Who's that guy?

A quick update for all the bloggers or basically anyone who fancies a team or to kill me.

Phoenix Throne : Order
Orrekai Dalinsson lvl 31 Rune Priest
Vorri Powderkeg lvl 22 Engineer (Used to be Norri. Damn I was proud of that name)
Aardii ToBeDetermined lvl 14 Slayer

Vortex : Destruction
Leginit ToBeDetermined lvl 18 Squig Herder (Formerly Leggit, another name I was damn fond of)
Eadbursta Yougetthepicture lvl 12 Shaman

So of five characters I play regularly (I have a sixth but she never gets game time) two had to get new names. Of course it'd be the two I was most proud of. Sods law.

The Ard Enuf Tribe

Goblins, as a whole, are a bunch of vicious sadistic bastards. Even so, Goblins en masse can be lumped into three categories. The cunning ones, the cowardly ones and the dead ones. You don't survive amongst Gobbos and Orcs without some skills or luck.

The Tribe that marches before you is a triumph of luck over skill or sense. A conglomeration of Night and Forrest Goblins, most often seen under the rule of an Orc or as separate groups raiding and causing mayhem.

Griznog Toofsteela is commonly held to be a lucky Gobbo. His rise to power was not through the normal method of killing whomever had what he wanted, but rather a function of being in the wrong place at the right time. When Gorbug Killzlots exploded due to a bad mushroom beer and accidentally swallowing a squig, Griznog was found in the area looking confused and getting the Squig survivor as a pet. When Murg the Smelly took a long walk off a short cliff, Griznog would have been split in two by Murgs falling sword had he not stopped to cuff Wotwot, a Shaman, around the ear. Instead as if by the hand of Mork, or mebbe Gork, a blade landed beside him.Finally, when he and Wotwot were sent out to beat some sense into a rebelling mob of Night Goblins, they tried to sneak off and instead came across the crushed body of the rebellious leader who had stopped to sneak a stunty beer under some loose rocks. Since then the mob has followed the twosome everywhere out of fear.

"Ere boss.... Wotwot's narratin to 'imself again"
"Yeah so? Give 'im a thump"
"...I'll try boss, but 'e sounds like a humie"

Finally the rabble decided to try joining a passing group of Orcs. This was to be genesis of the tribe. Instead of crushing Griznog or otherwise humiliating him as normal, the Orcs simply laughed at the assorted Night Goblins and told them to come back when they were "ard enuf". Peeling off from the Orc mob, a small unit of Forrest Goblin Spider Riders decided to follow Griznog. Perhaps it was the spirit of Gork, perhaps the command of Mork or most likely just them being hopped up on venom again that caused this.

So the tribe was named, and their plan formed. They would travel far to where the Black Orcs were said to have originated, spawned in some fashion near dark and dangerous Dwarf holds. There they would find out what made the Black Orcs so strong, use it themselves and return truly ard enuf.

Listen now to their tales as they mar*WHACK*aaaaaagh! We iz da best and we iz ...wot? Whyz me 'ead hurtin?

Server Snafu

I, like a few other bloggers, play on Ostermark. I came to WAR with roleplaying friends and to a roleplay server we went. My two Destruction toons are on Phoenix Throne.

So firstly, I am keeping an eye on the situation but only intend to blog about it once it has concluded.
Secondly, The Sentinels are moving from Ostermark and I'll be keeping my slayer Aardii with them.
Thirdly, keep an eye on the Herald. They heard the outcry, we'll see what happens as a result. Short of forcibly moving/encouraging people to shift onto Ostermark, who knows?

Honest Scrap Award is me

Well bugger me.

The Honest Scrap award has been circulating in the WAR blogsphere and beyond recently.

Somehow I got nominated and so I am excited to recieve this award from S.T. on RvR Confessions.

Thanks mate! I will so get you back for this.

So what is it about?

1. When accepting this auspicious award, you must write a post bragging about it, including the name of the misguided soul who thinks you deserve such acclaim, and link back to the said person so everyone knows she/he is real.


2. Choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design. Or improvise by including bloggers who have no idea who you are because you don’t have seven friends. Show the seven random victims’ names and links and leave a harassing comment informing them that they were prized with Honest Weblog. Well, there’s no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon.


3. List at least ten (10) honest things about yourself. Then pass it on.

I, Ardy, Hereby Nominate:

The Greenskin - Snafzg, Snafzg, Snafzg. I found the Greenskin before I wandered into the rest of the (at the time) new forming Warblogosphere. In fact if it wasnt for reading his blog and from it Book of Grudges and Waaagh! I likely would never have met the BoG girls nor gotten into blogging. So... he's the #1 nominee because it's all his fault. I even smacked him once or twice in a scenario. Though I then died as per my normal MO.

Stylish Corpse - I lessthanthree Ysharros

Bio Break - Syp. That's it. You either know his work or you've been on Mars for the last two years. I wish I was as good as Syp.

Wizards & Wenches - Regis writes Wizards & Wenches. He's the Admin for Blog Warhammer. Runs competitions that have brought us Girl IRL and hosted other blogs. He too is an inspiration to me. That as because I mod over at Blog Warhammer, a little ass kissing never hurt :P

Way of the Chosen - Rivs is another from Blog Warhammer. Never stops. Always has something to say and I love seeing his work. That and one day I'm going to hammerstaff his Chosen in the face. Wait and see.

Breakfast At WAR - They make me laugh. I could try to write more, but I don't know them as well as I'd like or to bastardise some Baggins, half as well as they deserve.

Symptom Of A Greater Cure - SoagCure isn't a WAR blog but is always always a blog I can count on for giving me something to think about. What more can you want from a blog?

10 honest things about myself

I am six and a half foot tall. Really. Check the photos or ask Arbitrary.
I am one year shy of a physics degree that I promise one day I will finish.
I love all things Jim Butcher and will be getting Turn Coat asap. In fact I'll be getting all the graphic novels of, you guessed it, the novels I already own.
I, unlike practically all Irish people, do not drink. Nor have I ever.
I met my wife on the internet through a friends med/fantasy roleplay 6 years ago.
I am a crap roleplayer. (Ok this one was a cop out)
Custard and chocolate chip cookies together is like rocket fuel for me. Causes immense hyperactivity.
I am very tactile and probably end up hugging most people. Beware at GOAMeet London.
I have a photographic memory (probably) where sci-fi is concerned.
I have a scar on my butt. Look, I ran out of things. Suffer with that knowledge :P

Coming home

In one of those "I was reading this, which linked to this and then to this" things, I was reading Tobolds blog, got on to Syncaines posts about Darkfall and WoW tourists and Ixobelle.

Also recently my WAR account expired because of a credit card issue. My better half, Shannon, hasn't been playing City of Heroes and cancelled her account a few weeks back and now I'm considering doing the same.

First a commentary on the linked post.
Ixobelle had this to say:

LotRO is probably the only other game I really respect out of the ‘non-WoW’
batch of MMOs I’ve played (but I never subscribed to LotRO, so there you go),
and I have yet to actually even make it to the character creator in Coh/CoV. I
signed up for a trial, and the downloader was so fucking slow that my free trial
ran out before I ever actually got the game installed. Don’t even get me started
on EVE. Hoo boy.

With Syncaine coming back with:

No please, do elaborate on EVE, it would be priceless. Warning though, the game
does not contain NPCs with ! in bright yellow, so right off the bat it’s not as
‘polished’ as WoW. LoTRO thanks you for your respect, all 10 days or less of it.
I am curious though what exactly you are looking for in an MMO if LoTRO was not
WoW-enough for you?

Now personally... I've played all of 5 minutes of WoW. Decided it wasn't for me and left it at that. It was on my brothers account to boot, so it's not like I wasted any money by not properly playing out a month. I've my four year badge in City of Heroes coming this month (would be more but hey, account lapses). I've played a few months of EVE. I have never played Lotro.
While not being as ... adamant as Syncaine, I agree that Ixo really shouldn't have said anything.

