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Warhammer Online: WarCry Q&A
Answers by Josh Drescher, Assistant Producer
Questions by Dana Massey

WarCry Network:: As this is the first time we've spoken to you about Warhammer, can you give our readers the basic overview of what you're trying to accomplish with this new game?

Josh Drescher: Achieving a player-base of 6 billion people (settling for MILLIONS of players is SO two years ago). Creating the single most enjoyable entertainment experience humankind has ever known. Total world domination. Stuff like that.

Oh, you mean IN the game. Just... uh... edit out the "world domination" part.

We're trying to accomplish a great deal with WAR. We're going to bring the Warhammer IP to life in a way that fans have never seen before. We're going to take all of the lessons we've learned from DAoC and build a game that will excite our existing fan-base, and bring RvR to the masses.

WarCry Network:: What has the experience the team gained from Dark Age of Camelot contributed to the product both in terms of technology and people?

Josh Drescher: We know - in the core of our very beings - that RvR, executed properly and presented in an engaging way, is irresistibly exciting and fun. DAoC proved that to a huge number of players, and was an awesome success as a result. We've got a much larger platform (and more standing in the industry) this time, so we'll be bringing that experience to a significantly larger audience as a result.

In terms of people, we benefit seriously from the loyalty Mythic enjoys from its employees. We have a team that's being led by people who've worked together for five, ten years or more. We speak the same language, we've learned the same lessons, and we know how to get things done.

As for technology, WAR is a very different beast. To be sure, we've taken the best elements of DAoC's tech and built upon it in some cases, but we've built most of the core systems from the ground up. We're not making Camelot II, so it only makes sense to start fresh in a lot of ways.

WarCry Network:: Obviously, Electronic Arts must have been impressed with Warhammer's chances to buy EA Mythic. What has it meant to the development of this title to have EA behind you?

Josh Drescher: We get a lot more free food. Donut availability is up a staggering 250%. And we get lots of free swag. Oh, and a cool new logo.

(Note from the Community Weenie, Sanya: SOME PEOPLE get lots of free swag. Some of us have so far scored a hat. You suck, Josh.)

Other than that, it honestly hasn't impacted us very much at all. The acquired us because they looked long and hard at what we do and how we do it and decided that they had faith in those processes. EA has no interest in stepping in and messing with things that work well.

WarCry Network:: Ever since it was first announced, WAR has been one of the most talked about MMOs in development. Are you worried that you might suffer from 'overhype', in that fans are expecting more than you can realistically deliver?

Josh Drescher: Not in the slightest. Anything that gets a proverbial "foot in the door" and gets a player to take a look at WAR is great for us. Players aren't stupid. They know that no one is ever going to deliver their perfect, personal vision of EXACTLY what they want in a game. At the end of the day, players just want to have a really good time and it's our job to make sure that's exactly what happens. So, to be honest, it's only "overhype" if the experience we deliver isn't engaging and enjoyable enough to get them to stay.

WarCry Network:: Warhammer is not the typical serious fantasy intellectual property. For those who do not know the IP, can you explain some of the things that set it apart from a more traditional medieval fantasy setting?

Josh Drescher: Yikes. That's a doozy of a request. Do you have a week or three?

Warhammer isn't about beautiful people rising up to defeat a great evil for the last time. It's about grim, superstitious people frantically attempting to breed quickly enough to make sure the Empire will have enough soldiers a generation from now. It's about REALLY believing that your scarecrow can tap into the dark power of Chaos and that that bird over there really IS talking to you. It's about bitter, working class people with chips on their shoulders and soccer hooligan mushrooms that like to break things, crush things and cover things with poo. It's about posh dandies with swords and drug-addled aristocrats with a thirst for blood and RIDING ON THE BACK OF A DINOSAUR. It's about a war that will never end.

It's packed to the brim with social commentary, weird historical references, strange European in-jokes about archery, manic aversion to the color blue (in places), sex, drugs, slapstick comedy, grim reflection on the human condition, religious fanaticism and just about everything else you can imagine.

Warhammer is a fully-realized hobby experience. It's books, miniatures, comics, pen and paper RPGs, PC games and - of course - Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. Warhammer is the last hobby you'll ever need.

WarCry Network:: Each race you chose for Warhammer (Dark Elves, High Elves, Greenskins, Dwarfs, Empire and Chaos) carries a distinct flavor. What types of players do you think each one will appeal to?

Josh Drescher: Smart, savvy folks who like having a great time.

Honestly, I think it's impossible to guess what will attract certain players to certain races or careers. I, personally, have hated elves in every other game I've ever played, but I'll be rolling a Dark Elf on launch day because I just love the crazy Lord Byron-in-and-evil-opium-den vibe. And they look really cool. And... well, you'll have to wait a bit longer to see what we're doing with their careers, but I think people will be very excited.

WarCry Network:: Individuality is something people crave in life and increasing in online life. What has EA Mythic identified as things that promote individuality among characters both artistically and internally?

Josh Drescher: Well, we'll probably leave people's internal sense of individuality alone. Our early tests at completely rewiring the human psyche were promising, but not quite perfect.

As for differentiating yourself in the game, we'll provide a full battery of customization options from the get go. As you progress through the game you'll earn trophies, trinkets, banners, tabards and on and on that will help your character stand out as unique and interesting. This is, of course, on top of all of the incredible armor and weapons that you'll be obsessively collecting.

WarCry Network:: Many have longed for the game that lets them play start to finish bathed in the blood of other players. Can you go from start to finish without fighting NPCs? And if so, what keeps it varied and fun?

Josh Drescher: You can essentially play through the game doing nothing but RvR, but it won't be the most efficient means of advancing. Similarly, you'll be able to play through only sticking with PvE content, but will suffer from the same inefficiency. We want players who tend to prefer one play type or the other to have the opportunity to focus on their preferred style, but we also want to encourage them to get out there and enjoy the other side of play as well. There's so much goodness all around, it would be a disservice to not nudge people in the direction of enjoying it all.

WarCry Network:: There are also those who fear their enemies and prefer to fight computers. What do you offer them?

