f13.net

Folks,

With 1.0.6 ready to go tomorrow, here are the highlights of the patch. The full patch notes will be on the Herald shortly after I post this message. FYI, the patch notes are 23 pages of patchy goodness.

1) New Careers Released! With this version we are happy to announce the release of the Empire’s Knight of the Blazing Sun, and the Dark Elf’s Blackguard! These new careers are available early for players who have successfully completed the Heavy Metal Event!

2) Mastery Refunds – Due to a number of significant changes to many of our careers, provided a full mastery refund to certain careers. Players who belong to one of the careers below will need to speak with a Trainer to retrain their Career Mastery: Black Orc, Bright Wizard, Chosen, Engineer, Ironbreaker, Magus, Shadow Warrior, Sorcerer, Squig Herder, Swordmaster

3) Morale Responsiveness - Morale abilities will now be much more responsive. These abilities will now fire immediately when activated by the player on the first attempt, and will display their cooldowns correctly at all times.

4) Root Responsiveness - We have made a number of adjustments to root spells to ensure that they break properly and feel more responsive to players. Changes include a chance to break on ANY damage including DoT damage, as well as a 5s immunity to being rooted again after the current root effect breaks.

5) Improvements have been made to autoattack animations. Players will now see smoother, more consistent weapon swaps when players change from ranged to melee autoattacks, and vice versa.

6) The responsiveness of ability activations has been improved. Players will now see less of a delay between the activation of an ability and the corresponding animation.

7) Fixes have been made to issues which were causing guild promotion and demotion not to work properly.

8) Numerous fixes to the UI.

This patch is truly the "Combat and Careers" patch that we have been talking about for many weeks. There are a ton of changes and bug fixes in this patch as you will see in the full patch notes. Linkage to the full patch notes: http://herald.warhammeronline.com/warherald/NewsArticle.war?id=477

So, as usual, we're happy to thank those members of the community who participated in helping us test, iterate and refine 1.0.6 through feedback as well as playing on our PTS! We hope you continue to do so going forward as we've got a ton of stuff in and coming down the pipeline.

Mark

Folks,

Here's a quick update on where things stand as of this evening:

1) Patch 1.0.6 is looking good for going LIVE tomorrow.

2) The fix I talked about last week that will improve overall client performance in RvR, especially in high traffic situations, *may* go LIVE tomorrow. It involved a major change to the client and we need to be 100% sure that that we don't make some things better but at the same time, make some things worse with this change.

3) We hope to have a fix to the major issue that is causing fortress crashing going either to the PTS this week and/or possibly rolled out to one or two commercial servers this week as well for testing this week as well. As above, this also involved a significant change (but this time to the server) so we need to be a little bit more careful than usual before it's rolled out to all the LIVE servers.

4) I hope to be able to post tomorrow going into a little bit more detail about the influence system that we hope will go LIVE with 1.1. FYI, 1.1 is still looking good for going LIVE this month. It can still be pushed back of course but it's still on track as of today.

And no, I don't ignore threads once they get to a certain point but I do tend to stop commenting in them unless I have something useful to say. There is no point in simply saying "it's coming soon" again and again.

Mark

Bets on something major going wrong?

The update you've all been waiting for, 1.0.6, is almost here!

This patch is truly the "Combat and Careers" patch that we have been talking about for many weeks.

2) The fix I talked about last week that will improve overall client performance in RvR, especially in high traffic situations, *may* go LIVE tomorrow. It involved a major change to the client and we need to be 100% sure that that we don't make some things better but at the same time, make some things worse with this change.

Stop baiting the new fish, they're already incoherent enough.

These next patches are crucial for Mythic. I am sure they have had way too many meetings then I can imagine banging home that point.

Tamat : Grinding for control over a zone has become more of a problem. No one likes to grind their way to anything, including achieving a new Rank, or simply crafting sandwiches for their hungry group. How is Mythic getting away from grinding with each content update, especially concerning Renown experience?

Destin : We make an effort to offer a wide variety of experiences for players, so they aren’t forced to do the same thing over and over again in order to advance.  We continue to look at designing and creating systems which are fun and engaging so players want to do them.  Once someone is having fun doing something, the gains (be they Renown, XP, or a nice Mutton, Lettuce and Tomato sandwich) become the result of the action, not the means for it.
.................
Tamat : With the average Rank steadily increasing on mature servers, how are you keeping low level Public Quests from becoming too difficult to complete, or simply pointless, when no one else is around to help?

Destin : Currently, Public Quests offer two levels of difficulty – “standard” and “difficult”.  Where standard PQ’s are geared towards 6 to 9 players, difficult PQ’s require multiple groups to successfully complete.  In the near future, we will be introducing the concept of “easy” PQ’s to WAR.  Easy PQ’s are retooled Public Quests that have been adjusted to require 2 to 3 players for completion.  With each version, you will see more easy PQ’s in the game until almost every chapter has a balance of easy, standard and difficult PQ’s, allowing for a wide variety of grouping and play options.
...................
Tamat : I’ve personally seen drops repeat themselves in such long cycles that groups gets tired of instances because they either already have the item or don’t need it. We’ve seen a lot of fixes and adjustments in recent updates. When will we see more varied content, especially content relevant to the attending players?

Destin : We’re doing heavy itemization revisions, particularly for the dungeons. These changes are slated to be out in the near future and will improve the itemization even further.
...................
Tamat : Crafting and other more economic oriented activities have been said to have been an afterthought when the game was produced.  Will crafting ever gain respect, or is the game solely meant for RvR hungry players that don’t care to craft sandwiches or sew shirts?

Destin : The team here is committed to making crafting a meaningful and satisfying experience for players. In WAR, the primary purpose of crafting will always be to support and contribute to the RvR experience.  That being said, the team is currently focused on looking at our crafting skills and improving them across the board.

Our goal is to make the entire crafting experience easier for the player to get into with more meaningful results that players find attractive to use. Long term we’re looking to expand our crafting systems to link in closely with RvR, which means we’re heavily considering things like Siegecraft and other RvR related items.

Tamat : Players will often drop out of a group once entering a zone to gain unfair amounts of experience.  What are some of the ways you are making Scenarios not only more balanced, but more fun for those that do play fairly?

Destin : The game is about realm advancement and realm victory. Players who drop out of a group are still contributing to the success of the team in a scenario or open RvR. Even so, by deciding to “go it alone” they are accepting greater risk. They have less backup and less healing and are therefore more vulnerable, making them a weak point the other realm can exploit, and reducing their odds of getting good loot.  A dead player doesn’t get many rewards.

With all that said; we are actively looking into the scoring and contribution systems in our game to make sure they are as fair and balanced as possible.

