WCPI, Dark Crag Dispatch

Before I head out of town for the weekend I though I should give another recommendation to a great blog. The Dark Crag Dispatch is a blog that looks at many different aspects of the Warhammer Online. They have some interesting points and opinions about what is currently going on. Take a look and I hope you enjoy!

A Dwarf is born.....

No, its not a slayer. I have decided that my first alt will be a Dwarven Engineer named Innis. As much as I want to try a Slayer I wanted to try an engineer more. I was partly influenced by a former guild mate of mine, Lorient. When our old guild fell apart, he joined a guild of just Dwarf Engineers called short fuses and was having a great time. So I rolled a engineer and got the offer to join the guild, its been a blast so far. The fuses area a great bunch of ale drinking Dwarfs that just seem to enjoying the game.

So if you are a Dwarf engineer on Volkmar and want to join a guild of free drinking, grenade throwing, greenskin killing Dwarfs... well just look us up!

Also if you are interested in playing Warhammer Online I have yet to offer up my trial passes. If you are interested send me an email at CDNDragoon@gmail.com, I will give mine out to the first three requests I get.

WCPI, Werit

I just started reading Werits blog and like what he has to say. He recently wrote some good points about server balance on his home server. Wondering if Mythic will ever get around to offering buffs to the constantly defending side like they proposed to do. I also liked reading his post on the RvR Finale on PTS he took part of and the bits and pieces of EvE blogging he offers up as well.
The fact that he is a Dwarf Engineer (my new alt) is just a little bonus. So check out his blog and say hello, you just might like what you find.

Female characters in WAAAGH!!

This has been a hot topic over the last couple of weeks with the two new classes coming out. I find it strange that there are so many classes that are gender specific within the realm of Warhammer Online.

I have played a fair share of MMO's over the last 6 years starting with SWG, and have had the opportunity of gaming with lots of great people. Some of the more influential have been female players and I cannot understand why Mythic would short change them on character selection. I understand that the lore does not full support female characters in certain rolls like the Chosen or Slayer, but there have been cases where in some books they have made an appearance. What I don't understand is that Mythic can create a completely new character class, the Disciple of Khaine, and not have the ability to expand the role of female players within the Warhammer universe.

I can appreciate not wanting to corrupt the original idea of Warhammer, but in this case when you create a virtual world the players need the ability to make it their own. For now though, all the ladies out there get to chose for barley clad Dark Elves and a few other classes on the destruction side. I know the Greenskins are fungi but they are a version of the all boys club if you read almost anything that they say, so its hard to count them as a non gender race. The Order side is more balanced between the sexes, minus the Slayer. Everything evolves over time, this game is not the same as it was at launch, so maybe the option of expanding female roles would give this game an even larger fan base to draw from in the future.

There are lots of great blogs and podcasts out there on this subject. I just though I would put my two cents in. I just think that when you are creating a world this big and in depth, you sometimes have the let the players decided the outcome and perhaps create a some new lore along the way.

Simple thoughts on Pros / Cons.....

I was working on this post my last couple of days at work. Since I just had my four wisdom teeth removed yesterday I have not been in the mood to blog so I though I would post it. If you have any comments about my list please let me know.

Pros

- Community - A great blogging community has been build up around this game. Mythic does a good job of supporting and keeping involved.

- oRvR - Flat out, I just enjoy running around with a group of friends hunting Destro

- Diversity - Every race and class have different styles and feel while playing them

- Open Group System - Such an easy way to find people doing what you want to do

- Public Quests - Fun to do with good rewards at the end

- Continues effort from Mythic - They keep working on patches and updates

- Art Work - I love the visual style of the game

- Scenarios - Having the option to queue up while PvE questing is great way to get some RvR in while ranking up, but I wish you could queue to your tier in Altdorf

Cons

- No Central Hub - You need a place to just go and joke around with other players. SWG had Coronet where everyone just hung around relaxing. In this game I just go to Altdorf to hit the banker

- Limited space for Quests in ToK - The book is HUGE, but we only have one page for quests?

