In general, the team was happy with how players had grown with RvR - especially Scenarios, which Wheeler said players "took to like a fish in water. It's an even, guaranteed fight as soon as you click that window. We're trying to make open world RvR just as attractive in terms of readily available action, we want there to be traffic. Hopefully the defensive renown fix and the Influence fix will just be the first on our laundry list of solutions." Naturally, though, they couldn't say more about what was to come.
"1.1 is the start of a very long list of improvements that we're planning on making to the game, both focusing around the RvR experience and incentivizing players," explained Gershowitz. "In future patches you'll see more improvements to oRvR, the campaign system, we'll be tying tying Scenarios and oRvR into one nice package so players aren't forced to choose between a Ferarri or a Ford but two Ferarris, red or blue."
RvR is the soul of Warhammer, but Gershowitz insisted that they weren't "leaving PvE players by the wayside," pointing to the live events like Heavy Metal and Witching Night - as well as formally announcing the title of the next (presumably holiday-themed) live event, Keg's End, which will be expanded upon on Friday. The developers read through PvE feedback and took another pass through four or five dungeons: "we added some loot, retuned some encounters. 1.1 opens more content and quests, more lairs for players to find. You're gonna find more stuff."
Josh Drescher was particularly eager to talk about his personal favorite addition in 1.1, what he described as a "little nugget of joy" - Chicken Run. It's a quest offered in the Greenskin and High Elf Tier 3 areas (for Destruction and Order, respectively) that sends high-level characters down to the first tier open RvR areas ... where they get immediately turned into a chicken, and are tasked with completing special chicken objectives. "Which is mainly," he elaborated, "like trying to get through as fast as possible without getting killed."
"Players were doing this sort of thing anyway," he joked, "so we made this a little gag that we could throw in and give them actual quest rewards. Also," Drescher added, "any rank 1 character that gets ahold of a high-level chicken and kills them is going to get a reward like they killed an actual high-level character - everybody wins!"
So, that covers 1.1 mostly... what about 1.2? Or beyond, even? "We can't tell you much!" Gershowitz laughed. "The things that players can look forward to, and be assured that we're listening to, are improvements to the heart and soul of our game, RvR. We are dead serious about being best PvP game on the market. The things that we've been getting back - feedback on the forums, on the Public Test - are all things we're taking to heart. So whatever comes in 1.2 is the same 'we're listening, we're improving this game' content that we've done in 1.1."
Thanks to the Mythic team for finding the time to speak with us!
