Memorial Day

To all the men and women who have lost their lives and put them on the line for our Country and its people, we thank you for your honorable service. May all the sacrifices you and your families have made be honored with the greatest of respect from your fellow countrymen and through the representation of this day for all the battles won and lost in our Country's past and future. May the Colors continue to stand for purity, honor, and the blood sacrificed to establish and keep this Country safe and secure. May our leaders and people of this great Country recognize that sacrifice and on this day have a moment of silence to show respect to you, the Eternal, the most Honored.

God Bless America, its people, its allies, and all those who stand up for what is right in the face of any opposition.

“Great beauty, great strength, and great riches are really and truly of no great use; a right heart exceeds all.” – Benjamin Franklin

Earthrise?!

Where the hell was this game?! I just found it on MMORPG.COM and it looks like a gem! Might be my replacement for Imperator that got the axe a while back. Earthrise is an interesting skill based system with no classes! Has the depth of EVE for its crafting and economy system, so really excited to see that. It has the PvP and Guild PvP elements and some interesting features. Post-apocalyptic setting following WW3, so has the Sci-Fi feel to it as well. So far the music I listen to is awesome and the videos look cool. Just hope its what they tout it as! Check it out, sign up for the beta if you want, I did. :)

Warhammer, where do we go from here?

Well, its pretty obvious now how Mythic has screwed the pooch on this one. Warhammer has a ton of potential, but lately I have seen nothing but screwed up patches that create more imbalance and issues with the game than existed prior to the patch. Honestly, Mythic, you need to stop releasing big patches and trying to "fix" something that isn't broken in the first place. Now Bright Wizards, Warrior Priests, Slayers, and Choppas all have issues on top of the pre-existing problems with the other classes. RvR is broke, period. City Sieges are pointless and nothing like watching our city sacked each day because destro players are quiting due to all the class imbalance issues. Anyway, enough ranting and time for a constructive suggestion.

I can categorize most classes into some simple buckets, such as Tank, Melee DPS (MDPS), Ranged DPS (RDPS), and Healer. Its pretty simple to figure out what classes go where and some classes may act as hybrids straddling multiple arch types (e.g. Disciple of Khain, Warrior Priest, etc). In my mind I see each arch type having a Weak Versus and a Strong Versus, meaning classes you suck against and those you are meant to destroy on the battlefield. It does not seem any logic was put in place with this in mind or at least it is incredible difficult to see the logic when in comes to Warhammer. You could argue it would make the game boring, but there is enough room for creativity to make some interesting hybrid and Weak Versus and Strong Versus combinations.

Anyway, I love diagrams, so I came up with this one using Visio. Not anything special, just a visual illustration of how I see each classes' role fit against other classes. Hybrids would simply pick up the Weak Versus and Strong Versus of both arch types, but never be excellent at either one compared to the "pure" classes. Healers, yes you lose the game here. Your job is to HEAL, not to DPS, not to Tank, just heal end of discussion. If you want to tank, play a hybrid class that has tanking ability, but expect to be passed for a full healing class, such as a Zealot or Arch Mage. I know it makes the job boring, but reality is that we have to look into other things to make the class interesting instead of making them DPS and Tank classes. Honestly, look at DAOC pre-TOA days and you will get the idea. People had healers, because healers meant buffs and meant you could beat the crap out of unbuffed targets. Yes, it did give rise to the buff bots, but putting limits on the buff ranges helped a ton preventing the solo guys running around with buffs all to hell.

Well that's my 2 cents for this post. Doubt anyone will see it, doubt Mythic will find this post, but I feel better having gotten that crap off my chest.

My thoughts on improving Warhammer Open RvR...

There are several things that need "improvement", but I am not surprised given how many new and dynamic elements Warhammer introduced to the MMO world (that's a compliment by the way). There are a lot of things left to do to the game and only time will tell how Mythic goes about making it happen. I am not complaining, I love playing Warhammer, but I am just offering some ideas on how to improve it. Some of these things are being implemented / revised in 1.2 and beyond, but I wrote this prior to the 1.2 patch notes. I also understand that many of these features would require significant programming and may not be feasible given how an MMO functions, but again they are just ideas and I know Mythic has some pretty creative and resourceful people and I am not just saying that, I mean it.

I personally think that keep / fortress taking should be greatly improved and that fighting in RvR should be about strategy, not numbers. Right now all it takes is an Order/Destruction zerg to run into a RvR lake and wipe the floor (some could argue this). Fortresses have more strategy, but what really needs to happen is the ability to siege multiple keeps / forts at one time versus throwing bodies at a front door until its knocked down. It would be like fighting a world war and having to choose what's worth losing and what's worth defending. Now this is from my point of view on the Red Eye Mountain server, which just had its first City Siege last weekend, so your results/opinions could obviously vary.

