Feb video of the month - Animation testing, the wolf at the end is pretty funny.

http://www.warhammeronline.com/engli...nth022607.html

More vids of the month

http://www.warhammeronline.com/english/media/video/


and March screenshots released.

http://www.warhammeronline.com/engli...a/screenshots/


Pre Alpha Videos
http://medias.jeuxonline.info/war/pr...ght-Wizard.wmv
http://medias.jeuxonline.info/war/pr...ar/WAR_RvR.wmv
http://medias.jeuxonline.info/war/pr...AR_Scenery.wmv

__________________

http://war.jeuxonline.info/actualites/13475.html

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.

__________________

http://warhammer.tentonhammer.com/in...play&ceid= 95


January 30, 2007 - At the press event last week at the EA Mythic studios, we were privileged to sit down with Jeff Hickman, Senior Producer for Warhammer Online, following a day of presentations and demos about EA Mythic's MMORPG adaptation of the popular Games Workshop tabletop game. The thrust of the interview was accessibility for gamers of all stripes, even for those who may typically dislike PvP in other MMORPGs.

Jeff Woleslagle, Ten Ton Hammer: I enjoyed your presentation with Paul Barnett (Creative Director) more than any I've seen in recent memory. You guys kind of have a Penn and Teller act going here.

Jeff Hickman, Senior Producer, Warhammer Online: "Paul and I work hand in hand. Paul is the crazy vision guy, I'm the guy that says that's great, but how are we going to do it? He and I work really well together. What you see shows really how we work together. He throws everything against the wall, and we say... how about this? Then he helps to make sure that what happens really works for the game."

Ten Ton Hammer: Speaking of "working for the game," What kind of resources are you devoting to Warhammer Online?

Jeff: We have about 150 people working on the project, which is massive, especially for us. I think when we launched Camelot we had 28 people, I think I was employee number 27 or something like that when we launched Camelot. So we're way above and beyond. Warhammer is such an effort for us. It's a game completely different from what we do with Camelot as far as the level of depth that we're putting into everything we do. The amount of detail in the world, the amount of immersive stuff, just stuff, that's happening environmentally, that is amazingly difficult to do. So we took a lot of time just making sure the game feels like it should.

I was playing a Dwarf RunePriest yesterday, and I stopped and took a look at him, because there were very small runic letters on his vestments. There were actually little letters visible on this run-of-the-mill office hopper laptop I was playing on, how cool is that?

Jeff: The character art is crazy, some of the stuff is so cool. Some of these things I'm like "Wow, they really did it." I have to point this out because nobody else does and it's such simple little thing: you can see belts. You can take your belt and change it to another belt, we've got all kinds of different belt buckles. And it's just cool. You put your belt on for the first time and you're like "I can see my belt, that's great!" Some of the other stuff... we can just go crazy with the goblins. Crazy hats, weird crap that they've got all over them. So much fun, we're having a great time with it.

While we're on the subject of graphics, you hear the "WoW looks like Warhammer" and the "Warhammer looks like WoW' back and forth. How comfortable are you with the side-by-side comparisons? Does it help the hype level?

Jeff: It probably helps the hype level, maybe it does. I don't know. I prefer to stand on our own two feet. It's definitely difficult because we don't choose to look like anybody but Warhammer. We say that and some people kinda go "ohohoho, you're just saying that." And, no. Games Workshop has input in everything that we do. We look like Warhammer, and it just so happens that other games kind of look like Warhammer too. I don't say that to be crappy to other games, it's just a fact. When we go to Games Workshop and we say "here's what orcs will look like" and they go, "yes, that's what orcs look like!" or "nooo, that's not what orcs look like... this is what orcs look like, make it look like that.

So if people want to do side-by-side comparisons, that's fine. Our art style is definitely not hyper-realistic. People take side-by-side comparisons of Camelot and other realistic games, it doesn't mean that they're really similar games. Warhammer is what it is, we have a lot of things we stand on our own two feet about. I even think that our graphics, if you look at them side by side with games like WoW, they're really not all that similar. They're similar in that they are exaggerated and they are not hyper-realistic.

The brighter palette?

