Warhammer Wallpaper: Made By Players

Some WAR players made these high resolution wallpaper.

WAR: We Are Harder, Darker and Heavier

The most frequently asked question we got now the WAR was "Is WAR the WoW killer?". People always likes these comparisons. EA Mythic have ervr responded their Warhammer: The Age of Reckoning won't be a World of Warcraft killer. "We're not going to hit the same numbers as WoW." said by EA General Manager Mark Jacobs. While EA CEO John Riccitiello said: "Warhammer Online will be a strong entry in the MMORPG space, but will not rival WoW." Recently, the senior designer Josh Drescher of EA Mythic reinforce this point in an interview with WAR by Destructoid. Also, this time Mythic compared the WAR to Led Zepellin, if WOW is The Beatles.



You recently said you weren't afraid of Warcraft. Although you are aiming to offer an alternative rather than compete directly, are you hoping at least to take some of the Warcraft user base for yourself, or are you looking to corner a different demographic altogether?

Josh Drescher: We're looking for people that are excited about co-operative, competitive gameplay, looking for a really immersive experience that they can enjoy for years and years to come. If those players come from another game, that's fine, if they come from a fresh base of users that have never tried an MMO before, that's fine. When we say we're not competing with World of Warcraft we really do mean that. I'm going to steal something from our creative director Paul Barnett, so imagine this is coming with a Northern English accent -- World of Warcraft is basically The Beatles, and if you set out to try and be The Beatles, you wind up as The Monkees. So, we really do just try and be a different type of product. We're not trying to beat them, we're not trying to replace them, we're not trying to destroy them, we're trying to be Led Zepellin.

We're trying to offer you a harder, darker, heavier sort of experience. We're trying to offer you the kind of music you'd listen to down in your basement with your friends, with a black light on and maybe some illicit substances. We are not trying to be the thing that you all slow dance to at your high school prom. If that means we take a couple of players from World of Warcraft, great, but if it means that we get a group of people that have been waiting for an experience like ours then we're just as happy with that.

There are a lot of MMOs on the market, not all of them successful, and quite a lot of them have been canceled. What are you doing to make sure Warhammer stays and holds its own against the big MMOs out there, especially World of Warcraft.

Josh Drescher:I'll come from that at a slightly different angle -- what is it that causes the MMOs that fail to fail, largely before they even get out of development? Part of that has to do with [it being] very easy to look at the MMO genre and go, "this is where all the money is in PC gaming at the moment ... obviously the MMO is the only way to go!" So developers that have a pedigree in some other area -- maybe they make console games or real-time-strategy games -- they look at MMOs and they go, "well we'll just make one of them," not realizing just how much more difficult it is to build an MMO than it is to do anything else in the industry.

These are games where you're not working with a team for a year or eighteen months to develop ten hours of content. You are working with a team of hundreds and hundreds of people, for usually two, three, four or even five years in the case of something like WoW, to build a game that is intended to be played forever. You're handcrafting hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours of content. In Warhammer there's probably around a thousand hours of handcrafted content in the game across the six different races.

That's a ton of stuff to be building, and so it's really easy to dive in and go, "yeah we're gonna make a massively multiplayer game based on football! It'll be real easy." The next thing you know, you're two-and-a-half years in, you don't know what you're doing, your server code doesn't work, you've never worked with thousands of players at once instead of ten or fifteen, the engine that you're working with is designed for first-person-shooters and doesn't scale when you put fifty models on the screen. There's just a lot of experience that we had that made it much easier for us to build this kind of game because we've been in the industry for a really long time.

Warhammer Online Video - Don' t Be Afraid

Warhammer Online - RvR Combat System

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning features Mythic's unique Realm vs. Realm (RvR) combat system. This takes place within three different racial pairings: Dwarfs vs. Greenskins, Empire vs. Chaos, and High Elves vs. Dark Elves. Although there are only two races per pairing, we may travel to either of the other two pairings to help fight with their friends and allies.
Unlike many massively multiplayer online games, Warhammer Online gives players the opportunity to engage in constructive RvR combat from a very early level. There are four types of RvR combat: Skirmishes (random world encounters), Battlefields (objective-driven battles in RvR-specific areas), Scenarios (instanced, point-based battles against the opposing faction), and Campaigns (invading enemy lands and capital cities). Here, you can provide your own RvR contribution through Player vs. Player (PvP) combat and (to a lesser extent) Player vs. Environment (PvE) quests so that you can assist your realm in their victory!

So You've Decided to Play a Goblin Shaman?

Creating your character in WAR is a very easy and straightforward process. There are no stats for you to tweak, just the look of your character to customize. So without further ado make your Gobbo as funny looking or serious as you like and enter the game on your chosen server.

You've chosen to make a Goblin Shaman, so before we go any further let me explain what you have taken on by doing so. You are a healing class and so people are going to expect you to heal, whether you want to or not, and if you choose to ignore healing you are missing out on a large part of your potential. In addition to aforementioned items you have to learn the basic class mechanic for the Shaman, how to harness the power of the WAAAAGHH!

An interesting mechanic and one that ensures as a Shaman you don't fail to neglect either path. To be the best healer out there, you are going to have to attack the enemy at some point to build up that bonus. Which leads me to one of WAR's nice little features: offensive and defensive targeting? You are able to have two targets in the game, and as a shaman you will make extensive use of this feature. You are able to target an enemy and friend at the same time, ensuring that any damaging spells hit the enemy, and all buffs and heals hit your friend.

So you'll start at Rank 1 and with three abilities already on your hot bar. Brain Bursta, Gork'll Fix It and Flee. Brain Bursta is your very first DPS spell and will be the bread and butter of your arsenal, dealing 53 Elemental damage to your offensive target. One thing I should also mention here is that abilities learned at this low level scale as you grow, so even Rank 1 abilities are useful to you as you grow. Gork'll Fix It heals your target for 43 and then for a further 114 over 9 seconds, so essentially a small burst heal with a nice HoT (Heal over Time). Now Flee, whilst it is described as a buff is really an ability, you can use it to run places faster or for its proper usage, escape from a battle if things go a bit pear shaped. However, there is a down side. By triggering this mechanic you will lose all AP, all WAAAGHH! and your Morale will start to decrease too. Morale is something that is built up gradually over time, but only whilst you are in combat, as Morale increases it will make certain abilities available to you but, since you aren't able to train the very first ability till Rank 8 we will explore this in more detail later.

Now would be a good time to introduce you to the groundbreaking and innovative feature that is the Tome of Knowledge (ToK). If anyone has ever played Lord of the Rings Online, you may have a slight feel for what this feature entails, but let me tell you now, it is so much more. The ToK acts as many things, an in-game Encyclopedia, quest log, titles earned, mob kill count etc. One of the best details is that the tome levels with you. It starts out blank and you fill all the information in, so many months down the line when you've hit Rank 40, it will show all you've accomplished during your epic journey.



At some point in this game you are going to fight in a Realm vs. Realm (RvR) environment. RvR contributes directly to your Rank through giving you experience, and as a Shaman you will earn experience both from attacking enemy players and contributing to their deaths or by healing your allies. You also receive Renown Rank (RR) experience too, which simply put, is an RvR Rank. You are given a rank title too, and the first one you will receive as a Goblin is Little Git. Your RR will be important as you level, as it will unlock access to purchasing decent gear from vendors in conjunction with your Rank. Not only this but you gain one RR point per RR Rank, which you can spend at a Renown Vendor NPC to further specialise and personalise your class.

Public Quests (PQ) are another exciting invention for this game, and they work very well and very easily. To take part all you have to do is enter the area, and you will know you have done so as box will appear informing you of the current stage and progress. All you have to do here is take part; just do what your class does best. Once the PQ has finished everyone is rated on their contributions and receives a medal which will grant a point bonus. Once that has been done, everyone that took part receives a random roll from 0 - 1000, and then those that received a bonus get that added to their roll. If your score then comes in the top three (or six for some PQs), you will receive a loot bag and should collect it from the chest. There are varying colors of loot bags and various levels of each color which is determined randomly it seems. As a Shaman you will get a better contribution score if you DPS as well as heal, and don't forget to throw your buffs out too.

From: MMORPG.com

WAR Will Get 250-350k Subs

EA said it shipped 1.5 million copies of WAR to retail last week.

Arvind Bhatia at Stern Agee told Edge on Tuesday he came to the 250,000 subscriptions figure based on EA's goal to break even on the game.

"Over time, subscribers will drop off and level off at 250,000- 300,000," he said in a phone interview.

