Warhammer Online patch 1.0.4 hits the live servers
by Michael Zenke 
Oct 29th 2008 at 8:30AM
Filed under: Fantasy, Patches, Warhammer Online
- Witching Night is Live! Get your Halloween on in Warhammer!
- Free character transfers from low pop servers are inching ever closer.
- Teleport scrolls to dungeons are coming for guilds that crack around the level 30 mark.
- Tier 4 zones should now be more easily a capturable.
 |
Did you enjoy this? Make sure to check out our Warhammer guides: Massively's Character Creation Guide and our WoW Player's Guide to Warhammer. Plus, don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR! |
Game Update 1.0.4
We've got a bunch of great stuff inside most notably being the start of our first Live Event: Witching Night!
Wednesday, October 29th at 7:00AM EDT all North American Servers will be brought down to begin the update. Oceanic servers will follow at 9:00AM EDT. We expect servers to be online by 1PM EDT. Please note that during the first 40 minutes of downtime the Mythic Account Center may be unavailable while it is updated as well.
Enjoy the notes below and we'll see you on the battlefield...WAAAGH!!!
Highlights
- The Witching Night live event has begun! For details, see the Warhammer Online Herald.
- With the arrival of 1.0.4 we are now one step closer to offering Character Transfers from low population servers to medium population servers and the final stages of testing have begun. We're excited to share all the details, keep an eye on the WAR Herald for more information and to find out how you can help us test the Free Character Transfer service in the coming days!
- 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.
- Once a city has become contested, the attacking realm will now have 6 hours to capture it. If the invaders do not conquer the city in that time, the defenders will be declared victorious and the campaign will reset.
- Pets set to follow will now path properly to their master, and will no longer teleport instantly to their master's side.
- Fixed an issue that was causing pets to stop attacking their current target and return to their master's side. This issue would occur when a pet was ordered to change targets in mid combat, and the previous target subsequently died.
- Fixed an issue that could sometimes cause trainer icons not to appear on the minimaps.
- The successful capture of an enemy battlefield objective now rewards the capturing players with experience.
- In response to player feedback, the amount of renown earned from healing players has been increased slightly.
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.
General Changes and Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue that would sometimes cause monsters to improperly flee at full speed. Monsters will now flee from combat at a more appropriate speed.
Capital Cities
Adjusted the text messages that display when the capital cities become contested, to make them more appropriate.
Combat and Careers
- Archmage: Balance Essence: The damage of this ability has been increased.
- Additional polish has been applied to monster pathing and behaviors in the Lost Vale to improve the overall gameplay experience.
- The Bastion Stair dungeon boss Kaarn the Vanquisher will no longer erroneously give "Target is Retreating" messages when attacked.
- The Statue of the Everchosen battlefield objective in the Chaos Wastes will no longer spawn guards of the wrong realm.
- The guards at the Maiden's Landing battlefield objective in Avelorn will now spawn at the appropriate level.
- Fixed an issue which was causing the RvR campaign to reset prematurely while a capital city was still contested.
- Fixed an issue which sometimes caused keeps and battlefield objectives to forget which realm and guild last owned them when the server was reset.
- 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.
Tooltips for Tome of Knowledge tactic rewards have been revised to be more clear and helpful.
User Interface
Fixed an issue that sometimes caused trainer icons not to appear on the minimaps.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
lethality said on 8:45AM 10-29-2008
Again, Massively "journalism" hard at work...
There is not a LIVE event or anything of the sort. It's a simple programmed event that gives out some seasonal rewards from quests.
Please update your "article".
Reply
RanWitScissorz said on 8:57AM 10-29-2008
Wow, get sand in your vag often?
KingJames said on 12:49PM 10-29-2008
The thing about most of this is they are taking player feedback and making changes that benefit the players and the game. I see why WoW trolls attack anything positive posted about this game as they feel it will steal their games players. WAR has been out long enough that all the fanbois should realize that it has its own playerbase of players who grew tired of WoW and other MMO's constant nerfs and lack of content updates. Thanks for the update for the people who care and to those who don't? Don't read it.
