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)
Mythic Entertainment has begun its three-month long “live expansion” for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning with the v1.2 patch, which adds new scenarios, new treasures, tweaks, but most importantly offers two new careers.
The two melee-focused careers can be chosen after completing the new “Bitter Rivals” event, which includes the new RvR “Twisted Tower” scenario. They are Orc Choppa and Dwarf Slayer.
Other additions include two new secret lairs, an improved crafting system and easy public quests. You can check out the exhaustive list of tweaks and changes on the official site.
THQ has released the system requirements for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II. They are not too demanding at all, compared to some of the more beefier games out there today. The game will hit shelves on February 27, 2009 for the PC.
Minimum Requirements
Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista SP1
P4 3.2 GHz (single core) or any Dual Core processor
1 GB RAM (XP), 1.5 GB RAM (Vista)
A 128MB Video Card (Shader Model 3) – Nvidia GeForce 6600 GT / ATI X1600, or equivalent
5.5 GB of Hard Drive space
Recommended
Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista SP1
AMD Athlon 64×2 4400+ or any Intel Core 2 Duo
2 GB RAM (XP and Vista)
A 256MB Video Card (Shader Model 3) – Nvidia GeForce 7800 GT / ATI X1900, or equivalent
5.5 GB of Hard Drive space
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.
While two of the classes cut from Warhammer Online will return in the forthcoming patch, one other class won’t. They are either Dwarf Hammerer or Greenskin Choppa.
Initially planned to be restored to the game post-release, one of these classes just won’t make the cut. However, the game’s producer Mark Jacobs had some interesting things to say: "I can’t tell you which yet, that’s a surprise. We’re probably going to be replacing one and putting in another class in its place. But we’ll be talking about that in a few months."
They will be adding four classes to the game, though the latter two classes still remain unknown.
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.
