As seen over at Keen and Graev.

The EA Mythic community team now has a new member - Robert Mull - a former brand guru at WotC.  This is exciting news for the Warhammer community to know that there is someone finally at the head of the community relations ship after the departure of longtime WAR community manager Richard Duffek.  Not that James has been doing a bad job - far from it.  But I think from a continuity and planning standpoint, a leader for the team was needed.  So here’s a bit of the announcement and then a few of my thoughts:

Greetings All, 

I’m Robert Mull, the new Community Relations Director for EA Mythic.  I oversee the work our team of Community Coordinators do for Warhammer Online (James Nichols), Dark Age of Camelot (Missy Hatch and Joanne Laroche) and Ultima Online (Jeremy Dalberg).  They are a great team and I am lucky to have inherited them. 

As a gamer who got his start in MMOs with the Ultima Online beta, being allowed to support the same community that made that game so enjoyable to me is a real pleasure and I feel like I have come full circle.  Since then a decade has passed and I have played countless MMOs.  A few of these became part of my daily routine for years as I worked to found guilds, build cities, run player-events, engage in pvp conflicts, roleplay, and be an active member of the gaming community.  While the games have changed over the years, the real draw for me has always been the people.  A strong well-supported community makes good games great.

Prior to coming to EA Mythic, I worked at Wizards of the Coast supporting brands such as Avalon Hill, Axis & Allies, Dreamblade, Duel Masters and other products.  I learned many lessons there that I have brought with me to EA Mythic, but first and foremost is that you have to be honest and open with your community. 

In the coming months you will be hearing much more from me.  I want to continue and extend the reputation EA Mythic has built for integrity, honesty and quality in community and customer support. Our job here is to be the voice of the community inside EA Mythic and the voice of the people working hard at EA Mythic to the community.  The Community Relations team is a feedback loop and our goal is making the community better, day by day.  I, for one, take that job very seriously and enjoy it immensely. 

I look forward to talking to you all on the boards and at Road Trips, conventions and other public events.-

Bob

1.  Obviously Bob is overseeing the entire Community team for EA Mythic which I’m sure is a huge job.  As Keen notes in his comments, you have to wonder what role Bob will have in the Warhammer community specifically.  Will a “middle manager” role be filled, or will it essentially be James running the show under Bob’s guidance?  I would assume (I know, I know…) that a larger percentage of Bob’s time would be dedicated to the WAR community given that it’s the flagship product coming down the pipeline.  There will be a lot of communication and community building to be done pre-launch and in the weeks and months following.  DAoC already has two coordinators as opposed to one for WAR, and it’s community is pretty well established.  Same for UO which is even older and I suspect doesn’t need near the community TLC that WAR will demand pre and post launch.

2.  I’m glad to know just a bit about his gaming background.  To know that he’s been around the genre and actively playing games online for as long as I have is comforting in a way.  He’s essentially like most of us - a gamer at heart who has been actively involved in various roles over the years in MMOs.  And as a guy whose work focuses on people all day every day, and does a lot of communicating as part of that, I can appreciate the fact that he loves the people aspect of the genre.  You have to if you are going to be the main mouthpiece and focal point for EA Mythic not just for Warhammer, but all of the communities in their stable.

3.  WotC and “open and honest”.  In a way I’m glad Bob’s got a background from WotC.  That company has put out a lot of creative and awesome games over the years.  The most recent one to get me addicted was Dreamblade coming off the 2006 GenCon (sadly it only survived for the year).  What I will say is that WotC are gurus at Marketing and branding their stuff, and they have some pretty great community tools in place via the web.  They also show up on force at the various Cons each year.  With Bob having worked on the Dreamblade brand along with Axis and Allies (a long-time favorite), I have high hopes that he can leverage that experience here with an IP that’s certainly deserving.  As far as being “open and honest” - I absolutely hope so.  I think the WAR community will demand it and I frankly think it’s the only way a community person would ever succeed - don’t BS your fanbase.

