I haven't been following this game, but it seems to be getting a lot of press lately. Warhammer Online is based on Games Workshop's Warhammer world. Twelve years ago I enjoyed playing in the "grim and gritty" Old World of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, but the constant new editions of Warhammer Fanstasy Battles over the years have turned that "grim and gritty" world into something more cartoonish, in my opinion.
There's not a nice concise feature list on the official site, but I found this on Warhammer Warcry:
Quote:
2. What Is Warhammer Online?
2.1 Warhammer Online is a new massively multiplayer online computer game that allows players to take on the role of outlaws and mercenary adventurers within a grim and gritty realisation of Games Workshop's dark, gothic fantasy world. Spawned on the margins of society, our players can rise to become mighty heroes or infamous villains, living on their wits or by the cut of a blade! Famous or feared throughout the Empire for their daring and bloody deeds! Warhammer Online is set for release in the Summer of 2004.
2.2 Character Customisation And Abilities
The player will be able to choose from male and female variations of Dwarf, Elf, Human, and Halfling; as well as male Ogres providing a total choice of nine character races.
Players can customise their character prior to entering the world; a number of character configurations are possible ranging from head model variations to the modification of character height. There are over 20,000 possible character configurations before clothing and armour are even taken into consideration.
Each character will be highly customisable. Character models will have 37 inventory slots for clothing, armour and equipment giving the player a huge range of options when in game.
Players will be able to create a character profile from a base set of 10 Stats e.g. strength, agility, and initiative etc.
Different races will have different in-game abilities. This includes everything from different stat ranges to things like night vision. For example Ogres are inherently stronger than humans, Elves get night vision and haflings can cook.
Player characters, and non-player characters (NPC’s), will be subject to changes in status. This means that players can become drunk, get poisoned or suffer the effects of fear. A total of over forty states will produce an intriguing amount of possible outcomes for players.
Every character has a journal. This is an in-game feature, which, apart from recording the characters background, is also added to automatically as they adventure though the Warhammer world. This will record things such as monsters encountered, quests undertaken as well as an atlas showing areas of the game world explored.
Warhammer is essentially a skill-based system. Player’s start out with a core set of basic skills and as they travel the land they can interact with a variety of teachers and career masters to acquire the more advanced skills. With over 70 different skills in the game players will have a vast array of options open to them for example: fletching, lock picking, language, healing, magic, climbing, riding and hunting.
While Warhammer is primarily a skills based system players also gain what we call “fame” by completing specific in-game goals. Characters improve their fame ranking by performing heroic acts that make them famous. Killing wild boars will earn little “glory” for a character, although it will allow them to improve their combat skills. Killing Orcs or even Dragons on the other hand will earn them much more “glory” and thus increase their “fame” level.
2.3 Grouping
Players will be able to easily get together with other players to enable them to overcome harder challenges. For example you might team up with several other people to try and clear out the troll caves in the foothills, a fight you’d never survive on your own.
Players will also be able to join player run organisations called Companies. Companies will be able to own property as well as gaining the facility to customise company member equipment and clothes with unique emblems.
2.4 Creatures
Over 150 different creatures will populate the Warhammer Online world ranging from traditional fantasy (Dragons, Giants and Trolls) to unique Warhammer characters (Chaos Daemons, Squigs, and Beastmen). These will then receive minor modifications (e.g. model tweaks, modifications of scale and colour) to produce further model variety. At launch our aim is to have up to 1000 different creature types designed and placed.
We intend to do something rather special with the AI. Monsters will not stand idly by as you butcher their colleges; they will attempt to run to get reinforcements if they are out numbered. In addition AI controlled monsters will, if left alone long enough, congregate together and create camps which in turn will cause bigger nastier monsters to spawn. If players can wipe out a camp it won’t just pop back into existence but another camp may have been settled somewhere else. Also monsters and AI controlled NPC’s will have their own attributes. Some will be fearful and some aggressive some will be short sighted others will have great hearing. The player will have to learn what’s what and tread very carefully.
Certain characters will be able to gain pets. These are simple creatures with a few basic commands. They will follow the character around and act as protectors, attacking anything that threatens their master. Pets will mainly be things like attack dogs and feline companions but will also include summoned creatures such as Undead and Demons.
2.5 The Game World
The game is set within the Empire, an area of approx. 400 sq km containing three cities, 12 towns, 30 villages, 30 farmsteads, 18 coaching inns, 15 dungeons, and a variety of other special one off features. The game world is a dark and grimy place with even the best-kept buildings looking shabby.
On top of standard player movement abilities (walk, sprint, climb, swim etc) there will be a number of different ways to travel around the world. Players will be able to ride mounts or ride on carriages and carts along predefined routes or even travel along rivers on barges and galleons.
