WAR - another newsletter - more RvR, less sport PvP

[IainC]

And to be fair, the French and German live event GMs were highly thought of on all the community forums.

Unfortunately the English server GM couldn't speak English well at all. Which spoiled the effect somewhat. 'Events' would consist of NPCs speaking gibberish, and people would just randomly click on the [gibberish in brackets] in the hope of spawning the next bout of randomness. It was funny the first time.

Erm the English GM was me. I'm a native English speaker. Other English GMs were Dutch, American and Danish - all of whom spoke excellent English - and two French guys, both of whom also spoke very good English. I have no idea what you're talking about there, I scripted a good number of the events that we ran and I proofread the dialogue for the events that I didn't script myself (our storyline team were all French and had different levels of fluency in English).

Also as regards your earlier point about 'GOA [for DAoC] have contractual access to all the tools Mythic do'; that was never the case and I'm pretty sure that we never said that, I can't and won't go into specifics but our licence for DAoC had sharply defined limits on both sides. In fact one of the major things underpinning our new arrangement with EA Mythic for WAR is that both parties are sharing our tools and resources in a way that wasn't possible for DAoC. It's such a big change from the arrangement we had with DAoC that it's been widely held up as the main reason why EU WAR is going to be practically the same experience as US WAR - the only visible differences for players will be the choice of languages and the name on the credit card bill.

[eldaec]

Was it you from the start? Because if so... crikey, you had a funny way with words.

[Simond]

We had the most successful EU based MMO operation ever with the sole exception of WoW.

I love the use of "EU" rather than "Europe" - it rather neatly excludes Iceland from the comparison. 

[Xuri]

Europe no longer exist, other than in the history-books. I, for one, welcome our new EU Overlords.

[Signe]

Think of the cod!

[Rondaror]

We had the most successful EU based MMO operation ever with the sole exception of WoW.

I love the use of "EU" rather than "Europe" - it rather neatly excludes Iceland from the comparison. 

C'mon, EU is used as an abbreviation for Europe not the EU itself. Getting yourself into the "minority bashing" position doesn't suit you well.

[eldaec]

We had the most successful EU based MMO operation ever with the sole exception of WoW.

I love the use of "EU" rather than "Europe" - it rather neatly excludes Iceland from the comparison. 

C'mon, EU is used as an abbreviation for Europe not the EU itself. Getting yourself into the "minority bashing" position doesn't suit you well.

Don't say that to Tebonas next time someone refers to arbitary central European countries as 'Germany'.

[Simond]

Getting yourself into the "minority bashing" position doesn't suit you well.

What?

[Calantus]

There's only a dozen or so countries worth remembering in Europe, if you fall outside of that list you get what you're given.

[schild]

A dozen? I thought there were only 3 and the rest were slavic.

Yeesh, times change.

[UnSub]

Both DAoC and especially WAR should be a much bigger success in Europe than in the US, because the game design (and in the case of WAR, the IP as well) is perfect for the European market.

IIRC, Warhammer 40K is more popular in Europe than the US. If you live in Europe (which is 100% homogenous) you get to see castles and old buildings every day, so playing that kind of environment is less interesting than playing in sci-fi inspired powerarmour on alien worlds.

[Calantus]

A dozen? I thought there were only 3 and the rest were slavic.

Yeesh, times change.

I guess for Americans the number might be smaller since you guys don't understand geography.

[cmlancas]

That's because we're taught that there are really only about six or seven countries:

USA, Europe, Australia, Japan, Asia, and Everything Else.

 

[Tebonas]

Don't say that to Tebonas next time someone refers to arbitary central European countries as 'Germany'.

I taught you well, my work here is done! 

Europe being different than EU is less and less true these days. Hell, with all the wannabe future members only Switzerland is holding out on the awesomeness that is the allsuffocating EU bureaucracy.

[Morfiend]

Man, you guys are feisty today.

Damn I hope Mythic can pull this off. I am sooo ready for a good PVP MMOG.

[Rondaror]

Getting yourself into the "minority bashing" position doesn't suit you well.

What?

For poor Iceland on the edge of Europe, almost unrecognized.

[Rondaror]

Don't say that to Tebonas next time someone refers to arbitary central European countries as 'Germany'.

I taught you well, my work here is done! 

Europe being different than EU is less and less true these days. Hell, with all the wannabe future members only Switzerland is holding out on the awesomeness that is the allsuffocating EU bureaucracy.

Regulation of sizes and diametres a banana should have is an absolute must to regulate.

[Nebu]

That's because we're taught that there are really only about six or seven countries:

USA, Europe, Australia, Japan, Asia, and Everything Else.

 

You forgot Texas.

[Righ]

I thought that The World According To Dubya was The USA, Traitorous Blue States, California, Coalition of the Willing, Axis of Evil, God's Oilfields and Send Aid Here For Votes.

[Venkman]

[Triforcer]

Must politics infect even a WAR thread?

[Venkman]

Righ started it! /whine

[Simond]

Getting yourself into the "minority bashing" position doesn't suit you well.

What?

For poor Iceland on the edge of Europe, almost unrecognized.

Actually, my point was excluding Iceland means that Iain doesn't have to recognise CCP. 

