Warhammer Addict

Anyone who has played MMO games knows that interface addons are a must.  It seems that the player community just has great ideas on how to improve the UI and they actively work to design stuff that will enhance your gaming experience.  But there is always a question, “How do I install the addons?”

You’re in luck because it’s actually fairly easy to install addons in Warhammer.

Step 1: Make sure you have the Addons directory.  For me, it wasn’t there by default and I had to create both the Interface and Addons directory.  The directory structure is <warhammer-installation-directory>\Interface\Addons.  Here’s a screen shot that shows the path on my system:

Step 2: Find and download the addons you’re interested in.

Step 3: Unzip the addon you downloaded into the “Addons” directory.

Step 4: Start up the game.  Your addons will be active.

You may be wondering what addons you should use.  Well, that will change over time as new addons are created, but here’s are the addons I’ve found useful at the time I wrote this.

ActionBarColor - Changes the color of your ability icons to red if your target is out of range.

AutoDismount - Automatically dismounts you when you use an ability on your mount.

BuffThrottle - Adds a delay between consecutive refreshes of a given frame’s buffs and debuffs.  This helps reduce lag in RvR.  It’s very helpful.

Squared - Create a compact grid with icons of all those in your party or warband.  Great for healers.

You may also see one called LibSlash in my screenshot.  That is an addon that enables slash commands in addons.  It is required by some addons, but not by any that I’m currently using.

One of the things I like about Warhammer Online is that the game, and particularly PvP aspects of the game are less dependent on gear and more dependent on strategy.  Don’t ge me wrong, good gear still helps, but your strategy is key.  With that, I plan to share strategies with you on this site and here’s one for the Phoenix Gate RvR scenario.

Phoenix Gate is the Tier 2 scenario in the Dark Elf/High Elf territory.  This is basically a “capture the flag” game, similar to Warsong Gulch in WoW only without buildings.  The first side to get to 500 points wins, or the team with the most points at the end of 15 minutes wins.  You earn points by killing opponents (1 point each) or capturing the flag (80 points each).  To capture the flag you go to your opponents flag, pick it up (click on it) and run it back to your base to capture it (i.e. click the base behind your flag).  You don’t get the points until the opponent’s flag has been returned to your base, and you can only capture the opponents flag if your flag is in it’s base.  It takes two seconds to grab the flag and your opponent can interrupt your ability to pick it up by inflicting damage on you.

Defense Wins

I’ve been on a few aggressively offensive teams that have won this scenario, but in most cases the team with the best defensive strategy has won.  By a defensive strategy, I mean guard your flag! I’ve been in too many scenarios where everyone runs to play offense and leaves the flag totally unguarded, giving the opposing team free reign to grab your flag and score.  For a good defensive strategy you need most of your team on defense.  There’s a good chance that your opponent will try to zerg your flag, so if you only have a couple people defending, they will get bowled over, giving your opponent a couple kills in addition to the flag.

Put all but 3-4 people on defense.  Your offensive team should consist of 1 tank, 1 healer and 1-2 DPS.  That team should sneak up from the side of the opponents flag and don’t rush in.  Send a scout to check out what your opponent is doing.  I like to scout by going up the hill going into the opponents base.  By adjusting the camera angle there, you can see what they are doing without them seeing you.  If they have a large number playing defense don’t rush in right away… you will only give them kill points.  Be patient and if both sides are playing defensive strategies, eventually one will get impatient and drop their defenses.  This is your opportunity to swoop in and snag the flag.  Let the tank pick up the flag.  I know you squishies like to carry flags, but your tank is built for it.  Let them do it.  Once you have the flag, run up on the side of the playing field where your team resurrects.  If you run on the other side, you’re running into your opponents resurrection spot and giving them a chance to kill the flag carrier.  Chances are good that you would be alright if your full offensive team is with you on either side, but the side of your rez point is ideal.

Unfortunately, if both sides are playing defense you’re in for a long game.  These games will go the full 15 minutes.  But stick to defense and you will get more kills.  Don’t push with your small offensive team while your opponent has a large defense, or you will just give them kill points. Be patient and they will most likely abandon the flag.  Or try to lure them away while you have another member of your offensive team sneak in and grab the flag.