You can download the CoH patcher before the trial, and also if it takes you 10 days to download a game, what have you been doing?
EVE has so much to offer, only the fact that I think I couldn't give the game time enough to do it justice keeps me away still.
The comment about LOTRO is just insulting.

It highlights something obvious of course, people like what they like. Some people like Pepsi, others Coke. There's always a George Lazenby fanboy in the corner somewhere.

In the end the thought came down to this. I've played CoH for years, I've made friends there, I've had good times there. But when it came to payday and we did a budget, I resubbed to Warhammer and I'm taking time off City Of Heroes.
It's not just a Pepsi/Coke thing for some people. It's so much more because of what the games are, MMOs.

CoH has great bits. EVE has great bits. LOTRO has great bits. WoW has great bits. WAR has great bits. At the end of the day, what really matters and what really spawns the comments is this. Where at you most at home?

Royal WAR Rumble

Both The Greenskin and Werit suggested a while back about a third faction for the game.

Snaf suggests an NPC third faction that in some fashion brings balance back to the WAR. If you're clearly kicking ass the world over, you'd suffer greater attacks from this faction (Example given : Skaven, Vampire Counts and Ogres) to the point where they could flip RvR zones.

Werit suggests a third faction as a playable race, if I understand him correctly, which is limited in what it can do and the experience in game but would allow this third faction to tip the scales one way or another during rvr.

Snaf also gives the example of Aion, in which the NPC race will become more aggressive to whomever is clearly outplaying the other creating a challenge. On paper, I think it sounds fantastic (Im signed up for the Aion beta). In execution, I remain unconvinced. Zone Domination was introduced as a means to stop defending by not defending. On paper a self correcting NPC faction could indeed spice up RvR and require more of a WAR effort from people, but in practice, could it also mean that the other side simply stops resisting so that the NPCs strike back with a strength they cannot or are unwilling to muster?
Though in defense of the idea, it would encourage people to leave rear guard groups like I have only just begun to see outside of Fortresses designed to stem reinforcements (though why we seem to always being doing it at the Maw where there is a second route we can't deal with I don't know). You would not only have to have the strength and ability to bring the fight to your enemy but have the resources and support to fight off an ever stronger other faction so you can crush your foe. If it worked, now there's some realm pride.

Werits idea, with a comparison to how it works in Pirates of the Burning Sea, has a wee limiting factor in that both sides need their pvp players. A third faction that solely pvps I think would drain the pool of talent each side has as they go off to join the Skaven or what have you so they could break the stalemate and create their own. After all for an essentially pvp only side, they'd have to go where the fighting is or what's the point? However the idea reminded me of Planetsides Black Ops. Every so often some players get selected to play Black Ops characters. They're powerful, they're not numerous and they exsist solely to disrupt the three way Smurf/Commie/Vanu war. As such everyone loves to kill 'em.
What if the Skavenidea of Werit wasn't an always available option but rather an occasional appearance of a few warbands where the lucky players tapped to be hated ratmen can engage anyone on their server, regardless of what side they came from (and ideally they'd be pulled 50/50 from Order and Destruction) whose whole purpose isnt to tip an ongoing battle, but erode the control of the other two. For extra bastard points, they could stop one side from sieging the opposite city only to take their place.
Ahhh Altdorf is safe, those Skavenscum broke their fortress lock, siege over.....why're there so many ratmen all of a sudden?*splortch*

Personally I come down in the middle on both ideas. Ahh lawyerground.
I have before (I think on this blog, maybe somewhere else) suggested the third faction of WAR being not Order or Destruction but rather Balance. Bring in Wood Elves, Lizardmen and Tomb Kings (previously I suggested Brettonnia, but who wants pansy knights?) and have their t1 to t4 zones intersect with new zones for Order and Destruction equally. That way they are by factor of geography invited to fight against both sides equally. Also it introduces replayability in that if say in tier 1, Order can only fight Balance in Lustria and Destruction can only fight in areas of Nehekhara and Balance is denied Nordland/Norsca and Ekrund/Mount Bloodhorn, to fight everywhere, must at some stage play all three sides.
Tis an idea.

