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Ask the Warhammer Online Team
In my recap of 2006's GenCon event, I was somewhat unkind to Warhammer Online. They are far better people than I am, thankfully, and the folks from Mythic Entertainment are extending a hand to the members of the Slashdot community. We have the chance to ask them any questions we'd like about Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. We'll look through your questions, and pass on the best to the development team at Mythic. We've gotten assurances that responses will be attributed, too, so you'll know who is answering what. Whether you're a Massive game fan or an old-school wargamer Warhammer Online has to have something to interest you, so ask away. One question per post, please, and we'll post the answers as soon as we get them.
...or will it be fun?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
uhm... What's Warhammer?
--
This is a joke. I am joking. You have been joked with.
Will the end-game of WAR really, truly be PvP / RvR? WoW was just a PvP tease on top of a quest and loot-oriented PvE game, and it lost the hardcore PvP crowd. Will WAR abandon DAoC's PvP/RvR roots just to appeal to the masses of carebears out there?
What's unique about Warhammer Online, other than the universe that its set in? This could be anything, really: design philosophy, new innovations in gameplay, new technical acomplishments.
Put slightly more bluntly, tell me why I should chose Warhammer Online over World of Warcraft.
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
Has there been anything you guys have gleaned from the DAOC development team in terms of what and what not to do? I thoroughly enjoyed DAOC in its earlier years but moved on after Trials of Atlantis made my head explode.
On a site like Slashdot, a lot of us are caught up in online RPG games and console wars. I read the overview of your game on your site but--like a lot of people--I'm not sold. What's the number one reason I should be interested in Warhammer Online? What do you feel sets it above the online successes out there and the average run of the mill games? It appears to have a lot of 'war' involved in it but is there any social aspects to your online game? Is there diplomacy in Warhammer?
My work here is dung.
Will a White Wolf Knight be a career choice?
Will your game cater to the casual gamer (1-2 hours a week) or will it cater only to serious gamers (40 hours a week/second job)? How do you balance a game such that both players can play and feel the game is fair and satisfying?
My work here is dung.
Do you want to chew into WoW's player base or are you targeting players from other games, most notably other Warhammer titles? If you're targeting WoW, what do you do you have to offer and do you think they'll really jump ship? And if you do convince players, how do you intend to keep them playing WH other than eternal grind for herbs or whatever?
It's been discussed on Slashdot before, but what's your take on procedural graphics (PDF)? Did you use any strategy to thin the client application while managing the load on the CPU? Is this common in online game design where a client is involved?
My work here is dung.
One of the most entertaining aspects of WH (IMO) next to strategy, planning, and decimating our enemies is the craft and care of the minitures. And one of the enjoyable parts of playing MMOs is the mod community, wether sanctioned or not. With DAoC there was a definate progression between Mythic and the Mod community. What started out as a non-existant link slowly became a colaboration between Mythic and the modders. Mythic introduced a tool (or information about the tool) to allow modders to impliment custom GUI solutions. An idea that has since been used widely in the MMO field.
Are there currently any plans to have a simlar system that would allow for the introduction of player contributed art to the game? Banners, skins, asorted textures, and the like? Such a system would allow players to not only take pride in their victories, but also in their craftsmanship.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
I keep hearing rumors that Warhammer copies from Warcraft and vice-versa. But that is not what I'm asking. What I would like to know is how big is the learning curve for the game as well as the reward/punish (ie dying) system?
Previewing comments are for sissies!
Are there any plans for the rest of the Warhammer races in the future? One of the things that makes the table-top game so much fun is the massive diversity in armies. I'll probably play anyway since Chaos is already there, but I think it'd be great to see all the races playing. I don't know about anyone else, but I'd totally play an Ogre Butcher.
Is there any chance of a version set in the Warhammer 40k universe? While the Warhammer Fantasy universe doesn't appeal to me, I'd be more than willing to give a 40k version a try, and I have never played a single online game. I don't even play "Dawn of War" (40k RTS) online, yet I just built a brand new computer to play the new DoW expansion.
Z.
How does it feel to have EA suck the soul out of your studio and make you push your product unfinished with core feature removed since they are too 'risky' and/or will affect ESRB rating?
Recognizing that there will variation based on starting location (or will there?), what are my first three hours of playing WO:AoR going to be like? What will I experience? What will my character buy? How many quests will he go on? Et cetera. What's going to grab my attention and make me want to keep playing beyond that newbie experience?
Jhyrryl
Will it feature Skaven???
A playable race even?? Pretty please...
When (not "will") we be able to play as one of the "bad guys" like a skaven or a chaos warrior?
How do you plan to handle magic items and named characters ingame? Many of the most popular items belong to NPC characters (like Gotrek's axe for example) and as such cannot be found without breaking the canon timeline.
I like muppets.
What sort of terrain are we likely to see? How is it distributed? Is the entire world the Blasted Mudflats of Akrulz, or do we get desert, ice and grasslands as well?
