Crafting Addons and Thulf's Grab Bag Questions

Crafting in WAR is a tad cumbersome if you want to produce some serious amounts. Luckily we can use some nifty addons, like Crafting Info Tooltip or Miracle Grow Remix (Cultivating). I just recently stumbled over the Motion crafting addon. This one is great for Apothecaries or Talisman makers! The addon lets you specify (and save) recipes and you can enter the amount of items to craft - without having to press the repeat button over and over again. Awesome! If you try it out, make sure you check the fast creation in the setting. This will speed up the process quite much as the ingredient check will be minimal, but as long as you know what you're doing that should be no problem. I also cleaned up my addon list a bit and deleted/entered pending on what i use atm.

The WAR Grab Bags are sometimes nice with good information, but usually about 85% is just boring Q&A you can answer yourself once you read the question. What about the really interesting stuff to look behind the scenes? I tried to incquire some info from the GOA community representatives recently, but either they left the office for some summer holidays or are too busy with other things to answer my questions - did not hear back from GOA since a week, despite usually the Community Managers are rather forthcoming with informations. Here are my questions the next EU Grab Bag should answer:

1. How does the EU WAR veteran program work in detail? How does this give the EU better direct access to the WAR devs?
It's supposed to be linked closely to the US Core Tester program and apparently GOA chose a bunch of people to participate in the EU program, but i could not find any specific info about it. I know the US oracle program got a special forum and most are core testers, where they sometimes discuss with the devs directly about certain issues.

2. What is the state of Warhammer and the Nagle Algorithm?
Since disabling the Nagle Algorithm globally on your computer can have some side-effects on your browsing/file transfers WoW changed the client to disable it just for the program itself. It would improve latency, but of course the server infrastructure would need to be able to handle this for greater effect. Since there is no latency meter in WAR, its hard for players to test it. No info has been given by Mythic/GOA on this subject yet.

3. When will the Realm War Database be properly updated?
When i access my RW profile, there are seven items not properly in the database, some still lack certain effects and the total stat count is way off.

On a sidenote, looks like patch 1.3.0b will be up on PTS this week. I'm doubtful if the 30 seconds immunity timers will fix the CC problems properly and have to share Anglakhel's view that we need less overall CC and a redistribution focused on certain Archetypes (eg. give defensive tanks CC to make them useful).

Rare Hybrid Potions

With patch 1.2 going live on the EU servers today, i spend most of the day organizing stuff and training crafting skills, etc. Thulf is now switched to 200 cultivating. Its not that hard to do. The increased critical failure rate is a tad annoying and additives are rather costly at the vendors, have to keep that in mind when pricing potions i guess. A major part of the day me and others spend on trying to get our hands on as many rare BoP seeds as possible. I created a large screenshot collage with the 12 new hybrid seeds, plants and potions known to me, check them out... some really cool potions there. One thing i noticed: Special moments with the rare seeds don't yield any dye pigments like the patch notes state. Ah well, maybe they'll be added later. I don't have any reports about special seeds dropping from bosses inside the instances or something like that. If you find/see seeds or potions that are missing in my list please poke me.

HAHA... many contacted me today because of the first live event title you can gain: Stuntie Stompa! Thanks guys, i did not miss it and had a gazillion people tell me they had to think of me when they got their title. funny. =)

TIP of the day: Since i wanted to give Irinia data for her Crafting Info Tooltip about the new seeds, i was researching the WAR chatlog. Some time back Mythic disabled the logging to disc and if you want to switch it back on you need to manually edit the UserSettings.xml file and change Logging logAllToDisk="false" to "true".

PTS 1.2: Hybrid Potions, Black Orc Skills and Dungeons

The weekend on the PTS has been great. I met a bunch of new people that poked me due to reading my blog or entered crafting discussions we had in the test-guild chat. Due to this, i was able to get up to speed much faster about all the changes and test different things better. Thanks for sharing guys, you rock! One thing that has been *very* confusing is that often tooltips and skills are not consistent and there is some talk about the US running an updated test server version compared to EU. Since some skills did change quite much, its hard to tell what the current status on them is. But like you know, all of the PTS findings can change until they go live. One more thing i realized for a new UI change: When there is RvR fighting going on in an area you'll see it on your map. If you enable the small HUD campaign tracker, it will show there as well.