Josh Drescher: Two things:
A fully realized, deeply engaging PvE experience.
A chance to "get their feet wet" in RvR in a way that won't force them into gank-fest bloodbaths right off the bat. Many people who dislike PvP feel that way because - frankly - modern PvP can be awful. We want to show them that it can be something more than completely lawless anarchy or boring "capture the windmill" gags that repeat endlessly and serve no real purpose.

WarCry Network:: Artistically, many fans have noted that there is an artistic similarity to World of WarCraft. Can you talk about your art direction and how you explain the similarities?

Josh Drescher: Our art direction draws heavily from the quarter of a century that Games Workshop has been honing the look, feel and style of Warhammer. That's really our ONLY source of inspiration because it's such an unbelievably vast and awesome resource that - quite frankly - there's no REASON to look elsewhere for ideas.

As for explaining why any of our Noble Competitors are also producing games that bear possible resemblance to Games Workshop's Warhammer IP, you'll have to ask them to explain those similarities themselves.

WarCry Network:: RvR in Dark Age of Camelot is well respected, but can feel a touch chaotic. What are you doing to make RvR in WAR feel more like a fantasy battle and less like a video game? I ask specifically with regards to pacing and player tactics.

Josh Drescher: War (and WAR) is a chaotic experience. We're certainly taking care to create an RvR experience that is intuitive and fun, but we absolutely DON'T want it to feel like a turn-based, tabletop strategy game. Players will make tactical choices - both as individuals and as groups or guilds - prior to entering combat that will dictate a great deal of how the engage that particular battle. Sometimes, it will make sense to gear yourself towards absorbing damage and defending, other times you'll want to crank out the highest amount of damage possible and just go straight for an enemy's throat. You'll have options that will help you make decisions like that with great ease.

With that in mind, it will still be up to players to understand their character and how to play it properly.

WarCry Network:: Warhammer, the IP, is a bit more adult than most. What rating are you shooting for? Specifically, where do you intend to push the envelope and are there things we should not expect to see you do?

Josh Drescher: "T for Teen."

While we intend to push more envelopes than a steam-shovel in a post office, we have the utmost respect for the ESRB and the good work they do and would never dream of doing anything that expressly violates their rules.

WarCry Network:: At an event last year, the press was told that Warhammer Online is ultimately about WAR and not focused on building stuff. Nonetheless, are there options for crafters, gatherers and other support times? What do you have in mind?

Josh Drescher: There is a crafting system, but it's a SECRET at the moment. If you give Paul Barnett a couple of glasses of fine champagne (Veuve Clicquot would probably do), however, he may spill a bean or two.

Sanya Thomas: Note from the Weenie: More like a red herring or two. Paul is mean.

WarCry Network:: A problem people have with most MMOs, including WoW, is that high end content often, despite their best efforts, requires huge time commitments. What are you doing to ensure players can experience epic content without wasting an epic amount of time?

Josh Drescher: First of all, you don't restrict the epic content to the highest end of the game. Players should feel like they're part of the war from the moment they first enter the world.

Second, you make success in the end-game reliant on how players everywhere else in the game are doing. Your actions and efforts from day one will have an impact on players in the highest levels of the game.

Third, you present an end-game experience that isn't overwhelmingly difficult to get to, but that requires a lot of effort and skill to master AND that is fun to take on repeatedly. Most players in WAR will have no problem getting to the highest tier of content in the game, taking part in city capture and defense and so forth. But that final tier of content is enormous in scale and complexity. The battlefront will be moving constantly, your homeland can come under siege at any time, your city can be burned to the ground.

We WANT players to get to the end of the game and we want them to have a great time getting there.

WarCry Network:: Finally, can you let us in a bit on your testing plans as they stand today and where you're shooting to get this on the shelves?

Josh Drescher: Sure. We're already in closed beta and have been for a couple of months now. There will be a few other phases of testing prior to us turning the general public loose on the game, but I can say with absolute confidence that we're going into Open Beta on -

OW!!!

For some reason, Sanya just crushed my fingers with a large wooden hammer. So I guess that's another one of those secrets. For now.

Sanya Thomas: Weenie here: Part of the reason I just crushed Josh's hand is because people hear "open beta" and think that means THEM. It does not. We are not planning to have a complete FFA where anyone with a modem can log in. We will have a beta period later this year where thousands of people who acquired beta keys through magazine and website promotions can log in. For details as they come up, people should subscribe to the newsletter (http://maestro.mythicentertainment.com/list/subscribe.html?mContainer=3&mOwner=G382t3738&mListSeqNo=5) or bookmark this link (http://www.warhammerherald.com/news/news.php?newsid=18) and refresh it often.

There is a crafting system

you make success in the end-game reliant on how players everywhere else in the game are doing. Your actions and efforts from day one will have an impact on players in the highest levels of the game.

Why should it be rated M?  I've never played the games or anything so I'm just curious. 

That sounds LOVELY!  I think I want to be an Orc Witchhunter!  mmm... toasted missionaries.

That sounds LOVELY!  I think I want to be an Orc Witchhunter!  mmm... toasted missionaries.

Also re: DAOC being the best pvp mmo out there.

Why do people ever say that?  Balance in DAOC was worse then SB's balance, and compounded by the fact that you needed a buffbot and getting a character to max level took like 8 times as long as it did in SB.  I'm not even saying SB is the best MMO pvp, but jesus h christ.  DAOC had so many fucking broken mechanics it makes me sick to my stomach just thinking about it.  Or are we just going to overlook the first six months or w/e of launch?

Josh Drescher: You can essentially play through the game doing nothing but RvR, but it won't be the most efficient means of advancing. Similarly, you'll be able to play through only sticking with PvE content, but will suffer from the same inefficiency. We want players who tend to prefer one play type or the other to have the opportunity to focus on their preferred style, but we also want to encourage them to get out there and enjoy the other side of play as well. There's so much goodness all around, it would be a disservice to not nudge people in the direction of enjoying it all.

ya, I wanna play a nose picking gobling.  Seriously.

