Land of the Dead = Darkness Falls … sorta

WAR goes Egyptian
WAR goes Egyptian

I’ve been calling for a Darkness Falls for months and months.  It was obvious that WAR lacked something that DAOC had which made the realm war special and I really believe the largest part of that is the contested dungeon.  With Land of the Dead coming, and all the events leading up to it, Mythic will hopefully ignite that spark in WAR.

Mythic has pretty much given the players a look at the next several months:

February: Choppa and Slayer live event begins on the 24th.  Players will have to log in each day to complete daily tasks.  We’ve seen this before and some of them have been good and some of them have been dull.  The Twisting Tower scenario is also available.

March: Choppa and Slayer become available to play.

April: Another life event beginning the whole “sands” theme with “Beyond the Sands”.  Supposedly good weapons and stuff.

May: Yet another live event.  This time it begins the race to unlock Darkness Falls the Land of the Dead.

June: The Deserts of Nehekhara are available giving players the opportunity to go to Lands of the Dead.  Players have to fight each other here for control of the zone to take control of the Land of the Dead.  Public quests, lairs, Tomb Kings dungeon, and something called Casket of Souls will be sought after.  Sounds neat.

A couple of things to note:  Right now there aren’t many details, but from what I’m seeing it looks like it could work.  I’m concerned that they’ve made mention of items as the reward for some of these places.  I don’t want it to turn into a ToA or a treadmill or even a “I must have these to compete” sort of deal.  Hopefully it’s just neater looking stuff or items that aren’t “better” but “different”.  Also, the Land of the Dead rules currently read that the players fight for control of THAT zone and not any other part of the world.  Honestly, who is going to bother with keeps anymore in the regular realm war?  It’ll be a mistake if they don’t include the rest of the world in unlocking the zone.

Overall, it’s a solid schedule of things to come.  I’m very excited to see how they do WAR’s version of Darkness Falls and how they go about adding content without succumbing to the temptations of gear being the carrot.

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  • honestly, who cares about land of the dead? choppas FTW! by far my fav class in the beta.

    What they should focus on is removing bugs and latency issues in fortress sieges instead of adding an expansion.

  • I think the headhunting is going to be insane. What a great idea. You get points for killing enemy marked men (but they don’t know who they are) and you don’t know who they are on your team. I can’t wait.

    I’m also excited about the, “Exclusive Bitter Rivals siege weapons: Giants and Flame Cannons”

  • Desert with undeads sounds great – always liked those Khemri skellies&mummies in Warhammer TT. Some additional graphics won’t hurt definitely and this Casket of Souls sounds just like DAoC-Relic-sort-of.

    People who complain about ‘no fixes in the announcement’ should consider the fact that new content team works independently from ‘bug-fixers’.

    Sure we would appreciate “no more lag & classes fixed” version, but we still have something to wait for.

  • I agree with GreenT. I also think that without these content expansion the game then the game would grow extremely stale. This is exactly what WAR needs and if that means the bug fixing and stability team needs to work overtime and on the weekends to make it work then so be it.

    The live events do sound fun as well, although I’ve never been a big fan of them introducing items that are actually ‘good’ like the herald cape. The giants as siege weapons and killing marked players sounds amazing though.

  • I would come back and play for a bit if I knew the lagbeast was not hiding there, sadly, I know it is.

  • I’m just trying to think about how odd the RvR is going to be with marked men. Your going to see packs of folks running all over the place.

    It may be the most “Headless Chicken” type of PvP I have ever experienced. Mix that in with Keep Sieges and folks will be jumping off of walls to go kill a Marked man. Should really spread out the RvR.

  • Lemme just add that we have only Q1 & Q2 of 2009 covered as far as new content is considered. Fall and winter are still unknown. I would personally like to see something more in this direction.
    Jungles of Lustria anyone? 😀
    I really like the idea of additional lands to be conquered, the more I read about Nehekhara, the more I’m sure it’ll be fun.

  • Right, but why bother taking a city? It’s proven to be a PQ grind where the reward does not justify the effort. After experiencing a few of them now, I have no burning desire to siege a city. In a way, the realm war has failed to catch my interest.

    However, unlocking this zone to gain access to dungeons and other content is a huge carrot. If done correctly, and done as they stated, this DF could be amazing and detrimental at the same time.

    If they fix the city sieges and maintain the “best gear” from the King drop then I don’t think we’ll have an issue. But if they don’t fix city sieges then it won’t matter because this new dungeon, if all goes smoothly, will be the pinnacle of WAR’s content.

  • I think the announcements sound good but I want to know what is happening in the next couple weeks before my subscription runs out. After being asked to wait a month for the announcements, players now have to wait almost another month to experience the new content.

    Normally, I’m not this impatient, but the endgame content is too repetitive at the moment. I want to see something new in the near future.