So to compete with World of Warcraft you'll be supporting multiple platforms at launch right? Or is this just another Windows only game that will get a possibly half-assed port if the Windows version is profitable?
How will the game handle redesigns in the model lines. With Games workshop releasing an entire product line redesign over 2-3 months, will the game keep up with them or keep it's "classic" feel? I assume adding new weapons and armour for a player wouldn't be too difficult, but will uniforms and weapons be updated on the NPC for example.
I like muppets.
How much of a grind is there in Warhammer online? I have no interest in (%#*&(@%# grinding, but have a great deal of interest in the potentials of MMOs. Does your game do anything to get rid of the grind and if so, how?
Dear diary: Today I stuffed some dolls full of dead rats I put in the blender.
Lots of what is being asked here - sadly - is answer on more WAR-specific fansites (WHA FAQ, the warhammer site itself etc).
Be careful when submitting duplicates, imo.
Anyway - If I roll, say, a dwarf. But I want to group with my wife, who rolled empire - how hard is it for us to hook up at the start?
What steps are being taken to prevent another ToA release?
Since it is Slashdot asking the questions I feel this must be asked (also I'm an Ubuntu user).
Will there be a Linux client or do us Linux users have to struggle with WINE instead?
I like muppets.
One of my favorite features of WoW is how expandable and changeable the user interface is. Will you be allowing people to expand warhammer online's interface (if not to the current WoW's level of customization, perhaps to TBC levels?)
How do you plan to avoid being a World of Warcraft clone in the current MMORPG flurry of knock offs?
I like muppets.
will i be able to pvp from hour 1 or will i have to go on quests? WOW ruined me for quests im afraid. Could you describe in exquisite detail the looking for group system?
I'm a crafter at heart, in fact, I play MMORPGs to craft gear. So what do we loonies get? How do you want to avoid the two pitfalls "Making it so easy that everyone has some sort of crafter, and market prices plummet for everything but the bits that only the primary top guild builders have prints for (see WoW)" and "Making it so hard that you'd rather go with the once-in-a-lifetime-drop 'cause getting it is faster than finding a crafter who can build you something similar (see DAoC)"? Can I sustain myself crafting, or is it at best a hobby for people who have too much money already? Will crafted gear be, economically, be at least on par with drop-only gear?
Oh, only one question. Ok: Is being a crafter a choice that can keep you entertained and sustained by itself?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Will the players actually affect the world with their actions?
Being an avid WoW player, the ONE thing that grinds my gears the most is that no matter how many times we "save" Gnomergon, it will ALWAYS be destroyed. Players have no "say" in the course of world events. Gnomer will always be destroyed, Onyzia will always ahve control over the nobles of Stormwind, Vancleef will never sail his Orc dreadnought out of his secret pirate cove. Will the players of your game be able to change the environment?
Will contant always remain static in your game?
Will it run on linux? How about my solaris box? I mean, of course your largest market is the windows users, but if a quality MMO was around with good naitive linux/mac/whatever ports, you'd have a clear advantage over the other competitors... ok, well competitor....
Oh, snap! WoW just came back up after weekly maintenance. Gotta go!
WoW email me soon, Nelfpwnjoo@Nefarian
With the obvious comparison between WoW and Warhammer, as well as the glut of Fantasy genre MMORPGs (both released and in development), why did you decide to go forward with a game based on Warhammer Fantasy instead of Warhammer 40k?
Will I be able to wander on foot for a month and brave the chaos wastes and end up in naggaroth surrounded by dark eleves? Or will there be a big black impassable wall at the edge of the "old world"?
One of the best features of WoW is the way you can customize your entire interface and create custom modifications. Will players have the same ability to tweak the interface of Warhammer Online?
The game is said to be PvP centric and players can PvP throughout their entire career if they wish so. This is the main innovation of the game. How then will loot and gear be gained and distributed in PvP? How will you make sure that very good (epic) gear can still only be obtained very slowly and not become standard?
What is a typical combat resolution time in your game?
WoW for example is aiming to resolve PvP combat very quickly, most 1v1 PvP encounters end within 20 seconds (often far less, rarely more). This makes for very intense battles on the other hand any inital disadvantage will be hard to overcome. It also leads to button smashing, bunnyhopping etc. Sometimes I feel the combat is a over little too quickly, would be fun to have it go on for longer.
Combat in Guild Wars for example seems to be a lot more tempered (I only played GW for a short period but this is the impression I got) with every class having access to some sort of self healing.
Mythic made a wonderful game with the original incarnation of DAoC but watered it down and killed it by trying to capitalize on the everquest model of raid for loot. WoW has done the same thing but to an even greater degree. Both EQ and WoW focus on ease of development and limiting player choices. How will Mythic battle this in Warhammer and keep it slimmed down to the game that people want to play?
Players need choices that mean something. The ability to choose to do or not do raids is not a choice when the rewards severly effect the outcome of the PvP/RvR type combat. Look at the huge change in how things operated from pre-ToA in DAoC vs. post-ToA. Or even better Pre-raid Blue armor vs. Tier 2 or 3 raid sets. Players also need to be able to customize their avatars both in appearance and abilities. WoW fails horribly in this in that every class has talents that should be usable as a customization effort but the setup results in a few cookie-cutter builds for each class or they end up severly gimping themselves. What sort of customization will be allowed and what seperates dwarf fighter #1 from dwarf fighter #2?
