Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning : open

Open Beta Update

Zyuu — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 12:52:26 GMT

Based on what Mythic Entertainment's latest "Open Beta Update" we're going to have a very stable build when the game is released. Great news!

Reminder:

Hello everyone, We've received a lot of great feedback from Open Beta already and have some great changes in the works that we'll be adding over the next few days and shortly after launch.

It's exciting to see how much everyone is enjoying the game and we can't wait to see you all playing come launch. Below are just some of the areas we're working on and the changes we have planned. We'll continue to monitor in-game for your feedback and work to make your experience even better! Please continue reading for all the details.

Improvements to RvR Itemization

We feel that it's important for players to be able to play RvR and PvE without missing out on appropriate loot for their level and career. Please see the post for more detail about our plans for bringing RvR loot into line with our goals:

http://warherald.com/warherald/NewsArticle.war?id=242...

Loot Sparkles

We've continued to improve loot sparkles and have corrected one last small bug that caused corpses to sparkle even when you weren't able to loot them.

Pet User Interface

In the near future we'll be working to make sure the Pet UI stays up for as long as your pet does so that it doesn't on occasion disappear when you log out or zone. For now you can re-open the Pet UI window simply by summoning another pet.

Continued Improvements to Performance and Crash to Desktop Errors

Your ability to play the game smoothly is always our most important goal. We continue to work to apply fixes that will make your experience even more enjoyable. To help us out and make the experience better for you, be sure you have up-to-date drivers - including audio! Out of date video and audio drivers are among the highest contributors to game crashes.

“Ability Not Ready Yet”

We've recently improved ability responsiveness which will reduce the chance of you receiving the "Ability Not Ready Yet" message erroneously. This should help combat feel more natural!

Open RvR Ruleset Change

You've given us your feedback and we've listened! Open RvR servers will now allow you to play one tier below your current level without turning into a chicken. This will allow you more time to experience the PvE content of the first 3 tiers, and it also adds more danger to the mix.

Improved Graphics Options

We've got some great plans for improved graphics options as we continue through launch. Our number one priority is player performance. It's important in an RvR game for performance to be smooth and allow the game to be accessible to as many people as possible. In order to achieve our goals, we had to ensure a certain level of compatibility between devices. With all of the combinations and options available, we wanted to keep things simple and accessible to everyone.

With that in mind, we have a fix that may improve the ability of higher end machines to load textures, and we will continue to smooth out the process of the way textures load on your screen. In addition to this, we are exploring other options to add which will further enhance the graphics for mid to high range computers. For now, many users are able to turn on features such as anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering using their cards drivers.

This is just a sample of what's to come. We thank all of you for your enthusiastic participation in the Open Beta so far! We'll continue to monitor in-game and across all of our dedicated community forums for your feedback, and make your experience even better. Keep up the great work, have fun and prepare for WAR!

WAAAGH!!!

- The Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning Team

EU Open Beta Situation

Zyuu — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 00:42:44 GMT

An employee from GOA has posted an open letter regarding the current status of the European Warhammer Online Open Beta which experienced many problems as it opened its doors yesterday. Furthermore, the CEO of GOA also went out with an announcement.

Iain 'Requiel' Compton - English Community Manager said:

Firstly let's get the obvious stuff out of the way. Yesterday was in no way, shape or form a success. A lot of things went very wrong. Funnily enough however they didn't go wrong in the way most people thought they would or for the reasons that were being thrown around.

The website and our entire platform got hammered yesterday - which we expected. We knew how many open beta keys we'd given away and what sort of traffic to expect as a result. We got a lot more than we were expecting and yet the platform held up, the site slowed down (which was inevitable with the sheer volume of traffic, even a basic HTML page would have been slow under that onslaught) but everything stayed up. This is pretty much the big ray of sunshine that we took away, our datacentre took the onslaught and survived unscathed.

The account system broke. This wasn't down to the traffic (although that was a factor), nor the fact that the page was in Flash. There was a problem with our database server which didn't surface during testing. As you can read in the news, we have been working on this all night and we expect this to be resolved soon. Ultimately the system didn't work but we're glad we found the issue now in beta rather than before the headstart or live begins. Many of you criticised the decision to bring the account pages online the same day as the beta began but this was not the cause of the problems. While yesterday was a very painful day for us, there is a silver lining because it means that our headstart and live launch will be significantly more robust.

