Interview with Jeff Skalski and Gabe Amatangelo on Land of the Dead, Post-Release

[PhoenixRed]

Warhammer Alliance managed to catch up with Producer Jeff Skalski and Encounters Strike Team Lead Gabe Amatangelo, two of the minds behind WAR's new Land of the Dead, to hear about their thoughts on the new zone, dungeon, and RvR mechanics, just days after it's gone live. It's been a veritable whirlwind - dare we say, sandstorm - of activity following its release, and we greatly appreciated Gabe and Jeff taking time out to answer the detailed questions we were looking for! Enjoy!

Interview with Jeff Skalski and Gabe Amatangelo on Land of the Dead, Post-Release

We've heard about some of the traps in Land of the Dead. If you had some general tips for adventurers to avoid the various repeated deaths that will happen when navigating them, what would they be and why?

Jeff. Be careful what you click on. Some of my favorite traps lie in the Tomb of the Vulture Lord. My one point of advice is don’t rush through them. Stop and watch. Once you find the patterns you’ll be by-passing those traps in no time, that is until your enemies reactivate them while you're traversing down a quiet hall.


Many players or potential returners to the game are no doubt watching what 1.3 will bring to the WAR world. We've heard about the brand new content, with its action RPG elements, 6v6 invasion mechanic, and dynamic boss encounters. We've heard about fixes to existing systems like wards, lockouts, and loot rolls. At its core, how or why do you think these things will make people want to play WAR, keep their sub, or want to re-sub?

Jeff. The fixes we’ve done to opening up our ward system by unshackling it from armors, easing up on our lockout requirements and now allowing loot rolls to be passed on are some of the features our community has been crying out for quite some time. And we have many other enhancements and improvements in the work today. This is our way of letting the players know we are not just focused on new content, but making sure the core mechanics in our game today are even better. Our Executive Producer, Jeff Hickman has recently been posting his letters about the game and I highly recommend reading them. We have a lot of exciting things in the works right now directly targeting the top concerns of our players such as our RvR endgame in the cities and fortress assaults to name just two. If only I could show you what’s on my whiteboard.


At the time of this interview, we will have seen, for a few days, the fruits of your labor as 1.3 goes live. There is sure to be a slew of feedback that is currently streaming into your inboxes, threatening to overflow and bury you in a sea of text, printouts, and sometimes even ranting. Tell us what are the major things you have learned about already just from the first few days of this patch going live.

Jeff. You never can be over prepared and ready. =P The realm wide events we do in our game and the dynamic way our RvR campaign moves back and forth is some of the most complex systems we’ve worked on to date. Anytime you add or modify these systems it can be rather challenging and with the Land of the Dead we had no fear. With the great support we got on PTS and with our patient core testers we were able to address and resolve a lot of issues early on. Now we are watching the forums, playing with our players, listening and reacting as needed.


The community has talked about how the main RvR campaign might possibly be negatively impacted by the massive interest in Land of the Dead. Let's be honest - a Live release is the only real way to see if this is true, so what are the things you are anticipating or observing about Land of the Dead's affect on the main game to make adjustments?

Jeff. One thing we are anticipating to happen is for the underdog realm to get breathing room and able to quickly capture the pairings and crack open their enemies city while their opposition is enjoying the Land of the Dead. We also expect to see a lot of excitement around purging your enemies as soon as you gain access to the land. One item we’ll be closely monitoring is the pace at which control of the Land of the Dead flips. We don’t want more than a day to span across any server, but we also don’t want it flipping every hour. At the same time we’ll be listening to our players and making adjustments as needed.


Tell us a little bit about the design philosophy for Land of the Dead. Why depart a little from the traditional MMO formula for encounters and dungeons, and craft something that is more "action" based? What drove this direction, and how concerned are you that it may deviate a little too much from what players are used to in WAR?

Gabe. Well, I don’t feel that we departed from the traditional. We enhanced it. All of the parts players know and love about the MMO dungeon crawl experience are present in the Land of the Dead. Group cooperative play, challenging encounters, rewards, etc. We just added several elements we gamers are guilty of daydreaming about when participating in other MMO dungeon crawls. I speak of the wishes tucked away in our id born from vicarious imaginings. Moments of glory, suspense, action, etc. seen in movies, read about in books or imagined in table top games. That was the design philosophy. Dig deep, channel it, sort out the systems to make it a reality, then temper it with scope and mass appeal. It resulted in traps, action packed boss fights, open flow dungeon crawl (glyph system) and the option to invade enemy instances.


