Damini
Part of the furniture
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2003
- Messages
- 2,234
If you have ever spent more than five minutes in Games Workshop… If you have ever painted something bubonic brown, or scab red… If you have ever made your own hill from papier-mâché and green sawdust, ever bought dice with more than six sides, ever argued with a GM over whether a giant rat monster would have opposable thumbs… If you have ever rolled for initiative, then chances are you’re already looking forward to playing Warhammer.
Maybe you’ve not even an old school table-top player. Maybe you’ve never spent ages dry brushing a cloak, or contemplating the correct hue for a zombie. Maybe you’ve never sat around until the early hours, eating junk food and trying to stop the Elf in your group from saying something pretentious again. Maybe you’ve only ever played your roleplay games online, starting with Ultima Online, or EverQuest, or Dark Age of Camelot, or World of Warcraft, or any one of the multiple MMORPGS that have spawned since the genre took its first shaky steps online. Maybe you’ve never even played MMORPG before.
Chances are, you’re still looking forward to playing Warhammer.
At the moment, much of Warhammer is masked in mystery, still very much in the cloak and dagger stage of development. The beta is as NDA as it can get – careless talk costs registration. So, when Freddyhouse was given the opportunity to go jab the developers in the ribs, ask pressing questions, and do a bit of old fashioned spying, they leapt at the chance.
Or, more accurately, got me to leap for them.
So, I know some of you will be twitching to just get to the answers, and bypass all my chatter, so here you go:
“Does it live up to the hype?”
Yes. If it was possible to marry a computer game, and have half human, half MMORPG children with it, I think I might just try.
“What about the Elves?”
I’m pretty sure a few of you will be so desperate to know what’s going on with the Elf races that you’ve probably thrown the word into document search, and landed here, so I’ll break it to you gently…
No comment.
Sorry guys, but no matter how you angled the question, casually dropped it into conversation, or re-topped their wine glasses, elves were a discussion no-go. The best I could get was the assurance that all will be revealed by the end of the month.
“How does it look?”
Pretty stunning to be honest. Also, as an old Warhammer fan, someone who used to help my brother build scale buildings from cereal boxes and lollypop sticks, it looks exactly like the warhammer we pictured in our head as kids (and not like the buildings we recreated from cereal boxes and lollypop sticks, you’ll be relieved to hear). The scale is just unbelievable. Towers so tall than the pinnacle vanishes into cloud. Towns alive with NPCs wandering about their daily routines. Dark alley ways sprawling behind rickety buildings. Chaos temples, riddled with eyes, and malformed shapes. Games workshop had played a very big role in influencing the look, and it shows.
[youtubevid]XXE-HAEhMn8[/youtubevid]
At the end of this post, you’ll find some quick answers to quick questions, so if you’re feeling impatient, start scrolling down now. Otherwise, let me take you on a more leisurely tour of the game, starting with some very wobbly footage of the starter zones (proof of why my jenga skills are minimal)…
[youtubevid]YES3OEHWUog[/youtubevid]
THE TOME OF KNOWLEDGE: This is the element that is said to help Warhammer stand apart from many games that have come before it. How does it work?
Well, let’s put it this way. If you were the kid who couldn’t rest until their sticker book was full, or who collected Scout/Girl Guide badges so obsessively that they had to stitch a third arm onto your back to sow them on to, then this is where your eye is going to start twitching and your palms will start sweating. In fact, if you are even the remotest bit OCD like in nature, then prepare to let go of any plans for daylight. Ever again.
The Tome of Knowledge works on many different levels. It will be a constantly updating chronicle of your progress, recording battles you have been involved in, creatures you have killed, places you have visited, lore and history you have learnt. As it is filled, as (not always specified) targets are achieved, experience and rewards will be given.
Perhaps you are the type of player who will climb to the top of a hill, purely to see what is there. Maybe you like to jump off cliffs, to discover if it is possible to reach that rocky ledge instead of simply plummeting to your doom. The game actively encourages such “Curiosity Killed The Cat” type behaviour by lacing the world with secret triggers for the Tome of Knowledge, locations that will divulge some gem of knowledge, grant experience, or tick a box on an unknown list of achievements. In short, the Tome encourages you to interact with the world, to explore, to make your own choices, rather than simply following quests in a bovine fashion to the next location.