Jeff: Exactly. So when you look at it that way, it's like "yea, we are." That's what Games Workshop envisions these characters to look like. If you look at our Chaos, nobody has anything like Chaos. Even if you look at our humans. We could look at humans especially with WoW. If you had a scale from hyperrealistic to - I don't want to use cartoony but you know what I mean - WoW is way down on the exaggerated end, DAoC, EQ2 are kind of up here in the realistic look, and Warhammer is kind of in the middle. If you look at our humans, they're actually very real looking. But how do you make dwarves look super real looking? You don't. How do you make orcs look real looking? You don't - they look like orcs. There's nothing out there that look like orcs. They look the way we want them to look. But when you look at our orcs, they don't look cartoony, they look like ferocious.

Now for a few questions about bringing in gamers without a background in this style of game or MMORPG. How do you teach people the difference between RvR and PvP?

Jeff: I think there's a lot of ways you can teach as far as verbalizing to people. We can talk a lot about the goals behind RvR and the goals behind PvP. But I think that in order to really learn you have to get in and experience it - going "whoa, this really is different." You guys got a taste of PvP last night - getting in and killing each other with really no over-arcing purpose, because we're demoing for you guys. The reality of what's going on, though, is you have a race and a realm behind you, and everything you do when you RvR plays into helping them.

You get personal benefits also, but the real goal is to help your realm. So as you're going out and doing skirmishes and scenarios and battlefields, the benefits to your realm probably outweigh your personal benefits. So we always want to give you personal benefits to encourage people to go out. But there's always this feeling that "I need to defend this land, I need to defend my city, I need to bring this fight to the doorstop of my enemy" - you always have that feeling. And that's the part that's really hard to imagine for people who haven't played Camelot especially, because Camelot's the only one that's been able to do this. The relic system, the feeling of "that's mine, you're trying to take it from me... you can't."

That's the feeling that we're going to have in Warhammer. That feeling that I am loyal to my realm, I almost feel obligated when I see that area is under attack, that's my area, I need to go help my realmmates with that. While you and I in our realm might squabble over a PvE battle, when the call to war comes up, I guarantee you that we're going to both run out side by side and defend the realm. That's the difference. It's easy to verbalize it to you, but you really don't get it until you get out there and play.

Is the public quest a mechanism to teach people that you're in it together as a realm?

Jeff: All of that stuff together is what, you're hitting on it, is what is going to make the game feel like it needs to feel.

One thing that it probably needs to feel like is fairly dark. It's not at all kitchy or light like most MMORPGs. Do you want to attract that set of gamers that's in it for the warm fuzzies?

Jeff: Sure, we want everyone to come play! If you look at the different races, Warhammer is going to be dark and gritty, but some races capture that much more than others. If you look at Chaos, within the first three quests you gather body parts to fire out of a Hellcannon, that's dark! That's gritty. The next quest you go down in the village and slay the helpless villagers. That's what you're doing, and it's super dark. We have a good time with it, we laugh at it. The first public quest is a dark ritual summoning the power of a demon. We really push it over the edge with Chaos, and it's fan-freakin'-tastic.

But if you go back and look at the high elves, or even the humans or dwarves... a lot of the Order side are a little bit less dark, definitely less gritty. I think there's definitely going to be room for that kind of player. I know my wife, when I talk to her about what we're doing, she says "Ok, I'll play an elf."

When you're going through you're abilities list, you have more than one good choice for, say, a morale ability slot. In the demo we were playing, every class seemed to have a good mix of abilities Obviously this kind of situation where you consistently seem to have more than one good choice is one of the holy grails of gaming and games development...

Jeff: Absolutely. Because we do the classes in foursomes in the race, the classes play off each other, all of that stuff is planned out very carefully.

I kind of got the impression during yesterday's presentation that you want to do away with the three archetypes - the tank, the healer, the DPS / stealth - or at least do away with that mindset?

