Played Lately: Warhammer Online

• As they've done for their prior game, the folks over at Mythic have put up their first grab bag for Warhammer Online. As well we have our first patch notes for the live game. I have a few notes of my own, but since Mythic won't let me on their web servers, I'm posting them here.
• The grab bag is half "Duh!" and half kind of interesting, though I'm loathe to admit it. The questions about Master versus Game Accounts are the kinds of things that belong in a technical FAQ buried somewhere in a text file, not the opening questions in the very first Q&A. The question about how guild ranks improve is at least a little more enlightening, pointing out that inactive characters don't actually hurt anything. I guess the inquisitor (Doesn't that sound like an Empire class?) thought this might be a Brad McQuaid style hardcore game instead of something fun. We also get a little more info about the rested experience system. Essentially it is WoW Plus +1, like a lot of this game. Building a better mousetrap... err... MMO isn't a bad thing if you like that sort of thing.
• The last half is a Q&A within the Q&A about the capital cities and how city ranks work. Evidently, you can increase your capital's rank via questing (something I've already experienced) and controlling the top tier RvR zones (which I'm not even close to.) I also discovered that sieging the opponent's city will reduce their rank. That is a very cool mechanic and definitely encourages you to attempt a defense of your capital to avoid big losses like that. It also assures that newcomers and perpetual leveling slowpokes (like, ahem, myself) will get to see the cities in many states from slum-ridden to potentially awesome.
• The patch notes are certainly an odd collection of fixes. I am of three minds about it. Either 1) Warhammer is in such great shape that there was very little that needed to be patched, 2) Mythic decided to knock out the easiest fixes first and is leaving the doozies for a later date, or, 3) Mythic writes really bad patch notes. In this crazy, mixed up world we live in, I wouldn't be surprised if it is a combination of all three, but only someone as smart as Jeff Goldblum could perceive it.