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From Tabletop to Desktop: WAR's Order careers
It's been a month since we last took a look at how Warhammer Online's Destruction classes have made the transition from the old-school tabletop game to a full-fledged MMO experience, and a lot has happened. We've shown you a huge amount of new coverage with our Massively Goes to WAR series, and even got some more hands-on details of each of the game's many classes. We know that the guild beta is practically within our reach, and the open beta never leaves our minds, though it still lies just over the horizon.Since our last look at the WAR's tabletop roots was so well-received, we went back to the drawing board to bring you part two - focusing this time on the races on the side of Order. If you plan on joining the ranks of the Dwarfs, Empire, or High Elves and lack the proper appreciation for how the game's classes came to be, read on! From Tabletop to Desktop: WAR's Order careers >>>>> %Gallery-26491%
Ask a Lore Nerd: The Evil-o-Meter
Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, the column that answers your questions about the story and lore of the Warcraft universe. Click the Comments link below, ask your question, and blogger/columnist Alex Ziebart will answer you in a future installment!Travis asks... What can you tell me about the other portals around Outlands (the only one that springs to mind right now is the one in Zangarmarsh)? They look just like the one you get to Outlands through, but are just standing there doing nothing. Answer: Those portals were once used by the Burning Legion and their lackies to travel between Outland and various other worlds. Those portals were also used to send Legion reinforcements to Outland. Before Illidan and his posse usurped Magtheridon, they went around shutting down these portals to prevent Magtheridon from being reinforced. Further, they've been kept closed so Kil'jaeden can't come stomping back into Outland to punish Illidan for not being able to kill the Lich King.
White Lion confirmed as final High Elf career
At long last, Mythic has finally confirmed the last of the High Elf careers for Warhammer Online. After months of speculation and lots of hints, they've finally confirmed that the White Lion class will round out WAR's robust list of player careers. The White Lion will be fulfilling the melee DPS niche on the side of order and will focus on the dynamics between the hardy White Lion and his war lion pet.Unlike his Destruction counterpart the Squig Herder whose Squigs are relatively expendable balls of sentient fungus, the White Lion's bond with his pet starts at level one, and there will be a good degree of customization available so that each player's pet will be relatively unique. War lions will grow and change as their master grows in power, and will even be capable of fighting in a feral capacity if you fell his master in battle first.We're excited to see the last of WAR's careers fall into place. Here's hoping we're only a few steps away from the open beta!
Ask a Lore Nerd: Nagapalooza
Welcome to Ask a Lore Nerd, WoW Insider's newest weekly feature column. Have a question about the story and lore of the Warcraft universe? Click the Comments link below, ask your question, and blogger/columnist Alex Ziebart will answer you in a future installment!Thanks to the overwhelming popularity of Ask a Lore Nerd's first installment, we are now a weekly feature! I hope you enjoy it, because it's here to stay. This week we're fielding a large number of questions from a few contributors. A number of you have taken full advantage of this opportunity and posted an avalanche of questions. Good! That's what I like to see! Let's jump right into it, shall we?Matt said: Not a lore question, but lore speculation. Blizzard hinted at a major event would cause the uneasy-peace of Horde and Alliance become not on uneasy. What could cause tensions to rise? Also in the real world alliances crumble, and are reformed. What races of the Horde and Alliance do you see possibly switching sides?Answer: From what I understand, Garrosh Hellscream will be following in his father's footsteps and the good ol' Orcish bloodlust will color his actions in Northrend. Additionally, I'd be willing to bet the Alliance is mighty nervous about the Forsaken's new plagues, considering they had been thoroughly tested on Alliance citizens in the past. The Lich King may also play a substantial role in the rising tensions, playing the two factions off of one another. As far as switching sides, I don't see it happening. If anything, factions would splinter further but not switch sides. The Forsaken and Blood Elves might go off on their own. The Night Elves might go off on their own. Pretty unlikely in both cases.
