Hudson's Hideout

Ramblings of a MMO player and Miniature wargamer http://1angrygamer.blogspot.com

Author: pvthudson01

Hope not because in Warhammer Online I have an overabundance of potions in my bags. From armor potions to strength potions, there is NO shortage of the mystical brews in this game.

In World of Warcraft, it was not uncommon to be frowned upon if you "potted" or took a potion in combat to get your health back up. Many of your team mates would even make fun of you if they saw it. "LOLZ you couldn't beat that Mage withouth potting LOLOL!!11"

The enemy would post things on the forum like "Hey (insert name here) : I had you till your sissy ass potted!"

In World of Warcraft potions were expensive and really not to be treated like cheap cans of Aldi soda. At most I would usually carry around 4-7 healing pots for PVE and really only use them when desperate.

This is not the case in Warhammer Online however. Potions grow on trees, and many of them are all of different stats and varieties. In fact I usually take potions over PQ loot when offered the choice, or over other gear in quest rewards. You also get them in every Stage 1 Influence chapter you pass over.

So it is without care that I chug these things like mad when I am in RVR combat in the game. Lets face it. The PVE to Warhammer Online is not rocket science and it sure isn't hard. I can count on one hand, probably using three fingers, the amount of times I have actually died in PVE that DIDN'T involve some stage 3 PQ boss beating my ass down.

So I wonder now if the enemy players I face still follow the WoW etiquette and think that potting is for sissies. Well whatever they think, I love it when I go to full health and then crush my opponent in front of me. Think quick, use those potions. I don't really care if they get mad anymore, they are dead and I live.

Hey thanks for the realm points suckas!

Reposted from

http://hudshideout.blogspot.com/2008/09/war-chosen-is-straight-up-old-school.html

Most the screenshots are located there

Yesterday, on a whim, I was looking to mess around in Warhammer Online and see how the other half lived. I made a level 1 Chosen named Abroxus (named after my World of Warcraft prot tank).

10 hours later I had a level 11 character, realm rank 10, and had to force myself to log off. Warhammer Online is so much fun that even tanking is enjoyable. That is a feat that almost every other MMO besides the half baked Hellgate: London has failed at.

Toss out the WoW rage system, remove the Ironbreaker grudges, the Black Orc whatever and the Swordmaster balance stances. You have a Chosen. A huge, chaos tinged evil Stone Cold Steve Austin looking mutha in full plate that drives and crushes all enemies before him.

The mechanics for the Chosen are simple. You taunt, you bash, and you crush. You have auras, you pick the best one for the situation and charge in and beat the living crap out of the enemy. That is exactly what I did.

When I first made the character, I didn't like him too much. His auras weren't that exciting and all I did was wack things with a crappy axe. Around level 5, he started to get more fleshed out. As I did his Collector's Edition quests, got him more renown ranks and upgraded his gear, I started turning into a killing machine. By the end of the night, when I was level 10, I was crushing people in RVR scenarios and doing upwards of 25,000 points of damage in some of the Nordenwatch runs I was doing. I had 5-8 death blows, and I cut through Order players like a psychotic hockey mask wearing killer from a horror movie. At one point a Black Orc named Broc and I (hello Broc if you are out there) forced the Order players back from the Fortress, across the bridge and all the way to the lighthouse before we succumbed to our wounds. As Broc stated to me on the way back after the respawn: "That was EPIC".
 

Order players back down from me in combat, and I waded forward with abandonment and a trusty pocket shaman healer behind me feeding me life force. Forward and into battle each scenario I strode, hacking and slaying High Elves, Empire players and the ever squishy Dwarf Runepriests.

Overhead cleave, overhead cleave, cripple, snare, Tooth of Tzeentch. Dead opponent. Some Order players, around level 3 or 4, did not stand a chance under the might of my onslaught. I took them down in 2-3 blows and watched the renown points tick off over my head. Nordenwatch became a slaughter fest, as we would 3 cap Order or win by scores of 500 to 129 or worse.

