Kilrogg: Are you planning any "world events" like Blizz is doing in WoW with their new instance dungeon that can only be opened by a huge, realm-wide quest?
MBJ: I could see us doing things like DF again and even things on a grander scale. A lot depends on how well everything else is working out. What I expect is that players will have enough different stuff to do in WAR to keep them busy for quite a while.
Kilrogg: You should put a few wallpapers with artwork in the next newsletter
imo :P I've been browsing a few of your artists' portfolios and they have some impressive stuff.
MBJ: We will be, lots of stuff will be coming from the newsletter, even though it must seem like nothing is coming from it. We plan on putting more in starting in issue#3 but we are going a little slower than players might like because of some marketing considerations. I can pretty much guarantee that by the late Spring, the newsletter will be overflowing with stuff.
Kilrogg: Do you play on unveiling WAR at E3 or will there be some info on the gameplay/classes/etc released before that? I'm sure you cant answer this anyway
MBJ: K, E3 will be the big reveal but we will be doing interviews, posts, etc. before then. I really think people are going to be shocked by how much we have running at E3. I'm really looking forward to it. Put it this way, if we went to E3 in January, we would have more than some devs have had showing at E3.
In terms of other things at E3, nope, can't talk about it yet but not because of my usual defernce but rather, we have nothing set in stone yet WAR and DAoC are our main projects, everything else we are doing is research, skunkworks type of stuff.
Kilrogg: I made a thread about it a week or two ago but maybe you didn't see it or can't answer it but I'll ask anyway...How important to you is music in Warhammer? WoW's music was great and it added to the immersion a lot imo. Do you at least plan on putting more ressources on in-game music than in DAoC?
MBJ: K, I agree 100% and yes to your question. That subject actually came up a few times last week.
Darkblade_the_great: Good to hear, because I don't really like to have any other music going while I play, it makes it hard for me to really get into the game.
Garthilk: The thing is, sound like art, is subjective. Everyone prefer's a different level of ambient effects, sound effects and music.
MBJ: Extremely subjective as you say but something which we have the time and the budget for unlilke DAoC. Considering how little we had to spend on DAoC's music/effects, Womb Music and our in-house guy did a great job.
Kilrogg: Well, I'm not only talking about ambiant music. Take for example Stormwind in WoW. Enter Stormwind with music turned off, then do the same thing with music turned on. It's night and day.
MBJ: K, agreed. That technique has not only been used in games but composers like John Williams perfected them in film. While we were creating Imperator, I ask Rik to come up with all sorts of things for that game following in that tradition.
Garthilk: I imagine that the Dark Ages of Camelot development was as epic as the resulting game. Looking back at DAoC we know how successful it was. What is the feeling around the Mythic offices now that Warhammer is in development?
MBJ: Bouncing off the walls with glee. I'm serious, the team is soo pumped about working on the game.
Garthilk: Are the DAoC guys excited as well, peering over the cubicles of their Warhammer counterparts?
MBJ: As to the DAoC guys, they are excited for the company and are looking forward to the next thing we do with the DAoC IP.
Darkblade_the_great: How many people are currently working on it?
MBJ: DB, I can't comment on that yet but I will say it's a heck of a lot more than worked on DAoC when we were developing it.
Kilrogg: How big was the DAoC team when it launched?
MBJ: 24, Not counting CS, just developers.
Kilrogg: Any idea how big Blizz's team was when they launched wow?
MBJ: It makes our team on WAR look tiny. Blizzard spent a fortune on WoW and it shows. My hats off to them. They deserve mucho kudos for their efforts. I hope that in 2007 people will be saying the same thing about us
Garthilk: I don't think we have to worry about that. What is STILL the best PvP game around? DAoC.
MBJ: I think we did a great job on DAoC's PvP and I think we are going to do a better job on WAR's PvP.
Denkim: Any more news on the fankit?
MBJ: Yeah, we had a number of things come up and with the end of the year (Mythic is closed all week), we didn't get to it. I'll try to make sure that it gets done in week or two after break but my schedule is nuts the first two weeks in Jan.
Darkblade_the_great: Can you comment any on the specs the game is being developed for
MBJ: DB, one step below what we expect state-of-the-art will be when the game is released.
