"Greetings,

My name is Kai Schober, also known as Sterntaler to some of the European players, and I am happy to restart an old job in a new environment so to speak.

I started as a German Community Manager for Dark Age of Camelot in 2002 shortly after the European release � at that time in Paris working for GOA, the former French distributor for Europe. In that position I have been around through all expansions � from Shrouded Isles to Labyrinth of the Minotaur �helping, playing, doing events, or presenting the game to the players and the media at conventions and other occasions. ..."

"As part of our ongoing efforts to maintain an active, competitive, and engaging experience in WAR we have decided to open free transfers for players to specific servers. WAR, more than many games, only gets better with more people. These transfers will enable players to experience more action during all hours whether fighting in scenarios or Open RvR.

To make this process easier we have provided specific details concerning these new transfer options below, please read and follow any instructions carefully. We are currently targeting next week to enable the transfers, for now please use this time to organize yourself and your friends to ensure a smooth transition to your new home. ..."

"Here is an updated bullet point of changes based on feedback in the thread:

Archmage

Isha's Encouragement- Will add a Heal over time on a successful Cleansing Light use.

Boon of Hysh- 2s cast time. (reduction in fragility) ..."

"Hey all - on the topic of server populations, I did want to provide more of an update, so here you go.

Free character transfers to select servers are on their way, we�ll have specific details for you next week."

"Hey all! This is the next portion of the changes, specifically focused on the Warrior Priest and Disciple of Khaine Careers. Our primary focus here is to give true melee healers better group support healing by making some changes to Transfer Essence and Sigmar�s Radiance. We also want to give the Warrior Priest and Disciple of Khaine a single target heal that is meant to compliment the single target heals of other careers. So that they are using the heal to prevent death; while giving other healers more time to react and use their larger value, longer build heals.
Here is a bullet point rundown of the upcoming changes:..."

Jumping on the go west mentality...I'm no longer with BioWare Mythic. I'm moving closer to the family and have a great new opportunity. Thanks to the WAR and DAOC communities for the last 2+ years. Thank to Mythic for all of the amazing opportunities. I'll forever be grateful."

It�s a brand New Year! For many, this is a chance to reflect, for others a time to look ahead. Some make resolutions. Sometimes they stick to them, sometimes they don�t. Regardless of your personal view of the New Year and what it brings, it marks a time for change.

This month�s Producer Letter is being brought to you by James Casey. James has been a Producer on the project for some time and has run a number of WAR initiatives (New User Journey, Endless Trial, Verminous Horde, etc.) in tandem with Carrie. Carrie is still working on WAR, but is looking at a different aspect of the game. This new focus will be revealed in due time.

In setting up this year, we took a look at what we accomplished last year and what remained on our �to-do� or wish lists. These are gathered internally and from feedback that we gather all year long. We then plotted those out with our normal patch cycle in mind. ..."

Here's a sneak peak of the upcoming producer's letter:

"We�ve monitored feedback and statistics over the last year and decided to shake up what scenarios are available all the time for each Tier. The current structure of the Scenarios will remain unchanged, but the Scenarios themselves will be different. Some scenarios stayed where they are, some changed�"

"Hey everyone,
We started out with 1.4.1 looking to improve single target options. We toiled with ideas to improve heal + heal-over-time abilities or some of the other heal-over-time abilities. After some discussion, we decided to remain conservative for now and tweak a few abilities to bring the greatest impact to game play.

The first change is to all Healer �cleanse� abilities. We want cleansing to be a choice. I can either heal or cleanse. So we have removed the cooldown on all cleanse abilities. This change does have a drawback. ..."

UPDATE: I want to clarify that this letter is in no way intended to be an ultimatum, threat or anything of that sort. This is simply journalism being used experimentally to strongly express the concerns of our community. I also want to clarify that Andy Belford is currently out of office for personal reasons, and I want it specifically noted that I am not blaming him for any of this. I saw these concerns in our community and simply wrote them down.

None of this is particularly my own beliefs or concerns.