Edit: Nevermind, it's just too easy to keep punching this company in the face. It's not even fun anymore...

I have become aware of an issue where players of opposing factions are dropping standards for each other and allowing captures so that they and their entire group can gain large quantities of renown. This has been going on for quite some time as I've been told.

You guys hotfixed the renown gain in scenarios the other day very quickly, can you please fix this bug that is allowing players to already be past renown rank 60 who were less than RR40 a week ago?

Tamat : Grinding for control over a zone has become more of a problem. No one likes to grind their way to anything, including achieving a new Rank, or simply crafting sandwiches for their hungry group. How is Mythic getting away from grinding with each content update, especially concerning Renown experience?

Destin : We make an effort to offer a wide variety of experiences for players, so they aren’t forced to do the same thing over and over again in order to advance.  We continue to look at designing and creating systems which are fun and engaging so players want to do them.  Once someone is having fun doing something, the gains (be they Renown, XP, or a nice Mutton, Lettuce and Tomato sandwich) become the result of the action, not the means for it.
.................

Who is Hartsman?

After the last patch notes, the stubborn refusal to acknowledge WARs problems is expected. 

They need to bring in Hartsman, he's the only person with credibility to turn a game around.

Seal of Destruction: The Witch Hunter’s attacks will now ignore 50% of their target’s armor.

Yep, those Black Orcs you can barely scratch IF you're lucky enough to get behind them or manage to get your 15-second positional buff to go off? They will now fuck you even harder than before. Don't even bother trying to take on a tank or MDPS with any sort of armor, just get used to trying to stealth hump those casters before they kill you because those are the only fuckers you'll have a chance to kill. At least until they root then knock you back away from them.

Stop baiting the new fish, they're already incoherent enough.

To be honest, WE's kill everyone.

Also, why the fuck would a WH attack an orc?

Exactly my question.  Your job is to F up the back lines(healers and range DPS) cause u can stealth to get there when others cant.  If you are trying to kill BO's you are doing it wrong

Am I the only person who finds it amusing that they are retooling public quests to be something you can practically solo.

If I read this forum without ever looking at the details under their avatar, I'd have no idea whether the mostly decent, but at times incoherent bullshit was coming from a 200+ post user, a new user, or a long time user of this forum. Be fair to your long time users, new people here don't monopolize the stupidity, they're just easier to point out and pick on.

Exactly my question.  Your job is to F up the back lines(healers and range DPS) cause u can stealth to get there when others cant.  If you are trying to kill BO's you are doing it wrong

It's the only option to help people now working through the lower tiers. 

Things I find amusing part deux - Unfortunate juxtaposition of f13 posts edition.

It's the only option to help people now working through the lower tiers.  PQ's give the best gear and there just aren't enough people to get them done anymore.  I think it gives hope to guilds that have fragmented over the past two months.  Getting through the low level content with 3 people is a nice thing.

I'm always a fan of advice I don't need from people that shouldn't be giving it.

You leave them behind just as quickly.

The problem is when you claim some sort of prescience over your ability to look at a pile of shit and advertise, "I smell shit on this one."

Congratulations: You have the insight of a small child.

Some of you enjoy arguing for the sake of arguing, complaining for the sake of complaining.

Why's that a bad thing?  Most of them very surely deserve it.  And people highlight it here when those same games improve (e.g. EQ2, LotRO).

It's all gone a bit grim in here.

I'd like to think that what sets f13 apart is we aren't the small children who would then willfully eat that shit.

The problem is that you have a very closed little ecosystem here where it's the same people saying the same things for years.

If the community wants to maintain a sense of being a place to discuss gaming with superior ideas vigorously tested through discussion, it's going to have to drop the laughable elitist attitude.

So, like, you're going back to wherever you came from right? Cool.

If the community wants to maintain a sense of being a place to discuss gaming with superior ideas vigorously tested through discussion, it's going to have to drop the laughable elitist attitude.

Can you honestly say you don't enjoy that?

So, like, yes, that "wherever I came from" being the same world that you inhabit. So, I'm going back to where you live, in the same industry you work in from what I gather. Forums aren't my general habitat, most often because they're filled with ego maniacal pricks that gather in small packs to pat each other on the back at any opportunity. (See VN boards, where any negative post is met with immediate resistance from mauspolice/dieplskthxbai)

This place is a bit different, in that the pricks are older and have better English. I'm sure you're all fine people in real life, but the internet has a way of drawing out that inner elitist bastard that you would never allow out in the real world public without being reminded just how low on the totem pole most of us are in this world.

I change things as I see fit - considering you weren't around 5 years ago when I took the reins, I just have the unfortunate pleasure of telling you "you have no fucking clue what you're talking about."

Also, when the MMOG community genre starts changing, we'll start saying new things.

Enjoy it? FUCK, I LIVE FOR IT.

Welcome to F13, Grim. We eat our own young.

Welcome to F13, Grim. We eat our own young.

Grim, first, I'd like to thank you for giving us entertainment tonight. Second, I'm curious. Where do Ard and I fit in your neat little fursecution plot?

Dude. DUDE.

You just came into someone else's house and gave advice.

Please, stop using the phrase "elitist." You look like an asshole.

Edit: Clarity.

You could've just said that you're Saturn and it would've sounded waaay cooler.

Grim, first, I'd like to thank you for giving us entertainment tonight. Second, I'm curious. Where do Ard and I fit in your neat little fursecution plot?

Whoa, back the train up.  I don't give a rats ass what he thinks about me. 

It's not a competition.  Say your peace and take the hits/praise.  And move on to the next game/issue/thing.

And what AP said -- there are metric ton of worse sites out there.  Worse as in attitude and elitism.  

I'm always a fan of advice I don't need from people that shouldn't be giving it.

I think there were probably a fair number of babies thrown out with the bathwater, and it is to the point where anyone with <50 post automatically becomes suspect and their posts get filtered through all the wall of text nonsense that the other new people posted. Probably not really fair, but it is the way of the internets.

I haven't really been posting here all that long myself (maybe a year? I am definitely not part of the old guard), but the Giant Warhammer Online Marc Jacobs Stalking Invasion is really the first time I've particularly noticed a giant backlash against new posters. I think there were probably a fair number of babies thrown out with the bathwater, and it is to the point where anyone with <50 post automatically becomes suspect and their posts get filtered through all the wall of text nonsense that the other new people posted. Probably not really fair, but it is the way of the internets.

But yeah there is a bit of clannishness, and its hard to keep track of everyone and everything. I am still constantly caught by surprise by sudden flame wars between two people who seem perfectly normal over shit that went down like 8 years ago on some Scott Jennings comment thread or something, I just try to let that sort of thing wash over me.

