Just the other week there was an announcement from Mythic Entertainment that they were going to be reducing the amount of content in Warhammer Online for launch. Four classes were culled, bringing the number down to 20 overall (10 on each side). Also, the capital cities for the dwarves, elves, orcs, and dark elves were all removed. I hadn't played WAR since Gamers Day 2007 in Baltimore, but after talking to Mythic and getting a chance to play it again, many of my trepidations proved to be unsupported.

Probably the biggest concern (not only for me, but also for some of my guildmates) was the capital city changes. What was this going to mean for Realm vs Realm (RvR) — and more specifically, race versus race — combat? As an aspiring Orc, I don't necessarily care what those crazy Chaos guys are doing, I want to pound on some stunties! I mean, I don't mind going all out on humans or elves, but I'd prefer to go after my racial fear.

No worries on that. Racial combat is still in, and more importantly, it still matters. Each race still has its battlefields against its ancestral foes. If the very center between them is a line, the first zone in either direction can be called "tier one". The next two are "tier two" and "tier three" and these still act much the same way they have for a while - they change if your enemy takes them, etc.

Tier Four, however, has been greatly expanded. Now all six races have a fortress, bigger than any other keep in the game, that must be taken. If two out of the three races on your side lose their fortress then your capital can be attacked!

That's important, too. Cities gain a "city rating" as players compete in PvP and PvE combat — it goes up faster in PvP, admittedly. As the city gains more of a rating, more things show up that can help out that side, such as a powerful mage's tower for Chaos. If you don't want your enemy to have it, you need to go and knock it down. These are what they call "epic encounters", and you need to get them in while you have control of your enemy's cities, as cities have a time limit that they can be held for. The other zones do not, though they get harder and harder to hold as time goes on (you first lose your buff you gained for taking it, then your defenses get weaker, than the enemy gets a buff... this happens over a couple of days).

There have been a number of other refinements as well. The capital cities simply look great, as does a lot of the UI now. Each capital city has two dungeons. The UI is now COMPLETELY customizable — you can drag and drop, resize, do whatever with every window via a nifty interface.

They've added a feature called "open group". Basically, what this does is allow you to set your group to be "open". When you enter a zone, you can look for groups that are open, see how far away they are, and just click on them to join them - no more having to send tells or whatever else to try to get in. Guilds can use it as a trial period for new players, players can use it to quickly jump into public quest groups, and in general it helps encourage group play.

The sheer amount of different looks for the players continues to grow. Not only are there a lot of individual features for characters but there are other 400 sets of armor in the game already. And not only that, but you can also dye your armor as well — I guess I'm going to be stuck being purple again.

Guilds also have a lot of this customization. For instance, there are hundreds of guild emblems, and once a guild selects one, no other guild can take it. No more having people copy what your guild has! There are thousands of possible combinations for guild standards.

After hearing about all that I got a chance to jump in and play as a Witch Hunter for a couple of levels. In just a few minutes worth of play I earned a few new abilities, got a chance to snipe at enemies with a cannon, and basically already feel like a pretty tough guy even at the first or second level. I took my leave of the game after a couple of levels of play for the same reason why I'm avoiding the beta — I can't wait for it to come out and don't want to spoil it for myself!