Grimnir's Grudge | MMO Fansites

Right then! So first off we have at least two new additions to the sidebar of Warhammery goodness, and one returning blog/guildsite.

First off, much props goes to @MykielWAR and his recent endeavor of not only a weekly video podcast, but a FULL LENGTH FEATURE FILM!? Man I wish I had the free time, alcohol, knowledge and patience to do something like that. O.o

Check out the P-O-D-C-A-S-T here!

Next on the chopping block is a blog that I'm pretty sure I had mentioned before, pretty sure I had added to not only my RSS reader AND Blogroll here, but it keeps sneaking off into the shadows (obviously trying to kill me). Blog the Witch! is, as one might imagine, focused on those scantily clad death-skanks of WAR we refer to as Witch Elves, or "AGHH!! RUN! Witc- Kthttg*gurgle*gghkhk..". Taransula is one of the nastiest around. High into the RR70 range, there's a ton of insight and gameplay aspects to the blog. Along with the galleries of mostly not-clothed... dark elves... hnmm...

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Fight on the Flag is back to WAR! Okay, well they have been since late November to be honest. I really have no idea why I didn't have them on the blogroll. Ya'll are still on my RSS reader, sooo... yeah. Sorry bout that Perle! Here you can keep up with just another random taste of Warhammer goodness. Because really, who doesn't love random Warhammer goodness? Shaddup and check em' out!

So that'll do me for that little update. Does anyone have any other WAR-related website and/or blog type links you wanna share? I'd love to hear what else is out there hiding in the cracks of the internets.

Cheers!

*I did it again. Finished this entire post, and managed to kill it... ah well. At least it wasn't too long.

So it's been over a month since I touched my blogroll, and much to my dismay, the amount of WAR blogs is inevitably shrinking, while the general MMO blogs continue growing. It's an interesting trend really, so many bloggers started with WAR (myself included), but only a handful have truly converted into a single-game format that isn't WAR. The only issue that I have is finding WAR relevant stuff amidst all the other stuff in my gReader. It's not too bad though, ya'll keep me informed on the broader world of gaming. Good luck stealing my attention though. I've had a couple posts, 2 in particular, that strayed from the WAR format. The beta for League of Legends, and DDO. Neither made me really want to talk about them more than a brief paragraph or two. I really am so absorbed into the game, nothing else really makes me look off to the side and go "Yeah, that looks really good. I should do that."

Anyway, without further ado, we have a handful of WAR gone General MMO, and a handful of WAR-deaths. Also, a few gems that I've stolen from other blogrolls on the interwebz. Always good to find new people to add to the list.

Ardy and his Echoing Nonsense probably hit the General MMO scene last time I did an update. I blame denial. He's definitely there now.
JOMU has been doing great reviews for all kinds of games lately. GenMMO worthy.
ShadowWAR might be waiting a while for them elves to get more beastly bows, so he's wandered off into the GenMMO pastures.
Werit has had a smorgasboard of Fallen Earth along with a handful of other games. Great FE stuff, probably the best on the web.

Some new guys (new to me anyway) are added to the WAR Blogroll.
Skurm rides back to the battlefields of WAR! Quite enthusiastically as well.
Zizlak is still blogging about WAR. Not sure why I don't have him already, I know I've read his stuff before.
Portraits of WAR artist Manuel Masones has a love for the Dwarves of WAR that some may find... creepy. Wanna tug my beard?
Lagolas (and his MMORPG world) has been rocking the WAR battlefields for quite a while now! How'd I miss that? No idea...

Lastly, a chunk of blogs that have simply ceased their WAR ties as far as I can tell. Some from inactivity, some leaving for the Aion-grind. I'll still have them on my own gReader, but just to keep tabs in case they come back the the Waaagh. Basically, if it's not a general MMO blog, and it's not a WAR blog, I'm just not interested.

http://warofalts.wordpress.com/
http://wartalk.wordpress.com/
http://knightsofthefeatheredhats.wordpress.com/
http://missvindaloo.blogspot.com/
http://www.fightontheflag.com/
http://insert-clever-war-name.blogspot.com/
http://stuntystomper.blogspot.com/
http://tufmudda.blogspot.com/
http://www.waaaghroots.com/
http://warhammerblogtimes.blogspot.com/
http://raidenn.wordpress.com/
http://monkeyfish.mmofansites.com/

So there it is, quite a bit of movement! If I mis-classified you or you feel I've been unjust in my determinations, leave a comment (or send an email for discretion). I'm a pretty reasonable guy provided I haven't been FF'ed by Sorcs in the past few minutes.

