Ask the Warhammer Online Team

In my recap of 2006's GenCon event, I was somewhat unkind to Warhammer Online. They are far better people than I am, thankfully, and the folks from Mythic Entertainment are extending a hand to the members of the Slashdot community. We have the chance to ask them any questions we'd like about Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. We'll look through your questions, and pass on the best to the development team at Mythic. We've gotten assurances that responses will be attributed, too, so you'll know who is answering what. Whether you're a Massive game fan or an old-school wargamer Warhammer Online has to have something to interest you, so ask away. One question per post, please, and we'll post the answers as soon as we get them.

Re:uhm...

the only place on the web where Trolls are modded-up

Re:uhm...

A Warcraft rip-off (same way Lord of the Rings ripped off Dungeons and Dragons).

Re:PvP End-Game

As a followup question, how do you plan on balancing the endgame experience of casual players vs. the endgame experience of hardcores?

Re:PvP End-Game

Translation: "I liked Dark Age of Camelot better than World of Warcraft because it let me be a dick to other people. Will World of Warcraft give me the chance to be a dick? Or will it be a game for pansies -- which is what I think World of Warcraft is." This translation does not reflect the views of Homr Zodyssey or Zodyssey Publications, Inc.

What makes you special?

What's unique about Warhammer Online, other than the universe that its set in? This could be anything, really: design philosophy, new innovations in gameplay, new technical acomplishments.

Put slightly more bluntly, tell me why I should chose Warhammer Online over World of Warcraft.

Fantasy done to death

> What's unique about Warhammer Online

I was wondering this myself. There are already more fantasy MMORPGs than I can shake a Dextrous Fiery Stick of Warding +8 at. I know, the polls show that Fantasy seems to have more uptake than any other genre of MMORPG, but I really think it's more the marketing and gameplay rather than the actual genre itself. Perhaps the statistics are skewed because there are way more Fantasy MMORPGs than other genres and we simply ignore the ones that have already failed.

For novelty, why not a Warhammer 40K MMORPG? (That's the Sci-Fi version of Warhammer, for those of you who didn't know.) Sure, you'd still have battles planetside (I can't think of a MMORPG where fighting *doesn't* occur on the ground), but I have long envisioned space battles between capital ships/space hulks/craftworlds that may as well be cities (thriving trade, virtual real estate, etc), where entire decks can disappear without a moment's notice in a well-placed shot of heavy weapons fire. I envision subscribers also being able to play the role of individual pilots who are able to customize their fighter craft in accordance to their funds (or military rank). If Twitch Combat isn't your thing, that would be fine - you need not lead that kind of life if you don't want to.
I'd see a 40K MMORPG offering both kinds of combat: one where you rely on skills defined in raw numbers which you can develop through tradtional means (ground combat), and one which relies almost solely on your real-life reaction time (a la Wing Commander).

Solomon Chang

Re:What makes you special?

Put slightly more bluntly, tell me why I should chose Warhammer Online over World of Warcraft.

Why go for the cheap knockoff (WoW) when you can go directly to the game that they got their inspiration from?

You know how Orcs are green and go Waaaagh? You wouldn't, except that Warhammer did them that way decades before Warcraft. The only thing they're missing is a british soccer fan accent.

You know how Terran Marines have Power Armor that looks like platemail bellbottoms? Yeah, Space Marines from 40k first.

Zerg? Much scarier when they were called the Tyranids. Protoss? Wake me when they start calling theselves the Eldar -- and Dark Eldar -- again.

Pretty much everything in Warcraft/Starcraft up to Warcraft 3 (where it diverged) was inspired heavily from the original Warhammer/Warhammer 40k universes.

I know this is a bit of a harsh response, but for Warhammer fans this is a bit of a sore spot. 6 Mouths, and all that.

Re:What makes you special?

Why go for the cheap knockoff (WoW) when you can go directly to the game that they got their inspiration from?

So are you saying that Warhammer will offer a Genuine Treadmill(TM) instead of just a normal Treadmill?

Don't get me wrong, I like the Warhammer setting as much as anyone, but that doesn't change the fact that another shitty MMORPG with a different setting is still just a shitty MMORPG with a different setting.

