Relapse

Rudyard Kipling once said "Four things greater than all things are: Women and Horses and Power and War." I don't have Women, Horses or Power. But I can always play WAR.

I actually thought I won't be coming back to this game. But after seeing my former guild move to a much more active server and then saw their recruitment video (watch it here). I just started to itch for some realm vs. realm action. So I remedied it by re-activating my account and had a lot of fun playing with guildmates last night. It's just sad that we have to leave Phoenix Throne.

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No More WAR!

Warhammer Online is the only MMORPG that I truly enjoyed the most. But, like they say, all good things must come to an end. So, as much as I love WAR, I answered "yes" to the question above and canceled my account.

This wasn't an easy thing for me to do, however. But after giving it much thought, I decided that it is frugal and practical if I severed my ties with the game. Because (a) I won't have much spare time during the Holidays, and (b) there are tons of upcoming games that I want to play. So canceling my account in WAR will ease up my time and money.

Hopefully, when the Holidays are over, there will be some people left playing this game. So I can come back and pounce on them.

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On Elves, It Looks Good.

I didn't even realize, until yesterday, that I have around 80 blue extract sitting in my Knight's bank and inventory. So I decided to make some blue dye for my new Annihilator armor set. However, the color turned out to be a light blue green and not the kind of blue I was expecting. It really looked lame on my Knight's armor. So I re-dyed my armor back to Scorched Brown color, and auctioned all the blue dyes.

Dyed in Sea Guard Blue, High Elf White Lion (Left) and Empire Knight of the Blazing Sun (Right)

No one bought the dyes, of course, even though it was really cheap. The players probably knew that it was a bad color. I was going to sell the dyes to a vendor but decided to play around with it instead. So I divided all the dyes and sent them to all my other characters. Surprisingly, the color actually looks good on all my Elven characters. It's probably because they're effeminate, and that makes the lighter colors work well with them.

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The MMO Schedule

It's September 1st and Champions Online just came out. 21 days from now, Aion will also go live. By that time, I'll be juggling 3 MMOs, other hobbies and some minor aspects of my life. So, in order to make my life much more easier and sane, I made a two-week period schedule (see above, click image to enlarge) that I will follow to the letter.

P.S. Until I've decided which two of three MMO's I'll keep (Aion, Champions, Warhammer), updates on this blog from here on will be scarce, really scarce.

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Winning Wars, Losing Battles

IGN PC had put up a poll last Thursday, a Grudge Match between Warhammer Online and World of Warcraft. The winner, of course, was a no brainer. I mean, how can WAR, a game less than a year old with waning subscriptions, stand up against WoW, a game of 5 years with 11 million subscribers? It was a stupid poll, and the comments were even less intelligent. I voted for WAR, of course. WoW may be a more polished game with a bigger world and lots of people to play with or against. But WAR's gameplay mechanics is just much more action packed and exciting than WoW's. Plus, I always like underdogs.

Speaking of underdogs, the Order's side in WAR (Phoenix Throne server) seems to be swelling in number these days. Destruction is just nowhere to be found ever since we got into Invevitable City a month ago. Everytime I log in with my Knight or White Lion, every keep and battle objectives in the RvR lake are blue. Back when I joined this game, almost 4 months ago, everything were red and Destruction were just steam rolling us in every direction. Yeah, were losing a lot back then but it was more active and fun. Now, it's getting boring. I don't know if the rumors are true -that a lot Destruction guilds are cancelling their WAR subscriptions and are moving to Aion- But I hope Destro picks up their pace soon.

Jungle heat in Far Cry 2.

In the meantime, however, I decided not to play WAR when there's no open RvR activity. It's just a waste of time. Instead, I installed Far Cry 2 on my PC to keep me occupied. I bought this game a couple months ago when Steam slashed its price off by 50% ($40 to $20) but I've never played it. Far Cry is one of my few FPS favorites. I just like its gameplay and the atmosphere a lot. But Far Cry 2 is a far cry from its predecessor. The graphics is so realistic and cinematic. I like the lighting especially. I swear you can almost feel the jungle heat around noon time in game. The story and setting is also cool and original. It has a Blood Diamond feel to it. The freeform gameplay is awesome too. The immersion it gives you is so total. It almost feels like a RPG.

