Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning News - 1.3.2 Live! New Producer's Letter

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?

Has the performance been addressed in this patch ie pvp(rvr) laggggg............?

Originally posted by MMO_Doubter

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?

Although i have not tried i highly doubt they wont allow people to go there. Personally i love the Greenskin area.

As for the performance issues in RvR I have not had the horrid 5 fps lag at forts for a long while. Sure there can definately be improvement to the lag but its not that bad except at forts which they have removed.

 Just resubbed after a few months off (I pre-ordered, got on the hype train and was very disappointed)

The game has improved quite a bit and I am having quite a lot of fun.

The problem is, is what I am seeing really 1 years work from a company backed by the fountain of cash that is EA? Hell no!

I feel it is a little to late for poor old warhammer, it has a dying (rapidly) population and it really upsets me because it really did have SO much potential, it is one of the few MMO's (I have been playng wow since pre bc- recently quit cos wolk is a complete joke, a child could clear all the content, but thats another story) that I actually find myself having a riot on, I find the class' and the pvp to be really enjoyable when there are people playing. There are a lot of things that need addressing but they aren't and that is why there is no population.

What baffles me is why the hell isn't Mythic advertising like crazy!! They have a really solid game that is fantastic when the world is full and the open rvr is happening. At launch when it was much worse of a game than today (not a years work worse but still) we had 2 groups of 40 or so players against another 2 groups of 40 players god that was so fun! Now with the new mechanics it would be sensational, however as I mentioned, to little to late, and with seemingly no effort on mythics behalf it seems as if they have given up on WAR.

In essence:

No population + population dependant game = Fail

I've tried to give a non-biased review of the game to those who want to try it out.

Tl;dr: A welcome update but it is to little to late to save this dying, unfortunately VERY entertaining game. :'(

I still think this game is missing that 3rd faction, RVR just isn't the same, sadly. :(

Although reading through the patch notes, I don't play the game anymore, there are some good changes.

# 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.

See how 1.3.3 goes to tempt me back !

Had fun in WAR when there was a war, but with dwindling pops - I jumped from server to server, alt to alt. Until finally got sick of simply reading a book waiting for sceneraios to start. Searching for enemies in an empty RvR warfront is not worth my hard earned cash.

Patch 1.3.2 is awesome! They have made HUGE improvements scince the initial release. My only saddness was at time of launch and even now they do not offer a lifetime membership. You should all try the game again or buy it if you don`t own it already.

 I did the return to war trial thing, the game still has major issues. I see no real reason to stay. this game has major design flaws  and no amount of window dressing is going to fix that. the game should be closed and reworked from the ground up and released in a year.

Originally posted by Odela

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

HMMM, yeah wonder where they got that idea? Funny enough, they even used the same name.

2. Give ALL players the abiltiy to sidekick lower level players (ala apprenticeship) to immediately help with tier imbalances. Give higher level players a "mentoring" reward, tome unlocks, and/or the ability to attain gear within their sides major city as an incentive for mentoring. Low level players might receive bonus XP, but would receive medals and monetary drops at the higher "boosted" level, thus increasing their ability to afford nicer gear, mounts earlier on. Mythic could restrict gear drops from those that are sidekicked or tailor it in such a way that the mentoring players don't have to compete for gear with the sidekicked players.

Here is the link to my original post on the Warhammer Forums:

http://forums.warhammeronline.com/warhammer/board/message?board.id=dev_discussions&view=by_date_ascending&message.id=2502#M2502

Notice the date from that post was 06-23-2009 04:44 PM.

Like I stated above, I had been pestering them for additions like these as well as many of these changes, fixes,  for the longest time and well before the linked post.

 

Originally posted by MMO_Doubter

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?

They can still go to the other areas, but they all start in the Empire/Chaos pairing to concentrate new toons in one area to make grouping and finding others to play with easier.

It's a good idea, and based off the many complaints that people have had over the last year that everything was "too spread out".

Originally posted by Hersaint

Had fun in WAR when there was a war, but with dwindling pops - I jumped from server to server, alt to alt. Until finally got sick of simply reading a book waiting for sceneraios to start. Searching for enemies in an empty RvR warfront is not worth my hard earned cash.

Yup, my experience too, dwindling population drove me away as well. Too bad, I had some great gaming experiences playing WAR. The trouble is, they would have to rebuild the game from the ground up to avoid population problems, and I doubt they have the resources for that. So many great ideas gone to waste, what a shame ...

