Warhammer Online drops 1.3.3 patch to live servers
by Eliot Lefebvre 
Dec 9th 2009 at 8:00PM
Filed under: Fantasy, Game mechanics, Patches, Warhammer Online, News items
Rumors of the death of Warhammer Online have been greatly exaggerated. The game is continuing to put out updates on a steady basis -- at an accelerated rate, even, despite the recent bout of layoffs. Patch 1.3.3 has just hit the live servers today, bringing with it new graphical enhancements and two much-touted features -- the Underdog system and the WAR Report. The former helps even the odds when one faction is outnumbered, while the latter helps pull players straight into the grinding maw of the game's PvP activities by allowing instant teleportation to "hot spots" nearby.
If that's not quite enough for the discerning Warhammer Online player, there's also a holiday slated between December 16th and January 4th. Keg End celebrates drinking, talking about how great you are, and explosives -- which sounds like the perfect antidote to yet another Christmas special on TV. Take a look at the patch notes for the full details, as well as the usual array of bugfixes and balance tweaks. We haven't heard as much about the patches after this one, but whatever the next year holds for the game, there's a clear commitment to making it the best it can be.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Otter said on 8:21PM 12-09-2009
I think I will reinstall and play F2P for a bit to check out these changes... see how it goes...
I played when it first came out, but then I got bored of it faster than AOC. LOLz
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chriskovo said on 8:36PM 12-09-2009
How can they say that the game is not dead when the number of active servers have shrunk to 4 and even then the players in the who forums are complaining scenarios are not popping. The game is dead and the ip should be given to someone that can develop a better mmo
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OfieshK said on 7:06AM 12-10-2009
5 active servers, 4 core and 1 RP.
The action on the two servers I have is hopping, there's no shortage of people.
Some of the new features are amazing, (new since i last played). Like loggin in to the war report and getting tele'd right to where the action is, as opposed to flying around looking for a good war band.
Its running smoother than ever, and i find that neither of my toons are as rigged as they once were. which kinda stinks, but all in all is prob a good thing.
Layoffs make sense since EA has a lot of the same systems already in place as mythic. I'd bet more layoffs were for things like Tech Support, Maintenance, Marketing, Accounting/Finance. All of those things are already taken care of by EA.
And this day in age, layoffs are pretty common id say. Even Blizzard had layoffs when Activision bought them.
DrewIW said on 8:48PM 12-09-2009
RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE
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pogger said on 9:58PM 12-09-2009
I'm a former subscriber and will try the trial again. I tend to root for the underdog (pun intended) so I hope they do well. The game is fun... I've just been too busy with LotRO, Eve, and my single-player games.
I'm really tired of hearing people ridiculously knock WAR because of the number of servers. Really? Who cares about that? Their numbers may be down but the number of servers says NOTHING about how many players subscribe or are online at any given time.
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thomas_blixt said on 4:56AM 12-10-2009
The number of servers tell us everything about the population. Every server has a max cap, and approx 10.000 concurrent players each faction sounds as a reasonable number.
With two active EU servers left, even a high population would not exceed 40.000 players.
Abe said on 10:09PM 12-09-2009
how are the graphical updates??? that is one of things (how things look bad until you were right up next to them) that really turned me off of the game. Anybody with any insights on this issue let me know!
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Hiravaxis said on 12:17AM 12-10-2009
They've been better since last update. 1.3.2 really upped the performance level.
Check out the free trial and see for yourself.
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newskooltrooper said on 12:33AM 12-10-2009
As a subscriber, I could care less about how many servers their are. All I care about is my server. Order has been getting zerged to death in Badlands lately, but hopefully the Underdog system will alleviate that somewhat. Mythic also used 1.3.3 to fix a major Victory Point bug that made things even harder on the losing side, so hopefully that will even things out as well.
As with all things WAR, we'll just have to wait and see. =/
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vidarr said on 9:23AM 12-10-2009
"As a subscriber, I could care less about how many servers their are. All I care about is my server."
Bingo. I agree, and more people need this mentality.
No matter the game, a character is part of the one server its made on. If there was one other server or a hundred it will not change the experience of the game, for better or worse.
I just dont see why games need hundreds of servers and millions of players. MMO's never needed that, not even with Everquest. People have been blinded by Warcrafts success and while it is an amazing accomplishment I do not think it is a standard for other games in the genre. After all, that kind of success only happened to ONE game.
Venekor said on 3:44AM 12-10-2009
I played the trial but it's still just a bad version of WoW. i see no point of playing with when WoW does everything better.
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Brian! said on 3:59AM 12-10-2009
Seeing that WoW has no real open field RvR at the scale that WAR has, no public quests, no open groups, etc... WoW can't possibly do it all better.
That said, if you prefer raiding over PvP, WoW is better. If you prefer large-scale RvR, then WAR will likely be more fun than the limited battlegrounds of WoW.
nevin said on 4:07AM 12-10-2009
Might be true of PvE but the PvP is loads better. RvR is great fun.
Venekor said on 5:54AM 12-10-2009
Nah WoW has much better combat and the classes are fun. War has slow clunky combat and theres too many classes which are like two sides of the same coin, making them bland. Everyone I know joins the game and makes 1000 ALTS cause they can't find a class they like.
