Taking A Blogging Break

I think it’s been on the cards for a while now, but I came to realise this morning that I simply don’t have enough time to do everything I want to do. I’ll still carry on playing Warhammer, but may well change to a month by month subscription, since there are some other standalone games I want to give a go.

It’s been an interesting couple of years, with some ups and quite a few downs.

Maybe once I settle in my new job, then I’ll find a bit more time again, but I can’t count on that at the moment and this new job is very important.

Of course I’ll carry on keeping abreast of Warhammer things, and maybe I’ll do the odd post or two.

So good luck fellow Warhammer players and see you on the battle fields of Karak-Norn.

Zone Flip Bonuses

I have to be honest, it’s all a bit confusing, but that could just be my age. Every time I think I have it nailed down, something happens which throws me. So here’s my rough handle on things.

If you manage to flip a zone, you get a bonus for contributing to capturing the keep, which as a healer is easy. You also get a bonus if you’ve defend your keep in the zone before the flip occurs. Brilliant, so 10K for the flip, + 2 * 5K, for “defending” your keep and “attacking” their keep = 20K.

Then you can get a small bonus, for capturing a BO, just before the zone flip, lets say 2K. Hard one to get to be honest, because they’re constantly being taken. Now I’m not sure if this bonus is specifically related to the end of tier zones, like for instance Chaos Wastes and Reikland.

I’ve also had one situation where I’m pretty sure I’ve been awarded a bonus for the capture of a keep in the previous zone. So I was involved in the capture of the Destro keep in Kadrin Valley and then was involved in the capture of the Thunder Mountain Destro keep. Which seemed to award me 3 * 5K, 5K for defending TM Order keep, 5K capturing TM Destruction keep and 5K for capturing the Destruction keep in Kadrin Valley. Which seemed to be a rolling total of accrued keep captures in the tier. Of course it may have been related to lack of sleep, but I definitely saw 3 * 5K. Was I just drunk on Christmas spirit? A nice reward for those who have ample free time.

Now I’m sure you’ve noticed and I hope it’s not me, but the end of tier zones seem to be a lot more focused on contribution when it comes to the keep bonus, where as the middle zone, like Praag, is more a fixed value for the contribution. Ever wondered why people rush outside the warcamp in an end of tier zone, when it’s just been lost to Destruction/Order, that’s because an RP bonus is awarded for the defense. You could stay inside the warcamp, but you’d miss any AAO that’s being offered. Hell I picked up 9K one morning for an unsuccessful defense of Kadrin Valley, by the time the 400% AAO had been applied. Not bad for getting my ass whipped. Now with Praag, there you just a few officer medallions and a warlord crest flung my way, which reinforces my belief in the 1st line of this paragraph.

I’ve tried for a while to get a handle on the award of bonuses and how the mechanic actually works. So if you know, then post it up and let everyone in on the secret.

I often wonder if this is why people often mill around the keeps in an attack, because they want to be sure that they qualify for keep capture bonus, because they’re clueless as what else rewards them? It’s like, oooh if I run off to defend that BO or recapture it, will I lose my contribution/bonus? If I jump to another zone to help out there, do I lose my contribution to this zone? The problem is, is that by making the system opaque, it just limits people’s willingness to try new things.

Signed

Confused Of Warhammer

Blizzard Retrospective

Having pretty much followed Blizzard since the release of Lost Vikings and then onto their other lesser known products, this video they posted looking back over the last 20 years was very interesting. So if you have a chance take a peek. Oh yes, it’s 48 minutes long, but I think it’s worth it.

They hung on in there when times were tough.

Feeling Good

It’s amazing what a double rp bonus can do for your mood. Karak-Norn was reasonably busy and even though I think I had just one zone flip each evening, getting 25K (Sat) and 22K (Sun), it was good to see the bar move. Even the scenarios seemed to be rewarding me, even when I lost.

The funny thing was the lack of RR80+’s I saw over the weekend. Maybe it’s the time of month, but everyone seem to be sub 80. I thought that it could be people hammering away at their alts while we had all these bonuses. Just seem strange that’s all.

I have settled into the new Worn armour nicely and with higher toughness,wounds and armour, I definitely feel I am hanging on for 2/10’s of a second longer.

I’ve not really got a lot to say about 1.4.1. It was more than a maintenance patch, because there was a lot more than fixes, however a lot of the changes may not affect your main, just your alts, they really depend on where you’re at with Warhammer. Maybe that’s why there were so many alts? New RR banding on the tiers, new armour, double bonus. I’d loved to know how Tier 3 has been, since 1.41.?