The game progresses in real time with 1 game day taking approximately 1.5 hours of real time. As the Warhammer calendar is slightly different to ours, 1 game week takes 12 hours in real time. As the game year progresses the seasons change and the environment will actually change visually. In autumn the leaves disappear from the trees, in winter snow falls and settles and icicles build up on buildings. The Warhammer moons also have an impact on the game environment. Apart from a graphical effect that observant players can spot, they will also have an effect on the Winds of Magic.
2.6 Magic
The Warhammer magic system is entirely unique. All wizards must learn how to channel raw magic from the environment (the Winds of Magic).
Eight different colours make up the Winds of Magic in Warhammer Online. Each spell has a profile based on each of the eight colours therefore the ability to cast a spell varies depending on the location and the Winds of Magic at any particular time.
The Winds of Magic can be influenced by phases of the moon, seasons, ceremonies or by GM events thus providing great flexibility to make magic an exiting and dynamic aspect of the game.
Initially there will be 25 different types of spells, along with 50 variations, plus the ability to summon specific creatures.
There are also various spell families that have to be mastered before a wizard can become fully proficient in his art.
2.7 Economy
Players will be able to buy, sell and create items as well as trading items between each other. There will be various merchants for the players to buy and sell from. Prices will vary depending on geography therefore manufactured items are cheap in cities, but expensive in the villages.
There are banks in all key locations allowing players to store money and items. Money and items placed in a bank are not magically transported anywhere else. If a player deposits an item he can only retrieve that item by returning to the same bank.
2.8 Combat
Combat is an integral part of the game. The combat system firstly provides variety: players can use a huge number of weapons including standard melee weapons (daggers, swords, axes), magical weapons (soul bound chaos swords and weapons with Dwarven runes), black powder weapons (handguns and rifles), and more traditional long range weapons (bows, crossbows). Players can also opt to fight with their bare hands if they wish.
In addition to basic combat moves characters can learn specific combat techniques. These are overlays to the basic combat skills and affect both attack and defence chances. E.g. ‘Ugug’s brutal assault’ is a technique that lasts for 45 seconds and while under it’s effect the players character has double the chance to hit his opponent, and is 50% more likely to be hit in return. There are 100 standard, 10 mounted and 30 ballistic combat techniques that will make battle a very tactical and rewarding process.
A player who is ‘killed’ will be revived and re-spawn at the closest bind point. Some bind points need to be activated by the player, e.g. by hiring lodgings at an Inn, but there will always be other predefined bind points for the player to wake up at such as the banks of a river. The penalties for dying are mitigated by having a higher quality bind point.
PVP combat exists but is limited by a player’s career choice. E.g. Witches and Witch-hunter’s will be able to fight each other but merely being a Witch Hunter doesn’t allow you to attack all other players. While the Warhammer World is a dark and dangerous place players will not have to worry about other players unless you actively choose to take that path.
2.9 Questing
Players will be able to undertake a wide range of tasks and quests. Everything from menial tasks for Guild masters, to epic undertakings that have a real impact on a player’s fame across the entire game world. At launch the aim is to have hundreds tried and tested quests available to the players and once the framework is in place it will be very easy to add more quests using the game design tools.
A special quest system will be used so that we can randomly attach quests to various characters in game. The objective here is to have a quest allocation system that constantly changes keeping players entertained with minimal direct design input.
I'd like to hope this will be a good game and do well, but the past has shown that Games Workshop has an iron fist when it comes to thier IP. It's not that developers couldn't make awesome games based in thier worlds, it's just that GW insists on having final say on 99.9% of all game features and content and they effectivly tie the developers hands and force a bad game. They make some of the world's finest table top minitures games, but they don't have a clue what make a good video game. Once they realize that and loosen up the licensing riegns, you'll see better products. I'm hoping this will be the falure that does it as this is the first game they have thier own time and money invested in. All the previous games had developers coming to them and paying for the rights. GW made money whether the video game did or not. WarHammer Online will cost them money for the first time if it doesn't do well.
Sorry, didn't mean to go off like that, but my friends and I are GW fanboys and we want to see great games made set in thier worlds. So we've given this quite a bit of thought.
Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2004 4:48 pm
Circle
Joined: 12 Jan 2004
Posts: 605
I would love for this game to work but givien the history GW has in computer games I have my doubts. I have played every game they put out for the PC and enjoyed them in a certian lvl but they have always lacked something.
Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2004 5:17 pm
Tychus
Editor
Joined: 12 Jan 2004
Posts: 1573
MMORPG.com has some racial previews featured (Dwarves and Humans so far)
As you know, we’ve had a large team of people working on the game design, tools and technology since mid 2001 and so this year we’re getting ready to start the testing phase of the development.
The testing will take place through four discrete stages that we’re calling alpha, internal beta, closed beta and finally open beta (I’d like to call them Harry, Simon, Fred and Bert…but the software team won’t let me – bah!).
