I know it may seem a bit strange to see Warhammer instead of Warcraft in the title of my post, but Dave and I got a chance to have a chat with and ask questions of Mythic Community Manager James Nichols at this past weekend’s GameX. So, I figured given those circumstance coupled with the lack of exciting things happening in WoW this week are a good enough reason for me to allow it to enter my life again. Temporarily.
A bit of history with myself and Warhammer. I’m not the Warhammer guy, Dave is, in our little group of friends. So when I heard about WH Online, to me it was an mad grab for the greedy Games Workshop to get into the MMORPG market while the path Blizzard cut was still clear. It took nearly all of their promises, gameplay trailers, cinematics and more than a few well written Warhammer fantasy books to even agree to get me to try the game. So I buckle, agree and sign up for the beta by pre-ordering the game.
About 1 week prior to the open beta, I *finally* got my damned beta key to work. I jumped into the game to find an average run of the mill riddled with bugs and badness MMORPG. However, I also saw in WH Online massive potential. The lore and classes grabbed me and held on tight. But at the same time, the broken mechanics and bastardization of the game itself pushed me hard back into the loving arms of Azeroth. I lasted from the time I started in beta until the release of Wrath of the Lich King, fairly hardcore. After that, I kept WH Online as a side game for about 7 more months before calling it quitsies. Lack of fixes for release bugs, insane class balance decisions, lack of real competition and the WORST battlegrounds I’ve played in any game yet (Too objective. Warhammer is about KILLING, not capturing flags. See below) ultimately led to my downfall.
Read. Follow. Repeat for hundreds of hours.
Now, what follows is the interview with James Nichols of Mythic.
Bill: For all the diehard Warhammer fans out there, this question must be asked. Are there any plans to include any of the other Chaos Gods in a greater capactiy?
James: No plans for that right now, other than the small things already in game. Simply wouldn’t fit with the game mechanics.
Bill: With such an established set of lore, so built upon by the company and fans, why was it decided to take Warhammer Online in a direction that felt more like DAoC 2?
James: Lots of things just naturally carried over from DAoC, ideas the developers just loved. Then again, a lot of prevalent things like relics did not carry over, making the game different from DAoC.
Bill: Any chance of 3 factions or a free for all PvP server, since WH:O is already so similar? Those being 2 of most people’s favorite mechanics from DAoC.
James: 3 factions would destroy the mechanics of the game, as they’re built now. No plans for free for all PvP either, as it would not draw a suficient amount of people to it.
Bill: At release, many broken mechanics and missing features caused an early mass exodus of players from the game. As of the time I quit, most of those things still existed. Are they fixed?
James: Patch 1.3.2 addressed almost all of the problems plagueing game play, technical and lag issues. AOE and CC power issues have also been addressed, to make the mechanics feel less dominating and much more situational.
Bill: Also, the 6 capital cities promised at launch are still 4 shy of that total. Any chance of seeing the other 4 cities soon?
James: No plans as of right now. Time constraints at release killed the hopes for all 6, as each city took 9 months for a team to build.
Bill: Warhammer had a huge surge of players at release, but lost most of them. So to all the people out there that have an account rotting, give them one reason to come back and try the game again.
James: With almost all bugs having been fixed and many other class issues ironed out, Warhammer Online offers the best PvP experience in MMORPGs right now. Play Warhammer if PvP is your main goal.
That’s that, folks. James and the other Warhammer devs present at GameX were great guys, very fun to talk to. I spent a few hours at their booth and even some time at the after parties gabbing it up with them. Very good people who I think truly want to put out a good game. Still, I felt a bit of a corporate line being towed during the answering of the questions. All said, I will be signing up for another month of Warhammer, if nothing more than to see if they delivered on any promises yet. Keep your eyes open in the next week or two for a follow-up!