But he admitted that the number could jump as updates and expansion packs are released, adding that it would take about "six months or so" to get an idea of the MMORPG's sustainable user base.

He added that retail checks indicate initial sell-through is tracking "about in line with (but not above) expectations." He forecasts a higher mix of revenue from Europe compared to the U.S.

Bhatia estimates EA to generate 55-60 million USD in revenue from WAR, or 5 percent of sales for the September quarter.

Why Don't We Play Innovative Games?

A Tale in the Desert is an MMO without combat, but not a pure sandbox either, there are skills, a series of tests, and a complex social gameplay. Puzzle Pirates is a completely player-skill based MMO, where your success at anything is determined by your skill in various puzzles, not your level or stats. Wizard101 has more traditional levels and quests, but a completely novel combat system based on magic cards. And the guys from PixelMine just sent me a press release on how their MMO Ashen Empires won the Best Fantasy MMORPG award at the Independent Games Festival. And that is just a handful of examples I happen to know of. There are tons and tons of innovative MMOs out there. But each of them attracts only a few thousand players. Meanwhile millions of players play games like World of Warcraft or Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, and then whine loudly about the lack of innovation in these games.

Doh, guys! Most game companies produce games for the money, not because they hope to become critically acclaimed starving artists. They are always going to look out what kind of games seem to sell well, and then make that sort of game. If customers throw a billion dollars a year at Blizzard for World of Warcraft, and A Tale in the Desert is making peanuts, then of course other companies prefer to make a game more like WoW than like ATitD. They would be crazy if they didn't do it.

In the last open Sunday thread people were blaming the big companies to make games as bland as McDonalds bland food. I'm saying that the complaint would be a lot more valid if the complainers weren't actually sitting in the McDonalds restaurant and eating bland burgers, while right next door there is an empty, small gourmet restaurant with a varied, but foreign cuisine. As soon as about a million of you guys start playing innovative games, game companies are going to make more of them. As long as you go for games that offer small, evolutionary steps to a well-known concept, companies are going to make those. The question is not why WAR isn't more innovative, the question is why there aren't more people playing Wizard101 or other innovative games. Game companies produce what the customers want, and we only have ourselves to blame if we voted with our wallets for evolutionary approach. If even we as players are afraid to try something really new, then how can you expect a company to bet millions of dollars on really new?

Mythic Entertainment GM and VP Mark Jacobs writes his feelings on gold sellers on his personal blog.

I hate gold sellers/spammers. No, that's not strong enough, let me try again. I
HATE GOLD SELLERS WITH EVERY FIBER OF MY BEING. Ah, that's better. Now, why do I
hate them you may ask? I hate them for a number of reasons, most of which have
been detailed in various interviews I've done over the years. And now that they
have taken their obnoxiousness to new levels with gold service spamming, I HATE
GOLD SPAMMERS EVEN MORE NOW THAN EVER BEFORE. For years, lowlifes like IGE have told us, in defense of their behavior, that they a) are just providing a
service; b) don't interfere with players enjoyment of the game. Well, I can't
argue with (a), they are providing a service, just like maggots I suppose but
I've always argued that (b) is totally and complete BS. Now, those old arguments
aside, I can't see how this new generation of pond scum (new and improved, with
25% more scummy action!) can argue that their constant spamming of chat channels
doesn't interfere with players enjoyment of the game (I'm waiting for the whole
"Oh, you can always just turn off chat" argument). I hated seeing their messages
when I played WoW or any other MMO and I've been waiting for the day that WAR
launched so I could have the absolute pleasure of instituting policies to make
their lives more difficult so we could drive them out of WAR.

Since WAR launched we have been banning these jerks like crazy. As of Saturday Night, we had banned about 400 of them. My CSRs have a zero tolerance policy. We don't wait and let them stay in the game and ban them en-masse, my guys ban their
useless, time-consuming butts right away. We have a strike team whose sole job
it is to get these guys off our servers as quickly as possible. This weekend, we
unveiled a new wrinkle in the fight against them, the public ban message.
Players on our Phoenix Throne server have been treated to special messages when
a gold seller/spammer is banned. I've given them a wide leash to come up with
creative messages to tell the entire community who has been banned and we keep
it within the Warhammer universe.

A Beginner's Guide to WAR

There are four kinds of conversation in MMOs: terrifyingly complicated strategising, endless moaning about imbalances, enthusiastic but awkward roleplaying and total silence. That latter is surprisingly common, a vast number of players choosing to get on with things in their own time rather than acknowledge the existence of anyone else. Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning respects that. In fact, it's quite a quiet game throughout, as it's so focused on constant conflict and activity that there just isn't time to hang about complaining that the Shaman is overpowered. Crucially though, it's found a way to merge that total silence with group play.

There's a lot of talk about how WAR is a player-versus-player game. Certainly that's going to be the case in the long run for most of its players, but nonetheless an enormous part of the game revolves around traditional questing and looting, which is what quieter players are likely to stick to.

There's been this problem in other MMOs that a fair old whack of players are, for one reason or another, anti-social. They want to keep their heads down and crack on with tasks under their own steam. The trouble is that this way they miss out on the bigger baddies and bigger rewards of group quests. Public Quests are an answer to that: they're mass-scale group quests in which you don't have to share a single word with anyone if you don't want to. Just within the space of WAR's first few days they've proven one of its biggest draws.

All you have to do is stumble over to one and start hitting things: your actions automatically add to the overall task for everyone. So there's no need to roll your eyes in disbelief when a note saying you need to kill 100 militiamen pops onto your screen - even with just half a dozen players, that'll take no more than a few minutes. Once done, there'll be a second stage, which generally involves slaying just a few super-tough baddies. There's a bit more emphasis here on working together, at least compared to the wild free-for-all of the first stage, but all that really means is hitting the same thing as someone else rather than tackling an enemy on your own.

It's subtly introducing the rudiments of team-play to those who usually hate and fear it, but again, absolutely no communication is necessary. Which makes a lot of sense, really: WAR is a war, and wars generally don't involve soldiers introducing themselves to one another and politely inviting them into their party just so they can go fight the enemy together. The final stage is always something substantial: a boss foe, whether it's a hard-as-nails hero character, or some epic monster like a dragon or demon. Cue a massive pile-on and, presuming the fight goes well, a sense of heroism generally reserved for the climax of a three-hour dungeon run.

Only, this whole process has taken less than 20 minutes, and didn't require any of the tedious organisation and hanging around waiting for people to fly over that your everyday raid does. It's one of the reasons people play MMOs: to fight something really, really big. At last, it's something you can just go and do, rather than put the amount of effort required to organise a charity fun-run into it beforehand.

Burning Crusade's Quality Delayed WAR

Mythic boss Mark Jacobs has said to media that the quality of questing in World of Warcraft expansion The Burning Crusade delayed development of his own MMO, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, reported by Eurogamer.

The details are as below:

"We obviously had a major bump when Burning Crusade came out," Jacobs said.
"When [Blizzard] released that expansion, they raised the expectations of the
player."

Jacobs paid tribute to Blizzard's ability to create stand-out
quests that players would talk about with each other, and to pack its game with
content.

"They put in some of what we call 'watercooler quests', the
things that you talk about around the watercooler," he said.

"We looked
at the amount of content they put in that and said we need more time if we want
to add some of those things, if we want our own watercooler quests or more
watercooler quests. So our choice was to delay the game and spend more time on
it."

Warhammer Online has been delayed several times from its original
2007 release date, and is finally set to launch on Thursday next week. Public
servers for those who pre-ordered the collector's edition of the game will open
this Sunday in both Europe and the US.

WAR Review

Some readers preferred that I do a specific WAR review with a recommendation of whether to play it or not, so here is my take on that. As I've already talked enough about how the game works, this post is pure opinion. I don't do scores, but rather prefer relative comparisons: Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is better than Age of Conan and Lord of the Rings Online, but not as good as World of Warcraft. This isn't to say that you should play WoW instead of WAR, because that totally depends on how burned out you are of playing World of Warcraft. If you've been there, done that all in WoW, WAR might be a good option, at least until Wrath of the Lich King arrives. So, lets have a look at various aspects of Warhammer Online to judge it by:

Graphics: As many people remarked, WAR graphics are somewhat similar to WoW's, being cartoonish instead of photorealistic. In my opinion that is a good thing, because photorealistic games have problems with high hardware requirements, and the Uncanny Valley. Nothing wrong with a game looking, well, like a game, and not like the real world. While similar, WAR's graphics are somewhat less cheery bright and colorful than WoW's, which is consistent with the grimmer lore. (Hah! Smooth transition to the next point!)