There was some RL good news last week. I have been offered a job, which after taking a year and a bit off while my daughter progresses to the ripe old age of 3 and pre school, was a good feeling. I definitely had a few days (being 40+) wondering if my legacy set of development skills would ever get me back into work. Just need to sort out some after school care and I will be happy. Having free time and no money, while the wife pays the bills isn’t always great. So onwards and upwards. 

Without a doubt I think that the new job will have an impact on the blog during the week, once I start. So I will have to see how it goes. To be honest, the news is slow on the Warhammer front at the moment, with little indication on how things will pan out in the next 6 – 9 months.

Decent Trailer For Game Of Thrones Up

It looks good, actually looks very good. So travel over here to see a 2 minute exclusive trailer for Game Of Thrones on Entertainment Weekly.

The other news, is that the lazy bastard has pulled his finger out of his ass and given a publication date for A Dance With Dragons of July 12. Don’t have a year, but we of course pray it’s this year. It’s not finished though, so lets hope he uses a Jedi mind trick to get his focus back. He really could do with taking a lesson from Steven Erikson (Go and buy this guys work, it’s f’ing brilliant).

Did you know it’s 6 years since the last book was released, Feast Of Crows. I rest my case.

On a Warhammer note, very unhappy about being out 3 nights this week and basically not had any chance to take any real advantage of double RP.

So It’s Double RP Until The 8th

You have to wonder if it would have been worth waiting until the beginning of next month, when Rifts first month is over. However it’s not and it’s my job to make the best use of it. Well I would be, but I am stuck reconfiguring armour (The new Worn armour) and RA abilities on my RP.

I have the spreadsheet open and I’m just jotting down the stats for each armour piece and working out the overall benefit. Before spending a lot of money on this new armour. All very nice.

So I hope to get on within the next 45 mins and actually start playing with the new patch. Maybe get a feel for the performance changes and how the numbers on the server are this week.

So hopefully I will see some of you, but if the number of active warhammer blogs is anything to go by, then probably not.

Karak-Norn Last Night

Sums it up. I can only say it as I see it.

This can all be traced back to September 2009. You get one chance to get it right, after that it’s like trying to hold sand in your hands.

Hopefully things will improve on April 1st.

I could really do with knowing what they told the Myrkiel when he visited, just to lift my spirits.

How To Kill A Saturday Night In Warhammer

1. Have a city siege start between 7 – 8pm. Normally enough on its own to kill the evening, since the sieging side tends to log post siege.

2. Have the launch of a major MMO on the Thursday. This really didn’t help in the slightest. I will be really trying to get a feel of population numbers over the next few weeks. Given the queues, I do hope people kept their Warhammer subscriptions active so they could play while the queued. You could easily flip a zone or two in the time you were queuing.

3. Have a warband of very high RR players roam praag, post city siege and slaughter 1’s and 2’s. Congratulations on being a bunch of inbreds. I think it proves the very valid point, that high RR isn’t any indication of skill, just the ability to throw more time at the problem.

Missed A Trick

As you may or may not be aware, I’ve been concerned about the number of Royal Crests I’ve been acquiring, or haven’t which is more accurate assessment. At the moment I’m RR73 and have about 40 royal crests, with 4 bits of sovereign armour. Not really a great position to be in. But I have to admit to being a bit of an idiot and have let my dislike of Thanquols Incursion (TI) blind me to it being a more reliable source of high level crests. Yes I know you all know this, but I’ve been a wee bit slow on the uptake.

All those Skaven incursions that have been popping  since I hit RR65 have been missed opportunites. They pop a lot more frequently than city sieges and all the doomflayer/warpforged crests in stage 2 and stage 3 can be swapped down for a lower set and most of the time it’s a straight bit of PvE, with a total run time of 20 mins. 

It’s another one of those circumstances where the apparent purpose of something wasn’t very clear at the start, but now the clouds have parted it’s a completely different ball game.

Well at least I have time to rectify to rectify my situation.

If you are playing Rift at the moment, I hope it’s fun. I’m sure the queues will get more reasonable in a couple of weeks. If you’ve still got queues in a months time, then look at it as being a very positive sign.

Hopefully we’ll have a response from Mythic in a couple of weeks time, as to what they have planned, to hit ex players with, once the 1st month of Rifts paid subscription is up.

I think it’s only wise to let these things run their cause.

Tier 3 Is The Old Tier 4

I finally “Got It” this morning, after a night of simmering annoyance and rereading the patch notes. Sometimes it would be nice if certain changes came with an instruction manual, as to the whys and wherefores. A single line can cover quite significant changes. I’d just like to point out, I’m not a bloody mushroom.