WAR Conference Call + info + sexy goblins = Happy Keen

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Mmmmm WAR info.. *drools for a few minutes*

First off this must be said… Sexiest. Goblin. Ever. *ahem*

The big major press sites out there all participated in a conference call a couple days ago and as a result we have lots of tidbits of information to digest and, in my case, drool over.  You can read the info in its entirety  at one or two of my favorite stops, but I want to briefly point out a few interesting notes.

The game has been receiving some pretty intensive stress testing in beta, particularly in the area of RVR. Since the model for RVR was DAoC, what has the testing shown and how will that portion of the game differ from Camelot?

Paul: “WE KNOW WHAT WE ARE DOING!!”

Jeff: “We learned a lot of great stuff from Dark Age of Camelot, as far as how to balance out realms, how to balance out population, how to balance classes, what’s fun, what’s not, what do they enjoy doing in short bursts, and what do they enjoy doing in long bursts. A lot of the stuff we are doing with Warhammer was derived from Camelot. Some of these are the “if only we could do this… when we were making Camelot, but we couldn’t”. Warhammer builds on the great foundation that Camelot put in place for us, but it also differs greatly.”

There’s just something about the WAR dev team that exudes this sense of “We have experience.  We know what we’re doing”.  Aside from Paul screaming the very fact (something I would have payed money to hear) the dev team on WAR gives me a feeling akin to driving in the car with someone you know vs. a stranger.

I have played a successful and wonderful Mythic mmorpg and now that they are developing a second I feel like I can sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.  Listening to or watching Josh Drescher is like eating comfort food.  Err, that sounds sorta weird.  *looks around*  Moving along now…

What systems are in place, if any, to prevent a winning side from continually getting stronger and the losing side only getting weaker?

There are rewards for winning but the longer a zone is under control of the winning side there will be subtle things to bring the losers up to par, slowly taking the winning sides advantage away. Some examples of how this will be done included buffs to the losing realm, increasing guards etc. Their intentions are to not punish the winning side but to give you a sense that the competition is always lively and interesting.

I have been saying that for years!  Don’t punish the winner, boost the underdog!  I feel exhilarated to know that someone is finally getting it.

Lastly I want to share one final bit of info:

Will there be Anti-Zerg mechanisms?

There is ample opportunity for large groups of people to run and around and kill each other, while there is just as much opportunity for evenly matched groups to kill each other.

Paul went on to further explain that strategy in Warhammer will be of major importance, and that large groups are no match for skilled players.

One word: Hallelujah!

Go and read the entire conference call on one of the sites I linked above.  If you’re like me you’ll take any tidbits of information and treasure them in this drought.

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  • good post.
    but i think paul take over ur blog when u write about WAR. u know the unending enthusiasm. cant blame u for being excited though.

  • WAR looks extremely promising. Having played DAoC, i know RvR has its up’s and downs. If they get the balance issues right and put skill into the game, rarther than 100% gear-button-mashing, They’ll go far.

    After playing AOC beta, being dissapointed, i’ve renewed my wow sub untill WAR comes out.

    Don’t get me wrong, i’ed much rarther play AOC than WOW right now, but just to bridge the gap between now and WAR open beta. Which is likely August/September.

    For those that don’t know, the collectors edition guarantees a closed beta place in WAR. It’s available now, just look at their main website.

    First impressions last, WAR looks promising.

    Oxegen(UK) – <3’s the healer class, we dont all sound like paul btw 😉

  • To me it seems like the dev team doesn’t really answer the questions they are asked. I have a lot of hope for Warhammer. It will be interesting to see how they can hold a PVP mmo together without a feeling of monotonous stagnation at max level once you’ve conqered the enemy base a few times. That was what sort of did me in at the end of DaoC. I got the best overcharge crafted gear and pvp’d. But after a while the PVP just sort of became monotonous and I had way more fun assassinating on my lowbie twink Scout.

    To this day I have no idea why other MMO’s haven’t emulated the low end BG’s of DaoC, that was my favorite part of the game and some of the most fun in PVP since UO.

  • Was War not delayed because it got hammered badly in beta by the players ?

  • I’m following the WAR progress with interest, even though I don’t think I’ll play it (I’m on a very anti-elf, anti-dwarf kick right now, maybe it’ll pass by then but I doubt it).