Has any thought been given to Mac OS X and Linux versions?
1) Where is the beta signup? All I see is some lame webpage that begs visitors to join their mythical newsletter. Click on newsletter archives and you get nothing. After signing up for the newsletter I was expecint some spam about the beta. Nothing. Nadda. Zip.
2) How can you promote community fan sites when you hardly give out any material about the game. Do you even have forums setup?
It would be great if Warhammer Online supported Macs, like Warcraft does...I'd drop Warcraft in an instant if Warhammer was available to me and my friends would as well (lots of Mac users here.) Are there any 'concrete' plans to make Warhammer a hybrid game (like WoW) so it can be used on OS X and on Windows?
for the sodomizing you're going to get trying to take on Blizzard?
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Can players have their own housing?
Do the physics in the game allow buildings and things to be destroyed? Speaking of physics, do arrows and fireballs get affected by gravity?
What are your thoughts of selling items and gold for real money? How do you feel about Sony's Station exchange?
Can you walk through other players or are they solid making a tank really something you must get around? Will strategy work or is it all about the gear?
Warhammer: Mark of Chaos and Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War make sense as computer translations of a tabletop strategy game. They can retain the interests of the gamers that play with miniatures and translate that onto the computer. But other games, like D&D Online: Stormreach, are tabletop or pen and paper games that seem more suited to becoming MMORPGs, since they are focused around smaller groups of players and dungeon environments.
With Warhammer Online, what made sense to translate a tabletop strategy game into a MMORPG, even if it is going to be PVP centric? I know the universe is full of story and possibilities, but "lore" will not sell a game, IMO. Are there going to be strategy elements, commander players, etc to the PVP and Realm versus Realm play?
Why not Warhammer 40,000? Is there not enough fantasy MMORPGs, do they sell better versus others, or is it just harder to code a science fiction game?
What are you going to do in order to prevent the repetitive grind that most MMOs are [in]famous for ? How many quests in your game follow ye olde template of "kill 20 goblins and bring me their noses... but a goblin only has a 30% chance to drop a nose" ?
At higher levels, will your game require a massive investment of time into raiding the same dungeon over and over, in order to stay competitive with other players ?
>|<*:=
As a former workshop employee, both domestic and abroad, Here are a few Questions :P
.. Blizzard was the company btw, who managed to release the software anyways to some moderate success :)] I know that recent mindsets on the board have stopped seeing video games as 'the enemy' and started seeing them as effective marketing tools to branch boys into 'the hobby', do you find this to be reflected through out the company as well ?
;P] Do your artists have some free reign ? Do you get to use source material from the GW design studio ? How tight are they on your artistic licence, and is it frustrating to work under those constraints ?
:)
1) How difficult do you find it to work with the studio ? Aside from the time differences, Having spent a little time there, I know how possesive the studio is of their IP, and overall mythos. In the past they [I almost said we] have been very difficult to work with from the vantage of software companies in this regard. [Even going so far as to turn down a brand new software company in the early 90's when they pitched a Humans vs Orcs fantasy game
2) What kind of visuals do you work with ? Again, the paper files in the old Notts. studio were EXTENSIVE, I know that mythic has their internal art department. [A place I once applied to after being encouraged by friends who work there, oddly enough , I would have been perfect on this project, but thats neither here nor there
3) Has GW taken you folks to play paint-ball in Nottingham forest yet ?
4) Do you like the pub in the new head office ?
5) Are Jon Stallard and Chris Harbour still Beardy-Ol-Gits ?
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
Item duplication is one of the many banes of the on-line RPG, what will you be doing to counter that kind of abuse? And frankly, what will you do to keep griefers in line?
I ask many of these relative to WoW. This should suprise nobody, as any MMO hoping to compete with WoW should liberally compare itself with - though not necessarily model itself after - WoW.
1.) PvP:
- a.WAR seems to have a PvP focus. Is it possible to focus primarily on PvP and earn enough EXP from PvP so that I will not be forced to "grind up" *for* PvP like players are forced to do in WoW?
- b. In WoW, there are two clear channels of play: PvP and PvE, and PvE must be done to be competative in PvP. What kind of effort will I need to put into PvE to be competative in PvP? I ask this for the players who, like myself, do not want to put anything more than minimal time into PvE because we prefer PvP.
- c. Will PvP be balanced with items, levels/skills, or player skill in mind? IE: Who would win in a fight, the player with the most skill, the best gear, or the highest levels and in-game skills? Again, with WoW as an example, levels and gear are very clearly more important than actual player skill, which I find extremely damaging toward gameplay. Having to mindlessly acquire in-game stuff (I won't even say earn, because earning implies a skill investment as well as the MMO-standard time investment) to play the part of the game I actually like without constanly losing really, really sucks.
