Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Emotionally Engorged' : EAMythic Press Conference Call!
Arkane_A
Member Posts: 365
Don't ask about the title....it's a long and sorded story, trust me.
Only-WAR was one of very few W.A.R. only sites (see what I did there? w.a.r. only...only-war) amidst a huge flock of giant Multi-MMO and Gaming sites for this hysterical-as-always call. I'm starting to refer to these things as "Chaotic Fun Sprinkled with Crack". But anyways....I've just hung up with what was probably one of the most hysterical conference calls yet with the EAMythic Team, and boy do we have some cool stuff for you!!
And we also have some Exclusive Conference Call Assets given to media that took part.
Thank you to Eddiemae and Chris for setting this up and, as always, thank you so much to the EAMythic Team...James, Jeff, Paul, Adam, Destin and the Chaos Bunny Josh.
Check it all out and Discuss it HERE!
Only at Only-WAR!
So here we are. A conference call with EAMythic Devs Paul, Jeff, Josh, Destin, James and Adam and wondering exactly what it is we're in store for. The last conference call was hysterical and full of info and here we were, on the line, waiting for Lord knows what. The thing about these calls, you all need to know, is that while to the real die-hard followers, you might not get anything really new and incredible as far as information goes, and alot of the time it's very general, but what I always walk away with is that these guys STILL love this game, they STILL have the vision, they STILL believe fully in what they are doing and they really are trying to make a game that does what they promised it would do.
"Why don't we ever wear pants to these things?!"
"It's EAMythic!" Two words yelled into the speakerphone that couldn't possibly prepare you for what's about to come. After a fast roll-call, Eddiemae gets us under way right quick. I have to say, for her to keep this group of lunatics (you decide which - us press or EAMythic) in line is not only a tough job, but I have to say, personally damned funny to be included in.
Right off the bat they go into ribbing the poor woman, and from there it went down hill at ludicrous speed. Yes, I used a Spaceballs term - it's only fitting, trust me.
So here's where we began....Josh began with talking about where we are right now with the Closed Beta. "We've just finished testing up some of our mid-level Elven Content....".....and here's where everyone else jumped in. "It's the targetted, interative.....we're not just letting people randomly walk around the game. We're opening targetted bits of the game and we're saying to them, 'we need you to press all of your energy on this one particular piece, so we want you to test it and break it and we'll repair it." Then Jeff jumps in with where we are right now. "We're currently testing the Campaign Game, the highest RvR sections of our game, where players are in, right now as a matter of fact, testing the fight between Altdorf and the Inevitable City, fighting the land between the two cities, testing the keeps and seige and battlefield objectives and scenarios and all things that happen in that area."
This is as far as Jeff is allowed to get, because Paul immediately jumps in with a story about his special little board he has in his office.
"Today a new name went on my board, I have this board, right? And people have to come to me, they have to confess! Like they do to a.....like a Priest. And they have to come and tell me that they were playing the game, but they were actually playing it. They weren't really playing it like some sort of belligerent developer, but they actually get caught by their co-workers going "you're really playing it!" So Mike who works over in content, great worker, absolute superstar, got called out today, his shoulders were hunched over, hand clawed on the mouse, frantically fighting, and one of his co-workers was saying 'dude, you look just like you like when you're playing one of the games you pay money for!' so he had to come up to my office, he had to confess, added his name to the board, got the date and time, at what point did he suddenly realize he was playing an awesome game! So that happened today, that was great. There you go."
And then silence which gets broken by Eddiemae....
"....Alright...so...."
*Laughter Errupts*
So we get to the topic of feedback by the testers. Are they happy? "Absolutely" says Jeff. At this point he reads off some feedback "written into our feedback system last night" and I chuckle a bit because, to be honest, I think one of the things he read off was mine. "This phase is awesome. I love the campaign. That is all." And Jeff ends with "these are quotes from testers last night...so yes, we're very pleased."
With this, the question comes up about how exactly does the gameplay differ from that of Camelot, being that it's RvR and based on the concept started with DAOC.
"We know what we're doing!" Paul shouts from the background. That pretty much sums it up right there, folks. They know and have learned what was fun, what wasn't, what can work and what can't. Not only that, but they can and are doing things that make the game so much more expansive and deep.
"Boiling oil on men's skin"
Yes you've read that right.... What they have found out during testing of seige is that women in particular have a thing for pouring boiling oil on men. Jeff's lovely wife especially "giggles with glee for hours on end" as she pours boiling oil on enemies below. Apparently according to Paul "this is it, this is what women want to do. I always look up when I got into castles now after that."
Silence always follows things like this because, no matter how prepared you are for the randomness of these things, you never really are. I think they get a kick out of trying to catch us off guard. I would wager it's difficult to give us detailed explanations on things like Alliances and how much deeper Guilds are with Paul randomly shouting "put your pants back on!" But they all try quite hard. So in between random yells about pants, pig hats and boiling oil, a question gets in about how many people they expect it would take to take a capital city. The answer from Paul? "16 fathoms plus 3 whales...that's how many...you can quote me on that." Clearly real actual numbers won't get revealed for something like this, but the answers are fun and probably remarkably close to reality even in jest. The one thing for sure is that they don't want running a guild, scheduling things, and alliances to be a full time job. In-game messages and the WARHerald helps keep players informed in everything at all times whenever they wish.
Then we hit on an all important question that is always on everyone's minds.....what they plan to do to prevent one side that wins from getting stronger and stronger, thus creating a vicious cycle of the defeated getting constantly weaker while the winners getting so progressively stronger, that it creates a permanent imbalance on the server. This time the EAMythic Team was silent....and the buck gets passed to Adam. "The longer that a zone is under control of the winning side, we start doing little things to sort of bring the losers up to par. Things like slowly taking the winning side's advantage away slower and slower as time progresses." Josh jumps in with " Offering things like buffs to the underpowered Realm, trying to give them the opportunity to get back on their feet. What we're NOT trying to do is punish you for being successful, but what we are trying to do is give you a sense that the competition is always lively, interesting, and there are a number of organic things that we are doing to try and encourage population balance, class balance - which is what Adam spends his entire life trying to do.......and so if it doesn't work...it's all Adam's fault...."
Of course, Paul has something to say on this one too! "People always say things like 'but what if everyone decides to play one side?!' and so far in every trial we've done, it's balanced out. It's absolutely frightening. It's almost as though we've made both sides compelling and both sides interesting and we've made the combat and RvR so good and so balanced that people have gone 'it doesn't really matter, I'm a great time whichever way, burn a city here, kill a king there, get a new hat...get a PIG HAT! A PIG HAT! Ride around on my Wolf...."
At this point...everyone howls...yes howls. And pig hats.
So the short answer is, there are organic things they are doing to try and attract at a populatuion level and mechanical things you do to make sure that the numbers make sense. So rest assured gang. Like we've always said. There are ALOT of things in place to deal with any possible imbalance issue, population, careers or otherwise.
"A Jolly Good Time"
Who are they targetting...the top 10% or the average gamer. This is a question that people have been hammering on about for years now and the game isn't even out yet. We have a definate answer for you too. "YES!" says Paul. Thankfully Jeff has a much clearer answer to it or our heads would probably explode at this point trying to figure it out from there. "We're targetting everybody. It's not about what you can get, it's how long it takes you to get it. If you persevere as a player in our game...and I really hate to make it sound like you're struggling because it's not about that, it's about achievements, it's about being skillfull at playing the game. Everybody has access to the end game content. Everybody has access to the items. City Seiges are about alot of people, but not about big giant raids. You can walk into a city alone because there WILL be other people there for you to fight along side. Because it's a Realm vs. Realm game, you always have friends. It really is accessable to everybody."
And yes, Paul comes in with more. "There's an obsession with designers to build for the top 10% because they're very loud and they're very successful. And that actually leads you to doom and destruction. When you build say, like a Golf Course. You can build a Golf Course so that only Tiger Woods can actually get to par, but that would be madness. What you do is you actually build a GOOD Golf Course, and if Tiger Woods decides to go and shoot something, you know what? He's going to score HUGE. But everyone else is going to have a damned good game, and they're going to understand and have things to aim for. It's the same sort of logic. We've built our end game so that it is fun and compelling and attractive and a great hobby. And if you're in the top 10% and you're one of those people who is incredibly clever and quick and obsessively brilliant you're probably going to excell at it, and that's ok because everyone else treats it like a jolly good time."
So there you have it gang.
We tried to squeeze out Crafting info, but no luck. Everyone hid....except Jeff and Paul. What we got was "plants, stuff to drink, caves and fungus. You can do anything as long as it helps with the act of war. We don't have time for bakers and candle-stick makers, but we have time for Butchers." That's as far as it went. Sorry, gang!
"Did they say Fall of 2008?"
Yes. They said it in many tones, in many ways, they even sang it. This is the targetted date and that's as exact as we will get right now.
