LotR Online Open Beta

Lord of the Rings Online began its open beta today, allowing players who pre-ordered the game (not me) to being playing and trying it out. Everyone else (including me) who signs on gets to start checking it out next Friday, April 6th. I figured, what the heck - I'll go see what it's all about. It costs you nothing to get in (a free Gamespot signup gets you the key), and you download the client directly from Turbine.

I'm going to be honest and say that I'm not really very enthused about this game, but since I've quit playing my WoW Paladin I've certainly got time on my hands. I particularly enjoy PvP, and there's just not much available in this game. You can spar (like dueling in WoW, I assume), or play as monsters under certain conditions, but there will be no world objectives, battlegrounds, or anything resembling RvR.

As far as classes go, the Captain most closely resembles the Paladin/Warrior Priest archetype - a melee oriented support class. The abilities listed appear limited, providing minor augmentation to your allies, and there aren't nearly as many combat options available when compared to the much more offensive Champion. I'll probably end up rolling a Captain to see how it plays, though I have a feeling it won't have as many offensive options as a Warrior Priest. The beauty of the Righteous Fury system is that it gives the Warrior Priest real alternatives - restore and sustain your allies, or unleash the wrath of Sigmar upon your enemies.

Anyhow, I'll keep you guys posted when I'm finally able to log on. As usual, I'll also be sure to fill you in as soon as I find out anything regarding the Warrior Priest. If anyone's interested, I may even bump into you in the beta.

In a Show of Solidarity

With news on the Warrior Priest at a relative standstill right now, and in light of recent world events, I am taking the time with this post to stand with the captured British sailors. It's my blog, after all, and I'm entitled.

Hang in there, guys.

When Britain first, at heaven's command,
Arose from out the azure main,
Arose, arose, arose from out the a-azure main,
This was the charter, the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sang this strain:

Rule Britannia!
Britannia rule the waves.
Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.

Rule Britannia!
Britannia rule the waves.
Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.

Vive La Revolucion!

Enough of you seem to be happy with the site layout, so it's time to get this show on the road. For my first real post, I'm going to focus on how Mythic is in the process of revolutionizing the MMO healer role with special emphasis on the Warrior Priest. No, it's not the most exciting subject on the surface. I'm sure many of you would love to hear about how the Warrior Priest is going to smash faces and take names. Believe me, I'll let you know as soon as I find out anything. What we do know, however, is that playing a healer in Warhammer Online will be fun.

Let's start with the basics. In an MMO, there are really only a handful of playstyles.

• Casters, if they enjoy staying alive, are generally a ranged class that cast spells. Usually the most powerful spells are called "sorcery" spells, and have a cast time. If you're casting a sorcery spell, you can't be doing other things at the same time. Things like beating on stuff. As far as playstyle goes, your "ranger" type classes could also fit under this category, even though the ranged damage they deal tends to be more physical in nature rather than magical.
  
• Melee type characters hit things. They have to be up close to their targets in order to hit things. Some focus on hitting things very hard and dealing damage. Others focus on hitting things to make them mad, taking a lot of damage so others can concentrate on dealing damage without fear of being destroyed.

Traditionally, healers in an MMO fall under the category of a caster. Their more powerful heals have a cast time, preventing them from doing other things when they're focused on healing. They also usually need to stay out of harms way so as to prevent having their cast time lengthened or interrupted. For many, it's a boring and thankless job, and class distribution in games generally reflects this. Some games try to combat this imbalance by spreading the healing role across a number of different classes, each with their own flavor and solo-playstyle. The problem is that at the end of the game, any class that is part healer runs smack into the original problem - they're casting healing spells, and so they can't do much of anything else. This is especially frustrating for hybrid classes that spend most of their solo game meleeing. It's even more frustrating if everything else about them, from their lore to their armor class, point toward the fact that they should still be beating on things in endgame.

In the virtual world of MMO's, I believe Mythic is doing something truly revolutionary with this career such that they are on track to constitute an entire third generation of the genre. In the first generation, we essentially had a single class devoted almost exclusively to healing with very little solo capability. It was such a chore to play, players began "dual-boxing" one just to be able provide the healing necessary to clear endgame content. For those not quite familiar with the phrase, "dual-boxing" refers to a player controlling two characters at the same time on two different PCs, usually focusing on one and using a variety of automated macros and scripts to direct the actions of the other.

In the second generation, as I mentioned earlier, game designers sought to eliminate the need to dual-box by enticing more people to play classes with healing as just part of a broader range of offensive and defensive capabilities. This trend succeeded in attracting more players to healing classes, but ended up with the same level of disappointment - particularly among those whose normal playstyle involved very little focused casting.

Enter the Warrior Priest design concept. Here is a career that's designed to end up just like it starts out - beating on things. There will be no drastic change in playstyle upon attaining the maximum level. Thankfully, Warhammer Online is being built around RvR content on many levels rather than large scale PvE with increasing difficulty (almost always requiring increasing amounts of healing). While the Warrior Priest player may need to direct more of his Righteous Fury toward buffing and maintaining his comrades in group play (as opposed to utilizing more offensive attacks and abilities in solo play, or situations where he is not the primary supporting player), he will still be smashing things. If he stops smashing things, everything goes to pot including his healing, buffs, and damage output. If he stands around behind everyone else and tries to keep them alive, he will, "suck like a diesel powered vacuum cleaner, " to quote a Mythic developer in a recent article.

The Warrior Priest will be revolutionary. It's really quite sad that it took two generations of failed design concepts to produce what, at least on paper, appears to be a "fun" healing class to play. Imagine that - something fun to do in an online game. Therefor, my brothers, let us rejoice. For the Empire! For Sigmar!

Tweaks

Couple things.

First, it looks like the domain name is working. HammerofSigmar.com will now send you here.

Second, you'll notice I moved the background image to the top/right side. Let me know if you think this is better or worse.

Please Stand By...

The domain was just registered today, and will take some time to filter down through the name servers.

Hope you like the look. My goal was to make it easy on the eyes for those of you like me who like to surf into the wee hours.

Keep checking back. While you're waiting, check out this video. It's the opening cinematic for Warhammer: Mark of Chaos.