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Warhammer Beta Update - Part 1
Warhammer Beta Update - Part 1
By: James Nichols
18 Oct 2007 20:05:28 EST
Hello everyone,
With all the work we have been up to we wanted to share what we have been working on with you, below is the first update we have shared with the beta community. We think you'll be excited as we are, enjoy!
Waaagh! and well met!
So this begins the first of our weekly updates to the WAR Beta community. This is where we keep all of you up to speed with the changes, enhancements, and additions to WAR during this downtime. Each week will have different information from the various teams. Some of the information we’ll be keeping fairly high level, at least initially, but we will work on giving you insights into what to expect when we re-open in December.
I’ve gone to each of the various teams and asked them to write up a little snippet on something that’s going on in their neck of the woods.
So let’s get this show on the road!
We'll start with something dealing with PQs:
Public Quests have made a great start- but as everyone knows, the devil is in the details. In between now and beta reopening, we are going to focus in on some of the feedback you folks have been giving us. Some balancing work is going to go into Influence gain and XP for public quests. The groundwork for UI enhancements is also going to get done (though it may be after the holidays before you see the final fruits of that labour). Perhaps most importantly of all however, we are going to look at PQ loot. Ever a hot topic, we've noticed! Right now we're working to make sure that the whole loot experience is more satisfying than it currently is. We can't unveil the details right now- as we want to make sure we can deliver before we make you promises- but suffice to say, you should end up with a much better chance at getting what you want.
Keep an eye on the beta boards for more details!
-Public Quest Team
Keep an eye on the boards indeed. Expect to hear more from the PQ team over the coming weeks. Now let’s go over to the RvR team where they talk about a hot topic from various RvR discussions… Manual PvP Flagging:
Phase one of our improvements to open world RvR is under way, with changes to PvP flagging up first. Players can now PvP flag themselves, although the regular rules apply for removing the flag. Guards (and some other NPCs) in the Chapter hubs will PvP flag any enemy player foolish enough to engage them in combat. We've also added more guards to the warcamp entrances across all pairings and tiers. Still in progress are changes to the battlefield objectives, but we aren't quite ready to share those details yet.
-RvR Team
This topic alone should generate a good discussion with you Beta testers. 
Next up is some information from the Item Team in which the subject of trading between players as well as item “binding” comes into play:
One of the things we have been working hard on is player trading. I can’t wait to see it once the UI team has had a chance to reskin it. Player trading works just like you would imagine. Right clicking on a friend brings up a list of actions, with Trade now being one of them. Now you can trade off all those boots!
With trading, however, comes the question of binding. Trading is really, really good if loot doesn’t have any binding restrictions. So the next step was to “tag” all our items as Bind on Equip (BoE), Bind on Pickup (BoP), or “no binding”. Quest items, Influence Rewards, Renown store items have all been made BoP.
-Item Team
Very interesting, indeed. Next we have some high level information on two of our cities that the City Team has been working on. Remember, this is only the first week of updates so we’re not going to give away everything up front. We can't wait till we can have all of you playing around with the cities:
Hello everyone – We worked heavily on the Inevitable City and Altdorf making sure that both cities are ready for you to explore, discover…and smash! Some of the exciting areas you can visit are places like the Temple of Sigmar, the Altdorf docks, and the Inevitable City arena! Unlike any other city you’ve seen before, WAR cities are places for you to be proud of, to protect, and places that can be captured by your enemies. Enemies aren’t always nice to cities they “visit” so we’ve been creating lots of things for invaders to break, smash, and burn. We look forward to opening the city gates to you and listening to your feedback on the ultimate goal in RvR – city capture!
-City Team
Trust me; our cities are very impressive visually. What the City Team has been able to do has been very impressive indeed. Last but certainly not least is some information on the Marauder from our Combat & Careers team:
Marauders are frantic warriors who wade into the thick of battle dual-wielding a standard weapon in their main and an offhand that has mutated into a terrifying, organic weapon. The Marauder recieves 3 different mutations that he can choose from. Each mutation represents a different type of weapon and play style. The mutations themselves offer different buffs, and unlock different abilities based on what mutation you activate. They are a straightforward melee DPS class that is all about pumping out damage based upon their offhand mutation. During battle, they are able to change the mutation of their offhand, which will dictate what abilities or effects are used on certain attacks, much like a stance would.
-Combat & Careers Team
Well that’s it for now lads and lasses. Tune in again next week for another of our weekly WAR Beta Updates. Until then make sure to keep your beer frothy and to not accept too many gifts from the forces of Chaos!
Thank you,
- The Warhammer: Age of Reckoning Team
Source - http://www.warherald.com/news/
Comments
Thanks for the post.. good read.
Out of every 100 men, 10 should not be there,
80 are nothing but targets, 9 are the real fighters.
