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Warhammer Online's March newsletter makes us drool
You've probably already seen why we're so excited, though: Warhammer Online's March newsletter features all the mouth-watering fobs and doo-dads you can net in the collector's edition. News of the box's official contents dropped today, along with a bit of frustration. The game may be delayed until late in the year, but in the meantime this massive missive has more than enough to tide us over. Highlights from this month's newsletter include: Almost all the details unveiled on the official collector's edition site, crammed right there into the email. News of a Warhammer Online tie-in to the tabletop game's 25th anniversary! Playing in a Games Workshop store on April 12-13th will give you an insight into the lore behind Age of Reckoning. Behind-the-scenes looks at what the Beta players have been up to in the Elven lands. A developer diary entry on building the Inevitable City. Part 3 of the Scenarios 101 column, covering the Battle for Praag and the Maw of Madness. Career Mastery updates for the Witch Hunter and Marauder classes. Profiles for the three Chaos-side leaders, with really great accompanying art! Check out the Greenskin champions, Grumlock and Gazbag, above! A rundown the Mountains of Caledor zone. A lore prologue for one of the Dark Elf Public Quests, Sildaen of Hoeth. A production video features Jeff "the" Hickman talking about the gameplay we'll see in cities. An in-game romp through some of the fabled lands of both Order and Chaos. And of course, much, much more: Beta journal updates, tons of concept art, and Paul Barnett's video blog. You don't have to wait for us to post about this stuff, though. Go get signed up for the newsletter and you can see it all right there in your inbox.
Official WAR site gets a makeover
Both the official Warhammer Online site and the community site, Warhammer Herald, have been given a fresh look. The upgraded format will supposedly help in getting more news out to the public, and faster than before. This is only the beginning of the site renovations, with some new features in the works that have not been implemented just yet. Also, fans of the Legends & Lore section may notice its absence -- we are told that this is only temporary, and it should return even better than before.Of course, this news pales in comparison to the huge announcement earlier today, and those eagerly awaiting WAR's release may be feeling a little down. Look on the bright side -- there's even more time now to get those new site features in!
Warhammer MMO delayed until fall
Many orcs are putting on their sad faces today as Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning suffers another delay. Eurogamer reports that the game's producer, Jeff Hickman, stated the title is being pushed from Q2 until the fall. WAR's last delay, which shifted it from 2007 to this year, was blamed on EA's takeover of Mythic, though it did affordthe company more time to polish the title. The only thing that raises a red flag about WAR releasing this fall is a little game called World of Warcraft and its expansion that many believe will hit later this year. We're just saying, if we were releasing a fantasy-themed MMO, we'd leave as much breathing room as possible between our game and any WoW release. [Via Massively]
Official Warhammer Online collector's edition info released
So, the bad news is that you're going to be waiting a little longer to get into the world of Warhammer Online. Today's earlier announcement of another delay in WAR's production is frustrating, but not altogether surprising. The good news is that, during the delay, you can anticipate wrapping your hands around the fantastic collector's edition EA Mythic has just revealed. If you've been following along the rumor trail on this particular product, you're not going to be too terribly surprised; several of the pack's biggest features have already been discussed on the site.Full official details, though, are always welcome. Here's what you get in the big, big box: A Games Workshop miniature shaped as Grumlok and the shaman Gazbag, the leaders of the Greenskin WAUGH. A hardbound graphic novel entitled "Prelude to War", with a single chapter in the book covering each of the armies of Chaos and Order. It's 128 pages, written by Graham McNeill, and illustrated by Tony Parker, Chad Hardin, Joe Abraham, Kevin Hopgood, and Rahsan Ekedal. The chance to enter the game early and start leveling your character before the plebes! A huge art book, with concept art and 'making of' information. A "Libram of Insight", which will apparently give you a 10% xp bonus for an hour, and has a three-use limit. "Rittenbach's Portable Camp: Rest your weary soul and heal your wounds between battles." More features after the cut.
Interview with WAR's James Nichols
Genda over at The Grouchy Gamer recently interviewed James Nichols, EA/Mythic's community coordinator for Warhammer Online. James talks about leaving Sigil Games for EA/Mythic, how their focused beta testing is coming along, and what it is like to work at EA/Mythic. Electronic Arts, you'll recall, has had trouble in the past with having people work unreasonable hours for long periods of time.Warhammer Online is in a unique position for upcoming MMOs. It's the only one that feels it has a real chance of pulling in World of Warcraft-like numbers, based on the 500,000 beta application numbers. James Nichols feels he has a tiger by its tail, and he won't know how big and mean it is until he lets go. We're all eagerly waiting for the curtain to lift so we can see the world of WAR for ourselves, but until then, we appreciate these glimpses into EA/Mythic's Waaaaaagh!-shrouded corridors.
