WAR producer's letter details major 1.3.1 changes and lays out plan for near future

The newest Warhammer Online producer's letter starts off by detailing all the major changes coming with patch 1.3.1, including revamped city siege, open RvR enhancements, and social improvements. Basically, it's a lot of stuff we've heard about already. However, things get really interesting when Jeff Skalski starts talking about what is on the horizon for patch 1.3.2. There are some gems.

It sounds like Mythic is planning on uncoupling the fortresses from zone capture. This is a major RvR campaign design shift but the details are pretty vague at this stage. They will also be reworking the earlier tiers of the game in an effort to retain newbies and make alting more pleasurable. This could work quite nicely with the sidekick/buddy system they are working on as well. Finally, they're continuing to tweak crowd control and hint at a potential new Live Event tied to the "Daemon Moon." Maybe it will involve the Khorne Daemon Prince in the image above.

Reader Comments (31)

Since MJ was fired they've released two good patches. They still have so far to go though, but I think whatever deities Mythic prays to have paid off this year. They've at least dodged a bullet in the fact that all the upcoming mmogs coming out this year are steaming piles, and even non-mmog competition is exceptionally light (Borderlands, Dragon Age, a new CoD and that's about it). So they may hold out till SW:ToR's release and then hopefully EA throws WAR into some Station Pass type life support deal. Were this a good gaming year things could've been a lot worse.

"It sounds like Mythic is planning on uncoupling the fortresses from zone capture."

Why? This sounds like a terrible idea.

I played WAR around release but quit after a couple months and just came back, It's a lot better now than it was at release. Biggest difference now is everyone does open field RvR these days and scenarios are like an afterthought. My biggest problem with the game is attacking defended keeps; there's just 1 ramp to the lord room so it becomes a suicide charge up the ramp if there's enough defenders. Apparently this patch is adding a 2nd ramp so I'm very excited about this update.

Yeah I just got back from defending a few keeps in T4 with the new keep designs. Defending is MUCH better now! First of all, everything is more spacious. Now I can actually fit through a corridor to run out onto the terrace and heal and then run back in when under fire. No more getting stuck behind walls of people.

Furthermore, having two ramps makes things a lot more interesting. I didn't anticipate it having as so much of an impact. That crazy clusterf*ck feeling is greatly reduced. Now it's less about creating a tank wall and more about actually adjusting to an ever changing flow of in incoming enemies. Somehow such small additions really make it feel a lot more dynamic and fun. The warband chat was full of people going "Wow this is so much better."

It also caused us to focus more on actually trying to stop them from getting in the keep at all because we knew we didn't have the manpower to form two tank walls to defend both ramps. We had to wipe as many Order as possible beforehand which was a lot more fun that all standing in the Lord room waiting for Order to show up.

Add to all of this the fact that I just magically gained an extra 15-20 fps due to their vaguely mentioned "performance improvements." I'm a happy camper right now =) I have yet to attack a keep today but I can't wait

I read the forums sometimes and its just been nerf after nerf to many of the classes post release (at least, the classes I played). And while each patch brings a new nerf, fixes are few and far between.

A year after release claiming to be fixing what was obviously broken in BETA while begging old players to come back and play their seriously gimped characters...thanks but I think the poker has heated up to a sufficient temperature to insert in my anus now.

I played at release and even bought the CE of the game, however after a few months I to quit because the pull to play was just not there.

When playing WoW if I did not play for a week it felt like my character was not gaining anything. For WAR I could go a week without playing and not feel bad about at all, the game had no real carrot.

It has almost been a year now and I am still waiting to go back and play. The newer patched do sound like an improvement but the game is still broken in many places.

If the game did get better I would play, but right now HoN and waiting for SWTOR is keeping me occupied.

After a day with the patch I'm very impressed. The new keeps are great, and the improvement in performance and animations is -astounding-.

scenarios keep this game alive.
why would it hurt to go free with WAR and charge for the lame ass additional content (ie: lands of the dead, daemon moon, etc) and just focus on a free scenario-based pvp game?

you can revamp the oRvR game all you want. the initial design is utter crap.

Ok wow looks like this patch is a failure. Sign into one server and all of empire/chaos line is showings as contested lol. Log into other server and then it started to crash to could not close client had to alt tab out LOL. Are they trying to sabotage their own game??

I have played WAR since launch and I say that things have improved alot.

From beeing a Senariogrind I now leave the senario que pretty often to take part in the oRvR. You get alot more renown/inf/exp for taking part in zonelocks ect than you would get from queing for SCs all night... and it's more fun.

I don't say I have stoped doing senarios, becouse I haven't. and now days with "the join all senarios" option all the senarios pops more often...not just Serpents passage. My favorite is the Praag-senario.

I'v not partaken in Citysieges to many times, but I think the new changes will do good!

I tried all the public quest for a long time. Then I realized the gear is less capable then you can get from the Renown merchants, RVR drops, and from buying them using soldiers/officers medals. In tier 4, the map states the area is recommended for different levels. I go into a level 34 area, only to have a level 30 item drop from a public quest which was worse than my bought renown gear. I should've truly got a level 34 item. This happened on several public quests. The PQ gear doesn't match the recommended levels and I think is mostly crap. If you want to RVR at all, it's not worth doing that kind of PVE.
Notice now that CSRs are answered by the standard form letter. "we tried to contact you"...case closed. I really like this game. I play nightly, and I'm getting very frustrated by these issues and starting to be an even more lack of players. Hey it's down right now due to possible network issues. Does that mean I'm going to get time back added to me, and does that mean the item I got from the wild hunt which has a timer counting down on the time allowed to use it will get time added?

WAR producer's letter details major 1.3.1 changes and lays out plan for near future

Reader Comments (31)

Posted: Aug 18th 2009 2:30PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Aug 18th 2009 2:50PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Aug 18th 2009 3:48PM (Unverified) said

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Posted: Aug 18th 2009 7:05PM Shaard said

Posted: Aug 18th 2009 7:36PM engrey said

Posted: Aug 18th 2009 8:13PM DrewIW said

Posted: Aug 18th 2009 9:54PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Aug 18th 2009 11:27PM Chriskovo said

Posted: Aug 19th 2009 2:26AM oGGe said

Posted: Sep 16th 2009 7:11PM (Unverified) said

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