Ghost town [Archive] - TribalWar Forums

Oxyminoan

11-21-2007, 06:01 PM

Greetings! It's that time again to share some news from the front lines in the second part of our WAR Beta Updates. Learn about itemization, city life in Altdorf, insider information on the Marauder and much more!

The RvR Team

The construction of the Elf scenarios is well under way with the first seven in various levels of polish. We should have three of those seven , along with some new scenarios for the Empire and Chaos zones. We have also been making changes to existing scenarios across all pairings. These changes have been focused on equalizing run times between the realms and adjusting the game play based on the feedback we have received. This week we’re going to evaluate ways to make access to scenario queues easier, while still keeping an immersive feel.

The Item Team

Itemizing the elf chapters continues… What does itemizing a chapter entail? Well we go through every quest that gives rewards and create 24 quest items for it. Every quest in WAR gives you a choice of reward when you complete it, and those rewards are filtered to only show items that are specific to your career. Then we do the same thing for influence rewards -- influence rewards are also filtered in a career-specific way.

Then we figure out all the monsters in that chapter and make sure that they drop loot, and that the loot is level appropriate for that monster. We also make sure that players will also drop loot when killed in RvR when we do this. Then we hook up all the stores in that chapter, including the renown stores – where all the great RvR items can be found.

Afterwards we create all the loot for the three PQs in that chapter. Each PQ boss can drop some very-rare unique items, and some rare and uncommon stuff too. PQ bosses also drop most of the armor-set pieces. If there’s a set piece noted for a PQ in this chapter, we add those items to loot that can appear in the chest. We’ve also been looking at how we give out loot in PQs this week – But that will be in an Update later on by the PQ Team.

So, as well as just churning out items for the elf chapters we’re also putting in new stuff. We have our first iteration of the Trophy system in testing right now. We’ve been doing all our testing using an in-game Witch Hunter model, and it’s been fun trying out all the combinations of placement points.

Let me tell you that what I was shown with this first iteration of the Trophy system is certainly very exciting. The Witch Hunter is a great model to show off the Trophy system, especially with all the visual doodads and thingamajigs that they can have hanging around. It’s *almost* like you’re doing a visual conversion on the model itself, like you would with a Warhammer Fantasy miniature.

The Cities Team

Hello from Altdorf! The cities team has been busy this week doing some really fantastic work on the Empire’s home city. One of our biggest tasks this week has been working on one of the most important elements of a good city: pubs! One of my favorite pubs located on the docks tentatively called “the Blow Hole”. Once an Empire Galleon, the remains of this old ship have been salvaged to form the entrance. It’s immediately recognizable from a distance and sure to be a favorite place to unwind and swap stories.

Another exciting feature we added this week are the crypts beneath the Temple of Sigmar. Our content developers have been delving deep underground, adding terrifying encounters with the undead, spirits, and deranged monks. These places are extremely tough and will be a challenge even for the most seasoned adventurer. The monks are always looking to add a few more tombs. More to come!

The UI Team

Most recently we just overhauled the main map from the ground up. Until this point, we had only zone level maps and then a long list of names of all the zones. Now we have a World map and a Pairing level map, as well as the Zone maps, and a method of navigating between them that should feel very intuitive.

These changes to the system has allowed us to integrate many things into the maps that weren't there previously, such as the quest tracker (allowing for more fluid waypoint toggling), filters to turn on and off various pieces of information, and by far my favorite, map coordinates. Hooray! Coordinates have actually been very useful to the development process though they were originally designed only for player use, so it just goes to show you how good designs can be pervasively beneficial.

Oh, the maps are now larger so that you can get a much clearer visual picture of what you're doing, and where you need to go at any time.

Overall the maps are very indicative of the style that we're going to be using in all of the UI, in particular the parchment graphics, and we're using the maps in other places that they can help to provide more information to the player. In fact, we've just begun integrating the map system into the Tome of Knowledge, so you'll be able to see a visual representation of your Main map in special key locations in the Tome as well.

