Super SF4 Release date announced! More info!

So last night Capcom unleashed a bunch of new info regarding Super SF4. We now have a release date: April 27th, 2010. Also, there will be a collectors edition, that includes a new anime DVD, a soundtrack disc, and an artbook. The official release is quoted below: 

quote:

Super Street Fighter® IV will be coming to the Xbox 360®video game and entertainment system from Microsoft® and PS3 system on April 27, 2010 in North America and April 30, 2010 in Europe. The follow-up to the critically acclaimed Street Fighter IV will further redefine the 2-D fighting genre with a host of new features including new characters, new ultra combos, new online modes, the return of the famed bonus stages and retuned online and offline gameplay. Super Street Fighter IV’s new characters include Street Fighter’s first Tae Kwon Do-styled fighter - the deadly female fighter Juri - classic Street Fighters such as Cody, Guy, T. Hawk, Dee Jay, Adon and more to complement the full roster of returning fighters from Street Fighter IV. Featuring all new user-selectable Ultra Combos and advancements to the online gameplay and matchmaking, Super Street Fighter IV is the ultimate vision of Street Fighter.

Also, new videos were released, you can view the english versions below:

You can also view the original japanese versions at the JP Capcom site, here.

And lastly, don't forget that we'll be having our weekly SF4 session at PowerPlay Videogames in Cordova tomorrow night, from 7:00-9:00 PM.

Cody interview!

A new developer interview discussing Cody is now up at Eventhubs. It's a nice little read, with some juicy tidbits about how he can also use a wrench and a pipe for attacks, in addition to the knife. A cool shoutout  to the original Final Fight, for sure. Also he now has my vote for Coolest Move Name Ever; "Zonk Knuckle".

You should head over there and check it out.

http://www.eventhubs.com/news/2009/dec/07/super-street-fighter-4-devs-discuss-cody/

My take on the Slayer and Choppa footage from NY Comic Con

First off, I'd like to apologize for the lack of updates over the past few days. It's been a busy weekend, both for me and the game. The NY Comic Con just ended yesterday, and over the weekend there has been quite a bit of news, So much new info is now out there that I though I'd wait a little while for the dust to settle, and go over the news that interests me. Mythic debuted the Choppa and the Slayer at Comic Con, and Adam Gershowitz showed off the first hands-on footage for both careers in two videos over at Tentonhammer. There was also new info on improved mounts for high-level guilds.

On the whole, the Slayer and Choppa are shaping up quite nicely, Their rage mechanic icon, while different for each career of course, looked easy to read and the look of both careers at level 40 was great. I thought the Choppa looked nice and threatening in the demo, wiv lotsa spiky bitz stuck on his armor. I know the Choppa is technically medium armor, but the gear showed looked very close to heavy, with spikes, chains, heads on spikes and all that lot. He also had some cool-looking choppas, with what appeared to be either goat or ram skulls mounted onto the axes, very bad-ass. Adam also showed off character customization options for the Slayer. In addition to the default options, Slayers get to select some pretty awesome tattoos, as well as a few beard options that are exclusive(!) to the career. Even the mohawk has some nifty choices, ranging from the classic crest to a split mohawk and even a more ragged look to the basic crest.

Gameplay-wise the two careers came off looking pretty similar, which is expected. Lots of cool slashing and spinning moves and effects, and some nice autoattack animations as well. Adam stated that both careers would have Mastery paths split into Greatweapons, Dual-wielding and Balanced. The Greatweapon Mastery focuses on big hits that drain your rage bar, the Dual-wield path is based on getting your rage as high up as possible and staying in the redzone dishing out tons of damage/AoE while getting real squishy, and the Balanced is well, balanced. One interesting thing is that the AoE for these two careers will be significantly different from that used by other careers. Adam stated that their AoE will be more powerful, but with a caveat: it will be somewhat random. Your selected target will always be hit by the AoE, but surrounding targets will be hit at random. They will NOT be hit by every AoE attack, but when they are hit, it will hit them harder. So instead of the typical sustained dps of other AoE, it will be a sort of "burst" dps.

