Grandmothers. Loving, caring, in some cases parenting individuals whom you’d like to relax with, accompanied by some hot cocoa and gingerbread cookies. Generally far less strict than your own parents, even verging on spoiling their grandchildren. From random pieces of candy to toys on rainy days, their acts of kindness are something to admire and appreciate. Unfortunately, this giving nature turns ugly every birthday and Christmas. Their internal gift-giving mechanism seems to sputter and revolve off kilter and causes them to choose the worst gifts possible. Tube socks, fruit cakes, a solitary softball (no bat or gloves…just the ball), sweaters either too small or too hot, anything made of the itchy wool variety your parents expect you to wear every time they visit; the list goes on. Why this happens, I’m still not sure. Maybe the gifts are things they would like or even received while they were growing up. Sadly, times have changed quickly even from the 80s, let alone the 50s, and what made good gifts then aren’t exactly good gifts now.

I always accepted these gifts with a warm “Thank-you” and a genuinely forced smile and never snubbed or dismissed the presents. She either made these gifts or bought them on a limited budget, and I was always thankful no matter what they were. Of course I may have preferred my uncle’s gifts that were a bit more…high tech, but it never changed the fact that I appreciated what I received. And then my younger cousin ended up getting a Playstation 2 game for Christmas one year, and turned the whole process on its end.

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For those who don’t know, I am an officer in the Army currently deployed to Iraq. I am returning to the states in approximately three weeks. I am in the middle of out-processing, training up my replacement, packing up my crap and shipping most of it home. After I return to the states,  I have one month to pack up my household goods, rent out my house, move to a new duty station, buy a house, get settled in, and start work. As you might have guessed, I’m slightly busy.

I haven’t been able to be as active with this website as I would have liked. Part of the problem is that our turnover for writers is extremely high. Maybe that’s because we started at launch, and as people played and realized they didn’t enjoy the game as much as they thought they would, they lost interest. But whatever the reasons, we lose more writers each month than we hire. I have a growing list of bloggers that I would like to ask to join us, but I simply haven’t had the time to contact them.

As a result, you’re going to see a couple changes. Hopefully our current writers will remain.  I will be giving them access to post directly to the website rather than waiting for my review.

I will also be opening access for everyone to submit posts. That means even if you aren’t on our payroll, you are still free to write a post on current events, your thoughts, in-game experiences, or whatever to share with the community. However, due to the dubious nature of humans, these posts will be reviewed by yours truly before publication to the front page.

I’ll post another update once these changes have been put in place. To our regular readers: thanks for sticking with us.

Hello, my name is Ysharros and I’m a recovering altoholic. Just kidding–I remain an Unashamed Altophile, and that’s not about to change. However, due to various real life issues, this week’s confession may be on the short side, and was inspired partly by questions I was asked elsewhere (thanks to my e-Muses). So here goes.

Q: How do you decide which alt to play at any given session? Do you level alts sequentially? Do you keep them approximately the same level?

Some people are very organised. Me, I play whoever takes my fancy that day/hour. It also partly depends on who else is playing, what might be going on, how much time I have (lower level chars can get more done in a shorter amount of time, usually), and what sort of playstyle mood I’m in.

I’m not a serial altoholic, I’m a mish-mash altoholic so no, I don’t tend to level characters sequentially. It keeps me sane not to, since I have so many alts usually that leveling, say, 5 chars from 1-10 in WAR will eventually drive you batty from content repetition. I have a high tolerance for repeating content, but even I have my limits; taking breaks between doing exactly the same content can help refresh said content a little. Right now I have 3 WAR alts firmly in T2 and another several who could adventure in T2 and, not surprisingly, I am somewhat jaded with tier 2 as a whole right now. Taking a break for a bit (playing higher or lower chars, playing something else) will recharge the enthusiasm battery. However, it leads to:

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We are closing in on the two month anniversary of WAR’s release! Instead of writing a Detail this week, I thought I’d dive into the current uneasy feeling some gamers have felt in terms of WAR’s total in-game population. Last month players wondered how many people would stay past the first ‘free’ month, claiming doom and gloom for WAR. The month past and the game is still standing; far from crippled. Now an army of games is invading your local electronics stores and demanding your attention with their shiny Saran wrap like plastic coating and their infectious “New Game Smell,” Some players worry that the current subscribers will leave WAR to try out these new games. This is far from a real issue, as it merely involves human nature in the form of curiosity.

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Welcome back to the killing fields. Look at the fresh bodies, still smoking! Oh, how I love Sorcerers! No, the bodies were not wizards – mostly. They were harvested by the Dark Elves, servants of Khaine and the Witch King. Their prowess on the battlefield is incredible but there have been… accidents. Sometimes, you’ll find a Sorcerer on these fields brought here through his own hatred. It consumes you, you know.