Yeah, I'll take responsibility for derailing here as much as anyone. I've done more reading here than posting since starting. It just annoyed me a bit watching the "god another newb" posts intermingled enough to derail a thread, and the immediate skepticism applied to a post from anyone with < ### posts. My bad for not just letting it ride, but if I was leaving, I thought I'd at least "wave" with a middle finger up to the folks feeling internet awesome for their veteran status here. ;)

This is a forum with a blog attached. You took over moderation. It's a job that millions of half retarded children do just fine every day on the internet.

Until very recently I always assumed the posters with low post counts were just keeping them to appear more edgy.

Edit, clarity.

This is a bit of what I'm talking about. "Taking the reins" when referring to an internet forum is like saying "sense of accomplishment" when talking about an MMORPG. It's out of scale in its context.

I wasn't around 5 years ago because, this may surprise you: I hadn't even heard of this place until a little over a month ago. It's that unknown. It's that unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

I'm sorry you don't feel welcome here.  But there is no welcome mat out.  If you want it you have to kick down the door and plop down on the couch and scream your point just like the rest of us.

As an experiment, I'm interested in seeing what happens when you have to represent the _children's_company_ you work for.

Well, when that happens (retroactively, which would lead someone reading it new to believe this was done -before- I wrote what I've written...), I have to modify of course. That's another reality of the internet: People can screw with your livelihood and the fear of litigation/bad press can do harm to a family. I wrote what I wrote as an individual, not a spokesperson.

You know I was going to quote him in full each time just in case he did the emo rage quit, edit previous posts to blank thing.  Then I thought, not worth the effort, nobody does that in 2008.

You know I was going to quote him in full each time just in case he did the emo rage quit, edit previous posts to blank thing.  Then I thought, not worth the effort, nobody does that in 2008.

Jade Constantine 2.0 (and yes, damnit, i missed the fun TT)

More Vajuras than Jade. And I wouldn't call psychological re-education "fun." At least, not for the dev receiving said education.

Back on the topic of 1.06, holy crap this patch sucks.

...

What the hell happened here?

back to 1.0.6, i'm surprised no one noticed how this patch brings some curious stealth changes.
IE: Detonate does now almost 66% damage less on its DOT portion, while the only change listed in patch notes is about Detonate's DD portion. This is a huge stealth nerf, giving that this spell was one of the main reasons why BWs topped scenarios' damage chart in the first place.

back to 1.0.6, i'm surprised no one noticed how this patch brings some curious stealth changes.
IE: Detonate does now almost 66% damage less on its DOT portion, while the only change listed in patch notes is about Detonate's DD portion. This is a huge stealth nerf, giving that this spell was one of the main reasons why BWs topped scenarios' damage chart in the first place.

PS: forgive my bad english; that's because this isn't my native language.
PPS: i'm a newb and i'm in this thread...not a smart move maybe :ye_gods:

Maybe it's about time for f13 to put together an easy-to-read manual: "So you work for a game developer? Want to post on forums? Here's how!"

The bar has not been raised, this game is just missing fun and needs to get it back.  Open RvR is key, not quests or anything else that most would point to as 'raising the bar'.  They have the art, they have a decent IP, but they are missing the game.  If you think WoW raised the bar then go play WoW and enjoy the incredible amount of work Blizzard put into that game, I would rather play an interesting half done game that implemented RvR in a way that made the game fun.

edit: missing letters, I blame my kybrd

I  missed that...whatever it was with Grim. Can someone tell me why a person would edit all their own posts to nothing like that? Is it the internet version of a temper tantrum? I've literally never seen that.

This happens whenever a developer gets all internet tough-guy and forgets rule #1. After I reminded him of that, he changed, fast.

Did you know he was a developer based on his IP or the mention of similar jobs? 

For all the changes they're flailing about to stop the hemorrhaging, if they'd just make it so PQs and Tier 3 and 4 leveling wasn't a grind, they'd get at least another few months out of me.

(http://img374.imageshack.us/img374/3619/serverpopmy1.jpg)

For all the changes they're flailing about to stop the hemorrhaging, if they'd just make it so PQs and Tier 3 and 4 leveling wasn't a grind, they'd get at least another few months out of me.

For all the changes they're flailing about to stop the hemorrhaging, if they'd just make it so PQs and Tier 3 and 4 leveling wasn't a grind, they'd get at least another few months out of me.

In terms of our numbers dipping, all I can say is yesterday we had the highest peak concurrent users we've had on a weekday for a number of weeks so that made me smile. As always, we're in this for the long-term and patches 1.1 -> ? will certainly show that committment.

Tolakram, well they did just release two new classes so I am sure he is capitalizing on that fact and publishing it to give his fanbois warm fuzzies. So much could be said about that quote...

In terms of our numbers dipping, all I can say is yesterday we had the highest peak concurrent users we've had on a weekday for a number of weeks so that made me smile. As always, we're in this for the long-term and patches 1.1 -> ? will certainly show that committment.

In terms of our numbers dipping, all I can say is yesterday we had the highest peak concurrent users we've had on a weekday for a number of weeks so that made me smile. As always, we're in this for the long-term and patches 1.1 -> ? will certainly show that committment.

The bar has not been raised, this game is just missing fun and needs to get it back.  Open RvR is key, not quests or anything else that most would point to as 'raising the bar'.  They have the art, they have a decent IP, but they are missing the game.  If you think WoW raised the bar then go play WoW and enjoy the incredible amount of work Blizzard put into that game, I would rather play an interesting half done game that implemented RvR in a way that made the game fun.

edit: missing letters, I blame my kybrd

Please don't take that as glowing praise or anything, Mythic is blundering toward something, not sure what.

Did the channeled attack graphics bug get fixed? The one where Pit of Shades would surround you like a halo of "holy shit, I think there's a sorcerer over there". Or the Archmage's direct line of "hey guyz, there's the poor bastard I just killed, he'll be here in 5 mins".

Folks,

  Patch 1.1 is going up on the PTS later today and after some more internal testing, we hope to open it up to the public tomorrow morning.  So, as usual, here are the highlights.  Please keep two things in mind before commenting on the highlights:

1) This patch was in development before 1.0.6 went LIVE so don't expect to see a lot of changes to 1.0.6 in there yet.  We'll continue to hotfix whenever possible and possibly patch 1.1 with changes that have arisen because of the 1.0.6 patch.  Again, let me say again that 1.1 has been on our internal servers for a quite a while because of the delay in getting 1.0.6 out the door and as such, doesn't have all the latest additions/changes we are working on.   

