On Wednesday evening, MMORPG.com Managing Editor Jon Wood attended a press conference for Ea Mythic's Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. Today, he recaps the information for us in this article.

On Wednesday, a number of press outlets were invited to take part in a telephone press conference with the guys from EA Mythic who were there to talk about their progress to this point in development.

While a lot of what was said was information that we have reported on in the past (there were a number of outlets there that have not had the same opportunities to cover the game as we have had), but there were some gems in there on subjects like the lorebook, sieges, updates and more!

Within minutes of joining the call, I could tell that this was going to be another typical Warhammer event, making best use of the controlled madness that is the Warhammer promotional team of Paul Barnett, Jeff Hickman, and Josh Drescher. This time, they were joined by Adam Gershowitz and Destin Bales.

Read more here.

Curious timing for this press conference with the eyes of the MMO world focused squarely on Age of Conan and their pseudo-open beta... OK, I guess it's not curious at all.

The game still looks and sounds fun.

gunna be fun on the bun....wait it alrdy is!

Curious is a nice word for it.I'd call it ..let's throw out a few crumbs and try to stay in the spotlight call.

I wouldn't be worried if I was EAMythic. Who cares if AoC releases earlier. Anybody remember what happened when EQ2 released a month before WoW? Yeah didn't help Sony one bit. In the end the superior product will win the day. EAMythic is taking a page out of Blizzard's book by releasing the game when it's ready. Funcom on the other hand is following the same playbook they used for anarchy Online and anybody who was there to witness it knows how that will turn out for them.

Originally posted by Deathstiny

I wouldn't be worried if I was EAMythic. Who cares if AoC releases earlier. Anybody remember what happened when EQ2 released a month before WoW? Yeah didn't help Sony one bit. In the end the superior product will win the day. EAMythic is taking a page out of Blizzard's book by releasing the game when it's ready. Funcom on the other hand is following the same playbook they used for anarchy Online and anybody who was there to witness it knows how that will turn out for them.

Exactly. If anything, the little "fileplanet pay for a CHANCE at open beta" then making excuses, then limiting it to the starter area via 13 levels, hurt the publics view on AoC. I was going to try AoC on launch... but.. i have to say now im going to wait for reviews and decide.. but i probably wont. War just looks/sounds very good.

Bah... the count down to E3 is started... we're gonna see more and more developers trying to grab a bit of spotlight so that they get extra coverage during E3... I'm sure this press conference is not unrelated to the AoC launch but really... these guys are a few months away from release... there's nothing unnatural about trying to make some waves here.

And frankly I've seen much more pathetic attempts at attention grabbing from developers in the past... Like when NCSoft decided that they were going to "unveil" 2 Tabula Rasa logos per week up until release... seriously that was really sad. I've seen plenty of "3 screenshot releases" from AoC too... not as pathetic but still a little lame.

All in all for anyone following developement on WAR... you really cannot complain about the shortage of info coming out of EA Mythic... all the newsletters are filled with 50+ screenshots and concept art (which truely looks awsome) and Paul does a good job of sharing info on features, whether you like his style of delivery or not (I do). It was very surprising for me to see them release so many screenshots of stuff that is still in developement... without any lighting effects or fog or environmental shading... generally big companies like EA are way more secretive.

AoC looks like a really good game and the innovative combat system with mounted combat is very exciting. The crew at Funcom however are pretty bad on the marketing side of things. The staff sent to public events often comes off as overgrown 14 year olds with very giddyish attitudes towards their M rated content. Their main PR guy is ridiculous... he said in an interview when asked about nudity (paraphrasing) "Actually many female journalists come to tell me they're excited about the prospect of playing a sexy character"... yeah right lol... AoC looks good but even if I get a kick out of em, I still think Funcom's PR generally does the game a disservice...

Anyways... I'm sure both games will be succesful. AoC is more innovative while WAR seems more reliable in terms of providing content and stable and proven game mechanics (and I can't say no to leveling though PvP).

Really waiting for this, hope they can tweak it out and ready so they don't have to delay releasing the again.

Originally posted by Romse

Like when NCSoft decided that they were going to "unveil" 2 Tabula Rasa logos per week up until release...

Actually, thats 'Richard Garriot's Tabula Rasa' to you. Dont ever forget that, its a very important bit.

The Witch Hunter in the picture has a nice sword. I want it. Looking forward to this game, glad you guys will be covering it up until the release

WAR doesn't interest me very much because I found DAOC and its RvR(tm) system to be rather boring and when I played, practically non-existant.

I don't usually bad mouth games I don't plan on playing, but a quote in there struck a chord in me in regards to games that focus so much on PvP:

[quote]Jeff told us that his wife, who plays the game, really enjoys tipping oil onto the attacking men. "She giggles with glee," he said.[/quote]

That SOUNDS great!

Except...