I think that overall this announcement is a great thing and the tone of what Bob has written here gives me hope that the guy not only knows what he’s doing but is passionate and connected to the material he’s dealing with.  Welcome and I look forward to hearing more about what the WAR community team will do via the Herald and the fansites.

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Looking forward to the Warhammer beta re-opening?  Me too!  Well, we have just a sliver of info on the subject today from the mouth of James Nichols, Community Coordinator for WAR:

Never fear!

I’ll be making a post on the Herald each time we send out a batch of invites. We haven’t yet and won’t until beta has had a little bit of time to get back into the swing of things…need to make sure everything is hunkey-dorey before we open the gates

I know you’re all excited, I am too! But don’t lose sleep just yet

If you’re invited to join the beta an email will be sent to the address used to register on the beta forums, however, we cannot guarantee that it will not be blocked by spam filters so keep an eye open for my Herald posts!

Thanks all, see you soon

__________________
James Nichols
Community Coordinator
Warhammer: Age of Reckoning

So the long and short of it, if you don’t see something posted on the Herald, no invites have gone out.  But if you’re like me, you’re already checking your inbox daily just in case.

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So by my count (thanks Wordpress!) this is my 33rd post regarding Warhammer Online in the last four months - so about eight per month on average.  Overboard?  Maybe.  Fanboi?  Possibly.  Believer in Mythic due to what I know and love about DAoC?  Absolutely.  Which is why I could probably post the following from today’s November newsletter and call it good so I can start doing my beta dance:

We’re almost ready to re-open the WAR Beta…

But c’mon, where’s the fun in that?  Today the November newsletter hit email boxes everywhere.  After taking some time to read through it and listen to Drescher’s podcast, I can tell you it does have some great info in store for you whether you’ve been keeping up with Warhammer news or not.  As always, there’s a lot more content there than what I will discuss here (including some great screenshots and concept art), so check it out in its entirety.

This is not your Grandma’s beta:  One of the first things that caught my attention was some news about how the WAR beta will operate once it reopens (date plz!!).  Instead of continuing to have the beta servers up 24/7, Mythic is going in a different direction. 

We’ll be moving forward with a series of focused Beta events set around a specific concept or two. These events will last anywhere from 3-10 days and will enable us to gather specific, detailed feedback from our Beta Community in regards to specific features and locations. We’ll be bringing the server down between each event for a day or two in order to prepare for the next focused event. This will also give us time to process the feedback we receive and incorporate it in future events.

That sounds like a fairly smart process.  Get your players to test very specifc mechanics and systems for a defined period of time, gather that data and feedback, analyze it, etc.  This is a way for them to efficiently steamline the beta process in a way that will help them quickly get very targeted data on what they want to test.  I do hope that at some point the beta will be open again 24/7, because I think there also needs to be that “reality” of people playing at all hours and across all systems to test the unknown.  All the focused tests could go well, but then when everything and everyone is thrown together again there may be new bugs and issues that come up.  So there still needs to be time to deal with those unknown issues.

Open World RvR, Keeps, Mastery System, oh my!:  Not going to rehash all of this here as it was in the Beta Update 4, but if you read that you know I’m obviously very excited about the changes and I think most other people will be too.  In this month’s podcast, the Mastery section is o.k. but it’s nice to see Josh talk about reacting to beta tester feedback regarding open world RvR.  In the podcast, he says that beta testers thought the scenarios were fun (and I do think they have a place in the game), but that they felt open world RvR was lacking.  I’m so glad Mythic listened and is going to leverage their expertise in that area by adding in all the cool systems that frankly I was expecting WAR to provide from the get go.  Does this mean it’s Dark Age of Warhammer now?  I don’t think so.  I think the two games have enough differences to be very distinct (25 years of Warhammer lore anyone?), but they now share in common some of the most critical features that I think WAR really needs to appeal longer term.