There was some miscommunication as well which falls entirely on us. The confusion over people with war-europe accounts not needing to create a new beta account was the main issue, other than that the team who were in the office yesterday worked very hard to keep you updated. Magnus and the other CMs who were working yesterday were in the office from 7:30am through to 3am this morning. During that time our teams were working on several different situations at once and the situation was often in a state of considerable flux. We had technical teams working on various solutions, management teams dealing with our partners and, for the most part, these people were busy fixing things rather than writing status reports that were likely to be out of date by the time they hit the CM team. Despite that, Magnus and the others posted what they had, when they had it both on the official news site and around the various fan forums.

Overall then, some things went right - not many to be sure and the important things certainly didn't. We made some mistakes, we expected many problems and we found some entirely different ones. We disappointed many of you by not letting you get into the open beta when we said you would and for that I am sorry. All of us are disappointed that we couldn't bring you the service you expected. I wasn't at work yesterday, Magnus was the man on the scene covering the situation, but I did keep a close eye on forums and was in contact with the guys in the office. A lot of what was said yesterday here and on other forums was entirely out of line. Of course you were disappointed and criticism is certainly warranted but frankly many of the posts made about the situation were borderline sociopathic. If having delayed access to a beta test really drives you to such depths of anger and fury that you felt compelled to make the death threats, racial slurs and other deeply unpleasant posts then - and there is no polite way to put this - there is something wrong with you.

Today we have a lot of people at the office who are preparing to put in a long week after a long weekend to make things right. This isn't magically going to make yesterday alright but we are very much committed to making sure that you aren't disappointed again.

Ghislaine Le Rhun, GOA CEO said:

Dear all,

I rarely address players directly, but I wanted to write you as too few of you have been able to access the open beta today.

As my team explained in the previous post, although we have opened the servers and corrected numerous issues during the last 24 hours but we have not yet solved the issue of saturated Open Beta key activations that we’re currently experiencing. I am sincerely sorry for this, and I understand all the frustration the situation has spawned.

Today was a dark day. We expected a massive influx of players, but reality was even harsher.
I personally commit that we will communicate to you as clearly as possible on the resolution of these current issues. My goal is to give Warhammer Online the success it deserves. Be ensured that all GOA teams, with Mythic’s support, are working hard to bring you the best possible game experience.

Are you having problems accessing your European Warhammer Online account currently? Share your experience!

GOA Confirms Open Beta, Definitely Lowers Prices

Zyuu — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 02:07:06 GMT

RPS has posted information about the state of Warhammer Online and all the talk about beta testing and the fact that there's no official word on the monthly sub fees as of yet.

GOA has responded with some good information:

“Pre-ordering a standard edition from most of our partners will not automatically give you Open Beta access as we have said previously. We will however be announcing a list of ‘preferred partners’ who will be selling the pre-order with Open Beta access. A full list of these partners will be included with the main announcement this week, I can confirm that both the EA Store and D2D are preferred partners and so those of you who have already placed an order need not worry that you won’t get what you were offered.”

Open Beta Details

Zyuu — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:36:51 GMT

Today Mythic Entertainment went out and announced the open beta of Warhammer Online. 7th September 2008 is the date and thousands of fans will be able to play the very much anticipated PvP-focused MMORPG. Furthermore, WAR will be released the 18th September this year.

In order to access the open beta there's a few ways, you can either pre-order the game or hope you get one of them limited spots via FilePlanet.com, which is the site that Mythic Entertainment and Electronic Arts will work together to distribute open beta access.

"For three years we have been saying that ‘WAR is coming’ and the team has been working hard to deliver on this promise,” said Mark Jacobs, co-founder and general manager of Mythic Entertainment. "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!"

There are a total of 75.000 open beta keys which will go out and they already started to have the beta client available via Fileplanet as of last Friday the 15th. http://www.fileplanet.com/promotions/warhammeronline/... is the URL and it’s a first-come, first serve basis! Hurry. Apparently they are hosting the client only for North America, Australia, and New Zealand players.

If you previously had North American closed beta access your account will carry over to the closed beta – which is great news, but also kind of expected.

If you have pre-ordered the game go to the account center at http://accounts.warhammeronline.com and enter your open beta code, then you get access to download the client via FilePlanet at zero additional cost.

Prior to the open beta, Mythic will be hosting a special North American Beta Preview Weekend, from August 22nd through August 25th, and 100,000 players will be invited to end the closed beta with a bang. Those who pre-ordered the now sold-out Collector’s Edition will get top priority, but all are welcome to sign up at FilePlanet.com and try for a spot in this exciting event!

Don't forget to check out Warhammer Alliance for the latest Warhammer Online discussions and much more!