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Warhammer Online Mac Version Is Now Available

Oct 29, 2009 Warhammer Online|325views

Mythic Entertainment is pleased to announce that the Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning Mac version is now available. Players on both PC and Mac platforms can now battle and quest together on the same servers - WAR is now truly everywhere!

New to WAR? you can Purchase the Mac version HERE or download the trial

Existing Players

Step 1:

Download the Mac Client via patcher

http://www.warhammeronline.com/mac/download.php

Step 2:

Log-in with your current account information and PLAY!

New Trial Users

Step 1:

Create your FREE trial account first here.

Step 2:

Download the Mac Client via patcher

http://www.warhammeronline.com/mac/download.php

Step 3:

Log-in with your account information and PLAY!

About WAR Mac Version

WAR for the Mac is made possible using the CiderTM Portability Engine from TransGaming (TSX-V: TNG) that acts as a “wrapper” around the game software, enabling it to run seamlessly on Intel-based Macs. TransGaming’s Cider technology allows Mythic Entertainment to rapidly enable and deploy WAR for the Mac, providing a new high quality gaming experience to the ever-growing Mac gaming community.

Tags: Warhammer Online

Warhammer-New Server,New Life.

Jul 19, 2009 Warhammer Online|371views

I was looking forward to the new server in WarHammer. I went from Magnus which was a low pop server to Badlands which is home to a higher population. I was not disappointed at all. It’s amazing to log in and queue up for a scenario and have them “pop” within a few minutes of hitting the button. The RVR has been intense. Warbands are everywhere; zones are flipping at a regular basis, all ingredients for fun.

My handsome engineer who is a bane to destruction has been having non-stop action since day one of the server move. He has gone up two levels and 4 RR’s. This is all thanks to scenarios and RVR (and of course the increased XP for transferring). The first night I stuck it out with keep sieges and RVR. I was surprised to see the huge turnout of order and destruction. I do believe Order is somewhat outnumbered on badlands, yet you can find several forum posts that state that either side is outnumbered.

Sometimes server merges can signify the death of a game. I think in this case it proves that Mythic is trying to provide what players crave. I believe the server merge is a step in the right direction, more needs to be done. Mythic needs to attract new players while retaining their current player base. The game itself is good, really good. This is unfortunately offset by the mighty bugs the game is still plagued with. The worst bug is when the drivers stop responding and turn your screen into an 8 bit paradise, which is only solved by a reboot. This should be the top priority for Mythic. In game chat, people crash all the time, its normal and tolerated. I only have the 8 bit crash once a week, but at this age of the game that’s once a week too many. Mythic, fix the bugs and you could possibly be sitting on a game that is full of fun, excitement and potential that is only limited by the amount of work you are willing to put in.

Tags: Warhammer Online

Warhammer Online La Muerte de los Servers

Jul 16, 2009 Warhammer Online|315views

The black flag has been raised, the servers have been targeted. Mythic has addressed the population issues in WarHammer once again. Certain servers are encouraged to transfer to target servers. This is a death sentence for the source servers. Here is the list from mythic;
Ironfist                   to    Gorfang

Vortex                     to    Volkmar
Monolith

Magnus                     to    Badlands
Skull Throne

Transferring is easy. Log on to Mythic’s account management page and select character transfer /copy. Click on the free transfer button next to the character you wish to move. It will then ask you to enter a name. If the name is taken you will be immediately notified which will quickly prompt you to enter a new name. Finally hit confirm. Easy, just like that you are on your new server.

This is a good step from Mythic, it proves they are constantly looking at the servers, the player base, the population and attempting to keep the game going strong. I am glad they made this move. I have had no shortage of RVR on Magnus where my ruggedly handsome engineer was located. Now that we are moving to a more populated server the action should be more intense.

RVR was always easy or fairly easy to get into most nights. Scenarios on the other hand, not so much. I hope to see scenario pops more often now that we are on a higher pop server. Scenarios are an aspect of the game that I really enjoy. I love the instant PVP action, this is great when you are doing a “drive by” gaming session (when you tell the wife you’re doing laundry).

What does this means for Mythic? Well this means that they are being proactive to the issues the game is facing. This means they are listening to players complaining about population issues. This could also mean they intend to continually provide support for this game and do what it takes to encourage its survival. The other side of the coin is that population is dropping. Servers dying are a bad sign. Under populated servers could also have been a result of the overzealous opening of servers during launch. Good idea on paper, not so good in practice. I do hope this game succeeds, it provides a good alternative to the 400 lb gorilla. You know who I’m talking about. Until next time, I will be introducing a whole bunch of new destro to the business end of my trusty rifle.

Tags: Warhammer Online

How to Have Fun In WarHammer

Jun 29, 2009 Warhammer Online|343views

My Engineer enters the enemy occupied zone. He scans the horizon at the end of his trusty dragon engraved rifle, looking for any signs of the enemy. Every step through this cursed land taxes his very soul. He can feel the crunch of the dried dirt and sand with his every step, the grenades along his belt jiggling almost as if they are yearning to be thrown at an enemy to fulfill their destiny. Finally the lone engineer spots a full warband attacking a keep. This warband is united under the banner of Order. Order, the word is almost meaningless on the battlefield. Still under this banner we will seek to bring law to the lawless, justice to those that are unjust and in this case the goal is to liberate the keep from the forces of destruction.

This is a typical night in WarHammer. The only issue is finding a warband to join. The main ingredient is other players. You need those to fight against and those to fight with. If you are on a low pop server which has no action, transfer or reroll to a better server. Sorry there are no other options, you need a good balanced to almost balanced population to enjoy this game. I have come up with a formula to maximize my playtime. I will share this epiphany with you.

1-Queue up for all scenarios.
This is the first thing I do every time. If RVR is slow going I can hopefully pop in a scenario for some instant PVP. If RVR is active you can always leave the queue. Sometimes you need to partake in a sc to lock a zone. Either way queue up.

