Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk!

I know I am talking a lot about WARHAMMER ONLINE lately. A lot of good! It is launching soon much to my excitement, and heck, it is the talk of the town. I too live in that town so let’s get to more talking. Using Beta/Open Beta as a reference it is hard not to already notice some trends which will detract from the Warhammer experience. These trends have been visible throughout the beta process and while I hope new blood alone will reverse some of them we will have to deal with them after launch. Hopefully they are just fads instead of trends.

Nyuk #1) Gravitation towards Empire vs. Chaos: No pairing is as busy. EvC has the quickest Scenario pops and most open field RVR action. This part doesn’t make sense to me as all 3 pairings are very well done. People know this is always the busiest pairing so that is where they tend to go. Question is why? (Did I just answer that question?)

More ‘Nyuks’ after the break!

Nyuk #2) Lack of Tank class for Empire/Dark Elf: The lack of a tank class for the Empire has shown to be problematic. In Nordenwatch (the EvC scenario) Chaos has a self served holy trinity +1 – Tank, Healer, Melee DPS and Ranged DPS where Empire is missing two of those -  no pure Healer (Warrior Priest is a solid healer, but have to be on the front lines making them easily focus fired and done away with without a true pure healer behind them) and no Tank. This problem is sometimes alleviated by people who realize Nyuk #1 above and you get the odd Sword Master or Iron Breaker in the EvC. When you don’t it is disasterous – especially facing a side able to field a complete group that compliments all roles. In my Nordenwatch scenarios (I have ran well over 50 the past 3 days) I can tell you who is going to win by checking the roster for each side before the match starts. If Order has zero tanks, its over. If Destro has zero Zealots, its over. If both sides have a mix of both it is a damn fun match ahead. (side note – if Order has 10 BW’s it is generally over as well)

Nyuk #3) No cross pairing scenarios: I covered the reasons here in the comments. This initiative alone could alleviate both N1 and N2 combined. Hint: I think this is essential for this game.

Nyuk #4) Destruction Population Imbalance: If things stay true to both numerous online votes and what is actually represented in OB Order looks to be 1.2-1.5 to 1 underdogs. May not seem like a big deal, but dealing with multiple thousands per server those numbers add up. I have heard a lot of arguments how those polls are not representative of the actual player base but polls are done for a reason – an indication. In WoW those same ratios hold true on PVP servers (but not PVE) so it will be interesting how those numbers pass over to RvR. There are a lot of possible reasons for this but honestly I believe the BIG one is how cool those bad guys look. Take James Blunt, put him in a wig and a dress you have the Sword Master. Take Lou Ferrigno, paint him green (if only it had been done before), chip out an extra tooth or two and you have a Black Orc.

We all know where Nyuk comes from. It seems like a stooge move to me to not realize how obvious the first three are and not have them addressed before launch (like, weeks ago). A small beef of mine is how a lot of developers expect the player base to solve thier problems and inefficiencies (see: mods, etc.) I know the Mythic crew expects a lot more people to cross pairings but if it hasn’t materialized significantly this late in the game, why should we expect it to surface at all? The Class cuts, and to a lesser extent the Cities cut will impact this game in less obvious ways than we have seen already. (Cities especially at endgame – wait until you get there to understand. Class cuts moreso immediately, as all 4 Nyuks above are related to the Class cuts to varying degrees.) I still think the quality of the game far outshines these issues but someday we’ll find it, the nyuk-less connection, the lover, the dreamer, and me.

Can you think of anything else that feels Nyuk-ish that makes you worry 3 days from Head Start Launch??