The open beta for Warhammer Online started yesterday and was pretty exciting to say the least. I’ll folow up with a more detailed post, but here are some initial impressions and advice.

1. Order is gonna be very heavy with White Lions.  I was in one RVR group yesterday that was my Shadow Warrior and 5 White Lions.
2. Getting to RVR is extremely easy and was a lot of fun.
3. Destruction is going to have the numbers come opening day.
4. My Shadow Warrior was a lot of fun and my second favorite class was the Warrior Priest.
5. The noob areas are slammed!  There were sometimes 5 or 6 people standing around waiting on some various monster to spawn so they could kill it for a quest.
6. The play of the actual game is very much like World of Warcraft but Warhammer owns WOW when it comes to graphics.  Warhammer has the real character feel like DAOC, not the cartoon feel of WOW.

All in all it was a very exciting day.  Everyone was enjoying the game and it seemed to be a pretty smooth first day of open beta.  Lag was almost non existant and there were a ton of people online.  The patcher was running overtime though so if you are downloading and installing the game over the internet don’t get too excited about your install finishing.  You are still gonna have close to 200 MB’s left to patch and it took me about 2 hours yesterday.

Let me tell you that what I was shown with this first iteration of the Trophy system is certainly very exciting. The Witch Hunter is a great model to show off the Trophy system, especially with all the visual doodads and thingamajigs that they can have hanging around. It’s *almost* like you’re doing a visual conversion on the model itself, like you would with a Warhammer Fantasy miniature.

This was very interesting to me, because at first read it sounds like the DAoC system. When certain mobs are killed they drop remains which can then be turned into trophys for your house. Upon closer inspection though, this sounds more like trophies your character will display. This could be very interesting. How many notches can you get on the handle of a sword?

The good news is your chances of getting into the Warhammer Online closed beta have increased since Mythics parent company EA released held their earnings call on November 1st. The bad news is your chances have increased because the closed beta will now doubt be extended longer since the Warhammer Online release date has been pushed from Q1 of 2008 until Q2 of 2008.

Very disappointing news, but I am willing to give Mythic the benefit of the doubt on this one. I have faith in Mythic’s ability to output a quality game based on their hit Dark Age of Camelot. The game isn’t perfect, but then again I have never played a perfect game. Mythic knows you have one shot a first impression and as stated in the conference call, they missed some important date milestones. Mythic presented the information to EA who in turn decided pushing the game back a couple of months was better than releasing it before it was ready for commercial release. EA also has just a tad bit of experience releasing video games so I suspect they also knew what they were doing.

There is a very good interview with Marc Jacobs of Mythic posted at mmorpg.com. In it, he discusses the delay and basically reassures us the game is still on track and things are progressing well. He also reiterates that Warhammer online will “live or die based on RVR.” If you are interested, you can also hear a replay of EA’s earnings call here.

Will waiting around for Warhammer Online to be released I decided to fire up my old characters in Dark Age of Camelot. DAOC is Mythic Entertainments long running MMORPG that has been around for many years. I hadn’t played it in a couple of years so I was very surprised to logon and see all of the changes that have taken place since I left.

The changes that you notice first are the new graphics Engine that was introduced with the Catacombs expansion. The graphics went from really good to amazing. I can’t wait to see how Warhammer Online will look compared to how good the Catacombs engine is. The game play seems pretty close to the way I remember it. You have the occasional “linkdead” problems and some lag when a zerg approaches but that is sometimes helpful will you are playing a solo scout like I am.

A lot has changed and for the most part, the changes seem to be for the better. They also have 2 week free trials you can download and try at the Dark Age of Camelot Website.

Mythic has posted some new cool wallpaper for Warhammer Online. The Warrior Priest looks pretty sweet. You can get them here. Warhammer Online Wallpaper

Paul Barnett, the Design Manager for Warhammer Online, has given his final thoughts on Warhammer Online to Warhammervault.com in an online video. Be sure to head over and check out the video Here

Mythic just released some new concept art, details of the Greenskin and Dwarf Careers. Head on over and check them out. Here is a taste of the Greenskin info.

So named because of the color of their waxy skin, the greenskins are savagery personified. They are ill-tempered, primitive, and live only to fight. In the absence of another foe, greenskins will eventually turn on one another for want of violence. In their culture, might makes right and the weakest members of society are one false step away from being dinner. Check the rest out here.

If you are new to Warhammer Online: The Age of Reckoning, you need to head over to and check out the final cinematic trailer release Mythic Entertainment has released. The graphics are stunning. You can bet the game is gonna need a beefy PC to run. If this doesn’t make the wait for Warhammer kill you, nothing will. Here is a link. Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning Trailer

Yep, you guessed it.  We are changing the site around and going with a different backend.  I have lost all desire to learn Joomla from the ground up and it was affecting site updates.  This redesign will be complete in a couple of days.