Warhammer Fantasy - Articles - Zimbio

Warhammer Online - Age of Reckoning Heavy Metal live event on the battlefield.

Mon, 18 Nov 2008 10:16:00 GMT

posted by gameboyuk
Prepare for the coming tank rush! Starting tomorrow, the forces of Order and Destruction in Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning will face a brand new challenge as the Heavy Metal live event blasts onto the battlefield.

During this special in-game event, which runs from November 18th until December 1st, the armies of WAR will be given orders in preparation for the arrival of two new tank classes - the Empire Knight of the Blazing Sun and the Dark Elf Black Guard. Players that successfully complete the quests associated with the Heavy Metal event will be rewarded with early access to the new careers a full week before they are available to the general public.

As part of the Heavy Metal live event, players will also have special access to Reikland Factory, a new, instanced Scenario taking place on the grounds of an Empire steam tank factory. This Scenario is available to all players and all ranks, but will only be open for battle during the live event. Soldiers are encouraged to secure the Reikland Factory for their Realm, and continue the fight across the many other battlefields of WAR during Heavy Metal.

Based on the popular tabletop war game from Games Workshop, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning features revolutionary Realm vs. Realm conflict that will provide players with an engaging battleground for years to come. Available now for PC, WAR is rated “T” for Teen by the ESRB.

For more information on Warhammer Online and the Heavy Metal live event, visit www.warhammeronline.com.ca-pub-5833246175841206

Skull Lord Var’Ithrok Down - Order - Warhammer Online

Fri, 15 Nov 2008 21:56:25 GMT

posted by Xight

EA Mythic finally fixed the Order side quest for this boss so we went to go to Bastion Stairs, and pay a visit to old Skull Lord Var’Ithrok last night. We tried to get two groups through the prerequisite quests, but one of them had some one go afk during one so we only got one group up to the top.

If you are an Order player like me, and hadn’t done the quests yet since they recently fixed them. Here is what you’ll need to do courtesy of this thread here:

1. Find the clue. (http://www.wardb.com/quest.aspx?id=41233)
-Once you’re in the first room of the Path of Ruin, click the blue banner to the right to complete.
2. Speak to the wounded knight (http://www.wardb.com/quest.aspx?id=41234)
-After you’ve clicked the banner, a wounded knight will spawn. Speak with him to complete.
3) Speak to Grandmaster Kaarn. (http://www.wardb.com/quest.aspx?id=41235)
-Once you’re back into the room with the blue banner, keep going forward (right) till you are in the open area with the dogs. In the far back right corner you’ll see 4 daemons on a platform that is branched out from the open area. Kill all four of them and Grandmaster Kaarn will spawn. Speak to him to complete.
4. Collect 50 skulls of the fallen. (http://www.wardb.com/quest.aspx?id=41236)
-These skulls only drop off the mobs from first half of the second PQ. You’ll have to keep redoing the first half because those are the only ones that seem to drop them. Collect 50 skulls to complete.
5. The three steps. (http://www.wardb.com/quest.aspx?id=41237)
-Click your quest scroll (Myrmidia Strictures) at all three ledges/levels of the last (third) PQ.
6. Kill Kaarn. (http://www.wardb.com/quest.aspx?id=41238)
-Kill Grandmaster Kaarn. Turn in the quest at the NPC that spawns near the instance entrance.
7. You need to complete two quests before advancing through the portal.(http://www.wardb.com/quest.aspx?id=41206 - http://www.wardb.com/quest.aspx?id=41222)
-For Raging Bull, go through the left wing (Path of Carnage) and kill the last boss (Thar’Ignan). After you’ve killed him, run up to where he was standing initially and loot the spear. For Emperor’s Justice, go through the right wing (Path of Fury) and kill the last boss. (Lord Slaurith) Complete both quests in-order to go through the last portal.
8. Kill Var’Ithrok (http://www.wardb.com/quest.aspx?id=41239)
-After completing “Portal of Rage”, the quest giver inside Kaarn’s room will give you this quest.

We were getting bugged on step 3, as Kaarn would not spawn nfor us even after killing everything on the steps. So instead of two groups killing him, only one group was able to last night. Once you’ve done these quests you’ll be able to enter the portal at the very end of middle path in Bastion Stairs.

Skull Lord Varithrok - Warhammer Online

There’s some easy trash mobs pulls on the way up, and I guess Mythic hadn’t tested these with order players enough or something. The biggest hint was the fact that the trash mobs drop Destruction level 21 loot for us, making us worried that the boss was going to drop the same thing. Well we cleared the trash, and walked into his giant arena to gaze upon his GIANT self. This pic doesn’t do him justice as my dwarven self could fit into that guy’s hand. This is me taking the pic with him just entering the clipping zone.