I don't know about anyone else, but back in the days of Doom when computer games started to really become multiplayer I had dreams of logging into a massive online world one day. If me of the future had gone back in time and showed me of the Doom era the crap that they were passing off as MMORPGs in the future, people would be dead. I would have hunted down the first asshat that thought that killing 10^12 monsters for exp and l00t so that you can kill some more monsters was "massive multiplayer online gameplay". In hunting down that first idiot, I would hope to prevent the current crop of shit for game play MMORPGs out there.

The MMORPGs out there today are absolute crap. They are glorified mouse experiments where the stupid mouse keeps pressing a lever for a shot of dopamine until it forgets to eat and dies of starvation. If the best vision of a massive online world is an online world where the gameplay consists of mindlessly killing tens of thousands of NPCs to kill more NPCs with the occasional sub-game play distraction, the human race needs to be shot in the face.

Personally, I don't believe that this levelfest crap gameplay that we see today is the pinnacle of game design. So, my question is this:

Is Warhammer going to offer up some new game play that would not send me of 1993 into a homicidal rage seeking to prevent the creation of the first crappy MMORPGs, or is Warhammer going to offer up gameplay that transcends the brain damage causing "killing NPCs 4 l00t and 3xp" game play?

Why Is It For Me?

On a site like Slashdot, a lot of us are caught up in online RPG games and console wars. I read the overview of your game on your site but--like a lot of people--I'm not sold. What's the number one reason I should be interested in Warhammer Online? What do you feel sets it above the online successes out there and the average run of the mill games? It appears to have a lot of 'war' involved in it but is there any social aspects to your online game? Is there diplomacy in Warhammer?

Casual or Hardcore Gaming?

Will your game cater to the casual gamer (1-2 hours a week) or will it cater only to serious gamers (40 hours a week/second job)? How do you balance a game such that both players can play and feel the game is fair and satisfying?

Re:Casual or Hardcore Gaming?

Little bit of hostility there, eh?

How about the question - what will there be in end game that doesn't require commitment to a raiding guild?

I think most of the people who complain about a lack of casual content aren't actually that "casual." I realized that most of the people I meet who would label themselves casual still play probably 8 hours a week, at least, maybe even more like 16-20. What they mean is that they can't or won't commit to the specific times or effort required to be in a raiding guild. Even without the time issue, I know quite a few people who don't want to leave their small, homey guilds to go raid with people who are taking the game much more seriously.

It does not take long in wow to reach a point where you cannot advance your character without the help of 39 other people all meeting on a specific night, whether you call them hardcore or not. Wow has (finally) addressed this somewhat with the Dungeon Set 2 quests, but it took them a while, and they're still just a creative rehash of existing content, not a new dungeon. There is no reason they can't implement a 5-man dungeon with epic loot that has bosses undefeatable by five new level sixties, that could take several days for a small group of friends to complete. In fact, they seem to be doing just that in the expansion.

So what is going to be offered in terms of advancement for someone who would rather get a group of five friends together to go do something challenging than have to find 39 people he can put up with?

Player base

Do you want to chew into WoW's player base or are you targeting players from other games, most notably other Warhammer titles? If you're targeting WoW, what do you do you have to offer and do you think they'll really jump ship? And if you do convince players, how do you intend to keep them playing WH other than eternal grind for herbs or whatever?

User introduced art?

One of the most entertaining aspects of WH (IMO) next to strategy, planning, and decimating our enemies is the craft and care of the minitures. And one of the enjoyable parts of playing MMOs is the mod community, wether sanctioned or not. With DAoC there was a definate progression between Mythic and the Mod community. What started out as a non-existant link slowly became a colaboration between Mythic and the modders. Mythic introduced a tool (or information about the tool) to allow modders to impliment custom GUI solutions. An idea that has since been used widely in the MMO field.

Are there currently any plans to have a simlar system that would allow for the introduction of player contributed art to the game? Banners, skins, asorted textures, and the like? Such a system would allow players to not only take pride in their victories, but also in their craftsmanship.

-Rick

Re:How closely related is Warhammer to WoW??

Wizards TOTALLY failed by becoming too popular :P lol I Met Peter Adkinson At the head office of GW in Lenton. He had come there to talk to Tom about how to manage the explosive growth of his company, and how GW managed it.

In the several months following this, they slowly imploded until a few years later the company was finally sold to Hasbro.

Workshop .. in the late 90's almost exploded. Its one of the reasons I left. The staff was underpaid horribly. [I was responsible for MILLIONS in sales a year, but was non commissioned, and made less than $30k a year - and THAT was after I help start Games-Workshop Japan.] The Board was losing focus, The market in the UK was starting to saturate, and no one there wanted to shift production to other companies because they were worried about quality control.

