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Nailing Warhammer

Q&A: Josh Drescher,
Associate Producer,
Warhammer® Online: Age of Reckoning,
one of 2008's most anticipated PC titles

If you're an MMORPG fan, chances are you don't dabble by playing occasionally. You're hooked. Well, like many of you, Josh Drescher is addicted, but his obsession is making MMORPGs — in fact, it's all he's ever done professionally. After bailing on law school, which he self-mockingly said in his bio "was crushing his will to live," he joined Mythic Entertainment (now EA Mythic) and began work on Dark Age of Camelot (DAoC) and its expansions. Now Drescher is a key part of the team putting the final touches on Warhammer® Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR). Despite the last-minute chaos of completing the game, Drescher was gracious enough to take the time to answer some questions we had about what many are billing as the next great MMO.

QHow much of the WAR design is based upon elements of the original Warhammer tabletop game?

AWarhammer as an intellectual property is actually an expansive hobby experience, rather than simply a series of derivatives of the tabletop fantasy battles game. With Warhammer Online we're drawing inspiration from everything — the books, graphic novels, comics, pen and paper RPGs and, of course, the tabletop game.

With that said, we're not trying to replicate the experience of any one of the other facets of the IP. The tabletop game is focused on giving players the ability to control and direct large armies without a particularly substantial granular investment in any one unit or character. MMORPGs in general — and WAR in particular — are focused on individual development, achievement, and growth. They revolve around personal accomplishments and the life and heroic journey of a specific character.

So while we're certainly leveraging the whole of the IP in terms of aesthetic, narrative, location, lore, and overall tone, we're not recapitulating any of the specific mechanics found in other Warhammer games — tabletop or otherwise.

QHow much did you consult with Games Workshop, the creator of Warhammer, in the various stages of development?

AWe are in nearly constant contact with GW. Some of that is just a matter of us submitting concept art and so forth to them for approval, but it's mostly just a matter of us shamelessly hitting them up for advice and ideas. They've grown and developed the Warhammer IP for a quarter of a century at this point, so it would be foolish for us NOT to make use of them as a resource.

QThe legacy of Warhammer is rich, and the development of WAR has taken place over the course of several years — creating high expectations and probably a lot more pressure. How have you dealt with that on a daily basis?

AIt's interesting, really, because the pressure honestly hasn't been an issue for us. Having been an independent developer for years and years, we were used to making really great games and then having to fight tooth and nail to get attention from the press and the public. With WAR, we've got a great game that we're extremely confident in, AND we're enjoying a ton of exposure and excitement from the fans and the press. It's the best of both worlds.

QNaturally, people are comparing WAR and World of Warcraft. And there are a lot of MMORPGs you are competing against — certainly much stiffer competition now than when the original idea for WAR was conceived. What makes WAR different?

ARvR (realm vs. realm), plain and simple.

With WAR, you're a part of an endless struggle for domination, success and glory. It doesn't wind up being you and 30 of your guild-mates running out and doing the same raid you've been doing every weekend for the past two months, because not everyone in the guild has the Dragon's Magic Hat of Dragon-o-riffic Power, or because the new expansion won't be out for another three months and you've run out of things to do.

It's also not small groups of players constantly fighting over control of the chicken coop in the middle of the level 30 windmill arena, over and over again.

You're embroiled in a real, organic and constantly changing conflict with thousands of participants engaged in continuous battle. There's a greater sense of excitement, of risk and of the potential for greatness, fame, and prestige.

You're fighting on massive battlefields, laying siege to enormous keeps and castles. You're literally struggling to move the battlefront forward in the persistent game world. And your success or failure will decide whether your beloved capital will be gutted, and its citizens slaughtered and then finally burned to the ground, or whether that fate will befall your enemies instead.

QSome believe WAR will convert some World of Warcraft players. Is that motivation for your team in any way?

AOur motivation is, obviously, to get as many people as possible to try out WAR. We're confident that folks who do will stick around.

