After attending the Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning developer conference call all I can say is that they live their motto, "WAAAGH!" The media participants had previously submitted questions; this was a moderated call where the developers talked and we listened. Once the floor was turned over to them hilarity ensued with frequent anecdotes of who got caught by whom playing the game instead of working. Among the laughter and ribbing, we did receive some information regarding how the game was progressing.
Currently in closed beta, internal testing on mid-level Elven content completed and has opened targeted bits of game to get them tested. Specifically - testing of the high level campaign game - the keeps, the sieges and the scenarios.
A question asked was, "Are you pleased with feedback coming from closed beta?" The answer was in the affirmative and a few responses received the previous night were read including the following: "The terrain is incredible." "Using siege weapons is great…" "RvR is amazing." So yes, the team are very pleased with feedback at this time.
Quite a few questions centered around the differences between Warhammer and Dark Age of Camelot, in particular the RvR design. The developers - as one - agreed that they had learned from DAoC and have built upon that foundation.
"We learned how to balance. We learned to balance realms, classes and population." "We learned what was fun and what was not." "Warhammer learned from the foundation that DAoC built for us. But in Camelot there was only one front. WAR has three battlefronts. Not only open RvR battlefield, but scenarios (evenly matched instanced combat) and culminates in City sieges."
After discussing RvR, we segued into how players will coordinate groups and the expected sizes of these groups in City sieges. Warhammer, as explained is both cooperative and competitive play and the maximum size of a group is the minimum size of a guild.
"It's hard to remain solo all your life in Warhammer, you'll be missing out a lot of the fun. You stumble on a public quest. It's public. You don't want to be missing out on the fun do you? You participate. You meet people. You group up."
There are systems in place to keep one side from "winning" and continually getting stronger. For example, the advantage may be removed from the occupying side by spawning more guards as time of occupation lengthens.
"We've made sure that both sides are compelling and interesting, that they are balanced well, in order to make both sides as attractive to a player. There's no side that is unbalanced."
What about crafting: "What will it entail?" The answer: "We don't have time for bakers and candlestick makers, but we have time for butchers!"
Regarding end game content accessibility: Are you targeting top 10% or the average gamer? The answer to that was a resounding "Yes!" before they went on to elaborate. It would be easy to cater to the top 10% because they are loud, but to do so is a death trap we were told. It's about commitment and skill in the game; a matter of targeting everybody, so that it does not become about whether you can reach the goal but how long it takes to get there. We were assure that if you are one of the "top 10%" in the game you will certainly excel , but others will still have a "jolly good time".
How much playtime to reach the highest renown?
"A lot. While leveling is fairly quick, renowned leveling is much slower - killing other people and capturing keeps is difficult to get brilliant at."
A question was asked about the PvE game. Warhammer is a game of war and the primary design is to feel that War is everywhere. Depending on the side you select when you begin the game, you are immediately immersed in it. You either find yourself repelling invaders or rescuing villagers from invaders. PvE is played in close proximity to RvR. All the quests and systems are intertwined and the PvE play is in support of the war effort.
How do scenarios work? They are instanced, balanced, and geographic. You will have to go somewhere to first initiate, then will be instance will be created. You won't find yourself fighting newbies nor players 10 levels higher than you. We were then given a description of a scenario by name of Murderball - you grab it and a pillar of light shoots up showing who's got the ball. The target ring changes, all sorts of visual cues show where the ball is. You are incredibly powerful while you have the ball in your possession, but it kills you over time.
Then we heard about guilds. Guilds are critical to the overall success of the game. In WAR, guilds cannot remain static. They have to be a vibrant, living part of the world; everything you do is for the benefit of your guild. Guilds will level and unlock things like the guild banner system - an actual tool that a standard bearer can plant in the ground and throw out an are-of-effect morale buff. Guilds can also claim keeps and objectives. Larger guilds may have an advantage in that they can gain experience faster, but it will be not a massive advantage.
That seemed to segue into Zerg prevention mechanisms and we were assured that there were ways of handling Zerg groups with some of the devs echoing in the back ground, "Catapults! Catapults! Siege machines! Catapults." Basically, if you know what you are doing, mass numbers mean nothing more than easy kills. Boiling oil down ramparts, and catapults all do massive damage to massed numbers.
There are four types of war machines in game:
Every machine has a specific method of operation which is akin to a mini-game. Players will have to learn to use and become good at using war machines.
Finally, the question had to be asked, "When is launch?" To which much laughter was evoked as well as cries of "Fall 2008!" "Fall 2008!" "Did I mention Fall 2008?" "Yes! Fall 2008!"
The former head of developer relations for the Stratics Network, Carolyn Koh has years of experience covering the MMORPG genre. Carolyn first started playing games such as Pong & Moon Buggy on the 8086, and arcade games like Ms. PacMan, Centipede, Red Baron and Joust before graduating to text muds through University computers and Doom on the LAN in the Engineering department after office hours. She claims she didn't frag the guys. Carolyn enjoys reviewing casual games and children's games for us. She also maintains a staff blog commenting on the emails crossing her desk that touch on the gaming industry in one form or another.
