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.

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.

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.

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.

Night of Murder Post Mortem

Another short entry.

Partially to amuse people, partially to remind myself to bloody write damnit.

The Night of Murder ran from Feb 5th-16th. I only got home on the eve of the 7th. I had pretty much a week (except for Valentines day, yes I did all that) to play it and to my own shame, I didn't do much.

Why am I bothered? This was far easier to earn influence for than Kegs End. I got to the second reward on Leggit quite easily before it occured to me to try and do it all on my Dwarves who sadly got nowt.

What did everyone else think of the automated killmails? Personally I quite enjoyed getting my head sent to me in the mail. It gave me a goal, find that guy and kill him (I managed it). It gave me a pocket item, which I always enjoy having. It gave me a reason to charge blindly into my foes screaming as only a Goblin can...
..well I never need a reason for that last one, no matter who I am playing.

I'm not bothered that I missed out on an item that I can't use till level 35. As it is, I am going to have to get off my arse and get back to work on Orrekai. I've dawdled too long at 29.

In WAR related news, the official forums are there for people with active US accounts. Which I have, despite being a Euro. So far there's nothing in the healer forum, but I hope that will change soon. Granted when I say nothing, I mean literally nothing. No posts at all.
*makes eyes at the GOA guys for a EuroForum account so he can be globally nosey*

Catching up

I forgot to mention I was back.

I'm back. Yaaaay.

So while I catch up on work, cleaning and the blogosphere, bear with me. Hopefully I'll be back to blathering inanely soon.

In other news, I've ordered the Warhammer stuff (more on that sooner than the previous soon) and should be ready to field an army within a month. I say a month because I really am an awful painter.

Catching up

A quick recap for both me and for anyone reading.

First. January 29th. Stick it in the calendar. Big things are coming.
Second. Bloggers, I shall be catching up shortly. Though I'm enjoying the idea from Arb with regards villages and such.
Third and most important. Go to the Book of Grudges my little euros. Go now and vote about a Eurogettogether for GOA/Mythic/Us.

My recap.
Guests are lovely. For a bit. You can have one person for ages, or lots for a few days. Never try to have 6 for a week.

And in my highlight, I did that Marriage instance thing with Shannon and all we got were lousy bind on equip rings. Someone needs to check the loot tables.

\o/ WIN!

Shifting lines

How quickly can lines shift? How quickly can an almost complete victory shift into an almost total rout?

Apparently as long as it takes me to sleep.

Before going to bed last night, T3 Ostermark was a battle zone. We had two warbands of Order (Including Relaenas first big taste of running a warband in that tier) versus likely two of the same. Cue either Duel of Fates or the Benny Hill theme depending on the particular time of the battle.

The main shift, the focus of the "endgame" was tier 4. Before Orrekai said his goodbyes and I took myself off to sleep, Order had locked Praag, Thunder Mountain and Dragonwake. Dragonwake was especially nice to see as from my understanding of what filters down on OrderRvR its been one hell of a battle lately.
This morning, Praag remains in the righteous/bloody manling/sissy elf hands of Order. Dragonwake is contested once again.
Dwarf Versus Greenskin though has gone from a reasonably long lock on Thunder Mountain with action in Black Crag to a push all the way back to Kadrin Valley.

Only time will tell if the t4 folks will swing back just as hard. On the bright side though, being Rank 28 (rr26) I can hop up there and join in if there's a real big push going on. Not that I will be terribly useful, but I seem to make my presence felt on occasion.

Back to T3 and what went on last night.

Tactics. The most efficient win. The most bang for your buck.

When do good tactics become poor gameplay? Some people complain about being ganked when they were unprepared. Sometimes by higher characters, other times when they were in the middle of a mob. On paper though, that's entirely fair. You are at war, war won't stop for breaks or niceities. You kill the other guy when you can, as hard as you can.

Rambling related story. I wanted my pistol on Norri as previously mentioned and to begin with I was in Dwarf Chapter 6 in the Marshes of Madness. One of the Versus PQs. Who will get to stage II first? Well... the Dwarves were always going to win this one. There were three of us and none of them. Then there was one, a Squig Herder.
Me feeling playful, I flagged and taunted the squig loving Grobi. I never honestly expected him to flag back, after all I had 7 levels on him and we were no were near the lake. No bolster for the mushroom gobbler.
He waited till I was busy with some mobs and he went for it. Ganker? No. Good sense.
Did it work? Ehhh no. Unfortunately for him I was much higher as mentioned and I could take what the pve mobs were throwing, so I dealt with the greater risk. Three times.