Siege Weapons
How about making siege weapons more effective and playing a larger roll? Siege weapons should decimate a attacking force. If I shoot someone with a catapult, I expect bodies to fly. If I hit someone with a ballista, I expect a hole in that character. If I hit a keep wall with a boulder the size of a car, I expect to see pieces of that wall fall off. I want to see a fight like no other fight experience in an MMO. I want to see Lord of the Rings Helm's Deep type fighting and usage of siege weapons. Hell, put a character in a catapult and throw them into the keep! Why not have walls that can be destroyed? How about towers that can collapse or be set ablaze by fiery arrows? This area could have huge improvements to make the elements of a keep siege more interesting and place a greater importance on siege weapons. A force whacking on a front door of a keep without a ram should not be able to bust through. Lastly, I want to see siege towers! I want the ability to climb the walls using a siege tower, but be at the mercy of hot oil and other elements that could destroy me or the tower.

Keep / Fortress Defenses
A keep has many defensible elements. Doors, walls, towers, etc. What Warhammer is lacking is moats, arrow slits, draw bridges, upgraded doors and portcullises, deployable obstacles, and the list can go on. If a guild claims a keep, they should be able to expend gold to upgrade it. How about upgrading the doors, adding a moat, placing arrow slits in the doorway, putting a secondary door on the outer wall, or even a portcullis? These elements give more control and reason for a guild to claim a keep beyond experience. Not to mention a guild could purchase additional defenders in the form of mercenaries and attackers could do the same. How about upgrading the guards equipment and weapons to make them more deadly? What if you could upgrade a keep so much that you could have heroes guarding the inner walls? How about giving keeps and fortresses more choke points versus block off defenders from getting in a postern door? What if the strategy is to take the portal BOs and destroy or put wards on a postern door to keep defenders from entering?

Battle Objectives
Right now battle objectives really only increase the guards at a keep. What if the BOs improved supplies to the keep and reduces its operating costs? How about BOs that can be claimed and the more objectives claimed the more powerful the BOs bonuses and the keeps defenses? I think adding porters from a BO to a keep would be neat as well, but it only works if you own the keep and BO (similiar to DAOC towers). That way defenders can hold a BO and still provide reinforcements to a keep. BOs could also be used to cut off supply routes.

Victory Points and Sacking a City
This area needs some improvement. I have seen posts on this topic on various blogs and none of them have been positive, although I will admit my searching on this has been somewhat limited, so please comment!

1. Victory Points should not move up or down based on Scenarios or PQ participation in the PvE area. RvR based PQs should be created to supplement those in PvE. Scenarios are just that, scenarios and should have no bearing on the control of a zone. All VP should be earned by capturing of keeps, BOs, winning RvR based PQs, and open field battles. To me, that promotes more oRvR participation.

2. Taking a fortress should difficult and a semi-epic battle. It should be harder than storming a Keep, but easier than sacking a city. I expect multiple doors, multiple wall layers, and all the stuff I talked about above. Right now its only two doors and that's all you have to realistically take out to get to the Lord. And all it takes is a tank wall to defend against the attackers (and now standards it seems). If siege towers existed, now you have to watch the walls AND the ramp to the Lord making it a more strategic and multi-pronged fight.

3. Sacking a city should require you to break through a front fortress or some sort of obstacle and then enter the city. You can assault this fortress at any time, but its MUCH weaker if you capture the other two fortresses. Once in the defenders or attackers can blockade the city, but that does not stop defenders or attackers from using alternative routes to enter the city (e.g. taking back a fortress to provide a portal into the city or maybe running through a sewer system that acts as a dungeon). It could still be instanced, but ensure that those instanced areas have equal number of defenders / attackers if at all possible. Realistically, players should not be able to decide which instance to enter as that just introduces imbalance as players tend favor the scenarios they are winning. The gear and loot in a city sacking / siege should be the best gear available in the game and not just off gold bag drops. Many of the PQs seem to be a grind and with semi-poor loot the grind is a bit mind numbing.

4. Strategy, strategy, strategy! If there is no strategy to taking a city, then what's the point? You should be able to assault or defend a city ANY time its under siege. Take this anyway you want, but given there is a 6 hour timer on the event seems to introduce this to being a "time based" event. Possibly locking down fortresses from recapture for x hours would be better or put some sort of interval in which a wave of forces will come to "save the city" every so often. Just add a little more dynamics to this part.

