Massively initial info from Gamescom up

Massively posted their post late yesterday and I missed it initially. Can be seen here.

No new content over yesterday's information day is still youngish I guess but other then a post from Andy on the Forum's expending (a tiny bit) on their reference to "personalise" game play experiences nothing else has been forthcoming.

Does seem like these posts are not the extent of the interviews that took place yesterday at least but otherwise still Mehing here.

Edited Title as I misled my self!

Gamescom update: I'm 'a gonna wait it out!

Well spend most of my free time at work scanning for new news from Gamescom and to be honest it's been scant and fairly underwhelming so far. Theres a interview over at Onrpg you can check out here.

Brief highlights are RR cap being raised to 100, Skaven not being added as a normal race but "something different" and not wanting to follow the tradition path of releasing paid expansion every 2 years. And by brief highlights I mean thats pretty much it.

Well...TBH I'm not knocked over here but I'm making a concious effort and I'm going to wait it out and see what else appears before commenting nothing released so far really interests me.

*Possible Server transfer? Well maybe if my home server (Karak Azgal) dies suddenly that may be useful.

*Name changes? No not bothered by that at all.

*Skaven being something different, I'm guessing rules out a new Tier 1-4 pairing zone with a opposite number and could mean anything or nothing.

*RR to 100? Could well be a interesting incentive to maxed characters and I would imagine will mean new armour/weapon/item sets to follow at some point. Personally Im not bumping my head against that particular ceiling but I'm not self-absorbed enough to rule it out as a big issue for those up there. Just hope they don't over compensate with making the attempts to make progression through the lower RR ranks and make it a doddle to hit 80.

*Not going F2P? Pretty much already ruled out so not exactly news.

Andy stated over on his twitter that more detailed..details should follow. Hopefully about other bits being planned cos frankly the above....no.....NO....gonna stay positive till they pack up and head back to the states before ruling out anything more exciting being announced.

Edited: As Bootae point's out the above further information to follow will be from Baltimore Gamesday this weekend so that could be all she wrote for now. Boo & Hiss indeed!

Patch notes up!

Check them out here!

More hopefully later once I've had a chance to go over them!

Edit: well server's been done all evening so I've not been able to scope out the changes. Looks like a pretty solid patch overwise and I'll see how it pans out when I finally get online later in the week. 'Course by then we should have the Big Announcement to chew on so....I know it's stupid but I'm actually excited to hear the news!

1st Time Draws and Kislev's

Just a quick one today!

Had a strange Scenario fight out last night while running with a guild Premade. Normally there's 4 of us that run about together using various alts with the other two spots being who every else is online and fancies it. Last night due to a some odd playing times I ended up in a completely different group. We ended up with me, another S&B Chosen (who is a absolute DPS monster, I'm still not quite sure how he manages it!), a 2 hander chosen, 1 heal DOK, Zatos the Sorc and a SH, frankly we rocked, and it was great fun mixing up with different set ups for a while.

Just before we settled into that group we had a slightly different line up when the Reikland Factory Sc we were plugging away at came to a abrupt (Seemed like: I dont tend to pay attention to the score/time if it seems to be going well!) end:

First time I'd come across this! Always fun!

Anyhoo I saw this master piece for the first time this week, I'm sure it's old hat for some but first time awesomness for me! :

And that kinda got me thinking about the Kisliv's. For those that aren't up with there Warhammer IP, Kisliv is a hardy country situated somewhere between Nordland, Troll Country and the Chaos Wastes. Lead by a powerful Ice Queen and Praag had close linkes. There a ally of the Empire rather then a part of it as far as I'm aware but my lore years old! Think Cossacks, think Prussian/Russian medieval, think Mongolian style horse arches, think wind swept Siberia but mainly think BEAR CALVARY! Mythic you missed a trick here!

Images have been ridiculously hard to come by! Most of the models are discontinued etc. Diddn't want to start stealing them from random guys website so I'd point ya here for more Bear Riding Minature goodness! If you like minatures in general the sites got some pretty cool painted/converted goodness. Stumbled across it while trying to grab some offical pic but there all out of production!

Actually I'd settle for adding Cathay to the game!:

I've also learnt that google image searching for "Bear Cavalry" will never, EVER get old!