With that we moved along to length of time it takes to get to the max Renown Rank. "Alot!" They won't give hours on this one. "While our leveling is fairly quick, actually, our Renown Leveling is much slower. That's where we want people to spend the time and earn the most. Killing other people. Not that hard to learn, not that hard to get competent, difficult to get brilliant at. Easy to learn, hard to master."
"Water Cooler Questing"
At this point, PvE comes up. Will they create the same madness and war in the PvE aspect that is in the RvR aspect. "Every system of the game is intertwined. The RvR experience and the PvE experience....you can experience them independantly, but at some point you're going to realize that you rely on the players that are focusing on the other side of it in order to accomplish the goals that are important to YOU. A good example is the Campaign level of the game. Everything you do in the game, this includes PvE, helps you in the war effort. Quests, PQs, Tome Unlocks, Crafting. Everything you do helps the overall upper level RvR. It all trickles up through the Tiers. As a result, in that Fourth Tier you need people to be questing, to be successful at the lower Tiers in PvE and PvP, so the higher Tier RvR players benefit from the PvE players all through the game. Everything that's going on in the game impacts whether you have this, that or the other thing. Everything in the world is focused on that war effort impacting everything that you do."
And somehow Chaos Bunnies get into the conversation.
And Paul chimes in. "My boy relentlessly annihilates his dad and he laughs and won't ever let me live it down. So I have an aversion to PvP. So what I like doing is I like going off on my own and doing Player vs. Environment so I don't have some 9 year old kid pummeling me into the dirt. And so what I like about W.A.R., is that when I go off and do that, I'm left alone, I have a complete game experience, I am one of the malcontents who just want to do PvE and be left alone, but I can level all the way through the game, I can take on Giants, I can kill Dragons, I can help with Seige equipment, and what happens when they start burning the city to the ground, I can wander over and I can go into the city, do all sorts of crazy quests, pillaging and murdering and not have to worry about anyone else. Whereas my boy, all he's done is the PvP part of the game, all he wants to do is kill people forever and he's happy too."
And yes, there is PvE Seige, where you can use Seige Wepons on NPCs for quests! At this point, a speed rant comes about PQs and they remind us of the PQ that was designed by the Press at the Press Conference back in August 2006. I personally can't wait for that one, as we reported, we had a blast helping create it! Incidentally, there are over 300 PQs in the game...they are truly everywhere! "What we want to do is have people stand around the water cooler at work and talk about all of the great things they did with the PQs the night before" says Jeff.
Scenarios and Guilds
As we got on about Scenarios - which basically repeated the entire podcast on them from the officlal site, an interesting point that I know plenty will be interested in knowing is that there are over 30 of them and they are available at every level in the game.
At this point, I would go into what we talked about as far as Guilds go, but honestly, it's all totally covered in the latest released Guild Podcast. So I won't bore you with repeating it.
But.....what about the people that don't want to be in large guilds? Will they be at a disadvantage to the larger 200+ person guilds? "No. We have things in place to try and equal things as much as we can. We don't want guilds being massive just for the sake of getting as much XP and leveling as fast as they can. We're not saying that large guilds can't gain XP a LITTLE faster but it's not something that has a massive advantage."
They touched ever slightly on 'anti-zerg mechanisms', but we didn't get much in the way of real detail other than "if you know what you're doing, you will always beat the zergites. You will slaughter them if you actually know how to play the game."
"Paul Barnett Hates You"
So just how viable IS solo-play? "Very viable!" screams Paul. "It's the only play I do, because I hate everybody. And I have a great time!"
Jeff let's us know that "you'll get a different experience playing solo than you would with a group or guild or with a Warband, but you can experience almost all of the content fully as a solo player." Paul has a small correction. "You can experience ALL of the content fully! I don't talk to another human being in that game and I've taken part in PQs - other people just have to be there, attacking the King - other people just have to be there. You can take part, but you can't do it ALONE. Point is I've had a BLAST of a time never actually having to talk to anyone."
Josh takes this opportunity to let us know that "when you're not quite as anti-social as Paul, it's very hard to stay solo for very long in the game. It's designed to take players like Paul who are malicious, belligerent, anti-social, malcontent and trick them into making friends. It's the Holy Grail of video games - tricking you into having a social life!"
Paul continues "I'm always getting invited into groups. I'm always getting tells of people saying 'hey you're really good join our group' and they won't leave me alone!"
In order to be in a group in this game, you don't have to run around a city for 3 hours going "looking for group, looking for group, looking for group", and then you have to log off because you've run out of time.
And finally Paul again "for those of you that say you hate everyone and you don't want to be forced to group....you don't have to."
This is when we were informed that a good title of the articles would be 'Paul Barnett Hates You'.
As we came to a close, the viability of leveling only in PvP came up. Yes it will be viable, yes it will be just as viable as leveling in PvE. They are currently looking at all kinds of insane data to make sure that this goal is absolutely met. It is attainable and it will happen. Period.
"Emotionally Engorged"
When asked for some final thoughts, Paul begins the story that spawned the title for this article....."So we had a guy from Black Box.....an EA studio that makes a game called 'The Need for Speed', he came down, hanging out, asked in all honesty, he says 'the Tome of Knowledge - it's just a book, right? I don't see why you keep going on about it.' Then during the evening when we were feeding him food and being nice, he basically kept going on about 'it's just a book, you keep telling people it's great, I don't understand it, it's just a book!' The following day we sat him down in this very room we're still doing this conference in, and we leave him alone for 2 hours, we came back in, he stood up, he came over and he said 'I take it all back, the Tome of Knowledge is just awesome! I have an emotional attachment to it!' he had an emotional reaction! He was emotionally engorged!
The point is, we keep telling people about it, but the more you experience it, the better and more enjoyable it becomes!"
"YAY, ONLY-WAR!!"
As Eddiemae let us all know it was time to say goodbye, shouts of "NoooOOooOOOo" were heard from the EAMythic Team. After some random ranting and plugging about the Collector's Edition....and pig hats, it was time to do a final roll-call of the media in on this call......and when it came to state who I was and what site I came from I was met with cheers of "YAY, ONLY-WAR!!!" To me, that's the best way to end this call and this article.
Thanks guys.
"It's EAMythic!" Two words yelled into the speakerphone that couldn't possibly prepare you for what's about to come. After a fast roll-call, Eddiemae gets us under way right quick. I have to say, for her to keep this group of lunatics (you decide which - us press or EAMythic) in line is not only a tough job, but I have to say, personally damned funny to be included in.
Right off the bat they go into ribbing the poor woman, and from there it went down hill at ludicrous speed. Yes, I used a Spaceballs term - it's only fitting, trust me.
So here's where we began....Josh began with talking about where we are right now with the Closed Beta. "We've just finished testing up some of our mid-level Elven Content....".....and here's where everyone else jumped in. "It's the targetted, interative.....we're not just letting people randomly walk around the game. We're opening targetted bits of the game and we're saying to them, 'we need you to press all of your energy on this one particular piece, so we want you to test it and break it and we'll repair it." Then Jeff jumps in with where we are right now. "We're currently testing the Campaign Game, the highest RvR sections of our game, where players are in, right now as a matter of fact, testing the fight between Altdorf and the Inevitable City, fighting the land between the two cities, testing the keeps and seige and battlefield objectives and scenarios and all things that happen in that area."
This is as far as Jeff is allowed to get, because Paul immediately jumps in with a story about his special little board he has in his office.
"Today a new name went on my board, I have this board, right? And people have to come to me, they have to confess! Like they do to a.....like a Priest. And they have to come and tell me that they were playing the game, but they were actually playing it. They weren't really playing it like some sort of belligerent developer, but they actually get caught by their co-workers going "you're really playing it!" So Mike who works over in content, great worker, absolute superstar, got called out today, his shoulders were hunched over, hand clawed on the mouse, frantically fighting, and one of his co-workers was saying 'dude, you look just like you like when you're playing one of the games you pay money for!' so he had to come up to my office, he had to confess, added his name to the board, got the date and time, at what point did he suddenly realize he was playing an awesome game! So that happened today, that was great. There you go."
And then silence which gets broken by Eddiemae....
"....Alright...so...."
*Laughter Errupts*
So we get to the topic of feedback by the testers. Are they happy? "Absolutely" says Jeff. At this point he reads off some feedback "written into our feedback system last night" and I chuckle a bit because, to be honest, I think one of the things he read off was mine. "This phase is awesome. I love the campaign. That is all." And Jeff ends with "these are quotes from testers last night...so yes, we're very pleased."
With this, the question comes up about how exactly does the gameplay differ from that of Camelot, being that it's RvR and based on the concept started with DAOC.
"We know what we're doing!" Paul shouts from the background. That pretty much sums it up right there, folks. They know and have learned what was fun, what wasn't, what can work and what can't. Not only that, but they can and are doing things that make the game so much more expansive and deep.