Know Your Lore: The Sunwell
The upcoming patch, patch 2.4, now known as The Fury of the Sunwell, revolves around... well, the Sunwell! I guess there's something in there about a huge demon by the name of Kil'jaeden, but I'm sure he's not important. Like my previous installments of Know Your Lore, I'll give a little bit of background information on our subject, so you understand the foundation of it. This bit isn't quite as exciting as my last installment or two, but this took a lot more research, and a lot more piecing together half-told bits of story from multiple authors. It's a bit like playing Connect the Dots, but instead of getting a flower or a sailboat, I get Richard Knaak flipping me off. Sorry it's so dry, but on with the show!A little over 10,000 years ago, the Night Elves lived under the rule of Queen Azshara and the upper class of society, the Highborne. Their culture was rich in magic and the arcane, very different from the down to earth, nature-centric society of the Night Elves today. Queen Azshara and her Highborne were extremely hedonistic, using the nearby Well of Eternity for personal power and gain. At some point during all of this, Azshara heard a dark whisper, promising power beyond her imagination.Does this sound familiar? Yes, Sargeras was up to his old tricks again. Like he lured Kil'jaeden and Archimonde to the Legion's cause, he did the same with Queen Azshara. Whereas Kil'jaeden and Archimonde seemed to have needed a little trickery from the Destroyer, Azshara was far more welcoming. She was pretty okay with hanging out with demons, and rather enjoyed the whole fire and brimstone thing.
WAR beta update, dark elf-style
In the latest news from the Warhammer Herald, the Mythic crew updates those unlucky souls still wandering on the outskirts of the Warhammer Online beta on the progress that's been made in live testing over the last several months. The most recent beta push has focused on the down and dirty combat between the High Elves of Ulthuan and their dastardly neighbors to the north, the Dark Elves. The update picks up the perspective of the Dark Elves, and includes some small chunks of lore, specifics on the various Chapters that underwent testing, and some beta journals from those lucky SOBs who got a beta invite.For my part, I think they've really done a good job of capturing the spirit of the Dark Elves. Whatever your feelings are about witches, worshiping the gods of Chaos, or scantly clad ladies, the overriding drive that unites all Dark Elves is an undying hatred for those haughty, do-nothing fairy-boys, the High Elves. There's just something endearing to me about a race of people whose primary motivation is spite. Only in the Warhammer universe could they pull something like that off.The update also says that the next phase of testing will focus on Empire and Chaos. Let's hope that once that's done, they'll finally move into guild beta.
WAR's Saphery zone is full of tall magical things
The racial pairing we still have the least information for has been the High and Dark Elves, but that is starting to change. Enter the Saphery zone -- a third tier zone for High Elves -- that is chocked full of magical energies and ancient High Elf beauty. This makes it a target for Dark Elves who want to twist and malign those energies, the Greenskins so they can smash all the pretty stuff and the Chaos so they can, well, bring chaos to everything in sight we suppose. There's actually quite a bit (actually, more like tons) of background lore in the zone overview of Saphery. We've noticed for some time now that a lot of structure designs in Warhammer Online are very, very tall. However it looks like High Elf architecture trumps all other height-imbued buildings, but that makes sense since High Elves are all about being tall and uppity. Oh, we're digging the blue-leafed trees as well.
WAR class info: High Elf Shadow Warrior
There's always a draw to the Elven races in MMOs, especially when they've got some seriously wicked personality. So when we saw this article we had to jump in head first and absorb all the information from within its gooey bowels. It's a long read, but we've got the skinny for your Warhammer Online needs -- including lore and class information. Be warned though, we may ramble on a bit about Shadow Warriors and how cool they're starting to sound.
WAR boss prologue: Lorkoth and Scornlash
Those looking to read some interesting lore concerning a PQ boss that Order players will face in the Dark Elf lands look no further. Well, we're sure that there aren't many of you who have been specifically looking to read something like that, but maybe you just haven't realized you want to. In fact, if you look around the Warhammer Online website you'll find quite a few little pockets of knowledge that you might have never realized you wanted to know.
WAR, you and another interview
Sunday got you down without much to do? Well maybe this will eat up a few of those boring minutes for you. It appears that the WarCry Network has a nice little interview with Joshua Drescher, Adam Gershowitz and James Nichols of EA Mythic. This interview happens to be about Warhammer Online (who knew?), so sit down, strap in, caffeine up and listen in because we can never get enough juicy information about WAR.Many of the subjects are nothing too special, such as the revelation that EA Mythic is going to let players re-spec their characters. To be more specific, players will have the opportunity to re-spec their Mastery, meaning any tactics or morale abilities that were selected in the system. This doesn't include core tactics or morale, as well as anything received from the Tome of Knowledge. The reason being that these are granted through automatic unlocks (such as gaining a level or killing 200 haughty High Elves).