Needless to say, the Tome of Knowledge is going to be one of the main objects in the game that players will be interacting with on a day to day basis. The designs of the Tome, in this case in regards to maps, really make it feel like you’re holding an actual large bound book in the game. I can’t wait to see someone try and create a Tome in real life.

The Combat and Careers Team

Marauder: We had so much feedback from the Marauder peek last week that we thought we'd get a little more into detail! The Marauder is "dual wielding" in the sense that they have a weapon in their right hand, and a mutated...thing...in what was formerly their left hand, and they're beating you over the head with both hands at the same time. Whenever they're mutated, they'll get the same combat benefits that someone dual-wielding weapons would get, and their mutated limb is considered to be a rare-quality weapon as far as DPS goes.

As far as the mutations themselves, the Marauder will have several different mutated forms which each provide different benefits and unlock different abilities: a claw-like arm will increase their Weapon Skill and its attacks will be suitable for taking down heavily-armored targets (e.g. Rend, a shredding attack which causes damage over time and increases each time you apply it), while a bone-bladed forearm will increase their Strength and provide strong positional attacks (e.g. Impale, which does heavy damage but can only be used from the victim's back), and a crushing club-like appendage will increase their Toughness and grant attacks which sweep larger areas at a time (e.g. Demolition, which hits all enemies in a cone in front of you and knocks them down).

Additionally, there will be some special abilities which are usable in any mutated form (such as Uncontrollable Warping, which makes your mutated arm explode right off of your body, damaging everything nearby...and you, too!).

Tooltips: Up until this point, the Beta tooltips have been fairly rudimentary, but our tooltips as a whole will be getting a large overhaul soon. While it may seem simple at first glance, keep in mind that your abilities are constantly improving as you increase in rank - we make strong efforts to ensure that your abilities will -always- be useful, but this means that they're always changing, which wreaks havoc with tooltips!

Some upcoming changes will finally allow us to show you some more of the actual numbers that drive your abilities. For example, a Bright Wizard's "Sear" will no longer simply say "A basic magical attack", but will instead say "Deals 18 Elemental damage to your target", and you'll be able to see the automatic upgrades that are inherent in your abilities when it says "Deals 47 Elemental damage to your target" a couple of ranks later. Additionally, we'll have far-more-detailed ability data, including build time, cooldown time, cost, range, requirements, and so on, for every ability.

That should answer most of the questions in regards to the abilities and how the mutations interact with each other in regards to the Marauder. The update to the tooltips also helps as well. Now you’ll have a much better understanding of how the various abilities stack up to each other, but how they compare as they level up as well. No more hiding behind vague descriptions and that is certainly a good thing.

Well that wraps up this week’s Beta Update for all the lads and lasses out there. Between this and the October newsletter that you should be getting shortly this should help fill your craving for all things WAR!

Until next time, keep it tuned here… Same Squig time! Same Squig channel!

We bring you Part 3 of our Beta Test Updates straight from the battlefield to your home! Be ready for Trophies, Taverns, and Tomes!

The Cities Team

We begin this week’s update with new images of the Empire capital city of Altdorf. I’ve been given two exclusive screen shots of the Blow Hole Tavern and the Library.

http://www.warhammeralliance.com/gallery/files/3/1-BlowHole.jpg

http://www.warhammeralliance.com/gallery/files/3/2-Library.jpg

These give you an idea of the detail that’s going into our capital cities. As an added bonus, in this month’s Newsletter we have a video tour of Altdorf. You’ll see the Blow Hole from the perspective of someone walking down the street. If you watch closely, you’ll also see areas of the city in ruin and on fire. This is the first glimpse at what this incredible city is going to look like after it’s been ravaged by the forces of Destruction. You can find the video here.

The Trophy System

Next up is new information on the Trophy system. As you may be aware, our Trophy system is one way for a player to differentiate their character visually from all of the other characters of the same career. In a nutshell, as you unlock items in your Tome you will gain access to Trophy items that you can place on your character. Up to five trophy items that you can show at once, but you’ll have from 11 to 15 slots to showcase them.

