Version 1.3.2 of Warhammer Online hit live servers today! Also out today is a new Producer's Letter where Producer Jeff Skalski goes into detail on some of the more prominent features of 1.3.2, and also gives us a look at what's coming down the pipe for WAR in 1.3.3 and beyond.

Now that 1.3.2 is out, what's 1.3.3 going to be about? Jeff is eager to answer in this letter, assuring players that 1.3.3 will focus on "career balance, RvR campaign enhancements, and performance." Jeff also says the theme for 1.3.3 will be "Bugs & Polish," though he assures us he means the removal of bugs, not the adding of 'em! 

Some basic examples of the things you can expect to see in 1.3.3 along those lines:

• Ability to walk and sit. (RP players rejoice!)
• Various UI fixes, such as making sure timers synchronize properly on PQs.
• Graphical enhancements (Bloom, improved weapon trails, heat shimmer, etc…).
• Pet and monster pathing improvements.

Jeff also mentions that 1.3.3 will see the introduction of the "Underdog System," something that has only been mentioned in passing before.  The Underdog System is basically a handicap system for the losing side, which will decrease the VPs required for the losing side to achieve domination or zone control and is capable of scaling depending on how badly that side is losing.

Finally, Jeff mentions that the "Hunter's Vale" instance will be a permanent addition to WAR. This decision was made in response to overwhelmingly positive player feedback on the instance during its run in the Wild Hunt Live Event.

Read the full letter here. Patch notes for version 1.3.2 are available here.

To a dying game that desperately needs a save...

* Players will soon be able to Walk & Sit.

" Ability to walk and sit. (RP players rejoice!)"

i lol'd

Still...the pet fixing issue sounds good...i hated how stupid my pet was at times.

Nothing in the notes to make me come back....op classes are still op, gimped classes are still gimped...but rp players can walk and sit......what a bunch of waffle.

 Good news, but patch 133 improvements could be in patch 132, but all right.  Now that FAION  is having your  downgrid  after the launch and after ppl looks how boring  Aion is, maybe we can see new players and old players  coming back to War. 

Originally posted by MikeB

 

 

Now that 1.3.2 is out, what's 1.3.3 going to be about? Jeff is eager to answer in this letter, assuring players that 1.3.3 will focus on "career balance, RvR campaign enhancements, and performance." Jeff also says the theme for 1.3.3 will be "Bugs & Polish," though he assures us he means the removal of bugs, not the adding of 'em!  

Wow, they are using the same lines from last year. Somehow it is always next patch and yet never arrives.

If they had released a patch with the above promises a year ago (or even 6 months ago) someone might have actually cared.

What bothers me is they announce some new system, 13 months after launch, that they plan on working on to fix the population balances. First, they knew in beta that population balance was a problem and proved it at launch. Second, the proposed fix is to make the game easier for the low population side? I played the underdog, even though the Order races suck, and I would not want someone to make the game easier on me so that I can win. Thats not winning in my book.

Unless they completely revamp several aspects of the game I wont be back unf.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH fired plunger at Mark Jacobs nut sack)

Wonder what they mean by;

Ready WAR for launch in new regions.

Hm... I'm not sure what to make of the entire plan in any case.

a year too late for these.

no word of expansion either? or even more content (new area, dungeon)? fail.

probably have another live event to celebrate this patch.

still at least mac owners and other "countries" may like it.

I have to say that if sit and walk animations are  part of their priories then... good... fucking riddance...

The game has HUGE issues - changing the starting areas to just one and leaving the rest empty doesn't help the game.  Real fix would mean to acutally make the other starting zones worth to explore too.

The game has same issues - alot of stuff to do.. but all is the same - half with worthless rewards and noone to play with.

Its sad to see the Warhammer world have to suffer cause of incompitend devs. 

Im not sure why they are screwing with the starting areas. Lvl 1-25ish was some of the most fun Ive ever had in any MMO. The greenskin starting area is one of the most well done starter zones for any MMO IMO.

They had their priorities screwed up at launch and they are still just as screwed up.

Well the mail system fix is a good thing. But limiting new toons to one starting area per faction seems more a step backward than forward.

Many of the changes/fixes that have been announced in 1.3.2 and 1.3.3 are things that I had been pestering them about changing/fixing, in PMs and forum posts since well before the mass exodus. They are now just releasing / getting too them. And please don't give me the, these things take time line, either. They could have been working on these things long ago, pushing them to the forefront, rather than numerous other changes / fixes / added content that have happened that were not as critical to this game's success.

The problem lies with the decision makers over at Mythic. What it boils down to simply, is a severe lack of forward thinking! It seems like they are late on everything. In order to be successful in this industry in the extremely competitive state that it's in, requires a lot of insight. That is what has made Blizzard so successful! Just look at Cataclysm; a potentially huge risk that (mark my words) will be a giant success (and I am not a fan of WoW).

Unfortunately Mythic is severely lacking in that department and until changes are made to rectify that, this company will continue to be standing at the plate swinging late on every pitch.

It really is a shame.

