Don't let me fall into nothingness! I won't be happy there!

LEVELS:

• Grubbuk hit level 15 after a rousing game of capture-the-troll-pacifier...whatever the hell THAT is. I've been playing as much RvR as possible lately, mostly because one of my Collector's Edition quests involves me killing dwarf players. Where the hell have all the dwarf engineers gone!? I remember being flooded with the little bastards in tier 1, but I haven't seen any since setting foot in Barak Varr.
  

Who is calling me a liar, you or the machine? 'Cause I need to know whose ass to kick!

LEVELS:

• AUGH. Leaving your character at 85% and being unable to play for two days is probably some sort of torture. That being said, Grubbuk is finally level 14.

MISC:

• I scrapped the Magus (he was only level 3) and decided to try a Chaos Marauder. It's kinda cool, I can definitely see the appeal. The arm mutations/stances thing is sort of interesting (even though I hate stances) and it's awesome to blow through things that quickly.
• I just completed the Greenskins chap 7 on Grubbuk and got the Waaaghstick of Bar Dawazbak. Grubbuk's lookin' pretty sharp.
  
  

Yeah? Well, have fun on the robot reservation, suckers! We're not gonna honor those bogus treaties!

Guess who's back?
Back again?
Gronog's back.
Tell a friend.

Seriously, though, I couldn't escape the allure of Black Orcs for much longer, and rerolled Gronog (now with one g!) He's level 5 so far and about ready to head out for Da War Maker and eventually on to bigger and better things.

Warhammer hit the shelves today, and I picked up my 10-pound collector's edition box and totally forgot about the OTHER free digital goodies I got!

See, any ol' schmoe that preordered the game got Rittenbach's Portable Camp and some sort of little PVE ring, depending on where you preordered. But the CE guys also get new titles, new quests that I haven't figured out how to activate yet, and BRAND NEW EXCLUSIVE FACES! Let's take a look:
I gotta admit, at first I wasn't too fond of Grubbuk's new 'I'm clinically insane' look, but it's really grown on me.

LEVELS:

• Grubbuk hit level 12 a few hours ago, and I'm about to hop back on and see if I can get to at least 13-and-a-half by tonight.

MISC:

• I won these awesome-ass blue boots for Grubbuk today in a public quest. Unfortunately, I didn't meet the level requirements, so I stuffed 'em in my backpack. Shortly after, I accidentally fucking sold them (along with tons of other stuff) and can't buy them back. I'm writing this down so hopefully I won't be THAT stupid in the future.
• Since we're on the subject of stupidity, last night I figured I'd roll a Magus, seeing as how I really liked them in the open beta. But how does one roleplay a Magus? I don't really know how Chaos do things, other than act all spiky and talk about how much of a weenie the Emperor is. That being said, I found a nice-sized OpenRvR server and started 'im up. I wasn't thinking, and I didn't even notice it was about 7:30 at night...when all the drooling idiots have come home from a long day of being at school/work/something.
  This is why I play RP. Not only do the fairly strict naming rules convince tons of idiots not to roll there, the fact that they assume everyone's going to come up to them and talk like Ren Faire regulars frightens all the mouthbreathers away. I've only seen two questions asked on my server in the starting area, and both were played nicely ("Oi, boss! 'ow do ya show dem titles abbuv yur name?")
  I'm sure some of these people are genuinely nice and are just confused about the game (that apparently went up for the first time ever "twelve hours ago"), but people who can't figure shit out on their own will probably be the death of me.
  

Team Rocket may be dirty rotten criminals, but we're not in the business of destroying children's dreams! At least, not yet.

LEVELS:

• Grubbuk's already up to level 10, and there's still time to get some more levels in.
• I'm up to level 17 in cultivating and level 8 in Apothecary-ing. I haven't quite gotten the hang of the Apothecary skill yet, but (so far) all the potions I've made haven't blown up in my face upon using them, so I guess that's a good thing.

MISC:

• Got the curse uploader for WARDB, because I'm a dork when it comes to helping fill out databases. I was just thinking last night about how much I miss Wowhead.
  