2-Look for Open Warbands.
Use the option on your UI to look for an open WB in your zone. If there is an open WB click on the RVR button to join.

3-Guild
Use your guild. Check your guild roster and see if anyone in your Tier is in an open warband. This is depicted by a red banner near their name. Right click on the banner and select join open warband.

4- The Mighty Map
Open the map; check the zones by the racial pairings. This will present a representation of the tiers by zones. You can see if there are any battles in any zones on the map. If there are battles in a different zone fly there and proceed to step 2.

5-Jump tiers
Don’t be afraid to roll an alt. Sometimes your tier might be having a slow night. Roll an alt and join the battle at that level.

This is my daily formula for WarHammer. I always have something to do. Regardless of Zone or Tier I can always expect to join a battle somewhere. Over all WAR is a good game, it’s full of fun and excitement. Sometimes we just have to go and find it. Good luck and enjoy your WAAAGGHHH!!

Tags: Guild, Jump tiers, Warbands, WarHammer

Warhammer Online:Skull Cartouche Contest

Jun 11, 2009 Warhammer Online|864views

As the Managing Editor of an MMORPG website, I tend to get a lot of interesting mail. So much so, in fact, that I’m fairly certain there’s a lengthy file on me somewhere at the Canadian customs offices. Still, it always gets my attention when a human skull finds its way to my front door, which is exactly what happened the day after my wife and I returned from our recent honeymoon.

This wasn’t just any old human skull; that would be too easy. No, this skull was wrapped in mummy linens that gave way to reveal a seven symbol cartouche.

It turns out that the skull was sent by our friends at Mythic Entertainment and the cartouche is a puzzle for players, left by the Tomb Kings for you all to decipher.

“WAR fans can take this code to the Mythic Account Center https://accounts.eamythic.com and enter it into their account,” said the accompanying letter. “Once activated, players will receive a unique Scarab Amulet reward. This fun item summons a Scarab swarm that chitters and swirls around a player’s character.”

It turns out that this unique MMORPG.com cartouche will only unlock 1,000 amulets (on North American servers only, I’m afraid), so hurry and get that cartouche translated.

Tags: Warhammer Online

Warhammer Online:Land of the Dead Hands Preview

May 12, 2009 Warhammer Online|651views

It’s rare, but every so often, an established developer walks into what should otherwise be just another press demo and surprises everyone in the room. Mythic Entertainment did just that this weekend when they unveiled Land of the Dead to a group of journalists at Baltimore Games Day.

The goal, according to Creative Director Paul Barnett, was simply to “add more game to the game.” From the presentation and hands-on demo they provided, they definitely succeeded, at least with the new content.

Land of the Dead is a free upgrade to Warhammer Online, due in early July. It adds an entirely new area to the game, modeled on the gameplay found in Dark Age of Camelot’s Darkness Falls dungeon. It’s a new high level PvE area that is contested between the two realms, who must fight for control and then within the zone in order to enjoy its content and harvest the rewards.

To enter the Land of the Dead, the realm must win a tug-o-war with their opponent. This is decided through RvR, most specifically zone conquest and individual kills. Mythic hopes to see the zone swap control a couple times a night. Once it’s changed, the controlling realm gains the sole ability to enter the zone and respawn if killed within it. Naturally, when it flips, the people already inside won’t just be booted out. Instead, the invading realm will need to purge them through a series of missions.

More Game In The Game

What makes Land of the Dead new and fun, though, is not this concept. It’s the way Mythic ingeniously tweaked each of the quests and missions within the zone.

The vast desert/Egyptian inspired area is littered with 18 Public Quests, combinations of which must be completed by groups of players in order to gain access to a final epic pyramid.

In a move that is likely to thrill some, and exasperate others, each of these quests is not just the typical staged open kill quest from the regular lands of Warhammer Online. Each has its own unique “console-like” element to it. That’s not to say WAR has become an FPS game, but clearly the designers have done their homework and crafted challenges that test not only the level of the character, but also the abilities of the person behind the keyboard.

Here are a few examples of this new take on public quests:

• Carrion Eggs: It begins like any other. Players must smash a few eggs of Carrion birds. But, as players run in to begin attacking the birds, they’re lifted off the ground and dropped up at the top of a large cliff face full of nests. To complete the quest, the player must strategically hop from ledge to ledge down the mountain and plan their descent to maximize the number of ledges they land on (and thus eggs they smash). Players cannot climb the mountain and the quest is on a timer, so while the birds happily bring players who fall off back to the top to try again, time is of the essence. Sound familiar? It should, this harkens back to classic platformer games like Mario.
• Sealed Tombs: In another PQ, players begin again with a typical kill quest. After the first stage though, players must run into a series of tombs. At the top, they take on a blessing and then must quickly fight their way to the bottom of the mini dungeon to close off a sarcophagus. The blessing they take at the top has a shelf life, so to be successful each player better hurry. In order to do it with a reasonable group before the timer expires, it’s also important to spread out and do multiple tombs at once. Then, as monsters pour into the area, a series of skeletons wanders in to unlock the tombs. Again, players must intercept these skeletons before they can unlatch their hard work. Finally, once defended, there is a final epic mob fight… with a twist. This time, in between each stage as the monster is beaten down, he turns into a of couple fast moving clouds that, if they touch the player, teleports them to the bottom of one of the tombs. If a group isn’t careful and the wrong guy gets sent downstairs, the results can be disastrous.