Ah, but one, ONE of them is a warrior,
and he will bring the others home.
-Heraclitus 500BC
Good stuff but it makes me even more weary that they wont make Q1 release. I really hope the holidays they were talking about for the UI team was Halloween and Thanksgiving. I mean for gods sake it is UI. They obviously have the ground work for the UI in since they have a UI. I'm no programmer but each UI item needs a name and variables. I really don't think that it should take 2+ months to fiddle around with the UI. I mean look at WoW (omg I said the W word!) and the different UI's that come out and all look very different. Some even feature custom artwork. Those are put together by 1-2 people that are not UI developers so I would imagine that UI developers would be faster, it is their job after all. I mean look at that video of the guy that created the mod that could change things. What more is there to do? I understand that UI is important but in under a month after release there will be mods out the wahzoo for WAR. Especially now that people have gotten into LUA. Getting it to the point of basic would be damn near good enough.
speaking of UI enhancement is war going to be as mod friendly as wow?
Mod friendly as in you can change it or do you mean all kinds of mods that play the game for you?
I do believe they are going to allow UI mods as far as look and feel, and I do believe they havnt decided how far they are going to let mods be taken, hopefully nowhere near what Blizzard allows, i want to play the game, not have it play for me and I really dont want to be messed over because other people use cheap ### mods for an advantage if I dont like them, in otherwords I basically have to use them or be at a disadvantage because I dont. I hate hate hate this.
What I mean by this is mods that cast for you(decrusive and other healing mods, for the most part broken YAY) mods that tell you when to use abilities(SCT does alot of these, when to use combo points, when to overpower, list goes on) or my favorite timers, nothing like a mod that tells you when your buffs/debuffs were off of everyone, not like we want people to actually learn to play their class.
Open World RvR and City RvR!
Good news!
~ Ancient Membership ~
very imformative post and a good read thanks!
Actually I think you are misunderstanding what they were saying. Please note that I am not in beta so what follows is my take on what they said. The 'trade between players' is a new feature they have just implemented As a result, the UI for it had not yet been completed. From the sounds of it they needed to create the artwork for it.
UI's tend the changed continually right up until release. Skinning a UI is going to be one of the last things that a team is going to worry about. When I was in the EQ2 beta the UI changed constantly as the beta progressed and more functions were added to the game.
Also, keep in mind that creating a UI is actually a bit more complex than creating a mod for a UI. There is a fair amount of coding that links the UI to the actual game code that modders do not have to concern themselves with.
As for when it releases - I really don't care so long as it is done. However, I'd be willing to bet it will release in Q1 unless AoC gets pushed back. They will not want AoC to launch too much ahead of WAR (nor will AoC want WAR to launch ahead of it). My suspicion is they will both launch in the same month.
quoted for truth.
and scripts, actions, datastructures, actors, gfx, error checking, etc.
What is this pvp flag thing?
There is some talk abotu it on warhammeralliance.com's forums. It appears that you can go into enemies pve zones, and the flagging is a mechanic they are playing with for that... which kind of sucks since a lot of people (including myself) thought it was like daoc, where you can't get to enemies pve zone (or in war's case pve part of the zone)
Granted, there is a chance people are not reading it right, but still, if you can go to enemies pve zone and flag yourself for pvp (and they can do the same) then it just waters down rvr and really adds nothign but ability to grief realm enemies in their pve zones by killing their mobs etc.
Go to warherald.com and send feedback
Let mythic know you want rvr to happen in rvr areas, make it so people can't go into enemies pve zones. (that is, if you do feel that way)
Yeap, it uses LUA just like WoW. People that write mods for WoW can probably make a few tweaks and use those same mods in WAR.
One of the things I really liked about WoW was the ability to make the UI fit what I wanted. Healing monitors to help ya focus on the folks that you need to heal, raid/group menus specific to healing and dps/healing meters plus buffing assist tools. Good stuff!
http://www.greycouncil.org/
The way it sounds using DAoC as an example is that people can flag up for PVP in their non-frontier/PVE zones. Previously you couldn't so that you had "safe" areas.
Personally I have no problem with people flagging up for pvp in pve zones specially if they are not blocked off to the enemies. If they don't have it you'll just have safe zones that no one can pvp in... if they keep it those that want to pvp there can.
http://www.greycouncil.org/
great ,so ppl who dont flag themselves pvp in pve zone will get maked as carebear from now on. How is this WAR when u got a choice to flag or not flag, might as well put out the FFA server while they are at it.
It's no different than DAoC is with the exception that the pve areas are not locking out the other side.
