The Bitter Rivals event has officially begun, and players all over the Warhammer world are racing to be able to play the Choppa and Slayer careers a week early.

Greg from ToK has put together a nice guide to the event. Check it out!

Those of you who are wondering about how to do the 3rd task for the event should read on:

The 3rd task - Perform a service for the Dwarf or Greenskin Leaders.

To complete this task you need to head to Altdorf or IC depending on your realm. When you are there, go to the Dwarven or Greenskin “king” and accept a quest from them. Complete the line of quests to complete the task.

Greenskin King - Grumlock. He is in the Chamber to the west of Tchar’zanek in the Eternal Citadel at the northern end of the Inevitable City. The quest line is called The Twisting Tower.

Dwarven King - High King Thorgrim Grudgebearer. He is in the Chamber to the west of Emperor Karl Franz in the Castle at the northern end of Altdorf. The quest line is called Far From Home.

This week’s GoW Allies post is going to point you over to the Wizards & Wenches blog, written by Regis. Last week Regis made a fun post entitled “Caption This”, and in it he asked readers to write captions for a Warhammer Online screenshot. Check out the post and read the comments to see all of the captions that readers submitted, or check out the Caption This - Winners post.

Check out Caption This #2, and leave a comment with your caption! These are fun, and I hope Regis keeps them coming.

Subscribe to Wizards & Wenches’ RSS feed.

Follow Regis on Twitter.

Party, Scenario Party, and Warband Dots on Map

As you can see from this scenario map screenshot, player’s location dots have changed to a different Icon. That’s nice and all, but the real news is that the dots now refresh much more often, giving a much more accurate positioning of realm mates on the map. This is true for Scenario maps, as well as for Warbands and parties in world maps. Gone are the days of running to meet up with your group only to find that they were there 3 minutes ago and have since moved on.

New Open Parties and Warbands Window

Clicking on this button will bring up the new Open Parties and Warbands window. There was no default hotkey assigned to this on the test server.

This is the new Open Parties and Warbands window, with the Nearby Tab opened. This tab works in pretty much the exact same way as the old open parties window did.

This is the World tab for the Open Parties and Warbands window. This tab works as sort of like a Looking For Group system. With this tab you can set your interests so that other players can either form a group with you or add you to their existing group. You can also search for other players to add to your group in the same way.

There is also a Manage tab. It is used for managing a Warband.

Click to Move?

A new Click To Move option has been added to the game. With this option is enabled, right clicking on any terrain will cause your character to move to that point. This is “a preparation step for launching in Asian markets, most if not all Asian developed MMOs have a click to move option and are all defaulted as such.” That is according to Carrie Gouskos, Mythic’s Production Lead.

Potions Persist Through Death

No need for a screenshot for this. All stat buff Potions will now persist through death. This is a wonderful addition in my opinion - and oddly enough I think this will greatly raise the value of potions, giving a small but needed boost to the game’s economy.

Pick Lock

Pick lock and all other keep door bypassing abilities have been reported as WORKING in the 1.2 patch. This is going to bring about a huge change in Keep sieges. If I am not mistaken (and I may be), these are the classes that will be able to freely go through an enemy keep’s postern door:

• Witch Elf
• Witch Hunter
• Marauder
• White Lion
• Choppa
• Slayer

More on the 1.2 Patch

• Check out Part 1 and Part 2 of my Test Server findings if you haven’t already done so.
• If you need help transferring your User Interface settings over to the test server look here.
  

Welcome to Garrison of WAR’s newest weekly feature! Every Monday I will be posting a quick link to my favorite blog post, forum thread, feature, or story from the past 7 days. This weekly feature will be part of my efforts to support the WAR Community Promotion Initiative which was started by the Warhammer Alliance staff.

Tome of Knowledge

Yesterday at the Tome of Knowledge blog, Greg did an awesome write-up on the differences of the Slayer and Choppa careers. The post is called Comparing the Dogs of WAR. In this post he goes into detail about their abilities, stats, and survivability. Definitely a great read for anyone considering playing the career - and for those of you who think Mythic loves one of the realms more than the other.

Tome of Knowledge is easily one of the best Warhammer Blogs out there when it comes to information - and now we can finally subscribe to it’s feed! Also, be sure to check out the ToK comics!

Da Choppa!

Yesterday, Mythic atarted to allow players to test the Slayer and Choppa classes on the Test Server. I decided to make a Choppa and see how it works. For lack of a better name I decided to name my Choppa “Firstchoppa”. If I was clever like some other players, I would have picked a name like “Blackorcdown” or “Schwaaghzinagr”.

Rage Mechanic

The Choppa’s mechanic is called Rage. As soon as you enter combat as a Choppa you begin to build Rage. Rage builds at a rate of 5 Rage per second. It does not matter how much you hit or are hit, it only matters how long you are in combat. The Choppa’s got a cool Rage Gauge that shows how high your rage is:

This is what the Rage Gauge looks like when it’s empty. Don’t worry though, it does not take long to start filling it up.