I agree it's a shame Blizzard killed world PVP for battlegrounds but lake wintergrasp is like open PVP and it isn't fun. Just like WARs open PVP which turns into a zergfest where skill doesn't matter. The problem is when you play WAR is small group gameplay, you can never take on 3 vs 1 because the classes are so similar. You'll always lose because WAR is designed for the group to always win. However what makes WoW so fun is your skill level can mean you can take out groups if you're good enough and it makes the combat feel amazing.
WoWs PVP is so fast and so responsive that it just feels right. As soon as you press the hotkey it does it on screen straight away. However in WAR theres this weird delay that I hate and controlling you character isn't as snappy and feels slow. I also hate the auto facing which means you can't try to run behind them to dodge their attacks.
Not forgetting WoW has amazing lore and story but WARs world felt dead of Lore, it felt bland and there wasn't any story. I never cared what I was fighting for in WAR but in WoW I love the story and I want to Kill Arthas for all he's done and I want to kill the Alliance. The Alliance to me are the real bad guys who aren't in tune with the world. They didn't listen in Warcraft 3 to leave like the Orcs and go to Kali.
Everything about WoW from PVP to PVE is MUCH MUCH MUCH better than WAR and the proof is in the subscribers really. Noone I know plays WAR for long and they always ALWAYS complain about the crappy combat and go back to WoW.
I just wish Blizzard made a SWG pre CU like mmorpg with WoWs combat and lore.
OfieshK said on 7:18AM 12-10-2009
Venekor is so ignorant that i wish i hadn't just wasted my time with his fanboy nonsense.
Utakata said on 11:59AM 12-10-2009
You mean...they killed PvP with Arena's, Venekor. Something Blizz has recently admitted was a big mistake.
I'll agree that they are moving WoW away from that with many improvents being planned or implemented...but many are based on and inspired by the PvP mechanics of War. If it wasn't for War, I think PvP in WoW would still stuck be rotating around a goblin in a tuxedo. Yes, War maybe falling down an eternal hell hole that it may never get back out of, but let's not forget that perspective.
Scales said on 1:41PM 12-10-2009
I just wanna make a point here about PvP in WAR and WoW...
Venekor said:
"The problem is when you play WAR is small group gameplay, you can never take on 3 vs 1 because the classes are so similar. You'll always lose because WAR is designed for the group to always win. However what makes WoW so fun is your skill level can mean you can take out groups if you're good enough and it makes the combat feel amazing."
Hang on a minute there m'laddo. "You can never take on 3v1 because the classes are so *similar*" combined with "However what makes WoW so fun is your *skill* level can mean you can take out groups"
This is the problem, not the bonus of WoW - it's not about skill in PLAYING, it's about how you are specced. In my opinion, there is more actual *skill* to being able to take out 3v1 (yes it can be done), *because* the classes are more closely matched. Besides which, your spec does make a lot of difference in group combat. It is certainly true that WAR is designed to be a team game; a single group of 6 players working together can demolish an entire warband of over 30 if they are *skilled* enough at working together. I mean, seriously run rings around them.
But it isn't about button mashing and being smug about your spec and/or your gear. It's about position, visibility, herding the enemy, ambushing, predicting their moves and most importantly having a competent leader to orchestrate the attack. This is much closer to 'real' strategy than one person being a living god because s/he's played more PvE than anyone else.
Personally I love this style of gameplay much more than the solo spec skill of WoW, YMMV ;)
Seffrid said on 6:11AM 12-10-2009
Abe, this update does provide some graphic enhancements but the quality of the graphics generally is very dependent on the settings your computer supports. I play on maximum settings and it's a beautiful looking game.
Most of the gameplay comparisons people are making here and elsewhere are with WoW which is, of course, an altogether different animal graphically. On maxed settings WAR is more akin to AoC (again on maxed settings), although I appreciate that on less than maxed settings the graphics won't look so good obviously.
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sugewise said on 6:30AM 12-10-2009
wow does pve better than war. Lotro does pve better than wow. these are opinions, we all have them. Fact of the matter is though, most people that play wow can't survive outside of wow in a real mmo community. Most old school mmo players, and mature playeres won't put up with 12yr olds in group going, "lol youz deepz is bad, baddie." I mean in my opinion classes in warhammer were alot more fun to play and indepth than wow classes. In my opinion war has some of the best pvp since daoc, the problem is that once it gets to a point when no one is pvping at that particular time, there is really nothing to do. Mythic is not a bad company, they just tried to custom fit this mmo to the wow mold instead of following daoc's lead.
a wise man once told me, " opinion's are like assholes, everyone has them and they all stink". to each their own.
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OfieshK said on 7:32AM 12-10-2009
isnt that excuses, excuses are like assholes?
And I get a little enjoyment from the fact that vekenor doesn't realize hes comparing a 1 year old game to a 5 year old game.
and he should try to play war, if its not too hard for him, its very common to see a good person win an outnumbered battle.
www.warhammermovies.com if u want some proof.
Not to mention that I feel like the lore is wow, after 5 years of playing has nothing to do with the game we play. the lore is strictly in the quests, and once u hit 80 its just raidlocking ur self over and over with whatever the newest raid is.
I feel like its Very hard for me to stay busy in wow.
and im more of an mmorpg player, and wow lost its rpg title 2 years ago.
Sugewise is totally right that the people who play wow as their first mmo, are hardly mmo players worth noting.
and wow's pvp is not that great really, its a farm fest too. and instead of acutally getting to fight most people die in 3 or 4 well timed global cooldowns.