Mystic Worlds

Paul Barnett Interview on No Prisoners No Mercy - Part 2 of 3

The next portion of the interview with Mythic's Creative Director, Paul Barnett, is now live on the No Prisoners No Mercy podcast.  The Sisters have also released a website to go along with their podcast.

Warhammer Online 's Paul Barnett Visits No Prisoners No Mercy Podcast

Oops, I should have posted this earlier for anyone that doesn't follow the Sisters on their No Prisoners No Mercy podcast.  They've scored a wonderful opportunity to interview Paul Barnett who is the Creative Director at Mythic Entertainment, the company that brought us Warhammer Online.

It's structured as a three-part interview, the first of which, is now available.  If you played Warhammer Online at all, you'll be interested in hearing Paul's views on the game, the state of the MMO industry and life in general.

Warhammer Online Lands of the Dead Expansion

Massively's write-up on the recently announced expansion for Warhammer Online, Land of the Dead, sounds exciting.  Based on their description at least, it sparks an interest in returning to Warhammer Online.  Not for the new classes.  I don’t care about new classes.  I liked my Warrior Priest and Bright Wizard just fine.  What I didn’t like was the PVE temptation without the player-bodies to fulfill the desire.  I was constantly faced with either going to do PVE (Public Quest) where ever they were being done, regardless of the ones I actually needed at the time or wanted to do. 

From day one, I was excited about and drooling to be in T4 so that I could do PQs in Praag.  I loved the look of the zone.  It was my racial zone.  As a Lowbie Misfit I’d defended keeps in that zone.  I was excited about being able to quest and PQ running around in that beautiful zone.  The whole time I was in T4, I didn’t get to do a single grouped PQ in Praag.  Not ever! Not one!  The ones I did were solo which meant all I could do was grind Stage I.  It was that experience that finally broke my spirit to play WAR.  At level 35.5, I quit.

Close to Unsubscribing

I haven't played Warhammer Online in 2 to 3 weeks, except to pop on once to reset my talents after the 1.0.6 patch.  Scenarios were still fun but slugging it out solo doing the PVE content, took the wind out of my sails.  Grinding Influence by killing through the mobs for Stage I over and over got old, even for a solo player that is used to grinding.

I've done grinding in other games with no issue so why did it bother me in WAR?  Because I know that it's not supposed to work that way.  I know that there are other stages in the PQ that are more fun and challenging.  I know that there's a chest that drops at stage III and the chest has items in it hat I need, but don't have a chance of triggering.  I'm out in Pragg and the PVE zones are very empty - few players here and there but none doing the chapters I need.  There are probably a  more players in the High Elf zone, which for whatever reason is more popular, but I really REALLY wanted to do the Empire, which is my racial zone. 

So there I was grinding it out one night all the while feeling very blah about it.  Guild chat was quiet.  Ventrillo chat was quiet.  I logged off and didn't bother logging in again for a couple of weeks.  When I came back we were all settled on to the new more populated server.  Guild chat was quiet.  Ventrillo chat was quiet.  I reallocated my talent points post patch and tried it out in a couple of Scenarios.  As usual, the Scenarios were fun but when I needed a break from that and wanted to do something else, the thought of chasing down oRVR or going back to grinding INF were not appealing.  I signed off and haven't been back.

Mythic Explains Broken oRVR Contribution

Make of it what you will.  I already posted my opinion that they are between a rock and a cross these days.  Enter stage unfortunate circumstance and the wound seeps some more.  I'm sure they'll get everything worked out in the long run. 

This is why as a player, my preference was for them to fix the fundamentals of the game before worrying about pushing people out to oRVR because portion of the players are screaming for it.  Yes, I get oRVR is supposed to be the core but hey, there are more pressing issues in Warhammer right now.

WAR: Rivers of Tears Over Bright Wizard Nerfs

There are rivers of tears forming over the Bright Wizard nerfs in Warhammer Online.  While I agree the class has some mad DPS, to me, it was the first REAL IMPLEMENTATION OF A GLASS CANNON, I've experienced in any game.  No one likes to be nerfed and I'm a BW myself but here are the other things to consider which may have a negative spiraling effect:

