LET THE WORLDWIDE WAAAGH! BEGIN! Mythic Entertainment, an Electronic Arts Inc. studio, today launched the highly anticipated MMORPG, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR), in North America, Europe and the Oceanic territories. With the game’s servers now officially live, all players are invited to enter WAR’s grim fantasy world, swear allegiance to the armies of Order or Destruction, and experience the glory of Realm vs. Realm combat.
“The Day of Reckoning is finally at hand and I am pleased to invite players to take their first steps into the Warhammer Fantasy universe,” said Mark Jacobs, co-founder and general manager of Mythic Entertainment. “The stage is set and the combatants are ready - it’s time to go to WAR!”
MMORPG.com has learned that a decision has been made to reduce the number of Capital Cities at launch from six down to two. Altdorf (Empire) and Inevitable City (Chaos) will stand at launch as the Capitals not only of their race, but of their faction as well.
We wanted to make our Capital Cities the best cities in any MMO. We think were doing that, but it came at a price and that price is that the other cities arent going in the game right now.
Four of the classes that weve been working on, we just couldnt get great, he continued. We looked at them and we said these careers are just not great and we tried, and they werent coming out well.
Choppa (Greenskin)
Hammerer (Dwarf)
Blackguard (Dark Elf)
Knight of the Blazing Sun (Empire)
All characters in WAR have the same stats; though, different stats are obviously more important to different classes than others. There are no starting stats to distribute at character creation and stats automatically rise as you level based on their importance to your class.
Recently, all WAR Beta participants received a letter stating our plan to end this phase of the closed beta test this Wednesday, October 10th. We periodically close Beta, our last closure being in March of this year, to focus on major improvements and polish. The next phase of Beta will reopen in early December with plenty of new and improved content, art and systems for our beta-testers.
When the beta reopens, we look forward to welcoming back all of our current testers, as well as many new faces. Shortly after re-opening the doors, we will be inviting the first wave of guilds into the beta to really get things rolling.
Are instances only going to be used in RVR, or are there PVE instances as well, and more importantly, will there be an emphasis on open world dungeon adventuring in PVE?
The VAST majority of instances will be RvR-related. However, in dungeons you'll have single-group boss encounters as well as "final" multi-group instances to tackle.
My role is to help communicate the needs of the community to the development team while keeping the community informed of the exciting features that make Warhammer Online great. This means answering any questions or concerns that might come up on a regular basis or simply helping to clarify any information we've released. In addition I will be updating the Warhammer Herald with news, contests, and game updates. The biggest change to my former role is the size of the team I'm a part of and the resources available allowing me to do more for the community (more is better!)
A Witch Elf can be an unstoppable force of death and destruction under the proper circumstances. By picking their targets carefully, the Witch Elf can win a fight in a short amount of time. A Witch Elf prefers to rapidly close with lightly armored targets, where their wicked poisons can find exposed flesh. Using a combination of rapid attacks, the Witch Elf works herself up into a Frenzy to execute powerful attacks that will stop most opponents dead in their tracks. When facing a heavily armored foe, the Witch Elf relies on her agility to survive long enough to pick apart her opponents defenses and opening him up to a savage death blow.
With collision detection in the game, how do other players affect line of sight, if at all? Can I still shoot at a player I have targeted if they are standing behind someone else?
Line of sight is most definitely affected by other players; if you can't see them, you can't cast at them. Line of sight is determined when the spell goes off, so if they're not still in your line of site at the end of the casting timer, you won't be able to cast on them.
City Capture Scenarios were presented as instanced replicas at PAX and non-instanced real-time scenarios at Leipzig. When I asked for clarification, Eric Correll, Product Manager of EA Mythic stated, "City Capture will most likely be population limited, but not technically "instanced" in the same way scenarios are in lower level RvR zones." Essentially, the details have not been worked out yet. There will be objectives, even certain areas that you may to capture. Mechanisms to help balance zone control and realm population discrepancies are planned although they could not talk about them at this point in time.
Developer Mythic has described the class as a mix of Van Helsing and a grand inquisitor, which is a fair comparison, as our femme fatale was dressed like a medieval (and feminine) Indiana Jones and carried a pistol in one hand and a sword in the other.
Different attacks can be selected from the attack menu along the bottom of the screen, tailored for close- and long-range weapons. Some gun attacks can only be used from a distance, while others are meant to be a shot in the face at close range. Our action options were heavily weighted towards the offensive, as Witch Hunters believe defense is for weenies.
“The whole point with Warhammer Online was that it is all about WAR,” Mark said. “It’s all about battle. Are we turning the industry on its head with this game? No. Are we changing things and doing some things differently? Absolutely! All you gotta do is look at what we’re doing, and you’ll see that most games don’t do it our way.”
We also have the sacking of capital cities to show off yet, he continued. We think thats going to be a very compelling part of the game.
What do you think about burning down a guys castle? Mark queried (and personally I think its awesome and responded as such). Right! I was actually out in England several years ago and we asked, wouldnt it be cool if we could do that? And they said yes. Then I asked then if we could do it with major cities that exist in the IP, and they said go right ahead.
The long-awaited MMO is now in beta, and EA was showing the title off at a recent press event held at their Redwood Shores headquarters. The build of the game showcased some great new concepts along with some design features to make it an adaptable and accessible MMO.
The beta version also played out pretty easily for newcomers or those with limited MMO experience. It feels a bit like World of Warcraft in terms of mission structure, at least early on. The game felt a bit more action oriented, as warrior classes could perform combos in order to do the most damage in the shortest amount of time.
