Welcome to the Warhammer Online Grab Bag, where your friendly neighborhood community manager will answer the most popular, and most interesting, questions in a new regular feature. Many things aren't yet certain, so try to be patient with us. Trust me - we're as eager as you are to see the features finalized, so that we can hear what you've got to say.
A: There will definitely be some form of /follow for allies to use. It's just too useful. (As Designer Josh puts it: "The potential harm done to conga-lines by NOT having it would be immeasurable.")
The /stick command is a matter of debate at this time. (For any readers NOT familiar with MMOs, is in this context meant to describe a close-quarters version of /follow used on enemies to make staying on target easier.) We need to strike a balance between keeping the game fun for people of all different skill levels – but without removing the value of player skill entirely. We will no doubt test many different versions of this function before we make a final decision.
I know there are conflicting quotes out there in the great, dark void that is the internet – but things do change during production, and this answer is the official word as of March 8, 2007. (Yes, these things get written pretty far in advance!)
A: Producer Lance says swimming, yes, but underwater game play, no. "It's not necessary for a great Warhammer game," he says.
A: The WAR team is totally focused on developing systems and making content for the PC version right now.
A: Right now, we're planning to make the game available through DVD and through digital download. But to be totally honest with you, if your machine can't handle a DVD drive, I don't think you would enjoy playing WAR.
A: I passed this question to the gentleman in charge of such things, Designer Josh. Just read it. It's like a tiny window into the gaping void of insanity that produces fun games.
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How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Disc
I have a confession:
We weren't REALLY playing a drinking game during the conference call a few weeks back. I know we SAID we were drinking Scotch every time someone brought up the Disc of Tzeentch, but let's be honest – everyone involved would be dead now if we'd actually gone through with it.
People are fixated – FIXATED, I SAY – on the Magus and his wonderful, terrible Disc. Initially, I believed that the fans were simply curious, but now I believe darker forces are at play. It is my belief that the Disc itself is guiding the discussion. It seems to haunt the fans, quietly calling to them at night, demanding attention, compelling them to greater and greater depths of obsession.
"Asssssk them what happeeeeensssss when you go up stairssssss," it hisses to them as they sleep. "And what of going DOWN stairssss?" it quickly adds.
Answer: The Magus stays on the Disc.
"Asssssk them what happeeeeeenssss over WATER."
Answer: The Magus stays on the Disc and flies – ever so slowly – over the water.
"Asssssk them when you GET the Disssssc."
Answer: The Magus is always on the Disc. Always as in ALWAYS.
"Asssssk them what happeeeeeenssss when I make you.... er... when you CHOOOOOSE to jump off a cliff."
Answer: The Magus falls, but stays on the Disc. And it hurts. It's a hovercraft, not a jet-plane.
"Asssssk them if you can get off the Disssssc."
Answer: The Disc is controlled by the Magus, but only barely so. Were he to step off – to lose focus for even a moment – it is quite likely that his Disc would simply devour him. But WHY?
Because, to be honest, it's not a hovercraft. It's a shark. A Warp Shark, pulled from the Aethyr, made manifest as a strange corruption of metal and flesh.
"I have watched these creatures as they roamed the Aethyr's tides like shoals of barracuda, searching for vulnerable things that gutter and flicker within the depths of that cruel afterlife... In that uncertain realm these bizarre crosses between daemon and physical construct were smoky and indistinct creatures whose shifting forms hinted at a profusion of teeth and sparkling eyes that coruscated with Aethyric energy.
Yet when summoned to the Mortal Plane I know that their raw magical bodies assume more definite, although still bizarre and unlikely forms. They become those things from which they have earned their most common name, the Discs of Tzeentch, for the majority become round and flattened, perhaps covered in hungry eyes or sheathed in some sort of living metal."
- Richter Kless, Liber Chaotica: Volume the Fourth
I have faith that these answers will do nothing to stem the tide of curiosity regarding the Disc - such is the nature of its corrupt and fearsome power. It will not be denied. It will not be ignored. Just be aware that, if you wake up in the dead of night, drenched in cold sweat and desperately concerned with how the Disc of Tzeentch will respond to tall grass, fallen logs or Halfling carcasses, something may be putting those thoughts in your head.
Okay. Sanya here again. Join me as we back away slowly from the nice designer with the red eyes, and the gaping maw that crushes the sweet, tasty dreams of the innocent.
What I think Designer Josh was trying to say before he sacrificed a goat to his dark lord was that a magus will have his disc right from the very beginning, that a magus will not have any inherent speed or other travel bonus, that a magus will travel over water at the same speed that other characters are swimming, that a magus will take falling damage if he is foolish enough to jump from high places, that using the disc is second nature to the magus, and that a magus never, never, EVER gets off the disc. More than that, it's too soon to say.
We'll see you all here next month, and keep on sending those questions!
