Tag Archives: warhammer online

Loads of goings on in the world of MMOs, as usual. Let us make sense of it for you.

This week was filled with birthday celebrations for four different MMOs: Lineage II, LOTRO, City of Heroes, and Guild Wars. Good job guys.

Other stuff happened too ya know, and it’s all broken down for you after the break.
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Mythic has announced that an exclusive griffon or manticore mount can be yours if you refer six players to Warhammer Online through the recruit-a-friend program.

Other referral goodie include non-combat hounds, free game time, and special items that grant additional XP allowing you to temporarily raise a friend’s level to within two of your own.

Sure sounds nice and all, but we would rather have the cool mount.

Extra details on how to get such swag are on the official Warhammer site.

Warhammer Online’s Beyond the Sands event went live yesterday and will run through April 27.

The next phase in the Call to Arms live expansion, the event pits both factions against the Liche Priests over artifacts that once belonged to Nehekharan Kings.

It is mainly a RvR event, but don’t worry PvE-ers. There’s something in it for you too.

The Call to Arms live event is a prequel leading up to the release of the Land of the Dead, which is expected to host new dungeons, a new RvR zone and new instances.

Hit the link to learn more.

Loads of little goings on the land of MMOs last week, but as per usual, the biggest stuff hit our front page.

WoW patch anyone?

Get the rest after the link.

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The Warhammer Online development team has collaborated with Eric Bloom and Richie Castellano of Blue Öyster Cult on a theme song for the game’s new Dwarf Slayer career.

Entitled Kiss My Axe (While I Drink My Beer), the track celebrates the new character path, all thanks to lead-singer Eric Bloom being a long-time Warhammer fan.

“I’d heard a previous song written and performed by members of the WAR team, and thought they were quite good for a ‘garage band’ of game developers,” said Bloom.

“I was very glad to hear from Mythic who invited me down to work on the song. I was impressed by the dedication of the developers to make WAR both a success and fun to play, something that, in my opinion, is missing from many other MMOs.”

Senior WAR creative designer Paul Barnett added: “If this song doesn’t get you fired up to shave your hair into a mohawk, dye it red, and play a Slayer, then you’re probably dead!”

Wonder how long it will be before this song hits Rock Band. Place your bets.

Press release posted below.

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The first actual sacking of a capital city in Warhammer Online occurred this past Sunday, six months after the game’s release, reports Massively.

Nice.

The Destruction faction on Euro server Karak Eight Peaks breached the capital of Altdorf and beat the final encounter with Emperor Karl Franz.

After that, the king was caged so everyone could throw rotten food at him.

A video of it’s posted after the break.

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Mythic has announced another round of free Warhammer Online character transfers.

Players who currently reside on role-playing realm Ostermark can get a free transfer to Phoenix Throne (role-play) or Vortex.

Thanks, IncGamers.

Warhammer Online’s Taiwanese beta’s to go live on April 14, according to this press release.

“Since day one, it’s been our goal to make the Age of Reckoning a global phenomenon,” said Mythic boss Mark Jacobs.

“The closed beta in Taiwan brings more players around the world the chance to answer one very simple question: who do you fight for – Order or Destruction?”

Should bump the game’s figures up a bit. We hope.

Full thing through the link.

Yes, we know this should have gone up yesterday. We were so busy with GDC last week that we almost forgot to do it, but how could we live with ourselves if you didn’t get your weekly MMO news update?

We couldn’t. Loads going on with all of your favorites last week, so hit the link.

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Mythic is asking gamers to return to Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, despite recently closing down 43 of its game servers.

North America and Asia Pacific gamers who re-activate their accounts will receive an “Emperor’s welcome,” complete with all the rested experience they’ve accumulated while absent, a special quest chain with in-game rewards, and ten free days of game time.

Returning players will notice the changes and updates recently made, which are:

• The recently added Knight of the Blazing Sun and Black Guard tank careers
• New easy, medium, and hard PQs designed for different group sizes and skill levels
• Increased experience gain in Tiers 3 and 4
• New Influence rewards earned in Open RvR
• A new Domination system to determine Tier 4 zone control
• Frequent, fun and rewarding live events
• New and improved Guild rewards
• Improvements to overall performance and server stability
• Official WAR Forums
• Choppa and the oath-sworn Dwarf Slayer

Press release posted below.

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Today, Mythic will be performing a final transfer of characters from several of the servers: 43 of them, to be exact.

All characters on the servers listed here will be consolidated onto another destination server, with all source servers eventually closing.

