# Friday, August 29, 2008
I'm currently waiting for Warhammer Online to launch and therefore have been doing a little house keeping in regards to the site.

On the right hand menu you may notice I have added an FAQ page, if you have any questions you would like me to answer then send them to shane at uopodcasting dot com and Ill get to answering them one day, hopefully before the sun burns out or man has nuked himself into oblivion.

Cheers
Shane

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# Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Last night was the final night of the preview weekend and a lot of players turned out on the Oceanic server to put on a large scale siege in the tier two area of the game. Below are a number of screen shots I took while fighting with my order mates in an attempt to take back out keep.

One thing that did become obvious to me which I'm seeking answers on is: If Destruction takes our keep like they did last night, how do they defend it and their own keep? I mean as the attackers we only have to attack one keep at a time, but the defenders would have to split there force and try and defend two keeps. Or do both armies just battle it across the map as they run between keeps?

On a side note, if I post screen shots and below the post it has read more, click it because more screen shots will be in the post itself. Click the images and cycling through them from the main page only shows the images on the main page.

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# Sunday, August 24, 2008
As you may be able to tell from the screen shots, I am having a blast in Warhammer and still continue to think Mythic have a hit on their hands. Now that I have managed to spend a lot more time in game and experience more of the content, I still give it a two thumbs up. One of things that I have liked about the character classes in Warhammer is all classes have a job to do and depending on how well they do it will effect the out come of a battle.

These first two days are showing that a bunch of people madly running around leveling and fighting is a blast, but when guilds start getting organised in raising war parties and fighting for the battle field objectives its only going to get better. Anyway that's enough of the gushing like a school girl, how does the RvR feel?

Last night I experienced my first RvR battle and it was good in that not a lot of people were at that stage of the game and therefore it gave us a view of what it will be like when the games been out for 6 to 12 months and a lot of the player base has maxed out their levels and playing in the higher level tiers. One thing is a party of 6 players is not going to just roll up to a keep and lay claim to it unless they are well organised, meaning small pick up groups wont likely succeed. The keep lord and NPC's that control the keeps are suitably tough and therefore require a little more organisation than just showing up. One thing that was an issue in Dark Age of Camelot when I played was getting siege equipment into the battle field and working. Mythic obviously has this sorted in that siege equipment can easily be purchased in your war camp and carried to the front. This allows sieging to focus on the battle instead of the mechanics which is great.
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Ok here are a series of screen shots from this weekends preview. Most of them are PvP focused with a couple of PvE. I rolled a Witch Hunter and have had such a blast playing this character that I think this will become my main when the game goes live. Though the requirement for healers is still something that we need within the guild, only issue is that an effective healer in RvR is a dead healer as they are the first target.

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# Saturday, August 23, 2008
Last night the servers for Warhammer Online opened for the preview weekend. What a blast it was with literally hundreds of people running around the newbie zone doing quests and getting in to RvR. Hats off to Mythic in that not once did I experience a problem where there were to many players and not enough quest NPC or MOB's. What really made my night was I made about 6 levels purely through PvP by playing the scenarios.

Six of my guild mates and I spent a good a couple of hours doing scenarios and leveling. It was the most fun I have had in an MMO doing the starter levels. I now see how someone could completely level just doing PvP. The other good thing was the scenarios were a blast and a couple of hours slide past before I even knew it. Add in the fact that the public quests are also available and if you want you can do the traditional quests, you have a number of paths you can take to leveling. In fact I have made level 10 and have a crap load of traditional quests that I haven't even bothered getting around to doing.

The enjoyment of being able to get into PvP from level one was simply brillant. In Age of Conan (AOC) you can start PvPing from about level 4 as thats the level you are when you reach the other players in the game. However the PvP is pointless in that killing someone does nothing but give you bragging rights. The other problem is the higher level characters tend to sit around the starting area and have there fun ganking people 10 levels below them.
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# Friday, August 22, 2008
Yesterday I mentioned that we are looking like we will get three servers down under. Well I logged in this morning to see if the beta was open again and I noticed that the server names from yesterday have been changed. Good news is we definitely look like having three servers on launch.



Also those that are not in the closed beta, but have been accepted to the preview weekend can now patch there client. I tested this with my preview account and it authenticated and patched the client.

Cheers
Shane
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# Thursday, August 21, 2008
Mythic have stated they are going to release three server types on launch of Warhammer. Those type are Core, Open RvR and Core RP. So speculation has been what sort of server type would we get down under. Well I think I have the answer.

ALL THREE!!!!!
You heard it here first :-)
Cheers
Shane
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Man does Mythic know how to make CGI videos.

Check this out: http://mythicmktg.fileburst.com/war/us/home/flash/WAR_cinematic_08.html

Also for those that want to know about quests, maps and all the other things that make up Warhammer, www.wardb.com looks to be a great resource.

Cheers
Shane
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I managed to get use of a friends closed beta account for Warhammer Online and I have to say my first 6 hours in game have been very impressive. Which I wouldn’t expect anything less, considering Age of Conan for the first twenty levels was content rich and provided a great gaming experience. I mean if you cant get the first twenty levels right, your game is doomed from the onset.




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# Wednesday, August 20, 2008
The NDA for Warhammer Online has been lifted as Mythic prepare to launch there next RVR focused MMO. I stated previously that I was not going to play Warhammer, well I have relented as the guild I joined have all moved from AOC and are starting in War.

One thing I can say is the design documents I have read and the way the game is focused around Realm versus Realm this game is certainly shaping up to be an excellent time sink. Mythic have a lot of experience with RvR in Dark Age of Camelot and therefore should have learned a lot to whats required to make the experience fun and addictive. So for your viewing pleasure I am posting some screen shots of my first romp in War.

Expect more to come over the next couple of weeks as I use the beta period to try all of the characters I can so as to know what I want as a main when the game launches.



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# Friday, August 08, 2008
Well AOC has been fun. However Funcom missed the mark releasing a PvP centric game that had no point to its PvP. Funcom still struggles to implement its PvP patch. War appears to have the Realm v Realm element well designed and implemented. Which is the benefit of being the company that pioneered alot of the first gen RvR. As much as I cursed the game in my last post, Im going were the friends/guild is going and thats WAR

I made level 72 before nearly everyone in the guild had left. I have read alot of the design elements for War, they seem solid enough and heaven knows, Mythic learnt alot from DAOC.

Cya you in WAAAAAGGGHHH.

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