- d. What will make PvP in your game different from PvP in other MMOs, again, notably WoW. Will you implement Warhammer's gameplay depth (formations, terrain, etc) to WAR?
- e. How will you address the weaknesses of PvP in today's MMOs. IE: Characters bunnyhopping to avoid enemy meelee and spells, generic "press auto attack and wait" no-player-skill meelee, etc.
2.) Customization:
- a. What kind of UI system are you implementing? I've been critical of WoW here, but I must say that their extremely robust UI modding system is simply excellent and one of the best features of the game.
- b. To many people, part of the appeal of the Warhammer tabletop game is being able to customize your units and create "your" army. Will this , or anything similar, be implemented in WAR? Custom armor color schemes/logos, custom guild banners, etc, all spring to mind as possibilities.
3.) MMO General:
- a. What, if any, MMO conventions will you be breaking? Nobody wants to see gimmicks, but there are some ideas that have struck me as being very good. IE: Allowing players to join more than one guild at a time instead of locking them into a single community of players.
- b. What else do you want us to know about WAR, and why should we play it? I can visit your website for your generic PR pitch, so give us some personal opinions, strenghts and weaknesses of the game, etc, not the usual stuff.
4.) The Most Important Question to Me:
- I want your game to actually feel like the cutscenes available on your website. I do not want to watch these visceral and intense CG videos only to find combat in your game is just more of the same that I've grown tired of months ago. Will combat feel like the videos, or will it be sterile MMO combat?
When I first heard of Warhammer Online I had a slight hope that the designers were going to create an online version of the table top game, something akin to what Wizards of the Coast did with Magic The Gathering Online. Judging by the people I've talked to, this game would be of great interest to current and former battlegamers. Instead you've gone the route of many former Warhammer based games, i.e. simply selected the most popular genre and slapped on the Warhammer universe onto it (ex. Dawn of War).
I'd like to know, besides the Warhammer universe, why should this game appeal to a Warhammer battlegamer. And more importantly, why hasn't a serious online Table Top port been attempted.
> What's unique about Warhammer Online
I was wondering this myself. There are already more fantasy MMORPGs than I can shake a Dextrous Fiery Stick of Warding +8 at. I know, the polls show that Fantasy seems to have more uptake than any other genre of MMORPG, but I really think it's more the marketing and gameplay rather than the actual genre itself. Perhaps the statistics are skewed because there are way more Fantasy MMORPGs than other genres and we simply ignore the ones that have already failed.
For novelty, why not a Warhammer 40K MMORPG? (That's the Sci-Fi version of Warhammer, for those of you who didn't know.) Sure, you'd still have battles planetside (I can't think of a MMORPG where fighting *doesn't* occur on the ground), but I have long envisioned space battles between capital ships/space hulks/craftworlds that may as well be cities (thriving trade, virtual real estate, etc), where entire decks can disappear without a moment's notice in a well-placed shot of heavy weapons fire. I envision subscribers also being able to play the role of individual pilots who are able to customize their fighter craft in accordance to their funds (or military rank). If Twitch Combat isn't your thing, that would be fine - you need not lead that kind of life if you don't want to.
I'd see a 40K MMORPG offering both kinds of combat: one where you rely on skills defined in raw numbers which you can develop through tradtional means (ground combat), and one which relies almost solely on your real-life reaction time (a la Wing Commander).
Solomon Chang
"Twice half-assed makes an ass whole." --Solomon K. Chang
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
What if Warhammer meets your expectations as to being a sucess (whatever that is), what happens to Daoc? As it is now, clustering is what is keeping the game going, can we expect this time next year to see just one of each server cluster type left up (ie pvp, roleplaying, classic, co-op, normal) or can we just forget about the game?
Personally the day I heard EA bought Mythic, I reopened my WoW account and leveled up another toon, I have zero faith in EA not screwing up things. I feel that if Warhammer is popular, the Daoc servers will be toast, and if they aren't they will be ghost towns.
What race of very rare Amazonian rain forest tree do Games Workshop use to make the paper for their rulebooks? This can be the only explanation as to why GW can charge £10 for a pamphlet with a few photos of plastic toy soldiers in it.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Which graphics engine are you using for this one?
In several MMORPGs I've played in the past, none of them really had a point. There was no over-arching reason to kill that 9999999th rat to get to the next level, other than to get to that next level.
Will this game just be a grind to gain levels to be able to defeat the next stronger version of the last creature you just killed?
Will the quests/tasks be engaging? So often games just give out tasks (kill x of y or gather z of a) rather than actual adventures (ie tasks with a meaningful storey behind them).
I can go on and on here... But I'll leave it at that for now.
PS Make sure you QA EVERYTHING you release prior to releasing it. Nothing irks me more than having a patch break stuff that WAS working.
'Twixt Light and Darkness... S S H A D O W
Just how do you manage to set these at "3" for the average GW shop employee?
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
What company is going to do that?
