It's always important to eat your dessert first at dinner and then the main meal -- or so our rapscallion uncles taught us. So it is with developer articles. While the bulk of Carrie Gouskos' April Producer's Letter for Warhammer Online was devoted to examining the reasons behind the 1.3.5 patch changes, including the 100% RvR city sieges, it's not a bad idea to skip ahead to the final paragraph of the letter for one truly tasty tidbit:
"By 1.3.6 players will have the capability to play as both Order and Destruction on the same server. We did this in Camelot, because we wanted to give players more choices about where they wanted to play and who they wanted to play with. We're aware of the possible downsides (such as cross-realming) and we're aware that people have a lot of realm pride, which we believe is very important, so we're going to be introducing a significant lockout timer to switch between realms."
Up to this point, once a player rolled either a Destruction or Order player on a server, the opposing faction was denied to them unless they deleted every character and started over. This certainly represents a significant change in the the faction struggle of WAR, but could also solve the issue of friends being unable to connect on the same realm because one rolled Order and the other Destruction. Carrie highlighted other changes and revisions forthcoming to the game, including an auction house revamp and a pass at improving the open-RvR experience. Head over to the WAR Herald to read the full letter!
Reader Comments (18)
Posted: Apr 30th 2010 4:30PM CCon99 said
With all the server merges they had to do, I don't think it was an option not to do this. The only other option left to them was to force their remaining players to delete characters of one faction.
Posted: Apr 30th 2010 4:31PM Dandmcd said
Not that anyone ever had realm pride in this game anyway, there was never anything to have pride and to fight for since day 1. It makes this game even more watered down for scenario PvP now that open RvR can easily be controlled now by 1 or 2 hardcore RvR guilds, and they can choose what side to play on, so open rvr will just continue to be a renown grind, and nothing more.
Posted: Apr 30th 2010 4:49PM (Unverified) said
Carrie's comment is BS. They are allowing both sides to play the same server because they have to continue to merge. Just like they did with DAOC. It was terrible for DAOC and it will be terrible for WAR.
Posted: May 1st 2010 8:28AM (Unverified) said
How do you figure "it was terrible for DAoC"? It's all one cluster so it doesn't matter.
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Posted: Apr 30th 2010 5:03PM Budukahn said
I've always felt that one faction per server has been a poor policy since the first time it reared it's head. Any policy that can be circumvented simply by purchasing another account can't exactly be considered well implemented and most people who can afford MMO's as a hobby could probably stretch to a second account if they really wanted to. Timed lockouts for faction changes really seems the way to go in my opinion.
Posted: Apr 30th 2010 5:22PM Seffrid said
It sounds both an inevitable and sensible move to me, and makes it more feasible for me certainly to return to the game given the severe restriction in available servers as well as the shifts in balance between the two sides.
Posted: Apr 30th 2010 6:48PM Minofan said
I'll have to join the pessimist chorus - my first thought was that this is paving the way for more merges.
I'll be interested (from afar) to see how this impacts RvR; will people just switch sides when the capital is sieged, for the prospect of the rarest of all loot?
I'll be interested (from afar) to see how this impacts RvR; will people just switch sides when the capital is sieged, for the prospect of the rarest of all loot?
Posted: Apr 30th 2010 7:19PM Deadalon said
What about the WAR ? lol
RVR was zerg before.. now its - "all get on their order characters and we are taking IC at 8".
Thats not RVR... but hey... WAR was never a true RVR game anyway.
Now it has to find some way to be about something else. I can't see that happening.
RVR was zerg before.. now its - "all get on their order characters and we are taking IC at 8".
Thats not RVR... but hey... WAR was never a true RVR game anyway.
Now it has to find some way to be about something else. I can't see that happening.
Posted: Apr 30th 2010 8:23PM (Unverified) said
The shark has been jumped.
Posted: Apr 30th 2010 9:03PM (Unverified) said
I think we may be seeing the beginning of the end, this would be a terrible thing for WAR for exactly the reason Deadalon stated. Dan had a good point also, nobody cares if the IC or altdorf got capped because in 15 minutes it would be back to normal anyways and I could just log a different server anyways if I didn't want to do a city siege (which are terribly boring). I have no idea where the WAR person got realm pride because any they did have would be gone completely if they let this happen.
Posted: Apr 30th 2010 10:27PM GaaaaaH said
There are situations where someone still won't be a ble to play with a friend - if they log onto opposing characters, then the 'significant' timer will stop them from playing together for a while.
How do you find if a character one your friends list is logged in?
-You log in - wrong choice fo realm = can't play together
How do you find if a character one your friends list is logged in?
-You log in - wrong choice fo realm = can't play together
Posted: May 1st 2010 11:26AM (Unverified) said
Just a random point, Won't this basicly make the RVR even more stacked? I mean some people play for gain. Won't they just switch to the side that is winning in T4 RVR. Which will contribute to the already boring Zerg steam rolling, is anyone still playing that can give some insight on this?
Posted: May 1st 2010 1:07PM Deadalon said
Ye - this basicly kills the RVR aspect of the game. And it will also kill Scenarios cause one faction will be played by 90% of players one night.. then totally oposite the next.
Basicly this tells everyone how bad things really are with this title. Mythic is in total freefall on every single front now. They are not even in charge of their own games but have to take orders from Bioware that couldn't care less what happens to 10 years of another companies history.
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Basicly this tells everyone how bad things really are with this title. Mythic is in total freefall on every single front now. They are not even in charge of their own games but have to take orders from Bioware that couldn't care less what happens to 10 years of another companies history.
Posted: May 1st 2010 5:18PM (Unverified) said
This is the biggest Mythic fail in modern history, hands down.
(If this f"%"#¤% C!"¤& go live it will be game over for me...)
(If this f"%"#¤% C!"¤& go live it will be game over for me...)
Posted: May 2nd 2010 9:28AM Rialle said
Yeah, it seems the only reason to do this in a game like WAR would be due to more server merges. It destroys RvR, but at this point I don't think Mythic has any other choice.
I seriously doubt EA really cares about this game anymore, aside from squeezing whatever meager money that can still get be gotten out of the die-hard fans before the game finally dies. I honestly believe that both WAR and DAOC will go offline permanently soon after TOR launches, if not before.
I seriously doubt EA really cares about this game anymore, aside from squeezing whatever meager money that can still get be gotten out of the die-hard fans before the game finally dies. I honestly believe that both WAR and DAOC will go offline permanently soon after TOR launches, if not before.
Posted: May 20th 2010 3:43PM (Unverified) said
Nice now i could change my toon to insult the other guy whos kill me before!









