Waging WAR: Inside patch 1.4
Filed under: Fantasy, Events, in-game, Expansions, Patches, Warhammer Online, Opinion, Waging WAR
The Verminous Horde game update aka patch 1.4 for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is pretty much old news by now. Despite that, Greg takes a look at some of the highlights from the patch as well as the RvR Packs in this week's Waging WAR.
Wow! What a patch! There are so many new little tidbits, toys and tweaks in this patch that it's really sort of hard to describe them all in the space of a single issue of Waging WAR. On top of all the free content in the patch itself, there are also the progression and personality packs available on the EAStore ($10ea/$15combo). In fact, there is so much new content in WAR right now, it's going to take quite a bit of time for us to exhaust it all and start complaining about stagnation again.
Follow along after the break as I talk about some of the highlights from the patch.
Wow! What a patch! There are so many new little tidbits, toys and tweaks in this patch that it's really sort of hard to describe them all in the space of a single issue of Waging WAR. On top of all the free content in the patch itself, there are also the progression and personality packs available on the EAStore ($10ea/$15combo). In fact, there is so much new content in WAR right now, it's going to take quite a bit of time for us to exhaust it all and start complaining about stagnation again.
Follow along after the break as I talk about some of the highlights from the patch.
To start, we've got the Personality Pack. This pack really is for the more frivolous and vain players out there. The barber tokens allow players to change everything about their characters' basic appearances, just like being at the character creation screen again. Everything is adjustable. On the bright side, my Archmage was able to remove her blindfold. On the other side, I had to spend three tokens on my Magus before I was satisfied, and even then it didn't occur to me to simply log off and pretend to create a new character, just to choose the options I wanted and save myself a couple of tokens.
The personality pack mounts are all on display in the cities so that you can choose which one you want before you open the loot bag that contains the mount choices. There are three color choices in the bag, while there are six on display. The other three will probably be for sale at some point via RvR and/or scenario tokens, but I'm not entirely sure -- there's just so much to take in right now. The vanity pets are also on display in a similar fashion at sites around each of the cities, and there are some truly adorable choices available. For me though, none of them quite takes the cake like my Snotling Herald. The way he does his little pee-dance has had me giggling like a school-girl since the moment I got him. I don't think I'll ever tire of his bug-bashing antics.
There are a total of 12 new colors available on the dye master vendors, and the selection is great. However, the cost for these new colors is a bit too rich for my taste. From the old selection, the most expensive colors would run a bill of 7g for a full paint job. The new colors all carry the hefty price of 35g for the same paint job (i.e., both primary and secondary masks on all gear pieces). Of the new colors available, I think my two favorite are Ice Blue and Hormagaunt Purple.
The progression pack is worth the money too, although it's far more practical than its "quality of life" cousin. I'm really looking forward to the renown boost to RR80, especially now, given the way the renown abilities have been completely revamped and laid out. There's no more tree structure or effective rank requirement to access higher-tiered renown abilities. Not only that, but there are some really cool new abilities available that make the basic stat boosts kind of boring by comparison. For example, for my Witch Elf, I plan to get what old-old-old school World of Warcraft players might recognize as the release version of Will of the Forsaken. Only here it's called Resolute Defense. Tell me if this sounds familiar: 20 seconds of crowd-control immunity on a two minute cooldown. Blizzard nerfed WOTF into the ground and now Mythic is reviving it! The only real difference between the old WOTF and the new Resolute Defense is that Resolute Defense can't be used to break crowd control -- it has to be used with a little more situational savvy, foresight, or planning.
With the way all the old sets have been re-seeded, the faster progression means that I'll have a competitive new toon in good gear much faster than before. It will be nice to finally be at the top-end of the gear spectrum, since my only other experience was my grind to 76 on my Archmage, and that was brutal. Even for characters just hitting 40, getting into some semblance of viable gear has the edge taken off. The Annihilator set is available for in-game currency at the RvR gear vendors, and the follow-up post-40 set, Conqueror, now only requires officer's emblems – the conqueror crest requirement has been removed. Tier 4 gold keep bags have Invader and Warlord, and the Sovereign set now drops in all three stages of the city siege, instead of just the last.
