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Finally, we are back! With the last of the racial parodies, and this time it is the Elves up to face the Parody firing squad!
Warhammer Geek Proudly Presents… Crazy Elf Swordmaster Based upon “Funky Cold Medina” by Tone Loc we take a look at the Elven Tank in a way most wont be expecting. This parody sung by Jethal Silverwing and written by Orlock.
With our media player fixed you can find the parodies HERE
Many have asked and commented on our current status here at MMOGeek with Warhammer Geek as well as the rest of the network. I’m here to tell you that we have new plans and that we are very soon going to be doing some major changes. Some of the changes we have in the works include a brand new website design as well as new network additions such as a main network site, a new game we will be covering, and some new gaming blogs we will be hosting. The only downfall to switching is some of our content might be lost due to a switch in our back-end systems, however that should be recovered with new information quickly.
Why has it taken us so long? Well, the current staff here have been working hard on this design and have been focusing their energy on this new direction for the past few months. So as you can see, we are a bit short-handed on staff right now to cover Warhammer Online so if you are interested in doing this, send us an email at resume@mmogeek.com and we will be happy to have any number of you as part of the editorial team.
We look forward to showing off our new site(s) soon!
I can recall having Many Many conversations over the past several months, ever since the announcement that they would delay the 4 classes they delayed. Every time the conversation came round I would be saying “you know what, they should change the Hammerer to the Slayer. I mean why not have what is probably the most Iconic look in the Warhammer Fantasy univers as a playable character?” well it seems despite all the arguments against that Mythic Agrees With ME ! ! !.
The two final classes have officially been announced and I get to say I told you so… Pretty good day after all :)
Few names in the massively multiplayer online gaming industry hold as much clout as the often quoted Mark Jacobs. Having been a part of the online gaming industry since the early 1980s, Mark has been a fundamental factor in the gradual evolution of massively multiplayer online gaming. With the release of Mythic Entertainment’s latest MMORPG, Warhammer Online, it looks like Mark has again played a fundamental role in the evolution of MMO gaming. But with any MMOG, the work isn’t done when the game is released, and the Ten Ton Hammer staff sat down with Mark to discuss the future of Warhammer and his thoughts on their initial launch. We hope you enjoy the discussion!
Ten Ton Hammer: What’s your general sense of how the launch went? We’re past the first weekend and into the first real week; how do you think things went?
Mark Jacobs: I think it was the smoothest launch in MMO history. For six days there were no crashes. No real emergency patches. No downtime. Not only did the entire game not crash, but no servers even crashed. So for the first six days, things were fabulous. Of course that evening we had two crashes and then two more after that, but that’s the only real blemish on the record.
But when you have 55 servers up, that’s some pretty good up-time.
Ten Ton Hammer: How are you dealing with game balance? Obviously you had plenty of testing in beta, but now you’re seeing it in full speed. How are you dealing with the class balances, faction balances, etc.?
Mark: It’s about what we expected. We got a lot of it right. The beta testers told us a lot, but they didn’t tell us everything. They never do. So, we have our strike teams looking at everything - the reports, the metrics - and we’re going to balance things. No MMO ever comes out fully balanced.
I think we’re certainly in better shape than where we were with Camelot. Are we perfect? No. I’d be hard pressed to think of any MMO, especially one that’s PvP geared that is, within sixty days, didn’t have some major balancing adjustments to the game. Hopefully we won’t be making major adjustments, but we’re certainly going to be balancing things.
When you have 55 servers and they’re busy almost all day every day, you get a lot more data than when you do during beta.
Read more at Ten Ton Hammer!
If you happen to be interested in Warhammer Online’s open beta, FilePlanet.com just launched sign-ups for the open beta for Warhammer Online.
Warhammer Online Subscriber OPEN Beta: FilePlanet Subscribers can join the exclusive open beta for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. Open beta keys are limited so grab one now! This program is for North America, Australia and New Zealand. Download the client and prepare to play on the 7th!
