Warhammer Info - From Mythic
The following is a collection of posts from Mark Jacobs of Mythic on various Warhammer Online fansites and message boards. While WAR is still in very early development, these may provide us with some valuable insight while information is scarce. As you'll notice, he likes to start posts off with "Folks,". Just sayin'.
Realm Balance
"Folks,
Racial imbalances in an RvR game are always going to be a problem no matter what the races or lineup look like. These problems are exacerbated when the groups that are taking part in the game are soooo different from each other. This has been one of our main concerns from the beginning and getting it right is crucial to this games success. A few simple rules:
1) The sides/realms will never be balanced in terms of population, unless the developer forces the issue. OTOH, no smart developer would ever force the issue if they want their game to succeed. Once you force players to play in a certain realm/race, you will allienate your players.
2) An RvR game that features lots of complex systems can never be perfectly balanced unless all the systems are exactly the same across all the realms. Using that setup for WAR would be dumb, dumb, dumb and we are not doing it.
3) We are making a WH-based game not a 100% faithful reproduction of the WH material (nobody could do that, there is way too much material that has evolved over decades and so much of it is different).
4) No one race can be uber. The game has to be fun for all players or in the end, it will be fun for no players. This is an RvR game not a solo, PvE game. Races/Realms will have their strengths and weaknesses, advantages and disadvantages but the game system has to work 1:1 or it won't work 10:10 or 40:40.
5) We must have complex systems that are capable of helping to ease the imbalance between the realms remembering that no matter what we think the players will like to play, we will not be right all the time.
6) Remember rule #1."
Magic Items
"Folks,
As to magical items, if you talk to the GW guys they will tell you this (and I can say this and this is exactly what we talked about):
1) That WHFRP != WFB != WAR.
2) That if you really look at the WH material that you will see that magic items are not as rare as it might seem.
3) Magic and magic items are not the equivalent of today's technology in terms of their ease and safety of use but that magic is not all amazing pyrotechnics and portents of doom.
Magic is a huge part of the WH world (unlike Tolkien's Third Age among others) especially for the types of characters that players of WAR will be creating. Remember, this game is called WAR for a reason and the roles that people will be taking are not those of some unimportant individual. Here you will be creating great heroes and champions (on all sides) and your abilities and gear will reflect that. Now, will magic and magical items be cheap, disposable and easy to acquire and master as in some other RPGs, nope but they will not be as scarce as some players may think/want. Again, keep in mind that WAR fits nicely into the GW universe and if we were running off the tracks they would be the first guys to tell me so.
P.S. Also, remember that if we make the items too rare or difficult to get, that the more casual players will suffer for it and we don't want to do that, ever."
Questing
"Folks,
A few rules from my design:
1) No time-sink quests of any kind. If the only way we can generate enough content for players to feel like they are getting good value for this game is to force them to spend hours and hours running from point a to point b to point c and then bake to a or to mindlessly kill 1000 NPCs, then we have failed to create a great next-gen MMORPG.
2) Quests, whenever possible (and the exceptions to this rule must be fore really unique and interesting quests), must tie in tightly the backstory and WH IP
3) No kill 100s creatures to get an item with a 0.01% drop rate (I think my doc also mentioned a quick trip to a very hot fire for anyone who created such quests)
We have spent a ton of time so far getting the quests off the ground in the right way as well as coming uop with a lot more types of quests (in my book killing 1PC to get an item = kill 100 NPCs to get an item, they don't count as separate quest types)."
The WAR and DAoC relationship
"Folks,
So, as to this being a DAoC2 clone, I can promise you it is not that (and you guys know that I don't promise stuff). Will it have some elements found in DAoC's RvR? Yeap, sure will. Will it have some elements from DAoC's PvE system? Yeap. Will it have a ton of stuff from WH? Yeap. Will it have stuff from other PvE games? Yeap. DiD EQ/AC/WoW have elements from other MUDs/MMORPGs? Yeap. Well, you get where I'm going here. There is 0, and I mean, 0 point in doing DAoC2 wrapped in WH material. First, GW wouldn't permit it. Second, why would I take the time and expense to license and partner with GW if all I was really doing was creating DAoC2? It would have been cheaper and easier for Mythic to simply take DAoC and do DAoC2 rather than create WHDAoC.
We are creating WAR, not DAoC2, DAoC1.5 or WHDAoC. Much is going to be revealed starting by the 2nd week of March (firm date, BTW not a "planned date" ) and you guys will begin to see what I am talking about. I wish I could tell you more about but when March rolls around you will know why I couldn't. After that we really start talking and showing the game leading up to E3 in May.
I want Mythic to create the best game/MMORPG that we have ever done and that is why we choose GW and their IP. We had lots of options (think about the amount of fantasy IP out there) but we choose WH because of all the wonderful things in the IP as well as my respect for and friendship with members of the company. All the matters in the end is, as always, creating a great and glorious game set in, based on and taking place throughout the WH world. To do that we will use what game design ideas/mechanics that are necessary to make that happen. And truly, isn't that what we all want in the end?"
Dying, Death, and post-Death
"Folks,
1) No loss of items for the defeated player. That only discourages people from RvRing or taking their items into RvR.
2) No long corpse runs, ever.
3) We have some slightly different ideas that we are working on.
4) The death penalty should never be a deterrent for a player who wants to have fun but should be a deterrent for a player who is trying to be a griefer/jerk/moron/etc."
Friendly-Fire
"Folks,
Friendly-fire is one of those great game systems that certain groups of players have messed up for all of us. I've used it in other games in the past but given the problems with griefers, it doesn't make a lot of sense to use it extensively, if at all. It's a shame though, it would have been fun to watch the fun that would ensue after a certain crazed player "accidentally" threw a fireball spell on a group of newbie halflings and then commented on how perfectly cooked they were and asked if anyone had a little extra barbecue sauce lying around."
Advertising for WAR
"Folks,
I'm not a believer in "Build it and they will come" for games, especially very expensive games. We'll be spending more money on advertising for WAR than we did in launching all our other games combined prior to WAR's launch. We are widely credited within the game industry of doing one of the best inexpensive marketing campaigns (including viral-type stuff) for DAoC in the US. That campaign was born out of necessity (very, very small budget for advertising/marketing DAoC) and not of choice. This time, we can spend, we are currently spending and will spend a lot more money on WAR.
WH is a great IP but even that is not enough in an ever increasing competitive MMO landscape."