Hey , I’ve restarted an older model i had made of zaraki kenpachi in 3d before.
I’ll be going for a pose inspired by a 2d fan art I saw where zaraki was holding/strangling an arancar and about to pierce through him with his sword.
Just a screenshot out of the prog without textures this time. Started doing the robe and made some correction to the model in general
and this is a 2 min terrible sketch of what the idea is, his sword will have black blood on it , from just slicing of the lower part of an arancar he is holding in his hand.
Warhammer Online has surprised me in a good way. I have used its open beta to test out as much classes and aspects of the game as I could. There is one very important thing warhammer does right , the game does not start at max level. It is action packed from rank 1 on and never stops, you can combine RvR with PvE and you get XP for the weirdest things (achievements). Loot is easy to come by and also by different methods, I’ve found RvR easier to gather good loot with Renown Merchants then PvE, but perhaps this changes later in the game.
The game looks very polished and its graphics are quite good, not as innovating as Conan’s , but what are graphics without game mechanics anyway…
I initially had 2 favored classes, primary was the ArchMage , secondary was the IronBreaker. I’m glad I got to test out these classes and a lot of other ones to reach a decision. I will stick with my ArchMage choice and this is why :
Classes I tried in Open Beta (never past rank 8 to not spoil the game for myself, so these impressions are very relative)
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The ArchMage
PVE : I thought he was very good at PvE , with his heals over time he could keep himself alive seemingly indefinitely against pve monsters, but I barely even needed to heal myself as his damage was quite acceptable. His main direct damage skil is lacking in damage though and takes too long to cast, but a channeling damage spell did a lot more damage and quickly replaced that main spell for me. PvE for the archmage is basicly dotting the mob with 2-3 dots , channel a damage spell and heal yourself if necessary.
PVP(RVR): I had loads of fun in RvR with the archmage, I actually felt like contributing to the group and the game play had variation, which I need to not get bored. You need to have a very good oversight of the battlefield to play the archmage. First and foremost, you are a healer not a top DPS class, if your DPS group mates are losing health, drop whatever you are doing and keep them alive, if your group seems to do well, join in and DPS. Because you mostly work with Over Time Spells that can be cast while being mobile, you can keep changing location to avoid enemy forces. Throw up dots to build up some tranquility to enhance healing spells and you’ll do fine. It is easily possible to do very well in Top Charts in scenarios with the ArchMage.
Gimmick : The archmage gimmick enhances the opposite spells. Meaning if you cast offensive spells you build up points (5 max) that will enhance your next healing spell, either in cast time or in strength depending on the type of spell you use. This works both ways, so theoretically for example it is best to cast 5 offensive spells followed by 6 healing spells , followed by 6 offensive spells…
In reality you need to look at the situation you’re in and decide what to do, it will not help your group if they are dying and you are still casting offensive spells to reach the maximum tranquility. The gimmick will give you an advantage in battle if the situation allows it, but don’t let it dominate over the needs of your group.
Playstyle : At first in scenarios I made sure i had all party lists with health bars up, but I ended up not looking at the battlefield and watching those party bars the entire time , sometimes trying to heal someone who wasnt in range or nowhere near me.
Then I switched my playstyle and forgot about those party health bars lists. I linked “next friendly target” to “a” (for some q , forward key) and “target self” to “e”. This way , i can keep up with the group , keep my eye on the battle and scroll through all the friendly players around me to heal them without having to click people. Using tab to switch enemy targets also I’ve found myself a good way to play the archmage and be as effective as I can be.
The IronBreaker
PVE : He does decent damage and does not go down, period..
PVP(RVR) : Tanks like the IronBreaker are used to push the lines forward and protect the squishier classes. I liked being able to take quite a bit of damage, but it also took some time before i could deal damage. Without a healer backing you up, you will not last very long , tank or not.
PVE : bit slow , but can take multiple mobs.
Gimmick : Grudges , the ironbreaker gets grudges for being hit by enemies and as an extra he can get some more grudges by placing an Oath on a team mate. If that team mate takes hits , the ironbreaker will gain grudges as well, but that team mate also becomes the target of positive effects generated by the skills that use up grudges by the IronBreaker
BrightWizard
PVE : Having played a healer and a tank, I had gotten a bit overconfident in my surviving skills when starting out with the BrightWizard. It was the first time I died in the game, this class is truely the typical glass cannon, he can deliver a serious punch, but is incredibly fragile and tends to even blow himself up also. Instead of lasting out PVE fights, the bright wizard ends them quickly to not take too much damage.
PVP : These guys are mean, they stand in the back and rain down hell upon the enemies. If they are played cautiously and backed up by a healer, there is no stopping these guys. Although I have noticed a lot of fellow BrightWizards charging into the front lines of the enemy for some unknown reason, because it only resulted in them getting slaughtered in record time. This is the typical dps mage, fairly straightforward and I imagened it could get quite boring for me.