And then there's all the free stuff in Patch 1.4. With the playable Skaven characters, the new RvR zone capture mechanics, the new RR65+ dungeon, the new sets available in the dungeon (Doomflayer and Warpforged), and the new weapons available from scenario tokens, there should be enough new content to keep players fighting all the way to RR100 and beyond. Even if players choose not to participate in the high-end stuff, they'll still have a much more pleasing go of things in the lower tiers, since they've all been revamped and restructured. The new tiers are T1: 1-15, T2: 12-26, T3: 22-39, and T4: 32+. The overlap allows for greater player choice in terms of which tier they want to compete in and should allow a greater amount of shift when it comes to actual RvR as well; players will be free to go to where the action is and hopefully won't feel constrained by artificial barriers any longer. Not only that, but the scenario brackets have been adjusted in a similar fashion. Now they are T1: 1-15, T2: 16-27, T3: 27-39, and T4: 32+. Possibly the best result of the tier re-adjustment is the obsolescence of twinks. Since Endless Trial users will still be capped at rank 10, new players coming into the game won't be put-off by twinks before they can even reach the second tier.
These are all just highlights to the Verminous Horde game update. There is so much more going on with career adjustments, bug fixes, and all sorts of other tweaks that the depth of the update is really hard to take in all at once.
Suggestions, comments and questions can be posted below and, as always, are welcome and encouraged.
Every Saturday afternoon, Waging WAR hits the cover of Massively with the latest and greatest in all things Warhammer Online. From patch news to career reviews, Greg Waller writes about it all. Email comments and questions to greg@massively.com.
The personality pack mounts are all on display in the cities so that you can choose which one you want before you open the loot bag that contains the mount choices. There are three color choices in the bag, while there are six on display. The other three will probably be for sale at some point via RvR and/or scenario tokens, but I'm not entirely sure -- there's just so much to take in right now. The vanity pets are also on display in a similar fashion at sites around each of the cities, and there are some truly adorable choices available. For me though, none of them quite takes the cake like my Snotling Herald. The way he does his little pee-dance has had me giggling like a school-girl since the moment I got him. I don't think I'll ever tire of his bug-bashing antics.
![](https://web.archive.org/web/20101121161932im_/http://www.blogcdn.com/www.massively.com/media/2010/11/patch143.jpg)
The progression pack is worth the money too, although it's far more practical than its "quality of life" cousin. I'm really looking forward to the renown boost to RR80, especially now, given the way the renown abilities have been completely revamped and laid out. There's no more tree structure or effective rank requirement to access higher-tiered renown abilities. Not only that, but there are some really cool new abilities available that make the basic stat boosts kind of boring by comparison. For example, for my Witch Elf, I plan to get what old-old-old school World of Warcraft players might recognize as the release version of Will of the Forsaken. Only here it's called Resolute Defense. Tell me if this sounds familiar: 20 seconds of crowd-control immunity on a two minute cooldown. Blizzard nerfed WOTF into the ground and now Mythic is reviving it! The only real difference between the old WOTF and the new Resolute Defense is that Resolute Defense can't be used to break crowd control -- it has to be used with a little more situational savvy, foresight, or planning.
![](https://web.archive.org/web/20101121161932im_/http://www.blogcdn.com/www.massively.com/media/2010/11/patch142.jpg)
And then there's all the free stuff in Patch 1.4. With the playable Skaven characters, the new RvR zone capture mechanics, the new RR65+ dungeon, the new sets available in the dungeon (Doomflayer and Warpforged), and the new weapons available from scenario tokens, there should be enough new content to keep players fighting all the way to RR100 and beyond. Even if players choose not to participate in the high-end stuff, they'll still have a much more pleasing go of things in the lower tiers, since they've all been revamped and restructured. The new tiers are T1: 1-15, T2: 12-26, T3: 22-39, and T4: 32+. The overlap allows for greater player choice in terms of which tier they want to compete in and should allow a greater amount of shift when it comes to actual RvR as well; players will be free to go to where the action is and hopefully won't feel constrained by artificial barriers any longer. Not only that, but the scenario brackets have been adjusted in a similar fashion. Now they are T1: 1-15, T2: 16-27, T3: 27-39, and T4: 32+. Possibly the best result of the tier re-adjustment is the obsolescence of twinks. Since Endless Trial users will still be capped at rank 10, new players coming into the game won't be put-off by twinks before they can even reach the second tier.
