Pretty damn impressive, Mythic. I was the guy who picked the largest troll I could make, gave him blood-red skin, and tried to be a menacing beast of a tank in EQ2. Unfortunately (and much to my chagrin), the initial set of Tier 5 armor was dubbed the ’snowman’ set. Instead of looking like an imposing ass-beater, I looked like a tall, lanky, shiny beacon of ineptitude. Shattered hopes and broken dreams.

I also picked a black-fur Tauren for my hunter in WoW. This time I knew what was I getting into - USDA Prime cartoony beef. The anime-style exaggeration of weapons and armor were sometimes cool, often not. I’m just not a manga monkey - sorry to all you fanboy’s out there.

My hat is off to you guys at Mythic, you’re really giving the GW Warhammer Fantasy IP the justice it deserves.

EQ1
No PvP at launch, but eventually had the “Red” servers for people to play on. They were a novelty at best. You just can’t devote resources to PvP in a PvE game.

DAoC
First MMO to really go after the PvP/RvR content. Mythic had its growing pains as all MMOs do, but the PvP worked. Actual objectives and a purpose for participating. DAoC laid the ground work for much of the PvP aspects of games to come.

EQ2
No PvP at launch but eventually opened up some PvP servers with some itemization and balance changes all their own. But in the end, you just can’t build PvP into a PvE game successfully.

WoW
As far as I’m concerned, this is the first game to pointlessly divide their player base at launch to support PvP, when really the game is about PvE. Often it’s a live action version of MySpace. Logging in sometimes feels more like going to the mall than playing an MMO.

I know there are lots of other MMOs that I skipped, but it’s my site and my rules.

This month brings some tasty morsels about the Chaos army, details about a couple new zones, including the first contested zone, Thunder Mountain. What this means is that in order for an army to launch an attack upon either the Dwarf of Greenskin capital city, the opposing army must have control of Thunder Mountain. I’ll be calling these zones contested or “struggle points”, since I enjoy coining phrases.

Look for more details next week…

The only official news of sorts have been adjustments to the beta schedule, which have seemingly been made more official now with the EA stamp of approval.

In unofficial news, several new interviews have been posted around the major sites, including a bit on the Chaos army over at Gamespy.

As for the Warrior of Tzeentch

He’s a warrior of Chaos who has given himself to the cause of Tzeentch. He’s a warrior who has decided that he and he alone is going to become the great power on the planet. He has decked himself in armor; he’s like a big tank with enormous swords, and he has decorated it with all the elements of Tzeentch. Tzeentch is comprised of eyeballs, the color blue and eternal fire. He’s all about feathers and birds and claws and beaks. What’s marvelous about this is that not only is this piece of armor fantastic and completely captures what we’re doing, it’s not even one of the top sets of armor! How great is that?

What you’re looking at there is a chosen warrior, someone who is absolutely into Chaos, absolutely given to Tzeentch, the Changer of the Ways, the Great Manipulato. He’s going to slaughter anyone who stands in his way — or on his side — or anyone who’s near the top of the pyramid, ’cause that is the way of Chaos. Although they will fight on the ground with great swords, there will come a point when they will be able to fight strongly… by not having their feet on the ground.

I can’t wait! Additionally, he spoke of the Sorcerer of Tzeentch as well…

So you ask yourself, what do Sorcerers of Tzeentch do? They fly around on disks with great big spikes that glow and they grab energy from out of the air and they can turn it into fire and lightning that they can throw around. They’re resplendent in their enormous fluted shoulder pads and helmets in the Tzeentchian colors. He’s not like an old-fashioned wizard: bloke, beard, hat, stick. As for his gimmick? He’s on a flying disk, armored, claws, and throws lighting bolts at you! Will you shut up?

Chaos is fantastic. It’s been the one area that the artists have been mad on … After working relentlessly on Dwarves and Greenskins, you really do need a bit of breathing room. You need a bit of Chaos corruption in your life. It makes you happy.

Finally, I posted a few new videos that you should definitely check out. They are interview bits from Paul Barnett addressing some Q&A from IGN Vault.

Other juicy tidbits include some new concept art and early screenshots of the Empire careers: Warrior Priest, Bandit (possibly), and Bright Wizard. I’m sure next month will bring more details.

The latest zone information to come out is the Black Crag - a very Orcish zone indeed. It looks like this will be located just outside the Greenskin capital and connects to the Badlands.

Someone had to do it…

The biggest addition is the Video section, which is a collection of all the gameplay footage, interviews, and other goodness that can’t be found on the official Warhammer Online site.

For the Greenskins:
- Black Orc
- Goblin Shaman

For the Dwarves:
- Ironbreaker
- Hammerer

Personally, I’m holding out for the Chaos Warrior.

Summer 2006: Double Secret Beta: That is just beyond alpha, and includes people who draw paychecks from Mythic and our partners.

Fall 2006: First Stage of Closed Beta (Beta 1): Sometimes called “Friends and Family,” somewhat inaccurately, this is a stage where there is actually a game, but it is not usually very complete or even stable for that matter. People who don’t work here are in this stage, but usually fewer than a hundred, and they are nearly all such old, old friends that they are often mistaken for employees.

Fall 2006: Beta 1.7, After Things Stop Going Boom Every Day: This is the stage you’ll start seeing community testers. People who have tested for Mythic for years, or have been otherwise recommended to us as quality volunteer testers, are starting to be included. There is usually a restriction on how many people get in at this point, and often perfectly wonderful people are left out.

Early Spring 2007: Beta 2: Still closed and covered under NDA, invitees include prize winners, guilds that win the guild contest, and some members of the print and web media - usually the ones we have relationships with. People who work at GW retail shops are getting in here, and we’ve got some plans for existing Dark Age of Camelot players to be invited to check out their new sibling. There will be up to a thousand people by the end of Beta 2.

Summer 2007: Beta 3: Closed, NDA. This is where Lady Luck will wave her wand. We will be choosing randomly from the giant pool of people who are subscribed to our newsletter. This phase will have thousands of people invited, possibly as many as ten thousand.

Summer 2007 Final Beta: No NDA. Because there is no NDA, people often refer to this as “open beta.” But I wanted to be really clear with you guys - we are not planning the kind of open beta where everyone with internet access can download the game and hop in. That’s nutty. Right now, we are tentatively considering having everyone who pre-orders the game invited to this phase of beta. This phase will also invite winners from our big media promotions.