EA is really taking out the big guns in an attempt to take down Blizzard and their World of Warcraft — Recently announced is the merger of Warhammer Online developer Mythic and Mass Effect developer, BioWare.

These two merged studios will form a new RPG/MMO studio group with most all of the executives from both studios staying onboard. However, Mark Jacobs, co-found of Mythic, has left EA yesterday June 23rd, 2009.

Both of these studios have come up with some great stuff, now let’s just see if they can pump out a game that will be enough to send Blizzard packin’.

Mythic, developer of Warhammer Online, is shutting down 63 game servers — 43 servers in North America and another 20 in Europe — in an effort to move the online population of the game to more popular and populated servers.

Warhammer Online, an MMO based in the Warhammer universe, launched with over half a million new registrations in its first week. Since then, the online population has dwindled to around 300,000. Despite the closure of servers, Mythic and EA are both said to be committed to the game.

EA Mythic has recently announced that their new recruitment campaign for Warhammer Online is not of the conventional type.

Apparently, if you recruit 1 player you will get 30 days of free game time and then it gets good. Recruit 2 players? You get a exclusive in-game pet along with another 30 days of free game time, but it doesn’t stop there.

Recruit 4 players and you’ll get a Rod of Service or Collar of Servitude which both increase experience earned by 5%. Sounds pretty cool. After 4 players you will continue to get a free month of game time.

Sounds to me like if you keep recruiting players you’ll never have to pay for the game.

Read (Joystiq)

Making further inroads in the saturated MMORPG market, Mythic’s Warhammer Online has surpassed 800,000 subscribers, according to recently released EA financial documents.

The number shows an increase of around 50,000 subscribers over the month of October. This shows that the game is going strong in the face of strong competition from the likes of World of Warcraft and Age of Conan.

While 800,000 is not a number to scoff at, it appears miniscule compared to Blizzard’s mammoth 11 million subscriber-base for World of Warcraft which gained a million subscribers this year.

Although BioWare only announced Star Wars The Old Republic for PC, studio owner EA has revealed that console releases of Warhammer Online and the aforementioned game are being considered.

"We’re definitely looking at the opportunity to bring the MMO experience to console, without question," said EA Games president Frank Gibeau.

"[Star Wars: The Old Republic and Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning are] under consideration," he continued, though he noted that the company is not in any position to announce anything.

Warhammer Online did pretty well, raking in quite a few subscribers since release. No release date was given for the Star Wars MMO.

Two of the classes cut from Warhammer Online before the game’s release will be added in a major patch due out this December, according to developer Mythic.

The 1.1 patch will add the Black Guard and Knight of the Blazing Sun classes. It will also add free server transfers for over and under-populated servers, as well as “major additions” to the chat system and targeting system, which includes the addition of Main Assist and Target of Target.

RvR gameplay will be enhanced as well, with improved gear drops, increased drop rates, an RvR influence system as well as other tweaks.

While it is still not a WoW killer, it certainly is gaining the much-needed steam to survive in Blizzard’s ominous shadow. EA has announced that Mythic’s Warhammer Online has picked up over 750,000 players.

"Thanks to our players, the war between the Realms continues to escalate at an incredible pace," said Mark Jacobs, Mythic Entertainment co-founder. "The battlefields are alive with three quarters of a million players fighting for the forces of Order and Destruction in truly epic and unparalleled Realm vs. Realm battles!"

The game was launched on September 18, meaning that all these players joined in less than a month. EA previously bragged about bagging 500,000 subscribers in the game’s first week of release.

Marking yet another successful MMO in the oversaturated market, Mythic sent out word that Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, since its official launch on September 18, now has more than half a million players.

Mythic notes that this makes the game “the fastest-selling new MMO of all time” with studio VP Mark Jacobs adding that the subscriber base is “growing at a record-breaking pace for a new MMORPG.”

Just a few months ago, Funcom had announced that Age of Conan had gotten over 400,000 players in the week following its launch. The studio had noted that it was the “biggest MMO launch since WoW”.

Mythic faced much criticism from gamers, employees and industry people alike for the crediting policy it instituted for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning where they gave credit only to the launch team and not to those who contributed to the game through the years.

Addressing those complaints, the studio has announced that it will maintain an online database of everyone who contributed to the project, regardless of current employment status. However, credit in the manual will be given to those who were part of the ‘launch’ team.

"I applaud Mythic for taking steps to address this issue," stated IGDA chairperson Jen MacLean. "Fair and accurate credits and transparent standards for crediting remain a pervasive problem in the industry."

If the above image is to be believed, and it looks pretty legit, there will be 750 gamer points worth of achievements added to Halo 3, seemingly focusing on obtaining online medals along with new skulls.

Below is a list of all the supposed achievements compiled on post from Ascendent Justice:

Heretic Skull - 25gs
Citadel Skull - 25gs
Assembly Skull - 25gs
Sandbox Skull - 25gs
Orbital Skull - 25gs
Longshore Skull - 25gs
Tank Dropper - 25gs
Zombie Repeller - 25gs
Delicious Brains - 25gs
Save This Film - 25gs
Have Fun Respawning - 25gs
Killtacular - 25pt
Awww, Too Bad - 25gs
… Get the Horns - 25gs
Post Mortem - 25gs
Ghost Patrol - 25gs
Blades of Fury - 25gs
Pull - 25gs
Hammer Time - 25gs
Look Both Ways - 50gs
Road Rage - 25gs
Flag Dropped - 25gs
Defend This - 50gs
Came… From… Behind… - 50gs
Alas, Poor Yorick - 25gs
Double Double - 25gs
Vidmaster Challenge: Brainpan - 25gs
Vidmaster Challenge: 7 on 7 - 0gs
Vidmaster Challenge: Lightswitch - 0gs
Vidmaster Challenge: Annual - 0gs

You can probably guess how you might go about obtaining some of these achievements with others like Alas, Poor Yorick not so much. There is still some speculation surrounding this leak so I guess we will have to wait and see this little rumor unfolds.