Mounts!:  Yes, Warhammer isn’t going to make you walk everywhere, there will be mounts to ride and now we’ve seen some actual pictures.  Finally a game where we can ride an armored War-Boar.  And an “ale powered” mount for Dwarves - how cool is that?  The pictures look really cool, although there is no information on who these mounts will be attained.  From the pictures you can see that there will  be different tiers of mounts which presumably will cost more and will provide greater speed benefits.  I wonder if mounts will need to be purchased with not only currency, but maybe with a certain threshold of renown (akin to the way EQ2 makes you have a certain amount of status to acquire certain high level mounts)?  There is also a statement that lower level players will have access to “rental” mounts - will these be fixed horse routes ala DAoC, or will these be timed rentals where you have a low level mount for 10 minutes for a certain fee?

In future newsletters we will dive deeper into the mounts in WAR, including specifics on where you and you’re mount can travel and customization options your high level mounts!

So obviously a lot more detail to come on this subject and it will be interesting to see what type of mount customization.  Anyone know if Warhammer lore provides for flying mounts of any kind??

The Tome of Knowledge Pwns.  There is a terrific article on the ToK in this month’s newsletter.  Fantastic read that really gives you insight into not only what the purpose of the Tome is and how it will accomplish that purpose, but also the “behind the scenes” methodology Mythic has followed to actually create this great game system.  I’ll go on record right now and say this is one of the most exciting things about WAR, and by far the best system I’ve seen in MMOs for keeping track of all the accomplishments of your character.

Some of the information in the Tome is tracked by keeping a record, literally with numbers, of the things that you’re doing in the game. Let’s take for example, killing monsters. The Tome of Knowledge tracks every monster that you kill, ever. It doesn’t matter if you’re paying attention to the Tome or not, it’s going to keep track of it. And in all cases, you’re going to get a reward for doing it.

But on top of achieving kill thresholds (1, 10, 100 of specific monster kills, for example), the Tome tracks and challenges you to come up with other ways to interface with monsters. Say you’re walking through an area and you’re killing basilisks. There’s a chance that maybe one of them drops an item, a backpack belonging to a Dwarf back in town. You may notice the name and recognize it, or you may sell it as junk loot and get a few copper for it. But say you recall the reference, and take the backpack back to its owner. Well, then you’ve accomplished a special task for being so observant, and the Tome is going to reward you for it.

And we don’t just track this for monster kills, but for everything in the game: doing quests, interacting with objects, finding areas, etc. We even comment on the way in which you play the game, so there are Tome unlocks for perhaps the duration of your play (whether it’s a positive or negative reflection on you :P), or the things that you do at the keyboard. There is no system that the Tome doesn’t touch.

I’m really looking forward to not only all the statistical info that you’ll have tracked about your character, but especially to the humor and the spontaneous achievements you will unlock as you just naturally play the game.  If they can get the sharing aspect of this down correctly (which I believe they said they want to have in-game), then it will be a huge hit I think.  How interesting would it be to allow public access to your Tome, and be able to “inspect” others and see what sorts of stats they have, what they’ve killed and conquered, and where they’ve been in the game.  Again, I think this will be on of WAR’s most unique and coolest features, hands down.

I wish everyone the best of luck getting into the beta when it reopens in December, and may the Waaagh!!! be with you.

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Woot!  Dallas wins again and is now sitting at 11-1.  Holy moly - good stuff!  Granted, Favre went out early in the 2nd with an injury, and that certainly could have made a huge difference in the outcome of the game (along with having Charles Woodson healthy I’m sure).  But, I’ll take the “W” anyhow, and let them settle things when they meet again in the playoffs.