Another week has passed and that means it’s time for another edition of Upon the Pyre! Today, we’re going to look at one of the most fun, and most deadly, classes in the game. As many of you may know, my main character is a Sorcerer. Yes, he’s a guy and, yes, you could barely tell through the first few ranks.

When I loaded up the character creation screen for the first time, I’ll admit that I was still undecided. I’d been following the game for some time and there were things that appealed to me about every class. I’d been reading the Malus Darkblade novels though, so I was leaning towards the Dark Elf race.

The one thing I knew for sure was that I didn’t want to make the same mistake I made in WoW. There, I rolled an “easy” class first, to learn the ropes. I played a warrior, when my inner magician cried out for a mage. So, looking through the Dark Elf classes, I decided to satiate that inner voice and create a Sorcerer.

It’s been a lot of fun and I’d encourage anyone to give the class a try. So, in this article, we’ll be looking at what the Sorcerer is, what it is not, and why, oh why, is it so much fun.

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Each week, I will post a list of the top 10 articles that I found while exploring the tubes of the internet and blogosphere. This list is purely subjective and based on my opinion alone, so take it for what it’s worth.

1. Syncaine talks about server transfers, the importance of high population, and the lack of a need to rush to the end game in Warhammer Online.

2. Sans gives Theerivs some excellent advice on how to level a Chosen.

3. Mark Jacobs gives us a sneak preview of patch 1.05 over on the VN Boards, and the next day they show up on the Herald.

4. Thulfs lists some of the endgame epic quests for Destruction.

5. Admin points us to some awesome guides to pocket items.

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Hello, my name is Ysharros and I’m an altoholic. By now, I’m sure you know the drill.

Many careers in WAR take a little while to mature, and going at least to Rank 10 is helpful if you think you like a career but you’re not entirely sure. What may seem underpowered at 3 can change quite drastically by 8 or 11, and a lot of the “core” abilities are handed out right around 7-11–such as taunts (or detaunts), Guard for tanks, stealth for Witch Hunters and Witch Elves, and so on.

I was finally able to take a few *cough* of my other alts to 10 in the last few days, which while technically not exactly all the way through tier 1, is still within spitting distance. Joining the ranks of the other alts whose path through T1 I previously described, this week we have Misericorde the Witch Hunter, Incendia the Bright Wizard, and Meabh the Ironbreaker. I should have made a Rune Priest and then I’d have had all four archetypes, but even I have only so much alt-stamina in me. Even so, those three characters were an interesting contrast to each other.

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Yellow, blue, and red. Not only are these the colors of the Romanian flag (as we all know), but they are also the colors on the wrapper of a popular candy.

Behold! The Charleston Chew!

The Charleston Chew was created back in 1922 by the Fox-Cross Candy Company and was named after a popular dance at the time, the Charleston. Apparently they haven’t changed the wrappers since then, as the style looks dated, but not in a bad way. A bold canary yellow backdrop, blue text, and a splash of red to get attention. As a child these were rare to me, and the only time I would possibly get them was during Trick or Treating. After the public confectionery begging rounds were complete and the treats were sorted into piles, the trading began with my friends that went something like this…

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I’m breaking from my usual format today to address a pervasive issue that’s arisen on the Internet recently. I’m not exempt from this issue, but I feel that it’s important that we all have a full understanding of what we’re witnessing.

It’s something that every game company does. It sells games. It makes money. It gets people excited. I’m talking about hype. It’s a natural move, of course. When a game company spends thousands of man-hours creating a product, they want people to get interested in it. They want them to spread the word so that everyone and their brother goes out and invests in their product.

Mythic was the hands-down champion for hype over the past couple years. They pumped WAR up so much that Mark Jacobs had to come out and quell the storm, stating that they don’t expect to beat WoW. Looking at their subscription numbers and box sales, it looks like the hype paid off. With 1.2 million boxes sold and 800,000 subscribers, they did the right thing.

Didn’t they?

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On October 1st, we announced our Grand Opening Screenshot Contest. Thank you to everyone who entered. Our panel of judges spent hours toiling over the plethora of entries that we received. After a long night of grueling debate, we reached a consensus. The winners are as follows:

Third Place

Rattata is Evolving! Rattata’s screenshot looked like a dude with a horse’s head and a Swordmaster riding on his shoulders. Interesting use of the camera angle for special effects. Enjoy your Warrior Priest miniature.

Second Place

Fight on Flag? In Norsca, flag capture YOU! And Dante walks away with a Prima Player’s Guide and Atlas combo pack.

First Place

Drumroll please…

It’s a beautiful world! Sunspots’s shot of Mannslieb and Morrslieb beautifully hung upon the sky above Talabecland takes the cake. Enjoy your 60-day game card and 86,400 minutes of Warhammer Online on us!

The winner’s will be contacted via email so we can send their prizes. Again, thanks to everyone who entered, and congratulations to the winners.