I participated in an awesome raid with a group of Order players that I happened to stumble upon last night while trying to complete some Tier 3 quests.

Except for Thursdays, I usually play solo so most of the time which means I have to make do with PUGs (player user groups).  PUGs usually aren’t as organized as this and the quality of player tends to vary greatly.  Thus, it can sometimes be a little frustrating, with defeat being far more likely.

However, this bunch was well organized, well lead and it was a very enjoyable to participate even though I didn’t get any loot.

We took all the battlefield objectives and keeps in BlackFire Pass, The Badlands, High Pass and Talabecland.  It was a non-stop assault.

There was virtually no resistance.  There was this one humorous incident where the Order assault arrived at a tavern that’s one of the battlefield objectives.  We rushed to the door and just as I got there, the door opened and there was this one lone Destruction player.

He must have received the shock of his life when he opened that tavern door and saw a full warband right in front of him.  He closed the door on us but we rushed in and he lasted about half a second.

Stoneclaw Castle in High Pass proved to be more of a problem.  Some Destruction players managed to cobble together a defence in time to meet Order’s assault and we were met with cannon and hot oil.  But we had the advantage in numbers and in variety of character classes.  I.e. We had plenty of healers and ranged DPS (damage per second) classes like Bright Wizards and Shadow Warriors on hand to take out the castle’s weaponry on the battlements.

If you’re a Witch Hunter, good gear is absolutely vital. and unfortunately I didn’t get any good gear out of this.  But I did earn quite a bit of experience, Reknown points and I got the killing blows on at least 4 Destruction players which took a bit of doing considering how many other Order players were attacking the same targets.

All in all, it was a fun evening!

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Last night I had the most rewarding experience in Warhammer: Age of Reckoning (WAR) since I started playing the game when I participated in the defence of Mandred’s Hold in Ostland.

On the Bretonnia server, Destruction rules the roost for the most part.  I play during Eastern Standard Time hours and the map is in Destruction’s control most of the time.  Naturally I thought the night was going to be more rounds of RvR (Realm vs. Realm) scenario games— and more “Destruction kicking Order’s butt” on the Bretonnia server.

Map of Ostland

However, at some point, the forces of Order had swept from Troll Country, south into Ostland, taking all of the Battle Objects and both Stonetroll and Mandred’s Hold castle keeps.

It wouldn’t be long until the numerically superior Destruction forces would retaliate and soon, siege of Mandred’s Hold began.  I linked up with redrobot in Ostland who was already participating in the defence of the keep.

It ended up being the best RvR experience I’ve had to date, and where the Witch Hunter character class really shone!

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There’s a known bug in Warhammer: Age of Reckoning that corrupts the player’s backpack window.

The corruption manifests itself in any number of ways, from a solid white box where the backpack window should be, to jumbled backpack interface elements with no items displayed.

I tried uninstalling all interface add-ons and re-starting the client, deleting the backpack interface files and letting the client recreate them on start-up, and reloading the UI using the “/reloadui” chat command while logged in.  Nothing helped.

Thankfully, weeks ago I had backed up the \user\Interface\AllCharacters directory in the game’s root directory prior to testing some interface add-ons so I had a back-up of the original backpack interface files.

The backpack interface files are found in the game root directory under:

\user\interface\AllCharacters\EA_BackpackWindow\

I noticed that when I deleted these files and allowed the client to re-create them on start-up, they were re-created still in their corrupted state.

To solve the problem, I overwrote the corrupted backpack UI files with the original ones I had in the AllCharacters Interface back-up I had made earlier.

So if you haven’t experienced the backpack corruption bug yet, back up the uncorrupted backpack UI files NOW!

Here’s a link to my fixed backpack UI files if you need them: EA_BackpackWindow.zip

Since these backpack UI files are from the default installation, obviously your backpack settings won’t be retained, but all your inventory will once again be accessible.

There’s a 15-minute Realm vs. Realm (RvR) scenario in Warhammer: Age of Reckoning called “The Mourkain Temple.”

It’s basically like capture the flag (or magical artifact in this case) and you get points for capturing the artifact, points over time for holding the artifact, points for player kills and the artifact holder gets bonus points for player kills.

While a portion of the scoring involves getting player kills, the real key to winning the scenario obviously revolves around maintaining control over the artifact and supporting the artifact holder— especially when there isn’t a lot of time left.  But that concept seems to be beyond some players.

I was in a pick-up group (PUG) playing Mourkain temple, and we started out with a huge lead.  We were first to get the artifact, held onto it for a while and even kept the artifact holder in play with proper support.

But that lead quickly dissolved when Destruction took control of the artifact and our team lost all focus and chose to try and rack up their player kills instead.

We could have won that scenario (or at least not lose it so badly) if players didn’t become skirmish fixated.  If the team had just opened their eyes and looked at the battle as a whole, they would have immediately realized that the vast majority of the Destruction team had rushed so far forward, there was no one guarding their artifact holder.  He was wide open and alone.

Upon respawning, I simply flanked right, went around the Destruction team’s front line, and reached their artifact holder unhindered.   I managed to get him down to just about 50% health before dying— which wasn’t easy considering he’s a Marauder, eventually got some help from his teammates when they realized their quarterback had been sacked, and I was playing a Warrior Priest.

My healing abilities kept me in the fight long enough to reduce his health before I eventually succumbed to their superior numbers.  But if I had just two more players with me to increase the DPS (damage per second) rate, it was very possible we could have killed him,  regained control of the artifact and won the game in the time left.

In scenario chat, one of the players was being sacrastic, saying they’ll “just ignore the 20 people between them and the artifact holder” in order to rush him.

That is precisely what they had to do in order to get the artifact back!

Before you start saying “You’re expecting too much from PUGs…”, this article isn’t a rant about the disorganization in PUGs.  I don’t expect PUGs to operate like well oil machines such as guild teams.

The purpose of this article is to point out to players by example, that in RvR scenarios, they need keep their eyes on the overall objective.  Look at the battlefield in its entirety and not just on the enemy player in front of you.  I think that if a few players are “on the same page,” the teamwork naturally follows.

Racking up kills undoubtedly helps, but you’ll give up the battle if you focus too much on the skirmishes.  Don’t lose sight of the forest because of the trees.

I gots a hat!

I finally looted a hat for my Witch Hunter whilst taking my Bright Wizard character out for a walk.  Finally!  A hat!

Why the big deal?   During the very early stages of the game, hats can be very rare.

In a Witch Hunter oriented forum I was reading,  quite a few people have posted that they didn’t acquire their hats until after many gaming hours that pushed them to at least Rank 12.  And some are higher than 12 and still don’t have a hat.

Paraphrasing what someone had said to me, “Witch Hunters are about style!”  And  nothing completes the look of a Witch Hunter like “The Hat.”

If you’re running a Witch Hunter, you need “The Hat.”

Besides style, it came with some nice character stats boosts and an additional armour rating too.  Witch Hunters are one of the “squishy” classes so more armour is always a good thing.

As the old saying goes; When it rains, it pours…

Not long after I looted the hat with my Bright Wizard, I took the Witch Hunter out and she ended up getting yet another hat on her own from a creature drop in Elven Shadowlands.  And it had even better stats than the original find!