WAR Tips Wanted!

I haven’t played Warhammer Online since November of 2008, but one of the things that I still remember is that the loading screen tips were not exactly stellar… or very useful… or even true in at least one case.

Of course, as I said back then, having official forums usually generates a “things I wish I had known earlier” type of thread, something that Warhammer Online, lacking official forums for the first few months of the game, missed out on it seems.  So that fertile ground for tip generation was lost when there were a lot more players interested in the game.

Now though, the team at EA Mythic is trying to spice up the loading screen tips by having a contest of sorts.  You can submit tips, and if they use them, they will be attributed on the loading screen to your character.  And you will also get the in-game title “Tipster” if they use one of your tips.  The official rules from the forum post:

We’d like to proudly announce that we’re opening up an opportunity for players to leave a lasting impression on the loading screens of Warhammer, as well as the battlefield!

Loading Screen Tips are an important part of any game’s educational and entertainment value, and Warhammer is no different. With our loading tips, we’ve tried to tell a story for players about important tips on how the game works, as well as include some silly anecdotes about game development or Dwarfs.

We want you to have the opportunity as well, so in the thread below, we are going to be accepting your submissions to make a part of Warhammer Online history by immortalizing yourself in the loading screen tips. Here are the steps:

• Submit your tips, as many as you like, in a post below.
• Please post from the character and server which you would like this tip attributed to (remember it is in-game character names only)
• All entries must be in before June 30th, 2010.

The loading screen tips will be submitted to a judging panel of Mythic employees who will select tips that most effectively judge the tip based on whether or not it is informative, lore-based, or humorous. Tips will be chosen based on how useful/appropriate/humorous they are, as well as if they’re information that can not be found more easily elsewhere. We may correct grammar/spelling, and all tips/names must pass Games Workshop approval.

Chosen entries will be announced and awarded an exclusive in-game title: The Tipster

We will be accepting submissions from now until June 30th, 2010.

The whole thing sounds pretty good.  I only see two problems.

The first is the inclusion of “humorous” as one of the types of tips they are seeking.  We all think we’re funny, the vast majority of us are wrong, and the forum thread of tips bears this out.  Including humorous tips is boosting the signal to noise ratio quite a bit.

Second is the seeming confusion about what is useful.  Tips that sound like the complaints you hear in a scenario… or that sound like complaints about complaints you hear in a scenario… not so useful.

Still, despite the usual problem with user generated content, I think this is a great idea.

I just could have done without the video.

That subjectively seemed a lot longer than two minutes.

I more of an Aion fan when it comes to these sorts of videos.