WAR Europe's countdown not what we'd hoped
When an ominous countdown appeared on Warhammer Online's European site last Friday, speculation surged that the Mythic team might be on the verge a major announcement. Are we finally going to see a release date set in stone instead of mud? Are they going to announce the open beta that we've all been waiting for so long? Is the NDA finally going to be lifted? Left to their own devices, WAR fanatics are liable to start expecting all sorts of things.Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is far less exciting. No, as Mark Jacobs indicated in an overtly *hint hint* forum post, players should be able to read the writing on the wall and figure out what the countdown is for. To start, it's only on the European site, so it couldn't be something like a global release date or NDA lift. Second of all, photos of the European Collector's Edition were leaked last week. Third, developers have been talking rather openly about the content of the CE on fan forums. Without explicitly saying it, Jacobs indicated that the announcement would be the details of the Collector's Edition. Not as exciting as a release date, but what can you do?
Matt Daniels talks about his role as WAR's lead writer
Writing a compelling game story is no easy feat. Now imagine being responsible for the innumerable and layered storylines in an MMO, constantly evolving and needing to fit with everything else -- sounds like a nightmare, doesn't it? Lead writer for Warhammer Online Matt Daniels would beg to differ. He has penned a new developer diary, in which he goes over his role in bringing the Warhammer setting to life, and it sounds like it's nothing but fun. A big challenge, but still fun.It seems we somehow missed the previous developer diary as well, which features content director Destin Bales talking about the roughly-ten-thousand pages of documentation that the content team has come up with for WAR. This covers a huge range of things, from the basic premise of the game, to very detailed content information. You'll even get to read an example of the work found in the content documents, with a full description of the "Mount Bloodthorn" zone pasted at the bottom of the article. Check out both Daniels' and Bales' dev diaries, and we'll be sure to keep our eyes out for the next one.
WAR's must-have expansion races: Lizardmen
Ah, Warhammer Online. Its release seems so close, and yet, it's still so far away. In our idle time, the Games Workshop fanatics among us have little else to do but fantasize about elements of the beloved tabletop game could make their way into the game. Last week, we speculated that the Skaven are the first race in line for any future expansions of the game. This week, we're throwing our weight behind the enigmatic Lizardmen Army to play the Order counterparts to Skaven's Destruction. They've got a number of interesting classes we think would add some unique jungle flava' to the game. Click on the gallery link below to get cold-blooded. %Gallery-21882%
IGN and Gamespy preview WAR's Elven starting areas
Partners-in-crime IGN and Gamespy recently visited Mythic to get some hands-on time with a couple of the starting areas in Warhammer Online. IGN ended up with the High Elves, taking Swordmaster as their class, and Gamespy chose the Dark Elves and picked Sorceress. One of the things that Gamespy commented on was the close proximity of the High Elf and Dark Elf starting areas to each other. They also noted that some of the newbie quests deliberately brought the two races together, within striking distance, giving players the choice to either scowl menacingly, or jump straight into PvP. There was unfortunately no mention of a meet-up and subsequent rumble with their noble High Elven counterparts though. Both teams ended their playtime by participating in a public quest, and you can read all about it from either IGN's or Gamespy's perspective.
Get informed on Warhammer's Tome of Knowledge
Waaagh is not only a great orcish outcry, it's the name of a new blog aiming to talk about EA Mythic's in-development Warhammer Online. The succinctly named Syp has done a service for everyone interested in one of the most unique features coming in the gritty fantasy title. He's gone through just about every interview, discussion, or FAQ about Warhammer's Tome of Knowledge, with the goal of triangulating the scope and depth of this hypertextual book.Even for folks who have been following this title for some time, there's probably a lot of information you may not have picked up on. For example, did you know that the Tome will unlock the lore story for all three races in your faction (Order or Chaos)? Did you know that as of late last year there were already over 12,000 'unlocks' for the book and some 5,000 tracked achievements? Head over to waaagh to get the low-down on learning.
Mark Jacobs rails against official forums
The issue of whether major MMO releases should be accompanied by official forums is a hot topic in the industry these days. While some recent games like Tabula Rasa have opted to without official forums, to mixed results, others like Lord of the Rings Online have shown that they can still be a valued resource. It seems like discussions on the topic are ever-present. We've known for a while now that Warhammer Online was opting out of official forums, but general manager Mark Jacobs chimed in on the Warhammer Alliance forums to reiterate Mythic's position on the subject.He lays out a mock-schedule for the way player (mis)behavior would develop as the game moved closer to release, poking fun at the schizophrenic nature of official forums - how the community as a whole can be both loving and hateful, cynical and naive, reactionary and... well, usually just reactionary. He also says that he doesn't want to have to put himself or any of his community team through that kind of hell, and that's what informed their decision to stay away from official forums. It's not like it stops people from flaming the game though, and community reps still need to wade through community forums anyway, so why not put it all in one place? I almost wish they'd just admit it was the money...
