Warhammer Online: Interview Series

In our latest Warhammer Online Q&A, we talk to Joshua Drescher, Adam Gershowitz and James Nichols of EA Mythic about preparation for the latest Beta phase, whether they'll shut down again, careers and - of course - RvR.

WarCry: When you sack an enemy city, what type of bonuses and rewards will you get for doing so, and are these only for those who sacked the city?

EA Mythic: To get to the benefits of capturing an enemy city requires a tremendous effort from your entire Realm. We're still working on the exact rewards you get for capturing an enemy city, but expect to see buffs and items you can only get through siege and events that help to encourage Realm pride in all players.

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Joshua Drescher, Adam Gershowitz and James Nichols of EA Mythic team up to answer the latest set of questions on Warhammer Online: age of Reckoning. Population balance, respecs and other topics get their attention in this twice-a-month series.

WarCry: What tools will be available to help guilds manage their teams?

EA Mythic: We have an extremely robust set of Guild tools that will allow leaders and officers to efficiently manage and coordinate their members. These tools include a Calendar system, news feed, and an in-depth roster feature. These, plus the addition of the living guild system (your guild actually gains levels and benefits), make guilds an integral and rewarding part of the game.

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In today's Warhammer Online interview, we talk to Associate Producer Josh Drescher and Senior Designer Justin Webb who team up to give us a set of answers. This edition includes questions about the launch delay, longterm appeal, individuality and why they believe they will succeed where other MMOs have failed in recent years.

WarCry: Your big headline recently was the decision to push back launch. This is not the first time WAR has been delayed. Why do you believe this release date is one players can expect you to meet?

EA Mythic: MMORPG fans have come to expect top tier titles to launch smoothly with finished, highly polished content across the board. This second adjustment of the launch date is intended to give us the time we need to make sure we deliver a product that meets those expectations. We're all but finished with feature and system integration right now, but Mark Jacobs (Lead Designer and GM of our studio) wanted to give us months, rather than weeks, to polish, balance and tighten things up prior to launch. As a result, between the December relaunch of the WAR Beta and the second quarter launch of the game, we're going to be able to focus the entire team on making sure everything feels perfect, looks perfect and plays in a way that will blow gamers away.

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Warhammer Online Community Coordinator brought together some answers to our latest set of questions to the EA Mythic developer team. This time we learn about public quests, changes to their community team and some more insights out of the recent development letter update.

WarCry: In the last few months, the community management team itself has undergone a number of personnel changes. What will people notice about the way you deal with the community today vs. how it had been historically?

James Nichols: While change can be difficult, we feel it opens new doors and great opportunities, too. The community team is always here for the players, to keep them informed and to listen and respond to their concerns. They act as the eyes and ears of both the community and the dev team, and work tirelessly to keep both parties informed of what the other is thinking and doing. While the faces might be new, our approach to working with the best MMO communities around is not.

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In our latest set of questions and answers from EA Mythic's Warhammer Online development team, we learn about tactics, speed, storage, public quests and much more. As usual, the questions are answered by members of the WAR Community Team.

WarCry: Are their any speed buff, or classes that increase speed like the Minstrel in DAOC?

WAR Community Team: All players have a default sprint ability which allows a short period of increased speed at the expense of your action points, in addition several classes also get an enhanced sprint which uses fewer action points and allows you to run faster than the standard sprint.

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The latest batch of questions and answers from EA Mythic about Warhammer Online. Obviously, this batch was conducted before the recent decision to close off their Beta for a couple months.

WarCry: We know that tactics can be switched out as you need them, are there any plans to allow respecs for other things you gain by leveling? If so, how?

WAR Community Team: We are looking at a couple different options for respecing your character down the road, since no one wants to be locked into a character they are not happy with.

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Today we get back on track with our Warhammer Online Q&A series. This time Matt Lowery asks five questions of the development team, that look at PvP, Public Quests, tactics and more.

WarCry: Public quests are designed for many people in the same area to participate in. Are these encounters dynamic? For example, if I am in an area with only 2 other players, will the game scale the public quest for how many are present? If not, how do you plan on adjusting these as players level are there are fewer lower level players in areas?

WAR Community Team: Public Quests are not dynamic; they're designed for a certain range of players, both in number and in level. As for adjusting them based on population, that's something we'll have to look at down the road when we get to that point in the game's life.

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Our bi-weekly Q&A series continues today with Richard Duffek's answers on five important questions. He discusses group sizes, customization of guild banners and much more.

