Warhammer
Online: Age of Reckoning is a wondrous-looking world that will feature strong gameplay elements
By Michael Lafferty
Mythic,
Games Workshop capture essence of the Warhammer license.
In many ways
the value and potential of a massively multiplayer online game (MMO) can be tied
to its intellectual property (IP, or in some cases, the license). In that
regard, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning has its bases well covered.
The IP is 23
years old, has fostered novels and other books, a plethora of board-wargaming
fans, a long history of toy soldiers, even a couple of video games based on the
40k universe, and now – at long last – its own MMORPG. The latter is courtesy of
both the owner of the license, Games Workshop, and the creative genius at Mythic
Entertainment.
In the
closing days of March, Mythic invited some journalists to its offices in
Virginia to take a gander at the game, which is in pre-alpha form. GameZone was
invited along and was able to get in some face time with the creators and a
little hands-on time as well.
Ok, let’s
clear something up really fast. Warhammer predates Blizzard’s Warcraft series.
In fact, there was a book called World of Warhammer published before Blizzard’s
highly successful MMO (the book was originally published in October 1998). Yes,
there are ideas that have been borrowed, but Warhammer is a unique world with
unique races, and as the online title will show, some elements that will
distinguish it as a strong MMO featuring sound concepts, strong visuals and the
potential for some of the best player-versus-player combat (under the touted
Realm-versus-Realm – RvR – system that Mythic is known for) in the MMO space.
Mythic knows
how to make MMOs, that much is certain. The company has been in the industry for
10 years, has built 15 online games under a variety of titles for various
companies, but really made its mark with the Dark Age of Camelot game, which
will be celebrating its fifth anniversary later this year. DAoC has 1 million
players worldwide, has had six expansions and continues to offer what Steve
Perkins (the director of marketing) termed the “definitive PvP experience.”
Steve stated
that there is “nothing hotter in the PC market than MMOs.” After offering a tip
of the hat to Blizzard’s World of Warcraft for what it has brought to the
playground, Steve said that “we hope to develop that in a big way with what we
are doing with Warhammer.”
“When you
hop into Warhammer Online, you are going to realize there is a war going on out
there and you are caught up in it.”
Everything
in the game is predicated on the fact that this is a world at war. There are six
playable races introduced with the initial launch of the game – orcs vying
against dwarves, high elves at odds with dark elves, and Chaos versus the Empire
(humans).
At that
point in the presentation, Steve gave over the stage to … well, Noel Coward once
coined the phrase about “mad dogs and Englishmen” (the poem is entitled
precisely that) – in the case of Paul Barnett (who bears the title of design
manager) you can skip the “dogs and” bit and go straight to “mad Englishmen.”
Paul is the one that is charged by Games Workshop to make certain that Mythic
does not stray from the Warhammer concepts and universe. He is quite “mad,” but
in that fun-to-listen-to way simply because he is passionate about the game and
designs he is bringing to it. He began by trying to explain to the room full of
North American journalists what Warhammer is at its core.
“It’s very,
very English,” he said. “It is so English that when you try to explain it no one
understands it.”
“Warhammer
is not a thing, it is an idea,” he said. “There is something in America that is
the same – it is Batman. It is an idea. Batman is a bloke in a cape, with a
butler, that fights crime in Gotham City. The point is Batman is changed to meet
the media it is in (films, toys, comic books) but it is always the same – a
bloke in a cape, with a butler, who fights crime in Gotham City.”
“MMOs are
not computer games – they are very close to toy soldiers,” he said.
Oh, how?
“”An MMO is
about skill, commitment and imagination. In an MMO you live the experience all
the time – a computer game is a packaged experience; an MMO is a hobby
experience. We are making an MMO/Warhammer hobby. It costs money to play our
game; it costs time to play our game. Commitment is everything. The more you
commit the more you will get out of it. We are not asking for your money, we are
asking for your soul.”
Ok, perhaps
a little over the top, but the point Paul was making is that “skill, commitment
(on the parts of players and the developers) and imagination equals hobby and
that is what we are making.”
He said
that, in three words, Warhammer is “epic,” “heroic,” and “struggle” in a
perpetual world with a perpetual war occurring. Players are part of the story
and can make a difference. In the RvR portion, players can work through the
preceding levels to get to the point where they can command a huge army, march
to the gates of an enemy capital, “blow the doors off, burn the city, capture
the king and throw him into a cage, and gloat.”
