The Devoted Inquirer

Haven't been able to login to the game for the past few days, not that I had the time to play it anyway.

I was looking forward to the Halloween event and rolling myself a shiny new tank.

But I can't even login. And I'm mad. Reinstalling the game and repatching it from scratch (which looks like the only solution) just doesn't appeal to me.

Besides I'm doing NaNoWriMo right now and haven't the time nor energy to devote to WAR right now. So I'll give it a few weeks and see if I'll return or do something else with my time.

Like play Fallout 3. Yeah.

Level 19.

Still no pony.

But I logged on last Saturday morning to find my guildies actively recruiting for a Tier 2 Keep rumble. The first keep fell quickly but things started falling apart by the second keep.

It did not help that a few players (non-guildies) fancied themselves warband leaders and were either demanding heals left and right or expecting me to rez when I was in the middle of, y'know, HEALING?

My levelling has slowed down due to a company trip, deadlines...yeah, RL. And what's ironic is that I've been busy writing a freelance piece reviewing Warhammer Online.

Writing the review has kept me far too busy to actually play the darn game.

Have two more pieces to hand in to the editor I'm writing for, and then I'm home free to WAR my head off.

But I still find time to visit The Stylish Corpse and contribute haiku. Because haikus are full of win and so are my fellow WAR bloggers. ;)

If you see your nearest Warrior Priest literally go down on one knee, it's not to sing you some soul ditty. It's an important ability we call Supplication where all action points are converted into Righteous Fury.

In other words, we're praying to be able to heal you.

There is no mana in WAR - instead the Warrior Priest has to master the art of managing Righteous Fury. The warrior in our class name comes from our gaining Righteous Fury via offensive means. Swinging a hammer, tossing a long-range Judgement (our only ranged attack) an enemy's way, getting some hurt on so we can dish out the heals.

But in scenarios, getting up too close to the enemy makes you an easy target for ranged DPS or magic wielders so getting the smack-on to fuel healing isn't an option. I learned that the hard way after many, many quick deaths on the battlefield. Now I'm a (slightly) smarter warrior priest and I've learned to hold back and keep my distance from the melee fray. When I'm back there, away from Destruction tanks and evil Magus and Sorceresses, I lob a HOT left and right, quickly depleting my Righteous Fury.

But all I need to do when I'm out of RF is just click on Supplication and see that healing bar just fill right up. So dudes, when you see a WP get down on his knee, make sure the enemy doesn't get to come close to him. It just might mean the difference between you getting a heal or staring at your corpse, waiting for a Respawn..

The whiners – you can’t get away from them. Every MMO has them. The chronic complainers who be stinking up the WOW Barrens chat or sniffling in EQ2 about how people don’t appreciate its nuances or talking about how cheated they feel about Age of Conan.

This morning, I logged in for a few minutes (just to check if my patch installed correctly! Really really really!), and then I had to listen to a long diatribe by a guildie about how combat was soooo much better in Age of Conan instead of WAR and WOW’s non real-time combat.

Boo, bloody-hoo.

If you’re going to stink up the chat space with your wish for WAR to emulate AOC, then please, by all means, leave us alone and go play AOC. Or Hello Kitty Island Adventure for all I care.

No game is perfect. There’ll always be a way for an MMO to make one group happy, another one not-so-happy or, like in WOW’s case, piss off an entire class (shaman haiku, anyone?).

There should be a rule for people trying out an MMO for the first month. The shut-up-until-you-actually-start-playing-the-game-properly rule.

When dealing with whiners, here's a few handy tips:

1. Don’t encourage them by replying or responding to their diatribe. Feel free to alt-tab to another screen, check your email, or maybe your eBay auctions.

2. Quickly change the subject. If you’re American, talk about the Dodgers. It works for Wil Wheaton.

3. Point them to the nearest class forum where they can then engage in vitriol with a bunch of other bile-laden people who’ll be too busy yammering to even listen or take offence.

If all else fails, suggest very politely that they go play Hello Kitty Island Adventure.

It isn’t easy to play a hybrid. Any shaman, druid or paladin in WOW could tell you that. Being good in a few things instead of the best in just one thing is not an easy path to take. In Warhammer Online, warrior priests often get drubbed for not being ‘real’ healers.

It’s hard to stay motivated in a scenario when you get players on your team complaining about how Chaos’s Zealots and the Dark Elf Disciples of Khaine are better than Warrior Priests. There were days when I felt I should have rolled a ‘real’ class instead.

But for soling, few classes match the Warrior Priest. With decent health, self-healing as well as abilities that deal damage while building Righteous Fury for healing purposes, the Warrior Priest is a very self-sufficient class able to handle multiple mobs of lower rank. And it’s also the class most likely to survive a one-on-one battle with a similar ranked Champion. Playing in a group does require a totally different mindset and a proper understanding of how a WP’s abilities work.