[eldaec]

Getting yourself into the "minority bashing" position doesn't suit you well.

What?

For poor Iceland on the edge of Europe, almost unrecognized.

Actually, my point was excluding Iceland means that Iain doesn't have to recognise CCP. 

Never explain...

[Lum]

Let me tank for Iain for a second since I can actually comment with some authority.

DAOC EU never had the CS tools that DAOC US had. Part of it was due to contractual issues (everything gets more complicated with lawyers involved and when it crosses international borders it increases exponentially) and part of it was because US Mythic's CS tools team (aka, at the time, Me) didn't develop them with an eye to localization for other territories. When developing tools, you either do it RIGHT or you do it NOW and in the crucible of an exponentially growing live game, I pretty much always chose the latter. (Which I'm told made me quite unpopular with the folks who had to replace me/puzzle through the wacky code hacks I left behind...) This was something we struggled with consistently over a period of years. Goa's support issues that Iain alluded to didn't help, but a ton of the problems were simply that Goa ran earlier versions of the game servers (because localization difficulties introduced delays) and that made it pretty difficult to code for. Add to that the simple difficulty that the EU servers were located in France and, well, I wasn't.

Part of the very, very early discusssion for Warhammer (which was near the tail end of my tenure at Mythic) involved fixing those issues. A key part of that was that EU and US server versions wouldn't diverge, but remain constant, which should help a lot with that. These talks were in the VERY early stages when I was around, so I don't know all the details, but it is something they're thinking about pretty strongly, I know.

[Rondaror]

Getting yourself into the "minority bashing" position doesn't suit you well.

What?

For poor Iceland on the edge of Europe, almost unrecognized.

Actually, my point was excluding Iceland means that Iain doesn't have to recognise CCP. 

Never explain...

Thinking of Iceland and getting back to the thread, Mythic and DAoC, the Edda was a major theme for Midgard realm. And the roots of the Edda goes back to Iceland.
But yes, reducing Iceland to CCP is a given here. 

[Triforcer]

Reading the recent outflow of WAR info from the Paris event (and viewing the videos) drove home a feature of WAR that hasn't been discussed that much and which I think is pretty revolutionary (for casters, see below)-

Action Points.  The short explanation is that EVERYONE's abilities (melee and ranged) rely on a WoW rogue energy bar.  It regenerates pretty fast, judging from videos.  As a caster in WoW (nonraider, occassionally 5-man PUGS) I always felt constrained by mana.  The AP system allows casters to get through a fight just as easily as a meleer can.  I don't know what special problems that brings to the table in terms of tamping down ranged DPS, but overall I think its a nice touch and allows a caster to feel powerful all of the time. 

[nurtsi]

One thing that confuses me about the game is that the races in the game are divided into pairs. Elves vs Dark Elves, Dwarfs & Greenskins, Empire + Chaos. So if I pick a greenskin, can I ever play against the elves for example? Can chaos attack the dwarf capital? I'm guessing you can't get chaos vs greenskins fights either? Does anybody know the system works?

[IainC]

Two sides with three battlefronts. You can travel between any of the three battlefronts as you wish so a Dwarf can fight in the Empire or on Ulthuann as they prefer. Members of the same realm can't fight against each other so no Chaos v Greenskin matchups but anyone from one side can fight against anyone from the other side.

[eldaec]

One thing that confuses me about the game is that the races in the game are divided into pairs. Elves vs Dark Elves, Dwarfs & Greenskins, Empire + Chaos. So if I pick a greenskin, can I ever play against the elves for example? Can chaos attack the dwarf capital? I'm guessing you can't get chaos vs greenskins fights either? Does anybody know the system works?

The pairing thing is only about flavour for the three zones, it doesn't appear to impact mechanics.

It isn't HElves vs DElves, it's [chaos, orcs, delves] vs [human, dwarf, helves] in the elf themed zone, the human themed zone, and the orc/dwarf themed zone.

As an orc, in each zone you'll be grouping alongside the same mix of orc, chaos and delf. Your guild will also be a mix of chaos, orc, and delf (dirty arr-peers excepted).


I seem to remember reading they'd put in specific mechanics to encourage you to spend time equally in the elf, human, and orc/dwarf themed zones.

[Simond]

The pairing thing is only about flavour for the three zones, it doesn't appear to impact mechanics.

It isn't Night Elves vs Orcs, it's [Tauren, orcs/trolls,  blood elves/Forsaken] vs [human, dwarf/gnome, night elves/draenei] in the elf themed zone, the human themed zone, and the orc/dwarf themed zone.

As an orc, in each zone you'll be grouping alongside the same mix of orc, troll, tauren, Forsaken, and belf. Your guild will also be a mix of forsaken, orc, troll, tauren. and belf (dirty arr-peers excepted).

[Kirth]

[eldaec]

What is it with people missing the point of Simond's posts in this thread?

[Miasma]

So does the table top game have races which are far more popular than the others?  I'm curious about how they will handle population imbalances if it winds up that four in five people play as either chaos or greenskins.

[Nebu]

I've decided that the first fantasy MMO that comes out without elves will earn my lifetime loyalty.  I'm sick of elves.