It’s late, it’s small, and there is barely a scrap of new material. But what did you expect when we learned that they were closing their doors to the public for 2 months? Personally I’m just glad that I have something to talk about now. For those of you who have not had a chance to check out the Newsletter here’s a link.
I’m not impressed with the Grab Bag nor am I impressed with a few bubbly paragraphs about the High Elf army. Honestly they should have completely foregone the newsletter this month if it was going to be in such poor fashion. In the Grab Bag there were 4 questions and only ONE had not really been answered fully before. This was more of an obvious scramble for information bag. This really needs to be a huge part of the Newsletters because this is supposed to be the “most popular and most interesting” questions on the minds of the players. Oh how the mighty have fallen. I choose to forgo any commentary on the Elf stuff.
I found the Video Podcast to be nothing short of spectacular! As a musician myself (Oboe and Clarinet) I really enjoyed getting a sample of the music in WAR and the hear the ‘Filmharmonic’ Orchestra play – Now there’s the talent in this production! The discussion on what types of musical inflections a Dwarf would have really made this shockingly perfect sense to me and that’s really something I think very few ‘gamers’ out there can truly recognize and enjoy. Maybe I should forget about games and pursue a music career….
Probably the most interesting wall of text was the “State of the Game Adress” from Mark Jacobs. It was the usual stuff they recite to us over and over but this time we were given a little more to chew. It turns out there were in fact lay offs in the WAR department. How truly unfortunate for those working on the team to be let go so soon. While we were “reassured” (for what that’s worth these days) that the layoffs will have a minimal impact on the game itself I really question how losing anyone at this point can ever be considered good. So more of the same old yada yada here.
And from watching Paul’s Video Blog I noticed the 50 v 50 City Sieges. All I have to say is it sure as hell better be for QA testing and not the real deal. What a grand way to ruin city battles. Limiting them will not only make them less epic but it will make them “fair” aka cheesy and battleground-esque. WAR IS NOT FAIR! But since I have nothing to say this is a ‘for sure’ thing yet I’m not going to make too much noise. Just know that this would be a huge mistake.
Okay, overall it was bad but we knew it would be. It’s the first newsletter after the layoffs, the delays, and honestly I have a feeling in my gut something else is going on that we’re not hearing about. When something big is leaked and it sheds some light on things remember this blog post. Let’s cross our fingers for the November Newsletter.
On siege battles, I agree that limiting them to 50v50 is sort of a lame cop out. I understand wanting to balance them though, due to population problems. But why not involve NPC hordes with high hit points etc to aid the under-armed/defending side to help alleviate said problem?
Agreed. Use NPCs or other advantages to keep the battle within a certain range, but not an exact. 75 players vs 50 players is alright. Enforced 50 vs 50 is not.
Of course, the tricky part is the cap. If the cap is 75 players to a side, what’s to prevent battles from always being 75 vs 75? How do you encourage dynamic populations in battles?