We're actually very grateful for what WoW has done for the genre. It has taken what was previously a very niche-game style (at least for western markets) and turned it into THE marquee PC gaming experience available today. It's created a massive, engaged audience that loves the MMO experience and is hungry for more.

So, of course, we're interested in convincing both seasoned MMO veterans and people who are relatively new to the genre to come and play WAR, and we're certainly excited about how large the potential audience has become.

QWhat other games did you look to for inspiration/ideas during the development?

APersonally, I'm a bit of an old-school sort and I tend to draw lessons from the ancestral elements of the industry. Back before we had the ability to really impress (or confuse) people with the audio/visual component of games, there was a purity of vision and execution that sometimes gets lost in today's products. It's easy to get sucked into the idea that more features make for a better product, even if those features are tacked onto your core product in a way that's awkward or only partially effective.

Things like the very first Civilization represent a high-water mark in my mind when it comes to focus and nuanced implementation of core features. That game only has elements fundamentally critical to play being engaging, intuitive and fun. You play a very rich, involved game without feeling like you need to spend a whole weekend running through tutorials or memorizing the manual before you dive into the actual game.

And from a more practical standpoint, I draw inspiration from Mythic's pedigree. I've spent most of my career immersed in the life and development of DAoC, and it's been endlessly valuable to have that opportunity.

QHow solo-friendly will the game be for those who want to do more exploring and
individual tasks?

AWe have a heavy focus on the casual player and making sure that they don't feel isolated or disconnected from the game's core functions and features. Things like Public Quests, Scenarios and the Tome of Knowledge are profoundly solo-friendly. They don't require you to spend any time getting a group together. Your involvement and time commitment can scale anywhere from a few minutes all the way up into marathon gaming sessions, and you're always guaranteed a reward that is appropriate to your efforts.

QWhat is your favorite unsung feature/element of the game? Maybe something that hasn't
received a lot of attention but that you think is cool?

AAt this point, I'm not sure we've actually left anything unsung. :)

That being said, I can't get enough open-world RvR. Scenarios are a blast, but there's just something uniquely wonderful about running into a small village with 10 other people, catching the enemy off-guard and slaughtering the lot of them.

I think that may be a reflection of some dark corner of my psyche.

Oh! And the fact that — every so often — when you attack someone from the Chaos faction, rats spray out of them instead of blood. That pleases me greatly.

QOne of the cool things about the Warhammer tabletop game was the unique weapons, such as the Gretchen and the shock attack cannon. Can you give us some examples of the more unusual weapons in WAR?

AHell Cannons are pretty crazy. They're sentient, techno-organic war machines that use the liquefied souls of the enemies (and sometimes the allies) of Chaos as ammunition. Then of course there are Orcapults. Which are… well… catapults that fling Orcs at you.

And you obviously have your walls of fire and weaponized murders of crows and orbital strikes from the Chaos Moon and so forth. Ya know. Standard stuff like that.

QCan you share with us any tips/tricks on acquiring the best gear in the game?

ADon't limit yourself to straight PvE or straight RvR. There's really great stuff in both. Make sure to take part in Public Quests. They're a load of fun and you're guaranteed that any loot you get will be useful to you.

Explore the whole world. There are things I can't tell you about, hidden in places no one will send you to.

QWhat has been the biggest hurdle (so far) during the development of Warhammer?

AStaying lean and focused. We've done a great job of avoiding the pitfall of "Such and Such MMO has Feature X, therefore WE must have Feature X." We're not like other MMOs on the market, so it's been critical for us to make sure we resist the urge to add in systems or features that — while cool — diverge from the core vision and purpose of the project.

We are an RvR-focused, world-domination-oriented, MMO fantasy experience where you are constantly embroiled in an organic, ever-changing war effort. So you're not going to see dancing or flower picking or basket weaving or any other kitten-pile nonsense in our game. If it doesn't involve you kicking someone's butt, it doesn't belong in WAR.