(Some of this has been covered already in our coverage from the EA Mythic Press Event of late January; the previously mysterious melee DPS class of Chaos have since been revealed, however.)

The Empire is humanity struggling to survive untainted, surrounded by enemies such as orks and the dark elves, and battling their very own corruption in the form of Chaos. They have the feel of medieval Germanic Europe, though with the threat of imminent extinction of the entire race thrown in.

They feature, as all races do, four classes:

1. The Knights of the Blazing Sun – heavily armed and armored warriors (aka “the tank” class)
2. Bright Wizards – mages that handle nothing but flames and fire. They’ve found that in their test RvR (Realm vs. Realm) combat, the Bright Wizards have been very popular. This is the “ranged DPS” class.
3. Priests of Sigmar – which in some non-custard based games (see our previous write-ups for more on the “custard” of Warhammer) would be called a healer. Instead, this is a vengeful, fanatical priest who builds up his ability to heal by pummeling people with his hammers.
4. The Witch Hunters – the melee DPS class, with two very defining qualities: a very wonderful “hat” which the Witch Hunter will have to earn at a young age (level), and the ability to torture the heretic. (Paul Barnett is very enthusiastic about the hat.) Torture, you say? Yes! He’ll pick out a target and torture him until he confesses to Chaos – which will then let everyone else pile their justice in on him!

1. The Chosen – the Chaos version of the Knights, these are men melded into their armor, built only for war, heavily armored and armed. You do NOT mess with these guys.
2. Sorcerers – These guys (think: ranged DPS) hover on a disk, they throw lightning. Much like the hats for the Witch Hunters, Paul Barnett is very enthusiastic about the disks. Sorcerers will never EVER get off those disks! The disk is kind of like a demonic shark, controlled, but barely, by the sorcerer. On the other hand, as the sorcerer gets more powerful, he’ll be able to control a more powerful disk.
3. Zealots – Covered in feathers, throwing heals and enchantments around, they’re crazed…for Tzeentch! He carries a dagger, fetishes, and probably a lot of birdseed.
4. And the new class just announced, the Marauders – these are the mysterious “melee DPS” class from our previous write-up. They have arms that will turn into weapons, such as hammers, axes, crab claws, twigs or tentacles (or not tentacles – tentacles are a touchy subject with EA Mythic!).

For both races, as with the dwarves and orks, the actual characters will change as they level up. (Dwarves beards get longer, or their braids get longer in the case of the females. Orks get bigger, because, well, war is what orks do!) The Empire will get fancier loot. It sounds like Chaos will get steadily more mutated, but it’s still not positively confirmed (as far as I know).

Don’t worry, though, about looking the same as everybody else. Two Witch Hunters or two Marauders of the same level will not look identical to each other – there will be plenty of room for customization.

Similarly, it looks like zones will take on the characteristics of the controlling faction. Each racial pairing (Dwarves-Orks, Elves-Dark Elves, Empire-Chaos) will start off with each race having their home territory, one territory that they control, and a “contested neutral” territory in between them. As one side marches through the others territories through RvR victories in the hope of conquering the enemy’s capital city, the zone will change somewhat. It sounds like one example would be the sky changing to reflect Chaos when it takes over a human zone.

Speaking of Realm versus Realm combat, “open field” combat will not be the primary way of winning points to help secure zones and objectives for your realm, “open field” being defined as simply side versus side combat with no fixed scenarios (much like the frontiers in Dark Age of Camelot, or certain zones in World of Warcraft). They do expect open field combat to be very popular, though, as people seem to enjoy it quite a bit. We were reminded that while you can claim objectives for your realm, unlike DAoC, you probably won’t be able to claim them for your guild – this is a game defined by your side of the fight, not your sub-group in it.

Instead, you’ll primarily get points through balanced scenarios. Since we’ve already played two of the Dwarf-Ork scenarios, they gave us an idea of two of the Empire-Chaos scenarios. “Nordland Fortress” (and I apologize if I misspelled that) will remind players of a certain battle scene in Lord of the Rings. It’s off the boats, fight through the ruins, and up to a large fortress. “66 Hellcannons” was described more like the last scene in Saving Private Ryan, fighting in a ruined city as explosions go off all around you.

You’ll be able to take trophies from your opponents, though they’re still deciding what those trophies would be. That’s one of the difficulties of the “Teen” rating that they’re trying to get with WAR.

In addition, some other things to remember about RvR:

• There’s no death penalty but time
• When you get to the enemy’s capital cities, there will be “loot piles” and other such things to get some of the better loot
• There is collision detection, though line of sight is not blocked by other characters
• There will be environmental hazards to overcome in the landscape
• Most casting requires the caster to stand still, though there will be a few “instacast” spells. And remember that all casters will have staves!

That’s easy. NO. No death penalties – just time. WAR is intended to be a game that you can jump into and play for just a few minutes, or for hours.

And to help with that short term play style – and something that will make “casual” players very happy – a lot of the emphasis in the PvE game will be on PQs, or “Public Quests”. These are quests that are defined by a geographic area (such as a zone), and that everyone in that area can participate in or not, as they wish. As you participate in them, your contributions are noted, and that helps determine what kind of loot you get.

In fact, there are five different loot distribution systems in WAR. They go from the very random – “you killed this guy, he dropped this, you get it” – to the very planned, as with the reputation system in the PQs and the loot available from capital cities and from enemy rulers. That’s not all, though, with the questing. You’ll also have quests that force you to make a choice. For instance, you may be tasked to return a sword to an NPC – once you get it, it’s up to you whether or not you actually return it or not.

(In their internal testing so far, the Public Quests have been extremely popular, so you can probably expect to see a lot of them, and a lot of support for them.)

We were lucky enough during the phone call to have Kate Black, the brand manager at Games Workshop for the Warhammer Fantasy IP, at EA Mythic as she was seeing what they were doing and working with them. She told us, “I’ve been impressed. I really like what these guys have done…they really have the spirit of the races.”

Indeed – you’ll even be able to fight famous NPCs from the core material! A lot of the small details from the beginning have been designed to be accessible both to people new to the Warhammer world and also to help the immersion for people who are long time fans of Warhammer. “We’re not just another fantasy MMO,” said Paul, “We’re the total hobby experience.” They also described themselves as the Led Zeppelin of MMORPGs – the “heavy metal” of MMOs.

We also got a few more “details” from them. You won’t be seeing NPCs talk out loud, like you do in games like Everquest 2. Instead, you’ll be presented with their dialogue in text format. A comparison was made to a presentation – consider when watching a PowerPoint presentation with a number of lines on each slide. Then think about what happens when the presenter insists on reading EVERY…SINGLE…LINE on EVERY…SINGLE…SLIDE…. Those of you in the corporate world are probably shuddering in your chairs right now.

Also, in keeping with time constraints (and lack thereof) in the game, you won’t need to travel somewhere on foot before being able to visit it via mass transit! Yes, no more sneaking through high level areas to get that horse route, or zeppelin station – you’ll simply be able to visit there right away.

Finally, someone asked EA Mythic about selling items in-game for real life money. As a studio, they’re against it, and will be working on building in protections against it. So those of you looking to level, sell, and leave, might want to keep that in mind.

So more of the creative details of WAR emerge! It makes some of us (such as myself) that much more eager for more details on the last two races (the Elves and Dark Elves, the insults about which I’ll withhold – FOR NOW) and, even more, the technical details of the game.