- Fortress Siege Lag - Enough has been written about this, lets hope it gets fix soon

- Generic Keep Defense - Change up the keep styles, or add more ways to reach the Lord

- Hype! - This is a good game but was over hyped and promised to much at launch

- Inventory Management - When I put stuff in the bank or my back pack I wish it would auto stack, it would make my life so much easier

- Keep Contribution - Need bonuses for people not getting bags in keep sieges to help them out at the next keep

WCPI, what a great idea

The first blog I would like to promote really needs no introduction but I though I should start at the beginning. The first blog I started reading was WAAAGH! by Syp. Its a great blog that is both informative, opinionated and very entertaining. If you are interested in Warhammer Online I suggest you read this one.

Here is a link if you are also interested in helping promoting fellow WAR bloggers, WAR Community Promotion Initiative (WCPI). Lets work together to keep this community growing.

In to The MAW!!!

Well I got involved in my first Fortress siege on Saturday night. It was around 1am when the call came out that we had the chance to take down the Chaos Fortress, The Maw.

Since I had just hit Rank 37 earlier in the week I could actually take part in this offencive. We ended up quickly destroying the gate as Order from all over the realm started showing up in insane numbers. The first floor breezed by as well as the second... then we hit a brick wall. As we tried to advance to the 3ed floor and the Lord, we hit the defending Destros choke point. They had situated themselves at the top of the stairs and rained pain down on anyone who tried to advance.

It was at this point that the lag also caught up to me. I was seeing our attemp to reach the third floor in a slide show fashion, which rendered me useless. It seemed that one second I was walking in an empty room, the next I was on the floor with a Garrison Chosen standing over me. To combat the lag I turned off all my allies and enemies names, titles, and guilds to no avail, it was almost painful.

We ended up not capturing the Fortress but I had an OK time trying. I don't mind the defeat, chalk it down to a learning experience. My bigger problem is the lag, I am starting to understand what all the fuss is about. Mythic has a good thing going with this game and I really enjoy it. All their new additions have been great, but I hope while they keep releasing these fun and innovative live events that are still diligently working on making mass battle oRvR a lot smother.

Whats in a Name...

Well with my guilds transfer from Sylvania to Volkmar it is the end of Binge Drinker. Unfortunately for my Bright Wizard his name is take by a Rank 40 Black Orc, so Mavric has been born.

On the topic of names, this event reminds me of the post Syp did on Waaagh! when he introduced my blog in his blog roll pt. 4:

"As you can tell from the title (or not), CDN Dragoon is all about the life and times of a Bright Wizard and his own personal burn ward."

My blog name is easy to explain and has nothing to do with the great game of Warhammer. The first part is my nationality, I am proud to be Canadian :) As for the second part, the Dragoon is the class I have enjoyed playing the most from the the Final Fantasy series. Those RPG's got me addicted to video games back on the NES and Super NES! Since I planed on doing the blog for general gaming I had decided on the name before I became aware of the Age of Blogging initiative.

Back to Warhammer, I am looking forward to get my start on Volkmar. Destro look out the Prismatic Order is hunting you....

Night of Murder

Well I have to say that I enjoyed the Night of Murder live event, and if my dog had not chewed through my internet connection I would have completed it! I did make a final push the last day getting 6 out the 7 Keep Lords though, oh well!

I liked how you didn't have to grind to get your influence and the final reward as much as previous live events. This event felt more organic to the style of game I play, which is a focus on oRvR. The objectives were straight forward, and as long as you have a decent server population not that difficult to accomplish.

Overall I cannot wait for the next live event. I am looking forward to seeing the new scenario and playing a Slayer. As for this one, I am not to disappointed about not getting the Master Assassin title. Its nice, but not one as a Bright Wizard I would use.

Altdorf... We Failed....

What an interesting night. I just planned to log on for a little to work on my Night of Murder live event when the call to arms was issued. Destro were attacking our fortress in Reikwald! I tried to get the fort but was warped out due to "supply line issues", basically I was to low of Rank being just 35. The good thing was even though I missed out on most of the oRvR I was still able to take part in the Altdorf War Quarters scenario. It was great killing Destro while fighting in the city. I was on for about 90 minutes before I had to log, and got into three War Quarters scenarios which was great. Now I cannot wait until we siege The Inevitable City.

