Why commuting is bad.

I've made a few comments, both on the Book of Grudges and on Waaagh! as to why there is often miscommunication with regards WAR. My theory is Timezones.
GMT is 5 hours ahead of EA's East Coasty people and 8 hours ahead of Mythic in California.

EDIT : Ardy is a bit daft and has been obsessed with the idea that Mythic is in California. No idea why. As a helpful comment pointed out, they're actually in Virginia, thus EST and thus I fail. No more defending them! Bah :P

That means that at 9am Mythic Office time, it's 5pm here. Time for GOA to bugger off home.
Time for me to do so as well.

So.... for an entire hour I am out of touch while I make my way home. No fancy iPhone here. So things happen.

Here is the result.

6:21 PM
me: It's a me
arbitrary: NDA drop tomorrow ;p open beta ready to download
me: o.O
arbitrary: hrrm.. what else did you miss? UK prices reduced ;p
6:22 PM
me: *flail* Remind me to stay in work late in the future
arbitrary: :-)
me: I told you it'd all happen around five :P
arbitrary: yeah, Mark posted over at the Vault
6:23 PM
me: Aaaand now I have a problem. Do I continue my campaign of random emails to get into Closed beta and only have to patch that client, or do I download Open Beta now...
arbitrary: I'd probably download open beta
6:24 PM
me: Yeah. Likely for the best.
6:25 PM
arbitrary: I want to know from you if the download goes smoothly (unlike CB one) and when the NDA drops, you'll be able to say!
me: Ahhh good point!
6:26 PM
arbitrary: cos we know GOA won't put it up for a while
6:27 PM
me: So far, Ive had to refresh Fileplanet twice :P
6:29 PM
arbitrary: :-)
me: And back to the start
arbitrary: and so the frustration starts!
6:30 PM
me: Pardon the following french. WORK YOU BASTARD
arbitrary: ha ha
me: aha! I may be progressing to step 3 of 3
6:33 PM
me: So Fileplanet.
Step 1. Enter or create a fileplanet account.
Step 2. Enter your pre-order open beta access key. Expect delay.
Step 2 and a bit. Image code validaty thingie.
arbitrary: yay!
6:34 PM
me: Step 2 and a little more, dont forget the image thing likes Caps lock.
Step You're kidding. Site times out, press refresh and pray.
arbitrary: ha ha, you should just blog this conversation to save writing it all up again
6:35 PM
me: I think I shall
arbitrary: including the swearing, of course
me: XD

It's now 7.04 and I continue to wrestle with Fileplanet. Updates as I possibly maybe beat someone to them.

Act your shoe size

A thought occured to me a little bit after finishing my previous entry.

Maturity is a bad thing.

Sure everyone wants to play with people they can get along with and more often than not that means peers. There has always been trends in MMO guilds to require that applicants be over a certain age. I've seen them, you've seen them. Surely an older player base is a better player base. Less chance for immaturity or drama. Or at least that is the theory.

A comment made on Tobolds blog (link on the side) about FFXI got me thinking. The idea of Japanese only groups in the game. I've also listened to a friend who has played the game for a long time. In Final Fantasy, there are expectations of how you will act, how you ask for groups and behave within them.
Obviously that works for the game and the people there, but at the same time such ... expectations and required behaviour results in the type of people who will run into a brick wall for 18 hours.

Also take the current trend in City of Heroes. Previously "Mature Roleplayer" basically meant put on your robe and wizard hat. Of course now there's been a shift. That lot are either ERP or "All-RP" tagged players.
People have claimed the mature roleplayer tag back to indicate edgy or dark or generally grown up storylines. The difference between Adam West's Batman and the Dark Knight really.

All of these things require that people must act in a certain way and show particular traits or a supposed level of maturity.

Frankly I think such things are killing our games.

Don't get me wrong, I am not calling for everyone to start acting like five year olds. But when the atmosphere in which you are playing does not permit you to be just a little loony when the mood strikes, why are you there?

Inevitably everyone in an MMO, even in the most laidback of guilds/fleets/warbands/supergroups will have to deal with group drama. No amount of "18+ players only" or "Mature Guild" in the world will stop there from being people who don't get along.

If you find that such restricted groups or enforced manners work for you, then good for you. However, I would sooner be in a group who will run through the newbie zone in underpants than one demands I play a certain way or would have me spend hours on a fruitless task.