The company was also losing focus on its products. The imaginative minds at the studio were burning out. The company was starting to focus on profit, and bottom lines - and migrating away from the 'we hire hobbiests' motto they had previously.

We were expected to work longer hours, even to come in on weekend, for no additional money. Cries of 'you can be replaced tomorrow' were used by a lot of the managers who were simply in over their heads.

I was lucky, I had a degree in computer programming, and I left. Some of my friends and co-workers were not so lucky. [Some are still there .. some went to other gameing companies, including WOTC heh.] If you didn't toe the company line without question, you were put into 'go nowhere' positions. A friend of mine was 'promoted' to the customer service sales line after refusing to cut his hair. A former boss was told on his 10 year anniversery with the company that if he didn't cut his hair, he might as well quit. At the end I personally had a dick-head manager who literally compared his team to the hitler youth, and would expect the same obediance. He wrote me up one August afternoon for sitting down at my desk after lunch without my tie on. [In baltimore, in August, the tempratures can hit 102 easy, with 95% humitity pushing it to an effective heat index of over 115] That was when I decided to go elsewhere. That same manager was fired about a year later under similar circumstances and now sells real-estate.

It was a big transition from an office that employed 60 people in the US were you would come in wearing a t-shirt and jeans, to an office employing 120 people, and most of you were expected to wear a full suit and tie.

Apparantly its a nicer place to work now, people are better compensated, the company actually has health insurance now. Following on a number of lawsuits where they mistreated former employees, GW US is now required to keep a HR attourney on staff as a consulting position due to these practices.

For a real wage, I would go back, even with all the crap we had to wade through, I made some great friends there [80% of which VANISHED as soon as I left the company, which should tell you about how close knit they are there.] I just don't think they could afford me now :)

Re:Warhammer 40,000 Version?

> Ya, right, nobody would ever want to be Eldar or Tyranid.

Tyranid Players would be soooo profitable for Games Workshop:

Tyranid Player: "Woohoo! My Hive Tyrant just made level 40, and now has a retinue of three Carnifexes with Flesh Hooks, Crushing Claws, Regeneration, and Acid Maw! I singlehandedly put together a Guild of 350 other Tyranid players, and I am so pwning this planet!"
Online Gamemaster: "Well, it so happens that you *did* pwn the entire planet. Your Guild, Hive Fleet Fafnir, is almost done sucking up all its biomass. It's time for all of you to climb into the Reclamation Pool now."
TP: "The Recla-what? You mean the disolvvy-looking stuff we've been dumping everything we've conquered into?"
OG: "Of course. That's what Tyranids do. Don't you ever read the Codexes? Tyranids digest *all* biomatter on a planet they're consuming... even their combat units at the end of the process."
TP: "B-b-but that's to reclaim my character's DNA, right? My character will respawn back in the Hive Fleet, right?"
OG: "It is indeed to 'reclaim' your DNA. No, you will not respawn."
TP: "I'll respawn on the next planet we attack, right?"
OG: "No, I'm afraid climbing into a Reclamation Pool is instant, permanent death."
TP: "But I paid $50 for this game. Everyone in my guild paid $50 for their copy!"
OG: "Then you all get to pay another $50. We at Games Workshop hope you have enjoyed your online planet-consuming experience." [drops character into Reclamation Pool]

I should start buying GW stock the moment this game comes out.

Solomon

EA asshatery

How does it feel to have EA suck the soul out of your studio and make you push your product unfinished with core feature removed since they are too 'risky' and/or will affect ESRB rating?

Re:EA asshatery

On a less rude note alone the same topic, What game design and content decisions have been affected by the EA take-over of Mythic?

Squeak!

Will it feature Skaven???
A playable race even?? Pretty please...

Platforms

So to compete with World of Warcraft you'll be supporting multiple platforms at launch right? Or is this just another Windows only game that will get a possibly half-assed port if the Windows version is profitable?

What's in for the crafters?

I'm a crafter at heart, in fact, I play MMORPGs to craft gear. So what do we loonies get? How do you want to avoid the two pitfalls "Making it so easy that everyone has some sort of crafter, and market prices plummet for everything but the bits that only the primary top guild builders have prints for (see WoW)" and "Making it so hard that you'd rather go with the once-in-a-lifetime-drop 'cause getting it is faster than finding a crafter who can build you something similar (see DAoC)"? Can I sustain myself crafting, or is it at best a hobby for people who have too much money already? Will crafted gear be, economically, be at least on par with drop-only gear?