"Boiling oil on men's skin"
Yes you've read that right.... What they have found out during testing of seige is that women in particular have a thing for pouring boiling oil on men. Jeff's lovely wife especially "giggles with glee for hours on end" as she pours boiling oil on enemies below. Apparently according to Paul "this is it, this is what women want to do. I always look up when I got into castles now after that."
Silence always follows things like this because, no matter how prepared you are for the randomness of these things, you never really are. I think they get a kick out of trying to catch us off guard. I would wager it's difficult to give us detailed explanations on things like Alliances and how much deeper Guilds are with Paul randomly shouting "put your pants back on!" But they all try quite hard. So in between random yells about pants, pig hats and boiling oil, a question gets in about how many people they expect it would take to take a capital city. The answer from Paul? "16 fathoms plus 3 whales...that's how many...you can quote me on that." Clearly real actual numbers won't get revealed for something like this, but the answers are fun and probably remarkably close to reality even in jest. The one thing for sure is that they don't want running a guild, scheduling things, and alliances to be a full time job. In-game messages and the WARHerald helps keep players informed in everything at all times whenever they wish.
Then we hit on an all important question that is always on everyone's minds.....what they plan to do to prevent one side that wins from getting stronger and stronger, thus creating a vicious cycle of the defeated getting constantly weaker while the winners getting so progressively stronger, that it creates a permanent imbalance on the server. This time the EAMythic Team was silent....and the buck gets passed to Adam. "The longer that a zone is under control of the winning side, we start doing little things to sort of bring the losers up to par. Things like slowly taking the winning side's advantage away slower and slower as time progresses." Josh jumps in with " Offering things like buffs to the underpowered Realm, trying to give them the opportunity to get back on their feet. What we're NOT trying to do is punish you for being successful, but what we are trying to do is give you a sense that the competition is always lively, interesting, and there are a number of organic things that we are doing to try and encourage population balance, class balance - which is what Adam spends his entire life trying to do.......and so if it doesn't work...it's all Adam's fault...."
Of course, Paul has something to say on this one too! "People always say things like 'but what if everyone decides to play one side?!' and so far in every trial we've done, it's balanced out. It's absolutely frightening. It's almost as though we've made both sides compelling and both sides interesting and we've made the combat and RvR so good and so balanced that people have gone 'it doesn't really matter, I'm a great time whichever way, burn a city here, kill a king there, get a new hat...get a PIG HAT! A PIG HAT! Ride around on my Wolf...."
At this point...everyone howls...yes howls. And pig hats.
So the short answer is, there are organic things they are doing to try and attract at a populatuion level and mechanical things you do to make sure that the numbers make sense. So rest assured gang. Like we've always said. There are ALOT of things in place to deal with any possible imbalance issue, population, careers or otherwise.
"A Jolly Good Time"
Who are they targetting...the top 10% or the average gamer. This is a question that people have been hammering on about for years now and the game isn't even out yet. We have a definate answer for you too. "YES!" says Paul. Thankfully Jeff has a much clearer answer to it or our heads would probably explode at this point trying to figure it out from there. "We're targetting everybody. It's not about what you can get, it's how long it takes you to get it. If you persevere as a player in our game...and I really hate to make it sound like you're struggling because it's not about that, it's about achievements, it's about being skillfull at playing the game. Everybody has access to the end game content. Everybody has access to the items. City Seiges are about alot of people, but not about big giant raids. You can walk into a city alone because there WILL be other people there for you to fight along side. Because it's a Realm vs. Realm game, you always have friends. It really is accessable to everybody."
And yes, Paul comes in with more. "There's an obsession with designers to build for the top 10% because they're very loud and they're very successful. And that actually leads you to doom and destruction. When you build say, like a Golf Course. You can build a Golf Course so that only Tiger Woods can actually get to par, but that would be madness. What you do is you actually build a GOOD Golf Course, and if Tiger Woods decides to go and shoot something, you know what? He's going to score HUGE. But everyone else is going to have a damned good game, and they're going to understand and have things to aim for. It's the same sort of logic. We've built our end game so that it is fun and compelling and attractive and a great hobby. And if you're in the top 10% and you're one of those people who is incredibly clever and quick and obsessively brilliant you're probably going to excell at it, and that's ok because everyone else treats it like a jolly good time."
So there you have it gang.
We tried to squeeze out Crafting info, but no luck. Everyone hid....except Jeff and Paul. What we got was "plants, stuff to drink, caves and fungus. You can do anything as long as it helps with the act of war. We don't have time for bakers and candle-stick makers, but we have time for Butchers." That's as far as it went. Sorry, gang!
"Did they say Fall of 2008?"
Yes. They said it in many tones, in many ways, they even sang it. This is the targetted date and that's as exact as we will get right now.
With that we moved along to length of time it takes to get to the max Renown Rank. "Alot!" They won't give hours on this one. "While our leveling is fairly quick, actually, our Renown Leveling is much slower. That's where we want people to spend the time and earn the most. Killing other people. Not that hard to learn, not that hard to get competent, difficult to get brilliant at. Easy to learn, hard to master."
"Water Cooler Questing"
At this point, PvE comes up. Will they create the same madness and war in the PvE aspect that is in the RvR aspect. "Every system of the game is intertwined. The RvR experience and the PvE experience....you can experience them independantly, but at some point you're going to realize that you rely on the players that are focusing on the other side of it in order to accomplish the goals that are important to YOU. A good example is the Campaign level of the game. Everything you do in the game, this includes PvE, helps you in the war effort. Quests, PQs, Tome Unlocks, Crafting. Everything you do helps the overall upper level RvR. It all trickles up through the Tiers. As a result, in that Fourth Tier you need people to be questing, to be successful at the lower Tiers in PvE and PvP, so the higher Tier RvR players benefit from the PvE players all through the game. Everything that's going on in the game impacts whether you have this, that or the other thing. Everything in the world is focused on that war effort impacting everything that you do."
And somehow Chaos Bunnies get into the conversation.
And Paul chimes in. "My boy relentlessly annihilates his dad and he laughs and won't ever let me live it down. So I have an aversion to PvP. So what I like doing is I like going off on my own and doing Player vs. Environment so I don't have some 9 year old kid pummeling me into the dirt. And so what I like about W.A.R., is that when I go off and do that, I'm left alone, I have a complete game experience, I am one of the malcontents who just want to do PvE and be left alone, but I can level all the way through the game, I can take on Giants, I can kill Dragons, I can help with Seige equipment, and what happens when they start burning the city to the ground, I can wander over and I can go into the city, do all sorts of crazy quests, pillaging and murdering and not have to worry about anyone else. Whereas my boy, all he's done is the PvP part of the game, all he wants to do is kill people forever and he's happy too."
And yes, there is PvE Seige, where you can use Seige Wepons on NPCs for quests! At this point, a speed rant comes about PQs and they remind us of the PQ that was designed by the Press at the Press Conference back in August 2006. I personally can't wait for that one, as we reported, we had a blast helping create it! Incidentally, there are over 300 PQs in the game...they are truly everywhere! "What we want to do is have people stand around the water cooler at work and talk about all of the great things they did with the PQs the night before" says Jeff.
Scenarios and Guilds
As we got on about Scenarios - which basically repeated the entire podcast on them from the officlal site, an interesting point that I know plenty will be interested in knowing is that there are over 30 of them and they are available at every level in the game.
At this point, I would go into what we talked about as far as Guilds go, but honestly, it's all totally covered in the latest released Guild Podcast. So I won't bore you with repeating it.
But.....what about the people that don't want to be in large guilds? Will they be at a disadvantage to the larger 200+ person guilds? "No. We have things in place to try and equal things as much as we can. We don't want guilds being massive just for the sake of getting as much XP and leveling as fast as they can. We're not saying that large guilds can't gain XP a LITTLE faster but it's not something that has a massive advantage."
They touched ever slightly on 'anti-zerg mechanisms', but we didn't get much in the way of real detail other than "if you know what you're doing, you will always beat the zergites. You will slaughter them if you actually know how to play the game."
"Paul Barnett Hates You"
So just how viable IS solo-play? "Very viable!" screams Paul. "It's the only play I do, because I hate everybody. And I have a great time!"
Jeff let's us know that "you'll get a different experience playing solo than you would with a group or guild or with a Warband, but you can experience almost all of the content fully as a solo player." Paul has a small correction. "You can experience ALL of the content fully! I don't talk to another human being in that game and I've taken part in PQs - other people just have to be there, attacking the King - other people just have to be there. You can take part, but you can't do it ALONE. Point is I've had a BLAST of a time never actually having to talk to anyone."
Josh takes this opportunity to let us know that "when you're not quite as anti-social as Paul, it's very hard to stay solo for very long in the game. It's designed to take players like Paul who are malicious, belligerent, anti-social, malcontent and trick them into making friends. It's the Holy Grail of video games - tricking you into having a social life!"