Jeff: I don't know if we're trying to do away with it. We developed everything for RvR. There's certain things that work really well in RvR, and some things that don't. We're trying to make sure that everyone has a place in the fight. Don't think that by choosing a tanker that you're not going to be shoe-horned into the Tanker fighting style. We do it on purpose. As a tanker you'll be fighting as a tanker, as a magic user you'll be fighting as a magic user. I don't want to call those roles secondary, because it's not. Things like the healer; you're a fighter - somehow you're going to be in combat, but you also need to heal. As a tanker, you're there to tank. We're not going to have buffing classes. You can buff, but it won't be like there's one guy who stands around and throws buffs at people. We want everyone to feel like they have a place in the fight.

__________________

http://war-en.curse-gaming.com/previ...ine-unleashed/

“You lucky bastard!” was what I was called when I told some friends I was going to get a chance to play Warhammer Online in person at the Mythic press event. In hindsight, they were right. Before I go into all the warm and fuzzy factual details that were learnt about the game at the conference, allow me to give some background information.

Until now, I have been an avid MMO player, and although I have tried out numerous games, I have only really played WoWarcraft and Everquest for an extended amount of time. Why? Well, the reasons are many. Character control - such as how movement plays out, how your abilities play out in the actual game world, camera control and angles all are part of the first impression of a game. To be honest, I find that if the very first game play impression is bad, then my interest in the game seriously dabs off and it would take a lot of secondary positive impressions to get me to keep playing the game.

So how does this relate directly to Warhammer Online, you might ask. Well, I got my first hands on impression of WAR this past week. Without further a due, let us cut straight to the subjective stuff. Warhammer Online, as it stands per today, is an amazingly good game. Besides the fact that the event that Mythic had set up was very well done and their presentations top notch, besides the fact that Paul Barnett is by far one of the best game presenters I have met, and besides the fact that the already existing Warhammer universe is so rich with lore and storyline, the actual design of the game, in lack of a better term – owns. It is in fact so good that I did not hear a single negative comment on the game in any form by any of the other 40 media outlets who were present neither during the breaks or after the event was over.

Warhammer Online is the second big MMO Mythic have created, the first being Dark Age of Camelot. And do you know what? You can tell. A lot of experience has been pulled from the DAoC development and deployment and put into making WAR one of the best implementations of PvP and fun in an MMO to date.

I could rave about all of this forever, however unfortunately for me, that is not what you are here to read about. So – without further a due, this is what Warhammer is like today:

The Empire

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First on the agenda of the presentation: Empire. Just about all MMOs have this race as a playable option, so coming up with a unique and interesting implementation of them is a tough one to pull off. In Warhammer, humans are at the social stage of what you would compare to as the Middle Ages psychologically, and technologically at the stage of what seems to be the 1800's mixed with our all time favorite: magic. Humans are under the belief that the end of the world could come any day in the form of fires, comets falling from the sky, famine and disease or the ever threatening annihilation by forces of Chaos.

A video of Paul Barnett introducing the Empire can be found here, right-click/save as (22mb).

And that is what is presented to you when you start the game as a human. After loading the game as a level 1 Human Bright Wizard I found myself in a small human village surrounded by the other players in the room. The interface reminded me distinctly of at least half a dozen other MMO's, all borrowing what clearly works from none other than the industry giant itself: World of Warcraft. Apart from a few differences, this was familiar territory for me so immersing myself in the game play rather than the UI was to be my first focus. Brilliant!

Over the past several months and throughout the entire presentation there is a key phrase that has been repeated endlessly: In Warhammer, war is everywhere. The first piece of the world that I was presented with was just that, an Empire village which was in the process of being attacked by a mass amount of Chaos soldiers. Around me there were tons of NPC's offering quests and purpose for the game play. I could hear that in the distance there were cannons being fired, and there was smoke in the sky from something that was burning. One of my first quests took hold of this quite firmly. Simply, ‘go east and recruit some farmers to help you fight off the forces of chaos”.

“Very well”, I thought and set out to perform the task given to me. Without much hassle I found the farmers spread around in the crops and went to talk to them. The first two farmers agreed to my request and ran off in the direction of where I had come from whilst I got a message that I had completed persuaded 2 of the 5 required farmers to help the cause. The third farmer, however, refused to come to our aid and it was revealed that he was a sympathizer with the forces of Chaos. Naturally, I had to end his life in a swift, fiery and brutal manner: Death by flames!