As you fight creatures, the Tome also logs this information in a Bestiary. Say for example you are fighting rabbits – the first time you kill one, an entry will be made in your Tome, outlining your basic understanding of the species. The more you kill, the more in-depth your understanding becomes. Kill targets will become unveiled as you progress – e.g. kill 50 rabbits, and gain 20 xp, kill 1000 rabbits and gain 500 xp… Titles can also be bestowed upon you this way. Kill an insane amount of rabbits, and you may just end of with a title such as my hastily made-up Damini: Uber Rabbit Slayer. As someone who strays towards the more delicate shades of inept when it comes to gaming, the idea of titles for lower end achievements pleases me greatly. I may never become Supreme Over-Lord Of All She Surveys, but there is at least hope for me making the cast of Watership Down tremble at the mention of my name.
The Tome allows a player to learn the history of the Warhammer realm, and their chosen race in particular, outlining the basics to those completely new to the world, and adding more detailed flourishes and stories to those already familiar with the lay of the land. Travel to new locations, click on random items, discover an unmarked grave off the beaten track, or an abandoned book in a dusty mine, and new chapters of the story will open up to you. Not all disclosures are told from the perspective of your character – for example, if you are playing a dwarf, you may find a detailed study of your race written from the clinical view point of a high elf. As you progress through different areas, and levels, an over arching story and history will reveal itself.
At the moment, the Tome is character specific, so information you gather will not be sharable with other character you play, although this may be open to some flexibility, with the possibility of tracked events in game. The Tome can be used to track the achievements of your group during quests (for example “Bobbeth has killed 4 out of 20 Rabid Squirrels”), allowing you to bypass the RPG equivalent of children crying in the back seat “Are we nearly there yet?” There will be random achievements littered throughout the game, so if you were to, hypothetically, kill your first Dragon using only a lemon, then that might trigger a reward. Rewards offered through random Tome achievements will tend to be more whimsical in nature than practical – something that other players will covet, rather than need. Think armour adornments, statues, items of that nature. The Tome can also be used for Bragging Rights, so if you wish to share your achievements then you can select items from your Tome to show for public consumption. Tell the world how fantastic you are! It’s the role play version of padding your codpiece.
At the present time, it is not possible to store PVP kills in your Tome, but the suggestion of this at the Press Event caused much eyebrow raising and approving noises, so watch this space…
Currently, there are over 10,000 sections to be completed with the Tome, with the aim of constantly updating, and adapting.
RVR
I don’t usually go in for RvR. From my experiences so far, it tends to be herds of people who are all far more serious than I am, in a place that lags greatly, dying and reviving for the purpose of doing it all again. Maybe I’m slightly jaded by the fact I have a very extreme version of online narcolepsy that results in me falling dead every time I get into stressful situations, dragging most people in the vicinity with me, so I’ll admit it was with great trepidation that we booted up the game to take part in RvR. I looked at the smiling, enthusiastic faces of my team mates, and felt deeply ashamed at the death I was going to rain down on them.
It turns out, RvR in Warhammer is terrific fun. That’s such an understated way of phrasing it, but since it’s hard to type a high pitched squealing noise, you’ll just have to believe me when I say it is seriously addictive. You can take part in self contained scenarios, such as Skaven Caverns, or High Pass Cemetery, with team sizes varying depending on the tier level involved (for example, High pass is 12 vs 12, Twisting Tower is 24 vs 24).
[youtubevid]CXXLza5F5Es[/youtubevid]
The objectives differ – some places have a straight death match, with kills the only aim, whilst some, such as Castle Fraggendorf, have complex intertwining objectives, where you have flags to capture, but if the team that is winning is too far ahead for you to feasibly catch-up, you can fetch and detonate a bomb to reset the level. Some levels have NPC involvement as well. In one scenario we took part in, as we scurried about on foot below, towering high above us of on pinnacles of rock perched trolls. Unhelpful, mean trolls who pelted down explosive rocks.
(Tacticians amongst you may wish to take note: Advisable as it is sometimes to fall back, re-group, and stay close together, bitter experience dictates that doing so directly below where trolls are positioned with explosive boulders is not the grandest plan.
The roar of laughter from the opposing team as our entire side spontaneously disintegrated had to be heard to be believed.
Lesson learnt.)