In PVE play, the Chosen was just what the doctor ordered for the ole Hudson. You taunt, you gain aggro, and you keep it. In the Chapter 3 PQ "Macabre Fervor" I managed to put together an entire warband for the quest. It started with me tanking, and a little shaman that showed up there looking for a group. I grouped him, and we started pulling in each of the 3 stages. More people showed up, and I grouped them as well and announced to the zone that I would be running the PQ over and over until I capped the influence.

With the open grouping in WAR, making huge amounts of allies is easy. Soon I was in charge of an entire warband, and we were winning the public quest over and over and loot was dropping left and right. I did not use guild resources, I did not come with two or three friends. I MADE THE GROUP MYSELF, in minutes.

Those of you complaining and crying about grouping in this game simply do not try, period. For most of the time I was on yesterday I went about 1 hour with no group, doing quests on my way to level 10. The other times I was either grouped in RVR, doing public quests, or afk while I ate. The game is what you make of it. If you log in and pout and don't try, then of course you will hate it. If you wander off into RVR land like an idiot under geared and not understanding your class, of course you will get ganked. Take the initiative, it isn't an MMO for no reason.

By the end of the night Abroxus had a collection of 3 auras (each aura is AOE and pumps stats of YOU and groupmates) in his skill shed, a taunt, hold the line and guard. By level 11 he had fleshed out as a true tank, capable of withstanding mass amounts of damage and deal it out at the same time. In the screenshot below, you can see I finished at the top with 25,000 points of damage. WITH A ONE HAND AXE AND SHIELD. The philosophy is easy as a tank in RVR. You block, crush, protect healers and smite the enemy until they are mangled and DEAD. For all the hours I was online last night, I never once stopped doing that and once again had one of the most amusing times in an MMO in the past 4 years.

Now I just have to decide what I want to play tonight. The WAR addiction is in full swing.

Before I go, I just want to make a shout out to AUDIUS, on the Destruction side. He plays on the Throgrim server, where our Destro Casualties of WAR guild is located.

Audius likes to roll NEED on blue items that drop in Public Quests, even though they are not for his class. He likes to do that despite the fact that there are 3 other players in the group (not me either) that can use the gear. He doesn't hide the fact that he is rolling to mail to his alts or sell the loot either. Audius, you got a pair of brass balls. Thanks for taking gear from new players and ruining their playtime! Ahhh the greed in MMO games. Gotta love it. I run into a lot of douche bags in these games, but this guy was almost proud of it.

Can you blame people like this though? You can see in the screenshot below he really didn't care, and I think that World of Warcraft instilled that attitude in thousands of players over the years. Hell for all we know it may have started with Diablo 2. This certainly is now a typical type of occurrence in online games. You can only shrug it off and move on, still it chaps my hide more often than I should let it.

I have run into mostly nice players in this game, and really this was the first loot hungry jerk I bumped into. We closed the warband and booted him out after this. A MINOR damper on an otherwise terrific play session.

Every MMO has them, you know the places of wide open farm fields where all you do is run by haystacks and admire the sunset. For WoW, it was the Alliance side area Westfall. In Lord of the Rings Online it was Southern Bree Fields and Northern Bree Fields. In City of Heroes it was...wait never mind. In Guild Wars it was Green Hills Country (yeah I'm an old school GW player).

These are some of my favorite places to play. I don't know what draws me to them but I love the open expanses. I like climbing up to the tops of hills, looking around and just taking in the view. NOT mountains mind you, but hills. Asherons Call 2 had some of the best, expansive lush green hilly environments ever. I loved exploring in that game. I always enjoyed watching towns be rebuilt as players crafted and stoked the forges.

So I was happy when my warrior priest in Warhammer Online hit level 13 and I was told by the proverbial "direction" quest giver to proceed to Troll Country. You know those quest givers, the ones that tell you how to keep leveling and where to go. The ones that have text ignored by most people who then do zone wide shouts such as:

"WER SHULD LEVEL 11 BRITE WIZ GO TO LEVEL?"

I like Troll Country. It has all the touches of a world in despair, yet at the same time takes me to my happy place of expansive landscapes and the ability to pull mobs off in the corner of a map away from unruly players. Heck it even has a nice spider cave. One of the coolest things I like about the zone is the plague infested farmlands. I know I know, like we haven't seen that before. Still in Warhammer they were doing this a long time ago, and in the MMO it is captured perfectly complete with writhing, spasming corpses and rotting zombies.

