WarCry: Were you inspired by other RPG/D&D/MMORPGs when you started to make WarHammer Online?
Robin Dews: Inspiration comes from many sources and so it is always hard to list them all. What we do for a living at Games Workshop is provide the products that enable hundreds of thousands of Warhammer fans and enthusiasts from around the world to enjoy the creativity, challenge and excitement that is tabletop war-gaming. However, all of the staff at GW are gamers and these include many role-players and computer game fans. Of course we'd had our own role-play system in Warhammer Fantasy Role-play (WHFRP) that had taken a rather more innovative approach than the standard class/race/level based approach of most RPG's and from both staff and customers we were aware of the popularity of MUD's and how they tend to attract fanatical and devoted followings. As a result, we watched with interest as the first large scale graphical MUD's - Ultima Online and Everquest - came into being.
Then about three years ago (seems like a lifetime!) we had a couple of meetings with Climax where they showed us a game engine that was able to render an ultra-realistic worldview and our interest was piqued! Although we'd often talked about doing a Warhammer game before, this time we saw the opportunity not just of doing a 'game' but also of realising a 'world' and this was a far more exciting prospect.
We then moved into a series of design meetings (read - extended arguable!) during which we tossed around many, many mad ideas about where we could go with a persistent world game and finally narrowed it down to a character-based online RPG.
Of course, as part of the process of designing and developing our game we've also looked at many - if not all - of the other major MMOG's - UO, EQ, DaoC, AC, AO etc. and they all have good and bad points. But our ambition was always slightly different. We never wanted our players to be heroes...we wanted them to be outlaw mercenaries and scumbags, living on the margins of a decaying, cruel and pitiless world, populated by ferocious beasts and strange and bizarre entities -what could be more fun than that?
WarCry: WarHammer started as a pen-and-paper role-playing game and now it's going to be a MMOG. How hard is it to make such a great transaction?
Robin Dews: That's not quite true... The first edition of Warhammer was published in 1983 as a set of tabletop battle rules - Warhammer Fantasy Battle (WFB) and the role-play system (WHFRP) came later. However, in our imaginings, Warhammer was always a world... The games designer Rick Priestley and artist John Blanche originally drew their inspiration from many sources including all European history 1200 - 1650 (the good bits with the Hundred Years War and the Spanish Inquisition!), the art of Dore, Durer, Bosch and Albrecht Altdorfer and of course not forgetting classic Monty Python films such as Jaberwocky, Life of Brian and The Holy Grail!
This vision of Warhammer as a 'world' has indeed driven our ambitions and in that respect, Warhammer Online is far more than a simple online version WHFRP. Of course the design draws elements from WHFRP, including the core of the skills and careers system, not using a simple class/race matrix to define the characteristics of the PC's and so on. However all of these have required a lot of modification to get them to work in an online game. At the same time, we've drawn many elements from the battles game. A good example of this is the 'Winds of Magic' mechanic that powers up all of the magic spells in the game. In terms of look and feel, we've also taken a lot of the imagery from a game like Mordheim. The look and feel of our player characters and many of the NPC's you'll encounter in the game draw their inspiration from this dark episode in the Empire's history.
I believe that MMOG's represent a genuinely new kind of gaming experience and although they draw many of their ideas and inspiration from role-playing games, computer MUD's and even play-by-mail games, they actually deliver something quite different. They are difficult, complex and very expensive beasts to deliver, but I believe that the combination of Warhammer's grim, dark and detailed fantasy background and Climax's technically innovative and visually exciting graphics engine and technology will make Warhammer Online something very special - something far more than the sum of its individual parts.
WarCry: Many MMOGs have bugs when they are first released. How "stable" will WarHammer Online going to be?
Robin Dews: Now there's a $64,000 question. Warhammer Online will be as stable as we can get it, but despite our plans for an extensive beta test, I can give no guarantees! Anyone and everyone who's ever been involved in the design, development or delivery of one of these games will tell you that no matter what they thought they knew, there were always more hidden tripwires ahead.
And of course the real headache, even if we get everything right, is that between our game servers and the game players there is the Internet. We might have bug free code and high speed, high bandwidth servers, but if your local POP is overloaded when you're trying to play Warhammer Online - it'll be 'our game' that is crap!
This all comes with the territory, but we'll do everything in our power to deliver as good a gameplay experience as possible.
WarCry: WarHammer Online is different from other RPGs; it was inspired by the Renaissance age and you can have guns in the game. If you have guns, (gunpowder) why is there a need to have bows? Why don't you have elves armed with a Colt?
Robin Dews: You are quite right; one of the things that make the Warhammer background very cool is that it is Renaissance fantasy world and not the usual Sword and Sorcery high fantasy. We like to treat it as a game of what if... What if all of Leonardo's ideas had worked and they'd had tanks, submarines and flying machines in mediaeval Europe? It makes the whole background slightly more interesting. At the same time, there were indeed periods in history where guns, bows and crossbows all co-existed. The thing with early firearms is that they were very far removed from contemporary or even 19th century guns. Black powder weapons of this period - late mediaeval - were all single shot weapons that had to be re-loaded by hand. This is not the sort of thing that you'll be able to do in the heat of battle. In the game, we intend for guns to be quite lethal, but slow and cumbersome to use. You can fire them to get into trouble (hopefully delivering a near fatal wound to that Orc before he gets too close!) or to get out of trouble (he's killing you...quick blow his brains out!)
Other than that, if you want to fire something with accuracy and range, then chose a bow or crossbow!
WarCry: You mentioned in other interviews that you were inspired by Monty Python when making the game. I just have to ask this; in what way did Monty Python influence you?
Robin Dews: What the Python movies do beautifully is capturing the twin ideas of dark horror and black humour and this is a theme that has run all of the way through Warhammer since its earliest days. If you don't have the humour then you end up taking your self very seriously indeed and that's not a good place to be when you are dealing with Orcs, Dwarfs and Elves!
At the same time, humour without horror offers no relief - it all just becomes a joke! The Warhammer world is a dark, horrible grim and gritty place, but that doesn't stop Bill King or Rick Priestley writing about it with a great deal of warmth wit and humour. Rather than contradicting each other, these two approaches are simply two sides of the same coin. It comes down to inspiration, imagination and having fun!
WarCry: Lastly, for how long do you think WarHammer Online will last before making a new game? Will there be other WarHammer games in the near future?
Robin Dews: This is the question I get asked most at conventions and shows - "what are you going to do next and are you going to do a 40K game?"
Right now, all of our attention is focussed on getting Warhammer Online completed, on sale and operational by next summer. Once we've gotten the game out to gamers and fans around the world and succeeded in building a thriving online community then we'll look at where to go next. Of course we've already got more than enough notes and ideas from this game that due to time constraints or technical reasons didn't quite make it into the final version.
As a minimum, we'll be adding new playable races and some new geographical area to the map along with quests, monsters and other cool stuff.
After that - the sky is the limit!
WarCry: Thank you for taking your time Robin
