The development team at Mythic took as their goal to build a game around the Realm vs. Realm combat that marked the best part of their previous game, Dark Age of Camelot. Rather than forcing players to go through a PvE leveling process that ultimately ends up being meaningless as everyone rushes toward the endgame, they wanted to create an MMO that was essentially "all endgame." Taking as their guide the Warhammer mantra that "War is everywhere," one of the biggest innovations in Warhammer Online is simply the level of integration between the various gameplay systems. PvE, PvP, RvR -- they all contribute to the ultimate end game of raiding and looting the enemy cities.

Everything begins as soon as players logs in to his or her level 1 character. The level 1-2 experience is the now-common 10-minute World of Warcraft-style tutorial in which the player is given a simple quest to kill some nearby mobs. Once players hit level 2, though, things start to change. Rather than being guided on a strictly linear path through a PvE the newbie zone, level two suddenly offers the player a half-dozen quests to perform in a much wider area. Some are indoors and some outdoors. Some require the player to utilize stand-alone gun emplacements, some require the player to explore and others are simply fast moving killing quests. The key is that the Warhammer Online experience almost immediately gets broader, not deeper. From their first few levels, players are educated in the fact that there's always somewhere to go and something interesting to do, no matter where they are.

This is reinforced through the rapid introduction of three more gameplay elements -- the Tome of Knowledge, Public Quests and Scenario RvR. The player first becomes aware of the Tome when he or she approached the first quest giver. In addition to getting a quest, there's always something in the area that gives players their first Tome unlock. The Empire starting area, for example, gives players entries on "The Empire," "The Plague," and "The Griffin Legion" along with entries on "Chaos," "Chaos Marauders" and several other creatures in the immediate area. Getting a message about them on the screen and seeing the glowing book at the top of the screens encourages the player to explore this vital part of the game.