Then of course, the name sake of the zone. The trolls. I think that the trolls in WAR look fantastic and they are a blast to fight. They knock you down, stomp on you and even vomit on you.

As you adventure around the zone even more you discover Chaos infesting things everywhere. Places like the Blighted Farm and Plaguewood Thicket are disease ridden. Far south you have the site for a ton of open world RVR Stonetroll Keep, which every night is constantly being fought over. Far to the east of the zone it gets a little swampy, I don't like that side too much much like I despised the Midgewater Marshes in LOTRO.

So I gathered a ton of quests and quested my ass off there during the day. I wasn't able to log in last night so I crammed as much play time in during the day as I could. Eventually I hit level 13, then after I turned in a slew of quests I had finished I hit level 14. Time flew by very fast. I spent the majority of my time killing trolls in a Public Quest called Welcome to Troll Country. This PQ has some great things going for it. First it is right at the start of the zone, so everyone and their mother is running it.

Open groups for the win as you just find one on the list and join and start slaughtering trolls. Trolls are everywhere. The end of the quest is a giant troll name simply THE ROCK. This dude is nasty and if there are no tanks around, he WILL go ghetto on you and stomp the living crap out of everyone. Still it's a fun fight and even if you die you come back within yards of the PQ, can hit the healer and get right back in the action. I met some people I quested the rest of the day with. It still amazes me how people bitch and whine and can't have fun in this game. You are either an anti social twit, or you need to take a break from MMO's. This MMO makes it easy to group and accomplish things. Just like City of Heroes, it is very simple to group and get rolling.

The influence rewards for this chapter are nice as they finally end with a BLUE. So if you are cruising into TC, take some time and cap your influence for that chapter and get some nice gear. I chose the blue off hand book for my warrior priest.

Yesterday I found a viking type horn (or ok a horn like the one Boromir had) hanging on a tree in the middle of no where. I clicked it and it gave me a quest, and the horn sounded. A huge white wolf appeared and attacked me. I killed the wolf, and the quest said to take the pelt and fashion a cloak out of it. I did so and it put a grey item in my inventory called a white wolf fur cloak. Only you can't do ANYTHING with it. You cannot wear it, and you can't even use it in tradeskills. I really got excited at first until I realized it was not a cloak I could wear. Oh well.

Maybe it is because I am in the Empire zones, but honestly there are NO tanks. We had a dwarf iron breaker show up yesterday for the PQ near the end and we treated him like a god. Playing Empire can be interesting, as sometimes I end up tanking as a warrior priest. I can do it, but I have to have some healing. My heals are very reactive. Often times I have thought about still leveling a swordmaster side by side with my WP but the time invested would be large. The people would adore me however. Despite the fact I am an Elf.

I had a good run of luck to during my adventures. I got two purple drops. One was a ironbreaker shield I lost the roll on, the other I won which was an off hand book (Tempest Riders Tome), barely better than my part 3 influence reward. I looted that off some champions I was solo'ing (you WoW players may know champion mobs as elites).

Once again 4 hours flew by that were fun, exciting and interesting. I am going to hate leaving Troll Country because the atmosphere suits me. I have a while to go yet so I will be here for a bit. I always hated leaving Westfall in WoW as well. Oh and I looted some blue Gore-Flecked Troll Spit. Go figure.

http://www.mmorpg.com/galleries/pvthudson01

Quick post to talk about last nights RVR and to show my WP with his Collector's Edition gear on. Some screenshots are linked at the top there, click em to enlarge. The full story can be viewed here also on the guild site.

A quick left shift z to get rid of the interface and then a camera spin to see the front with myself targeted.

Included are Casualties of WAR and their celebration of taking some keeps last night with the help of some other Order guilds such as White Wolf Clan, Candymancers and Aggression. We rolled Stonetroll Keep and Dok Karaz.

We formed up at 8pm CST and then rolled out with two warbands. At first, our resistance was light, but the Destruction forces rallied fast and more and more of them showed up to defend Dok Karaz. Our levels still being a little low since we are a casual guild, the Destruction players beat us back to the lower level and then finally wiped us out. Getting the Keep door down was no problem to start, but the battle took so long the door actually respawned.