Don't look at me like that, I never expected the fight, I was being silly. He gave it his best shot though and always looked for opportunities against me. He just happened to get beaten.

So now I got to experience something I am told is quite the topic on forums. RvDoor I think someone called it.
Warband runs up, warband fights tooth and nail to breach the first door and fights twice as hard to lay siege against the second door and then... leaves. Just like that the assaulting force packs up and legs it. A victory some think. Defense in the face of overwhelming odds, we broke their spirit etc etc.

No... they weakened the inner door and then left. And now they're doing it to another door somewhere else.

This was the start of the evening for me yesterday. Relaena, Walton of the Templars and myself went to kill a hero for my Stalker set and happened to run into goings on. We joined in. Orlun (Witch hunter) was running a band, and as previously mentioned Relaena ended up with one as well. Destruction would show up somewhere. Fight as hard as they could in the face of defense if there was any and then evaporate just before breaking through. Other times while we were busy recapturing battle objectives or locking zones they would take other keeps. Many complained.

Personally I admired. It's a clever tactic. It keeps us wrong footed and off balance. You cant defend everywhere at all times. People always want to clump up into bigger and bigger groups. Relaena told me though that once, at an ungodly hour, two people managed to duo a keep from start to finish. If half the work has already been done by weakening the doors, well that just makes it easier. Two full warbands can become four half strength ones with just enough muscle to quickly convert a few keeps all over the place.

Apparently the damage can be undone by Archmages or Warrior priests in T3 by targetting the door and the ram pad and using particular skills which boil down to "I hit you, so the door feels better". Later Tanks get a skill I am told to properly repair doors, but it will only ever come into play up in the top tier. Repairing it is tedious but leaving it that way is dangerous.

So my hats off to Destruction. From a personal point of view, playing the game and wanting to fight, it's annoying. They appear to run every time the fight gets to fever pitch. From a tactical point of view, and remember we're all in this war to win, it is genius. They can come back at any time, strike any keep and have done most of the work before.
Order claims it is above such practices, but how long until I find myself in a band where that is the modus operandi?


The late part of that evening showed me another type of shifting line. What to do in a big big bust up.
The answer is run around like a lunatic until something half baked works or until something occurs to whomever shouts loudest (apparently me at times).

Our two warbands headed for Stoneclaw Castle in High Pass to take it back. We ran into two Destruction warbands headed the other way as they stopped to take Ogrunds Tavern. Hilarity ensued.
First it was a fight to maintain our hold. Come into the tavern, dont come in. Fight in front, try and flank. Everyone rally and move together, yes we know half of you are dead. Rez me rez me rez me, oh you're dead. Well rez me anyway.
Then it was a desperate fight to take back the point in three minutes, a fight we likely wouldnt win because well... they stuffed a warband and a bit inside the tavern. Cue new objective, keep them in the tavern and slaughter them as they leave.

It was total chaos and for me at least, exhaustingly fun. So much changed so rapidly. Geography broke lines of sight and made for rdps hills. Order partially zerged on the basis that you could spit and hit the warcamp. Several times Destruction was treated to a kamikaze Rune Priest if only because it made me laugh (and Rune of Battle wasnt going to kill them but I like seeing all the pretty numbers). All in all neither side achieved much, well.. they got the tavern but we got the fight people had been complaining about being deprived, and I ended the night satisfied.

Did we retake High Pass on my late watch? No. But we fought hard at times, defended hard at others, I learned some tricks and I got a good laugh. Win or lose, it was fun.
However tonight, time to try win.

A final question though. Those of you who read this and who run or are up there in guilds. Do you think new recruits should read the Art of War? Do you think your guild should instill a sense of honour in always fighting, even if it means certain doom? Or do you play to win?
Know thy enemy or pwn thy enemy?

Ostermark and Phoenix Throne

Some quick notes on those servers.

First up, Phoenix Throne is where you'll find me doing Destruction things every so often. I've got myself a Squig Herder by the name of Leggit sitting pretty at 11 and still in love with Squig Armor.
Also the fantastic Bregel from Oathkeepers Legacy gave me (on his Destro alt) the BattleBrew backpack. Man I love that thing.

There'll be a guild up there soon. So anyone who wants to kill Ardy, say hi to Virtue folks from City of Heroes or generally get a blog entry up (along the lines of "Must kill this guy") pop by and say hi.