Below is a picture of the Witch Hunter that we’re using as a tech demo for the Trophy system.

http://www.warhammeralliance.com/gallery/files/3/3-WH_Trophy_Test_01_175749. jpg

Shown above are some of the various options the Witch Hunter will have as far as locations go. In Picture 1 you can see that the WH has a dagger on his hat, two in his bandoleer, and a scroll on his belt. In Picture 2 the WH moved the scroll from the belt and placed it on his bandoleer as well.

Picture 3 shows a scroll on the WH’s hat as well as one on his right arm. He has three daggers as well. Two are on his left arm, and one is on his right. In Picture 4 he goes ahead and moves the scroll from his hat and places on the back of his belt. Then in Picture 5 he moves the three daggers and one scroll from his arms and places them on his bandoleer and belt.

As you can see, this is a quick and easy way for a player to personalize the look of their character with the various trophies that they have unlocked throughout their adventure without affecting their stats.

As a note, this is just the tip of the iceberg as far as the Trophy system is concerned. Our artists are slaving away so that you will have access to 100’s of trophies to choose from. Just think of the combinations that you can achieve when you have 100+ trophies, five to select, and 11 different locations to equip them. Talk about visual specialization!

World Development Team

Greetings from the World Development Team! This week the World Development Team is implementing the first pass of Elf content in the Tier 4 zones, Eataine, Dragonwake, Caledor, and the Isle of the Dead. This high-level content involves some of the most prominent characters in the Warhammer IP with some of the most intriguing story and encounters to date. We are very excited about this content and are spending a lot of energy to make sure it’s perfect.

We are also putting the finishing touches on our most recent iteration of monster abilities. We’ve reworked some of the core abilities to allow us more flexibility across the board and have added new ones to more fluidly synchronize with our player classes. This iteration is in the early stages and following their creation they will be sent to testing and then, eventually, associated with the monsters themselves.

The Art Team

On the art side of things, we’ve finished the first rough for the Elf dungeon and it’s looking great! Combined with the fantastic story and great IP location, this dungeon is shaping up to be our most exciting one yet.

The UI Team

Last week the UI team talked about updates to the in-game Map system. This week they are talking about updates to one of our most exciting features within the UI: The Tome of Knowledge.

The Tome of Knowledge has gotten an overhaul and looks absolutely fantastic. We've finalized and updated all of the sections in the Tome. Not every section is going to be visible yet (because there are still tons of secrets), but we've outlined all the major sections and filled them with lots of really interesting and fun content so that players will be able to spend a lot of time messing around with it. This includes updating the reward systems and letting you know how you got various unlocks.

Previously on the beta, it was a big secret how to get a Title, for example, now we'll actually tease the events that trigger them so you have a little more guidance going forward. You won't have all the guidance though; we are trying to keep a lot of things with the Tome hidden, so you'll have plenty of things to discover when we launch.

We've also given the Tome a graphical overhaul and a lot of visual polish. It's amazing how a few changes to something like the bookmarks makes it feel and look a lot better. The ease of navigation has greatly increased with just some changes conceptually to how the Tome is built. We can't begin to express how happy we are with where the Tome is now, and how much we're going to be able keep on expanding it and making it even more interesting.

Combat & Careers Team

Swordmaster: The Swordmaster is a more offensively oriented Tank career that specializes in combat chains called “Blade Dances”. Each successful Blade Dance contains a total of three sequentially chained attacks. Each attack in the chain shifts the Sword Master’s balance closing off the previous abilities and opening up options for new attacks. This chain sequence is always Balanced -> Improved Balance -> Perfect Balance, and by level 40 the Sword Master will have multiple options for each balance stage. This will allow them to flexibly choose what type of attack to launch next.

The following is an example of a “Blade Dance” chain; this sequence is intended to keep a ranged class from fleeing combat allowing the Sword Master to follow up with a more offensive Dance to finish them off. The Sword Master opens with Ensorcelled Blow (A melee attack that does magical damage instead of physical, allowing him to bypass normal armor) this attack shifts him into Improved Balance. He then follows up with a Quick Incision (Deals damage over time and snare you’re opponent) which then shifts him into Perfect Balance. The Sword Master’s final attack is Whispering Wind (Melee Damage & Spell Interrupt with a high chance to Silence the target). After completing the sequence the Sword Master returns to “Balanced” and can then choose a new chain of attacks to begin on his now snared (and probably silenced) victim. Keep in mind the Sword Master is not locked into a set chain so in the case of the above sequence the Sword Master might choose to end with Ether Dance (A 3 second string of high damage magic melee attacks) if his target wasn’t currently casting a spell.