Just to prove I didn’t stink too intensely in RVR, I’ve filmed the scores that appear at the end, which break down individual performances. I’m Thermir, if you’re curious. The Runepriest. Be impressed that I didn’t totally tarnish the FH name. Well, at least not until I played the Choppa :/
[youtubevid]8CPjCsx4dJg[/youtubevid]
There has been some concern from people who have heard that RvR is going to involve cross-server play, in order to minimise queues. The system as it stands currently means that if you do play on a separate server, if your side should win, you would take back a percentage of those points back with you when you return to your realm, so you would still effectively be fighting for your side. This obviously doesn’t answer all the questions about the impact this move will have, but the minutiae still seems to be under scrutiny. As more information is released, I’m sure we will get a better understanding of how this will effect preferred grouping, guild RvR, and how any imbalances between realm strengths might affect the scoring.
RvR is not simply limited to contained scenarios. The megalomaniac and the blood thirsty of you will be pleased to hear it is possible to sack entire cities. While you are in control of an enemy city, you are able to take part in quests, loot and pillage, and generally be involved in a whole range of activities that will no doubt get Tome-a-holics squealing with joy. The longer you are occupying a city however, the more difficult it becomes to hold. NPC combatants will spawn, and try to take back their home, no doubt aided by indignant players. The longer you hold out, the more ferocious the NPC onslaught will become. The pay off? The longer you hold onto a city, the more loot and opportunities become open to you. Dig your heels in, brave the tide of angry foes heading your way, and Confucius Say Fortune Will Be Yours For The Taking.
(By the way… it is possible to miss with the Orcapault, for those of you green blooded and determined to loot and pillage. Apparently it doesn’t happen often, but there is a possibility of flying off into the sunset, or making a rather abrupt stop at a wall. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you…)
There will be 100 ranks within RVR.
Quests At the very beginning, Quests seem very much like familiar territory to anyone who has played WoW, or DAoC. Click, talk, kill, complete, click, talk, collect, complete… The theory that if something isn’t broken, don’t fix it, seems very much in play here, with a few notable exceptions and flourishes:
If your quest is to collect goblin noses, every goblin you kill will have a nose.
The roar of approval from the room when this detail was revealed was staggering.
Anyone that has spent an hour slaughtering goblins, or monkeys, or pirates, in order to collect ten goblin/monkey/pirate noses, only to search the body and find no loot at all will understand why. It starts with vague confusion. Perhaps you will mutter “That’s stupid. I can see it’s nose.” Half an hour in, and you start contemplating messaging a GM, because this is getting pretty ludicrous. An hour later, you are prodding your monitor angrily, screaming “I CAN SEE THE NOSE! JUST CUT OFF IT’S NOSE! FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!”
Well, no longer. Every creature you kill will be anatomically correct, and for that we can all be grateful.
And now for something completely different: Public Quests. Picture this - as you stagger out of the boundaries of the city, you see a battleground in front of you. Stakes are driven into the ground, blockades are hastily erected, guards mill at the brink, wary to venture any further forward. Edge past the safety of the barricade, and immediately you are plunged into a public quest. This is the scenario that I wandered into, although public quests objectives and set-ups vary. Within a PQ zone, the objectives are shared by everyone within range, so can be undertaken solo, or quietly working alongside an ally, or you can actively group up to achieve your goal, depending on your style of play, or who else just happens to be around. In the Quest I was involved in, stage one required killing 20 0rcs, which then triggered the remaining orcs to fall back behind enemy lines . Stage two demanded that I surge forward, and collect 10 barrels of explosives – this section is time limited to 10 minutes. Stage three, the final boss stage, is when all hell breaks loose, and more detailed description of this will have to be left to someone who didn’t drop dead in the onslaught.
All public quests, as far as I can tell, take the form of three stages, and the use of a ten minute timer during sections means you will never be stuck in the middle of a quest at 4 a.m. in the morning, struggling to get to the end, unwilling to log off and let someone else finish what you have started, and moaning lowly with fatigue. Experience from Public Quests are distributed according to contribution, and everyone gets to roll on items, so if you spend all your effort completing the quest, only to have someone nip in at the last minute and strike the final blow on the end boss, don’t cry. Everything is taken into account, and the chances for you to win will be modified.
General Q & A
So here’s the answers to the generic questions.
