By Garrett Fuller

Warhammer Online has been talking about their Tome of Knowledge from the beginning. The Tome is a track record of all of your characters achievements in the form of a very cool looking Old World book. The writing and pictures look like the classic Warhammer artwork and stories. The Tome is yours to enjoy fill in with loads of information as you adventure through the game, keep your kill stats in RvR and many other things. Game Designer Carrie Gouskos was on hand to show us some of the updates to the Tome and also look at some ways the book is used to enhance game play and unlock loads of secret content.

The Tome of Knowledge tracks your play throughout the game. If you discover a new monster in your travels the tome will write down an explanation for you. There is also a game play layer in the Tome for players to explore. The Tome is a way for players to unlock certain titles they can give their characters. Carrie explained that if you killed ten thousand squigs the Tome will be there to offer you many colorful titles as a “Squig Killer.” Obviously the example is an extreme, but you follow along.

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Players do have a map to look at in the UI but the Tome also contains one for players to view. The maps can be specific to quests and show all the way points, quest landmarks, and areas where players should be looking for quest goals. Not only can you look up the quest write up directly from your screen, but the map will be there to show you where to go.

Carrie also told us that the whole point of the Tome of Knowledge was to “reward the observant player.” There are certainly areas that have scrolls or old book laying around in the game, all these documents can be unlocked and added to your Tome. This way you get a sense of the rich history in Warhammer as well as knowledge that will help you in the game along the way. Each of the capital cities has a library in it where players can explore and unlock loads of information in their Tomes to further along the PvE side of the game.

The greatest part about the Tome for Realm vs Realm players is the ability to track and display your kills and deaths from combat. When another player inspects your character you have the option to show certain stats in your Tome. You can show off how great you are in RvR to others. Not only can you have your display ready, you can also unlock titles from the Tome for the amount of RvR you have done. Warhammer wants players to have loads of in-game bragging rights for their achievements. Not only will players get the good titles, they will also have the option to display fun bad titles they get. Let’s say you are killed by a dragon ten times, you will soon have a title that reflects your bad luck.

The Tome also helps you with crafting and knowing what items to sell where. You may find some resources in the game and want to sell them. The best way to know where to get the most for your finds is using the Tome to track down the right vendors. Reading the Tome apparently gives you advantages to almost every aspect of the game.

We learned a lot from Carrie’s presentation about the Tome of Knowledge in Warhammer Online. The biggest thing to take away was that there is way more to the Tome than just a quest and map tracker. There are layers that we have not seen before and the Tome outlines a lot of the depth in the game. Because it has a lot to offer all types of players, the Tome of Knowledge definitely will add depth to the game and give players whole new levels to explore.

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Want to learn more about the Tome of Knowledge? Be sure to check out this great video showing features currently in development. Also be sure to stop by our forums and let us know what you think!