Each phase has a set of exit requirements that will need to be ticked off before we move to the next stage and exactly how quickly we’ll move through these phases will depend on how the game performs. So for example in order to exit alpha the game needs to able to demonstrate skills, spells, careers, combat, UI and so on.
As you can see, because we are requirements driven rather than time driven, it is not possible for us to give absolute dates for each of the phases.
When will it start?
We’re currently in alpha, which means that we’ve got people running round the world on a set of internal servers. They are testing the stability and core game functions and generating lots of screenshots. We’ll need to move the game from our development servers into the first co-location centre to allow external connections, which we expect to take place in the next two to three months.
How do I get involved and what will be required?
As soon as we are ready to take registration for the beta testing, we’ll open up the beta test website and put out an online form for applications. This will ask for your personal details, any previous testing experience, knowledge of the Warhammer world, the minimum spec of your PC etc. If you are accepted into any stage of the program you will also then be asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with the company that forms a legal agreement between you and Warhammer Online Ltd . This means you are not permitted to disclose information about the game to anyone not involved in the beta program.
Because participation in the testing will involve downloading frequent patches and code updates, it’s likely that we’ll only be able to work initially with testers who have broadband internet access (512Kb and above). Later on, we expect to open up the game to 56K users which will help us to optimise the performance of the game over modem connections.
I found it interesting that the web application does not support birthdates before 1950.
Their benefits include life assurance... It's nice that they tell their employees that they're going to be all right, but I'd rather see cash. Admittedly, the 25 days paid vacation is attractive.
Thug
Novice
Sell Sword
Scout
Rascal
Petty Crook
Militia
Scribe
No instant heroes here - these are pretty faithful to the "grim and gritty" WFRP legacy.
Here's an exerpt from the devs' E3 diary:
Quote:
What struck me looking at all of these other online game was simply how very different to the Warhammer Online looks. They have all gone for a slightly cartooney high fantasy approach (which probably works well for them) but is in such contrast to the dark, grim and gritty take of our game.
This is probably best illustrated in the area of magic. In all of the games I saw (and have seen) the casting of magic is always accompanied by flashes of lightning, purple rain and a whole range of pyrotechnic effects that wouldn’t be out of place on the 4th July. Magic in Warhammer Online however, will be a far more subdued affair. Given that spell casters are as likely to be accused of heresy and burnt at the stake as lauded as great magicians we intend to be rather more subtle. Glowing eyes, smoke rising from the fingertips, and showers of sparks will be the hallmarks of our magic system. This is best summarised by the statement: “the only time magic gets in your face is when it blows your head off!”
Last edited by Tychus on Tue Jun 15, 2004 9:30 pm; edited 3 times in total
Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2004 8:55 am
Kasirak
Joined: 04 Feb 2004
Posts: 103
I have to say Warhammer looks pretty darn cool.
They have a couple of nice concepts planned and it is dark and griddy as they say I had the chance to meet with them while I was at e3. I look forward to see how it develops.
_________________ Charles Ferguson
Annonshe, Inc.
Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2004 8:13 am
Circle
Joined: 12 Jan 2004
Posts: 605
Being a old table top junkie this game looks interesting to me. If only I could be a space marine.
Posted: Mon Jun 21, 2004 12:18 pm
Kasirak
Joined: 04 Feb 2004
Posts: 103
Some very sad news, Warhammer Online has been official canceled
The game looked great, they had some fun concepts in store and the creatures looked evil. Unfortunately, the game was costing them too much to produce.
Officials from UK developer Climax have shed light on the surprise cancellation of their Warhammer Online project yesterday. The joint venture between Climax and Games Workshop, to have been published by Sega, was cancelled after a review of the costs to complete and launch the game showed that the cost of rolling out the game was far higher than either partner had anticipated and could not be justified.
Climax CEO Kar Jeffery has suggested a sum of around $30 million to launch a new massively multiplayer online (MMO) game in today’s market, with the upfront investment in servers and support teams proving too much for Climax and Games Workshop.
The decision will apparently not impact Climax's Nottingham studio, which is already working on a second title and will continue to advance the technology created for Warhammer Online. The company is now exploring the possibility of bringing in another partner to assist with the roll out of the new project, ideally one with existing MMO experience and infrastructure, to reduce costs and risk.
Oh well maybe something good will come out of this.
Posted: Wed Jun 23, 2004 6:24 pm
Cantina_Fly
Joined: 15 Jan 2004
Posts: 74
Location: Redford, MI
Hate to say "I told you so."
This is exactly the reason I was fearing this game would have problems. GW has some brilliant IP, they just are terrible at marketing and licenseing it. I could go on a big rant here, but I won't.
This really makes me fear for "Dawn of War".
Sigmar help them...
_________________ The player formerly known as: Erdrick Locke -SWG-
A Vagabond with no game to call home currently.
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I had the chance to meet with them while I was at e3. I look forward to see how it develops.