• Defend The Docks: In a moment straight out of Pirates of the Caribbean or The Mummy, this PQ integrates siege equipment right into the game. Players must defend the docks against first an onslaught of ships from the sea and then a hoard of skeletons shuffle over land and the rolling dunes, just begging to be mowed down. The PQ culminates with a fight against a rather piratey Ship Captain.
• Dig For The Door: The final of the 18 PQs asks players to play some combination of Minesweeper and Simon Says to open up the final door and unseal the pyramid for the entire zone for 15 minutes. Inspired by actual historical accounts, where the Egyptians would slaughter the workers and architects of the pyramids and bury them outside, this mission asks players to dig up architects, each of whom will give a clue to how to unlock the door. Players must hit a dig button to try and with each attempt, they get on screen feedback about how close they were to an architect (“a few steps,” “a few feet,” or “a few yards”). If the player doesn’t get an architect, they get a worker, who they must kill. To effectively find architects, players must spread out and coordinate their messages to find them. After they get enough architects, each of whom has illuminated a symbol on the wall of the cave, the group must then carefully spread out and stand on the matching symbols carved into stones on the walkway. Be careful though, if even one member jumps on the wrong stone during this phase, not only does the door not open, but they’re instantly struck down. Once players coordinate and stand in the right spots, the door is unlocked.

Other innovations include roaming PQs that literally wander around the zone and can be activated wherever they’re met and much more. Each of the 18 PQs outside of the pyramid has a distinct mini-game tied to it.

Mythic also said that they worked hard to make sure that players wouldn’t get frozen out of the public quest once it reached a certain level if they were in too small of a group or even alone. The quests definitely seemed to be more friendly to small groups, but many still had an epic encounter at the end that required a large and well coordinated party to have any hope against.

Nonetheless, even if the contribution is not huge, each person who participates unlocks a symbol. These symbols must be collected to finally enter the pyramid at the end, so theoretically, even with a modest contribution, a single player could unlock all he or she needs to go into the last stage. That said, once inside, they best not be alone. Some baddies await.

The non-traditional content didn’t stop once the pyramid door came down. This large dungeon not only has monsters to fight, but traps and puzzles to figure out. Very early on, players must navigate a hallway full of swinging pendulums. Take a step too far? Death. Take a step too fast? Death. To disable it, three players must make it through and flick switches so the rest can pass.

Later on, in an Indian Jones moment, a giant swarm of locust will chase players rapidly down some narrow hallways. As if that wasn’t bad enough, as the players run, skeletons reach up from the ground and grab at feet. This isn’t a root though. The only way to save the player is for a group mate to go back and help them, in a mechanic not unlike what players must do in Left 4 Dead.

Even the final encounter of the Land of the Dead feels far more like something out of God of War than an MMO. A giant statue of the undead ruler of the realm comes alive as a weary group leaves the pyramid conquered and comes down, fists a flailing, to smash the party below. It requires a War Band to complete, but players must quick run to avoid getting smashed by the fists as they wail away at the ground below, and then dive in to get some hits in quickly, before the statue raises them out of reach. After enough damage is done, the players can then run right up the arm and slay the statue by attacking a soft spot on the back of his neck.

For purists, there is good news and bad news. This content is really only in the Land of the Dead, which is ultimately an entirely optional experience for players. However, according to the team, this is entirely representative of how they plan to do content in the future.

For those into something new that requires players to be a bit more on their toes, this content should be a breath of fresh air, but will have to tide you over for a while yet, as there is no practical way to retrofit this style of content into the core game. It’ll come, eventually, but naturally that depends on fan response and development schedules.

Purge Mode

While much of this is PvE content, it wouldn’t be Warhammer if RvR didn’t have a hand in it. As mentioned before, when the zone first flips, the invading realm enters what they’re calling a Purge.

This is a series of missions to rid the Land of the Dead of anyone from the enemy realm. Among other things, they can destroy the opposing NPC base and any players in it, shoot down the giant airships that brought the opposition there in the first place, and slaughter players as they go about their PQs and more.

But it really doesn’t get super interesting until the pyramid itself comes into play.

Naturally, at the time of any switch, players are likely to be in the middle of an instance. They’re told that their realm has lost control, but they are not booted out. Instead, it just means that if anyone hits the respawn button, they must start back in their own realm, although resurrection is still allowed.

Now, they must make a decision. They can either give up and go home (not likely, eh?), dig in and defend, or try and get through to the end of the pyramid before anyone catches up to them. See, while this was previously a private instance, invading groups are allowed to either enter the pyramid in regular PvE fashion, or invade someone else’s instance. This means a new group, a group that can respawn, comes in the front door and is hot on the heels of the original group.

Remember those traps from earlier? Well, a smart group uses this to their advantage. They’ve spent the time to get through them all, so they can now go back and reset them all so that the invaders are delayed. Beyond knowing that the enemy is present, the groups know nothing.

A coordinated and efficient group can make life miserable for the attacking hoard and with a bit of skill complete the pyramid and kill lots of enemies as they do it.

Obviously, attrition is an issue and eventually the invaders are likely to chase off their opponents, but players don’t seem likely to make it easy on each other. Although, players are also fully allowed to log off and on, regardless of who controls an area. Many of the assembled press already had plans to hide stealth classes near the switches to various traps so that they could login and flick them at just the right moment to wipe out entire groups.

With the zone intended to flip roughly twice a night (every four hours or so), it is entirely possible (and likely) that well run group could fight off enemies and survive until their realm takes it back. In an instant, the hunted can become the hunters.

To Control The Land of the Dead

Mythic has gone to great lengths to ensure that neither side dominates the zone and the rewards within. To make sure there is a good back and forth, even on the most lopsided servers, they’ve done a few things.

At its core, this is a race. Whichever team reaches the number of points required to flip the zone first wins the round and gets the zone. However, they’ve set it up so that while the winning team’s score resets once they’ve taken on the quest to the Land of the Dead, the losing team doesn’t suffer any such reset. In short, the more times in a row one side wins, the harder it is for them to keep it up.

There is also a natural balance at play here. If one side is winning the Tier 4 land war and controls the Land of the Dead, more of their top players are likely to bleed off into the sands. That means more opportunities for the opposition on the ground to not only flip the land, but turn the tide of the war.

