General Discussion

EA Mythic has published their Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning February newsletter, which explains keeps and sieges, looks at the Warhammer: Condemned by Fire comic and beta opportunities, scenario and zone overviews, army leader profiles, and more.

Keeps and Sieges

As you have no doubt seen in recent podcasts and newsletters, we’ve added Keeps and Siege to Warhammer Online!  Now it is time to offer an in-depth explanation as to how these systems work and how they are integral to the Realm v Realm™ (RvR) experience.

Integrating keeps into WAR builds on the foundation and success of Dark Age of Camelot™.  In that game, keeps were the epitome of land ownership and helped drive the sense of pride in RvR.  In WAR, keeps are once again a focal point of pride for your Realm and worth the battle defend or capture them.

Renown

Renown is the system which measures Realm vs. Realm (RvR) participation by a player. It functions as an experience system for RvR and players can “level up” to earn Renown ranks that show their proficiency at fighting the opposing Realm. Renown gain is also capped based on a character’s level so a player can’t be Renown rank 50 and player rank 5.

The Renown system dictates the rewards made available to a player (items, abilities, titles, or otherwise). Renown is gained through many actions in WAR - killing other players, taking or defending battlefield objectives or keeps, participating in scenarios, and zone control.

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I just wanted to say that this would be the news letter I have waited for, Renown points for skills and not gear = ) Thank you mythic.

am i the only one who cant link to and from the newsletter?

Must say that this month's Podcast was a bit disappointing.  Anyone else agrees?

There was alot of good stuff in this month's newsletter, it made for quite good reading.

Personally I don't bother with the podcasts cause that idiot pisses me off 

Hmm, I am not as excited as I used to be. The sieges just remind me of DAOC. Which isn't bad, I was just hoping for more. So as I understnad it there player keeps provide the realm benefit of completing a public quest. Which is a good souce of a public quest no doubt. However, I would of liked to see it provide additional benefits. For example> Lets suppose you capture the keep for your race. PQ reward and the zone control ticks in your favor. Good.

A timer is then initiated. Five minutes of control means two extra guards are posted outside. Thirty minutes later a patrol of 4 men patrol around the tower and if the tower is held for over an hour a patrol four mean scour a common pathway to keep travelers safe. These spawns do not respawn if killed until keep control has changed or server rest or if the guild that controls the keep adds perks to the keep.

Maybe a mechanism for guilds to work for can be enabled here. The guild could buy enhancements with their reknown or coin such as different types of guards ( tanks, ranged, magic support), armorer or menders to allow players gear to be repaired and/ or enhanced, etc. Lots of room to make keep control really important instead of another public quest.

I highly doubt a june launch is going to happen. June is three months away and :

We still havent seen the final High Elf career.  Three months to go and one of the playable characters isn't even finished?

Elven pairing testing. They are still testing Empire/Chaos scenarios. I believe this has been going on for a few months. I can only assume the Elven lands will take the same amount of time.

Elven mastery lines. I am assuming that once we see the mastery lines in the newsletter they are complete for playing and have been tested for balance and such.  If June is the launch date. I would expect by now these three months would be dedicated to testing all elven scenarios, mastery lines, etc.

Sorry for being skeptical, but I see WAR being ready for launch in December 2008

Adding keeps and sieging to your MMOG a scant 4-6 months from it's launch (assuming they implemented them around early winter) does not really bode well in my opinion. But I'll keep my 'wait and see' attitude for now. But it screams 'we need more depth, lets hack in Keeps.'

Some more information to use when speculating on the Release Date. Each Comic Book will have a scratch off code with a 1 in 5 chance to enter beta, the beta code must be used by May 31, which could imply that beta will be wrapping up in early June.

Source: http://www.boom-studios.com/node/1593

* Approximately 20% of codes submitted will be invited to participate in the WARHAMMER: AGE OF RECKONING Beta Test.

The promotional code must be activated by May 31, 2008 to be eligible for the Beta Test.

While I hope I am wrong and you are right, I have seen these beta key promotions dry up and have little indication on release dates.

Worst examples of this were Gods and Heroes and The Chronicle.  They had pre-orders bought by many only to cancel the game.

Age of Conan had beta code offers on its website for joining its newsletter and the game has been pushed back many times.

So I am skeptical in regards to beta code offers to give an indication of game release.

EA/Mythic had better show me some progress inthe next newsletter or else i think the fans will be seeing a CYA article from Paul or Jeff saying they are just "tweaking" a few more wonderful features and "giving it more polish" for a grand Q4 release.