Woohoo!

Thanks to the blogosphere (I wish I was putting information out rather than taking it in as usual, must work on that) I too have gotten myself the nifty Scarab amulet.

So far ....
CE Retail Box Includes: The Librams of Insight, Custom Character Heads and more!
Pre-Order Includes: Rittenbach's Portable Camp and Guardian's Iolite Band
Reward: White Dwarf Includes: Custom Dwarf Head
Reward: Email Validated Includes: Title - 'The Validated'
Reward: C&C Red Alert 3 Includes: Kossar's Helm
Preview Weekend Provides access to Preview Weekend
CE Open Beta Provides access to the CE Open Beta
CE Head Start Provides access to the CE Head Start
Reward: Choppa/Slayer Custom Heads Includes: Choppa/Slayer Custom Heads
Reward: Scarab Amulet Includes: Scarab Amulet
Reward: Shroud of the Imrathepis Includes: Shroud of the Imrathepis

One day Skaven Cloak, you will be mine.
(What? CoH has badge whoring, WAR has the Tome and rewards :P)

Never one to deny a challenge

Folks, they've thrown down the gauntlet. That or dangled a carrot, you decide. What am I talking about? The Warhammer Age of Reckoning Blog Challenge.

Werit already tweeted that the fantastic and ever entertaining Tome Of Knowledge has received a package, head on over for a peek.

From the Herald.

If you want to claim your free Scarab Amulet, put your decoding hat on, because the Rise of the Tomb Kings blog challenge is coming! Over the next three weeks, Tomb King Skulls will be appearing on some of your favorite online gaming sites. Painted on these skulls are five different Cartouches. Translate any one of these and you’ll reveal an item code. If you play on a North American or Oceanic server, you can take this to the Mythic Account Center and enter it into your account. Once activated, you will receive a unique Scarab Amulet reward. This fun item summons a Scarab swarm that chitters and swirls around your feet. Remember, nothing grants e-kudos like a personalized beetle horde.

How do you translate the hieroglyphs? Well, you’ll need to search around the WAR blogosphere. Just like the Night of Murder bloody valentines, we’ve sent special packages out to US and Canadian WAR bloggers. Different blogs will get different fragments of the code. Collect the lot, and you’ll be able to translate a cartouche.

You’ll need to be quick about collecting the code. Each Cartouche will only give out 1,000 Scarab Amulets (only one per account, before you ask!). So, if you want your beetle buddies, get thee to the internet!

I'm going to regret this

Head over to Quilldragon for a shot at torturing me.

City of Zerg

Recently some friends and I have gotten together in City of Heroes/Villains and created a team. It's not quite a static team, though it comes close. It is also not really a superteam, though arguably it has the hallmarks.

To elaborate, a superteam is a group of characters in CoH/CoV that are usually comprised of identical or highly complimentary powersets. It goes to such a point where the major level organised superteams even have predesigned builds so they get certain powers (typically Leadership) at certain levels to maximize the twink. Example: Fire/Radiation Controller teams.
A static team, well most of you know but for those that don't; it's a group who will always come together at a set time on a set day and play together. Some run statics that rarely group with anyone else, others roleplay all the time on their static characters but only ever level with the other members.

Anyway we have a team of Masterminds. Specifically five Thugs Masterminds for a simple reason. The same reason that class gets used for superteams. GANG WAR!

We have a

• Thugs/Storm
• Thugs/Pain Domination
• Thugs/Dark Miasma
• Thugs/Forcefields
• Thugs/Traps

So that represents alot of slows, resistance and defense debuffs, accuracy debuffs, healing, defense boosts and stealth powers. A few of us have also started taking the Leadership powers which stack with the Enforcer leadership. Provided there are no cascading defense failures, the team will only get tougher and tougher as time goes on.

This weekend, we'll be tackling the Silver Mantis strikeforce together. If you are on Virtue and over level 20, give me a shout on @Ardua and join in. Just a word of warning, when all the pets are down, at this level we account for 75 characters on screen at once :P

Bullet Points

Lo folks.

Sorry for being under the radar so long. Between work, play and sleep there's been precious little time for things like blog, snacking and other lesiure. Still three day weekend here and I'll kick works ass so you'll all have to put up with me again.

What I've been playing!

• Left 4 Dead (Ardua on Steam)
• City of Heroes (@Ardua)
• Warhammer Online

What I am looking forward to!

• Warhammer 40k
• Black Prophecy
• Global Agenda

What I will be honour bound to try.

• Champions Online
• Star Trek Online
• Stargate Worlds (If it ever comes out)

What I'd get into again if I had more free time.

• EVE Online

I'll blog properly later about Warhammer vs time and City Of Heroes superteams. Till then.

WCPI : Gaarawarr Gabs

This week in WCPI I hereby promote my new favourite person.

Gaarawarr has a fantastic blog dealing with his views on patches, updates, armors, wards and so much more.

If nothing else, he should be worshipped for these two. " Moar Tokens! " and his Guides section.

Read, enjoy and like me, plan out what you'll be doing tonight. Moar tokens indeed.

Quilldragon Now Open

Ladies and Gents, Quilldragon is now open.

If you like fantasy literature or just really like the bunch of bloggers involved, pop on over and check us out.
If not, do it anyway or face my wrath! Muhahahahaha.

Everyone say awwwww now

WAR news, but not WAR related.

From Twitter : JoshDrescher Less than six hours left until the wedding...

Come on everyone. Tweet the man and wish him luck.

Trying a different question

Syp made a post about the validity of solo play, despite him being mostly a grouper. Due to the back and forth in the comments Ysharros had a stab at defending their playstyle of preference. I threw a comment out there myself. Spinks on the other hand has a different view and once again the comments flow, as doother posts.

Here's something I want to ask though.
Grouping is fine for those who group. Reasons have been given ranging from personal achievement, enjoying a metagame, tactical reasons and so on.
Soloing is fine for those who want to. There should be an overlap permitted but both camps seem to have a problem with that.

My question is this. Soloers, what would entice you to group? You have your reasons for not doing so, and that is acceptable. Maybe you don't always feel like it, maybe you dislike the chaos, maybe you have a medical reasons (I've known a few).

