Warhammer Online Impressions - E3 2004

Climax Entertainment was on hand at E3 2004 with Warhammer Online, the studio's upcoming online role-playing game based on the dark fantasy world of Warhammer--a hostile world in which humans and their allies are constantly at war with fell creatures, like orcs. However, the studio is attempting to include as few objectionable features in the game as possible--these being any features of current massively multiplayer games that people don't find to be enjoyable. As such, Climax has decided to deemphasize statistics, ability scores, and other numbers, replacing these with bar charts that gradually grow or shrink over time. In addition, you won't be able to "/consider" your enemies--that is, you won't be able to target an enemy and receive a specific, color-coded text message on the creature's relative toughness. Instead, you'll look across the battlefield and see a huge orc wielding wicked-looking axes in either hand and perhaps decide right then and there that a fight might be too much for you.

The game will let you create a character from one of five standard fantasy races, then choose your general "archetype" profession by answering a questionnaire about your character's childhood: As a child, did your character steal pies as they cooled on the neighbor's windowsill? As a child, did your character enjoy quietly reading books? As a child, did your character's hobbies include beating animals with a stick? The answers to these questions will determine your character's predisposition toward field combat, stealth, or sorcery. Unfortunately, sorcery is outlawed everywhere in the world of Warhammer in all but one town (and this town tends to be perpetually aflame, thanks to the failed experiments of its wizardly inhabitants), so the game's treatment of magic will be far more subtle than in other games. Once you've chosen a base archetype, you'll be able to later graduate to more-specialized classes, or you can remain a generalist with a wider range of lower-level abilities. Regardless of your character class, you'll be able to engage in consensual player-versus-player combat, either by entering a free-for-all zone (like a seedy back alley or an unmarked pier at the docks) or by getting into a nonweapon, nonsorcery barroom brawl.

Warhammer Online's graphics will be powered by a proprietary engine created by Climax, and it's clearly capable of rendering highly detailed characters. We watched a brief battle between a female human adventurer--whose lips curled in a determined snarl each time she swung her sword--and a shambling skeleton with a grossly misshapen skull wearing a tattered leather tunic. Warhammer Online's combat system will offer you a number of different options to use during combat, so a warrior might have a selection of different types of sword attack (slashes, thrusts, and so on). The battle took place in a graveyard hedged by tall, swaying grass--a fairly good-looking environment, but one that will most likely be improved between now and the time the team launches the game online.