Heartless was our Standard Bearer for the evening, so he made a tempting target. Once we wiped the first time we sent a call for help since the Destruction players had dug in. We got help in the form of some players from two guilds, and went charging back to the keep.

Setting up cannons outside and then rushing the door once more, we blasted and battered our way into the keep and charged up the ramp toward the Keep Lord. A big nasty Orc waited for us up there. I stayed in back, healing and rezzing the dead to keep our forces moving forward.

Finally we secured the upper room and the Keep Lord fell, and Dok Karaz was ours. The renown merchant that spawned there had upgrades for me, so I bought two items off of him.

Later on we took Stonetroll Keep and then moved around the entire continent stealing RVR objectives and killing poor Destruction players that got in the way of our massive CoW warband.

I got realm rank 12, and almost capped before I decided to call it a night. I did all this at level 12. The RVR system bumped me to level 18 in hit points and stats, which makes it easy for low level players to get into the action. Once more, never a dull moment in the game and I do not feel left out because I don't level super fast. Fully open groups that everyone was able to join, socializing, and a game with a functioning, persistent end game.

Sounds like everything Age of Conan tried to do only to fail miserably. Heck our siege engines and keeps actually function right out of the box, imagine that.

Warhammer Online is exceeding everyone's expectations so far, especially the bloggers and gamers in our massive guild. Not a night has gone by where people aren't happy when they log off. With so much to do in game and so much customization and character progression, I have not ever been bored. Unfortunately I am so busy in game that I even unlocked some bad achievements last night for XP, one of them dying to another damn squig. I really am starting to hate those things.

Thanks to all the Order side Casualty of War players that showed up last night! Check out the screens above especially a shot of our Ventrilo server, it was packed with over 50 people enjoying the guild and having a blast.

Reposted from

http://hudshideout.blogspot.com/

Two weeks in a row now football has been non existent for me. I missed a LOT of playing time last week when real life intervened, so after being out of game for about 3 days, I managed to get back on the horse and start a Warrior Priest, you know the class I played from Feb. of 2008 until June of 2008 in the closed beta. I played Sunday because I had the entire day free, and managed to log in for about 8 hours of straight gameplay. I went from level 1 to just a hair from level 11. During this time my leveling was quicker since I knew the Empire starting area back and forth. Some new quests had been thrown in it seemed as well, or least I hadn't done some of them.

Of course, I might be addicted after all. Who knows right? My blog usually talks about many things. So if you don't like miniature game discussion, Warhammer Online discussion or warrior priest talk, don't read any further today at least. You were warned. Even though my interests are varied and broad this week there will be a lot of WAR talk.

I claimed my collector's edition quests from my mailbox (they put letters in to your quest object part of your backpack) and did those as soon as I could. For the most part the CE quests were easy. I had to question some peasants outside an inn, causing them to flee in terror because they may be heretics. The other CE quest consists of a PVP kill list I need to achieve. I was "eh" on that, as I hate being forced to kill a certain player in PVP since it may take a while. The first reward I got was a nice CE title (the Purifier) and a Seal of the Faithful.

This goes to a question a commenter left me a few days ago. He asked:

"Hud, you said you have a long history with the WAR lore. Care to give a small recap on how WAR has been able to enliven the lore as such and if there is the corruption of the Empire in the game, too."

As far as the questing goes, I have seen a few corrupted individuals but I dont think I am high enough level to see the large, grandiose quests take me into the dark seedy back reaches of the Empire. I have had quests where I have had to beat down on some people that were starting to worship chaos, and I have a CE edition quest that requires me to PURGE the weak and those that do not conform. Still a good question and something to keep a look out for.

Many of you may not know what Warhammer Quest is, or be up on the Warhammer Lore, but WH Quest was a great dungeon questing type of board game much in the same vein as Descent: Journey's in the Dark is today. Published in 1995 it was a more fleshed out version of Heroquest which was a joint effort between Milton Bradley and Games Workshop. WH quest to me still remains one of the best dungeon crawling board games out there.

