Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, and oh how I have been waiting. And I am not alone; as I write this there are over 600 000 people who have applied for the upcoming beta, which is the highest number ever in the history of MMORPG-games. It is therefore with great pleasure and a bit of pride that I on behalf of Freddys House was able to attend the Warhammer Press event in Paris.
The game development for Warhammer Online began under the company Climax Online, a project that later was officially cancelled in 2004 as the roll-out costs were said to be too high. Luckily for us this was not the end of the game development as Mythic with bags of gold from EA came to the rescue in 2005 and brought new energy to the project. Mythic has previously created the successful Dark Ages of Camelot, a game that I thoroughly enjoyed, and are hoped to make another great success.
MMORPGS have been a great interested for me for a long time. Being hooked from the early stages of Asheron’s Call, continued with Dark Ages of Camelot, Starwars Galaxies and as like many others World of Warcraft. With Mythic’s experience of creating Realm v Realm MMOs I am looking forward to the release of Warhammer Online.
[BREAK=The Event]
The trip started as Euro Star rushed me under the channel and over to France, Paris to be precise. After a rather interesting taxi ride to Hotel du Louvre, I was invited to a cocktail reception for few drinks and to meet the GOA representatives and other invited guests. A few drinks and loads of finger later I was deep in conversation with some very enthusiastic GOA representatives about MMORPGS and what the Warhammer game has to offer. Throughout the evening a constant stream of press and community representatives were filling up the room and in total probably around 100 people.
Having to get up early the next day, we were taken to Espace Saint Martin for a packed day of presentations and hands on experience of the game. It started off with general representations of the game and explaining the concept of Warhammer Online and where it came from, this was filled with videos, screen shots and overviews of cities, realm verse realm, guilds, and the tomb of knowledge. This presentation was followed by and in depth look at the Collections Edition.
First Symbolic Icon of Warhammer as we entered the event area
Josh Drescher doing another funny presentation
Jeff Hickman side kicking with Josh Drescher on the main presentation
Espace Saint Martin, where the presentation took place
Massive Warhammer Skull
After a spot of lunch (finger food again) we were split into smaller groups, while 1 group was given an in depth explanations of four aspects of the game; Realm verses Realm, Tomb of Knowledge, Cities, and Guilds; while the other group gets hands on experience by playing with different types of characters and different levels.
The last day was a nice round-up with a q&a for the community press and also twenty computers were set up to play with the same scenarios as the previous day.
[BREAK=The game]
Realm verses Realm
In majority of all mmorpgs the player verses player (pvp) is limited to either one on one fights or a small groups pitting their skills against each other. Once either side has won, the battle is over but with no real influence over the struggle between the different sides. Warhammer brings realm verses realm where every positive action (be it killing an enemy player, succeeding in a player verses the environment (pve) instance or succeeding in a quest) you do influences your realm. This influence levels your cities and wins Tier Zones which advances your struggle against the opposition.
The struggle for dominance takes place over three different Areas (Dark Elves verse High Elves, Dwarfs verse Green Skins, and Empire verse Chaos) each of which has four tiers and two cities. Any influence you earn in each area will increase the city rating that resides in that zone. The four tiers are level dependant meaning that each tier has a maximum level where you can influence that zone; if you enter that zone as a higher level you will turn into a chicken!
Dwarf verses Greenskins Zone map
Empire verses Chaos Zone map
High Elves verses Dark Elves Zone map
As you level throughout each zone new quests will open up pointing you towards the Realm verses Realm lakes (Realm verses Realm (or rvr) lakes are areas in each zone that pvp can take place) where you might have a quest to kill the enemy or monsters, this helps new players of the game and introduces them into the concept of rvr and the struggle against the enemy.
Shadow Zone with RvR lake in red
Realm rewards and information
From the start of the game it is possible to instantly participate in battles against the opposition through scenarios (pvp) so you can be helping the advancement of your city from day one and also level your character. If this does not interest you there are other ways to level, where you can do pure pve quests and not participate in the rvr until later if at all.
The bigger picture to the rvr is the campaign for dominance. The objective of the campaign is to attack the enemy’s cities so that you can burn down, pillage, do public quests, or the pve dungeons under the city.
This can be achieved by capturing each tier; this is how lower levels help towards the campaign. If a tier has been won it makes it easier to attack the city in that zone; though this is not necessary. To attack a city a siege occurs against the city walls, this is achieved through the use of siege weapons to bring down the city gates. This has a similar feel to how Keep attacks occurred in Dark Ages of Camelot though hopefully without the issues that plagued it; such as uneven sides, slow graphics and laggy responses.