Paul continues "I'm always getting invited into groups. I'm always getting tells of people saying 'hey you're really good join our group' and they won't leave me alone!"
In order to be in a group in this game, you don't have to run around a city for 3 hours going "looking for group, looking for group, looking for group", and then you have to log off because you've run out of time.
And finally Paul again "for those of you that say you hate everyone and you don't want to be forced to group....you don't have to."
This is when we were informed that a good title of the articles would be 'Paul Barnett Hates You'.
As we came to a close, the viability of leveling only in PvP came up. Yes it will be viable, yes it will be just as viable as leveling in PvE. They are currently looking at all kinds of insane data to make sure that this goal is absolutely met. It is attainable and it will happen. Period.
"Emotionally Engorged"
When asked for some final thoughts, Paul begins the story that spawned the title for this article....."So we had a guy from Black Box.....an EA studio that makes a game called 'The Need for Speed', he came down, hanging out, asked in all honesty, he says 'the Tome of Knowledge - it's just a book, right? I don't see why you keep going on about it.' Then during the evening when we were feeding him food and being nice, he basically kept going on about 'it's just a book, you keep telling people it's great, I don't understand it, it's just a book!' The following day we sat him down in this very room we're still doing this conference in, and we leave him alone for 2 hours, we came back in, he stood up, he came over and he said 'I take it all back, the Tome of Knowledge is just awesome! I have an emotional attachment to it!' he had an emotional reaction! He was emotionally engorged!
The point is, we keep telling people about it, but the more you experience it, the better and more enjoyable it becomes!"
"YAY, ONLY-WAR!!"
As Eddiemae let us all know it was time to say goodbye, shouts of "NoooOOooOOOo" were heard from the EAMythic Team. After some random ranting and plugging about the Collector's Edition....and pig hats, it was time to do a final roll-call of the media in on this call......and when it came to state who I was and what site I came from I was met with cheers of "YAY, ONLY-WAR!!!" To me, that's the best way to end this call and this article.
Thanks guys.
Comments
Nice post, thanks for the information. Keep up the good work.
http://www.greycouncil.org/
heya,
Thanks Arkane_A for the post.
Great read!
A good read.. thank you arkane.
Waiting for: A skill-based MMO with Freedom and Consequence.
Woe to thee, the pierce-ed.
Great post! Thanks for the read, really looking forward to this game.
Out of every 100 men, 10 should not be there,
80 are nothing but targets, 9 are the real fighters.
Ah, but one, ONE of them is a warrior,
and he will bring the others home.
-Heraclitus 500BC
Massively.com's take on the interview:
Catching up with WAR: An update on Warhammer Online's closed beta
by Michael Zenke May 1st 2008 @ 8:30AM
Filed under: Betas, Fantasy, PvP, Warhammer Online
Join us as we walk through the often-humorous commentary from the WAR boys. We'll learn about RvR, keeps and siege, cooperative gameplay, the makeup of the endgame, the viability of PvE, and what you have to do to end up on Paul Barnett's whiteboard. Read on to find out, and to see some exclusive screenshots of the game in action.
Gallery: Warhammer Online Concept Art Gallery
The team starts with an update of where the game is right now. Warhammer Online is currently in closed Beta, as you're no doubt aware. They've just finished up another part of their iterative, targeted, testing experience. "We're not just letting people wander around the game." Thousands of people are 'checking their homework', while Jeff runs around the building 'whipping everyone like mules'. They've just finished up a run on the mid-level elven content and have now moved on to the high level RvR campaign. They're pounding on the Empire vs. Chaos content, making sure that battlefield objectives, keeps, sieges, and the land between Altdorf and the Inevitable city is all squared away.
Paul Barnett pipes up with the recent addition of Mike Donatelli's name to his whiteboard. The story goes that designers have to confess, like they do to a priest, to let Paul know that they were playing the game just for fun. Donatelli's "shoulders were hunched over and his hand was like a claw on the mouse", and his coworkers called him on it. He had to confess and add his name to the board. The introductions and icebreaking accomplished, the team moved on to specific questions:
The game is receiving a lot of stress testing in the RvR areas, that's going to be the core of the game. What did you learn from Dark Age of Camelot, and how is Warhammer's experience going to differ from Camelot's?
"We know what we're doing!", shouts Paul. A lot of information has transferred from their work on DAoC. They learned how to balance realms, how to tweak classes, what players enjoy doing in long bursts, in short bursts. A lot of the stuff they're doing in Warhammer was derived from Camelot. Stuff they wanted to do back in the day, saying "man if we could only do this." Warhammer is building on the great foundation that DAoC has created. The difference is that while Camelot offers one front with no real focus, DAoC has three battlegrounds with many different focused areas and a clear sense of progression. There's also plenty of open field battle, spontaneous PvP with plenty of reward, and the instanced scenarios. Of those, there are over 30 in the game, one in every zone. Ultimately the RvR game culminates in the city sieges, going for the ultimate prize, "Kicking people in the crown jewels." The designers have discovered that people who like Tiger Woods golf games really like the siege engines – there are a lot of similarities.
What tools are you going to offer to coordinate large-scale battles? How many people to you expect to be involved in city sieges, realistically?
It's all about building the experience from the ground up, using cooperative social gameplay. It's essentially a subtle way of teaching you to play well with others. Conveniently the max size of one group is the minimum size of a guild. Public quests lead right into making guilds, making friends. Guilds lead to more and more significant participation, with guilds themselves collaborating to create Alliances. Alliances are groups of guilds, and these high-level strategies will have heavy tools support. The goal is to get you into the world killing people right quick rather than having a second job to manage your guild. Messaging in the game helps you know where the combat is, and keeps the players informed. They figure that people are going to keep the WAR Herald as their home page at work , refresh it to see progress, and rush home to defend their city.
Are any systems in place to stop one side from constantly winning and getting more powerful every time? If one side wins, won't that allow them access to more powerful loot and possibly lead to a vicious cycle?
Obviously that winners are well rewarded for sacking a capital city or controlling a zone. Just the same,the longer a zone is under control, the more strength the losers gain. The winning side gets taken back down, taking things back to a sense of parity. They're trying to give players a sense that the competition is lively, active. Adam is doing some organic things to make sure class and sides are balanced. "But what if everyone decides to play one side? Every beta trial has balanced out. It's absolutely frightening. Almost as if both sides are compelling. I'm going to burn a city here, kill a king there, ride around on my wolf, get a pig hat, all sorts of cool stuff." Some organic things to are being done to track players on the population level, and mechanical things done to encourage people in certain ways.
We're wondering about endgame content accessibility. Are you targeting the average gamer, or only the elite top 10%?
Can you share any information about what crafting will entail?
It's in beta. Jeff's wife likes it. There were several new screen mockups turned in recently. There's a lot of green in it, a plant. There's stuff in it you can drink, there are caves and fungus. No doilies. Anything that will help in the act of war. "We don't have time for bakers or candlestick makers, but we do have butchers."
So what's the release date target?
(ed: imagine, if you will, that this was repeated five times in a very convincing impression of a Dalek.) Fall of two-thousand and eight!
How long will it take to reach the highest level of renown in Warhammer's PvP?
If you go back to DAoC and see how long it takes to go up realm ranks, we based the system on that. While leveling is fairly quick, renown leveling is much slower. That's where we want people to spend time and earn the most - killing other people, capturing keeps, trying to master their class.
Originally Warhammer's PvP was without very different than what you'd done before. With keeps and sieges and classes it seems like you folks are sliding back towards Camelot?
In very early iterations of the game's design, we experimented with a lot of insanity. It's a fun thing to do in pre-production. "I'm going to make classes out of clouds and gold." We moved from that early design and experimented with five or six different systems. There are a lot of things we chose to innovate on in Warhammer – RvR, Public Quests, Living Cities, Tome of Knowledge, Pig Hats, etc. Careers are about fun and being iconic, not about doing something crazy and unique. They're not about doing something complicated or out of the ordinary. They're about quick understanding, ease of accessibility, that are difficult to master, iconic and fun to play. It's the natural evolution of the design process.
As far as RvR being from Camelot: We had a sound design on the PvP when we began working on WAR, and we drove for two years on that. Beta was going good, but the players just wanted more. They wanted the keeps and siege they'd experienced in Camelot. They had great open world and scenarios, campaign game, but no keeps. Players demanded it and we listened. If the players think it'll be great, we'll look at it a least. We've taken all of the knowledge from DAoC and rolled it into the game. Keeps have made the game a more well-rounded PvP experience.
It sounds like RvR is really going to be immerse players into the war, what about PvE?
