WAR NDA officially lifted. Post pics and info!

[Drave]

Originally Posted by Danth

"when I was creating a Magus, while changing the hairstyle etc., the magus would float up on his stupid platform until I couldn't see his facial/hair features anymore to make adjustments....I was just doing changes blindly. Again, is this just me"

My wife experienced the same problem when she made a Magus, so it isn't just you.

Danth

I've had the same experience - reported said bug.

[Axire]

The euro beta is a complete load of shit, was expecting as much seeing as how its run by GOA, the same company which was 4-5 patchs behind releasing the US content for the euro version of DAoC.

Fucking complete joke, actually considering not even buying the game because of this incompetent company.

[Azzikai]

My Shaman is great. If we end up buying this game, I'll most likely play one again.

The "unable to attack" thing does piss me off. Great, it's shooting at me but I can't do anything but run the fuck away. Not so bad when it is normal mobs but one of the PQ's I did had the champions do that, there was much dying. If I couldn't heal I'd probably be a lot more annoyed. As it is, when I find those mobs I just run through them and head on my way towards the next set while keeping myself alive, they'll go away eventually.

I haven't had any actual bugs happen, other than the Magus floating thing mentioned earlier.

The machine I'm running this on is definitely above minimum spec, probably right around what they'd list as recommended, but I'm having massive performance issues at times. I've tweaked all the obvious stuff and the performance gain has been minimal at best. I can live with it doing PQ's and normal questing but going into actual RvR or anything like that and it is hit and miss whether or not I'll lag into unplayability. It is strange, the first few times I went into one of those little scenarios I was fine, 20 people on the screen and just a few slow downs. Today, though, I had 5 people on the screen and I lagged so bad I couldn't even turn. It might be that machine, trying to copy it to this one to see if it improves.

[morturio]

Originally Posted by Izuldan

[EDIT] And I just thought of something else, I'm wondering if anyone else has encountered it....

Since I was playing Order and Destruction, I was switching between servers. I noticed that when I selected to switch servers, the box that normally holds the server names goes completely black, and the two buttons at the bottom become blank as well. This will stay this way until I click one of the two boxes, at which point, the server names will reappear......anyone else have this problem?

I have not seen the other bugs you mentioned but I have seen the server area going black bug on 2 different pc's.

Not a deal breaker for me as I spend way more time being happy that I am playing than frustrated about the problems.

I greatly prefer the dark server screen to the 'I'm stuck looting and now someone is attacking me' bug from WoW's release.

[Dashal]

Couple of comments by Mark on the VN boards I thought people might be interested in

Ah. Well, PvE leveling should not be faster than RvR leveling so I'll check into it tomorrow. I've always said that you should be able to level all the way up in RvR or PvE but PvE should not be faster than RvR and if you're just grinding mobs it should not be faster.

Mark

Folks,

So, here's the scoop on Renown gear:

1) Renown gear is supposed to be identical to the gear you get in PvE. We're looking at the tables to confirm this.

2) Though we changed how Renown gear was made available to the players, we will recheck things to make sure we didn't overcompensate.

3) We'll make sure that the drop rates in RvR are high enough so that players do not feel like they have to PvE in order to get the gear faster.

As always, WAR is intended to be a game with multiple ways to get gear, experience, etc. but that a player can RvR his entire way through the game without having to PvE.

Mark

Whatever the reality, it's good to see this is the intent at the very least.

RE: Bugs in the game and surveys, he asked that you put the issues in the surveys:

Yes please, we can't hear that stuff enough. We need to hear about all the issues again and again until they are fixed.

Mark

[Aphextwin]

Originally Posted by Mahes

One small question: Is there a gamma setting in this game?

The game seems a little bit to dark for me.

The game is extremely dark for me, so dark in fact that I can't see a bloody thing at night. The only way I can over come this is to max my brightness setting from my desktop before entering the game, I just have to remember to scale it back when I play something else otherwise I'm blinded.

[lost]

I thought PQs were fun so I could get gear from the influence rewards, but hey if rvr is giving the same gear, im goin there, pq shit was snore after the 5th-6th time to get full influence

[Velk]

Originally Posted by lost

pq shit was snore after the 5th-6th time to get full influence

Odds are, you are doing it wrong. Most likely reason is that there is another 2-5 PQs on the same influence that you haven't found yet. This is a pretty common problem, for example in the second chaos area, you find 40 people at the pq next to the camp, and 1 or 2 people at best at the others.

[Azzikai]

Originally Posted by Velk

Odds are, you are doing it wrong. Most likely reason is that there is another 2-5 PQs on the same influence that you haven't found yet. This is a pretty common problem, for example in the second chaos area, you find 40 people at the pq next to the camp, and 1 or 2 people at best at the others.

That seems to be a problem with each area. I found a PQ way the fuck off of the roads when doing another quest, I was the only one there.

I don't really know what can be done to let people know about the less obvious PQ areas short of putting up big, flashy signs. Even then, I highly doubt many would go more than a minute or so off the road to get to them when they can stay right next to a camp instead.