When the solo vs group question comes up, inevitably the question posed is "Why would you solo in an MMO?" with the implication to some that soloing is the digital equivalent of leprosy.
How can we make the question "What would get you to group with us?". People don't have to group, people will always still want some alone time, me time, time to do whatever insanity or drudgery catches their fancy. Could you make it enticing to group though, even to a soloer, without necessarily forcing the issue?

Heads up people.

Coming soon

On the Group/Solo cost of living.

I group. I solo. I duo. I've staticed. I have raided, taskforced, pugged, warbanded, fleet maneuvered and run around like a headless chicken in an Escher painting.

I understand that an MMO has people. I know that even when I run alone, there are people. I accept that when there are people en masse, I sometimes wish there wasn't. I play what I'd like when I want and do what I can for the mass when I can.

At the end of the day however it depends on my mood. I've seen people who group more than anything not log on when they have a bad mood. Why? So they don't take it out on others. Noble that, but the alternative is you could play your game still and just not play with other people.
I've seen hardcore soloers complain about new group based content essentially locking them out, but guys if any random schmoe could solo the content, we'd all be bored fast.

I think the reason Groupers hate Soloers is the old old old player type, the Tank Mages. Tank Mages either want or have the ability to carry the game on their shoulders. They can solo every boss that ever wiped your team, they don't need heals or dps or (de)buffs as they have them themselves. They don't need you. In social games and online spaces where depending on others is promoted, this can be a bit jarring. Especially if you need the Tank Mage so your group can do things. Not everyone who prefers to play alone is a Tank Mage though, just as how not everyone who only ever groups is a powerleveller.

In City of Heroes, I soloed every Kheldian arc. Why? Well.. as much as I love my friends and as much as I enjoy playing with new people, you lot get in my way when I am playing for the content and fluff. You want to do this mission and get to the next as fast as possible or roleplay something that will slow me down or make the fluff whore in me cry quietly.
In Warhammer, when I am not feeling up to the mania of a Warband or the banter of the guild and groups, I go and solo. I can take my time reading the mission text. I can suicide repeatedly if I so choose. I can play NinjaDwarf and get into places I really probably shouldn't. Nothing in that playstyle is bad. I am not saying you cannot come and mission/quest with me, I just want to take it easy and am not offering you a fast and productive experience.

Am I drain on the Sentinels in Warhammer? I like to think not. Through taxes and tithes, they make money from me. Am I a drain on Luna Arcanum in CoH? They are making prestige off of me. When I am soloing, I am still contributing. I'm not always on the team, but I am engaged in teamwork. Maybe not as obviously as when I am in a group, but it is still happening.

If I don't participate with the group as a whole, I do not expect to get the same preference. A raid or taskforce won't ever hinge on my showing up, nor can I expect them to hold a spot for me when others want to go unless I have given the group time in return. Many of the new soloers do not expect such. They are not asking you to bring them on every raid and leave them alone at all other times. If they are, their solo playstle has nothing to do with them being a leech.

Sometimes, even in the most solitary of moods, people like to know others are near and can be reached if necessary. You can solo and be in an MMO. Just don't take it too far one way or the other. Warhammer, for me, had lost its appeal when I was always soloing. If you have soloers in the guild, maybe they just need a friendly hand extended. If you always run in groups, keep in mind that's not for everyone. One former friend in City of Heroes physically could not cope with 8 man teams and would sooner leave than put themselves through strain and no one would say that they were wrong to.

Finally on the grouping side of the fence.. if you never put yourself outside your guild or outside yourself, consider this. You are missing an experience and you may not make friends you otherwise could. My life is richer, online and off, for having pugged and talked to groups.
There is no one ideal playstyle for an MMO in the same way that there is no one ideal MMO for all us online players. If there was, we'd all be raiding tonight, some in groups, some by themselves and some just sitting by and watching us do it.

What possible application could you have for pudding flavoured gunpowder?

In this universe? None whatsoever. But in the universe of shrimp it might be useful.

To be honest, the title line was something odd that came up in conversation once (don't ask) and I promised I'd use it. It does however let me launch into a City Of Discussion.

Having had time to settle down from my nerdrage, I think it is time we talk about Going Rogue and Praetorians.

For a long time, since the introduction of Portal Corps, Praetorian Earth has been a fantastic roleplay device. Evil twin? Praetorian! That or a Nemesis plot. Statesman is missing? Praetorians! A well known hero flip you off? Praetorian, or just a bit of a dick (I'm looking at you Manticore).

Going Rogue seems to be promising us access to this parallel world in more than just missions to beat up the Mirror Universe versions of our favourite Heroes. As such, some things you should know.

• Praetorian Earth has previously been depicted as a Crapsack World
• Most groups seem to have an inverse there. The Carnival of Shadows having a good guy version in the Carnival of Light. We've never seen Praetorian Recluse, so expect that one to be interesting (assuming Tyrant aka Emperor Cole didn't just off him)
• Unless they are being literal about their worlds colliding or there is a third path (the theorised Spy AT) that starts in Praetoria and comes to Paragon, expect this to be a high level zone. After all the machines are all based in Peregrine Island, Level 40+.

Fluff linkdump for those who want to get the skinny on all this Portal and Alternate Universe stuff.

This guy did the reseach and founded Portal Corp. This has led to a possible I15 Mcguffinpopping by, the Rikti invading, people accessing the Shadow Shard and of course Praetorians noticing Earth.

Probably all a Nemesis plot, as per the meme and the status quo

Other rumor mill items, some from the Shield of Paragon coalition and official boards include:

• Power Customisation
• Two new AT's (Dual Pistol .... scrapper? Demon summoner Controller or Mastermind)
  Assorted other bits and pieces reported on Massively before (Link redug by Spinks )

I'll certainly be keeping an eye on all this, though I stand by my complaint that it should have been announced in a better and more coherent fashion.

Some end of blog entry bonus Squick.
Miss Liberty is the granddaughter of Statesman. It has always been assumed that Dominatrix is the same to Tyrant, certainly Statesman in one of the CoH comics went to Praetorian Earth (and it looked like crap) to "rescue" her. Make what you will of the last line in her In Game bio.

WCPI : Tome Of Knowledge

This weeks WCPI.

It has to be, it's got to be. It is the Tome of Knowledge.


Webcomic? Oh you bet. Great posts, great commentary and still the blog I'd go to for Land of the Dead stuff, fluff and history. Looking back and going forward, always check your Tome.



Go! Read!

Bad to the Bone

Ok no. I am annoyed at Paragon Studios and NCSoft.

