Da Newz – April 10th

Da Newz is WAAAGH!’s weekly wrapup of WAR news bits and chunks.

BETA TICKER: 654,971 (+10,463 from last week)

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “For those who don’t want to see PvE in WAR, sorry, deal with it. For those who don’t want to see any form of PvP in WAR, sorry, deal with it. WAR has been designed, discussed and displayed as an RvR game with both PvE and PvP as part of the game. If you want to PvE your way up the ladder, you can. If you want to PvP your way up the ladder, you can. That’s been the plan from day one and it hasn’t changed at all.” ~ Mark Jacobs

• Tobold discusses WAR’s beta sign-up numbers in “Number Inflation” — is it me, or does he seem a little cranky as of late?
• “Warhammer Online impressions” at Guardian Unlimited. Likes the big scope of combat in theory, but they say actual combat needs to be tightened up a bit.
• Will there be stealth in WAR, even after the devs denied it? Keen makes an observation that may be the thorn in my liony paw!
• You can read up on “Scenarios 101: Part 3” on the official WAR website. Two Empire vs. Chaos scenarios are presented, one of which features capturable flags a la Battlefield 1942, and the other “murderball”.
• Hexus.gaming pumped out a seven-page article on WAR following the Paris event. I particularly liked the page on the Tome of Knowledge and how much they enjoyed it.
• WAR Herald: “The Conscious Subjugator” — a short lore story about a Witch Hunter.
• Ten Ton Hammer’s got a cool video for anyone interested in playing the Disciple of Khaine class. It’s interesting to note that this class is completely new for WAR, which Mythic and GW had to co-create. Likewise, a Sorceress career video is available.
• Want a closer look at career masteries (aka “talent trees”), or perhaps Keeps and Sieges? Check out the Career Mastery Preview and the Keeps and Sieges Preview at TTH.
• “What Warhammer Online will always be remembered for” at Massively. They know this already?
• “Collision Detection: That Is the Question” at MMO Gamer.
• Eurogamer agrees with the delay after playing the beta.
• Mark Jacobs comments on the Beta Ticker and the PR surrounding it.
• MMORPG: “How You Look: The Trophy System And More”
• MMORPG: “Capital Cities”
• “Fool Me Once, Shame On You” at Keen and Graev’s Gaming Blog, discussing the recent stealth and CTF revelations.
• The Greenskin’s Forum Watch for the past week — loads of weeping over stealth!
• “PvE… It Ain’t All Bad” at The Greenskin takes a look at the oft-unrepresented portion of WAR’s gameplay.
• Raiding as an end-game focus in WAR? Mark Jacobs says, not so, not really.
• MMORPG Blog takes us on a whirlwind tour of the Magus.
• Want a good overview of different class mechanics? Check out this spiffy thread at WHA.
• Keen and Graev return for a short Warhammer & Conan podcast!
• I’m not sure if Plaguelands is happy or upset with Mythic about WAR’s release, but here ya go anyway!
• Mythic art director Greg Grimsby popped by WHA forums to explain why some of the videos of the game look “flat” — most of the lighting effects haven’t made it in yet.
• Browncoat, forum admin over at WHA, wrote an excellent post on “Chicken Littles” in the community.

• Stratics hosted a House of Commons Dev Chat, the transcript of which you can read here.
• Highlights to me include: everything you do contributes to Guild XP, Black Guard is still afk, you can travel between newbie zones fairly easy, gear does give a player an advantage (duh) but hopefully not overpoweringly so, PvE and RvR in end game go hand-in-hand, you can’t jump over any other character, Warcamps will be mini-city raids available to the world, renown can earn you stat packages to boost your baseline stats, lowbie players will have access to mounts but won’t own them, CE items are available to all your characters, dungeon loot systems should be “intelligent” and drop usable loot for that group, no integrated voice chat at launch, and no flying.

• Loads of videos from the Paris Event, in no particular order:
• Careers in WAR: You will earn 30+ Abilities & Morale that can change from fight to fight, you can combine Abilities with other players to create a combo, Morale abilities can turn the tide of a battle, you’ll get 20-25 Tactics to help you in RvR, Tactics can help you customize play sessions between solo and RvR, gives you choices, the Tactics Editor can save your favorite Tactic loadouts, the Mastery system came out of beta feedback, you get 30 Mastery points by the time you hit 40, there will be respecs, huge look at the Sorceress class.
• Capital Cities: Cities have two modes (peaceful & contested), they are social hubs, some buildings only available to guilded folk, all the best loot is found in the city RvR situations, lots of utilities, iconic features/landmarks, banks might be attacked by robbers as the city gains in fame, random fun events, guards level up, city ratings equal realm-wide buffs, you will be alerted when your city is under attack.
• Realm vs. Realm: PvP and RvR are NOT the same thing — RvR is so much more than that, RvR benefits both yourself and your realm, if you’re playing WAR you *will* be doing RvR, they are concerned about population balance, a lot of discussion on Keep RvR, Keeps should change hands every 4 hours or so but could go as long as days, more discussion on scenarios and city sieges.
• Tome of Knowledge: Basic ToK overview, a couple of the unlocks are sending /tells 50 times or clicking on yourself 100 times, it likes to mock you, several tome unlocks in action are shown.
• Q&A With Jeff Hickman: Mythic takes a hard line against gold sellers, the best items it the game are earned not bought, they have a plan for visual character growth but it is doubtful they’ll do it, they’re going to retool the dwarf mount, city pvp will be instanced, they generally don’t believe in raids, they have future patches and expansions mapped out, and you can throw tomatoes at captured enemy kings.
• Producer’s Presentation: Jeff Hickman and Josh Dreshner, overview of GW and Mythic, they had a playable version of WAR 6 months into development, they seem VERY confident about a fall 2008 launch, and generally you’re getting about an hour and a half overview and summary of everything they’ve already said about WAR. If you’re only going to watch one video, this would be a safe bet.
• Witch Hunter PvP Video: A half-hour of PvP action, from the perspective of the semi-stealthy Witch Hunter.