There’s something about non-posted hotfixes that rile me up quite a bit. Be them good or bad, having the experiences with the game change dramatically while having no forewarning is a bit perturbing. I’ll have you all note, on Saturday at sometime you may have noticed a small chunk of download coming from the WAR patcher. Notations absent, I assumed it was WAR just playing along with our hopes and putting in small token efforts as an assurance that yes, they are working on something. This is all fine and good, as the illusion that something is being worked on, even in small bits, is enough to keep my mind at ease. Even if it’s nothing noticeable, it might be a typo on a loading screen, a quest that just doesn’t make sense, a stray NPC missing his legs, or any number of minor things that really have no place making the news in the first place.

So be it. Those Ninjas are harmless, and bother me not. However, we have the more deadly master Ninjai to worry about. Back to Saturday, whatever the hell Mythic did in the last patch DROPPED LOADING TIMES FOR ZONES AND SCENARIOS BY WAY MORE THAN HALF.

Aha leetle neenja. You have been found out!

Somehow, the thirty or so people that I talk to among my alliance group and guild, hadn’t really noticed until I pointed it out to them. I am now zoning into scenarios on average of about 10 seconds, where previously it would be more around 45s. I can load into a contested zone in an average of 15s, where it could go onward for a minute or two. This has been a big complaint with the game by many people that I have talked to. It appears the issues with the Tome of Knowledge have been most excellently resolved, and to that I applaud the engineers at Mythic. Kudos guys… Just next time, don’t take so damn long!

Stealth Ninja Patches… Why wouldn’t you want to slap this on the patcher in HUGE bold lettering going “OMG, doodz! We Fixed Loading Timez!@!1!1!!!11” ? Next time you give the game a whirl, test it out. Maybe you hadn’t noticed yet, maybe just not realized. Maybe you haven’t logged into the game since last week. If loading times were making you fall asleep before, or miss defending your favorite keep, I don’t think you’ll be having any problems now. Enjoy!

But wait! There’s more!

To further confuse me, a Hotfix released today made no mention of the performance enhancing drugs that WAR has been taking heavily over the weekend. However there are some nice fixes that have been clamored about.
– Land of the Dead bosses give contribution to Wards properly… if you do that sort of thing…. I guess.
– Inevitable City – Stage 2 – Arena boss Torvug will no longer recieve an errant “Target Immunity” buff, allowing to forces of Order to continue their headhunting
– BO’s will no longer lose their domination point if the guards are killed, but the flag is not captured.
   this one is important for the random RvR that happens when BO’s are actually defended. those guards will often be taken down by AoE and ruin the cap, even if the defenders hold on strong.
– SCENARIOS GIVE ZONE CAPTURE REWARDS – Thank you very much. Now we can continue kicking ass in SC’s instead of holding our collective dicks in the warcamp.

Pretty much every single one of these gives me a little chubby. Which in turn, swells into… ah. Why am I going there? Regardless, these are the kind of small, hotfixed changes that give me hope WAR is still on the right track. I think pretty much everyone can appreciate and enjoy.

But wait! There’s EVEN MORE!

Much to the chagrin of many players across many servers (five to be exact), we’re getting a fresh round of server consolidation for the worst-of-the-worst populated bunches. Enjoy ye underpopulated realms! Make new friends with more neighbors, and enjoy the chaos that will consume you next few weeks! There’s no looking back at this point, so dive in!

Source    —>    Destination

Ironfist    —>    Gorfang

Vortex
Monolith    —>    Volkmar

Magnus
Skullthrone    —>    Badlands

But Wait!

No… That’s it. Looks like some of the people at Mythic decided they like their jobs after all. Hopefully this is the start of a long deserved fix process before they decide to release more PvE crap content.

Oh, and I want me some T4 Mourkain Temple or Tor Anroc weekends. Keep that in mind. It’s important.