    There’s certainly a good deal of innovation coming from Mythic. They may know what they’re doing from their DaoC experience, but they’re hardly just copy-and-pasting either.

    Actually, I think we’re seeing the best of breed a bit here from Mythic and Funcom, both with other MMORPGs under their belt that are still up and running over some significant time. It’s going to give a different perspective on next generation MMORPGs, because these games have parents.

  • @ Anders – There are still some pretty major issues that need to be resolved, in my opinion, and alot of the other testers by the looks of things, the biggest cause for concern is the problems with the combat system. There was a massive thread on the forum about it a while back and as far as I know, no response from Mythic, but that may just be because they have it all under control and are focusing on other aspects at the moment.

    Hell, I haven’t played it for a good while (over a month) so it might be alot better now, but yeah probably a large part of the decision to put it back again was due to the beta feedback. To be fair I think its a good move on their part, at the end of the day as has been said alot you only get one chance to make a good first impression, and i’d rather them spend the extra few months and make sure they turn it into the game we’re all looking forward to :).

  • Well lets hope they do better than they did with “Trials of Atlantis” hehe

  • I really do think they learned their lesson from ToA. They even joke about it themselves. Mark Jacobs has a lot riding on WAR now, just like Brad McQuaid had for Vanguard, so I have high hopes that the game will stick with the current vision and be great.

  • If anything, the delay gives WAR ample time to learn from AoC’s mistakes. They will get to see how they do well, how they don’t and make sure they provide something better.

    Despite how much it pains me to have to wait on my precious WAR, its for the best.

  • “large groups are no match for skilled players”

    1. How many are a large group ?

    2. If large group == zerg, how do you beat a zerg without aoe CC ?

  • @Bartlebe: That’s true. Even though I want the game now, I can suffer through the wait with hopes that Mythic is using the time wisely.

    @Herbert: The million dollar questions on the topic. 😉 I wish there were more details available.

  • personaly i think everyone being on the same lvl even if sucking is not cool but thats me

  • Of course, “large groups are no match for skilled players.” Might just mean: Level > *

  • WAR has tons of AOE. Check out this Bright Wizard AoE video.

    Herbert was referring to something back from DAOC known as “aoe mez” which was basically a spell that the Healer class or other classes had that could disable over a dozen players all at once. It was a powerful anti-zerg ability but also caused enormous problems for smaller group combat. I believe that WAR will not have cc on such a large scale.

  • Yeah, anyone who played daoc rvr remembers how well cc worked to stop zergs. Healer up front with insta-cast aoe stun.

    The problem was that it was never worth the trouble to split up zergs. You’d still see two zergs with cc, hoping to get off the first stun.

    I think WoW approached CC in a better way, CC is still powerful, but it doesn’t feel so friggin overpowering.

    note that i haven’t played daoc in years, so i don’t know the current status of how well cc works anymore.

  • I haven’t heard anything mentioned about a target cap on AoE damage abilities, and pretty much every class in the game has some sort of AoE, either a base skill, a mastery skill, or a morale ability. This means that a coordinated alpha-strike of aoe by a highly organized group could obliterate a much larger force. You’d have to get the jump on them, and your timing would have to be very good, but healers can’t do much if everyone dies at once.

    If the zerg is spread out enough that you can’t aoe them, they’re also spread out enough that they can’t rapidly concentrate their damage on a small group that’s attacking them. If the left half of the zerg dies before the right half gets in range, the small group could still win.

    A zerg that manages to maintain a strong formation as they move, spread out enough to avoid stacked aoes but not so far as to disperse their strength would likely be immune to attack by small groups . . . but what I’ve described hardly constitutes a zerg. An organized zerg? Oxymoron.

  • People who know what their doing don’t need to say “We know what were doing!” They just do it.

    In reference to that, yah they did scrap their RVR system due to insanely bad feedback from beta testers. That to me doesn’t give me a lot of confidence.

    Blizzard didn’t have any prior MMORPG experience and proved it wasn’t necessary. After being burned so many times on MMORPG’s I think the best bet is not to get your hopes to high and see what kind of proof is in the pudding on release day.

    Too many crap shoots like Vanguard and AoC launches to be naive about the industry anymore. Maybe I’m being overly negative, but I haven’t had a lot of reason to be positive when it comes to new MMO’s over the past 10 years.