The four new Lairs in Land of the Dead require special Glyphs, earned by completing specific PQs. These Glyphs are expended when a player slays the associated "Boss" of the Lair. Are Glyphs also associated with the Tomb of the Vulture Lord? Will players need to repeat PQs for Glyphs over and over again each time they want to regain access to the Tomb of the Vulture Lord?

Gabe. No. The acquisition of glyphs are essentially the sub bosses before the final boss fights (Lair bosses) in the open flow dungeon crawl system that is the Necropolis of Zandri. The Tomb of the Vulture Lord is a separate linear flow dungeon crawl with its own unique elements.


During one of the podcasts, you mentioned lockouts in the Tomb of the Vulture Lord, so we have an example. Suppose an instance is purged by the attackers and the original group is wiped out after they have killed some, but not all bosses. The attackers then proceed to kill the rest of the mobs and bosses in the instance. Will the original group later get a chance to continue the instance ID at the point where they were killed, or will the bosses killed by the attacking group count towards the original group's ID, rendering them unable to kill these bosses during their lockout timer?

Gabe. The attackers, or invaders, of an instance do not ‘own’ that instance. Kills made by players that do not own an instance will not save to that instance. Those monsters will respawn. Additionally, invaders will not receive loot or lockouts for those kills. The next time the ‘original group’ zones into the Tomb of the Vulture Lord, their instance will pick back up right after the last boss monster they killed and received loot for, regardless of what the invaders might have done during a purge or in the few minutes they have before getting kicked after a purge is complete.


During testing for Land of the Dead, you no doubt uncovered many things that required you to take second looks or in some cases, like the expedition resource adjustment, make changes. Give us a couple of interesting, specific examples where your Core Testers or Public Testers revealed things your internal testing did not, and how you decided that feedback was worthy of a change in your content for 1.3.

Gabe. There were several. All of the Core and Public testing was extremely helpful, and an integral part in the iterative process. Here are a few specific examples:

• The Quay of Seftu boss fight originally involved a sort of undead pirate captain. Everyone commented on how they enjoyed the Screaming Skull Ballista aspect of stage 2 and requested that it become part of the boss fight. So we changed the boss to a large, overpowered Tomb Scorpion that would require use of the screaming skull ballista for six players to manage.
• The Assault of Nekh Akeht and Amsu PQs originally advanced all the way to the player camps where they engaged in perpetual combat. After mass testing the camp purging we decided to move those roaming PQs end points to another area in order to better facilitate the RvR experience at the camp.
• There were originally guards throughout Usirian’s Vault treasury that you had to deal with when attempting to pillage the room before the boss came to life. After seeing player reactions, I felt that they detracted from the ‘avaricious treasure collecting frenzy’ experience, not to mention tanks usually got shafted as they would have to round up all the mobs and wouldn’t be able to loot. So I had them removed and altered the stage a bit.

You've stated that tome unlocks and elite titles await those who achieve the RvR-themed goals of Land of the Dead. Now, we've seen in the RvR system proper that sometimes, some players will take the path of least resistance rather than engage in RvR, avoiding the core concept of your design. What do you think about concerns that this will happen in Land of the Dead, that faced with the choice of "phat PvE lewtz" or engaging players in a dynamic RvR encounter of traps and bosses, that most will choose the former because it is may appear more rewarding?

Gabe. Sometimes? You are too kind. Most players are going to participate in PvE here. There is no doubt about that. The core design of the Land of the Dead is a fun, engaging PvE experience bolstered by the threat of RvR. Sure, when dungeon control flips there might be floods of players clashing at the expedition camps or a PQ, but after a bit since only one realm has respawn rights, the dungeon and all of its parts will only have pocket RvR experiences. As such, many of the PvE elements found throughout the dungeon were designed with that in mind – to enhance that pocket RvR experience (i.e. 6v6 instance purging, bragging rights tome unlocks you mentioned, etc.). That being said, successful purging is the path of least resistance for earning tokens which are used to purchase pieces of sets you cannot get from boss drops, crafting items, wholly unique items, etc.