Let's have a quick run around. We have NCSoft being sued by Worlds.com, NCSoft being sued by Richard Garriot and my original complaint for the lackluster annoucement.

Now we have this : City Of Heroes : Going Rogue

Is it an interesting idea? You bet. Is it something the player base has asked for for ages? Oh most certainly. Could it improve teaming in City of Villains and make City of Heroes pop just that little bit more.
Is it a big announcement that could steal Champions thunder and retain some of the current base or the resubs? Oh yes.

Then why has it been rolled out in this manner? There is a direct page for it on the main City of Heroes page, but as of writing this, there is no link to it on the front page. People have been emailed and directed to the link given, which is not an NC page. There were 13 pages of "omgwtfbbq" on the boards before Castle weighed in to say that it was legit.

Am I glad to have something coming? Of course I am.

I am however very annoyed at the execution. This hasn't so much been announced as "oh by the way.."
Where was this news two weeks ago?

Blogroll Update

Had to go and take an axe to the blogroll on the side. So many WAR Bloggers gone, so many blogs that I didn't pay enough attention to.

Sad to see them all go, but still I thank them for what they shared with everyone while they were here.

Coming later tonight : WCPI

Goodbye Grind, Hello Ban (There's a rant in here)

To my friends recently, I've been a bit vocal about City of Heroes, its lifespan and what I considered idiotic decisions. Hey, it's the internet. Bitching ahoy, granted it would have made sense to blog it all.

Yes I came back for a bit, Shannon wanted to and that was my deal maker/breaker.

Issue 14 is a failure. Issue 15 is an insult and the big announcement the other week was a let down.

In reverse order, here we go.
Posi gave an interview on Massively and hyped up a really big annoucement coming on the 5th anniversary of City of Heroes. All trial and inactive accounts in good standing (read: not banned) were given a free week in which to come back to Paragon and have fun. There was to be chaos on the live servers, Giant Monsters, invasions and Av's everywhere but no Rularuu invasion or 5th Column vs Council war much to my disappointment. In fact given the meat of the i15 annoucement, a 5th/Council war like we had way back at the end of i2/start of i3 would have been amazing. Seph sent me a link from the official site the morning of the anniversary, it was the i15 annoucement. Ooo the 5th Column are coming back, that's cool. Meh, one non co-op taskforce at level 45-50, that's ok. Some stuff from the Magic pack is being copied into the live game (costume change emotes, how long have people waited for those?) and there's some eye candy in more faces and costume pieces.

Slight aside that may get me flamed. Spinks put up a post a while back about a community blog Feministing complaining about the casual sexism in World of Warcraft with the bunny ears and the achievement gotten from tagging a female toon over level 18 with them. Personally I just thought it was an incredibly obvious popculture reference. I had no opinion on the sexual connotations and when you factor in Tauren and Scourge, I had a hard time thinking it'd be sexual. Then again, I'm not a feminist. Even so, why havent they complained about this

Back on track. The i15 annoucement page was up some 16 hours before Posis (late) 8est annoucement. I had come back from Star Trek, I had some free City of Heroes and I was expecting something huge. After all they went down in text as saying that the annoucement would only be published to the website after it was made. It sounded massive.

Global Anniversary Address From Positron™

Also on our anniversary day, be watching around 8pm EST in-game (and shortly thereafter on the website), for a special Anniversary Address from everyone's favorite Lead Designer, Positron.
He will certainly have some fun information to share!

Actually it was just the i15 annoucement page. The only added bit was that the closed beta testing of i15 would be open to all. So not closed then. Thanks for that.

To go back to the start, as mentioned Posi gave an interview on Massively before his big message we'd all seen. In this he talks about programmers they have on board working on a graphical update to City of Heroes. He teases about CoH 2 and plans for the future. He's working the marketing machine as Champions is just around the corner and it's built by the people who built CoH.
None of that made it into the address. No new zone, no mention of updating the game (look at EVE for an example of how to constantly keep your game gorgeous), no mention of plans for the future. Just "lawl new tf, closed beta isnt closed".

As a result I now find i15 insulting. Why? i14.

Issue 14 brought in the much vaunted Mission Architect system. Create your own content! Customise enemies and earn badges based on kills, tickets and people voting on your submission!

Now you have this.

I'm sorry, you're the ones who have gradually made the game easier and easier to the point that some people can fart and hit the midpoint of your levelling system. But because some people are now able to use a meow to burn right to the end of the game, the banstick comes out. As people on the forum have pointed out, the traditional farming maps aren't being removed, nor is the nature of the discipline clear. I got Shannon from 29 to 32 the other night so she could have a new costume and her controller pet. It was late and I was tired, so we farmed it. Are those levels at risk? Who knows.

This is turning into a long winded rant (it's always been a rant) so I'll bring it to a close and cleverly save myself some stuff to blog about later.

The level grind, Posis risk/reward ratio has been steadily pushed over to reward for a long time. Bringing out a system to let people create their own content was always going to be loaded. Sure there are some wonderful stories now that people have crafted themselves, at the same time farming has always been in games. I farmed in Warhammer to get myself to 35.

What really is happening is this. For whatever reason (smaller team, less funds, who knows) there is less new compelling content being created for City of Heroes. Instead they've focused on the end game and farmed (heh) the job of entertaining the masses out to the masses. People are always going to try rush to the end if that's where they think the goods are, look at Warcraft and what it's done to its early game. Death Knights start at 55 for more than just thematic reasons in my opinion. Now because of the farming that the studio themselves enabled, the lack of "official" content is clear. Oroboros was meant as a patch on the content by rewarding badges for rerunning old content, MA was meant as another to distract people while they got more things done. They tied badges to it and as someone on the forums so wonderfully put it "prayed on angel farts" that people wouldn't do what people always do. Min/Max.
It didn't work. Now out comes the banhammer to try balance the equation. They want farming to be dirty again instead of dev enabled.

In the end, under the wording of the announcement, technically anything that changes that magic risk/reward ratio is at risk. Are the PI farms a thing of the past? Are Superteams doomed to die as they max their potential? Will Soldiers of Arachnos get nerfed?

We'll see.

WCPI : Blogwarhammer

For this WCPI it is less a promotion of the active and more a good bye.