Disclaimer, I currently have a problem with a wisdom tooth and haven't really slept. I know I had a point, but Im not entirely sure I made it. Sorry folks!

How long can you go?

18 Hours

The above link to Escapist came to me via Tobolds blog. He asks a fair question of when is a boss fight too long.

Also some of the commenters make good points, both on the state of FFXI and the idea of an unbeatable boss as a brick wall between players and closure. A means to keep them always around in case they really could pull it off.

I however want to have a quick word about a quote from the article.

"People were passing out and getting physically ill. We decided to end it before
we risked turning into a horrible new story about how video games ruin people's
lives," said Beyond the Limitation member Sylphet. The fight caused vomiting and
fainting among Beyond the Limitation's ranks.

So... they ended it because some of their members couldn't go on. Instead of a news article of a FFXI player horking up a lung after the battle, they consider an article on the fact they went at it for 18 hours better.
To me it certainly implies that if the members involved hadn't been suffering physically at 18 hours they'd have continued smashing their heads against the wall until someone did.

What could you have possibly learned about the boss encounter after the majority of a day that you didn't know after three or four hours?

Also

Before loading the game, Square Enix displays a health warning: "During your
time here, you will be able to talk, join and adventure with many other
individuals in an experience that is unique to online games.That being said, we
have no desire to see your real life suffer as a consequence. Don't forget your
family, your friends, your school, or your work."

Weeeelllll...I've heard from some FFXI players. They don't forget about those things Squenix, but to get past your challenges, they sometimes have to ignore them. That's one of the major reasons I've never set foot in Vana'diel

Open ze gates

The EA Account management site is up and running!

By all means, descend upon it before the SE preorder folks are forced to fight to the death for the limited Preview Weekend spots.


As an aside. Am I the only Collectors Edition guy I know who hasn't gotten into closed beta?
Mythic if you're watching, bahrae at yahoo dot com. I'll have my invite thanks.

Girls who are boys who like boys to be girls

Waaagh! had a piece on "gender bending" in MMO's.

Herein is the blog whereby Ardy elaborates.

Syp makes a handful of good points. The actual avatar you play is not a commentary on you as a person. Sure if you roleplay or imagine the life of your character, you will invest portions of your self into the character.
I have often argued that I am not a particularly good roleplayer, my basis of the arguement being that I more often than not tend to create characters that are for all intents and purposes "me". Sure they are different and may in fact represent different aspects of my personality, but I never play very far outside my own experience. Hearing people say "I felt really bad for X but my character is a bastard so he laughed instead" has always confused me.

Does your digital dolly imply that you're anything other than the person in the chair? Not at all. That doesn't mean you cannot try out other options and play.
In the end, my good friend Seph from CoX said it best.

Feh. We're playing a game in which every character does something we
can't. Last I checked, I don't shoot fire from my hands, nor am I
unkillable, nor can I fly. Why people get so hung up on different gender
when there's all of these other differences in chars is beyond me.

People shouldn't be hung up on the fact that there are only girl Witch Elves or male Orcs or that their friends may catch them playing a Dwarven laaaady.
Don't you think the soul of the player by your side is more important than digital skin?

Secret Lives of Mobs

A while ago the very entertaining comic site The Secret Lives of Mobs was hacked.

To the Hacker, long walk, short pier, do the math.

To Rory/Father Jack over at SLoM, everyone on Blog Warhammer wishes you the best and hopes all's going well for you.
Here's to your eventual triumphant return.

News according to Ardy

Lo folks. I know I've been a bit quiet as of late.

First a little not MMO news, my girlfriend Shannon is flying home tomorrow for the last time. Come January she's here to stay. So the quietness has been me spending quality time.
Also for those interested, yes, a long distance relationship between Sacramento, California and Dublin, Ireland for five years. Insanity, I has it.

So onto the WARworld (Sorry DC).

Characters and the people that love them.

Over on Werit's blog there's the wee piece on why he can't play female characters. Folks have chimed in with the reasons behind online gender bending (myself included). I hereby encourage everyone to not only try the sex restricted classes/races in WAR, I suggest that everyone have at least one alt of the opposite sex to their own. If nothing else it will be a lovely social experiment. Stropp pointed out that on a male character in WoW he's never recieved random gifts of money.
So folks, go on, play the opposite gender as well as the opposite faction. Use it as a barometer for the maturity of your chosen server.
Oh and as I write this I'm also catching up with the various blogs I normally sta... read often. So Waaagh! has a piece on it as well.

