Big Day Today

Here come the Slayers/Choppas! The new classes should be available to those who completed the Bitter Rivals event later today after the servers come down. But that’s not the only reason it’s a big day. There’s also a bunch of server moves happening to help players get to experience better RvR through more targets:

All characters on servers from which we have previously offered transfers will be moved to more lively servers…

…Here’s the full list of automatic transfers
Dragonback Mountains, Mount Silverspear, Sea Of Dreams, Tiranoc and Finuval Plain to Eltharion
Karak Ungor, Clar Karond and Karak-Vlag to Karak-Azgal
Karak-Hirn, Karaz-a-Karak, TorAnroc and Yvresse to Karak-Norn
Zhufbar, Worlds Edge Mountains, Axe Bite Pass, Karag Dron and Karag Orrud to Karak Eight Peaks
Makaisson, Ellyrion and Alarielle to Burlok

It’s quite a big deal and a couple of European bloggers have been talking about their experiences moving from Karak-Hirn to Karak-Norn. The server moves, along with the 10-day free trial available through WAR Europe and the return of players to see the new classes mean we should be getting some stellar play in over the next days and weeks, breathing new life into RvR and PvE (yes, time to get those hard PQs done). It’s quite a big deal to welcome new players to your server, especially when you’re used to the same old names – but give it a go, I intend to on Burlok and I’m not a naturally friendly person ;p! (btw, if you’re coming to Burlok as either Order or Destruction, I’ll be playing Idris the Warrior Priest, feel free to say hi or to kill me and report it here!).

And I know you’re all waiting for stuff about the Dublin trip, so here’s a quick overview:

• lots of GOA, not so many players – we intend to change this at a London get-together (maybe check 9th May in your calendars…more on that soon)
• GOA were really friendly, their offices all bright and decorated WAR-style
• T-shirts rock 🙂
• So do female Rune Priest birthday presents (thanks to Nic and Magnus for this, it has pride of place away from ALL cats!!!)
• Go bother Tuffmudda to start the ‘recipes for MMO players’ meme. I reckon we can get at least one recipe out of every WAR blogger

I guess what I took away from it the most is that the individuals at GOA who work with WAR are incredibly enthusiastic and joyful about their work. Many of them are dedicated Warhammer junkies and however much we all love the game and the community, they do too. They just get to see all the other sides of it! And yes, there will be pictures and an interview with Nic and Magnus for quieter days!

1.2 – it’s alive

Ok, well.. it’s having life breathed into it this morning and the patching process should take till lunchtime.

I have a massive work schedule this week, so I’m not sure how much I’ll see of the patch and the Bitter Rivals event before the weekend, but I’ll be keeping an eye on other blogs out there and hope to bring you a round-up of links that I’ve enjoyed about the new patch and the new event.

Bring on the Slayers!!

Today’s read-through

Incorporates some of yesterday’s updates, because I’m doing lots of overtime this week and behind with my reading. So fasten your seatbelts, and join me as I read through my feed reader, with no idea what I’ll stumble upon.