• Alt Much? rips off the bandaid.
• Girl IRL makes a sideways move.
• Wizards & Wenches beats a towel to death with another towel. Don't meddle in the affairs of Wizards, they is the cwaaaziest people. <3
• Bugmans Best is no longer being served.

Blame The Healer and the Tome of Knowledge continue and I along with them. Over on the sidebar there's still the link to the Blog Warhammer Forum. Drop by and annoy some folks.
(Ardy watches for spam .... always watches)

Star Trek Premiere

Spoiler Free I promise.

Some folks know, others may not, I won two tickets a fortnight or so ago on Facebook for the Irish Premiere of the new Star Trek. Paramount Pictures was hosting it in the Savoy screen 1 on O'Connell street.
Both myself and Shannon are still, as she put it, buzzing from last night. It was bloody epic.

To keep this spoiler free, we're not going to discuss the plot nor most of the effects. Instead here's a quick run down of my thoughts.

1) I missed Paul McGillon (Dr. Carson Beckett from Stargate Atlantis). I know he was given a role and we even checked the credits but I just didnt spot him. Still on the 8th I'll be going back and having another go. Simon Pegg does a wonderful job as Scotty though, so I'm not too bothered (they both went up for the role).

2) The Constitution class Starship Enterprise. Registry number NCC 1701. Abrams, your guys are geniuses. To elaborate, the Constitution is a workhorse. It's ugly, it's the 60s. When The Next Generation came about they kept the shape but smoothed it out, so we got the delightful Galaxy Class Enterprise D. In the Next Gen movies they further sexed it up in the Soverign class Enterprise E.
This version, this reimaging of the Enterprise and the Constitution class? Gorgeous. They took something that, while iconic, was outdated and kept its spirit intact while giving it some much needed love.

3) Realism. Aliens, phasers and Warp speed aside, this universe feels real. It feels as though we could get there, unlke the old Federation which was just a little bit Stepford.

4) The biggest thing they've done? They've made this exciting.
Of course there is bang and whizz and graphics and half naked women, that's to be expected nowadays but that's not what I mean.

I was raised on science fiction. The 60's British sci fis, the 70's and 80's American faire. Star Trek from the get go all the way to the current era. I have grown up with my mind in the stars and you know what? For the longest time I didn't much care about Star Trek.
I was excited to see new Babylon 5, I'd be thrilled when Battlestar was going to do something awesome. I look forward to new Fringe and Sarah Connor Chronicles (they better bloody renew that last one). Though for the longest time Star Trek was that thing I did. It happened somewhere in the run of Voyager, I wasn't looking forward to next week anymore. I would watch but because I had always watched. Enterprise, I just lost it there. Manny Cotos 4th season was genuinely good and certainly brought me back to the fold, but Enterprise was so ... uninteresting to me that when I missed an episode, I wouldnt try catch it again despite the fact that nowadays things get repeated fifteen more times before the end of the week. I lost the faith.

After this movie, after this reimaging/reboot/reawakening ... I want more. I am excited once again and Star Trek is king of the hill. They signed up for three movies? I want those movies.

In the end, that's part of what comes next. I am going back on May 8th. Not just to spot Paul McGillon, not just for Shannon to get buttered popcorn and not just because my friends will be going then. I am going back to buy my ticket, show my support and show my love.

In MMOs people always say you vote on the game with your money, I'm voting for more Star Trek. It was and is just that good.

Beyond the Stylish

Well... my aim of getting the elite reward on Vorri was very ... straight forward. There was a warband in the area after I scouted the Depot. Quick undead smacking later and Vorri has his goggles.

10/12 for the goggles, but I'm still going to finish it all out because I'm all about the fluff.

Still, doesn't he look good?

(Do all use engineer players use the same explosion in a a matress factory hairdo?)

Once more with ketchup

Yes I know, I know. I keep talking about food. Maybe lunch hasn't hit the stomach yet.

Bit of a general question open to all.

WoW has become the McDonalds of online gaming: Everyone loves it, I like it,
too.-> But which player can stand burgers over and over?And no, you do not
need to be a "hardcore elite raiders" to get that feeling. By commenter Longasc

Above quote taken from Tobolds Blog

We are not discussing Wow in any way shape or form. This goes back to the sandwich metaphor (and eerily I did make a burger comment...) and shopping around. This also goes back to the idea of lifetime passes to games such as Lotro.

So!

Assuming that WoW is the McDonalds of Online gaming and other games represent other restaurants, how much more would you be willing to pay for a varied menu?

WoW caters to millions, other games also have their own populations. In the end though a vast majority of our online games are made by the same crowd in some fashion.

How much would you pay SOE or NCSoft or Turbine or Mythic or Blizzard or CCP or NetDevil or whomever to have access to several very different games at once? SOE already has the Station Pass, but how much more than our normal monthly fee would you pay for a super pass to let you easily play WAR and WoW and EVE and CoH for example?

Instead of grabbing what they can for their own games, would it be profitable or even sensible for the various names in online games to share their subscriber bases? A Taco Bell sharing a roof with a KFC sort of deal.

Would you buy a Blizzard/NCSoft/Mythic game pass for one month or a year of cross company gaming? If it was affordable, so called WoW tourism aside, how many of Blizzards 11 million would explore further, and how many more would leave other games to go stomp around in Azeroth?

I'd consider it myself. The only limiting factor is time, I can only be in one game at a time unless I get silly... so many games, so many choices.

Livin la Vida Evento

Quick Public Service Announcement
It’s not always a good thing to be caught looking at blogs while in work, or even posting to your own. Still because I have such time to think in work, I often have some topics come up in the mind to blog about and they don’t survive the trip home.

However, I forgot blogger lets you email in your blogs so let’s try that this morning. See if we can’t get a pretty blog out. If not, I’ll repair it over lunch.

So onto the meat of the matter (what is it with all the food comments lately?).

Since October 2008 Warhammer has had 6 live events. Only three of them relate to actual holidays, two were for class releases and we’ve one going now to build up to a new zone with one more to come.

Of the six, I got the elite rewards for three of them and am working on the fourth tonight. The two that I didn’t manage were Kegs End (so much grinding) and Night of Murder (iirc it ran into my time in Italy). Even then I got some titles from the first, and some work done on the second on Leggit.