Recently posted on the VN Boards, Mark Jacobs clarifies Server Ruleset changes in Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. Read Mark’s original post here.
Eurogamer recently published a pretty interesting preview about the overall gameplay experience in Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. Read the full preview here.
All of this is nice to see. A relief, even. Months from release, Warhammer Online can already confidently stand alongside WOW and LOTRO in an MMO beauty pageant, and impress the judges with its grace and deportment.
10TonHammer’s own Josh Hoskin went at this year’s San Diego Comic Con where he had a chance to talk and clarifiy some details with Associate Producer, Josh Drescher about the major career & cities drop-out announcements. You can watch the whole interview here.
EDIT:
Here’s Part Two of the interview where Josh gets into detail about PvE and RvR. You can watch the interview here.
This important news bit came from the guys at VaultNetwork, who not only did a cool preview of the current state of the WAR Guild BETA at E3 2008, but found out some interesting tidbits of WAR goodness from Adam Gershwitz himself. However, the last line of the interview will get most of you really excited.
As our preview came to a close we were told that the NDA is on its last leg and should be coming down in only a few weeks. This news, along with all that we saw in our preview, confirms that we have indeed entered into the Age of Reckoning.
Read Keen’s full preview here.
Join Orlock and Wrenn for Episode #5 of the Podcast of Reckoning - Tune in Monday, July 14 at 3pm Pacific / 7pm Eastern / Midnight BST.
In this episode:
Best of The the Web: - Several highlights about what’s been going on in the WAR community since the last Podcast.
The Great Debate: We invite Snafzg from The Greenskin and ChaosCast to join us as special Guest Host to discuss the HUGE news of Mark Jacobs’ announcements! This is something you don’t want to miss!
Community Interview: We’ve invited Arcadiea from Guild Vendetta to join us. Hear what makes this Order guild tick, and some very interesting insights on how the guild was built! That’s right! This interview proves that not all guilds play Destruction!
The podcast will be available for download once it airs live at Online Gaming Radio, Warhammer Geek & iTunes.
AND ! ! ! !
Be sure to Tune in live before the show as this week marks the return of The Audiogasm
Listen to Orlock’s Return to Music Show Mayhem - starting at 3pm Pacific / 6pm Eastern / 11pm BST.
Every week he will be here, either to play in the Podcast of Reckoning or in the off weeks to do a twice the size show to keep you all entertained.
Waaagh! has revealed the next interview in the Imperial Inquisition series with Tony “RadarX” Jones from Ten Ton Hammer. Learn about his MMO experiences and his role as a Community Manager.
WAAAGH!: Tell us a bit about yourself — your handle/screen name/real name, age, real life occupation, your previous MMO experience, and your play style.
RADARX: My name is Tony Jones and I currently use the handle RadarX which I’ve had since the BBS days of yore. I’m currently a Community Manager at the Ten Ton Hammer network where over the years I’ve been involved with a number of our sites including EverQuest 2, Lord of the Rings Online, and Tabula Rasa.
My MMO game experience goes back to probably Ultima Online, but my first true love was the widely known EverQuest which I played for roughly a year and a half. I’ll leave out what I’ve played and just try and hit the most influential games for brevity. From EverQuest there I bounced around a few games but spent some time in Dark Ages of Camelot and Star Wars Galaxies before settling in EverQuest 2 for long while. After a few years there I tried played World of Warcraft on and off, Lord of the Rings Online for a few months, and then landed at Tabula Rasa for a bit…
Read more about RadarX.
Author’s Comment: RadarX is a Florida boy FYI, like me! Just giving you all the facts in case you wanted to know.
It seems we are close to the first WAR Beta Guild invites about to hit many leaders’ email boxes! Warhammer Alliance has the info!