Give us three great adjectives to describe Land of the Dead.

Gabe. Haha. I seem to remember this question being asked of me at a convention some time ago. Was that you? Thrilling, Engaging and Unique.

[Graftonio]

3 adjectives hmmm I would probably get banned for the 3 that come to mind.

Now that we have all seen the truth that is LotD this seems like another case of wondering if they actually play this game and if so it must be on a role-play server.

[Siberwulf]

Originally Posted by PhoenixRed

The community has talked about how the main RvR campaign might possibly be negatively impacted by the massive interest in Land of the Dead. Let's be honest - a Live release is the only real way to see if this is true, so what are the things you are anticipating or observing about Land of the Dead's affect on the main game to make adjustments?

Jeff. One thing we are anticipating to happen is for the underdog realm to get breathing room and able to quickly capture the pairings and crack open their enemies city while their opposition is enjoying the Land of the Dead. We also expect to see a lot of excitement around purging your enemies as soon as you gain access to the land. One item we’ll be closely monitoring is the pace at which control of the Land of the Dead flips. We don’t want more than a day to span across any server, but we also don’t want it flipping every hour. At the same time we’ll be listening to our players and making adjustments as needed.

I think the perception didn't quite live up to the reality. In reality, it is very cumbersome to flip zones without people to fight. The zone domination timers of 2 hours in a keep really need to scale back while your realm doesn't have control of LotD. Maybe 30 minutes? Maybe 15? If the other realm is preoccupied enough with LotD, and willing to take all their players out of the current RvR system, they should quickly lose control of their realm....

[Ipakagun]

On dark crag lotd has been a great experience so far. Purging the land and getting in smaller fights after its clear is a blast. Last night we did a group purge in the dungeon working our way through traps to find the group. All in all a good time, thanks for the new lands mythic!

[beav2rd]

Originally Posted by Graftonio

Now that we have all seen the truth that is LotD this seems like another case of wondering if they actually play this game and if so it must be on a role-play server.

Being a member of the Phoenix Throne community, I take that as an insult. Just because we don't play on a core-server, or an oRvR grief-fest, doesn't mean tht any of our aspects are less than equal to your own.

[Rer]

Originally Posted by Siberwulf

I think the perception didn't quite live up to the reality. In reality, it is very cumbersome to flip zones without people to fight. The zone domination timers of 2 hours in a keep really need to scale back while your realm doesn't have control of LotD. Maybe 30 minutes? Maybe 15? If the other realm is preoccupied enough with LotD, and willing to take all their players out of the current RvR system, they should quickly lose control of their realm....

I'd have to agree. I think, generally speaking, most people understand that its just a new zone and hence naturally people will flock to it, but it really has hurt the main RvR campaign severely. I'm sure you guys are crunching numbers and thinking up ideas on how to solve this, so I'll just leave it at that.

[Archaosruin]

RvR has, in fact, been severely impacted on Dark Crag as a result of the new expansion.

Lacking players to fight and absent scenarios zones inebitably sit stagnant during prime time as we wait for 2 hours for domination. Domination should be significantly reduced to 1 hour or 30 minutes on keeps. This "clockhammer" wait fest is boring and un-inspiring. My guild mates spend most of the time complaining about the poor mechanic.

[stiltskin]

Originally Posted by Archaosruin

RvR has, in fact, been severely impacted on Dark Crag as a result of the new expansion.

Lacking players to fight and absent scenarios zones inebitably sit stagnant during prime time as we wait for 2 hours for domination. Domination should be significantly reduced to 1 hour or 30 minutes on keeps. This "clockhammer" wait fest is boring and un-inspiring. My guild mates spend most of the time complaining about the poor mechanic.

At first impression , it appears that lotd and rvr campaign in unison may only be really possible on high/high servers . I don't think there's any high/high servers left in EU , at best med/med.
Even the t1-3 scenario queues are extremely slow atm , and I'm currently playing order on a destruction dominant server . At this rate I may even have to try some pve for a change , which for me is a real demoralizing thought .