Anyways, I do hope that RvR activity in WAR will pick up soon. If not, then I might probably move to Champions Online or wherever my guild moves (our guild leader and some members are checking out Runes of Magic right now). For now, however, I'll just enjoy Far Cry 2.

My Essential WAR Addons

I've been playing Warhammer Online for months now. While I'm not a master of WAR, yet, I'm very comfortable with my skills when it comes to the game. Although, I must admit, my skills would still be in the noob level without the help of some addons.

Addons (if you're non-gamer reader of this blog) are third-party applications that you can "add on" to your game and make your life much easier. Some hardcore elitist players refer to some these applications as "cheats". Fine. They can call it whatever they want to call it. But as long as Mythic does not tell me to stop using these "cheats". I will still continue using them.

There are plenty of addons for WAR out there, and searching for the right one can be ardous sometimes. So, to help you out, I've decided to post all the addons that I can't live without.

TargetRing - A simple addon that puts a ring around your friendly and hostile targets. It may not sound useful but, trust me, it's really helps you find your target amongst a sea of destro players.

LoyalPet - An addon allows you to access certain pet commands -like turning off auto pet abilities or binding pet attacks to one of your hotkeys- that aren't native to the game, making it easier for you to micromanage lion. This mod is a must have for White Lions.

Dammaz Kron - Also known as The Book of Grudges, Dammaz Kron is a Tome of Knowledge addon that lists all the players that you've killed, or players who killed you, in player vs. player combat. If you play PvP a lot, this addon is great to have so you'd know players to avoid and players to chase.

State of Realm - Probably the most used addon in the game, and there's a reason for that. It shows you a lot of things like your realm's victory points, which zone is about to lock, which keeps and battle objectives your realm still holds or being attacked by Destruction. This is a vital mod to have if you play a lot in open realm vs. realm.

Twister - an addon designed to let Knights of the Blazing Sun easily twist three of their auras while reducing the risks of getting carpal tunnel syndrome or other wrist injuries. I use it, I love it and my groupmates love me for it.

Miracle Grow Remix - A mod that transforms your Cultivating interface into a small box that you can put on the edge of your screen. This addon is really useful for Cultivators because it lets you plant and harvest conveniently. Cultivating with it is so convenient you can even plant/harvest your seeds while fending of a train of Choppas.

Squared - a unit frame addon that was specifically designed to give you a better view of your group or warband member's health. This is a must have for all healer archetype (yes, that includes the shammies too).

Calling - This is definitely the most fun addon I've ever used. This mod will make assist trains much more effeciently. Almost all players on my guild uses this addon during RvR, and I've never seen enemy players die so fast due to being focus fired by an entire guild. So if you're guilded or play with a permanent group, I suggest you and your guildmates/friends get Calling. It's fun and you'll be more organized in combat.

So these are my favorite Warhammer Online addons. I love them and, if you haven't got any of these yet, I suggest you get them. If you have a good or favorite addon that's not on this list. Then share them with me.

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Phat Loot!

As a melee DPS class in Warhammer Online, I die a lot in Tier 4. So I decided to stop playing my White Lion and started a tank archetype, Knights of the Blazing Sun. I really love my knight right now. He's been dominating scenarios in Tier 1 ever since he hit level 6. Plus, he doesn't die a lot. Although he'll probably give me some sort of wrist injury because I've been tap dancing on my keyboard, twisting three of his auras most of the time.

But, a couple days ago, some of my guildmates started a warband in Tier 4. I have no other character on that tier except for my White Lion. So I had no choice but to unleash my war lion, unsheath my woodman's axe, and jump into the fray with my guildmates. I was expecting to die a lot that night, and I did. But -and there is a but- I killed a lot of Destro as well. I also got some phat loot too. I won both Conqueror and Warlord wristguards (which I can't wear yet) that night, and received two gold bags from keeps which gave me an Annihlator mane and helm, completing my Annihilator set.

Now I feel a little better about my White Lion. But I still want to get my knight to get into tier 4 as soon as I can. Because I think my guild needs more tanks, not only in realm vs. realm but also in dungeons.

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WAR Hammered

It's official, I'm addicted to Warhammer Online. I was assured of this last night while my guild and our alliance (composed of 2 warbands) were out in Tier 4 (Phoenix Throne server) capturing everything, locking zones and pushing the fight to all three fortresses!

