Gamesday fun, and more info on the coming rvr pack…

First let me start by saying that Gamesday was fantastic, and it was a lot of fun meeting up with other norn players! be certain to check out Bootae’s bloody blog soon for more info as he had an interview with Andy. Also, be sure to watch the WAR herald over the next month, as we’ve been told more info will be released within that timeframe.

As some of you may have read yesterday on my twitter, i was watching the display, and participated with the Q+A session along with everyone else. i tried to keep everything updated via twitter as it went along, but some things slipped through the cracks (hey… it was early)!

so here’s a more detailed description of what’s to come.

Open RVR changes:

From now on, there will be no VP, there will be no more Domination timer. there will be no more waithammer!

Capturing a zone is as “easy”, as capturing your enemies keep. that’s it, that’s all there is to it. you don’t need to stack scenarios to earn VP, you don’t need to wait 2 hours because there’s no enemy online. you just capture the enemy keep.

ahhh but that’s changed too. no longer will you be able to just run up and pound on the enemy keep door with all of your people. in fact, that’s a decidedly bad idea, and here’s why:

• On flying into a contested zone, you will land in your keep. remember, enemies will land in their keep too…
• Doors can only be harmed in two ways, the ram, and the new Skaven Rat Ogre.
• Keeps will have all of the defensive siege weaponry required from the very beginning. and you won’t have any offensive weaponry at the start.

But how can we get a ram, or offensive siege weaponry? and why do we want siege weaponry anyway? it sucks!!!

• No, it used to suck. siege weapons will now deal around 4k damage (before mitigation).
• You gain offensive siege weapons and rams by upgrading your keep. this is accomplished by gathering resources from battle objectives.

And what about that? what’s with resource gathering? how does it work?

• BO’s have no safe timer, and no lockdown timer. you can flip a BO to your realm at any point.
• Once a BO is yours, interract with it to generate your resource carrier. he’s kind of like the sappers in city sieges.
• Defend him until he reaches your warcamp, and you’ll gain resources for your keep. If the enemy kill him, they can steal the resources for their realm!
• The amount of resources you gain per carrier, will scale with the underdog system.
• Resource carriers upgrade with your keep. at rank 1 they gain armour, at rank 2 they become mounted.

What else do i get as my keep levels up? well.. at rank:

1. Resource carriers gain armour.
2. Resource carriers gain mounts.
3. Your keep gains offensive siege weapons, and a ram. Offensive weapons can be picked up by anyone, and taken anywhere! you could even use it to take/secure a BO.
4. More offensive siege weapons spawn, Aerial Bombers become available.
5. More siege weapons,  and more Aerial Bombers become available.

Now. it’s importent to note at this point, that siege weapons can only be destroyed (or so we gather) by other siege weapons. they can also be sabotaged… but more on that in a second. Keeps now need to be taken in a specific way. there are no more NPC’s in a keep, except for merchants. instead there is a flag. to capture that flag you MUST:

• take down the outer door. without taking down that door, you cannot ressurect your troops (if attacking) while inside the walls.
• take down the inner door. again, without taking it down you cannot ressurect from inside if you’re attacking.
• interract with the flag for 30 seconds. 30 seconds is a loooooong time, and it’s very easily interruptable. you must make sure you kill ALL your enemies before attempting to capture the flag.
• remember, defenders will keep respawning in their keep (not their warcamp) until the inner door is down. once the inner door is down, unless they’re ressurected, they respawn at the warcamp. taking keeps is going to be tough!

So what about them arial bombers then? they sound cool! well, they are! the only “limitation” to them, is that they fly in a set path (presumably to stop people lolling all over a zone). they drop bombs that deal some hefty ground target aoe damage (blob up, i dare ye!). and you can choose to parachute down from the bomber, into the enemy keep! any class can parachute in. but remember, until that door goes down, you cannot ressurect in there. it’s no mans land, it’s ugly, but damn it’s fun!

So, what other changes are we going to be seeing? well quite a few… firstly there will be a new microtransaction system implimented. i should note right now that from what we’ve seen, and been told, NONE of these transactions will give any actual advantage over enemies. it’s all vanity stuff, like how your mount looks, being able to change your characters appearance. that kind of stuff. the only thing i’ve seen that doesn’t apply to that rule, is you can purchase a 1 time WAR tract item. remember that scroll that let’s you instantly progress 1 level? it’s that. you can buy ONE, which every character generated on your account will be able to use… once. You will also be able to purchase server transfers, with no cooldown on the transfer (can go as many places as you can afford to transfer), the only limitation is that they will not allow you to transfer to a heavily crowded server.

Renown points are being given a complete overhaul. and while i can’t go into too much detail i can say this:

• tiered progression is gone… no more being forced to spend points in things you don’t want/need just to get to +crit.
• on the same note, it let’s you customise your character far better. you can get exactly what you want, and ignore what you don’t!
• Renown tactics are gone. but might be integrated into the ToK.
• you can purchase specific renown abilities. we’ve been told about 3. these abilites are upgradable, and gain potency as you put more points into them. but remember, buying/upgrading these abilities will mean you don’t have those points left to spend on stats. you can’t have everything! GREEDY! these abilities are on a 4 minute cooldown.

1. Last Stand – This ability will last no more than 4 to 7 seconds (depending how upgraded it is). during that time, you are completely immune to damage. however, at the end of that time period, YOU DIE! (could be useful for bombers who’s healers are dead :P)
2. Total Cleanse – does exactly what it says on the tin! cleanses you of everything. can be upgraded though, so maybe it could cleanse your group too? we’re not sure on that one. only speculation!
3. No ap cost – None of your abilities will cost AP during a set time period. that time will increase the more you upgrade the ability.

SKAVEN!

Here’s the bit you’ve all been waiting for, i suppose! we’ve only been told that there are four classes to choose from (not careers, they’re very specific about this). skaven cannot progress in any way, they gain no additional abilities or ranks. while we’re not sure how you turn into a skaven (and if you’re told elsewhere, unless it comes from a member of mythic’s mouth directly, it’s probably false.) we do know that it doesn’t last forever, and that your character itself turns into one. we also know that you will still fight for the same realm, as being a skaven of a specific class can help your realm.

now on to the classes themselves!

The BRAWN!!! – Rat Ogres

• Insane HP + Toughness/Armour values. these things are monsters, they’re extremely hard to kill!
• They cannot be healed by any player, except by a skaven packmaster.
• They can charge through enemies, knocking them all back.
• They’re the only thing other than a ram, that can hurt a door.
• Oh… and they can pick up any ally nearby, and hurl them onto a keep wall 😀

The BRAINS!!! – Packmasters

• The only class that can heal a rat ogre.
• Provides buffs to rat ogres (and presumably other skaven).
• Can summon swarms (and we do mean swarms) of rats, which have a stacking, outgoing damage debuff.
• Squishy… but when in trouble, can skitterleap to the closest rat ogre!

Warlock Engineers!

• Can produce pulse nodes made of warpstone in/around a keep, giving various buffs to healing/damage/mitigation.
• The only thing that can repair siege weapons.
• Has a warpstone flamethrower!!!

Gutter Runner….

• Can permanently stealth.
• While stealthed can move at +70% movement speed.
• Super insanely squishy.
• Deals poor damage vs players.
• Can boobytrap siege weapons so that the next person to use it is hit for high damage (rumours of 4k+).

 

So that’s it. that’s all that we found out yesterday, oh… and one more thing.

Black orcs will be happy one day 😛