Yes. Yes, he killed Blake and half New York. Excuse me, Rorschach. I'm informing Laurie ninety seconds ago.

And lo, the game has started for realsies.

LEVELS:

• Grubbuk's (now with two b's!) up to level 7 so far. I didn't really mind playing the levelling game when I went from Gronogg in Preview Weekend to Grubuk in Preview Weekend Plus, but it's been a little over a week and I'm doing it all again with practically the same character...it's a little boring.
  
  
  

MISC:

• To get the 'full WAR experience' (as the game calls it), I'm playing on an Open RVR/RP server. The population on the server I'm playing is a little small, but at least I don't have to worry about idiots running around named 'pewpewlolz' or 'legolazz'. Roleplaying as an Orc is pretty easy; it's no different than being a soccer hooligan. Goblins are slightly different, they're pretty full of themselves, until one of da boyz puts 'em in their place. Grubbuk's no different, and it's pretty fun to play as someone who (and I quote) "...in his own mind he's the, he's the dopest trip".
• I started training my Cultivating and Apothicary skills today: I really suck. I haven't made a single non-volatile thing yet and all the seeds I keep finding require a higher cultivating skill, so I'm a little stuck at the moment.
  

I shall call him Squishy, and he shall be mine. And he shall be my Squishy.

Look, pauldrons! How I've missed thee. I've even got my old trophy (the mushrooms dangling from the right pauldron) that I got from a quest way back in Da Stumps.

Overall today was a good day; Awesome new blue shoulderpads, hit level 11, completed Greenskins Chap. 5, and ever since the patch came out, the game's been running WAY faster than normal, which is awesome.

Speaking of the new patch, it's time for more

CH-CH-CH-CH-CHANGES:

• First and foremost: Cutscenes! I'm fairly certain they're different for each race (I've only played Grubuk so far today). They've got some British lady narrating them...she's good and all, but she's no Tony Jay. Actually, she sounds similar to the old God of War narrator ("And Kratos cast himself off a cliff, blah blah blah...").
• Your inventory now shows up automatically when talking to a merchant. It's a very small change, but I'm glad they added it.
• Both the Need/Greed/pass roll and the "Choose a reward" have been reworked a little (unfortunately the only picture I have is the reward window comparison). They've added scroll buttons to keep the window from blocking the whole screen.
  

EDIT: The narrator of God of War is Grandmother Willow from Pocahontas.
NO FUCKING WAY.

Well, a doctor cures people. A medic just helps people feel more comfortable... while they die.

DAMN YOU OPEN BETAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Seriously, though, open beta's out for all that didn't get into the closed beta/preview weekends, so I'll probably be taking a day off WAR (read: Spore came out) to avoid the new player rush. I'll play some more tomorrow when all the kids go back to school, seriously.

Might get on a little later tonight (read: If/when my tribe gets fucking destroyed again), though. We'll see how it goes.

It doesn't feel right to shoot an unarmed man... but I'll get over it.

-UPDATE TWO OF MANY-


So, normally I hate elves of any type, but I figured I'd give Shadow Warrior a shot.

(that was a pun)

I wasn't really overwhelmed. Hell, I wasn't even whelmed. So far, shadow warriors are just Night Elf hunters without the pets. They've got this 'Scout Stance' thing that boosts your ballistic damage which is kinda cool, but otherwise it's very humdrum. I'm not going to totally give up on the class yet...it's got potential, but I can't really see myself leveling one to endgame.
Have I mentioned arcing yet? Characters who use bows in WAR will actually fire their shots in an arc, which delights the Realism Nazi in me to no end. Watching the arrow fly in an arc and eventually hit its target is the main reason I've kept playing.
The High Elf area is okay. Very woodsy, which is a welcome change from all the dusty Ork camps and grimdark Chaos ruins I've been running through recently. There's just something about playing Order...it almost seems like the developers aren't done with them yet. One out of every 20-or-so arrows I shot at a target would freak out and jiggle around the target. And let's not forget the Scooty Corpses. I've got a video I'm trying to upload that explains it better, but it seems to be taking forever.


