Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning Interview

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Eurogamer: But when you present Warhammer, you're quite open about the fact that you want people to be playing it all the time. That is how MMOs work, after all. And in things like the Tome of Knowledge achievements, there is an actual encouragement, an incentive for you to do these massively time-consuming grinds.

Jeff Hickman: Absolutely. It's part of the game. But when we looked at the Tome of Knowledge initially, we had the exact same discussion. We said, woah, we're showing you how many monsters you kill, and then we're giving you rewards for killing certain numbers. At first we had ten Tome Unlocks, and they were like: kill ten of this, kill a hundred of this, kill a thousand of this, kill ten thousand of this, kill a hundred thousand of this, kill a million of this.

So we took a half step back from that. Now about half of those ten are kill unlocks, the other half are discovery unlocks. It becomes a little more varied. But just like I said, are we providing a game for the player that wants to go out and get those achievements? Absolutely we are, why not? But what we're not doing is making it an integral part of the game, a necessity of the game.

Eurogamer: Would you consider integrating the Tome of Knowledge with the kind of things that are usually catered for by fan-created databases and wikis and so on?

So now we know where Mr Creosote went after he died.

Jeff Hickman: Yes. We would consider that. How much of that are we going to do? Not sure. We talk about it a lot. There's something to be said for letting the community grow outside of your game, and how important that is. Letting those fan-sites be an important part of your community, and keeping people in the game the right amount. So we're trying to judge where that line is. But I can guarantee some of that stuff's going to be on our own site, or within the game.

Eurogamer: You said yesterday that you would release in fall. The last announced date was Q2. Why the delay of six months or so?

Jeff Hickman: Say "or so" - I know the actual dates and it's not six months. Let's call it three to six months. Why the extra time? It is just what Mark Jacobs, our GM, has always talked about, and just what's been reinforced, especially recently, by EA. We are really, really pushing for quality in our games. We believe very strongly, and John Riccitiello the CEO at EA has really pushed hard on this in the last year since he came online, that getting games out the door quickly, making the quick buck, is not what EA needs to be about. We need to be about quality games, games that build big franchises, games that have future and longevity.

Now, we've always known that. You look at Mythic and we talk that talk. The problem is, as an independent studio, it's very hard to do that. EA came along and they've give us the ability to. They've given us the time and the money and any help that we want, while at the same time leaving us alone.

So we get to the point, really in the past couple of months, where we're looking at our game and it's like, man, it's really coming together, things are looking good, we're feeling good about all the little pieces that we have in place. But: is it as good as it needs to be? Or as good as we want it to be? That's really the key.

And we all feel like we need a little more time. We need more time to polish it. Like, all the content's done. The game is fully playable. Technically, I could launch the game today.

Instead of doing that, we literally are going back through the game - we've actually been through probably the first half of the game already. We're going through every single public quest, making sure it feels just right, making sure it's got the right voice overs, making sure it's got the right polish, making sure that it feels as good as we can possibly make it. We're looking at every quest in the game, we're looking at how the land is set up, all of the content. Everything. And making sure that it feels the way that it needs to feel, and that we want it to feel, so that we can have a slam dunk success when we launch the game.

Clothes by Games Workshop. Hair by Girls Aloud.

Eurogamer: Feel is something I was going to bring up - because you have a lot of big picture ideas, but fundamentally the MMO experience is about what happens minute to minute.

Jeff Hickman: Absolutely. It's super important. The moment you step in the game, how does it look, what does the UI look like? What happens when I start to move? What's the most used action in the game? Swinging your sword, casting your spell, those combat type actions. Man, that had better be hot s***. Like, it's got to feel great. And so those are all the pieces that we're just tweaking and polishing and making sure that they're just exactly how we want them to feel. That's what this extra time is about.

Eurogamer: EA's been talking a lot recently about how its attitude has changed to managing studios it has bought. Do you believe there's been a genuine cultural change there?

Jeff Hickman: Absolutely. 100 per cent, and they don't pay me to say this, believe it or not. When we got acquired two years ago we heard the same stuff. Everybody hears the same things. They came in and said, "Look, that's not how we work, we're good people and a good company, we do good things". And that is exactly what we've seen.

The extra resources that they have given us far out-shadows any, you know... anything else that impacts us from them. Marketing and publishing resources especially, plus the resources to take the time we need to make the greatest game ever. So it's good, I absolutely back those statements up. You should see the messages from John Riccitiello. He is hardcore about making great games.

Eurogamer: How big is the team working on Warhammer Online?

Jeff Hickman: Around 200 people work for me.

Eurogamer: Do you expect that to fluctuate after launch? I suppose it depends how well the game does...

Jeff Hickman: I am absolutely convinced that the game is going to do great. What "great" means - I'm not going to talk about the numbers that we expect it to have, but we have very reasonable expectations for our numbers. We don't expect to dominate the MMO space against the biggest game out there. We have very very sound expectations for our game, I think we're going to meet those expectations, and I think EA is going to go, "oh my Lord, we finally have an MMO". And they're going to be happy as hell.