  • “The reward for a successful kill is literally a trophy head that you can then show off. If you get killed and someone gets your head, you’re likely going to get mad and want some payback, which is the point. ”

    eheheheh.

  • @Keen: Isn’t unlocking the King encounter a big carrot? Your fine with unlocking the lotd, and then unlocking the bosses through PQ’s and such right? It seems pretty similar to the city siege in that respect. I’m not saying city sieges are perfect or anything, they could use some help.

    I can’t imagine they would make LotD loot better than the King’s. Would be nice if they had some new mounts in there though as rewards. Hard to tell right now though.

  • It would be a carrot if it worked and if it didn’t require the gear treadmill of warding up and participating in zerg PQ grinds and laggy/buggy city sieges. In an ideal world, if the city sieges worked and had their design changed slightly then yes, it would be totally fine.

    BUT – as it stands now this isn’t the case.

    If LotD goes in and the rest of the game stays as it is then the rest of the game will be ignored for LotD. That’s looking at it negatively, but I have to say it’s the more realistic expectation at this point.

    I think Mythic needs to get away from gear being so dang important. All this to-do about getting this gear to get this gear to go do this (this being city sieging) bothers me. I think having cosmetic changes from this desert place would be great. Have the armor show an egyptian style and let the weapons and armor look cool enough that people will say “wow, they’ve done LOTD” instead of somone getting crit for 2x more than normal and saying “wow, they’ve done LotD”.

  • @Keen: I am with you as far as the rewards go. I’d love to see my Dwarf riding some nice themed animal from that zone. I’d like a new look at well. Your last sentence made me laugh for some reason 🙂

    If Mythic follows that, they will be slammed for fluff by half and praised by the other half.

    It could be an ideal time for a crafting refresh, as that new area should provide new crafting goods.

  • Keen i thought the exact same thing when i looked at the annoucement and thinking oh man the gear grind is going to escalate out of control.

    the problem can simply arise that each new thing gets Better gear in which to compete you must have that gear. then we are in WoW. this does work as a carrot for most players though so i understand the reasoning, i just dont want to become obsolete each time something new comes out till i grind X and Y to get it.

  • The “new phat lewt!” talk has me really worried. WAR is already needlessly grindy, and throwing in additional gear grinds for good measure might be all it takes to scare me away forever.

    Also, I wish they’d get rid of the hoops you have to jump through to unlock the classes “early.” I know some people like these events, but I really don’t get the point – if the class is done, just let me play it!

  • Would LOVE for K&G or any other WaR blogger who came from Doac to do a full rundown of what that Darkness Falls zone.

    What it was like and how it affected the RvR aspect of the game,the gear ect.
    I like alot of WaR players came from WoW originally and have very little idea exactly how Darkness Falls affected the way that game.

  • I wonder if they are going to introduce Nagash in some way with the new zone.

    In the Vampire Omnibus, one of the Vampires went to the desert to retrieve an artifact. The desert could be a very nasty place 😉

    From the last paragraph at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhammer_Fantasy_(setting)#Races_and_Nations

    Besides these there are the Undead who are a result of the black sorceries devised by the first necromancer, Nagash in the long distant past. His legacy has left the Tomb Kings in the hot desert lands of Nehekhara to the south of the Old World, the Vampire Counts in the Old World itself and Nagash in his own city of undead.

  • @Keen
    Sorry to break topic a bit.

    If you don’t mind me asking, what mod(s) are you using in your movie, “Small skirmishes in WAR”.

  • Keen, I totally agree on the need for DIFFERENT, not BETTER.

    Hey, since you are on Mythic’s buddy list, please bombard them with letters that TELL them to not make WAR into a gear grind.

  • Personally, if LotD works out, they need to revamp every RvR zone into a similar style of affair. Actually, I wish they would have done that instead of building an entirely new zone.

  • @ThatsSkarWithAK: Now that interview describes changes that FINALLY sound like a step in the right direction.

    1) To count towards zone control, objectives (30 minutes) and keeps (2 hours) will have to be captured and held for a set time period.

    2) Improved zone control benefits for both individuals and guilds, as existing benefits are almost insignificant.

    Don’t get me wrong, the new classes and content definitely look cool but they still don’t address the core RVR issues within the game. Once the basic RVR gameplay mechanics are improved (including more varied and complex keep combat) then I’ll definitely resubscribe and see how the fares. In a sense, instead of focused singular battles around one primary objective in a zone (i.e. keep), I’d instead like to see many different battles all going on at once. So sure while the main force is attacking the keep, one or two secondary smaller strike forces are focused on objectives to turn the tide of the battle (due to the benefits of owning it).

  • @Keen: “Right, but why bother taking a city? … In a way, the realm war has failed to catch my interest.”

    Exactly. It doesn’t mean squat how great city combat “could be” if the local day to day zone battles aren’t up to snuff. Once the local zone battle mechanics are improved, city combat will just be the “icing” on the already delicious local RVR combat “cake”.