When the siege against a city takes place instances are automatically created to accommodate more than 75 players each side, so this should help with the lag, graphical slowness and the over all fairness and enjoyment for every player. When enough instances of the either side wins then an overall victory is calculated. If the attacking side wins then they take complete control of the city and all the defenders are kicked out. What this means is that they can destroy, burn down, loot, do the public quests and even do the instances and finally they can do the King pve encounter.
Public quest in killing a dragon
Rolling for loot in the public quest
[BREAK=The king encounter]
The King encounter is the only instance that is 24 man and offers the best loot in the game. The idea is to capture the King so its not possible to kill him. When he has been captured you will be able to take him back to the City that resides in the same Zone and put him on display to all the population, this is in the form of a stockade or a cage. A buff for the population (this is like relics in Dark Ages of Camelot) is given to everyone in the same Zone has the captured King. If a King has been captured then the only way to retrieve him is by attacking the city that holds him, thus providing a reason for attacking and defending cities.
[BREAK=Cities]
Cities are the end goal of the campaign for dominance, attacking the enemy’s cities offers the best items in the games ability to play the opposition public quest, pve encounters and other rewards. There are four zones and each zone has two cities; one for each side. Each city belongs to a different race and therefore the look is drastically different for each one but generally the items and vendors are the same. Cities are classified as living cities because they can level from one to five. Each level increases the quests, better vendor items, and better guards. Cities are levelled by performing any positive action in the zone that the city resides, be this doing quests, killing the opposition, even killing monsters.
Ranking levels for guards in cities
Stockade in a city
[BREAK=Careers]
For each race it looks like there are completely different careers but it boils down to four different types; tank, melee, range, and healer. Though this might sound simplistic each career has three different paths through the Mastery System, which improve your existing abilities and also unlocks more powerful abilities. Combining this with renown rewards its possible to have 100s of ways to tailor your character.
If you would compare the careers to the classes in World of Warcraft, except for healers, each career can be mapped fairly easily as follows: Tanks would be similar to Warriors that are protection specialised; Range would be mage or hunter; Melee either rogue without stealth or warriors that are Fury specialised. Healers on the other hand have completely different abilities.
Mastery system explanation
Different type of career paths
To play the healer class you can use the normal spells to heal and this would be the equalivant of a priest but in doing so you would run out of action points fast and so doing weak heals and not very often. To fully use the abilities of the healer you need to actually do damage. This involves getting into the fight and bashing the enemies to death, this increases a secondary magic pool and from this you can cast better spells that can be instance cast to heal whole group or greater healers etc.
[BREAK=Tomb of Knowledge]
Ever wondered how many monsters you have killed of one type or how many times you have selected yourself? Knowing about your game play (meta game knowledge) is now possible with the introduction of Tomb of Knowledge. Unlike normal mmorpgs quest information is lost after the quest has been completed. The tomb however stores all of this information for later reference or enjoyment.
Tomb of Knowledge
Section in the Tomb of Knowledge
[BREAK=Personal experience]
Throughout my time at the event in Paris I was shown what Warhammer had to offer, I was amazed about the ideas and the possibilities of outstanding pvp. Ignoring the great concept of rvr, the game still felt like it was trying to mimic World of Warcraft (this is however not necessarily a bad thing considering the great success that it has achieved). The structure and range of classes are very similar to the ones in WoW, and also the generally the look and feel for the entire game.
Still with this in mind the game would still be a success and people will play Warhammer because it is new, has proper pvp with a reason, and has a great IP that could offer exciting new content.
[BREAK=Questions and Answers]
Q: When you die, what happens then?
A: You will be portalled back to two different locations depending on either you were killed in pve or pvp. The pvp camps (respawn point) is close to the pvp areas where are the pve one can be a long way from where you died.
Q: Death Penalty. How will this work out, do you lose xp, xp debt, item damage?
A: There will be no xp loss but you will have temporary decrease of powers for 10 mins per death. This will stack so the more deaths the bigger the decrease, visiting a healer can remove each debuff for a fee or you can wait out the timers. I wasn’t able to obtain information on item damage on death.
Q: Will crafted gear be better/comparable/worse than loot?
