This afternoon we had an opportunity to speak with Mark Jacobs of EA Mythic about the recent delay of Warhammer Online. This turned out to be a rather long chat, so to avoid inundating you with 23 minutes worth of conversation, we've condensed it into a concise overview of everything discussed. I want to note ahead of time this is specifically regarding the delay of the game, how it affects beta, the Warhammer Online community, and of course, the development of the game.

We kicked things off with one of the most obvious and important pieces to the puzzle of a delay announcement: the community's reaction and subsequent discussion of said delay. He [Mark Jacobs] took initiative to open up dialogue about it ahead of time on several fansites, including Warhammer Alliance. “Exactly how I expected: some positive, some negative, some trolling,” he said. “The vast majority [of fans] feel it was the right decision.”

Mark then reflected on why EA Mythic chose to delay the game again; stating his feelings that they could have released a “good” game in June but why stop at good? “We don’t want a ‘good game’; it’s not what I promised GW, and it’s not what I promised EA. We’re here to make a great game.” Afterward, he also touched on the fact that EA Mythic didn’t want to fall into the trap of releasing too early – a death-knell for many recent MMORPGs to hit the market – but at the same time gave praise to some of the developers who have managed to improve on a rocky release; “The CCP guys have done a tremendous job post-launch,” he said referring to the fact that CCP has continually improved upon EVE Online to make it one of the more successful MMORPGS in recent years.

From there we jumped over to the graphics engine, and whether further improvements and optimizations will be made as a result of the delay. Speed optimizations for rendering will definitely be deployed, continually, both pre- and- post launch, especially in cities, where Mark mentioned the team recently found a few issues and corrected them – vastly improving performance during city raiding scenarios. “We’ve been running large scale events with better frames per second than Camelot,” referring to large-scale battles in Dark Age of Camelot, and how it used to have an impact on performance. Here he assures us that even with a more complex graphics engine with higher detail character models, Warhammer Online’s large-scale RvR will see great results, which is of course crucial since the game is being designed entirely around RvR as an end-game.

Up next we touched on a comment he made about class balance being one reason for the delay. I also mentioned the missing fourth High Elf Career, and whether this was part of the call for the delay. “Nah, not at all,” he said. “When you balance a game, you start building it like a house,” he continued “if something sucks – not that anything sucks right now – but if something sucks, we’re gonna pull it.” This does not mean that EA Mythic will be pulling any classes, just that when they balance the game, they make sure it’s fun, and if a feature isn’t fun – it’s gone, even if that means a class that may need to be replaced.

Another topic up for discussion was the User Interface, and as Mark stated it still needs polish. “It needs more iteration; UI’s are a pain in the butt,” he said. “What Blizzard did was brilliant; what they really did amazing was giving the players the ability to create mods for the game. EverQuest and Dark Age of Camelot did it, but nothing like Blizzard did.” He also recollected on early struggles with the World of Warcraft UI, and how many patches introduced optimizations for it to ensure it was operating at a playable speed for players, “Issues early on were UI speed due to modability, and this is something we have to think about in an RvR game.” That said, he also pointed out that in the end, it comes down to: “Are we doing what’s right and good [for the WAR UI]?”

Finally, while there are a lot of questions regarding Open Beta and the lifting of the NDA popping up, we at Curse know firsthand that server stability is crucial, so I wanted to get Mark’s thoughts on Stress Tests prior to launch, to ensure that EA Mythic can support the droves of fans who will no doubt be flooding the servers on day-one. “Absolutely; one thing to keep in mind: we’ve already invited a ton of people into beta. Think back to World of Warcraft’s numbers for Open Beta, and that’s probably where we are, and we’re not done yet.” EA Mythic plans to deploy quite a few servers to not only test server-specific stability, but the stability of the hardware infrastructure as a whole. “This is not a standalone game; it’s an online game,” he continued, “We will have spare bandwidth, spare servers.” Mark and EA Mythic as a whole hopes that once Open Beta rolls around, it will reaffirm their commitment to ensuring that Warhammer Online has a stable, successful launch. Of course, they’re no stranger to game launches – Dark Age of Camelot was quite possibly one of the most successful launches in the genre’s history in terms of stability. “I’m a firm believer in a bit of overkill,” referring to server hardware.