Oh, only one question. Ok: Is being a crafter a choice that can keep you entertained and sustained by itself?

How customizable is the interface?

One of the best features of WoW is the way you can customize your entire interface and create custom modifications. Will players have the same ability to tweak the interface of Warhammer Online?

Mac/Linux versions

Has any thought been given to Mac OS X and Linux versions?

Removing the grind

What are you going to do in order to prevent the repetitive grind that most MMOs are [in]famous for ? How many quests in your game follow ye olde template of "kill 20 goblins and bring me their noses... but a goblin only has a 30% chance to drop a nose" ?

At higher levels, will your game require a massive investment of time into raiding the same dungeon over and over, in order to stay competitive with other players ?

Questions from an Ex-Workshoper

As a former workshop employee, both domestic and abroad, Here are a few Questions :P

1) How difficult do you find it to work with the studio ? Aside from the time differences, Having spent a little time there, I know how possesive the studio is of their IP, and overall mythos. In the past they [I almost said we] have been very difficult to work with from the vantage of software companies in this regard. [Even going so far as to turn down a brand new software company in the early 90's when they pitched a Humans vs Orcs fantasy game .. Blizzard was the company btw, who managed to release the software anyways to some moderate success :)] I know that recent mindsets on the board have stopped seeing video games as 'the enemy' and started seeing them as effective marketing tools to branch boys into 'the hobby', do you find this to be reflected through out the company as well ?

2) What kind of visuals do you work with ? Again, the paper files in the old Notts. studio were EXTENSIVE, I know that mythic has their internal art department. [A place I once applied to after being encouraged by friends who work there, oddly enough , I would have been perfect on this project, but thats neither here nor there ;P] Do your artists have some free reign ? Do you get to use source material from the GW design studio ? How tight are they on your artistic licence, and is it frustrating to work under those constraints ?

3) Has GW taken you folks to play paint-ball in Nottingham forest yet ? :)
4) Do you like the pub in the new head office ?
5) Are Jon Stallard and Chris Harbour still Beardy-Ol-Gits ?

Item Duping & Griefers

Item duplication is one of the many banes of the on-line RPG, what will you be doing to counter that kind of abuse? And frankly, what will you do to keep griefers in line?

My Questions

I ask many of these relative to WoW. This should suprise nobody, as any MMO hoping to compete with WoW should liberally compare itself with - though not necessarily model itself after - WoW.

1.) PvP:
- a.WAR seems to have a PvP focus. Is it possible to focus primarily on PvP and earn enough EXP from PvP so that I will not be forced to "grind up" *for* PvP like players are forced to do in WoW?
- b. In WoW, there are two clear channels of play: PvP and PvE, and PvE must be done to be competative in PvP. What kind of effort will I need to put into PvE to be competative in PvP? I ask this for the players who, like myself, do not want to put anything more than minimal time into PvE because we prefer PvP.
- c. Will PvP be balanced with items, levels/skills, or player skill in mind? IE: Who would win in a fight, the player with the most skill, the best gear, or the highest levels and in-game skills? Again, with WoW as an example, levels and gear are very clearly more important than actual player skill, which I find extremely damaging toward gameplay. Having to mindlessly acquire in-game stuff (I won't even say earn, because earning implies a skill investment as well as the MMO-standard time investment) to play the part of the game I actually like without constanly losing really, really sucks.
- d. What will make PvP in your game different from PvP in other MMOs, again, notably WoW. Will you implement Warhammer's gameplay depth (formations, terrain, etc) to WAR?
- e. How will you address the weaknesses of PvP in today's MMOs. IE: Characters bunnyhopping to avoid enemy meelee and spells, generic "press auto attack and wait" no-player-skill meelee, etc.

2.) Customization:
- a. What kind of UI system are you implementing? I've been critical of WoW here, but I must say that their extremely robust UI modding system is simply excellent and one of the best features of the game.
- b. To many people, part of the appeal of the Warhammer tabletop game is being able to customize your units and create "your" army. Will this , or anything similar, be implemented in WAR? Custom armor color schemes/logos, custom guild banners, etc, all spring to mind as possibilities.