Gimmick : Combustion , the bright wizard needs to carefully watch his combustion that builds up because of his spells, his high DPS comes at a price , he needs to use meltdown or in the end he’ll blow up and take considerable damage himself.
WitchHunter
PVE : although he isn’t exactly a rogue like the world of warcraft type, his mechanic, high dps, squishiness makes him feel like one. He is rather fun to play and very able in pve. What makes them different is the way stealth is handled in warhammer.
PVP : Not really a lot of experience and time with this character in pvp, but melee and squishyness in warhammer’s scenarios could result in a lot of dying.
Gimmick : Executions , increased potential on certain skills depending on how many spikes (max5) you gathered with using other skills.
SwordMaster
PVE : I had fun doing pve with the swordmaster , he has a fluent way about him , it’s like he is dancing when using the different stances correctly. He is a weaker tank then the others, but he can also dish out more damage.
PVP : Basicly , typical warrior style , rush in at weaker armor type enemies and slaughter em , but this is also where his disadvantage becomes clear, the swordmaster can not use all his skills whenever he needs them, he needs to build up stances to get to a certain skill, which takes time. You do get access to powerfull skills because of it, but you need to be very watchfull to what skills are available to you at every moment.
Gimmick : Balance, the swordmaster increases his balance when using a sequence of moves making stronger attacks available.
An entire horde of europeans sat at their pcs sunday morningb, wanting to create their accounts , enter their keys and be prepared for the Warhammer Open Beta launch in the late afternoon.
Many suspected something might go wrong and no surprise there … it did … in an epic kind of way.
GOA has mentioned about 5000′ish people managed to get onto the open beta servers, which would be perhaps 3-5% of the europeans trying to get in. In reality it might have been less people that actually got through their Account Management pages, because the number they gave could have simply been the Closed Beta players that didn’t have to use GOA’s website.
Why did things go wrong ? Because they simply can, software is a fragile thing and will break at the worst possible times. As a programmer I can accept that, but the major error GOA made, was being overconfident and leaving no room for error. For 2 weeks , forum users have been asking them when the Account pages would go live, the only response they got was vagueness and silence. Suddenly we were 2-3 days before the Open Beta launch and there was still no news on the pages. People were getting worried , but GOA was confident everything would be just fine and stated they decided to launch their pages a mere 5-6 hours before the Open Beta servers went live. It is mind boggling how a company can be either that naive or have such an incredible lack of planning/competence.
They apparently weren’t expecting so many players trying to register at the same time (gotten from GOA employees posts) , while 1000’s of people warned them about it 2 weeks in advance. Those same people also asked for a website like the US version and not a clunky flash based site that loads partially most of the time and acts very differently on IE,FF,Chrome,Safari,Opera.
The European Warhammer launch was one big mess, with only GOA to blame for the reasons stated above.
Mythic was apparently informed the entire day about the disaster and were in talks with GOA, but were ofcourse unable to fix it for them and were probably mad for getting dragged out of bed so early.
At this moment (a day later) , it still isn’t working and GOA is working on it.
If this is a taste of what’s to come for us European players , the future is very dark.
It would be an awesome gesture if Mythic would open up extra US server designated for european players, so they can gather people on servers that are able to play in the same time zones. I personally wouldn’t mind buying warhammer a second time to be able to play on such US servers, but some kind of reduction or other service would be greatly appreciated. But there is little chance of this happening as they have stated trusting GOA as their partner, so I guess we europeans are stuck with incompetence and will have to endure it.
Perhaps funcom has made players bitter and angry and GOA/warhammer is taking hits because of it, yes it is only a beta , but for some working people , sunday was the only time they could try out the game and perhaps decide on a class for launch.
Hope things get better soon or people will either leave warhammer for the wrong reasons, which would be sad or the US servers will have to welcome hordes of europeans. Because at the other side of the pond, they apparently do have competent people managing Warhammer.
Update : 8 sept 21:45
Goa continues to fail at getting their systems working. They’ve added a new validation form that has worked for a lot of people after several tries and browser changes. It would take about 1 to 2 hours for a confirmation mail to arrive and then another delay before the account can actually be used. Some have gotten mails saying the validation failed and most have not gotten their mails after about 7 hours of waiting right now. I’m starting to think it would be better for GOA to close the open beta and really start thinking about the real launch and take those extra days to avoid another disaster.
The sad thing about this is , GOA will probably get away with all this faillure and incompetence when they finally do manage to get things running. There comes a time when apologies won’t do anymore, let’s hope it wont get to that.
After my 5th time of jumping back into the world of Ultima Online, I finally had decided it was time to give it a rest, even though it still is the best open world pvp mmorpg ever made and probably still will be for a while.
Then came Age of Conan, it seemed very promising with its beautiful graphics, mortal-combat style fatalities, ingenious combat system and massive siege battles.
Being the stealth type and a bit of a bastard ingame, I had to go for the assasin in age of conan, which was advertised as the deadliest dps character of the bunch. Sadly, this couldn’t have been more wrong.
