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Tag: Land of the Dead

June 23, 2009

WAR Becomes the Land of the Dead

Warhammer Online: Land of the Dead PTS
Image by Evan Sims via Flickr

Today, Warhammer Online‘s 1.3 patch becomes fully live with the introduction of Land of the Dead, a zone based upon Warhammer’s Tomb Kings with an Egyptian slant.

If you don’t know the skinny, here’s the bullet point play-by-play:

-Constantly Flipping Control: The zone has a mechanism wherein control is determined by resource allocation. Each side gathers resources by participating in WAR’s normal RvR gameplay. When one side gets the resources needed, they control Land of the Dead unfettered for 30 minutes. Then the resource allocation begins again, with the “losing” realm picking up where they left off and the “winning” realm starting at zero.

-Invaded Instances: The aforementioned control determines a couple things – first, whether or not you respawn in the zone, and second, whether you can invade instances currently occupied by the opposing realm. If you contorl the zone, you can do both, which means if zone control flips away from you while you are in the Tomb of the Vulture Lord dungeon, you’d better be prepared to deal with enemy players.

-Dynamic PQ’s and Encounters: Action RPG is what Encounters Strike Team lead Gabe Amatangelo says was the inspiration for Land of the Dead. From dodging mist and locusts, to traps that require a bit of good timing to get past, to the ability to redirect invading players to trash and hazards, there’s a bit of an Indiana Jones element to the whole zone that makes the experience active.

Overall, Land of the Dead will no doubt be a worthy addition to WAR. No MMO doesn’t add content, so with this being WAR’s first major content addition since the release of the game, all eyes are on it to make sure that it does the job it’s supposed to do, which is revitalize the game for current players and attract former players back. Personally, I’ve played the zone and the dungeon, and both are really fun and engaging. While many people are weary of what WAR has been struggling with since release, I encourage people to give this patch and new content a try. The control mechanics and new quests are different than anything they’ve had before, and focus on smaller groups means less of the zerginess that has plagued WAR’s signature version of PvP.

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June 10, 2009

WAR’s Viral Infection

Virus logo.
Image via Wikipedia

So for those of you who don’t know, Mythic and GOA have been hyping up WAR’s upcoming Land of the Dead. Certainly the traditional buzzworthy articles, tease interviews, and testing has been done, and there are a lot of folks talking about it. But what you may not know yet is that there’s a viral marketing campaign consisting of mailed cartouches, skulls, and bones being sent to various folks in the blogosphere. Together, all of these can be combined and interpreted into rewards and in-game items. If you’re curious, there is a consolidation thread on the Land of the Dead puzzle on Warhammer Alliance about it.

Sending skulls and bones, and strange things in the mail might seem like a waste of time to some, but to be honest, viral marketing in and of itself has taken hold pretty well. This isn’t the first time WAR has sent out promotional items. Back before Valentine’s Day there were a bunch of bloodied valentines sent out to hype WAR’s Night of Murder event. Before Land of the Dead came mysterious packages of red hair dye and DVD’s with timestamps, a way to hype the insertion of new classes into the game. And now, bloggers and fansites find themselves in an Indiana Jones-like Egyptian puzzle (whip and fedora not included).

If not for the digital age, viral marketing wouldn’t have been as worthwhile. But in a time when you can find out about anything instantaneously, the fact that Mythic is doing this has created a lot of interest and curiosity that normally would not be there. Sites like Kotaku, who normally wouldn’t carry a WAR article unless it was a major news piece, are now publishing pictures of their packages and nodding approvingly at something to break up their mundane routines. Small sites and blogs who are dedicated to WAR benefit from a boost and a recognition by the developers that they’re reading them and that they matter in the game’s overall voice. I know that being recognized by a company for what you are essentially writing and promoting for them is always more motivation to write more.

Non-traditional marketing for MMOs can really take hold in the next couple years as the various online games out there jockey for position. What if you saw some feathery wings sent to blogs by Aion’s NCSoft, or perhaps an audio-recorded message of assistance sought by a Republic senator for Star Wars: The Old Republic (“help me Obi-Wan Kenobi…”). These are the kinds of things that while short term, will be memorialized and remembered for being innovative, fun, and interesting.

Whether or not WAR’s Land of the Dead will succeed remains to be seen. But Mythic is certainly doing the right things by getting the word out in unique, viral ways. Certainly, if you’ve thought about WAR, and skulls with sunglasses made you smile, then you’ve been summarily “infected”. As far as MMO publicity goes, that’s not a bad thing.

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June 5, 2009

WAR’s Career Cautiousness

Hohenzollern
Image by jluster via Flickr

Warhammer Online has been chugging along lately, with upcoming live expansion Land of the Dead the major thing on the horizon for WAR players.

The 1.3 patch, which was supposed to be a massive patch that not only introduced this new content but fixed bugs and balance careers, has been decided cut in half faster than an Orc Choppa can spam their blade abilities at you. Seems that in doing the career changes and balancing, Mythic has found players a little, well, passionate about some of the fixes, which include an overall AoE reduction, single-target damage increase, toughness and statistical improvement on a mass scale, and other things. So to give it more time, Land of the Dead will now be the primary component of the next patch, while Combat and Career changes will be pushed back to another cycle.

I have to give kudos to Mythic for this decision. While Combat and Careers is something that someone will always have something to complain about, the bigger issue with such changes in the 1.3 patch has been their scope and widespread effect. And by effect, I mean both player perception and actual data.

I have combat logs from some of the changes, and the PTS numbers are a bit staggering – with large crits from certain spells, a toughness increase that made some toons extremely difficult to kill, and the healing reduction, there were just way too many cooks in the kitchen as far as the changes go. As a technology professional, one of the things you learn is that when you patch something, you do not add too much into the mix – because the more you add, the more likely something will break and the less likely it is you will be able to efficiently find the cause of it.

Mythic has taken some heat for shorter testing cycles that haven’t given the time to truly test and gather the feedback that is needed, so to see these changes pushed back and a more cautious approach taken is a good thing. The patch is already going to be huge with 1.3′s new Land of the Dead content, and with the launch of that needing to be as smooth as possible, removing career changes is a good step towards that.

So Mythic did good as far as I can tell with this decision. But that being said, the introduction of their “controversial” changes should really give them pause as to the scope under which they should be changing stats and dealing with existing issues. I am personally hopeful that they will take a more surgical approach to the changes, but in lieu of that, more testing of them is sufficient.

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