But as to RvR -- zerg on zerg fun is not fun.  If they bring any of that AOE-mez/stun/dot bullshit it'll be curtains fast.  Mythic's got a lot of fixing to do.  Some fundamental HRose-sized redesign on the RvR.  And I wonder if there's not too much groupthink there to do it.  Or, if too many good people haven't already left (Lum, MattFrior).

If you're talking the first year of DAoC, I'd agree with you.  The remaining 4 years since they have made many strides in correcting their mistakes.  Right now on the classic servers, the balance is pretty damn good if you consider all the classes available.  The DAoC of today is almost an entirely different game than the DAoC at release.  This gives me the most hope for WAR.  While not perfect, Mythic has shown the ability to learn from and correct their mistakes.

Some sort of mechanic like Vitality bonus but one bar for PvE and one for PvP?

Josh Drescher: You can essentially play through the game doing nothing but RvR, but it won't be the most efficient means of advancing.

But no doubt rvr will advance you on alternate track a la daoc realm ranks.

Unfortunately I don't think Orcs have Witchhunters. Unlike Warcraft they really are the badguys and not misunderstood nature lovers or whatever. Dwarves and humans have witchhunters. Elves are too connected to magic to really be a witchhunter if memory serves.

And I'm like Endie, I always become a witchhunter in the PnP. It's just....fun.

Doesn't that conflict.

But as to RvR -- zerg on zerg fun is not fun.  If they bring any of that AOE-mez/stun/dot bullshit it'll be curtains fast.  Mythic's got a lot of fixing to do.  Some fundamental HRose-sized redesign on the RvR.  And I wonder if there's not too much groupthink there to do it.  Or, if too many good people haven't already left (Lum, MattFrior).

Orcs are not the bad guys in WH -- they just live to fight, including with each other if there aren't any non-greenskins around to bash on. Dark Elves and Chaos, on the other hand...

Eurogamer Preview (http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=72343)

Not if you also get a small and unreliable amount of xp from rvr. Just like daoc.

In daoc....
RvR gives you a small about of xp and a large amount of rp.
PvE gives you a large and reliable about of xp and no rp.

xp is necessary to advance. rp is helpful but not essential.
The most effective way to advance is to do both, but mostly you want to pve and then rvr.

Now I just have to hope it doesn't have crazy system requirements, though honestly the screenshots lead me to beleive they are going the WoW route.

The tentonne hammer links Arthur posted are especially worth a look. This page in particular....

http://warhammer.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=100

Contains a video discussing the aims of rvr design.

"Humans will be humans," Barnett told us as he lamented that no matter what they did, most people (including himself) would likely roll a human anyway. I asked him why and he told me that - for many - all the fantasy races simply exist for people "to practice genocide" on.

Scenarios are the primary way to move the battle lines for the Campaign. I can't imagine RvR purists being too happy about that, but that sounds great to me.

Yeah, it did sound unfortunate that the core of rvr may be locked into small group vs small group

Yeah, it did sound unfortunate that the core of rvr may be locked into small group vs small group, also sounding less than ideal was the idea that the primary driver of victory points in these arena group v group battles is player kills, rather than objectives.

On the other hand they do go to great lengths to point out that at least this means rvr everywhere is always contributing to 'world impacting' realm objectives, which at least brings something positive out of the whole thing.

This kills the game outright unless there is some form of autogrouping when entering an area for people who are not already grouped, ala WoW's battlegrounds. If they stick with that design theory, they will never, ever retain more people than are currently playing DAoC. Period. There is not any possible arguement against that, and I wonder what they're even thinking setting it up to focus on groups.

WoW has proven beyond any further possible glimmer of doubt that people do not like to group more than is absolutely neccessary to achieve a specific goal, and only on occasion.

By locked, I guess you mean like how BGs killed overland PvP on WoW PvP servers.  I'd hope Mythic would do a better job since PvP is going to be their bread 'n' butter. Probably lots of tweaking on the server on how much each types contributes to the war. But no matter people are going to complain.

EA has no interest in stepping in and messing with things that work well.

I agree Evangolis. I'd love to believe that WAR will be the second coming in MMOs but am trying to remain skeptical. I did notice that what classes and scenarios were available were very limited, so we still don't know alot about the game.

It's going to be WOW clone with RvR.  Mythic made their money doing evolutionary games, not revolutionary ones.

Not sure about this being the next coming, but it does have the potential to not suck.  But the devil remains in the details.

It's going to be WOW clone with RvR.  Mythic made their money doing evolutionary games, not revolutionary ones.


Edited for spelling.

Indeed, those familiar with traditional MMO combat will be very surprised by Warhammer Online -- in addition to no crowd control and no long-term buffs, there are minimal stealth options. In Warhammer Online, you're expected to get in there and mix it up.

Scenarios read like PvP raids to me.  Could be interesting, but can you do the matchmaking required, or is one side always going to be a PUG?  Details.

Silouetting? Is that code-word for one trick-pony?

So, I'm not seeing any negatives in all this press.  Is that because there are few nits to pick (unlikely, IMO), or because the authors have no objectivity (possible, IMO), or because the exposure of information has been skillfully handled (less possible, IMO)?

But I am worried about how this fits together with the fact that some people like to play pure support (people who don't like playing a cleric *really* need to accept this and get over it). I see the attraction of the whole smite cleric thing - but it does tend to lead to tears before bedtime if developers work out that support classes of any sort can compete with non-support classes.

The Squigg herder is already full support.  Not healing support but it is a completely out of combat class. The omg I wanna be pure support jackasses who are all manginas who want to get free shit by being a high elf healer w/ big titties can fuck off.  Learn to be DPS support you wanks.   :-P

The Squigg herder is already full support.  Not healing support but it is a completely out of combat class. The omg I wanna be pure support jackasses who are all manginas who want to get free shit by being a high elf healer w/ big titties can fuck off.  Learn to be DPS support you wanks.   :-P

Ignoring the background lore which is enough to make them different, I still don't think so. The big reason I say this is the core design seems to be a big change in MMOs "standards". By that I mean:

No buffing classes and no dedicated healing classes. To me those two right there will change up the gameplay to a significant degree. I especially hope that they keep the concept that healing classes get spell energy by fighting. This would mean players can't pigeonhole classes back into the old MMO standards. All classes are expected to fight.