Lore: The Warhammer lore has a quarter of a century of accumulated material, a miniature game, a roleplaying game, and lots of books. It is considerably richer than WoW's lore, and more mature. Not Age of Conan's bare nipples kind of mature, but grim and serious. You won't meet any Haris Pilton selling gigantesque handbags in WAR. That is good. But there is also a serious downside: As Michael Zenke so correctly remarks, Destruction in the Warhammer lore is really, really evil. But only in the books. In Warhammer Online, playing a character on the Destruction side is exactly as good or evil as playing a character on the Order side. Dark Elves get quests to kill High Elves, but High Elves get quests to kill Dark Elves, so which of the two sides is "evil" is just a question of semantics. A Destruction character, just like any Order character, will spend a lot of time being helpful to complete strangers by running errands (aka quests) for them. In the Warhammer books the evil of Destruction might churn your stomach, but in the game this is unlikely to happen. WAR is more like a war between the red and the blue army than an epic struggle between good and evil.

Technical: I'm only talking about the game itself here, the European account registration site is a different chapter. Warhammer Online has less bugs than Age of Conan, but more than World of Warcraft. WAR is generally quite playable, but you *will* come across bugs, some of them annoying, in your daily gameplay. A week before release, and with Mark Jacobs' explicit statement that Mythic isn't doing miracle patches, the "this is just a beta" excuse for bugs is wearing thin. The current version 4.1 is rather solid, and improved things like pathing and the Tome of Knowledge. But it isn't bug free. You will still see some bad pathing, albeit less than in the first preview weekend, and you will come across mobs that can't be hit. My most hated bug: If you alt-tab out of the game and try to alt-tab back in, you are greeted by a black screen and can do nothing but shoot down the game with the task manager. But I finally managed to "fix" that problem by playing in windowed mode. Nothing game-breaking, but certainly one point to consider in our judgement.

PvE: Despite all the marketing hype praising WAR as a PvP game, WAR is a great PvE game. PvE fun might stop at the level cap, which is only 40. But for making alts and leveling them to the level cap without doing any content twice, WAR even beats WoW. You can level up at least 6 characters to 40 before doing any quest twice. And there are more character classes than in WoW, although I can't exactly say how many. Technically there are 20, but some are mirror images; an Archmage plays exactly like a Shaman. But not every class has a mirror image, so the number of different classes is somewhere between 10 and 20. And there are more different game mechanics than WoW has. WoW only has 3 right now, using mana, rage, or energy, with a 4th on the way for Death Knights using runes. WAR has more different basic mechanics right out of the door, but again I haven't played all the classes yet and thus don't have an exact count. Another great WAR PvE feature are public quests, which are a lot of fun. But WoW still keeps the PvE crown, because it has a wider variety of quests, and a huge PvE raid endgame.

PvP: I like WAR PvP. I'm a carebear. If you are a pre-Trammel UO, hardcore impact PvP fan, that should make your toes curl up: If I like WAR PvP, you won't. WAR does not have "meaningful" impact PvP with permanent consequences and the ability to free-for-all gank anyone you dislike. WAR has a solid system of carebear PvP, which is much better integrated with PvE than it is in WoW, and there is a whole lot more of it than in WoW. It just isn't much more permanent than in WoW. At best you can conquer the enemies capital, which will cause the map to reset a couple of days later. The keeps you conquer will be lost to a sneak attack at 3 am in the morning, unless you are crazy enough to organize a 24/7 substantial guard, armed with the telephone numbers of all your guild members, and your guild members are willing be woken up in the middle of the night to defend that keep. I think the WAR PvP is the best option for a mass market MMORPG, but the real hardcore PvP fans will certainly be disappointed by it. WAR PvP is substantially better than WoW PvP: Staying to the end is more important than winning, so no people afking out when they start to lose. But actual participation is better measured and rewarded than in WoW, so no people staying back in the cave and collecting rewards while absent either. Another great feature is good PvP reward gear for every level, not just epics for the level cap. In WAR you don't level up to the cap doing PvE and only then start with PvP. In WAR, just like the marketing slogan says, war is everywhere, you are best off if you do some PvP at all levels, and constantly switch between PvP and PvE. Maximum fun by maximum variety, a good concept.

Social: With open groups, public quests, and living guilds, WAR beats WoW easily in social functions. It is a lot easier to play together with a bunch of strangers in WAR than it is in WoW. Groups in WAR are inclusive, the more the merrier; groups in WoW are exclusive, you better take the right mix of classes, levels, and talent builds. But while in WoW "pickup group" is a dirty word, a good group in WoW is a marvelous machine of collaboration, and WAR is missing that somewhat. The social dynamics are very different, you group easier with strangers, but you don't feel that much of a bond with some once you finished beating that public quest together with them. It remains to be seen how that works out for WAR guilds; in principle it is easier to do something together with all online guild members, regardless of class or level, in WAR than it is in WoW. But by making cooperation easier, the level of trust required is necessarily less high. WAR will probably have a lot less guild drama than WoW, but we will have to wait and see whether a WAR guild raiding a keep will feel the same level of connection as a WoW guild raiding a dungeon.

In summary, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is a good game, albeit not perfect, and it will have some problems living up to the excessive marketing hype from Mythic. It is certainly worth buying and trying out for a month or two. But I honestly don't know yet whether I will play WAR or WotLK in December. And I certainly can't tell *you* which game to play. But I would suggest you give WAR a chance while Blizzard is still building their expansion. WAR has enough good, and new, features to justify giving it a try. Don't let anyone tell you it's just a WoW clone! Recommended!

Should Europeans Play WAR on US Servers?

A lot of European WAR fans are currently considering the option of playing Warhammer: Age of Reckoning on US servers instead of on GOA European servers. Can't really blame them, GOA hasn't done much to earn our confidence. Big announcements of how nothing could possibly go wrong, then things going wrong, radio silence followed by apologies, and the account site still not working: No wonder some people think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. The US has a working account site, and an open beta which by all reports is running quite well.

But playing on US servers has serious downsides. One is ping, the time between something happening on the server, the information getting to you, and your reaction travelling back to the server. I have no actual measurements for WAR, but for other games I observed about 50 ms ping to Europeans servers, and over 200 ms ping to US servers. Okay, that's only fractions of a second, but in a heated PvP battle fractions of a second can make all the difference.

The other big downside is time zones, I blame Copernicus. :) WAR, much more than WoW, is a social game. You *want* to be online when everyone else is online, be it for public quests or for PvP. Europeans live 6 to 9 time zones ahead of the US, so unless you play day and night anyway, you're not going to be online much during US prime time. Your US guild plans a big keep raid event, but they'll schedule it for the time when they are all online, which is 3 am in the morning for you. Been there, done that, it's not a good idea.

Of course for me it is easy to be confident that WAR will run on launch day in Europe, as I have that free US account as backup (Side note: Anyone noticed that I'm the only one reporting to have got one? I can't believe Mythic created that service just for me. There must be lots of game journalists and maybe even bloggers out there who also received one of those and kept mum.). But I'm really hoping that the European launch goes well, even if the open beta didn't. I want to play on European servers, not only for the ping and time zone, but also because my guild and all my friends will be on the Euro servers.

Warhammer Online Head Start Program Dates Announced

Mythic Entertainment announced that North American players who have pre-ordered Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning will be able to get the jump on creating their characters and exploring the world when the game's "Head Start" program begins on September 14th.

The "Head Start" program offers players early access to the game and a chance to join the Realm War before the servers officially go live on September 18th. Players that have pre-ordered the standard edition of the game will be granted "Head Start" access on Tuesday, September 16th at 7am EDT. The lucky fans who pre-ordered the Collector's Edition will be able to log in even earlier and begin play on Sunday, September 14th at 7am EDT.

Whether players choose to join the fight as an incendiary Bright Wizard or a shadowy Witch Elf, the characters they create during the "Head Start" program will carry over their skills, abilities, weapons and career rank into the game when the servers officially open to the general public on the Day of Reckoning - September 18th.

Based on Games Workshop's epic tabletop fantasy war game, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning features revolutionary Realm vs. Realm game play that will immerse players in a world of perpetual conflict for years to come. Available for PC, WAR is rated "T" for Teen by the ESRB.

Why I am looking forward to Warhammer Online Age of Reckoning

I am very excited for the Warhammer Online Age of Reckoning release in a couple weeks. I have been a closed beta tester for over a year and like what I have seen from the game. I have played quite a few MMO's, although I am not quite the veteran others are. I have played WoW, COH/COV, LOTRO, Perfect World, DAoC and beta tested Tabula Rasa. I feel like Warhammer has a lot of features that make it stick out from the other games I have played.

