Major WAR update in December

By Oli Welsh Published 17 October, 2008

New classes, rewards and content.

Further to the announcement that two new classes are coming to Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, Mythic boss Mark Jacobs has revealed more details of the update they'll arrive in.

WAR's first major patch, 1.1, will arrive in December. As well as the introduction of the Dark Elf Black Guard and Empire Knight of the Blazing Sun, it will include new systems, content and a number of fixes.

Improved rewards for taking part in WAR's realm-versus-realm warfare are at the fore. As well as better gear, itemisation, higher-quality drops, and improved rewards for taking part in open-world RVR, dedicated warmongers will be able to benefit from an RVR Influence system similar to the one that rewards players for taking part in the game's Public Quests.

A number of new quest chains, Lairs, and Tome of Knowledge unlocks (achievements, in other words) will also be added in patch 1.1 to keep the player-versus-environment crowd happy.

Perhaps the biggest impact on many players' quality of life will come from free server transfers from select high- or low-population servers to select mid-population ones. To those regularly stuck in queues to get in Scenarios on their server - or to get online at all - this will be a godsend, and might help even out some of the population imbalance problems the game is currently suffering from.

Every class is promised a few improvements and balance changes, the "slow and cumbersome" mail system will be overhauled, and Mythic is also working to improve the performance of the game on lower-spec PCs.

A very generous Christmas present for Warhammer Online players from Mythic, then, although Jacobs did add the caveat that the feature list was "what we hope to include" and "not a guarantee of any kind".

Picture of Oli.

About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (10) Latest comment 3 years ago

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  • Orange #1 3 years ago

    The itemisation worries me, that can seriously unbalance pvp. Although hopefully Mythic will not bow to those grinders who are insistent on shiny purples with uber stats to make for their lack of pvp ability.

  • orakio #2 3 years ago

    Excellent! I'm weary of the RvR influence though...

  • Eraysor #3 3 years ago

    Extremely cunningly timed announcement, exactly when people are about to decide whether to start paying subscription fees or not >_>

  • Fleisch #4 3 years ago

    .........cities?

  • tenebrae #5 3 years ago

    Hear that swooshing sound, Bright Wizards? Yes, that's the nerf bat coming your way. ;)

    (Just kidding. Though they are powerful, they are THE ranged DPS class of Order side and very much glass cannons.)

  • Wickerman #6 3 years ago

    By the sounds of it (if you take them at their word of course) there will be no nerfing - just improving of classes that need it (should make Squig Herders world wide happy at the very least). I'd be surprised if there was many changes to the Bright Wizard and the Disciple of Khaine, as they are both very, very good at the moment. Of course that won't stop people complaining if everyone else gets buffed and their class doesn't, but thats MMOs for you!

  • spammage #7 3 years ago

    WOTLK incoming, with WOW's proven track record, how many people will still be playing WAR to actually care about the patch? Let us see WAR's December figures, after new WOW expansion.

  • Wickerman #8 3 years ago

    @spammage - I don't doubt there will be people that will stop playing WAR to go back to WoW. I'd be willing to bet money that at least some of those same people will be back playing WAR after a few months of WoTLK, or will be looking forward to moving on to whatever the next big MMO release on the horizon is. A lot of people shift between MMO games a lot more frequently than most developers and publishers would care to admit - something the guys from Mythic mention in another article on here.

  • Mooks #9 3 years ago

    I really hope they fix the combat response, low fps and dodgy animations/memory leaks etc. While there is nothing wrong with new content for people on anything less than a uber rig the game runs poorly looks sub par to WoW (animations wise). I have just enabled high shadows in latest WoW patch with no noticable hit in fps. Maybe WAR should hire some of Blizzard's engineers after Lich King is released to optimise and polish the game engine. WAR reminds me of Aoc in-terms of lack of real polish, optimisations which is a shame ...

    If they can fix it I will come back, if not I can play Lich King, Win/Win :D
    Edited by 1 at 18/10/08 @ 22:42

  • butler` #10 3 years ago

    Whilst the graphics aren't very optimised and average FPS should be a lot higher, I'd have to disagree with you about combat - it's fine, it's just different.