The unpredictability of this new type of AoE is crucial to the Slayer/Choppa's role of "linebreaker". The new careers will be best used to slam into bunched opponents and bursting down random targets in the with their AoE, with the random nature of their AoE making it difficult for healers to focus heal. Properly played, the Slayer and Choppa will be great for breaking up the assist train and breaking up the zerg. This sounds pretty stonking great, and I already have visions of slamming into a packed group and dealing out death left and right.

Some other shared abilities include a move in which the Choppa/Slayer lashes out at anyone attacking them for several seconds. now what makes this different from the other "backlash" type abilities is that it looks like it hits back for the same damage as a regular attack, instead of a preset value. This could lead to some pretty hard-hitting revenge hits. I didn't see too many morale abilities except for one Adam called "Doomseeker" in which the Slayer sweeps with both weapons around him in an arc twice, which I assume hits for MASSIVE DAMAGE.

That's mainly what I was paying attention to over the weekend. I hit 39 on my IB as well. I ought to hit 40 this week, and I have the boots for the Conqueror set and the Sentinel belt waiting for me in the bank. Thanks for bearing with me, and I'll be seeing you guys again in a few days.

300,000 subs. More Mythic layoffs. Now what?

Despite the title of the post, this is not another doom and gloom article. I'm as saddened as anyone else about the layoffs, but I'm still cautiously optimistic regarding the future of WAR. Let me give you some personal background about the type of work I do. I work in retail, in a very niche/enthusiast activity. My business, aside from the apparel sales is based on an activity that is completely dependent on discretionary income. In this economy, my industry is hurting fairly badly, many brands have gone out of business, and many retailers have failed as well. This past Christmas season was the worst one we've had in seven years. The business I work for is still doing okay, but we have tightened our belts and cut costs as much as possible. Sales are down, and we are hurting, but we are much luckier than most.

Okay, with that out of the way, let me attempt to address the current topics.

1. 300,000 Subs: All right, this is the current number of active subs released by Mythic. This is down from the 750,000 number of active subs that was released some months ago. Of course, people are freaking out, and proclaiming that the end is nigh, without looking at the whole picture. The 750K was when many players had yet to renew their subscription after the first free month. Also, the WotLK and Mines of Moria expansions were released shortly after this period. And one should not be surprised that many players flocked back to WoW and Lotro, after WAR's "new MMO shine" had worn off. I will also admit that WAR had many more issues in those days than it does now. One must commend Mythic for the sheer amount of new and improved content that they delivered since then. We are currently looking at the final two careers debuting soon, a huge new zone and dungeon from the Lands of the Dead expansion. Stability is much improved etc, etc. Of course there still are issues and bugs, but you have to give credit where credit is due. In the limited timeframe since launch, the amount of "new and better" stuff Mythic has released is incredible. 

Lets not forget, 300K subs is roughly 4.5 MILLION dollars every month. That's nothing to scoff at. I also positively believe that number of active subs will only go up. Many players are excited about the upcoming expansion content and new careers. I also personally know many players coming back to play the Slayer and Choppa. 300K is a solid base to grow from, and I think that it will slowly grow over time, like the playerbase for EvE and Lotro. At 4.5 mil a month, I think WAR will continue to be a profit-maker for EA

2. Mythic layoffs: This sucks. Flat out. But it is not completely unexpected. Again, despite claims that the video game industry is "recession-proof", the game industry is hurting. Just like many other industries all over the world. We have seen publishers and game developers go under, Free Radical, Ensemble and more. THQ is laying off close to a quarter of its staff. In recent months as you all know, Mythic has had to let go playtester, QA and CS staff, and now some members of the design and dev teams. Mark Jacobs has taken flak for both not speaking out fast enough, and when he did speak about it, he took flak for the tone of his post. I don't envy MJ is position right now. He's damned either way, no matter what he says or does. He has to try for a positive spin, otherwise the doomsayers will point to his post and say that even the main guy is telling people the game is doomed. Players still criticized the positive parts of his statement, saying that he's not in touch with reality and that he's living in his own happy world. See what I mean?

