Filed under: Warhammer Online

Back when she was first placed in the position of Executive Producer for Warhammer Online, Carrie Gouskos promised to try for a letter every month. She's stayed true to that promise, and as the end of July approaches at breakneck speeds, there's a new letter for the fans. After a quick recap of the known news about the game (the testing of patch 1.3.6 and the European migration), there are several other updates, starting with the return of the Wild Hunt to the game with the coming patch.

The letter also contains the promise of a new 6v6 scenario for the Weekend Warfront rotation, citing the matchup as a popular format that needs more representation. We also get a hint of future plans to help encourage RvR whilst leveling, said plans involving new enemies with high XP values being added to the RvR lakes. There's also a promise of a rework to the mechanics of some of the ranged classes, a coda to the most recent letter which should have several points of interest for dedicated Warhammer Online fans.

Worried that Blizzard's Real ID system may be coming to an MMO near you? BioWare Mythic has a few words of reassurance on that point: "No. Never. Never. No." This was the response by Warhammer Online's Carrie Gouskos to Eurogamer when asked if BioWare Mythic was mulling over a Real ID-type feature for its games.

BioWare Mythic's general manager Eugene Evans supported that sentiment and expanded on it: "We wouldn't do it. I'm surprised they did it, and for a group that is so close to their community, it was amazing that they misread it that poorly. I'm pleased to see them reacting to the community. We should all learn to listen to our communities. Their community made it very clear what the right answer is."

This follows the controversial decision -- later retracted by Blizzard -- to force World of Warcraft forum posters to use their real names in an attempt to cut down on trolling and forum spam. Since the controversy, other MMO studios have come out strongly against Real ID, so it's good to see that this includes the folks behind Warhammer Online, Dark Age of Camelot and Star Wars: The Old Republic.

It's been a quiet month for Warhammer Online players, unless you've been part of the transition of management over in Europe, but change appears to be on the horizon. Patch 1.3.6 has been in development for a little while now, and the players are getting to take it for a spin this weekend, as it's just been launched onto the Warpstone public test server. As usual, the development team is hosting a Q&A session as well as a stress test during the test phase, and while the official announcement doesn't mention any giveaways, history would seem to imply they'll be there.

Of course, all of the testing is well and good, but what does the patch actually contain? Fear not, as the full patch notes are available to read, with the major highlights covering item sets and RvR balance -- the latter addressed via the new "Against All Odds" system that gives a bonus to the underdog in RvR lakes. Items will now be customizable via appearance slots, and the Sovereign armor sets have been split into two potential sets for different playstyles. Take a look at the patch notes, and be sure to head on to Warpstone for a preview of the latest and greatest addition to Warhammer Online.

After being slightly disappointed by the lack of response to last week's challenge, Greg was worried that he wouldn't have a topic for Waging WAR this week, and suffered a short-term bout of writer's block. But Serendipity and Providence once again shook hands, and two new announcements were made on the Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning developer forums on Thursday and Friday earlier this week that would supply him with plenty of fodder for discussion in this week's column. Now, armed with the facts and a tall glass of creative juice, we can set things up properly, in all their italic glory.

The upcoming patch (1.3.6) for Warhammer Online promises a hefty amount of content, balancing, and changes. Highlights include the new armor vanity slots, the sovereign set revamps, the addition of the Against All Odds mechanic, and several class changes that have been needed for some time. In fact, it seems this latest career balancing pass has affected nearly every career available, and full mastery point refunds have been handed out to a whopping eight careers. The list doesn't stop there. Players will enjoy a new sticky targeting system, auction house interface, and loads of other new features including another batch of new art for the scenario weapons, and a revamp to the victory point system in the RvR campaign. There's even more still. You can read the full patch notes for patch 1.3.6, test the patch yourself (it went live on the PTS yesterday), or even take part in the developer lead focus tests on July 30th at 4 p.m. EDT and August 6th at 8 p.m. EDT.

