WAR revamping early levels

The next patch to Warhammer Online - game update 1.3.2 to its friends - will make significant changes to the starting experience for new players, as well as introduce an "apprenticeship" program allowing players of high and low levels to synchronise their ranks.

As detailed in a recent developer diary, the New User Jouney (as Mythic has dubbed it) will now put all starting players together in the Empire versus Chaos campaign, regardless of their race. Players previously began in one of three different pairs of starer zones according to which race they'd chosen to play.

The change is intended to provide a better player population - which should make it easier to find groups for Public Quests and open-world warfare - and focus Mythic's efforts on improving the overall flow and reward of those early Tier 1 chapters of the game.

"Because we are dealing with a single starting location, we are able to tailor and revamp the content offered in the pairing to make the quest flow more intuitive, give better itemization / rewards for players' efforts, and provide a better detailed and informative play session," said associate producer James Casey.

There will also be an improved tutorial system, new help tips, an overhauled in-game manual, and a chat channel specifically for advice.

The apprenticeship system, similar to City of Heroes' sidekicks, allows you to scale other players to your own rank - whether it's higher or lower than yours - making it possible for new players and old hands to play together.

As far as WAR's endgame is concerned, Fortresses are being removed from the Tier 4 campaign to lower the requirements for staging an attack on the enemy's capital city, which Mythic hopes will make city invasions more frequent. There will also be the usual round of class balancing and bug fixes.

You can read more about what to expect from the next WAR patch in the test server patch notes.