Several quests and 3 levels later I found myself in the middle of the first public quest (PQ) for the Empire. As I entered the area, my UI informed me that I had joined a public quest, and a small UI window popped up in the side of my screen indicating current progress/status of the public quest. As the other players showed up and participated in the PQ, the progress updated nicely and before we knew it we had killed a bunch of NPCs and gotten to the final stage of the PQ: the spawning/killing of a Chaos giant. Everyone jumped on the boss and although no one in the area was grouped, everyone ended up working together and the defeat of the monster was an easy task. At the end of it all we were rewarded with some “Influence” and experience.

“Influence” is a sort of “secondary faction” system that is in place for rewarding people who participate in public quests. Barnett explained it like this: “Suppose you have a person in the area who really, really hates giants. By killing lots of giants, this person will like you more and more, and based on your influence level with him, reward you with items that match the level of influence you have gained”. Due to the fact that public quests are infinitely repeatable, it is therefore possible to gain all the rewards from this person, depending on how much work you wish to put into it.

After killing the giant a couple of times so that everyone had a chance to participate in the quest, our hands on for Empire had come to an end.

Although we were limited to playing nearly identical Bright Wizards, there are several other classes available to the humans. The following four classes are available to play as humans:

Knight of the Blazing Sun
This class is a melee / tanking class.

Witch Hunter
This is a melee / dps class.
Watch Paul Barnett talk about the Witch Hunter here! Right click/save as (6.5mb).

Warrior Priest
This is a melee / healer class.
Watch Paul Barnett talk about the Warrior Priest here! Right click/save as (4mb).

Bright Wizard
This is a caster / dps class.
Watch Paul Barnett Talk about the Bright Wizard here! Right click/save as (8.5mb).



Chaos

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After a short break, it was time for more Warhammer – this time the subject of choice was the forces of Chaos. With a kick start into the subject, Barnett brought up the common misconception that Chaos is often compared with hell, satan, fire and such. That is, however, not what Chaos is about. Chaos is, well, anything chaotic. It is about rivers of glass, eyeballs growing on the ground, rain falling upwards, mutations and crab claws to mention a few. The forces of Chaos all worship one of the four gods of chaos, namely Tzeentsch. Mythic have actually gotten a lot of questions about their particular choice of god.

In short, Khorne only allowed brute melee characters with no magic or healing, Nurgle would make all the player characters into fat blistering jabbas sprouting slime everywhere and Slaanesh would mean having a bunch of hot naked female characters covered in slime and whatnot. With the choice being Tzeentsch, it was possible to incorporate magic, healing and melee classes into the storyline while remaining loyal to the lore. A slightly longer and more detailed summary of Chaos and the god choices may be found here, Right click/save as (35 mb).

The forces of Chaos also are divided into the four different classes as follows:

Chosen
This class is a melee / tanking class.

Zealot
This is a magic / healer class.

Magus
This is a magic / dps class.

??? Un-announced ???
This is a melee / dps class.


And so began the hands-on presentation of the Chaos forces. Once again, thrown into the game with a Chaos Magus, the first sight that awaited me was awe-inspiring. I found myself right outside an empire village, much like the one I had played in just an hour before. This time, however, everything was, well, chaotic. Behind my character was a magical portal from where my character had "originated" for this assault on the Empire village. Around it was flying rocks, pink/purple trees, eyeballs popping in and out of the ground and the sky was a sort of vortex spiral of clouds as if it was being sucked into what would remind you of a black hole.

Again, the familiarity of previous MMOs and my formerly spent 45 minutes as an Empire player allowed me to quickly get into playing my Chaos Magus and the questing began. Fighting through skeletons and wraiths for experience and pieces of bone, the quests quickly brought me through the area and into the Empire village which destruction was our ultimate goal. Through burning of village houses and slaughter of Empire forces, I ended up in a public quest area with all the other representatives working together to complete the objectives at hand.