1. Being able to gain XP and level through Quests and PVP. To me it's hard to under estimate the freedom this brings to the game. You can get to the level cap of 40 anyway you want. If immersion into story line and quests is your thing that is the path you can take. War does a great job with their story lines from what I have seen in the beta. You quickly feel like you are being drawn into a War effort, from collecting ammo for giant siege weapons to finding and killing spies. The hatred for the opposite faction is strong among the NPC's and it helps draw you in. If quests aren't your thing and you just want to go pwn some noobs, then you can hop right into RVR combat and level your character that way. Or if your like me and want to use a combo of both to keep things fresh than thats an option to. It's great to not have a linear path to the level cap, you can get there anyway you choose.

The Leveling guild is a big draw for me. In most games your guilds just becomes a place to hang out and chat with your friends. Loyalty to a guild is always fleeting. People jump to the one that can help them get their epic item the fastest. In War, guilds themselves level, unlocking abilities for the guild along the way. This combined with the coordination it will take to lay siege to an enemy capital city, should return the days where people were loyal to their guilds and cared about working towards a common goal. This is something I have been missing in guilds lately and I hope it lives up to the hype.

3. I feel War has brought some innovations to the MMO genre that will most likely be copied by other games. First is Public Quests. The best way to describe these are Instances that take half the time and you don't have to wait around for a group for. Basically you stumble into an area and it has a public quest which is a three wave fight against npcs. Each wave is progressivly harder until the last wave unleashes a boss. Everyone in the area gets to take part and the boss drops a chest of loot. You get to roll on the items based on your contributions to the fight. I have to tell you from the beta these were a blast and there was never trouble enough players to complete the PQ. The other big innovation being the Tome Of Knowledge, basically this is a book you carry around the documents everything you do, see, and kill. It's great for information and there is a lot of cool achievements to unlock. It helps a lot with immersion into the world.

These things are what have drawn me to Warhammer and I hope will draw a good number of players. To be successful War doesn't have to be a WoW killer. I find it funny when people call games WoW killers. WoW is lightning in a bottle, it will never happen again, no MMO will have 10 million subscribers but plenty of games have carried on with 100,000- 500,000 subscribers, some even less. If War gets 1 million subscribers, which I think is more than possible than it will be the 2nd most successful game ever. There is never going to be another WoW, for a lot of reasons. I just hope Warhammer can live up to the my expectations and I am really looking forward to finding out and I hope many others join me.

WAR's OB Trouble in Europe

A public apology from GOA, the European publisher and operator of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, was posted on the WAR European site for the great failure happened on the first day open beta test. Much of the players - except very few closed beta testers - couldn't access into the test because the account registration and authentication for new players didn't work.

In this apology, Ghislaine Le Rhun GOA's chief executive remembered the whole course of event which must have made his team tired out.

During the day, we have reconfigured authentication and database servers several times, both of which suffered under the huge number of simultaneous connections. The investigations and corrections we have done so far were essentially targeting the parts of the system which didn't require a complete stop of the writing process in the database. This means we preferred to keep the database turned on during the day to let it work on the huge number of accounts that were in the process of being handled. This operation will continue through the night and when complete, we will shut down the database and reconfigure it.

At the end of the article, he promised to give players access to the account page if the operation works as anticipated then you register your code for the open beta. His expectation of the re-start test is going to be late Monday morning.

Review: Warhammer Preview

For this entry I am going to try something new and take a break from ranting about the usual MMO debacles. Instead, I am going to give my impressions of the Warhammer Preview Weekend from the perspective of an MMO veteran, guild leader, and a gamer coming off the of the AoC disaster.

As a guild leader, I and my members were recently burned badly by the Funcom bullshit. I approach Warhammer Online with heavy scrutiny while trying to recover from the burns Funcom gave me and my members.

Character creation is nothing to write home about honestly. I found it to be quite lackluster, and I could see where this could give people a negative first impression. I wasn't thrilled about my option, but like most MMO's, my armor covered me up after a few levels and it became a non-issue to me at least. I guess it could be justified that a lack of options helps performance in large scale PvP, I am not going to speculate to the validity of this theory, but after AoC's performance I could see it having merit.

The user interface is probably one of most glaring similarities to World of Warcraft that will catch your eye. It literally shares an almost identical positioning and style to WoW, which could be viewed as a positive if you liked this interface. The good news is the user interface is fairly customizable, and Mythic has left the door open to 3rd party UI mods which will surely be in abundance.



As a guild leader, I am extremely thrilled to see a real Guild Interface akin to that of Everquest 2. Guild Functionality has always been important to me, and Age of Conan's left a lot to be desired. The Warhammer Guild UI offers multiple tabs showing roster that is sortable, and gives me the ability to make notes next to each name to labels alts and such. It also gives me the ability to rename all my ranks, set their permissions, an unlockable calender, a log showing me recent events, and guild battle standard options. Guilds level up through the members PvPing and new functionality becomes unlocked.

The graphics in this game have been the subject of a lot of debate among the community. Obviously no one will contest that Age of Conan has far better graphics, but these graphics are a lot better then WoW IMO. Are they cutting edge? Not be any means, but they get the job done. Again I think some will argue that the games graphics will make it accessible to a wider audience, and help performance in RvR. I do think some people are giving this game a lot more heat than it deserves in this department, once I turned the resolution up, it looked good, and in large scale PvP I ran smooth as a baby's ass.


Character Customization comes to you in a variety of ways. While I found the creation process lacking, as you progress through the game will you see that there are some ways for you to tweak your looks and skills to fit your playstyle. First you will be able to tailor your "Tactics Abilities" to suit your needs. These are basically passive abilities that you can put into the bottom right of the screen to enhance your character. They deliberately limit the number you can use at a given time to force you to decide what to best use in a situation. These can be changed at any time however, and I think you can cycle through layouts of these as easy as you cycle your hotbars depending on your situation.

There are also "Moral Abilities" which remind me of TP moves from FFXI. The longer you fight and stay alive, the more jacked up your character gets. He is able to then perform super moves that get stronger as he gets more moral built up. These can be interchanged again to fit your playstyle, and add another layer of tactics to the combat.

The RvR rewards come in the ways of both gear and points. The gear is strong enough to make it a viable alternative to gear earned through PvE, and better in some cases. The points are spent much like talent points or AA points. If you played DAOC, you are very familiar with their PvP reward system, which is fully functional and in the game unlike a certain rival game which still has yet to give an ETA on their system.

One other aspect of this game in regards to customizing your appearance in the use of armor Dyes. This was one of the better features of DAOC that I am shocked was never stolen by more recent MMOs. It gives you the ability to make yourself look a little different and it gives guilds a chance to add uniformity to their members. Changing your armor colors can be done very easily by visiting a merchant. A nice dressing room screen comes up where you will be able to see the colors before you buy them.

The PvE aspect of the game is pretty run of the mill from what we have seen in recent MMOs. The game follows the same lame quest format of collecting X amount of dingleberries, killing Y amount of orcs. Nothing to write home about honestly. The game does break Quest mold from recent games by adding public quests. Doing these will get you rep in that local area, and this rep can be used to claim rewards, which are usually very good if your rep gets maxed. Luckily, maxing out your rep in a given area does not seem to take very long at all, and the public quests are always fun as long as other people are there. They can be compared to the Besieged Mode found in FFXI where you are rewarded for your contribution, and acts a nice diversion from the collection quests. At the end of the day, the PvE is just a means to an end, and that end is the RvR.

The RvR is where this game really shines. Finally I feel like I am getting the RvR that World of Warcraft promised me but never delivered on. You can PvP from level 1. You get exp from PvP, and quests to kill people in PvP. This helps makes PvP a viable way of leveling if you so chose. The games does have a battleground type system called Scenarios, which honestly I am not a fan of being an overworld guy myself. To their credit though, they are well thought out and usually contain some sort of interesting twist instead of the makeshift deathmatches we got in AoC. I hope Mythic will make world PvP enticing enough to minimize the desire to play in these. On the flip side, if you play on a server where the population is imbalanced, these do provide a level playing field somewhat. If you are under leveled, the game gives you a buff to your level to help you remain useful, but a true level 10 is stronger than a buffed level 10 because he has better gear and new spells that a level 5 won't have.

The castle sieges are very well done. Finally we have real capturable objectives to fight over, and they are meaningful in the struggle to push your enemy back to the city gates. Siege weapons are easy to get and funner to use. Giant cannons that put you in an FPS view with a crosshair to bark fire on the oceans of enemies inside the castle or outside. Rocks can be seen flying through the air from catapults, and it really adds a wildcard to the battle as well as making things a bit more chaotic in a good way. It also helps give melee something to do in situations where enemies are out of reach. After playing these sieges, I have no desire to go into the scenarios, and hopefully the population who plays will see it the same way.

