WAR open beta in early September

By Robert Purchese Published 19 August, 2008

Orc-ward timing.

Mythic plans to open Warhammer Online beta testing from 7th September ahead of its full release on the 18th.

Those fast enough to grab keys will be treated to the much flaunted realm-versus-realm battles, which are basically player-versus-player skirmishes but on a massive scale.

"In just a few weeks, we are going to throw open our doors and invite more players into the game than ever before. They will have a chance to delve into the open beta and see for themselves that WAR has arrived and it is glorious," said Mark Jacobs, co-founder of Mythic.

Mythic told us the game was finished back in July, but would benefit from layers more polish in the run up to September.

The developer, which previously worked on Dark Age of Camelot, picked up the Warhammer Online licence in 2005. Climax Online had previously struggled to create a multiplayer world based on the Games Workshop idea.

Head over to our impressions from the closed beta of Warhammer Online to find out why this game poses a real threat to World of Warcraft.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (25) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Kostabi #1 4 years ago

    I'm still not sure about this after getting burned by Conan recently. It really soured my opinion of MMOs

  • comedian #2 4 years ago

    EU Collectors Edition customers get shafted whilst our NA cousins get access to the Closed Beta, Preview Weekend while we get fuck all information and treated like second class citizens, no open beta information whatsoever and GOA telling us they're awesome and that the service we're getting is the same as NA.

    Bollocks to the lot of them.

    I'm properly hacked off right now.
    Edited by 1 at 19/08/08 @ 08:40

  • spimmy #3 4 years ago

    too bad GOA are handleing europe!

  • ZuluHero #4 4 years ago

    ive had my Collectors edition code for ages now had no news whatsoever!

    The site is silly too. if you log in and try to go to the beta centre it tries to regestier from scratch - so i don't even know how we'll ever get to enter our codes!

    /hmmff

  • Rirekon #5 4 years ago

    The whole pre-order Beta access thing has been a right scam so far, I've had my code for nearly a month now while US customers have had access from even before that.
    Really hate GOA, they screwed up the Shadowbane beta too.

  • ZuluHero #6 4 years ago

    just a place to tie your code into your WAR account would be nice. Just so THEY know who has what. Then they can use that info to send out emails to say yes you're in beta and here are your links...

  • ciril #7 4 years ago

    I wonder how long it takes until some "smart" soul threatens with a lawsuit? :p

  • spammage #8 4 years ago

    They must be looking over their shoulder at the monster on the horizon, in the shape of Wrath of the Lich King. Not many MMO'ers with free time if Blizzard unleash around Oct / November time, especially since it is more expensive for the monthly subs.....

    I hope they do well, but I just cant see it.

  • MaxiSleep #9 4 years ago

    why this game poses a real threat to World of Warcraft.


    ha ha ha

  • anomagnus #10 4 years ago

    Have any of you gone to warhammer alliance?

    as much info as GOA can give is released there

    i also seriously doubt they're worried about WotLK. AS they have stated, NUMEROUS times, they're not gunning for WoW. WoW is a PVE centric game, that pays lip service to PVP.

    Warhammer is a PVP centric game. Quite frankly, 90% of the population of WoW have no interest in real PVP, and in no way will enjoy Warhammer. If they partake in the shambles this is WoW pvp, they do it only for easy epics, but thats not going to prepare them for a game which puts PVP front and centre.

    The only people that seem content to call this a WoW killer are people who seem to want it to fail, setting it up for something it cant do, nor ever claimed it would do.

    Quite frankly, i'd be surprised if their internal target was more than between 5 and 10% of the WoW population. That puts it between half a million and a million subscribers. Even at 5%, just 500,000 thousand subscribers, thats 60 million euro a year.

    As for the price issue, the price in euros is the same for WoW and WAR. Its only the UK that has a higher price, and contrary to most UK subjects beliefs, you're actually not a) the only country in Europe or b) shockingly, the most important country either.

    Edited by 1 at 19/08/08 @ 11:06

  • ZuluHero #11 4 years ago

    "The only people that seem content to call this a WoW killer are people who seem to want it to fail, setting it up for something it cant do, nor ever claimed it would do."

    + a million.


  • Sildur #12 4 years ago

    Are you guys becoming complete WAR fanboys because this game is British?

    I keep seeing you saying how brilliant this game is without true justifications and you seem to miss all of the negatives that everyone else has pointed out.

  • ZuluHero #13 4 years ago

    ...well people are saying how rubbish it will be without any real justification. :/

    I play wow, and i'll play WAR. I'm a MMO fan without fielty to any particular game, and as any true mmo fan i don't want to see potentially good games fail. As anomagnus pointed out, none of the people associated with WAR have ever used the term "WoW beater" in any of the interviews they've done. Go on, link me one?