Even though I personally would have liked him to say "yes, this sucks, and we feel bad about this", I understand why he can't. He also can not remain silent. I may not feel great about his statement, but I understand the position that he is in. He has to do the best he can, within the resources available to him. It's a bad bit of news, but Mythic has to keep its chin up. I know that the remaining team feel terrible about what has happened, even though they may make no official statement about it.

3. Now what?: Actually, syncaine over at Hardcore Casual just put up a great post on a similar subject. Basically, WAR is in the post-tourist/launch hype stage. Many players that played WAR at launch because it was the new hot MMO have left, and a core number of players have settled down. A large infusion of new content is coming soon, and while enthusiasm has been dampened by the sad news, anticipation is still high for the new careers and events. Mythic is in a position to consolidate their gains, and solidify their position. I think that so long as Mythic shows it's commitment to the playerbase and continues to add and tweak content we can expect some steady growth for the game. I think that 500k active subs by the end of the year is a doable goal. Also that 300K is a good, solid number, especially when compared to the numbers of games (Other than Wow) that are considered successful, such as Lotro or CoH/V.

Personally, I would like Mythic to start minor consolidation of the servers. I'm not speaking of massive server merges, but reducing the number of servers by 15-20% would be a good start towards helping the population on some lower-pop servers. Also, opening up an Asian client and getting some Korean and Chinese players going, could only be a good thing for the bottom line. Don't forget that WoW gets a considerable chunk of its revenues from the Chinese market. So much revenue in fact, that Blizzard actually modified some parts of the game in order to conform to Chinese tastes and laws. No reason that WAR can't get a slice of that pie.

In closing, I'm gonna say that I've already made my choice. I'm sticking with WAR. I want to experience the new expansion. I want to play as the new careers. I'm sad about the layoffs, but I hope that if WAR does well, and the economy starts doing better, we may see some people rehired. I want to help the game grow. The Warhammer IP is so unique, and i doubt we will see another MMO based on the Warhammer Fantasy IP again anytime soon if WAR fails. This may be a one-time chance for us all. For crying out loud, you can play a freaking SLAYER! Show your pride! Give your free trials to your buddies! Go fight! For Order! For Destruction! For the Emperor! WAAAGH!!!

News, Rumors and Developments.

First off I'd like to apologize for the lack of updates these past several days. I've been busy playing more than writing, and I've also been waiting to see how some news items developed. So let's see:

If you have been following up on WAR news and rumors, I'm sure you have already read about the speculation going around that Mythic has suffered some job losses following EA scaling down it's operations by about 10%. I'm not really going to comment much on this, as the reaction has run the full the spectrum of internet discourse already, and I don't feel like rehashing previous statements. I will state however that I feel many players are blowing it a bit out of proportion, and I feel Mark Jacobs has done an admirable job in addressing these rumors and communicating to the player base. As always, I continue to have faith in Mythic. More info can be found at Massively.com and at Warhammeralliance.com.

On a more optimistic note, I hope you saw Keen's post over at www,keenandgraev.com regarding that "teaser package" that was recently sent to him by Mythic. The package contained some hair dye, an electric razor and a card bearing the WAR logo and the date 1.29.2009. If you know anything about Warhammer lore, the super obvious hint is that the Slayer will be announced as the new Dwarf MDPS career on that date. You know, Slayers shave their hair into a crest and dye it before taking up the Slayer oath to seek a glorious death in battle to atone for some past shame or failure. So that looks dead-on as a hint towards Slayers. Now for the Greenskin MDPS, you could argue that the razor might also represent the Choppa being re-introduced, but that's a bit tenuous. Still, Slayers look to be in, and this is the place where I gloat and claim to have seen it coming all along. Which I kinda did, heh.

If you'd like to learn more about Slayers, I heartily recommend that you purchase the first Gotrek and Felix Omnibus novel, which should be available at your local bookstore. It's a great read, and it was my first exposure to the Warhammer setting.

Also, I rolled another alt. Yes, I know I'll never hit 40 at this rate, but I have settled into a comfortable rhythm with my leveling on my Ironbreaker and Black Orc. I just hit 37 on the IB and am preparing to max my influence for my current chapter before moving on, and I hit 30 on my Blorc. I plan to RvR on my Blorc for the next 2 ranks to get my Renown Rank up, which currently sits at a dismal 17. I know, that's super low. But i'll be fixing that soon, hopefully. More news on that alt later.