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On the most recent episode of SUWT, one of the stories brought up was about Darren’s recent experience in Eve.  The guests on SUWT talked just briefly about how those types of “risky” moments can really add to a game and build some great memories, even if you don’t come out on the winning end of the encounter.  The SUWT gang went on to say that a lot of MMOs are very predictable nowadays and just don’t have any real risk or danger associated with them.  You don’t really seem to find those moments anymore that make your hair stand on end and your palms sweat.  When death no longer has any sting, when there are really no penalties and consequences for your actions, and when everyone is “safe” all the time - haven’t we lost one of the main emotional drivers that, while frustrating at times, also gives us an excitement and vivid stories that really stick with us?

PvP can obviously bring a lot of this element to the table.  Playing with and against other human opponents is always more tense than even the most carefully crafted NPCs.  It’s unpredictable and fresh pretty much every time and there can be a real rush from beating your opponent.  Likewise, other game mechanics can add risk into the equation and make us be a bit more cautious in our gameplay.  In a game like WoW, there really is no real risk of anything bad happening to your character.  Consequently, you can play fast and loose and at the end of the day, there is no real price to pay.  But that also means there’s never any real tension (and yes, I raided a lot in WoW and even there tension was lacking).

Yes, sometimes those moments can be frustrating and really suck, at least at the point in time you experience them.  I’ve been through a lot of them - dying in a really bad place, with tons of mobs and a late night trek back to recover  your body and your stuff.  Dying in a PvP ambush.  Running through a really dark zone, feeling a bit nervous, and getting my clock cleaned by a ghoul.  But when I look back at many of those times, I now feel like I have stories that stick with me versus a litany of times I’d rather forget.  I think that, like in real life, the times where things are harder, riskier, and possibly went bad, ultimately help to shape us and imprint on our minds these terrific stories we’ll never forget. 

I just wonder if we’ve forever lost that sense of risk in MMOs - will we ever truly feel in danger again?  Will we ever struggle for anything again?  Will anything ever be epic because we overcame terrific odds and terrible foes?  I truly hope that future games will deliver this - whether they be mainstream or niche.  I want that risky feeling back - I want that sense of danger.  And maybe that fear is already present with me - the fear that we may never see those elements again in an MMO in a way that really means anything.  Now that’s scary.

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I’ll be the first to admit that for years I was an anti-pvp kind of person.  I didn’t want to be around it, much less participate in it.  And then came DAoC.  That game was the first to present pvp to me in a way that made sense, and I appreciated being able to “opt in” if I so chose.  The “realm vs. realm” combat that Mythic envisioned for that game won over a lot of people (including yours truly), and I believe brought a lot of people into the pvp fold that would otherwise never have tried it.

Fast forward several years.  We’ve seen PvP in WoW now for three years, and unless you’ve been under a rock you understand how pvp has evolved in that game and what the battlegrounds and arenas are like.  WoW PvP has been accused of being so heavily gear focused that it’s almost become a joke.  You outgear your opponents by having top end raid gear, and you are almost guaranteed a victory (unless you have horrible teamwork and just play the battleground poorly).  Player skill seemed to be absent from the equation, except in rare circumstances where you would pull off an “upset” win over uber-geared opponents.  When the arenas hit, they offered the chance for people to get equivalent level gear to raiding.  So in some sense it kind of evened the field, but it was still heavily gear dependant (and you have to dump a lot of hours into arena play to get the gear in the first place).  Of course we know that WoW, like so many of our beloved MMOs, is heavily gear based so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that this aspect colored the pvp design as well.

Enter Warhammer.  Their entire game will be based around realm vs. realm in a way that DAoC never envisioned.  From questing to leveling to duking it out with your mortal enemies, their mantra is “War is Everywhere”.   So how is Mythic going to tackle this problem of pvp balance, or will they?  Will gear reign supreme as it seems to in every other MMO?  Well, the WAR team recently took some time to address a few questions over at Ten Ton Hammer aimed specifically at pvp balance.  I’m pleased to say that they seem to be headed in the right direction (imo).

