Today, Mark Jacobs issued its first State of the Game since the release of Warhammer Online one month ago. In this State of the Game, Warhammer Online gave us some ideas of what is on the product roadmap and more specifically what is planned for its upcoming Warhammer Online Patch 1.1. This Warhammer Online Patch 1.1 preview will show you what you have to look forward to this Fall when Patch 1.1 is released.
Black Guard and Knight of the Blazing Sun Classes
Probably the most exciting addition for me is that the Black Guard class and the Knight of the Blazing Sun class will be a part of this update. Mythic took these classes out of the initial playable classes prior to launch, but promised that they would be added back in. Now we know that in December these classes will be playable. I am especially excited about seeing the Knight of the Blazing Sun class.
Improved Game Performance
Jacobs has promised that Patch 1.1 will fix a lot of the crash to desktop issues that players have been experiencing as well as the stuttering video. I really hope that this improved game performance will help me to have a better experience on my older computer.
Improved Mail System
If you have tried to use the Warhammer Online mail system you know how slow it can be. Jacobs has said that this issue will be fixed in Patch 1.1.
Warhammer RVR Improvements
The Warhammer RVR improvements sound awesome. Patch 1.1 will improve the RvR gear drops and add an RvR-influence system like that which exists for the PvE content. It looks like this RvR-influence system will be for open RvR to encourage open RvR. Additionally, there will be new rewards for participating in open RvR. This is really necessary. Scenarios are so easy to join that people chose to do them over the open RvR.
Warhammer Online Classes
Jacobs also says that the Warhammer Online classes are going to be fixed. Now don’t freak out, because unlike most games, Mythic says that they are not going to nerf classes. Instead, they are going to “buff” classes. I hope that this is the case.
The following post will be updated everytime new Warhammer Online Game Updates are released. The team at Mythic is always working hard to make Warhammer Online a better game. Staying up to date with the latest Warhammer Online Game Updates will help you to know how your characters and the game are changing.
Warhammer Online Game Update 1.0.3 - October 15, 2008
Another eventful week is flying by here at the studio. As always the team has been working non-stop to bring you updates and make the game you love even better.
Tomorrow morning (10/15/085) at 6AM EDT all North American Servers will be coming down to begin the update to version 1.0.3.!
Oceanic servers will follow at 9AM EDT, we anticipate all servers to be back online by 2PM EDT.
While these notes are subject to change they’ll give you a taste of what you have to look forward to as 1.0.3 approaches!
- We’re pleased to announce the addition of a new regional chat system. This item has been one of our most requested features, and you can find the details below.
- We have made additional improvements to the functionality of the /ignore command. This command should now work more consistently.
- A “new mail” icon has been added to the edge of the minimap to alert players when new mail messages have arrived.
- We have made some additional improvements to the handling of NPC speech and action text in an effort to reduce the amount of chat players see from NPCs.
- In order to provide a more challenging and rewarding experience, we have adjusted the overall speed at which players can gain control of zones and move the campaign.
- Pet behavior has been improved and should act more naturally when changing between passive and defensive modes while the pet is fighting multiple enemies.
- The war against the gold sellers continues! We have introduced a new “report gold seller” command that works as follows: when you type /rg, the game will automatically fill out a gold seller appeal using the name of the last player who sent you a tell. If you get an unwanted /tell from a pesky gold seller, type /rg to start an appeal and get them busted!
- We have added a new option to the user settings that will allow players to enable or disable shader caching. This is a graphical performance option, and for a full explanation, players can hover their mouse over this option in the user settings window. This should help improve performance on many systems.
Regional Chat System:
- Chapter-based chat channels have been replaced with a farther reaching chat system, referred to as Region Chat. A region is defined as the contiguous zones that make up a tier-based racial pairing area. For example, Blighted Isle and Chrace make up one region. Region Chat consists of two channels, Region and Region-RvR.
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- Region encompasses the entire region area.
- Region-RvR encompasses the RvR-focused areas, such as the Plain of Bone.
- How to use the Regional Chat System:
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- To type in the Region channel, use /1 [message]
- To type in the Region-RvR channel, use /2 [message]
Note: You must be in the RvR-focused region to use the Region-RvR channel. Players on Open RvR servers will have access to Channel 2 at all times.
- To disable these channels right click on the proper chat tab, go to “Tab Options” then “Filters.” Scroll down to Region and Region-RvR and uncheck the channels you no longer wish to view.
- If you have disabled either channel and wish to re-enable them simply return to the “Filters” menu and re-select the appropriate channels.
- In order to ensure that the Apothecary skill remains a valuable crafting profession potions will no longer drop as frequently.
- Seeds for Cultivation will no longer drop as frequently throughout the world.
- Monsters should no longer disappear and then reappear when attacked at range by players.
- In some rare cases, the game would leave “ghost images” of NPCs who had moved away or de-spawned. As a result, players would see NPCs that were not actually there. We have taken steps to correct this issue, and players should see far fewer of these phantom NPCs.
- We fixed an issue that would sometimes cause monsters to break off in mid-combat and attempt to walk away.
- We have made some additional improvements to the pathing and behavior of monsters. These fixes should reduce pathing issues sometimes seen when pulling monsters at range.
- Nurglings will no longer continue to make aggressive sounds after they have been killed.
- Fixed a crash-issue that sometimes occurred when entering city dungeons.
- Fixed a crash that sometimes occurred when searching the Auction House.
- We have made some adjustments to the Hydra boss in the Sacellum dungeon to bring this encounter more in line with the original design and difficulty.
- Reduced the interaction time required to deploy a guild standard
- Reduced the interaction time required for players to pick up standards that they own. Please Note: This does not include the capturing of enemy standards.
- Capturing an enemy standard will now reward the capturing player and his nearby allies with renown.