The castle sieges are very well done. Finally we have real capturable objectives to fight over, and they are meaningful in the struggle to push your enemy back to the city gates. Siege weapons are easy to get and funner to use. Giant cannons that put you in an FPS view with a crosshair to bark fire on the oceans of enemies inside the castle or outside. Rocks can be seen flying through the air from catapults, and it really adds a wildcard to the battle as well as making things a bit more chaotic in a good way. It also helps give melee something to do in situations where enemies are out of reach. After playing these sieges, I have no desire to go into the scenarios, and hopefully the population who plays will see it the same way.


Most of the PvP is group on group. Do not expect to be some WoW superhero 1 shotting people like a God. Combat in this game takes a bit longer, and as such I think a bit more skill. If I wanted to 1 shot everyone I would stick with Call of Duty 4. You feel like you are a unit in an RTS game, no one person is so superpowerful. This makes it a very team oriented game, and hopefully the Community will be good. Some have complained about the combat speed and a global cool down, but honestly it never occurred to me until I started reading whining on the forums. The combat to me felt interesting, tactical, and I was not spamming the same ability over and over like other games.

In conclusion, the game is fun even though it lacks major Innovation. First and foremost I think that fun is why we play. The game delivers on its promises. Mark Jacobs at Mythic has been honest about talking about flaws and problems with the game and I appreciate his straight talk. It upset a lot of us with AoC that they were in denial about the game's missing features and short comings.

This game will live and die by the RvR and the endgame. The RvR looks amazing, the endgame we won't know until we get there. If it is anything like DAOC, then hopefully we will have a good RvR MMO that will last us a long time, made by a company that seems to be honest and competent. I am hoping this game will help heal the burns Funcom gave me, my guild, and so many others like me. Only time will tell.

WAR Bonus with RA3

Gamestop's Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 Preorder Page offers a cross gaming bonus of an exclusive Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning item called Korssar's Helm, magical Kislevite helmet that can magically transform the wearer into a ferocious bear.

Mythic Details WAR Early Access Dates

EA has confirmed WAR Collector's Edition pre-orders will be invited to play from 14th, while regular pre-orders will join a day later. Warhammer Online launches for the masses on 18th September. Eager fans can download the rather meaty 9.4GB game client before launch.

Besides, the official website answered players' questions about game client.

Why can't I patch?

The game patcher and login servers are not yet online. They will be switched on closer to the Open Beta.

The news says the client is 12GB but I have only downloaded 9.4GB. Am I missing something?

No you're not. The downloader itself is downloading compressed files which will be a little smaller and there will be additional downloading available during Open Beta. These are largely localised Voice Over files which will make up the remaining 3GB or so.

I would like to use my own torrent program, is there a torrent link available?

Yes of course, just use this link with your preferred torrent client.

I can't enter my codes anywhere!

The page on the website where you can enter your codes is not yet online but will appear next week before the open beta begins. Keep checking the news page for news about this.

Will I be able to use this client for release?

Yes, you will be able to use the same client for release, it will just patch you up to the live version. No need to uninstall and reinstall from the box DVDs.

Warhammer Online Gameplay Video

At the Games Convention 2008, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning named Best Online Game. Here is a WAR gameplay video.

Warhammer Online beta Impressions

Beta Impressions Part 1


Altdorf Slums

I'm going to start off these impressions by hitting a few key topics then I'll move on to some bigger stuff. I'll be doing a few entries today as well as happily answering any questions you have in comments or emails.

Realm Balance - Overall I would say that the two realms are fairly balanced on the whole. I definitely don't get the sense that one realm is naturally more powerful than the other. Population-wise it has been lopsided the entire time I have been in beta in favor of Destruction. On average Destruction will have 1300 people and Order will have about 800-900. *These numbers are examples. In terms of class balance there are still several issues that I will go into at a later date.

Zergs - The power of the Zerg manifests itself strongly in Warhammer Online. A group of 6 will not be able to take more than 2x their numbers even if they are incredibly skilled. Open-world RvR has proven, so far in my experience, to attract zergs. This is nothing new for those who have played DAOC. People tend to gravitate towards one another for safety. With the open-group system this is much easier. Is this a bad thing? Yeah, if you're one who likes to solo or move in small groups all the time. The plus side to the zerginess is that it brings about a LOT of epic battles... I'm talking 50 on 50 clashes. INCREDIBLE fun.

Crowd Control - In DAOC terms it's almost nonexistent. There are short stuns, knockbacks/downs and snares but nothing like mez. There will never be a time where you stand around waiting to do something. In some ways I miss mez... don't ask me why.

Stealth - Most of you know about this. It's in the game for the Witch Hunter and Witch Elf but it's not your normal stealth. When active it drains AP and lasts a short duration with a cooldown. It's enough to maybe sneak away or into a fight without being seen but it's definitely not the backbone of these classes in any way shape or form.

Bears Bears Bears - This is one of the things I feel let down about. When Paul Barnett discussed the "bears bears bears" stuff I thought this applied to 'normal quests' and not just "Kill Collectors". I thought that if I was out killing bears then I found a quest that needed me to kill bears then I could get credit for that quest. Unless I have TOTALLY missed something (and I doubt it) this theory of getting credit for things you've already done applies only to kill collectors who want you to kill a very specific type of mob and will reward you some experience for doing it. Color me disappointed on that one.

Siege Weapons - They are nothing short of awesome. I love using rams of doors and having multiple people participate in them. I love how they are so easy to take control of and use with a little interface that comes up giving the option to aim then, repair them, or release them. When aiming it's almost a mini-game in itself because you have to aim the thing - sometimes ground target sometimes reticule - and adjust for wind. Hellblasters and Catapults are downright nasty and oil that can pour down on people attacking doors makes me laugh hysterically EVERY time it kills people.

Questing - For the most part it's standard mmo questing. This is where the annoying "zomg it's just like WoW" crowd can actually speak without me wanting to force choke them through the internet. It's EXACTLY like WoW in this regard. So what? Are you going to try and justify that this is a BAD thing? It's a fantastic thing. WoW's questing-to-level was mostly polished. But wait! There's more! WAR takes it a step beyond WoW and introduces more types of quests, a much better tracking system including map waypoints that will tell you where to go (they can be turned off), and rewards you can actually use. But wait! There's EVEN MORE! You don't have to do them if you don't want to! Unlike WoW where the only alternative to questing is grinding... you can RvR in WAR or grind or quest!


Capital Cities - Inevitable City and Altdorf

Inevitable City

Both cities are nothing short of amazing. When Mark Jacobs told me to my face that he feels they have the best cities in any game he was not just boasting their accomplishments; he was stating a fact. Their capital cities ARE the best I have ever seen. There are people walking the streets, details on every building, and a sense of atmosphere that takes them that extra mile. "Living Cities" is exactly how I would describe them.

Of the two cities I would have to say Altdorf is my favorite. While Inevitable has a great atmosphere and really gives that "chaos" feeling, the level of detail put into Altdorf makes my jaw drop. They've captured something special in Altdorf; maybe it's the Empire lore. The city is divided into districts (seamless) like the slums and docks. In the marketplace you feel like you could actually stand around hawking your wears. On the docks you feel like you could actually take a ship to some distant land because it has that ... gosh what's the feeling I'm looking for? It feels like a real dock or an airport where you know people are coming and going from all over - although no one really is which is sort of a bummer. I wish I could take a boat to another continent or something just for the sake of being able to do it.

The cities have everything you could want. Quests (tons), shops (tons), banks (more than one), Auction Houses, DUNGEONS, Tome unlocks, legendary locations from Warhammer Lore like the Blowhole and Bright Wizard College tower thingy, and more.

While I'm a Destruction guy at heart, I have to give Order a small victory by saying their city rocks.


Crafting

Quest Hub

I have done some limited testing of the crafting system and have mixed feelings. Right now Talisman making is not in the game so the only real crafting is Apothecary. Mark Jacobs' vision of crafting is that everything you do contributes to the realm war in some way. Thus crafting is not a way to get rich quick, it's not a means of decking yourself out in gear, and it's not an aspect of the game that you can devote your entire playtime to like in some games where you can truly just be a crafter (EQ2 or SWG come to mind). It's not that crafting is an afterthought, although sometimes I truly think it may have been, it's just not an integral part of the game. You can make potions for RvR and they DO help... but they're potions. Talismans can be attached to armor and provide bonuses - how much of a bonus right now I'm unsure - and will definitely give an obvious edge against those who don't have Talismans on their armor.

