As we continue our look athe Mythic Entertainment's Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning we rejoin Carrie Gouskos the lead designer behind the Tome of Knowledge. Displaying her passion for the project, she explains how casual players will use the Tome, and even details a few of the sections we could see at launch. What kind of unlockables can we expect and will this mechanic feel grindy or innovative? Read on to learn more.

Ten Ton Hammer: Are you concerned any of the unlockables may end up feeling grindy? I'm thinking like the factions grinds of games like World of Warcraft.

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Maps and Much More!

Carrie Gouskos: That's another worry of mine. This is kind of my dream world and I cannot promise players are going to do what I want them to. The Tome Unlocks are accesible to a point. Maybe 2/3 of any given section of the Tome is accessible if you put your mind to it and play the game. Most of them should be available in normal play plus a little extra so if you are fighting Squigs and you get your 25 Squig Kill unlock and you keep killing and are about to leave at 89 kills. There is a Tome Unlock at 100 so you might just stay and kill a few more. The point of it is to only encourage you for a reasonable amount of time. The crazy ones hopefully no one is going to sit there for three weeks to try and achieve 1,000,000 Squig kills. The point is to give it longevity over the duration of the game and hopefully five years, ten years, etc... down the road when you get that millionth Squig kill you go "Alright!"

Now I can't guarantee people won't grind it out but I hope we've balanced it in such a way there is a large chunk of them in the first year cycle. As you get out there we'll be adding them so you are going to have a frequency of Tome Unlocks. The ones you saw early on that are way out there, those are going to come down the line.

Ten Ton Hammer: What type of benefits will the Tome of Knowledge offer players. Not necessarily hardcore players who want all their unlocks or lore junkies who want all the story, but folks who want to come in and play the game.

Carrie Gouskos: That type of person is going to have a great time with the Tome because I think it's going to surprise them. I'm a little worried people are going to go look up all the tome unlocks and miss the "joy of discovery." Just as an example we have one where if you click on yourself a certain number of times you get an unlock. I know this exists and I've told a few people about it. A couple of weeks ago I was playing the beta and I unlocked it and I had totally forgotten about it so I laughed and it was that feeling of joy.

So I think the casual player is going to sit there playing one day and get "You sent 100 tells!" and say "That is awesome! I had no idea!" That is what we are going for; that excitement, wonder and joy about what is going on the world. I think being able to go through a list of titles, find your favorite, and put it on you even if it is a bad title is great.

Ten Ton Hammer: So it fits the definition of a metagame and I think you've referred to it as that before.

Carrie Gouskos: Yeah. Especially because it's always going and you don't have to seek it out and do it. It's going to be there whether you choose to do it or not. The time you choose to pay attention to it, I hope it serves your needs because that is the goal. Whether you play the Tome all the time or only once every six months, I certainly don't want to tell people how they should do it.

Ten Ton Hammer: Can you tell us a little more about the subcategories we'll see in the Tome like Notable Persons?

Carrie Gouskos: The Tome is divided up in to two major sections: The Compendium and the Personal Journal. The Personal Journal contain things that have mostly to do with you and tracking. The Compendium has to do with lore. The Personal Journal keeps all your quests and has all the story information available. Things like "I went to this Chapter and gained a certain amount of influence," the Public Quests, what the Public Quest stories are, etc...

The Achievement section within the Personal Journal is all the tracking information such as number of tells sent, amount of coin gained, and so on. Then there is the Rewards section which is everything you've unlocked such as titles and tactics.

Stay tuned as we continue or interview with Carrie Gouskos and more about the Tome of Knowledge