Warhammer Ragbag & Bitter Rivals

Since the EU servers crashed completely (again) and we're stuck at the initializing screen since quite a while, i thought i'll update my blog with a new ragbag. (Source: stuntystomper.blogspot.com) Some of the pics are from wierd bugs i encountered after patch 1.2, seems it was just temporary glitches tho as i did not encounter them again.

Talking about glitches: On Karak-Azgal a group encountered a weird bug... they wiped at the skeleton sub-boss in BWE and afterwards the tank had an aura that attacked friendly mobs. After some killing of other players and aggroing the large ancient protector bird inside IC, this resulted in killing the whole leadership crew inside the Eternal Citadel. He wanted to become king instead of the king. Forum thread is here and there is a youtube video as well. I thought this was funny, worldfirst kill of a king. Although IMO now we have to shoot him, being a traitor to Destruction and all... i know others had the bug as well and some got suspended for abusing it to kill other players.

The Bitter Rivals live event is close to an end, so better finish the remaining tasks now if you want to flag your account for Choppa/Slayer access or want those titles. To flag your account with max event INF you can leave two tasks out. The Twisting Tower scenario had some really good ideas in it (base jumping, transformation, etc.) but the layout could have been better IMO. The Reikland Factory had a very good layout concerning access to all parts. Did you know that you can just jump off the tower if you want to keep your transformed state a tad longer? With the pie throwing back in game, its also possible again to obtain the two titles "Pie Assassin" (killing blow with a pie) and "Death by Pie" (get killed by pie).

The live event overall was okayish i would say, but i really wish Mythic will put some more work into the event tasks. Its the same boring stuff all over again most of the time. I know some kill tasks and collect tasks are designed to draw people into oRvR and try out the new scenario, but why not come up with something more unique? It would be easy to spice up some tasks with scripted events. Like the Slayer/Choppa attacks, but a bit more. Beside the cool "Stuntie Stompa" title, i thought the "treasure map hunt" was a great addition. There are three different map pieces to obtain: Bloodstained Map Piece, Glyph-covered Map Piece and Sand-stained Map Piece - those you can get in RvR, from some champ/hero mobs and also from the Slayer/Choppa NPCs that roam the greenskin zones. Once you finished the map, you can use it to start a small quest chain. At the end of the quests you'll get the title "Navigator of the Sands" and the final map as a pocket item, that does nothing (yet?). Would be cool if the map will obtain some kind of function once the Land of the Dead zone is released.

What more to mention about Bitter Rivals? The Slayer/Choppa NPCs can also drop a Broken Axe, using it will give you the title "Oathrender".
A sidenote on the Stinky Troll Bait reward (from event INF): When you use it (has 5 charges) it will generate an extra item inside your bag, called Boulder Throwing Troll - that is a huge kickass troll "siege engine", throwing boulders. Awesome! I have this idea stuck in my head about using those for an ingame game called Bouldertroll™, maybe I'll work on this further. ;) Just don't use it before you need it, else you'll be stuck with additional items. I used one and they look really cool (see picture). The Choppa/Slayer NPCs can also drop Redfang Grog sometimes.

Meanwhile the EU got a 10 days trial offer for WAR as well. Makes me wonder if/how we'll be able to get access to those recruit-a-friend pets the US has. If GOA works out a similar program for the EU *after* the trial offer, it will be hard to get those as people will have used the trial offer already. Hum...

While i haven't engaged in any capitol combat after patch 1.2 i hear some rumours about the first PQ acting very shaky and the boss mobs being a bit overpowered now.

There has been some heated discussion about the pick lock ability (you can bypass the postern door) in addition with the banner rez, as apparently some people exploited it and rez people inside the keep when all doors are still strong. Having an additional rez ability at hand for non-healer classes can be nice sometimes, especially in PvE. The main ingredient for the new rez potion meanwhile cost 15g at the guild vendor. I doubt i like anyone enough to spend that much gold on them. ;)

Should you not have realised it yet: Everyone can meanwhile read the official US Warhammer forums. They are still "beta" and some layout/color scheme issues IMO need to be improved, but at least they work alright from the looks of it. My personal guess is we'll have to wait until they move out of beta before the EU gets their own forums.

With patch 1.2 there are some addons that stopped working or some function that were disabled by Mythic. Luckily many of them got fixed to work properly: zMailMod broke with the patch. I saw this coming and cleaned up my mailboxes before the 1.2 patch. But rejoice: Despite z00g not playing WAR anymore, he uses a trial account right now to fix the mod. The first version is up already, tho the mass collecting function seemed shaky to me, not sure if it was the mod or the mailserver. If you're a cultivator, you should check out the new & improved version of Miracle Grow Remix from Irinia, which has some awesome improvements like queueing additives and such. Also check out the thread with the latest beta version here. If you use Crafting Info Tooltip, there is a beta version (with eg. the new seeds included) available here.

Talking about addons, i found this addon recently: Bloody Mess. The mod adds a gore effect to all damage done and received. While i don't use it myself i thought its creative nontheless. :)

On a personal sidenote: I started trading 175/200 apothecary mats for rare hybrid plants. If you're interested to acquire some of those plants you don't have access to, especially being a Butcher, poke me if you want. Maybe we can work something out.