Call To Arms Expansion Announced

Keero

Keero

Tribe of Judah Membership Administrator
Paris, France – January 29th, 2009 – GOA and Mythic Entertainment, an Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) studio, today announced the new “Call to Arms” live expansion for its award-winning MMORPG, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR). Call to Arms will introduce an array of new content for WAR players, including two highly anticipated new careers – the Orc Choppa and the Dwarf Slayer – and a new dungeon zone called “Land of the Dead,” set in the desert realm of the Tomb Kings.

The Call to Arms live expansion, set to roll out for free in early March and running through the beginning of June, will also include three in-game live events, a new Realm vs. Realm (RvR) Scenario, added functionality to the Realm Wars section of the WAR website, the opening of the official WAR Forums, and a new free trial version of the game.

“Since the launch of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, Mythic Entertainment and GOA have been committed to bringing European players a rich and enjoyable MMORPG experience“said Ghislaine Le Rhun Gautier, CEO of GOA. “The integration of these high quality, free 'live expansions' is a testament to both companies' continuing dedication to WAR players in 2009.“

“The launch of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning was only the first step in our ongoing quest to make a great MMORPG that players will enjoy for years to come. Over the next few months, we are going to be treating our players to the first of our ‘live expansions’ planned for the game,” said Mark Jacobs, VP and general manager of Mythic Entertainment. “With the addition of new careers and a huge Tomb Kings dungeon that is the spiritual successor to the Dark Age of Camelot™ dungeon, Darkness Fall, Call to Arms is an outstanding example of the massive amount of free content we are committed to delivering to WAR players now and in the future.”

Call to Arms Live Expansion Schedule

• ‘Call to Arms: Bitter Rivals Bitter Rivals’ Live Event (March) : Successful completion allows head start access to the new Orc Choppa and Dwarf Slayer careers. The event will also include the new Chaos-themed RvR Scenario, Twisting Tower.

• Two New Careers Join WAR (March): The Orc Choppa and Dwarf Slayer answer the Call to Arms.

• ‘Call to Arms: Beyond the Sands’ Live Event (April): Details to be revealed soon!

• ‘Call to Arms: Rise of the Tomb Kings’ Live Event (May): The race between Order and Destruction players begins to unlock the Land of the Dead for their Realm.

• ‘Land of the Dead’ Opens (June):The deserts of Nehekhara open to players with the addition of a new RvR-gated dungeon zone. To gain access to the Land of the Dead, opposing Realms must battle for control of the zone to access dozens of new Public Quests, instanced lairs, and a massive new Tomb Kings dungeon to plunder in search of the Casket of Souls.

More details on these and other new features soon to invade the Age of Reckoning will be revealed as the launch of Call to Arms grows near.

Bitter Rivals Answer the Call to Arms!

The Orc Choppa and Dwarf Slayer may be bitter enemies, but they have at least one thing in common: they live, eat, and breathe close-quarters melee combat. Choppas are ornery and savage, with a one track mind dead seat on bashin’ heads! This savage dedication makes them ferocious fighters, wreaking havoc throughout enemy lines purely for the sake of satisfying their own self-indulgent bloodlust.

The Slayer is driven by a solemn oath to atone for past sins through an honorable death in combat. However, Dwarfs are a stubborn folk and dying quietly is simply not in their nature. Slayers therefore become ruthless and terrifying fighters, throwing themselves into battle with no regard for their own well-being.

“The Orc Choppa and Dwarf Slayer are two of the most iconic characters in the Warhammer universe, and I have no doubt WAR fans will go berserk for them,” said Jeff Hickman, executive producer of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. “Choppas represent the pure anarchy that the Greenskins embody, and the crazed, mohawk-sporting Slayers are their ideal archenemy. It won’t be long before you see both of them adding a new level of insanity to the Age of Reckoning!”

Based on the popular tabletop war game from Games Workshop, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning features revolutionary Realm vs. Realm conflict that will provide an engaging battleground for years to come. Available for PC and rated 12+.

To answer the Call to Arms and learn more about the live expansion, as well as the new careers, read the January issue of the WAR monthly newsletter at www.war-europe.com
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Ooh.
 
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Hmmm....

It is good to know they are working at improving the game and making it even better.

I also love that Mythic doesn't hide stuff like some other companies.
 
I can go on record now stating I will shelve trouble in a heartbeat to make a slayer/choppa.

originally wanted them for my main and can't wait!!!!
 
Updated info on The Herald:

Folks,

Well, the cat is out of the bag (or would that be the Liche High Priest out of the tomb?) but hey, that's what happens when there is a lot of excitement about a product. We’ve already seen a flurry of interviews and videos about what we are going to be working on over the next few months, so I won't go into excruciating detail now. I will though focus on some of the main things that we are working on, including the "Call to Arms" expansion, over the next five months especially if those things do not fall into the CtA expansion itself.



First, as for the Live Expansion pack, we have always believed in giving our players a lot of subscription-based content for the game. This "Call to Arms" expansion arc represents a large amount of content that will be spread out over a few months. When you factor in all the content that will be added as part of this arc, it certainly makes it one of the largest subscription-based content upgrades/addons done by any MMO developer. CtA alone is pretty cool but it does not, in any way, represent everything that we are working on (or have been working on).