There have been many expansions, official and unofficial, to the game WH Quest. However I always loved playing the warrior priest in the game. So when I had a shot at the beta, I didn't hesitate and went warrior priest without even looking at other classes.

I rolled out right away without pause on the new WP, hitting rank 6 in no time but being sure to RVR in between levels and keeping that rank equal to my PVE rank. I also did public quests over and over until each chapter was capped. In the time I was doing all this I acquired really good gear and a decent amount of money and salvaged goods (a tradeskill). A trend I am starting to notice is that the influence gear is never as good as the renown gear for that level. I am not sure why I bother to cap out the influence of each chapter other than the fact that I am a completest. If anyone played through beta all the way to learn if there is a great reward for capping out each chapter's influence, let me know. In beta I switched to a Swordmaster on the Elder test because I had burned out the Empire content.

During most public quests I started the groups and got a huge warband rolling. PQ's are very easy once you have a mass of DPS. Surprisingly I still had people asking me for invites, even though IT WAS AN OPEN GROUP. It amazes me how many people simply buy an MMO and play it like every other MMO and never take to the time to learn the nuances or what makes a game different. OPEN GROUPING people, learn it and love it. It got to the point where I finally stopped manually inviting people and simply said "it is an open group, just join". Some people actually responded with "What does that mean?" I promptly did not reply to those people.

Finishing first or at least second in all them was fairly easy for me, I just did my job. I melee'd like a crazed madman and healed my arse off. I finished first so much I started just taking the cash reward for each PQ I was in, but it still a blast. I also met some really cool people that I ended up following around and grouping with for about an hour. Finally, back to socializing in an MMO thank god. One thing about Everquest 1, the need to group surely did not hamper meeting new and interesting people.

I am being very careful not to skip through all of the quests in a chapter. When some quest NPC gives me a quest that basically tells me to move on and graduate, I look over the area and move on.

In RVR, I started the day off in grand style, usually leading in healing however as I started getting into level 6 and up territory the Elf and Dwarf casters started out healing me. In a few Nordenwatch scenarios I actually out damaged my heals, which is not good I supposed but I killed so many players it was just too fun to resist. I find myself annoyed greatly by squig herders and their sneaky little methods. Sometimes a fury overcomes me and I will tear ass after one of them until I smash his head in. Honestly though I swear in real life I am a nice easy going person.

I finished off my weekend play this morning, right before servers came down for maintenance. While in Emskrank minding my own business and doing a quest, I was assaulted by two chaos players with 5 minutes left before downtime. Granted, each one was only level 8 to my level 10, but 2 on 1 is never pleasant. Luckily, with a warrior priest I am far more confident.

The average chaos player playing a chosen and using a two handed weapon will not be able to kill me, but having two on me is not fun. I widdled down the first player, and started to run out of fury for healing. I knew I would not be able to get my fury back fast enough and had to keep swinging. I lured the second player into an empire NPC guard that was low level but helped me just enough to slay the second attacker. Good times. If it wasn't for my morale ability instant heal I am not sure I would have been able to take the second guy down. However, that is just using my class to the up most of its abilities.

Tonight, in at a regular time and onto more quests and the drive for level 12. I want to get this character matched to the same rank as my swordmaster ASAP.

Thanks for reading!

Reposted from

http://hudshideout.blogspot.com/

Ok, yup I'm one of those Warhammer nerds, I admit it. I have a huge history with the lore and the miniatures game and all that garbage. So it was without hesitation that I jumped all over the Collectors Edition when I saw it.

I have been suckered in by stupid CE's before, the worst of which I bought was Lord of the Rings Online with its lame paper map and recycled 80's keyboard synthesizer soundtrack.

Tabula Rasa's collector's edition was probably my second favorite. That one came with a host of cool things and a nice DVD, which I love. Of course my all time number one favorite CE was The Burning Crusade. That was a heck of a deal and the DVD was fantastic. Hellgate: London was so so , I got it mainly for the comic book.