From the gamespy preview:



No crowd control and no long-term buffs, as well as them saying there is no "buffing class" seems to paint a very different picture of combat in this game to what we are familiar with. My only concern with this is that classes may be somewhat one-dimensional, basically "pick how you want to kill things." But on another level I'm overjoyed. Crowd control and buffs are both big issues in PvP and not having them will make PvP much more interesting IMO.

Also PvP and RvR sound like they're much more integral to this game than they are in WoW. Now, some of the basic PvE aspects will be similiar, IE questing, but I don't think it is enough to call it a WoW clone.

God forbid anyone should want to play the game differently than what you see as TEH VISION(tm).  Some people like to play support.  Thank god for that... it means I don't have to. 

I can't see the sites from work as they are blocked,  but feel free to copy and past them here.  I will then break them down line by line to demonstrate my point.

So you can't see the sites but have decided this is a WoW clone from zero information? Noone truly knows what it is yet, but all the information leads to it not being a WoW clone. More like DAOC++ with the removal of some things that caused problems last time: too many classes, pure support/healing classes, crowd control, boring PvE (this PvE sounds much better.)

Of course, until people can talk about it in a fuller form it's mostly just speculation at this point. Though fun speculation. At the very least though we know they're not aiming to be a WoW clone.

That thought had occured to me. My big fear is that Mythic will bow to some kind of pressure and make some classes pure support to fit that playstyle. I hope it doesn't happen though as nothing annoyed me more in WoW than becoming a heal/buffbot in high end raids. (something I should have seen coming honestly but managed to delude myself about.)

Seriously go read the class press releases given to tentonhammer (and probably others) for the orcs and dwarves.  Sounds pretty fucking awesome when you figure out what they are trying to do.

Open areas:  What we know so far is every "zone" has some pvp component in it.  How does this work with the whole, no high level ganking allowed at all?  I mean I'm trying to imagine a zone structure where you could have a low level zone that both sides lowbies could access but it wouldn't hinder the movement of vet players.  Anyone figured that one out yet?  I would love to see the white board that shows how they are planning to lay the world out.

Yanking out enchanters and shaman (I'm useing EQ1 terms here) and giving their spells to other classes is not revolutionary.  It's like you guys never played a MMORPG before.  FAQ's and previews are intentionally vauge and deceiving to make the game appear to be something besides the same old shit re-hashed.

When you are designing games, particularly when you are designing mmo's you have to pick what your flavour and what your theme is.

Ours is a game that's all about WAR, it's about fighting, it's about survival, it's about picking up a weapon and counting for something. 

Therefore when you look at the standard ways of putting a design together, certain ideas have to be challenged, if you don't use that as the central reason for your mmo then you can have characters, I suppose you would consider them support characters, characters at the back, characters who have passive engagement with the game.

We don't have that, ours is all about aggressive engagement with the game. 

So we had to look at like things like healing classes and buffing classes and say to our self, well how can they play a relevant part in the gameworld.  We then looked at the warhammer world and their history and they really don't have any concept of passive play and so what we did is we combined our two necessities, so when we took healer classes we wanted to make them aggressive, capable of doing damage, capable of standing up for themselves but also capable of healing, we wanted to make sure every person can fight. 

And so the sort of attitude we took was, a ton of barbarians have turned up into your village and they are going to burn it to the ground and slaughter every one of you.  So, if you don't pick up a weapon and you don't fight, then you will die.  Once we decided that was the core of what we were doing, then all the design flows through that and it's represented in every class we have done and it's represented in every race we have done and it's represented in all the imagery, the scenarios, everything, you will be an active participant.

How much would you like to wager that the WAR healer classes will be doing anything other than 100% support in high end group pvp? They'll just have to work out how to get through a token amount of offensive activity to build their power.

This isn't about caving to pressure, it's about recognising that if a player has a relative advantage in one sphere (eg healing) over other players, then the most effective strategy will always be to have that player concentrate wherever they have the relative advantage. WAR hybrid healers will always be the best support characters in a group. That will always be their relative advantage - so almost whenever your group is stretched to it's limit, support classes will be supporting.

Adam Smith baby.

What if you look outside the box?  What if say, they took the buff style from DAOC, and allowed the Healer class to apply seals to characters that they will provide their mana toward healing (using the concentration model).  The healer can chose which active spell to place upon the character in question.  The spell will fire when the character in question takes x % of damage and then reset itself at whatever mana cost it takes to fire that spell.  The spell will not clense poison or disease, but just heal damage (and will thus drain the mana from the healer class).  Make healing non direction and must be precast.  Will free up that character to swing that hammer, or cast that direct damage, but they had better keep track of where their mana is and whom is actually in the fight.

Why does it have to limit iself to a directional antinuke?

Q: What happens when the capital cities fall to the invading armies?

A: The city falls, and the winner is declared as the losers are humbled forever... on a webpage. Loot is taken, NPC merchants are slaughtered.......

Here's what will happen, according to our design. The game will wait a decent interval for the dancing in the streets to subside, and begin to spawn guards. The players whose city was just destroyed will find themselves a tiny bit stronger, as they come back into their ruined city still bristling with invaders and looters. The defending players will grow ever stronger, with more NPCs and automatic buffs and hit points, over an as-yet-undetermined period of time. Once the invaders are all driven out, the zones reset....

Notice I have given absolutely no hard numbers at all. I assure you, this was intentional.

Q: Will there be bonuses for racial grouping, e.g. Orcs fighting in a group of Orcs rather than mixed with Chaos & Dark Elfs?

A: ...no....

Q: I'm interested if the game will have a 64-bit client side executable, to take advantage of the next generation of CPU bit levels....

A: .....We have no firm plan for a 64bit version."....