So our alliance warbands were in Fell Landing, the first fortress to be sieged last night, playing decoy and keeping the Destro busy while other Order warbands took a minimally defended (or even an undefended) Butcher's Pass. After Butcher's Pass fell and the timer in Fell Landing expired we all flew to Chaos Wastes to lock it, hoping to assault The Maw as well. I didn't make it in the zone right away because I was stuck in the loading screen for about 10 minutes. So I decided to end Warhammer in my task manager and tried to re-log again. That's when I found out that my 3-month subscription had ended.

The Maw, flooded with Order players. All I can see in there were a bunch of jumbled letters.

I hastily tried to re-activate my account, and had to turn my room upside down because I couldn't find my credit card. But I made it in time for the zone lock and was able to get into The Maw. Our assault in Chaos' fortress was a lot of fun. There were waves and waves of Order players pouring inside. The the players who couldn't get in (level 36 and below) did a good job harassing Destruction players on the field, delaying their advance to fortify The Maw. Too bad, however, that I wasn't in the fortress when its Overlord fell and I accidentally opted out from the loot roll. But that's okay, we got two of Destruction's fortresses and had a shot at pillaging Inevitable City.

The invasion on Inevitable City happened around 2 a.m. (CST). Many of us, including me, who got in the city were first timers. Knowing that we had two full hours running around Destruction's city, I just had to call in sick to work. Yeah, I know it's bad but I have almost 200 hours of sick time. So using 8 hours just to experience Inevitable City seems worthwhile, don't you think? Because we might not be able to do this again sometime soon.

So let's see. I re-activated my account so I could play the game for another month, which will be my 4th month, making Warhammer Online as my longest played MMORPG. I called in sick to work just so I could keep playing this game. I have an end game character in this game (I have none in LOTRO and WoW), and as well as two characters that are above level 10. So yeah, I think I'm pretty much WAR hammered.

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WAR Recruitment

It's been a month since I've been a paying subscriber to Warhammer Online. So, in return, and in order for them to bolster the number of their players, they gave me six 10-Day trial keys to give away. Warhammer Online is a fun game, especially the player vs. player content, and that's coming from me who prefers a single-player RPG over MMORPG. So, if you're interested in playing the game. Just leave me a comment with your e-mail address (Don't worry, I won't post your e-mail address here) so I can send you a key.

Bonus: The first one to ask for a key will also get a guest pass to play Team Fortress 2.

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The Fourth War

It's unfortunate that most of my entertainment, as of late, is all about wars. I started reading a book entitled The Forever War, last February, and then I followed it by playing games with titles like Dawn of War II and Empire: Total War. Now, the staple game on my PC is also another war, a MMORPG called Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR).

A huge warband, and I'm part of it.

I bought Warhammer Online a couple weeks ago, and I'm having tons of fun with it. I don't regularly care too much about MMORPG but, for the third consecutive year now, I always get a bad case of MMO itch during spring (I played World of Warcraft last year, and Lord of the Rings Online two years ago). So it really needed some serious scratching. That and, also, Dawn of War II made me want to delve more into the Warhammer Universe -both the 40,000 and fantasy settings.

Like I said earlier, I'm having a blast playing this game. Unlike other MMOs, WAR actually understands the most common enemy of their subscribers/players: Time. Most of the quests in the game are marked on the map. So you won't make simple mistakes like going South when your quest is actually in North. Travel is also easy and fast. Most MMOs will force you to watch your character ride an auto-piloted horse or gryphon, from point A to B, which can last for eternity. In WAR, when you travel, you just enter a cut-scene and then it will load a new area. Fast and easy.

But what I really love about this game is the Realm Vs. Realm content. It is where players from the side of Order and Destruction meets in a designated area to own and pawn each other. It's a lot of fun. Especially when both Forces have huge warbands and good team work.

Anyways, to those of you who are already playing WAR, you can find me at the Phoenix Throne server. My current character is a White Lion named Aethenbrior. I'm not role-playing yet, because my Warhammer lore isn't sufficient, but I will. I'm also looking for a good guild (possibly leaning towards heavy role-playing). If you're not playing WAR, however, I'll get 6 trial-keys by the end of the month. I'll post it here so you can try playing the game.

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