What Now?

I seem to hit a wall in every game without fail. Back in the day (um, 1997-8), I resorted to ringing the Nintendo hotline because I couldn't work out how to get past the second dungeon in Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (to date, one of the only decent game I've ever completed). I like Warhammer and I've just renewed my subs, so I'm not going to up and quit, but I need to find a solution to the corner I'm stuck in.

Basically:

• Kipling (nearly level 37) seems to be surrounded by quests that are too hard - too many sensitive mobs that respawn too quickly. ORVR is a killer because I'm running on ghetto specs, so until I get my new desktop (post-emigration, but very soon!) I can't join in there. I did complete some quests in the Dwarfland, but I'm reluctant to zone jump too much, in case it makes questing on my alts boring. I could happily ding via grinding Serpent's Passage, it's a brilliant scenario, but it doesn't pop enough to keep me busy.
  

• Icepick does not like RVR. No one seems to heal her, so it's an exercise in frustration. I'm one of those crazy people that likes to run facefirst into a group of the opposing team (quote from /sc "WTF is that chick DOING?"), but it's a shortlived joy if the healing is nonexistent*. Questing is more than easy, especially when Knights can easily solo champions. But when your renown is affected by your level, it makes more sense to keep them as even as possible. And all the fun ORVR is still in Tier 3.
  

• Petroleum wants scenarios. Scenarios refuse to pop. Pop scenarios, pop! Aside from that, I'm loving Archmages. I especially love that one move that's a *zzzzzapp!* lightning bolt from the sky. I'm aiming to play her all the way to Tier 4, so hopefully the scenario popping won't be a massive inconvenience and I can keep moving forward in a fluid motion.
  

So in short, Tier 4 has questing problems, and Tier 1/2 has scenario popping problems. I'm not sure much can be done about the scenarios... maybe try and boost server population? But they could definitely improve the ease of Elfland quests - after Saphery, there just don't seem to be a good distribution of achievable quests. Kadrin Valley onwards has a far superior layout.

*Healing in Tier 4 is amazing. I love you guys.

Troll Country Exploration

Last night I finally got to game with my boyfriend, but instead of doing productive things like scenarios or quests, we went out in search of a few unlocks and to see what we could see in Troll Country. I'd spotted these Yetis a week ago, and wanted to kill some. So we did:


Close to the Destruction warcamp, we saw an AFKer. Aside from a band of RVR flagged Destro, this was the only other person we saw in the two hours it took to traverse the landscape.



Hung out in some water. I took all my clothes off to see if we got an unlock for skinny dipping. Alas: no. So back on they went.


You have encountered a Wareagle!


Take a look at this monstrosity, it had an eerie "trapped souls screaming" soundtrack emanating from it:


After this, we moved west into what came across as a very unfinished, barren landscape of trolls and icy caves:


I was a little disappointed, because I was hoping to find some history & lore unlocks, or something a little more random, but only came out with encounter/world/25 kill unlocks. And then we found Coldsnap, the champion that would provide the unlock for "It's a Snap!"...


...but only to the person with the killing blow. My boyfriend isn't as bothered (ie: he has a sane mind) about completing his tome. So you can guess who got the killing blow right? And he's a Rune Priest! Dammit! He has the best luck at the moment for drops and whatnot.

I'll be back Coldsnap! Don't you think I won't! And after blitzing through a quest cave (ie: mobs only, nothing interesting at the back) our journey had come to an end. This chap lies beside a large rock outside the cave to the south of Coldsnap:


Would have been nice to have an unlock telling his story, do you think he's a Slayer? And what's a Dwarf doing so far from home?

So Shamans are AWESOME, huh?

Playing as Icepick yesterday I came across not one but two RVR flagged Destruction players in Ostland. No idea why they were running that way, they were quite close to what I think is their warcamp, but this is the first time I've seen anyone flagged in such an obvious enemy area. So, being a good slave to Order, I attacked them both. One was level 13 and went down too fast (I needed Marauders for a quest) to comment on, but Boomsok was another matter. The little bugger managed to get me down to half health (!) before I managed to murder him in cold blood amidst the trees. His self-heals were epic and I'll definitely think twice about jumping a Shaman in the future.

And obviously, when a scenario popped for both of us 2 minutes later, I was absolutely spit roasted by the Destruction team in revenge. D'oh.

