Gamesday Uk news! RvR Campaign changes and Skaven!

Right just got home after a long 'ol train journey, (Bless you National Rail, if you hadn't crapped up the route at least once I'd have been disappointed!) kettles on and I figured I'd get the jump on the others before their barrage of far better written posts follow - Just remember - you read it here first! Unless you follow Bruglir on twitter that is, in which case second at best but still....

Just before I start was a great day, neat presentation and was good to meet Bruglir, Bootae, Andy and a bunch of Destro from Norm. (I was the sole Azgal representative and Order wisely kept away!) Unfortunately Carrie wasn't able to make it so Andy was on his tod.

So...right ok firstly some minor changes

On Line Shop/Microtransaction:

1. Server Transfers: Your going to be able to transfer toons from one server to another for a fee, theirs not going to be any cooldowns on it although their be putting in restrictions to stop over populated servers getting increasing any further. Normal rules apply so only Destro/Order characters on any given server.
2. Mounts: Appears mounts will be availible from a on-line shop, vanity style for a fee, the only one I could see from a screen shot were called started mounts and which, IIRC seemed to be +25% speed and 100% dismount change so seemed aimed at Tier 1.
3. Pets: Again vanity type pets will be added. Andy mentioned some of these would have a buff associated with them, the example he gave was one that applied a +2 speed increase so other types are likely to be similar sized so very minor but there.
4. WAR Tracts: Purchasable from an online shop similar to 2-5. Exactly the same as the in game item and you'd only be able to get one.

2 to 4 of the above would be applied account wide rather then per character and from the screen shot of 3 & 4 they were aimed at $9.99, whether thats that they'll be in the end or whether that was meant to be there is a different matter!

Edit: To clarify I only say the $9.99 linked with the mounts and pets and not with the below. Whether it's going to a flat rate for everything/was a placeholder I don't know! Few people have taken it as gospel that it'll apply to everything!

Barber Surgeon:

Their gonna implement a way of completely re-doing your toon's look from scratch which is pretty good for everyone who messed up the character creation and needed a do over! Not said about how it's going to be implemented over then it's gonna be there.

Renown Rank System Change:

So we already knew they were pushing this up to 100 Renown Cap and that they were intending to smooth the journey from 1 to 80. They confirmed they'll be new armour sets 90 and 100 along with further weapons although their wasn't further info beyond that.

Renown Rank Points abilities:

Well this'll be getting a pretty massive do over!

They're removing the renown tactics altogether and replacing them with similar ability as "passive bonuses" mainly as not many people use them and it'll stop people having to mess about slotting further tactics.

They'll also be removing the "tiered" system altogether. Everything will unlocked so you want need to allocate X point in Tier Y to unlock ability Z you can go straight in for the +crit/dmg/resolute defense without the messing about!

Speaking of Resolute Defense they'll be adding in a number of powerful Renown Abilities, each of which will have 4 minute cool down and will obviously be a tactical call as to whether their worth the trade off compared to the increased stats.

The ones Andy was able to talk about were called Last Stand & Total Cleanse.

Last Stand: 4 minute cooldown. For the next 4 - 7 seconds you are completely undamagable(!). After 4 to 7 seconds you die(!) Should be fun expecially with some of the changes to come! I may have orginally stated this was 47 seconds...say them both in your head quickly and i'm sure you'll forgive me!!

Total Cleanse: 4 minute cooldown. Removes all debuffs from your character, does pretty much exactly what it says on the tin.

No idea what it's actually called: 4 minute cooldown. Reduces the AP of all ability used to 0 for it's duration which is...no clue wasn't mentioned!

Whether they'll be others as well to come I'm not sure but he did mention all of the renown abilities will be ungradable with further point investments. This wasn't elaborated on but I imagine in the full of reduced cooldown/longer durations or maybe secondary effects?

Open RvR Champaign Changes:

Ok this was the biggie as far as I'm concerned, you can keep your skaven this is what I was interested in! (Not really the Skaven look cool but yea RvR goodness!)

Right, Well first the domination system is going out the window all together.

Each open zone will have the two keeps and the 4 BOs still. When ever a zone "unlocks" one keep will belong to one of the sides automatically so even in Chaos Wastes Order will have one and vice-versa in Reikland.