And to really spice things up, while Order, Destruction and Balance go at it hammer and tongs, bring in Snafs npc Opportunity. Ogres, Vampires and hell Chaos Daemons whose sole point is to act as a wild card rather than a balance mechanism.

After all, you win some, you lose some. Though wouldn't it be fantastic to say it two two factions and an 11th hour addition of rampaging NPCs to take down your city?

Blogroll

Blogroll updated with a whole bunch from the frankly huge Blog Warhammer Blogroll.

Blogs for the Blogroll! Posts for the Post Throne of WAR!

Ordering Order and Controlling Chaos.

Recently Massively pimped a link to the WARbander’s Handbook v1.0 (after Wizards and Wenches I do believe). It is a very good read indeed. However there is a question I have for everyone on your various servers.
How does your lot take control of the battle?

During the GOAMeet Tufmudda related some stories of what happened on his old server and his new one. You'll excuse me if I don't have the details down exactly as it was a wee while ago. One story related to the industrious Destruction player who through an immense amount of gold and the in game mail client mailed a huge amount of players to co-ordinate in secret a fortress attack. Operation Snotsner or something to that effect. Another related to Tufmudda himself and spending several hours in a warband not actively fighting. Instead of swinging his cleava and black orcing it up (guess on my part that) he had spent the entire time typing messages to a great many people, helping co-ordinate through the game and through voice chat the war effort. Pulling together bands, directing them to particular objectives and essentially running a battle across multiple fronts.

These stories and others about other peoples online experiences in WAR and other games served to firstly make me jealous. Jealous to such an extent that I toyed with the idea of moving away from the US servers of the game and to my own time and own people on the GOA servers. A place where I knew there was life, co-ordination and a battle to be fought.
Secondly it made me think about what can be done to change how it's all run where I currently am.

Anyone who plays MMOs for a while sooner or later hears that no matter how populated a game, the forums tend to be a vocal minority. Dedicated and devoted they may be (though that may be devoted to snark/flames) they are still a small number. Bloggers too are a small subset of a games population. Look at the Age of Blogging or WCPI initiative. Yes they raise the awareness of blogs and other forums but in the end most players will pass over them or give them a cursory glance at best.

With that excuse there, I admit that I am terrible with forums. I would love to be a regular on the forums, official or otherwise but sadly my attention span isn't up to it. Either I forget to log in, am too busy to or am considering blogging.

If I can't keep up with the war effort there, how can Joe Casual?

I happen to know that Ostermark has a channel, OrderRvR, for bringing people together to co-ordinate rvr. I know this because Bregel was around way in the beginning when people decided to create said channel. I heard it first from a friend and then over Christmas from the Warbands I was in. Sadly alot of those faces have either moved on or alted, and as a result I cannot tell how popular the channel is anymore. Do new folks get told? Am I part of an ever shrinking group joining the channel which one day may no longer have enough people on it to co-ordinate anything?

With this in mind I have an answer for Joe Casual, for me and for the war effort generally speaking.

Answer? Planetside.

We went halfway there with the leaders room in Sigmars Hammer and its Destruction equivalent. A room where only people of high guild rank can enter and thus can co-ordinate.
Planetside however had layers of channels dedicated to war efforts. To access them you had to earn command points for command ranks. CR1 would let you /sitrep. You could send a message one tier up to inform that layer of command. Messages and information passed up to higher ranks who in turn could co-ordinate with each other over greater distances. Onwards and upwards it went all the way to CR5 which allowed people to global message the entire server or a specific planet.

By giving these abilities only to people who earned command ranks which as you can guess can only be earned by leading, Planetside established the control for the war.

Throw in the channels or an equvialent and we may see more co-ordination on both sides beyond that of "Oh hey I see a warband" or "/g Is anything going on?" for people like me. The lazy guy, the footsoldier who will fight where told, when told, but only if someone is around to do the telling.

I'll serve my server in the war, but it'd be nice to give the people who spend the hours typing some framework to work from. Player created methods are fantastic, but only if we know they're out there.

Maybe I just missed it on Ostermark/Phoenix Throne. Anyone got a word for this foot soldier?