The devs have stated before that while of course gear will play some role, it (supposedly) won’t be the dominant or overwhelming force in how well you can do in RvR.  Your success will hinge much more on your ability to manage your tactics and morale abilities, utilizing them at the best moments for maximum effect.  Of course other staples such as good teamwork, efficient communication, familiarity with the terrain, etc. will all come into play as well.  But there seems to be much less of an emphasis on gear in this realm vs. realm model, at least if you believe what Mythic is telling us.  I think this is a good thing as most of us want to feel like we have a fighting chance to win, although it may be hard fought and bloody.  I’d rather fight close battles all day long than just steamroll (or be steamrolled).  I think it’s much more satisfying and fun to actually “achieve” a win rather than just sleepwalk to victory.

Besides gear vs. player skill, the other balance issue that comes up has to do with ranged (with crowd control) vs. melee.  In DAoC, it could be a complete nightmare at times with ranged classes casting all sorts of crowd control or movement inhibiting spells on your character.  Before you even saw the enemy at times, you were already dead.  The classic “Root, Nuke, Nuke, Dead” was definitely in play.  It was frustrating for melee classes because they felt like they never got to close the gap - never had the chance to get in close because they were immobilzed or dead so quickly.  WAR devs have already said that crowd control abilities will be limited in their scope and use, so that’s a great first step.  But will ranged classed still have a huge advantage over melee, able to rain death and destruction from afar before your melee character can close the distance (empahasis mine):

Overall, in an attempt to keep the parity between close range & long range in general, we have to be very careful with how we allow players to control or manipulate other player’s movement. Long range classes just don’t get the ability to lock an opponent at long range. Yes, they can slow their advance, but they really can’t immobilize them until they get into close range (so they can attempt to escape). Even then they have to be careful because those types of Crowd Control have long reuse timers and diminishing returns on effectiveness. Use it on one charging tank and you may find that you are run down by the next one.

The same holds true for close range careers; expend you’re abilities to get into melee range quickly and you may find those tools unavailable to you later. In the end it’s the same with everything, play the game, take feedback, adjust, rinse, and repeat.

I wouldn’t want to the job of trying to achieve “balance” in an MMO, particularly when it comes to PvP.  However, from everything I’ve read so far, it appears that the WAR devs are taking the issue of balance very seriously and are really testing it to ensure that it’s as fun as possible for all players.  And they should, given that it’s the core foundational system of their game.  By emphasizing player skills, strategic use of abilities, and downplaying the role of crowd control in realm vs. realm, I think they have a winning formula that will draw in MMO newbies and veterans alike.

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So I’ve been plugging away for almost four months now on this blog.  I’ve really had a blast doing it and have enjoyed the interactions with other bloggers.  All in all, it’s been a worthwhile endeavor and a fun experiment of sorts.  However, along the way I’ve faced challenges with blogging and I thought that, in itself, might merit a post.  So without further ado, here are some of the challenges, issues and questions I’ve had while blogging the last few months.

Finding Time to Blog:  At first, this really wasn’t an issue.  I wasn’t actively playing an MMO when I started this blog, so in the evenings I had a fair amount of free time to read everyone else’s blog, comment, read the news sites, and still formulate one or two postings per evening.  However, now that I’m back into playing an MMO on a regular basis, I’m finding evening blogging to be a real challenge.  Unfortunately, it’s my best option.  I can’t blog from work, and getting up at 6 a.m. to do so isn’t viable either.  What I’m finding is that I’ve had to cut down on the number of other blogs I read (in detail), and I just skim and scan more.  I also have cut down on the number of news sites in my RSS feed, and tend to scan news items much more quickly.  Essentially, I’ve had to try and do in one hour what I used to take an entire evening to do at a more leisurely pace, just to ensure that I can game for a couple of hours afterward.  I know others have a more flexible schedule and can blog at various times during the day.  But for those who must blog at night, how do you juggle it with other things? 