A: From the tiny bit of information I managed to ween, crafted items will be comparable and better than drops because crafted items will not be gear (this information might not be exact because of the little information that was given).
Q: What plans will there be for xml type GUIs?
A: Though the system will not be as flexible as World of Warcraft offers, LUA and Xml will be used to alter the GUI. This will allow you to alter the existing look and feel but to do threat meters will not be possible because that kind of information is not sent to the clients.
Q: How do you propose to tackle corpse camping in open RvR worlds?
A: Because you do not need to run back to a corpse as there are no corpses it will not be possible to camp one. You will respawn in camps around the PvP areas (PvP lakes as they liked to call it).
Q: In the beginning when the skill system was first introduced it was mentioned that no matter what you did you couold only obtain a set number of skills from the vast number of skills on offer since the introduction of the Mastery System, has that changed at all?
A: Each Mastery Line has the ability to increase your existing spells in either potency, duration, decrease in cast time, area effect radius, and I believe range of casting, the Mastery System also offers new spells at certain levels. This would still imply that you cannot gain all the skills for your career at once.
Q: Will you be able to respec your Mastery System? Will there be a cost or task to do for this?
A: Yes. After DAOC and only being able to respec from stones that need to be obtained from killing a dragon they have learnt a lesson and realised that this was not a good system. So there will be a cost to respec but this was not disclosed to me.
Q: Will the Euro side be advertised more effectively this time?
A: From personal experience they seem to be doing a lot more than what was done with DAOC, like Warhammer in Paris.
Q: Are the servers going to be with reliable service providers this time?
A: The servers will be located in server farms in different locations throughout Europe. The head quarters will be located in Dublin which allows for better support.
Q: Will there be a clear definition between a class being overpowered and a player’s lack of skill when it comes around to rebalancing?
A: Due to the careers being roughly the same for both sides. The have the ability to view all statistics on any career/setup with the touch of a button for all servers. So using this and other mechanisms the rebalancing will not be sololy based on which class whines the most.
Q: Will you be working closely with Games Workshop to keep to the spirit of the game?
A: They have close ties with Games Workshop and have asked them for help in creating new characters such as the King for the Green Skins. This being said they will have some free reign over the game but are sticking closely to what is possible to produce in a mmorpg.
Q: Cake or Pie?
A: Cake and Pirate
Q: Will items have level requirements?
A: From viewing the items in the game this would be true.
The game development for Warhammer Online began under the company Climax Online, a project that later was officially cancelled in 2004 as the roll-out costs were said to be too high. Luckily for us this was not the end of the game development as Mythic with bags of gold from EA came to the rescue in 2005 and brought new energy to the project. Mythic has previously created the successful Dark Ages of Camelot, a game that I thoroughly enjoyed, and are hoped to make another great success.
MMORPGS have been a great interested for me for a long time. Being hooked from the early stages of Asheron’s Call, continued with Dark Ages of Camelot, Starwars Galaxies and as like many others World of Warcraft. With Mythic’s experience of creating Realm v Realm MMOs I am looking forward to the release of Warhammer Online.
[BREAK=The Event]
The trip started as Euro Star rushed me under the channel and over to France, Paris to be precise. After a rather interesting taxi ride to Hotel du Louvre, I was invited to a cocktail reception for few drinks and to meet the GOA representatives and other invited guests. A few drinks and loads of finger later I was deep in conversation with some very enthusiastic GOA representatives about MMORPGS and what the Warhammer game has to offer. Throughout the evening a constant stream of press and community representatives were filling up the room and in total probably around 100 people.
Having to get up early the next day, we were taken to Espace Saint Martin for a packed day of presentations and hands on experience of the game. It started off with general representations of the game and explaining the concept of Warhammer Online and where it came from, this was filled with videos, screen shots and overviews of cities, realm verse realm, guilds, and the tomb of knowledge. This presentation was followed by and in depth look at the Collections Edition.
First Symbolic Icon of Warhammer as we entered the event areaJosh Drescher doing another funny presentationJeff Hickman side kicking with Josh Drescher on the main presentationEspace Saint Martin, where the presentation took placeMassive Warhammer SkullAfter a spot of lunch (finger food again) we were split into smaller groups, while 1 group was given an in depth explanations of four aspects of the game; Realm verses Realm, Tomb of Knowledge, Cities, and Guilds; while the other group gets hands on experience by playing with different types of characters and different levels.