Items in your character’s inventory (equipped or otherwise) and bank vault, bio, quests, tomes, friend list, and guild info will be transferred with you.

Auction items, guild alliances, and in-game mail and attachments will not be transferable. This includes any promotional or collector’s edition items, so be sure to get them out of the bank or mail or you’ll lose them.

Transfer failures, questions, and other possible hiccups can be found by hitting the link above.

This does not bode well for the world of Hamerfall.

Patch 1.2 goes live today for Warhammer Online.

The Choppa and Slayer classes have now invaded and are ready to start warring in the Bitter Rivals event.

When you log into the servers, the patch will also fix over 500 bugs, and a new career balancing system will be put in place.

Thanks, IncGamers.

There are many updates, announcements, and other goings on in MMO-land during the week, and it can be hard to keep up. Luckily, you have us.

Get the last seven days’ worth of significant MMO news after the break.

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Bill Roper has told MTV that it’s too early to write off Warhammer Online just yet.

“It’s so funny, I hear half the people are saying, ‘Oh gosh, Warhammer looks like it isn’t doing so great’, because they said they had [dropped to] 300,000 subscribers”, said the Cryptic boss.

“Those are not bad numbers. And I think people look at it and go, ‘Well, WoW has got 11 million and your game only has 300,000, your game must not be doing good’.

“I know many games out there that would love to have 300,000 subscribers”, he added.

Roper said that MMO players go back and forth between games – especially when new expansions come out – so you have to give numbers time to rise again.

To help balance out server populations, Mythic announced that more free character transfers began yesterday, and as an incentive to switch you’ll get a 20 percent experience and renown bonus for a limited time.

Thanks, Massively

Sure, the more important MMO stories gets their own pieces during the week, but what about all games that aren’t World of Warcraft? Where does that leave them? Here in our MMO news round-up, obviously.

So much happens on a daily basis in the world of MMOs that we thought we’d put as much as we can in one lovely Saturday post. Saves snowing you with the smaller stuff all week that way.

Full thing after the break.

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Despite seeing a drop in Warhammer Online subscribers from 750,000 to 300,000 since release, Mythic’s Jeff Hickman has claimed the firm is thrilled with its game’s userbase.

“We are super proud of our subscription numbers,” Hickman said in a Eurogamer live interview today.

“We expected a hit from our competitors’ launch, and the economy is tough right now,” he added.

“But our subs are growing, especially as we see people return from ‘That Other Game’.”

WAR launched last September.

A live event titled Night of Murder is to run in Warhammer Online from February 6-15.

The shindig is just one of many scheduled for the MMO.

Hopefully it will entice more players to return to the game, considering subscriber numbers have dropped from 750,000 to 300,000 since October 2008.

Full details are posted in the press release below.

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Whoops. EA said yesterday that Warhammer Online subscriptions fell to 300,000 in the quarter ending December 31.

The news came as part of the company’s third quarter financial release.

Mythic claimed the MMO had 750,000 registered players in October last year.

Thanks, Massively.

Mythic boss Mark Jacobs has essentially confirmed the EA-owned developer has seen some lay-offs as part of the publisher’s cost-saving plan.

Said the exec, speaking in a forum post on Warhammer Alliance:

1) Our CEO JR has publicly stated the need to cut costs across all of EA. This statement is old news and applies all throughout EA.

2) As part of EA, all studios are expected to do their fair share to meet the expectations of our CEO.”

EA declined to comment to VG247 on the subject this afternoon.

Joystiq rumoured last night that Mythic had shed 21 customer service staff.

Jacobs points out later in the post that more than 400 people were working on Warhammer Online – the firm’s ongoing MMO – at launch, and that a large team still remains on the game.

EA is currently in the throes of dropping 1,000 staff in an effort to cut costs.

Mythic is the latest EA division to suffer a size reduction, Joystiq’s rumouring, with 21 customer service staff now looking for work.

The Warhammer Online developer is merely the latest in a long line of EA-owned outfits to be trimmed as a result of an announced 10 percent staff cut thanks to losses last year.

The publisher has refused to comment on this latest talk.

EA supposedly closed Black Box before the Christmas break, with both Blueprint and Spielberg’s LMNO team taking hits further back in the fourth quarter.

Pandemic’s Australian studio is rumoured to have closed, in addition.

EA has also shelved plans for a new Vancouver studio as part of general belt-tightening.

The stumbling giant is to lay off 1,000 employees as part of a cost-cutting exercise.

None of the above studio redundancies have been confirmed by EA, who has said on a number of occasions that it won’t go into specifics about where jobs are to be lost.