Q: .....<crazy babblings of someone who paid too much attention to cgi trailers>.....

A: : "Every career will have the ability to fulfill their primary role at 100% effectiveness (and no more, there will be no super-anythings). You won't be able to make a tanker the best DPS fighter in the game. That does not mean that a shield tanker could not equip himself with a great weapon and load a bunch of tactics that would make him more effective as a fighter... this is a critical element if only for good solo play. But there will be no "best" or "worst" careers of any kind."

I said it before and I'll say it again, everyone is going to "clone" the good parts from WoW, personally I don't have a problem with it, as WoW is a massive step forward in terms of being an enjoyable game to play (pre cap anyway). 

However if you do get the chance to view a couple of the videos, some of the comments are not vague at all and they just do not fit with the game being just a clone of WoW. Take the video interview on this page as an example (http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/warhammeronline/news.html?sid=6164998)


Now you could say that won't work or you won't like it but you certainly can't call it vague.

How much would you like to wager that the WAR healer classes will be doing anything other than 100% support in high end group pvp? They'll just have to work out how to get through a token amount of offensive activity to build their power.

This isn't about caving to pressure, it's about recognising that if a player has a relative advantage in one sphere (eg healing) over other players, then the most effective strategy will always be to have that player concentrate wherever they have the relative advantage. WAR hybrid healers will always be the best support characters in a group. That will always be their relative advantage - so almost whenever your group is stretched to it's limit, support classes will be supporting.

Adam Smith baby.

So in the current design, if you play a shaman, and if you play at a competitive rvr level or in whatever passes for endgame pve, almost the only reason you will ever cast a DD spell is to gain support power.

If this were made clear at the point of class selection, at least you'd be able to switch to a Wizard up front.

Podcast 3 shows zone control, pve areas, pvp areas and how it all fits together, very well explained and illustrated. (http://www.warhammeronline.com/english/media/podcast/files/Tir-RvR_explaination_final.zip)

Though the lowest tiers are probably strictly (for example) Dwarves vs. Greenskins, I imagine that at higher tiers other players on the side of Order could join up with the dwarves to help defend their city or reclaim the one the Orcs have. So a dwarf could have a dark elf archenemy who just keeps showing up every time he goes to PvP, because that guy always seems to be there even when he's fighting with the humans.

Don't get me wrong.  I hope this game rocks.  But at 6:30 into the same interview, the other guys talks about collision detection and how the tanks can protect the healers that are hiding in the back...

Warhammer, as a fantasy milieu, is to Americans much like a British candy bar. (Trust me; it's not my metaphor, but I'm going somewhere with this.) You see it, you think you know what it is, but until you taste it, you actually don't know what it is.

See? That makes perfect sense.

It made even more sense after I ate the Cadbury Crunchies bar that Paul Barnett, the creative director at EA Mythic (via Games Workshop, owner of the Warhammer IP, and publisher of such great games as Warhammer Fantasy Battles and the ever-popular Warhammer 40,000), gave me. I said "my, this has a much different texture and taste than I expected. Yet it is still quite very much good, and I would like to enjoy some more."

I guess British candies - errr, sweets - make me talk funny.

We had two presenters for the show. The previously-mentioned Paul Barnett (who, if you've been keeping up with WAR, you may recognize, such as from my con call article about WAR), who is the custard, and Jeff Hickman, senior producer, and, according to the slides, dry but factual.

In addition, Lance Robertson, a producer, played tour guide, showing us around the lands of WAR, and Destin Bales, content director, was there, too.

But back to custard. Custard is used, according to Paul, to make something barely edible into something more edible. That's the creative and imaginative side of Warhammer, with its British stylings of fantasy, humor, and horror. It's also what Paul considers the forces of Chaos - you take something normal, and add the "custard" (i.e. Chaos), and you've got something great.

I am getting a bit ahead of myself here. First, a status update.

WAR is deep into production. They have a team of 150 people working on it right now. The orks and dwarves have been deployed - if you remember from our E3 coverage, the orks were playable there. Today (actually, for the purposes of this article, "today" = "Thursday, January 25th, 2007") was the first day people got to play the Empire (aka Humans) and Chaos.

Humanity, in the world of Warhammer, is facing the end of days (at least, in the terms of the Middle Ages). They're constantly on the brink of extinction in a brutal world, forced to expand or die, to breed and fight. Humanity in Warhammer is all about the strengths and weaknesses of people, how they can do something, then completely over-do it, and how they are steeled against corruption.

Humanity is trapped - Chaos lurks in the hearts of men, orks threaten to wipe out entire countries, and other enemies lurk both inside and outside. Technology is improving - the Warhammer world is up to crude firearms - but it may not be enough to save the world.

As mentioned before, each race in Warhammer: Age of Reckoning will have four classes. These basically break down into "tanker, healer, melee DPS, and ranged DPS". Of course, each class can do more than just that - for example, the Dwarven rune priest that I played also had the ability to put a healthy smack down with both her staff and spells, as well as be the primary healer. But we'll get into dwarves in a bit, when I talk about PvP.

The four classes of humans (specifically, as mentioned before, the Empire, for you aficionados of the Warhammer mythos) break down as follows:
Knights of the Blazing Sun. These guys are the melee/tanker types, and show a combination of sun imagery with the skulls, knowing that they inevitably face death. Paul described them as "King Arthur meets Monty Python and the Holy Grail with more violence".
Witch Hunter. This is the melee DPS class. He's all about the hat - Paul thinks he has the greatest hat (I think) in the history of computer games. Coupled with a good coat, "kickass" boots, a flintlock and a rapier, he looks flat-out deadly. They definitely expect the Witch Hunter to be a popular class.
Warrior Priest. You may have seen this guy in the theatrical trailer for WAR. EA Mythic thinks just plain "healers" are dull. Thus, you have this guy - two hammers, and as he hits his enemies, he builds faith, which he can use to heal his compatriots. Bright Wizard. He's "buckets of instant sunshine". He explodes when he dies. He's not just a fire mage, he's a nuclear weapon. Even his skin is on fire. His outfit has torches built into it.
We got a chance to play a bright wizard for a while and explore the beginnings of the humans. You start off in a village that's under siege by Chaos. Immediately, you're put to the task - go and get the farmers rallied. As you talk to them, you realize some are Chaos marauders, and they attack you. Soon you've done that, and it's off to help heal the wounded. While running to do that, you realize that there's a public quest going on.