YES, there will be mounts. You will be able to get knocked off them too, so try not to get too cocky prancing about.
There will be an anon setting in game.
NO plans for /stick
There will be quick transportation from zone to zone, but no details at the moment.
Patching - at the moment it isn’t peer to peer.
There will be potions and depletable items in use.
There will be an in-game e-mail system.
You will be able to have last names.
Yes, there will be death notifications in a zone.
If you are occupying a city when you log out, if you log in and it is no longer under your control, you will appear in the nearest safe location.
You can vary tactics and equipment for different scenarios and enemies - so, you can have a pre-set Bright Wizard fighting outfit, and so on.
Voice coms for guilds are under discussion.
Guilds will level up and gain XP as their players do - rewards will take form of banners, emblems, potions, changing appearance, and other elements.
Guild XP will be gained through varied means, such as achievements, renowned ranks, characters within the guild levelling up, tome unlocks…
There is no limit on guild size at the moment.
No in realm guild fighting.
No disband button for guilds - if your leader loses interest, or gets disgruntled, there is no way for him/her to just kill the guild. Auto-promotion is in place for players to take the place of long term absent, or inactive players.
Banners will be a very big issue in guild play - not simply to show who you are, and your allegiance, but to carry onto the battlefield, give enhancements, and also to be protected. Banners can be taken and destroyed.
Guild housing is not planned for launch, but guild vaults are.
The day cycle takes place over ninety minutes. There will probably be some adjustments to this by the time of launch, but only within a few minutes either way.
There are 22 armour sets - PVE sets (from PVE), RVR (from RVR), Bounty Hunter (from various sources), and Capital City sets, the highest armour awarded for sacking cities.
It is not possible to turn off the armour graphic.
So there you go, if I've missed anything out, ask and I'll see if I can find out the answer for you.
It was tremendous fun, and I met a lot of very nice people, but there was a TWENTY THREE HOUR DELAY OF RUIN on my flight home, aggrevated by the fact that I thought my new flight was at 5.30 a.m., so staggered to the hotel I was being put up in, power slept for two hours, staggered back to the airport, and then discovered my flight wasn't until 5.30 in the afternoon. Fifteen hours early :/ In case you're wondering what boredom and sleep deprivation on a scale like that, in a completely abandoned airport, does to you, this is the answer.
[youtubevid]9G-wEd52ANE[/youtubevid]
Maybe you’ve not even an old school table-top player. Maybe you’ve never spent ages dry brushing a cloak, or contemplating the correct hue for a zombie. Maybe you’ve never sat around until the early hours, eating junk food and trying to stop the Elf in your group from saying something pretentious again. Maybe you’ve only ever played your roleplay games online, starting with Ultima Online, or EverQuest, or Dark Age of Camelot, or World of Warcraft, or any one of the multiple MMORPGS that have spawned since the genre took its first shaky steps online. Maybe you’ve never even played MMORPG before.
Chances are, you’re still looking forward to playing Warhammer.
At the moment, much of Warhammer is masked in mystery, still very much in the cloak and dagger stage of development. The beta is as NDA as it can get – careless talk costs registration. So, when Freddyhouse was given the opportunity to go jab the developers in the ribs, ask pressing questions, and do a bit of old fashioned spying, they leapt at the chance.
Or, more accurately, got me to leap for them.
So, I know some of you will be twitching to just get to the answers, and bypass all my chatter, so here you go:
“Does it live up to the hype?”
Yes. If it was possible to marry a computer game, and have half human, half MMORPG children with it, I think I might just try.
“What about the Elves?”
I’m pretty sure a few of you will be so desperate to know what’s going on with the Elf races that you’ve probably thrown the word into document search, and landed here, so I’ll break it to you gently…
No comment.
Sorry guys, but no matter how you angled the question, casually dropped it into conversation, or re-topped their wine glasses, elves were a discussion no-go. The best I could get was the assurance that all will be revealed by the end of the month.
“How does it look?”
Pretty stunning to be honest. Also, as an old Warhammer fan, someone who used to help my brother build scale buildings from cereal boxes and lollypop sticks, it looks exactly like the warhammer we pictured in our head as kids (and not like the buildings we recreated from cereal boxes and lollypop sticks, you’ll be relieved to hear). The scale is just unbelievable. Towers so tall than the pinnacle vanishes into cloud. Towns alive with NPCs wandering about their daily routines. Dark alley ways sprawling behind rickety buildings. Chaos temples, riddled with eyes, and malformed shapes. Games workshop had played a very big role in influencing the look, and it shows.