Personally I am pretty pleased with the rate we’ve been getting these live events. They always spruce things up, but at the same time they often cause an unforeseen idiotic side effect. During Kegs End, you had to /boast and /toast a number of characters and classes on both sides. That was clever, kill a guy, boast over his corpse. The problem in execution was… dual targeting. If you’ve that last class you want to boast targeted, and you’ve yourself or anyone else on your side targeted (healing or whatever) you’ll emote at the friendly target. This is why so often for reasons best known to themselves, instead of gloating over my broken Rune Priest body, Black Orcs have a tendency to laugh at themselves, sometimes two or three times.

So imagine a scenario where it’s already a bit crazy and someone is spamming an emote bind but has forgotten that whole target issue.

Also in Bitter Rivals and Heavy Metal with the pie throwing. It is amusing to see an otherwise well behaved scenario team suddenly break and charge into the jaws of the enemy because “Oh yeah, I need to pie some guys”. Hey I am not complaining about that one though, in doing that very thing on Vorri (or Norri at the time) I not only pied a guy good and proper, I got one in return and the tiny amount of damage killed me. Cue title “Death by Pie”.

The side effect I have seen on Phoenix Throne in Beyond the Sands is a massive sort of tier based blindness. The second day I played the even I went on Vorri my level 24 T3 Engineer. I have 8/12 tasks done. I have to finish the quests based in Altdorf and kill a Lich Priest. It was a good blast of back and forward battling, pushing Destro out of the depot, getting pushed back. Collecting crates and killing skeletons and being confused about the Beam of KillThisGuy from the heavens centered on me (I didn’t know where to drop the McGuffin). It was a good night and I had fun.

Compare and contrast the night before on my 32 Rune Priest Orrekai in Tier 4. Thunder Mountain is locked by Destruction. Destruction want the things and have the whole “we just won here so are hanging about” thing in their favour. What does Order apparently do? Engage in a stalemate back and forth battle just at the base of the Warcamp or gets picked off solo (as I did a few times, but hey I killed a 40 Magus who thought I would be a pushover). I went around the long way and managed to get two of the tasks done, but still need to visit the depot which accounts for many more of the tasks. What would I have done differently? Start Warbands (they had) and start in Kadrin Valley (they hadn’t) and push properly. Fight Destruction as if it was a normal push on the city and kick them out of Kadrin, out of Thunder Mountain and if possible, lock the zone. After that, well hey you’ve an army spoiling for a fight standing on a) the thing most of them need for this event and b) the one spot short of a Priest spawning guaranteed to draw attention and victims.

Perhaps I will suggest it tonight. Quick tangent! Good on Phoenix Throne setting up channels to co-ordinate RvR. They have /chan tier1, tier2, tier3, tier4 and /chan organize for when there’s several warbands getting messy. I really should write a macro so I can button mash and autojoin the channels.

Back to the Event.

I plan to finish it out on Vorri tonight and if all goes well get cracking on Orrekai as well. It is a habit from when I only had the two characters and fortunately I’ve not returned to how I used to be in City of Heroes. Every event that I have finished, I have gotten to the Elite on Orrekai and Vorri. Redundant maybe (certainly in the case of Bitter Rivals where only Orrekai got the Axe Hewer kit and Vorri couldn’t select it). I want the goggles for Vorri as they just fit my image of him, having the Battlebrew Back Pack would just make it fantastic but sadly he doesn’t. I want them on Orrekai because well.. he’s my main.

All in all I am having fun in Beyond the Sands and look forward to next months event. I wonder what little gap in peoples thinking it will introduce. How many times are you all going to run this one?

To close though, a link. Enjoy!

http://gaarawarrgabs.wordpress.com/2009/04/22/goggles-and-scarabs-and-tomb-kings-oh-my/

Mythic Marketing Rewards

Unlike Arbitrary I'm not actually going to say anything useful or constructive on the marketing machine of Mythic just yet.

I will say two things.
1) It is my current mission to hunt down the guy involved and get an interview.

2) I cannot be more clear than this. I want a freakin sweet Griffon.

So if anyone from Mythic stumbles across this, I have sent some emails but if you have an answer, please drop me a line.
If anyone else stumbles across this and wants to be invite to Warhammer, drop me a comment or mail on my profile.

Ardy's Platform '09. Freakin Sweet Griffons for All!

Let's talk about Sandwiches.

My personal favourite sandwich is "THE Sandwich". It's tuna, eggs, ham, onion, cheese, dash of black pepper and cheese & onion crisps.
Granted, I'll put almost any meal between bread. Ask Shannon.

How does this relate to WAR? Well I am going to close my eyes and pretend it does. Actually the whole sandwich thing comes from a blog I remember reading once, may have been Ixobelles. The idea being that the sandwich shop that offers it all and has the freshest bread and fillings is the best.

That and when I originally started writing this, I was waiting for lunchtime.

Anyway back to the point at hand. PvE is your bread and butter, except I hate butter. PvP we'll call being the spicy/very flavourful fillings. Some like them, others not so much. Despite the original sandwich theory being that the shop that offers better sandwiches than the others is the shop you will always return to, I would like to offer the counter theory that we have not yet made the perfect sandwich.

A sublime medley of tastes and textures, a mix of colours and sounds when you chew. No one has yet made such a sandwich that you can lean over the theoretical counter and say "hold the PvP" and have it remain delicious. Or even "Can I have a wrap instead of bread? Not feeling PvE".

Right now several WAR/MMO bloggers are casting their eyes about and trying new treats. Some are in EVE, others CoH and probably a few in WoW. Vanguard, LOTRO and Champions Beta have all also been mentioned.
If they come back to WAR, of course I'll be pleased, but I am not going to shove my choice of food down their throats. One day we'll get the game that has it all and spells the end of the MMO genre as we know it, one day we'll have the sort of game where hardcore casuals and casual pkers and seat of the pants market junkies can all co-exist without any trouble.

Until then, I wish everyone the best on their travels round the worlds offered by MMOs, I hope they find something filling and enjoyable, I also hope I'll see them again around my way.

In the end though, sometimes when you're in a sandwich shop... all you really want is a Chinese take away.

Alting : Good or Bad?

Alts are commonplace in MMOs. Why else would you have more than one slot per server if people never played more than one character? Sooner or later everyone gets bored. Either they achieve what they set out to do, hit the level cap or some other reason. Sometimes it is as simple as needing a change of scenery and a change of pace.