3.) MMO General:
- a. What, if any, MMO conventions will you be breaking? Nobody wants to see gimmicks, but there are some ideas that have struck me as being very good. IE: Allowing players to join more than one guild at a time instead of locking them into a single community of players.
- b. What else do you want us to know about WAR, and why should we play it? I can visit your website for your generic PR pitch, so give us some personal opinions, strenghts and weaknesses of the game, etc, not the usual stuff.

4.) The Most Important Question to Me:
- I want your game to actually feel like the cutscenes available on your website. I do not want to watch these visceral and intense CG videos only to find combat in your game is just more of the same that I've grown tired of months ago. Will combat feel like the videos, or will it be sterile MMO combat?

Why not a Table Top port?

When I first heard of Warhammer Online I had a slight hope that the designers were going to create an online version of the table top game, something akin to what Wizards of the Coast did with Magic The Gathering Online. Judging by the people I've talked to, this game would be of great interest to current and former battlegamers. Instead you've gone the route of many former Warhammer based games, i.e. simply selected the most popular genre and slapped on the Warhammer universe onto it (ex. Dawn of War).

I'd like to know, besides the Warhammer universe, why should this game appeal to a Warhammer battlegamer. And more importantly, why hasn't a serious online Table Top port been attempted.

Re:Why not a Table Top port?

Well, I can answer for the Table Top Port.

It will never happen. While the Board at GW is more understanding of video games now, they still see them only as a way to get boys interested in a 'real' hobby. That of model wargames.

They will never, and I say never with conviction, issue a licence to reproduce their table top game on a computer. To the folks running the show, that is just as alien thought as buying a computer to only check e-mail is to a computer programmer.

They simply don't understand how someone would want to play a video game of their hobby as opposed to actually playing with toy soldiers. The game is only part of the hobby to them [and me .. since I used to be one of them.] and modeling, painting and the tactile-ness of toy soldiers can't easily be reproduced. This tactile-ness is easily 80% of the hobby anyways, as well as the collecting part of it.

So - you will never see a 'faithful' reproduction of their games, only games that add to the hobby - instead of replacing it.

10 years ago - you wouldn't even see that :P

Appearance Changes

One of the features that sounds the most promising is how your appearance changes as you level to show you being more powerful, aside from any equipment you might have. It is frustrating to invest a large amount of time and reach the top of the ladder to discover you look exactly the same as everybody else at the top, and you all mostly have the same few pieces of uber-gear. It is also frustrating when everybodies spell effects look exactly the same with no way to alter the particles to make your individual castings look unique. What is the extent of this visual distinction? How does that system work exactly? Also, will we be able to distinguish ourselves by our equipment, or will everybody eventually end up with the same few identical uber-weapons that look exactly the same?

Botting

I was a HUGE fan of DAoC, played it religiously for almost 4 years. Unfortunately during the major duration of that time I had 2 accounts active to compete in what I considered a very enjoyable PvP experience. What I would consider the biggest problem with DAoC next to game balance was the issues of botting.

Is botting going to be acceptable in the Warhammer Online world, or is the development team taking steps from a design phase to prevent botting (and creating the requirement to have one) to compete in PvP? Is there 'buffing' classes, or are the buffs spread out more evenly across ALL of the classes to prevent a single botting class. Will crafting/alchemy be used to help remedy the problem (if perceived as such)?

As a player of DAoC thats the #1 reason I left DaoC to play WoW. I was tired of paying for multiple accounts, and I didn't want to go back through the leveling grind/ToA on a classic server where the ranged buffs where implemented.

Thanks for considering this question.

I turned down my Beta invite - why?

When i found out that i was getting a beta invite a few months ago, I was pretty excited until i found out this was the fantasy version as opposed to 40K. With the extreme glut of fantasy-based mmo's currently in existence, what prompted you to decide "we have a loyal 40K fanbase, and there are not many sci-fi based mmos, thus we will follow the conventional wisdom and create yet another fantasy-based game."?

I have no issue with you making whatever game you want to make, and think you can make money on. However, I really am curious as to what influenced your decision to go with fantasy over 40k.

Necromunda Version?

Simple question, will we ever see a Necromunda MMORPG? Warhammer is fun but only half as popular as 40k, and the market for warhammer online seems fairly saturated already. Necromunda seems to lend itself almost perfectly to the MMORPG style. I heard that Warhammer 40k was rejected by GW as an option for you as it was being worked on by another company (and was cancelled by them well into your development process). Are there any plans to pick up the pieces? (Necromunda!! :))