As I mentioned on Friday, we had the chance to sit down with Destin Bales, Live Producer on Warhammer Online, to talk about a plethora of different issues that players are presently having; as well as their plans for new content in the future. Due to the length and the general flow of the interview -- I've decided to tease you by publishing the second part on Friday. Sorry!

In part one we talk about issues with hardware specifications, concerns about public quests, instances, the Black Guard and Knight of the Blazing Sun careers and much more. Let us know what you think about the interview in our forums and stay tuned for the second installment on Friday. WAAAGH!

Tamat : Hey Destin, thanks for joining us!

Destin :  Thanks to you for running an outstanding site and for your continued interest in Warhammer Online.

Tamat : In a nutshell, what's the current state of Warhammer now that the dust from launch has settled?

Destin : With players beginning to experience what tier 4 has to offer, the realm war is really picking up steam.  Keep battles are raging on, zones are switching hands and a few runs have even been made on the fortresses.  Players are really starting to get into the campaign game, but they’ve barely scratched the surface.  In many ways the realm war is just beginning.

Tamat : As a PC Guru I cringe at the official hardware recommendations. Many players have a hard time running Warhammer Online, particularly in RvR events, on more powerful systems.  What are some of the ways you are tweaking the game to be more efficient and compatible?

Destin : We're constantly evaluating performance and memory usage in WAR based on our internal engineering analyses and feedback from our community. Two specific examples of things in the pipeline include improvements to frame-rate and memory footprint in our effects and character systems. We hope these improvements will make the game more enjoyable, particularly in RvR situations.

On the server side, we have similar initiatives to always improve load and performance.  We're also constantly working to further increase stability of the client to improve the play experience for all players across a breadth of hardware configurations.

Tamat : Balance on various servers continues to be an issue for each Realm, particularly Order.  What are some of the key areas you’re focusing on to make the sides on needed servers more balanced, without being unfair to any specific career?

Destin : We’re focusing on two key areas:  population bonuses and new user initiatives.  When we see a server that has a significant population imbalance we offer the less populated side a bonus.  People flock to that side, and this has already proven phenomenally successful in correcting population imbalances.  We’ve also improved the new player experience by actively suggesting which server a new character should play on.  This effectively funnels the majority of new players to the same server where they can experience the early stages of the game together.

Tamat : With the introduction of the Black Guard and Knight of the Blazing Sun careers, both warrior classes are in much need for RvR balance. What other warrior skills and abilities for these careers and others will be introduced to help players enjoy their melee focused careers?

Destin : The Knight and the Blackguard continue to help us improve the overall parity of careers in the game on both sides. The Knight fills a much needed role as a front line fighter with area support buffs and de-buffs similar to those found on the Chosen. His abilities will give a needed boost to Order’s melee crowd control. 

The Blackguard, on the other hand, represents a hard-as-nails fighter that is extremely effective in one-on-one combat, similar to the Ironbreaker. His abilities include a needed improvement to Destruction’s anti-magic defense.

Tamat : Grinding for control over a zone has become more of a problem. No one likes to grind their way to anything, including achieving a new Rank, or simply crafting sandwiches for their hungry group. How is Mythic getting away from grinding with each content update, especially concerning Renown experience?

Destin : We make an effort to offer a wide variety of experiences for players, so they aren’t forced to do the same thing over and over again in order to advance.  We continue to look at designing and creating systems which are fun and engaging so players want to do them.  Once someone is having fun doing something, the gains (be they Renown, XP, or a nice Mutton, Lettuce and Tomato sandwich) become the result of the action, not the means for it.

Tamat : Players will often drop out of a group once entering a zone to gain unfair amounts of experience.  What are some of the ways you are making Scenarios not only more balanced, but more fun for those that do play fairly?

Destin : The game is about realm advancement and realm victory. Players who drop out of a group are still contributing to the success of the team in a scenario or open RvR. Even so, by deciding to “go it alone” they are accepting greater risk. They have less backup and less healing and are therefore more vulnerable, making them a weak point the other realm can exploit, and reducing their odds of getting good loot.  A dead player doesn’t get many rewards.

With all that said; we are actively looking into the scoring and contribution systems in our game to make sure they are as fair and balanced as possible.

Tamat : With the average Rank steadily increasing on mature servers, how are you keeping low level Public Quests from becoming too difficult to complete, or simply pointless, when no one else is around to help?

Destin : Currently, Public Quests offer two levels of difficulty – “standard” and “difficult”.  Where standard PQ’s are geared towards 6 to 9 players, difficult PQ’s require multiple groups to successfully complete.  In the near future, we will be introducing the concept of “easy” PQ’s to WAR.  Easy PQ’s are retooled Public Quests that have been adjusted to require 2 to 3 players for completion.  With each version, you will see more easy PQ’s in the game until almost every chapter has a balance of easy, standard and difficult PQ’s, allowing for a wide variety of grouping and play options.

Tamat : The way Scenarios are organized currently keeps a lot of players from fully exploring other zones and additional Scenarios at their Tier.  This also reduces interactivity among the players for other events.  What changes to Quest Givers will we see that may encourage players to explore other Scenarios at their Tier?

Destin : We have a system called Scenario Throttling which allows us to analyze how frequently all of the scenarios in the game are being played and identify any that might be underutilized.  Once we recognize that a certain scenario isn’t being launched as often as we would like the throttling system steps in and balances this out.  We’ve already seen improvements in this area.

We’re also continuing to develop new scenarios.  We just introduced the Reikland Factory scenario in our Heavy Metal event, which rewarded players via Tome Unlocks and Influence for their participation in this scenario.  This kind of variety expands the game in the long-term and gives players more incentive to explore.

Tamat : I’ve personally seen drops repeat themselves in such long cycles that groups gets tired of instances because they either already have the item or don’t need it. We’ve seen a lot of fixes and adjustments in recent updates. When will we see more varied content, especially content relevant to the attending players?

Destin : We’re doing heavy itemization revisions, particularly for the dungeons. These changes are slated to be out in the near future and will improve the itemization even further.

Tamat : Hovercast is a mouse over casting UI mod, just one of many useful mods that players are worried will be taken away from them if they use a custom interface. Players like to have their own ‘Window into the World’.  Can you assure the community continued support for their custom UIs, and how will you assist in their efforts?

Destin : The mod-making community is extremely valuable to us, and we want to form a lasting relationship with mod authors. We are currently investigating how we can best support them in their development efforts. In fact, right now we are working on developing a program that will support mod authors and will also allow the player base to more easily access and manage custom UI mods.

Tamat : Crafting and other more economic oriented activities have been said to have been an afterthought when the game was produced.  Will crafting ever gain respect, or is the game solely meant for RvR hungry players that don’t care to craft sandwiches or sew shirts?

Destin : The team here is committed to making crafting a meaningful and satisfying experience for players. In WAR, the primary purpose of crafting will always be to support and contribute to the RvR experience.  That being said, the team is currently focused on looking at our crafting skills and improving them across the board.

Our goal is to make the entire crafting experience easier for the player to get into with more meaningful results that players find attractive to use. Long term we’re looking to expand our crafting systems to link in closely with RvR, which means we’re heavily considering things like Siegecraft and other RvR related items.

Continue to Part Two.

Andrew "Tamat" Beegle
Editor-in-Chief
Allakhazam.com

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Mathew "Berek" Anderson
Senior Community Manager
Allakhazam.com