The fight in general was pretty easy, but we just kept either getting unlucky on the silence or getting burst with dot/sunder at the same time.

Skull Lord Var’Ithrok has a few abilities

Sunder - Frontal/Rear cone aoe this attack hits everything infront and inbehind him simultaneously for 2-5k.
Single Target Dot - a single target Dot that cannot be removed. It ticked for 1.2k/tick on me.
Melee Range Aoe - Wether this is an aoe ability or an melee range dot we couldn’t figure out. The tank didn’t seem to be affected by it too much, but our White Lion was getting hit with it constantly. None of our ranged people got hit by it.
Cloud - Skull Lord Var’Ithrok drops a red cloud at random on people. At first we ran out of it, but then noticed it didn’t do any damage to us so we just ignored it. We didn’t really notice any increase in damage or anything. I didn’t even see me get a debuff when I was in it, perhaps its bugged for now?
3 Hound Spawns - Once Skull Lord Var’Ithroks hp went below 70%, every 15% or so he would summon a pack of 3 normal hounds. They usually made a bee line for our tank, but sometimes they would go to a healer or caster. Our tank could tank all the hounds, and the boss at the same time. Its important to get the hounds off the healers asap if they are on them.

So after much wiping from dumb mistakes we finally get to kill him, and I have to say his death animation was pretty funy. I thought it was cool how he got sucked into this gigantic portal. Which I feel deserves a screenshot of its own.

Loots was one single Bloodlord Flamerobe (chest) for our failure bright wizard. Also it dropped 1 Bloodlord Runecuffs which I already had, and some weapon that our Warrior Priest didn’t need. That was about it. All in all it was a fun encounter I think.

No related posts.

Sweet Warhammer Launch Party Mug

Mon, 11 Nov 2008 16:00:12 GMT

posted by Xight

Well I’m back from my trip to Oahu, and shark cage diving. I guess you can assume that I am safely back to my house if I am posting today. My friend will send me over the pics hopefully so I can share them with you all. It was a pretty fun excursion, minus the fact that I got extremely seasick on the boat. I should have picked up some Drammamine since I get motion sickness fairly easily. Anyways the other cool thing to happen this past weekend was that my Warhammer Online Stein came in.

This one was a prize from Ellissa Bar for entering in her contest that I mentioned last week.She was also kind enough to send me a Warhammer Poster too =). Also to my suprise, this poster is double sided. How I’m suppose to hand thing up is a little confusing if I want to show off both sides. Unless I hang it from the lamp in the middle of my room like Warhammer Heraldry.

I’m sure not complaining though this stuff definitely rocks. The mug is even a handmade piece of pottery from a Warhammer Launch party. Mucho Gracias Ellisa!

For those of you who missed out, don’t worry. There is still Alienware’s $3000 pc gaming computer contest that you can still enter. If you’re interested in that one go read my contest post here.

Warhammer Online Patch 1.04 Witching Night - Fixes

Tue, 29 Oct 2008 05:11:29 GMT

posted by Xight

Halloween is almost upon us, and like most online games nowadays, Warhammer Online’s first Halloween Live event will start Wednesday Oct 29th, 2008. Are you ready for what’s to come? Servers are goinging down Tuesday night to prep for this event it seems, and also along with that quite a few hotfixes on this patch 1.04 for Warhammer Online.

Also it looks like some new so-called improvements to the game are going to be put in this upcoming patch. Some of them are:

We have added three new guild rewards in the form of dungeon teleport scrolls. Each scroll can be purchased from a guild quartermaster, and is a single-use item that will teleport the player to a dungeon:

Gunbad Teleport Scroll - This reward is unlocked at guild rank 29, and will teleport the player into the entrance lobby area of the Gunbad Tunnels.

Bastion Stair Teleport Scroll - This reward is unlocked at guild rank 32, and will teleport the player into the entrance lobby area of the Bastion Stair.

Lost Vale Teleport Scroll - This reward is unlocked at guild rank 35, and will teleport the player to just outside the entrance to the Lost Vale.

While I applaud Mythic’s idea of giving guild’s these scrolls to make going to these instances less of a hassle. These requirements are certainly for lack of a better word, DUMB. Why place these reward scrolls at such a rediculously high guild rank for such low level areas. Currently the highest guilds are guild level 29ish after being a month in with many level 40s. So to get these scrolls you’ll need to either A) Join a zerg guild or B) Level your guild up soo high that you’ll outlevel the need to go to these instances.

I think the guild ranks for the scrolls should be as follows:

Gunbad Teleport Scroll - This reward is unlocked at guild rank 9,
Bastion Stair Teleport Scroll - This reward is unlocked at guild rank 17, and will teleport the player into the entrance lobby area of the Bastion Stair.
Lost Vale Teleport Scroll - This reward is unlocked at guild rank 20, and will teleport the player to just outside the entrance to the Lost Vale.

