The first rule of the PTS is, you do not talk about the PTS.

So the Public Test Server (PTS) went live with 1.3.0b... I'd like to talk about the changes, but when you want to enter the PTS, you need to sign a Beta Testing Agreement, which basicly says you are not allowed to talk about the PTS nor post screenshots or similar. Seems a bit odd to me since its a public test server and any player can access it anyway. Looks to me its an agreement that has just been copied/pasted from restricted testing. But until the EU CMs don't enlighten us about the agreement, nothing to talk about. d'oh!

Ragbag, EU Dev Chat & EU PTS R40 Templates

Right now there is a lot of misinformation spread when it comes to the difference between EU and US service and upcoming features. There ARE issues, i talk about them regularly as i think the EU customers should have access to the same features and service then the US got and that not months afterwards. PhoenixRed posted a larger article at the Warhammeralliance about "The Treehouse of WAR Customer Service" and the problems between EU & US service. You can read my answer in the thread (here). Regis at Wizards & Wenches, a fellow EU blogger, talks about some of the issues in his blog here. Despite the issues you'll find in those threads (and that i have myself), i feel there are a few facts people often mix up or are misinformed about. You can read more critic at the above threads, but here are some infos...

Facts
# Due to timezone and translation into four other languages, GOA usually is one day late with updates, patches and info. (Question remains if this delay could be prevented if they would get a day headstart from Mythic)
# Official Forums: While people are afraid (due to the lackluster GOA website) the EU forums won't be of the same quality then what the US hosts, GOA promises (credible) they'll be equal and of the same quality then the US offers.
# While people are afraid the split between EU/US forums will take us (EU) further away from the developers, it does not have to be that way. GOA already mentioned they'll get dedicated forums for better direct access to the developers so they can ask questions the EU community has and also relay issues the EU community points out faster.
# Did you realize there will be an EU dev chat on the 19th of March? I know i missed it, as i read the herald announcement right before and they looked the same more or less. Thanks to Nic for pointing it out to me. GOA states the EU dev chats will be a regular thing.
# GOA states they have access to all promotional stuff Mythic does. EU WILL get access to dog/wolf pets and EU players WILL definately get a shot at the special Choppa/Slayer heads. GOA works this out at the moment and we should see news on it soon. While its obvious that different marketing campaigns will have a different focus/timing, question remains why Mythic/GOA can't work this out ahead so details are ready at the same time, would prevent an uproar like we see at the forums now.

Overall things could get much better soon, but deeds will show, not talk and promises. And to be honest i fail to understand why GOA/Mythic don't come more forward with correct informations aggressively spread over the forums to counter all the negative opinions, when some are formed purely due to uninformed players.

With the upcoming official forums, GOA offers you to change your nickname that will be displayed with them. Go and check what you entered back then and change it if necessary.

Since we were discussing findings on the PTS in the forum these day, we found out that the EU PTS indeed has been running on an older build then the US server. For the testers this is very confusing as we talk about the same things but about different numbers with our fellow US players. GOA says it was because Mythic wanted the EU PTS to focus test different things. Well, might be so, but it still is confusing and why can't the focus test run with the current build? Talking about the EU PTS, it was just updated to the latest build and also available now R40 Templates for Choppa/Slayer, equipped with fitting gear. Go crazy!

Did you know that with 1.2 the quest part of your tome can have more then one page? I did not either until i read it over at the Captain's Blog.

Some of the new blue items inside Lost Vale will be repairable tokens all classes can use. It remains to be seen how useful those really will be, but at least for RvR where wards play no role, this could be viable. More info and some stats here.

Are you thinking about doing your own podcast? Or need some pointers which programs to use? CoTCast has some tools & guidelines for you. CoTCast is by far the funniest WAR podcast i know, check it out if you haven't. Hmm.. maybe i should record them a bumper if i can come up with something. ;)

As a last funny thing, i was pointed to this WAR machinima: "Part of dis Waaaagh"

We definately need more machinima for WAR!

And the official patch 1.2 release notes are posted, patch will be applied to US today, we should (hopefully) have it by tomorrow then.

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.

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.

European Test Server

So more or less silently with not much flourish the EU Test Server Shifting Isles went online. Cool! i thought, let's check out the latest changes. You can copy existing characters (rank 10+) over to the test server. Log into your account management and scroll down to the very bottom, there you choose Character Server Copy and NOT Character Transfer. So far so good... bummer tho that GOA messed up the character copy for chars that exist on servers that were cloned a while ago. The only character i could initially copy over was my rank 20 Blorc from Zhufbar. I had to delete that char to be able to copy over my rank 40 main from Karak-Azgal. I'd say thats a F- for database management by GOA on this one. I did not play my clone char, so i just deleted him and was able to copy Thulf over. Of course before i used the copy function i robbed the guild bank to copy over as much coin as possible, you never know what you need it for. ;) Chill guys, i gave it all back. *grin* Your character will copy over with your full inventory and bank, mailbox won't.

The good news on using the PTS: You don't need two separate installs of the game. If you want to access the test server, just start testpatch.exe if you want to play the "normal game" you start warpatch.exe. The patcher will adjust pending on the version you want to access. First: Be excited, all the UI changes will make it necessary to adjust your complete UI once again. Not fun, but if the changes deliver what they promise its well worth it. Test Servers are also very good for addon developers, as some UI changes of patch 1.1 will make it necessary to adjust. The first thing i noticed on PTS is that apparently Mythics attempts to adjust performance screwed up the texture caching for my machine. Inevitable City looked *horrible*, low/muddy textures everywhere. This problem was there for some time right after launch, but was fixed. As things on the test server are subject to change, etc. i really hope this won't go live. The chat filters for more separated system message filtering looks promising. The item linking did not work on PTS (at least not in /say when i tried). In addition all stats on the gear are missing, paper doll says it works but they don't show. I slapped together a compilation of the changed Black Orc set bonuses for your convenience.

EDIT: The set bonuses changed on the PTS since yesterday. HERE is the latest version.

Since we had some open RvR planned from our alliance i did not spend that much time on PTS, but traveled to the open RvR area quickly to check out some of the RvR inf goodies. For each inf step there are two different items in blue (req rr31) quality and two in epic (req rr38) quality. As stats did not show i can only guess, but the epic ones look very good. The weapons (see pic) all have procs, which already made players complain on the forums that those weapons are better then the loot you can get from Lost Vale and Mythic should at least give those items procs as well. Looking at the procs i have to agree and this should be adjusted. I'll go back and try to test some more, should anyone want to give the city dungeons on test server a go, poke me.

PS: Should you have experienced a performance drop/change since the latest patch/hotfixes check your gfx settings. I realized mine were reset/changed and that's why i experienced stuttering in the live game recently.