While we could have gone on and probably spent another hour chatting with Mark, he had to take other calls as well – we can’t be stingy! We’d like to thank EA Mythic and Mark Jacobs for the opportunity to chat briefly about their decision to delay the game until the fall. This isn’t the end though – if you’d like to ask Mark your own questions about the delay, head over to the thread on Warhammer Alliance. Just be sure to pay heed to the rules of the thread!

As an Associate Producer with EA Mythic, Josh Drescher is hard at work on EA Mythic's upcoming next-gen MMORPG- Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, based on Games Workshops' tabletop fantasy war game, and one of the most-anticipated PC games of 2008.

Now we have an opportunity to interview with Josh Drescher. He tells us more information about the game. Also he brings us his picture.

MMOsite: First, congratulations, you've got over 500,000 players signed up for Warhammer Online. Till now, how do players perform on the battlefield? Does it require NPCs to involve in the battle in order to keep balance?

Josh Drescher: Thanks! We've VERY excited about how the fans have responded and we can't wait to get the game into their hands so they can experience what we've been building.

Warhammer Online is all about huge armies of players fighting against one another forever and ever. Our goal has always been to make that the focus of RvR whenever and wherever possible. With that being said, we have found that adding NPCs to RvR areas is useful in some places.

For example, in the persistent (non-instanced) game world, we noticed in early beta testing that players had a hard time defending battlefield objectives effectively. This was mostly because, unless people stood next to those objectives 24 hour a day, people would just wait until no one was around and then take over the unguarded objectives. To address that problem, we've added NPC guards that will defend any battlefield objective that has been claimed by either side. They're not super-powerful, but they will guarantee that you have to work to take over an objective, no matter how many players are around.

Full Interview

Following up on the announcement of Warhammer Online's beta being delayed until the second quarter of 2008, Garthilk from Warhammer Alliance got in touch with the man himself - Mark Jacobs - VP of EA Mythic, to talk a bit about the announcement, and the direction EA Mythic is going with some of the things talked about in the October Newsletter.

Garthilk was even able to get Mark to budge a bit on crafting, which is probably some of the first information mentioned anywhere on the topic.

It's a very informative interview, so I encourage everyone excited about the game to make the jump to WHA's Mark Jacobs Interview for more.

Recently, Missy Hatch and James Nichols took the helm and assumed roles in managing the Warhammer Online community. In typical Orc fashion our first reaction might be to smash their skulls in. However we at Warhammer Alliance decided to go the High Elf route and get to know these fledgling WAR devotee's with a little interview with the folks from Warhammer Alliance.

During Leipzig Games Convention, we had a chance to sit down with Mark Davis and Josh Dreschner, two crazy people working on Warhammer Online. The questions used for this interview were much courtesy of our friends over at Warhammer Alliance, so hopefully some of your questions will be answered!

Add to that, Josh and Mark share with us some of their funny moments working at EA/Mythic on Warhammer on their funny storytelling fashion! You can view the interview below:

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Warhammer Alliance moderator Browncoat has posted some video footage taken from the 2007 Games Day Chicago. In it is an interview with Adam Gershowitz of EA Mythic about several burning issues regarding Warhammer Online. Definitely worth checking out.

A new interview from Warhammer's Richard Duffek in which he talks about the PVP and RVR issues in MMORPGs.

The ranter from hell has left her perch. Sanya Thomas takes leave of EA Mythic after nearly six years of biting her tongue. Warcry has the exclusive interview that details her departure. Nothing juicy, nothing of note, just fond memories and some kind words. A decent read and worth checking out if you've been around the block.

War is everywhere in Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR), the new MMORPG from the creators of Dark Age of Camelot®. Based on Games Workshop?s popular Warhammer® fantasy war game, WAR features next generation Realm vs. Realm™ (RvR) game play that will immerse players in a world of perpetual conflict. You can visit http://www.warhammeronline.com for more information of Warhammer Online.

MMOSITE.COM: RvR system is one of the most important reasons why WAR is greeted by the players. However, players now have different views on the RvR system. What is your understanding about RvR and what are the differences between PvP and RvR in WAR?