Ostermark.

Still only have three order characters. I've been very well behaved in that regard.
Katrine the Witch Hunter reached 10 and then paused.
Norri Powderkeg, my engineer, is similarly on ice for the moment at level 21.

Orrekai Dalinsson, my main, has been runing his Dwarven ass off over the Christmas break. This has seen me go from what... rank 23 rr 18 or so up to rank 28 rr25 in a very short period. I've also gleefully taken part in more oRvR over the last while than I can ever remember doing before.
To that end, the news from Ostermark.
Last I saw we had both the Chaos Wastes and Black Crag open with a serious push on Dragonwake over the last two days. Thunder Mountain and Praag have been locked for sometime. With any luck, alot of work and some pressure we could be looking at a fortress assault reasonably soon. I'm getting married in 15 days. That entire weekend I wont be available. I have a t4-able character.

So...my prediction is Ostermark will siege the Inevitable City the weekend of the 17th :P

Also a quick shout out.
Thanks go to the following Characters for making my oRvR entertaining and constant recently. No particular order.

• Walton (Ironbreaker)
• Damiana (Rune Priest)
• Kaelidan (Ironbreaker)
• Faulheim (KoBS)
• Faustred (Bright Wizard)
• Tyrandell (White Lion)
• Maligaunt (KoBS)
• Relaena (Witch Hunter, also blogs. Check out the Forging of Ice and Fire)
• Amera (Warrior Priest)
• Gang (KoBS)
• Devilchild (KoBS with the amusing surname of Poorbastard)
• many many more in Empire, Dwarf and yes even Elf T3

This weekend, assuming I am not too busy, you'll likely find me trying in vain to kill 14 more Ogre Tyrants and get myself alot of beer kegs. I wont make the Elite Kegs End reward (pity), but by Grimnir, Grungi and Vallaya I will get myself that trophy and fill that list.

Oh and the Rune of Battle mastery ability is my new best friend.

A Knight, a Cop and a Centurion...

..walk into an instanced mission and no one bats an eye.

Issue 13 recently hit for City of Heroes and there are some fun bits in it. Granted alot of people are looking forward to the Mission Architect in I14 and the big carrot on a stick that is I15 (Will the 5th be back back back?!).

There are a few things in Issue 13 that I am enjoying but they're hardly stellar. That said, let's go through 'em. (Clarification : There are more aspects to I13 than those below, these are just the ones I am currently interested in/affected by)

Dual Builds
Now in City of Heroes you can have dual builds. You can't change AT, primary or secondary powersets or side. You can however pick powers and slots in a new order. The idea is you could have a grouping build and a soloing build.
I'm sure some people will love that, especially the "I have one attack" Empaths. It doesn't do a whole lot for me. Mostly because I pick what I am going to do and stick to it. My Bubbler doesn't need a pvp spec or a soloing spec because he has teammates for that.
However I am using it on my VEAT (villain epic at) as they branch down two different paths and this allows my Crab Spider VEAT to hit a button and become a Bane Spider. From a Pet-ish Blaster-ish tough guy (well robot) into a mace wielding blastery Stalker.

In those situations, sure it makes sense and is useful even. The thing is... I like my Crab Spider. That's why I chose Crab Spider. Being able to swap is nice but I survived without before. Mostly I think that whole thing is for PvP.

Levelling pact
I'm doing this one with Shannon right now. Duos, trios and superteams are a feature of City Of Heroes. Moving in levelstep is something you do. I have a lvl 46 controller with a good friend of mine (my God I must make time for her and get us to 50) and they've been the same level and played at the same time all the way up the ladder. Without Stamina either.
Anyway I am still a little unclear on all the ins and outs of levelling pact. Since CoH redesigned its site and patcher and whatnot, they seem to have gone to shorthand. I don't know about other people, but I love pages of patch notes. It's nice to see all the little tweaks. Seeing that 1.06 stretched over two pages on the Herald made me grin like a loon. Sure most of it wasnt applicable to things I played, but it shows what they've worked hard for.

Anyway. Levelling pact. Your exp is shared. If I play 100 hours and Shannon plays 10, we'll still be the same level. It keeps us level and rewards playing with a particular player. At the moment the pact is only open below level 5 and only for two people at a time. I do see it being expanded and wait for the day that a Supergroup is started, hardcores and casuals together all linked in a pact.
Given how much bigger the Plume of Awesome is at 50, I'd pay to see 8 simultaneous dings at 50.