Give or take a few levels, and depending on how big your guild is, I think the above Guild Rank numbers are about right for the areas they teleport you to. The only people these scrolls will help with ever is alts, and new players joining an established guild.

Tier 4 zones now require fewer scenario victory points to be captured. The mechanics of capturing a zone have not changed however. Zones which have no scenario opposition can still be captured if players join the queue for scenarios based on that Zone. Victory points towards zone control will be granted if a realm has enough players in the queue to launch the scenario and the other realm doesn’t. If players in those queues join a launched scenario or leave the queue, the victory points towards zone control will be forfeit.

In other words, using “Join All” to queue for all available scenarios is still the fastest way to get into a scenario, but joining the scenarios in a specific zone will have the greatest impact on control of that zone, and by extension the greatest impact on the campaign in that pairing.

Awesome news here in my opinion. This definitely gives incentive for people to stay in a scenario instead of leaving it. While I know getting stomped by a premade in an RvR can suck, and I’ve had my fair share of those. What I hate even more is when people don’t even have the will to fight, and just leave or give up so that the scenario can end faster. Kudos to Mythic for this one. Now just fix the # of players that join a scenario so that its not 18 vs 6 when we join. Oh wait they did:

The minimum number of players required to launch scenarios in Praag, Dragonwake and Thunder Mountain has been equalized to ensure even population distribution between all scenarios available when the campaign is in its default state.

I really hope that will be the case. However doesn’t these RvR fixes take away from what they are trying to do with the problem of lack of open world RvR? There is a pretty big discussion going on over at Keen and Graev’s blog about the lack of open RvR, and what can be done to fix it. Alot of the commentators on that post I have to agree with. Especially about having no, zero, zilch, nada, nothing for incentives on defending an open RvR objective.

Defending a keep - 100 reknown every 5 minutes or so. Big whoopty freaking doo. Defending a RvR Battlefield objective for 3 minutes, 500 reknown. Whoopeee. Its true, there really isn’t a penalty or incentive to really defend them, especially when you can just go back 15 minutes later to claim an even greater RvR Renown Bonus.

I know there are bonuses like merchant bonuses, renown bonuses, exp bonuses, but those I barelly even see nor do I even care about once I had hit 40. The sergent bonuses are pretty nice, but why give PVE buffs like more gold/increased crafting skills etc off of a PvP obj?

Also:

Tooltips for Tome of Knowledge tactic rewards have been revised to be more clear and helpful.

Looks like I’ll need to do some adjusting to the words in my Tome Tactics Guide. Though there’s no mention in this fix of a -50% reduction in exp gain from the Manly Meddling Tactic. Boo Mythic. Boo.

Last of all Witching Night, with Mark Davis had given us some ideas of what to expect. For example some RvR bosses that drop loot so that both factions will have to fight for them. I think this is an awesome idea. Especially considering how World Dragons in World of Warcraft brought some nice open world PVP to that game.

You know what would be cool? What if we combine the two? In the skirmish areas around the entire world during the Halloween holiday, there will be boss monsters lurking for players to kill. They’ll have cool loot on them, of course, so players from both sides will want to take them down. I’m sure Order and Destruction will play nicely with each other and share equally with each other for the spoils of the fight – yeah right! What else would you expect from a Warhammer holiday? Trick-or-treating? Nah! Beating people over the head? Oh yeah!

I think this is a step in the right direction atleast. Now I should probly get some game time in before the server shuts down tonight.

Warhammer Goody Bag Give Away - Contest Reminder

Wed, 30 Oct 2008 16:00:16 GMT

posted by Xight

If you haven’t already done so Ellissa Bar. an implementation lead for the game Warhammer Online, is giving away some free Warhammer Online stuff. To enter all you have to do is comment on her blog here, and mention which prize you want to get.

She’s got 2 prizes she’s giving away:

Choice #1 - Free copy of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning

Choice #2 - Goody package of Warhammer Online stuff. This is random “loot” I’ve gotten at work. Some of the things I have to choose from are a coffee mug (more like a tankard), a coffee table book, playing cards, a graphic novel, posters.

Make sure you put your comment in before the deadline of October 31st at midnight EST.

I’m personally going to pick option #2 as I have no use for a second copy of the game, and the grab bag stuff sounds pretty neat. I’ve already won a TV recently so I’ve been pretty optimistic about joining in on contests lately.

Also if you haven’t done so yet, I’d advise you to enter into Alienware’s $3000 Warhammer computer contest as well. Who knows maybe someone can win that one too. Anyways good luck to you guys on any of the contests you enter.