Public quests is one of those ways, with monster on monster combat. They're called conflict quests, with enemies on different sides tug of warring. PvE is also in close proximity to RvR, players can see it up close without fighting. And, of course, you're contributing to RvR by engaging in PvE. All of the systems are intertwined, at some point you're going to have to rely on players who focus on the other side of the fence. When we get into the campaign everything in the game contributes to the war effort, to zone control. That includes quests, public quests, RvR, Tome unlocks, and crafting. Zone control trickles up, so in the fourth tier you need people in the lower levels to support the war effort. The PvE players actually need the RvR campaign to give them access to the capital city PvE elements - the highest level raiding encounters. It's a living, dynamic part of the world. Everything in the world impacts that element. Everything points to that core element of the game.
One of the first things you'll experience when you enter the game is the feeling of war. WAR is everywhere. As an Empire player when you first start the game your village is under attack, half the village is in flames. One of the things you have to do is rescue the villagers that are in flaming buildings. In Chaos you're going to invade a town and burn the place down. "No bunny killing." Paul offers up: "My boy is amazing at PvP. He's a finger ninja, when he plays with me he eliminates his dad. I don't want to do PvP because my kid will kill me a lot. I like PvE and being off on my own being heroic. No ten year old kids pummeling me into the dirt. When I'm off doing PvE and such I'm not alone - there are still people around. But I can happily kill dragons and giants, help the war effort, and not get killed all the time by ten year old buys. All the while I see this war going on in the background." Siege is also available in PvE as well. There's a public quest where you can jump onto a Dark Elf ship, use siege system, and fire on enemies on land.
Can you elaborate a bit more on Public Quests?
Jeff offers up a personal experience. Last cycle they were in tier 3 empire vs. chaos, and he went into a PQ he'd never seen before. Called the Chaos Ruins, there are a bunch of zealots gathering up these stones of power from the debris. Jeff, as a Witch Hunter, had to go through and kill the zealots and then pick up the stones. Enough of these, and PQ stepping into phase 2, rewarding them and moving the story forward. Phase 2 saw a group of sorcerers coming out to an 8-point star and summoning all demons of Tzeech from everywhere. The goal there is to kill the sorcs as fast as you can so they don't summon enough demons to overwhelm you. Then, this crazy magus comes flying down shrieking and giggling on a disc. He hovers in the distance, watching you take on the mages. Once they're dead the sorcerer on the disc drops flamers monsters, and he becomes the final boss. At the end he got to roll for the loot from a massive chest that fell out of the sky. He did it four or five times in a row, and then came into the company Monday and made everybody play it four or five times. "We want people to talk about these experiences around the water cooler the next day."
Can you clarify what scenarios are?
Scenarios are the game's instanced, balanced battle arenas. You can fight against evenly matched groups of players from the opposing side. There are multiple types of games but one of their favorites is Murder Ball. Murder Ball is this crazy malevolent object on the map, when you grab it there is a pillar of light and it circles around your head. You kill people incredibly easily, but the murder ball kills you slowly. The death toll will be catastrophic. Each of the scenarios has rules like that. CTF, deathmatch, just like you got to play on the playground with swords and spears. There's a little button on the UI that lets you jump in automatically. It's meant to be an in-and-out experience It's targetted squarely at the mid-session gamer. Just a few hours of play. Jump in, do cool things, jump out. There are over 30 of these, at every level of the game. You can do your first one at level 1 if you want.
How tough was it to choose which careers went into the game?
It was really tough. There are so many iconic things to pick from - just choosing the races was difficult. Some things stand out, though. Warhammer is about crazy mages with their heads lit on fire. Warrior Priest, witch hunters, etc. Witch hunters are all about the hat. They are the coolest cats, strutting their stuff. It's about sneaking up behind em' and give them the kidney tap. "Warhammer is about doing the obvious in an inobvious way." All about having savage angry kangaroos attack players. So many things to do.
Jeff shares a quick anecdote where he was putting the hurt on as a Witch Hunter, was grabbed away from his target by a Maurader. A huge glowing tentacle grabbed him away to be ripped apart by a mutant with a huge claw for a hand.
What about fans of the game who don't know the lore very well?
Pre-order the collector's edition! It introduces the whole setting to you! More seriously, there are a number of great podcasts and such on the website that convey this. Plus, there's always Paul's classic 'english posh people' rant.
What can you tell us about bringing different experiences to guild players?
Guilds are critical to overall success for the game and for players. That was one of Mark's mandates: guilds can't just be a static thing, not just a chat channel. Guilds have to be organic, living part of the world. They call them living guilds. From the moment you form your guild, everything you do helps to push your guild towards success. Guilds level up by having their members participate in every element of the game - RvR, Quests, etc. All of this makes your guild advance.
Eventually you'll unlock the banner system, which is not just a flag that you can wave around. It's a tool you can use on the battlefield, it throws off an AoE buff. Guilds are about training people towards cooperation and completing group tasks, all about doing impressive things. Guilds are an integral part of that. Guilds can claim keeps and objectives. "This belongs to us." Guards will wear your tabard!
They always get asked: If I have a 200 person guild, and you have 6 person guild, won't mine level faster? No. Because systems are in place that equalize that as much as they can. Massive guilds shouldn't be massive just to gain xp.
Is there anything in place to ensure that zerg techniques don't always win the day?
Catapults. The game has lots of opportunities in place to break people up, and cause people harm if they stay as large groups. Cannons, hellcannons, lots of ways to combat those kinds of players. Our QA folks, for example, will just slaughter any zerg attack endlessly because they know how to play the game. We force people to adapt to the game's style.
What kind of equipment can you expect in Siege warfare?
There are four kinds of warmachines. Rams to knock down doors, boiling oil takes out ram users. Then there are direct fire weapons (catapults) and indirect fire weapons. The best way to go about it is to target personnel with indirect fire. Every warmachine in the game has a unique and specific way to be used. It's not just about pointing the gun and walking away. It's almost a mini-game, every type of warmachine has a different mini-game style of play. Wind, range, etc, can all effect whether a bolt hits. It's easy to have your bolt blown off-course.
How viable is solo play?
It's the only thing Paul does, because he's a malcontent. There will plenty of opportunities to group up with others, but solo is very viable. The deal is that the game tricks you into making friends. It tricks you into having a social life. PQs do that, as do scenarios. You don't have to wander around the capital city LFG, you can run out get involved, socialize and get involved right away. You've painted your face blue, they've done the same. Soccer fans who love your team are everywhere!
How viable is it to play the game with an RvR-only style?
It's our goal to let players do that. Right now it's kind of slow, and we don't want it to be that way. You can gain experience, gold, and items all through RvR gameplay. We're still in the tweaking phase at the moment. Absolutely a goal, very obtainable, Jeff did that through many levels all through the last Beta cycle.
Any last thoughts?
When you win loot on the PQ, this chest flies out of the sky!
There's a huge image on the ground that says 'put siege weapons here' - marketing stole it to put it on the CDs!
Since they're doing focused testing, it's very rare that anyone sees the entirety of the game. People don't' really understand the depth of what they're doing. There's so many layers of stuff to do, rewards, things to do. The game is not about leveling to 40. That's a very small part of the game. It's about guild leveling, gaining renown, playing through the campaign, getting one of 20+ armor sets, it's a total hobby experience. It's difficult to convey everything that we've done because people have preconceptions about what these games are like. You cane earn the right to carry around standard bearers, plant them, put them on keeps. It's more than that ... so much more it's hard to convey.
It's the same thing with the Tome of Knowledge. They had a guy come down from the Need for Speed team. "It's just this book thing? You people keep telling me it's great." They sat him down and really exposed him to that part of the game. He came away from that and said, "The tome of knowledge is awesome, I have an emotional attachment to it." It's one of those things where the more you experience the better it is.
If you have any other questions, make sure to check out the website - Warhammeronline.com. Thanks!
MMORPG.com apparently was at the interview as well as this list of sites so expect a lot of coverage on this conference call:
Massively
Ten Ton Hammer
GameZone
GrrlGamer
Mmolecule
Snackbar Games
Game Vortex
MMOGamer
Killer Betties
GameShark
Virgin Worlds
Gamersinfo.net
Actiontrip.com
Frictionless Insight/Freelance
Freelance/Scrye
Only-WAR
War-RVR
WAR Vault
RPGWorld/Blade Radio
MPOGD
GamePlasma
WorldsInMotion.biz
heya,
Thanks again Arkane another great find.
the concept art looks so cool.
"Then we hit on an all important question that is always on everyone's minds.....what they plan to do to prevent one side that wins from getting stronger and stronger, thus creating a vicious cycle of the defeated getting constantly weaker while the winners getting so progressively stronger, that it creates a permanent imbalance on the server. This time the EAMythic Team was silent....and the buck gets passed to Adam. "The longer that a zone is under control of the winning side, we start doing little things to sort of bring the losers up to par. Things like slowly taking the winning side's advantage away slower and slower as time progresses." Josh jumps in with " Offering things like buffs to the underpowered Realm, trying to give them the opportunity to get back on their feet. What we're NOT trying to do is punish you for being successful, but what we are trying to do is give you a sense that the competition is always lively, interesting, and there are a number of organic things that we are doing to try and encourage population balance, class balance - which is what Adam spends his entire life trying to do.......and so if it doesn't work...it's all Adam's fault...."
