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Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes is open for business... er, beta
Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes entered open beta today, available through the Wrath of Heroes website. Wrath of Heroes is a free-to-play PVP title based on BioWare's MMO of the same-ish title, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.Wrath of Heroes offers three-sided, six-player arena combat (for a total of 18 players), each battle lasting an "intense" 15 minutes, the press release promises. We're not sure how minutes can be intense, but we assume counting each second in audible caps lock does the trick.
BioWare Mythic isn't playing favorites with free-to-play and subscriptions
BioWare Mythic says that the market is big enough to support both free-to-play and subscription models -- and everything else in between. Talking with Gamasutra, GM Eugene Evans said that the company has to acknowledge that there are people who don't like F2P and those who do, and it's important to reach out to both groups. With Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes in beta testing, BioWare Mythic is testing the waters of free-to-play while preparing for Star Wars: The Old Republic's massive subscription launch. "We often got asked about taking our old games free-to-play, and in the case of Warhammer, we felt there was a different way of doing it," he opined, going on to say that the Mythic branch was learning a lot about polish and quality from the BioWare team. Evans commented on the observation that the widening global market means that no one business model is guaranteed to work in every country: "We're all still figuring out what free-to-play means, what the best way to monetize is, and how to run it as a business and engage players in ways they're prepared to accept."
BioWare Mythic on Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes' MMO origins
Not everybody is in the closed beta of Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes; if we were, it wouldn't be closed. That's just about the only way to know any details about BioWare Mythic's new free-to-play spinoff, as the company's been quiet since announcing the game at GamesCom. During GDC Online, I asked studio GM Eugene Evans to explain just what Wrath of Heroes is, especially in relation to the existing Warhammer Online MMO. "The scenario gameplay that you experience within Wrath of Heroes is part of Warhammer Online," Evans explained. "You can go and have a similar experience in Warhammer Online. But it means that you have to go and start with a base character, level that character up, and then get into the scenario."%Gallery-136533%
Mythic: Wrath of Heroes gets rid of 'all the boring crap' of WAR
Mythic is taking an interesting approach in promoting its new MOBA, Warhammer Online Wrath of Heroes -- it's throwing Warhammer Online under the bus. At the Wrath of Heroes reveal panel at PAX, the Mythic team talked up its new project as something that Heroes' parent game is not. The team found that people liked WAR but couldn't justify investing in it, so Mythic wanted to create an experience for them. The team took what it saw as one the more popular aspects of WAR -- the scenarios -- and modified them to pit three teams (six on each) against each other for quick, 15-minute gameplay sessions. On death, you can choose any hero in your arsenal so you can adjust to whatever your team needs. This game format allowed the team to strip away the parts of the game it saw as unnecessary. "We went, you know what? If you play the MMO, we give you all this cool equipment on your adventure, and it's a neat thing to do, but let's just get rid of the boring crap and give people cool [stuff] to wear," Paul Barnett said. Citing the accumulation of multiple -- and sometimes quite situational -- skills over the course of "748,000 hours of grinding," Barnett said that his team got rid of this approach by focusing on only five skills per hero in Wrath of Heroes. He thinks that the small incremental progress of skills and skill effects in Warhammer Online is "dull" and instead extolls Wrath of Heroes for picking the best skills, effects and armor so that players don't have to worry about getting all of them. You can watch the full reveal panel of Wrath of Heroes after the jump. [Thanks to Joris for the tip!]
Gamescom 2011: EA and BioWare announce Warhammer MOBA [Updated]
If you've always wondered what Warhammer would look like as a MOBA, EA and BioWare have your answer. Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes was just announced at this year's Gamescom, and the fantasy title will feature three-team PvP with six players per side. Another new wrinkle highlighted in the game's press materials is the ability to swap heroes on the fly and "confound your foes and dominate the battlefield," according to BioWare. The gameplay looks fast, frenetic, and accessible, and EA is positioning the title to capture a piece of the burgeoning free-to-play MOBA market. GameReactor also reports that the new game's scenarios will be built around pre-existing scenarios from Warhammer Online. We'll bring you more on Wrath of Heroes in our Not So Massively column, and in the meantime you can watch the preview clip after the cut. [Update: You can also sign up now for the beta on the official site!]
Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes is EA's next 'Play4Free' game [update: trailer]
What's BioWare Mythic been up to? It's a new Warhammer Online game due this fall, just announced by BioWare's Ray Muzyka at GamesCom. Wrath of Heroes will be a "Play4Free" title -- like the Facebook game Dragon Age Legends and the freemium Battlefield Play4Free. You can sign up for a beta of the PvP, cel-shaded Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes right now here. It'll be released this fall. %Gallery-130892%
