warhammer-online posts

Last month an anonymous blog posted by a person who claimed to be close to being laid off from BioWare Mythic went off on a tirade with claims of mismanagement not just of the studio's handling of its MMO Warhammer Online but with BioWare's upcoming MMO game Star Wars: The Old Republic. The author, "EA Louse", has yet to be officially identified. The blog post claimed that "... the game is a joke. EA knows it and so does George Lucas, they're panicking."

Eurogamer got BioWare's co-founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk to respond to the blog with Zeschuk stating, "It was sad to read that kind of stuff." While the two would not go into into the specifics of the claims of "EA Louse" Muzyka supported what BioWare was doing with Star Wars: The Old Republic, stating, "It's a great BioWare type experience in a massively multiplayer space in a Star Wars setting. Those seem to be some pretty good factors that have set us up for massive success. Beyond that, we just build the best game we can."

Two years ago, developer Mythic Entertainment and publisher Electronic Arts finally launched Warhammer Online. The fantasy-themed MMO based on the Games Workshop table top war game had tons of hype before its launch but in the end the game didn't live up to its expectations in terms of subscribers.

However the game has retained a loyal following and is now celebrating its two year anniversary by offering its veteran players some new in-game items. Those items include a Celebratory Cloak (shown above), a Regenerating Firework Launcher and a WAR Double Aegis. In terms of the future of the game, a recent Producer's Letter revealed that Warhammer Online won't be going the "free-to-play" route like many other established MMOs are doing. Instead, the letter states, "What we do plan on introducing is paid services such as server transfers, character renames and other commonly found services."

Today wasn't quite as busy of a day as Tuesday but it was still a lot more active than normal. Things might get more interesting tomorrow (hint hint).

• A new Global Agenda bug fix update has been released via Steam.
• A new Warhammer Online content update has been released with a new alternate item appearance system, among other changes.
• Transformers: War For Cybertron players get a 4X experience points online weekend beginning on Friday.
• The beta test for the free-to-play MMO Everquest 2 Extended has started.
• There will apparently be some news on an official Left 4 Dead motion comic on Friday.

While Electronic Arts has handled publishing Warhammer Online in the US, its been a different matter in Europe as GOA has been in charge of publishing and operating the fantasy MMO from developer BioWare Mythic. This week the game is in the middler of a transition as GOA transfers control over the game in Europe directly to EA.

The Warhammer Online European web site has all the details about the transfer and what it means to the game's players on the other side of the pond. The game's servers will be hosted in Germany when they are fully back online. The game will also no longer support pre-paid cards and GOA's three or six month subscriptions in Europe will shut down. Players with such subscriptions will have their money refunded. The nice bit? European players will get two free weeks of play time online under the new EA/BioWare Mythic reign.

The owners of the Warhammer game franchise, Games Workshop, have decided to target a site devoted to coverage of the MMO game Warhammer Online. The web site, Warhammer Alliance, is now being sued by Games Workshop for trademark violations. A copy of the lawsuit, which was actually first filed on March 29, is now posted on the Warhammer Alliance web site.

The suit alleges that the name Warhammer Alliance "literally states and implies that Defendants and their business are in an
"alliance" with Plaintiff and its products and services offered under the WARHAMMER Marks." The web site has responded to the lawsuit, saying WarhammerAlliance.com has been live since 2005 and that they put a disclaimer on the site saying it was not an official Warhammer web site at the request of Games Workshop. They even posted up interviews with Games Workshop's Licensing Manager in 2006. Now a statement from the owners of the site, Curse.com, says they were "shock and surprised" by Game Workshop's actions, saying, "We feel this is a blatant disregard of the needs of Warhammer fans, and the community we've worked hard to set up.

Playing an MMO game is a time consuming tasks for most players. They certainly shouldn't have to deal with issues about their monthly subscription bill. Yet that's what many players of Warhammer Online had to deal with this week as their bank accounts mistakenly got charged multiple times for what should have been just one monthly $14.95 fee.

Developer Mythic Entertainment, however, moved quickly to solve the situation and on Friday announced on their official web site, ". . . we have received confirmation that the charges have been reversed" (although they added that it could take up to three business days for the reversal to be reflected on player's accounts). They added, "We regret any difficulty this event may have caused you, and we remain dedicated to resolving the issue with our vendors and customers." There is still no explanation on why players were overcharged on their accounts.

Electronic Arts' fantasy MMO game Warhammer Online has perhaps not lived up to expectations since its launch in September 2008. Now the publisher and the game's developer Mythic Entertainment are giving gamers a way to access the full game by paying just the monthly fee, bypassing the game's up front price.

Simply download the 10 day free trial for the game and if you want to get the full version you can upgrade that trial version by simply paying for its monthly subscription fee. If you still buy the full game via a brick-and-mortar store or download outlet you still get 30 days of free online play.

Mythic Entertainment's efforts to boost the fan base of Warhammer Online have including offering a free "endless" trial version of their fantasy MMO. Now the developer is asking folks who have played the game previously to try it again for free for 10 days.

Their new effort is called the Call to Arms Reenlistment Campaign and will let former players in good standing to return to their old accounts and play for free for for 10 days. Those former players must sign up by December 23. In addition, the same fomer players will also get three new in-game items for free. Also both former and current players will get boosts in Experience, Renown and Influence from now until December 23.

Earlier this week we reported that novels will be released in 2010 based on two upcoming MMO games; Star Trek Online and Star Wars: The Old Republic. However another MMO, Warhammer Online, has already had two such prose novels released.

While the game's developer Mythic Entertainment is dealing with more layoffs to its team by its parent Electronic Arts, Warhammer Online continues to hold onto a loyal fan and player base. Those player can now check out the third prose novel based on the game's setting. The novel was released this week by Games Workshop, the owners of the Warhammer franchise.Titled Forged by Chaos, the novel is written by C.L. Werner and deals with two characters, "the witch hunter Udo and the warrior priestess Annaliese" as they join the fight against the game's armies of Chaos. Just a little light summer beach reading . . .

Mythic Entertainment has reportedly suffered through yet another massive amount of layoffs as part of the plan by its owner Electronic Arts to cut its work force by another 1,500 team members. Fans have already express their worries that Mythic will no longer actively support their MMO game projects, particularly their most recent game Warhammer Online.

Not so, according to Mythic's executive producer Jeff Hickman. In a post on the official Warhammer Online web site he states that the game and the two others under Mythic's wing (Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot) are still alive and well and that Mythic will "continue to improve our games with an exciting schedule of patches, live events and new content." In particular, Hickman states that Warhammer Online's recent "Endless Trial" program has brought in "a flood of new players" to the game. The big question? Will those efforts be enough to get people to sign up for the game?