2) As of now the complete patch notes are at 14 pages so the highlights do not even come close to representing all the fixes/changes in the game.  This patch touches on more aspects of the game even than 1.0.6.

So, without further ado, here are the highlights from 1.1.

Open RvR Influence System – As part of our ongoing effort to encourage people to take part in oRvR, we are pleased to announce the release of an influence system geared solely to oRvR.  Players who participate in this part of WAR will now have additional incentives for fighting for their realm.  As part of this patch we have also made quite a number of changes and fixes to oRvR settings and NPCs as well.  And as always, we have a lot more going in for oRvR over the next couple of months as well.

New Careers For Everyone - With this version the Empire’s Knight of the Blazing Sun, and the Dark Elf’s Blackguard are available for all players!

Easy Public Quests – PQs are great but sometimes it’s hard to get enough people together to complete them, especially in the lower tiers.  So, we are redesigning one PQ per chapter so that it can be completed by 1-3 people.

Chat Hyperlinking – One of the most requested features by the community has been adding the ability to hyperlink items, abilities and quests in the chat window and now it has been added.

Armor Set Rebalance – After scrubbing through our armor sets we’ve made a lot of changes to ensure to various armor sets in the game to make them more useful and prized by the players.

Main Assist – RvR is exciting, chaotic and always challenging but this feature will make it just a little bit easier to help your group fight the good fight.

Player Statue System – Nothing says “you’ve made it” more than having a statue with your name on it in the capitol city of your realm.

New Content – Whether it is new lairs, new quests, new drops in dungeons, new PQ rewards and changes to items (such as cloaks), this patch is full of lots of fun new content additions to the game.

User Interface – Lots and lots of fixes, changes and new additions to our user interface and API functionality, new additions to the chat system and graphic options incorporating community requested features a channel flashing on activity, the ability to turn the chat bubbles on/off, a gamma slider and so much more.

Lots and lots of Bug Fixes - 'Nuff said.

The full notes will of course cover all of these highlights in greater detail. :)

Mark

Did the channeled attack graphics bug get fixed? The one where Pit of Shades would surround you like a halo of "holy shit, I think there's a sorcerer over there". Or the Archmage's direct line of "hey guyz, there's the poor bastard I just killed, he'll be here in 5 mins".

Folks,

  Patch 1.1 is going up on the PTS later today and after some more internal testing, we hope to open it up to the public tomorrow morning.  So, as usual, here are the highlights.  Please keep two things in mind before commenting on the highlights:

1) We're still working on all the things 1.0.6 broke, don't worry.

2) We're really working on lots of stuff, promise.

So, without further ado, here are the highlights from 1.1.

Open RvR Influence System – Now you can grind for gear in pvp by killing hundreds of players instead of mobs. The rewards will be items that aren't quite as good as keep bags.

New Careers For Everyone - After the catasses are done beta testing our new classes we'll let everyone play...but your guild won't want them because your catass friends already levelled theirs to 40 and geared them up. Enjoy your barely played alt.

Easy Public Quests – One PQ per chapter will be able to be done with half a group, no you still can't solo and no, the loot won't be as good as the other two pq's.....which will still be empty since you can't find a group.

Chat Hyperlinking – We can't think of a good reason why we didn't put item linking earlier except we wanted to be stubborn.

Armor Set Rebalance – No more ballistics skill on runepriest gear...mike thought they could use guns, sorry.

Main Assist – We're getting around to giving you useful tools to play our game, tools that we ourselves had in previous games but forgot where we left them.

Player Statue System – Expect to see about a dozen statues in your capitol city of the most arrogant and annoying catasses on your server that play in your resident uber guild. You will never be on these statues. All hail the noble Pkurmom

New Content – Oh hey, we're finally going to fix cloaks!

User Interface –Lots of polish being added to our final product before WAR goes gold.

Lots and lots of Bug Fixes - We're going to fix things, promise.

The full notes will of course cover all of these highlights in greater detail. :)

Mark

Thinking that WoW didn't raise the bar for future MMOs is an example of selectively viewing the MMO landscape for the past couple of years.

You can't claim to be an expert at something and then not excel at it. 

Nothing says “catass” more than having a statue with your name on it in the capitol city of your realm.

But it is a carrot none the less, and does partly satisfy the "Why cant i change the world" thing.

It IS selective.  I do not like WoW because it doesn't have anything that represents fun for me.  I was drawn to WAR because it was supposed to have things that sounded like fun, for me.  To say the bar is raised for WAR because of WoW is just not true.  If someone wants to make a game just like WoW then the bar has been raised by both WoW and LotRO, if someone wants to make an RvR game the bar is still DAoC.  

Mythic is the RvR expert.  You can't claim to be an expert at something and then not excel at it.  

I'm gonna need a mod to keep up with all my new experience bars.  I'm so stoked....... :awesome_for_real:

From a post on VN

MJ:

http://vnboards.ign.com/warhammer_online_age_of_reckoning_general_board/b22997/109611216/p1/?28

I think we're in the detractor phase, probably similar to when Mythic boosted Midgard, accidentally, and the nerf whining continued for a week or so until the biggest detractors finally figured it out.  Most important, though, is the first round of 1.1 patch notes is near.

Please don't take that as glowing praise or anything, Mythic is blundering toward something, not sure what.

They could add a skill to manage all your experience bars, possibly a skill would have to level up.

Totally meaningless statement without numbers. He didn't say they set a new peak concurrency record only that it went up from what they were getting for the last few weeks.

E.g. let's say (totally made up numbers) on October 15 they had, say, 60K peak concurrent users. On November 15 they got 20K PCU. And then after this patch they went up to 25K. Yeah it went up! Woohoo!

Heh. Weekday. Directly after a massive patch.

Problem solved.

I'd like to see something like it in LotRO. Of course, there are boss trophies for your guild yard already... but something central would be nice and it wouldn't have to be catass awards in LotRO. More like fluff.

I actually got to see these statues in place during a visit to Mythic last March. There will be a generic one for each class and the plaque will show the name of the player with the currently highest RR points for the server for that class. When you sack a city, they will be able to be destroyed for some sense of "I just broke your little statue" and points toward your own RR.

Open RvR Influence System – As part of our ongoing effort to encourage people to take part in oRvR, we are pleased to announce the release of an influence system geared solely to oRvR.  Players who participate in this part of WAR will now have additional incentives for fighting for their realm.  As part of this patch we have also made quite a number of changes and fixes to oRvR settings and NPCs as well.  And as always, we have a lot more going in for oRvR over the next couple of months as well.

Patch 1.1 is going live tomorrow ...