So finally today I went to the condo office and got my Collectors Edition. EB Games never lets me down and it had arrived 3 days ago, on time and ready to be activated. The box weighs a hefty 8 pounds, and as Werit pointed out on his blog it is 8 pounds of love. Nice huge box with an embossed logo on the front, and two thick, well bound hardcover books on the inside. One of them is of course a 128 page graphic novel with 6 individual stories in it. So naturally I added it to my comic collection promptly. Review on that later.

The art book is gorgeous, and as I have always loved the art this is a great addition to my Warhammer bookcase library. I give the artbook an A+. Included inside was of course a miniature, provided by Games Workshop. A good starting point for anyone collecting an Orc army in Warhammer Fantasy. The miniature is casted nicely with good detail, and it is actually 2 mini's in one blister. I give it a A-, only because it is an orc. Blech.

The in game items were so so. First off, my high elf gets a bandage over his eyes. Not only does this make him look EMO, he can't see what the hell he is swinging at. I give that a C-. The other thing was a 3 charge experience booster. Yippeee freaking DOO. Well I guess it will come in handy but MEH. Heck I never used my 4 year vet rewards in EQ2 to level up faster, so I doubt I will use this. I am always scared to use things with charges because I know it will bite me in the ass later. D+ for that item.

As for the other in game things, like a quest and all that junk, I haven't had time to really get into those yet, but let me give that a D+ up front because it is going to make me do work in game and I am lazy. Ok well the servers are up, time to log in. I think I will make a level one somewhere and check in on those CE quests.

Ok this is coming from a high level template (level 31 in closed beta), but I decided to take my Swordmaster and spec her for pure DPS damage with a two handed weapon. If you refer to this post, I mentioned I would try this the next chance I got to log in. The beta shut down and the game went live but I wanted to get one good chance at looking at specs in there.

I also wanted to show how easy it is in this game to tailor your character the way you want to. I also was very eager to show how terrible World of Warcraft's character development will look when compared to this game. Once again, great depth and choice that many of the closed beta testers may not have gotten to see.

The results were pretty impressive as I was cleaving things in two and scoring crits left and right. I do not know much about the class, so all I did was go in and start choosing what I thought would work, just by reading descriptions. I studied no TEMPLATE lists on "Uber Player" sites or used any "L33T" advice. I just logged in and picked what I thought would work.

First thing I did was erase all her tactics and empty her morale slots, then respecialize her. I went straight up the Path of Khaine tree.

 The Path of Khaine is described as "...a mastery focused on offense and greatswords." Ok works for me. I clicked straight up the tree and burned all my points.

Once I finished that, I headed to the tactics slot and removed (by right clicking) all the tactics that had to do with tanking and protecting myself. I then hovered over each tactic and pulled the ones that were offensive based into the slots. Not too hard right? Easy to do, love that aspect of this game.

First one I took was "Balanced Accuracy". This increases my chance to get a critical hit by 10% (in Improved stance) or 20% in Perfect stance. This is a passive buff. Easy enough. Slot it and forget it, I understand that much.

Next I looked at "Centuries of Training", another passive buff that has a 25% chance of throwing a nice little DoT on my target. Ok simple enough also, drag and drop. One more Tactic slot left.

Last but not least I took "Discerning Offense" which allowed 10% of my attacks to NOT be blocked by the enemy. Another passive buff. There we are, all 3 tactic slots full and ready to go. Keep in mind I can swap those out with a mouse click to go defensive if I need to. And no I do not have to go back to Ironforge and pay some lame NPC gold to do it.

Let us take a look at the morale slots now. I won't explain morale again, you can go and read my old article or do your own research. Here is what I took.

My RANK 3 morale slot was going to be "Distracting Bellow" which is a demoralizing shout type of thing that causes enemies to take less damage. It is also area effect.

Next up RANK 2 morale slot, and for that I picked "Raze". This is a frontal area effect attack that does wide sweeps before me and can hit multiple targets. Ok cool enough!

So the RANK 1 morale slot was up next, the one that you will push more than any as the bar fills up. For this I selected "Demolishing Strike". This morale ability is described as "A powerful melee attack that reduces armor by 818 and deals 720 damage over 15 seconds." Nice, so it is very strong bleed type attack.

So I was all done. Now to take her out and test her. My damage was HUGE and I was rattling off crits left and right. I left the camp and pretty much tested the spec on Ogres that were nearby, getting myself a great screenshot (below) to boot.

