Land of the Dead Info Compilation

So Games Day has now come and gone and information has started to filter in about the new zone from people that went.  I’m a little bummed I didn’t go.  I had been seriously thinking about it and posted on my server forum to see if anyone I knew would be there, but no one responded by the time I made my decision, so I didn’t go.  😦  I should have.  I love get-togethers like this.  I remember shutting down the bar with the Devs from Star Wars Galaxies at their Fan Fest in Anaheim right before the NGE released.  Also, the time I spent two hours at the SOE Fan Fair with the CEO of Flying Lab Software talking about Pirates of the Burning Sea pre-release and having him walk me through the demo they had.  Things like that where you just get to hang out with the makers of the games you enjoy and just chat like, gasp, normal people is always a blast for me.

Anyway, you know me and information, I gotz to havz it all!!!  So I’ve been scouring the interwebz and discussing first-hand experiences in vent with Mykiel from Iron Rock (thx man) who not only was nice enough to take tons of notes, he also took pics as well!  So, I’m going to compile everything I can into this post and add to it as I find out more information over the coming days.  To the best of my knowledge, everything I’m putting here is fair game to be seen by the public at this point, but if that’s not the case, I’m sure someone will let me know.  :p

First off, Warhammer Alliance’s PhoenixRed tweeted throughout the event.  His updates have been compiled here and there’s some cool tidbits there.  I’m excited and a little worried about wards being removed from armor and added to the Tome.  We’ll see how that goes.  I was glad for our Euro players to hear that they’re going to start addressing some of the issues they have there.  I’m big on Quality in gaming and hate there being any kind of double-standard anywhere.

This just in: PhoenixRed posted some fabulous stuff this morning (Sunday) provided by Mythic.  If you haven’t seen it yet, go here now!

Update: Man.  I went to bed and woke up to this.  PhoenixRed is the man!  This is my kind of stuff.  He’s put up a lot of video footage too.  Scroll down for those links or just head to Warhammer Alliance and look at the main page.  Yummy.

Second, maps.  To start, Ninjagon drew a map roughly based off the images from the podcast Mythic did for Land of the Dead.  They also had links to a picture collection that included this map that looks to be a rough layout of the new zone.  Finally, Mykiel got a picture of the in-game map as it appeared at Games Day (below) which confirms the previous image as being what we should find when we zone in for the first time.  ~claps excitedly~  I can’t wait.

Necropolis of Zandri - ie: Land of the Dead

Third, Public Quests.  Oh yes, PQs baby.  You can see them dotted all over the map above and I have a feeling there are probably some more inside the actual dungeon(s).  Mykiel got me pics of most of the PQs listed in the zone and they’re all shown below.  A couple interesting things to note.  First, the PQ tooltip shows you how many people are currently at that PQ.  Interesting addition, especially if the other side can see that too.  Second, the tooltip shows you the rewards available at that particular PQ in terms of the Glyphs and token rewards.  All of these PQs seemed to give just Basic Token rewards per their tooltip.  I’ll talk about what you can purchase in a moment, but I have to say that they made the map very user-friendly.  Hopefully they’ll do this retroactively to the rest of the game maps as well.

Aerie of Death : Why do I get visions of undead birds flying around and doing horrible things to me with that name? hehe.  This one rewards the Vulture Glyph.

Amsu’s Charge : This one rewards the Horse Glyph.

Hall of the Heavens : This one just sounds fun. Plus, look at that huge building it’s in!  This one awards the Vase Glyph.

Nikosi Temple : This one awards the Reed Glyph.

Obelisk of Judgement : Ok, this one is at the top of my list just from the name alone.  I can’t wait to see it.  This one awards the Scroll Glyph.

Pit of Asaph : This one awards the Scarab Glyph.

Pit of Kem Senef – This one awards the Scarab Glyph.

Sedjhet Temple – This one awards the Reed Glyph.

Temple of Ualatp : This one awards the Skull Glyph.

The Assault of Nekh Akhet : This one awards the Horse Glyph.

The Carrion Nest : Why am I getting flashbacks from the Indy movie where he’s going through the room filled with bugs?  This one awards the Vulture Glyph.

The Library of Zandri : Rumors abound about this one already and they seem to infer that this will be one of THE must-do PQs in the new zone.  Again, huge building, gotta be wild.  I can’t wait.  This one awards the Vase Glyph.

