warhammer

This weekend’s warfront is open for battle. The scenario ‘Talabec Dam’ is available for all tiers. Grab the Powder Keg and obliterate the enemies! 'Talabec Massacre' is now live and will continue until Monday, 01/30.

Testing has begun for the upcoming 4X game, StarDrive.  For an intro to the game, check out this post.  The game is still in its early stages, but I am impressed enough that I want to start showing it off.  First up, lets check out the scale of the game. You are able to zoom out to a galactic view, then zoom in all the way to the individual ship.  The one is the video is your flagship, which you directly control. At the end of the video I show off the firing arcs.  Each weapon has its own arc and range, making placement very important.  When showing the arcs, you also get a view of the ships design, which I found to be really cool.  I can't wait to get in there and customize my ships. For more information about StarDrive, visit their website.

WAR Update: More Tests Sessions on Warpstone http://t.co/WP0W05TL

Greetings, We will going through the Grovod Caverns scenario, tonight from 8 to 10pm EST. We will run a massive run through of Forts, Relics, and Grovod on Friday, January 27th from 6 to 10pm EST. We have a few codes to give away, and will be randomly selecting a few players from among the PTS participants present for each testing block. Hope to see you out there!

Greetings,

We will going through the Grovod Caverns scenario, tonight from 8 to 10pm EST.

We will run a massive run through of Forts, Relics, and Grovod on Friday, January 27th from 6 to 10pm EST.

We have a few codes to give away, and will be randomly selecting a few players from among the PTS participants present for each testing block.

Hope to see you out there!

• Interview with James Casey
• Producer’s Interview on Waaagh.de
• Relic Raid Tests on Warpstone
• Things to do in the Holiday Break
• Producer’s Interview on MMORPG.com

Don't forget to check out Warhammer leveling guide reviews! This post brought to you by Warhammer Online News

More Tests Sessions on Warpstone

• They have a ton of health.  Healer archetypes have ~240,000 hp and the rest have ~160,000hp.
• Each has 5 abilities for the player to use.  
• They do not do a lot of damage/healing, less than most players.  However, some have some nice utility.
• The Fortress Generals are only available when a Fort is claimed.
• If you take a General too far away from the Fort, you will revert to your original form.  Dying is the only other way to drop the General.

General Telissys, Archmage General Lanfenthi, Swordmaster General Aeloyll, White Lion General Noresiteal, Shadow Warrior

WAR Update: Account Center Maintenance - 01/25 http://t.co/HAqsv2cX

Greetings, We will bring down the Account Center for a maintenance tomorrow, Wednesday January 25th, at 8am EST (14:00 CET). During the maintenance you will not be able to change subscription, redeem game codes or transfer characters. At the moment we anticipate the Account Center to be back online at 1:00pm EST (19:00 CET). Thank you for your understanding.

• They have a ton of health.  Healer archetypes have ~240,000 hp and the rest have ~160,000hp.
• Each has 5 abilities for the player to use.  
• They do not do a lot of damage/healing, less than most players.  However, some have some nice utility.
• The Fortress Generals are only available when a Fort is claimed.
• If you take a General too far away from the Fort, you will revert to your original form.  Dying is the only other way to drop the General.

General Abagar, Warrior Priest General Gelonas, Knight of the Blazing Sun General Kabaspar, Witch Hunter General Ralottolf, Bright Wizzard

• They have a ton of health.  Healer archetypes have ~240,000 hp and the rest have ~160,000hp.
• Each has 5 abilities for the player to use.  
• They do not do a lot of damage/healing, less than most players.  However, some have some nice utility.
• The Fortress Generals are only available when a Fort is claimed.
• If you take a General too far away from the Fort, you will revert to your original form.  Dying is the only other way to drop the General.

General Ragalitz, Choppa

WAR Update: Weekend Warfront - Stonetroll Slaughter http://t.co/xPgqUjs2

This weekend’s warfront is open for battle. The scenario ‘Stonetroll Crossing’ is available for all tiers. Pick up the Troll Pacifier and to subdue the Trolls to defeat your enemies! 'Stonetroll Slaughter' is now live and will continue until Monday, 01/23.

This weekend’s warfront is open for battle. The scenario ‘Stonetroll Crossing’ is available for all tiers. Pick up the Troll Pacifier and to subdue the Trolls to defeat your enemies!

‘Stonetroll Slaughter’ is now live and will continue until Monday, 01/23.

