andy-belford posts

Warhammer Online interim city siege fixes

by Brooke Pilley Nov 5th 2009 at 6:00PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Warhammer Online, News items

Mythic has been pulling out all stops lately in an effort to improve Warhammer Online. One of their latest changes was to remove fortresses from the RvR campaign equation because many players found them to be a laggy and boring hurdle to be overcome. Doing so, however, had a predictable result: Cities were sieged much more often. While Mythic was acutely aware this would happen, they didn't have measures in place to handle an "all city siege all the time" situation. Today, Andy Belford announced a suite of interim city fixes.

Check out the official forums for the complete run-down. A few notables include: The durations of stage 1 and 2 city siege have been cut in half, many parts of the city are no longer tied to city rank, city rank recovers much more quickly, and the Reikland Factory and Twisting Tower scenarios are making a comeback to provide those not engaged in city siege with something to do.

Many players and bloggers have pointed out that these fixes only address the symptoms and not the core issues related to WAR's RvR campaign. Andy was quick to mention that these are only initial changes and more will be coming (e.g., the Underdog system). Testing of these changes should begin next week so keep your eyes on the Herald.

Tags: andy-belford, city-siege, mythic-entertainment, reikland-factory, rvr, rvr-campaign, scenarios, twisting-tower, war, warhammer-online

Looking for WAR? Blame the ISP!

by Seraphina Brennan Sep 16th 2009 at 4:15PM

Filed under: At a glance, Fantasy, Server downtime, Warhammer Online

If you're wondering why the Warhammer Online main website isn't working (click the link for yourself to find out), or why you may be having connectivity issues with the game, it's because their ISP just did something they didn't want to happen.

Mythic Entertainment (not like you can reach that website either, right now) is aware of, and on top of, the issue. Currently players are unable to connect to the patcher servers, meaning that new players will not be able to get back into the game until these issues are fixed.

In the mean time, until everything comes back online, all pertinent data on the status of Warhammer can be found through Andy Belford's Twitter account, @Andy_Mythic. He'll keep players apprised of the situation until the main website can be brought back online.

Tags: andy-belford, mythic, mythic-entertainment, server-outage, twitter, wagggggh, war, warhammer-online, website-outage

GenCon Indy 09: Mythic and BioWare and Cryptic, oh my!

by Brooke Pilley Aug 14th 2009 at 4:00PM

Filed under: Events, real-world, Interviews, Warhammer Online, Champions Online, Star Wars: The Old Republic

Syp of the BioBreak blog drove five-and-a-half hours to Indianapolis to experience GenCon Indy 2009 for a day and he surely didn't waste any time chatting with a few of the biggest MMO developers out there. He managed to get some one-on-one time with Robert Mull and Andy Belford of Mythic, Chris Priestly of BioWare, and Jack Emmert of Cryptic.

Andy discussed Mythic's revised approach to Warhammer Online's development, some misconceptions about server performance, and his role in the Second Skin MMO documentary amongst other things. Chris was unable to talk about Star Wars: The Old Republic specifically as he was there to pitch Dragon Age: Origins, however, there is a little tidbit about ehancements they're making to their morality system, which fans will be sure to speculate upon. Finally, Jack seems confident that Champions Online hype will drastically escalate via word of mouth once the NDA drops.

Check out Syp's trip to Indy part one and part two. It's full of interesting information about the convention and boasts numerous photos of himself, some devs, and the growd in general. He notes a bit of disappointment that neither Blizzard nor Turbine were in attendance, otherwise, he'd surely have assaulted them with questions too.

Tags: andy-belford, bioware, blizzard, champions-online, chris-priestly, cryptic-studios, dragon-age-origins, gencon-indy-09, jack-emmert, mythic-entertainment, robert-mull, second-skin, star-wars-the-old-republic, syp, turbine, warhammer-online

Mythic may take radical approaches with Warhammer Online

by Brooke Pilley Jun 26th 2009 at 7:30PM

Filed under: Fantasy, Warhammer Online, News items

As Warhammer Online fans wait for a post-BioWAAAGH! pep talk from Mythic's new General Manager, Rob Denton, they'll have to make due with part three of an Executive Producer's letter from Jeff Hickman.

The letter primarily discusses the ways Mythic plans to resolve the top 5 issues identified last week by various focus groups. Warhammer Alliance has an excellent summary in bullet form for those unwilling to wade through the whole article (though we suggest you do for full context).

Jeff makes a few really interesting comments in his letter that jumped out at us.

He states that Mythic is still committed to Dark Age of Camelot and Ultima Online and will be sharing their plans for both titles in the near future. We know about the new UO expansion but haven't heard much about DAOC lately. Where oh where are you, Origins?

It appears Mythic is "looking at some fairly radical approaches" to address server population issues in WAR. Maybe we'll finally see that realm queue system they had working pre-release...

Finally, it sounds like fortresses may be on their way out if Mythic can't find some way to fix them. Andy Belford had this to say: "How do we make it a fun encounter while not diminishing the epic feel of it? At what point do we say, enough is enough, and cut off the offending appendage?" Radical indeed.

Tags: andy-belford, dark-age-of-camelot, jeff-hickman, ultima-online, war, warhammer-online