Patch 1.1 is going live tomorrow and still they can't tell us what those rvr changes are going to do. I think that's maybe the more hyped patch change in WAR's short story and they have to hype it even more. Well, i'm more angry than excited at this point.

Woot, an influence bar. What will this bar do?

And, woot! New Incentives! What incentives?

Have you actually played the game? Like at all? The influence bar is there for you to fill with influence. IE from doing stuff in RvR lakes. Whether this will be PvP quests or taking over keeps/BO's remains to be seen, but it kind of speaks for itself. Once you start filling out the influence bar you get access to rewards, like in any PQ

Interview - Destin Bales, Live Producer (http://www.allakhazam.com/story.html?story=16134)

Tamat : If I were a new player to MMORPGs and noticed the Warhammer Online box on the store shelf, next to the Wrath of the Lich King box, why would I pick up the WAR box and not the WOW one?

Destin : First and foremost, Warhammer offers the following game play features that no other MMO has.  RvR, Public Quests, Tome of Knowledge, city sieges and zone control battles on a massive scale.

Furthermore, Warhammer is a player-driven game that is different every night.  The more you play, the more experiences you’ll have.  Our end-game is player initiated and moves on forever, just getting more and more exciting the longer you play.  Once players get a taste of the Warhammer world there’s no going back.

No amount of marketing or PR will help threads like this:

http://vnboards.ign.com/warhammer_online_age_of_reckoning_general_board/b22997/109640463/p3/?55

Mark is asking if folks are still having these end game issues with Forts, City Sieges etc... wow. His game is completely borked, he's losing players MUCH faster then he could ever dream of gaining them, and his end game is complete and utter garbage. EA is not going to think kindly of issues like this especially in today's US economy.

I don't understand what you all are saying.  They're paying attention and trying to fix the issues.  DAoC has a lot of the same problems ... ha the memories ... we ran to Excalibur to defend

Contribution being completely broken in RvR 2 1/2+ months is not sign of them paying attention.  Running into same problems as DAoC is not sign of them paying attention.  Designing their game like WoW never happen is not sign of them paying attention.  Not noticing that there was no reason to RvR is not a sign of them paying attention.

Cute.

Destin : First and foremost, Warhammer offers the following game play features that no other MMO has.  RvR, Public Quests, Tome of Knowledge, city sieges and zone control battles on a massive scale.

I don't understand what you all are saying.  They're paying attention and trying to fix the issues.  DAoC has a lot of the same problems ... ha the memories ... we ran to Excalibur to defend the relic but most of us were new and ran to the wrong side .... 1 frame per second ... hibs ... flashes of light ... dead, maybe, crash to desktop.

Anyone from Galahad here who remember the crash that sent a lot of albs to the hib starter areas?  You talk about a good time.  :)

The fact we're now into the siege crash phase is a positive, too bad the post siege phase is such a let down.

I have one issue and one issue only with this game, and it is the fact that fortress sieges are still too laggy. Once they fix/instance that part of the game, it will be amazing. I'm not guessing either, as all the previous action before the for siege is the most fun I've had in a PvP game since EvE (which by the way also had severe issues with lag and server stability during high intense battles)

Here's hoping it wont take several months to fix the forts

I have one issue and one issue only with this game, and it is the fact that fortress sieges are still too laggy. Once they fix/instance that part of the game, it will be amazing. I'm not guessing either, as all the previous action before the for siege is the most fun I've had in a PvP game since EvE (which by the way also had severe issues with lag and server stability during high intense battles)

I don't understand what you all are saying.  They're paying attention and trying to fix the issues.  DAoC has a lot of the same problems ... ha the memories ... we ran to Excalibur to defend the relic but most of us were new and ran to the wrong side .... 1 frame per second ... hibs ... flashes of light ... dead, maybe, crash to desktop.

Anyone from Galahad here who remember the crash that sent a lot of albs to the hib starter areas?  You talk about a good time.  :)

The fact we're now into the siege crash phase is a positive, too bad the post siege phase is such a let down.

They overlooked one of the strongest aspects of DAOC when making this game:  the third faction to help temper those imbalances.  Not sure how the Warhammer IP could have handled that but I'm not even sure RvR will work appropriately with just two factions. 

What? You guys expected the most basic selling point of this game to be a properly functioning mechanic 2+ months after release? Talk about unrealistic expectations!  :uhrr:

Sorry if we're not sipping the fucking cool-aid without proof that it tastes good. WoW didn't raise the bar on what an RvR MMO was supposed to be, it raised the bar on what any MMO was supposed to be. Disagreeing with that point puts you, quite squarely, on the side opposite of everyone who "gets it".

Of course, it all makes sense now.

I should throw some money at them while they improve things amrite?
No I'm not saying woW did the 40 man raids right, it was an example of 'here's what we got for you, if you buy our product' that they kept spewing in their interviews. I'd like to have some of their kool aid too. WoW promised quests & world of warcraft. And I got it, I never asked for PVP from that game. There were no tome unlocks, but I read most interesting locales quests for the sake of interest. Stranglethorn Valley was nice to explore and quest in. Darkshore -still the best PVE zone I quested in game. See? I quested. Because the game was selling that to me. And it was fun. It works. Gears, money , exp.

Now you tell me it's OK if they promise 'WAR IS EVERYWHERE U CAN PROGRESS UGAHGUAGHAUGHAUHG' but tell me 'Hell no, you can't expect fortress sieges to be stable within 2.5 months, so stick with keep capping, and scen VP grinding to victory and happy crashing'

In short: Server crash is not Okay.

re-read it, I hardly said anything.  I haven't played a game that didn't have crash issues when large numbers of people were involved.  Name a game that can handle as many people in the same area at the same time?  WoW couldn't and still can't.  Did you actually use a 40 man raid as an example?

Raiding a city in WoW isn't the main focus of the game.  It is in WAR.  And it crashes the server.

-- Re-think your statement.

re-read it, I hardly said anything.  I haven't played a game that didn't have crash issues when large numbers of people were involved.  Name a game that can handle as many people in the same area at the same time?  WoW couldn't and still can't.  Did you actually use a 40 man raid as an example?

The problem with Mythic is that this issue should have showed up sooner and should have been fixed by now, but not expecting it to happen is most certainly silly.  You know WoW will have a server crash if too many people try and raid a city, right?

WoW raised the bar for PvE, stop using that silly cartoon game as an example of all that is right in the world.

I expected server crashes from day one, sorry if your expectations were higher. 

This is entirely too indicative of the shit sandwich MMOG's as a medium really are. You and most MMO veterans expect to be completely and utterly disappointed. You expect major features to be absolutely broken months after release with no hope in sight of a fix, or even a service remedy for the fuckup.

