WAR Diary: Part the first

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By Josh Girvin
Mar 10, 2009 | 11 Comments

First, an introduction! This is my brand new place to share my annoying, rambling and somewhat incoherent thoughts on all things Warhammer Online. I’ll be covering topics such as the state of the game at large, my own exploits throughout my time in WAR, and general other topics as per what I feel like writing about! Feel free to chat in the comments section, offer your advice, ideas, comments (who would’ve thunk it: comments in a comments section!) and love-letters.

I’ve never been your typical Atomican gamer. I have a penchant for playing games in one hour chunks, and it’s a rare day indeed where I actually finish a game – Sonic The Hedgehog 2 notwithstanding. This suits me well: I’m a busy man [or at least I like to tell myself that to explain away how much time I waste procrastinating...] and games are few and far between that have sucked me in to the point where I’m nearly willing to forgo work and study to play. Interestingly, WAR suits this play style really well.

I recently re-rolled as an Archmage on Darklands to play through the tiers with my best real-life mate, and have been steadily ranking up over the past week with him (Rank 7, Renown Rank 5 and counting!). Scenarios, with their tactical pick-up-and-kick-some-arse play style are our bread and butter while we currently work our way through Tier 1: they provide good experience bonuses, they give renown, and also provide a metric crap-load of enjoyment. There is nothing better than watching the enemies healers fall, then their front line fail, and their objective overrun to the yells of victory and WAAAGH! We’ll usually run them once or twice a night in between quests, breaking up what would usually be fairly mundane grinding. To be fair, the quest lines can have amazing back stories, but when you’re drinking scotch on a Saturday night playing with your mates, you don’t really stop to admire the well-written prose and lore...

Lately, we’ve been running Public Quests (PQs): think an instanced dungeon, set it up in the open, and allow anyone in the area to participate at any time. They’re very, very cool. The main problem that a lot of people have with the Public Quests, especially in the lower Tiers, is that of population issues. This is my second character in WAR, and I’ve learnt one very important thing when it comes to finding a group: Bloody well ask! There are always people ready to lend a sword or two when it comes to running PQs, and a good group makes for a heck of a lot of fun.

People often say that Tier 1 is dead: those people obviously just sat whimpering in a corner, huddling their shields for warmth, lonelier than I get on a Saturday night on my own when others are out drinking and partying...

Sorry, where was I? Those people obviously never spoke up while in Tier 1.

An hour a day keeps the Greenskins away, and it’s easy enough to progress steadily through WAR, even with a “casual” amount of play time. You’ll have a blast doing it as well!

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11 Comments

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iamthemaxx Mar 10, 2009 10:38 PM	Your name sounds familiar....
Girvo Mar 10, 2009 11:57 PM	Bite me :P
Khirareq Mar 11, 2009 7:48 AM	He spelt it wrong too!! :P
hectorbustnuts Mar 11, 2009 9:41 AM	I misread "Public Quests" as "Police Quest". Now I've a hankering for old Sierra adventure games. IT'S YOUR FAULT, GIRVO!
Hawkeye Mar 11, 2009 10:00 AM	Yeah, well, I keep mis-reading Public Quests as Pubic Quests. - DH
hectorbustnuts Mar 11, 2009 10:13 AM	Now THAT'S an adventure I could get into! (As long as it's not a Lucasarts game. SCUMMy pubes...eeewwwww)
Hawkeye Mar 11, 2009 10:54 AM	Day of the Pubes?
hectorbustnuts Mar 11, 2009 11:12 AM	Bwaaa ha ha ha! The list goes on! "Monkey Pubes" (alternatively "Pube Island"), "Full Pubes", "Sam and Max Hit the Pubes"...I'm sure there's more but I think this has derailed enough. IT'S YOUR FAULT, GIRVO!
Hawkeye Mar 11, 2009 11:37 AM	Pubes vs TIE Fighter. I'll stop now.
mykl_c Mar 11, 2009 11:59 AM	Get a life and start some Tabletop, Girvo! Escape the grind of grinding and start assembling and painting. Alternatively: Leisure Pubes Larry, Total Pubes and WAP
Fat_Bodybuilder Mar 11, 2009 4:50 PM	Well that was an interesting read. What's Warhammer online? -run- I jest.

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