The Five: Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning

Will Warhammer Online make you say WOW ... or just yawn?
8/27/2008 8:40 PM | 0 Comments | Page 1 of 1

Given the behemoth that is World of Warcraft, you'd have to be brave or crazy, or a little of both, to launch a fantasy MMO right now. Which might explain why EA is rolling out Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning on Sept. 18. We asked Mythic's Paul Barnett, the game's creative director, to explain why someone might want to make the switch.

1. It's mostly familiar ... mostly: According to Barnett, Warhammer is similar to many other fantasy MMORPGs. There are quests, characters level up, and you use the "W," "A," "S" and "D" keys to move. But Mythic has also added Public Quests, which are constantly repeated events that relaunch every 20 minutes. "And when they end," Barnett explains, "the game looks at how much you contributed and gives you the appropriate part of the treasure."

2. It has more acronyms than many MMOs: In the game, players can only fight other players, or they can never fight other players, or they can do both. The difference is that the former battles contribute to your standard level, or Rank (capped at 40), while the others add to your RvR (realm-vs.-realm) Rank (capped at 80), with each having their own rewards. Oh, and fighting non-players doesn't mean you're stabbing wild boars for hours. "No, we're talking about being able to go down into enormous dungeons where you'll kill demons, take on kings, etc.," clarifies Barnett.

3. They're also upgrading achievements: The Tome of Knowledge, Barnett explains, "records what you've done, how you did it, and how quickly you did it." But the Tome isn't just your life story, it's also like a big to-do list of tasks that "are like Achievements, only deeper, because they can unlock abilities, give you items, or give you new things to do."

4. They ain't noobs: Though this is the first Warhammer game Mythic has made, it's not their first MMO; they also made Dark Age of Camelot. "Knowing how to keep a game live and active," notes Barnett, "are hard-learned lessons, and Camelot was a tremendous learning ground for us."

5. It's not WoW, and it's not trying to be: "If you make music, you'll eventually be compared to The Beatles," Barnett says. "WoW changed MMOs, but we're trying to be the next generation. We look better, we do player-vs.-player better, and we have the next generation of general game design. So we're not trying to be The Beatles, we're trying to be Led Zeppelin."

The Crispy Forecast: With the newest WoW expansion, The Wrath of the Lich King, also coming soon, it may be a while before anyone switches to Warhammer. But with some interesting new additions to the MMORPG template, WO:AOR might eventually give MMOs a run for their gold.

This "Five" is based on an interview and publisher-driven demo conducted during a recent EA event.