The last day was a nice round-up with a q&a for the community press and also twenty computers were set up to play with the same scenarios as the previous day.
[BREAK=The game]
Realm verses Realm
In majority of all mmorpgs the player verses player (pvp) is limited to either one on one fights or a small groups pitting their skills against each other. Once either side has won, the battle is over but with no real influence over the struggle between the different sides. Warhammer brings realm verses realm where every positive action (be it killing an enemy player, succeeding in a player verses the environment (pve) instance or succeeding in a quest) you do influences your realm. This influence levels your cities and wins Tier Zones which advances your struggle against the opposition.
The struggle for dominance takes place over three different Areas (Dark Elves verse High Elves, Dwarfs verse Green Skins, and Empire verse Chaos) each of which has four tiers and two cities. Any influence you earn in each area will increase the city rating that resides in that zone. The four tiers are level dependant meaning that each tier has a maximum level where you can influence that zone; if you enter that zone as a higher level you will turn into a chicken!
Dwarf verses Greenskins Zone mapEmpire verses Chaos Zone mapHigh Elves verses Dark Elves Zone mapAs you level throughout each zone new quests will open up pointing you towards the Realm verses Realm lakes (Realm verses Realm (or rvr) lakes are areas in each zone that pvp can take place) where you might have a quest to kill the enemy or monsters, this helps new players of the game and introduces them into the concept of rvr and the struggle against the enemy.
Shadow Zone with RvR lake in redRealm rewards and informationFrom the start of the game it is possible to instantly participate in battles against the opposition through scenarios (pvp) so you can be helping the advancement of your city from day one and also level your character. If this does not interest you there are other ways to level, where you can do pure pve quests and not participate in the rvr until later if at all.
The bigger picture to the rvr is the campaign for dominance. The objective of the campaign is to attack the enemy’s cities so that you can burn down, pillage, do public quests, or the pve dungeons under the city.
This can be achieved by capturing each tier; this is how lower levels help towards the campaign. If a tier has been won it makes it easier to attack the city in that zone; though this is not necessary. To attack a city a siege occurs against the city walls, this is achieved through the use of siege weapons to bring down the city gates. This has a similar feel to how Keep attacks occurred in Dark Ages of Camelot though hopefully without the issues that plagued it; such as uneven sides, slow graphics and laggy responses.
When the siege against a city takes place instances are automatically created to accommodate more than 75 players each side, so this should help with the lag, graphical slowness and the over all fairness and enjoyment for every player. When enough instances of the either side wins then an overall victory is calculated. If the attacking side wins then they take complete control of the city and all the defenders are kicked out. What this means is that they can destroy, burn down, loot, do the public quests and even do the instances and finally they can do the King pve encounter.
Public quest in killing a dragonRolling for loot in the public quest[BREAK=The king encounter]
The King encounter is the only instance that is 24 man and offers the best loot in the game. The idea is to capture the King so its not possible to kill him. When he has been captured you will be able to take him back to the City that resides in the same Zone and put him on display to all the population, this is in the form of a stockade or a cage. A buff for the population (this is like relics in Dark Ages of Camelot) is given to everyone in the same Zone has the captured King. If a King has been captured then the only way to retrieve him is by attacking the city that holds him, thus providing a reason for attacking and defending cities.
[BREAK=Cities]
Cities are the end goal of the campaign for dominance, attacking the enemy’s cities offers the best items in the games ability to play the opposition public quest, pve encounters and other rewards. There are four zones and each zone has two cities; one for each side. Each city belongs to a different race and therefore the look is drastically different for each one but generally the items and vendors are the same. Cities are classified as living cities because they can level from one to five. Each level increases the quests, better vendor items, and better guards. Cities are levelled by performing any positive action in the zone that the city resides, be this doing quests, killing the opposition, even killing monsters.
Ranking levels for guards in citiesStockade in a city[BREAK=Careers]
For each race it looks like there are completely different careers but it boils down to four different types; tank, melee, range, and healer. Though this might sound simplistic each career has three different paths through the Mastery System, which improve your existing abilities and also unlocks more powerful abilities. Combining this with renown rewards its possible to have 100s of ways to tailor your character.
If you would compare the careers to the classes in World of Warcraft, except for healers, each career can be mapped fairly easily as follows: Tanks would be similar to Warriors that are protection specialised; Range would be mage or hunter; Melee either rogue without stealth or warriors that are Fury specialised. Healers on the other hand have completely different abilities.