 The starting area fiasco is silly. Why are they doing that? Sigh.

Apprenticeship system sounds pretty cool, nothing worth coming back for though...

Originally posted by ArchAngel102

To a dying game that desperately needs a save...

* Players will soon be able to Walk & Sit.

Almost comical, isn't it? If it wasn't so sad.

Good to see them adding the vale instance back in permanently. They should do that for the two scenarios from earlier events as well.

They are going to be improving performance (yeah, right!) while adding more visual effects? Uh-huh. It seems unlikely.

Originally posted by Murashu

Im not sure why they are screwing with the starting areas. Lvl 1-25ish was some of the most fun Ive ever had in any MMO. The greenskin starting area is one of the most well done starter zones for any MMO IMO.

 

They had their priorities screwed up at launch and they are still just as screwed up.

Quoted for truthiness.

 The only problems I had with this game were other players and CC issues. Whiney people who refused to play together in any sense is what completely ruined this game for me. I hated that every scenario would end up with everyone running around attacking random people and we would wipe every time. Was pointless trying to have fun and having to sift through 80% of the  common area chat being about why WoW sucked or was the greatest game of all time. Otherwise I could see past all the other minor stuff. When I was in PVE by myself or with a couple friends I loved it. When I could get a full group of non-idiots to run through scenarios I loved it as well. Most of the problems people cried about I didn't really mind. Small issues in an otherwise decent game. Too much hype makes people angry. If noone had ever heard a single thing about this game and it just launched, I bet more people would be subbed up than are at this point. 

I guess it was different for me because I really had no plans of playing WAR until right before launch. I was playing AoC and quite happy with it for a bit, then we ran into the lack of content/pvp at the 60+ range and grew bored quickly. My entire guild bailed on AoC just as WAR was offering their preview weekends so it was a good move for us. We had one person in our entire guild that knew anything about Warhammer so we had no expectations. The way Mythic handled the game at launch, the slow bug fixes, the overuse of CC and AoE abilities, the gap in coolness between Destro/Order, the extreme balance issues (Bright Wizards/Witch Elves), the adding in of the final 4 classes and the "free expansion" instead of fixing things that were in game and broken all lead to us disliking the game and distrusting Mythic. Hype played no factor, just Mythics actions.

Originally posted by hogscraper

 The only problems I had with this game were other players and CC issues. Whiney people who refused to play together in any sense is what completely ruined this game for me. I hated that every scenario would end up with everyone running around attacking random people and we would wipe every time. Was pointless trying to have fun and having to sift through 80% of the  common area chat being about why WoW sucked or was the greatest game of all time. Otherwise I could see past all the other minor stuff. When I was in PVE by myself or with a couple friends I loved it. When I could get a full group of non-idiots to run through scenarios I loved it as well. Most of the problems people cried about I didn't really mind. Small issues in an otherwise decent game. Too much hype makes people angry. If noone had ever heard a single thing about this game and it just launched, I bet more people would be subbed up than are at this point. 

I totally agree...the only reason im still playing after a year or so is because im in a great guild with great people and if it wasnt for them i probably would not play. Playing a PvP centered game without coordination is rather horrible.

WoW''s pvp (before arena which was when i quit) was generally fine solo because everything about the game was pretty much solo based. Whereas WAR is the opposite, everything is group based. Especially when it came to combat and the skills people had which worked well in PvP/RvR but in PvE pretty much 90% of your skills are useless 90% of the time so when killing mobs for quests/dungeons its incredibly boring.

What the hell of good is this:

"All new characters that join the Realm of Order will now begin the game in the Empire starting area, no matter their race."

This is called improvement? Or good thing? At least now was fun leveling different classes also because of different areas. And now they are taking away this good thing.

Also missing (I guess I'm not alone) for Book of binding to know from tooltip where I'm actually binded! And with many alts gets easily confused. I guess it is just a little of work. Well, I guess is much more important my char will know to sit.

i rolled a new toon to check out the changes.  i like them.  you level alot faster, pvp is much better t1.  im digging the newbie changes.

the voiceovers and tutorials are well done as well.

t1 seems busier and im happier with t1 after these changes.  

good job.

Originally posted by cerebrix

i rolled a new toon to check out the changes.  i like them.  you level alot faster, pvp is much better t1.  im digging the newbie changes.

 

the voiceovers and tutorials are well done as well.

 

t1 seems busier and im happier with t1 after these changes.  

 

good job

Yeah i think that this is a good choice, sure they remove some of the more interesting area of t1 pve but the reality is that for players to get the most out of the game they need to play with others and to have them spread out over 3 campaigns doesnt help when there are not that many people creating new char''s these days and PvE'ing. All it takes is for 2+ people to join up and you can have some fun doing PQ's instead of solo questing/grinding. Which for me is alot more enjoyable.

I understand that all characters start in the same zone for their side (which stinks - they should just have put a flight master at the alternate areas to allow players to choose where to level), but can they still fly to the D/GS or Elf start areas if they wish, or are they blocked off entirely?