Crispy Gamer News

Warhammer Online players are getting some special tricks and treats this week. Underway in Mythic’s MMO now, players have a new threat to contend with as the Witching Night descends upon the land. Players can take part in WAR’s first live in-game event and tackle four new Public Quests, along with a host of other new content to earn special, seasonal rewards including rare costume masks, unique titles, potions, trinkets, and special, event-only cloaks. Some of these unique rewards can be looted from the corpses of enemy players during Realm vs. Realm play.

You can learn more about Warhammer Online’s Halloween events by visiting the official site.

Mythic Entertainment announced that in the first week since launch over 500,000 new players have registered for its fantasy MMORPG, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, in North America, Europe and the Oceanic territories.

“In just one week we have a half a million people playing WAR online, and the ranks of Order and Destruction are growing at a record-breaking pace for a new MMORPG,” said Mark Jacobs, co-founder and general manager of Mythic Entertainment.

I do not mean to bag on WAR, but that number seems mighty underwhelming. Age of Conan garnered 400,000 subscribers - a number that dramatically declined in the weeks that followed. No doubt WAR will have a better retention rate than AOC, but many expected it would have had a much stronger showing that it has managed. Mind you, 500,000 is a solid and respectable number, but EA has to really get behind this game and promote as hard - if not harder than - Blizzard has pushed World of Warcraft.

Mythic Entertainment’s MMORPG, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR for short), will begin shipping tomorrow to retail stores across North America, Europe, and Oceania in preparation for launch on September 18th. The anticipation for WAR is high if pre-orders are any indication and the company has sold 1.5 million units of WAR to retailers, who anticipate moving those units to you in short order.

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is rated “T” for Teen by the ESRB and will be available for the PC at an MSRP of $49.99. WAR will be the first MMORPG to open its servers simultaneously in North America, Europe, and Oceania when it goes live on September 18th, 2008.

We are all one step closer to playing the final version of Mythic Entertainment’s promising MMO, Warhammer: Age of Reckoning in Europe and North America. Why? Because the game has gone gold and is heading out for replication and packaging, with a planned release in the aforementioned territories on September 18.

Based on the popular tabletop game from Games Workshop, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is an online role-playing game that focuses on large-scale Realm vs. Realm game play that pits the forces of Order and Destruction against one another on the battlefield to determine the fate of nations.

I have played the beta and this game is indeed as promising as you might think it is. It is certainly not the World of Warcraft killer some might think it is, but it’s certainly a game that fans will flock to. Look for more on this game from the Game Trust later this week. Fans going to the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle can check out the game for themselves - it is on the show floor for hands on play.

Paul Barnett, creative director for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, will be giving a talk on Mythic’s game during Comic-Con. The presentation is this Saturday, July 26 at the San Diego Convention Center. Barnett will try to explain how they have used Game Workshop’s Warhammer universe to maximum effect, and how the company has balanced satisfying Warhammer fans while providing an MMO experience that everyone will want to play.

The talk will take place Saturday, July 26 from 2:00pm - 3:00pm in Room 2 at the San Diego Convention Center.

A couple of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning news bits to report today, in case you haven’t been keeping up on this MMO’s latest developments. The first is minor but important: EA Mythic has dropped the “EA” off its name, in a move that gives the company back its identity as the developer of Dark Age of Camelot. Mythic head Mark Jacobs said in an interview with MMORPG.com that the name change does not mean a change in its relationship with its parent company.

“I think that this is a wonderful example of how things at EA are changing,” said Jacobs. “Both John [Riccitiello] and Frank [Gibeau] have spoken multiple times about city states, more freedom, that sort of thing, and I think this is an obvious example.”

But this move has a lot more meaning than just a superficial name change. It means that Mythic has a say in how it is handled by EA and gives it at least the appearance of autonomy. (Source: gi.biz)

Speaking of Warhammer Online, EA and “Mythic Entertainment” announced that the Guild Beta for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning has begun. Over 10,000 guilds applied to take part in this phase of the beta, but only a select few have been let in initially. The Guild Beta is the last phase of Mythic’s closed beta test.

Guilds will help test WAR’s recently added Guild and Heraldry features, as well as Public Quests, new dungeons, Scenarios, user interface updates and more as the MMORPG advances towards its launch this fall.