They’ve also made the contributors to those score amplified the longer a side fails, as a handicap of sorts. The want to make sure both sides get to experience the content and have a regular stream or purge scenarios, which is one of the things they are most excited about.

Unlocking the Land of the Dead

Finally, Mark Davis from the Live Event team dropped in to explain how they’re going to unveil the Land of the Dead.

Too many games just patch the servers and say “go,” which is a lesson too few MMOs learned from EverQuest, which has generally done a great job of introducing new content through epic Live Events. Warhammer has had some success with Live Events and plans a doozy to open the doors to Patch 1.3.

When the patch goes live, the Land of the Dead will not be available instantly. The two sides will take part in the culmination of the Call to Arms story arc over a full week. The winning realm receives 24 hours of unfettered access to the new area.

The Call to Arms story arc began back in February with Bitter Rivals and has teased this update, even before the wraps came off what it was all about. Now with Rise of the Tomb Kings, players can duke it out, not just in the traditional RvR-focused meters, but through quests and other content that will only be available that week.

Davis noted that the previous legs of the story arc were very individual in nature, with players conscious of their contribution. This arc is far more realm driven, and the Live Event page will even keep track of who is in the lead as the week goes on.

Players can, of course, jump into this Live Event at any time or hour. It is not an event where GMs roleplay out characters on a Live Server, but content that is activated and available around the clock. It doesn’t require that the player was around for Chapters One and Two, either, but Davis did hint that those who were will be happy.

“There’s a reward from Beyond the Sands (Chapter Two) that is useful in the Land of the Dead,” he teased cryptically.

Davis has been thrilled with fan feedback on their Live Events to date and emphasized that this is something else Mythic has a renewed commitment to. While the timing will vary for a range of reasons, they hope to do a Live Event every couple months for the rest of the year. And for players overseas, don’t fret. All content, even Live Events, filters out to the partner servers (regardless of language) within a day of going live in the US.

Final Thoughts

This is undoubtedly going to be a big moment for Mythic and the future of Warhammer Online. The content itself is a departure from the core game, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. It remains to be seen, though, if some fresh new content in one zone, no matter how epic, will be enough to entice a large number of players back into the world and whether it’s worth the risk of alienating players who liked their PQs the way they were.

Nonetheless, it’s a risk worth taking. These quests are fun, no doubt about it. They were a joy to play and Mythic seems to have done a good job of balancing the new ideas with the realities of an MMORPG. Although the lack of console staples like ragdoll death are emphasized when a Witch Hunter gets smashed with a giant pendulum, only to crumple to the ground in a stock death animation. Still, these details aside, the content stimulates parts of the brain that few MMOs bother with and that alone represents a huge jump forward that Mythic hopes will reinvigorate and expand their community.

The Land of the Dead is available to any player in the controlling realm over the level of 25 (it automatically scales people to the mid 30s) and should roll out free of charge in early June.

Tags: Warhammer Online

WAR: Land of the Dead HD Trailer Out

May 12, 2009 Warhammer Online|535views

Mythic released a new HD trailer for Land of the Dead, first expansion of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. The video showcased plenty of details on Land of the Dead. “A new dungeon zone has been revealed, but beware invaders, for beneath the desert sand lies a power greater than life.”

 

 

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Tags: Warhammer Online

Getting to Know Warhammer Guild Ranks 6-10

May 9, 2009 Warhammer Online|595views

This article is a continuation of the last one I did and picks up where it left off after guild rank 5. For the first 5 ranks see that article. The primary body of this article deals with guild alliances.

Guild Rank 6

Alliances

The first thing, and probably the most exciting thing, you receive at guild rank 6 is the ability to form alliances. The alliance function was quite an early concept to enter the game from way back in development when guilds were called regiments. The basic idea behind the concept was that multiple regiments would ally and form an army which would march into battle. Different regiments would have different missions and roles on the field of battle. The fundamentals of the scheme have stayed the same and now guilds can enter into alliances in place of regiments. Unfortunately though, alliances offer little beyond advance communication utilities.

To access the alliance menu you must first open the roster tab on your guild screen. From there you should see two tabs at the bottom. One is labelled “Guild” and displays your standard guild roster. The other is labelled “Alliance” and displays the closest thing to a GUI you’ll find for alliances. If you are not in an alliance, the tab will still appear at guild rank 6, but instead of alliance utilities it will display two text boxes, one for the name of the alliance you wish to form and the other for the name of the unallied guild you wish to form it with. To create your own alliance is fairly self-explanatory from the alliance tab; find ally, name alliance, enter ally’s name, press enter (or in this case, click on the form alliance button). Congratulations on your alliance. To join an alliance that has already been created someone from that alliance must invite you. At the time of writing there is a maximum of 10 guilds per alliance.

Once in an alliance, of your own creation or otherwise, you can access alliance information from the tab on the guild roster page. The top box displays a list of all the guild masters and guild officers in the alliance. Note that, while guild master is obviously set, alliance officers and guild officers are not. E.g. a player can be a guild officer but not an alliance officer and vice versa. The annoying thing about this system is that every character, bar the guild master, enters the alliance at the rank “Alliance Hopeful”. At the time of writing there is no way to mass promote your members and you (being the guild master) must go through each name right-clicking to promote, more often than not 2 or 3 times. For a guild with 12 members I can see how this would be a drag. For a guild with in excess of 100 or 150 members it is an excruciatingly boring, full day, task. I hope you didn’t have any pre-made scenarios planned for today.