I must say though, while the similarities of the starting areas of Empire and Chaos were there, playing as Chaos truly gave me a feeling of being much more evil and corrupt. Thus far, Mythic has done an amazing job at "themeing" their starting areas in a fashion that fits the lore, background history and general feel of each race really well. Something else to note is that although the Magus and the Bright Wizard are both spell caster classes, they played out completely different and actually had quite a unique feel to them. After playing Chaos for a while, I could not help but think about how awesome it is going to be to play a Dark Elf and the various classes that are available there.

Realm versus Realm

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The RvR portion in Warhammer Online is separated into two unique avenues of game play which may be experienced by the player, namely Player vs Player and Player vs Environment. Because RvR is implemented throughout every aspect of the game, even the PvE game play supports and aids the RvR warfare that is forever ongoing somehow. RvR is divided into 4 different "classes" of RvR warfare. What do these "classes" entail? - Let us look into this some.

Skirmish Areas
In each zone of the game, there are places where you can PvP RvR or PvE RvR. PvP areas of these zones are called skirmish areas, and upon entering, your character is automatically flagged for RvR-PvP combat and can freely engage in combat with players of the opposing faction.


Battlefields
In some of the skirmish areas, there are PvP objectives set up where for example capturing and holding certain towers or other key points gains bonuses for your faction. In essence, these Battlefields may be defined as focal points for PvP combat in the area.


Scenarios
Scenarios are story points within the RvR skirmish areas which can be compared to current-day World of Warcraft Battlegrounds. Scenarios are fully instanced with equal number teams engaging in battle with one-another. While the objectives of each scenario will vary, there is one key element which they all retain. The absolute goal of the scenario is to kill all your opponents, over and over. Paul went to add: "There will be no dilly dallying about with running a flag from one point to another. Our scenarios is about PvP, Killing each other and proving that you really are better than the opposing team".

You may see two videos of Paul Barnett explaining scenarios here (right click/save as, 12mb) and here (right click/save as, 13 mb).


Campaigns
Campaigns build even further on the smaller scale RvR which is coherent throughout the world. Campaigns consist of fighting over the actual ownership of landmass in the game, and taking over control of areas even as far up as to capturing and destroying your opposing faction's Capitol cities. Campaigns are also where the most rewarding game-play is. If your team is good enough to seize control of your opponents Cities, you may capture their king and even escort him in captivity back to your own capitol and imprison him - thus impacting the game directly for everyone.

That said, there are "timers" in play where actually capturing and holding an enemy capitol over an extended period of time is going to be remarkably hard. Eventually, the realms will come back into balance and the War starts once again.


As the presentation came to an end, we were informed that last up was some hands-on inside two different scenarios - namely "Mourkain Temple" and "Gates of Ekrund". We were separated into four teams of 10 each, I believe, so there were two games going on in the press room at any given time. The first scenario was a form of the "Murderball" type instance. It played out like this. The map was a medium sized swamp, with two starting positions, one for each team. In the middle of the map, a temple was located, and in the middle of the temple was a statue. The goal of the map was to have your team gain 500 points before the enemy. Points were gained by killing enemies, and also bonus points for having the statue while killing enemies. In short, get the statue, keep it and obliterate the enemy.

"So what was it like?", you might ask. Well, it was new, it was fresh but most importantly - it was damned fun. That, my friends, is what PvP should be. That said, I did have some nostalgia from some of the first times I had visited battlegrounds in WoW, except this felt more like real PvP and less like a game with pvp as part of the tools used to win the main objective. For the Mourkain Temple I got to play a Goblin Squigherder. After about 5 minutes, I was convinced that the class was way too good. Overpowered, if you will. Why? Well, it was a combination of the abilities that I had at my disposal, one being a "rooting" shot with my bow, the power of my squig and the fact that I somehow managed to play the very first game PvP game in Warhammer completely without dieing while still holding the statue for the majority of the game. That said, I have to give some credits to the gentleman sitting next to me on the left - he did really well about healing me and keeping us in the lead, and since this is not even Beta I'm sure there is much tuning still left to do!

After two games in this zone, we changed "sides" and also scenarios. This time my row was to play the Dwarves and the row behind us were to play the Goblins and Orcs in "Gates of Ekrund". My class happened to be a Dwarf Hammerer. We were explained that the objective of this scenario was to capture and hold certain points while besieging the Gates of Ekrund. The winning team was to be determined by which team got to 500 points first, and much like the Murderball scenario, points were gained both by capturing and holding each of the 3 control points but also from killing one-another relentlessly.

