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.

Comments

What makes you special?

[Gerad]

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.

Re:PvP End-Game

[Gerad]

As a followup question, how do you plan on balancing the endgame experience of casual players vs. the endgame experience of hardcores?

Player base

[imbaczek]

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?

User introduced art?

[RingDev]

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

What's in for the crafters?

[Opportunist]

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?

How customizable is the interface?

[Lord_Frederick]

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?

Mac/Linux versions

[BMonger]

Has any thought been given to Mac OS X and Linux versions?

Removing the grind

[Bugmaster]

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 ?

Re:How closely related is Warhammer to WoW??

[RembrandtX]

Wizards TOTALLY failed by becoming too popular :P lol I Met Peter Adkinson At the head office of GW in Lenton. He had come there to talk to Tom about how to manage the explosive growth of his company, and how GW managed it.

In the several months following this, they slowly imploded until a few years later the company was finally sold to Hasbro.

Workshop .. in the late 90's almost exploded. Its one of the reasons I left. The staff was underpaid horribly. [I was responsible for MILLIONS in sales a year, but was non commissioned, and made less than $30k a year - and THAT was after I help start Games-Workshop Japan.] The Board was losing focus, The market in the UK was starting to saturate, and no one there wanted to shift production to other companies because they were worried about quality control.

The company was also losing focus on its products. The imaginative minds at the studio were burning out. The company was starting to focus on profit, and bottom lines - and migrating away from the 'we hire hobbiests' motto they had previously.

We were expected to work longer hours, even to come in on weekend, for no additional money. Cries of 'you can be replaced tomorrow' were used by a lot of the managers who were simply in over their heads.

I was lucky, I had a degree in computer programming, and I left. Some of my friends and co-workers were not so lucky. [Some are still there .. some went to other gameing companies, including WOTC heh.] If you didn't toe the company line without question, you were put into 'go nowhere' positions. A friend of mine was 'promoted' to the customer service sales line after refusing to cut his hair. A former boss was told on his 10 year anniversery with the company that if he didn't cut his hair, he might as well quit. At the end I personally had a dick-head manager who literally compared his team to the hitler youth, and would expect the same obediance. He wrote me up one August afternoon for sitting down at my desk after lunch without my tie on. [In baltimore, in August, the tempratures can hit 102 easy, with 95% humitity pushing it to an effective heat index of over 115] That was when I decided to go elsewhere. That same manager was fired about a year later under similar circumstances and now sells real-estate.

It was a big transition from an office that employed 60 people in the US were you would come in wearing a t-shirt and jeans, to an office employing 120 people, and most of you were expected to wear a full suit and tie.

Apparantly its a nicer place to work now, people are better compensated, the company actually has health insurance now. Following on a number of lawsuits where they mistreated former employees, GW US is now required to keep a HR attourney on staff as a consulting position due to these practices.

For a real wage, I would go back, even with all the crap we had to wade through, I made some great friends there [80% of which VANISHED as soon as I left the company, which should tell you about how close knit they are there.] I just don't think they could afford me now :)