Archive for August, 2008

August 29th, 2008

WAR Updates for Sept. 7th Open Beta

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning

Mark Jacob’s dropped by the IGN forums and had the following to say on his earlier post-preview weekend update addressing many of the complaints caused by recent patching and player feedback.

Folks,

Well, things have been, as usual, busy here at Mythic so I have lots of news to share. So, without further ado and no SNL references, here’s the update on my update:

1) Significantly improved NPC pathing - Okay, in all fairness it wouldn’t have taken much to improve on what we showed you folks during the PW. However, the NPC pathing is back to where it needs to be and while it still isn’t perfect, well, it’s a heck of a lot closer than it was just a short time ago. We identified a whole lot of bugs and squashed them.

2) Improved pet commands and responsivness - Well, pretty much same as above. Pets will no longer act as if obeying an order from you was the last thing in this world that they wanted to do.

3) Fixed an issue with textures blurring - Nothing like looking at textures through a blurred lens to make things look really sharp eh? Major improvements in and more OTW.

4) Enhanced Global Cooldown Mechanic - Well, for one the GCD actually shows the correct cooldown time and not the rounded up cooldown time (Hey, what a great idea, let’s make it seem slower than it is. WOOT!). The slop timer is working fine right now and we’ll continue to look at making the GCD and combat in general more responsive.

5) Continuing to improve Client Stability - As always, lots of fixes going in here. The client is supposed to be more stable (and looks like it so far) but until we get the masses back in…

6) Added new Graphics Settings and seeking more feedback from testers to guide future improvements. You asked for it, you got it. Well, in all fairness we were going to put these in anyway but it never hurts to nudge us a bit at times.

7) Target Nearest Target improved - Yeah! One of my pet peeves addressed.

8) Renown Gear changes and Potency of Potions increased. Tweaking, adding, subtracting, in other words (don’t say “nerf”, we’re still in beta!) balancing.

9) Increased bonus for medal winners in PQs. PQs are supposed to be fun, joyous and not grindy. We’ll continue tweaking and changing them wherever we need to do that to make it so #1. (okay, a ST reference)

10) Added more loot bags in Tier 1 PQs - Boy, it’s going to be rather crowded when we launch so we just upped the loot for the Tier 1 PQs. We’ll do the same to T2 as needed. And when the rush is over, we’ll tweak downwards.

So, in terms of some other good stuff, lots and lots and lots of bugs fixed and lots of new stuff added to the ToK. But wait, there’s more and we’ll address some of it next week as well as more coming info in the next update.

Oh, and there’s still no such thing as a miracle patch so don’t expect one here. Just a ton of fixes, additions and adjustments. We have another major patch coming as well before launch. We don’t believe in miracle patches (miracle whip is a whole other subject) here at Mythic but simply hard work and a talented team.

Much respect to my team that is really doing one heck of a job getting things ready for launch.

Mark

Definately some kick ass work on part of his team, and it’ll be great to see everything working as intended in the open beta!

Source: IGN Forums

August 25th, 2008

Warhammer Online: Preview Weekend Impressions

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning

Still bleary-eyed, and exhausted from a marathon weekend of playing WAR, a full post has been made with overall impressions of the game in its current state.

Check out the full account of the preview weekend here.

August 21st, 2008

World of Warcraft: WoLK Cinematic Trailer

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King

Blizzard, not one to be outdone in the cinematic department, has fired back at Mythic Entertainment’s amazing Warhammer Online trailer this morning with their own stunning video of Arthas and his release of Ner’zhul.

Check it out here.

August 18th, 2008

WAR Open Beta Download Page is Up

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning

Never one to miss a chance at selling more subscriptions or D2D sales, FilePlanet is Mythic’s official Open Beta Client download site.

You will need a free FilePlanet login, FilePlanet Download Manager installed, and your pre-order Open Beta key that you received at the following page in order to “Pre-Load” the Warhammer Online client download.

You can queue up for the download here, however at this time this is only to reserve an unknown place in line until the FilePlanet Download Manager deems you worthy of receiving the file (The download manager is currently showing an estimated availability of “Aug 19th”).

Open Beta details have also been re-affirmed by Mythic as:

Closed Beta Participants

If you are currently in the WAR closed beta, you will automatically be granted access to the open beta. Simply continue to patch your client and you’ll be ready to play.

The Open Beta will be level capped and content restricted. You will be allowed to choose any of the game’s 20 unique careers and advance through rank 20. You will also be free to explore and battle across Tiers 1 and 2 of each army’s homeland. Please note that any characters created during the Open Beta will NOT carry over into the live game as they will be wiped from the servers.

This information is valid only for North America, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore.

