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Warhammer Online launches Recruit-a-Friend offer
The Warhammer Online December newsletter is filled with some of the announcements we've already mentioned at Massively, such as the Keg End holiday event, the two new careers, and some the other big changes that are impacting the game. What we haven't mentioned yet is that Warhammer Online has a Recruit-a-Friend program. It doesn't give the experience bonuses that the World of Warcraft offer of the same name does. In fact, the WAR Recruit-a-Friend is similar to what's happening with EVE Online: you invite a friend to a free trial. If that friend becomes a subscriber, the invitation sender receives 30 days of free game time credited to their account. You can recruit up to three people, although over your time subscribed this increases to a maximum of six recruitment notices you can have on deck at any given time. For more info on how this works, log into your master account to see how it's done. 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!
Do WoW players make bad employees?
William Dobson over at our sister site Massively.com picked up this story earlier today. A poster on the f13 forums revealed that a corporate recruiter claimed they'd been given specific instructions to not consider World of Warcraft players for jobs. And we're not talking here about people actively playing WoW at work -- just whether the person plays the MMO at all. The theory behind using WoW play as a disqualifier is that WoW players are somehow unable to focus 100% on their day job. There's part of me here that wants to say "screenshots or it didn't happen," since I can't imagine many corporations spending time and effort weeding out WoW players. I could see one or two HR folks preaching "Addiction!" and otherwise chewing on bitter apples. But several companies independently telling that to their recruiting folks, of their own volition and without prompt? I'm not so sure. If this recruiter is being honest with the forum goer, then I'd guess the recruiter her/himself is responsible for the WoW player ban. Of course, that being said, I'll acknowledge this comes after the FCC commissioner claimed WoW can cause college drop outs. Maybe this recruiter happened to be talking to someone who had just heard her speech. But, still, I'm not convinced there's need to be worried about corporate conspiracies looking to pit WoW players into joblessness.
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.
Warhammer Online 1.0.6 patch adds new classes, tidal wave of updates
All those Warhammer Online players who where playing along with the Heavy Metal event in November will be happy to know that today the fruits of their labor has arrived. That's right: Today, Mythic brings us Black Guards and Knights of the Blazing Sun! For those who didn't finish the full Heavy Metal event, don't worry, the classes will become available to everyone next week. Servers are going down at 3:30AM PST / 6:30AM EST for North American players with Oceanic servers following at 9:00AM EST. No specific time-frame was given for the updating process, so we'll just have to sit tight and wait it out.New classes aren't the only thing found in this patch, however. There's a ton of general game updates, performance updates, bug fixes and class tweaks coming with the 1.0.6 patch, too. In fact, there are so many class tweaks that Bright Wizards, Chosen, Engineers, Ironbreakers, Maguses (Magi?), Shadow Warriors, Sorcerers, Squig Herders and Swordmasters are all getting their mastery points refunded. Combat also seems to be a big focus, with a ton of improvements to auto-attack animations, ability responsiveness, morale responsiveness and root responsiveness.All in all, we're pretty impressed with Mythic on this patch, as it delivers some substantial changes that many players have been waiting to see. Did you enjoy this? Make sure to check out our Warhammer guides: Massively's Character Creation Guide and our WoW Player's Guide to Warhammer. Plus, don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!