You zone into the Keeps, NOT the Warcamps from here on in! You respawn after dying in Your respective Keeps as well! You lock a zone by capturing the opposing keep. That's it no waiting no mess right? Well no it's a bit more complicated then that. Taking a leaf from the new scenario's their going for a far more dynamic take on controlling a lake involving the Battlefield Objectives.

These are still cappable as normal but there is no longer a cooldown on wresting control of them from the opposing side. So no capping and wandering off for 15 minutes safe in the knowledge it's untouchable. You leave one unguarded and they'll be vulnerable.

Why do you need them? Well once capped by either side they will start generating resources and when enough of them have build up a NPC spawns. (Think sappers from the city instances) Now when one spawns it will just sit there doing nothing...

They need to be triggered by interacting with them at which point they will scurry off with the resources and head to your Warcamp. Their gonna be fairly squishy and if the opposing faction kill one they will drop the resources which can then be ninjaed so they'll need watching. (Resources are gonna be important so trying to watch four BOs while guarding the carriers, while attacking the keep and potentially defending your own should do a fair job of splitting zergs and forcing warbands to co-ordinate with each other across a zone, will also have amazing potential for smaller hit squads to run guarilla sabatage tactics!)

So you once you get resources trickling into your warcamp they'll start leveling up your owned keep which will have 5 Ranks.

1. Rank One: Resource carrier's will become armoured and become far less squishy.
2. Rank Two: Carrier's will get a speed boast. (Hopefully one and two will mean once you get going ranking up will start escalating by this point)
3. Rank Three: Offensive siege weaponry becomes available! These will spawn in the keep and can be picked up by anyone and deployed any where, no more siege pads! Siege weaponry in general is getting a massive boast with the single target ones doing around 4k damage unmitigated! (Not sure if they meant it's Unmitigatable or 4k before armour/toughness etc is taken into account but a big increase either way!)
4. Ram becomes available, more offensive siege weapons spawn, Aerial Bombers* unlock - (*)Patience!
5. More weapons, more Aerial Bombers!

So should be mentioned that they are changing keeps so they CANNOT be ninjaed and doors CANNOT be harmed other then by Rams. Well Rams and one other think but that's to follow somewhere below! So with keep doors pretty much unassailable untill the opposing keep hits Rank 4 you need to be out in the lake patrolling, watching out for the opposing side as they try and disrupt your well oiled resource gathering troopers!

Keeps are going to have a Anti-res aura within the outer walls untill the Outer doors are taken down so any attackers, usually MDPS ghosting in through the postern (But potentially any class) will not be able to get ressed EVEN IF THE *Insert healer here* IS OUTSIDE THE WALLS.

The keep CANNOT be taken until the Inner Doors are destroyed so no more ninjaing cos it aint gonna work. Once the doors are down its a case of charging in, piling up the stairs, bundling into the lord's room but OH NOES: "Your keep lord is in another castle". Yep Keep Lords are no more instead they'll be a banner where they stood which must be interacted with uninterrupted for a full 30 seconds (timer subject to chance if its not realistic in practise). Now im not 100% on the ins and outs of this part but as the defenders spawn within the keep you are going to keep getting hit by waves of pissed Order/Destro while your trying this so should be fun!

Edit: Once the inner doors of a keep are broken the spawn point will switch back to the warcamp so that once the doors are down you cant keep respawning instantly to disrupt the caps!

It's worth pointing out keeps themselves will start out fully tricked out with siege weaponry so will be defensible from the get go!

Aerial Bombers: At stage 3 aerial bombers unlock, these will effectively be flying mounts which will spawn in the keep which can be mounted by anyone. They'll then take to the sky and will follow set patten patrols though the lakes, not sure the exact routes that will be taken but Andy confirmed they will pass over keys features/choke points to shake things up a bit. The bomber in question can...drop bombs. By the sounds of things these will be pretty devestating so your gonna want to spread out and keep a eye to the sky! Again these seem designed to chew through Blobs in particular which is a pretty reoccuring theme throughout! Once you get bored of bombing you can parachute down to safety! Inside the enemy keep! Wheeeee!

