WarhammerAlliance.com was
recently able to sit down with Mark Davis and get all kinds of answers about the
upcoming expansion Tomb Kings!
Earlier this year, Mythic announced "A Call to Arms," a Live Expansion for
Warhammer: Age of Reckoning. A Call to Arms is comprised of three Live Events,
building a continuous story arc that will introduce a brand new RvR Zone: the
Land of the Dead. The first two chapters, Bitter Rivals and Beyond the Sands,
are now behind us and Chapter III, Rise of the Tomb Kings, is rapidly
approaching. With the Rise of the Tomb Kings about to begin, Warhammer Alliance
managed to persuade Mark Davis, the Lead for the Live Events team, to answer
some questions about the final chapter in "A Call to Arms".
Here's the
Mark
Davis Tomb Kings Interview:
Warhammer Alliance would like to extend a warm thank you to Mark for taking time
out of his busy schedule to give us a sneak peak at Rise of the Tomb Kings, A
Call to Arms, Chapter III.
Tell us how this particular Live Event is going to
build on previous Live Events for Tomb Kings.
This is the third and final chapter to the "Call to Arms" event story arc. In
Chapter 1, “Bitter Rivals,” players learned that agents of Destruction were
attempting to acquire plans for an airship, something capable of traveling to
the far southern sands. In Chapter 2, “Beyond the Sands,” we saw the results of
those plans as Destruction airships returning from the Land of the Dead crashed
into the RvR battlefields, spilling their stolen cargo and resulting in a Public
Quest that revealed a very unhappy Liche Priest.
And now, in this final chapter, players on both sides will race to acquire the
resources needed to build airships for their side to carry their troops to the
Land of the Dead. The first realm to do so gets to claim first stake in the
desert!
In the last Live Event, placement of objectives next
to warcamps was an issue. Have you rectified this with Rise of the Tomb Kings,
and if so, how?
In this event, the resources in the RvR areas are plentiful and located in
multiple locations. Supplies are located in the open battlefield areas in all
pairings and tiers, as well as inside the Reikland Factory scenario!
Some players might not be as excited about Land of
the Dead as others. What can you tell us about Rise of the Tomb Kings that will
help get players motivated to participate?
While there aren’t any personal event influence rewards for this event, there
ARE rewards. And this is an event that won’t come around again. It’s a one-time
thing. Many months or years from now, when you sport your event reward or title
and someone asks you “Hey, where’d you get THAT!?” you can say, “During Rise of
the Tomb Kings--weren’t you there?”
If people are looking to give feedback about Rise of
the Tomb Kings, what specific metrics are you interested in measuring to make
future Live Events better?
We’re extremely interested in how much fun the event is, how long it took to
complete, and if that duration felt too long or too short. And, of course, any
tasks they particularly liked or disliked.
You've said that the "winner" of the resource
challenge is going to have early access to Tomb Kings for a full day. For the
"losing" realm, how will you ensure that they will receive access in due time?
There is the possibility on some servers that if the resource meters go back to
zero after the Live Event, the "winning" realm will lock the zone again.
Once the event is complete, the “normal” mechanism for capturing the Land of the
Dead kicks in. The system is built to ensure that one side will eventually gain
access over time, though how successful they are in capturing zones and killing
players will dictate the speed. So yes, it IS possible that, after the event is
over, the same side might win access again--but they’ll be competing for it
while some of their forces will be plundering the Land of the Dead of its
treasures.
Give us a hint about a cool easter egg or an
interesting piece of lore that you've woven into the Rise of the Tomb Kings
Event
We love adding Easter eggs in our live events, and Rise of the Tomb Kings has
its share! In RvR, players will notice that strange glyphs can be taken from
fallen enemy players. Those glyphs can unlock a powerful treasure that was
brought back--oh, I almost forgot, you just wanted a hint!
How soloable are the tasks for Rise of the Tomb
Kings? Give us an example of the level of soloability that this Live Event will
have.
This event is unlike most events, because our other events have been much more
personal in nature. This event is won by your Realm, so, for many of the tasks,
you’ll need to work with others. For example, the player-favorite scenario
“Reikland Factory” must be won to gain points for your side, or an Airship in
your capital city public must be successfully completed to gain points. To do
these things, you’ll need to work together. But there are also solo tasks to
achieve. Collecting resources from the battlefields and completing the event
quest line are just a couple of examples.
What's the approximate time that you expect players
to spend to complete all ten tasks for Rise of the Tomb Kings?
It can vary slightly, but in normal conditions we expect the tasks to be
completed in roughly 8-10 hours. Though many of the tasks are meant to be
repeated over and over again, we anticipate a lot of Realm pride to surface, and
get lots of folks working together to beat their enemy. Even if they don’t want
to go to the Land of the Dead, at least they can take the opportunity to steal a
victory from their enemies!
What is the relationship like between the Live Event
Team and Games Workshop when planning the Live Events? Is there a significant
amount of interaction or consultation when conceptualizing Events? Can you give
us an example from Rise of the Tomb Kings?
We work pretty closely with Games Workshop. By the time this event was being
dreamed up, the Land of the Dead was well into production. We work up our ideas,
put pen to paper, and then take that to Games Workshop for their approval. They
liked most of what we came up with, but had improvements and changes that needed
to be made to protect the IP--changes which we were glad to make. We’ve got a
great relationship and the changes always improve the event and the content.
What's on the horizon for the Live Events team? For
example, will we ever see the Factory or Twisting Tower re-emerge, or are
Twisting Tentacle Pies the rarest commodity in WAR?
I believe I’ve spoiled the answer for this question; I’ve already spilled the
beans on the Factory making its triumphant return to the live game. The Twisting
Tower isn’t just twisting in the wind, either! Oh, no, we haven’t seen the last
of that freaky tower. We’ve got more weekend events planned and a big event
planned for around the end of summer. That’s all I can say for now, but it’s
going to be awesome!
To discuss this interview visit the
Mark
Davis Tomb Kings Interview thread!