[solarbear]

This expansion has killed RVR on all but the bigger servers. It is utter crap. Maybe they don't realize it takes 2h to flip a zone with no opposition. The game is now a PVE game with touches of RVR. The game has shifted from Doorhammer to Waithammer. GJ at shooting a dying horse Mythic.

This game is dead and dying. Most of my guild is quitting.

[PhoenixRed]

Originally Posted by solarbear

This expansion has killed RVR on all but the bigger servers. It is utter crap. Maybe they don't realize it takes 2h to flip a zone with no opposition. The game is now a PVE game with touches of RVR. The game has shifted from Doorhammer to Waithammer. GJ at shooting a dying horse Mythic.

This game is dead and dying. Most of my guild is quitting.

Overdramatic, doomsaying commentary aside, the 2 hour flip for the zone is a legitimate concern even on the higher servers. Like Siberwulf said, the penalties for abandoning your campaign, arguably the crown jewel of WAR, should be almost as bad as being pushed to the city. Jeff refers to making adjustments as needed. We're realistically only a week out from the LotD release, so we'll see if changes will be made.

Honestly, it'd really be nice to see more responses to the interview questions rather than a kneejerk seeing of "Land of the Dead" and reacting based upon that. We have shifted the types of questions we're asking because we know people don't just want to hear marketware, but details and "meaty" things about what we're asking about. We want to know if these are the things people want to know, but we can't do that without people actually reading the interview and responding to what was said, though.

[Nightbreak]

It was neat to hear about how some of the encounters evolved during testing and how player feedback prompted some changes. The design provess is always cool to hear about.

[radishlaw]

I have to raise question to people who think it's killing RvR.

On our server there IS RvR and scenarios when people gather up and fight in the main campaign, in the peak hours. Just because people are getting used to Lotd doesn't mean it will be that way forever. Remember LotD itself doesn't give you any RP at all.

If there are no enemy players in LotD, it is basically LV. Are you saying LV hurt RvR? Also you can play RvR in LotD. "Die once and you're out" is a new thing for many players of WAR, and there are already signs of "survival groups" in LotD - people really need to allow this kind of thing to develop.

I'd say people not logging in and get no RvR is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Lead in the RvR lakes, and you will get RPs - after all, the other side don't expect you to not go Lotd right?

[Alariele]

LV is ok because its on a 5 day timer, relatively short time to complete and the rewards arent insane. Can you say the same of the rewards of LOTD?

For example, undefendable attack proc talismans and pocket items, woo. 60% movement speed buff, woo. 3k absorb pocket item, woo. Do you know how gamebreaking it is if you dont have these items to compete? Andthe high cost of scarabs for some temp talismans and some tyrant gear means i have to grind PQs etc all day long (and no, dont ask me to go to LOTD to grind since im complaining)

oh, i unsubbed by the way. dont ask me to pve flags and hammer doors since thats the only thing left to do as i REFUSE to go to LOTD. (another option is to purge LOTD but that doesnt last v long either)

I cant believe pple actually HAVE to do PVE to compete in this PVP game.

[Tressicon]

Originally Posted by Alariele

LV is ok because its on a 5 day timer, relatively short time to complete and the rewards arent insane. Can you say the same of the rewards of LOTD?

For example, undefendable attack proc talismans and pocket items, woo. 60% movement speed buff, woo. 3k absorb pocket item, woo. Do you know how gamebreaking it is if you dont have these items to compete? Andthe high cost of scarabs for some temp talismans and some tyrant gear means i have to grind PQs etc all day long (and no, dont ask me to go to LOTD to grind since im complaining)

oh, i unsubbed by the way. dont ask me to pve flags and hammer doors since thats the only thing left to do as i REFUSE to go to LOTD. (another option is to purge LOTD but that doesnt last v long either)

I cant believe pple actually HAVE to do PVE to compete in this PVP game.

WAR has alway been pve bullcrap, just now ppl are finally seeing the real aspect.....really im kinda piss to see a game that goes from RVR to PVE,RVE

[PhoenixRed]

Originally Posted by Alariele

LV is ok because its on a 5 day timer, relatively short time to complete and the rewards arent insane. Can you say the same of the rewards of LOTD?

After a whole 4 days? No one really knows. But it's your subscription and your money.

I'd like to know if you tested the content and provided the same feedback. Based on my questions, you'll see I did. Did you?