Happy August all,
GamesCom and Games Day Baltimore have come and gone and, as promised, news about the future of WAR has been announced to the Community; and that future is bright. We’re setting out a clear path for the future development of WAR and that path leads to the introduction of the new Warhammer Online RvR Pack. This multi-tiered RvR focused content will deliver something that many of today’s MMO gamers desire: more control over their online/in game experience.
For the past 12 months we’ve been drilling down on improving your experience in WAR; from Scenarios, to the RvR City Siege Experience, and now we’re turning that laser sight to Open Realm vs. Realm combat. Since the launch of 1.3.6, we’ve seen a huge resurgence in ORvR participation across all servers, the driving factor being the all new “Against All Odds” feature. Players are venturing out against superior numbers for lucrative rewards, and the action in the Lakes shows it. We’re pleased that the Community has welcomed this feature with open arms and are continuing to build upon this success with additional planned changes to the ORvR experience.
Gone will be the frustrations of “Waithammer” as well as the Victory Point system, as you know it. We’re re-envisioning the ORvR experience by thinking differently about the current zone locking mechanism and we believe we have something that will provide a fresh game play experience that is compelling, dynamic and most of all, fun. With one of the overarching goals being to slow down the RvR campaign and lessen the frequency of City Siege occurrences without relying on the aforementioned “waiting”, the new ORvR experience is going to be one thing: All about the fight.
More features will be discussed as we get deeper into development and closer to a release date, but here’s a summation of some of the things we talked about at GamesCom and GDB:
- WAR is not going Free 2 Play: We’re not considering this option right now. We’re learning lessons from micro-transaction driven games; however we’re not interested in directly selling things like armor progression or other piecemeal power options. What we do plan on introducing is paid services such as server transfers, character renames and other commonly found services. We are committed to implementing these services in a responsible manner and won’t flip that switch until we’re satisfied that it will not compromise your in game experience. Additionally, we will continue to offer that buffet of services by offering the entire RVR pack purchasable in three segments. Each player can get what the features they want without committing to the whole thing (though we do think all three packs will be pretty great.)
- We’re introducing a new Skaven Themed RvR Zone. This new zone is not designed to be the “new hotness” where everyone runs off to once it launches. Rather, the new area will integrate into the existing Tier 4 campaign, supplementing it rather than becoming a siphon. This new RvR experience will be just that…RvR. We’re building on the success of the redesigned cities and iterating on lessons learned there. The zone will be an epic struggle between Order and Destruction, with the victor reaping the rewards.
- Skaven are coming: The RvR Pack will be introducing Skaven to the WAR. True to their chaotic nature, the Skaven will influence the battlefield in significant ways, skittering about, doing what Skaven do. Skaven will be playable by both Realms and are not an NPC “third realm”.
- Each of the three parts of the RvR Pack (Power, Progression, and Personality) will tie into RvR.
- We are increasing the RR Cap to 100: This goes hand in hand with a rework of the Renown Ability system. Our goal is to make the Renown Ability system less restrictive, more customizable and closer, in spirit, to the RA system from Dark Age of Camelot. In the past ten years, we’ve learned a lot of lessons from DAoC, and we’re taking our inspiration from this. At the same time, we’ll be easing some of the grind from 1-80. RR 100 will be a challenge, but we will take responsibility for making sure that the power gap between lower RR’s and the higher RR players isn’t an insurmountable obstacle to overcome.
We’re continuing to build a strong relationship with our European Community. Through events such as GamesCom and the upcoming Games Day: UK, we’re getting down in the trenches, talking to the EU Community face to face, and making sure that we’re delivering the experience that you expect from us. In the coming months you’ll see more feedback opportunities in more languages, with the upcoming 1.4 “In Development…” posts being posted not only on the Herald, but also in English, French and German.
The opportunity we had to speak with the Players at GamesCom was amazing; we were given the chance to hear firsthand what European players like, what they weren’t so hot on, and most importantly, how much they fervently care about WAR and its future. We’re taking that message to heart and will continue to work towards delivering improved and more sincere communication with our European player base.
So there it is: No Hype, All Fight. More news about the RvR Pack will be coming in the weeks ahead. Come and join Andy Belford and myself at Games Day UK on September 26th 2010; we’ll be there to talk more about the future of WAR and our 2 year anniversary. We’ll also be giving out exclusive in game items and, provided they don’t get stuck in customs this time, WAR T-Shirts, Hats and who knows what else.
Until then,
- Carrie
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