Warhammer - Release Date and Open Beta Date

[Lokked]

Top News Story on http://www.warhammeralliance.com/ ('http://www.warhammeralliance.com/').
This contains a summary of the following:

Release Date - Sept 18 for US and EU - http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=49420 ('http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=49420')

Open Beta Download Date - August 15 - http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=49447 ('http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=49447')
The actual date of Open Beta Start is not known. August 15 is when the files are open to download.

NDA Lift - Not this week, most likely next week - http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1041804#post1041804 ('http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1041804#post1041804')

Pricing - Basically the same as WoW. $14.95 US / Month, with discounts for 3- and 6-month subscriptions.

[Slats]

Sounds great.

Have my two CE's ready to go. Just have to grab a monitor arm out of the cuboard and my vetras and my other laptop to setup them up to dual-box. Going to hold of on more machines/lcds/accounts till I know more about Mythics stance on boxing and if the game even benefits from boxing. Definetly interested in running a DPS / Healer combo at the moment.

[Djiince]

I've been waiting for this game for years. But I guess it will require a REALLY more powerful hardware setup to multibox than wow does ...

Anyway, I will probably give it a try monobox before multibox :)

[merujo]

let's see if it doesnt turn in another age of conan.

[Morganti]

Yep, my WOW accounts die this week, so I'm ordering needed hardware upgrades and preparing for open beta. I'm going to play the open beta for a week or so before I preorder just to get an idea of how tough the multiboxing will be for the game. I hardware box (3 machines, can add a fourth if necessary later), so even though I doubt keyclone is going to work we can still use good old Multibox to replicate keystrokes.

I'm looking at High Elf Archmages (healing + damage casters) as potential boxing goodness. Anyone "in the know" have good opinions on classes/mixes that might work out great? We know from WoW that burst damage, synergy, survivability, and control are some of the main things to look for in a multiboxing group, so that gives us a place to start.

BTW, does anyone know if they included /stick????? Melee boxing won't be doable without it!

[Lokked]

From my understanding of Ranged DPS and their abilities, it seems that Dark Elf Sorceress, Greenskin Squig Herder, Greenskin Shaman are more single target focused. Bright Wizard has a few major abilities requiring Ground Targetted AE - Same goes for the Zealot.

Unfortunately (as you can see), I only know about the Destruction side + Bright Wizard (as I had and am still considering Bright Wizard for boxing).

[Morganti]

Single target DPS is fine if its big burst and not all dot type damage (though a slew of aoe dotters could put a hurting on people, but you really need superior single target dps). I heard the bright wizards did nice dps. It looks like the sorceress can do single target or aoe dps from what I'm reading.

[-silencer-]

let's see if it doesnt turn in another age of conan.
Exactly why I'm not getting my hopes up.. even though I'll probably go pre-order a collector's edition within the week. The AoC experience is enough for me to only buy 1 copy of WAR for now. If the game truly blows WoW away, then maybe I'll start thinking about multiboxing.. but I've got more faith in WotLK than any other MMO right now.

[Morganti]

I dont expect it to "blow warcraft out of the water", but I do expect it to bring MUCH better PVP and have learned from WoW and other MMO's about what people want and don't want. If it sucks so badly that no one wants to play it then everyone will have their WOW toons to return to, so no harm in giving it a shot while you can do nothing right now but gear up with soon to be useless gear or level up alts. That's my philosophy anyway (though I don't know if I'll return to WoW at all at this point).

[Lokked]

Morg - After doing some research, both can be specced into single target or AoE or DoT type damage.

For example, the Sorc can spec Path of Agony, Destruction or Calamity.

Path of Agony
Focuses her damage on a single target.
A good mix of fast & slow casting spells.
Moderatly risky to play.
Master of the super high damage CRITICAL HIT!

Path of Calamity
Focuses on doing large amounts of damage slowly over time (DOTs).
Extremely fast casting spells.
Lowest risk to the caster.
Also capable of casting many debilitating effects to help the group.

Path of Destruction
Lays waste to large areas with potent Dark Magic (AoEs).
Requires the player to get in close to fight for full effect.
Highest risk to caster.
Tends to blow herself up as much as everyone else around her!


Bright Wizard's Paths are Incineration, Immolation and Conflagration

Path of Incineration
The Path of Incineration primarily focuses on destructive single-target spells. About half of these spells have high values of Combustion allowing those who master the Path of Incineration to focus on weaving high risk spells in with more reliable destructive magics for optimal single target damage.