- Players can no longer be queued for a scenario while they already have an invite pending to a different scenario.
- Attempting to join a scenario that has already ended will no longer send players to the character select screen.
- Renown gained from healing players was granting more renown than intended over long periods of time. Players who heal other players will still earn renown for aiding their friends in combat, but large heals or repeated heal-over-time spells will result in lesser renown gains than before.
- While going over the data collected for renown gained by healing, we discovered a few incorrect values that led to players earning far more renown than designed. To ensure equal renown gains for players regardless of their chosen career and whether they group or not inside scenarios, we have made several adjustments to the way renown is granted from healing other players:
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- Earning renown from healing players was erroneously granting renown while outside of RvR. This has been adjusted so getting renown for healing players outside of RvR or from a player that is not RvR flagged will occur less frequently.
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- Healing players will grant renown correctly if the healed player has earned renown from killing other players recently.
Warhammer Online Game Update 1.0.2 - October 8, 2008
The team here at Mythic has been busy this week making improvements and fixes based on your feedback to further enhance your gameplay experience. While these may change read on to check out the latest of these exciting updates coming to a server near you!
- The war against the gold spammers continues. We’ve added new code that will hinder the spammers as they seek to carry out their nefarious deeds! This is only the next step, not the final one, in our continued battle against them.
- We have added a ‘Join All’ button to the scenario window which now allows players to join all scenario queues in their current tier at once.
- In order to promote realm and population balance, some realms on some servers will now award their players with a +20% bonus to renown and experience. This is not a permanent bonus, but rather a temporary incentive to promote balance. Realms currently offering this bonus are marked on the server list with a colored icon; blue for Order and Red for Destruction - Check the Herald for the latest list!
- In response to player feedback, we have made several improvements to the behavior and responsiveness of the siege weapon interface. In addition we have fixed some issues with the control and release processes of siege weapons.
- In an ongoing effort to deter players from going AFK while in scenario starting areas, we have made the following changes:
- First, players who join a scenario and remain in their realm’s spawn area for two minutes will be automatically removed from that scenario.
- Second, upon entering the spawn area of a scenario, players will receive a debuff that prevents them from earning renown and experience. This debuff will be removed when the player leaves the spawn area.
- The level range at which players are able to receive the “Bolster” buff while in RvR has been expanded. This buff will now be available starting three levels lower than it had been previously. Please note this change only applies to Scenarios on Open-RvR Ruleset Servers.
- In tier 2, the buff will apply from rank 8 to rank 17, and will raise players to Battle Rank 18.
- In tier 3, the buff will apply from rank 18 to rank 27, and will raise players to Battle Rank 28.
- In tier 4, the buff will apply from rank 28 to rank 35, and will raise players to Battle Rank 36.
- In response to player feedback, we’ve added RvR and NPC chat tabs for new players. These tabs filter scenario chat and NPC chat respectively. In order to minimize frustration to users who have already customized their chat window, we will not be overwriting any current settings, so this change will affect only new players. Players who wish to add these tabs may do so through the normal chat configuration options.
- While in scenarios, players will no longer be able to select “Need” in their loot windows unless their career or race can use the item being offered. Please note: players of a lower level than required by the item are still able to roll.
- We have fixed an issue that was causing claimed keeps to forget that they had been claimed after a server restart.
- Improvements have been made to how pets follow and they should now return to their owners more quickly.
- We continue to work on the issues with the pet window. We have identified and corrected another bug which was causing this window to disappear.
Improvements have been made regarding an issue that was causing pets to teleport back to their owners after combat.
- Fixed a bug that prevented players from creating an alliance with more than two guilds. Now that this issue is resolved, alliances can grow to great numbers to crush their enemies!
- Fixed an issue that was causing the chat window to reset to its default position at logout.
- Ongoing improvements have been made to client and server stability.
- In order to deter players from spam-mailing, WAR continues to enforce a 5-second delay between sending mail messages. However, we have reduced this delay to 1 second for mails being sent to alts or guildmates.
- We have fixed an issue that was causing monsters to lose their aggression toward players in some rare cases.
- We have identified a small percentage of monsters in the game that were slightly less challenging than originally designed. We have adjusted the abilities of these monsters to bring them in line with their intended level of difficulty.
- Fixed an issue that was allowing players to change their tactics configuration during combat.
- We have made several fixes and improvements to the behavior of monsters and encounters in the Lost Vale dungeon. Access to this dungeon has been granted once more, and it should now provide an appropriately challenging experience for high-level players.
- Warlord Set Trinkets were missing their career requirements. Career requirements have been added to these items.
- In response to player feedback, we have made several improvements to the behavior and responsiveness of the siege weapon interface.
- The words in the chat tab labels will no longer disappear when players change the game’s graphical resolution.
- The chat window will no longer slide upward when being resized.
- Fixed some issues with the creation of chat tabs. Newly-created chat tabs should no longer continue beyond the border of the chat window.
- Players who interact with guild vaults while their inventory is full will no longer see items in the guild vault disappear.
- We have fixed an issue that was causing the game not to remember the chat prefix (/tell, /g, /wb), forcing players to retype it each time. The game should now correctly remember the chat prefix.
- Chat font settings will now save properly.
- Fixed an issue which was causing healers to lose targeting on a player who they just resurrected.
- A number of game actions and NPC and monster communications were being sent to players through the wrong chat channel. We have made several fixes relating to these issues.
- The pre-scenario countdown timer should now work properly once again.
- We have fixed an issue that was causing claimed keeps to forget that they had been claimed after a server restart.
- Players’ use of siege weapons will be no longer be interrupted when those players take damage.
- We have fixed an issue that was preventing players from opening the main door of a captured keep which belonged to their realm.
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