These are all just highlights to the Verminous Horde game update. There is so much more going on with career adjustments, bug fixes, and all sorts of other tweaks that the depth of the update is really hard to take in all at once.
Suggestions, comments and questions can be posted below and, as always, are welcome and encouraged.
![](https://web.archive.org/web/20101121161932im_/http://www.blogcdn.com/www.massively.com/media/2010/08/wargreg2.jpg)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Sireangelus said on 4:20PM 11-20-2010
Pfft, "it's going to take quite a bit of time for us to exhaust it all and start complaining about stagnation again. "
Never ever underestimate people's capacity to complain. :)
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Seffrid said on 4:33PM 11-20-2010
Why would they wait until they've exhausted it all before complaining? Most of the complainants haven't even played the game since they realised it wasn't the Second Coming of their Beloved DAoC (which was so good they haven't played that for years either) during the free month at launch.
CCon99 said on 5:20PM 11-20-2010
lol, it only took 13 minutes to get that first complaint reply!
BTW, there's no such thing as "free month at launch". The first 30 days are part of the purchase of the software.
nt said on 4:22PM 11-20-2010
this has to be the most expensive must pay patch there is. no one who's seriously playing warhammer is playing pvp... and no one who's seriously playing pvp in warhammer can get past the $10 bucks from the ea store. it's a laughably expensive dlc. my friend tried to compare it to the must-pay wow-addons. while there is some truth, that you probably can not seriously play wow without buying the addons, a $30 price tagged wow addon has about a 100 times more content than this patch from war. people who pay for this are quite desperate indeed. if i hadn't left war a few months ago, i would definitely do it now. ea just made certain i will never be interested in anything they'll put on the shelves again, ever.
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nt said on 4:23PM 11-20-2010
if course i meant, ANYONE is playing PVP in warhammer.
yep said on 5:54PM 11-20-2010
By "wow addon" you mean expansion?
Kaphik said on 6:33PM 11-20-2010
You keep using that word, addon. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Taawa said on 4:37PM 11-20-2010
WAR and DAOC are the only game in town for RvR. So $15 for the combo pack felt like a bargain to me. Nobody in my guild balked at the price tag. Many have returned, even. Although I do think it'll be a hurdle to encouraging more skeptical players to return. I've given up hope that people from my wow guild will give WAR another look.
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Graill said on 5:18PM 11-20-2010
I guess if one is willing to go back to a game that never met standards the company is throwing out the right bait. Spiderman says everybody get one, only one. I'm not spiderman. (grin)
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yep said on 5:57PM 11-20-2010
This is all good but personally, I'm waiting for bit of a graphics overhaul. I bought the original WAR and liked it well enough but the characters didn't seem to mesh with the background well enough. Like you were moving shrinky-dinks over a photograph. And the animations were almost like activating a video clip if that makes any sense. I know it's shallow of me but still, just where I am with this game.
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InfamousBrad said on 6:23PM 11-20-2010
Wait, I don't get that bit about twinks. If Endless Trial players are capped at level 10 but tier 1 allows level 15s, doesn't that just about guarantee that Endless Trial players are nothing but helpless victims in tier 1 ORvR? Especially considering how many class-defining powers unlock exactly at level 11?
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Nox said on 7:00PM 11-20-2010
That would mean that they would have to decide to buy the game or quit playing the endless trial if they don't like it because of the cap at level 10. Maybe that's what EA wants here.
JosephCain said on 6:38PM 11-20-2010
I still have the boxed, unsealed Collector's Edition of this game sitting in a drawer. What am I waiting for? Either someone to buy it off my hands, or for them to not be complete retards. After I heard about these "Booster Packs" nonsense, I became very, very glad I never actually registered this game. The sad thing, I registered all the extras from the game, but really, I've been waiting for them to just go F2P, or fix the bugs.
From what it sounds, the game is still fairly buggy, fairly awful, and the game is going under so many overhauls it can't tell what it wants to be or who it wants to please. Personally, I loved the game when I beta tested it, even if it crashed every hour, and the textures were muddy and whatnot. However, they'd do much better if they just went F2P, and used their "fill In Your Lore Book" aspect like LOTRO's Deeds system, giving you cash shop points for filling it in and doing the public quests.