If you’re on defense, don’t fall for the “lure them away” trick.  Stay on the flag and force your opponents to come to you.  Don’t chase them.  And keep an eye out for anyone just standing at the flag.  I’ve been able to grab the flag in the middle of a fight more than once because the opponents were distracted fighting other folks.

Also, don’t fight at the bridge, as that area is often a choke point.  If you’re on offense and fighting at the bridge, you’ll have a hard time getting through.  If you’re on defense and fighting at the bridge, there’s a good chance someone from your opposing team has snuck around to steal your flag.

If you’re on a team that is opposing me, I suggest you just hang out at the bridge and waste your time there while my team wins.

Good luck and have fun.

So, you’re looking for a list of emote commands for Warhammer Online.  Here you go.  My favorite is /special, because it does something special.

This list is just emotes, slash commands are listed separately.

/agree
/beckon
/beg
/belch
/bored
/bow
/brandish
/burp
/bye
/charge
/cheer
/chicken
/clap
/cower
/cry
/dance - You’ll do something, but you won’t dance.
/disagree
/drink
/eat
/fart
/flex
/frown
/glare
/gloat
/grumble
/halt
/happy
/hello
/howl
/impatient
/insult
/intimidate
/kata
/laugh
/lol
/mad
/no
/pickteeth
/pig
/point
/ponder
/pray
/puke
/rude
/salute
/scratch
/scream
/showoff
/shrug
/shy
/slit
/smile
/special
/stomp
/talk
/taunt
/thank
/thanks
/think
/toast
/tome
/waaagh
/warcry
/warhammer
/wave
/weep
/welcome
/whistle
/yawn
/yell
/yes

So, you’re feeling a bit naked with no cloak?  Well, you’re in luck because here’s an easy way to get a sweet looking cloak for your toon for free!  Note that I did say sweet “looking” because this cloak adds no stats, it just looks cool.

This cloak is available as a reward for a Tome unlock.  And all you need to do is kill an easy mob to unlock the tome entry.  The mobs around this are level 11 & 12, so you don’t have to be too high to do this if you have a couple friends.  I did it at level 6 (with friends of course).

Here’s what you do:

1. Go to Ostland (in the Chaos region) just north of the lake by the entrance to the zone.  The map is below with the area circled.

2. Look for a mob named Sheen Gloomleaf and kill it.  You can do this if you’re solo, in a group or in a warband, but if you’re in a warband only those in the group with the person who hits the mob first will get the tome unlock.  It respawns pretty quickly though, so if you’re with a big group you can all do it.  When you kill Sheen Gloomleaf you should get a message about the tome unlock called “Death in Green and Brown”.

3. (For Destruction) - Go to the Inevitable City and head to the library (far northwest on your map.  Look for a librarian named Disciple Venomstung, and browse items.  You should find the Shawl of Spring listed.  Select it and buy it (for free) and it’s yours.

(For Order) - Go to Altdorf and look for a librarian named Mandred Vogt.  Same deal to get the cloak.

Shawl of Spring Map

I’ve spent some time doing Public Quests over the past couple days and have noticed that talented players are rewarded well.  In case you don’t know about them yet, public quests are short, themed battles that end with a boss fight and a roll for loot.  Anyone can participate in a public quest, hence the name “public.”  They are not instance-based, but are in-game events that reset on a timer after completion.  There are stages to public quests — every one I’ve done has been three phases — and each stage is more challenging than the previous.

By default, you earn influence just for participating in public quests.  When you gain enough influence, you can cash in your influence points for rewards.  There is also loot that comes at the end of each public quest, and anyone who participated can win that loot because it’s based on rolls.  While anyone can win those rolls, those who contribute the most to the PQ (public quest) get bonus points on their rolls.

Over the past couple nights I’ve played a number of PQ’s and in 90% of them I’ve been in the top 5 contributors.  How?  I know how to game and I know how to play my class.  When I’m gaming, I give it my all and I’m very focused.  That works to my advantage.  But I also know how to play my class, which currently is a Chaos Zealot.  I don’t know all the other classes as well as this one yet, but I’ll give you a tip if you plan on playing this class: Do both damage and healing.  The Zealot is designed to be a diverse class, doing both damage and healing.  If you just concentrate on one or the other, you will earn less credit in RvR and PQs.  My technique (currently) is to do as many instant cast spells as I can.  There are HOTs (heal over time) and DOTs (damage over time) that are instant cast.  There are also burst heal and damage with an instant cast.  I am non-stop moving across my hot keys, mixing up the damage and heals.  This is a sure win approach.