White Lions are the last career for High Elves?
Just a little bit of fun speculation about the last class for Warhammer Online's High Elves-- GOA, the company co-publishing WAR in Europe, apparently put up this big display picture at Dreamhack, and Warhammer know-it-alls have identified that High Elf on the right as a "White Lion," supposedly a career straight from the miniatures game.Of course, we have no idea what this means-- previous speculation has called the White Lion career a DPS-based pet class (wielding a melee-two hander and fighting with pets?), and while the miniatures class looks completely different, there's no doubt that there is definitely a white lion fighting alongside the Elf in the picture above. All of this is still just rumors, however -- we won't know what that last High Elves career is until they announced it -- but hey, at least it's a cool looking display.
November Warhammer newsletter features Mounts!
The November edition of the Warhammer Online newsletter has been mailed out to all the eager WAAUGH fans out there, and it's a doozy. Building on the most recent Beta Updates, the dev team lets loose with a huge pile of goodies. Highlights include: Mounts! Aside from the handsome porcine steed above (a Greenskin favorite), they have images up for an Ale-powered Dwarven carriage, felsteeds for Chaos riders, and beautiful beasts for the Elves and Empire. A lengthy screed on the mysterious Tome of Knowledge. Their article runs down what you're like to see in the book, and what kinds of tales it will record for your own character. A Paul Barnett special presentation on the Dark Elf Sorceress ... and Sorcerer! Yes, boy and girl evil mages. As Paul puts it, "They're both emo, and they both live forever!" A first look at work on a new Warhammer cinematic trailer (you know, since you're probably tired of the first one). An in-depth look at the High Elf Archmage class. An overview of the Shadowlands zone, an elven area. A look at another Public Quest! My favorite idea from the game, as of yet. They run down the IronClad confrontation with King Byrrnoth Grundadrakk. One of the always-enjoyable animated game design presentations, this one detailing major changes to the Careers and RvR systems. The video of the month walks us deep into the Inevitable City, the capital of the followers of Chaos. A bunch of other delights, like Paul's Video Diaries, a Grab Bag update, and another Beta Journal Entry. There's a ton more stuff exclusive to the Newsletter. This is my not-so-subtle way of saying you really should be signed up to get it. Go check it out!
WAR's November podcast previews Shadow Warrior class
Yesterday we saw a preview of the Swordmaster class, and today we've got a look at another one of the High Elf classes for the upcoming Warhammer Online, the Shadow Warrior. Mythic sent us their November podcast, in which they get a little wacky while telling us about what they're working on for the class that loves their bows. In the words of Paul Barnett, these are "indie, emo High Elves" that play as scouts, "but unlike scouts that sell you cookies, these guys only sell death."There are two specialties within the Shadow Warrior career-- one is all about increasing ranged damage as much as possible, and the other is about adding a little bit of melee effectiveness at the end of all that ranged damage. They make it super clear that it's only a little bit of melee-- as you can see from the still above, Shadow Warriors love their bows: "bow bow bow bow bow." But one tree of the Shadow Warrior class will let you finish off foes with melee, adding a little extra dimension to what is primarily a ranged class.There's also just a tiny bit of game video in the podcast, but way too little-- they even say that they couldn't get much approved to show off yet. At any rate, this looks like yet another interesting addition to Warhammer's already mixed bag of tricks.
WAR Online Newsletter out, it's elf-tastic!
Even though we knew beforehand that the October edition of the Warhammer Online Newsletter was going to be prefaced with bad news, it was still a welcome surprise when it greeted us in our mailboxes this morning. This month's issue (which marks the two year anniversary for the newsletter) focuses on those always-polarizing High Elves, looking down their noses at the world from their marble palaces in Ulthuan. On the list of goodies, players can watch a video on the High Elf Shadow Warrior (or emo elves, as Paul dubs them), take an in-depth look at the High Elf Swordmaster, read the general description of the High Elf army and the Chrace zone in the north of Ulthuan, and peep at a number of other video updates.As always, the WAR crew does a great job of inundating us with such a quantity of topical and behind-the-scenes content that we almost forget that the game still has a long way to go. While you can find all the information scattered about the WAR site, the easiest way to get it all is to simply subscribe to the newsletter, which we heartily recommend anyway.Make sure to stay tuned, as we'll have our first-hand impressions of Warhammer Online later this morning.