But, of all the changes promised in the patch notes, one specific set of related changes has sparked my imagination for the future of WAR more than the rest. Find out what I'm talking about after the break.

During the last three weeks, Waging WAR took a look at the shadow warrior career in Warhammer Online, in an attempt to gain personal experience and insight into the complaints that most players have with the class. Due to popular demand, this week we return (albeit briefly) to the shadow warrior class to touch up a few frayed ends. We also set our sights forward and look ahead to future issues of Waging WAR.

I felt that my review of the career was based on solid ground, given the scope, and taking the setting and focus into consideration, and considering the fact that I had to grind the levels relatively quickly in order to stay on-time and deliver the column promptly. Despite my original intention to simply gain personal insight and experience with the class in an effort to have greater understanding of its hot-button issues, many of the Waging WAR readers who left comments were disappointed with my experiment, as I didn't have time or space to have a serious look at the skirmish and assault trees. So, throughout the last week, I felt obliged to play my shadow warrior, focusing all of my mastery points in either skirmish or assault (starting at rank 30, there are more than enough points available to explore an entire tree, and even a few inter-tree synergies).

Follow along after the break to find out how things went for me.

Ever had one of those nights when you get a group of your friends together, set out to complete an objective, and find no resistance at all? Well, that's what happened to this group on the Destruction side in Warhammer Online recently. Order must have been out for dinner or something. Nonetheless, they made the best of it, as you can see above. Here's Grimtalk of the alliance "Army of Darkness" who writes in to explain: "This is a picture of my alliance doing a city siege, completely naked, just because no Order showed up for that instance."

Do you have screenshots of your favorite game that you haven't sent in to us yet? If so, why are you holding back? You should gather those up and send them to us here at oneshots@massively.com along with your name, the name of the game, and a quick description. We can always use more screenshots to show off.

This week bears with it the final installment to Waging WAR's Nagaryth Chronicles, which took a long-term, in-depth look at the Path of the Scout mastery tree available to Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning's shadow warrior. Admittedly, Greg didn't have time to take his character all the way through to rank 40/40, but this past July 4th weekend's double XP and renown bonuses allowed him to level through Tier 3 relatively quickly. He's also promised us that he'll continue to play her casually as a break from his Archmage main, from time to time.

Again, I would like to take a moment to respond to some feedback left as reader comments to last week's column:

@Taawa -- According to my experience, festerbombs are absolutely deadly (think: "BOOM Headshot!"), possibly even moreso than any sort of infiltration attack by stealth-class melee-damage-per-second (MDPS) careers. If you're the type who enjoys sneaking around terrain and quietly selecting a target while taking time to prepare a guaranteed kill, you'll enjoy this build. I'll explain more after the break.
@Kyelthis -- Again with excellent feedback: the Steady Aim (SA) - Replenishing Strikes (RS) - Rapid Fire (RF) combination (a combination that had never occured to me until you pointed it out) is almost always as effective as Lileath's Forgiveness (LF). However, I feel that my use of SA is slightly more productive. I'll explain why after the break.
@Hal900x -- I'm pretty sure you're mistaking Unshakeable Focus with SA. Also, Shadow Sting (SS) is extremely short-range (45'). My ideal build (complete by rank 35) was focusing on extremely long-range, high-burst, sniping -- which is why I opted for Fell the Weak (FTW, 100') instead, since it has the same effect except instead of requiring an ailment, the "mortal strike" component requires Vengeance of Nagarythe (VoN, and is one second longer in duration to boot!). Finally, SA applies a 50% increased critical chance to damaging attacks, not to the overall critical chance of the character; thus, any attack during those six seconds has its critical chance treated like a coin flip: heads for a critical, tails for a normal hit.

So, why do I think that shadow warriors are fine and don't need the attention that everyone seems to claim they need? I'll discuss my side of the issue after the break.