In slightly more interesting news, I've begun taking Grubuk to some of the other starting areas and doing their public quests to get some better armor (read: I want some damn shoulderpads). It would appear that public quests that aren't native to one's race have slower influence gain rates, but maybe it was just the quest I was on (Chaos Chap. 2).
Speaking of public quests: You Tyrion Order bastards! Stop seizing control of everything! Look what you've done to our Rally Master!

EDIT: More changes I've found have been added to yesterday's post, under the (Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-)Changes header.

More Pictures:

These are called "farms". Humans put seeds in the ground, pour water on them, and they grow food - like pizza!

-UPDATE ONE OF MANY-

Just when I thought I could go outside and lead a fairly normal life until Sunday, BAM. Preview Weekend Plus. They didn't even send out e-mails for this one! Pretty sneaky, Mythic.

I figured I'd roll a Shaman this time around, and thus Grubuk was born.
I sill haven't quite figured out their gimmick. So far, I know there are two separate WAAAGH meters: One for Mork (healing spells) and Gork (damaging spells)....I guess it makes since that Mork is in charge of the healing spells, what with him being kunnin' but brutal, but that's a different lore argument for a different day.
Anyway, Mork and Gork WAAAGH meters. It seems that the more damaging spells you do, the less time you have to spend casting healing spells (and vice versa). I'm only like 75% sure on this, so I may be wrong.
Once again, all my healing spells seem to be HoTs. It reminds me of healing with Shendir (not that that's a bad thing).

CH-CH-CH-CH-CHANGES:
They've done a bit of work in the two weeks since Preview Weekend 1, and I figured I'd note them for posterity.

• The Influence-O-Meter has been moved to the top of the screen, near the Group Quest progress window. It also now tells you what chapter you're on. Looks like they've also made the Scenario button bigger (and bluer). Not sure why though.
  
• The "You Have Died! But don't worry, it's a part of the game!" message has been replaced with a big tombstone-looking image with "YOU HAVE BEEN KILLED" etched into it. I think I like the friendlier one more.
• Rolling for Group Quest loot has been slightly reworked. The outcome now appears in a more-noticeable window under the Group Quest progress window.
• Little helpful hints have been added. They pop up whenever it's your first time doing something. I wish they would have had these in closed beta, I could have actually tried out Pyn's apothecary skill.
• They've implemented the "one realm per sever" rule, which means if I wanted to fiddle around with High Elf again (not bloody likely) I'd have to roll it on a different sever. Speaking of which, where is ol' Kraka Drak? I new our closed beta characters would be deleted, but I didn't expect the whole server to be gone!
• The Tome of Knowledge window that pops up on occasion has been changed slightly, and the icons on the tabs in the Tome have been modified as well (you can sort of see the old Bestiary icon in the picture).
  
• They reworked the flying maps, but I forgot to save a picture of the old ones (I swore I had one somewhere)...you're just gonna have to trust me, the old one looked like an old Powerpoint flow chat. Little black boxes with words in them and arrows leading to different boxes. The new one is much fancier.
  

Overall, it looks like we're playing the version that will be sold in store. I know they've still got a few kinks to work out (we had a group quest freeze up on us today for little to no reason, that sucked), but the game is playable, for the most part.

More pictures:

In loving memory of Gronogg the Lint Loota, and his awesome pauldrons.

'Happiness at the misfortune of others' ... that IS German!

-UPDATE FOUR OF MANY-


I think I'm going to be playing Gronogg (and possibly Pyn) for the remainder of the preview weekend. I tried rolling a High Elf White Lion, but it was a little too buggy to enjoy. Plus, Order sucks.

Speaking of bugs, I'm currently working on getting my final influence reward from a group quest in the Kron Komar Gap, but it still needs a few kinks worked out. The final bad guy (Goren Something-or-other) often gets stuck in walls/statues and becomes unable to target, and his little dwarven minions often do the same. It's not a huge problem if you know how to handle it (get off the hill), but for those who will start playing on the 7th or 18th...I can forsee a lot of Greenskin deaths due to not knowing any better.