As you can see, the game will allow for some great character customization so make sure to check out all your abilities and read them over carefully. If there are glaring errors in my spec just pass it off as me being a Swordmaster noobie and not knowing what the hell is going on.

This is repost from my blog at:

http://hudshideout.blogspot.com/
 

You know its funny we have had to watch for months as guilds like Nostalgia make posts about leveling, so its time to add a little spice to the blog-o-sphere and post the status of the Order side of Casualties of War. Seeing as how innovative WAR is I thought it would be nice to point out that our guild can level level to. Only we do it better. For months I have been jealous I never had an MMO with decent guild leveling features but low and behold it is here now.

We have more to show for it since WAR isn't stale and will provide you with something better than pretty room decorations for your guilds hard work. In Warhammer Online, Guild Experience is rewarded each time a guild member receives standard experience by accomplishing goals in game including:

Defeating opponents (both NPCs and in RvR)

Acquiring Tome Unlocks

Completing Public Quest

Completing PvE quests

Participating in RvR Scenarios

Completing RvR Quests

So last night Casualties of WAR hit guild level 5 which puts the ORDER guild just behind Mongbat on the Averheim server. Someone pointed out to me in Ventrilo (and I had forgotten about this) that Mongbat guild is the one that raided the Mythic offices and planted the standard in a cubicle. Funny stuff.

Throughout levels 1-4 we unlocked the guild vault, calendar (yes built into the game) and the ability for us officers to tax our peasants. In fact WAR guilds get many many more usefull rewards in our game than most other games give, including

# The ability to access a guild vault

# Additional guild vault space

# The ability to create a custom guild heraldry

# Guild cloaks

# Guild Standards template

# Guild Standard tactics slots

# Guild Standard trophy slot

# Guild Standard trophies

# Guild tactics points (used to purchase guild tactics)

So while EQ2 players are busy getting pottery and hair broaches for leveling up, we hit 5 and had to set our sites on our new gift for leveling: the guild tactic slot. Upon hitting 5 we unlocked a guild tactic slot which allows the guild leaders to pick an ability to enhance our combat performance. Along with this we earned the standard bearer and the ability to make one of our lucky guild members the honorary "hey shoot that dude he's carrying the colors!" Guy (or gal). The standard bearer then gives us the Guild Tactic bonus if we are in range of them on the battlefield. Any other game feature this? Didn't think so. Pretty innovative isn't it? I wonder which game has rewards more focused on actual gameplay?

My Swordmaster hit Rank 10 (1 bub from 11) and my alt Shadow Warrior is now Rank 6. Both characters are immense fun in RVR and my Swordmaster, even with sword and board, is able to wade into RVR and wreak some serious havoc. Yesterday in Khaine's Embrace I was the top Order damage dealer at over 10K as a tank with a shield. Oh yeah, thats how I roll.

Don't even get me started on how much fun the Shadow Warrior is in RVR. Sitting in back with my extra range stance activated I plunk stupid goblins from afar and DOT them with acid arrow only to watch them flop over dead and see those sweet sweet realm point tick in over my head. Have I mentioned how fun this game is?

Once again, looking beneath the hood reveals just how much there is to do in WAR.

And this is only week one.
 

This is repost from my blog at:

http://hudshideout.blogspot.com/

That's right. I played 12 hours straight yesterday. I logged off to get some caffeine around 7pm but other than that, I was constantly logged in.

Not one crash to desktop, however I did seem to detect that the longer I played the wonkier the client got. I had to reboot twice in those 12 hours to "kick start my system" because it seems the game has some odd memory leak. For example after about 6 hours I was not able to right click the loot bags I had won in PQ's anymore. Also at one point I was not able to move my character because every time I tried to press a keyboard movement key it would say "invalid target".

However, other than that, I played straight through the day and night with no hitches.