• I agree, this is SO not a hag
• Ha ha, Griffon Battlemasters in Nordenwatch change their appearance? I never noticed! Really, I barely look at them I’m baying for blood so much on starting a scenario
• Yay, some bloggers have been city sieging – boo, it’s not always gone too well. We’ve not got past problems with fortress capturing, so I’ve not been to a big city capture yet, and I’m not geared up for one anyway, but it’s both good to see it happening more regularly, and bad that it still needs some wrinkles ironed out. We shouldn’t be beta testing this as much in a live game, and I hope once changes are made they work and are well received. For myself, I’ve gone more for levelling and lower tier RvR as my route to enjoyment these days. Reroller has a good summary of bloggers’ experiences with cities up
•  It’s good to have a sense of humour about losing in scenarios and to check the scoreboard at the end to see why, but I’m not sure I’ve ever had THIS problem
• I still don’t know what a duiker is, I was too  busy going ‘Awwww’
• Are Choppas and Slayers too cool for school? I think they might be, but at this point, what the hell!
• An MMO can truly be classed as evil, when it makes you think of Britney Spears
• Oh Ysharros, you hid an interesting nugget in there didn’t you? Would you pay $5/month to support a game even if you weren’t playing it? To keep things ticking over rather than the full subscription? I’m not sure I’d pay that much, but I might pay a nominal fee… (ps. I’ve not been on to Murder Night yet, but I’ll explain why on Nerf the Cat sometime)
• And talking of BoG personal blogs, Spinks looks at the female friendliness of superhero games
• Hrrm, March 19th the day to look into booking hotels for San Diego Comic Con. Will HAVE to remember that. Remind me! We’ll have a WAR player get-together, I’m sure (run by US bloggers, I’m hoping, so I can hide in there somewhere)
• Cats – get OFF my desk!!!!!!!!!!!!! (they are fighting around the monitor, seriously)
• Forums, official and unofficial are a timesink. Discuss! Actually, go see what the unofficial forums think about official forums – but remember, they’re not going to say anything impolite, are they? I mean, would you when you still want the devs to visit, etc?
• Romantic costumes on your Xbox 360 avatars is NOT a good way to celebrate Valentines, guys & gals. But the comments almost made me fall out my chair grinning!

First Pics of the Slayer!!!

Oh come on now, you all (by now) know I like a challenge, and so I bring you the Slayer, Book of Grudges style:

[ps. for the record I think what the owner of this dog did is pretty bleh and don’t condone it at all]

[pps. I call him Regis]

Guessing at the announcement

There’s a dev chat scheduled on Tentonhammer later today at 7pm EST, at which it’s very likely that the developers will be chatting to all comers about today’s announcements.

7pm EST is midnight round where we live, so on the off-chance that we don’t hear anything before then, here’s some of our guesses at what Mythic may plan to announce.

1. Slayers, Choppas, and a new event to introduce them. Despite Girl IRLs (can we stop pretending that no girls play these games yet?) best efforts, I remain unconvinced about female slayers 🙂
2. A St Valentine’s Day massacre-style holiday.
3. Official bulletin boards
4. Revamps for some of the missing cities (if anyone was around for beta you may remember that the original idea was to have a full city for each race, rather than fortresses).
5. New hats for High Elves!
6. Pets. First ones available will be a groupie for dark elves and a walking beer keg for dwarves.
7. New tradeskill: Topiary
8. Mail revamp to allow multiple mails (Earendur)
9. Paul and Josh returning to the mothership (Melmoth)
10. Stunty Stew for dinner! Nom nom … (Warboss)
11. Horse trousers and Naval Combat (Zoso, and I want some of what he’s been smoking)

Feel free to add your suggestions, we’ll add them to the end of the list.

29th January

Looks like that’s the date for whatever big announcement Mark Jacobs promised over at the Vault boards (he said end of January, which works for me). Keen and Graev have been sent orange hair dye and hair clippers, and the world is expecting some cool pictures of Slayer-style hair cuts. If you are planning a mohawk, I’ll let you in on a secret – it was my favourite hairstyle ever, and I had one hrrm…. around 3 years ago now. I’m tempted!

The community have been guessing at a Slayer since the Hammerer was delayed really, so this would count as one of the least surprising surprises – but one of the most welcome (unless you wanted to be part of a very under-played MDPS class, in which case you might be a little reticent about Slayers going in). For me personally it’s good news, because it means the MDPS classes will be announced soon and hopefully in-game sooner, and I have a friend who will be coming back to the game to play one – as his main interest in the game was originally the Hammerer.

In European news, we had some maintenance  which fixed something I hadn’t even noticed on my Knight. Sometimes, I think I’m a bit rubbish at noticing details, but in my defence she just hit rank 10.. so there wasn’t much to re-train!