Lethality said on 1:24PM 10-29-2008
I'm not worried about losing WoW players, if you haven't noticed WoW is still growing.
But I am worried about NEW players being suckered into WAR based on false reporting.
Michael Zenke said on 8:53AM 10-29-2008
'Live event' is the term used by Mythic Entertainment in their patch notes, lethality.
Reply
Abriael said on 10:10AM 10-29-2008
Not good? It's pretty normal for a game to be packed at launch and to ease off after that. people at launch go as far as taking days off to grind their way up in advance, and seeing how many servers had immense queues in the first few days, Mythic wasn't so much off with the servers opened then. Servers lowering in population and some getting so low that they need to be closed are just an endemic effect of the fact that the game is no more a novelty and that for many it becomes routine, playing less hours a day and crowding the servers less, also, no game is for everyone, so it's just as normal that some people will leave.
Some software houses decide to ignore that and leave their gamers to rot in low population servers exactly to avoid the people saying "not good!", luckily Mythic isn't between them it seems, and they're taking swift action to adress the problem.
The game is still selling strong, was 4th in the NPD charts last week, so I wouldn't be worried, expecially since server transfers are most definately going to bring back many people that felt the worst of the population problem and couldn't enjoy the game fully before (I personally know more than a few that will reactivate as soon as that happens), and the holiday season is near, with 2 quite hyped new classes incoming. With polishing going well and RvR being made gradually more desirable, I'd say Mythic has still plenty chances to have to reopen servers later in the game's lifespan. I for sure fully expect to see a sizeable increase in playerbase between december and the new year (with new features incoming, a surge in sales, and people getting tired of WOTLK already, after burning trough the last ten levels, since it offers the same old soup cooked in the same old ways). If that doesn't happen, then I'll start to worry.
Kalain said on 9:01AM 10-29-2008
"Free character transfers from low pop servers are inching ever closer..."
Not quite sure, but shouldn't this be transfers to low pop realms? If it isn't a mistake then aren't mythic going to shoot themselves in the foot by making low pop realms, even more if a ghost town and the server queues on the full realms even longer. I'm sure this is a typo
Reply
Abriael said on 9:06AM 10-29-2008
They are moving people from low population servers to MEDIUM population servers. So it wouldn't bring problems to high population servers.
And why would it be a problem if low population serrvers become a ghost town? is there anyone right in his mind that would really stay there? They'll soon notice that their server is gonna be abandoned and move themselves. It's not like it costs them something to do it.
On the other hand, moving people from medium pop server to low, wouldn't work. Who would abandon a place that's actually fun because he sees people around, to try his luck in a server with much less people?
Mythic should be definately applauded for offering this kind of option so promptly.
Bilbo said on 9:52AM 10-29-2008
Abriael: I think what he means is it doesn't make much sense to transfer people off a low-pop server unless you plan on closing that server down. What's the point of keeping a server alive that has no players?
If the intention was not to close the low-pop server it would make more sense to offer free transfers from high-pop servers to low-pop servers to help balance the load.
Seems like Mythic is already closing servers down... not good.
Rollins said on 9:59AM 10-29-2008
@Bilbo
It's really not that bad that Mythic's contemplating closing down servers. If they had fewer servers at launch, the server queues would have been long across the board.
With the amount of hype that WAR's launch got, it was probably extremely difficult to determine how many servers to open with. It's a delicate balance.
Abriael said on 10:13AM 10-29-2008
Meh, the above reply that ended up as a reply to michael was actually intended to end up here... Must.. sleep... more...
Simons said on 2:38PM 10-29-2008
For those who haven't noticed - they've implemented the much-requested feature of battlefield objectives granting experience! It's only mentioned briefly in the patch notes, but this is a change that should help to further shift the dynamic of PvP away from scenarios and towards the RvR lakes.
Reply