Coyote's Guide to Warhammer Online: The Only Guide you will EVER need.

Introduction

What is Warhammer Online?

Warhammer Online is a new MMOG introduced by Mythic Entertainment that offers a new and innovative game play feature that no other online game has yet to offer:

It's trying to kill you.

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Begin an Exciting Career Sifting Garbage

Well...maybe not you, but it is definitely trying to kill someone because playing the game itself is like having a needle full of adrenaline smashed into your chest and stabbed directly into your heart. And that can't be good for everyone that plays, no matter how awesome it sounds.

But Warhammer Online doesn't care.

If it kills you, then you weren't fit enough to play the game anyway and would have probably annoyed the piss out of other players by bumbling around in the newbie zones and asking questions and trying to "learn" things. The last thing other players want to do is talk to you and help you and explain things so that you don't stagger around blindly.

You're there to either kill or be killed and if you're thumbing through the n00b-manual as I'm baring down on you with a +12 Axe of PWNAGE, then you're the weakest link on the food chain and it's my job to sever you.

And then teabag your corpse and post pictures of it on the forums.

Lore

Warhammer is set in the land of "Nobody Gives A Damn, Just Give Me Something To Kill", and as you may have already guessed, the world is at War.

With Hammers.

Look. No one reads lore and no one cares. Face it, if you're reading this chances are you're not going to start a character on one of the Role Play servers so you don't need to KNOW the lore behind the game. All that you need to know is that for every race there is an "opposite" race that needs to attract your foot to it's nads, pronto.

Good verses Evil, Dark Verses Light, Scary cool things verses Prissy Elfy things - it is all the same and if you get caught up in the lore you lose track of what is important in any online game.

Humiliating n00biez.

Just shut up and finish installing the game and stop focusing on things like storylines and reasons for conflict. It's simple: If you have an axe and someone else has a head, you have a reason for conflict so go gank them.

Loading The Game

This game is so hardcore that lesser gamers have been ganked, corpse camped and tea-bagged by gangs of griefers before they even get to character creation. Which is why "loading the game" gets its own little section. Because nothing about Warhammer Online is anything less than totally frigging hardcore. Even the Mythic SYMBOL itself is chock full of wicked awesomeness. This isn't some little girl whispering creepily in your ear as you stare at two embossed vowels or that stupid little Pixar lamp jumping on the letter "i"...

No sir.

It's two frigging hammers and the Mythic Symbol is on fire.

But it's more than just a clever logo - it's a warning. A warning that playing this game is like getting hit in the face with two hammers and then set on fire by the sheer force of the awe inspiring gnarliness contained within. Seriously, they even have a section dedicated to it in their EULA:

"Warning: This game is so god damn entertaining that people have been known to spontaneously combust. By clicking accept Mythic Entertainment is relieved of any responsibility should your lame ass not be able to handle the over powering total coolness of this game and you end up just exploding like a screaming fleshy man-bomb."

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Can you Handle the Awesomeness of this Dark City?

Deadly hammers, the creators of the game engulfed in flames and you signing away your right to sue should you become a pasty white lump of virginal C-4...

...and you haven't even loaded the game up yet? Your butt cheeks should be so clenched in excitement and anticipation to play that they rip the vinyl covering off of your computer chair.

So now what?

You're loaded, more likely than not you've died ten or eleven times and you're soaked with so much sweat and nervousness that you look like Twinkie The Kid visiting a fat camp. That means that it's time for you to pick a server to play on. Luckily for you, there are only 75 thousand of them to choose from - and most have high population loads. Don't try and find a completely empty server.

They don't exist.

It's like trying to order a small soda at Burger King. The greasy kid behind the counter will blink slowly, wipe his nose on his sleeve and look around in confusion before informing you that they don't have small sodas, and the smallest size that you can get is "medium". But unlike the underpaid MENSA applicants manning the counter at your local burger joint, if you try to correct Mythic or complain that "low" just means "high, but not as ridiculously high as a "high" server", the Dev Team will drive directly to your house and thrust kick your Grandmother in the chest.

So just pick one already.

Now you have your server and you're ready to start kicking ass and taking names - but wait, which side do you pick?

The answer is obvious: Destruction. Good is stupid and likes to do lame ass stuff like bow before fighting, where in Evil just knees Good in the face when they bow and then grabs about thirty of his buddies to recreate favorite scenes from "River Dance" on Good's spleen.

.....but just in case you want to try Order - we'll delve into the all of the races and classes of each, so that you can pick the character that best fits your gaming style.

And then delete him and make a character on Destruction side you frigging bunny hugging hippy.

Stay tuned as Coyote continues with Character Creation in Part 2.