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Warhammer Online's live team has issued a statement on the WAR Herald informing players that they're doing everything they can to improve tier 4 stability and performance, especially during large-scale fortress sieges in RvR. The post's purpose seems mostly to let everyone know that Mythic is listening and hard at work on the problem, a fact that never goes without thanks from concerned parties.

The overall goal is of course the elimination of crashes, improving of frame-rate and other graphical issues seen during large-scale encounters. Anyone more than half-way through the leveling process can attest to the fun of huge battles, but they can likely also talk of how bogged-down a system can get during that time. Hopefully the fixes will come sooner rather than later, and without any unexpected new bugs.

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	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!

Mythic Entertainment's Mark Jacobs posted a Warhammer Online dev blog today, titled "Open RvR Update" which maps out the future of open realm-vs-realm in the game. Jacobs writes that the coming months will bring some changes and additions to WAR:

• An RvR Influence system. "This system is designed to reward our oRvR players with lots of new stuff that you can only get through oRvR," he says.

• Increased visibility of open RvR, made possible through numerous improvements such as improved maps and travel systems, second bind points, a campaign HUD, and tier-wide messaging about the status of battlefield objectives and keeps.

• Greater incentives for oRvR participation, namely through keep quests, 'Daily Event Quests,' and chained RvR missions.

• Better rewards for guilds that take and control keeps, and a system of keep upgrades.

• Allowing characters to gain oRvR "Fame", linked to the Tome of Knowledge and thus rewards, titles, and experience that come with oRvR success.

Jacobs cautions though, "Please keep in mind that these changes/systems apply to oRvR only and not to scenarios. This is not all we are working on but these do reflect the majority of oRvR additions that we are currently working on/planning for the next few months." Jacobs hopes that open RvR enhancements will inject more risk and challenge into this aspect of the game, and ultimately more rewards. Check out his dev blog where he outlines the changes to open RvR and let us know, do you think Mythic is headed in the right direction with this system revamp?

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	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!

The Heavy Metal live event for Warhammer Online has been well-received, albeit with some complaints about scenario frequency. Reikland Factory is a unique 'event-only' scenario in WAR, which some players lament will end with Heavy Metal. If this is indeed the case, at least one blogger out there decided to capture it in video for posterity.

Snafzg from The Greenskin blog has put up video footage of his participation in the Reikland Factory scenario. The footage, with Snafzg's commentary throughout, walks the viewer through the scenario and its multiple types of terrain, both indoors and open air. Snafzg is in combat for much of the walkthrough so it's an interesting way to get a quick visual tour of the scenario. You can find The Greenskin's "Reikland Factory Heavy Metal Scenario RvR" video embedded below the cut:

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	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!

Any massively multiplayer online game built around the twin pillars of PvP and territorial control can't go wrong by providing realtime status updates of the struggle via the web. Warhammer Online has endeavored to do just that with the Realm War site, as addressed in a dev diary by the title's Web Development Lead, Scott Stricklin. The dev blog touches on what Mythic has accomplished thus far with bringing WAR to the web, and what they hope to accomplish in the future -- namely, podcasts, community news, and character and guild profiles. While they have no shortage of ideas about how to expand WAR outside of the client, their first objective has been to bring Realm vs. Realm data to the web. That goal has now been realized, and Stricklin walks the reader through the features of the newly revamped Realm War site.

Players now have access to updated information about the overall campaign and the status of each capital city, Stricklin writes. This information is also presented visually, with each capital city's look changing based on its status, ranging from peaceful to besieged. This can all be kept in a pop up box in your browser to provide continual updates for when the tide of battle turns. Further information is provided through selectors which represent a server's racial pairings, giving a snapshot of what's happening with each tier's zone control. An added bonus to this are influence maps for each zone, similar to the in-game maps, which show the status of the various RvR objectives and allow a player to mouse over keeps, seeing when it was last captured and by which guild. Have a look at Scott Stricklin's dev diary for more on the Realm War site, or better yet, just head over there and try it out for yourself.

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	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!

There was a time when the western MMO market was flooded with imports of popular Korean titles. While there's still a steady influx of Asian games reworked to fit western playstyles, there's also a growing number of western MMOs being exported to Asia, particularly Korea. The obvious title that succeeds anywhere it goes is World of Warcraft, whose Asian following is legion. But smaller games have also been making inroads. EVE Online has been operating in China for years and Hellgate: London gained a new lease on life in Korea. They're not alone in this. Turbine has its eyes set on expanding into Korea with Lord of the Rings Online, and we know that Age of Conan is marching eastward, too. The latest successful western title to look east is Warhammer Online, which will soon be played in Korea as well.

Electronic Arts and Hangame are partnering to bring WAR to South Korea. In a related press statement, Mythic's Mark Jacobs said, "By partnering with Hangame, we hope to provide Korean gamers with a fresh, new fantasy experience and years' worth of Realm vs. Realm adventures on the frontlines of WAR." You can see the full announcement about WAR's attempt to capture Korean gamers over at The Earth Times. Given how PvP-centric Korean MMOs tend to be, do you think Warhammer Online would be a natural fit for gamers in this market?

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	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!

In a recent dev diary, Warhammer Online's Lead Artist, Russell Chamier, takes us through the process of creating one of the newest RvR scenarios coming to the game. The Reikland Factory is a Tier 4 scenario that will only be available during the Heavy Metal event. According to the diary, control of this key RvR location will dictate the region's war machine production.