Once you have sorted out your alliance ranks you may find yourself wondering; what has actually changed? Well, there are a few things, though don’t get too excited, for a mechanic that has been so talked about there is nothing revolutionary. The first thing you will notice, or check out if you’ve heard about it is the alliance chat. Just like guild chat you now have access to alliance chat, which, just like guild chat, is divided into 2 channels; peasant and officer… member and officer. These can be accessed by using the slash commands: [/alliancesay {text}] abbreviated to [/a {text}] and [/allianceofficersay {text}] abbreviated to [/aos {text}]. Something else you may notice is that now, when you schedule guild events on the calendar, you can now select an option to “allow alliance signup” or “share with alliance”. This simply means that other members of the alliance that are not in your guild can sign up for events that you have scheduled. This is a useful tool if you want to organise large RvR strikes with several war bands.That’s it for alliances at this time, it would be nice if Mythic added some additional functions to the limited ones available, but it’s certainly not a top priority.

Access to Guild Halls

At guild rank 6 you also gain access to The Viper’s Pit or Sigmar’s Hammer. These are the Guild Halls for Destruction and Order respectively. You will gain access to the merchants inside as well as the flight master and Officers’ Hall. The Guild Hall contains all sorts of npcs; there is a career trainer, a crafting materials merchant, renown merchants (1 for every tier), quartermaster and a flight master, though there is no renown trainer. The Officers’ Hall is located inside the Guild Hall and only allows access to guild masters and officers. The room was designed for use as a meeting place for guild higher-ups to discuss tactics and plans if their alliance chat won’t suffice. However, alliance chat seems to suffice and the room is largely used for logging out in. This is because a Guild Hall offers a bonus to rested XP regeneration while you are logged out in it and the officers’ hall offers a further bonus on top of that, though the exact numbers are unpublished.

Tactic Point

Just as with guild rank 5 you will gain another tactic point to use on your guild standard. At guild rank 6 you will still only have one slot and one standard open to you. As you gain access to additional standards and multiple tactic slots your range of options and choice of configurations will improve and broaden along with the applications of your standard.

Guild Rank 7

You will gain a third tactic point at guild rank 7.

At this rank you will also gain access to guild crafting materials from the guild merchant in your Guild Hall. If you engage in PvE then these materials will likely be familiar to you as they are a limited selection of materials that drop in from monsters in the PvE side of the game. If you rank up exclusively through RvR based activities then you probably don’t craft either, but if you do then you’ll want to check these out, especially if you are into Talisman Making or you are an Apothecary.

Guild Rank 8

At this rank you receive your fourth tactic point.

You also earn the ability to set up guild only auctions in the auction house. What this means is that if you want to auction an item but want to keep it in the guild then you can select this option and only fellow members of your guild may purchase it. There is currently no way to extend this offer to your alliance.

Guild Rank 9

Congratulations, you have earned your fifth tactic point.

More exciting is the second tactic slot you have earned on your standard. Finally, you can start equipping some more of those tactics. Choose carefully which two you want, you still only have one standard at this guild rank and you can only edit the tactics once every 24 hours, you don’t want to change them only to discover another group needed that configuration for their dungeon run in an hour.

Guild Rank 10

You will also be able to reserve your heraldry at this rank. It costs 10 gold (or near enough), which the guild master will be charged for, though he can always raise the guild tax if he’s broke. The heraldry won’t be fully revealed until guild rank 20. You will be able to see part of it now and reserve all of it so another guild won’t be able to take it (though they can come very close to copying it). At guild rank 10 you will be able to see all parts of the heraldry but the emblem on your guild standard. You won’t get the guild cloak until guild rank 15 and the emblem won’t be visible on either the standard or the cloak until guild rank 20.

Oh… and you will receive your sixth guild tactic point.

Tags: Warhammer Online

Getting to Know Warhammer Guild Ranks 1-5

May 9, 2009 Warhammer Online|623views

Now you have a guild or you’re in a guild, the first thing you might notice after hitting [G] to open your guild screen is the large XP bar. This bar fills up as the various members of your guild take action in The Old World. As it fills, you gain rewards for your guild. In this article I’ll take a look at the first five rewards you get and their application on the battlefield, or at home in your capital city.

Guild Rank 1

At rank one, your reward is a guild. Congratulations. The first thing you will notice is that you now have access to the guild screen. There are five tabs, each governing a different function of the guild. You will also notice that there is a cog attached to the upper right hand corner of the window. The first tab, entitled Profile, is an introductory window to the guild. The guild leader or a guild member with the right permissions can edit most of the information on this page; you can see or set the Message Of The Day at the top (the Message Of The Day is a short piece of text that pops up for all guild members when they log in), below that you will see the guild XP bar, then there’s the About Us section, below that, in the big window, is the news feed which will log calendar events like, when new members join the guild or if someone leaves the guild as well as when a guild member reaches a new career or renown rank. Lastly there is the date the guild was created, a counter displaying the collective renown of all guild members, the email address of the guild and the URL for the guild forums. Neither of the latter two sections is mandatory, but they are there if your guild has access to those supplementary utilities.

The next tab is the guild Calendar. Unsurprisingly this tab contains a calendar. Guild members with the right permissions can schedule and sign up for events. To create an event, you select your chosen date then hit the “new” button. You can enter a start and finish time for the event and it will be logged. The event will be visible to everyone in the guild.

Next is the Roster. This lists the names of everyone in the guild, their rank within the guild, their career, their career rank and the last time they were online. You can also set notes on players which can be viewed here. There are public member notes, which can be viewed by everyone and officer notes which can only be viewed by guild officers. There is a right-click drop down menu on each player’s name that allows you to promote/demote them, set them as a standard bearer and various other things. At this time however the promote/demote function is broken and the text command [/guildpromote {name}] must be used. This is all there is on this screen at guild rank one, but at rank six you will also see an alliance tab at the bottom.

Next is the Standard tab. Here you can view the various standards your guild has, the guild tactics it has unlocked and the various aesthetic options for your standard.

Beside that is the Rewards tab, this tab lists all of the rewards your guild has unlocked though its guild rank and allows you to choose any new tactics and make various other decisions based on the guild rewards.