Warhammer videos collected, looking great
Brothers and bloggers Keen and Graev have put together a nice collection of Warhammer Online videos over on their YouTube account, and this seems like the best we've seen of the game so far (I saw it at PAX a few years ago, and then we saw quite a bit of it at E 4 All, as well as the various videos released since then). The video above was taken at a German show, so it's in Deutsch, obviously, but the graphics are clean and clear, and the gameplay looks pretty manic -- just the kind of thing to get us all excited for this baby.They've also got a character selection video, some Bright Wizard gameplay, Zealot footage, some Hammerer and Choppa RvR combat, and a little world exploration. This game is definitely looking better every day -- it's still on track for a release sometime in the middle of this year.
WAR's must-have expansion races: Skaven
We're still months away from the release of Mythic's Warhammer Online, but already the robust fan community has spent a considerable amount of time debating which of the other Warhammer Fantasy races would be best suited to make the jump from the tabletop to the desktop. Whle the choices are quite plentiful, in my mind, there's no question which race is on the doorstep of gaming greatness; it's those lovably infectious rat-men, the Skaven. Today we take a look at the Skaven army, and lay out an illustrated blueprint for which of their many colorful units would fit into the MMO mold. %Gallery-21882%
Question WAR devs on in-game cities
Whether it's Orgrimmar or Mos Eisley, some of the more interesting aspects of MMOs have to do with cities. They're usually areas steeped in quests and lore, they're traveling hubs for players moving across the countryside, and they've usually got lots of fun activities to partake in, either with other players or with NPCs. One of the neat things about Warhammer Online is that they're trying to give players a larger stake in the relative safety and security of their capital city by turning it into something that players can lose after a concerted effort by the enemy faction. Unfortunately, unless you're one of the lucky few who have been playing the beta, the specifics of the city gameplay are still a bit unclear.Fortunately, this is just the thing the Warhammer community team is looking to shore up. Missy Hatch put out a call on the Warhammer Alliance forums (which you should already have bookmarked if you're at all into WAR) this morning, calling for player questions pertaining to cities. They're going to take a select group of questions from that thread and answer them in the March newsletter grab bag. They're only on page 3 in the thread so far, so there's a good chance your well thought out question will make the grade.
WAR designer says they could ship without all classes
The life of a developer can be arduous. As we've explained in the past, players (and bloggers!) have a habit of scrutinizing every public utterance of a developer, real or imaginary, and conjuring up all sorts of elaborate doomsday scenarios. Developers who have the cajones to brave the forums with any regularity really have to bite their tongues, lest they say something that will really get the players into a panic. So imagine our surprise when Warhammer Online designer Mark Jacobs openly posted in a thread stating that he wouldn't be distraught if he had to ship a game minus a couple of classes if it meant they could hit their target date.And then, in the same breath (or whatever the forum equivalent of a breath is), he says that Mythic and EA are committed to shipping the game when it's ready, citing Blizzard's model for their continued success. It's all a bit confusing. For my part, I take more comfort in the philosophy espoused in the second post. As much as it would pain me if they did, they're not going to lose players by putting off the release date a month or two. You will lose players if they buy your game and find it is less than they were expecting.
Ask Massively: Putting the "emo" in em-em-o
Ladies and gentlemen (both of you) and all the rest of you hooligans out there, it is time, once again, to probe into the mind of the all-seeing, all-knowing, all-too-willing-to-make-it-up -as-he-goes-along Swami of MMO arcana in this week's "Ask Massively." In this column, you will not find the words "World of Warcraft" or "Second Life" outside of the confines of this paragraph. By the way, to those of you, and there were many, who asked "Why does Massively talk about Second Life so much when it isn't an MMO?" I have three words for you: Twelve million users. Any game that has so many accounts attached to it, whether or not it fits the standard mold of an MMO, qualifies as "Massive" and I daresay that there is more roleplaying going on in SL than there is in WoW. Now that we have that out of the way, I promise that there will be no further mention of those games after the jump.As always, if you would like to have your question answered for all the online world to see, feel free to post a comment at the end of this article, or stop by our tipline and let us know what's on your mind.
