Light Brown Ridin' Boar and the two new ones i post a screenshot below:




My Choppa is rank 10 and still a lot of fun to play, I'll definately stick to my plan and create an alt Choppa. Thulf being a tank will still stay my main, the new changes to the Black Orc are mostly great, the Da'Toughest selfhealing was nerfed rather much tho. I did not play around with the Black Orc much on the PTS, was thinking about maybe checking out Lost Vale on the PTS if i get the peeps. But then again, Darkpromise is still nice to gain on live.

I'll chop yer head off!

I'm back! But to be honest, i did not miss WAR *that* much while i was gone. I played some good old fashion RTS games online like Age of Empires III and had a blast. Usually that's a bad sign... but today i logged onto the EU Public Test Server to check out the Choppa: It was fun! So i guess I'll stick to WAR for the moment. ;) I never leveled an alt in WAR so far, therefore i hope my Choppa will entertain me until the majority of the endgame, especially capitol raids, improved. Tho i guess when Lost Vale is fixed, that will keep busy for a little while. On a sidenote, if you're thinking about leveling an(other) alt, do it with the upcoming wave of Choppas when they go live. On the PTS atm its (obviously) mostly Choppas/Slayers, but doing PQs and fighting against hero mobs you start thinking: Just oooone tank would be so nice. ;)

The Choppa uses a berserk mechanic, which is quite fun. The longer you stay in combat, the more damage you do.. BUT once enraged to the maximum, you'll die rather quickly if something is hitting you. It happed frequently to me that i died as you really go bersek mode and forget to unload the rage once in a while. The Choppa does an insane amount of damage - at least from my perspective (did not play any DPS before in WAR). With rank 8 i was critting for around 220 damage already. The first "cool" attack skill animation will come with rank 8, when you get Can't Stop Da Chop - you do a kind of jump attack that is really fun to do. I did not take the rank 18 template you can create but started to level a new Choppa, I'll write more about it once i gained some more skills. But one thing is clear, the Choppa is a glass-cannon while enraged and best in combat while not attacked.

I only played a short amount of time but already found a bunch of bugs (2H Choppa weapons labeled as right hand, death respawn pop-up shows 1sec too early, etc.). After i send in a suggestion (to show the different colored mounts in the pens where you can buy them) i even had a CSR talk to me about it on the PTS, guess GOA takes the recent concerns about EU customer service and feedback (we can't access the "official" US forums where Mythic handles feedback atm) seriously and tries hard to give the playerbase the impression they're heard and do make a difference. Many EU players atm are concerned if their feedback or bug reports make a difference at all.

It's not only the new classes on the PTS, but also a bunch of other things. Some of the UI improvements are really good. Group/warband members now got a green gem icon which makes them much easier to spot. The zone maps now have arrows at the sides so you can access the connected zone easier. The new party/warband/open group UI looks promising and hopefully will make it easier for people to find groups as the current non-existent LFG system really needs improvement. The new mailbox UI now got the possibility to send several attachments with one mail. I just hope someone will take over the old zMailMod and throw together the other features of this mod to use with 1.2 version. I took butchering on my Choppa to check out the new apothecary mats and will post more about it soonish.

Downside for the PTS atm: The EU Character Copy is offline and will stay like this for the near future as GOA wants to test tier 1&2. Therefore i was not able to copy my rank 40 main over and eg. sit on all the new mounts yet. I also would like to test the crafting changes more, but can't do that as much as i want without the resources or the funding.

One promising thing: Looks like Mythic fixed the Super-Screenshot or what its called. When i used that option, i created screenshots around 8-11MB. The screenshot is also taken without the UI (even when you have it open), althogh names, etc. do show. Would be great if Mythic at least adds a checkbox if you want the super-screenshot to be "clean", without any names, target arrows, UI, etc. So i can configure that myself. Higher quality screenshots are very much appreciated tho.

Ragbag & Test Server Info

With Mythic hyping the 1.2 patch and especially the upcoming two new classes many players were eager to try them out on the test servers. In the beginning of February along with some others i was approached by GOA and invited onto the upcoming test server. The test was supposed to be restricted, but under no NDA... so i was happy to be able to try out the Choppa pre-release (will take test server access over Mythic love letters anytime) and write about the new classes. Unfortunately things developed different: Mythic decided to release the patch first to their core tester group, which operates under a NDA. GOA was not able to create legal agreements in this short amount of time (for different countries as well), therefore no "private" pre-testing of the upcoming content. The EU will get a public test server together with the US probably in about one or two weeks. The PTS won't have the two new classes online in the beginning tho, just the rest of the patch. Bummer I've to say. But I'm happy to see that GOA starts to show some love to the EU community and is trying within their possibilities to make things happen - of course those things are easier for Mythic to do. I know many EU bloggers were disappointed about not being included in the "lover letter affair", so if GOA works closely together with the EU bloggers that makes up for it, at least for me it does.

Does anyone play on the Dragonback Mountains server? What's going on there? Seems some players are massively exploiting the Keep Lords and also by purpose trying to bug out the city invader PQs like the Brightwizard College. GOA is taking an official stand and punishing those players harder now. Another issue that Mythic needs to adress is those "banner walls" some people set up, IMO that's an exploit as well.

A little ripper pig told me this magazine is where Mythic gets the new ideas for boar mounts. Notice the Babes & Boars calendar. *laughs*

Watching the Ten Ton Hammer panel discussion video and reading the interview from eurogamer gives you a good impression about the upcoming new zone. Will be interesting to hear how many players you need to beat the Tomb of the Vulture Lord tho. I kind of like the fact that the current high level dungeons don't need a massive amount of people to beat.