The part of the crafting system that I really like are the gathering professions. You can scavenge, butcher, and that sort of thing. In beta this has been a really nice source of income, tome unlocks, and has been effortless. Everything I kill seems to be useful and everything I need comes from what I kill. There's no roaming around to find nodes or any of that nonsense that always turned me off of gathering. This information has been available to people for some time but I feel the need to confirm it for you becasue of how sketchy some of the past details have been.

More to come...

WAR kills AoC, not WoW

The most frequently asked question I got now the WAR NDA dropped was "Is WAR the WoW killer". Answer: No, it is not, don't be silly. WAR *will* take a large bite out of WoW subscription numbers, but not enough to cause WoW to die. In my opinion Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is of similar quality as World of Warcraft, doing some things better, some things worse, and having a different focus for the end game. Many people will enjoy both games, and then decide for one or the other depending on things like timing, what their friends play, or personal preferences between raiding and RvR. WAR will probably lead to a much decreased activity on WoW servers between its release in September and the Wrath of the Lich King release (probably around November). But many people won't cancel their WoW account before having seen both WAR and WotLK. Nobody knows how that will work out in the long run.

One big factor here, to which we don't have an answer yet, revolves around the quality of the WAR servers. Recent changes made at least the European beta servers more laggy, but as the release servers will be totally different hardware, it is simply too early to say how smooth the servers will run on release day. That is somewhat self-limiting the success of WAR: If WAR is too successful, the servers will have more problems, driving more people away again.

But while WAR won't kill WoW, it could possibly deal a fatal blow to Age of Conan. AoC fans were disappointed this week to hear that the latest mega patch still didn't introduce a PvP points and rewards system. Many players reached level 80 by now, and there simply isn't enough to do. Warhammer Online on the other hand already in the beta has a completely working PvP system, and more content for all levels than AoC has months after release. WAR is more mature in its lore than WoW, while avoiding the big nekid boobs kind of "mature" AoC has. So unless you are a huge fan of the more twitchy AoC combat, there really is no reason to not switch to WAR instead.

The current closed beta version of WAR albeit is not quite feature complete. For example the bank and auction house NPCs are there, but aren't functional yet. And as the crafting system depends on players exchanging materials, that part of the game isn't fully tested yet either, with some indications that the higher level recipes are still missing. There doesn't appear to be a system yet in place to balance server populations to prevent either Order or Destruction outnumbering the other side. Nevertheless WAR is already a lot more bug-free than Age of Conan, and could really hurt that game.

WoW meanwhile escaped into iMMOrtality, and will easily survive the next 5 or even 10 years, even if subscription numbers will probably decline slowly. I'd say not even Blizzard could really produce a "WoW Killer". There might be painful things ahead like server mergers, but I don't think it is possible that subscription numbers drop so low that it isn't commercially viable any more to keep the servers running for years. WoW lives forever, like it or not.

WAR Goes Gold!

EA and Mythic Entertainment Announce That Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning Has Gone Gold. According to Josh's Blog and Business Wire, WAR has gone gold!

FAIRFAX, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--GET READY FOR THE WORLDWIDE WAAAGH! Electronic
Arts (NASDAQ:ERTS) and Mythic Entertainment today announced that the
highly-anticipated MMORPG, Warhammer® Online: Age of Reckoning™ (WAR), has gone
gold and will open its servers on September 18, 2008 at an MSRP of $49.99 in
North America.

“We’ve done our best to create the next great MMORPG
experience, but it’s the fans that will bring our world to life,” said Mark
Jacobs, vice president at EA and general manager of Mythic Entertainment. “The
Day of Reckoning approaches and it’s going to be glorious! It’s time to go to
WAR.”

Guild Highlights: Keep Claiming

In WAR, guilds play an integral part in claiming keeps for their side. Not only can you fight together with your banner held high, but those banners can be used to benefit everyone in the area in keep defense once you’ve claimed the keep as your own. Not only that, but your guild will gain certain benefits and advantages just for owning a keep. Imagine your colors flying high for the masses to see. Stir passion in your allies and instill fear into the hearts of your enemies as they come to recognize your colors!

Warhammer story: Finishin da Job

Riggle was mad.

No, beyond mad. He was furious. A shaman of his stature (not that he had gained that much stature in the first place, being that he was a goblin), sent to take care of some of the dwarves left after the battle of the Eight Mountain Tops?

The dwarves had fled from the onslaught of goblins and barricaded themselves on the walkway to the food storage chamber. Tables, wheelbarrows, broken barrels, all of them formed a makeshift wall across the path. The goblins had taken the chamber below, but the walkway was still not theirs. Almost a score of goblins and at least a pair of orcs had already fallen to the dwarves pestering them with crossbows, yet the Goblins couldn't retaliate because their bows didn't have the range.

As Riggle approached the Goblin-held side of the walkway, he found his charges, along with about two score goblins and a single black orc... The orc seemed promising, perhaps they had given him more power than he had presumed.

"ALL RITE YOUSE LOT! GIT UR LOWSY RUMPS IN DERE AN GIT DEM STUNTIES!" Riggle screamed at the little miscreants.

One seemed made more eager than the rest by Riggle's little speach and leaped forward to gain some respect....or something like it. The poor eager greenskin fell backwards with a bolt in his head. The rest of them slunk away from the doorway. The black orc cut one in two to try and motivate them, but that just made them avoid him as well.

"Stupid cowardly gits, gotta do everyting myself," Riggle mumbled to himself as he summoned the power of the WAAAGH to his command. He sent it into the bodies of the goblins around him.

Suddenly they no longer cared for their own well being, and even started to fight amongst each other. One got stuck through by anothers spear before Riggles got them to do what he wanted.

"GIT DA STUNTIES!" he screamed, and finally they rushed through the door in good old fashioned goblin disorder. The black orc followed closely behind them, and Riggle behind him. In their frantic rush to get to the dwarves, several goblins died to crossbow bolts, but more died to being pushed off the walkway by other goblns. Only about ten reached the dwarves. Not good odds for the goblins, but that was okay, they were just a distraction.

Summoning once more the power of the WAAAGH, Riggle summoned something about the dwarves and goblins fighting in front of him. A green mist swirled in the air about the combatants as a large green mystical foot appeared above them and stepped down. As the foot dissipated, the goblins, dwarves, and the barricade all had been eliminated.

Riggle was pleased with his job well done. Turning around, he started to walk back off the pathway. He didn't notice a single dwarf stand back up after the battle, a dwarven hammerer. Seeing how his kinsmen had been brutally murdered by the savage greenskins magic, he vowed he would end the Shaman's life.

As the dwarf charged forward with a yell, Riggle heard him and spun around. There was not enough time to call on the WAAAGH again, and Riggle panicked and ran. Normally a goblin could easily outrun a dwarf, but under these circumstances the dwarf would not be denied.

Suddenly, a large object stood in the way of the dwarf and his prey. The black orc stood ready with choppa and shield to take on the stunted juggernaut. The dwarf brought his hammer down on the orc's shield, and obliterated it. Coming around for another swing, the orc sidestepped the dwarf. The hammerer's own momentum carried him to the edge of the walkway, and with a swift kick the dwarf was over the edge and down to his doom in the hall of his ancestors below.

Riggle looked at the black orc and smiled. "Dis looks like da start of a pretty friendship." The black orc looked at him and nodded in agreement.

Warhammer Online Preview

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is EA Mythic's persistent state world interpretation of Games Workshop's venerable wargame property, now 25 years old. Players will be able to choose among six factions aligned into two groups and three pairings. The Human Empire, Dwarves and Elves represent order, while the Greenskins, including Orcs and Goblins, plus the Chaos mutants and Dark Elves stand against them respectively.


Commendations
The Warhammer franchise provides a rich backdrop with extensive lore, several other armies that can be added, and a distinctive personality including liberal doses of humor. For PvP fans, there will be a strong inter-realm element in which the ultimate goal is to capture the capital city of your factional enemy, while others can focus on various types of quests. Based on limited hands-on time, the learning curve feels moderate, and the combat system, which offers both tactical and morale-based special attacks, seems to have a pace that's accessible but not too slow. The graphics are certainly competitive, with lots of opportunity for character customization.

Reservations
While it's understandable given the target launch date is 2007, there's still a good deal we don't know. For example, what we've seen to date has basically been limited to the Dwarves and Greenskins, meaning little or nothing about the other four playable options. The competitive environment is tougher than ever, and rates to be even more so by the time the title goes live.