Path of Immolation
The Path of Immolation focuses on damage over time and debilitating, lingering debuffs. A Master of Immolation is more patient, relying less on high-Combustion spells with explosive effect and more on slow burns that build up into an unstoppable inferno.

Path of Conflagration
The Path of Conflagration is the most destructive of the Bright Wizard masteries with area effect spells capable of burning entire swaths of land to a crisp. However, Masters of Conflagration must exert the most self-control; most of their spells build up high levels of Combustion and their reckless use could mean the Bright Wizard’s doom as well.


A Bright Wizard rumour:
Bright Wizard gets a standard style of nuke similar to WoW's Warlock Conflagration. They can DoT a target, then choose to consume the DoT for a burst single target DD. The Sorceress does not get this type of nuke mechanic.

[Morganti]

Good info. I dont know how much I like this kill yourself with your own spells stuff, but it makes sense in a fluff sort of way ;)

I'm sure Mythic included some different class synergies that we just aren't seeing yet. Buffbots are obvious, but I'm not seeing anything about OP pet classes or anything thus far. What I'm thinking of is in terms of fast leveling (i.e Enchanter/bot/mentalist from DAOC). The same thing for multiboxing in PVP (which I do plan on doing). There are only the 6 straight rez classes (one per race), so including one seems obvious in any setup. Zealots and Magus x3-4? I'm also glad they haven't removed the idea of bomb groups (aoe damage).

When open beta pops those are the type of things I'm looking for. It'll also allow me to see how many instances my computers will run and if/what is boxable.

And I STILL want /stick!

[-silencer-]

Bright Wizard's Paths are Incineration, Immolation and Conflagration

Think Mythic could have done something a little different than plagerize a WoW destro 'lock?

[Morganti]

How many words are out there meaning "to burn shit up"?

[NoobShammy]

SO the question is do i hold off on buying 4 new wow accounts to start my multiboxing or do i wait to check out WAR in one month?

[merujo]

I dont expect it to "blow warcraft out of the water", but I do expect it to bring MUCH better PVP and have learned from WoW and other MMO's about what people want and don't want.

i said the same regarding AoC. It was a:

-5 years production game
-huge hype regarding gameplay, the combo points stuff, the graphics
-over and over and over again release of sweet material, and ppl playing them on events
-multiple awards for game of this and that

and i went and bought the CE.

I think War is an EA game right ? that kinda gives me another feeling about it, EA is a big company...etc...
tbh, i've only seen some small vids and some pics, i didnt wanted to go deeper just to be crazy about it, and first thing i see are yetis snowboarding on their maces, ppl with bow-daggers, invisible terrain obstacles, unfinished parts of the map, and 10 lvl mobs hitting for 100x ur hp :P yes, i know...dont beat me. But dont u think 5 years is enough to sort such stupid problems?

Plus, wotlk is coming out this year, no matter how much i played it, with multiboxing, any game is new.
Anyways, i hope War will be a huge game, and that u guys have lots of fun with it :)

[Djiince]

You're right WAR is an EA game. And it can be both advantage and drawback.

Advantage because EA brings the amount of money Mythic needs to finish the game. By finishing I mean clearing all the bugs you mentioned, and including all the features announced. AoC was released to early mainly because of money and disapointed (too) many players.

The involvment of EA could also be a drawback, because I don't want to have to pay 5$ to change the haircut of my shaman team :) (I hate the Sims ;)).

Besides, the release date of WAR is at least 3 month earlier than Wotlk's one. Enough time to give this game try ;) (imho).

[Havelcek]

Any idea how they are going to distribute the open beta invites if you pre-purchased online from a vendor?

[Lokked]

Depending on the Vendor, they just released AEStores open beta code release date. August 13 I believe. I don't know anything about any other online vendors. Apparently those who pre-ordered from Future Shop are screwed, as Future Shop has pulled their sale of WAR on release date and will not be providing any Open Beta entry codes. Future Shop buyers should cancel your Future Shop pre-order and re-order through EA store if there are any left.

[Slats]

There is a beta and I am in it.



:)

[Lokked]

Slats - This is regarding Open Beta, the start date of which is not known yet, but suspected to be August ~23ish.

[Sarduci]

Any idea how they are going to distribute the open beta invites if you pre-purchased online from a vendor?You should have got them if you bought it from one of the partners. I've had mine for about 2 months now from when they first went on sale.

[Lokked]

I think Sarduci is referring to the Open Beta Codes, along with the Head Start and Ingame Bonus Codes. If you pre-ordered online, visit www.warhammeronline.com and there is an area somewhere there where it tells you how to get your codes depending on which vendor you bought from.

