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April 2010 Producer's Letter Hello all, It’s been a very busy month, so busy the time has just flown by. These days, everyone around here is eating, breathing and sleeping 1.3.5. For that reason, in this particular newsletter, I’m going to focus on version 1.3.5 and some of the recent community activity. I know that many like to skip ahead to read teasers of the distant future but , for this letter, I want to focus on the present, because I think the excitement right now is really around the short term future a By now, many of you have probably read through the 1.3.5 patch notes and are gearing up to experience the 100% RvR Driven City Siege. I want to take this time to remind you that it is only through Public Testing that we are able to truly finalize our features. Version 1.3.5 is up on the Public Test server right now, and throughout the next few weeks you’ll see the Mythic team placing a lot of emphasis on this server with all of the test events we’ll be hosting. Aside from the regular Stability public test, we are running city tests, beginning with the exclusive guild City tests which have already started and culminate in two public City tests. Be sure to stay tuned to the Herald for specifics around those tests and please participate when you can! We’ll be hosting our regular developer Q&A sessions after some of the tests, so please take the opportunity to jump on our Ventrilo server (ventrilo1.eamythic.com port 3960, the password updates with each test) and ask questions of some of the Mythic developers. I’m also very pleased to announce that Community Manager Usually in our communication, we spend a lot of time talking about the features of an individual patch; however this time I want to talk to you about the reasons behind it. You may notice that with each patch we do a smattering of different features--from bug fixes, to other small polish items, all the way up to one major feature that the version centers around. We’re always trying to find ways to refine the things you like about WAR, as well as introduce new game mechanics for you to play with. We believe that the changes to the cities will accomplish both of these goals by focusing the endgame experience more on RVR and creating an entirely new experience in a very familiar place. One important part of these changes is the new Player Champion feature in the final City stage. I believe that the design team has hit a home run with this new aspect of the King fight by creating an experience that invests the individual player emotionally by making them a part of the encounter instead of a bystander to a PVE scripted event! That, and there’s nothing more exciting than being chosen as one of the King’s Champions and stomping around head and shoulders above everyone else (RAWR!)
As an aside, I want to give a huge thanks to the four bloggers who came out to Mythic for our Blogger Roundtable earlier this month. These four super fans are infectiously energetic about Warhammer, and even though they still ask us the tough questions. We really appreciate all that they do for the community. We had such a good experience that we’re going to continue to host Blogger Roundtables--so if you’re interested in getting involved, get out there and get blogging! Also keep on the lookout for a special announcement video coming straight from the bloggers to you!
And with that, I’ll speak to you next month! -Carrie |
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nd 1.3.5. 
Andy Belford, Combat & Careers Lead Nate Levy, and I will be attending a special Q&A for the European players. This is part of the work we have been doing with GOA to provide some of the same developer interaction to our European players that our North American players have enjoyed (and I’m looking forward to practicing my Français!)
All of that being said, keep your eyes on the forums, as we’ll be adding some new “In Development” threads to discuss what could be the next big thing in future versions! Some hot topics, pulled straight from the community, include the reintroduction of Fortresses and changes to ORVR--both of which we are going to spend some serious time investigating, just as soon as we finish polishing up 1.3.5! It’s clear to us that our next big task after the cities are done is going to be taking a stab at making improvements to ORVR. We’ve got a lot of different angles to pursue, and we’re interested in putting the same kind of keen eye on ORVR that we have on the cities. What this means yet, I can not say, but you can be sure that more will be revealed later. Additionally, all of the things I’ve mentioned in previous letters (i.e. armor set changes and the auction house) will be addressed by version 1.3.6, and will get a mention once I have more concrete information to share.
Remember what I said about focusing on the present? Well, we couldn’t let a producer’s letter go by without giving you at least a small peak at the future, now could we? Well, here’s the bombshell: By 1.3.6 players will have the capability to play as both Order and Destruction on the same server. We did this in Camelot, because we wanted to give players more choices about where they wanted to play and who they wanted to play with. We’re aware of the possible downsides (such as cross-realming) and we’re aware that people have a lot of realm pride, which we believe is very important, so we’re going to be introducing a significant lockout timer to switch between realms. Warhammer has a lot to offer between Order and Destruction and we want to give you the opportunity to experience all of WAR with a single account while still maintaining ties to the community of your home server.