The where and the why of it all.

Obligatory link pimpage. I'm on board with the Casualties of WAR. One day I shall rise to supremacy and eliminate an officer so I may burrow into their fleshy husk and ... right. I need to read the Evil Overlord List more.

Aaaanyway. The question has come up both in the guild and in the blogosphere at large. Where to play? Where oh where indeed?
For myself, there's not really an option. I'm going to play everywhere. You see I, like many of my friends in CoX, suffer from chronic Altitis. It is an incurable disease that causes you to run off and roll yet another version of oneself for whatever reason. More often than not for me, because it made me laugh, or will when someone sees it.

Where would I prefer to go? RP
That's where my City Of friends will be. We all come from Virtue which as some may know is the RP server (unofficially) over there and thus well.. we're going to keep up with it. It's fun.

Where will I end up? More than likely Main #2 will be with CoW and my money is on them ending up on a Core server.

What will I do then? Late October, after I've gotten my feet wet I've another friend joining the game. Seph and I are likely going to still play on RP servers, but Im considering examining an Open RvR or Open RP RvR server for the purposes of a small team of stealthy shankers, for when you just want to blow off steam (or someones head in the case of Witch Hunters).

As with the sex locked races and the typed servers and the two factions and on and on and on, I most certainly am going to try see as much of the game as I can.
Sure I may end up always retreating to a certain server much as I do in CoX. I rarely am off Virtue, but that said, it never hurts to see how the other guys live. Even if in the case of Open RvR the answer is "briefly".


UUUNDERDOG!

Regis, our blogging Lord and Commander, has put something up at Wizards & Wenches showing the numbers on the Warhammer Alliance forums for various careers.

My main will be a Runepriest. Guess who is bottom of the list?
My beta main will be an Engineer. Guess who took second last?

Honestly I welcome this. I want to be outnumbered. I want to be rare. I want to be a virtual unknown wild card to most of the opposite realm. Waaaay back in the day when I first started City of Heroes and before I contracted altitis, my main Ortus Sapienta was getting into the 40's.
This is before the Global Defense Nerf and ED. This is before xp changes, mission bonuses or hell before Kheldians (my favourite AT). I played a Forcefield Defender.
The number 1 thing I heard more than anything when getting on teams (after yes the inevitable R U Heelor) was "wow... a bubbler. I haven't seen one in 10 levels. You guys get this high?".

Boatarious said it best about when losing is fun. I am looking forward to being a probably rare and misunderstood class. Not because I want glory and recognition for myself, though that'll be nice. Rather I want to have to make a fight of it, and I want to show people what I or my chosen class/race/other can do before it becomes Flavour of The Month.

There'll be more Chosen than you can shake a stick at. Good thing my stick has runes and will really mess up their day.


The Book got a sequel.

The Book of Grudges recently got a new author. Join me in welcoming Hawley/badjawa on board.
Hey Arb, if ever you need a WAR Correspondant in America, let me know :P

Ode to WAAAGH!!!

I have crawled out of bed this morning. Stupid cant turn you off alarm.

Still no email. Nor shall there be. With regards Closed Beta Mythic has this to say.

James Nichols General News 08/11/2008 @ 04:03:38 EST
While you might be
getting sick of my terrible headlines I hope you still got a fevah for more Beta
Invites!The last batch of CE Beta invites have just been sent out to all
eligible CE Open Beta card holders.We'd love to let everyone in but we still
have a few more roofs to thatch before we're ready to have you move in. Look
forward to the announcements on the preview weekend...they'll be coming to a
Herald near you!

So that's that for now.

There's still the preview and open beta to go. But no CB for Ardy. Sadface.
I'm going back to bed...

Closed beta

Why must you tease me so?

Werit has his code as do a few other Casualties of WAR now.

Don't make me go over there.


Also... I'll uhhh... get back to that blogging thing soon. Like Arb mentioned on the Book of Grudges, after so much good news, the brain is somewhat in neutral.

Coming soon : New Blogroll

Just copying this from my post on Blog Warhammer to update the Blog.
God I'm lazy.