Staying Consistent:  When I first started, I heard that if you could make it to the three month mark you were probably on a good track to continue in your blogging.  So off I went, posting one or two things per day for six days out of the week.  My main goal was to get something up every day just to stay consistent and not fall off the wagon.  It didn’t have to be earth shattering, but it did need to be something I felt was important or interesting.  I’m glad to say that I really haven’t had a huge problem staying consistent.  My normal routine now is to blog M-F and generally take the weekends off (unless something really interesting strikes my fancy).  I have noticed that, due to the time constraints noted above, that I’ve had to miss a day or two here and there this past month.  I like to think I have a sight where people can look forward to one or two new things every morning with their coffee and RSS feed going.  I certainly appreciate sites that update regularly with new content, and I’m striving to do that as well. 

Writer’s Block:  At times it’s not hard to find things to blog about.  It might be a pet topic, a soapbox, or something you suddenly find yourself passionate about.  Often times I’ll also have my interest sparked by interviews, news articles, and other blog entries or comments.  But at other times I’ve found it exceedinly difficult to maintain consistency and have anything to really write about.  Maybe it’s a quiet news week.  Maybe every blog out there already seems to be saying the same things about the same stories.  Maybe I just need a new soapbox heh.  At times I’ve found it hard to say something unique or different that you feel you haven’t read 100 times in the last few months.  So one of the things I’ll continue to experiment with is what I want to write about regarding MMOs, and I’m still very much trying to find my own particular voice I think. 

Fighting the Tsunami:  This relates to my first point about finding time to blog.  A feed reader is a wonderful thing, but trying to keep up with everything that’s out there can be overwhelming.  Some days it feels like I’m trying to keep up with too many other blogs, read them all, read 20 different news site feeds, etc.  It can eat up a ton of time and can leave you with little time to actually get your own content written.  So I’m still finding that balance between making sure I’m connected enough to what’s going on without it consuming all of my time.  I have actually deleted a few sites off my reader in the last week or so in an attempt to focus and consolidate.  Oftentimes the news sites will contain the same stories over and over, so there’s room to downsize there.  With blogs it’s much harder as there are so many good and interesting blogs out there.  I really want to see what people are writing about.  So I’ll continue to surf the information wave here and try and make it manageable. 

As I’ve said before, it’s been a lot of fun to blog but it’s not been without its challenges.  I’m continually amazed by how other writers are able to post up 2-3 things per day, or even do a podcast in addition to their site, and still have time to game or do anything else.  I continue to learn and look to others for advice and examples.  I’d be interested in hearing if these are some of the same struggles and challenges you have faced in your own blogging, or if you have different mountains you’ve had to climb.

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A couple of days ago staff writer Carolyn Koh at MMORPG.com had the opportunity to sit down with Brian Wheeler, one of the designers of Warhammer Online.  Most of the brief interview covered points that those following the game will have already heard.  However, toward the end she mentions that she was given an inside look at how city sieges will work, and was allowed to make some general comments about that process:

I was also given an in-depth example by Mythic of how the city siege component of the game currently works. I was reminded that the game has not launched and it would be misleading to make any claims of 100% certainty at this point in time.

In this case, the Armies of Destruction are attacking the Empire capital city of Altdorf…

• When the Tier 4 zone of Reikland falls, the city of Altdorf becomes “attack eligible”
• Destruction can then enter the Outer City, which is an RvR zone, to fight against players of Order and capture control objectives.
• Players on both sides will respawn in the Outer City until the battle is won or lost.
• If Destruction wins, the Outer City closes and they advance to the Inner City to fight NPCs and other Order player that may have survived the initial battle.
• Order players still in the Inner City will not be able to respawn once killed.
• Destruction will then have several hours of uninterrupted time to loot, pillage, quest, fight the king, etc.
• After this period of time has ended, the Outer City will re-open for RvR combat and the forces of Order may attempt to retake this area
• Should Order succeed, they can then enter the Inner City to clear out the forces of Destruction (who will no longer respawn in this area once killed)
• The city will then revert to its original state of peace.