The Sword Master can also supplement his Dances with a variety of self buffs & defensive skills. The Sword Master’s self buffs come in the form of weapon enchantments. These self buffs play an integral part in the Dance since the type of magical damage applied by most attacks is determined by the enchantment on the blade. In addition each enchantment comes with a chance to proc an additional effect on the target. An example of an Enchantment is “Natures Blade” which allows the Sword Master to launch corporeal attacks as well as giving him a chance to drain stats temporarily from his target.

Playing a Swordmaster will be all about making strategic decisions, and utilizing your weapon enchantments & Blade Dances in the most effective way for the situation. An accomplished Sword Master will always be planning two steps ahead of his opponent in an attempt to properly direct the flow of the battle to his advantage. As such the Sword Master tends to attract players who focus more on evenly paced strategic game play.

Witch Elf: Witch Elves are dual-wielding lightly-armored attackers, capable of quickly dispatching a target at close range with blades, poisons, and elixirs. All of their attacks will either build or expend their Frenzy, requiring a constant stream of attacks to rebuild Frenzy points. As an example, she may begin the fight with a Ruthless Assault, an attack which builds up several Frenzy points but can't be used once engaged in combat. She can immediately expend her Frenzy with a Heart Render, which reduces the target's Toughness and becomes more powerful when more Frenzy was spent. While the enemy is more vulnerable, the Witch Elf will Slice them repeatedly to rebuild her Frenzy, and then attack with a Mangling Cleave which once again expends her Frenzy and snares the target, lasting longer when more Frenzy was spent.

Blades are not the Witch Elf's only weapons, however, as she has a stock of poisons and elixirs as well. After selecting a poison, all of the Witch Elf's attacks will gain a chance to cause an additional effect, but she may only use a single poison at a time (such as a Withering Poison which causes the target to deal less damage, or a Dark Poison which deals damage over time). Her elixirs, on the other hand, are potent and fast-acting draughts which greatly increase her effectiveness for a short period of time, but then take a toll as well (for example, the Elixir Of Insane Power will greatly increase the Witch Elf's Strength for 10 seconds, but will then slightly reduce her Strength for another 10 seconds after the effect has ended).

Much of the strategy of playing a Witch Elf will depend on knowing when to bring all of these elements together - how long to build up Frenzy before expending it, which attack to expend it on, which poison you should be using for the specific situation, and when to best use an Elixir to maximize the benefit while minimizing the weakness.

After having seen both of these careers in action on our internal server, I can say they will certainly appeal to many players out there. Plus, their animations (while wildly different) are simply amazing to watch.

The trophy system is going to be phenomenal; much better than I had even hoped for. I think the beta will be much better when they reopen it in December. I wouldn't even call what some of you played Beta...more like Alpha 1 and 1/2. But who knows?

I've been busy the last few weeks; Vegas, Moving, etc. Plus all the great games have been coming out all together after months of absolute crap. (Witcher, TF2, Quake Wars, Mass Effect, Assassin's Creed, CoD4, Crysis, etc.) I haven't really been following as closely as I used to. When Beta starts back up in another couple of weeks, I'll probably start caring more. But as it is, I'm too busy with other games to really care. :shrug:

Part 5 of Beta Update:
It’s update time once again and so here is the latest peek behind the scenes at EA Mythic.

The Cities Team

Hello from the Cities Team! This week some truly exciting work is being done. As you walk through the streets of Altdorf or the Inevitable City, there are HUGE buildings that dominate the sky; think “Big Ben” or the “Eiffel Tower”. We call these structures “Marvels”. Marvels help us provide the iconic look and feel of a city and make them immediately recognizable. But as amazing as they are to look at, until this week you couldn’t actually enter inside.