I was asked about the difference between Butchering & Cultivating for Apothecary supply. Well, from the looks of it both professions will be able to supply you with the needed stabilizers without a problem. Butchering offers ingredients for Armor & Toughness potions, which cultivating doesn't. Cultivating on the other hand has the new rare BoP seeds now. For base supply both would do, what you take up will probably depend on which things you need and if you can be arsed to grow seeds. I was linked some more of the new hybrid potions and made a screenshot collage for you guys - really awesome potions. On a sidenote: Buff potions now have a cooldown of 5min, so no different potions gulping right before a boss fight. And NO, force shield/absorb potions do not prevent falling damage sadly. ;)

Some wierd graphic bug makes the texture on the new mounts reload every few seconds. Also to other players it looks like you drop off the mount for a splitsecond.

I had some time to play around with some of the new/updated Black Orc skills. While its still unclear in which state they'll make to live, some of the changes are really great. Overall damage got improved and even so with a tank spec and sword'n'board. Some of my favorites I'd like to point out: Stop Hittin' Da Runts - all new, gives 40AP whenever a warbellow triggers. Awesome new tactic, never run out of AP again when you have it. Works together with Can't Hit me! - you'll be able to keep it up a lot even without any +AP regen gear. Wot Armor? applies the armor reduction in one hit now, with the fitting tactic for 30secs plus toughness reduction. Big Slash is now 360 degree, together with Keep it Goin'! its a good AoE damage dealer. Shut Yer Face together with Can Youz Hear Me Now? does around 500dmg usable every 15s. Very nice finisher, not sure if its intended as the tooltip suggest it only increases the dmg up to 350dmg. Overall after all the changes there are many more viable specs possible and you'll have enough tricks up the sleeve to find one that will fit your playstyle.

Like the patch notes said, they went over Mount Gunbad and Bastion Stair again to add some nice quests & loot. While i did not have time to join any dungeon crawls to look for new drops, there are a few quests for each dungeon you might find interesting: Each Dungeon has one quest for different jewelry items (Mount Gunbad, Bastion Stair), some other items and also for timed special talismans (offensive & defensive). The jewelry items might even be good for high level chars, i know I'll get the block ones for my tank. When i tried the boss in Mount Gunbad he had some pathing issues, resetting him back to 100% health, but hopefully that will be fixed before it goes live. The quests for the special talismans are not repeatable from the looks of it.

Tip of the day: The PQ loot bags from city sieges will have new loot with 1.2, should you still have any, keep them! The purple one will have an epic jewelry item (example), the blue ones a weapon and the green ones a cloak. The items are now useful for a rank 40.

PTS Patch 1.2: City Siege Improvements & More Crafting Stuff

Mythic announced City Siege Improvements with patch 1.2 yesterday. Seriously? C'mon Mythic, that's a drop on the hot stone named capitol raid endgame. The shift in victory point generation is a step in the right direction, but they really need to fix the empty instance grinding. Now people can only do that for two hours instead of six, but still its a large issue. The server should only open new instances once the existing ones are full and place groups automaticly into existing ones where the group fits on. I know this still leaves issues with eg. a full warband starting a new instance, but still its better to prevent farming then let people chose their own instance. Also the queue system needs to work properly. Reduced time for a contested state means less people will have a chance on invader gear tho, resulting in more raids needed to be able to advance in the other capitol raid content, as you need those superior wards. Let's hope the overall zone domination changes will result in more frequent assaults on the main cities to even this out. I saw one item from the improved purple bags from an Altdorf raid and they sure pimped that stuff. Looking forward to Altdorf raids... I won't rant further on the city sieges, did that before. Let's hope the overall package of changes will result in a fun RvR endgame, but we're not there yet.

