Long time no see

I have been back to playing Warhammer for over a week now and its time for my first post. I wanted to wait a week or so to see if I was dabbling or back playing. I am back playing.

Its short as its late but to keep it snappy.

The removal of stacking for Rain of Fire( and similar) while taking way too long to arrive has made the differnce payers thought it would. While it may be too much to suggest the game is balanced it is in a better state than it was prior to patch.

Forts are once again defendable, which gives a better dynamic, it makes off peak lock attempts lesss painful for the opposing force.

Mass rvr game performance is still rather poor.

To finish on a bright note. Logged in this evening at 5, joined an alliance warband.The situation was order in CW with one keep to go until they were at the fort and on the way to IC.

We defended the keep, took the zone, pushed them to Reikland, took the fort, moved to Thunder Mountain and pushed to Kadrin valley and the fort there, which we took.

So the evening's gaming took me from the doorstep of IC to farming in Altdorf, half of level 64 and 7 invader crest and 100 officer medals.

All in all not a bad return to warhammer.

Customer support the right way.

The performance issue on Karak Norn has spawned a lot of angst.

It is reassuring to see a response to us the customer that begins to tick the right boxes.

Magnus writes,

Good day all!

Thanks for the great patience you've shown through these admittedly frustrating times. The feedback you've shared here and via other channels has been invaluable. In return, I'll share our current understanding of the issue and further explain our motivations for merging servers in the first place.

A curious aspect of the Norn issue is that whereas it's now our largest server, we've got several European servers which are almost as large and because of this, we wanted to exclude the possibility that a hardware issue was at fault. A rigorous analyze by our SysAdmins revealed that the Norn hardware is in good condition and running well within acceptable limits. Consequently, we've now ruled out insufficient or malfunctioning hardware as a possible cause for these problems. For good measure though, we've applied additional monitoring software to stay informed and in order to provide Mythic with more data.

In our correspondence with Mythic, it's become clear that the root to these problems is directly linked with the Tier 4 population and, to some extent, its activity. There seems to be a threshold that - when exceeded - cause a strong performance decrease. This would explain why servers only marginally smaller than Norn doesn't don't share its issues. Seen in this light, one is tempted to conclude that the recent server transfers were a mistake. However, there are two factors which must be mentioned which demand a re-evaluation of this conclusion:

* Mythic have had Norn-size servers for some time
* These servers began showing Norn-type problems after Patch 1.2


Since the transfers were activated only days after Patch 1.2 went live, this issue was not identified quickly enough for us to react and do something about it. In hindsight, it was somewhat unfortunate that the transfers and Patch 1.2 would go live so close to each other. That said, there's a silver lining to this cloud. We know from Mythic's previous experience that Norn-size servers are viable, only that this was - for some reason - changed with Patch 1.2. Mythic are keenly aware of this and redeeming this situation is a top priority. Fixes are en route, and the only question is how soon and how tangible improvements they'll bring.

We're very sorry about all of this and we'll do what we can to make it up for you. Top GOA and Mythic technicians are on top of this and we're all doing what we can to bring about a solution as soon as possible.

I had suggested that we need to see a few things, amongst them an apology and some concrete information. Kudos to Magnus for giving us most of those.

Of course the proof in this pudding will be useful fixes being patched in as soon as possible but I think we can give Magnus some credit.

ZOMG server transfer disaster, News at 11

I wrote a short time ago about players from Karak Hirn transferring to Karak Norn

Our alliance Red Eciplse (formerly Shadow Wind) has transferred from Karak Hirn.

At the moment the constituent guilds are:

Apex
DarkWind
Explicit Content
Fractal
Filth
Tainted
The Rigante
The Unnamed

What a hectic introduction to a new server. Five minutes after moving server I find that a fortress is under attack. A very enjoyable defence of our Inevitable City instance. No points for Order in the instance we were defending as an alliance(No: 95).

I could see from following chat that some misunderstandings between new arrivals and others ensued. Corwynn has an excellent write up on it all. He could write a thesis on trolling but its a fascinating piece if your a forum warrior.

One of the huge issues raised is the use of caps. In many games CAPS ARE CONSIDERED RUDE AND ANNOYING.HOWEVER THE MAIN ALLIANCES WHO HAVE TRANSFERRED FROM HIRN HABITUALLY USE CAPS WHEN LEADING A ZONE LOCK OR FORT ATTEMPT.

This has led to consternation.

It has been suggested that "I'm sorry but you moved to OUR server, so you adapt to OUR rules."

Unfortunately when hundreds of active and coordinated level 40 players move to your server the rules change. It is unreasonable to suggest they stay the same just as it is unreasonable for the new comers to impose their own rules.

I am a user of and an advocate for CAPS, when I lead events I use them, other leaders in my alliance use them as well. They stand out and they make simple orders more prominent. The vast majority of players do not care one way or the other they want to be where the action is and they want to win. Yesterday the guys using caps locked Thunder mountain(Twice), Kadrin Valley once and Caledor back to Dragonwake. They couldn't have done it if the guys that don't use caps hadn't been helping them.

So is this post to highlight how the triumph of getting a whole community to work together has turned to dust with internecine feuding.

Yes it is, Damn you GOA.

Actually I am joking. Just as Magnus said a community can work something out in regards to a transfer, I am sure he would say that teething problems on a new server are to be expected and will be sorted out by communities as well.

The good news is that we are already doing this.

We all know forums don't often give an accurate picture of the reality of a server. The forums have players from my own guild flaming players of the main destruction alliance. In reality myself and the alliance that I am a member of and that already established alliance were working together over 12 hours yesterday.

Tells were sent, whispers received. We pulled of coordinated attacks on order forces from multiple directions. We sent information to each other. we swapped zones to back each other up when needed to stop locks in other zones. we split the duties on keep takes

So while the forums are full of bluff and bravado the game was full of action and fun.

With a merger like this the Norn server is not going to stay the same nor is the Hirn server going to be rebuilt. We will even have more folk joining us from other servers.

All we are going to have is the esteem that exists between equals.

Some people are already on this page of the story, the slower readers will catch up.

So onward to Karak Norn

So GOA decided to merge some more servers and my server Karak Hirn is on the list.

It was a shock to lot of people.

Magnus from GOA posted the following.

Dear Hirn,
as some of you know, I've played on Hirn from day one and have first-hand experience of the unique and plainly awesome community found here. The decision to close Hirn has not been taken lightheartedly and has followed lengthy and sometimes turbulent discussions, but we all agree that something had to be done about population development on Hirn as well as our other English servers. Put plainly, they just weren't sporting the kind of populations we think we owe our players and some tough decisions had to go through.

A community consist of the players which are part of it and little else. I hope you'll all talk with your friends, guilds, alliances and foes to make sure you end up on the same server, allowing you to continue to develop the relationships you have built on Hirn over these months.

-Magnus

So while some fumed, others tried to do just that.

The two major destruction alliances discussed it between them, as did Order's. People took the time to learn a bit about the possible destinations.

At 8pm a large number of Order and Destruction represenatives met and discussed the transfer. Information was shared, opinions offered. It was incredibly civil and the difficulties of all particpants were catered for. In the end we opted for Karak Norn. We couldnt have done this without the cooperation of all particpants.

It was a pleasure to see "friends, guilds, alliances and foes" decide to transfer to the same server. It was great that so many different people could turn a problem into an oppurtunity.

Afterwards the fun started. We went and took some screen shots to commemorate.

Some more very good Shots and another film.