• Weekend Warfront - Stonetroll Slaughter
• Weekend Warfront - Spirit of War
• Weekend Warfront - Forged in Blood
• Weekend Warfront - Talabec Massacre
• Weekend Warfront - Battle at the Cairn

Don't forget to check out Warhammer leveling guide reviews! This post brought to you by Warhammer Online News

Weekend Warfront - Stonetroll Slaughter

Earlier this week, I mentioned that I was tempted to make a SWTOR alt.  I'm sad/happy to announce that I have given in and rolled a new character.  I decided to stay on the Republic side, so I could build up my trade skill network.  The class choice turned out to be an even tougher decision. I was very tempted to make a Smuggler.  It looks like a fun class with a lot of character.  However, there were a couple of things working against it.  One, I had already done Ord Mantell with my Trooper.  Two,  I have been using blasters a lot already.  As a result, I rolled a Jedi Knight. Tirew, my long time WAR character, was reborn in SWTOR.  So far, I am having a lot of fun with the class.  Being able to Force Leap is pretty nice, and he makes very quick work of enemies at this early level.  Once he reaches level 10, I'll probably pick up Cybertech, Underworld Trading and Slicing.  That way I can keep my group of characters in Armoring mods. SWTOR is having a bit of a rough week.  I won't go into details, as I'm sure you know.  Unlike some drama obsessed bloggers, it really doesn't bother me.  I am into SWTOR for the long term, so short term issues are not much of a concern.  Besides, it's just a game.

Stellar Fortune is an always evolving project of mine.  Will it ever actually see the light of day as a real game?  I hope so.  Until then, I use it as a platform to try new ideas and technology.  This week saw important changes for the project, which I'm pretty excited about. Kendo UI.  Much of the work that has gone into the web version of SF is Javascript.  Using JQuery worked pretty well, but it soon became clear that it was just getting to be too big and complex.   I took a look at some frameworks and settled on Kendo UI.  It wraps up JQuery into a lot of nice controls, including a DataSource model. Here is what Stellar Fortune looks like now: Agents.  Since I don't want SF to be about combat (there will be some), it occurred to me, why does a player need a ship?  Customizing a freighter is only so much fun.  Flying stuff from point A to Point B is also not very exciting, even though the decision making process can be. As a result, I made Agents to do all of the actual work and leave the decision making to the players.  In the trade example, a player would choose an Agent from a list, and he/she would move the goods for them.  Then the player would sell the goods. Agents can also be hired permanently, if the player owns a company.  They can be trained for new skills ( pirating, factory management and so on) and given ships.  Most importantly, they can be hired out.  So beyond some starting Agents, I hope everything is done with player companies. Now on to my current problem.  Space is hazardous, so Agents can be told to avoid sectors.  This will cause them to take a different route.  A different route means a longer trip, more fuel spent and the destination may be out of range. The hazard could pop up after the Agent is en route, so what happens then?  If they cannot make it to the destination, does the whole job just get cancelled?  That would kinda suck for the player.  Recalculating paths is also not very cheap resource wise. I'm sure there is a good compromise somewhere.  Range limits could add a lot of depth to the game.  The map is pretty empty, so it will be up to players to build the infrastructure.

Just before the start of 2012, I got an invite into the “beta” for DotA 2. As you can probably guess, I was quite excited. I played the original DotA via Warcraft 3 more than I would care to admit, and had recently been immersing myself into its spiritual successor LoL (sorry, never actually tried HoN). LoL is a fabulous game, it’s fun, it’s competitive, and it has a lot of light, whimsical aspects that keep it from being some oppressive entity. DotA 2 feels, in many ways like a different game from LoL. Which fits, since it is, you know, a different game. I can boil down the differences between the two in one word: Unforgiving.

DotA 2 is definitely for the far more hardcore player-base. There is no going to a lane, and auto-attacking creeps to get the kills and push the tower. Though that still happens in a general sort of overview.  Where in LoL, focusing on last-hits is something you find in ranked games, and is ignored in every single PUG game I’ve played (ever), auto-attacking in a lane is almost sure to generate a comment every time in DotA 2.

Of course, you also have the return of denies.