Please note that the city siege itself will be population limited (size to be determined) and could play out over several different instances.

I thought this sounded like a pretty solid way to handle the city siege, but the last statement (bold mine) was news to me.  I’m just wondering how a city siege would work with population limited instances.  In other words, could there be 5 distinct instances of Altdorf’s outer city under attack at one time?  If so, what happens if Destruction wins in three of those fights, and Order wins the other two?  Does each instance progress separately, or does the game take the whole of all instance outcomes into account and declare one winner and one loser, then opens the inner city?  What if four of those battles were decided relatively quickly, while one took two hours - I don’t think you’d want the players in the other four instances waiting around.  They’d almost have to be independent of each other.

Or, perhaps once the outer city is taken in even one of the instances, the game considers the outer city lost and moves everyone directly into the inner city instance?   That would speed things up and keep everyone “together” in a way, even if you are participating in different instances.  I’m assuming that once the city is won, all victors would then be in just one instance of the captured city and be ready to loot, burn, and capture the king.  Hrm…  Well, something to ponder and if any of you have seen any other clarifying info on this, let me know. 

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World of Warcraft.  Whose older brother’s cousin’s mom’s grandkid hasn’t played this game by now?  Well, three years ago none of us had played it.  We only had the success and fun of the original Warcraft franchise to get us excited about the promise of an MMO set in the world of Azeroth.  Three years, nine million subscribers, and almost two years of my free time later, WoW is still going strong.  In celebration, Blizzard will be running a series of contests and giveaways over the next few weeks.

It’s been three years since players first entered World of Warcraft and took up their roles in shaping its history. In that time, friendships have been formed; wars have been waged; and through incredible feats of coordination and perseverance, some unimaginably powerful beings have been vanquished. To celebrate the third anniversary of the game’s North American launch and to show our gratitude for the ongoing support, enthusiasm, and dedication of its thriving community, we’ll be giving away several prizes over the next three weeks:

• During the week of November 26, we’ll award 10 J!nx gift certificates valued at $100.00 each.
• During the week of December 3, we’ll give away 20 sets of four World of Warcraft action figures.
• During the week of December 10, we’ll provide 5 lucky players with an Apple iPod Touch and a two-year World of Warcraft subscription.

Happy birthday big guy. 

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WAR is coming, but for now, the beta updates keep coming to tide us over.  Beta Update 4  is now out now and with it, some brand spanking new information on the “Career Mastery” system.  As always, there is more information in the notes than what I choose to highlight, so make sure to read them in their entirety.  The two key things I wanted to focus in on were a bit more about this new master system and a further look at world RvR (something near and dear to my heart as you probably know by now).

“So what the heck is the Mastery system??” you ask?  Good question.  If you’ve played WoW you understand the Talent system.  If you’ve played EQII, you know about the Achievement Abilities.  Well, in WAR the Master system is very similar.  It’s the chief way in which you can start to differentiate your character from others of your same career.

Career Mastery will allow players focus on different facets of their career giving them the opportunity to differentiate themselves from others, while still making sure that every character, no matter how they’re specialized, can still perform the basic and fundamental purpose of their career. For example, every Sword Master will be an able tank, capable of absorbing much more damage then a lighter fighter. However someone who specializes in the Sword Master’s defensive path will find that they are generally more durable, able to hold aggro better in PvE and able to defend their friends more efficiently in an RvR scenario. Meanwhile a Sword Master who chooses to go a more offensive route will still be able to take a hit, but may find themselves hard pressed to defend & protect as well as their counterpart, admittedly they will be hitting quite a bit harder as a trade off.

O.k., so far so good.  Pretty basic fundamental system that will be familiar to anyone who’s played MMOs in the last five years or so.  So is that it??  Well, each career will have Core skills that are your fundamental career skills (for example all tanks would have things like taunt and guard).  You gain these core abilities as you level and they improve with level.  They are the automatic, set and it and forget it skills that you get.  Beyond that is where you get into the three different Mastery paths that emphasize different facets of your career, and this is where your choice as a player really enters into things.