[youtubevid]XXE-HAEhMn8[/youtubevid]
At the end of this post, you’ll find some quick answers to quick questions, so if you’re feeling impatient, start scrolling down now. Otherwise, let me take you on a more leisurely tour of the game, starting with some very wobbly footage of the starter zones (proof of why my jenga skills are minimal)…
[youtubevid]YES3OEHWUog[/youtubevid]
THE TOME OF KNOWLEDGE: This is the element that is said to help Warhammer stand apart from many games that have come before it. How does it work?
Well, let’s put it this way. If you were the kid who couldn’t rest until their sticker book was full, or who collected Scout/Girl Guide badges so obsessively that they had to stitch a third arm onto your back to sow them on to, then this is where your eye is going to start twitching and your palms will start sweating. In fact, if you are even the remotest bit OCD like in nature, then prepare to let go of any plans for daylight. Ever again.
The Tome of Knowledge works on many different levels. It will be a constantly updating chronicle of your progress, recording battles you have been involved in, creatures you have killed, places you have visited, lore and history you have learnt. As it is filled, as (not always specified) targets are achieved, experience and rewards will be given.
Perhaps you are the type of player who will climb to the top of a hill, purely to see what is there. Maybe you like to jump off cliffs, to discover if it is possible to reach that rocky ledge instead of simply plummeting to your doom. The game actively encourages such “Curiosity Killed The Cat” type behaviour by lacing the world with secret triggers for the Tome of Knowledge, locations that will divulge some gem of knowledge, grant experience, or tick a box on an unknown list of achievements. In short, the Tome encourages you to interact with the world, to explore, to make your own choices, rather than simply following quests in a bovine fashion to the next location.
As you fight creatures, the Tome also logs this information in a Bestiary. Say for example you are fighting rabbits – the first time you kill one, an entry will be made in your Tome, outlining your basic understanding of the species. The more you kill, the more in-depth your understanding becomes. Kill targets will become unveiled as you progress – e.g. kill 50 rabbits, and gain 20 xp, kill 1000 rabbits and gain 500 xp… Titles can also be bestowed upon you this way. Kill an insane amount of rabbits, and you may just end of with a title such as my hastily made-up Damini: Uber Rabbit Slayer. As someone who strays towards the more delicate shades of inept when it comes to gaming, the idea of titles for lower end achievements pleases me greatly. I may never become Supreme Over-Lord Of All She Surveys, but there is at least hope for me making the cast of Watership Down tremble at the mention of my name.
The Tome allows a player to learn the history of the Warhammer realm, and their chosen race in particular, outlining the basics to those completely new to the world, and adding more detailed flourishes and stories to those already familiar with the lay of the land. Travel to new locations, click on random items, discover an unmarked grave off the beaten track, or an abandoned book in a dusty mine, and new chapters of the story will open up to you. Not all disclosures are told from the perspective of your character – for example, if you are playing a dwarf, you may find a detailed study of your race written from the clinical view point of a high elf. As you progress through different areas, and levels, an over arching story and history will reveal itself.
At the moment, the Tome is character specific, so information you gather will not be sharable with other character you play, although this may be open to some flexibility, with the possibility of tracked events in game. The Tome can be used to track the achievements of your group during quests (for example “Bobbeth has killed 4 out of 20 Rabid Squirrels”), allowing you to bypass the RPG equivalent of children crying in the back seat “Are we nearly there yet?” There will be random achievements littered throughout the game, so if you were to, hypothetically, kill your first Dragon using only a lemon, then that might trigger a reward. Rewards offered through random Tome achievements will tend to be more whimsical in nature than practical – something that other players will covet, rather than need. Think armour adornments, statues, items of that nature. The Tome can also be used for Bragging Rights, so if you wish to share your achievements then you can select items from your Tome to show for public consumption. Tell the world how fantastic you are! It’s the role play version of padding your codpiece.
At the present time, it is not possible to store PVP kills in your Tome, but the suggestion of this at the Press Event caused much eyebrow raising and approving noises, so watch this space…
Currently, there are over 10,000 sections to be completed with the Tome, with the aim of constantly updating, and adapting.
