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Warhammer Online Producer Discusses Game Features
BigDownload.com has a great interview with Jeff Hickman, Senior Producer for Warhammer online, that offers a great preview of many of the game's features. The interview spends quite a bit of time discussing the "RvR" (Realm vs. Realm) style of gameplay and what that will mean for players. "We generally start everything in our game with a thought toward PvP. PvP isn't the first thing we think of, but it's one of the first things. We think of Warhammer Online as a PvP game that also has monster and PvE content. So, when we balance our careers, we balance the content around player verses player, not fighting monsters. We balance the classes against each other. Then, instead of balancing those classes against the monsters, we balance the monsters against the classes. Our philosophy is to make the best PvP game in the world and build the PvE content around it. We know how much damage each class can do and take, plus all the utility each class can provide. So, instead of balancing each ability, we just need to modify the overall damage output and absorption of each career."
Basically, the support classes will sit there on autoattack until something dies five minutes later, as opposed to the mage/berserker class who will kill in three hits and move on. Brilliant!
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
So... what happens when the people who are there for lore and whacking monsters run out of content and start to complain or quit? Don't think that it isn't going to happen, or that they're going to be a tiny contingent-- just look at how Guild Wars has changed since Prophecies launched.
One idea that I can't seem to find addressed is this:
Lets say that on one server, the greenskins conquer the dwarfs, and get lots of shiny loot doing so. Eventually they get pushed back and the RvR thing restarts, but then the greenskins are given a slight advantage with better gear - wouldn't they continue to dominate?
Dude. You do know the game is called WARhammer, right? What do you expect from a game thats all about armies and killing eachother, and, well, warfare?
Because, you know, WoW obviously did everything in a completely new and non-stolen fashion. Yep. Everquest, Ultima, Clan Lords (hey, who remembers this one?), and all those other MMORPGs that came before it certainly didn't have every single feature that they did. Not at all.
But in all honesty, people get upset when a MMORPG doesn't completely rewrite the genre, but the best example of a game in the genre innovated exactly nothing.
In this game, WARhammer, you're very likely to find it centered around combat. This may not be the MMO for you. I think Mythic has done a good job of making the combat interesting though. There is an overarching campaign goal of pushing your enemy back into their own capital city, and then going in and taking that from them too. You will literally be able to run through their city streets looting buildings and setting things on fire. There will be the usual instanced scenarios, but there will also be many open world objectives, including huge keeps where you can bring out catapults and ballista while the defenders pour boiling oil on your guys who are trying to use a ram to break the main gate down. I think having a real purpose to the combat, some real results that you and everyone else can see, makes the combat a little less one-dimensional. Yes, if you boil it down then in the end you're just beating each other up, but behind that are some actual motivations and reasons that make you care about beating the other guys up. It won't be a case of playing capture the flag, you win, and you're popped back into the real world with nothing but a couple more honor points to show for it. Each scenario you win in WarHammer contributes to the overall goal of pushing your foes back towards their main city... as does every quest, every keep taken, every opposing player killed, etc...
If you want to look at a better balanced PvP game, look at Dark Age of Camelot, designed by Mythic before they made this game. They had very balanced PvP and took PvP balance seriously.
Another game that has really good PvP balance is Guild Wars.
WoW is a pathetic joke at balance. The developers made a choice to make the game completely gear-dependent, so it's very possible that if 2 level 70s duel each other, one of them might not be able to win just because his gear isn't good enough. That isn't balance; that's carebear PvP for little kids that need an "I Win" button.
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