If I Had a Hammer...

With Warhammer Online almost ready to go live, we get the skinny on this next-level MMORPG.
8/27/2008 8:40 PM | 0 Comments | Page 4 of 4

Crispy Gamer: Any MMO is obviously going to be compared to World Of Warcraft, but do you actually think Warhammer should be compared to Warcraft or do you think it's actually closer to another MMO?

Barnett: If you make music, you'll eventually be compared to The Beatles. WoW changed the face of MMOs in terms of earnings, ease of use, and just the amount of people who played it. We're trying to be the next generation. So we're not trying to be The Beatles, we're trying to be Led Zeppelin.

Crispy Gamer: One of the criticisms of Warcraft is that it's a very basic MMO. Are you following a similar path in hopes of reaching a wide audience, or are you going for a more hardcore MMO crowd?

Barnett: I think you can play an awful lot of our game without being hardcore, but you can only play our top game... It's kind of like golf: Anyone can pick up a club and knock the ball around, but if you want to be Tiger Woods, you're going to have to be hardcore. If you want to excel at our game, you have to be hardcore, there's no easy answer. But if you just want to go and play, you can do that.

Crispy Gamer: What do you think your game does better than WoW?

Barnett: We look better, we do player-vs.-player better, we have the next generation of general game design, and we've got a really deep game world.

Crispy Gamer: "South Park" won an Emmy for their World of Warcraft episode...

Barnett: I was on "The Tonight Show"!

Crispy Gamer: You were?

Barnett: Yeah! Jay Leno did his monologue as one of our goblins.

Crispy Gamer: I didn't know that. Well, I was going to ask, if you could have any show do a Warhammer joke...

Barnett: We did it! We were on The Tonight Show! It was awesome.

Crispy Gamer: Okay, calm down. So, has there been any talk of doing a version for consoles?

Barnett: No.

Crispy Gamer: How about on Macs?

Barnett: We have no comment on that at the moment.

Crispy Gamer: Ah, man, no one ever makes cool games for the Mac.

Barnett: No, no, you didn't listen to what I said: We have no announcement to make on that at the moment.

Crispy Gamer: Hmmm.... Finally, I have to ask: how often have the marketing people suggested you call the game World of Warhammer?

Barnett: Ha! Never, although there is a wonderful book called "World of Warhammer" that came out about three years before World of Warcraft. It's interesting reading if you're a Warcraft fan.