The Quarry of Bone : This one awards the Scroll Glyph.

The Quay of Seftu : This one awards the Riverbarge Glyph.

Tombs of the Bitter Wind : This one awards the Ankhra Glyph.

As I said, I’m missing at least one of the regular ones, but I’m sure we’ll get that information soon.  As you can see, a lot of the Glyphs seem to come from corresponding PQs on the Order and Destruction sides of the river with some unique ones being located more in the cross-over areas.  This should create some wild battles as people try to complete PQs while also killing the other side to prevent them from winning.  The guilds/alliances that have mastered the Stage 1 City PQs will have a large advantage here since they already know how to do this.  Everyone else will be in catch-up mode.

Fourth, Tokens and purchaseable items.  So we already got a taste of the new Tokens in the form of the Silver and Gold Scarabs.  It appears that those are the Officer Medallions of the new zone, ie: the basic form of currency that you’ll want lots of.  The higher level versions seem to be in the forms of, at least, Ankhs and Cartouches.  I would hazard a guess at this point and say Scarabs probably come off anything and everything while the others come from the Dungeons and PQ Bosses as well as possibly off other players.  Time, and testing, will tell.

As for the purchaseables, oh my.  Apparently the armor and weapons that were shown in the preview are “soul carrier” items.  This means you can acquire “souls” that are like Talismans in that they buff you in different ways and slot in these items.  There were three types of souls available for purchase that were seen: base stat buffs, x-power stat buffs, and buffs equivalent to set-bonuses of a sort.  They all seemed to be very short duration, ie: 4-8 hours, however they were anywhere from 25-40 point bonuses to stats and the set-bonus equivalents were very, very interesting.  I’ll get more specific information about these up as I grill Mykiel on his notes, but here’s what I have access to right now (keep in mind, names/stats may be a little off):

Soldier’s Souls – Cost : 1 Silver Scarab  (costs may be different on live)
Violent – 25 Strength for 4 hours
Determined – 25 Willpower for 4 hours
Hardened – 25 Toughness for 4 hours
Enduring – 25 Wounds for 4 hours
Nimble – 25 Initiative for 4 hours
Dexterous – 25 Weapon Skill for 4 hours
Focused – 25 Ballistic Skill for 4 hours
Sly – 25 Intelligence for 4 hours

Myrmidon’s Souls – Cost : unsure
Same as Soldier’s except stats are 30 for 4 hours.

Priest’s Souls – Cost : 2 Silver Scarabs (again, costs my be different on live)
Dark – 50 Melee Power for 4 hours
Tormentor – 50 Ranged Power for 4 hours
Creeping – 50 Magic Power for 4 hours
Passionate – 50 Healing Power for 4 hours

Heirophant’s Souls – Cost : unsure
Same as Priest’s except stats are 60 for 4 hours.

Proc Souls – Cost : unsure (these are the proc/set-bonus type upgrades)
Restless Assassin’s – Soul Haste II Proc : 5% chance on hit to increase your attack speed by X% over X time
Suffering Assassin’s – Judgement VI Proc : 5% chance on hit to do 232 Spirit damage to target
Keen Knight’s – Barrier VI Proc : 5% chance on being hit, absorb 233 damage over 9 seconds
Restless Overlord’s – Soul Haste III Proc : 5% chance on hit to increase your attack speed by X% over X time
Suffering Overlord’s – Judgement VII Proc : 5% chance on hit to do 266 Spirit damage to target
Keen Crusader’s – Barrier VII Proc : 5% chance on being hit, absorb 267 damage over 9 seconds
Sickly Crusader’s – Pain VII Proc : 2% chance on hit to do 395 Spirit damage over 9 seconds to target

As you can see, these things are going to be wild. There are apparently two sizes of souls : small and large. Two small souls combine to make a large and you supposedly need the large ones for the 2-handed weapons. Not sure if you can use large in anything else or not.

There are also higher power souls with stats that start at 40 for the base and last 8 hours with the higher versions being at 80 power for 8 hours. These were listed at 2 Gold Scarabs a piece for the base ones, so there’s probably some crazy high-end souls out there. I foresee people churning through lots of Scarabs for these upgrades.