I found a flight master later today. Flying from one location to another is handled via 6-second cutscene, which is a welcome change from the ol' 20-minute flight time in WoW. I miss flying over the land and seeing everything in real time, though.

Have I talked about Renown level and all that yet? The more you do for your realm (I think), the more renowned you are, the more things you get. Example: I've slaughtered enough stupid dwarves to be get Renown Rank 1. There are weapons/armor merchants located in the town I'm currently in that will only sell their wares to Rank 2 people, so it looks like I've gotta get stukk in wit da Boyz some more....I got a nice-ass shield, but I can't do a thing with it until I get a nice-ass single handed Choppa.

I just notice while looking for renown-related screenshots that Pyn is a higher rank than Gronogg. What!?

"Easy Mode Unlocked"? You died so much the game took pity on you? Man.

-UPDATE FOUR OF MANY-


Did you really think I'd ignore the healer class? Meet Pyn, Disciple of Khaine.

First and foremost: Melee healers are kinda weird. So far it looks like they don't actually use mana, but rather 'Soul Essence'. Healing and beneficial spells use Soul Essence, and damaging spells and melee attacks regain Soul Essence, which pretty much negates the idea of sitting in the back healing if you roll Disciple. That's all good and well and innovative and stuff, but what if some big bad boss has a huge Consecration-eque AOE attack?
It might be too soon to call, though, but it looks like Disciples heal with HOTs. I wonder if other healing classes (Goblin Shaman and the like) use direct heals, or if it's all HOTs.

Anyway, back to that screencap with the dragon. Got a nice-ass belt from it (and a crapton of Influence).
The Dark Elf starting area has this whole "pretty-buildings-crumbled-to-the-ground-decaying" atmosphere to it, kinda like the Ghostlands.

Oh yea, I've either died enough or reached a certain level or something with Gronogg; everytime I die now I get a penalty. Fortunately, there are these little Healer guys by most rally points who will take the debuff away if you pay them. I've had to pay 18 bronze so far, hopefully it'll stay that cheap.

More pictures:

You missed! How could you miss? He was three feet in front of you!

-UPDATE THREE OF MANY-


An ode to group quests...

Ahem.

Group quests are awesome, especially in a game where new weapons/armor can be hard to come by. Out of the many quests I've done, only a small fraction have given me any type of new gear. This might be because I'm still in the single-digit levels, but that's irrelevant. In the same amount of time it takes me to complete a quest that might only result in XP and gold, I could do a group quest, which results in XP, Influence, and occasionally gold. Rack up enough influence and you'll be able to buy shiny things. Yea, influence is pretty much WAR's way of pronouncing 'reuptation', but unlike Rep., Influence doesn't take nearly as long to rack up. During a 20-minute phone call I was able to replace my old Choppa (3.4 DPS) with a shiny new Choppa (11 DPS and +14 Willpower). On WoW it probably would have taken me a good couple of hours to upgrade my weapon...especially if PVP is involved. Granted, I'm sure in the higher levels the group quests will probably become more involved, but it's still better than avoiding them alltogether and walking around with 10-level-old derp gear.



I started a profession in between questing: I'm a scavenger.
Long story short: I kill humanoids, loot them as normal, and then take any thing else they might be carrying. I've found what looks like a lot of great stuff, but this is one of those jobs that requires me selling my wares to the players to make a profit. Apparently, merchants don't want my awesome and potentially rare stuff. I've been thinking about switching my job to butchering, but I don't know if butchers make anything or if they just cut up animals and sell the meat. I could use a couple healing items, especially with things get hairy, but I have no idea if being a butcher is similar to a WoW/FFXI Cook.

I am Wreck-Gar! I am only good for one thing: GARBAGE!

-UPDATE TWO OF MANY-

And lo, my second character was rolled. Meet Valarin the Chaos Magus.
I gotta say, the Chaos starting area doesn't feel nearly as polished as the Greenskins, which is odd, because it was about 3 times more populated. The players of the Chaos seem a little more...talkative as well. Could the Chaos be the annoying Blood Elves of WAR? It's probably too soon to tell.