No one should have to pay for this kind of bullshit. Major features that are absolutely unplayable and broken are not acceptable. They shouldn't have been acceptable in 1999 when EQ was released. Nine years later and they sure as fuck shouldn't be acceptable now. Every customer still paying should get a refund for this month, just because a major selling feature of the goddamn game is NOT FUCKING WORKING.

what's the point?

How is this better than VN?

What? You guys expected the most basic selling point of this game to be a properly functioning mechanic 2+ months after release? Talk about unrealistic expectations!  :uhrr:

Sorry if we're not sipping the fucking cool-aid without proof that it tastes good. WoW didn't raise the bar on what an RvR MMO was supposed to be, it raised the bar on what any MMO was supposed to be. Disagreeing with that point puts you, quite squarely, on the side opposite of everyone who "gets it".

How is this better than VN?

With your previous comment being "I expected server crashes from day one, sorry if your expectations were higher.", I'm struggling to come up with an answer.

I can understand that they could not easily test 100vs100 fortress battles in real circumstances, but
still some things that went live (i.e. the contribution fiasco) show that Mythic is totally unprofessional
with their games, undermining any future efforts they may make in the field...

I totally agree, all I mentioned was the big rvr battles.  I expected problems with big 100vs100+ battles.  <---  I'm also glad they seem to have found the contribution problem.  Why?  because if the damn game was fixed I think it would be fun to play.

I wouldn't be surprised if server crashes during big battles actually attracted people to the game because they see that RvR is happening.

Yup, I'm expecting that to happen any second now, absolute masses of returning subscribers, I wouldn't be surprised if they need to open some more servers.

/green.

We're on a non stop trip to crazy town now aren't we?

Parker stop it.  This game will never be the hit they wanted it to be and I know it.  You're doing nothing more than trolling at this point, why?

If you enjoy WAR that's fine

Name me one game you have been attracted to because of server instability.  Why would you even say that?  If you enjoy WAR that's fine but stop looking for reasons to justify why you are playing it, the fact you enjoy it is good enough.

I don't and I haven't played for 2 weeks now.  I'm waiting for 1.1 to give it a final go.  You take population comments way way to seriously, though I suspect that's mostly my fault.  What I intended to say what that by Mythic posting that they are working on fortress siege crashes it might pull people back who wanted fortress sieges to happen.  So ironically crashes might get people back.

I'm more interested in evidence of RvR than I'm worried about crashes.   Mythic has a history of being able to fix crashes, where they fail is in the design itself.

evidence of RVR? I have done nothing but ORVR for the last week

You have shown some of the strangest twists of logic that I've ever seen here.

It wasn't meant as a compliment.

I'm still trying to figure out why many of you are here. 

I didn't take it as one, but thanks for trolling anyway.  I'm still trying to figure out why many of you are here.  Is there something in particular Mythic can work on that would make you come back to the game, or have you given up.  If you've given up then why are you paying attention?  My opinion is fairly straight forward, to me anyway.
.......
Apparently my willingness to give it another try is a crime of epic proportions. 

I'm still trying to figure out why many of you are here.  Is there something in particular Mythic can work on that would make you come back to the game, or have you given up.  If you've given up then why are you paying attention?

Are you telling me you're shocked that Mythic has crash bugs and missed the primary point of the game?  At least I had reasonable expectations. 

Are these reasonable?  Given the state of MMO development

Are you telling me you're shocked that Mythic has crash bugs and missed the primary point of the game? 

Can an unfinished game be a huge success?  Probably not

Can a game released unfinished but then finished slowly pull in more people and become a success?  no idea

Is Mythic on the road to success?  I don't think so.  edit - change to no idea

If there was any reasonable competition to WAR would it have already failed?  I think so

Success = enough people to make a profit

OK.

Tolakram is reverse trolling you all.

Or do you mean more specifically, a newly released PVP focused MMO?

Are you telling me you're shocked that Mythic has crash bugs and missed the primary point of the game?  At least I had reasonable expectations.  Next you'll be telling me you thought crafting would be something special because MJ designed it himself. *cough*   Oh, and I suppose that because of ToA Mythic would never ever design anything resembling gear grind.  Shocking!

This game will never be the game I wanted it to be, ever.  It may become something I can enjoy for a few more months ...

Point noted about the train wreck, there really is nothing wrong with continually making fun of Mythic at every opportunity.  I had a fanboy moment, but I'm all better now.

Posts: 8   naivety

Do you know what that word means?  Are people angry because they don't think enough canceled?


edit:  relevance

Awww, a post count jab. How cute.

Do you know what that word means?  Are people angry because they don't think enough canceled?


edit:  relevance

Whoops, looks like I forgot to activate the Ban. Is activated now!

Whoops, looks like I forgot to activate the Ban. Is activated now!

I've gone back and read the past couple pages, and I still have no clue what the fuck tolakram was getting at.

They buffed Tier 3 xp in the first month, I think. And tier 4.

All in all, Warhammer is a bad game.  There are some great ideas buried in that pile of suck, but Mythic will not be able to pull them out in a short enough timespan to matter to anyone other than the diehards.  The rest of the potential playerbase is moving on.

It's really quite simple, put out an inferior product and you get <200k subs, put out a quality product and you get >11mil

Wow was not some fluke miracle and every mmo company since has treated it as such to their own discredit. Blizzard put in a lot of time and money and used some of the best people they could find and it's paid off. I honestly don't know why other companies are willing to go with any less than that these days.

I wonder what would have happened if Mythic never sucked the EA cock and got bought out. Mythic announced in May of 05 that they were starting work on a new MMO with the Warhammer IP, and they were bought out by EA in June of 06.

No doubt EA pushed the game to release early. I just have to wonder what would have happened with Warhammer Online if Mythic wasn't pressured by the EA cockswingers and the money EA threw at the projects. Would they have focused more on RvR, realizing competing with WoW was pointless? Were they pushed by the greed of EA to PvEize the shit out of their game as to pull WoW subs?

Because sometimes I wonder if there isn't two warring sides in the Mythic offices. One side working on RvR and making it fun/enjoyable/the point and another side that thinks up bullshit armor sets, scenario grinds, and T3-T4 leveling.

I wonder what would have happened if Mythic never sucked the EA cock and got bought out. Mythic announced in May of 05 that they were starting work on a new MMO with the Warhammer IP, and they were bought out by EA in June of 06.

No doubt EA pushed the game to release early. I just have to wonder what would have happened with Warhammer Online if Mythic wasn't pressured by the EA cockswingers and the money EA threw at the projects. Would they have focused more on RvR, realizing competing with WoW was pointless? Were they pushed by the greed of EA to PvEize the shit out of their game as to pull WoW subs?