Mastery system explanationDifferent type of career pathsTo play the healer class you can use the normal spells to heal and this would be the equalivant of a priest but in doing so you would run out of action points fast and so doing weak heals and not very often. To fully use the abilities of the healer you need to actually do damage. This involves getting into the fight and bashing the enemies to death, this increases a secondary magic pool and from this you can cast better spells that can be instance cast to heal whole group or greater healers etc.
[BREAK=Tomb of Knowledge]
Ever wondered how many monsters you have killed of one type or how many times you have selected yourself? Knowing about your game play (meta game knowledge) is now possible with the introduction of Tomb of Knowledge. Unlike normal mmorpgs quest information is lost after the quest has been completed. The tomb however stores all of this information for later reference or enjoyment.
Tomb of KnowledgeSection in the Tomb of Knowledge[BREAK=Personal experience]
Throughout my time at the event in Paris I was shown what Warhammer had to offer, I was amazed about the ideas and the possibilities of outstanding pvp. Ignoring the great concept of rvr, the game still felt like it was trying to mimic World of Warcraft (this is however not necessarily a bad thing considering the great success that it has achieved). The structure and range of classes are very similar to the ones in WoW, and also the generally the look and feel for the entire game.
Still with this in mind the game would still be a success and people will play Warhammer because it is new, has proper pvp with a reason, and has a great IP that could offer exciting new content.
[BREAK=Questions and Answers]
Q: When you die, what happens then?
A: You will be portalled back to two different locations depending on either you were killed in pve or pvp. The pvp camps (respawn point) is close to the pvp areas where are the pve one can be a long way from where you died.
Q: Death Penalty. How will this work out, do you lose xp, xp debt, item damage?
A: There will be no xp loss but you will have temporary decrease of powers for 10 mins per death. This will stack so the more deaths the bigger the decrease, visiting a healer can remove each debuff for a fee or you can wait out the timers. I wasn’t able to obtain information on item damage on death.
Q: Will crafted gear be better/comparable/worse than loot?
A: From the tiny bit of information I managed to ween, crafted items will be comparable and better than drops because crafted items will not be gear (this information might not be exact because of the little information that was given).
Q: What plans will there be for xml type GUIs?
A: Though the system will not be as flexible as World of Warcraft offers, LUA and Xml will be used to alter the GUI. This will allow you to alter the existing look and feel but to do threat meters will not be possible because that kind of information is not sent to the clients.
Q: How do you propose to tackle corpse camping in open RvR worlds?
A: Because you do not need to run back to a corpse as there are no corpses it will not be possible to camp one. You will respawn in camps around the PvP areas (PvP lakes as they liked to call it).
Q: In the beginning when the skill system was first introduced it was mentioned that no matter what you did you couold only obtain a set number of skills from the vast number of skills on offer since the introduction of the Mastery System, has that changed at all?
A: Each Mastery Line has the ability to increase your existing spells in either potency, duration, decrease in cast time, area effect radius, and I believe range of casting, the Mastery System also offers new spells at certain levels. This would still imply that you cannot gain all the skills for your career at once.
Q: Will you be able to respec your Mastery System? Will there be a cost or task to do for this?
A: Yes. After DAOC and only being able to respec from stones that need to be obtained from killing a dragon they have learnt a lesson and realised that this was not a good system. So there will be a cost to respec but this was not disclosed to me.
Q: Will the Euro side be advertised more effectively this time?
A: From personal experience they seem to be doing a lot more than what was done with DAOC, like Warhammer in Paris.
Q: Are the servers going to be with reliable service providers this time?
A: The servers will be located in server farms in different locations throughout Europe. The head quarters will be located in Dublin which allows for better support.
Q: Will there be a clear definition between a class being overpowered and a player’s lack of skill when it comes around to rebalancing?
A: Due to the careers being roughly the same for both sides. The have the ability to view all statistics on any career/setup with the touch of a button for all servers. So using this and other mechanisms the rebalancing will not be sololy based on which class whines the most.
Q: Will you be working closely with Games Workshop to keep to the spirit of the game?
A: They have close ties with Games Workshop and have asked them for help in creating new characters such as the King for the Green Skins. This being said they will have some free reign over the game but are sticking closely to what is possible to produce in a mmorpg.
Q: Cake or Pie?
A: Cake and Pirate
Q: Will items have level requirements?
A: From viewing the items in the game this would be true.
boo