It was a major let down, many of us wept. But now we are rejoicing as we are building the interior structure of the Bright Wizard College, the grand hall and throne room of Emperor Karl Franz, and the terrifying Magus tower of the Inevitable City.

The process of buildings these interiors requires a great deal of planning. In keeping with our guiding principle, WAR is everywhere so these interior spaces are not simply places to take screenshots, but places to wage epic battles! So, with that in mind we carefully proto-type our play spaces, check them out for the number of players we expect to engage, and then the very necessary Games Workshop concept approval process, and finally we start to model and texture them.

We’re on the last phase now so it’s all coming together. We look forward to meeting you all inside these cities, making new friends, and bashing some heads together.

The Items Team

After last week’s revelations about the trophy system, this week they have some news about another customisation aspect – armour dyes!

We’ve started applying tints to armors throughout the whole game. Some tint colors are “reserved” – they’ll only be used on specific cool bits of armor. Also, some colors will have specific in-game meaning. All the other colors will be distributed among everything else.

We’ve also been finishing up the details of our dyeing system. Will players be able to dye their armor? Yes. Will players be able to “bleach” or revert dyed armor back to its original color? Yes. We'll keep you all updated as this system progresses.

As an aside we’ve also been playing around with some itemization systems to make random drops “feel” better to the player. These systems will make it much more likely that a player will be able to use an item that drops.

The Animation Team

Elves. Getting the Elf careers that we’re rolling out this round up to where we’re all happy with them being ravenously consumed (after such a patient fasting) has been really our top priority goal. Following closely behind is support for the Elf starter zones and monsters for those pairings. We’ve been working closely with code to get a system in for “monsters what ride other monsters” since we can’t keep those crazy content writers from making zones full of elf cavalry. No, this does not mean we have either player mounts or mounted combat. It just means that we can hook a couple things together and have it be able to fight that way without having to do some crazy zillion bone rig with both rider and mount being in the same model.

As an interesting factoid, the proof of concept work was done on the Lab Rat (skaven model you’ve seen in so many videos), and our first tests were retargeted onto a goblin wolf rider. The main reason you keep seeing the Skaven show up in so many of Paul’s video diaries is that, since he’s not a player character, and NPCs don’t require a ton of work, I know that nobody will be needing him for anything important. This way I can continually do R&D with a valid model whose anims work “ok” on most humanoids, and I’m not ever keeping, for example, someone from polishing the Empire Male set because I’m busy testing a new feature. And because I like them. A lot.

There are a ton of things we’ve been doing in conjunction with the Cities team as well, and they make me keep adding more insanity to my spreadsheets. But we’re getting a lot of neat ambiance in.

Issues from previous beta stuff that we’ve been improving upon:

* Swimming should be functioning a little better across the board, not final, but Code has made a lot of improvements, and we’ve now got splash sounds happening where appropriate (no fx yet though).
* Hopefully not stealing any C&C thunder, but animation and FX integration is improving a lot, and now we finally have the ability for both weapons on a dual-wielding character to have weapon trails.
* Flying creatures now path around properly and don’t move to a point, wait, then pop to the next point, where they’ll wait. It’s all smoooooth and stuff.
* We changed the way that the client handles build-up times on abilities, and the new system will ensure I can’t screw it up. It defaults to stretching the “build” anim for any ability that has a cast time.
* Draw and Holster is now working more as intended again. We’re working on adding hot-swaps between melee and ranged weapons when you hit X for those rangey hybrid types. Stock melee or caster guys should just see things working correctly.

The UI Team

User Interface, or User Interactions, or the Team of Extreme Awesomeness as we're often called, has always had a unique challenge. It is our responsibility to present each of the varied systems in the game (RVR, Careers, Crafting, Trophies, Public Quests) in ways that make them easy to understand and easy to use, while still reflecting how exciting they are. And we have to tie these wildly different systems together, visually, so it doesn't look like you're staring at the interface for twenty different games each time you open a new window.

So we made a decision to revisit the UI from the ground up. Which means, literally, we're touching every window in the game. Nothing that was in the game a month ago can be considered finished.