“What's a public quest?”, you may ask.

In WAR, occasionally something bigger than just you needs a-doin'. For instance, in this case, we need to kill marauders so that the militia can get its act together. Once we do that, we fight off another wave of the invasion, and then try to stop a huge Chaos giant from splattering us across the landscape.

"Who's this 'us', buddy?" you ask. "I like to solo."

I hear you brother! And I was solo, too - but it was still us. Everyone in the zone automatically has the same quest! The group objectives are up on the screen, and it keeps track as you do your part (or not - you don't have to help!). After the public quest finishes, you can go over to the "leader" of the area, and he'll reward you for helping out. A couple of minutes later, the public quest starts over again.

You can do the same one over and over to build your reputation with the leader, or you can follow them as you go up in levels and get new, cooler stuff - stuff that's tailored to you and your class.

(The big guys, such as the Chaos giant, will hold some "good loot" - that'll be randomly assigned dependent on how much contribution people made to the public quest. But that's just icing on the cake - the real rewards are the ones you get from the leader.)

After running around blowing stuff up as bright wizards, it was time to look at the Army of Destruction's racial enemy for humans – Chaos.

(Quick reminder time: Humans, dwarves, and elves make up the Armies of Order. Each race has a racial enemy that they start off in close, loving combat with. Respectively, according to enemy, these Armies of Destruction are Chaos, orks, and dark elves.)

Remember - Chaos is custard. It makes things better. It mutates them. It's daemon lords. It's a will to power - the fact that your will can influence the world. It's corruption, as the Chaos infects your form and mind.

There are four Chaos gods. Khorne is the blood god, the god of battle. You don't play as one of his guys, all they do is kill stuff and each other. Slaanesh is the pleasure god. You don't play as one of her people, 'cause there's too much nudity and crab claws and we don't want Chaos to have its own cyber-haven (think of Goldshire in most World of Warcraft servers, and make it Chaos. Yeah. Creepy.) Nurgle is the god of corruption, and he's fat and bloated and nasty and slow, so he doesn't work too well. Which means that you get to play as a priest of the bird god, Tzeentch - which means you get sorcerers on disks, casting lightning bolts.

Like all races, Chaos has four classes. Unfortunately, only three were revealed:
Chosen. He's the melee tanker. Big, huge armor. Big, huge weapons. Very scary. Probably has poor people skills, that is, poor skills that don't involve dismembering people.
Zealot. He's the magic healer - all about the scarecrows and totems. He's got a magic utility belt, making him the Chaos equivalent of Batman.
??? - HA! They didn't announce the melee DPS guy. Got an idea who it might be? Post it in the forums, remember, he has to follow Tzeentch.
Magus. The ranged magic DPS guy, he always, always, always flies on a disk. And casts lightning. And mutates and changes as he levels up. He has a big staff.
One thing to remember in WAR - if they have a staff, they cast spells. It's about silhouetting - in other words, it's about being able to see an outline of an enemy, and who know what kind of enemy he is. But don't think "staff = weenie" in melee - even casters get melee attacks. I was right in the middle of things a lot of the time. (Note: I never said I was a good caster.)

One other thing about Chaos is that it's all about an invasion. Chaos doesn't have cities (well, it does, sort of, in WAR - the Inevitable City, because it was inevitable that Chaos would need a city). Thus, you start off invading a human village, corrupting it, taking it over for your gods.

So those are the new races. After seeing them, and playing as both a bright wizard and a magus, it was time for the true test of WAR: realm versus realm combat!

It's not just Player Versus Player - it's your whole Realm, your race, your alliance, against the enemy! Remember the motto of WAR:

WAR is everywhere!

If you want, you can start in RvR from the very beginning!

Each racial pairing has five zones - one capital zone each, one allied zone each, and a neutral, contested zone in the middle. As you follow one of the four types of RvR, you gain points for your side. Those points let the front lines move back and forth, and if you're better than your racial enemy, you might even take his capital city, loot it, capture his king, put him in prison, and then move on to the next enemy race's capital.

It's about gloating. It's about winning. It's about saying "HA HA we're better than you!" It's the reason why the British have museums - to show off the stuff they won! (At least, according to Paul.)

The four types of RvR are:

Skirmish: This is "incidental" RvR - you walk into an area that you know has realm versus realm combat (you won't do it by accident), you fight with your enemies.
Battlefields: Now you've got a specific objective. If skirmish combat is like getting drunk in Nottingham and finding the fans of an opposing football team to fight with, battlefields are finding those fans' tour bus and taking it over. (Obviously, again, those are Paul's examples, so if you don't root for Nottingham or whoever, it's not my fault!)
Scenarios: These are instanced, point based, objective-led combat scenarios that use NPCs to flesh out the weaker player side.
All of these lead to the Campaign, which is the before-mentioned hope and dream of every little human, elf, or dwarf kid - and whatever the heck a young Chaos or ork is - which is to sack, pillage, and burn your enemy's cities.
There are 40+ scenarios you might participate in. From the standard "capture the flag", to Murder Ball, to Domination, to Death Match, they range in size from 6 on 6 to 36 on 36. We played two different ones: Mourkain Temple, where you strive for control of an ancient artifact and to kill your enemies, and the Gates of Ekrund, where you tried to control geographic parts of the wall. In both cases, it was orks versus dwarves.

Around Mourkain Temple, I played a dwarven rune priest - a healer type. One thing to remember - in RvR, there IS collision detection. So I'd try to buff my friends, heal them, and cast cleaving damage spells on my enemies. Then, they learned who I was, and when I'd walk around a corner, squigs ran at me, and all I could see where huge orks fighting for the chance to pummel me into the ground. I could blind them, I could fight them - but if my buddies were behind me, I was stuck! Then dead.