I am currently downloading the client, but I'm really confused as to what Beta I'm in. It said Closed Beta, but on the same day as I got it, a ton of others got their Collector's Edition Closed Beta Invites. So I dunno....

[tatam3x]

BTW, does anyone know if they included /stick????? Melee boxing won't be doable without it!



please read all the post in the same page before asking Warhammer Online ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=3766')
I said there is no /stick there is just /follow and /assist

And MB in ONE pc is actually impossible. because WAR doesnt accept key in an unactive windows.

[tatam3x]

When open beta pops those are the type of things I'm looking for. It'll also allow me to see how many instances my computers will run and if/what is boxable.

And I STILL want /stick!

I tried 3 instances without problem with a Q9450 but impossible to multibox and maybe not in near future.

[Morganti]

I was still looking at the FAQ when asking about /stick where they say they're undecided on including it.

I'm not planning on playing more than 1 instance of the game per computer right now, but I have 4 computers that will run the game, so I'll use the Multibox app ( http://www.dual-boxing.com/wiki/index.php/Multibox ) to key broadcast. We shall see.

[Lokked]

I have 2 comps, but I'm 100% sure I can software box this game. It's input methods are the exact same as AoC.

I'll play 3 chars, 2 on 1 box, 1 on another.

[Osium]

One thing to consider when multi boxing Warhammer is that it seems most classes have aoe knock backs that will fling your characters very far apart and in different directions. Video evidence would support this.

Once you get identified as a multiboxer I would expect you will have very little success in actually coordinating yourself due to these knock back abilities. It will be like bombed in WoW with no defense against it.

This will obviously diminish the ability to PvP. I don't think there will be many problems in PvE however.

[kadaan]

This will obviously diminish the ability to PvP. I don't think there will be many problems in PvE however.There's PvE in Warhammer? All the reviews I've read say that it's a PvP game with very very little PvE content, especially at end-game.

[JoshuaEvan]

I expect this game to be another AoC... sad to say.

[phed]

I sure hope not.

I haven't read one thing that they are changing in WotLK that is exiting to me. And most everthing I've read regarding the classes I play has been dissapiointing. No more rank 1 casting for my mage, no more plus healing gear for my twinked 39 priest, and who cares about spell pushback? If your getting pushback, then you're not playing right... at least that's been the case for my mage/priest.

Everyone I personally know that plays WoW is dreading the expansion and/or quitting (not necessary for WAR). I'm just hoping that WAR will give me my pvp fix, otherwise I'm just gonna go back to HL2: DM, CS: S, and TF2 until I find an MMO that fits my playstyle. What I like about MMO's and pvp is the ability to customize the characters you use to fit your playstyle. WoW is great for that, but the pvp options are too sparce and largely imbalanced.

Anyway, the NDA will be lifting soon (maybe monday) and the open beta is just around the corner; so, I'll soon be able to judge for myself.

[BobGnarly]

I'm sorry, I'm confused here. Doesn't open beta mean it's "open" to everybody?

[Slats]

After alot of testing I can say that multiboxing in this game while possible will not be overly rewarding.

There is /follow /assist and /aid.
There is a macro system but you cannot write macros to cast spells, only to make use of slash commands, ie the ones above.
Software boxing wont work as far as I can tell, I was using two PC's and my vetra gear.
There is a lot of CC in this game, but more knockbacks etc, that leave you in control of your character but would screw up multiboxing.
There are alot of spell lag/ability lag issues that all seem server side/client side bugs - I have a 15ms ping to my server so its definetly not network latency.

I have cancelled my second CE pre-order and I'm going to just play one account. There are alot of great things about this game and alot of not so great things but its definetly an improvment over DaoC and more interesting to me than WoW.

Just my 2c.

[MrLonghair]

I agree that it's not the easiest thing to multibox in the later stages, but I'm going to have to cancel my second CE box for another reason.

Financial ones. As a result of medical reasons. So I have a EU CE Preorder box with un-used codes right here up for sale, I could arrange some EU player to pay me and I'll pick up the CE for them from the store I got this pre-order kit from, not sure of the price and I cannot take PayPal, this is a GAME store in Sweden. Else I'll just have to leave it up for some random player in town :)
(PM if interested, I give it until the first day of September until I return it to the shop)


Honestly I don't mind going solo - the unmultiboxables are so much fun! I might end up making a tank, or an awesome awesome Witch Hunter.