MMO and Game Industry Related blogging
Posted On Monday, June 1st, 2009 By Jay
The above title may be cryptic to you. If that is the case fear not! click here.
If the above title is not cryptic, this cake isn’t a lie!
Should you be a PC gamer, a steam player and a fan of the above franchise: Rerollmuch is my player name on steam. Look me up, TRR will invite you into a match.
Posted On Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 By Jay
Update: Fancy that! My main issue is that the keep system being implemented has no design hook into other sections of the game.
Having reflected on Warhammer Online state of open world pvp, it dawned on me that very little in that game has to do with holding a keep. In fact, the few rewards that exist that involve keeps have to do with attacking and taking over a keep not holding out against a siege. so I put my thinking cap on and designed a content centric system that borrows ideas from other mmos and leverages existing tech.
Goal:
Players want to own keep
More players want to adventure/pvp in RvR lakes than in other systems
Creates a critical mass of defending players
Players want to prevent the opposing faction from owning keeps
Constant tension and pressure for keep defenders
Create denser content for player consumption
Players want to own keep as they level
Problems this system is not meant to resolve:
Class balance issues
Trade Skill mechanism and value
Partial integration
Population balance within a server
We can encourage players and they must manage this themselves
Opposing factions will fight over ownership of a keep. Once a keep is owned, an ownership timer begins. Initially only the renown vendors and general item merchants spawn Continue Reading
Posted On Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 By Jay
I’m not playing discipline again until 80. I’ve had it! Gone are the days for me where I will happily sit behing the front line of various DPS and keep people alive ( healing ) or try to get everyones attention so my buddies can do their stuff ( priest tanking ). Each of these actions are gone for the priest for many reasons.
PVP players are already used to stacking 2-3 dps on a discipline priest to take em down. Pre-3.02 a D priest could certainyl live with that and excel! Since we’ve trained the player base to do this, post-3.02 2-3 dps on a tanking discipline priest takes me down in 5 seconds. I don’t even get to heal myself most of the time.
Yes. I am whining about priest tanking!
On the other hand! Shadow is WAY fun. 4 dots, dispel still works and as long as I’m on my game, a longer mass dispel is no longer detrimental. Haha, get it?
Overall, I applaud Blizzard for the change. From what I can see, they’re pushing raiding and pvp to be more frenetic, more decisive and more open ended. Everyone has a little bit of everything with one or two specialties. Continue Reading
Posted On Friday, October 17th, 2008 By Jay
There’s a lot of subtle differences when it comes to the new discipline.
You’ll spend the majority of your time at 35% mana. Its wierd but it happens.
You MUST live through the opening burst. If you can survive for 5-7 seconds you’ll live through the encounter.
Mana burn is much more important.
Shield + Aegis + Many damage reductions = Your heal target will not die if you chain flash heal. This in itself is a HUGE change.
Range and pillar dancing is even more important then it was before.
I really want to be fair to you guys and give you a full review of the new talents and changes to Disc Priest PVP. I’ll need to run more BGs and more Arena matches to get a true(er) feel for the changes. Next week I’ll have a full talent run down. Stay tuned.
This is what I’m running right now. Be wary of disc priest tanking. Offense overall for everyone, including YOU, has increased.
Posted On Monday, October 13th, 2008 By Jay
I’ve been struggling since release to communicate anything revolving a comparison between these two games. Is it the game mechanics? Maybe. Is it the newness of Warhammer? I doubt it. Here’s my take.
The pure game mechanics of Warhammer Online as a healer are more fun than WoW. I always feel tough. I always have 4 or more abilities to use during an encounter. I can help out during any situation, offensively, defensively and support. War doesn’t need to do an itemization change (spell damage/healing to spellpower) to make items work for healers. Each stat provides both an offensive and defensive boost. For example, Willpower increase my healing output and increases the chance that all my attacks will interrupt a spell caster. Since character damage or healing output is linked to a stat and not an item, doesn’t prevent nor encourage any specific play style. That’s a breath of fresh air.
In addition to the game mechanics, I also have the freedom to level however I want. And the best part is that I can join a scenario (BGs in War) and will have my level adjusted to 3 levels below the max for that tier. This means I can ALWAYS PVP Continue Reading
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