Richard: PvP is all about the player and personal gain. RvR is about being part of a larger group and fighting epic battles for a cause. In WAR, it s about leading your army to the doors of your opponent s capital city, kicking them down and then burning and pillaging the whole place.

MMOSITE.COM: Do you think female players will like WAR? It is my understanding that most races in WAR do not meet female players aesthetic needs.

Richard: That really depends on the female in question. I don t think it s fair to stereotype and lump all female players into the "give me rainbows and pink ponies so I can craft and socialize" group. There are MANY female gamers who want to play a game and kick a lot of butt. Those are the ones that will be playing our game.

MMOSITE.COM: What do you think of the instanced RvR in WAR? You know it is not only a surprise to many old DAoC gamers, but also a surprise to the current WoW gamers.

Richard: I think the instanced RvR in WAR will work out great. We have a lot of features in place, such as NPC Dogs of War, to prevent the problems experienced by players in other games that have instanced PvP. The instanced Scenarios aren t the only type of RvR in the game; there is open-field RvR with many battlefield objectives to fight over. People familiar with DAoC should feel at home in our RvR system, and hopefully people who have experienced instanced PvP in other games will enjoy ours much more.

MMOSITE.COM: Many excellent MMOGs have a grand and compelling quest system and WAR is of no exception. Can you basically introduce the quest system in WAR? Will there be any PvP or RvR quests? And will there be any events which will push the history of the game?

Richard: Probably the biggest innovation in our quest system is the Public Quests (PQs). I know it s one of my favorite aspects of the game. PQs allow us to have these massive, almost raid-like quests, that unfold in a series of stages and tell a story about a specific location in the world. They allow a large group of players to work together without requiring anyone to coordinate to efforts of forty people, with very specific specs and gear, to complete it. Absolutely anyone in the area can help complete the quest; doesn t matter if they re in your guild or even grouped, you don t ever even have to speak to them if that is the way you play. You can all be doing your own thing, and still contributing to finishing the quest.

There will definitely be RvR quests. Some require you to actually kill other players; some just require you to enter RvR enabled areas to complete your objective. There even competitive quests the pit you against your racial opponent.

MMOSITE.COM: Is the game suitable for casual players? I mean those players who can only play 1 to 3 hours a day. Is it possible for them to have fun in WAR?

Richard: Most definitely. I m not going to sit here and tell you that someone who plays 1 to 3 hours a day will level as fast as someone who plays 6 to 8 hours a day, that s just not a possibility. But a casual player will absolutely be able to play and enjoy WAR. They can jump in, take part in a public quest, complete a couple of PvP missions, engage in some open-field RvR, or jump into a Scenario for some heated combat. We are building this game to be very accessible to casual and core players alike.

MMOSITE.COM: The release of WAR is still quite far away. What is your plan for Warhammer in the near future? Any big changes?

Richard: We re going to continue to build a great game. (Look for the elves to debut this summer!) We ve recently gone back and rebuilt the starter areas for the Greenskins and Dwarfs. The original areas were fun, we heard almost nothing but good things about them, but in our minds they weren t GLORIOUS. We knew we could do better. We had learned a lot working on our second racial pairing, Empire and Chaos, and we poured all of that experience into the new Dwarf and Greenskin zones. We re not looking to make a good game here; we re looking to make a GREAT game.

MMOSITE.COM: To conclude, what do you like most to say to our readers?

Richard: First and foremost, thanks for the continued support and enthusiasm for WAR. I m out on the fansite forums every day reading what you guys and gals have to say. We are getting really close to the ramp up for beta and the Guild Beta applications went out in the April Newsletter. If you re a guild leader and you haven t signed your guild up yet, what are you waiting for?!

Despite GDC having ended a few weeks ago, new interviews keep popping up. This time MMORPG.com has a brief summary of a site down with Mark Jacobs while at GDC. Nothing new specifically but as always, it's a decent read.

The blog with the MOG, MMOG Nation has put up their notes from an exchange with EA Mythic's very own Mark Jacobs. Nothing ground breaking in terms of Warhammer information, however it's a good opportunity to see just what kind of candid guy Mark can be. Overall it's a good read.