Of course, Paul has something to say on this one too! "People always say things like 'but what if everyone decides to play one side?!' and so far in every trial we've done, it's balanced out. It's absolutely frightening. It's almost as though we've made both sides compelling and both sides interesting and we've made the combat and RvR so good and so balanced that people have gone 'it doesn't really matter, I'm a great time whichever way, burn a city here, kill a king there, get a new hat...get a PIG HAT! A PIG HAT! Ride around on my Wolf...."
At this point...everyone howls...yes howls. And pig hats.
So the short answer is, there are organic things they are doing to try and attract at a populatuion level and mechanical things you do to make sure that the numbers make sense. So rest assured gang. Like we've always said. There are ALOT of things in place to deal with any possible imbalance issue, population, careers or otherwise."
Whuahaha, that was my question
-> "Proof"
Not a very satisfactory answer though but I'm guessing they're just not quite sure yet themselves at this point.
He didn't really give an answer on the possibly increasing gap between winners/losers. Beyond that he brought it back to pop imbalance and class imbalance, both of which seem to be *very* important that they are roughly equal in their design. You can't have a tug of war if both sides aren't equal.
Great reads guys, thanks for posting them. I'm now getting excited about WAR again....looks like a lot of fun on the horizon.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
heya,
Pheace, I can see where you are coming from,as it would be really lame to be on the losing side all the time.
Would it help if they put in a system somewhat like UT ?
Or would that be to restrictive?
hopefully they can work it out so it don't come to that.
Although I did play the original UT a lot I'm not quite sure what you're talking about, could you elaborate a bit?
God, I wish this game would just come out already. The more I hear the more it hurts to wait. Thanks for the post.
Although I did play the original UT a lot I'm not quite sure what you're talking about, could you elaborate a bit?
heya,whoops sorry about that,
if I remember right when we went into a MP game we where auto side matched, as in going to blue and/or the red team for CTF,and team games,so i was just wondering if a system close to that would help in WAR.
To the OP: Thanks for the posting, it was an enjoyable read!
Cheers!
MMO Vet since AOL Neverwinter Nights circa 1992. My MMO beat up your MMO. =S
Although I did play the original UT a lot I'm not quite sure what you're talking about, could you elaborate a bit?
heya,whoops sorry about that,
if I remember right when we went into a MP game we where auto side matched, as in going to blue and/or the red team for CTF,and team games,so i was just wondering if a system close to that would help in WAR.
Not a chance in hell ^^
They can't put an Order player on the destruction side or vice versa. People wouldn't stand for it, nor would the IP
heya,
well I am thinking that it may well be an issue then,because the number of Destruction guilds far out number the Oder guilds at this point in time,(at least on this site).
I guess we will have to wait and see.
Played : WOW, LOTRO, COH/COV, EQ2, SWG, and WAR.
Playing EVE Online and AOC.
Wtg for SW:TOR and WOD
You can't base judgements on the number of pre release guilds. The people you see communicating in forums & creating guilds are usually only a small very small portion of a game's total population. Some guilds & players only exist IN game or atleast don't pop up until Release.
Please Refer to Doom Cat with all conspiracies & evil corporation complaints. He'll give you the simple explination of..WE"RE ALL DOOMED!
You can't base judgements on the number of pre release guilds. The people you see communicating in forums & creating guilds are usually only a small very small portion of a game's total population. Some guilds & players only exist IN game or atleast don't pop up until Release.
I do agree with this that it's unlikely to be an accurate representation(although I do believe Destruction has the larger chance to outnumber horde this time round based on the WoW psyche), however I still consider it very unlikely that there'll magically end up being a 50%-50% Order to destruction ratio after release and even if there is it's unlikely to be that case on a per server basis unless they pull out some serious server restrictions so the main problem remains.
it'll probably fluctuate alot especially if they go by the racial / realm caps the mentioned in Paris. Nothing is ever a gaurentee though but atleast they're thinking ahead ... hopefully
Please Refer to Doom Cat with all conspiracies & evil corporation complaints. He'll give you the simple explination of..WE"RE ALL DOOMED!
You can't base judgements on the number of pre release guilds. The people you see communicating in forums & creating guilds are usually only a small very small portion of a game's total population. Some guilds & players only exist IN game or atleast don't pop up until Release.
I do agree with this that it's unlikely to be an accurate representation(although I do believe Destruction has the larger chance to outnumber horde this time round based on the WoW psyche), however I still consider it very unlikely that there'll magically end up being a 50%-50% Order to destruction ratio after release and even if there is it's unlikely to be that case on a per server basis unless they pull out some serious server restrictions so the main problem remains.
Heya,
Elvenangle,that is very true,however with a lot of people leaning towards destruction side (at this point in time) it makes Pheaces' and my concerns very paramount. Because it is showing the very real possibility of unbalanced severs. Sorry if I sound like I am passing judgments, as of right now it LOOKS as though it could end up that way. Again we will have to wait and see.
Pheace, have you ever played RF Online? That game was a major example of server over-pops, one race would always win in the CWs unless the other 2 would band together,(depending on the server).
I was an ACC on the server I played on. the bells and cora most of the time lost the CWs because of the amount of people we had on ACC. I have heard it was the same on different server,but with the highest pop race dominating,as in cora on one then bells another. so it can happen.
Uh my statement was to YOU not Pheace.....Pheace and I see eye to eye on things..er lately which is weird.
Just because you can't base a solid judgement on forum numbers doesn't mean the concern is invalid its a very valid concern which I stated. I merely pointed out a flaw in your statement that 'based on guild types' you have to factor in there's tons of peple simply waiting on release to do or say anything. Forum blabbers are such a tiny portion of the real gamer population.
People for ages figured the Horde would over run the Alliance..when the game went live the Alliance overran the Horde (and still are). Plus if you knew anything about their Server Cap plans being Racial & Realm based you'd know the chances of Major over runs would be greatly diminished...still possible but chances are smaller if they manage to pull off the caps the way they talked about in Paris.
Please Refer to Doom Cat with all conspiracies & evil corporation complaints. He'll give you the simple explination of..WE"RE ALL DOOMED!
The State of Warhammer Online
By Michael Lafferty
EA Mythic dev team discuss where the game is and where it is going
It was a touch unpredictable, but then, when you have a teleconference with EA Mythic’s Warhammer Design Manager Paul Barnett involved, just about anything can happen, up to and including the conversation touching on “hats, pig hats!”
Barnett, Content Director Destin Bales, Lead Character Artist Adam Gershowitz, Associate Producer Josh Drescher, and Senior Producer Jeff Hickman were some of the development team members on hand to field questions about the state of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (or WAR) from media. Eddiemae Jukes, of Triple Point PR, tossed out the questions, and the answers resounded fast and furious from the assembled panel, sometimes overlapping, as others submerged beneath the good-natured fun and snickering.
The game is currently testing the high-level campaign game in closed beta, but while segments of the game is being tested it was the overall game that was the topic of the teleconference.
The game has been receiving some pretty intensive stress testing in beta, particularly in the area of realm versus realm. Since the model for the RvR was DAoC, what has the testing shown and how will that portion of the game differ from DAoC?
We learned a lot of great stuff from Dark Age of Camelot as far as how to balance out realms, how to balance out population, how balance classes, what’s fun-what’s not, what do players enjoy doing in short bursts, what do players enjoy doing in long bursts … so a lot of the stuff we are doing with Warhammer was derived from the stuff we were doing with Camelot.
Some of stuff was things like we said ‘if only we could do this’ when we were making Camelot, but we couldn’t. So Warhammer really built upon that great foundation that Camelot put in place for us. But it differs greatly also. Where Camelot was one frontier with a set number of keeps and zones you could fight over, Warhammer is three different battlefronts, battles raging across the world .. not only in open-world RvR, but also in scenarios, which are evenly matched instanced combat. There are over 30 of these in the game.
So you have all of these different ways of playing the RvR game and it culminates in these great city sieges where you can literally attack your enemy’s capital city, ransacking the city, looting, pillaging and burning.
How will players be able to coordinate the invasion of a city?
Through alliances is the easiest way you are going to be able to do that. The game is really focused on two things from the very beginning: it’s cooperative – you’re playing with other people, and it’s competitive – you’re playing against other people. So from a very early stage in the game we are trying to introduce you to cooperative, social gameplay. Even as you are running through things like the public quests, that is a subtle way to teach you to play well with others.
A lot of it is the little things like the messaging in the game. Just by keeping players informed inside and outside of the game allows players to participate in everything that is going on in the game.
There is going to be an epidemic of people seeing the War Herald as their home page at work and then frantically refreshing it all day long – and then saying ‘screw it, I have to go home right now.’