You have always been able to get behind your "lines" in the pve zones in daoc, I don't see what all the whining is about really. They want to have "safe areas" for the pve only folks to play. All this does is allow folks that want to pvp in previously PVE only areas to do so.
http://www.greycouncil.org/
eh IMO i think it would be better to have a strictly PVE area and a strictly RVR area. i mean the people who come to war for the nice PVE and not worry about having to fight a lot of other players would like it this way. i dont really care since ill be RVRing to lvl cap. though i think this is how some PVE people might feel.
Why do people always say "Oh this game sucks because it looks exactly like DAOC?" well no shit it does if Blizzard turns out to make a mmorpg for Diablo you can bet its going to have those same cheesy graphics.
It's no different than DAoC is with the exception that the pve areas are not locking out the other side.
You have always been able to get behind your "lines" in the pve zones in daoc, I don't see what all the whining is about really. They want to have "safe areas" for the pve only folks to play. All this does is allow folks that want to pvp in previously PVE only areas to do so.
I think what jor8888 is trying to say is: Without PVP free areas all who don't want to PVP might as well have a chicken symbol on top of their heads, as they will be considered Carebears...I tend to agree with jor on this one, in a mostly pvp game with pve content those who don't always want to pvp will be looked down upon. I've had this same experiance in guild wars because I have refused to pvp at times.
I do think that in a game where PVP and RVR is prevelent most of the time that certain zones should be completely free of it. If everyone can't pvp in an area you don't get picked on.
And please don't reply with the excuse "well its a pvp game why do you care?". its the same excuse people use for not wanting to have level limits on entering low level areas.... and the same answer "Sometimes I want to play Warhammer and just be left the fark alone.
Just imagine urself(Des) walking into pve area with pvp flag on and u saw 2(order) u cant attack b/c they got pve flag on. Bamm 10 sec later u got ganked behind from those 2 b/c they decided to turn pvp flag on since they know they have 2 vs 1. This $shit just opens up all kinds of exploits which has been done b4 from WoW pve servers. Either go all out pvp or like old daoc pvp seperated from pve areas. If WAR is screwed up so bad then shut it down 4 months to fix it instead of coming out with half a$$ game with screwed up zones.
How is this WAR and war everywhere when u see ur enemy next to u and u cant attack them. Might as well call this WoW2 since they are trying to copy everything from WoW and draw WoW player to it. But guess what WoW fanboys are staying with WoW and ppl who are leaving are looking for something diff than WoW.
Send feedback to mythic
there is a feedback form on warherald.com It is after all beta, they are playing around with a lot of different things, but still, send your feedback 
some ideas might look good in a developers head but don't actually play out that way.
Yeah, I know what you mean about the 2 vs 1 thing, happened to me a lot in SWG (pre CU) with the zerg teams came around.
I agree, they should make the zones hard as hell to get through (should be almost like a master tier 4..hell 5 dungeon) Only level capped people should be able to get through the zones (as a group). If they go with this in mind I can see the RvR tweaks sitting in it and logging off and on like in "Darklight woods" in EQ2.
This also brings up another problem with people "2 boxing alts" in order to spy on people in the zones. Log on your alt check for PvP flags log on your main opposite and kill the lower level or invite buddies to log into zone (where they been waiting for 5 days) to zerg the hell out of you.
Yeah, I know what you mean about the 2 vs 1 thing, happened to me a lot in SWG (pre CU) with the zerg teams came around.
I agree, they should make the zones hard as hell to get through (should be almost like a master tier 4..hell 5 dungeon) Only level capped people should be able to get through the zones (as a group). If they go with this in mind I can see the RvR tweaks sitting in it and logging off and on like in "Darklight woods" in EQ2.
This also brings up another problem with people "2 boxing alts" in order to spy on people in the zones. Log on your alt check for PvP flags log on your main opposite and kill the lower level or invite buddies to log into zone (where they been waiting for 5 days) to zerg the hell out of you.
Except they have already stated that higher tier characters when they enter lower tier zones will be turned into a chicken when they try to PvP. Also, as stated before...SOME PvE quests will take you into PvP area's to complete. This means that unless you completely skip some of the PvE quests you will be forced into PvP.
I don't see what the complaining is about. You won't be considered a "carebear" if you don't flag. Of course 2 enemies versus 1 will win. And if you enter an area where you are flagged and don't see two enemies before you are right on top of them you deserve to die plain and simple. Your attitude is what defines a carebear.
And about 2 boxing alts, your stupid. If you actually feel like paying for two accounts and then paying per month for two accounts then you have a serious internet ego problem, and that is just another varation of a carebear..someone who has to circumvent the system in order to succeed.
Operator: Whine, one, one emergency operator speaking what seems to be your problem?