I could go on about other things, but you get the idea. I want Warhammer Online to try and capture the epic nature of all out, open warfare in a Warhammer, dark ages type setting. The parts are getting there they just need some more work. I welcome comments, and hope that others found this constructive and not a rant. I am not trying in any way to speak down about Warhammer, Mythic, or anyone for that matter. I just wanted to post my observations and recommendations for improving the Warhammer oRvR experience.

Swweeeeeeeeeeeettttttttttttttt!

Wow, just got some cool news. The Subject Index web part I wrote is being reviewed by my employer to see if it can be packaged and sold to other agencies! I'm shocked, I just wrote it to meet project requirements and bam, the company wants to sell it to other projects. Anyway, thought it was pretty neat and just wanted to post it.

Alive and kicking...

Ok, so I don't post much on my blog very often, but today I just got the bug to write something, since the office I work for is in lock down due to "slippery weather" - Washington DC traffic is a nightmare during nice weather, imagine 10 million people commuting to work in "slippery weather". Hell, its terrible with only 360,000 people where I live!

SharePoint Update
Anyway, I have been working on a major project for the customer I work for over that last 4 months. Its a Subject Index system that integrates with SharePoint 2007's Search System (uses the Keywords and Best Bets). Its pretty cool, at least in my opinion. Right now its nearly 10,000 lines of C# code entirely written on my own. Thank goodness for the Internet, otherwise it would have taken me 10 times longer to write. With SharePoint web parts, you practically have to write everything as code instead of using ASPX pages (not required, but certainly cleaner implementation). That makes it pretty complex and makes you think out a web site in code. So, basically you have to create DIVs, Tables, Rows, Cells, Styles, and everything via the code. Very insane and half the time I had to step back to run through the logic away from the computer. Anyway, its been a challenging project and I am quite happy with how it turned out. Right now people are testing it and even those people are surprised at its complexity, one of those people is the Librarian I have spoken about and she is having fun with it! Of course she was the end user who gave us the initial requirements and she is already writing down new features for the next release. :)

Warhammer Update - Waaaaaaaaaaagh!
As you have probably figured out I have two sub-hobbies with computers, gaming and programming. So there is no better combination than writing software (in this case UI mods) for a game. Well there is better, working for a game company and being on the design / development team (hint hint - yea right, doubt I would get a job offer, but wishful thinking)! :) But I digress. I have been writing a MOD for Warhammer called Arlien's Guild Manager (currently in alpha). Its been a challenging and fun project as well! I have not updated it in 3 weeks, been extremely busy getting level 40, helping run the guild, and working on the Subject Index. However, now that I am getting close to finishing up the Subject Index and have made it to level 40 I am ready to dive back in. I have several fans of the MOD too, so I am quite happy about that and they have offered great suggestions to make it even better. Basically, it simplifies the management of many of the guild functions that originally come with the Warhammer guild UI. There are many shortcoming to the original, so I have tried to fill in the gaps as we have a large guild of over 200 characters, which if you manage a guild in Warhammer you know how it can be extremely painful! I also have our guild officer responsible for managing the roster that is looking forward to things like mass promote/demote/kick, tracking mains/alts, enhanced filtering, and several other features suggested by fans of the MOD. I hope Mythic expands the tables associated with guild data to allow us to flag things like alts, that would be a huge feature (cough, cough).

I just wanted to say without Mythic, Warhammer would not exist and I would not be having so much fun learning LUA (could not stand WOW). Great work, Mythic, Warhammer is a fantastic game and is getting better each month and I can not wait to see what you have in store for us in February!

Oh, I almost forgot, we made a guild video of a T4 PQ we did in Warhammer. It was a blast and you can find it for download here!

On a final note, I wanted to thank my wife for being such a wonderful and supportive spouse! She puts up with a lot from me and I do not deserve such a great person! Check out her blog as well, she posts a lot of cool stories about things going on in life. Love you my dear!

Great Job Mythic Entertainment!

I just had to post a public "Thank You!" to Mythic Entertainment on such a successful and wonderful release of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. Personally, I have never felt more part of the creation of a game than with WAR. I was a member of the closed beta and had the honor of getting a sneak preview into the game and were it was headed and of course report some bugs and provide constructive feedback. :) I have seen many of the things people talked about in the closed beta actually get implemented, so I am very impressed by how professional and open the Mythic Team was with the testers. I know WAR will do well with all it has to offer and because no one does Realm vs Realm (Player vs Player) better than Mythic.

So, why are you reading this and not playing??

WAAAAAGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!