Personally in Warhammer I have four active alts that I've mentioned herabouts. All Dwarfs as is only proper. In City of Heroes, despite originally being very conservative and loyal to a handful of characters, I ended up filling my 17 server slots on Virtue.

I personally, as mentioned in GirlIRLs meme, prefer to start out slow and only play support when I start a new game. It's how I learn the ropes, the community and if I like the game. Other folks like my good friend Seph love to try everything as soon as they can. Seph had in very short order, some 10 or 15 alts and may well have filled two servers. He wanted to sample the various classes and have them there to play later. That's his perogative.

Now to the meat of the matter. Before the switch from Ostermark to Phoenix Throne my regular play group wasn't regular anymore. Some had left, others couldn't afford the time. C'est la vie. As a result I decided that I would shop around and find myself a nice Guild to try out. Grungi was with me though as when I settled on this course of action, Bitter Rivals had just finished and I hadn't even gotten Aardii past the first PQ in Ekrund when I saw the various guilds vying for new blood.
I ended up joining a fantastic bunch called The Sentinels as well... they were in my PQ group and seemed like good chaps.

Now a part of Sentinel policy is that they wanted to recruit not just your character, but you yourself. All of your characters on the server. At first, I was a little wary as well I had some in the Oathbearers Legacy, a friend group from CoH.
Now though, all my Dwarfs are with them and I've one inactive character remaining in the Oathbearers. They all left so nyah.

This means no matter what I play, when I play I am with them. Whichever alt I feel like being on, I've an active guild to be around. This is in part because when any of them decide they'd like to alt and play something else for a bit, their alts are also there. We're encouraged to be together and it works. Notes on the Guild Roster let you keep track of who is who easily and so far I've not met one bad apple.

Now I don't know any of them personally, I've not yet formed the friendships I did in City of Heroes. In CoH, I'd happily join any group a friend wanted me to and I have come to think that this is a bad thing.
When my account expired, it wasn't just me not being on the global channels. It was several supergroups losing one of their number. Had I been centralised like the Sentinels prefer, well then one group would have only lost one person. You can, except in cases of Dual boxing or that crazy 36 account WoW guy, only be in one place at a time. This causes trouble when you have 17 places to be instead of one or two.

In the end it may all just be a cycle. I may end up filling Phoenix Throne and Vortex to the gills. I may end up have 20 different alts, but I wonder if I will have 20 different places, or by joining guilds like the Sentinels, will I only have one or two?
Either way that time is still in the future of my Warhammer play, I've 40 to get to yet and Vorri has his eye on those Aviator Goggles from the live event. Tonight, you'll find me with the Sentinels, no matter who I happen to be.

Dig, Drink, Kill

The Dwarf Way. Dig, Drink, Kill.

There's plenty to dig up though and as an addition to the WCPI and because of something mentioned on Sentinels guild chat, I present to you the quick link fest to the brightest and best about the Land of the Dead, Beyond the Sands and the Live Expansion.

• Beyond the Sands from the Herald
• The Tome Of Knowledge on the Tomb Kings pt1
• Pt2 from ToK, also what got the attention of Massively
• GirlIRL considers the Live Event
• When in doubt, Lexicanum

Also ... in a WAR related note. Some personal pimpage. If anyone is going to Baltimore Games Day and can grab me a code, I will heart you. If anyone wants to join Warhammer and help me earn a bloody sweet Griffin, so much love. Otherwise, get back to readin ye buggers.

Dug up the links. Check. Drank. Check. Kill.... well the barman looks shifty...

WCPI : Shadow WAR

Hope. Hope and Zen thinking.

You know I know have some notes on that somewhere... expect a blog entry shortly. For now though I present to you this weeks WCPI Shadow WAR's Blog

What I love about the latest entry is the close call nature. It was the goodbye post all blog communities don't want to see. It was a departure and a goodbye.
But then there was light at the end of the tunnel and the game was fun once more, the blog lives!

So for Shadow having hope and for the many games we all have yet to play, this is my WCPI.

The community I promotes it.

Ardy: How-to

We interrupt our regularly scheduled blogging to bring you this helpful how to into the world of online gaming.

Meme Mia, here I go again

Regis has probed me and without so much as dinner. As a result, suffer the meme.

1. What is your current main character’s name (or names, if you play multiple games)? Explain how you chose the name.

Right now in WAR I am playing bot Vorri and Orrekai rather alot.
Vorris name comes from the server transfer from Ostermark to Phoenix Throne. Related to #4 below, I didn't placeholder the name on PT and so Norri Powderkeg could not be Norri on PT. Hell I was surprised I got Norri on Ostermark. I changed it because I like the sound of the name. That and one day I will eliminate the imposter Norri and reclaim the name.
Orrekai is related to #2. I went with the first name I ever used in an MMO and changed it to suit a Dwarf.

2. What was the name of your very first character in an MMO? Explain how you chose that name.

Ortus Sapienta. Jenquai Explorer, Galileo Server, Earth & Beyond.
This was a good few years back and having never played an MMO I had no idea what the naming conventions would be (or if they exsisted, they dont really). So cue the latin dictionary online. Jenquai were the explorer race and to be an Explorer class in the explorer race? Got to be latin. Ortus means birth, Sapienta as far as I knew at the time meant wisdom.

A better name was a friend I made. Dafugizzi. He entered every zone and yelled "Who?", say it all together now.

3. Have you kept a specific name through various games, or do you tend to change your naming habits based on the individual game?

Not really. I started with Ortus Sapienta and that was in fact the name of my first hero in City of Heroes and for a long time my global handle. After a bug with the global system in CoH, everyones handle was reset to the first character they logged in. Not knowing this, I logged in my Peacebringer Ardua and so became @Ardua. After that, well that's when I really started making friends in mmos and they all knew me as Ardua. So on boards, here on the blog and other places you'll find Ardua or Ardy (or the slayer Aardii). We'll see if this lasts into the next game.

4. Do you ever reserve names, planning to use them for characters that you might play later? If so, what are they and why do you hold on to them?

I do not and have never understood the practice. My altism only came into being after playing City of Heroes for a while and the naming comes at the end of creation there. I've always been in the habit as a result of rationalising the abilities first, the origin second, the look third and pulling a name and bio out of my ass just before I play. Some friends still in CoX take the time to craft backstories for all their toons, anyone who likes any of mine? I invented it thirty seconds before pressing "Enter Tutorial".