Dude... Where's my Deity?

One of the topics to emerge from the ramblings (I say ramblings, really the noise in the bar got to such that I destroyed my voice) during GOAMeet and with everyone was a simple question.

How do our characters come back from the dead?

Most games and lores have some reason, however fluffy or flighty, for peoples miracle returns from beyond.
City of Heroes/Villains has medical teleporters with Rikti technology that rebuilds and repairs you on a molecular level as your vitals hit a threshold and you're whisked away.
EVE has pods and when even those fail, cloning technology with flash memory transfer.
Warcraft has something where your screen goes all grey and you go hunting for your corpse. Hey I don't play, I don't know the particulars.

Warhammer though.... for a grim and gritty place where death is usually final and practically always brutal.. what is the mechanism. I remember once before theorising what it could be. Perhaps in the ebb and flow of the war your body is discovered by friendly forces and brought back to camp for a quick bit of r&r followed by more slash and hack.

However we have a new theory. One that explains why Slayers, Dwarfs who actively seek their own death, keep getting up. One that explains just how you manage to always come back for another bout.

Morr is on holiday. The Kingdom is closed and new applications are not at this time being reviewed. The God of the Underworld/Heaven/Souls/Whathaveyou is away in metaphysical Hawaii with his scythe covered and his feet up.

This begs the question though... what are all the other gods up to? There are plenty in Warhammer, everyone gets at least one.
Some theories.

Order

• Sigmar is currently sitting on a cloud weilding a padded Ghal Maraz. He's wrapped that bad boy in a few pillows and is playing Inspirational Whack A Mole. Given the amount of Warrior Priests suddenly heeding his call and going out praying/caving in skulls in his name, this makes sense. "You there, feel holy?" *WHACK* "You are now. Go preach."
  
• The only Elven Gods to get airtime for Order are Isha, Asuryan and Khaine.
  We'll come back to Khaine. My only theory regarding the (in)action of the High Elf Pantheon has got to be phone lines. Every Elf exclaims "ISHA!" or "ASURYAN!" about ten million times per scenario/public quest. All lines are currently jammed, please try again later or press 1 to speak to a member of another pantheon.
  
• Dwarfs? We're too hard to need to bother Grimnir, Grungi or Valaya. Anyway Grimnir is busy in the Chaos Gate proving how badass Dwarfs are.
  
• The most overworked Order deities though. Shallaya and Ranald. One's busy taking all the prayers that Morr has skipped out on. Death not sticking? Go bother the healer. The other is busy causing mischief in every loot roll in exsistence.
  Myrmidia isn't getting a look in right now.

Destruction

• Tzeentch. Just as planned. Tzeentch is busy orchestrating the entire Age of Reckoning. You know what this means? The entire thing is a fake out. If Khorne is busy sulking and making do with the Bastion Stair, Nurgle is busy cracking new jokes and old pustles and Slaneesh is keeping it under wraps then it can only mean they don't feel threathened by Tzeentch (or do feel threathened by the ESRB). Expect randomness.
  
• Gork And Mork.
  Like Morr they're mostly absent. Is it that they don't believe in da boyz? Not at all.
  Nurgle just made the best fart joke in all of exsistence and they are otherwise indisposed.
  
• Khaine
  MUUUUUUUUUUUURDER and polygamy. Seriously, with that many Brides of Khaine and Disciples running about he's a busy boy. Khaine doesn't have time for your sacrficies (though they are appreciated, don't let that bastard Khorne get them) because he's busy getting hitched, inspiring and making sure his brother Morr stays on the expenses paid vacation.
  "Morr....bro, I know you hate me but what could I gain from you taking some time off apart from having people endlessly coming back from the brink of death only so my followers can kill them again...what? I said nothing. So... Pina Coladas?"

What do you think? Where are the Warhammer Gods?

GOAMeet - Dublin 9th March

Rawr folks. It's about time that I got off my proverbial and got back to the blogging. Obviously it's easiest to start with the 9th of March and the first attempted GOAMeet.

