WAR doubles XP for open-world warfare

By Oli Welsh Published 23 October, 2008

Trying to stimulate barren battlefields.

Mythic has announced that it's doubling the experience rewards for killing enemy players in open-world realm-versus-realm warfare, relative to the game's instanced Scenario battlefields.

Since the game launched, there have been long queues for the excellent instanced Scenarios, whereas the game's dedicated open-world battlefields have been relatively quiet. Mythic has previously bumped open RVR experience up by 50 per cent in order to stimulate this, and it's now increasing the reward to 100 per cent.

"With the addition of the new region-wide and RvR-wide chat channels we have seen a marked increase in Open RvR participation. In order to encourage this trend even further, we have made an additional adjustment to the experience awarded for killing enemy players in an Open RvR area," the company said on the game's website.

"Previously we increased this amount by 50 per cent. As of today, that bonus has been raised to 100 per cent. With this change players killed in Open RVR will now be worth double the experience than those killed in scenarios!"

For more on WAR, check out the gamepage.

Picture of Oli.

About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (21) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • butler` #1 3 years ago

    Kinda admitting the failure of its open world RvR. The same open world RvR that people harp on about so much in support of WAR.

  • Benno #2 3 years ago

    Not really, they are just taking steps to get the balance right. It's a good move.

  • iokthemonkey #3 3 years ago

    Kinda admitting the failure of its open world RvR. The same open world RvR that people harp on about so much in support of WAR.

    ----

    Not really. Differing XP rates has been a pretty common system in MMOs for a while. EverQuest used to regularly update the XP dungeon bonuses to get people to try different areas or move from overpopulated zones to others.


  • Dizzy #4 3 years ago

    Kill!

    On my server plenty of open RvR. WAR should only have open RvR servers. These "Island RvR" servers are a bad idea.

  • Grump #5 3 years ago

    Kinda admitting the failure of its open world RvR. The same open world RvR that people harp on about so much in support of WAR.

    Recognising imbalances and fixing them shouldn't be seen as an admission of failure. I see this change as extremely encouraging in that the developers are listening to the gripes of their customers and making changes if neccesary. More and more changes will be required in the coming months/years - will all of them be seen as an admission of failure?

  • anomagnus #6 3 years ago

    firstly, the tag line is a fucking lie, in no way are my server battlefields 'barren'

    maybe eurogamer, as i have pointed out many times, should ease of the sensationalist headlines. thats pure fucking ass hattery

    secondly, as everyone has pointed out, this is a balancing move only

    T3 is a fucking hotbed of open rvr, and on the weekends, T4 is one long battle

  • Gl3n #7 3 years ago

    Classic EG tag line i guess.. Great that they've added in the xp. But does this stretch to reknown? when i'm at 40 in a few days time i won't give a damn about the XP increases.

  • brokenkey #8 3 years ago

    I wish they'd double the RP as well. There's no problem find XP all over the place, I only play the scenarios to get RP.

  • swede #9 3 years ago

    I am a lowbie (8) , so don't know if things get any better but am annoyed by both the wait times on the instanced RvR stuff (gave up waiting on one of them after an hour last night), and the lack of players in the public quests.

    Nobody seems to want to do them, I haven't seen a PQ through to completion for ages now because the most help I ever get is one or two other players. It's a fairly busy server too (can't remember the name though). Do things improve later on?

  • Orange #10 3 years ago

    The scenarios are not "excellent".

    RvR is excellent, but sadly been far too gimped in terms of xp and renown gain in comparison, this change is a step in the right area but probably not enough. Needed the focus to be on RvR right from the start, with scenarios as just a fallback for people with crap pcs.

  • Kremlik Verified Co-Founder, Crash To Desktop #11 3 years ago

    @butler - hate to disagree with you bud but the open world RVR is far far better then players give it credit for, once a battle gets going on my server on just 1 keep it's a good 3-4 hours until it dies down again...

    This info just gives players more insentive to pvp in the open world not instanced - cuz atm the senarios give far better exp and renown to the winning side then just caputring a keep, this is a step forward to fixing that problem..

    Main point is at least Mythic are fixing problems now not 6-8 months down the line nor waiting till a paid expantion like MANY devs do

  • butler` #12 3 years ago

    Deserted Open World RvR 1-28, then the action starts. But that rules out 3/4ths of the game.

    And the supposed pinnacle of said action is keep seiges etc. which is entirely broken.

    Hence failure.

  • MikeP #13 3 years ago

    @ butler'

    That's certainly not my experience on the Burlok server. T2 and T3 PvP seem pretty active, Mon & Tue I was involved in big PvP battles. T3 was full on Destro/Order active Keep assaults.

    What server are you drawing your experience from, out of interest?

  • Groggen #14 3 years ago

    I am on Burlok server and have gotten quite a lot of keep action as well in tier 2 and 3. Sure, all RvR areas aren't exactly crowded with full blown battles but once some guild gets the ball rolling the action usually heats up from my experience.

    Mike P... I was also involved in a major RvR keep battle this monday in Tier 3 (Tabalecland and High Pass) together with the Shadows of Sin guild on destruction side. Were you there as well? :)

  • actionfitz #15 3 years ago

    "Kinda admitting the failure of its open world RvR.
    The same open world RvR that people harp on about so much in support of WAR".

    ------

    nah.
    the problem is that currently there is still an imbalance in the size of the factions.
    Destruction have more people which means they control most zones around primetime play.
    Order then avoid these areas and queue for scenarios - probably a fast queue too - where they are
    garunteed an even pvp match (even in numbers at least).

    increasing xp rates is a pre-emptive measure imo.
    and one that should work to encourage more open rvr. you forget the game isnt out 2 months yet, they will have plently of tweaking and balancing to do yet.

  • Lemming81 #16 3 years ago

    "Kinda admitting the failure of its open world RvR. The same open world RvR that people harp on about so much in support of WAR."

    The problem isn't the game, it's actually the players. Think of all those WoW subscribers who've never dealt with RvR. Suddenly the see scenario (ie Battleground) queing from wherever they are and live an instanted Deathmatch life instead of trying something new.

    That's the sad truth. Hence, tempt them out of their bubblewrapped minds with the promise of more rewards if they do their PvP outside.

  • butler` #17 3 years ago

    I'm on Karak Azgal, with one of the highest populated and competitive Order sides (me being Dest). So nice try, but alas, no.

    I too have been in small and large scale open RvR, having attacked and defended a capital city and taken multiple keeps - weeks ago, in fact. Still, keep seiging is plagued with crippling server-side lag and bugs (entire keeps dissapearing to certain players for instance). And this was before the bulk of the server had hit T4.

    Keep seiging is also horribly biased towards those defending. I don't know which level design school the guy went to, but seriously, one thin stair case?
    Edited by 1 at 23/10/08 @ 18:53

  • butler` #18 3 years ago

    And yes Lemming81, I'd agree with you there.

  • orakio #19 3 years ago

    And still, it remains good fun. Plenty to do and a good community (on burlok at least).
    Roll on, content patches!

  • hrodelbert #20 3 years ago

    I was under the impression that the whole point of being a defender is that you have an unfair advantage, otherwise they would have made castles out of paper :o

  • Lemming81 #21 3 years ago

    "I was under the impression that the whole point of being a defender is that you have an unfair advantage, otherwise they would have made castles out of paper :o"

    Well, the NPCs guarding the keep aren't push overs certainly, but remember players from the defending side have to purchase Boiling oil etc to use as extra defense. Goodness knows, the attackers will be buying the siege weaponry.