RVR
I don’t usually go in for RvR. From my experiences so far, it tends to be herds of people who are all far more serious than I am, in a place that lags greatly, dying and reviving for the purpose of doing it all again. Maybe I’m slightly jaded by the fact I have a very extreme version of online narcolepsy that results in me falling dead every time I get into stressful situations, dragging most people in the vicinity with me, so I’ll admit it was with great trepidation that we booted up the game to take part in RvR. I looked at the smiling, enthusiastic faces of my team mates, and felt deeply ashamed at the death I was going to rain down on them.
It turns out, RvR in Warhammer is terrific fun. That’s such an understated way of phrasing it, but since it’s hard to type a high pitched squealing noise, you’ll just have to believe me when I say it is seriously addictive. You can take part in self contained scenarios, such as Skaven Caverns, or High Pass Cemetery, with team sizes varying depending on the tier level involved (for example, High pass is 12 vs 12, Twisting Tower is 24 vs 24).
[youtubevid]CXXLza5F5Es[/youtubevid]
The objectives differ – some places have a straight death match, with kills the only aim, whilst some, such as Castle Fraggendorf, have complex intertwining objectives, where you have flags to capture, but if the team that is winning is too far ahead for you to feasibly catch-up, you can fetch and detonate a bomb to reset the level. Some levels have NPC involvement as well. In one scenario we took part in, as we scurried about on foot below, towering high above us of on pinnacles of rock perched trolls. Unhelpful, mean trolls who pelted down explosive rocks.
(Tacticians amongst you may wish to take note: Advisable as it is sometimes to fall back, re-group, and stay close together, bitter experience dictates that doing so directly below where trolls are positioned with explosive boulders is not the grandest plan.
The roar of laughter from the opposing team as our entire side spontaneously disintegrated had to be heard to be believed.
Lesson learnt.)
Just to prove I didn’t stink too intensely in RVR, I’ve filmed the scores that appear at the end, which break down individual performances. I’m Thermir, if you’re curious. The Runepriest. Be impressed that I didn’t totally tarnish the FH name. Well, at least not until I played the Choppa :/
[youtubevid]8CPjCsx4dJg[/youtubevid]
There has been some concern from people who have heard that RvR is going to involve cross-server play, in order to minimise queues. The system as it stands currently means that if you do play on a separate server, if your side should win, you would take back a percentage of those points back with you when you return to your realm, so you would still effectively be fighting for your side. This obviously doesn’t answer all the questions about the impact this move will have, but the minutiae still seems to be under scrutiny. As more information is released, I’m sure we will get a better understanding of how this will effect preferred grouping, guild RvR, and how any imbalances between realm strengths might affect the scoring.
RvR is not simply limited to contained scenarios. The megalomaniac and the blood thirsty of you will be pleased to hear it is possible to sack entire cities. While you are in control of an enemy city, you are able to take part in quests, loot and pillage, and generally be involved in a whole range of activities that will no doubt get Tome-a-holics squealing with joy. The longer you are occupying a city however, the more difficult it becomes to hold. NPC combatants will spawn, and try to take back their home, no doubt aided by indignant players. The longer you hold out, the more ferocious the NPC onslaught will become. The pay off? The longer you hold onto a city, the more loot and opportunities become open to you. Dig your heels in, brave the tide of angry foes heading your way, and Confucius Say Fortune Will Be Yours For The Taking.
(By the way… it is possible to miss with the Orcapault, for those of you green blooded and determined to loot and pillage. Apparently it doesn’t happen often, but there is a possibility of flying off into the sunset, or making a rather abrupt stop at a wall. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you…)
There will be 100 ranks within RVR.
Quests At the very beginning, Quests seem very much like familiar territory to anyone who has played WoW, or DAoC. Click, talk, kill, complete, click, talk, collect, complete… The theory that if something isn’t broken, don’t fix it, seems very much in play here, with a few notable exceptions and flourishes:
If your quest is to collect goblin noses, every goblin you kill will have a nose.
The roar of approval from the room when this detail was revealed was staggering.