Because sometimes I wonder if there isn't two warring sides in the Mythic offices. One side working on RvR and making it fun/enjoyable/the point and another side that thinks up bullshit armor sets, scenario grinds, and T3-T4 leveling.

You can patch in all the fun you want but if your game selling feature of large scale RvR is borked for a large population of players something is rotten.

I wonder what would have happened if Mythic never sucked the EA cock and got bought out. Mythic announced in May of 05 that they were starting work on a new MMO with the Warhammer IP, and they were bought out by EA in June of 06.

No doubt EA pushed the game to release early. I just have to wonder what would have happened with Warhammer Online if Mythic wasn't pressured by the EA cockswingers and the money EA threw at the projects. Would they have focused more on RvR, realizing competing with WoW was pointless? Were they pushed by the greed of EA to PvEize the shit out of their game as to pull WoW subs?

Because sometimes I wonder if there isn't two warring sides in the Mythic offices. One side working on RvR and making it fun/enjoyable/the point and another side that thinks up bullshit armor sets, scenario grinds, and T3-T4 leveling.

Didn't Mark say the EA buyout allowed them to delay the game and throw more money at it?  Frothey could maybe learn from Turbine who seem to have recovered somewhat with LOTRO now, Turbine said they were shooting for 1 million subs before release.

Issue 8 of MMOZine is out now for download and for the growing legions of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning fans we have a special, exclusive treat. Every reader can get an in-game item, exclusively in this issue (it's an EU only item you muppets). The Vanquisher's Band allows you to cast Touch of Nature, improves stats and damage, and you can only get it inside this issue of MMOZine.

We’ve bagged an exclusive interview with WAR Art Director Adam Gershowitz and Associate Producer Josh Dresche
....
Warhammer includes all sorts of PvP and RvR gameplay. How is the scenario play working out? As you have a new map or the Heavy Metal live event, they must be very popular?
Scenarios have proven extremely popular, and we’ve been very pleased with the positive response we’ve seen to them since launch.  Players really enjoy earning XP, renown and cool loot via RvR, and the scenarios have offered a really streamlined, scalable method for doing that. If you’ve got 30 minutes to play, you know that you can get in a couple of scenarios in that time. We’ve made some adjustments to try and incentivize openworld RvR a bit more in recent patches, but we remain committed to offering new and exciting scenario combat to our players both now and also in the future.
................
Is there any innovation in the game that you don’t think you’ve got enough credit for?
We’ve been getting really positive reviews, and people have been pretty good about recognizing all the ways that WAR has helped to push the genre forward. That we’re already seeing our competitors adopt some of our innovations is certainly amusing as well.
........
Since RvR was a core component of our designs from the beginning, we knew we wanted to pick strong, iconic races that made ‘sense’ in terms of how they’d pair off against one another.

I agree they could learn from Turbine. At this point, I think thats the best they can hope for. Find that niche and shoot straight for it. It still seems WAR is trying to be to many things and failing at all of them. As I have said many times, WAR needs to focus on RVR and getting people to RVR and stop it with the stupid PVE and Scenario grind.

I don't think scenarios were intended to be the meat though Zzulo - yes, there were no keeps, but my gut feeling is that Mythic believed that the lakes were all that ORvR required. Make a killing zone, and people will kill in it.

Of course, it doesn't work like that - and they still don't have a handle on it. Do the minds at Mythic even know what made DAOC RvR popular?

Someone on these forums said that they could have seriously benefited from an in-house psychologist - that applies just as much now, they don't seem to understand what players want OR how they will react to some of their announcements/PR.

They never designed scenarios to be a "sideshow". They designed them to be the meat of the game.

So guild wars, with a grind, and a subscription model then.

Mythic's explanation was that they did not wish to repeat the successes of DAoC.

NOT SHOWING UP IS THE BEST WAY TO DEFEND A ZONE. There is something wrong with that statement.

So guild wars, with a grind, and a subscription model then.

NOT SHOWING UP IS THE BEST WAY TO DEFEND A ZONE.

I like to think I'm doing my bit to help.

They also didn't seem to understand that one of the strongest aspects of RvR in DAOC was the implementation of 3 factions.  Population imbalance is cured right there, one fell swoop.

Nothing terribly wrong with having 3 distinct factions, I'm just saying it didn't actually fix shit and in some instances, made shit even worse.

Point taken.  It would be even worse for WAR.  Spreading people out even thinner than they already are would make a bad situation worse. 

Wat.  :oh_i_see:



The only thing the 3 realms ensured was the small realm getting it in two holes instead of just one.

So now you have only one side getting it in two holes.  Not much different then, really.  Certainly a third faction wouldn't "fix" the game.  There are way too many things wrong to fix with one simple change. 

We are continuing to work on adjustments to what each stat does to make sure some of the less attractive stats become more attractive. We would be doing ourselves a disservice if we turned around and put Int and Wou on every peice of bright wizard gear for example (What the players want) right before we turned around and added some additional benifit to Willpower or Initiative etc...We will continue to look atissues like Wou being favored over Tou, and Int being favored over Wiletc. And strive to give each of these stats a meaningful purpouse for the various careers.
Another item everyone has to realize is we are working 1 to 2 patches ahead of what you are seeing and all of our changes push with a long view. We never intended a career to only need 2 stats to work, we wanted a number of stats to do diffrent things so players would push to obtain various stats for diffrent reasons.

Well if the stat thing indicates the whole combat system getting a make over, they might hold off on more merges now, until it's all finished.

We are continuing to work on adjustments to what each stat does to make sure some of the less attractive stats become more attractive. We would be doing ourselves a disservice if we turned around and put Int and Wou on every peice of bright wizard gear for example (What the players want) right before we turned around and added some additional benifit to Willpower or Initiative etc...We will continue to look atissues like Wou being favored over Tou, and Int being favored over Wiletc. And strive to give each of these stats a meaningful purpouse for the various careers.
Another item everyone has to realize is we are working 1 to 2 patches ahead of what you are seeing and all of our changes push with a long view. We never intended a career to only need 2 stats to work, we wanted a number of stats to do diffrent things so players would push to obtain various stats for diffrent reasons.

Quote from: Mythic Dev
We are continuing to work on adjustments to what each stat does to make sure some of the less attractive stats become more attractive. We would be doing ourselves a disservice if we turned around and put Int and Wou on every peice of bright wizard gear for example (What the players want) right before we turned around and added some additional benifit to Willpower or Initiative etc...We will continue to look atissues like Wou being favored over Tou, and Int being favored over Wiletc. And strive to give each of these stats a meaningful purpouse for the various careers.
Another item everyone has to realize is we are working 1 to 2 patches ahead of what you are seeing and all of our changes push with a long view. We never intended a career to only need 2 stats to work, we wanted a number of stats to do diffrent things so players would push to obtain various stats for diffrent reasons.