Today I had the best time at a scenario, where I managed to top the experience bars by combining both my ability as a support melee, and a decent support healer. I assisted 32 kills, racked a respectable though not stellar healing bar by concentrating my healing on the flag carrier yet tossing heals to whichever player came into range, before their health bars reached half depletion. It’s pointless throwing a heal only when a player is in dire straits since WPs don’t have the huge single target healing abilities Runepriests have. Of course my damage was pitiful but a WP racking up huge damage points in a scenario means a WP who mistakenly thinks he’s supposed to battle a Witch Hunter for DPS points.

Also found a group for a PQ I’d been dying to do for days, stumbling in just when they needed another healer. Then when two members left before the next attempt, a pair comprising a tank and healer just happened to join the group and save the day.

A purple dropped for me but it was, of all things, an Engineer belt. Better luck next time, I hope. The belt is currently on its way to a disgruntled editor friend of mine who likes his class but wishes it could heal itself.

Bah. As if he didn’t know Engineers could easily turn the tide of a losing scenario.

In other news, am officially a member of The Older Gamers and even made my own custom sig. Ugly as hell but I made it my very own self. On to dreams of glory and raising my damn Renown rank.

Also…just two levels and a few silver away to a PONY of my own. FOR PONY!

Barely a few days after joining The Angry Mob, I've up and joined another guild.

Terrible of me, I know. But though TAM were nice folks, few played around the time I did. It's a little disheartening to log on to my daily evening play to see only 3-4 guildies on.

Instead I've joined The Older Gamers. Heard of TOG? Hard not to since they've been around for ages and have guilds across plenty of games

My editor friend who I nudged into playing WAR is now in the process of applying to a Malaysian guild. Good on him, though I'm not tempted to follow his lead. The gamer scene in Malaysia is restricted to a narrow ageband and the guys my age rarely go online to play or if they do, play games I'm not mad about.

I've seen The Older Gamers around so often that I figured they're likely be a good bet. Even if we don't group up together, at least there'll be the entertaining flow of guild chat to keep me interested. Hopefully I see them tonight when I log on.

Vandiel might not be the best healer or smiter of foes, but at least she can look colour co-ordinated. Bless Games Workshop and its dyes.

Yes, that's Vandiel smiting trolls while perching on top of a pig. Said pig was dead, so honestly it didn't mind. If undead piggies start haunting my dreams, I'll let you know.

Public Quests, I've discovered belatedly, are cool ways to get armour upgrades. Have also scored a few decent drops while PvPing and seriously the XP I get from those are sick. 4284xp in 15 minutes? Insane. I can see why my dwarf friend Dorgar has just quit PVE all together and is now happily smiting Destruction players for The Good of The Realm.

Have also applied, and just been accepted to an Australasian guild The Angry Mob. They sounded fun so I app'd and now I have a group of people to amuse on WAR. Hooray! Before I could meet said people, I was deprived of WAR by a patch. Dammit.

Gotta love how The Angry Mob recruits. This is what I saw on their site recruitment status:

Currently Recruiting

Drama Queen/King	0
Emo Kid	0
Guild Leech	0
leet hax0r	0
TEH HARDCOREZ	0
None of the above	Open

 
Oh, I LOLed.

Since it looks like I won't get to WARring right now, will let my game patch and get some sleep. Tomorrow is a new day and a good day to Kill Beasties. Hopefully not trolls. They stink.


 

Seriously, I only have one real beef with WAR: don't people talk in the game? It's like playing a single-player game with everyone else in attendance. Even party forming is "Wanna join my party?" "OK."

Smash. Kill. Win.

"Thanks for group." "No problem."

Makes me want to roll on a goddamn RP server sometimes.

 

I'm not sure how I managed it, but my Bright Wizard Suria looks like a Warhammer Online version of Milla Jovovitch. Not convinced? Take a closer look at this pic:

Purely unintentional, mind you.

I sent Suria off to level in the Elf starting area. Sure, the Empire isn't that bad a place to play in but levelling two characters in the same place  spelled instant boredom.

So far I find the High Elves to be pretty much portrayed the way they are in most Tolkien-inspired settings. Tall, willowy, with obscenely pretty men who always seem constipated. Like this dude:

Suria's been a lucky little toon because Vandiel's gotten two drops for Bright Wizards so far as well as a nice Witch Hunter green, which I'm giving to my hunter Sorne. Will likely start levelling Sorne too, but she will be sent to make nice with the Dwarves. Too bad you can't give your toons alcohol in this game. Note to WAR devs: make the bartenders more functional than mere random-sounding NPCs, would you? Besides, drunken dwarves are always entertaining.