This is what the Choppa’s Rage Gauge looks like when it’s Furious!. Most players consider Furious! to be the sweetspot for Choppa’s. While Furious!, Choppas deal 25% more damage at no penalty to themselves. They are also able to effectively use Rage Exhausting abilities.

When the Choppa’s Rage Gauge starts flashing red it means the Choppa is Berserk!. While Berserk!, Choppa’s deal 50% more damage, but they also lose 50% of all Armor and Resistances. Rage Exhausting abilities do not gain bonuses for being used while Berserk!

Da Choppa in PvE

The Choppa class seems to excel in Solo PvE situations. You will be amazed by it’s damage output. I was able to kill mobs so quickly that I rarely became Berserk in PvE situations, and taking on 5-7 equal or lower rank mobs was quick work after receiving the Wild Choppin’ ability at rank 6.

Managing Rage is the most important thing with a Choppa in both PvE and PvP settings. By rank 6 you will have 2 Rage Exhausting abilities. These 2 abilities reduce your Rage Gauge to empty when you use them, and they are only usuable while Furious or Berserk. Using a Rage Exhausting ability while Furious causes the ability to do 75% more damage. These abilities are your heavy hitters. Using Wild Choppin’ costs a whopping 50 AP, but it deals a ton of damage to everyone around you.

Da Choppa in PvP

Because of the circumstances (imagine 24 glass bombs bunched up around a flag, exploding left and right), it’s obviously going to be hard to do an accurate evaluation of the Choppa’s PvP capabilities. I can say this though… If you play a Choppa, you will kill fast and you will die fast. Remember what BW’s and Sorc’s felt like before they were nerfed? Playing a Choppa is like that, only cooler.

For those of you considering joining the Slayer vs. Choppa fight, here are some tips:

1. Use your Fling Axe ability before you join the fray. This causes you to enter combat and begin building rage. Once you are furious you can dish out some huge AoE damage by using the Wild Choppin’ ability immediately when you enter the battle.
2. Do not run into a group of Slayers by yourself. You are not a tank - you’re a glass bomb. Slayers can kill just as fast as you, and if there are several of them you will go down before you can even get an ability or two off.
3. Stay back if you are a higher rank. If you’re a higher rank than everyone else, don’t think that you are invincible because you are not. My well-geared rank 11 Choppa gets tore up in seconds if I charge into a group of Slayers first. The best thing to do is follow the lower rank Choppas into the fray. You will end up dealing a ton of damage and your side will probably win the fight.

More on the 1.2 Patch

• Lots more to come, so check back later OR subscribe to the feed! (that means you SkarWithAK)
• Check out Part 1 and Part 3 if you haven’t already done so.
• If you need help transferring your User Interface settings over to the test server look here.
  

Map Improvements

I am glad to report that the game’s map system has been improved significantly with just a few small changes. Check out these screenshots:

Navigation arrows have been added to the edges of the Zone Maps to allow for easier navigation between zones. This is a very nice feature because it saves you the time of having to back out to the pairing map and click on the zone you want to see.

Map tooltips have been improved to include more information. This is a Public Quest Tooltip. Hovering over a Public Quest Icon on your map now shows the PQ’s Difficulty, Recommended Ranks, and Active Participants.

Hovering over a Chapter Camp will now show the Chapter’s Recommended Ranks, Trainers, Merchants, Services, and Other information.

Hovering over an RvR Hotspot will now show an approximate number of players that were involved in the fighting.

Next to the default Minimap you will find a new button. This is the Rallying Cry button. When you see it flashing, click it to be instantly teleported to the Warcamp in your zone. There are some details I am not sure about yet with this feature, but we’ll see how it works out over the next few weeks. Note: If you log onto the Test Server and are using zMinimap instead of the default minimap, you will not see this button.

Realm Status Changes

Clicking on the default Zone Control bar will drop down a small window showing the contribution levels of each of the 4 elements that contribute to Zone Control. This will be very useful when attempting to flip a zone, because players will know what to focus their efforts on to get the last few Victory Points needed to do so. It will be nice when this goes live, and addons are updated to include this information.

2 New Empire Mounts

Most of the races are now able to choose between 3 basic mounts. Check out the two new Empire mounts:

Now that there are busloads of player logging into the Public Test Server, a lot of players are finding that their custom User Interface settings are not present. Instead they have a mess that consists of jumbled addon windows and the default UI. Luckily, there is a way to fix this, to an extent.

Transfer Your User Settings

The first thing you need to do is locate and open your user folder. Typically this is found under C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\Warhammer Online - Age of Reckoning.

The second thing you need to do is copy all of the file(s) and folder(s) contained in the user folder.

Now paste the file(s) and folder(s) in the user_test folder. This will transfer your normal settings to the test server. Unfortunately, you will probably still need to move some things around in-game using the layout editor. Note: this folder will not be created until you create your first Character on the test server.