Second, as for the new careers, what can I say but they are both very, very cool. Players have asked us for a year whether we would put the Choppa back in and many have asked (especially here on the Vault) that we please add the Slayer. The Slayer was never planned to be a part of the game but based on both player feedback and the support we got from GW on this character, we were able to create a very cool career. When we first removed the four careers from the game during development, there was a lot of teeth gnashing and speculation that we would not put them back in until we did our first paid expansion pack. As I said then, we would not do that and we have kept our word. Once the Choppa/Slayer go LIVE, we will have added four careers to the game over the first 6 months of its life, and at no additional charge to our players. No other subscription-based MMORPG that I am aware of has ever added 4 new careers to its game as part of a regular update/addon/free expansion.

Third, as for the Live Events, our previous LEs have been quite successful, so we thought we would add some more over the next few months.

Fourth, as for the Tomb Kings and the RvR dungeon, I think it is very safe to say that DAoC's Darkness Falls was one of the most successful addons to the game. Over the last few months we've gotten a ton of feedback and requests (once again, here on the Vault) asking us to create a next-generation DF, and we are in the process of doing just that. So, if you liked DF, then this zone/dungeon we are creating is right up your alley. It is truly the spiritual successor to DF and I expect that when you see where we're going with it, you'll like it a lot.

Fifth, over this expansion arc, we will also be focusing many other areas of the game. The list of changes and improvements that are happening over the next five months are rather lengthy but here are some of the highlights from the first of two major patches (1.2 and 1.3). Some of the things that we hope will be part of the 1.2 cycle (1.20, 1.21, etc.):

1) Bug fixing - Correcting bugs, even little ones, is still a priority for us. The list of bug fixes in the next couple of patches is lengthy and we will continue to hot fix bugs on an ongoing basis. The team has been working on everything from small bugs (tooltips) to larger issues.

2) RvR code fixes - Over the last two weeks, the number of Fortress crashes have shrunk down to a total of one per week total across all servers. The number of Fortress takes/sieges has also increased every week and it is safe to say that things are better than ever in this aspect of the game so I can happily steal a line from The Princess Bride and say "Have fun storming the castle!" even now. Work will continue until those crashes go down to zero. Once that happens, we can look at increasing the hard cap.

3) RvR changes/improvements. - This is a rather lengthy list which includes a new scenario, changes to the Zone control system, lots of Keep Upgrades (this is only our first pass at it), oRvR events and additional rewards for Zone and Campaign captures.

4) Career balancing - Lots and lots of changes/fixes in this next patch across all careers. As I mentioned in one of my posts, I was going through the preliminary bug fixes/balance changes patch notes and after reading through 15+ pages of them, it’s safe to say that the C&C team has been rather busy lately. We know how important balancing the careers of an MMO is to the players and that’s why the team has put so much effort into it to date and will continue to do so going forward. Every career has gotten some attention from the team in 1.2 whether it is fixing bugs or balancing their abilities. The team has paid particular attention to crowd control abilities and will continue to do so with 1.3.

5) Changes to "quality of WAR" such as new armor and mount color diversity for high-level guilds, flight masters added to every zone that doesn't have one, ability to attach multiple items to mail system, improvements to the Guild and Warband UI, and improvements to our Guild Reward systems.

So, that's just some of the things that will be coming down the road over the next few months. Again, this is just patch cycle 1.2, patch cycle 1.3 will see even more stuff coming from us in 1.3 and even 1.2. These patches contain a tremendous amount of content, fixes, the introduction of new systems and balancing, and combined with the appearance of the Tomb Kings and their RvR dungeon, the new classes, etc. represent huge additions to the game. Patch 1.3 is another big patch from us and we’ll start talking about it after 1.2 goes LIVE. Expect that we will continue to focus on oRvR (some new systems, improvements to fortresses, etc.), careers, guilds, bugs, and a whole lot more.

In terms of 1.2, that is intended to go to the Public Test server in early February. Normally I’d do a full “Sneak Peak” at the patch by the next week (and I still might) but as I’ve been saying over the last few weeks, I wanted to talk about some of the other highlights today. There’s already a lot of coverage of the expansion around the web and if you haven’t been to some of the major sites that cover WAR, you might want to take a look at all the cool stuff that we are working on.

As always, we thank you for your patronage, support, and patience.

Mark
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Well, some of these changes *could* be good, but I don't know what to expect from Mythic. "Correcting bugs, even little ones, is still a priority for us."... from what I've seen, I'm going to have to disagree with them. On my WH, my RR25 skill (Picklock, lets me go through enemy postern doors) has been broken since day 1, and reported by hundreds of players (not just WH's, WE's too) and to my knowledge, Mythic still has not even acknowledged that it is broken. I'm sure there are more bugs that Mythic isn't talking about, because they don't want to deal with them.

But, then again, more endgame instances are always nice... I guess I'll know when I see what they change.
 
egads. I hope they never fix it.... NEVER. can you imagine a WE parade coming thru on a keep defense? It's hard enough when you're outnumbered 4:1
 
Durruck said:
egads. I hope they never fix it.... NEVER. can you imagine a WE parade coming thru on a keep defense? It's hard enough when you're outnumbered 4:1
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Same thing will happen to destro with WH's. Also, you can't go through a postern door without it taking off your stealth. If they don't fix it, it will is going to make LOTS of WE's/WH's angry. Why give us a skill if you're never going to make it work, especially if it is the only thing that will make us worth having in a keep fight? MDPS just don't really have any place in ORvR zergfests or keep/fort raids, it's all about the RDPS, tanks, and healers pretty much. And how hard would it be to post a few tanks at the posterns, anyways?
 
I agree that someone with quick enough reflexes should be able to ward off any WE's invading the keep we are protecting.

We have people stationed at posterns during keep takes, why not during keep defending activities?
 
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