Day Jobs
I don't like 'em. The Tome Of Knowledge has cured my badge whoring in City of Heroes. Badges have nothing on the Tome. So I wont grind them out (30 days offline in a particular location per badge) on people. If they introduced it several issues ago when I had few alts and a hard time picking who to play, I'd have been all for it. The rewards, while nice, are just that. Nice. It is an incentive to make alts and to not play all your characters. Neglect some, then come back to goodies. Make alts and grind out rewards for later use. I see it more as a cynical means of extending the games lifespan by rewarding players for not playing but still paying.

The Patrol XP (Rest xp basically) is tasty though. You can get one bar of 1.5xp per day logged out. So even over night you'll get a little boost when you start playing. If you've had a busy week and no play, come back to a faster levelling. This I approve of.


Shields
Sooo many cops. This is all the art guys fault. He put a Nightstick option in for War Mace and a Riot Shield. If it's not cops, it's knights. If it's not knights, it's centurions. There do seem to be a few going for the tech options and a few going for interesting combinations, but not as many as you'd like. That's life with a new powerset. Hell that's life in a current MMO. New Class? MUST HAVE! Style and thought go out the window usually, just want to play NAO!

That said, Sheilds are very interesting. Some nice powers I like, some aspects I don't. It's essentially Super Reflexes with a dash of Willpower-style and a teleporting attack like EM's Lightning Rod (of which I am jealous). But a few of the powers, granting defense buffs and gaining your own for being close up with other players (ideally in melee) look tasty for Shield players who stick together.

Despite my complaint, I'd love to see a super team of all Centurions Phalanxing it up a notch.


Midweek I play City of. Weekends are WAR time. Let's see how long the midweek play lasts. So far, so good.
Then again I am in a Shield duo in a level pact. It pays to play.

I should blog more

It's true. I should.

However work and life oppose me at every turn.

Anyway. On with the show.

My idea mentioned below. The little get together for a small group to start a fight night...
Well as you can guess I got a little busy before I was supposed to haunt forums. So that has been put back. Add to that this little nugget from Wizards & Wenches.

Sorry to be the party-pooper here, but arranging duels like this isn’t allowed. This is so for a few reasons. To start with, it doesn’t go well with the WAR setting; Order and Destruction aren’t enemies due to mere ideological or political reasons but rather are bitter and irrevocable enemies where kill-on-sight is the the norm. There’s also the aspect of renown and victory points to consider. Although duels don’t have a large impact on zone locking mechanisms, they do contribute and again, it’s just not the way these things are meant to work.
This doesn’t mean that RvR can’t be pre-arranged. It’s perfectly fine to say “we’ll roam this-and-this zone tomorrow evening from 8pm and we’ll kill anyone entering it!”. Basically, as long as the RvR taking place make sense within the WAR setting it’s fine.
Currently, players cought participating in what is clearly arranged duels risk being penalized for this.

I will argue one point. The Non RP servers outnumber the RP servers. There are by definition more people not concerned with the setting than there are those who are. That's not an absolute garuntee, but there are likely players on other servers who haven't a clue who Sigmar is or what the whole WAAAGH thing is about.

Even with that little warning in mind, the idea of an Ostermark fight night will move ahead. If I am quick about it, I'll be able to entice the second round of Knights and Blackguards to participate as they come up the ranks.


Contribution!
They admit it's borked
Colin gets one back

That's all that needs to be said there. Sure some people thought it was in poor taste, but I saw what they were trying to say and enjoyed the video. The second one is similarly amusing.

Last WAR bit
All in all, I do need to blog more. With any luck I shall be. Certainly I got to spend some decent time in WAR lately. Keep watching.
Oh and My friend Seph has also started blogging. If he can bother me, I can advertise him :P

Monday Monday

Man what a weekend. There's been alot for me going on in WAR and the weekend was a busy one. My Engineer hit 20 and laid claim to his beercopter, my Witch Hunter was born and there was much RvR rvred.

