Well it appears that the Warhammer Online beta servers will be closing on October 10.  They will be closed for approximately two months and re-open in early December.  This announcement was made by Senior Producer Jeff Hickman on the official beta forums. 

There apparently has been no concrete reason given for the closure, other than the usual “to make the game better” reason.  Jeff Hickman specifically lauded the RvR gameplay that has been seen thus far, but I wonder if they feel they need to make some kind of major change to how that system works.  Maybe they want to add in some “sekret sauce” features?

This news doesn’t scare me, but it does raise my eyebrows a bit.  I just wonder if there is some kind of major re-design they need to do to some mechanic within the game, or if they merely want some uninterrupted time to make a final push for their release build.  As far as I know, this is a first.  I’ve never known a company to shut down their beta for a few months and then re-open.  Push back a release date maybe, but I just don’t recall something like this before.

As I find out more information, I’ll try to update here as well.  Now I guess I really will have to find something else to do this fall other than anticpate getting into beta.

EDIT:  The Warhammer Alliance site had a brief blurb on their front page:

In the post Jeff says this pause in external testing will serve as an opportunity to refine and polish the games core mechanics as well as introduce game systems previously unavailable to testers. This preliminary announcement on the beta boards will very likely be followed by a public announcement on the War Herald.

There isn’t anything on the WAR Herald yet, nor some of the other War news sites.  I’m wondering if this post by Jeff Hickman just hit the beta boards this morning.  I’m sure by this evening there may be more information, and I’m hoping for an official announcement today as well. 

 2nd EDIT:  The official announcement has been posted on the Warhammer Herald site by James Nichols:

Greetings all!

Recently, all WAR Beta participants received a letter stating our plan to end this phase of the closed beta test this Wednesday, October 10th. We periodically close Beta, our last closure being in March of this year, to focus on major improvements and polish. The next phase of Beta will reopen in early December with plenty of new and improved content, art and systems for our beta-testers.

We are very proud to have reached this point in development. Beta has been going very well and the testing community is extremely active. Excitement around the game continues to grow and the team is looking forward to enhancing many features already in the game as well as continuing to add new features to an already great game.

Based on player feedback, our own observations and our current schedule, we have set the following major development goals:

• Improve open field skirmishes and battlefield objectives with major enhancements.
• Provide players with even more options to customize their character both through their abilities and visual appearance.
• Continue to enhance Public Quests and the PQ System.
• Prepare the elves for their release into the world!

When the beta reopens, we look forward to welcoming back all of our current testers, as well as many new faces. Shortly after re-opening the doors, we will be inviting the first wave of guilds into the beta to really get things rolling.

Thank you!
- The Warhammer: Age of Reckoning Team

Well it appears this was a good thing after all.  I’m glad to see the focus on open field skirmishes and battlefield objectives.  World RvR was so great in DAoC that I was hoping it wouldn’t completely be overshadowed by instanced RvR in War.  I also like the sound of increased options for character customization.  Character creation and customization is very important to many people, so I’m glad to hear them say they’ll be spending some further time on that.

Now all we have to do is hold out until December and hope for an invite. 

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This entry was posted on Monday, October 8th, 2007 at 1:35 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.