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
I noticed that the vampire counts, tomb kings, as well as the dark elves are not shown in the trailer at all; does this mean they're not in the game? That they're the 'bad' guys and thus unplayable? Or was there some reason the trailer simply couldn't include them?
I bet they won't let us ask any question we want about DAoC. Like why they allowed radar users, why they allowed bots, etc. We know the answers of course, but it would be fun to hear them say it.
Will you be maintaining authenticity with the real world and charging as much for plastic equipment as you do for metal equipment?
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Are you going to outsource your customer support to a company that has no in-game abilities? Or are you going to have GMs that can actually help players in-game with bugged NPCs, quests, items, and characters?
Anyone who has played WoW knows their customer support is terrible. Their useless GMs will happily ban players all day for saying "damnit" in a public chat channel, but when your raid boss refuses to spawn because of a bugged event or your account gets keylogger-hacked and all your items disappear, you are out of luck. EverQuest (the original, never played the sequel) is a shining example of quality in-game customer support with GMs from the community who have power in-game and actually understand/care about the players' problems. I would be very disappointed if other companies followed the Blizzard model when it came to GMs.
Dark Age of Camelot's RVR System in my opinion was at its most fun when the population was at its height - now the game community is in shambles as population has dwindled. What steps will be preemptively taken to make sure the population inbalances do not occur, or how will you fix them if they do occur?
Also - how will you manage the community? That is, will it be completely hands off like DAOC or will there be any GM events to encourage community building?
Get gamers workshop to re-release Battlemasters!
that is all
Insert witty sig here.
Seconded!
Comment of the year
I was a HUGE fan of DAoC, played it religiously for almost 4 years. Unfortunately during the major duration of that time I had 2 accounts active to compete in what I considered a very enjoyable PvP experience. What I would consider the biggest problem with DAoC next to game balance was the issues of botting.
Is botting going to be acceptable in the Warhammer Online world, or is the development team taking steps from a design phase to prevent botting (and creating the requirement to have one) to compete in PvP? Is there 'buffing' classes, or are the buffs spread out more evenly across ALL of the classes to prevent a single botting class. Will crafting/alchemy be used to help remedy the problem (if perceived as such)?
As a player of DAoC thats the #1 reason I left DaoC to play WoW. I was tired of paying for multiple accounts, and I didn't want to go back through the leveling grind/ToA on a classic server where the ranged buffs where implemented.
Thanks for considering this question.
Any chance of a MMOFPS based on the WH40K universe?
I have not played every MMO out there but I think I represent the weekend warrior type casual gamer. I've played Final Fantasy XI, WoW and RF Online. I currently play WoW religiously, but still stay more to the casual side of things.
My main question is...
What does Warhammer online have that will make me want to put my WoW account on hold? I know most developers will say I am comparing apples to oranges. Whatever, I like the fact that I can log into a game, spend an hour in it and get something productive done. FFXI was fun up to a point, great community. The game lacks a good PvP aspect as well as not enough soloing content. You need to be in a party 90% of the time after level 20. RF Online, well that was a grind fest. you had to spend more time leveling a skill rather than your physical level which means you won't see any major content for a long time. PvP in that game was way too unbalanced. You needed to be in groups to take down an individual at times. Where in WoW you can go toe-to-toe with another player and have the chance to win (yes even if the player is better geared then you). Now there are classes that can easily take other classes, that just makes sense. For instance Warrior vs Rogue (plate vs leather). Warrior hits harder than the rogue so the battle falls to skill. In any case, that is the question... What will make the WoW player want to split up his/her time to play WAR.
Sorry for the lengthy question.
Dewser - all around techy "In the immortal words of Socrates - 'I drank what?'"
When i found out that i was getting a beta invite a few months ago, I was pretty excited until i found out this was the fantasy version as opposed to 40K. With the extreme glut of fantasy-based mmo's currently in existence, what prompted you to decide "we have a loyal 40K fanbase, and there are not many sci-fi based mmos, thus we will follow the conventional wisdom and create yet another fantasy-based game."?
I have no issue with you making whatever game you want to make, and think you can make money on. However, I really am curious as to what influenced your decision to go with fantasy over 40k.
I'll tell you right now i'm not shovelling out $15 a month for a game i spend 4 hours a week on. Sure some weeks i'll spend tons of time on, but around midterms and finals, I might not even get on for a week or two.
The question is: How is payment going to be handled? Is there going to be a way for casual gamers to get a reasonable deal while limiting the cost for hardcore gamers to a reasonable total?
If perhaps however you went say $0.xx per hour (up to $15 total per month) I would definately pay it. Even if there was a minimum ($5 minimum, but that pays the first x hours in a month).
Perhaps two tiers of payment. $10 for maximum of 8 hours per week and $15 for unlimited access.
"Dictator Flakes. They WILL be delicious."