As far as the artistry involved in a project like this, Chamier says that the art team minimized recycled content from the launch library by creating all new assets. The step-by-step process is detailed in this dev diary by showing and explaining the concept art to finished product. Once this scenario goes live, you can have a greater respect for what went into building the location, as you spill your opponent's blood all over it.

Mythic is out there, listening, watching and waiting for you to ... give them some feedback! They've just pushed some new changes onto the live Warhammer Online servers in response to player feedback and are calling them Phase IV Experience Enhancements. What are they? Well, glad you asked. Two things have been tweaked: renown gain for healing has been increased yet again and capturing an enemy battlefield objective now rewards players with experience. It's only two tweaks, but it says a lot for how fast Mythic is to respond to feedback, given that they had increased renown for healing in yesterday's 1.0.4 patch.

One of the most common criticisms of Warhammer Online is that many players seem to spend ages just grinding scenarios, while the open RvR areas - clearly meant to be heaving with Order and Destruction players going at it - are much less populated. Mark Jacobs recently announced that the WAR devs intend to 'boost RvR like crazy', and the rumblings have already begun.

The bonus XP for killing a player in an open RvR area, previously boosted by 50%, is now going to be boosted by 100%. Players killed in open RvR will thus be worth double the amount of XP of those killed in scenarios. As carrots on sticks go, that's a hefty carrot.

There's already been some tweaking done to the chat system to add region-wide and RvR-wide channels; presumably the next big thing to come to the RvR zones will be the boss monsters promised for Witching Night.

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	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!

Mythic Entertainment announced their latest list of Warhammer Online servers to receive realm population bonuses this week. Not surprisingly, five of the seven (Core) servers listed impart bonuses for playing Order.

Mythic stated: "Great rewards await those who take up their charge and help bolster their army's strengths where it's needed the most... these bonuses are temporary boosts to help new players get into the game and strengthen their allies' efforts on servers where their realm struggles to keep up with the growing armies of their enemy. For one week, these chosen servers will bestow divine gifts upon the designated realm to help swell their ranks and give them the power to try and turn the tides of battle. Players who join the vanguard will receive a 20% bonus to renown and experience." The list of servers that give these bonuses is found in-game at the Server Select screen; the currently listed bonuses will expire on October 24th.

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	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!

There's something to be said for the first time you step into any new MMO. Unless it's a particularly bad game, you'll enjoy exploring the world - especially so if you find the art design helps the game's immersion factor. Today's One Shots is one such image from a Warhammer Online player, Ripsha from the Gorfang server. Ripsha writes in: Just an average day running around the first RVR area making sure Destruction holds are being held but finding time to savor the beauty. We found a lot of the areas in Warhammer Online to be cool to look at too. Thanks for taking the time to send this in, Ripsha!

Have you run across a picturesque ruin, an awesome moon, or other really great game art design while you were out adventuring? If so, we'd love to see it too. Just send it to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name/server/guild and a quick description. We'll show it off to all our readers and give you all the credit!

Gallery: One Shots

Warhammer Online has its flaws that like to run up and slap you in the face from time to time -- it can put a damper on the fun. Lucky for us, one of the strengths found in Warhammer Online actually comes from its design team, Mythic Entertainment. These guys (and gals!) have been stringing together a daisy-chain of updates and just yesterday announced their first big content release only one month out of launch. The update seems all good, but I do have a couple of gripes.

As a game that has promoted its PvP aspects so much, Warhammer Online's Realm vs Realm feature has become a big hit among players. In a recent article over at Eurogamer, they analyze the sport aspect of WAR's RvR system, and what makes it different from the PvP in other MMOs.

This article touches on many key points, including collision detection, control point logistics and more. However, this article is not simply another praise-fest. On the subject of what Mythic got right or wrong in RvR: "Right: always ensuring you've got something fast, satisfying and combat-centric to achieve, with none of the waiting around and grinding of... well, I won't bring up That Other Game here. Wrong: guarding capture points for a set number of seconds, or running a flag to specific spots to score points is so inescapably gamey, so artificial."

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	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!

From Tier 2 onwards, players of Warhammer Online have the option of mustering an army to go forth into the RvR lakes and capture keeps. There are numerous benefits to capturing a keep -- renown bonuses and set-piece loot await a victorious party, as well as a chance to claim the keep in their guild's name, and push the zone control meter forward for their realm. Of course, if the opposing realm has some backbone about them, a quick capture can turn into an all-out war, with siege weapons and countless casualties. One can only hope! Join us as we take an in-depth look at all of this, in our gallery guide to capturing and defending keeps.

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	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!

Just yesterday we noted the rollout of the second major Game Update to hit Warhammer Online. One of the key points of that update was new 'Population Bonus' rewards for under-developed factions. This new feature will bestow additional XP and renown on underpopulated factions on specific servers. The Warhammer Herald already has a new page up on the site, offering a rolling list of realms and factions they think need a little help. Unsurprisingly, at the moment they're all on the Order side. The following servers are looking to get some folks into the light:

• Bechafen (Open RvR)
• Ungrim (Core)
• Ulthuan (Core)
  

If you're thinking about rolling a new Order character on one of these servers, make sure to check out our guides to the character classes of that faction. We'll give you the inside information you need to get the most out of your newly-formed good guy. For the Empire!

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	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!