Considerations
In terms of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning looking likely to be a solid release, the encouraging indicators clearly outnumber the major question marks, although there are enough of the latter that we can't predict a surefire hit. That said, it appears to have a substantial upside if the team can realize its considerable potential.

Warhammer Wiki Online - Age of Reckoning

One of the most anticipated games of 2008 isn't Wrath of the Lich King, and its not the already released Age of Conan. It is Warhammer Online, which has been delayed multiple times and really reworked from the ground up by EA Mythic.

This game is going to solely based on masive multiplayer PvP action, in clan versus clan and even World (read server) versus server embattlement. To a PvP lover such as myself, I love an ever changing battle, one that is not scripted, and requires players to make smart decisions with catlike reflexes. Warhammer seems to fit this bill quite nicely.

This is a game type that Blizzard has never been able to commit to with World of Warcraft, as the game is mired in PvE content... which I have also come to love over time. However no game has tantalized my senses as much as Warhammer, they have been teasing me for a year and half with this game... and the payoff is close at hand finally.

I had delayed taking action after hearing that players who purchase the Warhammer: Age of Reckoning Collector's Edition would get guaranteed access to the upcoming open beta. Finally yesterday I went in search of a copy... only to find that they were all sold out at the major retailers listed on the Warhammer website.

After a diligent search I did find a copy for myself. This has only been available for Pre-order for a mere week, and with an exorbitant cost over and above the normal game of an extra $40. So its easy to see I am not the only one very excited about this game.

Players will most likely flock to Warhammer, just as they did with Age of Conan... in fact I would venture to guess that Warhammer will break AoC's record of release date subscriptions and first month subscriptions!

Guess How Many Copies WAR Will Sell

Via Book of Grudges I found this interesting tidbit of information Mythic revealed the Warhammer Alliance forums: To go from closed beta to release, Mythic is adding 9 million Euros (USD 13.5 million) worth of server equipment to a new datacentre. And that is just for Europe! Big business, indeed, compared to most single-player games. Now I have no idea how many players fit on 9 million Euro worth of servers. But if I take the retail price of the Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning box, deduce an estimate of the cost to actually make that box, and then divide 9 million by that number, I come up with something in excess of a quarter of a million. WAR would need to sell a quarter of a million copies in Europe just to pay for the servers. Of course that is a gross simplification, as it doesn't take into account monthly fees, nor development cost, nor operating cost. But it shows the order of magnitude Mythic is shooting for.

And as predictions are a fun way to get egg on one's face, here is mine: Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning will sell over 1 million copies worldwide before the end of 2008. Note how I'm hedging my bet by just stating a lower limit, because the upper limit will be a lot harder to guess. I'm guessing the lower limit using parameters like the total size of the market, number of beta applications, and the boredom index of the average WoW player. The upper limit will depend a lot on early word of mouth, which depends on how smooth the release goes, and MMORPG releases are anything but safe bets. But just to increase the chance of looking silly by predicting something totally wrong, I'd say the upper limit is under 2 million copies sold worldwide before the end of this year. So, provided that Mythic ever lets us know their number, I'll post around end of 2008 whether my prediction of between 1 and 2 million copies sold worldwide was correct. Copies sold, not subscribers, because there will be some interference in subscription numbers due to the Wrath of the Lich King expansion release of World of Warcraft. And press releases more often cite copies sold, not subscribers.

So here is your chance to upstage me: Make a better guess than mine. Either if you think that my lower limit is too high, or upper limit too low, by guessing a number or range of numbers outside my range. Or, if you think that I am broadly right, by guessing a much smaller range. How many copies do you think WAR will sell by the end of 2008?

Warhammer Online will go gold in no timie

Creative director Paul Barnett told IGN that the client code, basically what customers will pay for in the box, will go gold sometime next week. With the big Games Convention in Leipzig scheduled for next week as well, it wouldn't be surprising to see Mythic make the big announcement there. Barnett also said that Mythic will work on tweaking and optimizing the server code right up until launch in mid September.

Aside from that, the game was on display, showing off its relative high state of polish as large-scale player-versus-player battles were under way. Warhammer Online has entered its beta testing phase, and Barnett said that 50,000 players were recently admitted to the game. Another number that he threw around was that apparently there have been 130,000 pre-orders for the game, which he described in classic Barnett style as "all the best bits of fantasy with all the crap bits thrown out."

WAR Preview Weekend

The Preview Weekend now has an official date, August 22-25th, as per the Herald.

WAAAGH!!!

Over 100,000 people are preparing to descend into the Age of
Reckoning, we have invited the vanguard host to join us this weekend (August
22-25) to an exclusive Preview Weekend event!

Attendance is by
invitation only and is guaranteed to all Closed Beta participants, Collectors
Edition Pre-Order customers, and the first lucky 50,000 Standard Edition
Pre-Order customers to register their accounts in the new Mythic Account Center.

Invites have already started to go out, check your Account Center for
either Closed Beta or Preview Weekend, all guests will also be notified via
email.

This weekend will be an exciting chance for many to see Warhammer
Online: Age of Reckoning for the first time. We can't wait to welcome you!

See you on the battlefield,
- The Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning
Team

More Guild info for Warhammer!

All you guild leaders and officers, this is news for you! New info on Guild Tactics has been released via the the Herald.

This week’s Guild Highlights features an innovative and exciting guild function: Tactics! Guild Tactics provide a way for guild leaders to choose extra bonuses on the battlefield for anyone who is in range of their guild’s Standard.
While the Standards themselves provide a morale generation bonus for the party, additional area-wide bonuses can be applied to Standards through the use of guild Tactics. Guild Tactics can be purchased using guild Tactic points, which are earned as the guild reaches new guild ranks. A guild must also unlock Tactic slots on its Standards to be able to slot its Tactics onto them, with up to three Tactic slots eventually becoming available (per Standard). This provides each Guild with a variety of ways to customize the bonuses on their Standards to best suit the needs and play styles of their Guild members.

WAR Open Beta Details

Official details on the Open Beta have been posted on the Herald regarding the Open beta and what will happen to closed beta testers.

WAR Open Beta Begins September 7th, 2008

Now you can experience the
glory of battle and the thrill of WAR before the game goes live! Players can get
into the WAR open beta by pre-ordering Warhammer Online from select retail
partners. Participants of the closed beta will automatically be granted open
beta access.
Pre-Order Customers

1. Visit the new Mythic Account
Management website to create your Warhammer Online game account. When prompted,
enter your Open Beta code. If you have previously entered your Open Beta code in
the Beta Center, you will need to enter it again when you create your WAR game
account at the new account management site.
2. Download the open beta client
from Fileplanet.com. You will be required to create a free FilePlanet account
and input your open beta pre-order code to access the file.

Closed Beta
Participants

1. If you are currently in the WAR closed beta, you will
automatically be granted access to the open beta. Simply continue to patch your
client and you'll be ready to play.

The Open Beta will be level capped
and content restricted. You will be allowed to choose any of the game's 20
unique careers and advance through rank 20. You will also be free to explore and
battle across Tiers 1 and 2 of each army's homeland. Please note that any
characters created during the Open Beta will NOT carry over into the live game
as they will be wiped from the servers.

This information is valid only
for North America, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore.

EA confirms Open Beta Date

Looks like Open beta will be on September 7th! EA has confirmed it in their investor news article.

Mythic Begins Preparations for September 7th Open Beta

FAIRFAX, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 18, 2008--Mythic Entertainment, an Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) studio, today announced that the open beta for their highly anticipated MMORPG, Warhammer(R) Online: Age of Reckoning(TM) (WAR), will begin on September 7th, 2008. This means that hundreds of thousands of fans will be able to enter the gritty fantasy world of WAR to experience the thrill of Realm vs. Realm(TM) (RvR) combat before the game goes live on September 18th, 2008.

"For three years we have been saying that 'WAR is coming' and the team has been working hard to deliver on this promise," said Mark Jacobs, co-founder and general manager of Mythic Entertainment. "In just a few weeks, we are going to throw open our doors and invite more players into the game than ever before. They will have a chance to delve into the open beta and see for themselves that WAR has arrived and it is glorious!"

Players can get into the North American open beta by pre-ordering Warhammer Online from select retail partners. Participants of the North American closed beta will automatically be granted open beta access. For more information about the WAR open beta, visit www.warhammeronline.com/openbeta.

Available for PC, Warhammer Online is rated "T" for Teen by the ESRB. WAR will be the first MMORPG to launch servers simultaneously in North America, Europe, and Oceania when it goes live on September 18th, 2008. For more information, visit http://www.warhammeronline.com/.