Short Question: I play Mythic's current MMO Dark Age of Camelot and, like a bad relationship, I love it and hate it and can't leave it. The addictiveness and superior PvP make me optimistic that Warhammer will be the WoW killer that EA hopes for. Almost everyone who plays DAoC considers it a superior game to WoW. But some glaring flaws in the game design and underlying game engine concern me that the same type of mistakes and flaws will be in Warhammer. How are the Warhammer designers and programmers working to avoid the well-know problems with their current game, Dark Age of Camelot? Long Question: The abilities of the three realms in DAoC are unusually asymmetrical for a game of this type which does make it interesting . But it seems like over and over and over one of the three realms gets buffed. I know Hibernia had low population in the first years of the game (probably because the newbs usually picked Albion and the Hib characters looked freakish). So you gave Hib mages baseline stun which renders their opponent helpless as they get nuked to death, while you gave mages from the other two realms root which freezes the targets feet to the ground but does not render them helpless. That flaw is still in today and is a constantly given reason for quitting the game after people get stun-nuked one time too many. Hib baseline stun has driven thousands of people away from the game. And the carebear type players who love WoW will head for the doors after experiencing that a few times. You gave Hibernia Group Purge exclusively - since removed from the game as too powerful. You gave them Thornweed field first - a mistake that was corrected when you gave it to all three realms. Hib primary healers have pets programmed to make a beeline to the enemy healers which completely shuts them down until the pet is killed - the other two realm's primary healers do not have pets (still in the game today). When New Frontiers came out you put the boat docks on the other side of the river for two realms (to make players vulnerable to attack while going to the boat) but not for Hib - another mistake since corrected. It goes on and on and on. What were your game designers thinking and are these kinds of mistakes going to be made in Warhammer? Game Engine: The technology used in DAoC was impressive when it came out in 2001 and has been updated successfully and looks pretty good by today's standards, but has some glaring problems that your programmers can't seem to fix. Is the game engine fundamentally flawed or are there no programmers at Mythic skilled enough to go deep into the engine and fix this stuff? I don't expect you to have a John Carmack on the payroll but some of these problems seem beyond your ability to correct. Walls in keeps stop most spells and all arrows but certain kinds of spells go right through them. Again, the worst offender is in Hibernia - the Bainshee - with the highest damage and the longest range of anything that penetrates keep walls. The people who play that class know this and exploit it shamelessly giving them huge advantages in siege. The Animist who casts a turret in the form of a cute little mushroom has the only turret in the game which gives (surprise surprise) Hibernia another advantage, this time in siege warfare. Animists place these "shrooms" all over the place while sieging keeps in spots where the shroom can attack enemies who cannot attack the Animist which infuriates the other two realms. Bad design or bad programming? Probably a little of both. Necromancers cannot cross certain bridges without losing their pets (bridges are focal points of PvP and losing the pet makes the Necro absolutely vulnerable. Why is that so hard to fix?
Death is always a tricky subject in an MMORPG. What kind of death system are you planning that will deter us from dying, but not set us back 3 hours worth of play if we do?
Will this game require more player skill, or will it just be another minimum of player skill + hours of playing makes you a winner? ?
One of DAoC's great strengths (and WoW's major weakness, imo) is that it fostered an excellent sense of community where you actually felt like you were working with your realmmates towards a common goal. Relic raids/relic defenses in the first year or so of the game were huge, with everyone dropping whatever they were doing to participate.
How will you try to recapture that sort of feeling, especially when dealing with things like instanced areas that tend to fragment your playerbase?
Minus the class balance in DAoC, the biggest problem I have is range and CC. I heard that Croud control will not be in as well as no stealth classes. I like these ideas and hope that you can come up with a way to make RvR/PvP fun for all. My question is, I also understand Colision detection for combat only and for only the oposing faction will be implemented. How do you plan on utilizing this technology in RvR/PvP and will it also have Line of Site added to it?
Speaking of walking about the world, will you be introducing any interesting locations? How about Mordheim? The infinite city would make for a nice massive location, with lots of room for small-group quests.
UTF-8: There and Back Again
I couldn't even get to the PvP based end game in DAoC because the grinding required to get there was so incredibly boring. Even more so than all the other boring treadmill MMOGs. I have wasted more than enough time mindlessly killing rats for no reason, are you going to let us skip the crap and get straight to the game?
Well considering Mythic is owned by EA now, I'd say the answer will be something along the lines of "Windows XP or Vista will be required, for that is what our Master in the dark place beyond the stars commands us to code for".
Followup questions are likely to be answered with "Silence, plebian! Question The Master's choice of platforms again, and He will make it an XBox 360 exclusive!"
It seems like a great way to axe into the WoW market share would be to let users play free of charge. Are there plans for this?
How big is the world, if I were to walk from the top to the bottom of the playable zomes? What methods of transportation are available for those who are tired of walking? Finally, could you explain your innovative 'journal' system more indepth? I'd really like to here more about it.
Ninjas use italics.
Seriously guys, there's already a high fantasy mmo out there, it's called WoW. Everyone who wants to play that mmo genre is already playing it and is in fact so addicted to it that they would rather let their pets and children starve to death than not play it.
Why not make somthing for those people that arn't in the vicelike grip of the game that you'll be in direct competition with.
