Warhammer Online Preview: The Empire

"Humans will be humans," Barnett told us as he lamented that no matter what they did, most people (including himself) would likely roll a human anyway. I asked him why and he told me that - for many - all the fantasy races simply exist for people "to practice genocide" on.

While Barnett admitted that the humans are a "pH neutral" race, the team has done a lot to make them feel a little different. Most notably, they're not really good people (not that anyone in Warhammer is).

"[The Empire will] deliver the obvious in an unobvious way," he declared.

As a people, the Empire possesses a vaguely Germanic architecture and, not shockingly, look like humans. Their areas were rich and slightly unlike the usual dynamic from most MMORPGs. It's not until they started to talk that I really saw the difference.

Half way through my time in their starting area, Barnett snuck up behind me and asked me if I'd heard the swearing yet. I had not. With forty computers in the room, everyone had the sound off and a headset on the desk. For whatever reason, I'd not put mine on. He told me to click on NPCs as I ran around, so I put them on and when to town. The Empire is a land of mean, stressed out people who are valiantly trying to withstand the epic forces of Chaos. Click on someone and their likely to curse at you in a very British way.

"It's a fight for survival every single day," Barnett told the assembled crowd. The Empire, not unlike the historical Holy Roman Empire that encompassed modern Germany during the Reformation when people really did believe the end of the world was there, these people are steeling themselves against corruption. They need to expand their territory and fight Chaos or be consumed by it. Unlike the citizens of Reformation Germany though, the end of the world may well be on its way.

Each race in WAR has four classes from which to choose. As the name implies, they're always war-like classes. This is not a game for the non-violent. Forget spending your career behind the lines making armor, not even the healers get a break.

"[The Warrior Priest] is a joyous healer class because he can smash the living snot out of you," Barnett said with not-at-all contained glee when he introduced the Empire healing class. In Warhammer, no one is just a healer. Everyone must and can fight.

The four Empire classes are:

• Knight of the Blazing Sun: In MMO-speak, he's a melee-tank. In Paul's world this guy is, "King Arthur meets Monty Python Knights of the Holy Grail with more violence." The Knight of the Blazing Sun is an extravagantly armored and decorated warrior class.
• Warrior Priest: This guy is both a healer and a melee class in the traditional world of MMOs. Luckily, he has a large hammer or two with which to brain people so Paul can enjoy them as well.
• Witch Hunter: Traditionally, he'd be a melee DPS class. Barnett though was far more impressed with his hat.
• Bright Wizard: This guy is a ranged DPS class, aka a nuker, and the one we got to play in our demo. Literally, he looked like he'd recently been on fire and - although this wasn't in yet - Barnett promised that when he died he'd explode in a ball of flames. "He's basically a nuclear weapon," Barnett told everyone.

The key difference between classes in Warhammer Online and most MMOs is that rather than going for variety, each class has its own recognizable and distinct personality. A mantra at EA Mythic is "silhouetting". They want people to be able to look at an enemy and know what he is, what he does and roughly how strong he may be without resorting to UI. Part of this effort means that while there are a wide range of skills to enjoy and - if the high level characters we used for RvR are any indication - a lot of variety internally with the characters, people of the same class will still have a lot in common. Dwarf Hammerers use hammers and nothing else. Bright Wizards have fire spells and nothing else. That's the way they designed it and while it seems sort of limiting on paper, the feeling once you're in the game playing is that you truly are a very defined character. Each class has so much more personality than the catch-all classes of most games.

A neat feature of Warhammer Online that ties into silhouetting is the concept of characters growing in relation to their power. Orcs for examples get bigger and stronger, Dwarf beards grow longer and Chaos mutate. Sadly, the "pH netural" humans of the Empire don't get any such thing save cooler armor, weapons and gear. They didn't want to make them muscle bound warriors or old men, so they just decided to go the more traditional route when it came to identifying their strength: loot.

The early PvE we had a chance to experience was quite polished and easy to navigate. Within seconds of starting up as a Bright Wizard, I had a few spells and was off doing quests that felt a touch more organic than those of most games. The town in which I lived was being attacked by forces of Chaos and several buildings had been set ablaze. I had to run to fetch people out of the fire (by right clicking on them) and get them to safety. Simple, but it got me going.

The quests organically moved me around the zone as the tasks got more complex. In another, I was sent into the fields to recruit farmers to defend the city. Sometimes when I clicked on a farmer, he would put some armor on and join the fight (helping me achieve my goal). Other times he would reveal himself as a sympathizer of Chaos and take arms against me. Minutes later I was firing cannons at my enemies, sabotaging the enemy siege and even sneaking into the woods to rescue injured NPCs from invaders.

The tasks were all simple, but unlike the "kill five wolves" that somehow starts every game, it felt like I was in the fight and contributing to the evolving story and good of my people. There is a certain amount of artificiality that is just necessary - for example the cannons keep firing after you do the quest to kill their leader - but that's just a part of games of this nature.

Toward the end of the demo, I'd already completed a half-dozen quests, explored a large chunk of land and gained a few new skills, when I stumbled into an area and was told that I was involved in a public quest. A public quest is an area in which everyone in it, regardless of whether they know each other or not, has an overarching goal to achieve. In this case, it was kill enemies and save farmers. Once the goal is achieved, the quest rolls over and goes to the next step. Eventually, we were fighting a giant. This kind of dynamic was easy to use - the UI told me exactly what was going on and what was needed of me - and rapidly tied people together in a common and organic cause.

Over time, players gain influence through these public quests. This unlocks new levels of rewards for the players by completing the public quests in the same area a few times. Barnett explained it this way: If there is a person in the area who hates giants and rewards people for killing them, he's more likely to give people nice rewards who are well known to have killed many giants. This kind of mini-faction system may encourage some grinding, but the scale was such that it shouldn't get overly competitive.

"Building influence is how we're making our game not rubbish," he said, in an apparent attempt to simplify things.

Visually, the graphics are crisp, stylized and enjoyable. Many have drawn the comparison to World of Warcraft - especially after seeing the first racial pairing - but while both are stylized in a similar way (Warcraft was inspired by the original Warhammer figures), there is a grittiness to Warhammer that doesn't exist in Warcraft. From the smoke in the sky, to the crows eating the eyes of the dead (in the Dwarf lands) to a flock of birds flying overhead, the details is what sets Warhammer Online's art apart.

The user interface was also easy to use, navigate and figure out. With limited exposure, I was changing skills, reading my Tome of Knowledge and finding my way around. The only quibble was the movement/camera controls, which often left me looking the wrong way or running into things. Given the stage of development though, I have no doubt they'll figure that one out.