If you've been enjoying Warhammer Online over in Europe, it's been impossible to miss all of the information about Mythic Entertainment taking over the game's operation. Much as it did with the Dark Age of Camelot transition earlier this year, Mythic is replacing GOA as the direct operator. The team behind the game has been trying to keep the process of transition as transparent as possible, and the result has been that it appears to be clear sailing for the switched operators, according to the most recent announcement.

Although the original timeline called for the transition to run until July 7th, it appears that the change has been completed, with all existing accounts transferred over with the suffix "_EUR." (So "Facemasher" would be "Facemasher_EUR" to log in.) While the team doesn't anticipate any problems, it's continuing to improve French and German customer service bases. As such, the team is asking for players to submit English requests when possible during the transition period. Warhammer Online players should be pleased at the smoothness of the transition, but are still advised to keep their eyes open on the off chance something went strange.

Waging WAR continues this week with the second installment of the Nagaryth Chronicles -- an in-depth look at the Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning's shadow warrior. We'll talk about how the career performs through tier two, identify key abilities, and open the floor to discussion about how we might begin to remedy some of the most basic issues with the career. So nock another arrow and let's get started.

First things first. I want to quickly respond to a few of the reader comments left on last week's column.

@MiloMenderBender: After you pointed out my target selection could be wrong, I started paying attention to my damage vs. the varying enemy careers. Your suggestion to pay closer attention to damage-per-kill rather than overall made perfect sense, and I'm now making more careful and efficient targeting decisions -- with satisfying results.
@Kyelthis: Your keybinding suggestions were excellent and definitely worth trying out.
@ShadowWAR: After reading your comment, it took only a moment to pay closer attention and confirm that the stances are not on the global cooldown (GCD) and skirmish stance does indeed return 1:1 ballistics to strength from items only.
@ the rest: Thank you for your contributions, and, although I'm hesitant to have this series turn into a conversation about mirrors, issues with the game in general or concerns with other careers, I want you to know that I read all of your comments and appreciate your feedback.

Moving on, let's continue with my impressions and issues with the shadow warrior through tier two after the break.

When you're but one dwarf, standing alone atop the ridge near your enemies, you likely have little chance of taking a keep all by yourself. Now when you're the one dwarf who incites armies to battle, or perhaps serves as the scout ahead of a large raiding party -- well that changes things a bit! While we don't know whether Talkan occupied either position or was just there on his own, we do know that his hatred of Destruction (or at least their architecture) in Warhammer Online is mighty. How can we tell? Check out the note that came with today's One Shots entry:

"Here is a snapshot of my ironbreaker glaring down at the goblin/orc-made keep called Thickmuck -- it's literally made from wood and mud! All this greenskin work makes my beard bristle and my axe itch! This stuff is even worse than human stonework!"

We're always on the lookout for art and architecture in different games, and we know we can't possibly have seen it all already. So grab some screens of your favorite game and send them to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com with your name (server and guild optional) and a quick description of what we're seeing. We'll post them here, and give you the credit for sending them in.

From Mythic Entertainment to EA Mythic to Mythic Entertainment to (now) BioWare Mythic, Warhammer Online's developer has seen its fair share of name changes. Change is the theme of the June Producer's Letter, as Carrie Gouskos not only announced the new name for the merged developer, but a number of other changes for WAR as well.

The takeover of Europe's WAR operations from GOA was a significant topic. Mythic is hosting the EU side on five servers: two English, two German and one French. "We're overjoyed to welcome our European players and are looking forward to more direct interaction with them," Carrie said.

She also pointed to the future with the upcoming 1.3.6 patch, which includes a nifty feature called Against All Odds that rewards outnumbered armies with up to 400% more experience, renown and influence in RvR lakes. Other upcoming changes include armor appearance slots, tweaks to open RvR, and a forge to alter the stat bonuses of city armor. You can read the full Producer's Letter here!

Despite what your grade school friends told you, there are take backs in life. Last week we brought you the breaking news that GOA was transferring Europe's Warhammer Online operations to Mythic Entertainment, a significant event considering that GOA's been handling WAR on the continent since 2006. Today Mythic posted a rather extensive "WAR EU Takeback FAQ" which is as informative as it is rhymey.

