Overly Positive

Over the weekend, the folks over at the WAR studios ran an event on the Public Test Server to test out their changes for 1.3.1. While there were a ton of things that were fixed, perhaps the most major of things was a fix to city siege, as the first part of a revamp to aspects of Tier 4 combat.

I have to say, the improvements were well received by those who tried them, and I personally like them very much so far. Those of you who played WAR may recall the first stage of the city siege as it was before, as it was a mixture of NPC kills, and PvE-like missions like burning or putting out things on fire, with optional combat with other players. This led to a sort of PvE-ish experience that was just a bit bland. Now there are objectives to hold and players to kill, which makes the experience completely PvP-oriented. The result is fast-paced, frenetic gameplay as both sides race to the 1000 points necessary to advance stages or help eject the defenders.

Part of the overwhelmingly positive feedback that has resulted from the test of the patch is probably a setting of expectations, done beforehand to manage player opinion. 1.3.1 is by no means a major or huge patch, but it is one that does a lot of bugfixing and revamping. With the knowledge that this is what the patch has in terms of content, players know exactly what was going to be tested and what feedback was needed where. Honestly, it’s a good move for Mythic to release patches in this manner – being realistic about the application and ability of your patches to fix certain game elements leads to more of an understanding that is reflected in player feedback.

WAR does still have a lot of work to do to fix their endgame. But the coupling of small, incremental patches and the desire to take in, more than ever, the feedback of players will lead to what will probably be a bit of a renaissance down the road, if the cards are played right. If these changes and more go through, we’ll be seeing more fun city sieges for all.