Plan on getting real familiar to the “Next check for availability in: 50 Mins.” line…

WAR Open Beta Downloads to Start Aug. 18th, Open Beta Sept. 7th

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning

Mythic Dev Mark Jacobs just dropped word of the Warhammer Online open beta client download will be available as of this Monday (Aug. 18th), and that a new system will be in place to alleviate concerns over the slow speeds of the old torrent download.

Folks,

On Monday, you’ll be able to download the client via a solution that is, quite frankly, better than what we are currently using. Given the concern/issues with the current Torrent setup, I can’t imagine any reasonable person being disappointed with what we are going to do next week. However, in order to get that set up properly, we weren’t able to offer it today. I’m sorry for the delay but I know that you’ll like what we are doing on Monday better than what we would have been able to do today. And no, it won’t cost anything as per my recent post on this subject.

Mark

Much to the disappointment of many anxious WAR pre-order players, EA has announced the Open Beta to start September 7th and only last for only one week, leaving quite a few fan forums ablaze with flames at the moment.

Mythic Begins Preparations for September 7th Open Beta

FAIRFAX, Va.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Aug. 18, 2008–Mythic Entertainment, an Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) studio, today announced that the open beta for their highly anticipated MMORPG, Warhammer(R) Online: Age of Reckoning(TM) (WAR), will begin on September 7th, 2008. This means that hundreds of thousands of fans will be able to enter the gritty fantasy world of WAR to experience the thrill of Realm vs. Realm(TM) (RvR) combat before the game goes live on September 18th, 2008.

Speculation has run rampant at this point, with many placing the blame on the European publisher GOA’s slow roll out delaying an early US open beta launch in order for them to prepare for a simultaneous US/EU launch.

Details are also still unknown for when the NDA will be dropped. With a 3 week lead up to the open beta, it’s beginning to look like “now or never”, else Mark may need to eat his words..

UPDATE: The NDA is now expected to be dropped on Tuesday August 19th according to a post by Mark Jacobs.

August 10th, 2008

Set Phasers to Stun! Star Trek Online Gameplay Trailer

We’ve got the Star Trek Online Gameplay trailer up and playing in full streaming format for your immediate enjoyment.

The video has a few amazing peeks into the features Cryptic has brought back to the games’ design. It now appears that Cryptic took nothing but the name and some art with their purchase of Perpetual Entertainment’s STO rights.

After watching the trailer it’s very unlikely anybody will be complaining after seeing the results off an MMO that will be coming much sooner than you think.

Star Trek Online Trailer Screenshot

Watch it now…

August 6th, 2008

WARRR!!! Is Coming September 18th

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning

It’s officially official. Is that official enough?

Warhammer Online will be launching September 18th.

Access to the Open Beta client for DOWNLOADS will be available on August 15th. No further details on the Open Beta start date are available yet. Be assured, nobody has the official launch date yet, contrary to mistaken reports of August 15th being the Open Beta launch date.

Also, as usual Open Beta characters will NOT carry over to the live game, only Live Game Head Start characters will get early access ahead of other players in the live launch.

Monthly subscription prices have also been announced, industry standard rates…

  • Monthly Subscription: $14.99 USD
  • 3-Month Subscription: $41.97 ($13.99 per month)
  • 6-Month Subscription: $77.94 ($12.99 per month)

A Great Disturbance has been felt in EVE

EVE Online Empyrean Age

As if thousands of Hi-sec ganker voices have suddenly cried out in terror of their mechanic being nerfed and were suddenly silenced…

CCP just dropped an X-Large bombshell this morning with their latest Dev Blog titled “Serious Security” written by CCP Fear. In this blog is a detailed list of fixes for so called suicide ganking and its effect on the world of EVE.

The assigned CCP taskforce named, Taskforce Donut, has proposed the following:

  • CONCORD response time will be made much faster.
  • CONCORD ships will spawn in groups of 3 ships, 2 small frigate sized vessels for faster locking speed, and a larger battleship sized vessel to dish out the punishment.
  • Security penalties will be much higher in Hi-sec space, and no longer equal or similiar to penalties recieved in lower security space which required a few days to repair by killing pirate npc’s. The rating of the system where the crime was committed will also affect the security penalty, reducing gank attemps in Hi-sec and moving them back to the lower security areas.
  • Security rating of the aggressor and victim will also be taken into account with increased penalties for low/negative security rating agressors or victims, and less of a penalty for higher rated pilots. Thus pilots with a proper security record in Hi-sec won’t be penalized as much as the pirates and outlaws venturing into Hi-sec with a lower rating.
  • CONCORD will also begin notifying the appropriate agency in all CONCORD related criminal events to that insurance is no longer paid out to criminal parties for the destruction of sihps used in criminal acts.

This announcement along with the recent “Speed Rebalanced” Dev Blog proposing to fix the ludicrous speed of nano ships in the game within such a short period has no doubt hit the consequence free PvP crowd hard with the need to adjust their gameplay to suit the Dev’s intended game design vision.






Back to the top