Massively goes to WAR: Is there any PvE in Warhammer's endgame?

Even at planned events, like our visit to EA Mythic last week, sometimes the most interesting conversations are those that happen naturally. We were in between two presentations last week, waiting for the next Warhammer Online walkthrough and informational talk, and had an unexpected lull. We used the opportunity to essentially ask the question that reader muub put to us way back in the middle of last week.

Muub asked, "How much did they work on the PVE aspect of the game? Are there just a couple of end game dungeons to appease the crowd or is it more in depth? Do they have any endgame raid dungeons?" The answer to those questions, we can now safely say, are: "A lot, it's more in-depth, and yes." Assuming that you want slightly more detailed answers than that, go ahead and read below the cut for our brief discussion on Warhammer Online's PvE endgame with Producer Jeff Skalski and Press Relations' Juli Cummins.
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The question people have is: Is there a PvE endgame? You've made that deliberate choice not to engage in RvR, but you're max-level. What is there for you to do?

Jeff Skalski: Well, I can't speak about some of our more epic dungeons like Lost Vale, high-level dungeons, which is plenty of high-level dungeon content. Really the last PvE encounters, the highest level in the game, are the King encounters. That's gated by very epic RvR encounters all the way up; that said, once those encounters are unlocked there's nothing stopping a player who prefers PvE from queuing up, entering a contested city (because he'll be safe in the contested city) and taking on the King encounter with his buddies.

Players can definitely experience the best part of the capital city content without doing RvR ... you'll just have to wait. You'll have to cross your fingers and hope that your RvR factional companions will unlock it for you.

Once it's unlocked, we open it up to that winning realm for a set amount of time so they can experience it. They can only do it once; they have more than one shot at it, we're not going to penalize you if you fail on the first try, but once you kill the King you can't do it again until the next city sacking. You can't farm the King.

Juli Cummins: Over the next couple of months we'll be releasing more information about those dungeons, the high level dungeons. Also, while the cities aren't contested, there's tons of content in there even for high-level players.

Jeff: Too, when the cities are captured, there's nothing stopping solo players or a group of PvE players from going into the city to do some dungeon crawling beneath the city. Once the city is captured, the opposing realm is pushed out until your side loses control, so there's no danger of players attacking them.

Once a City is captured, what happens to the inhabiting players? Where do they go for all of their basic needs?

Jeff: Outside the captured city is a refugee camp, and a black market. That's where the players who don't want to experience any of the RvR can go to get basic commodoties. They're not going to be crippled while the capital city combat is taking place. That said, we really want players to defend their city, and there are some great benefits for doing so. When the Fortress falls, if you're in the city, the game gives you the option: fight or flee? If you pick flee, it pushes you straight into the refugee camp. If you pick fight, you head into the instance and you're fighting directly against your city's attacker.

How long do you expect it to take players to crack into the end-level content?

Jeff: We'd be really excited if nobody could kill a king for a couple of months. That's the hallway conversation. There are definitely certain things we have in place, it's not just a matter of getting to him. You have to have the right gear, you have to take out the sub-bosses, you have to be set and ready.

Even to get to the king, you have to go through the campaign, you have to get through the fortress, you have to sack the city, you have to get through the gates ... we'd love a couple of months, but we'll see what happens.

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