Anyway, Magi. Maguses? The first thing that will leap out right at you as a Magus: FLOATING DISKS. I'll be the first to admit I don't know much about Warhammer lore (unless it's 40k), but apparently Magi are bound to these energy-channeling things, which make them look really unmenacing. Maybe I'm wrong; maybe the disks are cool, Whatever. As of right now, there's nothing too eye-opening about the class, except for the possibly broken Pink Horror.

I think these little grinning bastards are supposed to follow you around and move about, not unlike a hunter's pet or a warlock's demon. But all of mine stayed in the same spot, even when I told them to attack an enemy. I've yet to see it officially written that Pink Horrors are supposed to move around in game, but when the lore describes them as "Their form is constantly shifting as they scamper around with boundless energy, madly cackling and shrieking as they go", what am I supposed to think?



More pictures:

Ted, you know my rule about personal problems. I'm not interested unless it involves my loved ones. Or possibly my wife.

-UPDATE ONE OF MANY-


Check that out. I'm not just Gronogg, I'm Gronogg The Wise.
I logged on today at about 7:30 AM...it's now 10:18 and I am level 5. It's a combination of low-rate experience gains (yay!) and how awesome just running around touching stuff is.
Remember Mythic's big "if you kill a ton of things and then a quest guy wants you to go kill those same thing, the game will remember what you do" claim? Yea, that's not in here. I was a little bummed, but not enough to start freaking out and uninstalling the game or anything.

Group Quests and RvR stuff is awesome. I've been in one where we fight waves of dwarves and one that involves killing tree monsters and choppin' trees. The Dwarf one was a little frantic and I didn't get any loot from killing the main badguy, but when there's 20 other Greenskins all attacking 1-4 dwarves, I guess that's too be expected. I can only imagine it'll be like this until a couple months after the game is released.

I've been playing a Black Orc so far, I might roll a Chaos something-or-other shortly to get the most out of preview weekend. Black Orcs have this weird combo points/stances/Angry-O-Meter thing (It's the little green Orc symbol above the action bars in the screenshot) that requires you to use small attacks in order to use the big attacks. It's kind of interesting, but it makes me realize how bad I suck at playing Warrior classes. I've actually died a couple of times so far (One time was my own fault, I got curious about fall damage), but so far there hasn't been any de-levelling or rez sickness or duration penalties or anything.

I've yet to hear if WAR will allow addons, but you can fully customize your UI in game. I haven't fiddled around with that much yet because I'm still learning what buttons do what, but just having the option there is awesome. Also, I have seen a few graphical screwups in the game, such as magic attacks hovering over a corpse long after they're dead, shields/swords dissapearing into people's backs, freaky slow-motion squigs, etc. There are a few framerate problems as well . It's pretty funny to watch people walking around all jerky, like old Doom/Wolfenstein sprites though. In Mythic/EA's defense, I'm still in the Orc starting area and it's fucking CROWDED.

One last thing: This little blocked off portal/cave/instance thing piqued my interest. Maybe a starting dungeon for Orcs? It's probably nothing, but the glowy WAR symbol and it's placement in the Orc starting area makes me speculate...





More pictures:
(NOTE: The fuzziness is due to me trying to condense these down into little .JPGs. Everything is MUCH clearer in game)

Wot da Zog?

It's been quite a while, has it not? I've been out of the MMO scene for about a year now...since then, I've gotten a new computer, got back into Dungeons and Dragons, got a worthwhile job, developed an odd obsession for all things WALL-E, and I've been following the slow-and-steady progress of Warhammer: Age of Reckoning. Long story short: after months of not getting into the closed beta I went out and pre-ordered the damn thing last fall, insuring that I'd get to play in open beta.

Well, open beta will FINALLY be starting shortly, with Preview Weekend taking this place this Friday (got my invite; can't wait). I'll be logging my WAR progress just as I did my WoW characters. That'll be fun, right?
Right?

So you're not coming back to WoW?

• Not at the moment, no. Idachi didn't even have a piece of T4 gear; she'd be useless nowadays. Also, I'm a little burnt out at the moment.
  

But that isn't logical, is it? It must've been one of them "Unidentified Flying Cupcakes".

