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Witches, Gods, and
More!
An Interview with Josh
Drescher, Senior Designer for Warhammer
Online: Age of Reckoning
May 8, 2007
Warhammer
Online: Age of Reckoning has been on the MMO community's
"top games to watch" list since Mythic announced it was going to be
developing the decades old property a few years ago. When it became
public knowledge that they game would be delayed until 2008, the
collective outcry of thousands of Warhammer fans resonated throughout
the world.
However, the team at EA Mythic hasn't lost a step, and they believe the
extra months they have received to polish WAR will be time well spent,
in the end.
In response to the delay and to
check in with the crew at EA Mythic, Ten Ton Hammer sent the intrepid
Jeff "Ethec" Woleslagle to uncover the latest news on the game and
where the team is headed over the next few months.
Jeff tracked down Josh Drescher, Senior Designer for EA Mythic, and
asked him the questions that are perched on everyone's mind. Enjoy the
interview!
TTH:
Let's start with Empire. One of the classes we really wanted to see
more of was the witch hunter. Other than Paul Barnett going a little
crazy about the pointy hats, could you talk a little bit about their
role and what kind of tools they'll have at hand?
style="font-weight: bold;">Josh Drescher: The
witch hunter is actually the next class on the menu for really detailed
treatment in an upcoming newsletter. I can't get into absolute, total
detail... I can give you a slightly more involved explanation of his
general strategic role. I had lunch yesterday with Eric Mogensen of
Games Workshop and he gave us his very definitive opinion on what a
witch hunter should be and how he should interact with the world. If
you remember the concept art, he's got a big blunderbuss / pistol thing
and a rapier. His boring sort-of MMORPG role is the melee / DPS class.
Strategically his role is debuffing / damage-over-time stuff. He's
going to do things that make it hard to stay close to him and then
he'll finish you off with a pistol in the side of the head. Beyond
that, we're tripping on ground that we'll be covering in the newsletter.
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style="font-style: italic;">Witch Hunters are going to get a
detailed overview in the next WAR newsletter.
TTH:
We'll look forward to the newsletter, then! Another thing about the
Empire in the tabletop game is their reliance on technology - the
cannon, the steamtank, and so on. We've gotten a few small details on
crafting, can you tell us anything more about crafting or whether the
Empire might be heavier into crafting than maybe Chaos?
style="font-weight: bold;">Josh: There's
certainly not going to be any intention to make them imbalanced. For
aesthetic reasons, I understand what you're asking: is there ever a
time when a Chaos citizen would aesthetically want to sit down and knit
a woolen hat? There are times when you have to error on the side of
playability, and it would be pretty difficult to include a crafting
system and then predominantly grant it to one side. I can't give you
any details on any crafting system, but I can tell you that any
crafting system would be fair and balanced between the races.
TTH:
I hate to use the typical MMORPG archetypes, but the two tanking
classes for the Chaos and the Empire: the Chaos Chosen and the Knights
of the Blazing Sun. Could you kind of compare and contrast these two
classes?
style="font-weight: bold;">Josh: There's a very
specific reason why we chose the Knights of the Blazing Sun. If you
look at their background, they are sort of the most underhanded, I
don't want to say conniving, but they're goal-oriented. They're far
more interested in beating you to death than beating you to death
barely.
And
if your familiar with the lore around Tzeentch at all, he's the great
schemer. Everything that he does is part of some horribly Byzantine
plot; humans are just a cog in his evil machinery. The Chaos Chosen
represent the class that is most intimately connected to that side of
the mythos.
So,
from a sort of standard combat standpoint, these are the battlefield
commanders. These are the guys that are going to be out there, doing
what they need to do to succeed. There's different way ways we're going
to do this aesthetically, but in addition to being strong defensively,
these guys are going to be of significant tactical value to their group
on the battlefield.
Again,
returning to the IP a moment, the Knights of the Blazing Sun, the
period in their lifespan that we're trying to capture is the time after
they've kind of come into their own; their sort-of Roman period,
proving themselves to the Empire in an effectively mercenary command
role. People would see a Knight of the Blazing Sun come into the area
and obviously want them to hire them into their ragtag band of
religious fanatics to battle the forces of Chaos.
TTH:
Returning to Tzeentch, he is I guess you would say offensively he's a
more magically-oriented character, while Chaos is typically a more
physical / melee, win-by-attrition sort of army. Does my impression of
the IP hold up in WAR?
style="font-weight: bold;">Josh: Yes and no.
You get the more physicality-oriented stuff from Korn, there's a little
more subtlety to the other 3 Chaos gods. Korn disdains magic in every
way, which is one of the reasons that he would have been a poor fit for
the game we're trying to make. Tzeentch is all about the scheming and
plotting. If you're familiar with the IP, there are these inscrutable
periods of time for reasons hard for humans to understand, the forces
of Chaos come together for some unholy alliance to do something
terrible. Typically Tzeentch is the one driving that; trying to bring
these not necessarily warring, but not necessarily complimentary
factions together for a greater goal.
Attrition
certainly plays a part. The Empire especially. The overall strategy for
victory is constant breeding; having the most people that you possibly
can so they can grow up, go out, and die. There's a meat-grinder /
atrrition mentality on both sides there, which is why they make such a
complimentary pairing.
But
Tzeentch is certainly more attractive to moral humans. There are things
he can grant: arcane knowledge, strange powers. He's a figure
politicians would be attracted to. All the people that you would
probably not be particularly fond of spending a lot of time with, those
are Tzeentch people. Turn on C-SPAN, those are Tzeentch people!
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