A question was asked about balance in the RvR and winning zones, as in how winning sides (which will reap rewards) won’t continue to get stronger and just keep winning as the losing side gets weaker from repeated beatings …
Obviously you get rewards for winning, but the longer a zone is under control of a winning side we start to do little things that might bring the losers up to par and things like slowly taking the winning side’s advantage away as time progresses … trying to get back to that sense of parity. We are not punishing you for being successful but we are trying to give you a sense that the competition is lively and interesting. And there are a number of organic things that will try to encourage population balance, trying to encourage class balance.
The purer answer is there are a number of organic things you do to try to attract players on a population level and then mechanical things you do to make sure the numbers make sense.
Regarding end-game content accessibility, are you targeting the top 10 percent of the average gamer?
We are targeting everybody. It’s not about what you can get, it’s about how long it takes you to get it. It’s about commitment, it’s about being skillful at playing the game but everybody has access to the end-game content. City sieges are about a lot of people but they are not about big giant raids. You can literally walk into a city alone, because there will be other people there for you to fight alongside. Because it is a realm-versus-realm game, you always have friends, you will always have people on your side, in your realm, who are there already. So it really is accessible to everybody.
We build our end-game so it is firm, compelling, attractive and a great hobby.
What is the current release date?
Fall of 2008.
What can players expect in terms of playtime needed to reach the highest renown rank?
If you go to Dark Age of Camelot and look how long it takes to move up realm ranks, we based this system similarly to that. While our leveling is fairly quick, actually, our renown leveling is much slower. That is where we want people to spend their time.
The game is starting to resemble many of the elements of Camelot, when earlier in the development you said it would be a complete departure from Camelot. Why the change?
Very early iterations in our game we experimented with a lot of insanity about classes and careers, things that we would really love to do. We decided that really wasn’t the right way to go, so we parted with that design and experimented with several different systems until we came to the system we are at now. And one of the things to remember is there are a lot of things we chose to innovate in our game, a lot of things we chose to focus our attention on - RvR, Public Quests, the Tome of Knowledge, the Living City system, and careers, while we chose to be as iconic as we could be, careers are about fun, they are about ease of accessibility, they are about understanding quickly even though they may be difficult to master and that’s what we got – we have careers that make sense in the Warhammer world.
As far as RvR in general, appear to being taken directly from Camelot, we had a very, very sound design on RvR when we started making Warhammer and we drove for probably two years (in development) with that design and as we drove into beta, the players really, really liked it, but they wanted more. They were basically looking back at Dark Age of Camelot and saying, ‘hey, where are our keeps? And where are our siege?’
When the players went in (to beta), they demanded it (keeps and keep sieges) and we listened to them.
Why are we doing keeps and keep siege now? Because they are awesome.
Everyone knows that RvR will immerse players in the world, what about PvE?
Public quests are dynamic, they change with the environment. PvE will be in close proximity to RvR. We have RvR quests.
Every system in the game are intertwined. … everything you do in the game contributes to the war effort, it contributes to the zone control. Everything you will do helps that RvR at the highest level. The RvR players get a benefit from the PvE players.
The way you immerse people in the PvE is making it a dynamic world. Everything in the world is focused on that war effort. You talked about sieges in RvR, but it is available in PvE as well.
What can you tell us about guilds?
Guilds are critical to the overall success that a player is going to achieve in the game. A couple of the goals is that the guilds can’t be a static thing; they have to be an organic, living part of the world. Everything you do in the world helps your guild to advance. There is always something for you to work toward, not only as a solo player, but as a guild.
How viable is solo play?
Very viable. As a solo player you are not going to be able to walk to an enemy city, knock down the wall, walk around the city and kill the king. You are going to get a different experience playing solo than you would with a group. You can play the solo game and experience almost all the content.
We want you to run out and have fun instantly.
As for the way the beta is being handled, the dev team admitted that the focus is on certain elements of the game, and is thus very directed.
We are doing a very focused beta test, so it is very rare that people see everything that we are doing. There are so many layers to our game. Our game is not about leveling from 1-40. It’s a total hobby experience.
A Live Grab Bag FAQ
by: Tony "RadarX" Jones
To provide a state of the game Wednesday evening, the EA Mythic Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning design team which included Producer Jeff Hickman, Creative Director Paul Barnett, and Associate Producer Josh Drescher fielded a number of questions. After the customary greetings we've come to expect from these dynamic three, things started off with an explanation of where exactly the team is with closed beta. It was stated they are working on "targeted beta" right now, which means testing specific content with scrutiny. Their current focus is on the battles between the mighty Altdorf and the evil home of the Chaos, the Inevitable city.
The next question was in regards to balancing Warhammer Online content based on Dark Age of Camelot and how different the two games were going to be. Jeff Hickman first carefully explained (after Paul Barnett yelled "We know what we're doing!!!") they saw what worked in DAoC, and have taken that a step further to make it even better. He went on to state one similarity, Sieges and Keeps, was recently added primarily because of overwhelming player demand not to mention "they are fun." He appeared to be trying to make clear that yes, some of their ideas did come from DAoC but they used them as a foundation to build something more advanced.
The Witchhunter
Speaking of Sieges, a question regarding siege equipment provided some additional information we didn't see in February's newsletter. Jeff Hickman stated you'd only be able to find siege equipment in a keep, outside a keep, in a city, or near special war camps. There are basically four types consisting of Boiling Oil, Ram's, Indirect Fire and Direct Fire. While the Boiling Oil and Ram are for Keep defense and offense, Indirect Fire can consist of a Catapult, Trebuchet, or Mortar designed to blanket an area with damage. Direct Fire on the other hand is meant to specifically damage other siege equipment and can include Ballista, Hell Cannons, and Dark Elf Reavers.
However don't think for a moment you can stand around and lazily firing away, each weapon begins a minigame of aiming which can include wind elements. The PvP fans will be taken care of obviously but what about PvE? There was a brief mention we will see Siege scenarios in the game for PvE such as assaulting a Dark Elf vessel and turning it's guns on other ships.
The team moved on into a very sensitive topic with experienced PvP players, side balancing. How are the developers going to make sure fights are not only fair, but fun for everyone? They first explained that as time goes on in an occupied area, the more benefits the under dogs get. It could be something as subtle as guards being removed from the winning team but in time, the oppressors will become the repressed. Clarifying quickly they weren't attempting to punish those that work the hardest, but to keep the game fun. Paul Barnett also mentioned that every time they run a metric on current beta populations it always comes out near even. Whether this will remain true on a large scale remains to be seen, but it's apparent they are watching it.
Khorne
It didn't take long before concerns about specific playstyles made it into the discussion. How much of the end game will the casual player see? Will it be dominated as in other games by the most hardcore? Paul Barnett answered this tricky question with an unusual metaphor. He stated developers have a tendency to build for the top 10% because they are the most vocal and successful and likened it to constructing a golf course. You can build a course that only Tiger Woods could successfully navigate but it would frustrate a normal golfer. They intend to build something that maybe a hardcore player will move through easy but will be fun for all.
What about solo players whose style includes avoiding other players like they had SARS? After Barnett reiterated his preference about solo play, Hickman stated that "You can take part in anything, just can't do it all alone." Players can easily walk into a scenario, city, or keep with complete strangers and fight along side them. Their goal is to integrate everyone into fighting for a common goal and getting to know each other. They referred to this as "tricking people into making friends" and it sounded like a brilliant strategy.
A natural progression of getting people together is of course the guild, which was discussed at length in the recent podcast, but Drescher was kind enough to elaborate on. Guilds are critical for overall success in the game at the high level and there is an expectation they are not going to be static. Calling their plans the "living guild" players will not just use this function as a chat channel for the people you regularly play with. Another interesting note, was that while guilds will be able to level to 40, the team stated they were trying to "equalize" guild leveling in an attempt to avoid the classic mega-guilds that grind right to the top.
The Greenskin Shaman
What rewards can people expect for guild membership? A great example is banners they can carry which will provide special effects for members on the battlefield. They can either be planted in a keep or put on the ground by a bearer, but beware they can also be stolen by the enemy.
While on the topic of scenarios, they made it a point to mention there were over 30 available and described them as "All the games you played as a kid you can now play with swords, magic, and explosions." There was mention of the standard deathmatch and capture the flag, but they seemed particularly proud of game called "Murderball." In Murderball essentially one player has the ball but don't think they can just hide and rack up points. Not only does a beam of light emanate from their head, but possession of the ball slowly kills the player. How does anyone survive if not only the ball, but other players are trying to kill them? You become super strong while you have it, and can leave a wake of destruction in your path.
Finally they touched briefly on the topic of lore which is near and dear in the hearts of many Warhammer fans. How will this game draw you in and make you feel a part of the epic story? An example they gave was one of the first things you'll do in the Empire is rescue people in your home village and repel invaders, while consequently the Chaos side will assault an Empire village and plunder. Over 300 Public Quests will help tell the story of the area you are in and bring players into the Warhammer universe.