Finally, there is the cog on the upper right-hand side of the window next to the Rewards tab. This is the Permissions page and can be viewed by any guild member but only edited by the guild leader or a member with the right permissions. You can organise guild ranks here (these are the ranks of the players within the guild and not the ranks of the guild itself; confusingly they have the same name). You can also rename the default player ranks, create new ones (up to a maximum of 10 including the guild leader rank) and, of course, set permissions (permissions govern what each player rank within your guild is allowed to do, e.g. sign up for events & withdraw items from the guild bank).

Some of these functions, for example the calendar and alliance tab, will not be available to you until your guild has reached a certain rank. Fortunately most of the fundamental features are unlocked within the first 10 guild ranks and the later ones are largely bonus items and aesthetic rewards.

Guild Rank 2

At guild rank two, you will receive your guild calendar as described above. I have covered most of the functions of the calendar above. One nifty nuance of the calendar is that it will automatically adjust the timezone it displays based on the location of the character viewing it so you need not worry about the various different ones when you are setting up an event.

Guild Rank 3

At guild rank three, you gain access to the taxes and tithes mechanic. The guild tax will apply to everyone in the guild and siphon off a percentage of all the cash drops a player receives and send it to the guild bank. The guild leader can set this percentage. Tithes work in a similar way but are set by individual guild members. For example, if a guild has 2% tax but a generous player wishes to give more s/he can set their tithe to whatever percent they want and that will override the guild tax. Note, this only works if you set it to more than the current guild tax.

Guild Rank 4

At rank four your guild gains access to the first vault in the guild bank. The guild bank is located in The Soul Vault (map coordinates: 18627, 26990) in the Inevitable City and the First Bank of Altdorf (14634, 24430) in Altdorf. A guild leader can set permissions for which player ranks in the guild can access the bank to deposit and withdraw money and items, however, there is currently no bank log so it is impossible to tell who has added or removed things from the bank.

Guild Rank 5

This is a very important rank for your guild as it grants access to the guild standard and standard bearer title. There are three standards to unlock, but at this level you only receive the first; Warped Standard for Destruction and Recruit’s Standard for Order. A guild standard is a banner that displays the guild’s heraldry and has a number of useful functions:

• A standard bearer can carry the flag into battle. When he does so, it will convey a number of bonuses to nearby friendly players. These bonuses are determined by the tactics locked on the standard (see the tactics section below). While the standard is equipped the bearer can utilise a number of unique abilities but will have his career abilities disabled.
• A standard is required to capture a keep for your guild. If your realm has an empty keep, then you can capture it using your standard and any friendly player in the vicinity will gain the bonus your standard provides. This ability is available to all guild members with the right permissions; you do not need to be a standard bearer.
• Standards can also be placed in the ground by the standard bearer to act as a rally point. When a standard bearer does this they lose the abilities tied to the standard but regain use of their career abilities. The standard also becomes vulnerable to enemy capture.

Your guild will be granted two standard bearer titles at this rank which the guild leader can distribute as s/he sees fit amongst your guild members. Be careful though if your standard bearer is killed or you plant your standard in the ground and leave it behind, the enemy can capture it for renown. There is no penalty but you will have to buy a new one which costs upward of 2 gold. If you see a friendly guild’s standard lying forgotten you can pick it up and mail it back to them.

The standard utilises a tactic system similar to the tactics available to each career. At rank five your guild will also unlock its first tactic point. You can access a complete list of these from the Standard tab on the guild page in-game and they range from stat boosts to experience and renown buffs. It is worth noting standard tactics can only be edited once every 24 hours. It is also worth noting that standards can have a PvE application to and can make dungeons runs much more smoothly.

Tags: Warhammer Online

THQ to Release Warhammer 40K MMO in FY 2012

Apr 7, 2009 Warhammer Online|319views

 Publisher THQ announced the releases dates for its major games across the next two years, including Saints Row 3, another Red Faction game, an action game from Dawn of War 2 dev Relic, and its Warhammer 40,000 MMO. (Via ShackNews)

According to the slide above, THQ’s mysterious Warhammer 40,000 MMO is scheduled to be released in THQ’s fiscal year 2012, which begins on April 1st, 2011, under development in-house by Vigil Games.

Warhammer Online: Open RvR Revisited

Mar 25, 2009 Warhammer Online|382views

 

You’ve no doubt read around MMOCrunch already, from posts made by Mike that several servers had been completely closed off. It saddens me to say that while this is a great step to keep the player base to high-population servers(I use the term loosely), instead of low-population servers it does little to solve the imbalance problem some servers experience. Volkmar, for example, suffers from a lack of Destruction(Tier 4). This makes the RvR experience for both sides very unpleasant. Destruction complains that Order only wins because they have greater numbers, and Order complains that Destruction never shows up to fight because of that reason. When Destruction players read about these problems, they are further discouraged from playing on that server, and so the problem seems to never fix itself. But, I digress. We are here to talk about ORvR! More importantly, non-T4 ORvR. Why should anyone care? Call me old-fashioned, but I like the journey to be as enjoyable as the destination. Much to my surprise, it seems many others feel the same way, recently.

It may be difficult to see exactly what’s going on in the image above, but it’s very clear what I’m trying to show. I started a new character, a Knight of the Blazing Sun, and no sooner had I stepped out to the ORvR area that I let out a loud high-school-girl-esque yelp of glee. To those with a keen eye, it may seem like an imbalanced fight. There’s roughly 50 million order killing a single Choppa. This was near the entrance to our warcamp, though. You don’t really see many Destruction characters venture that far. In this particular case, the fight was at Festenplatz, where Destruction awaited with inferior numbers, but still managed to put up an amazing fight. So how did Mythic achieve this? How did they convince people to stop queueing for Nordenwatch and get out to the ORvR lakes to fight? Well, the same way any game developer gets players to do anything in their game: they add a grind to it. Every ORvR lake has an influence bar now, and whenever you kill a player, capture or defend an objective, you get influence. The rewards are amazing for the level they are available at. Tier 1 offers an almost complete set of blue armor, weapons, and rings. Tier 2 offers purple items, etc. The grind for these items is not as long as you would expect. For example, Tier 1 has a total influence requirement of about 3.3k INF to reach Elite. If you have two warbands, one Order and one Destruction constantly killing and taking/defending objectives from each other(which is not a rare sight these days, even in Tier 1), you can reach full influence in a couple of hours.

