Ask the Warhammer Online Team 246
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.
Why Is It For Me? (Score:5, Insightful)
Casual or Hardcore Gaming? (Score:5, Insightful)
EA asshatery (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What makes you special? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:EA asshatery (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:PvP End-Game (Score:2, Insightful)
And it has become the most popular MMORPG of all time. I guess there's a lesson to be learned from their experience.
Freedom of Choice vs. Development? (Score:2, Insightful)
Mythic made a wonderful game with the original incarnation of DAoC but watered it down and killed it by trying to capitalize on the everquest model of raid for loot. WoW has done the same thing but to an even greater degree. Both EQ and WoW focus on ease of development and limiting player choices. How will Mythic battle this in Warhammer and keep it slimmed down to the game that people want to play?
Players need choices that mean something. The ability to choose to do or not do raids is not a choice when the rewards severly effect the outcome of the PvP/RvR type combat. Look at the huge change in how things operated from pre-ToA in DAoC vs. post-ToA. Or even better Pre-raid Blue armor vs. Tier 2 or 3 raid sets. Players also need to be able to customize their avatars both in appearance and abilities. WoW fails horribly in this in that every class has talents that should be usable as a customization effort but the setup results in a few cookie-cutter builds for each class or they end up severly gimping themselves. What sort of customization will be allowed and what seperates dwarf fighter #1 from dwarf fighter #2?
Questions from an Ex-Workshoper (Score:5, Insightful)
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
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
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 ?
Fantasy done to death (Score:5, Insightful)
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:Why not a Table Top port? (Score:4, Insightful)
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
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
Re:A Question About Races (Score:3, Insightful)
Workshop products may be dear, but people don't want them less for that - they want them more.
Cardnial rule of success, always leave them wanting more.
Re:What makes you special? (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow!!!111!! Your avatar changes? OMFG, it is like a whole new game!!!!!1!!!
Really, if the only thing they have to offer is that your character gets bigger and the setting, I think I'll pass. Those are both purely cosmetic changes. A grindfest with comestic changes is still a grindfest. And for the love of god, screw the story. Every single MMORPG since UO has sworn up and down that they have a story that matters. They have all been full of shit. They have all been leveling tredmils with perks.
Re:PvP End-Game (Score:4, Insightful)
Botting (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Casual or Hardcore Gaming? (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
I turned down my Beta invite - why? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:PvP End-Game (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What makes you special? (Score:4, Insightful)
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?