Fortunately, it does not appear as though the transfer will be too disruptive to current players. Characters, levels, gear, servers and friends lists will remain intact, and no new client download is required. Mythic will also be hosting German and French-specific servers for any wishing to play in a particular language environment. However, all players are asked to register for a new Mythic account, and will need to make sure that their payment plans and options are set up accordingly in it.

Mythic's also stated that they have long-term plans to allow players to transfer to and from North American servers, although no decision's been made regarding transferring to non-English speaking serves. The transfer begins tomorrow, June 29th, and will continue through July 7th. For the rest of the details, or just to settle your mind, read through the Takeback FAQ over at Warhammer Online's site.

This week, Waging WAR starts the first in-depth career review with a three to four column exposè on Warhammer Online's shadow warrior. We'll take a look at the career as it progresses through each of the tiers, as well as consider key tactics, abilities and masteries that are learned along the way. As we go, we'll try to understand and break down what makes the shadow warrior tick, why so many players claim the career is broken, and whether or not Waging WAR agrees. So, let's get our tabi boots on, pull our face masks up, and get started.

For a long time now, I've stood on the sidelines and listened to horror stories regarding the shadow warrior. It has been clear that many players are (or have been) dissatisfied with the career, but I've never fully understood why. It isn't so difficult for me to peruse the SW forums or read one of the many blogs out there that explain things quite clearly, and understand the theory of it, but as far as first-hand experience goes, I've been lacking a direct understanding of the career and how it works. With that in mind, I've decided to educate myself; over the next few weeks, I'll be leveling a shadow warrior so I can analyze the career from the inside.

Earlier this year, Mythic Entertainment moved to take over the management of Dark Age of Camelot in Europe from publisher GOA, and this week we've learned that they're doing the same for Warhammer Online. In a brief announcement on WAR's EU site, GOA states that the full operation of the game is being handed over to Mythic. This includes a migration of all character data from GOA's servers to Mythic's. GOA has had the publishing rights to WAR since 2006.

The history of GOA and Warhammer Online is a rocky one, especially around the launch of the game in 2008. However, they retained the right to publish and run the game in Europe, and proceeded without any other severe bumps since then (OK, maybe a few bumps). GOA's parting note with the players is quietly upbeat: "We have enjoyed a lot of great times with you. Over the past couple of years we have fostered a fantastically vibrant and active community; we saw the world's first Tchar'Zanek and Karl Franz kills pre 1.3.5 and hosted undeniably some of the most professional guilds to ever play WAR."

While this undoubtedly comes as a shock to many EU players, the bottom line is that WAR will continue to run in the region. The WAR EU site promises more information and a transition FAQ in upcoming days, so stay tuned as we keep abreast of this developing situation.

There aren't very many companies that open up planned patch changes to their players and fans for discussion; however, Mythic is one that does. This week, Waging WAR focuses on the suggested career balance changes for the Zealot and Runepriest coming in patch 1.3.6 for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. We'll cover the issue as well as the proposed solution for these careers. We'll also discuss the impact that these changes might have on the affected careers and on the community in general. There's also a part where Greg throws some drama at the fan and rants about "DPS-Healers."

Let's start by clarifying the main issue and the proposed change. Currently, the other healing careers (Archmage, Shaman, Warrior Priest and Disciple of Khaine) have their mastery paths organized by the role which they might play (i.e. damage focus, healing focus, etc.); whereas, the Zealot and Runepriest don't. Their mastery paths are organized by the delivery method of their healing (i.e. over time, direct, or area). The problem is, after deciding whether to specialize offensively or defensively and gearing to that role (a freedom of choice that they should be given), the Zealot and Runepriest are left with only one-half of an effective skill-set -- the other half of their skills being rendered ineffective by role choice and gear itemization. To bring these careers in line with their archetypical cousins, a new mechanism is proposed which gives Zealots and Runepriests a chance to retain some effectiveness in skills that are outside their chosen role.