    /gauntlet slapped across face
    Edited by 1 at 19/08/08 @ 12:39

  • anomagnus #14 4 years ago

    @ sildur

    funny, cause every single games website that has played, liked it

    i've yet to see ANY criticism of it, that makes sense. People complaining about lighting in a beta? yapping about the combat interface while the system is still being built? All, i might add, while under an NDA.

    The complaints about this game are utterly, UTTERLY - U.T.T.E.R.L.Y without merit

    I might also add, i'm not British. ALSO, the game's IP is British, however it is not being developed in Britain.

    See, you're the perfect example of the bitching i've seen about this game. Just general internet yapping, no merit, substance or quality

    Edited by 1 at 19/08/08 @ 13:02

  • Orange #15 4 years ago

    Disappointing to hear about the lack of equal support for EU players, that has turned me right off it.

  • Nill #16 4 years ago

    Just recently, GOA's website (war-europe.com) was down for about nine days. First delayed maintenance - of which obviously, since this is GOA, no notice nor any information was released on - and then just plain broken.

    Given their track record, along with recent issues other than this one, it's very much not a good sign. Just import from the states instead.

    Honestly, just fuck off GOA!

  • merseymal #17 4 years ago

    The CE pre-order for US and Euro players promised that players can

    a) play the open beta - this isn't starting until 7th September
    b) have a headstart - this starts a week after a) and a couple of days before the game goes live
    c) have some in-game fluff

    So how the heck are we being conned?
    Edited by 1 at 19/08/08 @ 16:19

  • Drone #18 4 years ago

    We're not being conned but we are not getting the same treatment as our American cousins. That is the real cause of all the ill feeling towards GoA.

    I dont know if its their fault or if Mythic are to blame for not keeping them in the loop but as things stand right now there are lots off announcements for the Americans (beta centrers, account creation, preview weekends, client downloads) and we are getting nothing.

    We arent entitled to any of these things but its my opinion that there should be some sort of clarification why that's the case, especially as both Mythic and GoA have gone on record as stating Europe will have at least as good a service as the US. With the entire European community in the dark we are just left to speculate which is never a good thing.

    Basically GoA need to go on a public relations workshop!

  • merseymal #19 4 years ago

    Well the preview weekend would have been nice but it seems to be an arbitrary decision by Mythic to do so. GOAs closed beta currently has far more people involved than Mythic does and possibly their closed beta servers just don't have the capacity to allow all the CE people in that the open beta ones will.

    While it would be nice to be able to enter codes and download now, the open beta is over a fortnight away so downloading/code entering now isn't that much of a priority, I'm sure we'll have at least a week to dl the necessary files, etc.

    As long as the promised support is provided from OB onwards, I'm willing to cut them a little slack now. I do agree their relations could do with bit of work though :)

  • Drone #20 4 years ago

    @merseymal

    I couldnt agree with you more. As long as GoA do a good job from the OB onwards I will be more than happy. Its almost laughable watching the community on warhammeralliance.com go into meltdown over this issue though. Especailly when all it would take from GoA is a statement saying "We will make an announcement about x issue next week".

    I really dont think it would take much from them at this point to get the whiners to calm down for a bit, the longer they dont say anything the louder people are going to shout.

    Hopefully when the NDA is removed it will take the attention away from the server issue and put it back on the game.

  • comedian #21 4 years ago

    The problem is that they're not making these announcements.

    All we want is to be kept in the loop, I don't think that's too much to expect given the current situation.

  • Nill #22 4 years ago

    The problem is that they're not making these announcements.

    All we want is to be kept in the loop, I don't think that's too much to expect given the current situation.

    Not that I'm personally bothered by this issue, since I haven't pre-ordered, but I understand the frustration.

    At the same time, if GOA can't even maintain the simplest of public relations, how does that bode for retail? I have no faith whatsoever in GOA, they have a lot to prove given their bad history. They should have already started proving themselves, a slacking start is not going to give them any better reputation.

  • Vepr #23 4 years ago

    I am downloading the files from fileplanet as I type this.

    :D Nah Nah Na Nah Nah.

    Sorry I could not help myself. ;)

  • orakio #24 4 years ago

    NDA lifted! woo!

  • merseymal #25 4 years ago

    well finally things have started to improve in that respect

    [link url=http://forums.freddyshouse.com/wa rhammer308/230555-important-information-q.html
    ]http://fo rums.freddyshouse.com/warhammer...[/link]

    This is worth a peek:

    http://my thicmktg.fileburst.com/war/us/h...