Five futures of Warhammer Online
What does the future hold for Warhammer Online? Not only that, but what should the future hold for Mythic's newest MMO and its players? Everyone wonders these things at one point or another, so we've gone ahead and explored our thoughts on the topic. Then, after much deliberation, we distilled them down into five possible futures for Warhammer Online. Take a look and judge for yourself what feature is or isn't a matter of time. The future starts here >> %Gallery-21881%
The week in Massively features
Massively interview: KingsIsle on Wizard101We recently had the chance to check up on KingsIsle and talk to them about their three-year conjuration, Wizard101. We sat down with the studio's director, Todd Coleman, to discuss what's in store for the tween-centric wizard school MMO. First Impressions: Requiem: BloodymareWe've been talking about this game for months now, and Requiem: Bloodymare is finally available to play. Hailed as the first horror MMO, there are definitely aspects of R:B that are pretty gruesome. EVE Online Community Spotlight: a Q&A with ChribbaTrust is a rare commodity in EVE Online. Many players are drawn to the game by the fact that almost any form of deceit, betrayal, and outright treachery is allowed in EVE. Not all players head down this path, of course, but plenty do. This element of risk is what makes the game exciting ... MMOGology: Mobile MMOGsSeveral weeks ago at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) Steve Jobs announced the 3G iPhone. The announcement wasn't much of a shock to industry experts since other cell phones have been using 3G networks ... MMO MMOnkey: Why I stopped playing Age of ConanI like Age of Conan. I like the combat system that demands active engagement rather than the auto-attack, go-make-a-cup-of-coffee style of combat used in so many other MMOs. I enjoy exploring Funcom's recreation of Hyboria ...
Rumor: Dungeons and Dragons Online coming to consoles
Our good friend reader Schad sent us a tip that rings strangely true, as weird as may sound: Turbine may be releasing Dungeons and Dragons Online for the Xbox 360 and/or PS3 consoles. The game is riding high after their big Module 7 release last week, and connecting the dots on this just might mean DDO is console-bound.Before you try to throw the case out of court, hear out the evidence first: Schad notes that Turbine's careers page calls for a console engineer, and if you read the description of what they're looking for, phrases like "extend the functionality" and "updating Turbine's MMOG engine" point directly to a console port kind of situation. And the DDO team specifically has just recently announced that big changes are in the air over there -- they've suspended the "Weekly Dev activities" alert, saying that what they're working on is under wraps, and that the Turbine PR team is giving them more focus. Which is exactly what you'd expect from a console port. Doesn't sound as strange after that, does it? And after thinking about it, DDO's "real-time" control scheme does lend itself very well to console controls, and the ongoing rumors that the game is going free-to-play would also make things easier for a console version. It's still a rumor for now, but all the signs we can see point to a possible console-based Stormreach in the future.
Warhammer Online hands-on
The beta may be closed now, but we were lucky enough to get our mitts on Warhammer Online at EA's booth at E for All recently. We were only able to access lowbie characters and starting area content, so unfortunately weren't able to experience some of the juicier RvR content that awaits characters later in the game -- but a few hours' worth of exploring several zones and spending some time with a handful of Warhammer's 24 careers left us pretty excited to see what else is in store when this launches. Initial impression: the game looks gorgeous. The environments are lush, detailed, compelling, immersive. The art style is unique -- not as "cartoonish" as WoW but not photo-realistic either... unique. The combat animations are dynamic and diverse for characters and NPCs alike. The several zones we saw were populated with a diverse assortment of nasties to beat on, interesting landmarks and scenery, and a general feeling that there's a lot of action going on around you -- there's a huge war on, and Warhammer manages to convey a sense of generalized anxiety and excitement that makes it difficult to forget that you're in this world with one primary duty: to smash faces.%Gallery-9466%
The life of a lapsed game developer
Lost Garden has an interesting post up which is useful reading for anyone thinking about a career in game development. As an ex-game developer, driven out by a cancelled project, bad project management and pay cuts, Danc has a list of reasons why lapsed game developers won't be going back to their jobs once they taste the forbidden fruit of a mainstream development job.With an estimated 50,000 lapsed game developers out there -- people who've seen what real working conditions are like and prefer to stay away from the games industry -- it's an almost frightening outpouring of talent. On the other hand, many gamers and programmers are climbing over one another to get that vital entry-level job in the industry, to break in with fancy demos and showy code. Whether some developers care that they're losing people, when there are so many ready to replace them, is debatable -- but a high turnover and an unstable team can have their effects on products, which affects us as consumers too