The game
will feature competitive PvE (Player-versus-environment), as well as capture the
flavor of the IP. For example, you will see carrion picking at dead bodies, and
the distant landscape may hold a tower that beckons for exploration. Character
customization is not about “the minutia of manipulating nostrils,” stated
Producer Lance Roberston, “it is about being able to identify characters from 20
feet away” by what they are wearing.
Orcs may
wear dwarf beards on their belts, or decorate a back rack with skulls. The idea
is if you see a player character, you should know about what class they are and
what level.
Content
Director Destin Bates spoke about the three racial pairings in the game (orcs/dwarves,
et cetera with the overview in RvR being orcs/Chaos/dark elves versus
Empire/dwarves/high elves), with 1,800 quests in place at launch. Do not expect
the quests to be different versions of the same ‘kill 10 rats’ quest, but rather
will be dramatically different for each race while encompassing the ‘flavor’ of
each race. The categories of quests will lead players into PvE areas, PvP areas
(RvR) without having to participate in PvP and finally quests that are in PvP
areas and require PvP. However, the total game design will not mean that players
are required to participate in one element or the other. Players can quest and
level playing solely in RvR or solely in PvE, or a combination of the two.
PvE quest
types include public quests, conflict (takes place in art-concentrated areas
known to the developers as epicenters), branching quests (in which players can
help determine their own ending) and quests off the beaten path that can be
discovered through exploration (known as “Christmas” quests) that generally
offer a large monetary reward for low effort.
There are
also four levels of PvP – skirmish (incidental zone-based combat), battlefields
(objective-based in the static world), scenarios (instanced,
point-based/objective-based battles that may feature NPC allies to reduce wait
times) and campaigns (in which you might be able to storm that capital city).
Paul popped
back up to address some of the game systems and said that Warhammer will feature
an asymmetrical career system, though there will be some flexibility involved.
Each race will have approximately four archetypes, but everything is tailored
within the spirit of the IP. The combat is broken down into three parts, as
well. First there is the strategic part in which players can select from a
tactics menu, slot the tactics in the hotbar (the tactics are akin to self buffs
and may include +5 to fire spells, or +5 to range) prior to going adventuring.
Stage two is the hotbar slotting attacks and other skills, and stage three is
the morale system. As players fight, they can gain morale, which grows and can
lead to unleashing moral-based skills. Work the meter all the way up to the top,
and you get an ‘Armageddon’ type skill.
“As you
progress through the career system, you will get new morale skills,” Paul said.
Greg
Grimsby, the art director, talked a little about the look of Warhammer. His
first point was that facial animation is coming to MMOs, giving the avatars
personality and allowing them to emote. There is a face cam in the UI so you can
see the state of your character’s mood. If your dwarf dies, don’t be surprised
to see that face become a skull, albeit still wearing a beard.
Greg said
that the guiding principles behind the look of the game were to ‘accentuate the
Warhammer IP, create detail-rich artwork, exaggerate and go for personality over
realism, and induce the awe factor (with no boring artwork).’
As mentioned
previously, tack-ons are the customization tool, helping players define the look
of their avatars, but there are other race-specific attributes. Orcs, for
example, will grow in size and muscle mass as they gain power; dwarves will get
longer and more elaborate beards.
It all goes
back to the IP. “We are pulling from 24 years of rich visuals,” Greg said.
“Players
don’t want to play the mundane,” Greg said. “Exaggeration is a way to shock them
in a ‘woah! I haven’t seen that before’ way.”
Once the
presentations were done, it was time for a little hands-on with the game.
Bearing in mind that Mythic acquired the license in May of 2005 and the work
began a couple of months later, the game was in amazing form. The controls were
intuitive, the world was wondrous and the limited gameplay was a lot of fun.
Because the
dev team is creating the game in pairing phases (first is the orcs and dwarves,
followed by Chaos and Empire, and the high elves and dark elves last), beta may
be up in late summer. The game is currently on track to release in 2007.
Warhammer
Online: Age of Reckoning is about war. Crafting is focused on warfare; there
will be transportation for each race (orcs may travel by catapult – fun,
entertaining and keeping within the IP); and at the core of this all is a rich
sense of fun.