Warhammer Online Age of Reckoning Preview - PC

The Warhammer Universe

The Warhammer universe began with the release of the tabletop wargame Warhammer Fantasy by Games Workshop. It spawned a series of role-playing games, collectible card games, board games, books and computer games.

The Warhammer world is a dark, constantly war ravaged and chaos filled world. It is made up of high fantasy creatures and settings that are inspired from Tolkien’s Middle-earth, Dungeons & Dragons and Michael Moorcock novels. The art style is unique and distinct featuring bizarre characters, huge weapons and gothic architecture.

The world has been constantly evolving with so many titles in its stable over 24 years now. Many games have borrowed elements from this world. Even the Warcraft series have borrowed heavily from the Warhammer universe aping many of its storylines and art styles. Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning will be the latest title to take this world to the next level, which is massively multiplayer.

British based Games Workshop have licensed the game out to Mythic Entertainment, the game developers with over 10 years of experience creating online games. They are most notably known for Dark Age of Camelot an MMORPG that was extremely popular when it came out and to this date has a million users.

It’s hammer time!

With Dark Age of Camelot, Mythic brought about RvR (Realm vs. Realm), which is a way of saying all out war. This is also being brought to the table and fits perfectly into the war centric Warhammer universe. There are two main factions in the game– Order and Chaos. The six races in the game fall under either of these factions. On the Order side we have the Empire, High Elves and Dwarves and the Chaos side includes the legions of Chaos, Greenskins and Dark Elves.

The Empire are a race of technologically advanced humans. High Elves are elves with magic as their primary feature. Dwarves are the usual gadget and axe wielding glorified midgets. The Legions of Chaos are fanatic wild demon worshipping humans. Greenskins consist of both Orcs and Goblins. The Dark Elves are similar to their Order counterparts in magical proficiency, but are not so well planned.

The entire universe and each of the races have a deep and well-developed backstory. The game will be very detailed and will remain true to the universe.

Lets Have a War

Each of the above six races have their own zones which run parallel to the enemy zones. The Empire are pitted against the legions of Chaos, the High Elves against Dark Elves and the Dwarves against Greenskins. The game allows you to attack and take over cities as you progress. The world is divided into zones in which PvP can take place. Entering these zones allow you to jump straight into battle. A new concept Mythic in bringing is that of Battle Zones, which are like matches between groups of players based on a point value system. This keeps the game balance as a larger group of less experienced players can take on a small group of higher level players. AI units called the Dogs of War are used if there is any imbalance of players in the group.

The game is not entirely PvP there are also large elements of PvE (Player vs. Environment) that will be implemented in the game. Quests will also play a huge role in the game and with it; it brings a few new elements to standard MMORPG gameplay. Players helping in a quest are each fully rewarded for their efforts. No more quarrels about who gets what.

Mad Skillz

Each race has their own classes, which is usual MMORPG fare. The game does not rely on a traditional leveling up system. Each class will have a set number of skills and players have a large base of skills to choose from. You’re allowed to pursue three skills at a given time and experience for the skill is gained through quests and combat.

The more you fight, the more your morale increases. This is a new system which is like a meter which increases as you fight, and when it is full it gives you a blast of power letting you do special attacks. A lot like fighting games and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games!

So here we have a great and well-developed intellectual property, an experienced developer, the combination of which sounds like a recipe for success. The finished product is slated for a 2007 release, which is a lot of time to flesh out and tweak an awesome Warhammer game.

Meshach Thomas