# Warhammer Online



## Foxtale (Jul 25, 2006)

Coming up fresh from a merger with Electronic Arts, it seems that Mythic (read: EA Mythic now) is going down the right track to making a great game and throwing another splash into the world of MMO's. I guess following the massive successes of Lineage I and II, as well as World of Warcraft and Guildwars, the MMORPG industry is blooming. And the only thing I can see that could stop it is a sudden drop in interest, which would cripple it. *Touch wood.*

Warhammer, our favorite game from our not-so-benevolent gods in Games Workshop (another price rise? Nooooo!), is sighted to hit shelves in 2007 as an online RPG. There was, at one point, another Warhammer online, so very long ago. It died from lack of interest and being a poor game. Hopefully Mythic will keep our hope going like an eternal flame, setting fire metaphorically to the entire games industry.

Like almost all MMORPGs, you will have the choice between a number of races (six to be precise). Three good races directly opposed with their anti-races: Dwarves against Orcs and Goblins, High Elves against Dark Elves, and I don't know what the last races are, though I've seen some concept art for skaven. Perhaps Empire will show its head.

Each race has its own basic classes, which seem to revolve around the classic Light Fighter, Heavy Tank, Offensive Magic/Ability Caster, Defensive Healer setup. From there, it is planned that through your actions in the game you will be able to boost your way up to different classes.

You will have missions as in WoW, though the goal in them is not personal satisfaction, or the satisfaction of a lone npc, but rather each action you complete or fail will in some way impact the war between the two factions.

As the trailer points out (splatting orcs) the game will keep a lot of its classic humour and tongue in cheekness. Like the Squig Handler, who births a squig, is eaten and controls the squig from inside its belly. There will be many a side quest. For instance, one of the missions given is to make a catapult. You need a certain amount of wood, nails and goblins. You can get wood by chopping down trees, but if too many players chop down trees you get attacked by Dryads. Your involvement in the missions determines your reward, making people actually help instead of dawdle whilst you get bludgeoned (Staybackerism common in Guild Wars).

The thing I've found most interesting about the game is the complete customisation of characters. Not only will you be able to change looks, but armour pieces, weapons and such will be visible on your character. "Sure," you say, "but that's the same with WoW." No it isn't! Infact there is so much more to differentiate characters! Colouring armour like in GW, customisation of weapons, etching runes into them, dangling trophies and choosing where those trophies will actually hang! You could get skulls hanging in your beard if you so chose. The other interesting thing is how your character changes. Hair grows on dwarves depending on level, Orcs grow bigger, Elves become more imperial. It makes it easy to pick out someone from a crowd, because their character starts to represent all they've been through.

Anyways, it appears to be coming out on XBox, PS3 and PC, all of which will be in the same world. Awesome. The game will center a lot around the conflict, and PvP will be encouraged and at some times forced. Consider a mission where you *must* go through a PvP area to reach an enemy to kill or a treasure to hunt. It means you can actually have parties waiting for other parties to return with the treasure, then kill those returning parties, take the treasure and complete the quest for themselves. Or camping players will have to be defeated by getting a large party together to complete the mission. Combat will involve mass battles between the two sides, with players encouraged to join. Dogs of War allies balance out the sides, though nothing replaces a human player.

The graphics look amazing, and though the scenery is no better than GW or WoW, the very fact that it is the scenes from the books, from the games many of us may have fought in those areas... wow. It stirs my blood.

All in all, I eagerly await the next update from IGN and Gamespot, and I even more eagerly wait for what I've dubbed World of Warhammer to come out. And precious, precious beta testing.

Anyways, you can find more info here:
http://pc.ign.com/objects/748/748723.html


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## Crymic (Aug 13, 2006)

Really sad that EA bought mythic.. EA has a really bad history of support for towards online gaming.


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## Foxtale (Aug 22, 2006)

Hmm then I really hope that this will be different. I more took it in the terms that they wanted a slice of the action in MMOs.

And besides which, GW is alright with supporting its games, as proven by LotR which although very few people play it comparitively, it still remains in White Dwarf.


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## Crymic (Aug 22, 2006)

Well in different do you mean, being able to pvp anytime you want?
They wont have PVE,PVP servers seperated. It'll be seperated by parts of land that will all hold equal and rewarding quests. So no matter what you do you can benefit from both areas. Just have to see how it rides out.


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## Rahl Windsong (Oct 12, 2006)

The art and the character models look pretty awesome in this game. This makes me wonder, "Did they put too much into looks and not enough into game play?" I guess only time and trying it out will answer that.

Rahl


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## Green (Oct 12, 2006)

I really don't like MMORPG games (played SW Galaxies for a month a few years ago), but if I did play one, it would be this one  I would be a High Elf.


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