That’s right folks, the moment many of you have been waiting for has finally drawn near: as per information available to WHA, the European invites for Guild Beta participants will go out within the next four weeks. Guild leaders have received emails asking for the exact information of their guild’s participants. The deadline to send in this information is Wednesday, July, 2nd 2008. That means you do not have to worry if one guild already got its invites and yours didn’t, it’s an ongoing process.Even more importantly, the NDA is not going to drop with the start of Guild Beta. This means that all participants are required to follow the same rules as “normal” beta testers. This means that all they are allowed to say is a) that there is a beta and b) that they are in it. Commenting on the game or posting footage in any form is still prohibited. This rule also includes guild members of Beta guilds that are not in beta themselves…
Additional requirements are:
* Participants have to be 18 years or above.
* Everyone working for or otherwise associated with the media or any form of press may not participate.
* Everyone working for or otherwise associated with a gaming company or the gaming industry may not participate.
* Everyone whose computer does not meet the minimum requirements will not be invited right away. The requirements change frequently, however, so we cannot give you a detailed list. Please make sure, however, that only guild members with strong computers are on your list.
Further discussion and information can be found at the WHA Forums.
Rock, Paper, Shotgun speaks with Paul Barnett in a pub in Liverpool (sounds accidental!) about Game Journalism. The interview does not cover Warhammer Online much, but it’s still interesting!
A few months back, I met up with EA Mythic’s vocal Creative Director in a bar near London Liverpool Street Station. We ordered drinks. We set the tape rolling. After three hours, I stopped the dictaphone and we stumbled off. We’d covered a lot of ground - pretty much everything away from Warhammer itself, which was out of bounds for the usual PR-reasons. Since the full transcript would run to tens of thousands of words, I’m going to break it down to individual segments which I’ll lob up every week or two. And it’s just as well, as much of what Paul says is going to lead to debate and each topic should be taken apart individually.
The first one’s about Games Journalism, how it should work, how it worked for him, how journalists minds get broken, the problems of journos turning devs, where it’s gone wrong and how RPS has invented a time-machine (To our mild embarrassment).
Read the rest of this Games Journalism “Interview”.
We’ve seen the Zone Portal from Ten Ton Hammer, now comes the Class Portal!
One of the biggest draws to Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is the sheer number of classes players can explore and utilize. Ten Ton Hammer has compiled every bit of information we have available to provide you a thorough understanding. Whether it’s the devilish power of the Dark Elf Blackguard or the holy might of the Empire’s Witch Hunter you’ll find class descriptions, lore, and screenshots just inside.
View the TTN Class Portal.
Gamevideos and Gametrailers has release some cool exclusive in-game video footage. View them below!
Gamevideos:
Gametrailers:
MMOGNation kick it off with a podcast that interviews Paul Barnett and Carrie Gouskos, designer on the Tome of Knowledge. Apparently there are instructions on how to accurately listen to to this podcast (it has been heavily edited) so you may want to head over to MMOGNation to read the fine print.
The first real landmark in the MMOG Nation Broadcast’s history accompanies a unique recording from my visit at EA Mythic. During my visit to Virginia I had a chance to chat with Paul Barnett about this and that, an experience I found most engaging and amusing. Carrie Gouskos, the designer on Warhammer’s Tome of Knowledge, joined us near the end of the discussion to add her unique insights to the conversation. Paul was nice enough to let me record it all to share with you. We talk about Warhammer, the process of making games, and the value of strong ideas. Check it out…
Download the full podcast [HERE]
MMORPG.com has had the opportunity to sit down with Adam Gershowitz, the Combat and Careers “strike” team lead, and interview him on what MMORPG.com says is the “most interesting class system in any MMORPG.” Also stick around soon for part two which will discuss the three ideas behind the backbone of the career system.
Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down with Adam Gershowitz, the Combat and Careers strike team lead over at EA Mythic’s Warhammer Online. During the interview, we talked about the classes in Warhammer (known as Careers) and what went into the overall design process in bringing them to life.
advertisementThe Warhammer Online careers system has gone through an evolution since the game was announced, moving from an extremely complex system when the game was first announced, to the complex and interesting but ultimately more understandable system that we have today and will see at launch.
