Warhammer Online: From Tabletop to Online Desktop

This year's E3 brought an exciting chance to have a talk with Mythic-the company behind the successful MMO, Dark Age of Camelot-who are currently developing a game which its very name will make many table-top gamers quiver in anticipation: Warhammer Online.

Mythic's latest foray into MMO development is seeking to bring to life one of the most popular table top games in the world. So far it seems that they are working out a number of systems to ensure that Warhammer Online will make a strong impact-in more than just name.

To start with, combat in Warhammer Online is intended to be a bit more tactical than most online RPGs. Mythic has included a moral system to provide the player with a few extra options when in combat. As the player does well in a battle, their moral meter will increase. Along this meter are several icons, that if the meter reaches, enables a moral power-the longer the player waits to unleash this power, the more powerful of an option is unleashed. These abilities are meant to be epic in scope, becoming more impressive in looks and power as the moral meter fills up more and the player increases in level. The player can choose to unleash these powers quickly, but they may also wait to build up their abilities in more powerful bursts.

Also, characters in Warhammer Online will be able to take advantage of the tactics system. Tactics in Warhammer Online are essentially mini-feats that a player can enable on their character, providing different abilities such as bonuses to armor, bonuses to attack other races, and other such effects. As the character levels, more slots become available to the player, allowing them to use more and more powerful tactics, as more slots become available. Also, some tactics use multiple slots and they can all be used multiple times on a character, slots permitting. Players will have to make a choice on which tactics they want to use for battle.

One interesting feature found in Warhammer Online is the pubic quest system. While many games allow players to receive quests, often from NPCs, and then complete them, either solo or with a group, Warhammer provides another way of gaining quests. When a player stumbles into an area that has a public quest, that quest will become active, and all players within that area are free to take part of it. Players can work together to complete the quest and all players involved are rewarded, based on how much they contributed to the completion of the quest. These quests are often off the more beaten paths for explorers to find.

As Dark Age of Camelot was a game focused highly on player versus player combat-or Realm versus Realm combat as Mythic labeled it-Warhammer Online will be much the same. This game will focus on a number of different 'RvR' systems.

The ultimate goal of Warhammer, according to Mythic, is to capture the city of another race. To do this, one race will have to control the various zones leading towards the capital city. They will need to dominate in PvP and PvE in those zones and work their way towards the other race's city. Once there, a large assault for the city can take place. The assaults will generally include several senarios, such as breaking down the outer walls, then moving through the city, then attacking the ruler of the city. Along the way, players will battle with each other and the NPCs of the town. Once the ruler is defeated, he has to then be brought back to the attacking race's city. Once this is done, that city then belongs to the attacking race, until a reset happens and the race gets their city back.

Warhammer Online will also feature other types of RvR, such as Scenarios, which are instanced fighting arenas with evenly matched foes-like battlefields in World of WarCraft. However, unlike WoW, there is no waiting in line. When a battle starts, any open slots on either side are filled with NPCs until the two teams are even.

Mythic has also included another type of PvP, the objective based one. There are goals in the landscape for control by players, such as hearthstones-hotspots of chaos that players can fight for control over. These fights do not take placed in specialized zones, but instead in areas marked off by war-flags that players can see before stepping inside, giving them a choice to participate or not.

Also, there is also the ability for skirmishes-simply when players of opposing factions find each other and they start fighting.

It should be noted that there are a number of safe zones in the game, so while there will be plenty of fighting, players who do not wish to partake in PvP will not have too.

Mythic has proven themselves to be a capable company in the past and it looks like Warhammer Online should be able to carry them well into the future. The game has plenty of options for people interested in more team-based player versus player environments, with some interesting quest ideas, and a combat system that seems to be a bit more interesting than those found in past games.