Anyone that has spent an hour slaughtering goblins, or monkeys, or pirates, in order to collect ten goblin/monkey/pirate noses, only to search the body and find no loot at all will understand why. It starts with vague confusion. Perhaps you will mutter “That’s stupid. I can see it’s nose.” Half an hour in, and you start contemplating messaging a GM, because this is getting pretty ludicrous. An hour later, you are prodding your monitor angrily, screaming “I CAN SEE THE NOSE! JUST CUT OFF IT’S NOSE! FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!”
Well, no longer. Every creature you kill will be anatomically correct, and for that we can all be grateful.
And now for something completely different: Public Quests. Picture this - as you stagger out of the boundaries of the city, you see a battleground in front of you. Stakes are driven into the ground, blockades are hastily erected, guards mill at the brink, wary to venture any further forward. Edge past the safety of the barricade, and immediately you are plunged into a public quest. This is the scenario that I wandered into, although public quests objectives and set-ups vary. Within a PQ zone, the objectives are shared by everyone within range, so can be undertaken solo, or quietly working alongside an ally, or you can actively group up to achieve your goal, depending on your style of play, or who else just happens to be around. In the Quest I was involved in, stage one required killing 20 0rcs, which then triggered the remaining orcs to fall back behind enemy lines . Stage two demanded that I surge forward, and collect 10 barrels of explosives – this section is time limited to 10 minutes. Stage three, the final boss stage, is when all hell breaks loose, and more detailed description of this will have to be left to someone who didn’t drop dead in the onslaught.
All public quests, as far as I can tell, take the form of three stages, and the use of a ten minute timer during sections means you will never be stuck in the middle of a quest at 4 a.m. in the morning, struggling to get to the end, unwilling to log off and let someone else finish what you have started, and moaning lowly with fatigue. Experience from Public Quests are distributed according to contribution, and everyone gets to roll on items, so if you spend all your effort completing the quest, only to have someone nip in at the last minute and strike the final blow on the end boss, don’t cry. Everything is taken into account, and the chances for you to win will be modified.
General Q & A
So here’s the answers to the generic questions.
YES, there will be mounts. You will be able to get knocked off them too, so try not to get too cocky prancing about.
There will be an anon setting in game.
NO plans for /stick
There will be quick transportation from zone to zone, but no details at the moment.
Patching - at the moment it isn’t peer to peer.
There will be potions and depletable items in use.
There will be an in-game e-mail system.
You will be able to have last names.
Yes, there will be death notifications in a zone.
If you are occupying a city when you log out, if you log in and it is no longer under your control, you will appear in the nearest safe location.
You can vary tactics and equipment for different scenarios and enemies - so, you can have a pre-set Bright Wizard fighting outfit, and so on.
Voice coms for guilds are under discussion.
Guilds will level up and gain XP as their players do - rewards will take form of banners, emblems, potions, changing appearance, and other elements.
Guild XP will be gained through varied means, such as achievements, renowned ranks, characters within the guild levelling up, tome unlocks…
There is no limit on guild size at the moment.
No in realm guild fighting.
No disband button for guilds - if your leader loses interest, or gets disgruntled, there is no way for him/her to just kill the guild. Auto-promotion is in place for players to take the place of long term absent, or inactive players.
Banners will be a very big issue in guild play - not simply to show who you are, and your allegiance, but to carry onto the battlefield, give enhancements, and also to be protected. Banners can be taken and destroyed.
Guild housing is not planned for launch, but guild vaults are.
The day cycle takes place over ninety minutes. There will probably be some adjustments to this by the time of launch, but only within a few minutes either way.
There are 22 armour sets - PVE sets (from PVE), RVR (from RVR), Bounty Hunter (from various sources), and Capital City sets, the highest armour awarded for sacking cities.
It is not possible to turn off the armour graphic.
So there you go, if I've missed anything out, ask and I'll see if I can find out the answer for you.
It was tremendous fun, and I met a lot of very nice people, but there was a TWENTY THREE HOUR DELAY OF RUIN on my flight home, aggrevated by the fact that I thought my new flight was at 5.30 a.m., so staggered to the hotel I was being put up in, power slept for two hours, staggered back to the airport, and then discovered my flight wasn't until 5.30 in the afternoon. Fifteen hours early :/ In case you're wondering what boredom and sleep deprivation on a scale like that, in a completely abandoned airport, does to you, this is the answer.
[youtubevid]9G-wEd52ANE[/youtubevid]