I fiddled around with crafting on the PTS more. Still trying to figure out the best way for me to change my main to cultivating, as my Choppa will take a while until rank 40. But i guess once the changes go live I'll do one or two afternoons of grinding materials with butchering on Thulf to stock up and then switch. Those mats then have to last until my alt is high enough to provide stuff cultivating can't. Should be fine. Only problem now is, how to make enough space in my bank or bags? Guess I really have to throw away some BoP greys. :S

Meanwhile i brewed some more potions and while many of the existing pots in my bags have been downgraded it looks like the critical success tiers finally work properly. I crafted some pretty nifty potions. One other thing i realized, and think is good: The materials from the guild vendor will provide less powerful potions then eg. potions brewed with butchered mats. Check the screenshot for a comparison, had to use an extender to create the same result with less duration. The multipliers for potions are pretty straight forward to use. The lvl 1 multiplier (vendor) will give you one extra potion, an uncommon lvl 200 multiplier yields five extra potions. I tried for quite a while yesterday to get my hands on a BoP seed, but had no luck.
From the looks of it those seeds can drop of high level champs/heroes, are lvl 200 BoP and will create the mysterious hybrid potions. Despite what the patch notes said, the plants created are currently not BoP. The potions are quite powerful, but have hefty stability requirements. Here is the first screenshot of such a hybrid potion, courtesy of Djanee.


While being on the PTS i met more readers of my blog, which has been a lot of fun. I appologize if my answers sometimes are delayed, but often i have 2-3 conversations going at the same time, about my blog or the patch 1.2 changes. Today i met two fellow Black Orc players, Neil & Sauce, i want to give a shout-out to. I was really curious if the Black Orc Darkpromise gear had any changes to the models with patch 1.2 and its sad to see, there are no changes. Neil was nice enough to pose in Darkpromise and Invader for me - check out the difference. There are so many nice NPC models, when will those placeholders be changed? Darkpromise on an Orc looks like the stuff my rank three auction house alt wears. Sucks.

On further sidenotes: The overflow system was enhanced, once you make space in your bag the overflow items will automaticly go to your bags, nice. Also the stack buying has finally been fixed. When i bought stacks of mats/containers it worked every time on the PTS.

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.

Missing Solo Content

WTF? You ask... solo content? I want Mythic to fix RvR and endgame content to have fun with my buddies. You know what? Me too! BUT what is there to do in WAR when you log in during off-hours, when everyone else is busy doing stuff you're not up to right now or groups are full? Is there anything you can do solo that's fun? And I'm talking about a rank 40 character that does not have to level anymore. Sure, you can join the odd scenario solo, but it really depends on your class and some luck how that will turn out. Often it's not much fun to solo join scenarios. In oRvR chances are, you'll run into a warband and get stomped. I know what some say, its a MMO - you should play with others. But sometimes you just want to idle around and do something on your own. What options are there else or should there be?

Crafting
If your crafting skills are not maxed yet, sure you can train these... but crafting in WAR is very, very easy so that won't last long. You can start to hunt for ingredients, but you don't really need to as there are only few consumables you really need. I always run around with stacks of those potions i can use for tanking, but neither is it hard to hunt for them nor is grinding mats that much fun. In WAR there is no real hunt for recipes either, so being busy trying to acquire that odd recipe you're missing is not an option. The pre-launch proclaimed "experimental" side for crafting does not really exist in WAR.
You could try to earn money with your crafting skills, but at the moment crafted things like potions are worth pretty much nothing. Talisman makers can make a few bucks and sure you can sell raw ingredients, but nothing really gives you the "feeling" you created something valuable that is worth selling and showing off proudly at the auction house. Crafting in WAR right now is not a fun experience once you get the hang of it and the "products" are only of limited use. The ingame economy is quite broken compared to other games.

Solo Content
Once you hit rank 40 there are not many quests still worth doing. Most likely you'll have solved all existing epic quests with rank 37 or right after. Why not have some loooong and epic rank 40 questline to immerse in? In Age of Conan you had this very long and character defining main quest line you were following all the way up to max. level. Some epic rank 40 questlines with a good story to tell, a few nice rewards along the way and some epic challenges would be great. In AoC there were many instances for that questline you had to enter solo and no one else could help you with. Some of them had good challenges concerning the appearing fights and you had to utilize your character properly to beat them. Talking about those instances, why not have a duo dungeon? I know many play with their girlfriend/wife or best friend. A challenging dungeon for two players could be fun as well. Could be like an epic PQ, maybe 30-40min long, repeatable once a day. And i really don't care if you can only find social clothing in there, just want something unique.