Also, looks like the euro open beta invites are getting sorted out. I just tried to log back into my Shaman and I'm sitting in a queue as my faction is full.

[spentmotiff]

Originally Posted by Danth

"when I was creating a Magus, while changing the hairstyle etc., the magus would float up on his stupid platform until I couldn't see his facial/hair features anymore to make adjustments....I was just doing changes blindly. Again, is this just me"

My wife experienced the same problem when she made a Magus, so it isn't just you.

Danth

This damn bug has been in the game forever now. The best thing to do is just click another class, then click back to your Magus. The settings you were choosing should be saved.

And while I'm having a great time in the game and can't wait for release, the amount of bugs seems to have gone up since CB/PW. I think dropping in that major patch right before the OB is what is causing it. Hopefully, the next few patches up to release just iron those out and work on stability. The worst, worst, worst thing that could happen for Mythic is for them to drop a feature patch in on Friday and have a bug-ridden Early Start.

Now I know that we all may think "Mythic knows their shit and would never do this," but we've all seen this kind of thing happen before, haven't we?

[Jayblah]

Day Two: The Ironbreaker

Sticking with my plan to test one class per day in the OB, I started my second WAR session experimenting with the Ironbreaker.

First, let me say that the aesthetic look of the dwarves in this game is fantastic and far, far superior to WoW's variant. No ridiculous goosestep running, no comical look, just pure pint-sized badassery. Its nice to play a dwarf that looks threatening. My Ironbreaker looks very formidable even at level 8 (acquiring a breastplate from winning first place loot in a PQ helps). Thankfully, Ironbreaker animations are also superior to the animations of my Shadow Warrior. With the latter, the lack of bow-strings, the lack of arrows being nocked, the absurd "shoot for the moon" animation are nearly a deal breaker for me when it comes to Shadow Warriors. Yes, I'm a stickler, but in my defense, as long as the aesthetic look is right and uniform, the quality of the graphics matter very little (see WoW). However, good animation matters tremendously. While the game's animations as a whole are pretty subpar, the Dwarves' animations are vastly superior to those of the High Elf. Speaking of aesthetics; once again Mythic outdid themselves with respect to atmosphere. The dwarven lands are just as battle-scarred as the High Elf lands. Their tagline that "war is everywhere" is absolutely true.

As far as Ironbreaker combat goes, let me preface this by stating that the ridiculous lag effusing all of Open Beta needs to be dealt with. I understand that the OB is a stress test, but the game launches in... approximately a week? I have serious doubts that Mythic will be able to get this under control. There is a constant 1-3 second response delay on any action I do. This is a big deal when testing classes because its very hard to get a feel for combat. Particularly in RvR, I have a hard time gauging my damage dealt or absorbed because of wildly delayed and unresponsive HP gains/losses. It also doesn't help things any that the combat log in WAR is astoundingly awful. The GUI in particular needs a lot of polish.

Ironbreaker PvE
I enjoyed PvE with the Ironbreaker and achieved level 6 through PvE content. I played a shielded IB (no two-handers for me), and my ability to take punishment seemed substantial. I formed a group in a cave used for questing and together we tackled the Public Quest. My IB was effective in grabbing aggro from Boss Gits (elite mobs), though I did struggle at times to keep them from attacking an overzealous Engineer. Of course, its a tank class so it will always have a coveted role in PvE. The Ironbreaker's Grudge mechanic is awesome, but I noticed something odd. Does Grudge not deplete when you use a Grudge-cost ability? I was using 100-Grudge Binding Grudge without ever consuming any Grudge. The only ability that actually consumed the pooled up Grudge was Grudge Unleased.

Ironbreaker PvP
First, I enjoyed RvR in the Dwarven lands much more than in the High Elf lands, despite preferring Khaine's Embrace to Battle of Ekrund (more on this later). Dwarven players seemed to be more competent but communication amongst players in OB still blows ass (most of the time it was only me talking, saying simple shit like "DPS - FOCUS ON SHAMAN FIRST". Thankfully, in Ekrund, instead of dealing with functionally braindead Archmages, I had a handful of competent Rune Priests queueing for the scenario during my playtime. I guess Rune Priest players are more likely to be healing-minded versus Archmages who want to shoot rainbowpewpew at everyone. Because of these Rune Priests, Order won about as many matches as Destruction. I put Skrigg's advice to use: Oath Friend on a melee-DPS (too bad I never made it to 10 to acquire Guard) and then work together. In one round, I Oath Friend'd a White Lion and together the two of us worked the hell out of 3 destruction forces. He provided the assbeat and I provided buffs and annoyance. Sadly, with combat responsiveness being so sluggish, I wasn't able to do things I really wanted to do, such as strategic use of collision detection. I also noticed that Squigs (and god there are millions of Squig Herders, lol) seem to be pretty damn annoying. I couldn't tell how much damage they were doing to my healers (again; combat responsiveness blows) but keeping them off my healers was like my second job. One other thing, and perhaps its due to us being low-level, but if I ever found myself alone against a Witch Elf, it seemed like they'd tear me apart. I'm not some two-hander scrub either, yet the ease at which Witch Elve's were handling me was eye opening. Anyway, I can see the Ironbreaker having a very useful role in PvP that doesn't depend exclusively on DPS-epeen: Melee-DPS support. I've no doubt that at high levels, an IB guarding and oath'ing a Witch Hunter or White Lion could pack a serious punch. I definitely enjoyed this class.