That's it for this post, I'll see you guys on the battlefield!

My Expansion Theories

In a recent post, Mark Jacobs alludes heavily to a "big" announcement at the end of this month. Many rumors are swirling around regarding this pronouncement, and my guild has been discussing this ingame and on our forums. From these conversations, these are my theories.

Dwarf and Greenskin Melee DPS Careers: 

This is the most probable announcement, and it is also likely the easiest to implement, from Mythic's viewpoint. After all, they've probably already done most of the work involved, since the careers were cut early on. They have had a good bit of time to tweak and iterate these careers. And with the successful re-launch of the Blackguard and Knight of the Blazing Sun, anticipation is high regarding the last two careers. The Choppa and Slayer are favored to be the new careers. The Hammerer is widely rumored to be out, and a Euro CSR has stated that the Hammerer is a "relic of beta". This statement was in regards to some players being able to access the Hammerer career on the PTS for a short time. The CSR went on to state that this was a bug, and the Hammerer was not going to be made available.  As far as implementation goes, Choppa and Slayer npcs, with complete combat animations are currently ingame, and so all Mythic would really have to do is flesh out the itemization and mechanics for the careers. I am totally going to roll one, or both careers when they hit release.

New Races:

My money is on Skaven for Destruction and Lizardmen for Order. Many of my guildies call for a Vampire Counts/Bretonnian pairing. I disagree based on several factors. First, I feel that both Order and Destruction players will have problems with the races. I can already see Destruction not wanting "emo vampires" and Order complaining about "lame knights". The KotBS was criticized for not looking as cool as other careers, due to the use of feathers and codpieces in their design. In addition, Vampire Counts in particular do not usually directly involve themselves in events. Instead, Vampires usually stay behind the scenes and manipulate events from the shadows. Also, Vampires are extremely powerful beings, with a slow rate of population growth. It would be very difficult to implement them as even a player race, since lore-wise even fledgling vampires are significantly stronger than even seasoned warriors. The balancing would be tricky. Bretonnians are not as difficult to implement lore-wise, but they are pretty similar to the Empire,  at least on a basic aesthetic level. Which touches on why Skaven/Lizardmen make more sense.

Skaven and Lizardmen are aesthetically very different from all the other races. If you recall, four out of six races are mirrors of each other visually. Empire and Chaos are both humans, and High Elves and Dark Elves are technically the same race. These races are differentiated mainly by the appearance of their gear and the overall color scheme of their cultures. Were you to remove all the gear from a Chosen and a KotBS, and stand them side by side, they would be very similar in appearance. The distinctive profiles of the careers are created mainly by the gear they wear and in the Zealots' case, the posture.

Whereas Skaven and the Lizardmen would be immediately recognizable and obviously different from all the other races, in the same way that Dwarfs and Greenskins  are. Skaven are already ingame, and so again, they would only need some touchup to animations and gear. Lizardmen would need to be designed from scratch, of course

The main problem I see with the Skaven/Lizardmen pairing would be that both races don't really mesh seamlessly with the existing Cities. I mean, it's kind of hard to imagine Lizardmen casually walking through the streets of Altdorf! The Skaven would be easier to integrate into the Inevitable City, but I think the best thing to do would be to give them their own capitals. Yes, Skavenblight and Itza/Tlaxtlan!(?)

And so, to properly introduce these new races and their cities, we need...an EXPANSION!

Announcing a new expansion is listed as number one in Snafzg's post, "Mythic's Top Ten Priorities for Warhammer Online in 2009". I heartily agree with this as it gives us rabid gamers something to look forward to and theoryhammer over. Don't underestimate the anticipation that forms around MMO expansions, and this sort of buzz is what got many of us playing WAR. A major feature of course would be the new races and capitals. I don't think we need another 10 Ranks though, I'd like to see WAR move away from the whole deal of adding 10 levels every expansion. Instead, I'd like horizontal expansion. New quests, new weapons, new items, while still keeping the highest level "new" items on a similar level as existing endgame items. I don't want expansions to invalidate previous content. I would much prefer that the items look different and "new", while being equally, NOT MORE, effective than current gear.