About Warhammer(R) Online: Age of Reckoning(TM)

Experience the glory of Realm vs. Realm(TM)! Declare your allegiance and join hundreds of thousands of mighty heroes on the battlefields of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, the new MMORPG from Mythic Entertainment, creators of Dark Age of Camelot(TM). Enter a grim fantasy world of perpetual conflict to fight for the Realms of Order (Dwarfs, High Elves, and Empire) or Destruction (Greenskins, Dark Elves, and Chaos). Invade enemy lands, besiege imposing fortresses, and sack sprawling capital cities for the glory of your Realm. Wield devastating magic and deadly weapons, battle monstrous creatures, and join your brothers-in-arms in epic Public Quests(TM). Climb the Bastion Stair, carry your Guild Banner into battle, and unlock the infinite secrets of the Tome of Knowledge as you travel the world. Sharpen your blade and unleash your inner mutation; the Age of Reckoning has begun and WAR IS EVERY

WHERE!



So keep those jets on ice folks, the time is coming soon!

Guild Highlights: Standards

Over at the Herald, some new info regarding Guild Standards has been released.

Guild Standards are Guild advancement rewards that provide a game play bonus to nearby allies. The Standards become available as a Guild moves up ranks, with up to three Standards ultimately being unlocked. Once a Guild reaches the appropriate rank to unlock a Standard, the Standard becomes available for purchase at the Guild store located in your Realm’s capital city and from Renown merchants located within RvR keeps. The Standards display your Guild’s heraldry, and can be carried (or planted in the ground!) to provide an area of effect bonus, or planted inside a keep which allows the guild to claim the keep. Any Standards used by a party in RvR (Realm vs. Realm™), whether carried or planted in the world, can be captured by enemy players.

A bunch of fun info here, so all you guild leaders contain yourselves.

Important info for Target Preorder code entries

Some very important info has come hot across the Herald regarding issues entering Target Preorder codes.

Greetings!

Since bringing the Account Center live it has come to our attention that some Target Pre-Order customers are encountering errors when attempting to register their keys.

We have discovered that due to mis-printing the letter "Q" is displaying as an "O". Pre-Order keys will never contains "O" or "0". Be sure that in any scenario where there appears to be an O that you enter "Q" instead.

We apologize for this inconvenience. Thank you!

Mark responds on when to download for Open Beta

With all the anticipation building up and people clawing at the gates, Mark did a favor for folks and let them know Open Beta will be available for download on Monday via a much better method than the torrent setup.

Folks,

On Monday, you'll be able to download the client via a solution that is, quite frankly, better than what we are currently using. Given the concern/issues with the current Torrent setup, I can't imagine any reasonable person being disappointed with what we are going to do next week. However, in order to get that set up properly, we weren't able to offer it today. I'm sorry for the delay but I know that you'll like what we are doing on Monday better than what we would have been able to do today. And no, it won't cost anything as per my recent post on this subject.

Mark

This should ease the minds on many folks for the time being at least.

Warhammer Online Preorder FAQ

Warhammer Online and Mythic have put together an FAQ regarding the Age of Reckoning pre-order. After a flurry of rumors about the preorder, this should lay some of them to rest.

Hopefully that clears up some of the confusion. We'll keep you updated if the start date of Warhammer Online service starts, or if any other Warhammer Online service(Warhammer Gold etc.) comes up, so drop by for more!


Below are some frequently asked questions concerning pre-order offers, we will continue to update this page as with answers to your questions.

I live in Canada how can I pre-order?

You can pre-order your copy of WAR from FutureShop, EB Games Canada, the EA Store and other fine game retailers.

Where are my codes when I pre-order online?

Each retailer may do it differently, we have no control over the distribution of their codes to pre-order customers. However, you will generally receive a separate email specifically containing your codes (in some cases I've seen it take a few days). Please do not contact EA Mythic Customer Support concerning this - you must contact your retailer as we will be unable to assist you further.

What is the difference between Closed Beta and Open Beta?

The Closed Beta Test is an invite-only program protected by a Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA) in which a select portion of the community is chosen to test the beta version of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning and offer feedback directly to the development team via in-game tools and private message boards. During our Open Beta, we open testing up to a much larger audience. However, unlike many traditional "Open Betas," WAR will only be available to a limited number of players (including pre-order customers). Stay tuned for more details concerning the WAR Open Beta and ways in which you can get in.

Do I need my CE Product Key the day the game launches?

While we encourage you to get your WAR product key as soon as possible, we will provide a reasonable grace period for players to get a hold of their copies and have uninterrupted service following the Live Game Head Start.Warhammer Online

What if I already pre-ordered?

Prior to March 26, 2008 no pre-order programs have been supported by EA Mythic. Please check with your retailers for full details. Current pre-order offers are only valid with the Collectors Edition.

WAR or WotLK?

We do not know the official release date of either Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, nor of the second World of Warcraft expansion Wrath of the Lich King. But all crystal balls and other scrying devices point towards a scenario in which both of them come out before Christmas 2008. And odds are that WAR will be released a month or two before Wrath of the Lich King. End of September for WAR and end of November for WotLK is one plausible scenario. And although this scenario could still change, it now appears extremely likely that at some point in the next 6 months you will have to decide which of them you want to play. You could try to play both, but that is likely to not work very well. Or you could play neither, in which case you'll be considered a minority in the MMORPG demographic. So for millions of people decision time it is. Most of these millions will go for Wrath of the Lich King. Not even the Mythic guys themselves believe that they'll outsell WotLK. But that's just statistics and finances, and it doesn't really make your personal choice much easier. How will YOU decide?

Knowing myself, I'm aware that I take decisions like that by gut feeling on a day-by-day basis. I can't even tell you what game I'll play next weekend, because I simply haven't decided yet. But I know I'm not playing a lot of World of Warcraft right now, because I'm burned out and bored. So I am looking forward more towards WAR, because it is more different from WoW than WotLK is. There is more new content to explore in a new game than in an expansion of an old game. WAR has 20 new classes, WotLK has 1. WAR has 6 new races, each with a line of zones and quests leading them from level 1 to the level cap, WotLK has no new races, and only new zones from level 70 to 80. So I'm absolutely certain that I will buy Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning the day it comes out, and will play it as soon as possible.


But as I said, it is likely that a month or two after the WAR release there will be the WotLK release. Mike Morhaime recently mentioned that an unspecified number of players left World of Warcraft for Age of Conan, but two months later 40% of them were back. And that was *without* Blizzard releasing much extra content for WoW. So the really hard decision will come on the day that Wrath of the Lich King releases.

My prediction for myself, although I'm not absolutely sure, is that by the time Wrath of the Lich King has come out, the new game smell of Warhammer Online will have worn off a bit. There will be still new content to explore in WAR, but there also will be new content in WotLK. And then the two games offer two distinctively different promises for the endgame: The RvR PvP endgame of WAR vs. the dungeon and raid PvE of WoW. And personally I still don't like PvP. And I love dungeons. So I think that I'll put WAR on hiatus, play WotLK for several months to level up one or two characters to 80, and do all the dungeons and raids my heart desires. And at some point I'll be as bored of WotLK as I was bored of The Burning Crusade, and I might go back to WAR.

WotLK for me will probably have priority, because I don't want to miss the window in time in which WoW players will do normal difficulty level Northrend dungeons. If you tried to find a normal difficulty level Outlands dungeon group lately, you'll know what I'm talking about: At some point months after release most people have gear better than what they can earn in a normal difficulty dungeon, and then nobody wants to go there any more. Everyone just wants heroics and raids, with only the fact that the "daily heroic" is different every day bringing some diversion into an otherwise very repetitive schedule. Looking back I don't regret I took a 7-month break from TBC, I just wished I had taken that break a bit later, and still played a bit more while people were still doing normal dungeons. With WAR I don't have the feeling that I'll have to play it at some specific point in time or lose out. You don't get kicked out of a PvP group for not having the same gear level as the other players. First of all it's not even clear that there will be huge differences in gear level in the WAR endgame (I still hope that not). And then PvP is either scenarios (battlegrounds), where you simply can't get kicked out, or it is open world RvR in which the more the merrier, and any added members can at least serve as cannon fodder, even if they don't contribute much otherwise.


In the long term I really can't say whether I'll prefer WoW to WAR or the other way round, or some completely different game. But for 2008 I'm pretty sure I'll still go for World of Warcraft, and only play Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning while waiting for Wrath of the Lich King to be released. Mythic still has a hard job ahead to convince me that I secretly like PvP, I just haven't seen it done right yet. For now I still think I prefer group PvE, and that means WoW. How about you?