No more (new/old) cities anymore

Well between the Q&A (Check Gaarawarr for a transcipt or Bruglir for a recording) and the Buffed.De interview Carrie has pretty much ruled out re-introducing the lost cities back into the game.

Which is kinda a shame. I wasn't around for the Beta so I've never seen them or had a chance to poke around in them. :-(

Personally I think they should meet some where in the middle, add them in as Instances only ala IC/Aldorf Siege and have them unlock when ever the relevant pairing locks down instead of the current system or Empire/Chaos + Elf = IC/Aldorf unlocking.

My thinking behind this is it would add some variety (never a bad think in my book) to the city sieges instead of it always being IC/Aldorf for the end game and hopefully spread out the Zerglings with the opposing force being able to split and counter attack for a different city across the pairings. It would also take advantage or the current system with Orvr opening up during the current city sieges giving multiple targets and something to aim at.

Sadly you'd probable need some kind of incentive to get people to defend threatened pairings rather then just pushing through a undefended zone....Perhaps increased rewards for defense in the outer zones in the form of either a generic Renown increase for the defensive side (So Order in Reikland/Kadrin Valley/Eataine and Destruction in Chaos Wastes/Caledor/Black Crag - combined with the Against all odds would be a pretty strong reward) or increased lock rewards for these end zones (Less keen on the last idea and as would probable led to increased Zergs concentrating in one area rather then spreading out)

So....was just something that I thought might have a impact/salvage the old cities/add some variety...kinda works in my head but what do other people think?

Un-Constructive VL post! Now with added expansion thoughts

Bah after the amount of messing around last night, it went almost disappointing smoothly tonight and the Vulture Lord fell within a couple of tries.

Just goes to show what massed tiredness and frustration can do to a otherwise competent group!

Wasn't a bad run for the guild, our Off Tank Black Guard picked up the Tyrant chest piece, I finished off my full Glyph set (although disappointingly only 1 Tyrant piece in total still) and our healer DOK got his Glyph cloak and enough masks for another piece of his set.

Elsewhere, every one seems quiet - quiet at the moment, just settling in to wait for the big news which is fast approaching when I'm sure the scene will explode again.

Personally I'm still not sure what I'm expecting. Expansion announcement certainly. New races seems a given but I'm starting to lose hope in my preferred tag team of Skaven V Lizardmen duking it out in Lustria. As one of Bootae's comments reminded me in one of his post comments the recent flag backgrounds in podcasts and the like have had a huge "Bretonnia" scrawled across them. Honestly I've never been that enamoured with them, plus while different from a style and Lore perspective they are still at the end of the day more humans for order.

Of course from a IP perspective they could be released in tandem with Wood Elves for a kinda dual-race pairing. That would mean either cutting classes down to just two a piece or making the Skaven faction a deluxed sized affair. Skaven could certainly stretch to keeping 6-8 classes interesting and distinctive I just don't see it happening realistically unless they were also planning on adding some additional classes to the existing races and that just seems like a impossible amount of work for Mythic to do in one go regardless of how large/long away the expansion is likely to be.

You'll notice I'm taking Skaven as a given if new races are coming. I just can't, CAN'T, see anyone at Bioware-Mythic being...silly....enough to think:

"Hey you know what'll be funny? That's add another destruction race, hint all the way Skaven are likely to be involved and then put out Beastmen instead to keep people on their toes!"

*Enter angry mobs stage left*

On a more down beat note Wasdstomp had some disturbing thoughts regarding the "big announcement". I just really hope he's wrong!

Regardless interesting times ahead!

Scr*w you Vulture Lord!

Gnah. Its 4 in the morning, I'm meant to get up for work in a hour and I'm just logged from War after spending the last....8 hours trying and failing to take down the 8th boss.

And I mean just the 8th, our group had cleared up to there yesterday...

..Just...gnah nothing went right! Anything from weird things happening, occasional member errors, bad luck, some down right shoddy tanking (Hey im tired leave me alone!) and pretty much everything else.

Just too clarify everyone in the group has finished this before barring a couple of position swaps (Our healer DOK hadn't been primary healer for it before and I'd only off-tanked him previously)

Well enjoy your victory tonight Mr. so-called-King Amenemhetum, cos I'm coming back tomorrow and your in for it.

(Words cannot describe how singularly annoyed I am about tonights run!)

/end self-pity