It's an exciting, but daunting prospect. Our first two attempts at overhauling the UI were with two huge, and somewhat independent systems, the maps and the Tome of Knowledge. We showed updates of both those windows in the last few weeks, but showing you what they look like now doesn't give you any indication of the direction that we're going with the rest of the UI. The maps and the Tome are stylized parchments, a look we're not going to use for the default windows.

So our third, and probably most visually impactful, attempt to overhaul the UI was to take on the look of the default window.

There's a joke around here that starts with us showing UI mockups around to other people on the team, and ends with the punchline ""There's too much brown."" So when the UI designers and artists sat down to reevaluate the UI with our ""ground up"" mentality, we decided to get away from brown.

And to give you an idea of the holistic way in which we're approaching our UI redesign, here's an example of some things that have gotten extremely long discussions in the past few months:

* Use of Color
* Use of Iconography
* Messaging Types
* Things Over People's Heads
* Icons on the Map and Minimap
* Toggles versus Checkmarks

By the time beta reopens, you won't see an entirely new UI. We've been working on establishing the fundamentals, and will, over time, be incorporating the new look into every window. Aside from changing the look of windows, we're also revisiting the functionality of every UI element. But you will begin to see it, window by window.

So here's a mockup of what you should begin to look for... The New, Improved, NOT BROWN, User Interface Default Window.

The Combat & Career Team

Career Mastery (Specialization) - We know that you've all been eagerly awaiting more details on how we plan to allow players of the same career to differentiate themselves from one another, and we're thrilled to be able to take this opportunity to unveil the Mastery system for the first time!

General Overview

Career Mastery will allow players focus on different facets of their career giving them the opportunity to differentiate themselves from others, while still making sure that every character, no matter how they're specialized, can still perform the basic and fundamental purpose of their career. For example, every Sword Master will be an able tank, capable of absorbing much more damage then a lighter fighter. However someone who specializes in the Sword Master’s defensive path will find that they are generally more durable, able to hold aggro better in PvE and able to defend their friends more efficiently in an RvR scenario. Meanwhile a Sword Master who chooses to go a more offensive route will still be able to take a hit, but may find themselves hard pressed to defend & protect as well as their counterpart, admittedly they will be hitting quite a bit harder as a trade off.

To begin at the most basic layer, every player will have four grouping of skills: Core skills and skills that fall under one of three different Paths of Mastery. The Core skills include a small handful of abilities which are simply critical to the career (to continue the example above, a Swordmaster would find that their Taunt and Guard abilities are Core). These Core skills automatically improve as you gain ranks; once you learn them, they won't require any further investments. Moving beyond that, each career will have three paths available to Master, each of which emphasizes one specific facet of the career's abilities. While the Core skills represent a more automatic progress, the pathed skills are heavily player-controlled.

Each Mastery contains Base skills, Supplemental skills, and also has its own Mastery level. Base skills are the Actions, Tactics & Morale a player is granted as a reward for achieving a specific level, every character of that Career will always be able to purchase these skills, however their total effectiveness is intimately tied to the player’s level of Mastery. Supplemental Skills are the Actions, Tactics, and Morale that a player can only unlock by increasing their Mastery of a given path, like Base skills Supplemental skills continue to increase in effectiveness as you’re Mastery level increases. The Mastery level itself is the current amount of Mastery a player has in a particular path, players will be able to choose just how much Mastery they desire in each of the three paths available to them.

Earning Skills & Increasing Mastery

Skills can be earned in one of two ways Base skills are unlocked when you achieve a specific rank then purchased at you’re trainer, players can choose to skip a Base skill if they desire but there is no good reason not to. Supplemental skills however are only unlocked once you reach a certain Mastery level, once unlocked a player has to choose to spend points to purchase these skills. This is a difficult choice b/c the same points used to purchase Supplemental skills are used to increase Mastery level. These points are referred to as specialization points, and are earned every rank, a player will never have enough Specialization points to completely Master multiple paths while purchasing Supplemental skills. It is a tough choice b/c every point of Mastery earned improves EVERY action in that mastery line by a small amount this includes the Base Skills you automatically get. One level of Mastery can seem trivial however they add up and 5 or 10 points of Mastery makes a significant difference!