• I tried several main DPS classes before choosing the BW.  My selection had NOTHING to do with the DPS.  I had no way to evaluate if we were OP when I made that selection in the Preview Event.  However, BW was the only caster class I liked.  It was that DPS caster or no DPS caster.
• Order is/was depending on your server, deficient in numbers as compared to Destruction.  BWs are a good percentage of Empire players and Order in general.  Disrupting them to a point where they feel more vulnerable - glass-cannon is more glass than cannon, may cause a good deal of the BWs to re roll.  Now Order has less DPS output.  What's the impact of Order having less DSP output?
• BWs feeling at too great of a disadvantage because of a unilateral change in the root mechanic, impacts an escape mechanism on top of reduced DPS.  BW says, "Bump that, I won't play this class in PVP/RVR, see above for potential result.
• BWs re-roll and now a portion of the Order players that Destruction has been crying about needing in T4, are in fact, now back in T1 as something else.  Let's cry some more about the absence of RVR and lack of Order in T4.
• BWs were one of the few Order classes that can make Destruction players "back the fuk up".  Now not so much.  Order consistently has fewer healers anytime I've done Scenarios or oRVR.  What's the impact of BWs being more glass in a faction with fewer people to keep glass from shattering?
• Order still has to deal with the Magus multi-target pull into the Sorc puddle of death.  Yet our "put fear in their hearts" isn't quite as fearful.  How does that change behavior on both sides of the encounter?  What happens if the Order side of the coin decide to flip the coin or toss it away?

WAR: Averheim goes from High to Low Pop - Free Transfers Offered

I logged into the game today to complete the Heavy Metal event and was greeted by a notice that my server, Averheim, was low population and as a result, free transfers off the server are being offered.

I'm saddened by this occurrence.  Averheim dropped to medium population and was an incentivized destination for other low population servers and even with that, we went from medium to low!?!  Oh my. *sad face* The guild is meeting tonight to decide if we should switch servers.  Oh hum.  I don't have an opinion on where to move so I'm not going to the meeting.  Where ever COW goes is where my characters will live.  Besides which, I don't have any conflict characters anywhere else and the chances of my names being taken by another player is very slim.

Oddly enough, the oRVR lag on Averheim last night during the HM event was sick.  If that was lag on a low population server, what the hell is it like on medium or high pop?  Which leads back to my preference that they work on fundamental game fixes before becoming too absorbed in, "Must have more oRVR now, Grrr!"

The Averheim player community is trying to work together to make a decision and preserve server unity.  If you want to get involved and voice an opinion check the thread here.

WAR: Between a Rock and A Cross

I do not envy Mythic right now in trying to fix Warhammer Online.  Mark Jacobs issued a statement to the community to shed some light on upcoming improvements, mostly related to encouraging Open RVR (oRVR).  It appears to have been met with mixed reactions.  A portion of players who wanted a game dominated by oRVR, want it NOW.  They don’t want to wait the potential months it’s going to take to execute the full vision.

I’m definitely concerned.  I understand that they have to find a way to fix oRVR and appease that segment of the player base.  However, I see some fundamental problems in core mechanics of the game.  In my mind, these are more important.  The PVE content is empty but provides one of the character progression models. It’s more common for 1 to 3 people to be grinding out the Public Quests than the full groups it was designed to accommodate.  COW is a large guild, yet we recently couldn’t field 10 people to do an instance, even though it was posted in advance on our forums. 

Itemization is just weird sometimes.  The rewards are supposedly tailored to your class but I’m often presented with choosing the lesser of two evils.  Armor isn’t usually a primary stat stacked by cloth wearing classes but sometimes I have to choose the item that has the most AR because the other stats are just silly for my class.  I get things with Willpower (+healing) or Ballistic (+ranged weapon damage), when as a magic caster what I really need is Wounds (+health), Intellect (+magic damage), etc.  I have a difficult time determining when to break out of set pieces where you lose the accumulated bonuses when the individual rewards, supposedly for my class, have these odd stat choices on them.

WAR: Another Week of Activity Comes to a Close

My last week of freely writing and playing Warhammer Online is coming to a close.  I'm still on vacation through next week but will be cooking and entertaining for Thanksgiving, like many other Americans. Here are a few pictures from two random and unrelated adventures from this week.

This week concludes with roughly 23K word count worth of fiction writing, Rank 33 on my Bright Wizard, Rank 11 on my Warrior Priest, obtained the first tier reward from the Heavy Metal event and lots of household chores completed, including a variety of homemade sweets and frozen desserts.

I hadn't planned on playing my WP at all until the new classes were released.  Unfortunately, my bank and backpack are completely full of herbs that require water to be turned into potions.  My Cultivating is maxed at 200.  My Apothecary is at 168.  I can either start selling the herbs even though I need them to finish out leveling and want the potions, spend all my gold on the expensive water being sold on the Auction House or get out there and gather my own water.  I opted to bring out the WP and set her to scavenging me a free source of water.

WAR: Stars Aligned this Week

Things fell into place yesterday evening.  I logged into WAR to find several people already online.  A few more came on shortly after and before long we had a full warband heading out to complete yesterday’s Heavy Metal Event (HME).  The nature of the event allowed us to combine T3 and T4 characters.  That combination wasn’t without its funny moments.  The T3 rank healer accidentally got herself RVR flagged and healed us T4 people a couple of times, which promptly turned us into chickens.  I was laughing too hard to remember to take any pictures.  Boo me!