OTHER:

• 'nother Kara run on Wed. Did Curator - Chess Event and tried Prince twice, but it was just too late in the evening to go on. It was my first time doing the Romulo and Julianne thing in the Opera House. Since we didn't sync up their death right (augh), we actually had to do the whole event TWICE. I was going to get on Thursday to take on the Prince that night and maybe maybe maybe get my T4 helm, buuuut.....
• ....Blizzard has stopped accepting my credit card and frozen my account! Yep. Quite an unusual predicament. The card expires next month, which is probably the cause of it. I mean, what else could it be? Mad hax? A replacement card will come in soon, so if I can't play for a week or two or something I won't be too bummed out, as long as I can play before the next attempt at Gruul's. Maybe this is a subtle sign from the people at Blizzard: "Becca, focus less on your epics and more on your DEGREE". I just hope that's the cause and it's not anything more serious than that because...
• ...the guild has moved the Kara runs to Saturday and Sunday, which means I could be raiding as often as I was in the summer! Go figure; as soon as I get the chance to raid more often, all this card crap happens. It's like raaay-ee-aaaaaain on my wedding day, or however the song goes.
  

Yeah, but John, if the Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't EAT the tourists.

OTHER:

• Shen got two pieces of the Wildheart set the other day; the gloves and the belt. Cost a bit from the auction house, but much better than her previous crap. Also, what are the odds of getting a Stratholme/Scholo group in these zany post-BC world of ours?
  

Grood! ...I mean good. And great. ...Great and good.

OTHER:



What is THIS!? Shendir? OH LAWD A BALANCE DR00D?!? MADNESS!
No, it's not madness (or Sparta), I just wanted to give the ol' balance tree a go for a few levels. You know, spice things up. At the time of writing, she's 45% through level 53. Shen's gonna finish the level as a moonkin so I can see how it goes. I'm using this talent tree at the moment, because I just don't think I can give up Omen of Clarity and Nature's Swiftness.


If you'll excuse me, my wind rider just landed in Felwood; I've got some work to do.


EDIT:

LEVELS:

• Just finished leveling Shen to 54 and I LOVE YOU, MOONKIN FORM. Seriously.
  

Don't listen to him. He's trying to lead you down the "path of righteousness". I'm gonna lead you down the path that ROCKS!

SUPER SPECIAL GRUUL'S LAIR VERSION!

And there it is.

Seriously though, we tried Gruul's for the first time today and obviously met with little success. Between the lack of DPS and fact that we were short six people, it was kinda obvious we weren't going to one-shot the dungeon any time soon. While it may not sound like we really accomplished anything, I think we learned a lot about the correct positioning and who tanks what and such. I'll be crawling all over YouTube in the next few days seeing how other guild have been doing it.

I'm not against some "monkey catching." But I'd rather be collecting pants.

Oh, wow. Remember when I used to play WoW? Good times.
Seriously, though, school started on the 27th, and I've been busy with that and homework and buying books and such. I've only got MWF classes this semester, which means I'll still get to raid a few nights a week, but only on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Since Tuesdays & Thursdays are my off days, I can stay up all Mon/Wed/Fri night and not have to worry about accidentally sleeping through my alarm and/or first class....anyway,

LEVELS:

• Nol is now 41, woot woot! I honestly didn't think he was going to level today, but after going from 15% to 50% in less than an hour, I couldn't resist. Nol also got a swanky new [Icefury Wand] today from that damn mage quest I've been meaning to get to. Beats the hell out of my crappy [Goblin Igniter], plus I can't say no to anything with frost damage! Now all I need is [Whitemane's Chapeau] and I will be a happy little mage.

OTHER:

• Also, I've considered rolling another dr00d; an Alliance dr00d this time so I don't blatantly follow in Shendir's footsteps. I've wanted to go full balance with Shen for SUCH a long time, but I just can't give up healing because that's just how I roll (ba-dum-pssh). My only qualm is that I don't like replaying classes and this new druid might not go very far, which would really bum me out. Of course, the only class I've ever replayed was a hunter, and hunters are kinda dull no matter what spec you choose.