Warhammer Age of Reckoning

/random
Anonymous Defender
Archmagery
Bloghammer
Boathammer
Book of Grudges
Champions of Stuff
Doomdiver
Echoes of Nonsense
Keen and Graev's Gaming Blog
OMGompers
O Rly?! Ya Rly! No Wai!!
Tales of War
The Cogworks
The Frozen elf
The Greenskin
The Order of Destruction
The Secret Life of Mobs
The Tome of Ignorance
The War Corps
The White Lion
Tobolds Blog
Warhammer Alliance
WaaaGH!
Waaagh Insider
Warhammer Insider
WarhammerOnline.tv
Werit Blog
Wizards & Wenches

Blogger and Blog Friend Guild

Casualties of War

Dev/CM Blogs
Paul Barnett's blog
Josh Drescher's blog
Doubt the Stars
Elvish Parsley
Fierce Kitten
Adventures in MMO Community Management

MMO News Links

Massively
Ten Ton Hammer


Updated : 08/08/08

Warhammer Online Newsletter - you saw nothing.

Errr.... It seems I can forward the news letter to display in living colour here.

However it swamped everything else and I'm sure you've all had a copy. So... nothing to see here. Certainly no blunder caused by tooling around with email publishing. Nope.

Rune Priests

The blog wherein Ardy stops giggling like a loon and actually discusses his desired class, Rune Priests.

At the risk of reiterating anything I may have stated before here or elsewhere, I have always found when starting a new MMO I gravitate to whatever represents the support classes. I was a Jenquai Explorer in Earth & Beyond, a good corp miner in EVE, my first City of Heroes character was a Forcefield defender (before the global defense nerf and ED, I was epic). In any other games I go the same way.

So having read the original career choices when I was pointed back at Warhammer Online, I found myself drawn to Dwarves, and the Rune Priest in particular. Finally though, with a release date set and beta drawing ever closer for me, the newsletter has released the Masteries details.

Rune Priest Career Masteries

Path Of Grungni
A master of this path focuses on powerful and direct effects, learning to both restore his allies and smite his enemies with equal skill. The path of Grungni is for those who prefer to focus on a single target at a time, be they friend or foe, and unleash powerful effects upon them.

Follow Grungni, learn to heal the crap out of your friend. Blow up the other guy. This does sound like an interesting path, and I am sure for duo play or in particular situations it will shine through. Main tank getting a little ragged? Bam! Healed up to the gills.
Add to this the little thing we got from the Gamespy Beta preview, you can target an enemy and an ally at the same time, and the various powers will only affect the appropriate targets. You become a frontliners best friend, debuffing and healing/buffing the same one on one combat.
Not for me though, though I am sure there are fantastic options in it.

Path Of Valaya
An arguably more subtle mastery, the path of Valaya is focused on effects which continue to linger after they've been invoked. A master of this path prefers to stick to tested, tried, and true slow-and-steady abilities, whether he's building up his allies' strength until they become unstoppable, or whether he's grinding his enemies down with inevitable and unescapable doom.

Valaya the Healer. Valaya the DoT path. Valaya the Siege preferred mastery. When time isn't an issue, endurance is. Again, probably not for me. There are those who like subtle effects and gradually changing the course of things. I though, I am called lemming in City of Heroes. No, my path seems to be...

Path Of Grimnir
This path is concerned with runes which affect large, sweeping areas as they unleash their innate power. A specialist in this path is an expert at changing the ebb and tide of combat by either bolstering his allies' entire front line, or by sending vast swaths of crushing power across the enemy masses.

If this works how this reads, I've found my path. I'm going to get stuck right in there and help change how things are going. I think it was Boatarious who blogged about how it can be just as much, if not more so, fun to lose the battle. To have to fight for every step, even though the fight is doomed. This is where I'm going to try and be. The last desperate defenses, the first mad rushes, the front line of the battle. Doesn't matter if we're winning or losing, I'm getting stuck in and having fun.

And who knows? I may even be able to change the tide of the battle once in a while.

Woo and a hoo

Mark Jacobs I love you.

People who doubted the Collectors edition? Ha!

From the VN Boards

• CE Preorder Preview Weekend. Without the closed beta testers.


• Extended headstart period.


• I quote "Regarding the pre-order, Collector’s Edition and the Standard Edition, we are pleased to announce that we will also be inviting our pre-order CE buyers into our Closed Beta test starting next week. "


• NDA lift hopefully in a week.

And lo the Ardy became a happier bunny than he already was. Thanks to Werit for linking this over on Blog Warhammer.

