General Discussion

This past weekend. MMORPG.com's Joe Iuliani and Anthony Love attended the Games Workshop Games Day in Baltimore, MD. In this article, Anthony gives us his account of a hands-on preview of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.

Very few things give me cause to get up at 5:00am, but this year's Games Day put on by Games Workshop in Baltimore, MD was just such a day. Games Day is an annual event where players of Games Workshop's various miniatures based table top games compete for fun and prizes. This year, Electronic Arts was present with a booth devoted to the EA Mythic developed game; Warhammer Online, Age of Reckoning, and boy am I glad I was there!

Earlier in the day, MMORPG.com contributor Joseph Iuliani and I were lucky enough to have a chance to speak privately with Senior Producer Jeff Hickman and Design Manager, Paul Barnett. The details of that interview will be covered by Joseph. However, coming away from that interview, I can say that these two guys are both excited about and devoted to this game. Shortly afterwards they were both busy hosting an hour (plus) long conference about the game, attended by several hundred fans. I can tell they both love Warhammer and are striving to translate the table top game as best they can into a unique and fun MMO. To sum up their feelings on the game quickly Jeff says, "War is everywhere" and Paul says, "If you don't like war and killing, this game won't be for you". I really enjoyed meeting this comical pair who were more than willing to discuss their aspirations for the game.

Read the whole article here.

Sounds like he was having fun, although the whole golden "!" over the NPC to demonstrate the quest is a WoW concept, I think they need to come up with something different.

I hope the PvP will be as good as he says it is !

Man it sounded cool and makes me wish I was there. And for once I look forword to a game that has PvP, I hated WoWs pvp becouse ppl where just mean and it was all about the gear..... Ill save that rant for later. But this only makes me want the game more.

Is there crafting in the game...and if so please detail ?

BTW, it's called "Games Day," not "Gamer Day."  See http://gamesday.us.games-workshop.com/ .

Being a long-time Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 (the sci-fi version) player I bought my tickets months ago, so it was just an excellent bonus that they handed out cards at the registration desk containing promo codes for beta entry.  Entering the code gets you the "Baltimore Games Day Attendee" association.  Each card had a unique code, though, so don't expect anyone to be able to email you their code and have it work for you.

My wife and I didn't feel like standing in the line to try out the WAR beta (it was a couple hundred feet long throughout the entire convention) but they had a big-screen TV set up at one end showing onlookers a copy of somebody's monitor.  We stood and watched for a minute and it looked awesome... very fluid and action-packed.  People were running around charging up attacks and launching them at each other in nonstop action; the combat didn't look anything like DAoC where you run up to an opponent, stand facing each other, and fire off a move every 5 seconds or so.  People were getting launched to and fro by powerful attacks, awesome special effects were streaking by... very cool.  Reminded me of the rare times in DAoC's battlegrounds where two equal forces met by chance in the middle of the path and just laid into each other, rather than standing back and Nearsighting each other blind.

I'm not sure whether we're allowed to discuss what new stuff Jeff and Paul were revealing at the Mythic panel, but I'll say that defensive tanks will actually be USEFUL in PvP.  As far as "old stuff," Paul did a funny impression of the "button-masher cleric" from other games, poking a key in the air with one finger and yelling "I'm Healing, I'm healing, I'm healing, I'm healing-- BORING!" :)  He was trying to emphasize how the "healers" in WAR have to get involved in combat in order to be effective, so there's no such thing as a buff-bot.  In the Q&A session, one audience member asked whether a pure PvE player could enjoy the game; Paul said essentially that it will have the full complement of quests, dungeons, monsters and all that but it will all be tied into the war so don't complain that there's no "bread baking" or "ferret breeding" (his words). ;)  (He wasn't commenting on the presence or absence of crafting, just that such "peaceful" things as breeding ferrets are not in the spirit of Warhammer.)  There wasn't a ton of new info that came out of the panel, but the way Paul and Jeff spoke so vehemently about all the things that are going to make WAR stand apart from other MMOs left me feeling very certain that this game will kick @$$ in a major way.

BTW, look for the panel audience we were in to show up in the next podcast... their underpaid and overworked podcast guy was there filming, and we were made to do various comical things for the benefit of the camera. ;)

--Ditchdigger

Originally posted by Arawon
Is there crafting in the game...and if so please detail ?

Last thing I heard was, that it is planned, and that they have a great system in mind to include it.
Crafting, as everything, will somehow have to do with the war, so don't expect jobs as Bread-Baker, Fisher or something. Instead, expect things like Blacksmiths and the like.

But details aren't known yet, they keep it secret.

I so want to play the game, following it for well over a year now

Originally posted by Urza123
Sounds like he was having fun, although the whole golden "!" over the NPC to demonstrate the quest is a WoW concept, I think they need to come up with something different.

I hope the PvP will be as good as he says it is !

 Why come up with something new?, if the concept works use it, there is no point in reinventing the wheel for something that is an ease of use tool at best.

 Based on Jon's comments it sounds like WAR really does have a good change to be a great game, it will have competition but is still on my most anticipated list along with AOC and TCOS.

Hurry up already.. release it!!

1

Originally posted by Parsifal57
 Why come up with something new?, if the concept works use it,

Ahh good ol' "If it aint broke, why fix it"?
MMORPGs life story right there, and the reason why 98% of them are shit.