There is some amount of automatic leveling of power for skills in the paths outside of their Mastery. This is done to make sure the ability is not completely useless to the player, in fact many abilities may still be useful for secondary effects such as Stun even if they have horrible damage/healing values b/c their Mastery level is lower. When comparing the general power of an ability of a path with 100% Mastery and one with 0% Mastery you will see around a 30 – 35% difference in power. Remember this number can be improved (or widened) further depending on which Tactics and Stats you focus on as well.

Simple Examples

Example #1 - How a Base Ability improves with Mastery. Graceful Strike, a melee attack which causes monsters to hate you more than normal would be a base ability that falls into the Path of Vaul, which is the Sword Master's defensive-oriented Mastery. Every Swordmaster, whether or not they've specialized in that path, would have access to that ability. However, after a certain point, the damage and additional hatred will have reached their full potential, and will stop increasing. If the player then decides to use part of their specialization to increase their Mastery in the Path of Vaul the damage and extra hate will increase above that cap - and the further they specialize into that Mastery, the greater and greater the effectiveness becomes, however this ability still retains some use to players of other Paths who will find it useful for it’s additional Hatred generated since it is still better then many of the standard Melee attacks.

Example #2 - Purchasing additional Supplemental Skills. To stick with our hypothetical Swordmaster, for example, let's rejoin him after he's spent several of his specialization points to gain further Mastery of his defensive path (Path of Vaul). Once his Mastery increases sufficiently, he'll see that a new attack has become unlocked called Crushing Advance. This ability is a shield slam that not only does damage and interrupts casting but also briefly increases his chance to block attacks further bolstering his defense. In order to purchase it, he'll need to divert his next point away from increasing his Mastery further, and spend it to gain the attack instead. This is only one such example of an additional supplemential Skill, players will also have access to improved tactics and a powerful Level 4 Morale in their Mastery

For the astute you’ll have also noticed that the Path of Vaul seems to have a focus on using a “Sheild” instead of a “Greatsword” tricky eh?

Closing

In the end every player can decide not only how deeply to Master each path, but also which additional skills they might want to purchase from that specialization choice. You may choose to go full-bore down one path, max out its Mastery and purchase every supplemental skill, making your character outstandingly good at that aspect...but you'll only have enough points remaining to Master another path halfway at the most. Do you go as far as you can in a second path? or do you split your other points between multiple paths? Do you purchase the supplemental skills in those other paths, or do you decide to push your Mastery as high as you can? Maybe you decide not to push one path to its limit, and instead purchase several supplemental skills from multiple paths - but remember, you need Masteries to make those skills more powerful, too! Our specialization system will be a rich and flexible tool to customize your character exactly the way you want them!

We hope you enjoyed the sneak preview of the Career Mastery system, we have high hopes that these improvements will further enrich our character systems. We’ll be listening closely for additional questions and feedback and answering them as we can over the next couple of Beta update letters.

The RvR Team

The first stage of changes and additions to open world RvR is under way and I’ve been cleared to share with you a glimpse of the details. We received a lot of feedback regarding warcamp camping, the battlefield objectives, and the feeling of the RvR area as a whole and we have been listening. We have begun making changes to the battlefield objectives to provide more incentives to players to capture them, as well as making them more dynamic and interesting.

Now for the part that has been the top-secret project the RvR team has been hard at work on: Keeps. Yes, you read that right – we are adding Keeps. Keep warfare, namely protecting your keep and capturing your enemy’s, will play a significant role in open world RvR and the campaign.

The first pairing to have keeps on Beta will be Empire and Chaos. The art for the keeps will not be polished when Beta reopens, but this is very intentional. Our primary goal at this stage is to make sure the game play and functionality of the keeps are very solid and you can expect to see a lot of “focus discussion” posts from members of the RvR Team as we request targeted feedback.

What about Siege? There will indeed be siege in WAR. However, siege will not be ready when Beta reopens. I will have more information for you as we get closer to having it ready for release to Beta.