Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning Preview
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Another of the team's goals: player-versus-environment tactics escalate as you make your way through dungeons. Earlier stages give you the chance to learn techniques and practice them, but by the time you reach the end of the third wing, you'll need to have these fighting tactics down cold in order to complete the dungeon successfully. Happily, if you die in the learning process you'll respawn in the dungeon, so you won't have a long trek from a graveyard to rejoin the rest of your party. We fight our way through a trail of ancestral halls, against an assortment of enemies and minibosses, culminating in the end boss, which is a gigantic naked, red, horned, and hooved Bloodthirster demon that towers over us. In Warhammer lore, Bloodthirster demons are far too powerful for mere soldiers to actually kill, so, instead of him dying at the end of the boss fight, he is sucked back into the rift, leaving only his giant battle-ax behind.They also added some late-breaking news.
The last dungeon we visit is actually the final instanced dungeon of the game, called Lost Vale. As with open-world dungeons, the most people you'll need to run an instanced dungeon is six, a decision that was again motivated by accessibility. Lost Vale is a green, lush outdoor area that was the home of the Everqueen, leader of the High Elves; however, Dark Elves have made their way in and have now enslaved the Everqueen. Since it's the highest player-versus-environment instance in the game, Lost Vale is larger than the average dungeon - each wing here will take about two hours to finish, and in addition to the wing bosses and final end-boss, there are also three sub-bosses in each level.
Four of WAR's initially planned 24 classes (and four of its six planned cities) have been nixed from the game. The Choppa (Greenskin), the Hammerer (Dwarf), the Blackguard (Dark Elf), and the Knight of the Blazing Sun (Empire) are all out. Asked to comment, Executive Producer Jeff Hickman says, "We'd rather make the 20 [that will be in the game] rock solid and really great." Rock solid and really great, as opposed to rushed and half-realized due to time constraints? Sounds good to us.