To do : Preorder site

To register for Open Beta:

1. After August 15, 2008 visit the Mythic Entertainment Account Management website.
2. Create a new Warhammer Online game account.
3. When prompted, enter your Open Beta code.

To register for the Head Start and claim your in-game bonus items:

1. After August 15, 2008 visit the Mythic Entertainment Account Management website.
2. Create a new Warhammer Online game account or open your existing game account.
3. When prompted, enter your Head Start and Bonus Items code.

Everyone and their dog will have read the site for that. This is as much for the one guy who forgets (me) as it is for the rest of you.

Friday the 15th.

So bets on NDA drop people?

The time is nigh!

Spinks over at the Book of Grudges (link in title) gives the best news I've had all day.

We have a release date!

Woohoo!

Edit : Slight Ego stroke here. I did say it'd be after Games Day! So... Sunday kiss Mythic. Take Monday off for headstart.

Forums abound

Two new links on the left today.

Firstly I'm now on the Blog Warhammer forum, see the post below for all the details on that. Come by, have a chat, it'll be fun.

Secondly, Jo Bildo has posted the link to the Casualties of War guild which unless I'm completely wrong is the Bloggers/Blogfriends starting guild. Hop on by those forums and have a gander.

Blog Warhammer

Regis from Wizards and Wenches has set up a new forum. Link in the title or on the left. I'll let the man himself explain (in other words copy/paste ftw)

Introducing: Blog Warhammer by Regis on Tuesday, August 05, 2008

I wrote in the last post that I was working on something, and I'm proud to announce what it is now!A while ago I posed an idea I had: to create a community specifically for Warhammer bloggers. Since I only got positive responses I was hoping to make it reality. Before this weekend I was writing a new post where I was looking for someone to host it. I got halfway in the post, and then I wondered "why can't you do, you lazy bastard?". So I did. And I spent the last days in setting up a forum (setting it up is easy, finding a style that looks good is the hard part), and I just finished.

What is it? Blog Warhammer is a community for people who blog about Warhammer. It's that simple; if you got a blog and it's about Warhammer, then
you are welcome to join!

What is it good for? Some people have been blogging for a long time, some have just started, and some are thinking about starting - hopefully the site will satisfy every type. Join into a tighter and friendlier Warhammer blogging community. Share your experience or advice with the community, and hopefully learn something in return. Announce your blog to people who can spread the word.

Only bloggers? Bloggers are not the only ones who can take advantage of Blog Warhammer. If you like to read blogs and Warhammer, then this is the place to find them.

Sounds good? Go there and take part in the community, and help spread the word to other bloggers. I'm also looking for active members that want to serve as moderators, so PM me or something with interest.

With thanks to VG Cats

As Arbitrary pointed out in comments. The Preorder page has changed again. To the 6th.

Thanks to VG Cats for expressing what I feel.

Momentary Rant

Dear Warhammer Preorder Page it is the 5th.

You previously told us the 4th, then changed. It's now 9.15am Californian time. Do not make me go over there and hurt you.

MetamoRTSis

Consider for a moment the type of people you play with. Apart from Casual gamers who go all over the place, alot of people have a preferred genre. MMO, RTS, FPS and so on.

Then consider the draw to certain IPs. There are Star Wars RPGs, FPS', an MMO and quite probably an RTS that I cannot bring to mind.

Warhammer Online poses a question for me.
The offline fans, the tabletop fans, they are more akin to an RTS player than an MMO. Warhammer on the model level is about massed units, different abilities and knowing which unit to send against which. What move to make to deal with a live opponent and as always, how to live with the whims of the dice.

MMO fans are a varied bunch. Sure we all play different things, but even the most team centric guild and group minded person doesn't operate on the same scale as an RTS battle.

Given that RvR is all about constant on going warfare, up to and including the point of sacking the enemy home city. Given than the open grouping mechanic is (I think) intended to make groups form organically and easily.
Given that we're all going to have a stand up brawl someday in a world RvR zone.
Who will come out on top?

The player used to dealing with small groups of certain classes who can win a battle? Or the player used to dealing with massed groups of various strengths who can win a war?

I guess the question is this. As much as it will be and as much as I will enjoy it, will the game be an unruly mob fight or are we going to see guilds arrange themselves in such a way that we become the regiments we take our characters from on the table top?

I for one would adore to see an army on the march, seeking victory, over the still inspiring sight of half my realm zerging the nearest warm body.