Tome unlocks
Of course there are tome unlocks you can hunt as well. But most are pretty useless when it comes to character development and just fluff. I like fluff, but killing thousands of NPCs (for the unlocks not everyone has) is not that much fun. And once you scouted the existing world there is not so much more to see.

Beside renown, right now there is only so much to do when soloing. Shouldn't there be at least some things to do? I really hope they'll pimp crafting some more. I read in some comment from a dev that they'll have another look at crafting (especially apothecary) again. Let's hope they'll fix the highest tier potions and maybe add some fun (transformation, speed, etc.) potions. IMO it should be possible to advance your characters devlopment solo in some more ways. And if its an epic questline that's highly entertaining, that's fine with me as well. The rewards can also be of a cosmetic nature... new dyes, cool cloaks, trophies, maybe some character customizing stuff you can apply like the CE stuff. Do you log in sometimes to discover everyone else is busy/offline? What do you do? What do you WANT to do?

Toe-to-Toe: Warhammer Color & Dye System

One of the coolest things concerning the Warhammer Online item system is it's color & dying part. The WAR dye system will let you dye most (but not all) items in a color you want. Nearly every merchant has the ability to dye items. You can choose in the dyeing UI if you just want to dye a single item (just choose that one) or use the checkbox to apply the same color scheme to all your armor. All armor has a primary and a secondary color. You can left and right click on the color dots to dye primary or secondary colors. There are 14 colors offered by default from the vendors. There are rumours about other colors being available at higher renown ranks, but so far I've heard of none being confirmed.

Beside merchant bought dyes there are more possibilities to get different looking colors... Some quests offer dye containers as a reward. Don't be afraid to try them out, as you'll always get a confirmation window after the preview if you really want to use that color. So it's safe to check them out on your armor. Many color names found inside WAR suggest that Mythic uses the Games Workshop Citadel Colours from the original game, but some people on the forums complain the colors are not 100% original in tone, maybe due to some armor layer clipping. The large color table suggests that later on Mythic will possibly add more colors as different rewards. There are also some rare colors (like Enchanted Blue Dye (looks like a smurf) or Blood Red Dye) you can get as drops. I found them in Mount Gunbad and RvR so far, so i guess they're just random world drops of dye.

The most interesting & rare colors many thought were supposed to come from crafting. Well, let me tell you I'm a 200 Apothecary and 200 Cultivator and it's not really true until now. Of course I'm not rank 40 yet and maybe there are some mysterious ingredients that eluded me yet, but so far the possibilities to craft dyes are very limited. I don't want to turn this into a crafting explanation, but there is only so much with the available ingredients and containers for dye you can do and try out. If you managed to create dyes other then the obvious ones, share with us. The worst thing is that the crafted colors look nearly the same then merchant ones or drops. How does crafting dyes work? Well, Cultivators can get special moments (better then a critical success) and gain pigment extracts from growing plants. An Apothecary can take Mortar and Pestle (vendor item) and fixer plus a pigment extract to craft dye. Basic fixer lvl 1 can be bought from a vendor but Cultivators can get higher level fixers from special moments as well. The highest fixer i got until today is lvl 125, don't know anyoneone who got a better one. Colored pigments i found so far include yellow (Golden Yellow Dye), brown (Scorched Brown Dye), green (Goblin Green Dye), blue (Seaguard Blue Dye) and red (Red Gore Dye).

Some people claim they crafted violet or black dye, but i did not see any proof yet. Screenshots & explanations or it did not happen. The dye system is one of the greatest item features and I'm positive we'll see more dyes soon as special rewards.

Tip of the Day: If you try to brew potions with Apothecary and the potion fails, use water as a stabilizer. You can use up to three water for the same potion to stabilize it. After the vendor bought water is not good enough anymore you'll need better water or zoic from other scavengers & butchers.