  • I think you have some bad info kmxs. Mythic never scrapped their RvR system. About six months ago they announced that due to feedback they would be ADDING open world Keeps ala DAOC to the game. Nothing was scrapped.

    But I agree with you. Too many crapshoots like Vanguard and AoC to be truly 100% trusting. However, there’s something to be said about a company that made a good mmorpg once and comes right out and says they are going to be doing many of the same great things again.

  • I shure hope the end game content will be nothing like WoW.I also hope it wont be gear over skill.

  • Not to fear Seth. WAR’s end-game is nothing like WoW because the game’s design is nothing like WoW’s. There are no 12, 24, or 40 man raids in WAR. (Note: Public quests are public, not raids. TY) and the “dungeon” type content is limited to and designed for single groups. Also, WAR is all about the RvR. Having your realm fight to conquer the enemy realm is what this game is all about.

  • @Keen, I agree that DaoC was good but I also think it only had a mediocre end game. Zergs, repetative PVP, lack for gear improvement. I think I used the same set of gear for like 2 years and there was no reason to upgrade it. Also I always thought Midguard was a bit OP. I stopped playing at the same time they released the new 1 zone RVR frontier which was quite a while ago so there may be changes now that make it alot better. That being said the RVR change happened like 3 years after launch and by that time I was just tired of the game.

  • “Paul went on to further explain that strategy in Warhammer will be of major importance, and that large groups are no match for skilled players.”

    I’d love to believe this too, but really… this could very well be marketing speak. They originally said the same about WoW and LotRO’s Ettenmoors and even TR’s Clan Wars. In each game, it wasn’t the truth.

    I’m not sure there is a way to beat the zerg in a game that uses auto-targeting. Even AoC, which does take a good deal of skill to be successful in combat with (PvE) sees the zerg reign supreme in PvP.

    I’d be VERY shocked if this was not the case with WAR. But I’m certainly willing to be shocked. 🙂 I’ll still be there on day one, addict of MMOGs that I am.

  • Inside word is this game is pretty bad (similar to AoC’s current stage) At least they had the decentcy to hold it back a couple months. I like how it followed in WoW’s shoes with the true to merchandise appeareance but on the same not thats what turns me off WoW; that and how simplistic it feels. It is a nifty goblin though!

  • I’m glad you can be excited about another Mythic/EA production. Ive been back to DaoC for three weeks now while waiting on AoC to go live. I had quit playing Dark Age not long after ToA and New frontiers had turned the game into an Item Fest of overpowering purportions. Let me tell you this They have learned nothing at EA/Mythic I truely hate the game I used to love. I fear you will find another camelot waiting for you in War… only now it has Goblins in Tuxidos..hmmm the WoW Camelot, unbelievably original I’d say. Character running around with abilities that are nothing short of GodMode is not my idea of pvp in balance..to quote WE KNOW WHAT WE ARE DOING. Bs *cough cough* bs

  • Sorry, but I cannot play another game that LOOKS exactly like WoW…just WoW 1.5…

    Almost as if they used the EXACT SAME Gfx engine. Could have AT LEAST made it a little LESS cartoony. Though 10 million people disagree I guess. I am NOT one though.

  • Have you played the game at a convention yet Razorback? It’s definitely not exactly like WoW. The only similarity is that the graphics are “stylized” and not realistic. They’re far form cartoony.

  • The graphics have style to them and are being done in a way that will last for many, many years. In a couple years, AoC’s super realist graphics will be old-hash and the stylized graphics of games like TF2 or WAR will still look -good-

  • Warhammer’s graphics look like the 25 years of Warhammer artwork that they’re based on. Where do you think Warcraft got its inspiration in the first place?

  • @Pellious:

    I’ve heard the exact opposite about the game based on “inside word.” Let’s wait until it comes out. 🙂

  • I do agree with keen that the graphics are quite stylized, though I’m not completely sold that they won’t look a tad stale. As I am not in the beta, nor do I know anyone in the beta I cannot confirm my opinions. I will say this having searched through the mounds of pictures on gamespot, and other sites I feel as though the stylized graphics look rather flat, or perhaps generically stylized (I’m not sure if that’s possible).

  • I was actually refering to the graphics engine. It looks as old as WoWs. They need to overhaul it, QUADRUPLE the texture sizes, and triple the poly counts on EVERYTHING. t just looks 4 years old and it hasn’t come out yet. Just the opinion of a former mesh/texture creator.