The Dwarf Hammerer was really refreshing to play, being a melee class. My main character in WoW is a rogue, so "close-quarter" combat was something I was used to, however the abilities and combinational attacks of the Hammerer really made for some big killing sprees. We got to play 2 games in this scenario also, and at the end of the presentation the score between our team and our opposing team seated behind us was 2-2. In short, it was very fun, well developed and has a lot of potential.

You may see two videos from the Gates of Ekrund here, (RunePriest View - Right click/save as, 5.5mb) and here, (Goblin Squigherder View - Right click/save as, 6.5mb).

Questions / Answers

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Friday the 26th before leaving back to Curse HQ, I got a chance to meet up with Lance Robertson, the Producer of Warhammer Online for some one-on-one questionnaire.

Q: What kind of content in Warhammer do you believe will attract and keep the long term players in the game?
A: We believe that the RvR and the PvP will be the biggest part of the game that keeps people playing. That is just the nature of PvP.

Q: How does leveling through PvP compare to PvE exp/hour wise?
A: That is something we are constantly working on balancing. It really is something we are going to have to tune as we go in order to make it as equal as possible. The same goes for Item drops from PvP - we need to see how it pans out and change it as it is needed.

Q: What kind of system do you recommend in order to run Warhammer Online at max settings with a nice result?
A: While our current client is not optimized for performance yet I can't say anything specific, but it will be safe to assume that any reasonably decent system purchased sometime during the past year will be fine.

Editor's Note: The system we were playing on for the test was a Laptop system with an Intel Core 2 Duo 1.8 Ghz with 2Gb of Ram, Radeon x1600 Mobile gfx card and other standard goodies. The game was at almost max setting (no antialiasing) and was running perfectly fine with no performance issues at all.

Q: What kind of features/support is planned for interface modification or addons?
A: We are aiming for the game interface to be very modifiable. The actual method we have chosen for WAR is to have LUA addons. Extracting ingame information like item stats, character profiles, quest information and similiar will be possible.

Q: What is your plan to deal with secondary market vendors such as IGE?
A: EA Mythic is, and always will be against such a market. We are trying to design the game in such a manner that the act of gold farming by gold farmers will become pointless while still being very much valuable to a real player.

Q: Will it be possible to level from 1 to max solo for each class?
A: Yes.

Q: How big of a difference will the "item power" between casual play and hardcore play be?
A: We have not decided on anything specific on this matter yet, but we do feel that a great time investment must yield great gear.

Q: Do you already have expansions planned and will you be releasing "free content" as you go?
A: While we currently are focusing on developing and releasing the game currently, we do have content / expansions planned for years to come. We will also be releasing "free" content in form of patches as we go.

Q: When Beta comes around, will you be doing "Guild Invitations" to well known established high-end guilds?
A: We don't have any specifics planned at current time, but this is something we will be looking into.

Q: Do you plan to release the game with a Digital Download / Online Purchase?
A: We have not decided on this yet, but we will be looking into all available distribution options.

Q: Will you be making a "Direct X 10" version of your game at some point?
A: We do not have any plans for making a DX10 specific client at current. Maybe down the line.

Q: What do you personally find the most fun in making an MMO?
A: For me, the testing and it really showing when it all comes together is the best. Watching you guys play and have fun yesterday was pretty high up there''

Q: What is your favorite part of the Warhammer Universe?
A: The dark humour.

Q: Will it be possible to "uber-twink" lower level characters once you have a high level character?
A: No, we have restrictions in place to make the power Curve of lower level characters remain relatively stable.



Conclusion

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And there you have it. If Warhammer Online did not have enough hype already, it most certainly will after their press event. As I started this article out, Warhammer Online is, if it follows its current development routine, destined to become big. The combination of the experience at Mythic, the feedback from their player base and the unique world that Warhammer is set in only spells one thing: Success.

I will be looking forward to hearing more about Warhammer from the team over at EA Mythic, and even more to the Beta when it finally gets made available.