WarCry: Group sizes seem to be set to 6. For raids, or large encounters, how many groups do you need to take on things like the Bloodthirster, or other epic mobs?

Richard Duffek: We will have a system in place similar to DAoC's Battlegroups, where you basically have a "group of groups" taking on large encounters. Different encounters will be geared to different sized BGs, but that's something we'll be tweaking through beta as more and more testers throw themselves onto the giant pile of corpses surrounding the Bloodthirster's feet.

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Richard Duffek is the Community Manager for Warhammer Online and today once again submits to his regular barrage of questions from our own WAR Site Manager Matt Lowery. This week, Richard chats about customization, travel, public quests and more.

WarCry: In all the videos we have seen, the Empire seems to have a similar look. Can I make a dark skinned Empire character? Are there any color choices for the Orcs, Dwarves?

Richard Duffek: There will most definitely be various skin tone options for the different races. Some races will naturally have a wider range than others, but we realize how important customization is to our player base and we want to give you as many options as we can

That being said, we haven't integrated ANY of the character customization elements yet. Everything you're seeing at this time is effectively a placeholder/test model.

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Today we come back with five more questions and answers from Warhammer Online Community Manager Richard Duffek. Within, we get answers from the EA Mythic employee on things like siege, instancing and playing together.

WarCry: With each race having its own starting lands, how easy will it be for me, as an Orc to team up with my friend who is playing Chaos?

Richard Duffek: Technically one of you could go to the other's starting land almost immediately. If you know your way around the game, you can run through the starter areas to the first warcamp and travel from there to your capital city. From your capital city, you can travel to your friend's warcamp and run down to his starting area. For the more patient types, by playing through the starter areas naturally, you should get there within about ten hours of gameplay.

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In the third installment of our twice monthly Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning Q&A series, Community Coordinator Richard Duffek gets talks about lore, the kinds of quests, instancing and much more! We've also got an exclusive new screenshot to go with it.

WarCry: Without the extensive use of instancing, how will you handle certain areas that are camped for XP or loot, how will you make sure people aren't sitting around waiting for a spawn?

Richard Duffek: Really, the game is being built in such as way to alleviate this problem. You'll certainly gain items from killing monsters, but the best places for loot and XP are going to be RvR and Public Quests. It is near impossible to camp in RvR and we want you hanging around to participate in the Public Quests. PQs are at their best when a group is present to complete all the stages.

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Richard Duffek - Warhammer Online's Community Coordinator - drops by for the second in our exclusive run of twice-monthly interviews. Every few weeks we'll catch up with Richard to go over the issues of the day in Warhammer Online, EA Mythic's upcoming MMORPG.

WarCry: The tabletop game allows you to customize your units color, look and equipment. We know as you level your look will change. Can you talk about some of the options you have to capture the imaginations of those who loved painting their miniatures in terms of character customization?

Richard Duffek:: While there will indeed be a lot of freedom in the actual character creation, much of the customization will come while you're actually playing the character. The trophy slots on your character are probably the best example. All throughout the game you will find various trophies that you can hang off of your character in many different manners. They will be purely cosmetic, only there so you can personalize how you want your character to look. Want a dwarf skull hanging from your belt? You can do that. Want some dragon teeth mounted on your shoulder? Sure. We understand how important individuality and customization is to the average MMO player and are definitely striving to provide as much of it as we can in WAR.

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Today we kick off a brand new feature. Every couple weeks, we'll have five questions and answers with EA Mythic that explore Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. When possible, we'll also bring you some exclusive media from the game. Today we kick off with answers from Community Manager Richard Duffek and two exclusive screenshots!

WarCry: Every company who has ever delayed a game says it is a good thing. Why did you push back Warhammer and why is it really a good thing for Warhammer and EA Mythic?

Richard Duffek: We decided to move the release date to early 2008 to invest more time in creating the best game possible. This means taking a few extra months to make sure the final product is polished and brilliant. The team has learned a lot since starting on WAR and the initial work on the Dwarf and Greenskin pairing was not as glorious as they believed it could be. So, they went back to this pairing, conducted an intense review of their work, and implemented new ideas and content. What has emerged is nothing short of spectacular. In the Dwarf and Greenskin zones there is now more war, more Warhammer, and more of what makes WAR glorious.

By extending our development time, we'll be able to do these in-depth reviews several times prior to launch so that all areas of WAR continue to benefit from the experience of ongoing development. In the end, we'll make a better game and players will be rewarded with a truly next generation MMORPG.

Read more at the link below.