WARHAMMER ONLINE

Warhammer Online -- Trailer 2

http://trailers.gametrailers.com/gt_vault/t_warhammer_aor_2_h264.mov (Quicktime MOV)
http://trailers.gametrailers.com/gt_vault/t_warhammer_aor_2_h264.wmv (Windows Media)

 

the beta was just released for FP.. did anyone get to try it?

 

You sure it was for this game? Last I heard it was still a long ways off.

 

wrong game (another RTS)

 

ya.. that was the beta for the Warhammer RTS that is coming out. I tried it out last wednesday and it was quite buggy. It was multiplayer only beta and most people could not host a game. The game itself was laggy and hardly playable. The general idea of the RTS is basically a direct port of the turn based table top game. You can make your unit by unit with special upgrades and charecters. You can even pick your army colors and customize the look of each of your units. I'll have to try it again and give some more feedback

 

Two Empire Classes, yet to be released.

Barnett on Bright Wizards:

First thing you have to remember is that The Empire is full of extremes.They represent, on an intellectual basis, that humans are capable of almost anything. And then on a sort of philosophical basis, that when humans are allowed to do anything, they take it to extremes. Whereas your elves cast magic, and it's impressive, I can tell you, the humans can only cast particular types of magic, because they can't be trusted with everything. They're sort of like five-year olds. Bright Wizards are humans that have been trusted with fire magic, and typically like humans, they've taken it to extremes.

In the main city of Altdorf, there is the Bright College of Magic, this enormous school where all the Bright Wizards go and learn their magic. It's so incredibly dangerous because Bright Wizards are all about fire. In the city, the Bright Magic tower stands on its own, and everywhere around it has been burned to the ground! And that's cause it keeps exploding, cause they won't leave it alone! Bright Wizards are wizards that are into fire, and they go around blowing things up.

Some people said to me, "That's interesting. What sort of magic do they cast?" The answer is: fire magic! What sort of things do they do? They burn things! How much magic can they cast? A lot of it! Think of them as nuclear weapons. They're buckets of instant sunshine. A Bright Wizard is all about taking the strands of magic, and using them in such a way that the magic doesn't make them explode, it makes their enemies explode. Throwing fireballs, lighting strikes, burning everything that -- it's napalm. Napalm, bombs, explosion, fire, flame throwers, matches, they smoke heavily, probably chew tobacco, all their hair is always singed, all their clothing looks like it's probably been on fire, they carry matches everywhere, tinderboxes, they like gasoline, they drink whiskey, they always got pipes stuck in their gobs. They're basically pyromaniacs.

That's what Bright Wizards are all about. They don't do a lot of buffing. They do a lot of burning.

On Warrior-Priests:

The Warrior-Priests, again, like typical humans, they took the idea of religion, and then went mad with it. It's all about that "crusader" style of priest. "Bless you my son, we're tolerant of everyone, we're open-minded, as long as you only believe what we believe, and if you don't believe it, then we'll crush you and kill you. We'll welcome anybody, as long as they utterly follow what we say." It's a form of medieval mind control. Their mind control system is a great, big hammer. Some people only understand one good thing.

One thing about these priests is that they're heavily armored. They're priests that sing the praises of their god while they're wading into combat crushing people on their heads. Almost everything that they do is a blessing around fighting and violence. And that's because Warrior Priests are a metaphor for modern day religion -- all about violence, with heavily-armored weaponry behind you.

We're not allowed to paint [The Empire] as some sort of mad, religious controlled empire. There are many religions, not just Sigmar [the god that the Warrior-Priests worship]. The one we picked is Sigmar because it's iconic, and easy to understand. Their churches are everywhere, and they're enormous. They've got great big hammers (lots of hammers), and they do everything for Sigmar. But you don't have to follow the religion -- it's just what you would do!


If you look at the Priest, you'll note the basics of how we do game design. He doesn't really have any armor around his legs, so you can see him from a distance and see that he's a Warrior Priest. They don't have much armor their elbows either, and their heads are generally exposed. This is so Sigmar can talk directly through their skull. People who follow Sigmar are the same sort of people who, in the modern day, would believe in the Easter Bunny. Or Father Christmas. Some metaphysical thing that talks to them.

The Warrior-Priest is expected to be at the front, smashing things to pieces, and then when he's finished doing that, or if it's reasonable for him to, he can go back and bless others so they can go forward and fight people, and smash things to pieces. He's all about fighting things, and helping other people (through blessings) to fight things.