1) The Keeper of Secrets peels the flesh from your body, rapes you skinless and screaming, and then devowers your soul. You are dead, start a new character.
Will my character be able to die?
2) One of the things that turns me off to mmorp games is they just go on and on without any point. If you screw up you just respawn. If you defeat someone else they just respawn. Winning is reduced to a test of who can stand being bored the most and the only way to lose is to have any other interests that prevent you from logging 80 hours a week inplay.
How will Warhammer break or even slightly chip away at the mold of mmorp?
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Simple question, will we ever see a Necromunda MMORPG? Warhammer is fun but only half as popular as 40k, and the market for warhammer online seems fairly saturated already. Necromunda seems to lend itself almost perfectly to the MMORPG style. I heard that Warhammer 40k was rejected by GW as an option for you as it was being worked on by another company (and was cancelled by them well into your development process). Are there any plans to pick up the pieces? (Necromunda!! :))
Warhammer forums
Odd that after the hugely popular WoW, the company would choose to offer very nearly the same product. I'm sure there are some game differences, but to the casual gamer that picks up a WAR box for $50 and a WoW box for $20, they will look the same except for the price. Why would you intentional choose to travel in the footsteps of another company instead of offering a completely different universe?
Warhammer has two variants - the Wargame and the Roleplaying game. Not only are these different kinds of games, the settings are quite different - the Wargame is very 'high fantasy' and flashy whereas the RPG is 'low fantasy', gritty and plays on its dark sense of humour.
My question is twofold: which style of game are you going for and which setting are you choosing from the competing source options?
if so are you going to consult with all TLs that loosely fit the profile of a warhammer class even if some of those fields mix like:
- Consulting PacHealer, Bard, Sorc, Eldritch,
... TLs for CC (crowd control) classes in warhammer ?
- For stealth classes are u going to consult all TLs of stealth classes or ask the bow classes(Scout, Ranger, Hunter) and assasine classes(Infiltrator, Shadowblade, Nightshade) individualy ? Are u going to ask Minstrels in any form for input in this field ?
- Are you going to consult with Menta, Sorc, Theurgist, Bonedancer, Hunter, Minstrel, Druid,
... TLs as far as pet classes go ?
- Are u going to ask tanks and hybrids together or are u going to ask them for input from their respective field ?
- Are menta, sorc, warlock, eldritch, runemaster, theurgist TLs going to get asked when it comes to casters ?
- Are all classes that have "target: realm"(Menta, (Pac)Healer, Bard, Warlock,
...) heal spell get asked for heal classes ? or just Healer, Cleric, Druid as the primary heal classes ?
I didnt include all the classes that are currently available in DAoC due to number of classes and their interlocking abilities. the classes that i left out are represented thru the ",I'm not sure any game can really be successful until the masses collectively decide that they are sick of playing WoW. Christmas 2007 (current WHO ship date) seems as good a date as any to place your bet on when it'll happen. WHO has a good chance of doing really well if its release coincides with everyone finally deciding they've had enough of old WoW and are ready to play a "new" WoW...
Just as food for thought, and to add to the conversation, here's a recent interview with Mythic regarding Warhammer Online.
e =6&page_id=1512&uid=3#top1512
http://home.hamptonroads.com/blog/threads.cfm?pag
Will Mounted combat be included in the game. Will housing (player and/or guild) be included at launch. Chaos characters - Mutations yes or no Any other pet classes aside from the Squig Hearder will each characters tome of knowledge be viewable online via xml similiar to some of the information on camelot herald.
---> http://www.reciprocality.org/Reciprocality/ <---
Hope the site's up
MOD down, as parent poster has a valid question.
in war hammer fantasy battle skaven exist...
NOW for some freak reason,,,,those at games workshop killed off the dwarfs!
they killed the dwarfs in warhammer 40k. now if i ever meet someone with an army of dwarfs looking to fight or form an alliance well yeah they get game.
still i have to wonder, WHY kill off a potential product line?
maybe in rule book next they will be alive again, some great textcapade
I purchased Ral Partha and Games Workshop figures, from a visit to the Ral Partha factory, i thought hmm these dwarfs look cool, and different, like they have different heads, thats why i purchased GW figures from Ral Partha(a famous minatures company, err was)
The figures had different heads, most minatures companies tend to cast the same exact figure at the time Games Workshop was rather unique in having slight differences in figures.
Regards,
What the hell is Zonk talking about that Warhammer Online rips off World of Warcraft?
If you knew anything about the history of Warhammer, you would know about the broad intellectual property 'rip-off' that occured in World of Warcraft (and the Warcraft series). I'm not going into it because a single glance at the first page of the Warhammer Online website begins to reveal the irony. It's the tip of an iceberg.
1) Will WAR use the character system of Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play? I looked at your website and saw that you are referring to each race having 'Careers', but is this simply another name for a class system? In particular, will players be able to change careers relatively freely?
2) One of the things that makes the Warhammer universe interesting is the gritty and mysterious flavor - the Empire is poisoned from within by insidious cults, and magic is dangerous and corrupting. Could you give an example of how you intend to capture that flavour with WAR?
