Giant Slayer Items

For the past several months I have been wearing the Giant Slayer Corset on my Witch Elf. I’ve gotten rather bored with the look of it, but there’s no way I’m giving up its 6 percent melee crit any time soon.

Recently though I’ve been getting several tells from people asking where I got it. When I told the first person it dropped in the Screaming Cat instance in Altdorf, I realized that with the new city mechanic, Screaming Cat was no longer available as far as I knew.

According to a thread on the forums, the content has been taken out, but the devs want to put it back in…sometime…hopefully….

So I guess I’m a bit more appreciative now of my luck in landing that chestpiece then I ever was before.

TGIF: Friday the 13th!

It has been one of the those weeks where you just want to crash, but you know you have more work to do. It looks like Warhammer has had a busy week as well.

As most of us know by now, Electronic Arts announced Monday that it would lay off 1,500 employees by April. There hasn’t been any confirmation on exactly how many Mythic employees have lost their jobs, but it’s just not a good situation no matter how you look at it.

The news spurred Mythic’s Executive Producer Jeff Hickman to put up a letter on the Heralds of Ultima Online, Dark Age of Camelot and Warhammer Online.

Hickman basically wanted to let all of us know that, despite the layoffs, Mythic is staying committed to making their games awesome. However, there really wasn’t any meat to the letter. It’s understandable that Mythic hasn’t immediately told us how they’ve been impacted. They’ve got more pressing concerns right now.

Eventually we do deserve to know what’s up with a product we’re paying for. Jaime Skelton, a columnist for MMORPG.com, posted an article today on how layoffs affect gamers. The summary of what players want caught my eye, because it applies quite nicely to how I feel:

Communication. Don’t leave players hanging in the dark, wondering if a game they’ve supported for years may be in the trash bin within a few months.

Honesty. Stop feeding us feel good press releases, and give us the facts. Optimism is good, but not when it obscures a very real chance of bad news.

Respect. Don’t assume that we’re addicts, escapists, or otherwise unconcerned about how we spend our entertainment money.

So Mythic, in a nutshell, just please tell it like it is. Not right now, that’s cool, but sometime.

Anyway, moving right along.

A few days following Hickman’s letter, the producers of UO, DAoC and WAR put up letters of their own on their respective Heralds. Jeff Skalski gave us a teeny tiny peek into what they’ve got up their sleeves for 1.3.3.

I totally heart Skalski for letting us know Keg End and Night of Murder are coming back, along with another live event. Even if I never complete the live event, I still get a kick out of how they bring everyone together.

But wait, this week has not been all doom and gloom and what’s to come!

On Wednesday the WAR Dev team hosted a PTS playtest for the City Siege changes. Then they implemented the changes the very next day. Now, Stage 1 lasts one hour and Stage 2 lasts three hours.

Also, in full disclosure, I started working this week as a News Correspondent for Warhammer Alliance. You should check it out.

Busy Bees

I don’t know what’s got into Mythic, but I sure like what I’m seeing.

Just two days ago Andy Belford announced changes to the City siege experience, and they were implemented today. That responsiveness caused me to flail my arms about in happiness.

Not only will access to the Guild Halls, Imperial Palace and Citadel be severed from City rank, but two scenarios will be active during Stage 2 of City sieges. Mythic is bringing back Reikland Factory and The Twisting Tower for when Altdorf and The Inevitable City are contested, respectively.

Moreover, soon we can stop complaining about the siege timers. Next week, after a Public Test Server event, the Stage 1 timer will be reduced to one hour, and the Stage 2 timer will be reduced to three hours.

That’s three hours of Reikland Factory or The Twisting Tower if you choose not to participate in the siege. I can’t wait!

But that’s not all

In the October newsletter, Mythic said they would be removing the 10-day restriction from WAR’s free trial. Then Werit brought it to my attention on Tuesday that the client would be streaming, allowing users to download content while they are playing the game.

I thought this was an awesome idea for all the obvious reasons. People have lives, and things can come up that interfere with getting the most out of WAR when they only have a small window of time.

Also, I heartily agree with Werit when he says, “One day the mood may strike me to try out a new game.  Nothing kills that mood like a 8gb download.”

When one of my friends downloaded the trial a few months ago, he griped about how long he had to wait. My sister and her boyfriend had the same response when they downloaded it this week.

Well, the good guys and gals at Mythic set up the new trial today too.

OMG there’s more?!

A Dev Diary on combating hackers popped up on the Herald today as well. Development Manager John Cox apologized for not being more candid, but frankly that’s understandable in this situation.

Grimnir packaged the main points of the diary into a tidy little list:

1. We acknowledge that people hack our game.

2. We acknowledge a third-party program that is used to hack our game.

3. We infiltrate groups known for hacking our game to discover these hacks and destroy them.

4. We collect a ton of data to make sure that only legitimate hackers are punished.

5. We have been doing this all along.

While this diary couldn’t be as in-depth as some others, I’m really happy to hear from another person involved with making WAR great. Accusations of cheating appear on the forums now and then (and get locked soon after) so it’s good to see how Mythic handles such problems.

Now seriously, Mythic, go get some sleep or something. You’ve done a great job.