Subject: Communications between the Warhammer Online user base and the staff of BioWare Mythic.
Perceived importance: Critical

I�m seeing, throughout the forums and in-game feedback, heavy community concern over recent levels of communication between the BioWare Mythic staff members and the community itself. Users are feeling as though they�re being abandoned and are clearly expressing great amounts of anxiety for what this might mean for the game. Forum statistics show related threads with thousands of views and several hundreds of posts.

One of the major concerns is the neglect seen in the updating and posting of the Producer�s Letter. The current Producer, Carrie Gouskos, is seemingly still employed and in the Producer position. There have been no indications in social media or forums of the Producer being ill or otherwise too impaired to fulfill her duties. The last Producer�s Letter (PL) was edited and posted 3 months ago on October 5, 2010. It was 396 words long, not including some statistical data about the patch 1.4 RvR packs and not including any links. Apparently, the community was told that there would be no November Producer�s Letter. The reasoning was that BioWare Mythic had nothing new to talk about at the time. December has also passed without any sort of Producer�s Letter, or any other type of communication from the Producer. At this time, January 2011 is coming to a close in the coming week and once again, there has been no sign of the Producer�s intention to release a Producer�s Letter for this month.

The lack of Producer�s Letter for the last couple of months has shaken the community with much anxiety, not only about the game�s future, but also about the Producer�s interest in the product itself. Social media is often quoted by forum users to show the Producer�s interests in a negative light, usually towards competitive MMOG titles.

Community Manager Andy Belford has more recently been slightly more active than usual. This includes posting information about current game affairs in the �General Discussion� (Category 232) area of the official forums. I will note here that the usual area for this sort of communication is the �Dev Discussions� (Category 230) area. Developer James Casey has also been seen interacting in these development threads.

At the time of writing this, Andy Belford has not posted on the Warhammer Online official forums in 9 days. James Casey has posted more recently, as recent as 3 days ago.

The community�s anxiety over the wellbeing of the game and future communications from the BioWare Mythic staff may be seen by increased forum activity since October. The moderation staff�s internal logs show a 100% increase in the number of user actions (Bans, Warnings) in January 2011 as compared to December 2010.


-Fozee

Here's a brief summary of some of the things we're currently working on. Please keep in mind, none of this is currently finalized and some is in early design and testing:

*A fix for the RR84 Respawn bug is currently in testing. We're hoping to have this pushed live this week. As such, we're delaying weekly maintenance until this fix passes testing.

*ORvR Anti AFK measures currently in testing.

*Tweaking Thanquol's Incursion boss encounters.

We will be bringing the BioWare Mythic account center offline for maintenance tomorrow, 1/4/2011, at 9:00 AM EST/15.00 CET. At this time we anticipate the account center will be back online no later than 11:00 AM EST/17.00 CET. As always, please be sure to check the Herald for updates regarding this downtime.

During this time all account center related service will be unavailable, including billing and character transfers.

We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your continued support.

The following Hot Fixes were implemented during today's maintenance:

General Changes and Bug Fixes

General
The Keg�s End Live Event has begun and lasts until January 4th, 2011!
Combat and Careers

Disciple of Khaine
Khaine�s Embrace: The base healing value of this ability has been reduced and its cooldown has been removed.

Khaine�s Vigor: The base healing value of this ability has been increased and its duration has been reduced.

The wheel of the seasons has turned, ushering out the sun's last warmth with bitter blasts of northern winds. As snow creeps down to block mountain passes and lock the Warhammer world in the icy talons of winter, the citizens of the Old World raise their mugs high; the time of Keg End is at hand. In an epic celebration fraught with boasting, toasting, and epic fireworks, the Dwarfs clear out their stores of ales, beers and other intoxicating beverages in order to bring luck in the New Year and make way for a stock of better, stronger brews.

The following Hot Fixes were implemented during today's maintenance:

General Changes and Bug Fixes

General
Fixed an issue where passive bonuses from items would not properly reapply after a player died while under the affects of a Play as Skaven buff.
The Bonus to Renown granted by the purchase of the RvR Pack for Renown Ranks 1-10 has been slightly increased.
Combat and Careers

Renown Abilities
PLEASE NOTE: As a result of the changes being implemented during today�s maintenance, all players have had the Career Mastery and Renown Ability Points refunded. Please be sure to visit the Career and Renown trainers upon logging in.