Some concerns:

One of the first things I noticed when I created my new character and hopped back into the game was the Rally Call function. The first time I got one of those, I got up from my chair, and stood straight as  I valiantly declared: “My brothers need my help, I must answer their call for reinforcements!” When I got there, though, it was nothing more than a skirmish between a couple of Order and a few Destruction at the Harvest Shrine. Angered, and hurt that my role-playing act had been in vain, I promptly returned to questing. I later learned that these rally calls are automatically issued by the server, roughly every hour or so. Why? There are very few times when these rally calls will actually yield any amount of people, and a lot of times, it’s just a way to facilitate travel to the nearest warcamp. I can’t see any real solutions to the problem, but then again I can’t really see the purpose they were intended to serve, either. Everyone who wants to RvR is already at the warcamp in a warband or in the RvR lake itself; they’re not out questing. If someone’s doing PQs, it’s because that’s what they want to do; the likelihood that they will answer a rally call  is very slim.

 

 

The keep contribution system is still very random and unreliable. Not to mention, it’s always the same loot(non-T4). Why is that bad? Because people can get a gold bag more than once. For example, I’ve gotten two gold bags from keep sieges in Tier 2. I was happy the first time, because I got a pretty good set piece from it. I was not so happy the second time, because my choice was either the same set piece, some crafting items, or some silver. It’s not so much that I didn’t have any other loot to choose from(although that may have been nice), it’s that I took someone else’s gold bag, and pulled out silver from it. Someone who really needed their chest set piece would have made better use of it. The game is in desperate need of a “pass” function, both for keeps and PQs. Allow players to set their preferences for what kind of bags they want to roll on. I’d be afraid to keep doing keep sieges on my knight with my friends if one of them hasn’t gotten a gold bag and I get a third. This effectively prevents me from playing with my friends.

There’s still little incentive to attacking a heavily defended keep. In most cases, a warband that’s attacking a heavily-defended keep will give up after one try. The INF and XP you get from killing a few people inside their own keep is nothing compared to how much they got for wiping the entire warband. Not to mention, they will get “ticks” of influence everytime they defend the keep from an attack(which translates to: everytime a player dies near the keep). One possible solution could be to add “ticks” for sieging a keep. The longer you continue to assault a heavily-defended keep, the more influence both sides will get. In order for this to count, however, the warband must make considerable progress in taking the keep. If it’s just one destruction and order player killing each other near the keep, it shouldn’t count. Progress could be measured in several ways: amount of players killed during siege, damage dealt to the door or siege engines on the walls, etc.

Overall, I am quite happy with the changes made to ORvR lakes. While I’m still leveling up my new character and getting into Tier 3 now, so far the journey has been enjoyable. By defending keeps and turning in the “kill 15 players” quest there, I’ve been able to actually obtain a level or two this way. Leveling through ORvR is possible, although not as fast as questing, doing scenarios, or combining the two. Hopefully, they continue to provide changes to improve this area of the game. I, personally, can’t wait to see what the next 6 months will bring to the game.

News Original From MMOCrunch March 25th, 2009 by Mike

Warhammer Online : Age of Reckoning-Guilds

Mar 23, 2009 Warhammer Online|768views

Guilds are a very standard feature of MMORPGs. They provide players with a way to organise themselves, choose which of the people that they meet online they want to play regularly with and, usually, the level at which they want to play the game; be it hardcore or casual. Mythic took a slightly different approach to guilds with Warhammer Online. Originally called regiments the idea was that your guild would act like a part of your realm’s army. Through Mythic’s alliance system, guilds could ally with each other to form an army. The whole system screams of militant organisation, which is very appropriate for a game based on warfare.

During WAR development, Mythic coined the term Living Guilds to help describe the system they were going to implement into the game. A main focus of WAR has been the marriage of casual play and hardcore play. Many of their features were designed to get the solo player into situations where they had to interact with the other players, without even realising it; this kind of thinking lead to the Open Group system and to the innovative Public Quest system. With their guild system, Mythic needed to overcome the stigma attached to joining a guild.

A lot of solo players view guilds as the boundary between casual gaming and hardcore gaming. You join a guild, then you need to join forums, then you need to join IM chat, then you need to download Vent, then you are playing 20-30 hours a week and the game is like a second job, i.e. there is an increased level of commitment.

Inside the game, Mythic implemented a calendar that would allow members of the guild to schedule and sign up for guild events. The guild leader can decide which of the ranks within his or her guild can schedule events and which ones can sign up for them. A second feature Mythic implemented are guild ranks, these are not like the ranks within the guild e.g. officer, member, etc but confusingly, they share the same name. They are, in fact, very similar to career ranks (aka levels) in the game in the sense that guild experience (not the exact same as character experience) goes up and then the guild gains a level and some benefits. Guild experience is actually based on a number contributing factors: The idea is that guild experience represents the guild’s celebrity amongst the denizens of The Old World. A Rank 1 guild is a nameless regiment in a colossal army but a rank 40 guild is Kelly’s Heroes or The A-Team. Obviously a guild is only as great as the sum of its parts so, the more famous (or should that be infamous?) the players in the guild, the more experience the guild gets. Anything that increases your infamy (experience points or renown points) in the old world will increase your guild experience; RvR, public quests, standard quests and tome unlocks will all help to increase the level of your guild. The theory behind guild ranks is that they give guild players a purpose at all times. Even if you are that antisocial, as a solo player who does not want to take part in guild events and does not want to play 20+ hours a week, even just by existing you are now contributing to guild rank, thus you have a purpose and motivation. You can see how much experience your guild has by hovering over the guild rank bar on the guild screen. You may notice that you have guild renown as well. It is worth noting that guild renown is different from guild experience. Guild renown is the sum of all the renown of the players in the guild and will go up or down depending on how many members you have and their renown rank. Your current guild renown is displayed in the lower right hand corner of the guild screen.