Regis! You forgot #5! How am I supposed to copy paste efficiently?

5. Of the three common archetypes in MMOs — tank, healer, DPS — which is your current main character?

Healer. I always gravitate to support classes when I enter a new game. How better to learn how things work than by helping everyone do what they do and taking notes? My second "main" is an Engineer done in a support manner as well.

That said, as anyone I've played with in CoH can attest, being support does not mean I will behave. I will be ... enthusiastic.

6. What archetype was your very first character in an MMO? Why did you choose it?

Jenquai Explorer as in #2. Basically support class. Cloaking, scanning, scouting, wormholes and suchlike. I picked it because the Jenquai race appealed to me and the explorers explorer, what's not to love?

7. Are you usually attracted to one archetype over another, or do you play them equally? Why?

Support! Though WAR is my first attempt at being a main healer. I prefer sitting back somewhat from the action and seeing how the battle is going and possibly by my actions influencing where it goes. Melee people just hit it till it's dead.

8. What is your favorite feature from an MMO you no longer play?

Wormholes from Earth & Beyond. One class could provide them, mine. Sure it turned some players into little more than glorified taxis. Sure some people like that (See Taxibots or Rogue Isles Transit in CoX). I enjoyed it though because it let me, if I chose provide a service to a great many people who had to get where I could go. Rezzing the dead, healing the hurt, mitigating damage, all these are good things, but how happy would a Warband be to see someone who could teleport them to Altdorf *now*.


9. Is there an MMO that you would play if it was free? Which and why?

EVE. I love the depth of the game and what people do with their freedom there. I just have never been comfortable with the timesink it would be for me to do the game justice and experience it in the ways we occasionally read about. If it was free though? I could easily skill up or afk mine on the laptop while I play and one day be ready, in my own mind, to play properly.

10. How do you measure the success of a character in an MMO (total kills, titles accumulated, wealth, rare items collected, level reached, etc.)?

If playing them makes me happy. Level caps aren't everything, though I'd like to be there. Money isn't everything, though it buys shinies. Social status isn't everything, though it's great to be recognised or looked up to.
Being able to log out at night, pleased with what you've done and considering it time well spent. If the MMO doesn't make me smile, it isn't worth my time, let alone my money.

5 bloggers I also want to probe for answers:
Arbitrary, I choose you!
Sneaksz you're up!
Snaffy must tell us all.
Werit, why not?
Bootae!

WCPI : War Underground

A good while back I blogged, or at least remember blogging which is close enough, about the extra bits that come along on an MMO. Radio stations, artists plying character portraits, things of that nature.

We already have a few podcasts going (I really should get into those...) and enough blogs to shake a level 2 +5 crotchetiness stick at.

Still todays WCPI goes out to a dual effort of WAR Underground and the Waaagh! Roots blog. They've got radio, they've got guild bits and they've got thee poooowwwer.... sorry, wandered off there.

Slowly but surely we're getting there in the blogosphere. Hop on over to WAR Underground if you want to promote your guild, check out some player made videos or read a few guides to Warhammer Online.

Now if only they could get rid of that elf chick. I vote for a big barrel of Bugmans.

Global Agenda

I'm watching various games right now and I've decided to sign up for Global Agenda. If anyone wants to sign up for the beta, go right ahead. I've a referral code and will happily email it to anyone who comments below.

This is just a snippet entry as there's something else going on that I'm paranoid about and want to check out. Bloody args.

You're in the Guilditary now

Bear with me folks. This one will wander a bit.

Massively has a Daily Grind article up with the following question.

Do you think a game needs to include some form of PvP to be successful? Or can a game go with a purely player vs. environment or cooperative approach and still succeed?

Now I've my own question based on the whole PvP thing. Not is it necessary to be successful but rather, what does it or could it do to the structures that come about in games.

In City of Heroes there is some PvP both through arenas and pvp zones, essentially though I've always treated it as a PvE game. A few years ago the Silver Guard was redoing its website and one part of that was a picture for the front page of all the available members wearing the Guard uniform and basically showing off the colours. A group effort, a sign of unity and all that jazz.
Boy did it ever go wrong.

Firstly there was one member who at the time didnt have the ability to enter Supergroup bases because they had to be the only person I think I had met who didnt bother getting CoV (if memory serves, a whopping $1 increase in the monthly sub at the time, I could be wrong). What do you do in this situation? Personally if I couldn't be where every other single player in the group was, I wouldn't hold things up. No... that's too easy. So this member (to be honest I've forgotten the character name otherwise I'd be all for the shaming) basically had us all relocate to Atlas Park. Atlas is the armpit of the CoH universe, partially due to it being one of the two newbie zones (don't hate the noob, help the noob) and partially because the Atlas statue has a big idiot magnet in it that summons hyperactive morons.

Secondly, despite it being a group photo and the group having colours, several members refused to wear them. The Guard never enforced a uniform like some other supergroups, but personally I would have thought that throwing the colours on for the sake of thirty seconds wouldn't have hurt. Excuses ranged from "I don't have a uniform" to "I prefer my shades, the Guard ones clash with what I want".

Finally it was down to getting people to position themselves in a sensible manner. Top tip, if you have an 8' tall character, stand behind the 4' ones. Wait for the Atlasidiots (polite name) to get out of the frame. Wait for the afkers to reposition. Wait for the sun to come up as this has now taken so long we're in our third night cycle aaaaand finally click.

It wasn't a bad photo but I still as you can guess have a sore spot over all the nonsense that interfered, especially the fashion comment.

Compare and contrast a straight PvP game. We'll take a few examples.
Planetside, also a few years back, had several outfits making in game promotional/recruitment videos. Cue many many more players than the maybe two dozen Guardsmen standing in formation and having a mexican wave style salute to the camera. You were in the military now and you followed orders.

Massively gave a one-shot of Darkfall Online with an "Inquisition raft fleet". Players coming together and, even if their vent server is filled with penis jokes and bash.org style nonsense, forming a fleet to take the waters they want.

EVE.... just EVE.

Why does it appear to take a game or setting where the prime opponent is other people for our imaginary otherselves to show discipline that they wont when facing a computer? I know of course there are exceptions to both sides of this and of course no amount of roleplaying or discipline survives first contact with the enemy.

Is it something in ourselves? Are computer controlled enemies unworthy of displays of restraint and discipline or are other players such a threat that we look down on displays of axecrazy? Will in game AI advance to such a point to challenge this?