Renny: Any time frame on beta? 6 months.. 9 months.. longer
MBJ: R, certainly not before E3 in May 2006. We won't have even been working on the game for a year by that time. We didn't sign the deal until E3 last year and then we spent two months agreeing on the game's basic design and framework.
MBJ: I think that people are going to be really surprised at what they see from the GW/Mythic partnership.
Kilrogg: Well it seems there is a real collaboration and not just a company selling their name to another company and not being involved beyond that point.
MBJ: They truly have been great to work with and they have lived up to all my hopes and expectations.
MBJ: Let me tell you how far we went to make this work. As I've said before, I've known some of the GW guys for many years. When we finally agreed that the time was right for Mythic and GW to work together once the deal was signed I went out to England to spend as much time with them as possible to get to know some of the keys guys at GW who I didn't know, better. I was then given as much time as I needed to sit down with the key people at GW so we could work together on the design of the game. I had already written a starter document but we then sat down and kicked things, discussed, debated, had lots and lots of tea and Cherry Twizzlers and we then looked at each other and said, that's it, we're there. Each side had contributed a lot of good stuff, ideas, etc. and we were off and running. I would have stayed there as long as necessary to make sure hat we were on the same page right from the beginning. And we were and everything has even gotten better since then if you can believe that. They wanted it to be like their IP, great and glorious and fun. hey were concerned that we didn't really understand their IP (like most developers who look to license) and they saw very quickly that I understood their IP quite well and that I, and Mythic, could be trusted to do it justice.
Darkblade_the_great: ARe they allowing some deviations to make the transfer to a MMO format easier?
MBJ: DB, yes. But still, no girl Orcs!
Darkblade_the_great: Because as you have probably noticed on the forums there is a lot of discussion about the use of magic, healers place in WAR and soforth.
MBJ: DB, yeah, I'm staying out of the healer topic for now, I have some self-preservation instincts left.
MBJ: And then, just to continue a bit, they [GW] came and spent time with us to make sure that our guys did not only understand the IP but to give us other Mythic guys the time to ask them questions. They spent a lot of time with my guys and my guys came away with a ton of stuff. We also went so far as to hire a number of people who had worked either at GW or with GW in the past. So we are dripping GWness in our game already.
Darkblade_the_great: Did GW give you plenty of Warhammer stuff to decorate your offices/cubicals with?
MBJ: Hehe, we have tons of GW stuff from them, they have been great. One day, a few weeks ago, our latest shipment came from them. Lance's office was unusable for a bit until it could be cleared out and distributed to the appropriate people.
Garthilk: Like Christmas all over again.
MBJ: Hehe
MBJ: We even have a night devoted to playing WFB down in one of our floors. That's been very popular.
Darkblade_the_great: I was just wondering what size RvR battles you invision for WAR, DAoC size, bigger, smaller? That is if you can comment on that
MBJ: Nope, can't comment. I will say though, as always, because this is not DAoC2, the RvR system will be different overall and very different in certain ways.
mala: Question! ^___^
MBJ: Ask away Mala.
mala: Chaos Dwarves! with funny pompador hats! will we see em?
MBJ: Hehehe, it's funny that you should ask about them. They were actually one of the races that I was very interested in talking to GW about. As of now it's safe to say that they will not be in the game at launch.
* mala cries tears * mala makes another entry into the book of grudges
MBJ: Hehe, I'm in trouble now.
mala: Will you release things that gw hasnt released fully? In expansions, say cathay?
MBJ: Maybe. That's up to GW. We certainly are talking to them about stuff they have planned for down the road both for its use in WAR but also to make sure that we don't do something that later comes back to haunt either GW or Mythic.
mala: GW could always release another edition, and make believe like the previous stuff never existed. * mala looks at his 40k source books
MBJ: Well, in a sense that is what we are doing with WAR. We are creating another bit of IP for and with them. And we hope this is going to be a rather long working relationship to go along with the already long personal relationship.
MBJ: Okay, last call at the bar for me. Any other questions?
Kilrogg: I just wanna thank you for being so involved with the community Mark, it's refreshing to have a dev that doesn't create a gap between him and his customers.
Darkblade_the_great: nods
Garthilk: Double what Darkblade and Kilrogg have said.
MBJ: You're all welcome. I actually enjoy all of this and I haven't had the chance to do it since the early days of DAoC so this is fun for me too.