The game started in Tortage, complete with voiceovers for quest givers and a nice atmosphere in the entire area, although the area is smaller then it seemed when running all over the place. Time to meet up with a mate of mine, we decide to meet at a blacksmith in the beginning of the area.
He messages me to hurry up, cause he’s there already, but strangely enough, so am I, yet we don’t see each other. Instancing was to blame apparently. I was familiar with instancing from several other mmo’s that used it do generate dungeon instances for parties, but I hadn’t seen an mmo yet where the entire world seemed to be instanced. Reasons for this are probably lag , fps and server load, which is the price you pay for pretty graphics , however the price was a bit high. The entire time, you felt like there were 15-20 people in the world with you.
Obviously this instancing had an effect on grouping in the game, everyone had to be in the same instance to meet up and you could only change an instance at a ressurection point. So everyone ended up running back and forth to ressurection spots to change instance and then tried to meet up, but there was small problem, party members didn’t show up on each other’s map until you were within visual range of a person and actually didn’t need the person to show up on the map. The only way to get together was to use a description of a location on the map and everyone trying to find it, everyone being new to the game didn’t make this any easier, especially when some of us suddenly started to have a plain grey map caused by a memory leak which made it impossible to navigate.
We concluded grouping wasn’t worth the hastle and the game didn’t seem to demand it either, everything was easily solo’d, so you mostly ended up playing a single player game with 10-15 people running around somewhere in the same area as you. The higher level you became, the further away important areas to your level became. Sometimes you’d spend an hour traveling to another area of your level to just be able to quest. It didn’t take long for players to realize a new method of transportation, death itself. The penalties u got from dying were neglectible and people in hyboria commited mass suicide as a means of travel, you could teleport to ressurection spots neared to your objective this way.
At around level 50, the game became simply dull , i couldn’t be bothered to read quests ever since level 30, since the voice overs stopped at level 20. There werent enough quests to continiously level at a good pace and grinding became faster to gain levels, then questing. At this point, I had only done a dungeon or 2 because of the problems with partying and the loot wasn’t worth it. Items in general seemed useless, funcom refused to release information on mechanics involving the stats of your character, the reason for that became clear when people started doing extensive testing with armor/weapon setups. They concluded the game was simply broken and stats didn’t seem to do anything at all, this might explain why level 50+ people still ran around with level 10 gear and had no problem surviving and killing. Although class imbalance became quite clear at these levels. As an assassin , you had no problem killing a single target , nor did any other classes, but when it became 2 or 3 monsters, the assassin had to watch out and use potions or he wouldn’t make it. This wouldn’t be a problem and make the game a bit more challenging, if all classes had this problem, but this was clearly no the case. Some classes were able to take out insane groups of monsters with incredible ease, which got me and my mate discouraged, being the deadliest class and all…
We decided to reroll and go through all of the same quests/areas again with a different class, this time we did make a better pick and quite liked our new classes. Since we had already done a large part of the game, it didn’t take us long to level back to where we were and ended up doing the last 30 levels at a fast pace also, thanks to a lot of grinding due to lack of quests again and 5 days of guild grinding a very popular area.
Which basicly was hours of pulling 20-25 mobs by the tank to the group to kill them nearly instantly by 2 aoers in the group. Only aoe classes and 1 tank were useful here, other classes just tagged along and followed the group not doing anything worthwhile for hours.
Finally at 80 together with some guild members , the game was supposed to shine, but it didn’t. Soon level 80’s didn’t seem to login anymore, sometimes we managed to get a group together to try some high level pve content, which mostly turned out bugged and not worthwhile. PvP was chaotic mess of classes bunched up hitting each other, hard to recognize which class you were actually fighting due to the boring armor/clothing looks. Unbalance and 1shot , 2shot kills ruined PvP which wasn’t even rewarding in itself.
Dying or Killing someone had no effect on you. There was no feeling of loss of victory, nothing really mattered.
With nothing to do at level 80 our guild which started with 250+ members diminished to about 20 players that tried to enjoy themselves, but failed, the entire guild quit about a week later. This was 1 month and 2 weeks after Age of Conan’s release. It was clear we weren’t the only guild this had happened to. People were leaving age of conan in massive numbers. Forum moderators were almost deleting “I quit” posts 24/7.
Funcom did manage to create an mmo with great graphics (praise to the developer that made the water shader), but everything else was mediocre at best. The game has no lasting appeal and a lot of people discovered this quite fast, only 1 month after release. The Age of Conan hype did not deliver and the game is simply still in a beta stage, patching made the game worse most weeks and the developers ended up fixing the bugs they introduced last week over and over again, while the PR people kept promising incredible updates and tried to make it seem as though the game was doing great.
Funcom had their shot at the mmo market and they blew it, the game might reach a decent state in 7 or 8 months, but it is highly unlikely that people are willing to go back to it.
I am sad the game didn’t succeed, because in theory it had potential. All i can hope for now is mythic doing a better job with Warhammer.
One of the pirates on board of davy jones’ ship , the hammerhead guy :