Overall it seems the team is not only enthusiastic about Warhammer Online, but is looking at every possible facet of design they can. Keep checking back with us as we continue to follow their progress and see what will appear in the games brings release, which they reiterated as "Fall of 2008."
Warhammer: We Know What We're Doing!
05.02.08 Submitted By: Deeogee
Did you know that the rowdy bunch over at EA Mythic refuse to wear pants during conference calls? We weren't surprised either.
mmolecule among others were recently granted audience with the crazies to talk about their highly anticipated MMO, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. The pant-less perpetrators sitting in to answer our questions were Adam Gershowitz (Combat and Careers), Destin Bales (Content Director), Jeff Hickman (Senior Producer), Josh Drescher (Associate Producer), and Paul Barnett (mouth full of pizza).
We know what we're doing!
WAR was built upon the foundations of Dark Age of Camelot but also offers some great differences. Initially RvR started with a solid system, but when they introduced it into beta, players liked it, but wanted more. So Mythic put in Keeps and Sieges, not only because its awesome, but because it fits Warhammer. "It's made WAR a well rounded and full PvP game, so deep and crazy, that when beta players get out there and experience it, they are gushing with excitement."
Jeff also goes on to say "We learned a lot from DAOC - How to balance realms, population, and classes. We learned what players find enjoyable and what they don't, what players enjoy doing in long bursts and what they enjoy in short bursts." Unlike DAOC where there was only one battlefront, WAR has 3. Not only does WAR have Open World RvR, but also Public Quest's, Battlefield Objectives, Keeps, etc, and it all culminates with epic City Sieges. As far as classes go, they are all iconic to WAR and fun to play. Picking and playing your class is about fun, not about gimmick mechanics. The ability to understand your class quickly, even though it may be difficult to master is key, and EA Mythic believes that is what they have right now.
Paul Barnett Hates You!
Paul is an "anti-social malcontent" in the words of Josh Drescher. He prefers PvE and its the only thing he does in the game. Paul hates everyone and doesn't like to worry about a 9 year old kid making him eat dirt. He can level all the way through the game and enjoys doing it alone. He gets to help with the war effort though his PvE efforts, and when the PvPers take over a city he can head over and take part in all the crazy quests on his own without having to worry about anyone else. In other words, solo play is viable and you will be able to experience nearly all the content as a solo player.
That being said, its hard to stay anti-social in the game. WAR is designed to take players and trick them into making friends. You won't have the problem of spending your precious time looking for a group. Thanks to systems like Public Quests, Battlefield Objectives, and Scenarios, players will naturally find each other and want to group up for the sake of their faction. Much like a soccer fan, Josh explained, "You paint your face with your teams colors and punch fans of the other team in the face."
PvE vs RvR
If you want, you can ignore RvR but at some point you will find that you rely on players who really focus on that content in order to accomplish the goals that are important to you. All systems are intertwined, meaning PvE players need the RvR players and vice versa. PvE efforts contribute to the war effort and zone control of the area you are playing in. Everything you do including Quests, PQs, Tome Unlocks, Crafting, etc, helps RvR at its highest level, because zone control trickles up through the tiers of gameplay. RvR players benefit from PvE players due to that support system.
To get to the most impressive PvE encounters in the game you will need the RvR campaign to reach the enemies capital city. Knockdown the gates, loot, pillage, and burn the city to the ground in order to gain access to the massive encounters that only take place in an enemies capital city. Everything going on in the game impacts weather or not you are going to have access to content. War is truly everywhere in Warhammer Online.
Zerg What?
"what if everyone decides to play one side!?" An obvious threat to RvR enjoyment. EA Mythic has Organic things to attract players on a population level and Mechanic things in place to make sure those numbers make sense. For instance, in every beta they have ran so far, the sides balance themselves out. Almost as if the game is so compelling and interesting and the RvR is so fun and balanced that people don't really care what faction they choose. They pick a class that is fun to them and they know regardless they are going to have a good time. Should players need Mechanical systems to help the weaker force, the system will start doing little things to bring the losers up to par. Such things like slowly pulling out the number of guards the stronger force has and giving more guards to the weaker force and/or special buffs. EA Mythic isn't punishing you for being successful, you get your obvious rewards. EA Mythic insists that to keep all players happy the sense of competition must be kept alive and interesting.
Top 10% vs The Average Joe
In WAR its not about what you can get, its about how long it takes to get it. The game is targeted at everyone, casual and hardcore players alike. Being skillful and committed will go along way in making you successful, but Warhammer Online isn't about getting together a big time consuming raid and killing monsters for phat lewts. Sure, city sieges are about a lot of people, but not about the big giant raids. Everyone has access to the endgame content and items. You can literally walk into an End-Game Capital Siege all alone, because there will be other people there to fight along side with, it really is accessible to everyone.
Paul goes on to say that "There is an obsession with game designers to build for the top 10% because they are very vocal and very successful - that leads you to doom and destruction. For example, you can build a golf course so that only Tiger Woods can actually get par, but that would be madness! What you do is build a good golf course for everyone. If Tiger Woods decides to play there, he is going to score huge, but thats ok, because everyone else is going to have a damn good time and are going to understand whats going on and are going to have goals to aim for. Its the same sort of logic."
Second Job?
The overall leveling from 1 to 40 is going to be fairly quick, but in regard to hitting the Renown Rank cap, it's going to take a long time. Jeff stated "Were not going to give you an example of hours, but if you look at Dark Age and look at the time it takes to move up in Realm Rank - its similar to that." Reasoning behind this is that the RvR game is where you will be earning your Renown Rank and that is where they want you to spend most of your time - Killing other players! It's also worth mentioning that killing other players will not only net you renown XP, but also level XP, gold, and loot!
Warhammer Online is focused on two things from the very beginning - Cooperative and Competitive gameplay. They are making WAR so that the game offers features that will make it very easy and intuitive to handle multi-guild level strategies and plans. They want to make sure players get into the world and are able to fight and kill things, instead of scheduling and doing spreadsheets. To ensure this, EA Mythic is doing a lot of little things like in game messaging so you know where the battle is at any given time. You will also know when a city goes under-attack and how your side is doing, where the battlefield is being pushed to, etc. By keeping players informed inside and outside the game, they believe it will allow more players to participate in everything thats going on in game without requiring people to be logged in all day. EA Mythic expects and epidemic of players setting the War Herald as their browsers homepage and refreshing it constantly while at work.
For the player with only a 30minutes of free time, they can log in and participate in a couple scenarios and log out, knowing they helped their faction. To join a scenario, you don't have to go find a portal or an NPC, just click the icon in your UI and you are good to go. if you are wondering what a scenario is exactly, think of what you expect from a typical World of Warcraft instanced Battleground, only better! Scenarios consist of a variety of game types like the typical Capture the Flag, Team Death Match, and the awesome Murder-Ball! Essentially, murder-ball is an item a player picks up and becomes more powerful than he could ever dream of, basically killing foes in single blows. The only catch to this is that while a player holds the murder-ball it slowly drains his life. Every zone in the game will have at least 1 scenario for a total over 30 scenarios in the game at launch!
My Guild can beat up your Guild
When Mythic set out to design the WAR Guild system they set out some very important rules: Guilds cant be a static thing, They cant be just an extra chat channel, cant be just a roster of the only people you ever talk to. Guilds had to be a living part of the world and thats what they have built. Not only can guilds claim keeps and objectives but are critical to the overall success a players is going to achieve in game. The guild itself is going to be high level goal for the players. From the moment you join a guild, everything you do helps drive your guild to greater and greater success. In the same way that a player level up, guilds will also level up over time as well. Once again, everything you do in game is also reflected in your guilds rank.
And so you know, having more people in your guild isn't going to make it level faster. EA Mythic doesn't want players to form massive guilds just for the sake of being massive and leveling super quick. There are systems in place that will equalize small guilds with large guilds. WAR is a strategic game, and they want guilds to resemble as strategic entities, not zerging hordes. That being said, up to 10 guilds can form a guild alliance. Each guild alliance will receive it's own coordination chat channel only available to the Guild leaders and up to 5 officers from each guild, allowing for strategic plans and a large yet efficient war effort.
Put your pants back on!
Overall there was a repeating theme in the session: Interesting, Compelling, and Fun. From the look of things, EA Mythic is doing what they promised and Warhammer Online is shaping up to offer us something new and exciting in the MMO genre. Sadly nothing new was revealed in this interview, due to uninformed people asking well known information that could have been found on the website, our hour went by too quickly. However, we have had light shed on a few subjects. Solo players should be happy to know they can play how ever they wish and the Average Joe will find that the best gear in game is easily within reach. Thanks EA Mythic, it was fun, but next time keep your pants on if you aren't going to put out!
Written by: Dekun
New Screen Shots and Concept Art