There's so much they could do to make this right, but it seems more like they're just strangling their fanbase for some quick cash, and making it so you HAVE to buy the boosters to remain competitive. When a Pay to Play goes Pay To Win, then it falls off the freakin' short bus. I'm sorry, you can't have the Chinese gaming pie (Cash Shop) and the Western gaming pie (Subscription). Their greed echoes the sentiments of Everquest 2 going "Free to Play" (more like "Eternal Trial).
I suppose they know exactly where their game stands, and that it's not going to last much longer, so they're going to shake down the mindless masses and fanbois. Sad, because WAR's PvP and leveling in Scenarios was the most fun I ever had in an MMO.
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JosephCain said on 6:40PM 11-20-2010
Er... rather, it's still sealed. It's covered in the original plastic wrapping from EB Games, complete with the sticker price on it. More or less completely untouched in any way.
Deadalon said on 6:51PM 11-20-2010
War is not just pay to win ... it is pay to loose too - cause they are actually charging ppl to be the cannonfodders.
Get the hell out while you can guys. This is just the start of how you will be forced to pay more and more for less and less. And if you skip an extra payment + your monthly sub (basicly double monthly sub from now on ) you will not be able to play RVR....
This is what RVR is all about... Pay extra to beat the few stupid nubs that still pay sub for the game. Yes this is RVR... and Mythic just killed it to make more money.
Avick said on 12:48AM 11-21-2010
If it was "pay to win" as you say, they wouldn't have made rr80+s have their stats decrease in effectiveness per point as they do for the normal 1-40 ranks. As of right now, a rr100 isn't so extremely more powerful than a rr80. rr80s can certainly still compete.
So no, nothing about this is "pay to win".
Deadalon said on 6:43PM 11-20-2010
This pack is probably the best example of where the MMo industry is going. And there are few ppl falling for it - inlcuding the OP that cant hold water for all the new and shiny things that he is paying for....
WAR is done and dusted. The only loosers now are those 10% that are still left after orginal launch of the game. Not EA will bleed them try by letting them kill each other for next 6 months - before putting up another pack with 10 RR lvelvs so ppl will pay more.
No thx. Let this title die and the incompetent devs go with it. WAR has done everything wrong from pretty much day one of launch and this is nothing diffrent. And why is it wrong ? Because it has nothing to do with the gamers... its all about making more money out of nothinng,
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yep said on 7:24PM 11-20-2010
Loose as a goose on the loose?
Pandemic said on 8:17AM 11-21-2010
The rvr pack is pretty cheap; it costs about the same as 2 pints of beer. So there isnt anyone who cant afford that. If there are such people then I strongly suggest you get off your lazy dole scum backside and get a job.
They will release a second rvr pack but not for about 6-8 months so a 1 off payment of a few quid / dollars etc isnt someting you should worry about happening often.
The online store doesnt actually sell anything that can be used in the game in pvp. For that matter not really pve either; its just cosmetic stuff that you dont really need, its a nice way of them earning money.
They also wont ever sell anything in there that will affect pvp, so you can rule that out as something thats 'pay to win'.
Is the rvr pack 'pay to win' ? Well clearly no; I actually tested this out on the test server as a rr80 vs loads's of rr100 players and as a rr80 you will still do ok against rr100's. Just because someone is rr100 doesnt give them a 'i win' card; a bad player is still a bad player and easy to beat.
However it allows you to progress beyond rr80 so it depends if you want character progression when you hit rr80 or are happy to not progress any further.
The rvr pack does allow you to get to rr80 faster, however is speed to get to rr80 important to you? If not I probably wouldnt buy it at least until you hit rr80.
So its clearly not a 'pay to win pack'. The second thing to realise is its going to take a VERY long time for players to get to rr100. Going from rr81 to 82 is 700,000 renown; at rr81 you earn an average of at best 3-4k per scenario (the fastest way of leveling) if you are in a premade, thats alot of time.
Players will want to spread out that with open rvr etc and as you get to a higher rr you need more renown and earn less.
It all means by the time the second rvr pack comes out in 6-8 months time there will be only a tiny handfull of players at rr100 on all the servers combined so the second rvr pack wont contain any extra rr's. There will be no need for that. My guess is it will contain fully playable additional races and maybe a t5.
Abriona said on 8:40PM 11-20-2010
Yeah I was considering a return to War but after reading about the sellign of levels and those packs...I don't think so,these recent things have turned me off SW:TOR more than any news coming out about the game ever could too.
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