Originally posted by Rohn

Originally posted by MMO_Doubter

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?

 

They can still go to the other areas, but they all start in the Empire/Chaos pairing to concentrate new toons in one area to make grouping and finding others to play with easier.

It's a good idea, and based off the many complaints that people have had over the last year that everything was "too spread out".

This in now way means that the higher lvl content is fixed.  It is not - it leaves endless amount of pointless area in the game that... even if you wanted to .. you can not play it..

This leaves 2/3rds of the entire game empty wastelands.  Mythic doesn't care tho..   The game was still built with a certain concept of WAR and now that is ripped apart by the same devs that created it.    Why did they not change the other starting areas? 

I did the 10 day free trial for old players, and I have re-subbed to WAR.

Since day 1, no matter what time I log in, on a low-low server theres action with over 250+ people happening daily, and constant struggles for RvR.

This patch hit, and its getting more intense then ever.

FACT CHECK: none of the old T1 zones will be "gone" or "not used" they are just trying to get people PQing and RvRing again, you are free to go to the other zones right away at level 1 via flight.

Yeah I love this patch ....NOT.

Seems the order/destruction balance on US servers generally is about 50/50 but sadly overhere in Europe things are not that way :( . Overhere server balance is non-excisting, servers overhere are either dominated in numbers by either order or destruction.

This was mainly caused by Mythic's moronic way of server merges(yes server merges were needed but the way they handled it was pathetic) instead of paying attention to server balance they just dumped more destruction on the already destruction dominated servers and likewise for order.

When fortresses were still in the Orvr campaign things were tough and difficult but yet manageable for the underdogs on the servers,  but now that they axed the fortresses they opened the floodgates to city sieges.

On The server I play on Karak-Azgal where destruction has huge numbers over order, on average 4 destro warbands to 1 order warband things have gotten so out of hand that altdorf is under siege '24/7' which means that you either join the city defense (any other T4rvr is not possible) or you  head to T1 or T2 and play an alt. Now THAT is fun.........

Originally posted by MrcdesOwnr

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.

I just want to know how all these "fixes" that should have been at launch are just now being fixed a year late.

Oh well, atleast in Aion its more about skill and not being a silly broken Bright Wizard that determines who will win.

Originally posted by DaBehemoth

Yeah I love this patch ....NOT.

Seems the order/destruction balance on US servers generally is about 50/50 but sadly overhere in Europe things are not that way :( . Overhere server balance is non-excisting, servers overhere are either dominated in numbers by either order or destruction.

This was mainly caused by Mythic's moronic way of server merges(yes server merges were needed but the way they handled it was pathetic) instead of paying attention to server balance they just dumped more destruction on the already destruction dominated servers and likewise for order.

When fortresses were still in the Orvr campaign things were tough and difficult but yet manageable for the underdogs on the servers,  but now that they axed the fortresses they opened the floodgates to city sieges.

On The server I play on Karak-Azgal where destruction has huge numbers over order, on average 4 destro warbands to 1 order warband things have gotten so out of hand that altdorf is under siege '24/7' which means that you either join the city defense (any other T4rvr is not possible) or you  head to T1 or T2 and play an alt. Now THAT is fun.........

Blame GOA in the EU for server mis-management, they drove me away from this game when they first started doing server mergers late last year.
 

This game seems to have suffered from mis-management. Imho all resources should have been spent on providing a smooth gaming experience, and then whistle and bells can come later.

If it is not possible to play smooth with the current engine then the devs will know this and a decision should really be reached as to whether it is viable to keep this game going or not. Or find so radical solution to the problem asap.

With server balance when will it be ok to merge all servers into one, in the EU?

Originally posted by VultureSkull Blame GOA in the EU for server mis-management, they drove me away from this game when they first started doing server mergers late last year.

 

This game seems to have suffered from mis-management. Imho all resources should have been spent on providing a smooth gaming experience, and then whistle and bells can come later.

If it is not possible to play smooth with the current engine then the devs will know this and a decision should really be reached as to whether it is viable to keep this game going or not. Or find so radical solution to the problem asap.

With server balance when will it be ok to merge all servers into one, in the EU?

Sure I can and should blame GOA aswell but Mythic did go into business with GOA(and truth be told you can't tell me Mythic didn't know about GOA's apalling track record).

I think in europe server balance will never be fair simply for the fact that GOA keeps denying server imbalance despite the obvious evidence.