I was dead a lot.

Note: keep your rune priest in the back. Have your dwarves physically keep the orks away from them!

In the Gates of Ekrund, we played the orks. Here I was a Choppa - a big ole ork with two big ole axes. We fought and fought, sliced and diced, and had a heck of a lot of fun.

A note on death penalties: there isn't one, except time.

"Wha?!" I can hear some people (at least one of my guildies, I know) say.

You see, there's more to it than that.

Okay, say, you die. Don't worry, it happens to all of us, and some of us more than others. A box pops up. Click the box to respawn five seconds later, or wait and you'll automatically respawn in 45 seconds or so. Let's say you died in pitched battle, and now you're back at the starting point.

Okay. Now what? Well, you've got to run back to the battle! You better hope you've got friends around, and you don't run into the enemies - or you're dead.

One person can make a difference, but not that much of a difference!

So what's stopping you from suiciding?

Why would you?

You can't kill the enemy fast enough to get free kills from it. You'll just be pummeled down.

So? Maybe I'm wounded, and just want to get the "free" health upgrade.

Uh uh. You see, you regenerate health and action points so fast, you don't need to do that! You'll be healthy, on your own, without potions, in no time!

All you do if you suicide is inconvenience yourself and hurt your team. There are exceptions: for instance, in the Gates of Ekrund, you don't gain control of an area if enemies are around. So it makes sense, at times, to jump into a group of enemies to try to hold them off until your friends can show up.

But heck - I can't wait to launch myself out of a catapult. Yes, you can do that.

Well - that's about it for this write-up of WAR. We'll be patiently waiting to see what more news comes out of EA Mythic on this game as time goes on, but the more I see, the more excited I get about it.

But heck - I can't wait to launch myself out of a catapult. Yes, you can do that.

Hmm. I just had to turn my Hype dial down by 50%.


That was Not a video of WoW, correct?  :|

When you join a scenario's queue, your battle points are added to the team's total, and the game tries its best to balance out the two sides in terms of similar battle point totals. One team might have eight level-12 players with really good gear and 12 level-nine players with lower-quality gear. The end result is a system that is far more balanced than relying on simply classifying scenarios based on level groupings alone.

The UI looks the same in every fanatasy dikumud - there will be hotbars, there will be a minimap, there will be floaty names, HP bars, XP bars, and Mana bars. The art direction was explictly based on the same IP that WoW is implictly based on. Where else is there to go? Given that both this and WoW are Dikumuds with content and lore based on the Warhammer fantasy vision, and neither is shooting for an M rating, why in the name of all that is holy would you expect the art direction and look & feel to be something other than similar?

So this doesn't seem like a WoW clone to you?

I am not sure what you are saying Hoax, I cast buffs in combat all the time.  The above spell I cast repeatedly in combat, on which ever ally is in melee at the time.

MMOG PvP has to learn how to walk before it can run.

It's been over 10 years now, and we're still standing around with our dicks in our hands. The time for learning was yesterday.

The average development cycle is what? 5 years or more for a MMO? Budget for a major is now around 50 mil or so?  There haven't even been that many major release MMOs.

This industry is still very much in its beginning stages, especially for design concepts.

It's been over 10 years now, and we're still standing around with our dicks in our hands. The time for learning was yesterday.

Look at SWG: NGE. The MMOG devs are still learning HOW TO LEARN.

P.S.  No DAOC is not a third route, please dont bother saying that.  DAOC's own people basically describe the DAOC/PS model as "boring "capture the windmill" gags that repeat endlessly and serve no real purpose".

JoL : Will there be macros ?
PB : Yes there will be.

JoL : Will they be complex ? Or rather simple?Seront-elles complexes ?
PB : Neither too complex not too simplisitic, they will be middling evolutive.

JoL : Do you thin the release date (Q4 2007) will be fulfiled ?
PB : It's the plan. Right now, it is still actual.


JoL : What will turn in the RvR so appealing ? What reward can we expect ?
PB : Skills, stuffs, titles, access to new zones... Really a lot of things.

JoL : How are you going to include the future races which will come with extensions?
PB : The new races will join a faction. Order or Destruction. Only the Skavens will stay on their own ! We will create a new battlefront for them, because they fight everybody, nonetheless we don't know if the Skavens will come with the first expansion.


JoL : Will you really add all the races ? Do you know the first ones which will be added ?
PB : Practically all races yes, we think a lot of Wood Elves and Bretonnia. With Tomb Kings, Vampire Counts... Only Lustria don't interest us that much.

JoL : How do you expect to motivate the players to defend their realm and not their ally's ?
PB : It works with influence. Your king will grant you several rewards for having defend your realm whileyour influence toward him will grow. Then you shall work your influence with your allies'kings. They will also grant you rewards. Where it becomes big, it's that after having obtained a particular influence level towards your allies, your own king becomes active again and grants you for your global war effort ! You will thus accomplish a complete loop in 4 steps.


JoL : Can we attack minor cities ? Even out of the RvR zones ?
PB : All big cities will be in RvR zone. You could attack only what stands in RvR zone, if a village stand there, you can attack it.

JoL : Will Crowd Control be primordial as in DAOC ?
PB : Crowd Control will be very important but also very different. We use collisions and we want to use them at the maximum. Our goal is to introduce a notion of character mastery much more important than in the other mmo and we spend a lot more time to polish this system. Crowd controls spells and capacities will be limited on purpose. They will be in, but they won't have the same preponderance than in DAOC.


JoL : At which frequency can a capital be taken ?
PB : We don't know yet, we'll see with the beta. In my opinion, approximately once every 5 days. Let's say once per week.

JoL : What will make the catpure of capital so appealing ? Except the fun aspect.
PB : Take a capital is the best way to get stuff from your king.

JoL : Tell me a bit about the craft system.
PB : I cannot. It is Mark Jacobs who looks after the craft and he knows exactly what he wants to do with it. We are finalizing the concept.