Our story middles with the Oathkeepers Legacy and Sephorus' climb to 20 (which as of my heading to bed around midnight gmt last night, he still needed). The beginning was the day before when I was of course up to an unreasonable hour. Sabina (OL Witch Hunter) had headed off to bed before a day of exams and I was left to amuse myself. We had been running quite alot of Mourkains Temple runs (with the standard practice of taking the quest to kill 15 in the local lake or racially appropriate scenario and the quest to do the scenario) as well as others and so our story found Norri standing in the Marshes of Madness Warcamp wondering how best to proceed.So the plan was hatched, let's take back the battlefield objectives.
It didn't go quite according to plan at the start. A brave Rune Priest whose name sadly I've forgotten and a tough and fun female Ironbreaker, Bergita, joined me. Soon we added in a duo of an Archmage (Snowblind) and a Bright Wizard (Radiant). With the little band we finally made progress on getting around the one roving Greenskin party there was and retaking the points. There wasn't enough people to make a fight of the keep, so we took what we had achieved and considered it good.
Fast forward to Monday. Sephorus needs 20. Norri is 20. Norri logs on and finds Sabina directly in front of him in Sigmars Hammer. A party is born. We head off to the Marshes for the same tactic again and maybe some PQ's.

This is where I really started to feel as though I was getting a handle on the server. All over the weekend teamspeak picked up sudden exclamations of " I know that guy, I killed that guy. Gotta kill him again". This time, Bergita was spotted on /1 talking to someone about Nebhorests Tower.

I don't know about you lot, but the Oathkeepers tried the tower and had a bit of a hard time of it. We never quite made it to the top, and having now seen what is up there, I'm not convinced we'd have survived if we had.

Well here is where the awesome that was my Monday evening was born. All that started it was a roleplaying Ironbreaker whom I recognised and a PQ I hadn't finished. We were sold. We joined the party that was already over there, filling it. Couldn't leave the Ironbreaker out though, so I somehow ended up with the Crown and started the Warband before also pulling in Dusana of the Oathkeepers. This was shaping up good. Some yelling on /1 got a few more interested parties and we had at Nebhorest.

The bloody vampire is a Lord. Secondly, he yanks out essences (we think he's doing it wrong as the text implies that he should be doing it to anyone he corpsifies) which form Champion level mobs. We got trounced.

So into the party we add Snowblind and Radiant as well as a few others. Things are looking up, I'm recognising names and getting used to balancing parties in the Warband. We head back and charge on in, merrily slaughtering our way up the tower. Just before Nebhoest we add the final Oathkeeper of the day, Nadrion. Swordmaster extrordinarie.
Commence spanking. Unfortunately Snowblind crashed, but he managed to return and was quickly picked back up before Nebby (as the wonderfully amusing Warrior Priestess Chelsea dubbed him) went down. 13 or so people, one Lord, seven GREEN bags.
Still not to be sniffed at.

Now normally when I have experienced impromptu parties, they fall apart after the supposed goal is met. Nebhorest was dead, influence gained, bags gotten. Instead someone made the golden suggestion... "Destruction owns the keep.. keep raid?"

Woo!

So that's what we did. The band charged in to the lake and took the BO's before setting sights on Fangbreaka Keep. /2 wasn't much help, but /1 did get us a few more warm bodies. Channel on Ostermark : OrderRvR also proved a good place to recruit and we soon found ourselves (after a bit of a travesty of a first attempt) on the second floor and pounding the Lord for all we were worth.

First note. Swordmasters can tank.
Second note. Don't try to disrupt a warband taking a keep if there are only three or four of you unless you're really that good or pick your moment right. Those that tried us got pasted.
Third note. If an Engineer looks at you with a grin and your on a balcony without any railing...yeah..bye bye. Punting Shamans should be a national sport.

The band, supposedly led by me, sucessfully took the keep and headed on back to the Warcamp. After some polling, we decided to head on to the Shadowlands to try our hand there on the very reasonable assumption that Destruction would likely get its act together and guard Barak Varr.
Now for some reason Snowblind, either to foster some working together or very honestly, thanked me for being the voice of the warband, giving direction.

If I really was that good a leader then I impart to you my wisdom.
Leading a keep taking band consists of pointing at a target and yelling charge. Pretending like moving zone was your idea when people seem restless. Listening to the main tanks and telling everyone to do what they say. That seems to be it, certainly it's all I did.

Unfortunately at that time (but not before handing over the reigns to Nadrion and Snowblind) I crashed but managed to get back in time to help assault (a second time) the lord of Spites Reach.

I like Elven keeps in T-2. They're open and airy. They let the warband spread out a bit. They have a nice winding ramp that lets us gently get upstairs. They also have a Sorceress with alot of knockback and a nasty AoE as a Lord and a clear circle on the ground that we discovered represents the full distance of her AoE nastiness.Also, my personal favourite. The pointless sticky up pointy bits on Dark Elf buildings. That stopped me being punted off the side quite nicely thank you.
After this we seemed to be in good shape. The Lord was pummeled into submission both in Spites Reach and in the Cascades of Thunder in Ellryion. Sadly we lost Fangbreaka but that's just an example of while one warband can take a keep, it takes more to keep it and still press on with the conquest.