MMOGology: Gear of war
Last night several members of my Alliance guild initiated some old school, world PvP attacks on Tarren Mill. We were bored, looking for a fight, and boy did we get one. It was fun for a while, but it wasn't long before I realized we had no chance of winning the skirmish. It wasn't a lack of skill, strategy, or cooperation that drove our faces into the ground. It was the fact that our group didn't have the gear necessary to be competitive. There's nothing more demoralizing than getting utterly pwnd by someone that you can't even scratch; despite the fact that you're of equal player level. I've realized there is a Grand Canyon sized gap between a freshly minted 70 in quest gear and one that's been raiding or participating in arena battles. It's the equivalent of a level 60 attacking a level 40. There's a very noticeable difference.Of course, I shouldn't be surprised by this in a game that's so gear-centric. One of the primary draws of World of Warcraft is the amazing gear that you could potentially get; if only you'd spend hours and hours running and rerunning instances or competing in arenas or getting your hinder stomped in the battlegrounds thousands of times. But for casual schleps like me, the gear divide is a source of endless frustration. It becomes less a battle of skill, and more of battle of who has logged the most hours playing the game. Maybe that's the whole point of PvP in an MMOG; reward playtime over ability. But does it have to be this way?
Mythic looking for new blood to work on old games
With Warhammer Online poised to overwhelm the MMO space under thick sea of "WAAAAGH!," the last thing we really expected Mythic to be doing was building up their team working on Dark Age of Camelot and Ultima Online. DAoC celebrated its sixth anniversary this past year, and UO (which fell under Mythic's stewardship with the EA shakeup last fall) crested the decade mark late last year, so by gaming standards they should have been committed to a home a long time ago, only to be brought out on holidays and propped up in a chair to remind everybody else of happier times. Our own Michael Zenke predicted that 2008 would see the virtual demise of DAoC, and truthfully, I would have counted myself amongst the nay-sayers as well... that is, until yesterday.The guys and gals out of Fairfax sent out a message via The Camelot Herald that the Mythic team was looking to expand their legacy operations by taking on three new software engineers to work exclusively on the development of DAoC and UO. Granted, it's looking like this new meat would make up a considerable portion of their oldies-only teams, but certainly a promising sign for those who still count themselves amongst the faithful. Surely they wouldn't be hiring people to work on the game in anticipation of killing it off, would they? (We know, they're part of EA now, anything is possible.) But hey, if you're a software engineer in the Northern Virginia area looking for work, why not apply?[Via Allakhazam]
How much is too much? WAR to push the envelope?
When you sit down and look at the costs involved in being an MMO fanatic, the dollars per hour of entertainment ratio is actually pretty good. After an initial down-payment comparable to any other game out, you pay a paltry $15 a month to keep the servers running, keep the developers churning away at new content, and toss a couple bucks at the corporate investors to keep them behind the MMO phenomenon. A whole month's entertainment comes out to be cheaper than a night at the movies, unless you're using a senior citizen's discount. But as good a value as we get, are we poised on the brink of another across-the-board price hike? Keen and Graev make an extremely pertinent observation in TTH's Warhammer Online FAQ. Namely, they're quoting EA Mythic's Mark Jacobs as saying that WAR's subscription fees could quite possibly exceed the $14.99 a month mark.It just has to be EA that's talking about doing this, doesn't it? As much as I try to resist falling into the trap of bashing EA for being a thoughtless corporate machine, they're just always getting themselves into trouble like this. I'm not quite ready to renounce the capitalist system and move to a commune in the jungles of Costa Rica just yet, but they really are making me think about it. What about WAR would justify the increase in costs over the competition? Is it because part of the core demographic actually plays the tabletop game, where you can drop over $70 on a single unpainted pewter miniature? Unlikely. Is it because of the higher cost of oil means that it's harder to fuel the server farms it's going to take to keep a game like WAR going? Not exactly, but closer. Or is it just because they can? Circle takes the square.
WAR vs WoW: Keen and Graev compare
This is definitely a topic that will continue to come up throughout the year of 2008, so get used to seeing it. Keen and Graev attempt to get the first (and probably the biggest) part of this issue out of the way quick; it's not about which is the better game. They continue on with their topic comparing the two games' differences and similarities. One such similarity is posted above this text; the graphical appearance of the games. The argument here is that both games have a "cartoony" look to them, but that Warhammer Online's style is a bit more "grungy". We're not entirely sure if that picture above (not taken by Keen and Graev or us, mind you) illustrates much of a similarity, unless Blizzard is the only company allowed to use red in their MMOs now.Aside from that, the article lines out the huge difference in PvP between the two games. The biggest difference of course is the Realm vs Realm combat where conquering your enemy has a real in-world cost; your land as well as your pride. Something that is very related to RvR that we happen to be very excited about is Keeps and Siege Weapons, which were originally in Dark Age of Camelot. A suggestion that Keen and Graev make that we think is a good idea is to check out the official podcasts made by the dev team. They explain many aspects of WAR in fun, informative and often entertaining ways (we're looking at your Mr Barnett).