3) What geographical areas of the Old World are going to be present at launch?
Will you continue you your team lead system from DAoC in WAR?
What will the cast System in W.A.R be like?
Complete interrupt from certain effects and dmg (daoc); Dmg interrupts the cast slightly (wow)
Will stats, through character advancement and/or items improve your casttime? (like dexterity in daoc)
Is there any chance that Warhammer and DAoC will use some sort of shared account like Sony uses for its MMO offerings?
(That'll teach me to post in a hurry! Now with added line breaks...)
Not that Warhammer ever 'borrowed' an idea wholesale from anyone else. In fact their game worlds are generally little more than thin rehashes of history and other peoples ideas. Why steal from Games Workshop when you can get 'inspiration' from the same sources they did?
Orcs(TM) => Tolkein's Orks (in space)
Space Marines => Starship Troopers (the 1959 book, not the film)
Tyranids => The film 'Aliens'
Eldar => Elves in space
Necrons => Skeletons in space
Tau => Samurai in space
etc, etc.
For my sins, I've been around GW for a good 15 years and, whilst the do make pretty figures and average rules, originality is not one of their strong points.
I'm a big fan of the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying Game (i.e. the pen&paper RPG). One thing I love about it is that it's nice to the casual gamers - you don't have to study page upon page of tables and memorize 2547 rules about combat, it is simple and fun and you can concentrate on playing it.
How will Warhammer Online convince me as a casual online player to join? Will it take those of us whose game in life isn't to reach Lvl 60 into account at all? What about pricing? One thing that puts me off most online games is that at times I can't play at all for a month, or only very rarely - it's maybe 2-3 out of 12 months a year where I'd get a $20 worth out of it. Any thought about offering more than one payment mode? Any thoughts about making sure I can play the game and have fun if I can spend 2-5 hours a week (not a day) on it?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Why try to duplicate a game that already exists? Every loser with a mouthful of cheetos here realizes you should have gone with the futuristic 40k universe angle to try and gank the people who quit Star Wars Galaxies. Its so obvious it hurts to see you eff it up.
I see from the site that it dwarfs, greenskins, chaos and empire with what looks like place holders for high and dark elves. Are there any plans to add some of the other races or countries like skaven, slann, orgres, bretonians, kislevites etc
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
How do you plan to deal with bots and gold farmers?
You are about to release an expansion for DAoC that some consider subpar. Was it a stop gap in case Warhammer doesn't take off? Do you plan to keep DAoC going? If so, how? Will you ever try to add more to it so as to reclaim those members it lost or will warhammer be used for that?
I've followed the development of the Warhammer MMO pretty closely over the years... I'm just curious about how faithful the online version will be to the paper and pencil (pnp) version of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. One of the best features of the pnp version was that it was likely to be "nasty, brutish, and short" for the players if they approached it the way they would many other role playing games. That style of play might not square well with an MMO. It wasn't that the players in a typical WFRP campaign couldn't become heroic - but that the heroism was often balanced by knowledge of how lucky they had been to succeed - and that such victories were at best temporary.
While the Warhammer folks have every right to use their medieval Warhammer stuff they should have realised that it's way way WAY too similar to Warhammer to be considered original, even though Warcraft is ripping off Warhammer. It would have been better if the Warhammer folks made a Warhammer 40K game. There's absolutely no originality in the games industry.
Hi, i'm a long-long-long time Slashdot reader, that just registered so i could ask this question. I've played Dark Age for 3+ years, Warhammer products for 14+. From what I've researched about Warhammer Online it is going to be very similar to Dark Age in alot of respects. One of the major reasons I stopped playing Dark Age was the fact of population imbalances. While these populations imbalances might not be an issue for a large portion of the day, a guild that is in another time zone, say Australia playing on East coast US servers could completely and perpetually imbalance a server. You take over the enemy realm every day, just so some off hour players will log on and take it all back and more with 1/10th the people and 1/10th the time cause its off hours and there is no one on to stop it. So, the question, what percautions is Mythic taking to stop players from taking advantage of time zone differences? Backup question. I once made the statement that Dark Age was a game ahead of its time simply because there is no computer/server/backbone that can handle 400 players vs 400 players combat. Its been a few years so what steps has Warhammer done to elivate this kind of issue?
If you knew the history, you'd know that warhammer was actually before war craft... and as most warhammer 40k board-gammers will know, warcraft was (kind of) a rip-off of it... not the other way around.
But i would expect that warhammer online will be as much a rip off of wow as wow was to daoc, daoc was to everquest... etc etc..
But having said that I would expect warhammer online to be very unlike wow/warcraft in the same way wow was from daoc and the same-genre games. In fact, im hoping its going to have elements similar to eve-online. But, we shall see..
..fuck up a perfectly good game like you did by introducing Trials of EverQuest Lite into Dark Age of Camelot?
Or will Games Workshop have all of your heads for heresy against the Emperor before you're able to ruin the game?