Want proof?  I won loot in over 50% of the PQs I participated in, and in 15% I won Greater Loot (a rare drop).  That set me up with some sweet gear for a lowbie, including an epic robe from the Bells of War PQ.  Here’s a screen shot showing the robe.

I’ve spent the weekend playing open beta on Warhammer Online and I’me officially hooked.

Despite my previous apprehensions expressed in Warhammer Versus Warcraft, Warhammer wins.  Some critics say, “It’s just a copy of World of Warcraft.”  At first glance, I can see how people would have that impression, but as you get into the nuances of the game it is much different.  And I don’t even consider the similarities to be “copying” as much as “applying conventions.”  Many of the shortcut keys are the same, many GUI layout conventions are the same, the color coding on loot is the same, (i.e. grey, white, green, blue, purple).  And while you could argue that they copied from Warcraft, at the same time it makes it a fuck of a lot easier to learn a new game when conventions from other games are employed.  It’s just smart.

How is it different?  For starters, being a lowbie is fun.  In fact, the game designers put in a lot of features that actually make you not want to level too fast.  With other games (like WoW) it’s often a race (or a grind) to get your toon to the max level… and the game doesn’t really begin until you have your toon leveled up.  In Warhammer, you miss content if you level too fast.  And you can’t go back to check it out without creating a new toon, because if you do go into a lower level after you’ve progressed you will get a major debuff as soon as you attack something… so major that a level 1 toon can one-shot you.  The debuff turns you into a chicken.  One of my guildies got turned into a chicken at level 12 and a level 1 rat killed him… funny shit.

The  way the game is created, it actually encourages you to create alts.  Each race and career that you chose is a totally different experience.  This is going to require guilds to rethink alt policies.  Many guilds discourage alts because it creates animosity when an alt wins loot over a main.  Given the level-based content and the desirability of alts, I’ve suggested to my guild that we pick a level zone for each night of raiding (i.e. levels 1-11 on Mondays, 12-21 on Tuesdays, etc.).

Another great thing about Warhammer is that it rewards diverse types of activity.  You earn levels for your character and you earn a separate levels for your PvP participation.  Your guild earns levels and the members of the guild are rewarded for being in a high ranking guild.  Cities also earn levels and you get access to rewards as a city grows.  There are chapters as each level that you level up for rewards.  And more.

It’s all very exciting.  I’ll post some screen shots soon.

Here are some slash commands to help you manage Warhammer more efficiently.  I’ve excluded emotes from this list, I’ll post those separately.

General

/aid <target> is like assist only for a defensive target
/assist <target> allows you to target another player’s target
/bug <message>submits an ingame bug report
/friend <player name> adds the named player to your friends list
/follow <target> allows you to follow the targeted player
/help lists all slash commands available
/respec this command resets every trained ability, tactic, and morale as if you were level one and had never talked to a trainer before.
/stuck if you get stuck this will teleport you to a nearest respawn location

Guild, Group and Warband Management

/gc invite <target> invites the player to your guild
/gc apromote <target> promotes the player’s rank in the guild alliance
/gc ademote <target> demotes the player’s rank in the guild alliance
/invite <target> invite a player to group
/warbandconvert 1 (open) /warbandconvert 0 (private) to convert a group to a warband
/w - /wb for warband chat
/warbandconvert (1|0) will convert your warband into an open, if you chose 1, or private, if you chose 0, warband
/warband move <#> moves that player into whatever # party in the warband you chose
/warband swap swaps player name 1 with player name 2 in the warband
/warband promote <target> promotes the player
/warband demote <target> demotes the player
/warband makeleader <target> make the player the leader of the warband
/warbandban <target> bans the player from the warband
/warbandunban <target> unbans the player from the warband
/warbandpassword requires folks to put in a password to join the warband
/warbandpassword cancels the password
/join <target> joins that player’s warband if that player has an open warband. Use the password segment if the warband has a password and you know it
/leave leaves the warband. May disband warband

I have some good news and some bad news about finding a guild.  Let’s get the bad news out of the way first.