Mythic also implemented a system outside of the game to help you keep up with your guild and keep track of the war while you are at work, Starbucks or wherever. On Mythic’s website (www.warhammeronline.com), you can find the Realm War section (which is under the Realm War tab along the top of the site. If you are on an EU server head over to www.war-europe.com and look for the Realm War tab on the left). This allows you to search through profiles of all the characters and guilds on any given server as well as find out the state of the server, which zones are locked etc.

Joining a guild in WAR is easy. It works just like the invitation system used by every other MMO. To start your own guild is equally simple. First you must group with five other players for a total of six (the maximum party size in WAR). Make sure none of you are in a guild, if any of your party are guilded then you can form a guild. Once your group is organised you head over to the guild hall in your capital, be it the Viper Pit in The Inevitable City or Sigmar’s Hammer in Altdorf.

Outside will be the Guild Registrar, Guntram Schreivber in Altdorf and Astrid Ragnein in The Inevitable City.

The charge for forming a guild is fifty silver. Once you have paid you can choose a name for your guild, choose carefully because the system for renaming your guild has not yet been implemented (though, I believe, it is planned). Then you will be made guild master and your five fellows will become your first five guild members. If you want to make use of the living guild system you must have at least six guild members at all times, otherwise the guild will become stagnant and stop levelling up. If you have managed to successfully create your guild you will achieve guild rank one; the reward? A Guild, congratulations!

Warhammer Online Offers Returning Players the Emperor’s Welcome

Mar 18, 2009 Warhammer Online|273views

Mythic Entertainment, the creator of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, is announcing a new initiative designed to bring back old players of the MMO who have left the game in order to pursue greener online pastures. The developer is saying that those who are interested in re-activating their accounts will get a host of new stuff and rewards grouped under the name of the Emperor’s Welcome.

The stuff players get is pretty varied. There’s an experience reward for the period on which they did not log in to play but also a quest chain that has been created especially for them, complete with ten days of free gameplay. And logging into Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning after a long time will allow them to discover quite a different game. There are new classes, like the Back Guard, the Knight of the Blazing Sun, the Orc Choppa and the Dwarf Slayer. There are also more live events and a revamped Domination system, alongside new Public Quests, balanced for different skill levels and for varied groups of players.

Mythic is really trying, with a fresh rolling live expansion, begun in the Call to arms event, with the ten-day free trial period and a new buddy system, to get some fresh blood in Warhammer Online, while also bringing back veteran players. Recently, the company has announced that it has shut down quite a few servers for the MMO, in order to make sure that the remaining ones have enough population to support the Realm versus Realm battles that make up some of the core of the game.

When it was initially released in late 2008 Warhammer Online, which is supported by Electronic Arts, was hailed as the most promising competitor yet to Blizzard’s World of Warcraft. Unfortunately, the launch of the second expansion for that MMO, Wrath of Lich King, has taken some of the wind out of WAR’s sales and now the game is trying to find new players.

Warhammer Online to Close 43 Servers

Mar 11, 2009 Warhammer Online|262views

 

Yesterday Mythic announced further character transfers from servers that will be eventually closed.  Since Warhammer Online was released in Sept 2008, there has been a steady exodus of gamers causing Mythic to close down servers.  Below is a month by month list of how many servers have been announced to close since the game launched.

October 2008 - 19 servers
November - 8 servers
January 2009 - 1 server
February - 4 servers
March - 11 servers

After this latest character transfer announcement, it leaves Warhammer Online with 15 servers.  Even though 15 servers is a decent amount, losing 2/3’s of your players base is not good news for Mythic.  Having left Warhammer myself about a month ago, I can’t say I’m suprised.   Can Mythic turn this around?  I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Warhammer - 10 Day Free Trial

Mar 7, 2009 Articles Recommend, Warhammer Online|627views

Warhammer announced today that it will be allowing potential customers to test run their game.  However there are some additional stipulations that come along with the 10 day trial:

•  All trial accounts are restricted to Tier 1 content and Capital City game zones.
 
•  Trial accounts may receive mail and purchase from the auction house; however, they cannot send mail or create auctions.

•  Trial accounts are limited to designated servers. If you’d like to play with friends on other servers, you will need to purchase a retail copy of the game and transfer your character to their server (or create a new character on their server). All characters Rank 11 and under on purchased accounts have access to unlimited transfers, with a max of one transfer per day.

•  The free trial will last 10 days from the moment you create your free trial account. Also, the countdown will continue whether you’re logged in or not.

Whether or not you decide to continue playing Warhammer, the characters you’ve created and their gear will remain on the server, but for how long they do not specify.

The Free Trial which is valid on North American and Asia Pacific servers can be acquired here.

For those in Europe you can go to the European website and sign up using this link.

Anyone having problems with registering, character creation, or any other new player issue can check out the Beginners Guide.

If you are wondering whether you will need to provide financial information; According to the European site, no credit card or bank information will be required to partake in the 10 day free trial.

As for why this trial has been suddenly made available, perhaps this is WAR’s response to the loss of an approximated 450,000 subscribers, or maybe this is the same prearranged tactic that many subscription based games utilize, albeit a fairly passive one.  Regardless the reason, it may suit them better to give a longer, less restriction heavy trial, as losing more than 50% of ones potential player base certainly seems to warrant a more humble, consumer appreciating approach.