Was it a sucess? I got fed, met people I didn't know and we talked about fun things. On a personal level it was very much a sucess.
However as Arbitrary will attest, the Dublin location wasnt the most popular choice when she polled the legions of Book Of Grudges readers. That's why during this first attempt, and in fact before it got off the ground, we started planning the second.
GOAMeet London - Coming May 9th. More on that in a bit.

Part of the delay in my blogging hasn't actually been work which normally would be the energy drainer. Rather I ended up with a blasted cold or flu or somesuch. I'm going to blame Arb and Sare if only because I'm taller and can get away with it hehe. Still it was lovely to have them both over.

Arb and myself set off into Dublin to invade the GOA Office. Signing in we got cute little badges that we completely forgot to put against the beepy thing, but then again I doubt we had to. We were also treated to Nic's reimaging of Evita, you had to be there.

There was an important task to tend to before the tour round the office so Arbitrary, myself, Nic, Magnus and ...err you know I've gone and forgotten their otherwise lovely bosses name (loves Tyranids, don't mention the Skaven apparently).. anyway the lot of us retired to the cafeteria for the first reveal.
Namely Arbitrarys birthday present, a modded and painted Queen Helga mini as a Dwarfen Rune Priestess with her very own Book Of Grudges. With any luck we'll have photos over on Nerf the Cat or Book of Grudges before long.

Touring the GOA offices was very enjoyable and despite rumours of super secret information being on whiteboards somewhere, either I missed it or was distracted, and there's plenty to distract.
The QA department has been orcified by the QA dept themselves. Spikes and Gork/Mork faces abound.
The busy CSR area (all of the language areas) had folks tending to tickets and all things WAR.
The Community Management and Forum area is covered in gorgeous in game art and coloured maps of every zone in the game as well as all the bits and pieces people bring in themselves (Space Marines guard Magnus' area). It was lovely to see those people at work, and believe me those forums are monitored. Very Tome of Knowledge (or for CoX players, Nemesis plot-y) with all the watching going on.

Two other areas came up in the tour. The first you may actually see featured here on Tuesday or Wednesday as St Patricks Day will be the first battle between the Dwarfs of Karak Grim and the 'Ard Enuf Greenskin Tribe. It is the games room where all things fun and geeky occur. The second was like an engine room. Huge monitors, incomprehensible things displayed on them, people watching computers carefully. Basically if ever I go in there and unplug something, doom will befall us all. Probably runs the EU or something.

Eventually we all left the office and made for the Bull & Castle. What can I say about the evening? I met Tufmudda. Stories were shared, jokes were made, one cheerful friendly crazy bastard drained a huge glass (check back for photos), blogging ideas came up and a good time was had by all. It was something better experienced.
Seriously, be at the next one.

Of course the night ended on a proper Warhammer note. The obligatory WAAAGH! photo. (Photos to go up as soon as I can get hold of Tufmudda >.<)



Now ... the next time.
Here's the plan ladies and gents. On the poll alot of you voted for London and this appeals to a great many people on a few levels.
Friday the 8th of May is the premiere of Star Trek in cinemas the world over, including IMax screens.
Early details (which of course are subject to change) of GOAMeet London are cinema on the 8th and a proper meet up for Warhammer gamers and GOA on the 9th in a pub to be booked. Apparently Dark Age players may know/remember it. Be sure to keep an eye here and on the Book of Grudges for more concrete details as they emerge.

This! Is! FANMEET!

As Arbitrary pointed out over here there is but a week to go on the GOA fanmeet.

Details remain the same and in good news the bus strike is off or delayed. So there shouldn't be any trouble travelwise. If anyone has any questions they want asked of the GOA lads, feel free to drop a comment or email me (it's in my blogger profile). We'll try to get answers for everything, but of course it's down to the lads themselves.

Travel info can be found here.
Bull & Castle Pub, Temple Bar, 7pm.

Camera-ambushes, Twitter and possibly some live updates will occur during the evening.

Oh and March 17th will be the first Ardy V Nic Warhammer battle. Wish me luck, or failing that insanely cheesey dice rolls.