As for armor, it seems the first set that people saw was called Tyrant’s.  The Gloves and Belt were purchaseable via gold from the vendors in the new zone, but the Accessory item required you to spend the new tokens and took a mix of Cartouches and Scarabs.

Finally, video footage.  If you didn’t catch G4’s preview of the Land of the Dead, here’s your chance.  This first video has some very nice footage of different aspects of the dungeons in the new zone plus a sneak peak at a hidden Boss fight.  Yummy.  The second video shows more of the actual zone itself and boy does it look good.  I have to say, so far I’m loving the artwork here and I can’t wait to see more.  By the way, take a good look at the armor you see in these videos…for some, this is a first-look at the true end-game armor in Warhammer.  Twinking demo-toons ftw.

Update :  O.  M.  G.   Can you say “cinematic trailer” kiddies?  I can.  mmmmmm……

WA Update!!! – Go here now! PhoenixRed and Warhammer Alliance do it again.  Make sure you keep checking back there often as they have a lot more good stuff in store.

So jealous. More great video footage by PhoenixRed of a Q&A session about the new zone.

WA does it again! Check out their interview with Gabe and Jeff.  Also, an interview with Mark Davis who is the Live Event Lead.  Oh, and in the interview he confirmed my guesses here that Nordenwatch is coming back again and that we’ll see the Reikland Factory scenario return for Rise of the Tomb Kings.  While I was a bit off on when Nordenwatch would return, I nailed RF.  :p

Just about every MMO site out there will have even more footage up soon, so as they add stuff and I hear about it, I’ll compile more links.

Wait, did I say finally?  That was silly of me because we’re still missing something, aren’t we?  Something that wasn’t mentioned really in any of this.  New Lairs.  There’s supposed to be four new Lairs in this zone and they’re supposedly accessed by Glyphs.  I’d assume that with the theme of the new zone and the fact that it takes Glyphs to get in, these new Lairs are most likely hidden Tombs.  I’d love to see entry via a puzzle-system using the Glyphs in different orders to gain entry.  Hopefully we’ll hear more on this either from upcoming coverage in the next few days or maybe the third podcast Mythic promised us before the expansion comes out. And now we have more information.  Apparently it takes multiple Glyphs to open each Lair.  The Glyphs are stored in your Tome when your receive them for finishing the PQs.  The Lairs themselves are basically like Boss fights in dungeons with the PQs being your trash-pulls up to the Boss.  An awesome feature of these Glyphs is that they stay in your Tome until you actually kill the Lair boss, so you don’t have to keep farming Glyphs just because you wiped once or twice…or seventeen times.

So, lots of new and exciting things coming with the new zone it seems.  Reviewing it all, I’m even more disappointed that I didn’t make the trip out to Baltimore.  Hmmm…maybe I’ll try and see if I can sneak into the Mythic offices and get a look at what I missed.  I’m sure no one would notice a short, bald Dwarven Ironbreaker sneaking thru their hallways…  yeah….that’s the ticket….

Update:  Apparently there are quests in the Order and Destruction camps that teleport you out into the zone.  One was called “Window of Eternity” and sent you a short distance out, most likely for lower-level players.  The second was “Window of Infinity” and sent you very far out into the zone, most likely for high-level players allowing them faster travel times and the ability to get straight into battle.  Whether the locations they send you to are fixed or variable was unsure.

Final Update until it goes to Public Test Server:  Ok, here’s a listing of links to all the sites with decent coverage of the new zone.  The more I read, the cooler it sounds.  Enjoy!

Massively’s Preview

Massively’s Impressions of Hands-On Gameplay

Curse’s Land of the Dead Presentation Video

TenTonHammer’s Write-up

TenTonHammer’s Q&A Video

Again, if you haven’t hit up Warhammer Alliance to see all their video footage and their write-up about the new zone, go do it.  Out of all the sites out there, they have the best coverage, hands-down.  Big thanks to PhoenixRed for pushing all the footage out as fast as he could despite having come down with con-plague.  :p

So, enjoy the previews and keep your eyes open for the Land of the Dead to hit the Public Test Server in the coming weeks.  The release isn’t far off, so I’m sure they’ll start mass-testing it soon.  I can’t wait to see hundreds of people fighting thru the new zone!

~Gaar