Some Addons Will Not Work Properly

When you log into the PTS, you may notice that some addons are not working properly. This is to be expected due to the nature of game updates. Known addon Issues:

• Moth - not working at all (shows a blank box)
• Zminimap - works, but isn’t showing the new Rallying Cry button.
• CustomMap is missing the new Rally Call button, which lets you teleport to the nearest warcamp once the call goes out.
• Huduf is screwed.
• Kwestor seems to have gone missing, taking the default quest tracker along with it.
• PlanB has some bugs with stances.
• Queue Queuer has up and vanished.
• RV_Targets may not be loading.
• Squared has several bugs. Cannot rightclick to bring up options. Scenario parties stick around after scenario ends.
• xHud and other addons that keep track of morale need to add Slayer and Choppa mechanics to their lists.
• xPanels is giving some people problems.
• zMailMod is screwed.

More on the 1.2 Patch

• Check out Part 1 and Part 2 of my Test Server findings if you haven’t already done so.

Just a quick post to let everyone know that the 1.2 Patch is now up and running on the Test Server. However Character Copies are not working at this time. You will need to create a new character if you log into the Test Server.

Source

I will be doing a few updates here with screenshots and information from the Test Server - so stay tuned for those.

Edit - Character Copy is now working - so Transfer your chars and get testin’!

Syp from Waaagh! double-dog dared all Warhammer Online Bloggers everywhere to submit their list of favorite things in these seven categories:

• Favorite Zone
• Favorite Race
• Favorite Career
• Favorite WAR Feature
• Favorite Skill
• Favorite Scenario
• Favorite Live Event

Dream Lane’s Seven Favorites

Favorite Zone: My favorite zone is Praag. I think that the setting of Praag is very cool for a Realm vs. Realm showdown. I am not a huge fan of the Keep designs there, but the look and feel of Praag is amazing.

Favorite Race: I’m a big fan of the Greenskin race. I think that Mythic did a wonderful job portraying what a Greenskin should be. My first character during the Beta was a Black Orc, and I had loads of fun with it.

Favorite Career: I can’t say that I have a real favorite Career, but I am a bit partial to the Witch Hunter. I enjoy playing stealth classes, and the Witch Hunter (and WE) is the closest thing to a stealth class that WAR will probably have. I would prefer the Witch Elf’s mechanic, but I don’t like to gender bend.

Favorite WAR Feature: My Favorite feature for WAR is not actually a default feature. It is an addon called Dammaz Kron. I did a review on it a few weeks back, and I enjoy it more and more each day. Kill spam was a big deal in DAoC, and in WAR it felt like that rivalry was lost. With Dammaz Kron I feel like there is rivalry in the game again.

Favorite Skill: Scintillating Energy. On my rank 40 BW I use this morale ability to stun enemy keep defenders who are standing on the walls. It does a mediocre amount of damage, but stuns them for 7 seconds. Stunning them gives my allies a chance to finish them off. (Although this is my favorite skill, it is also one of my least favorite skills to be hit with.)

Favorite Scenario: Reikland Factory was awesome. Lots of levels and ways to travel from objective to objective.

Favorite Live Event: This is a tough one. I really enjoyed Heavy Metal, because the reward was well worth getting. I also enjoyed the T1 rush that happened thanks to the 2 new classes. It was like launch day all over again, except everyone was the same class. It made for some good times.

There are my favorite seven. What are yours? Check out Syp’s posts:

• Seven Favorites
• Seven Favorites Part II

13: Choppa Mount Revealed - A funny post/drawing from the Greenskin

12: Lost Vale HQ Panorama Wallpapers - Thulf has put together some awesome Wallpapers using images of Lost Vale.

11: Weekly WAR rollup: City Siege Aftermath - I like this post mostly for the picture of the upside down building.

10: I’m baaaack… - This was posted on MJ’s blog in December. Haven’t seen a new post since…

9: What’s Wrong With This Picture? - Keen has an issue with BO self heals and Loot Bags going away too quickly before he is able to loot them. Both issues are addressed 2 days later in the 1.2 patch notes. You should read the comments on this post.

8: My Thoroughly Lobbed Nog - Girl IRL gets her head mailed to her, then wears it as a pocket item.

7: S.T.’s Top 10 reasons to accept the RvR only Challenge! - If you are undecided about whether or not you should try out the RvR only challenge, check this post out.

6: Mythic apologizes to Archmages - spinks from Book of Grudges found official word from Mythic regarding both Archmages and Shamans, and the results of 1.2

5: Peeves and Anti-Peeves! - Syp from Waaagh! talks about some of the things he hates, and some of the things he loves about WAR… I sense a trend coming on.

4: WAR Herald’s 1.2 Patch Notes - You’ve all probably seen them, but there they are anyways.

3: Friday Folly: Chug-a-Chug-a! - Watch Mythic employees in a Coke chugging contest.

2: Warhammer Alliance Podcast 4: The Ship of Fools is That Way - WAP 4! I really enjoyed listening to the podcast, and look forward to future episodes.

1:Twitter ye Not! - This past week has been loads of fun on Twitter (Shameless Plug). Most news things this week were heard first from the devs on Twitter actually.