The State of WAR

It has been a mostly quiet month for Warhammer Online. We are in between patches at the moment and nothing too big on the horizon.  Yesterday turned out to be a rather interesting day, but sadly not in a good way.  Some news has been circulating the net and an interesting forum post was made.

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Stellar Fortune Alpha Release

For the past couple of months I have been working on developing a game as a side project.  It has been a lot of fun and a great learning experience.  Since my end goal is to actually complete a game, I set myself a deadline to get out something playable by the end of the month.  With a day to spare, Stellar Fortune Alpha version .1 is ready for release.

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Werit goes Retro

Last week, Cryptic add the TOS Value Bundle to their online store.  To be honest, the original Star Trek probably ranks 3rd on my favorites list, behind TNG and DS9.  So I was not too interested until I started to hear how well done the new ship interiors were.  Read on for a video.

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Arsenal Updates

Over the weekend, I found myself with some free time so I updated the Arsenal of WAR.  During the last update, I added all of the Worn Sovereign gear (which I am now wearing and enjoy quite a bit).   I neglected to update another important change.

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It's a big universe

This week I spent most of my time tightening up the Captain experience in Stellar Fortune.  This involved a lot of tweaking of Traders so that there is a good choice of jobs available to the player.  I also whipped up a simple starting screen for next week's public test.  I added the concept of Star Systems to the game, read on for more details.

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Nothing but Featured Episodes

One thing I have learned from playing Star Trek Online and to a lesser degree Lord of the Rings Online, is that I do actually like some PvE.  It can't just be any old PvE though.  I've reached a point where I am pretty much finished with standard quest fare in games.

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Big WAR changes

After I posted yesterday, Steven went ahead and added some very interesting information to the thread concerning physical mitigation.  One of the major complaints about the 1.4 patch involves the power gap between RR100, 90 and everyone else.  Read on for details about how this will be addressed.

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It's physical, physical (damage)

Late last week, Warhammer Online developer Steven Engle posted a new discussion topic.  This time it was about an issue that has long been a problem in WAR, physical damage mitigation.  The thread has already reached 12 pages, so what is it all about?

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Get Tannen

Over the weekend, I finished up the second installment of Telltale's Back to the Future: The Game.  I have previously covered the first part which I enjoyed.  BttF is an adventure game, in the tradition of Kings Quest and others like it.  Sadly, it is a genre that has really fallen out of popularity.

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Expanding the economy

Last week, I covered Stellar Fortune's job system.  It is basically responsible for moving goods from point A to point B using the player and NPC's.  This week I focused my development efforts on the overall economy.  Read on for more details about Stellar Fortune's economy.

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Impressive

Star Trek Online continues to impress me.  In their latest Engineering Report (which is awesome, by the way), Producer Dan Stahl laid out their plans for the future.  This is what monthly communication should look like.  They are very clear in what their plans are, so there is very little room for misunderstanding.

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Hypothetical hypothetical

In the latest hypothetical WAR Developer discussion, James would like to know what topics we'd like to see discussed in a hypothetical discussion.  Hmmm, that is a good question.  There are no shortage of replies in the thread, but I'll throw my two cents in too.

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TOR Disappointment

Star Wars: The Old Republic is top on many peoples most anticipated game list, including mine.  With its launch due this year, the excitement is starting to build.  BioWare even brought a playable version to Pax just last weekend.  I eagerly anticipated the videos, but found myself to be a little let down.

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Grrrrrr, Red Dead Redemption

At any given time, I am usually working my way through a console game.  Lately, that game has been Red Dead Redemption.  I only get in an hour or two a week, so it takes me quite a while to finish a game.  It seems I will not be finishing RDR.

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A job is a job

When you are beginning your career in Stellar Fortune, you start out at the bottom hauling cargo.  It may not be the most exciting profession, but it is vital to the game's economy and a good place to learn the ropes.  In this post, I'll discuss the details of hauling cargo and some of the decisions still to be made.

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The trouble with keep doors

Last week, WAR's Keaven Freeman started up a new thread discussing possible changes to keep doors.  This post is a little late, not used to so much communication when planning my posts :)  Needless to say, I'm happy to have this problem!  Alright, on to the issue at hand.

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It's not you Rift, it's me

It seems that I have not logged into Rift in about a week.  During that time I have played other games: WAR, STO and LoTRO.  Development of Stellar Fortune has taken a good chunk of time as well. Still, I've decided that I will not be playing Rift beyond the first month.

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Stellar Fortune

Over the weekend, I did a lot of thinking about my Untitled game side project.  I've made some good development progress, but there really was no cohesive direction that actually made it a game.  That has changed, as I now have a clear view of how I want to use all of these pieces.  The result will be called Stellar Fortune.

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New Ship Smell

Star Trek Online has been out for over a year now, and I have just finally received my first new ship.  You get it as a part of the promotion to Lieutenant Commander.  The Light Cruiser was nice and got the job done, but it is always nice to upgrade.  Choosing my next ship was not an easy task.

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The Future of Scenarios

Warhammer Online Producer James Casey certainly wasn't kidding when he said he was going to try and communicate more.  Another developer thread was started up last week, this time it was about scenarios (Battlegrounds/Warfronts).

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MMO Update

It has been a slow week for me MMO wise.  I was sick at the start, which was bad enough to keep me off of the computer for most of the weekend.  Too sick to play... that's when you know it is bad.  Thankfully, that passed and I was able to play some this week.

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February Producer's Letter

February is a sneaky month.  With its 28 days, it is over before you know it.  The Producer's Letter for the month was a couple days late, or on-time if this were a normal month.  Anyway, it is out for everyone to read.  What does the future hold for WAR?

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You've got Galactic Mail

My task this week for the Untitled game is to get a working job in.  A job is not a quest really, but it will do for lack of a better term.  It just basically means 'doing something.'  There are a bunch of pieces to this task, the first of which is to be able to find out about it.

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Fixing the Campaign

Last week, James Casey started up a new discussion thread about the state of the campaign in Warhammer Online.  1.4 brought significant changes to how RvR operates and is a bit of a hot button issue among some WAR players.

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1.4.1 Launches Today

Welcome to March!  Warhammer Online's 1.4.1 patch goes live today.  It may not be packed with major new features, but it does have some very interesting additions and changes to the game.  Included is the new Worn Sovereign armor set, renown changes for lower RR sets and the new scenario lineup. Read on for the details.

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