JoL : We were able to see a wheel on a screenshot, no doubt it turns...
PB : Yes ...

JoL : Will the crafted items be as powerful as items obtained by quests or powerful monsters ?
PB : I can't talk about this.

JoL : Tell me a bit about the economy system.
PB : I can't.

JoL : Will the stuff be preponderant in the efficiency of the character ?
PB : I still can't.

JoL : Are you going to use a communication system such as mailing boxes ?
PB : I cannot ... we will use a system, but it will most probably not be mailing boxes.

JoL : Mutant pigeons ?
PB : Maybe ! No mailing boxes, it is too classic.

JoL : You talked about a RvR dungeon. How could we accede to it ?
PB : They will run a bit like DAOC, but in better. Mark is excellent in this domain.

JoL : How many dungeons could we explore at the release ?
PB : I don't know exactly.

JoL : We heard about two.
PB : Two, three ... I still don't know.

JoL : Could we fight big monsters ? Realms creatures ?
PB : Yes, Daemon Lords.

JoL : You have stated : no stealth, but Sanya talked about a style of stealthness.
PB : No stealth class. We'll have positional fight skills but no stealth.

JoL : We have heard that climbing would be possible.
PB : Everything depends on the technical department. If they can do it, I would include it to my design. But il looks complicated.

JoL : Will there be weapon specialisations ?
PB : Your weapons are determined by your career. A hammerer will use only hammers, a Witchhunter a rapier...

JoL : I have seen yesterday that some weapons were dedicated to a race, and others to a skill system such as "shield specialization".
PB : Yes everything runs through a skill system but thoses skills are only available to the carrers intended to use them. You can't gain a skill which is not intended for your career.

JoL : Will mounted fight be possible ?
PB : It is again a question for the technical department. I don't think so.

JoL : Please, tell me about the dwarfs and a possible mount.
PB : If mounts are in game, dwarves won't ride anything, no horse, no mule, no donkey, nothing of this. In the background, dark elves ride cold ones, empirans ride horses or gryphons but not the dwarves. However they will have a quick conveyance as the others, probably gyrocopters or something like that.

JoL : I have seen ab high elf yesterday, just before entering Ekrund Doors, and he has the eyes entirely black.
PB : Yes, we don"t know yet how to do. According to Games workshop, in 2002 their eyes were entirely black and in 2006 their eyes are quite human like. We don't know wichi solution we will choose. Maybe will we keep the two.

JoL : Are you going to use a communication system such as mailing boxes ?
PB : I cannot ... we will use a system, but it will most probably not be mailing boxes.

JoL : Mutant pigeons ?
PB : Maybe ! No mailing boxes, it is too classic.

Also I dont see how turning MMO combat into FPS/RTS high end competition with levels/items/characters should constitute as walking and creating virtual world open pvp should be considered a much loftier goal.  EvE does the latter correctly (or pretty fucking close) while GW does the whole BG thing quite well.  The only problem is to do it well, GW had to give up MMO status.  Which leads me to continue to think that MMO's are inherently better suited to open world pvp aka players as content then they are to instanced arena pvp with basically an in-game OGL style league system.  I can't help but feel that there is more synergy in the various gameplay aspects if you go the EvE route.

P.S.  No DAOC is not a third route, please dont bother saying that.  DAOC's own people basically describe the DAOC/PS model as "boring "capture the windmill" gags that repeat endlessly and serve no real purpose".

edit:  found quote, fixt early part.

I have serious doubts that Skaven will really turn out to be a 3rd realm.

@Strazos:  Fine its a fucking MMOG so is CS, there are tons of people playing it online and its a game...  Like I said invent me a term for Massive Multiplayer Online Games With a Persistent World that Matters (at max lvl WoW doesn't qualify tbh) and I'll start using that.  I'm not going to say sandbox because that term comes with hella baggage.  GuildWars doesn't play like a MMO it plays like any fps but where some servers are PvE areas and some are PvP areas.  Please also realize I'm talking about GW at launch if they've added a bunch of shit, good for them sorry I didn't know about it.

Hell, off the top of my head, wouldn't DDO be in the same category as GW, since all their missions are instances as well?

>I think that the aye's have if on the GW is not a MMO department around here though.
Its not my fault they can't see that Guild Wars is massive, multiplayer, online or a game.  I was using the term MMOG back people were still saying MMORPG.  Anyway, if GW isn't an MMO than neither is WoW.  It has jack shit for persistance either.

First of all, the balance implications of that statement [that Skaven fight everyone as their own faction] make me and Sanya want to vomit violently...

Sanya has stated many times in the past that based on feedback, Skaven is definitely on top of the list as the most requested army not in the list. And she is on her hands and knees begging the powers that be to make sure they make the first expansion pack. But we aren't even close to the point where we'll start looking at which armies will make the first expansion and which alliance they'll belong to.

You are all MMOs to me.

So it looks like Skaven will just join Destruction  :cry:. An asymmetric third realm would be incredibly cool, but it's not really the Mythic way of doing things. There are also some posters claiming the correct translation of PAul's interview is that Skaven can join order or destruction - personally I think that sounds flat out stupid.

And I find it frankly bizarre how people on that alliance forum are so dead against the concept of a third realm.

Dark Elf Bikini Goth Babes

It does for me but it's a bit zoomed out for my taste.

Separated at birth?

Twin 1 (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/downloads/wallpapers/images/tauren-icon/tauren-icon-1280x.jpg)

Twin 2 (http://www.warhammeronline.com/newsletter/images/2007/NL013007CArt_02.jpg)

Or, you know, they could do something really radical and add Lizzies and Skaven at the same time. It's not like there's a shortage of races.

You realise that Warhammer has had Beastmen that look just like that since before the first Warcraft RTS game came out, don't you? They appropriated them from Runequest's Bree, I believe.

Trust me, anything that you look at in Warhammer that looks eerily similar to something in Warcraft was in the Warhammer IP first, and stolen from somewhere else, before that.

I liked the wheel comment though, looks like crazy siege engines are in for the city attacks.