And what a glorious glorious day and night it was. Hands down the most fun in an MMO I have had since 2005. Why 2005? Because that is when World of Warcraft was at its zenith for me. A time when I formed a guild and had the most fun before it became the tedious, cut and paste faction grinding elitist game is it now. I say that with utmost confidence because Warhammer Online has destroyed the mold that WoW has set. Never in my time on online gaming have I been kept so busy or had so much to do in a newly launched game. Never in my online time of gaming have I spent almost the ENTIRE day with a guild I helped found and watch get off the ground and had it been so much fun and so successful and helpful on DAY ONE.

Casualties of WAR has raised the bar for guilds and what they can accomplish. Not only were we all hanging out in vent getting along, but we all grouped, cooperated, and traded loot and stories and had a blast while doing it.

Many thanks for JoBildo being there on TIME and helping form the guild. As usual my dumb ass miscalculated the time and I logged in 30 minutes late to start, but still managed to get all the names I wanted and the server we picked was fast enough to allow logins.

Chaos, not so lucky. However Chaos is the bandwagon side so I guess that they will have to deal until that settles down. I was not able to get ANY of the Chaos names I wanted on Volkmar, and at one point during the day I was thinking that the Chaos side of WAR should have relocated and simply picked a new server. In the old days in WoW, I made those decisions within 30 minutes but it was easier to communicate that choice to the 6-7 guild members I had than the 30+ that Genda has to deal with.

Order has picked Averheim. Chaos has picked Volkmar. Our guild info is here:

http://hudshideout.blogspot.com/2008/08/casualties-of-war-guild-keeps-ramping.html

I can say without a doubt we are organized, skilled, and attentive. One of the best guilds I have been in on day one in forever.

I rolled a High Elf Swordmaster named Kelethas, and then a Shadowarrior alt named Nyrolas. I did get Hudson and Cuthbert names reserved for Warrior Priests, but something inside me had no wanting to play one. After 5 months of beta, I was sick of the Warrior Priest and my tastes had changed.

Kelethas was in and level 1 for about 45 minutes as I played around and talked to people on Ventrilo. Finally I settled down with my Dunkin Donuts coffee and started leveling. The leveling didn't take long and before I knew it I was PVP'ing with JoBildo and Arinos and Malth from Casualties of WAR at level 3 and getting Renown Ranks and XP while I did it.

My guess is that people that hate this game don't know what to do in it. How they can be bored or feel it is the same old same old is beyond me. What this tells me is that they are not social, not willing to take the time to explore every aspect of the game, or just lazy gamers. I spent 12 hours in this game yesterday and was not bored one minute. Ok maybe one, while I was running trying to find a certain quest NPC, but other than that my day was busy, my character was slowly gaining a personality and being fleshed out, and I was ACHIEVING things.

In one day I did the following, from levels 1-9. This is non stop gaming in guild groups or random PQ groups:

Capped my influence in Chapter One High Elf lands

Capped my influence in Chapter Two High Elf lands

Capped my influence in Chapter Three High Elf lands

Capped my influence in Chapter Three Empire lands

Invited numerous people to the guild, adjusted ranks and talked to some blogging friends.

Capped my renown rank at rank 8

Leveled 1-9 with my Swordmaster

Leveled 1-4 with my Shadowarrior, and capped his renown rank at rank 3

Took part in 4-5 PQ's all over the map, earning gear, money and influence

Unlocked various tome entries including killing 25 spiders, lizards and scorpions for bonus XP.

Unlocked various tome entries in RVR including killing certain players, BEING killed, and critical hit achievements

Explored, discovered and made new friends.

Went into a cave system to do a PQ involving spiders and other creepy things

Learned the ins and outs of tanking with a Swordmaster, but also went DPS when I had to

Upgraded ALL MY GEAR through PVP rewards, quest rewards, or influence rewards

Got all my pre order stuff that was available in the mailbox. More will come later when I get the boxed version.

Finally went to bed at 1am. And that was the first day.

How many of you out there that rip on this game even take the time to explore and learn how to play it properly? How many actually invest the time to learn how fleshed out a character can be compared to the stale vision that WoW is now? Very few, and that is why I take your opinions as a funny little side story to the best launch day I have had in 3 years.

So continue to mock WAR, do what you do because you fail to look beneath the hood of the game. I'll just be having fun with the 30 or so members of my guild and seeing all this game has to offer.

Excuse me....time to log in, I didn't take the day off for nothing!