Over the weekend, Games Day 2011 was held in Chicago. Several members of the Warhammer Online team made the trip, including the Producer and Combat/Careers designer. They talked to fans and held a Q&A. Thanks to the efforts of Artiee and Garrawarr we have a full run down of what was talked about.
I'm not going to post the full transcript, just some of the more interesting parts.
1.4.4. The next patch is due out around August 30th. Yay! That means more and more WAR posts on this blog.
Keep Defense. Killing a ram during a keep defense will benefit the defenders by giving them a buff to help them push back.
Next Live Event. The Wild Hunt will be back at the end of September. I think he meant September... could be August though.
Play as Monster. They are looking at adding progression to Play as Monster (you know, Skaven and Aqshy). Great news, it should make them more interesting. I hope there are decisions to be made.
Guards and other NPC's. They are looking into returning some of the NPC's to RvR. As much as I like pure PvP, it is pretty brutal when the numbers are not 'fair.' Being able to use NPC's to help bolster your side is better than nothing, so I am looking forward to this. Hopefully they can be tied into the Against all Odds system.
This could also be a step in bringing back customization to keeps. I really hope it does.
Forts! As reported in the blogger trip, they want to store relics in them. Each pairing has one, half of which is stored in each fort. Players must seize a piece and bring it back to their fort. Doing this will grant their realm a bonus of some kind.
This is not tied into the campaign, so it really has nothing to do with getting into the city. Players will have to travel across the pairing to deliver the part to their fortress. To go along with customization, maybe guilds can take ownership of parts of the fort.
Tier 7 Armor. this is one of the things we saw during our recent trip to Mythic. They have been working on a new armor for each career. There are 24, so that is a lot of new armor. Currently, they are looking at making this appearance only. Makes sense, due to all of the flak they got about the power gap. It might be earned through the soon-to-come relic system.
No cities and no new races or careers. I think we all knew this already. I wish it wasn't so, but life goes on. They still have plenty to work with.
Sylvania. Believe it or not WAR actually has a bunch of assets they haven't used yet, like Vampire Count stuff. How much do they have? I have no idea. They do want to make use of it though.
There is a ton of information in the full transcript, so take a read.
The next big event is Gamescom, August 17th -21st, which I am looking forward to. They will hopefully have some pretty surprising news to share (don't try and guess).