For such a great evening I'd like to thank the Oathkeepers Legacy : Dusana, Sephorus, Sabina, me and Nadrion.
Also thanks to Snowblind, Radiant, Chelsea, Coors, Bergita, Nolodan (who won a gold bag if memory serves in Spites Reach) and Zeonox (sp?) who despite being an explody Bright Wizard, happily brought along his guilds banner for the extra buffs it afforded us.
Thanks also to the many many others who joined in my first proper taste of Keep attacking.

Final notes.
I enjoy using the ram. It amuses me.
Also concussion grenade is the finest example of Dwarven engineering expertise a Dwarf could lob and I adore it.

It was a fun filled evening. After the keep taking, there was Witch Huntering and an odd encounter for next time.

El stuff and my return

How's it going folks?

I've been rather quiet as of late. Partially due to a personal funk and partially due to a lack of inspiration.

So in the meantime, some bits and pieces.
GOA announces more jobs in Dublin. 400 more it seems.
They still didn't hire me (yes I'm still beating that dead donkey) but that's because of a snafu with Manpower Ireland and CPL. So anyone looking for a job there, hit the main site http://www.war-europe.com/ or google CPL.

I'm up to 22 on my Rune Priest (Im the slowest leveller of the lot) and 16 on my Engineer. Personally I love the Dwarf race, story and classes and can't wait to hear what we're getting for Melee DPS. Let me go on record as saying "No Slayers please". I know how to make them work, I just don't want them to.

The Hammer of War Screenshot Competition is ongoing still. You've only a week left to enter and there's that lovely 60 day Game Time card up for grabs. Anyone yet to enter, hop on over and check it out.

Finally, a silly tidbit.
On the character select screen when you can see all the characters on your server, select one. You can then rotate the character.
Rotate him too much, too fast and they will do the dizzy drunken stupor. Completely useless yes, but it entertained me.

Catching Up.

Binge and Purge

My computer imploded the other day. I know it was my fault and it may very well have been Warhammer that caused the problem. Never abort installs half way through because you're tired and it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Of course from Friday to Sunday evening (and then into the night) there was much Warhammering. I am by no means the most efficient leveller, so I have gone from l12r10 to l15r12 over the weekend.

The bad!
Altdorf broke over the weekend. Friday I think it was. At any rate Ostermark's Altdorf hit level 2 and presumably the immense rush of people to it crashed the zone. Anyone trying to enter from our party eventually was punted out of the game and had to log back in. They were greeted by the Altdorf loading screen, only to find themselves back at the original flight master. Annoying to be sure, but hardly cripling.

The good!
Altdorf, once we could access it, proved good fun. Another sewer opened up and inside we made many corpses of Skaven.Ickly, Skaven spit is a main ingredient for intelligence potions. So all you Bright Wizards and other ranged dps guys, wanna swallow some spitbrew?

I also participated in a keep siege. More on that below.

The unusual!
Bregel got his tracker gear, and as a result, the stout Ironbreaker is now green. I do have the amusing mental image of a green and brown bedecked Ironbreaker, unseen in the undergrowth, and then heard across several miles as he clanks furiously towards his target.

Open relationships.

As I mentioned previously, I participated in a keep siege this weekend. Bregel and myself were in our normal party of friends but decided to drop to join whatever warband it was taking back Barak Varr. He got invited in short order, I did not. It was not a matter of room, there were but two groups in said warband. Bregel crashed to desktop and in the time it took him to return, I only just, after some choice yelling on /1, got into the warband and he was reinvited promptly.
One person in the band, after seeing my irritation on /1 said that they were sorry for the delay as things were a bit hectic in the keep. That I can accept.

My irritation spawned from two things.

1) The leader of the Warband died almost as often as I did and had to ride past me at least three times on his horse to rejoin the fight. I am not expecting you to drop everything in the middle of a siege just to invite one noisy Rune Priest, but when you repeatedly have to dash back from the Warcamp PAST said Rune Priest, what excuse have you? You're not locked in combat. I've sent you tells so you know who I am.