Each Mastery contains Base skills, Supplemental skills, and also has its own Mastery level. Base skills are the Actions, Tactics & Morale a player is granted as a reward for achieving a specific level.  Every character of that Career will always be able to purchase these skills, however their total effectiveness is intimately tied to the player’s level of Mastery. Supplemental Skills are the Actions, Tactics, and Morale that a player can only unlock by increasing their Mastery of a given path.  Like Base skills, Supplemental skills continue to increase in effectiveness as you’re Mastery level increases. The Mastery level itself is the current amount of Mastery a player has in a particular path.  Players will be able to choose just how much Mastery they desire in each of the three paths available to them.

Essentially, the Base skills become unlocked as you level, and you simply need to visit a trainer and train them.  Supplemental skills however must be unlocked by increasing your Mastery level.  The trick is, the points (Specialization Points) used to raise your Mastery level are the same points you need to spend on the Supplemental skills that each new Mastery level offers access to. 

These points are referred to as specialization points, and are earned every rank.  A player will never have enough Specialization points to completely Master multiple paths while purchasing Supplemental skills. It is a tough choice b/c every point of Mastery earned improves EVERY action in that mastery line by a small amount this includes the Base Skills you automatically get. One level of Mastery can seem trivial.  However, they add up and 5 or 10 points of Mastery makes a significant difference!

There is some amount of automatic leveling of power for skills in the paths outside of their Mastery. This is done to make sure the ability is not completely useless to the player.  In fact, many abilities may still be useful for secondary effects such as Stun even if they have horrible damage/healing values b/c their Mastery level is lower. When comparing the general power of an ability of a path with 100% Mastery and one with 0% Mastery you will see around a 30 – 35% difference in power. Remember this number can be improved (or widened) further depending on which Tactics and Stats you focus on as well.

So obviously, there is a huge power differential to be gained if you choose to really pump up the Mastery in a certain line and focus on a core set of tactics and abilities versus trying to be a jack-of-all-trades.  Common sense really, as most MMOs tend to favor that kind of focus, so it’s not entirely unexpected.  The real trick will be to see how well all these various skills and mastery paths are balanced.  Will there be true choices to make which can all be viable, or will there end up being “templates” that everyone feels like they have to follow to be most effective?  Confuzzled yet?  If so, head on over to the original article as they give two examples of what they are talking about.

Next, the RvR team has given us some further juicy tidbits, and continues to head in the right direction with RvR as far as this gamer is concerned:

Now for the part that has been the top-secret project the RvR team has been hard at work on: Keeps. Yes, you read that right – we are adding Keeps. Keep warfare, namely protecting your keep and capturing your enemy’s, will play a significant role in open world RvR and the campaign.

The first pairing to have keeps on Beta will be Empire and Chaos. The art for the keeps will not be polished when Beta reopens, but this is very intentional. Our primary goal at this stage is to make sure the game play and functionality of the keeps are very solid and you can expect to see a lot of “focus discussion” posts from members of the RvR Team as we request targeted feedback.

What about Siege? There will indeed be siege in WAR. However, siege will not be ready when Beta reopens. I will have more information for you as we get closer to having it ready for release to Beta.

I can already hear the DAoC veterans cheering in the distance.  RvR was a lot of fun, and keep/siege warfare was a big part of that.  I think this is excellent news and I’m glad they shared this with the player base.  I really feel like the beta tester feedback has really shifted RvR away from scenarios to some degree and back to the open, world RvR.  Scenarios can be good and all, but I think this certainly is the right direction to head in.

Good stuff.  Can’t wait to get back behind the keyboard on this game.  I’m hoping that when the beta re-opens in December that my GenCon priority beta key will kick in (*wink wink*!).  Stay tuned true believers….there’s much more on the way.

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