I would also like to congratulate all the Destro that managed to take Altdorf. I logged out before it happened but checked the forums before work to see that you were successful. Now its time for Order to try and push back!!

Fire Building 101

When I create a new character I usually do some research on the forums to get a feeling of the class. For Warhammer Online I mostly used Warhammer Alliance site and searched blog postings to find information. I listed some of the more informative treads that have great information to out people new to the Bright Wizard class.



Class Mechanics: This post gives you an overview of the class and explains the different builds and styles of play.

Immolation Build: My build. The thread talks about all the aspects of the DoT line.

Conflagration Information: This is the A0E build. You need good self control to master this style of play.

I am still looking for a good Incineration thread but as of yet I have not uncovered one. If anyone has a good one, please put it in comments section and I will post it for everyone else to read.

Have fun putting Destro into your burn ward, but make sure you don't end up there yourself.

The Age of Blogging!

This is just a quick note to thank all the people involved in the WAR: Age of Blogging. It was a great idea to bring in new and interesting points of view to this ever improving game.

Friday Night Fights

After work I decided to login to catch up on the latest guild news and maybe grind to Rank 35 when a strange thing happened... oRvR.

It started out in Caledor with our war band taking both keeps and some BO's with little resistance. We decided to head over to Reikland and tried to take central keep that was in Destor control. Once there a pitched battle broke out on the ramp leading up to the keep with more then a war band of Destro blocking our path. Once we fought our way to the doors we started banging away until we got pushed back by the Destro reinforcements. After regrouping at our war camp we made another push by trying to take the hill from two different sides. This time we made it through the both keep doors to have our attempt stalled at the bottom of the ramp to the Lords room. While I was logged on we never quite made it to the top but it was a lot of fun anyway.

These battles are one of the many reason I am continue enjoying this game, and I look forward to the new classes and events Mythic are putting out soon.

119: The sun is rising...

Well, I have made the guild switch. My friend has not been on recently, but I group up with a few of her guild mates and fared well enough in our scenario runs that they accepted me into the guild. One of the biggest reasons for my success was our group healer Kashana did an amazing job keeping me alive to burn down some Destros!

I logged on later and joined them in working on some T4 PQ's and managed to get second in contribution and rolled well enough to get the Massive Loot Bag that dropped giving me: Scorchguards of Ruin, a great item that I cannot use for another five ranks.

I am starting to realize that my style of play is more suitable for organized guild groups than most PuG's. I was refreshing to have good survivability in a scenario to allow me to ply my art of burning people down.

One day down, and its starting to look good. I also found out an old friend from SWG was playing a 40/49 Shadow Warrior on Red Eye Mountain server, which means I know where I am going to try playing my Warrior Priest on.

Have a Great Holidays!

120 Days of Waaagh!!

I was sitting at home last weekend realizing that I had no interest in logging in to Warhammer Online. This shocked me because I have been enjoying this game since I got accepted to the beta a months before launch. The though occurred to me that the reason for this was I am too focused on getting my Bright Wizard to Rank 40 instead of enjoy every aspect of the game. I also think the fact that my guild seems to never have players on at my rank or during the times I typically played had a negative impact. MMO's for me are a social game I think am missing a key part to the game. There are a lot of great people in my guild but we just don't seem to play at the same times anymore.

With my game card running out I decided to refocus my time and effort in this game to more enjoyment and worry less about staying with the advancement curve. I bought a new game card and have a feeling my Wife was picking me up one for Christmas and thought that if I cannot find enjoyment after 120 day of gaming it was time to throw in the towel.

Starting today I plan on relaxing and just playing the game and not worrying about anything else. I think I will join a friends guild, they have been trying to get me to convert for over a month and I think its the perfect way to start my 120 day countdown.

Hears to a new beginning for Binge Drinker the Bright Wizard,