Carebear: *Sniff* I'm whining about a game that...*sniff* I didn't read up on......and n..n...now I'm scared that I may be beaten up. I'm thinking about 2 boxing so that way I can kill others in my zone....*sniff*
Operator: Sir, you can only attack people in your relevant Tier Zone or higher. If you go into a lower zone you will become a chicken. This will probably reflect your true persona better anyways but needless to say you shouldn't do that. Grow a pair, and wait for the game to come out before you get any assumptions about this game. An emergency WHAMBULANCE has been dispatched to your location for self-esteem issues. Please don't do anything rash.
~~Internet gaming is not for the faint of heart or the dumb of mind.~~
I have no clue what u are talking about.
We are talking about pve zones here not pvp zones turning ppl into chickens.
When u enter the zone u are pvp flagged doesnt mean other ppl are also pvp flagged. They can turn them on when they see they got a chance to jump u later while u are pulling a mob or doing something else.
How is this WAR when u see ur enemy standing next to u and u cant attack them but they just keep doing stupid emotes at u? guess u are the carebear type who dont care about this kind of stuff huh?
Um... that's why they have RvR areas in each zone where you are always flagged... wth are you complaining about? And in T4 zones most of the map is made up of RvR areas.
Just to clarify,
I don't always agree with Sykorrke, but I think most of us will agree that I am very well read on the Warhammer universe in general and Warhammer online in specific
We all have our opinions, I have played multiple games where you can flag PVP or choose to PVP or not. And in all of those games those who choose not to go pvp all the time on PVP servers (and RVR and PVP are esentially the same thing in this game) are looked down upon as cowards.
Hell I have a at least 40 people on my Ignore list because they heckled me repeatedly in WOW to duel them, and I don't duel.
And lets not even talk about how much fun trying to PVE is when the entire zone is PVPing and they have wiped all the NPCs out... Tauren Mills/Southshore ring any bells
I made no assumptions about the game. I stated I would prefer NOT to have the ability to flag in PVE zones, just because I don't want to constantly be harrased to pvp by 12 year olds who want to gank a greenskin. If that makes me a care bare then my name will be: LeaveMeTheFarkAlone Bear.
12 Year old Idiots: Dude flag pve. There is this Order raid and we want to go get them.
Me: Sorry I don't want to , just want to pve today.
12 year old Idiots: Dude don't be a carebare and join us.
Me: Nope *After multiple tells the idiots are (all 20 of them) put on ignore*
Me: Sweet silence at last!
Suddenly on Zone Chat: 12 Year old Idiot: Yeah the carebear would not help us so we lost
Me: /Ignore world
Me: Time to go turn in quest got ten minutes before I log off.
Me: BASTERD!! EVERY NPC IN THE ZONE IS DEAD! *Mutters to self and logs*
It's no different than DAoC is with the exception that the pve areas are not locking out the other side.
You have always been able to get behind your "lines" in the pve zones in daoc, I don't see what all the whining is about really. They want to have "safe areas" for the pve only folks to play. All this does is allow folks that want to pvp in previously PVE only areas to do so.
Actually, I hope this mechanic remains in retail release because I think it is another step in the right direction.
WAR is based on and mainly directed towards the RvR conflict. While developing DAoC, Mythic greatly increased the PvE content which -- in my not-so-humble opinion -- pointed the game in the wrong direction.
I don't believe they will make this "mistake" in WAR.
Certainly the PvE content is always important since it adds depth and breadth to the game, but the RvR portion will be the meat-and-potatoes.
That's what I want and I think that's what the fans of Warhammer and DAoC want. These two groups -- Warhammer fans and DAoC fans -- along with many new people will come together in a grand game of Realm vs. Realm warfare in RPG-format (not FPS) with the added depth of many of the PvE mechanics which we also enjoy.
As for being called a "Carebear" if you do not flag PvP in a PvE zone, I believe this is incorrect.
Everybody knows that if you are in a PvE zone you want to do PvE -- probably for various reasons. Getting loot, building your Tome of Knowledge, collecting resources. Could be many very good reasons you do not wish to be disturbed by PvP ... at that moment. Doesn't mean you are a Carebear. Just means at that moment you would rather be doing PvE -- and there will be many valid reasons for you to do PvE in the game.
If somebody starts bugging you about flagging for PvP, just let them know: "Yo, dude! I'm BUSY doing something else! You ask somebody else!" And that's that.
The only thing I would ask is that, if the call goes out that your Tier 4 is in danger of falling, you get out there and DEFEND THE REALM!
Because in WAR, unlike that "other" game, it will actually be IMPORTANT to make sure your realm-mates are properly equipped, are properly trained, are good at playing their class and are staunch Defenders of the Realm!
And hopefully nobody will wish to suffer the insult of enemies running rampant through our capital cities and looting and burning and pillaging and making poo-poo on the dead bodies.
~ Ancient Membership ~