So say a weapon from the Lost Vale does 78 dps with +67 Strength/Wounds, while a similar weapon from the Lustian dungeon have identical stats, but a very different look. Look to WoW for proof of this lesson, the expansions are great, but they basically trivialize old content, and new items are leaps and bounds better than existing content, so everyone blows through to level cap, grinds out the uber gear, and everyone looks exactly the same again...

I'd like the option to have my own look, while still maintaining effectiveness. For example, I'd like to have one of my characters have a savage/Lustrian based look, with obsidian weapons and armor from a new dungeon,  while another character can have the Darkpromise set, but perform at the same level as the first guy with the new gear.

As always these are just theories and predictions, but it would be so cool to be right on at least one point. That way, when they announce Skaven and Lizardmen, I can say...Called it! 

What do you want the big announcement to be about?

Fortress Changes, Experience Buffs and other News

If you guys haven't been checking the Herald, or were away from your computer for the past couple of days, chances are you may have missed some very significant news updates. First off, Mythic has buffed experience gain AGAIN. Now players Rank 20 through 33 will have a significantly faster leveling curve. This means that all of Tier 3 and part of Tier 4 gets the buff. So once again, they are giving me a chance to get one of my many played alts to T4, at least. This stokes me out and my goal of getting one character to max level before I roll yet another alt will be easier to realize.

Speaking of alts, Mark Jacobs' most recent post on the Herald hints at some big announcements coming at the end of this month. This coupled with MJ's reference to Snafzg's "Mythic's Top Ten Priorities for Warhammer Online in 2009" post tells me we may be getting a sneak peek at the first expansion! If true, this is super exciting news, and forum-goers all over are heavily speculating on what new races or content we may be getting. I'm hoping for a Skaven/Lizardmen pairing myself. I can also see them implementing new capitals, such as Karak Eight Peaks and Karaz-a-Karak for the DvG pairing.

However, I want them to announce the new MDPS careers for the Dwarfs and Greenskins and implement them soon! I want my Slayer! I want me Choppa! WAAAGH!

Okay, now that I'm no longer hyperventilating, lets look at some of the other news. In response to the crashing issues plaguing fortress captures, Mythic is implementing a throttling system, that will funnel players under a certain level attempting to to enter the fortress area to warcamps, once a certain population threshold has been met. This will address the issue of low-level players joining a fortress defense and lagging the server through overpopulation of the fortress area, leading to a crash. As pop thresholds are surpassed, the game will winnow out lower level players until at max threshold, only 39-40 Rank players will be allowed into the zone. 

Now opinion is split on this, with some players lauding the attempts to fix the crashes and some players disliking the fact that lower levels can not join the defense as easily. Myself, I'm for this change, because unfortunately I've seen people telling other players to zone into the fortress defense, no matter the level, and force a server crash when their fort is under attack. I myself do not agree that flooding the tier with lowbies that can't effectively fight and overloading the server to be a valid tactic. Reports have also been made of groups of lowbies sitting in the fort spamming emotes and AoEs. 

And last, Mythic is already looking at tweaking the Fortress Lord stats to ensure that they are in line with the number of players participating the the siege, as well as looking at other ways to optimizing the code for additional stability. Also, they are considering giving Fortresses their own zone, both to improve stability and to increase the amount of players that can participate in a siege.

Well, that's your news wrap-up for today, I can't wait for the big announcement at the end of the month, whatever it may be. It's a good time to be a WAR player, and I'm cautiously optimistic about the future. Take care, gents.

Sources:

http://thegreenskin.com/2009/01/09/mark-jacobs-responds-to-the-top-10-priorities-list/

http://herald.warhammeronline.com/warherald/NewsArticle.war?id=564

http://herald.warhammeronline.com/warherald/NewsArticle.war?id=570

http://herald.warhammeronline.com/warherald/NewsArticle.war?id=571