Tag Archive

Rush To The Tanks: New Warhammer Online Patch

Written by John Walker on October 17, 2008.

Mythic have announcified two new careers for Warhammer Online, due to appear this Winter. And they’re beefcake. The Empire’s Knight of the Blazing Sun, and the Dark Elf Black Guard will be available to the game’s current 750,000 players, as part of the first major patch, 1.1. Discussed by Mark Jacobs in his first State Of The Game address, we’ve cobbled together the highlights of the rest of the included updates below.

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GOA Confirms Open Beta, Definitely Lowers Prices

Written by John Walker on August 26, 2008.

Edit: As confirmed by GOA in the comments below, the prices for Warhammer ARE lowering in the UK as we printed last week, and their statements contradicting this and poo-pooing our reporting seem to have been somewhat erroneous. The lesson: RPS is always right, and handsome.

After astonishing amounts of confusion, GOA has finally made what appears to be the definitive statement regarding Open Beta access for those who pre-order Warhammer Online from the EA Store, and Direct2Drive.

It seems their plan was to not announce which of their partners would be offering customers OB access until the day the game becomes officially available for pre-order sale - this Thursday. However, EA and D2D, who it turns out will be amongst those partners, put the information up early. GOA then responded to this by, er, denying it. Now they have said they intended Open Beta to be available via certain pre-order outlets all along.

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Warhammer EU Pricing - Fustercluck

Written by John Walker on August 22, 2008.

There really does seem to be a lot of confusion regarding the pricing of Warhammer Online. You’ll remember that a couple of weeks back the EU prices were announced, and we called them into question, noticing they were simply conversions of Euro into Pound, not only very odd numbers, but numbers well above the competition. We nagged at the UK PR, Indigo Pearl, and they eventually came back to us with new prices in line with what we’d expect. Well, madly, it doesn’t end there.

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Barnett: “We’re Led Zeppelin”

Written by Jim Rossignol on August 19, 2008.

And WoW was The Beatles… Warhammer Online creative director Paul Barnett can talk more than anyone else. See him talk about WAR in a video interview after the jump. If the squig herder thing doesn’t sell it to you, then nothing will. Excepting, perhaps, the RPS Warhammer Online discussion later this week.
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WAR Open Beta Announced, UK Prices Lowered

Written by John Walker on August 18, 2008.

Mythic have finally announced a date for the beginning of Warhammer Online: Age Of Reckoning’s open beta. It’s 7th September, with the game released proper in a month’s time, on the 18th. They’re expecting it to be very open, with what they hope will be hundreds of thousands of people piling in to stress test the servers. This announcement is only for the N. American servers so far, with open beta invites given to anyone who pre-orders the game. We’ve asked EA when the EU servers will be offering the same, and will let you know. US players can register here.

Meanwhile, you might remember our confusion over the pricing for the UK subs rates on the game. At the time they were announced, the one month price was £10.31, which struck us as odd. We enquired, and have now been told they’re lower.

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Warhammer Online Gets Release Date

Written by John Walker on August 6, 2008.

As one MMO dies, another is born. Warhammer Online: Age Of Reckoning (or WoAoR as I prefer to say) has finally shouted out a release date: 18th September, 2008.

How much will it cost to play a month, you cry? Read on.

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New Warhammer Online Footage, Interview

Written by John Walker on June 25, 2008.

Over the years I’ve been following the development of Warhammer Online: Age Of Reckoning, I’ve noticed one steady trend. It’s the gradual subversion of the formerly calm, carefully paced executive producer Jeff Hickman into Paul Barnett’s comedy sidekick. I blame Barnett entirely for this. That nice man, all gone strange. It’s very telling that when Kieron and I went to visit their studios in Washington DC a couple of years back, I was drawn to Hickman and Kieron to Barnett. What it tells is that Gillen and Barnett are both eccentrics, while Hickman and I are calm, thoughtful and better looking. I digress. The positive result of these personalities at the helm of WAR is seeing both sides appearing in-game. WAR is looking like an MMO that will sit down to tell you a good story, then fart in your face and run away. I stress that this is a good thing. Anyhow, point is, you can see Hickman and Barnett doing their thing in the video below, along with some new in-game footage.

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Games For 2008: Warhammer Online

Written by John Walker on January 10, 2008.

Two conflicting positions: I have very high hopes for Warhammer Online, and believe it will be a great MMO with fresh ideas, and a unique way of dealing with global conflict. Also: I really worry about Warhammer Online, concerned that by the time it comes out it will have devolved into a very generic WoW clone.

The very first time I saw WAR, back in February 2006, it was more conceptual than physical. They had built a bit of the beginning ground for the Dwarves and Greenskins, and that was just about it. But they had some really exciting ideas. The world of the Games Workshop monolith was going to take some really original approaches to the genre, and the most immediately exciting was the abandoning of levels. Instead they had this fantastic structure in mind that let you micro-manage your character’s skills, picking three at a time and then letting the XP you accrue fill each until it’s complete. This was then broken down into five distinct stages, and, well, it doesn’t exist so it’s not worth explaining. But they were excited about it, and so was I. It’s very telling that the MMO genre seems to have the power to force developers to lose anything that strays too far from the familiar. You’ve got to get a player-base, and if you want them, you’ve got to make it familiar enough. Which means, of course, you’ve got to make it feel like World of Warcraft. Sigh.

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