Paul Barnett Hates You: The Warhammer Online Conference Call

Following my prior article on Warhammer Online, I was under the distinct impression that an army of enraged fans had descended on Mythic headquarters with torches and pitchforks, burning me in effigy before the gates, demanding that I be blacklisted from all of their further press events in perpetuity throughout the universe.

It was therefore something of a surprise when an invitation to participate in an upcoming conference call on the game appeared in my inbox last week.

My interest in the game had not waned in the least over the past four months (even after my run-in with the aforementioned enraged fans), so of course, I accepted.

Moderating the discussion was Eddiemae Jukes, Mythic’s PR representative, and fielding the questions, submitted by the various media types in attendance, was a quintet from the development team:

Adam Gershowitz, Combat and Careers Team Lead
Josh Drescher, Associate Producer
Paul Barnett, Creative Director
Jeff Hickman, Senior Producer
Destin Bales, Content Director

Overall, I found it to be a very enlightening experience. For instance, some of the interesting facts I learned during the call:

• Jeff Hickman’s wife really enjoys dropping boiling oil on men, and giggles with glee as she does so. She also really likes the crafting system. Presumably, she has to take a break to craft more oil every once in awhile.
• Paul Barnett believes they’ve really tapped into what women are looking for in a game with the “dropping boiling oil on men” mechanic. Also, his ten year old son repeatedly kills him in RvR, which has instilled in him the desire to do nothing but solo PvE.
• Guilds will level up over time according to the actions of their members. Higher level guilds will be needed to do things such as design a standard.
• Guilds will be able to designate standard bearers to carry their banner onto the field of battle, and will be able to claim keeps in the name of the guild with it, as well as placing it on the ground to give off an area of effect buff.
• A “cityfull” is sixteen fathoms plus three whales.
• They really don’t like it when you use the word “zerg” in a question.

As the call was over an hour long, and someone from one of the other dozen sites listening in is likely to have the entire thing transcribed and posted by now, I took the liberty of cherry picking only the questions and answers I found most interesting, along with a few of my brief thoughts on them, in italics.

It’s a shame they forbid us to post the audio. There were some Grade-A moments that got lost in the transition to text.

Question: The game has been receiving some pretty intensive stress testing, particularly in the area of RvR. Since the model for the RvR was DAoC, what has the testing shown, and how will that portion of the game differ from Camelot?

Paul Barnett: [Pounding fists on table] WE KNOW WHAT WE’RE DOING! WE LEARNED OUR LESSONS! WE ACTUALLY UNDERSTAND HOW RVR WORKS, YOU HAVE TO ADMIT!

Jeff Hickman: I think you covered it, Paul.

We learned a lot of great stuff from DAoC: How to balance out realms, how to balance population, how to balance classes, what’s fun, what’s not, what players enjoy doing in short bursts, what they enjoy doing in long bursts… A lot of the stuff we’re doing in Warhammer was of course derived from what we did with Camelot.

Some of the things were where we said, “Man, if only we could do this!” when we were making Camelot, but we couldn’t. Warhammer really builds upon that great foundation that Camelot put in place for us, but it differs greatly, also. Where Camelot was one frontier with a set number of keeps and zones you could fight over kind of mish mash all over you could go anywhere you wanted, Warhammer is three different battle fronts, battles raging across the world. […]

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