So i had this appointment scheduled, and the letter told me it was on Tuesday. Since the letter was posted last week I thought it must have meant today, so I woke up early and got ready to go out. I arrive, and it turns out the appointment was for NEXT Tuesday. Since when do they give you one weeks notice for these things? I dunno..

Anyway, its been so long since I've posted anything, mostly because I've been playing a ton of games lately. like i said in my previous blog post (which is now ancient), I've been plugging through some older games, but its that time of year when stuff actually starts coming out. Final Fantasy 4 on the DS finally made its way over here in Australia, so i snapped that up. I also downloaded megaman 9, which is fantastically frustrating and totally oldschool to the core. i even posted a review here on giantbomb for it, i thought it deserved some praise.

Lastly but by no means leastly, I've been playing a TON of warhammer online.

And by a ton i really mean a ton. My tome says I've played for something like 8 whole days of game time already. I really don't know how I managed that... Too many late nights. I think alot of people already are sold or not on that game, but if you want a brief summary of what i think:

 Warhammer Online is a great mmo, but whats gonna keep it great depends 100% on the population of its servers, even moreso than any other MMO to date. Everything in the game that is fun requires you to be doing it with a ton of other players. Sometimes, there just aren't a ton of players around where you are, and the alternatives are alot less fun than if there was a group of dudes to hang out with. This is simultaneousely what makes and breaks the game.

I play on Darklands server, which is the highest pop oceanic core server. I didn't go on an open RvR server even though i played on a PvP server in WoW, mainly because the open RvR server rules stink. I'm all for the ganking/being ganked thing, but after a little time on the RvR server in beta i found out that PvP on a core server is just alot more fun. Open RvR has no bolster buffs, so you basically have to grind out pve to be decent in pvp for a level or two before moving to the next tier and having to do that all over again. BTW, a bolster buff is basically a buff that you get when you enter a scenario or open rvr area that buffs up your stats to a mean rank for that tier (for example, in tier 1 your stats would be buffed to  r8, in tier 2 r18, and so on). This means you can jump into scenarios at level 1 and still be able to do something, unlike in an open RvR server where you'd still be level 1 facing alot of twinked out level 11's, which is just not fun at all. unless youre TOTALLY into gimping other people in pve, then id suggest to just go onto a core server. the pvp there is much more balanced, accessable and fun.

Even being on a high pop server, early going on my main was really lonely. I think someone in my guild told me i was the first disciple of khaine on darklands server to hit r40, and like 8th in the world or something. it was a little bit of a drag though, with so little players at the same tier. PvP was basically non existant, so i leveled mainly through pve. on my alt, though, which i started a few days ago, scenarios in t1 and t2 pop like crazy, which is where it seems that most people are doing their leveling.

Anyway, after these 8 or so days ive managed to hit one character to r40 (a disciple of khaine), and another to r17 (a black orc). My disciple of khaine is my main, although im finding i liked it more in earlier tiers than in tier 4 (content is broken up into tiers of 10 ranks, or levels, tier 4 being the endgame tier). Since alot of my guild arent really up to tier 4 yet, i find that the lack of organized support in a proper group is really detrimental to a disciple in tier 4, where it requires support in order to support its party. While this might sound like a turnoff, all classes in warhammer online are balanced for grouping. You won't find a min/max pvp class that will own everyones face in 1v1. there just isnt a class like that in tier 4. combinations of classes working together is another matter entirely. a well excecuted plan from an organized group can easily mow through a disorganized rabble of players. I do fairly well as a backline support, although not really in the way youd think. i spec mostly into dark arts (the healing mastery) and a little in torture (the DPS mastery). most of the time i put myself in the backline near the other backline classes to help them out with my covenant (a party-wide persistant buff) that raises armor by 660, a considerable amount. if melees break through to the backline, i can support the backline by doing dps while healing both them and the frontline with area and party heals. it seems to work fairly well in PUG scenarios so far.

On my alt, a black orc (which is a tank class), ive almost exclusively been doing scenarios to level. its given me a huge chance to learn the ins and out of the class in rvr, whereas with my disciple i learnt pretty quickly that in t1 and 2, disciples are unstoppable killing machines, but in t4 they taper off in a pretty big way in the 1v1 department. I'm really enjoying playing tank in warhammer, a class archetype thats usually pretty boring to me. alot of this has to do with the fact that tanks in this game are pivotal to pvp groups, whereas in alot of other rpgs tanks generally get ignored in favour of softer targets. Warhammer gets around this by making the enemy want to hit you, and they do this by giving you skills that buff your allies or yourself as long as youre not getting hit. The pve taunt is useful in pvp: it raises your damage by 30% against that target until they hit you three times. this can stack, too, so if you taunt the same target and they completely ignore you, you can do tons of damage to them. later on tanks get a pve area taunt, but its also useful in pvp: it reduces damage done to your entire party by 30% until you are hit 3 times. add to this the awesome guard buff, which you put on an ally to reduce damage done to them by 50%, and playing a tank is not only alot of fun but really important, too.

as you can probably tell, im totally into warhammer online. last night, we rolled around in a warband with tier 4 dudes in a few other guilds in the rvr lakes and systematically took all the keeps and objectives in all the tier 4 areas. then we chain-entered scenarios and won until we finally pushed the war effort from thunder mountain to kadrin valley, a step closer to taking over orders main city. it was pretty exciting, and whole lot of fun, especially when we met with some resistance from order players. I cant wait til more people get to tier 4. its gonna be so awesome.

anyways, better get back to the grind. o/