__________________

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/s...096/gameID/239


Garrett Fuller attended a press event in Fairfax Virginia and learned a great deal about EA Mythic's Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.

What can be said about Warhammer Online that has not been said already? The hype on this game continues to grow by leaps and bounds on the internet. With Paul Barnett driving the crazy train and everybody trying to jump on board for the wild ride, it is easy to see why Warhammer is quickly growing as the next big MMO. One huge question remains, can it deliver? Can it live up to the hype? Can the new game mechanics of Public Quests, a vast series of character development tables, customization through RvR trophies, and the sacking of major cities really grab the players by the neck and shake them into the intensity of Warhammer Online?

Well, in the hopes of answer that question, the Press Event for Warhammer Online was held last week at EA Mythic’s Studio in Virginia. The computers were turned on, the group sat down and Paul Barnett (Creative Director) and Jeff Hickman (Senior Producer) took the stage to explain what is on the horizon with W.A.R. Once again “The Paul and Jeff Show” is funny in and of itself. When the game is launched, these guys should go on a comedy tour for promotion. They really had the crowd laughing the whole time while discussing serious game mechanics and the detailed IP of Warhammer.

The first item that EA Mythic showed off was the new Empire class, the Bright Wizard. The press got a chance to jump into the game for the Empire and play the Bright Wizard class. For those who have not been following the game, the Empire is the human realm in Warhammer. Please don’t mistake them for the good guys; they are simply humans on the brink of destruction. Every human emotion and condition is at an extreme. Faith is unforgiving and unbroken, corruption is widespread and encompassing, and magic is destructive and overpowering. After all, like Paul said, “WAR is everywhere”. This is clearly reflected in the Empire classes. The Bright Wizard represents magic at an extreme, with the ability to control fire and destroy with the flame. The Warrior Priest and Witch Hunter are examples of an extreme religion that humans must cling too on the verge of being overrun by Chaos. These two classes deal in faith. Finally, the Knight of the Blazing Sun represents the ultimate medieval soldier destined to meet enemies head on in hand to hand combat.

Finishing off the first look at the Empire here is some information on the Bright Wizard class. Do you like Fire? Well Paul Barnet described the Bright Wizard as a “licensed pyromaniac.” You’re not going to be seeing these guys throwing lightning bolts, or casting any of the other common spells. “Only fire.” The Bright Wizard has a variety of spells and options which deal with different ways of blowing things up. Early spells we saw all had sleek effects on-screen and gave us some colorful ways to make our enemies explode. Needless to say, this is the Nuker class for the Empire. Also, visually, the Bright Wizard looks like he stepped out of the pages of a Warhammer Rulebook. The character design is very much like the miniatures we have all seen. It is great to see the Warhammer IP being realized precisely as we all know it.

The Warhammer Chaos look and feel is everywhere right from the start of the game. Banners and bones litter the landscape as the eyes of Tzeench keep watch on his minions. There are four Chaos classes available to players: The Chosen represent the Tank or Chaos Warrior class, the Zealot is a healer type class, and the Magus is the Mage or Nuker of the group. The fourth Chaos class has yet to be revealed by EA Mythic. Paul did mention that mutations will abound for players and NPCs that are part of Chaos. Please keep in mind that the Chaos Gods: Nurgle, Khorne, and Slaanesh will be represented in the game, just not as player options.

This brings us to The Magus. He has a number of spells in his arsenal which all have various effects on the screen. Paul did mention that the Discs of Tzeench would play a huge part in the Magus’s look and feel. Blades, power, mutation, magic, it will all be there for players. While checking out the Chaos area we did see a skaven running about on the screen, so if you were wondering whether or not they are in the game, they are.

The public quest system is a unique feature to Warhammer Online. It allows players to gain XP just by entering an area and helping out with a specially designed story. Players can do this in groups, guilds, or they can just jump in on their own. The quests happen in stages and reset if no one is there to finish them out. This creates an active zone for players to work in and build up experience as well as Influence. What is Influence, you ask? Well, if a player continues to work in an area, eventually the major NPC will recognize their efforts. Rewards come back to the players this way. There is an Influence bar on your screen when you enter the area and begin going through the content. I know it sounds like a faction grind, and in a way it is similar to faction, but not as taxing. The Influence bar seemed to move faster and offer good rewards at many different levels. EA Mythic Designer Destin Bales pointed out that you can repeat public quests if you choose to do so, or you go find new ones in the area. They are trying to give players as much variety in content as possible.

