Welcome to the Warhammer Online Grab Bag, where your friendly neighborhood community manager will answer the most popular, and most interesting, questions in a new regular feature. Many things aren't yet certain, so try to be patient with us. Trust me - we're as eager as you are to see the features finalized, so that we can hear what you've got to say.

Grab Bag #13

Q: Why did you decide to revamp the Greenskin/Dwarf starting areas?

A: We had to put the WAR in.

This is not as silly of an answer as you might think. (And you might - I know I did, I laughed my tail off when I heard that from a developer.) The demo versions that many of you have enjoyed at Game Day events and various conventions around the world were built to show you actual, usable zones, and to give you a taste of our systems and our sensibilities.

There have been many design tools developed, and a lot more learned, since we built those zones more than a year ago! As Miss Ellisa, our lead quest lady, says, "[The early conflicts] looked like staring contests. We had no effects, no sounds, no animations, no spells. We have so many more resources now... when you play [in the starting zones] now, you can tell there's a war. You can hear it, you see things exploding, you are blowing things up yourself. We had all those ideas when we did our first pass, but we couldn't do them yet."

And on top of all that stuff, we've also gone deeper into the Warhammer world. For example, our early Dwarf areas were great. The Dwarfs talked right, sounded right, and did the right things, all in lovely foothills outside a mountain. Now? They live IN the mountain. They aren't fighting over the open fields outside their home - they are defending their home. And their enemies aren't taunting them outside in the open air, their enemies are perilously close to taking the gold. And the ale.

Think of the world you've already experienced as the foundation, or the core of our game. We didn't redo the old areas so much as we brought them to the intense, immersive, Warhammer level that the rest of the game has become.

Q: Where is the guild beta!!

A: (LINK - to come later.) Please, for the love of WAAAGH!, people, read the directions carefully. The last time I did one of these betas, I had many sad guild masters sending me email, saying that their enthusiastic guild members jumped the gun and filled out the form. But the form says, one officer (and one officer alone) should submit an application. (The reasons for this are pretty simple. First, coordinating feedback for the tens of thousands of players represented by the guild leaders is a big job, and Richard and I need to work with one point of contact. And it really helps a beta if the participants are willing to follow directions. Finally, part of the guild beta is understanding that ONE member really can screw it up for the whole guild.)

There will be thousands of guilds who follow the directions, and only a tiny fraction of them will be part of this historic beta test. We hope to see YOU in that group.

Q: One of the most important aspects of Warhammer Tabletop is the Champion, Banner Carrier and Musician trio. Will there be any equivalent to that in WAR? At the very minimum War-Banners?

A: As I've said before, you should try to avoid assuming that much of the gameplay style from the tabletop world is going to cross into the MMO. We are striving to keep the look, the mood, and the feel of the total Warhammer universe. Tabletop players should load up the game and say, man, this feels familiar, and this feels good. But the mechanics won't be the same, because we're designing everything for an MMO (and for a whole different set of expectations). But with that said, I've got some great tidbits from Adam AKA "Gersh," who is currently heading up the combat design team. Take it away, Gersh!

"War banners will make an appearance in WAR. What form they will take, who can use them, when they can be used, and how they can use them is still under development!" He went on to tell me that banners will have functionality that applies both to combat, and to player guilds. So there are several teams working to develop the way banners will work in WAR.

"Musicians will not make an official appearance; however, they are there in "Spirit". Various classes will have abilities that relate to group Morale, and as such could be viewed as fulfilling a similar role as the musician in the tabletop game."

"Champions are very much alive and well in WAR. Take a look around you... every person in the game world controlled by a living breathing human being could be considered a Champion, Hero, or Lord in the tabletop game. Why? B/c every player is an individual with their own appearances, equipment, spells, abilities, and personalities. These are all the items that really make an individual stand out from a Unit in the Tabletop, and every player in WAR gets access to them no matter who they are."

Q: Last month you said the Magus never gets off his disc. In the same newsletter was a video showing him getting off his disc...

A: The video was showing an early version, where the disc was equipped like a pair of boots. The backflip dismount was an animator getting a little caffeinated, bless his pea-pickin' heart. There will be no dismounts of any kind from a living Magus.

By the way, the Magus Disc is not a mount, and we do not consider his fighting to be mounted combat. I have intentionally said next to nothing about mounted combat. This is because I KNOW next to nothing about mounted combat.

Q: Will there be official forums for WAR?

A: This is technically in the main FAQ section on the website, but it's worth repeating given the number of people sending in the question. There will not be official forums, for a number of reasons that are only interesting if you are a community manager.

Mainly, the problem is that there are many more Warhammer players than there are community people. The signal to noise ratio in any given forum is very, very bad. In order to make it less bad (please notice that I didn't say "good"), we would have to drastically restrict the number of posts a person could make, drastically increase the number of community managers, and do nothing but read that forum all day. I do not want to do the first, I can't do the second, and I won't do the third when there are so many other things that do more good for the community.

Feedback forms (http://www.warhammeronline.com/english/community/faq/feedback/feedback.php) are the best way to get your feedback in front of the developers. The forms do not offer the pleasure of arguing with other players, or the opportunity to demonstrate one's trash-talking skills, but they do make a big difference in terms of development. If your goal is simply to be heard, to be counted, and to contribute to the game, these forms are the way to go.

If you want to talk about the game with other players, and enjoy all of the pleasures of the internet, there are many WAR forums out there, with very different communities. Hop around until you find one where the tone matches your own. We lurk in several different forums - but whenever there is news after we launch, we will communicate via the Herald.

Attention, Yahoo users: The silly thing about this announcement being part of the grab bag is that Yahoo users will have a hard time getting a newsletter at all. There have always been problems with the free email providers - so many of you have signed up for the newsletter that we've been classed as "spam" by many providers. We're working with the different email programs to get this fixed, and Hotmail is our most recent success. But Yahoo is still not working 100% of the time, and tends to block our newsletter. If you signed up for the newsletter with a Yahoo address please cancel your newsletter account and sign up again using a different email address. Would you all please spread the word to your Yahoo using friends?

I'll see you next month - no doubt with the answers to the many questions raised in this month's newsletter!