Warhammer Online 'technically' ready to be launched

PC News | Still needs a bit of polish, though.

The senior producer of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning at EA Mythic, Geoff Hickman, has said in a recent interview with Eurogamer that the reason for the game's delay is that they 'need more time to polish it', while the actual content of the game is actually ready to go live. "All the content's done. The game is fully playable. Technically, I could launch the game today."

Mythic is, however, going over the game with a fine tooth comb to make sure that it is the absolute best it can be by the time the game launches later this year.

"We're looking at every quest in the game, we're looking at how the land is set up, all of the content. Everything," Hickman said. "And making sure that it feels the way that it needs to feel, and that we want it to feel, so that we can have a slam dunk success when we launch the game."

Earlier this year, the game was delayed from quarter two to quarter four this year. Hickman clarified this, stating "I know the actual dates and it's not six months. Let's call it three to six months", which means the game could end up making release as early as September, potentially competing with both a new World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings Online expansion.

It's worth noting that they are not trying to compete with Blizzard, or any other company for that matter, on the MMO scene. "We don't expect to dominate the MMO space against the biggest game out there," he said. "We have very, very sound expectations for our game, I think we're going to meet those expectations, and I think EA is going to go, 'Oh my Lord, we finally have an MMO'. And they're going to be happy as hell."

Look out for more information on Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning as the games release date gets closer.

Related Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning Content

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning Review
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Wahammer Online: Age of Reckoning guide winners announced
23 Oct, 2008 Hammered.

750,000 players signed to Warhammer Online
11 Oct, 2008 That’s one hell of a WAAAAGH.

9 Comments

Matt Bassos

4 years ago

This will be my first MMO, and it looks great. Missed the WOW boat, plus it looks rather bland by class standards in my opinion. Can't wait to play as a Witchhunter a Chosen Chaos tank

ObsoletE

4 years ago

you have a Dreadnaught from WH40K as the icon?

i think launching against the launch of Wrath of the Lich King is probably the right move, as WotLK will change WoW again (like BC did) and it'll be the time easiest to grab those WoW players who aren't as into it anymore, before they commit to another 10 levels of grinding.

and while i'm still quite interested in it, the Beta had some issues i wasn't too keen on, mostly to do with Australian lag. people might say that 500-700ms Latency doesn't make much difference - and in WoW, i kinda agree. it's annoying, but it's not a HUGE issue - in WAR, it's a little different since it worked on collision detection, and seeing "slow" players pinging around the map made it frustrating.
(i will admit that, potentially, this works in our favour.)

arbok

4 years ago

its not my cup of tea, but i know a few people who would be interested in t his game.

Itachi

4 years ago

I will be one of thoses players ready to play this. Can't wait to be honest. Haven't played a mmo in so long

bozza

4 years ago

Im looking forward to it, id say they'll spend a long time before release balancing it all out, making sure certain classes arent overpowered etc, but that'll go on for a while i imagine, WoW is still tweaking balancing issues a few years down the line.

I really hope this does well though and steals a few players from WoW, having healthy competition among games can never be a bad thing IMO. It pushes developers to bring out better features to get the edge over the competition, with EA behind them too im sure they've got the funding and advertising budget to reach out to a lot of WoW players.

Aftershock

4 years ago

If it get this, it will take my MMO virginity.
And whether or not i get it will probrably depend upon the subscription model.

I'm holding out for guild wars-esque.

Mr Waffle

4 years ago

Itachi wrote

I will be one of thoses players ready to play this. Can't wait to be honest. Haven't played a mmo in so long

Right with you there. Last one I played was Guild Wars (dialup friendly!), but after I got Virgin broadband, not really much point starting WoW with all my friends either max level or long since quit...

I've heard from those in the demo that the gameplay itself is great, just the game needed a lot of fixing up. I'm glad they're willing to give them the time to iron it all out and ready for show (I guess the potential Warhammer audience out there is helping to keep the EA wolves from the door).

Kikujir0

4 years ago

I use to play WoW, and let me tell you if you aren't good at managing your time don't pick up an MMO.

While it is extremely tempting to get, I don't think I'll get it, specially in my HSC years. Playing WoW before affected my studies and social life, its only last year I picked up myself on both things properly.

Deathfiend

4 years ago

I agree with Kikujir0. MMO's require more time then you probably have to spare. I think a lot of people who havent played an MMO don't realise how time consuming these types of games are. They are also purposely built to fool you and reel you into playing for extended periods also.

In terms of WoW:
levels 1 to 10 and you've spent an hour and a half. 10 to 20 and 6 or 7 hours are gone. 20 to 30 and you find a week has gone by. 30 to 40 and 3 to 4 weeks have flown past you. 40 to 50 and you may have lost track of a couple of months. 50 to 60 and all your friends think you're dead. 60 to 70 is a breeze but once you hit 70... You have years worth of stuff to rep grind, weekly runs of dungeon raids. Daily quests, trade skill grinding and so much that you will be completely overwhelmed, untill the next expansion and it starts all over! Makes you feel that all the time you've spent getting good gear is wasted, knowing that the new expansion will bring low level gear thats better then your epics.

I'm sure all MMO's follow a similar model and you need to decide wether you are going to hit it hard core or just take your time and enjoy the stories and play it when you feel like it. Cause you will either get addicted to building the ultimate toon or quit at 40 because its too time consuming.

MMO's arent for the feint hearted.

-Mick

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