As to the scenario itself; is it me or does Battle of Ekrund suffer from slowdown? Khaine's Embrace was very playable for me on my dated PC with respectable graphical settings. With Ekrund, I had to turn all settings to bare minimum to avoid severe FPS hits.

[Dashal]

Good posts Jahblah. Ironbreaker is my next class to level up to 10 or 12. I have him at 5 currently. Binding Grudge I believe intentionally does not cost Grudge, note on Grudge Unleashed it has "Costs 40 Grudge" in blue on the tooltip. Binding (and other skills) are simply dependent on what your current grudge level is.

[Zerai]

I got my swordmaster to level 9. I'm going to be trying the ironbreaker next. I like the mechanics of the swordmaster, but I feel somewhat overwhelmed by it. It's like having a warrior in wow, except instead of stances, you have to use a battle stance ability to use a beserker stance ability so you can use a defensive stance ability. But all your abilities are on one bar. So when you're trying to pick the right ability for the right situation, you just have too many. Vanguard had a much cleaner system with their chains. Which is pretty sad. But they need something to try to clean it up.

Also, I was trying to tank something, and I couldn't hold agro worth shit. That's using the high threat opening move, the 25% parry second move, and just a DD finisher (it was free, might as well). Taunting I saved for when I lost agro. Which was all the time. On something like a hero mob, I just ran out of action points. They have so much hp. It's like a fight in EQ =x Spam your abilities til it dies while it gets tanked and spanked.

I tried out RVR, and yeah, tanks are supposed to kill melee dps right? I got worked by witch elves. I was wearing a shield and I still went down like a wet paper towel. I was level 7, so I wasn't capped so that didn't help. Destruction rolled us pretty bad though. Watching people trying to kill some witch elf while one guy caps the flag, and 5 of them chase the second guy around. It was kinda depressing. Also a pain trying to figure out what class people are.

PQ's are indeed awesome.

Overall though, the game sorta feels...clunky. It's like it's lagging, but it's not lag, it's just, the game itself.

[Jayblah]

Originally Posted by Dashal

Good posts Jahblah. Ironbreaker is my next class to level up to 10 or 12. I have him at 5 currently. Binding Grudge I believe intentionally does not cost Grudge, note on Grudge Unleashed it has "Costs 40 Grudge" in blue on the tooltip. Binding (and other skills) are simply dependent on what your current grudge level is.

Ah, right. I guess abilities that work on Grudge but cost AP won't deplete Grudge. Abilities that cost no AP but work on Grudge on the other hand will deplete Grudge.

Oh, I also noticed something odd in Ekrund last night as an Ironbreaker. I would often lose my target to another adjacent foe, despite never having changed targets. Is there an ability that causes this or is this a known bug?

[Jayblah]

Originally Posted by Zerai

I got my swordmaster to level 9. I'm going to be trying the ironbreaker next. I like the mechanics of the swordmaster, but I feel somewhat overwhelmed by it. It's like having a warrior in wow, except instead of stances, you have to use a battle stance ability to use a beserker stance ability so you can use a defensive stance ability. But all your abilities are on one bar. So when you're trying to pick the right ability for the right situation, you just have too many. Vanguard had a much cleaner system with their chains. Which is pretty sad. But they need something to try to clean it up.

Also, I was trying to tank something, and I couldn't hold agro worth shit. That's using the high threat opening move, the 25% parry second move, and just a DD finisher (it was free, might as well). Taunting I saved for when I lost agro. Which was all the time. On something like a hero mob, I just ran out of action points. They have so much hp. It's like a fight in EQ =x Spam your abilities til it dies while it gets tanked and spanked.

I tried out RVR, and yeah, tanks are supposed to kill melee dps right? I got worked by witch elves. I was wearing a shield and I still went down like a wet paper towel. I was level 7, so I wasn't capped so that didn't help. Destruction rolled us pretty bad though. Watching people trying to kill some witch elf while one guy caps the flag, and 5 of them chase the second guy around. It was kinda depressing. Also a pain trying to figure out what class people are.

PQ's are indeed awesome.

Overall though, the game sorta feels...clunky. It's like it's lagging, but it's not lag, it's just, the game itself.

As to the Swordmaster combo mechanic, an addon was released that aims to make it flow better: PlanB - Swordmaster/BlackOrc Hotbar Page Swapper - Warhammer Forums

And I completely agree with your last statement. The game needs a lot of polish and with the release date nearly here, who knows when we will see it. There are plenty of issues that need to be worked out (UI issues, glitches, etc.)