Yesterday, myself and several other bloggers were invited down to the BioWare Mythic offices to check out what they were up to. It was quite a busy day. I didn't get to to tweet as much as I would have liked since we were very busy. It was a lot of fun though, and I am looking forward to what we saw. Let's get down to some details.
We spoke to Warhammer Online Producer James Casey about what is coming up in the near future for WAR. Of course, all of this is subject to change.
1.4.4. The next patch for WAR is due out sometime in August. While there were no major features slated, there are some important changes coming our way. We should be seeing some fairly important changes coming to some classes. This includes a little survivability help to Engineer's and Magus. The Shadow Warrior also sounded like they were going to get some attention.
I was very happy to hear that the team is looking at returning some kind of defensive bonus/win to keeps in Open RvR. No real details on how it will work yet, but it's something they are working on. I really enjoy defending, so this will hopefully draw more people back to the keep.
We also discussed the pros and cons of 6 vs 6 scenarios. I am generally against them since they seem to kill variety. Others like them quite a bit, so there has to be a happy medium. Mythic agrees and has a few ideas on how to get them in the game without them ruling the queue. We may see some of these ideas tested out in the future.
There is more to the patch of course, but those are what stood out to me. Be sure to check out the other bloggers who may reveal more details.
1.4.5. This information is subject to more change than the previous since it is farther out. That means this feature may slip to a later patch, who knows.
The big ticket item here is the return of Forts! That's right, Mythic has started to process of getting Fortresses back in the game. There are a lot of details still to be determined, but it looks as if they will not be a part of the campaign.
Being outside of the campaign means they will not be a roadblock into the city. Instead, they will offer an alternative activity for players to undertake. Dark Age of Camelot type Relics seem like a likely candidate as a use for the forts. James mentioned there might be a Developer Discussion about this topic soon.
The Big News. You didn't think Mythic had us down there just to check out the next two patches did you? Nope, they have actually been very busy on something. Of course, we cannot go into what it actually is. While I can't reveal any details, I will say this...
It is substantial news. However, it is probably not what you're thinking it is. I was quite surprised when they told us about it. Is that cryptic enough? Don't worry about it too much though, as we may see an official announcement in a few weeks.
Overall it was a very fun trip. It was great to see my fellow bloggers again and meet Ekaslime. As always, the Mythic team was a lot of fun and very nice.
Other reports:
Waaagh.de (in german)
Zizlak
Bootae
Mykiel