2) Open the bloody band. OPEN IT! If a guild wants to take a keep by themselves and hang their heraldry and be all fantastic, I can understand them filling a warband, keeping it closed and having a go at it. When it's a rabble of random Order folks who just want to get stuck in and help out, leave the band open so everyone who is there with you or looking to join can actually pitch in and be helpful.

I'm not the best healer. I'm not the servers star anything. But in a game so social and with a design that lets everyone come together easily for large goals, stop bloody locking people out for no good reason. Even the worst player shouldn't have to be yelling for a group.

Lady Thanatos, in our regular group, tends to close the group. That's understandable as there's just a handful of us and we'll fill our own party more often than not. I, however, tend to leave it open on the basis that, if we're doing a PQ or someone crashes to desktop, I want to make it easy for anyone to hop in (again) and get to it.

Hammer of War Online

The folks over at the Hammer of War have been very good with my whole computer dead thing. So I know I'm late with it, but expect a bunch of articles from myself to join the good folks over there already.

Casualties of War

I've been busy. I'll be back. Ardy the Warrior Priest has hammer, will travel.

A final thought.

While I get back into the swing of blogging and catch up all the ones I read, a thought on WAR gameplay.
Don't just learn what you can do, learn what your friends can. Learn who you work best with and when to trust that they'll cover whatever slack there is in the group.

More thoughts from Preview Weekend

Well.. it's Monday and work is light at the moment, so I can blog more. Ha!

First, my public service announcement.

Ladies, Gents and Greenskins.
If you are considering WAR, on the fence about it, or even mildly curious. Do yourself the biggest favour imaginable. Bring a friend with. The joy factor is that much more because of it. More on this below.

~Ardy


The Downside of Open Grouping
There are many people celebrating open grouping, and really it should be celebrated. I found one slight problem though, which mostly I am ascribing to newbie shell shock (You are dumped into a war after all) and the quirks of a preview weekend. All the closed beta folks knew what they wanted to achieve. All the Preview weekend guys like me wanted to find out what was going on.
Open grouping does help. Filter by range and hey you know if people in your general vicinity are doing things you may also be doing or interested in.
The problem I found was this. No one talks.
It actually took a trip to the High Elf starting zone to get a chatty pq/open group.

People came and went. Hell I did too. There was a certain sense of disconnection. However I am hopeful. As I progressed through the chapters people became more talkative and would speak to one another. Heck, one errant Dark Elf in an RvR zone stopped to bow to me (he wasn't flagged otherwise he'd have gotten a staff in the skull).

So yes the open grouping is much vaunted and talked about. If your first experience is a bit silent and akward, don't worry. Everyones head is likely spinning as much as yours. Go with it and you'll make friends in no time.

Related note Terry (Bregel from here on) is/was in Closed Beta and was surprised by something in the Preview weekend. This is an upside of open grouping. Myself (Orrekai), Bregel and Zylasharr (did I get it right T?) were in a public quest. There was another team also there. Both of us were below maximum strentgh so one or two clicks and the teams were seamlessly merged. Instead of two sub par teams running hither and yon, suddenly we were a full one. Sadly we didnt get into any trouble or areas (barring Scenarios) that would have required us to Warband it up a notch, but that little tool was a welcome surprise.
Also due to my having to close the game several times, open groups meant I could hop back in without harassing them (much) on teamspeak for an invite.

Altdorf
For the cheap cheap fare of 50 bronze, Bregel, Zyla and I beercoptered into Altdorf. Well... not Zyla, she was on a Rune Priest as well our first time, but you get the idea.
Altdorf is huge. Really huge. I could spend most of a day rather than the hour or two that I did exploring that place. I am not even sure that it was completely opened up despite being at 5 stars. In fact thinking about it, the city shot up the ranks, so it was likely bumped up.
Some pointers to Altdorf.
There are screaming cats. Get used to them.
Barrels are not toys.
Swirly glowy green things are very enticing to certain Dwarfs.
I met Gotrek and Felix, you should too.
The Steam Tank PQ is really rather clever.

We also came across some randomly and oddly naked Dwarfs. There were representatives of the three armies working out in this square. All were targetable but you couldnt attack them. That is, except for the level one naturalist dwarfs. I singed one or two to teach them a lesson about the value of britches.

Many more things occured there, but I'll keep them for another post.

Just my second PSA here. When you go to start your guild, it only takes a little cash and a party of six. Don't rush the process though. I know you all want to level up your characters and your guilds and get out there and smash heads in. Take some time though. Set aside an hour or two for you all to drop into Altdorf and gawk like tourists. Take in the sights, get the tome unlocks, examine weird swirly green things.
Honestly, don't miss it because you're in a rush or "will do it later". Enjoy your first foray into the living city of Altdorf.