There's something about non-posted hotfixes that rile me up quite a bit. Be them good or bad, having the experiences with the game change dramatically while having no forewarning is a bit perturbing. I'll have you all note, on Saturday at sometime you may have noticed a small chunk of download coming from the WAR patcher. Notations absent, I assumed it was WAR just playing along with our hopes and putting in small token efforts as an assurance that yes, they are working on something. This is all fine and good, as the illusion that something is being worked on, even in small bits, is enough to keep my mind at ease. Even if it's nothing noticeable, it might be a typo on a loading screen, a quest that just doesn't make sense, a stray NPC missing his legs, or any number of minor things that really have no place making the news in the first place.

So be it. Those Ninjas are harmless, and bother me not. However, we have the more deadly master Ninjai to worry about. Back to Saturday, whatever the hell Mythic did in the last patch DROPPED LOADING TIMES FOR ZONES AND SCENARIOS BY WAY MORE THAN HALF.

Aha leetle neenja. You have been found out!

Somehow, the thirty or so people that I talk to among my alliance group and guild, hadn't really noticed until I pointed it out to them. I am now zoning into scenarios on average of about 10 seconds, where previously it would be more around 45s. I can load into a contested zone in an average of 15s, where it could go onward for a minute or two. This has been a big complaint with the game by many people that I have talked to. It appears the issues with the Tome of Knowledge have been most excellently resolved, and to that I applaud the engineers at Mythic. Kudos guys... Just next time, don't take so damn long!

Stealth Ninja Patches... Why wouldn't you want to slap this on the patcher in HUGE bold lettering going "OMG, doodz! We Fixed Loading Timez!@!1!1!!!11" ? Next time you give the game a whirl, test it out. Maybe you hadn't noticed yet, maybe just not realized. Maybe you haven't logged into the game since last week. If loading times were making you fall asleep before, or miss defending your favorite keep, I don't think you'll be having any problems now. Enjoy!

But wait! There's more!

To further confuse me, a Hotfix released today made no mention of the performance enhancing drugs that WAR has been taking heavily over the weekend. However there are some nice fixes that have been clamored about.
- Land of the Dead bosses give contribution to Wards properly... if you do that sort of thing.... I guess.
- Inevitable City - Stage 2 - Arena boss Torvug will no longer recieve an errant "Target Immunity" buff, allowing to forces of Order to continue their headhunting
- BO's will no longer lose their domination point if the guards are killed, but the flag is not captured.
   this one is important for the random RvR that happens when BO's are actually defended. those guards will often be taken down by AoE and ruin the cap, even if the defenders hold on strong.
- SCENARIOS GIVE ZONE CAPTURE REWARDS - Thank you very much. Now we can continue kicking ass in SC's instead of holding our collective dicks in the warcamp.

Pretty much every single one of these gives me a little chubby. Which in turn, swells into... ah. Why am I going there? Regardless, these are the kind of small, hotfixed changes that give me hope WAR is still on the right track. I think pretty much everyone can appreciate and enjoy.

But wait! There's EVEN MORE!

Much to the chagrin of many players across many servers (five to be exact), we're getting a fresh round of server consolidation for the worst-of-the-worst populated bunches. Enjoy ye underpopulated realms! Make new friends with more neighbors, and enjoy the chaos that will consume you next few weeks! There's no looking back at this point, so dive in!

Source    --->    Destination

Ironfist    --->    Gorfang

Vortex
Monolith    --->    Volkmar

Magnus
Skullthrone    --->    Badlands

But Wait!

No... That's it. Looks like some of the people at Mythic decided they like their jobs after all. Hopefully this is the start of a long deserved fix process before they decide to release more PvE crap content.

Oh, and I want me some T4 Mourkain Temple or Tor Anroc weekends. Keep that in mind. It's important.

Guild Zone Capture Rewards!
Andy Belford | General News | 04/29/2009 @ 11:58:19 EST
Greetings!

To complement our recent improvements of zone capture rewards we have implemented more incentives for a Guild to successfully capture and hold a Keep.

Guilds that successfully hold a Tier 4 Keep through a zone capture will now have a Gold Bag containing Annihilator armor rewards mailed to the Guild Master. Each successive zone capture within the same pairing will result in another Gold Bag being mailed to the Guild Master. The Guild Master may then distribute the Gold Bag(s) to his or her guild members. Guilds that hold a Tier 4 Keep in a pairing whose Fortress is successfully conquered by their realm will then receive a Gold Bag containing Conqueror armor rewards. This Gold Bag is also tradable to guild members.

So defend those keeps! For glory, for Renown and now for more rewards!

About damn time....

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