E3 06: Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning Impressions - First Look, Orcs, Goblins, and Player-Versus-Player
We take an up-close look at this revitalized massively multiplayer game based on Games Workshop's grim and brutal fantasy universe.
Massively multiplayer games are all about fairy tales and make-believe, right? You create your individual character, usually some kind of pointy-eared elf; pick up a virtual sword or spell book; and start pummeling some virtual skeletons until they drop measly virtual copper pieces. But developer Mythic Entertainment is working with tabletop-game publisher Games Workshop to create an online game based in the dark and gritty world of Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play--a strategic game that has traditionally involved two things: some 25 years of fantasy-fiction lore, which is characterized by vicious battles and dark humor, and moving painstakingly painted pewter figurines across a board.
Yes, there will be elves, dwarves, and orcs, but these won't be the cheery, sparkly fey folk from recent motion pictures--they'll be the angry and violent (and possibly drunk) denizens of Warhammer. Rather than starting their careers in homey, safe towns, new characters in Warhammer Online will start their lives on battle lines strewn with corpses. And rather than spending most of their adventuring careers doing player-versus-environment tasks, such as hunting monsters, so they can eventually become strong enough to fight challenging battles against other players, they'll instead be able to jump right into head-to-head, player-versus-player competition more or less from the get-go.
Fans of the Warhammer campaign setting will already be familiar with the game's starting six races--those being orcs, dwarves, high elves, dark elves, humans, and chaos--as well as the grim fantasy world they inhabit. Mythic apparently chose these six races for the game's launch because they represent three of the most long-standing rivalries in the setting (orcs versus dwarves, high elves versus dark elves, and humans versus chaos).
And true to the Warhammer setting, the game will have a highly stylized, exaggerated look to it. Mythic has decided to err on the side of using simply texture-mapped graphics and going big on huge environments and buildings (such as a gigantic goblin sawmill, complete with an equally gigantic moving sawblade running up and down its height), as well as detailed characters. In true Warhammer fashion, players will be able to adorn their characters with layer upon layer of accoutrements--for instance, orc warrior characters will wear heavy, ramshackle suits of armor, onto which they can graft spikes and trophy racks of skulls and dwarf beards.
Interestingly, orcs in particular will look distinct from each other, and from other races, since the further orc characters advance, the taller and bulkier they'll become (though warrior characters from all races will apparently become more muscular over time). Developer Mythic, the creator of the competitive-PVP-focused Dark Age of Camelot, feels that it'll be much more important to be able to quickly identify characters from a distance, so that smaller, younger orcs can marvel at the size of their accomplished brethren, while younger dwarves will know who to steer clear of. Yet all characters will be expressively animated with full facial animations that convey a range of moods (such as angry, sad, angry, happy, angry, afraid, and really angry), and the game will feature an animated face portrait of your character onscreen so that you can see your own character's range of emotions, rather than staring at your character's backside as they run from point A to point B.
These racial pairings represent not only the first immediate conflict new players will face, but also a loose alliance between the forces of order (humans, dwarves, and high elves) and the forces of chaos (chaos, orcs, and dark elves). Fortunately, you won't be stuck fighting the same enemies forever (unless you want to), since you'll be able to visit other fronts in the war using safe in-game travel systems.
All races will have four basic character archetypes available to them in two general flavors: combat and sorcery, though not everything in the game will be completely symmetrical. For instance, the more-balanced dwarves will have two combat classes and two magic-using classes--the heavy-armor-wearing ironbreaker and the offense-minded hammerer, along with the runepriest healer and the technology-focused engineers (who will build rifles, siege equipment, and larger, crazier contraptions). On the other hand, the brutal orcs will likely end up with three combat classes and one magic-using class (available only to their goblin buddies...yes, goblins will be playable). But the studio isn't trying to make a completely equitable game where all sides have equal analogs; the developers are happy to keep things a bit asymmetrical, as long as everything stays balanced and enjoyable. This also means staying true to Warhammer canon and including no orc females.
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- ESRB: Teen
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