What if you're the attacking men? Is it fun to have boiling oil poured upon you? In PvP, what one person can do to another, they can do right back. So while the act of pouring boiling oil on someone may be great fun,  is the act of having boiling oil poured upon you also fun? Somehow, I doubt it. That's always the problem with MMORPG PvP. While some might enjoy having boiling oil poured upon them, they are few and far between.  So, who then do we get to man said battering rams? NPC's? So now we've gone from PvP to PvE again....

And the circle is now complete and the student has become the master as we meet for the first time for the last time.... to borrow a spaceballs quote.

This game is begining to look and sound fantastic. The more I read on it the more I want to play it. Outside of Stargate Worlds and Star Trek Online this game appeals to me the most .

Originally posted by Romse

Bah... the count down to E3 is started... we're gonna see more and more developers trying to grab a bit of spotlight so that they get extra coverage during E3... I'm sure this press conference is not unrelated to the AoC launch but really... these guys are a few months away from release... there's nothing unnatural about trying to make some waves here.

Eh, from the early looks of it E3 is gonna suck this year. Activision and Vinvedi have jumped ship from the ESA (who runs E3) followed shortly by the announcement that NCSoft, Codemasters, id and Her Entertainment are pulling out of E3 as well.

Yes it's fun to have boiling oil poured on you.  Just like it would be fun as a seiger to squash someone with a catapult stone.  Those are some of the risks you would take if you were seiging or defending a castle in medieval days.

Might as well say, 'is it fun to have someone punch a dagger into your kidneys?'.  That happes all the time in standard PVP games.  In PVP it's better to do unto then to be done  upon, but the risk of being done upon is what makes it exciting.

i just hope to the love of god  that the EU servers will be of the same quality as the US servers and vice versa

Originally posted by eric_w66

WAR doesn't interest me very much because I found DAOC and its RvR(tm) system to be rather boring and when I played, practically non-existant.

I don't usually bad mouth games I don't plan on playing, but a quote in there struck a chord in me in regards to games that focus so much on PvP:

 

[quote]Jeff told us that his wife, who plays the game, really enjoys tipping oil onto the attacking men. "She giggles with glee," he said.[/quote]

That SOUNDS great!

Except...

What if you're the attacking men? Is it fun to have boiling oil poured upon you? In PvP, what one person can do to another, they can do right back. So while the act of pouring boiling oil on someone may be great fun,  is the act of having boiling oil poured upon you also fun? Somehow, I doubt it. That's always the problem with MMORPG PvP. While some might enjoy having boiling oil poured upon them, they are few and far between.  So, who then do we get to man said battering rams? NPC's? So now we've gone from PvP to PvE again....

And the circle is now complete and the student has become the master as we meet for the first time for the last time.... to borrow a spaceballs quote.

 

If you had read or played anything on DAoC you'd already know what its like to RvR, I can't accept that you actually HAVE played DAoC because RvR was such a huge part of that game that there is no way you found it "non exsistant"

thats like going on WoW and saying WHERE ARE THE QUESTS?! 

NPC's in DAoC SELL you the items to make siege equipment, Siege is a craft.

I'd bet that a Dwarvish Engineer is going to be pretty good at it. 

And having oil poured on you for attacking a keep is probably pretty standard pratice, If you don't want oil poured on you, then don't attack their castle!

"Oh it won't be fun to be set on fire."

Yes lets all play games where there is no combat then! cus its no fun to die sometimes and its not fun to fight someone who has an advantage so lets just go play The Sims.

Oh wait they're discontinuing that game from lack of interest.

You had nothing constructive to say.

Hurray for more Warhammer!

I've read about this telephone conference a couple of times at various sources, but it is interesting to read all the different perspectives.

They all seem to point towards one thing:

The hype surrounding this game is astonishing.

Is it hype for the sake of hype? I don't think so.

I've played MMOs and followed the genre for a long time. I'd like to think that I've developed a pretty good idea of what tends to work in MMOs, what players tend to like, dislike, etc.

That being said, I really feel like Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is going to let us have our cake and eat it too. I'm confident they'll deliver on the hype.

I'm sure it won't be 100% on day 1, all games have their growing pains, but I really do have faith that this game will live up to the hype. A lof that confidence stems from the attitudes of the EAMythic trio and my interpretation of the things that they say.

I think they REALLY do know what they are talking about, that they really are the best in the industry at what they do.

I'm hopeful.

Mythic really are a great studio this looks like it's going to be the slick polished and above all properly designed title this year. Still hoping that Spellborn might surprise and that Darkfall might even ship.

More immediately I hope that Conan provides entertainment until then. Sadly it looks like that it is a similar state of advancement as WAR so it  looks like its going to be paid beta. I hope its fun regardless.

Plz say me, from were need get this game.

Originally posted by eric_w66

 So, who then do we get to man said battering rams? NPC's? So now we've gone from PvP to PvE again.... 

Cheers!