So by my count (thanks Wordpress!) this is my 33rd post regarding Warhammer Online in the last four months - so about eight per month on average.  Overboard?  Maybe.  Fanboi?  Possibly.  Believer in Mythic due to what I know and love about DAoC?  Absolutely.  Which is why I could probably post the following from today’s November newsletter and call it good so I can start doing my beta dance:

We’re almost ready to re-open the WAR Beta…

But c’mon, where’s the fun in that?  Today the November newsletter hit email boxes everywhere.  After taking some time to read through it and listen to Drescher’s podcast, I can tell you it does have some great info in store for you whether you’ve been keeping up with Warhammer news or not.  As always, there’s a lot more content there than what I will discuss here (including some great screenshots and concept art), so check it out in its entirety.

This is not your Grandma’s beta:  One of the first things that caught my attention was some news about how the WAR beta will operate once it reopens (date plz!!).  Instead of continuing to have the beta servers up 24/7, Mythic is going in a different direction. 

We’ll be moving forward with a series of focused Beta events set around a specific concept or two. These events will last anywhere from 3-10 days and will enable us to gather specific, detailed feedback from our Beta Community in regards to specific features and locations. We’ll be bringing the server down between each event for a day or two in order to prepare for the next focused event. This will also give us time to process the feedback we receive and incorporate it in future events.

That sounds like a fairly smart process.  Get your players to test very specifc mechanics and systems for a defined period of time, gather that data and feedback, analyze it, etc.  This is a way for them to efficiently steamline the beta process in a way that will help them quickly get very targeted data on what they want to test.  I do hope that at some point the beta will be open again 24/7, because I think there also needs to be that “reality” of people playing at all hours and across all systems to test the unknown.  All the focused tests could go well, but then when everything and everyone is thrown together again there may be new bugs and issues that come up.  So there still needs to be time to deal with those unknown issues.

Open World RvR, Keeps, Mastery System, oh my!:  Not going to rehash all of this here as it was in the Beta Update 4, but if you read that you know I’m obviously very excited about the changes and I think most other people will be too.  In this month’s podcast, the Mastery section is o.k. but it’s nice to see Josh talk about reacting to beta tester feedback regarding open world RvR.  In the podcast, he says that beta testers thought the scenarios were fun (and I do think they have a place in the game), but that they felt open world RvR was lacking.  I’m so glad Mythic listened and is going to leverage their expertise in that area by adding in all the cool systems that frankly I was expecting WAR to provide from the get go.  Does this mean it’s Dark Age of Warhammer now?  I don’t think so.  I think the two games have enough differences to be very distinct (25 years of Warhammer lore anyone?), but they now share in common some of the most critical features that I think WAR really needs to appeal longer term.

Mounts!:  Yes, Warhammer isn’t going to make you walk everywhere, there will be mounts to ride and now we’ve seen some actual pictures.  Finally a game where we can ride an armored War-Boar.  And an “ale powered” mount for Dwarves - how cool is that?  The pictures look really cool, although there is no information on who these mounts will be attained.  From the pictures you can see that there will  be different tiers of mounts which presumably will cost more and will provide greater speed benefits.  I wonder if mounts will need to be purchased with not only currency, but maybe with a certain threshold of renown (akin to the way EQ2 makes you have a certain amount of status to acquire certain high level mounts)?  There is also a statement that lower level players will have access to “rental” mounts - will these be fixed horse routes ala DAoC, or will these be timed rentals where you have a low level mount for 10 minutes for a certain fee?

In future newsletters we will dive deeper into the mounts in WAR, including specifics on where you and you’re mount can travel and customization options your high level mounts!

So obviously a lot more detail to come on this subject and it will be interesting to see what type of mount customization.  Anyone know if Warhammer lore provides for flying mounts of any kind??

The Tome of Knowledge Pwns.  There is a terrific article on the ToK in this month’s newsletter.  Fantastic read that really gives you insight into not only what the purpose of the Tome is and how it will accomplish that purpose, but also the “behind the scenes” methodology Mythic has followed to actually create this great game system.  I’ll go on record right now and say this is one of the most exciting things about WAR, and by far the best system I’ve seen in MMOs for keeping track of all the accomplishments of your character.

Some of the information in the Tome is tracked by keeping a record, literally with numbers, of the things that you’re doing in the game. Let’s take for example, killing monsters. The Tome of Knowledge tracks every monster that you kill, ever. It doesn’t matter if you’re paying attention to the Tome or not, it’s going to keep track of it. And in all cases, you’re going to get a reward for doing it.

But on top of achieving kill thresholds (1, 10, 100 of specific monster kills, for example), the Tome tracks and challenges you to come up with other ways to interface with monsters. Say you’re walking through an area and you’re killing basilisks. There’s a chance that maybe one of them drops an item, a backpack belonging to a Dwarf back in town. You may notice the name and recognize it, or you may sell it as junk loot and get a few copper for it. But say you recall the reference, and take the backpack back to its owner. Well, then you’ve accomplished a special task for being so observant, and the Tome is going to reward you for it.

And we don’t just track this for monster kills, but for everything in the game: doing quests, interacting with objects, finding areas, etc. We even comment on the way in which you play the game, so there are Tome unlocks for perhaps the duration of your play (whether it’s a positive or negative reflection on you :P), or the things that you do at the keyboard. There is no system that the Tome doesn’t touch.

I’m really looking forward to not only all the statistical info that you’ll have tracked about your character, but especially to the humor and the spontaneous achievements you will unlock as you just naturally play the game.  If they can get the sharing aspect of this down correctly (which I believe they said they want to have in-game), then it will be a huge hit I think.  How interesting would it be to allow public access to your Tome, and be able to “inspect” others and see what sorts of stats they have, what they’ve killed and conquered, and where they’ve been in the game.  Again, I think this will be on of WAR’s most unique and coolest features, hands down.

I wish everyone the best of luck getting into the beta when it reopens in December, and may the Waaagh!!! be with you.

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This entry was posted on Friday, November 30th, 2007 at 8:01 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.