Icepick: Still in Troll Country

I'm still playing a maximum of 2 hours a day at the moment, which sounds like a lot, but isn't really - it's enough for a few scenarios, INF gathering, quests, crash to desktops and a trip to Altdorf to unload my bags in the bank/auction house. The above picture is from the first stage of Chapter 6's Public Quest The Blighted Farm.

Thanks to all the zombies you can pick up a lot of Apothecary water* while you're grinding out INF/doing the three or four quests available in this area. For people who have yet to get this far into the zone: if you've got a group of around 3/4 people, head south a little further, there's an easier PQ there. Why not just do this one? Because at the end, the Hero comes with a Champion and adds that are easily pulled along with him, and it's just a massive headache unless you have two tanks and a decent healer. The recommended number of players is nine, but I think you could do it with six.

[Oh, and while we're here, I need to give a massive shout out to Kyris, who orchestrated some of the finest healing in one of the PQs the other day - if you're on Monolith, watch out for him and feed him treats, his heals are worth more than gold can buy.]

I'm almost ready to move into Ostland, I have to scout around the oRVR area and finish off a quest, but I dinged level 14 so (as with Kipling) I am well on track for levelling. Scenarios don't pop often in the afternoon (which is morning on the East coast), but I was happy to see Pheonix Gate twice today. I think I might spend some time in there + filling my bags with loot to sell before I actively do some more questing. If you're not careful, you can level too fast in this game.

*One of my impossible aims at the moment is to force down the price of water/soil on the auction house, as it's ridiculously high. I don't think I'll be able to do it, but at least undercutting others by several pieces of silver/gold means that I'm guaranteed sales.

Holiday Week

The holiday week lends to extra casual playing because it's so quiet, so instead of trying to batter through the stagnant Tier 4 Elf zone, I've been playing Icepick, my Knight of the Blazing Sun.

Any game is fun when you're playing a class that just will not die (Knights can take on equal level Champions and win, no wonder Order have been battered in Scenarios from launch day) but I like the Empire storyline a lot - Tier 1 focuses on the Norse invasion, and now Tier 2 is about plague and sickness and um, trolls. I also caught sight of Yetis in the distance, but at level 21 I think I'll have a go at them a little later.

I've also come across a lot of unlocks, more so than in the Elf tier (although it could be that I wasn't familiar with the game enough/too squishy to look properly) - 2 coming from bestiary items, and one from walking into a spider cave.* When I ding 40 with Kipling, or finally lose my patience with Tier 4, I'm going to run her through all zones and have a solid day of exploring the world, and I value finding unlocks and items organically, rather than relying on Google.

Not much else to report: I've barely touched Tier 2 scenarios so my renown is falling by the wayside and that's on my to-do list in the near future. And scavenging is working out to be a nice little money spinner - it's sole purpose is to funnel resources to Kipling for cultivating/apothecary, but until the right level drops come along, I will stack that gold pile high.

*Sidenote: what is it with Warhammer and spider caves? They're everywhere!

Altdorf Scenery

No bones about it: Tier 4 is frustrating for me at the moment, I can't find my groove. The level of difficulty has been ramped up, the ability to group for oRVR is lost on me at the moment (all the action was in Tier 2 last night), and doing scenarios all the time is not how to play Warhammer.

So! I went back to my Tier 1 Knight of the Blazing Sun and ran through all the quests in the city. This is my third time doing them and it's still not boring. Since I bought the game, the city has changed. NPCs are in different places, say different things, wear different clothes. New quests have been added. But I love the way the city is constructed, from the makeshift pen of rats watched over by the Ratcatcher's Wife to the detailing inside the Sigmar chapel. The Emporer's Palace is my ultimate tourist destination - you get to meet Karl Franz himself! And you get a fat chunk of XP for doing so too!

Take a look at the stained glass:


And if you take yourself through one of the doors on either side of Emperor Franz, you'll find his level 48 flying mount Deathclaw:


According to HammerWiki, he " joins the Emperor (reputedly by smashing through a stained-glass window) to fight against Destuction players should they reach the King fight in Altdorf." Which, to be honest, gives me goosebumps. I can't wait for the day Monolith's Destro launch an attack on Altdorf.