Warhammer Online Patch Adds New Careers

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Mythic Entertainment today kicked off its three-month long "live expansion" for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning with the 1.2 patch, which adds two new careers to the MMO along with a new scenario, new treasures, and various other tweaks.

By completing the new "Bitter Rivals" event, which includes the new RvR "Twisted Tower" scenario, players will be able access the two new melee-focused careers--the Orc Choppa and Dwarf Slayer--a week before everyone else. Two new secret lairs have been added as well, along with an improved crafting system and easy public quests.

A list of the highlights and general changes follows below. For the exhaustive entirety of the numerous combat and career-specific tweaks, hit up the official site.

    Highlights
    • New Careers! Unleash the savage fury of the relentless Orc Choppa, or take up the doom-laden oath of the unstoppable Dwarf Slayer. These two new melee-focused careers relish the thrill of fighting on the front lines and laying waste to all foes that come within reach of their mighty blades. Players will need to take part in the Bitter Rivals event to unlock these two new careers. Unlocking the characters via the Bitter Rivals event will give early access to the Slayer and Choppa in one week. All others players will gain access one week afterwards.
    • Bitter Rivals join the battle! Introducing the newest live event for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. "Bitter Rivals" focuses on the ancient hatred that burns between the Dwarf and Greenskin races. Millennia of conflict in the Worlds Edge Mountains have honed the enmity that exists between the Orcs and Goblins and the stout Dwarfs to a razor-sharp edge, and when these nemeses meet in battle, it is war without mercy.
    • Fight for control of the warped Twisting Tower! The battle rages in this new Scenario found deep in the heart of the maddening Chaos Wastes. Here, the warping power of Chaos is at its peak, transforming the very fabric of reality in defiance of all reason. Warriors of Order and Destruction must grapple for control of this ancient citadel, for if the secrets of the Twisting Tower should fall into enemy hands, the tide of battle will surely turn. Like the Reikland Factory, the Twisting Tower will be available for all players for a limited time as a preview to accompany the Bitter Rivals event. Be sure to stake your claim to the Twisting Tower while you can!
    • Answer the Call to Arms with new Realm vs. Realm gameplay enhancements! Introducing the new Open RvR Rallying Cry system that summons you to key battles for Tiers 1, 2 and 3. The new Zone Control Domination System for Tiers 2 through 4 rewards a realm that truly conquers the battlefield. Also, many improvements to siege weapons ensure that the mighty engines of war are now more lethally effective than ever. See below for additional details.
    • New treasures await! Across-the-board itemization improvements have been made to the Fortresses, world dungeons, and city dungeons of WAR, including better world drops, quest rewards, Influence rewards, and more!
    • Crafting System Improvements! We've made many improvements to the game's crafting system, including pairing-off specific gathering skills with specific production skills in order to make crafters more self-sufficient. Also, the leveling curve of trade skills has been improved and fewer components are required to create items. Last, but certainly not least, is the addition of new craftable items!
    • Easy Public Quests make their debut in Tiers 2, 3, and 4. Scaled for courageous bands of 1 to 3 adventurers, these Public Quests offer a rewarding PvE experience without a large commitment of forces. You'll find one Easy Public Quest in each Chapter, so gather a few friends, or venture out alone... if you dare!
    • Multiple mail attachments! Now you can send several attached items with a single mail message.
    • Two new secret lairs await! Finding the new hidden lairs is only half the battle. Figuring out how to open the door - and surviving the dangers inside - is another matter, entirely!
    • The Open Party button has finally severed its ties to the player portrait and moved to the Menu Bar. This new Parties and Warbands window now has all information about Open Parties and Party Management, as well as the new Looking for Group system.
    General Changes & Bug Fixes
    • In combat, your own health value could fluctuate up and down inaccurately. This will no longer occur.
    • When instructed to attack a target on the other side of a closed door, pets will no longer run through the door.
    • Sometimes when players died, they would appear to others to be sliding around on the ground after respawning. This issue has been fixed.
    • /ignore will persist properly between logins.
    • Players will no longer incorrectly see other players on their mounts after they have dismounted.
    • Opening Movies will no longer always be at max volume.
    • When using GTAoE abilities, sometimes the targeting reticle graphic would get stuck to the player instead of showing properly where the cursor has targeted. This has been resolved.
    • When a player changes appearances (such as a Squig Herder getting into their Squig Armor) other players targeting that player will no longer lose their target.
    • When using flight masters, the flight cinematic will now be less wobbly for Destruction characters.
    • When a player uses a flight master and attempts to enter a part of the game world that is currently down or not running, the player will be returned to the flight master instead of getting stuck in the flight cinematic.
    • The ground targeting interface has been tweaked. When you are attempting to place a ground target over an invalid surface, there is now a separate ground decal used to show you that you're targeting an invalid surface. There's also now a ground-target-specific icon which will grey and un-grey depending on where you are mousing over.
    • When attempting to loot from a pile of corpses, the client will now prioritize corpses with loot on them over empty corpses, making it easier to loot.
    • Under heavy server load situations, buffs and debuffs will no longer last longer than they should.
    • Monsters will now be less prone to going into an evade state and returning to their spawn point when trying to reach targets.
    • Pets will have a more accurate line of sight when trying to use abilities on their targets.
    • When mousing over the Tier Label on the Pairing Map, there is now a tooltip that displays the level range for the Tier.
    • Players will now be able to click on the round button on the flight map to fly to refugee camps, rather than just the text name on the right side of the map.
    • Missing zones have been added to the flight map. Travel map layout issues have been resolved.
    • Monsters which flee from combat due to being at low hit points will now immediately begin moving at a slower speed.
    • Inventory overflow will now automatically empty its contents into any available backpack slot

