Another week, another rollup. Well, that’s the way I’m looking at it, anyhow. Not sure about you guys considering my usual poor timing. :)
So, what all do I have in store for you this week? It’s Friday, I’m sure you’re all finishing up that last coffee or whatnot at work, surfing the blogs while your boss looks the other way. That’s what everyone does… right? So here’s the heads up on what’s going down around the WAR scene this week…
WAR: Age of Blogging a Raging Bloodbeast of a success
It’s been just over a week, and WAR: The Age of Blogging has been generating interest all over the place, even picking up a mention on popular MMO site Massively.
The ever-popular Syp over at WAAAGH! has a list of the new additions to the WAR blogging scene over here, and you can read a variety of introductions from participating blogs (and new ones) over at BlogWarhammer.
Based on the traffic increase here and number of pings we’re getting from new blogs here at reroller over the course of the 8 days since the Age of Blogging started, I can definitely call it a major success. Thanks to everyone who’s participating and hopefully we can keep building on a strong foundation for the WAR blogging community!
Fortress sieges capped… and hopefully it’s temporary
You may not be aware that Mythic has taken a pretty drastic step and limited both the number and levels of players participating in fortress sieges (read Mythic’s explanation here). I won’t go into detail, but based on the original Herald post and the clarification posted by the dev team afterwards, it sounds like this is a stopgap measure to prevent further server crashes.
I’m guessing it’ll get rolled back in favour of a better hardware/software based solution down the road, as adding hard caps like this can’t be what Mythic is after if they really want to engage players in huge end-game open RvR warfare and sieges. For the meantime, it sounds like a hack; based on what I was hearing on our alliance’s chat channel last night, the limits are somewhere around 50 defenders and 100 attackers in a siege right now, which is pretty restrictive. Considering the general population imbalance usually favours the Destruction side on most server, I’m not sure capping anything is the answer here. Obviously it’ll take a bit of the load off temporarily, so the fire brigade can make their way in and clean up Mythic/GOA’s server rooms…
Mythic’s Paul Barnett and a mighty strained-looking Jeff Hickman have also put together a video blog entry discussing the matter, though it doesn’t go into a whole lot of detail. Keen has also picked apart the video here in case you’re interested in further discussion.
Lost Vale first impressions
Thulf over at Stunty Stomper has a spiffy introductory guide to the Lost Vale up this week. The Lost Vale is a rank 40 end-game instanced PvE dungeon that’ll probably be your last stop to gear up for fortress and city raids. What’s more interesting is that it’s all outdoors, which I always enjoy (from the screenshots, it reminds me a little of Dire Maul back in WoW, except bigger, tougher and meaner). It’s leafy and green, and all that jazz. You’ll need a good set of Greater Wards to survive in there, mind you, so be sure to run the prior dungeons before attempting it.
If you’re getting ready to take a run at the Lost Vale, definitely take a gander at Thulf’s guide to get an idea of what you’re in for. It’s informative even if you’re not going to be well-geared enough to get in there for a while.
Ward rage on the blogs
Aside from the post I put up a couple of days ago, there’s been a ton of ward-related discussion around the forums and WAR blogs. If you’re interested (or as uninformed as the rest of us bloggers appear to be), here’s a quick list of all of the related posts to sink your un-warded teeth into:
- Wards? Where We’re Going, We Don’t Need No Wards! and Burt Wards over at WAAAGH!
- The Lesser of Two Evils at RP That Way ===>
- The state of Warhammer PvE Dec 08 at Epic Slant
- The Daily Grind at Ground Zero
- Ragbag at Stunty Stomper
- Ward coverage in a previous Grab Bag (percentages are a little outdated now)
All kidding aside, there have been a few excellent suggestions among all these posts and their respective comments that Mythic should really consider. From my standpoint, adding some kind of quest or Tome information should be something added quickly, at the very least, to educate folks entering Tier 4 as to how wards work. Right now, it’s totally unclear to new T4 players, and the amount of misinformation floating around is pretty impressive.
This one’s for you, Sidac
A fellow Warrior Priest in our Alliance on Skull Throne, Sidac of Ultra Vires, was kind enough to hook me up on a couple of runs through all of the Altdorf city dungeons in the last few days. Since he spent the time to coach my noob arse through them on Vent, I thought I’d pay him back with 15 minutes… err.. seconds of fame over here on the blog. As his guildmates are likely to say, if anything goes wrong, blame Sidac!
Feel free to heckle him over on Warhammer Alliance, where I’ve noticed he’s quite vocal. :)
Welp, that’s it for the rollup this week. Have an awesome weekend and here’s hoping you’re not snowed in, wherever you are. I’ll be here, downing another latte and slaving away on my wedding blog (if you listen carefully, you hear the sound of my fiancée’s whip cracking in the background :), wishing I was back in Mexico again… mmm, margaritas.
