-thade out.

It’s not you, Warhammer; it’s me.

I tried, I really did, and I admit without shame that the archmage is still my favorite MMO-style healer (it is seriously so fun), but it’s just not for me. It hurts I think that none of my RL friends will return to it; I considered doing it myself, but alas it feels like a lonely world in there with only two people playing that I still recognize from my dormant guild. Whatever flare I need for a game to have, Warhammer just don’t have it. So…I cancelled my account (again). My 10-day free trial expires on Monday.

Today I went out and bought myself some space marines and orks, which came in a nice, reasonably cost effective starter kit. My friend is unreasonably good at painting miniatures (he’s been doing it as a hobby for years and they could sell very well…if he could part with them) and I have commissioned him to paint them for me. I’ve read through the rule-book and I’m extremely excited about the dimensionality of customization and combat events; it’s huge. The downside is, my friends are all skittish to play (as the investment to get into it is pretty hefty), so I figure if I have two small armies, we can at least play and see how it is…then maybe very slowly accumulate armies if we dig it.

So, sports-fans, I’d like to thank those of you who took notice at my brief resurgence into the Warhammer blog-o-sphere. I miss the blogging circuit more than the game (turns out, a lot more), and so I think I’ll stick around and actively read again (easy to do as some of my favorites have moved on to non-specific blogs about fun games) until I figure out something to write about again.

Sorry, archmagery. Time again for you to fall into respected disuse. <3

Darkfall. Fail?

I haven’t tried it, but after reading a bit over at Keen & Graev’s, I kind of wanted to. Then I read up on it on wikipedia and read something I haven’t had nightmares about since Diablo 1:

Unrestricted PVP (i.e. gank as you please) and full looting (lose your stuff to the ganker when you die).

Apparently gear isn’t the emphasis – skills are far more weighty – but still…it’s your freakin gear. And that’s not the best part.

There is a tutorial on how to buy the game.
http://unmoderated.info/forums/showthread.php?t=715
http://forums.darkfallonline.com/showthread.php?p=2984692

That’s right. They are force-staggering players joining the game by selling a certain number each day (but not every day, and not at the same time).

So let’s recap, shall we?

Unrestricted PvP. Lose all your stuff when you die to the way over-leveled jerkbag that killed you. And you had to make a special effort to buy the damned game.

It’s a shame, since the idea of classless/skill-based advancement (a la Elder Scrolls) was sort of appealing to me. Perhaps I’m selling this game short, but honestly…I don’t suspect that I am.

Stream of thought.

I really enjoy the archmage class. I always enjoyed playing a devoted healer role in WoW, even when the rest of the game got frustrating and boring (srsly, Gruul? Again?? Gotta farm everybody their T4 shoulder pieces…), and here I am doing it in a far more dynamic and active environment. There’s a lot more variation in PVP than PVE (a good Gruul fight should work like a symphony, just like every other good Gruul fight) by its very nature.

I really appreciated being thanked repeated for rezzing and healing people.

I liked the fact that I’m lv29 and still contributing to taking terrain/BOs up to (but not including) the cities. Fortunately there hasn’t been a city siege since my return, so I haven’t missed anything (or at least, I haven’t logged in and found myself excluded). Another quest or two should level me to 30…RVR leveling is a lot slower than I remember, but it might just be because of my level.

Shield of Saphery still only works within my immediate group, which is kind of dumb. I can understand from a programming perspective why they wouldn’t want, say, my AOE heal to work based on range instead of party, but a single-target spell? Doesn’t make sense to me even now.

I don’t know that I like the WoW mentality people seem to have of trying to schedule/engineer the “flipping” of zones. I more enjoyed the early mentality everybody seemed to have of “hold on to our territory! down with teh bad guys!”. I read somewhere that Mythic designed a game with the players of DAOC and Everquest in mind…and instead they have World of Warcraft players. While it might be more marketable to design a game for those clowns, I agree with Mythic: their current game design is thematically very good. I like it. I wonder if having three factions really would improve this dynamic, as it did in DAOC, or if – thanks to WoW – those days of MMOing are behind us?

I promoted an alt to the role of guild leader in For Science and removed my main from it. It was a bit hard as it made me miss my old little team; fortunately I play other games with said peeps, but odds are low that they’ll return to WAR.