Tome Unlocks
These things are everywhere. EVERYWHERE!
The quick guide to collecting.

If it moves or highlights? Click it.
If it doesn't move? Mouse over just incase.
If it has legs and cons blue? Talk to it.
If it moves and cons red? Kill it.
If it looks interesting? Run over to it and gawk.

Also don't be afraid to die. Don't be afraid to die in RvR. Don't be afraid to run around in circles healing yourself or others as fast as you can buttonmash. It's all a blast.

Geronimo
In City of Heroes I have the very well deserved nickname of Lemming. Heck on Teamspeak and Vent, there is even a song for when I have one of my "moments". Where angels fear to tread, there Ardy is, likely nomming floor.
In WAR, this name took on a whole new meaning. Seriously, watch your step. I don't know how many times I fell off cliffs while having a gander. It was funny every time. Especially the one time I fell off as a Sorceress, hugged the wall on the way down and ended up having a lesuirely swim back around the coast. It didn't matter that I fell, funny though it was, I was having a great time exploring and there was also the novelty of surviving.
I then did get into the bad habit of casting Heal over time runes on myself and jumping off some places just to see if I could.
So please, do watch your step. But if you end up flailing your way into the grave, don't worry. It's funny and death just means you'll get moved to the nearest rally point.

That said, future guildmates? I'm sorry. If the shortest distance between me and where we're going is a barely (if at all) survivable drop of a cliff. Well... I'm going to go get my base jumping tome unlock.

NOT THE FACE!
It is my lot in life to die. Doesn't matter if I've taken a stroll off Everest, found a playmate (you'd be surprised how often I run into hero/champion mobs and set fire to them on reflex), or RvR'd. I am doomed to die. I have come to accept it, and even find something worth laughing about in it.

Two examples.
1) Bregel and I were in Altdorf. There was a barrel. Thanks to Hawley at the Book of Grudges, we knew that this could only mean one thing. Pain a la Skaven.
Did that stop us? Hell no.

Bregel was, if memory serves, at the time 7. I was 8. Ironbreaker and Runepriest against a level 20 Skaven.
And we were winning! Not quickly mind you, but we were certainly winning. The healing and the runes were keeping Bregel going and we got the Ratman to 50%.
Then he turned around and stabbed me in the face. So ended that fight.

2) Bregel, Zyla and I were in the Khaines Embrace scenario. As usual, despite teamspeak, the two members of the Elder Race gave the keen eyed long limbed Shadow Warrior the slip and went off to wreak havoc as only Dwarfs can. During said havoc, Bregel suffered a graphic glitch and was unable to see. He was still there, but the player himself couldn't see a damn thing and was going to have to restart.
Around that time an entire party of Destruction showed up.
At first, I was able to heal the damage. Only a few of them were paying attention to me and the rest seemed to be considering options. Then they all decided that the Runepriest must go!

Commence backpedalling. But! I had a plan! Surely if I trained this mob over the Ironbreaker whose life I have preserved so often... an Ironbreaker who is only going to exit anyway... surely that is a fair trade? He can lay down his life for me in payment for all the times when I preserved it.
Ohhhh no. They were having none of that. The entire party ran past the otherwise idle Ironbreaker, turned me into mush and then bizzarely kept running. They completely ignored someone who could then capture a point. Bregel was toasted shortly thereafter by Khaines Embrace.

So my final PSA.
Budding Generals and clever guilds. If someone is going to storm a keep or try storm yours. Destroy their battle plan in one easy step. Mount an Archmage or Runepriest on a stick and wave him off to the left. While they fall over themselves in an orgy of destruction, feel free to put the fear of Grungi, Grimnir and Valaya into them.

More later if I remember anything else!

Restart

Time to get back to blogging.

A recap for anyone who doesn't know.

My name is Jonathan. I'm an internet geek from Ireland. I've a wonderful girlfriend (and soon to be more) Shannon. We've been going out 5 years now, the entire time no less than 3000 miles apart.
I enjoy Warhammer, City of Heroes, Warhammer 40k, MMO society, science fiction books, fantasy books, popular science books, physics, astronomy, travelling, chatting, going to the cinema and making everything sound like a personals ad*.

So, that's the quickie recap to me.
Now to remember to blog constantly.

*= Not really