So, in other words, they really haven't fixed itemization issues, but are now trying to decide how to rig stats that make the crappy itemization work, and don't get all pissy about it because we're working 2 patches ahead of what you're playing so trust us.

So what if a career only needs 2 stats? Tanks need lots of health and lots of defense. DPS needs to kill faster and stay alive longer. Healers need to Heal better and stay alive longer. What else is there?

It's like they're trying to add a false sense of depth to a game that's about killing the other guy before they kill you. Adding more depth to stats only means the min/max stat whores will still win over the all-rounders. Just make everybody a min/maxer by default and stop with this cryptic bullshit.

Is Walt Disney Co. preparing a bid for Electronic Arts Inc.? Disney Chief Financial Officer Tom Staggs appeared to leave the door open Tuesday. When asked about Disney's focus ...

After five straight quarters of losses, the pity party was consummated yesterday with a massive sell-off as EA dropped guidance for its Fiscal 2009 (ending March 31), citing poor sales of its holiday lineup and general market malaise. (Eric Savitz had a nice post up on the mass analyst exodus over at his Tech Trader Blog, yesterday). The prior guidance was for revenues of $4.9 to $5.1 billion, and non-GAAP EPS of between $1.00 and $1.40 per share. 

yep that's how i felt about it. Toughness is a really crappy stat to stack on, not a bad debuff, but a really terrible buff stat with poor returns.

Can't read the WSJ article due to not being a subscriber. Any chance of a quote of the stuff below the jump?

Can't read the WSJ article due to not being a subscriber. Any chance of a quote of the stuff below the jump?

Is Walt Disney Co. preparing a bid for Electronic Arts Inc.? Disney Chief Financial Officer Tom Staggs appeared to leave the door open Tuesday. When asked about Disney’s focus on developing games in house versus buying another company, he told an investor, “I don’t want you to conclude that those are in the long term mutually exclusive.” Moments later he noted a “strategic and attractive” opportunity would be “a possibility.”

Great, now it costs me even more to fly between the 3 zones and see which one has something going on in Open RVR.

I wonder:

If a server could somehow come together and agree to play only in one front (say, Dwarfs v Greenskins) for T1-T3 if it would make the game more enjoyable. Obviously the population would swell on the 1 front. But you'd have 2 empty fronts. But then again, if it made enough population to make playing the game fun, why worry about the abandoned fronts?

Screw you guys.  I liked having three factions.  It gave variety in gameplay (realm hopping when boredom set in) and I loved playing the underdog... it made for a target-rich environment. 

On that bolded part... God Forbid you give the players what they want, especially if it makes sense.

Why would you try to make secondary stats more important? Most classes have 2-3 important stats and the rest just AREN'T and that's OK. It's a PVP game - people want what makes them able to kill others faster and survive longer, like Arthur said. In the Rock-Paper-Scissors design philosophy, that's what you want. What you shouldn't be doing is keeping stupid stats like Willpower on Witch Hunter gear, because altering what Willpower does for everyone will likely have more balance issues than just taking the fucking useless stats off the WH gear.

It's like they see exactly what needs to be done, and cannot fathom that doing the exact opposite is the wrong choice.

This.

And I have yet to see anyone mount a meaningful defence of two factions beyond 'it worked for WoW'.

Three factions give a small but significant boost to realm politics, a small but significant boost to balance, and a small but significant boost to variety and replayability; with no downside whatsoever.

The only reason Mythic didn't take that route for WAR was the asinine 'let's not repeat daoc' bullshit.

Actually there are IP reasons for not doing that. As I mentioned elsewhere, in the tabletop game GW divides all the armies up into only two sides when doing the big summer campaigns and that's how they did the card game as well.

And splitting things into three sides has IP issues as well. On the surface it might make sense to put the Greenskins by themselves but that would unbalance the races and classes (3 v 2 v 1) and you would really need at least 2 races on each side so the Dwarfs would get the shaft (cause you can't get rid of the Elves and Humans) and you would have to pair somebody up with the Greenskins but that doesn't make IP sense either (at least not if you consider this a long-term thing). And then everytime you wanted to add races you would have to add three instead of just two, which means extra work, and again you have the problem of who to stick with the Greenskins.

1.  Dwarves, Humies, Elvises
2.  Skaven, Orcs
3.  Chaos, Dark Elvises
expansion-
4.  Vampire Counts

Regardless of faction have the same number of careers per faction then it doesn't matter how many races there are.  

Pairing Skaven with Greenskins makes as much sense as pairing them with Chaos or Dark Elves, as in it doesn't make sense as a long term thing. Adding an entirely new side with an expansion is not going to happen cause of the exponentially increasing amount of work each time you add a new side. Also Vampire Counts is a horrible choice.

And it does matter how many races there are per side cause the classes aren't identical between any two races -- they are balanced per side, so if one side has fewer races that means they may need additional classes to offset that deficiency. More importantly it'll cause a population imbalance if the expansion adds races to only some of the sides. People will flock to the new races, at least temporarily, causing a population shift if one of more sides is lacking in the new shiney.

Still, Mythic’s boss, Mark Jacobs, said that the rumored expansion could take some time to develop and test. He stated in a forum thread that "Just so you know, we haven't begun work on an XPack yet and aren't going to until we get a lot more done in WAR. The expansion can wait a little longer but the main game can't. And once we begin work on an XPack, it's going to take us quite a while to do it”.

He dropped one hint on the possible content in the expansion, mentioning that he was personally a big fan of the Vampire Counts appearing in the Warhammer fantasy lore.

Oh, about the Vampires...... I know you might not like the idea but it seems Jacobs does :awesome_for_real:.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Expansion-for-Warhammer-Online-Not-in-Development-Yet-99748.shtml (http://news.softpedia.com/news/Expansion-for-Warhammer-Online-Not-in-Development-Yet-99748.shtml)

Being that there is evidence to suggest that crits ignore armor/resistances for the additional crit damage portion, it strengthens its case. Additionally, being that it mitigates ALL sources of damage, both physical and magic, while you might be able to say Armor calculates in a stronger fashion, overall stacking toughness is going to reduce overall damage applied against you in an average setting more than any other stat.

On another note,

can anyone

tell me

what 'Sir Brucing' is?

My God, I already hate you, and I liked you not 10 minutes ago.

Thanks  :-).