No new careers any time soon, say the Warhammer developers

We've already talked this morning about today's patch 1.1a for Warhammer Online, as well as the numerous changes to RvR incentivizing the open field style of play. We also spoke with Adam Gershowitz and Josh Drescher about the recently released new careers: the Knight of the Blazing Sun and the Black Guard. They indicated those two will be the last new careers we should expect to see in the game for some time. We already knew the Dwarf Hammerer was out permanently; now it looks like anyone looking forward to the Orc Choppa or even the rumored Dwarven Slayer will be doing so for a while yet.

Said Josh Drescher, "We're not going to add things back in simply to say, 'hey, new crap'. If you see new careers in the future, it will be because we see it as new, useful content that improves on the experience the players are already enjoying."

Read on below the cut for our full discussion about the new careers and the future of content addition in the game.

Two new classes were just released into the game. How do you feel about how Knight of the Blazing Sun and Black Guard turned out?

Adam Gershowitz: We're really happy with them. As evidenced by the fact that there's about two zillion of them on every server right now. They're completely saturating tiers 1 and 2.

Josh Drescher: They're the new hotness.

Adam: They are the new hotness. Both careers have been really well received, they were that way in our public playtest as well as our closed playtest ... always great to see that pan out. Players, obviously, have comments and feedback. After such a short period of time we don't have a lot of changes in mind but they're definitely coming along well. Players really like the way they play, they like the way they look. I imagine over the next couple of months we'll be continuing to get a lot of really good feedback on them.

The next time we see a balance patch they're going to get their licks in just like everybody else, but overall we're really happy with them.

Do you think the extra time spent polishing the classes shows in how they're playing today?

Adam: Yes, definitely. Both art and design came out great. These are two of the better careers we've put out in a long time. With every career we create, we learn small lessons. We don't make the same mistakes twice – generally speaking. These have a much higher level of polish than any other career we've released. That's good, because we've never launched a career into a live game before.

That said, they're playing very smoothly, we had fewer kinks and hitches in the final testing phases. The art came together really well, the animations are just a little bit smoother, the gameplay is generally really good. Previously these kinds of things took us a couple of patches during the Beta Test to get to this state.

You mention patching classes into the live game. Can we expect the other two new classes, whatever those end up being, to be patched directly into the game as well?

Josh: So, when you think about us taking classes out of the launch version of the game, you have to think about that decision in the same way as an editor for a film making a change. The director has a vision of all the shots he wants to make, he goes out and films all of them, and then the editor takes those shots and hones them into what the director finally wants.

Regardless of what you originally intended, you can always save ideas that have been taken out previously, re-implement them into the game, and offer something more than originally intended. More than initially released.
In terms of career additions, it's always going to be that sort of mentality. We're not going to add things back in simply to say, 'hey, new crap'. If you see new careers in the future, it will be because we see it as new, useful content that improves on the experience the players are already enjoying.

It can be implemented in a way that's not disruptive, that's not weird, and is coherent with the overall vision. Again, adding in the Knight of the Blazing Sun and the Black guard was something we were excited to be able to do, but was never something we were told from on high we had to do.

Adam: The short version is, if we like the idea we'll do it. Right now we're pretty happy with the new careers going in and we're not really talking about any additional careers right now.

Josh: That said, we reserve the right to implement edible haflings at any time.

	WAR has gone 1.1! Check out our full coverage of the 1.1a patch, along with our interviews exploring upcoming content and the open RvR changes. Plus, don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!