Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning Preview

ComputerAndVideoGames.com has whipped up a preview of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, based on recent conversations they had with various Mythic Entertainment employees.

Communicating the essence of Warhammer within Mythic has its own stories. Barnett recounts a story about the tome of knowledge, a repository of information within the game. When it was first decided to include what sounds a bit like an encyclopedia, the developers went and wrote just that – an encyclopedia. Without realising that such a thing is anathema to a world that’s perpetually at war, where no-one cares about objective truths. So it was decided to feature six chroniclers, who document the world from their viewpoint, their personalities and paranoia coming through. Drawings of creatures might be limited by the artist’s talent. They might just lie. That’s the Warhammer way.

“Mark (Jacobs) has gone out of his way to recruit people who can do Warhammer justice, and drill into them respect for the IP,” says Barnett. Again, the IP. “It’s not good enough to draw something that looks like an orc – you have to understand its orcishness. In the trailer, you see an orc being catapulted into a wall, and that’s a gag – but they’re not doing that just for fun. Now they know they need to set the catapult higher. The next orc’s going over that wall, and he’s going to kill you.”