That's about it off the top of my head for the RvR changes but for my money it sound brilliant and as someone who has until recently kept away from the main Campaign I'll definitely be re-joining the War!

So great games day! Although I'm sure there was one other thing.... Oh yeah....

Boom! Skaven Shot!

Rat Orges, Packmaster, Warlock Engineers, Gutterrunners! You want 'em? We gots em!

Seems these WILL NOT be a seperate character! The unlocking mechanism has not been revealed as yet but they will effectively be a "sleeve" for your character, completely replacing your skin and class features for the duration! (I've no idea if there is a actual duration, don't think so but I mean session or what ever!) This'll also mean any renown gained while a Skaven will level up your main toon! They'll be joining both sides (Its ok lore fans, apparently it's happened before in a book! Skaven Slayer I think according to Bruglir). I'm thinking maybe another resource type? Warpstone at a crazy outside guess!

So onto the Class types before this stops being a wall of text and gets into mountainous territory!

Rat Ogres: Huge hulking beasts of destruction, damage dealing mobile siege weapon pretty much!

1. Lots of wounds!
2. Lots of toughness!
3. Lots of damage!
4. Special Charge Attack! Gives you a speed boast and knockdown/knockback (Not sure sorry!) Any enemies in your way! Reminds me of the Tank from L4D!
5. Special Hurl Attack! Pick up a near by ally and throw them up on the enemy keep wall! (This sounds like so much fun but potentially could cause a fair bit of grief "Gimme healz!" "No I'm busy healing others!" *Hurl*)
6. Can damage doors. Other then Rams the only thing in the game that can!
7. Can't be healed! EXCEPT BY.....

Packmaster: The brains to the Ogres brawn your looking at a squishy buff/debuff type dude!

1. Can heal Rat Ogres!
2. Very Squishy!
3. Can produce buffs that effect allies around and that again compliment Rat Ogres!
4. Summon rat swarms that do ridiculous damage (Quoted as 1!) but that apply a outgoing damage debuff to the target. It stacks. Alot. And Quickly.
5. Can leg it to the nearest Rat Ogre if in trouble! (Sounds like pounce but defensive only and to the nearest Ogre...which is also likely to be Hulking out in melee range of people!)

Warlock Engineers: A defensive beast, adept at protecting keeps especially

1. Has a number of AoE pulsing buffs, increased AP regen or healer pluses. Sounds like a extension of the Zealot/Rune Priest ritual system.
2. Has a Warpfire flamethrower!
3. Can repair siege weapons!
4. I should point out all of the classes will have further ability but these are the ones they're prepared to talk about at this stage!

Gutter Runners: Fast, Invisible, Utility heavy sneaky rat bastards

1. Has a permanent stealth mode
2. Run invisible with a +70% speed increase. At all times!
3. Very very squishy!
4. Can "leap" onto keep walls in a single bound!
5. Can sabotage siege weapons which will trigger when someone trys to next one it. Will deal 4-5k and break the siege weaponry which will then be unusable till either a Warlock Engineer gets to it or that repair renown ability is used!
6. Very low damage dealing wise though, they'll be strictly utility based running around hampering opposition!

That's pretty much it I believe, their was some Q&A, I'm pretty sure he said "Yes" when asked if forts were making a comeback but I missed the wording on the question and so may well have been one of those "are they any plans" "have you thought about" "is there any chance" rather they a straight forward are you putting them back in kinda thing.

I did check and the new keep system will pretty much mean guild can no longer claim keeps (Although this hasn't been finalised) so a guild wont be able to control the siege weaponry, Bombers etc distribution.

Likewise Tier One will remain pretty much as before as they have no keeps and there are no plans to change that.

Oh yeah and they did mention they looking into potentially cross service scenario queuing or some kind of matching up similar groups against each other (But looking into could mean anything!)

And that's me done! I'm sure their are shed loads of spelling errors/sloppy english above but it's late, been a long day and I've been writing this bloody thing for the last 2 hours odd so....POST!

Bah couldn't do it, edited and hacked out a lot of bad english/spelling mistakes, still not perfect but at least it's readable!