We spent the better part of yesterday under the auspices of EA Mythic, talking with them about the many and sundry parts that make up the Warhammer whole. You're going to see plenty of content about the game going up today and into next week, but right away we wanted to respond to you - the reader. Yesterday as a part of our ongoing "The Daily Grind" dialogue, we asked what you wanted to hear from the developers and designers. You responded, and many thanks to those of you that did. We'll make sure to throw out opportunities like this again in the future - you deserve a chance to get your questions heard.
We didn't have the chance to ask every question, but we've got a much better understanding of the game and its context now than on Wednesday. We'll run down the questions asked by our participating readers, and hopefully offer up a general view of the title. Read on for those notes, and check back later today for more from EA Mythic and Warhammer Online.
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Ghen asked: "How is Warhammer RvR different than Dark Age of Camelot's RvR? Not that its bad to be the same, it was a good system ... It's just that I've already played it."
From what we've seen, the biggest difference is that RvR is the central component to the game. In Dark Age of Camelot you could play through the entire game and never see the RvR component if you chose not to. That's just not going to happen in Warhammer. You can choose not to participate if you don't want to, but that's going to be an active choice made by the player. "War is everywhere", as they say, and within the first few levels you can already be going up against the opposing side.
The biggest mechanical difference is probably the scenarios, which are 100% playable right out of the gate. Part of our demo today involved a Dark Elf Shadow Warrior avatar jumping into the Khaine's Embrace event. At level 1, he was a bit weak in the knees, but since he was automatically associated with an instance suited to his level, it wasn't that big a deal. Piloted by Adam Gershowitz, the game's careers producer, he jumped two ranks (levels) and two level of renown (pvp ranks) in just about 45 minutes ... all from playing RvR in the scenario.
Santo asked: "Will closed beta be expanded as the summer moves on? When is open beta expected to start?"
They've been expanding closed Beta for some time now, and the expectation is that as they need more warm bodies, more warm bodies will be sought out. The word from the WAR folk about open Beta is that they will never have a completely open Beta; for them Beta testing is about just that - testing. It's not a PR exercise. They didn't have details about when the last phase of Beta will be, but (just from what we heard today) it's probably going to be more than a month at minimum.
Vort asked: "Will the interface be customizable?"
We didn't have the chance to ask, so we'll make sure to do that today. Given what we saw of the interface, though, it might be hard to have something as cusomtizable as World of Warcraft's. They offer a number of really unique visual idenifiers to help you do your job in your class. The UI is really, really slick - and elements of it are specifically tailored to the class that you're playing.
"How will they keep end game RvR / PvP interesting 6 months after release?"
We're going to participate in a lot of RvR today, so we'll be sure to ask this question directly then. That said, the analogy they like to throw around is that of a football league; players who participate in the max-level RvR should have an ongoing experience to enjoy. The give and take of the Order vs. Chaos battle is meant to be experienced like a sporting event. Ongoing battles on a larger scale.
Anon asked: "The cookie cutter answer as to the current state of development is "Iterate and Polish". I think we can all agree that's a pretty empty quote. I'd love to hear a more detailed example of what they are actually polishing. Are the character skins done? Are the world maps done? Is there any aspect of the game they feel is completely in the box?"
Empire/Chaos has been just beaten into the ground, and in the latest round of testing (which started Thursday) those areas aren't even available. They'll be made available again in roughly four weeks, when (presumably) all three racial pairings will be tested simultaneously. For the moment, the pairings between Greenskins/Stunties and High Elves/Dark Elves are available, and players are being asked to start at first level to further iterate on that content. From what we've seen character art is probably almost done. World maps in the starting areas are very robust, and appear finished. From what we've seen, many game elements are "done", they're just being polished to a mirror finish. Some are still under wraps: the Choppas and Blackguard classes are getting tuned, as are the Tome of Knowledge unlocks for items and crafting. Please note this is all just what we observed: none of this is word directly from the developers.
Yulian Kuncheff asked: "How will the Magus mirror the Engineer? Will the Magus have Horrors that act like turrets?"
We got an extensive look at how the Dwarven Engineer plays, and you can expect that writeup sometime early next week. We're told that the Magus is indeed the Engineer's mirror, and will be summoning demons in much the same way the Engineer summons turrets. Instead of immovable constructs, though, the Magus' minions will be restricted to movement within a tight summoning circle. At their core, both classes are going for the same type of gameplay: ranged damage with a 'hold and defend' element.
goatguy400 asked: "Will there be mounts?"
There will definitely be mounts, and the latest Warhammer newsletter had some brand new screenshots of the Dark Elf (lizards) and Dwarven (gyrocopter) mounts.
muub said: "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 PVE element of the game overall is very strong; if you consider the Tome of Knowledge as a core component of that experience, Warhammer probably has one of the strongest PVE elements of any MMO to date. We didn't get a chance to talk about endgame PVE experiences, but we'll definitely bring it up today. We do know, though, that they are planning for something like this. At the very least, there are a number of max-level public quests. Public Quests are essentially raids without the need for massive amounts of planning and coordination, and by the endgame players will be fitting into them very naturally.
We hope we've addressed some of the issues you were curious about. Look for more on Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning throughout the day, here on Massively.com