What are the odds that I’ll stick around? I love my class, but I’m not sure I even appreciate the game itself anymore. I have a few more days of free-time to decide…though I might give it a bit longer as I wasn’t aware of the 10-day thing and had already planned to spend $15 anyway.

The trend seems to be for WAR blog writers to upgrade themselves to a new, cross-game blog. I’m not sure if I play enough games to do something similar or not, but the thought had occurred to me. Although Syp is doing a stellar job, so – just like last time (when I wondered if I should write a blog about WAR) and I considered that people were already doing a great job, what could I contribute – here I am again, wondering how I can find something that no one has yet focused on which I can talk about…something that also interests me a great deal.

I like archmages. So much cooler than a WoW priest.

My buddy in-game told me that the game wasn’t all that great in my absence, but was on the upswing, and people were looking forward to the Land of the Dead. I wonder if people will come back to check it out? If they do, how long will they stay? What sort of impact will they have either way?

WAR, I wish you had been published before or even alongside WoW, before all these kids minds were polluted.

What I’m thinking.

WAR: The game is still pretty fun, but when I left I had an opinion which hasn’t changed…and has been further reinforced by this article by Snaffy, whom it seems I am in agreement with: I do think that three factions would be very good for WAR.

“Couldn’t they just change that,” says my girlfriend. “Add a third faction? I mean, I don’t play video games, but they can usually change anything they want, right?”

“Yeah, they can change it,” I said. “But odds are very high that they won’t.”

Don’t get me wrong, I still kind of enjoy it, and the jury is still out as to whether or not I will stick with it for more than my ten free days. But currently Order is *steamrolling* Destro on my server. Effortlessly. I honestly don’t see why Destro still tries.

Meanwhile, there is this certain kind of game I’ve always wanted to get into, but after having been told “It’s worth the price of admission for the first month, but not worth subscribing to,” I never bothered with City of Heroes. That said, I just signed up – with hope – for the Champions Online beta. I like the idea of flying around zones without a really annoying, you can’t fight while you’re on me but you can get dismounted and fall to your death, cookie-cutter mount.

Feeling my way back into my role.

I gained a level…a full bar, even (apparently I had left the game just after dinging 28); it went by pretty quick between open RVR, three quests, and a handful of scenarios. One of the perks granted to me coming back was rested XP for all the time I was gone…and that might mean I could ride rested all the way to 40 if I choose to.

In solo I make extensive use of the old Archmage mechanic, but as I fight in RVR I can see how the newly proposed mechanic could be a lot better. This is painfully obvious in scenarios where if I try to balance between doing damage and healing, I look like a shitty healer (as my damage is barely noticable) but if I just spam heals the entire time, blowing Tranquility exclusively on Transfer Force spells, my heals come out in an almost respectable range. Were it the case that the mechanic was inverted as they propose (that is, casting heal spells makes further heal spells cast more potent) that would I think be very fun (if less creative), in that it would still allow you to be dynamic with your power (be a healer or a damage dealer as is needed) and reward spamming big and bad heals.

Meanwhile, I’m considering buying my way into Warhammer table top. 40k in particular. Still, I’ve read through some of the rule books for Warhammer Fantasy and that lead me of course to our namesake. I remember when during open beta people claimed that Drain Magic was both weak and completely inappropriate. Now I see why it’s inappropriate; Drain Magic in the table top game is immensely powerful (making all other casters at the table worthless if you play it right). It’s not bad in game though, filling half of my action points bar up while nuking a bit of theirs away. Still…if they know the trick that I know (that is, cast at a steady pace and breathe = you never, ever, ever drop much below full AP) then Drain Magic is in fact useless to both of us…except for being a very, very tiny direct damage bump. Okay, so it’s useless, unless you’re fighting a n00b. And I bet you could beat a n00b without it anyway. (Though sometimes I lose track of myself and find my AP bar at half, it’s a nice way to fill myself back up. Don’t tell anybody, okay?)

Slow start.

First day back in I rolled a blackguard to see what it was like, and beheld a newbie zone full of life, then coming to fully understand it was a ten-day free trial period. First impression: it’s okay, but I missed healing.