Finally in the 80/20 split of Warhammer (i.e. 80%pve 20%pvp inverting in later levels) that I once heard quoted play with this? I've seen some instances of people following orders and acting in concert in ways I wish bands I've been in could, I've also seen everything degenerate into a zergandpray. Does Party 2 always listen to the Warband leader and cover the postern? Or does this only come later when it is clear it's you vs another meatbag?

I'm in the guilditary now, but I think no one got the memo.

T Minus One Month (give or take)

What are you doing on May 9th ?

After the GOAmeet Dublin well.... we wanted to try another go. So this time information is available from Arbitrary and the Book Of Grudges blog, as well as her own Nerf The Cat. The broad plan at the moment is outlined over there. Check it out. Come to London. Let's Waaaagh!

Oh and the Star Trek thing is my fault. But who doesn't love the idea of IMAX Star Trek?
(That will be May 8th, times tbd)

WCPI: Smelly Orc

Well I imagine Tufmudda smells funny what with being an Orc and all.

Tufmudda is one of the other Irish bloggers which if nothing else makes me feel all warm and happy because my God does this country need more MMO players. Check the site out for honest views on the ups and downs on the Euro servers as well as an awesome chicken recipie that I will have to try.
...What I still haven't finished Gunbad? I've never even seen the Lost Vale.

Tastes like stunty

One Does Not Simply Rock Into Tier 4

I play Warhammer most nights in any given week, typically a few hours each night. Yet I have only just reached 32, with my Rune Priest Orrekai. I've always leveled slow my first time in a game. It took me nearly the entire lifetime of my Earth and Beyond subscription (a game that lasted two years) to get to 150. My first 50 in CoH took forever, granted this was back before ED, the Global Defense Nerf and was most of the way there before Kheldians made it into the game.

One of the things I love about Warhammer is that Orrekai is 32/30. There may be just 8 levels of pve left, but I've 50 renown ranks ahead of me still. I fell out of love with alot of my 50's in CoH because I had done it all and there was little left to do (thankfully I was cured of my badge addiction).

Back to Orrekai for a moment. When I reached t3 I had a good run of luck. I got two Devastator pieces in short order, one of which was my first keep gold bag. I raked in xp and renown and it was all good. The rest of my t3 career entertained me (I didnt manage to cap inf in Elves, but thats all) with new toys coming, new additions through renown training and generally learning names on Ostermark, like I am again on Phoenix Throne.
The end of this particular T3 run reminded me of how it started. As I crept ever closer to 32 I worried because despite winning plenty of Gold Bags, they were never in a keep necessary for me to get my Devastator Vestments. To make matters more ... complicated, oRvR on Phoenix Throne is certainly to my eyes hopping. I've bands to join every night and we have enemies to fight often enough to keep it interesting.

With 6% left to go to 32, I managed to finally get my Devastator Vestments.
Thanks go to Vilydes for running the band that night fantastically. With 4% left to go, I felt confident I could scout what may have been a Destro attack on Ghronds. On the way, I got my rr30. In Ghronds, I left t3 in style.
Dropping boiling oil on people over and over until I died so suddenly neither I nor the Rune Priest healing me could believe it. That is until the hammers and shield came up. 32, chicken and leaving the tier happy.

Still I've learned names, gotten used to some peoples methods and as Orrekai passes into t4 (and on that particular night, despite a zone crash, an awesome t4 battle), Vorri takes his place at the bottom of t3. The only thing I can say now though? For the love of all that is proper and Dwarfy, defend keeps. Influence is tasty.

Vorri as before has entered well and I am sure will leave well, having come up with people I recognise and cannot wait to play with in T4.

Special thanks to Krellgar, Dachtwar, Vilydes, Compassion, Halstadt and Thomgrim all of PT.

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.

All things Warhammer

How's it going folks?

I know, I know. I've been quiet lately (blame work). As such an update is in order.

First up, Bregel and Zylashiir of the Oathkeepers Legacy are finally together (awwww) and all set up. This is rather important.
I've had plenty of time to play games lately. I've a villain duo with Sephorus on City of Villains. My wife and I still have a duo on City of Heroes, and recently a duo I have with a good friend hit 50 and they've rerolled.

WAR though.... WAR is best in groups. In mobs. In rampaging armies.
I've no problem wandering through quests and pqs by myself or with random public groups to get the job done and get myself levels. But for the battle, for the fights and for the moments of complete win, it's better with friends. Failing that, with a warband to be in and another to fight.
So with them back, Leggit and Orrekai are pushing up the ranks again.

On the subject of Orrekai. It seems Dwarves are incapable of percieving anything above their own head height when there's Orcs about. Bregel is a fine Ironbreaker. I'm told I'm not a bad Rune Priest.
How then do I explain the fact that our Archmage and Shadow Warrior ended up buried under a mountain of Greenskins?
....There were Orcs to be killin....what'd you expect? And you better believe I can cause some serious AoE trouble.


On to the other war. Warhammer Fantasy!
The Battle for Skull Pass arrived today. Tomorrow I'll be swinging near the GOA offices and eventually tracking down NicGOA. He's getting Dwarves, I'm getting Greenies. Hopefully in a week or two I should have enough assembled and painted (badly) to blog a battle report!

GOA Meet March 9th.
Seems that Dublin Bus (rightly so) has stepped up its industrial action. There are to be no city buses from Sunday the 1st of March until.... some time. It could be that buses are running when everyone is here to meet the lads. It could be that the city is whimpering and curled up in the corner due to no transport. Either way, mark it in the calendar. It's happening!

GOA Meet Travel Advisory

The RTÉ has this little story about Dublin Bus. The up, down and sideways of the issue aside, anyone coming to Dublin on March 9th for the GOA meet or leaving on the 10th (I'm looking at you Arb) should keep an eye on developments.

That said, for getting to and from the airport, there is still the Aircoach. For getting around the city, well it's small enough really and there's also the Luas.

Thankfully the bar chosen for the meeting is in the Temple Bar last I checked, so just a wee walk away from where the Aircoach would leave any of our would be invaders.

More on this as it becomes available and if it becomes terribly relevant, so far we'll just have to take a little more time and enjoy the chaos of a city without its main bus service. Personally till I remembered I was taking that day off, I had planned to walk to work to be amused by the traffic.