You cannot mention EA Mythic without saying RvR (Realm vs. Realm). That is what is at the heart of W.A.R. Warhammer was built on fantasy races fighting each other in repeated epic battles, and Warhammer Online offers players a ton of options to fight it out. The game will launch with the four types of RvR we have reviewed in the past. Those being: Skirmish, Battlefields, Scenarios, and Campaigns. We had a chance to check out the Scenario RvR. Jeff mentioned that the game will launch with over forty scenarios for players to join. The group rate goes anywhere from six players, to twelve, all the way up to thirty six players at one time. The RvR action we had a chance to play was fast and furious. It was intensive and the main point was to kill the opposition in fun and creative new ways (we were given 40th level characters for the event). Even though there are certain objectives in the scenarios, the bottom line is…war. “War is everywhere”. The gameplay we saw was much smoother than the video that was released in the newsletter a few weeks ago. For those who thought the video was choppy, the real thing was not.

After the presentation, we had a chance to sit down with the game’s producer Lance Robertson. Lance came from Dark Age of Camelot and has been at Mythic since the early days. In talking with Lance (the podcast will be up at some point), we wanted to clear up a few issues that MMO players have come to consider when choosing a game.

In regards to gameplay and grinding, we mentioned that the MMO crowd is getting older, especially players from The DAOC era. We wanted to know if it would take a year to level your character and then another year to get the loot your character needs to compete in RvR. Lance said that scenarios and public quests are quick elements in the game to help players advance without spending hours of their time. “Nothing we do is intended to say that you have to spend eight hours at a time in game,” Lance was happy to announce.

We also asked about the elusive fourth Chaos class that we were hoping to hear about while there. Lance said that it will be out soon and not to worry. Also, the High Elves and Dark Elves should be making their appearance sometime in the spring.

Another exciting feature in Warhammer Online will be all of the elements that guilds will have at their disposal. When asked to describe it, Lance said to think of Dark Age of Camelot, only bigger. As an example, in DAOC when your guild or group captured a keep, the guild flags of the person who did the capture flew from the towers and NPC guards with your guild symbol patrolled the area. Hopefully, this type of guild interaction within the game will make the leap into W.A.R., but with some new enhancements.

Finally, we asked Lance about next generation consoles. While he could not give a firm yes or no, he did say that they were still in talks about whether or not we would see Warhammer on the consoles. They are looking into it, but they remain unsure if we will see the game on consoles.

So there you have it, as much information as we can give on Warhammer Online. The production of the game is moving along very well with 150 employees now working on the game. With any luck, it will meet the release date at the end of 2007. Thanks again to Jeff Hickman, Paul Barnett, and Lance Robertson for all the great information they gave.

__________________

Done lol, had fun reading all that, and thought ill paste it here for anyone who might want to read it, and yes I was bored.

__________________

One thing that stands out somewhere in all that, is they're not adding stealth or stealth classes. Makes me happy, they did learn something from daoc.

__________________

That's some pretty crappy animation.

Glad to see they're actually conducting 'skating' tests though!

__________________
http://lern2play.mine.nu/ !

Oh and to clarify before Woody blows a blood vessel, that's crappy as in looking like an early and unfinished loop!

__________________
http://lern2play.mine.nu/ !

Re-arrange the following words to form a sentence:

Bitches sons of fucking!

WHY YOU LITTLE (*#$&)#$&*

I hear what you're saying but it was only two basic attack animations. I thought they way the char was fighting with the skull in his hand looked pretty cool.

__________________

Sons fucking of bitches.

__________________

Aye, Lizardmen and Slaan would be cool. Shame on them.

__________________

SWG Memories movie http://media.putfile.com/SWG-Memories-38
Song of the Day!
Ratty - Sunrise: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uhB2qOSId4A

GO GO GADGET COLD ONeS