I warmed up Serra to see something that made me happy; first, Sageslash is still in the game…and Diviana too. Div’s character hasn’t leveled, but had been holding the guild leader slot on For Science “Just incase you ever returned.” Brought a tear to my eye. I’ve decided to keep the For Science tag over my head during this “is this game really for me (again)?” period. Leveling zones more or less devoid of life, I ventured my way to PVP in Reikland and got a workout. I found I wasn’t the only non-40 (some mid-20s running around), and I gained a half a bar of experience for less than a half hour of play. Still not sure if I should roll another server or stick it out on this “veteran server”…my instincts are leaning toward the latter.

Now I see that Syp and Snaffy have moved on to general gaming (i.e. “More than just Warhammer”) blogs…something I thought about a while ago, but I thought to myself “I play games, but not as many as I used to…do I play enough to write about them?” Probably not. Left 4 Dead, Dawn of War, Dawn of War 2…and occasionally I fire up Master or Orion 2 for old time’s sake. The scene has changed. So has the game.

Well, Archmage mechanics haven’t changed (yet) and I’m settling back into my old play-style. We’ll see how much I have to say about it after a few days of playing. Wish I had something more epic to say, but one can only say so much with only a few return hours logged.

Really.

So. I get ten days free of charge to decide whether or not this game is still as awesome as I thought it was back before two classes and dating ate my life. Now that all I have is research (which is rather time manageable) and a steady girlfriend (that is amazing) it’s time to reevaluate.

Oh, and she has zero experience with “meh-mor-peh-gahs”, so it’s my intention to show it to her in a positive light. ;)http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/4340/reactivated.jpg

Out of date, out of shape, and possibly forgotten by everyone…even me.

But here I am, posting here because I miss the feel of it. I have been playing Dawn of War and Dawn of War 2 a LOT, as well as reading the actual rules to Warhammer 40k (and Fantasy) tabletop. I still find the buy-an-army entry fee prohibitive, but now that summer is upon me I find myself with more free time than usual and thinking of what I might do with that time.

Then Dastion brings this to my attention:
http://forums.warhammeronline.com/warhammer/board/message?board.id=dev_discussions&thread.id=846&jump=true

They are going to change the mechanic of my class…and it looks like it means good things. I’m way too out of the loop for numbers to mean much to me now, but the idea of healing improving healing and damage improving damage rubs me the right way. While I enjoyed the little “dance” aspect of bouncing between heal and damage spells, this isn’t too far removed (I don’t think), just more effective. How effective?

Well, the only real way for me to know that would be to try it on, wouldn’t it?

…
…

I’m thinking about it. Serra should still be on Volkmar (unless they didn’t adopt WoW’s mentality of “keep all characters forever so players have something to come back to”) and for summer I will have some time.

I noticed that Syp left Waaagh to sleep and started a new blog; looks good, as one would expect. I was very happy to see Arbitrary still writing at Book of Grudges, and Greenskin still kicking. In fact, looking at Greenskin was what it took to get me thinking about it again.

Don’t get excited. But. My understanding is that patch 1.3 changes the mastery system and that’s on the test servers as of this week? I am curious to see how the mechanic works out (that’s the 1.3.1 if memory serves). I supposed hoping any of you all that play archmages still read this is a fool’s errand, but maybe I’m still on a few blog readers. Maybe you will all tell me from the thick of it what YOU think of this coming change, and if it should herald the return of yours truly.

So far away.

thade in:

I wonder sometimes how the Warhammer world is going, but for lack of time I just never check the blogs…for fear, really, that reading them may lure me back to something I just don’t have the time for. I play L4D maybe two nights a week, and for short periods of time. That does not an MMO-player make. =)

I miss Book of Grudges, and back when Waaagh was on wordpress like me. I miss Greenskin, but I bet he’s still kicking. I won’t go see…I fear being drawn back in. <3

What I’m trying to say is, I miss the Warhammer blogging scene and the people attached to it. I hope you guys are doing well.

thade out.

Happy Holidays

To all my blog-bretherun, I wish you a great holiday season, whatever your practice may be. My holiday so far has been excellent; may yours be the same or better. <3

I wonder what sort of in-game shenanigans are afoot in the world of Warhammer. I remember a story of Axis and Allied forces on Christmas during WWII singing Christmas carols together amidst the unspoken cease fire on Christmas day. They sang and drank together and on the days following needed to be withdrawn, as they would not shoot at one another any longer.

I doubt the same would be true in Warhammer, but if it does happen, and you’re a part of it, appreciate it. ;) Don’t be the guy that breaks that peace.

thade out <3