Oh, sweet, sweet denies, how I have missed you. If you missed the original, in DotA you could attack your own units, your own towers, even your fellow teammates. What that lead to, is a strategy of denying kills. When you kill your own unit, it stops the gold for the kill from being divided to the opponent AND the miss out on the experience from its death. This can add up very quickly. A person who is good at denying creeps, especially in the early game, can easily create a level plus gap between themself and their lane opponent. It hurts to receive, and makes you laugh with glee when you accomplish it.

Level gaps are hard to overcome, and the gold gap is just as unforgiving. One big contributor makes the situation even more desperate than any other MOBA I have played: when you die, you lose gold. Significantly. So, if your opponent is denying you hard, uses their advantage to jump you in an unforgiving moment, you get to sit there dead not gaining any experience, and weep a little inside as the stockpile of gold you had been saving just dropped faster than the U.S. employment rate. Poor play is rewarded brutally and is very unforgiving. What can seem like a simple mistake can quickly cascade into catastrophic failure.

You may be thinking to yourself how terrible this makes the game sound, but it doesn’t. In fact, just the opposite. I’ve been going to DotA 2 nearly every time I would have gone to LoL in the past. It’s eating up the majority of my gaming time this month, and poor Skyrim has been feeling ignored because of it. If you enjoyed the original DotA, you will love the hell out of this. If you get easily frustrated, your beginning here will be painful. The learning curve for those new to the genre is tremendous, and becomes shallower the closer you move to DotA familiarity. Even I had to get back in the groove so to speak, and remember how different the gameplay is, and what gear does what.

Of course, it has some issues, every game does. But nothing that seems game-breaking. The progression system isn’t involved yet, and I haven’t found a good reporting system. A lot of the heroes aren’t implemented yet (Phantom Lancer, k thx?), but there is a very robust selection available. I feel as if the UI, and particularly the item shop could use a bit of tweaking to fine-tune and smooth out the experience, but overall, it gets my rocks off.

Not sure what else there is to say about it.

It took around a month, but my Commando has finally finished Chapter 1 of his class story.  Level wise, I am 32 which is what the final quest wanted.  Overall, I enjoyed the first story quite a bit.  I also felt that the final fight was pretty satisfying.  My companion, M1-4X, died and I was left with only a couple hundred hit points. For my Legacy, I chose 'The Werit Legacy'.'  Crazy, I know.  I am very interested to see what else they have planned for that system. Now on to the temptation.  My original plan was to play the Trooper until 50, then roll an alt.  However, now I'm wondering if I should start that alt right now.  The main motivator for this is crew skills.   If I start an alt now, his crew skills can support Quentin here in a relatively short amount of time.  If I wait until 50, they won't be useful anytime soon. Then I start wondering if I should roll an Imperial Agent, which looks awesome.  He would be of no help Crew Skill wise to my Commando, but it'd be a different leveling up experience.  On the other hand, a Smuggler looks pretty cool too.  The downside is that I would revisit areas I just got through. I'm not sure what i should do.  Start Chapter 2, or roll an alt.  Hmmmmm

This week, Mythic will be holding three testing sessions on the PTS in order to test the new Relic system.  Each session will focus on a different pairing.

• Wednesday, January 18th  8-10 pm EST (1-3 am GMT) - Dwarfs vs Greenskins - Thunder Mountain
• Friday, January 20th  4–6 pm EST (9-11 pm GMT) - Empire vs Chaos - Praag
• Monday, January 23rd  8-10 pm EST (1-3 am GMT) High Elves vs Darkelves - Dragonwake

WAR Update: Relic Raid Tests on Warpstone http://t.co/FY2V3fnx

We invite you to join us in the tests of the new relic raid system and the fortresses in three sessions:

• Wednesday, January 18th        8-10 pm EST (1-3 am GMT)
• Dwarfs vs Greenskins - Thunder Mountain

• Friday, January 20th        4–6 pm EST (9-11 pm GMT)
• Empire vs Chaos - Praag

• Monday, January

  23rd        8-10 pm EST (1-3 am GMT)

• Highelves vs Darkelves - Dragonwake

Please have your character ready for action in the warcamps of the specific zone.  Templates will be available and we will assist with the formation of guilds and alliances.

See you on the battlefields!

• Q and A with James Casey
• Happy Winter Holidays
• Things to do in the Holiday Break
• Upcoming Free Server Transfers
• Producer’s Interview on Waaagh.de

Don't forget to check out Warhammer leveling guide reviews! This post brought to you by Warhammer Online News

Relic Raid Tests on Warpstone