There are 24 careers in total: four for each of the six races in the game. This in and of itself is a unique decision. More traditional MMOs like World of Warcraft don’t tie their classes to their races. A Paladin, for example, is a Paladin regardless of what race he / she may belong to. Not that there’s anything wrong with that system, but Warhammer takes careers in the opposite direction. If you’re a Bright Wizard, you’re Empire. If you’re an Ironbreaker, you’re a Dwarf…
Read the rest of this interview about the class system.
IGN has visited the Troll Country zone in Warhammer Online and given a review about their experiences along with intermittent comments they received from Paul and Jeff Hickman as they journeyed through the game. Along with their editorial they also released a video of in-game footage.
June 20, 2008 - If a developer’s confidence equated directly to the excellence of a video game, then Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning would easily be one of the best MMOs ever made. There are very few developers as confident or as colorful as EA Mythic’s Paul Barnett, the design manager on the long-awaited MMORPG based on the Warhammer Fantasy tabletop universe. Upon seeing us at EA’s recent EA3 press event he boldly guaranteed exactly six minutes and 24 seconds of awesome if we sat down to check out his game. As we all know, what matters at the end of the day is the quality and fun of the game and not the exuberance of its designer. Still, Warhammer Online is looking like a very polished and well thought out role-playing experience, and it’s still months away from launching…
Head to IGN to read the rest!
You guessed it. Leggy from Warhammer Conflict has appeared next on the Waaagh! blog’s Imperial Inquisition. Do you know what else makes this interview special? Leggy is getting married to Cassiel (yes in real life) tomorrow, June 21st 2008.
WAAAGH!: Tell us a bit about yourself — your handle/screen name/real name, age, real life occupation, your previous MMO experience, and your play style.Legeam: My name is Mike “Legeam” Malnar but most refer to me as “Leggy”. I’m younger then Wrenn and I’ll leave it at that. I live near Hockey Town, USA (Detroit, MI for those that don’t know). I am also known as TWCTazz on other sites due to me running another community site (tigerwoodscommunity.net) for Tiger Woods Golf by EA Sports. I was a tester for EA Sports for a number of years, and a Community Leader just like my site partner Wrenn. Currently I manage a store for AT&T selling both wireless and wire line services.
Legeam has been my choice name for all MMO’s I’ve played as I was informed by Wrenn not to use Tazz as others in the gaming world would either have that taken already or they would associate me as a botter. Wrenn has always called me “leg-e-um” so that is where the nickname “Leggy” comes from.
I can’t remember the first MMO I’ve ever played, but I did play Lineage 2 for over 2 years so that is my longest running game. I’ve tried other games such as Guild Wars, World of Warcraft, and some other games, but never really found a home in them.
Read the rest of this Imperial Inquisition.
Author’s Comment: If you want to find out more about the wedding, head on over to Warhammer Conflict!
What is your doctor’s office like? Dreary Boring. Teletubbies on the TV (nothing against them). 2 months old Wall Street Journal… Syp from Waaagh! Blog has stumbled upon the ultimate, supreme, waaaghness, doctor’s office. All the waiting room had? A copy of the June 2008 - PC Gamer Edition. After his initial jump for joy he decided to pick it up and glance at what they had to say about WAR.
Here is a few things he noticed that stuck out:
# Screenshots courtesy of the Warhammer Online website
# “Feedback from the game’s legions of fans resulted in substantial changes to WAR’s gameplay”
# WAR’s original RvR system was way more heavily dependent on instanced scenarios, but as most players were doing that instead of open-world PvP, they scaled back the scenarios (”halved”) and focused more on open world battles and PvE.
# Four siege weapons: catapults, rams, burning oil, single-target ballistas
# Paul Barnett wrote a short column entitled “Warhammer: An Introduction” giving people a quick and dirty overview of the game world.
…
I am sure your interested now to signing up to this doctor’s office AND wanting to read get your hands on the rest of his story/details.