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Warhammer Online launches!

The long wait is finally over! Warhammer Online is now live, and players around the world are settling in to their first day of widespread waagh! Massively will be providing tons of new content all day long on this much-anticipated title. In order to kick things off, though, we want to be sure you know what we have to offer from the past. Massively has been talking about WAR since we launched last year, and in that time we've racked up a lot of great content. Even discounting our Massively goes to WAR series, we have an impressive number of words to offer up. Check out these posts, and click through below the cut for even more! Happy waagh day!

A World of Warcraft player's guide to Warhammer Online
Warhammer's a brand new world, with a lot of different sights, cultures, and expectations. To help you out as a brand new WAR player, we've compiled a guide to ease that transition, in the same tradition as our guides to Age of Conan and Guild Wars. WoW players, welcome to a brand new world ... one without gnomes!

Picking Mark Jacobs' brain about the Warhammer launch
We talk a bit about the long, hard road that the Mythic team has traveled to get where they are now. We also go over the team's launch plan, Jacobs' decision to start blogging publicly, and more on World of Warcraft's role in the industry.

What makes Warhammer Online special, by Paul Barnett
The man himself was kind enough to elaborate on these notes, for a feature encompassing the things that make WAR special. These are the things that Barnett has noticed players going ga-ga for, especially players that have jumped into MMOs in the past. From the Tome of Knowledge to little things like inventory management, check out the 11 things that make Warhammer the game it is today - in Paul Barnett's own words.

The early days of Mythic Entertainment
A snippet from our Massively goes to WAR series back in June, covering the long distant history of Mythic as a startup.


Did you enjoy this? Make sure to check out all of our previous Warhammer Online features, and don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!

PAX08: WAR's Paul Barnett and Jeff Hickman interviewed
On the first day of PAX08, we sat down with Mythic Entertainment's Jeff Hickman and Paul Barnett to discuss several different topics concerning Warhammer Online. We've covered the game very extensively to put it lightly, so for this go-around our goal was to mix things up a bit for the dynamic duo of Jeff and Paul.

The Digital Continuum: Memoirs of a WAR beta tester
Mythic seems to have decided it will take raw, unadulterated determination. The kind that a child displays when presented with the opportunity to have a new toy. It also helps to have a license that Blizzard themselves once attempted to acquire because of its depth. Ironic? Only if WAR really does take a big chug out of the World of Warcraft milkshake.

Check out video of Warhammer Online's /special emotes
In most MMOs, avatars have the opportunity to get down with their bad selves. The /dance emote is a perennial favorite emote, begun in the days of online gaming lore and arguably perfected by World of Warcraft's hilarious pop-culture shout-outs. Warhammer Online is a different sort of animal, though.

Massively's state of the game: Warhammer Online beta
If anything, Warhammer Online is a title with a more tightly-wound, highly anticipatory audience than Conan was. The long history of the Warhammer IP, the evocative nature of the tabletop roleplaying game, and a legion of wargaming followers across the globe has made this a must-play game across numerous demographics.

The Elves of WAR round-up
With the announcement that the full NDA is being removed today, we've decided to go ahead and gather all of the Elves of WAR content written thus far into one easy-to-access place. Expect to see lots more from the Massively crew as we bring you information on all of the races that will be butting heads in Warhammer Online.

E308: Warhammer's designers explain the career/city removal
Careers lead Adam Gershowitz and Associate Producer Josh Drescher were instrumental in making our Massively goes to WAR series a success. Our lengthy discussion with the two Warhammer Online designers resulted in our in-depth analysis of (at that point) every class slated for the game. Last week at E3 our discussion with the two gentlemen turned to the removal of four of those classes, as well as four of the slated endgame capital cities.

Massively goes to WAR: How to get your Public Quest loot
We've covered the Tome of Knowledge, the game's one-of-a-kind crafting system, and today we had a lengthy look at their approach to classes and races. Friday will be our last day of hands-on WAR coverage (for the time being), and between now and then we'll talk about RvR scenarios, keeps, and siege gameplay. But we're missing something in all this, one of the most unique elements to the game.

Massively goes to WAR: Emotions behind the Tome of Knowledge
Equal parts achievement system, quest log, faction-tracker and storybook, the Tome of Knowledge is unlike anything seen in other MMO titles but will be immediately familiar to players of games like Lord of the Rings Online ... or even Xbox Live fans.

Massively goes to WAR: How to conquer a capital city
Weeks, perhaps months of gameplay all leads up to one final confrontation between the forces of Order and the forces of Destruction. But what happens once the final Fortress falls? How to players bring the capital to its knees, the better to chop off its head? Join us as we explore the final, ultimate state of Warhammer Online's RvR combat.

E308: Warhammer Online's customization options explained
One component of Mythic Entertainment's Warhammer Online that we haven't seen a ton of is character customization. We know that the collector's edition will contain 'rare heads', for example, but what of in-game options. That's exactly what the team set out to correct at last week's E3. Mythic's Adam Gershowitz lays it out for us - make sure to read below the cut for some exciting news about guild banners!