One particular change from Dark Age that customers will
recognize is the removal of some of the protracted siege elements that
were in some parts of DAoC. “Instead of taking a lot of time
to break down that wall,” Robertson said, “we
wanted players to go and kill an enemy instead. It’s people
fighting one another instead of laying siege to their buildings. This
doesn’t mean that there will be no sieges, but it’s
going to be different. We’re talking about sacking cities,
but there isn’t going to be a focus on the siege.”

Although a city can be sacked, my next question focused on
what happened to the city once it was taken over by another race. Would
that city then be occupied by the attacker or would the city simply
reset to be sacked again and again?

width="200">
href="http://warhammer.tentonhammer.com/modules.php?set_albumName=album02&id=HWSS_02&op=modload&name=gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php"> src="http://warhammer.tentonhammer.com/files/gallery/albums/album02/HWSS_02.thumb.jpg"
alt="Witch Hunter and burning heretic"
title="Witch Hunter and burning heretic" name="photo_j"
border="0" height="113" width="150">
The Witch Hunter loves burning his heretics, which he
would do a lot of if he helped sack a city.

“While it’s no fun to be beaten down over
and over again,” Robertson said. “We are going to
allow attackers to keep cities they sack. However, there will be
elements built into the game that help and reward a race that retakes
their city from the attackers (and vice versa). If an attacker stays in
long enough, NPCs may even begin spawning to kick them out of the city.

“Ultimately, this game is all about bragging
rights,” Robertson said. “A player can stay in a
city and taunt his opponent, letting them know how long
they’ve been in the city. There will be easily visible
features that allow players to see how long a race has occupied a city.
And there are things to do inside these cities that allow you to do
things that you may not be able to do if you don’t occupy the
city or occupy it for a certain amount of time.”

Although many of the RvR and castle-sacking elements can be
enjoyed by individuals of all levels, the end-game portion of that part
of the game is crucial for the overall success of Warhammer Online.
DAoC found that many end-game users focused almost entirely on the RvR
battles, and the WAR crew hasn’t ignored this aspect of the
gameplay. “All of the elements we discussed earlier certainly
fit into the end-game scenario for us, but we also have included things
like the Tome of Knowledge (a picture of which we are going to add to
this article).”

Similar to the journal players received in Final Fantasy XII,
Warhammer Online gamers will be able to catalogue a whole slew of
individual accomplishments in the Tome of knowledge. The journal is an
in-game accessible item, and it even has guild entries that allow a
guild to display their achievements to players as an advertising
incentive. “Players might kill an enemy and discover that
they have a new journal entry in their Tome,” Robertson said.
“If they kill even more enemies they might unlock a new title
or eventually earn a reward of some kind. It’s really like a
giant encyclopedia of information with awards attached to it, but it
also functions as an ongoing storyline of your life in the
game.”

Speaking of the storyline aspects of Warhammer, I wondered
what sort of elements made the characters in WAR really feel like

width="200">
href="http://tth.tentonhammer.com/modules.php?set_albumName=album370&id=ccihdr_r1_c2&op=modload&name=gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php"> href="http://tth.tentonhammer.com/modules.php?set_albumName=album372&id=Jeff_Garrett_and_Lance_Robertson&op=modload&name=gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php"> src="http://media.tentonhammer.com/tth/gallery/albums/album372/Jeff_Garrett_and_Lance_Robertson.thumb.jpg"
alt="Jeff, Garrett, and Lance Robertson"
title="Jeff, Garrett, and Lance Robertson" name="photo_j"
border="0" height="113" width="150">
Another shot of Jeff, Garrett, and Lance.

heroes at the end of the day. In response, Lance suggested that gamers
will find that their characters are not only amazing troves of
customizability, but that each of the races and professions will have
their each individual storyline to follow throughout the game. On top
of that, you’ll have your own faction and race to gather
honor and esteem from. “We worked hard to integrate your
character into his race and his realm, making them an integral part of
that general ‘fighting the bad guy’
storyline,” Robertson said.

In many MMOGs, its fairly common to see particular races (or
classes) join together in a particularly unified movement against
another race/class of that area, even if that race/class is on their
side. With the races really relying on each other in Warhammer Online,
I wondered if the races would be able to tell if a particular race is
not putting in enough effort to help the overall goals of their realm.
“To a degree they will be able to tell,” Robertson
said. “Mainly by looking at the state of their cities.
However, the other allied races will want to assist their teammates,
simply because they can’t have one weak link ruin the entire
chain.”

With that, I had to take my leave from Lance and scoot over to
the rest of the Ten Ton Hammer crew to check out the rest of our
meetings for the evening. I’d like to personally thank Lance
for taking the time to chat with me and the whole of the Ten Ton Hammer
staff. For you readers, make sure you check out the Ten Ton Hammer
video – the official date for the information release on the
two sects of Elves is revealed in the interview, so start watching!


Check out the rest of our href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/344">Comic-Con
coverage!

Ten Ton Hammer is your
unofficial source for Warhammer Online href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/88/all">news
and features!

Make sure you take a look
at the Warhammer
Online community site
!


To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Warhammer 40,000: Storm of Vengeance Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

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