I did a lot of searching online to find the right guild.  I searched gaming sites and forums and did a ton of Google searches.  One thing I noticed something in the suggestions field when I did my Google searches that depressed me.  If you have toolbar installed in your browser and you type in a query, Google feeds you suggestions on how to enhance your query based on search volume for related terms.  When I typed in “warhammer online guilds” Google thought I might want to add “order” to that query, because obviously a large number of other folks are using that phrase.  It did not suggest I add “destruction” to the query.  This means significantly fewer people are searching Google for Destruction guilds.

Why?  Here’s some possibilities.

• More people are planning to play Order.  (Boo hiss!)
• Destruction are mostly more experienced and organized players who already have guilds.
• Destruction players don’t use Google as much as going directly to gaming sites like Curse, Ten Ton Hammer and Warhammer Alliance.

Ultimately, my fear is that more people are going to play Order and Destruction will lose, not because they’re not as good, just because they don’t have the numbers.

The Good News

I found a guild.  Most of my friends in WoW are staying there, so I set out to find some new folks to guild with in Warhammer.  I was looking for a guild of experienced, smart Destruction gamers who run the guild in a casual to semi-hardcore fashion.  When I play, I’m 100% focused on the game, but I’ve learned that I need to have balance with other things in my life.  I didn’t want a guild with constant pressure to play for 5-6 hours every night.  I didn’t want a guild that was going to race to be the first to conquer end game content.  I wanted to find a group of good gamers who want to have fun and enjoy the game, but are organized and talented.  I think I found that with the Bad Moon Clan.  I can’t wait to get in and run with these guys.  If you’re looking for a Destruction guild and my description matches what you’re looking for, I encourage you to check them out.

The folks over at The Greenskin posted a great write-up the other day on a career poll conducted by Warhammer Alliance.  They’ve included lots of charts and graphs to show what careers are most popular.  I was surprised to see that Chaos Magus was in the bottom three—when I was playing over the weekend it seemed like every other person I came across was a Magus.  Perhaps it was the server I picked.

Anyway, check out the article.

A challenging, and sometimes time consuming, task when building a character is choosing your stats.  In Warhammer Online, like most games of it’s type, you’ll have a limited number of points to assign to your stats.  And you’ll have plenty of opportunities to fuck things up if you don’t know what your doing.

There always are some math geeks out there who will crunch the numbers to figure out the best builds.  Bless them.  I am not one of them.  But I do give it some thought (which I’ll be doing over the next couple weeks).

Stats are earned through the “renown” system, which is a leveling system based on RvR activity (it’s separate from your character leveling).  And, you can plan your stats using a renown planning tool that’s already available from wardb.com.

I’d give you a direct link to the tool, but there are several depending on your career.  You can find it under the “tools” section of the navigation of wardb.com.  This is an awesomely handy tool, but what good is it if you don’t yet know what the stats do?  It’s not totally clear from the names, but here is a quick guide to help you sort it out.

• Ballistic Skill - Increases ranged damage and decreases your enemy’s ability to block or dodge your ranged attacks.
• Initiative- Increases chance to dodge ranged attacks, detect stealthed enemies and decreases critical hits from enemies.
• Intelligence - Increases magical damage and decreases your enemy’s ability to disrupt or block your attacks.
• Strength - Increases melee damage and decreases enemies ability to parry or block your attacks.
• Toughness - Reduces the damage dealt to you from all sources.
• Weapon Skill - Increases chances to parry melee attacks and allows melee attacks to partially ignore an enemy’s armor.
• Willpower - Increases chances to disrupt hostile spells and increases healing you do.
• Wounds - Increases your maximum hit points.

So, based on this, I have decided that I want to max out everything… if only for a day.

Beyond your stats, there are also resistances that you can designate through renown points.

• Elemental Resistance- Increases resistance to magical damage caused by fire and lightning
• Corporeal Resistance - Increases resistance to damage from corporeal magic (a physical damage that’s different from regular physical damage — confusing, huh?)
• Spirit Resistance - Increases resistance to spiritual magic (things like priest curses)