Hypothetical Expansion 4: A New Dungeon

Scenario 4: A Warlord/Sovereign Level Dungeon

The Possibility: Digging back into the past a little, I bring back the May 2010 Producer’s Letter and in particular the quote at the very bottom which sparked our next theory. That quote would be “We want to make sure that you have proper incentive to wear that shiny new armor that you’re winning in the new city.” Now given the release of the 1.3.6 patch notes, this could have just been in reference to the Sovereign armor changes, but initially the theory was a dungeon for us to use our Warlord/Sovereign gear.

From the Dungeon-master: If you break up the game into the RvR sets, which are the only way to gauge a players progression in the game visually, you see that for almost every set there is a coinciding dungeon which drops a like-warded set. The exception to this rule is the Decimator  Set which is alone =( Obliterator has Keeper, Devastator has Redeye, Annihilator has Bloodlord, Conqueror has Sentinel, Invader has Dark Promise, and arguably Warlord has Tyrant (even though Tyrant offers no wards and the dungeon itself has the same ward check as Lost Vale). That being said their is no ‘real’ ward mirror for Warlord and no mirror period for Sovereign.

The Pros: A new dungeon would indeed be welcome new content for any player to explore but what is really Mythic’s greatest hurdle currently is keeping those pesky elitist RR80s interested. For those who have mastered the Tomb of the Vulture Lord and are working on their second set of Sovereign gear due to the dual-set announcement, there isn’t much of a carrot-on-a-stick for them to keep going – aside from bloodlust and enemy tears.  And considering by technicality a RR45 can access ToVL and hypothetically do it the higher-ups feel they deserve something that’s just for them.

The Questions to be Raised:

• Initially Tyrant gear had no wards as to prevent players from PvE-ing their way to the King instance and there for potentially getting Sovereign gear without ever doing RvR/PvP. Would Tyrant receive the wards its due and would ToVL be upped in status to a Superior Warded Dungeon?
• Would the dungeon require Excelsior Wards and grant a set equivalent to Sovereign gear or would it require Supreme wards granting gear above Sovereign?
• The bugs…. oh the horrendous bugs! Anyone whose played Warhammer Online knows that Mythics biggest foe is the bugs in PvE. The bugs in RvR are one thing, but the bugs in PvE completely kill that experience.
• How could you add a high end dungeon dropping gear equivalent to Sovereign or greater without further imbalancing the quagmire that is T4? Lets face it, a RR32 stands little to no chance against a RR80, yet they’re expected to fight each other.
• How would the community respond to another PvE expansion in an RvR game?
• Where would this dungeon be located? More of a fluff question but it still raises eyebrows, and concerned eyebrows at that…

The Fear: Branching off the last question to be raised – where would this dungeon be and what would it do to dash the hopes and dreams of players? With the constant Skaven related teasing going about by Mythic and the quote stated in the beginning of this post there are great concerns that we will get another PvE lake in a zone which could have had a playable army, such as Land of the Dead. To casual players, Land of the Dead is just another zone, but to Games Workshop and avid Warhammer Table-top players The Tomb Kings are a playable army and by turning this zone into a PvE lake Mythic killed their hopes of having the Tomb Kings as a playable third faction (arguably one of the best candidates for a third faction). With the raving thirst for Skaven and Lizardmen there is actually a fear rising among the player base that Mythic will give us Skaven and/or Lizardmen, but not how we want them – that fear being that they will turn another racial zone into a dungeon. Players want to play a lizardman or a skaven, they don’t want to do a dungeon full of them. Should we get another zone such as The Necropolis of Zandri which has a high end dungeon in it, such as a ruined city in Lustria or Skavenblight, and that was the carrot that Mythic has been dangling in front of us for all these months… I fear the outrage and disappointment from the player-base would severely hurt Warhammer. There is nothing that says Mythic can’t expand the Land of the Dead into a pairing allowing Tomb Kings, or that they introduce a Skaven or Lizardmen pairing consisting of a high end dungeon – but to introduce a zone that could have had a pairing but only has a dungeon would be detrimental.

The Finances: As with every other hypothetical expansion, a new dungeon would no doubt bring temporary revenue, but as I stated above, if this dungeon is improperly placed then it could be the final nail in the coffin. Stick it in a Dwarf zone, stick it in an Empire province, but do NOT stick it somewhere where fans know another army could have been. If that happened all of a sudden that carrot-on-a-stick would materialize into a nasty-pickle-on-a-stick.

The Conclusion: A new dungeon requiring Warlord or Sovereign gear would no doubt be a fun new experience (polished and bug free of course) but there are many issues at stake. First and foremost is the gear and how it compares to the existing gear. Tyrant for the past year was better than Sovereign, only with this new patch will that slightly change, how would gear from a new dungeon compare? Also Mythic would have to very carefully place this dungeon as placing it anywhere that gives the slightest hint of A) A LotD PvE-type zone with a stupid flipping mechanic or B) A zone that could house another pairing would most likely lead to another drop in subscriptions. Warhammer is built on PvP, we do not want more PvE; but if we get it, it better not be a bug-filled-dream-killing-resource-grinding-zone.