Chris Faylor was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    March 3, 2009 1:01 PM

    All the stuff that was cut is now being added to the game. This is good, but it may be too late. WoW sucked a bunch of players back.

    • reply
      March 3, 2009 1:27 PM

      They should've listened to the community instead of EA.

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        March 3, 2009 2:06 PM

        Just curious, what did the community say?

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          March 3, 2009 3:23 PM

          I don't know what the community said, but the closed beta tester suggested to let it cook for a few months in unity. And they were right. Just a few more months of polish and already bored again WoW players and they would have rocked the genre.

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            March 3, 2009 3:26 PM

            Ah. Half a year or so wouldn't have hurt, no.

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        March 3, 2009 3:14 PM

        [deleted]

        • reply
          March 3, 2009 3:15 PM

          [deleted]

        • reply
          March 3, 2009 4:30 PM

          $5 million in development < dropping the majority of subscriptions due to lack of content

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            March 3, 2009 4:40 PM

            I have yet to figure out why companies cannot figure out this simple fact.

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            March 3, 2009 5:44 PM

            Yeah, this was my thought too.

            It was just too obvious they were going to get stomped by the WoW expansion. Maybe they could've had an honest chance of competing with WoW had they beefed out their game a bit and waited for Lich King to die down a bit.

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              March 4, 2009 1:54 AM

              WAR has a lot of features that would make me come back, including PQ's, much more than i would ever consider coming back to WoW

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      March 3, 2009 2:49 PM

      It wasn't that this stuff was missing IMO, there were many issues with the game, and the FEEL of the game was broken.

      They still need to revise the loot / loot dropping system completely if you ask me.

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        March 3, 2009 8:34 PM

        They have many changes and tweaks to loot every patch, if you don't know what is going on don't knock it.

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      March 4, 2009 10:49 AM

      I'm hoping that the people that originally left WoW to come play Warhammer, and then was lured back by WotLK, will realize that even though Blizzard has added all this new content, it's still just more of the same old stuff. Spend endless time grinding for the best gear so you can become effective in a lackluster PvP system. Hopefully, they'll give WAR another go.

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