Massively goes to WAR: Is there any PvE in Warhammer's endgame?

by Michael Zenke Jun 5th 2008 at 11:45AM

Filed under: Fantasy, Warhammer Online, Massively Hands-on

Even at planned events, like our visit to EA Mythic last week, sometimes the most interesting conversations are those that happen naturally. We were in between two presentations last week, waiting for the next Warhammer Online walkthrough and informational talk, and had an unexpected lull. We used the opportunity to essentially ask the question that reader muub put to us way back in the middle of last week.

Muub asked, "How much did they work on the PVE aspect of the game? Are there just a couple of end game dungeons to appease the crowd or is it more in depth? Do they have any endgame raid dungeons?" The answer to those questions, we can now safely say, are: "A lot, it's more in-depth, and yes." Assuming that you want slightly more detailed answers than that, go ahead and read below the cut for our brief discussion on Warhammer Online's PvE endgame with Producer Jeff Skalski and Press Relations' Juli Cummins.

Gallery: Warhammer Online: Massively goes to WAR

The question people have is: Is there a PvE endgame? You've made that deliberate choice not to engage in RvR, but you're max-level. What is there for you to do?

Jeff Skalski: Well, I can't speak about some of our more epic dungeons like Lost Vale, high-level dungeons, which is plenty of high-level dungeon content. Really the last PvE encounters, the highest level in the game, are the King encounters. That's gated by very epic RvR encounters all the way up; that said, once those encounters are unlocked there's nothing stopping a player who prefers PvE from queuing up, entering a contested city (because he'll be safe in the contested city) and taking on the King encounter with his buddies.

Players can definitely experience the best part of the capital city content without doing RvR ... you'll just have to wait. You'll have to cross your fingers and hope that your RvR factional companions will unlock it for you.

Once it's unlocked, we open it up to that winning realm for a set amount of time so they can experience it. They can only do it once; they have more than one shot at it, we're not going to penalize you if you fail on the first try, but once you kill the King you can't do it again until the next city sacking. You can't farm the King.

Juli Cummins: Over the next couple of months we'll be releasing more information about those dungeons, the high level dungeons. Also, while the cities aren't contested, there's tons of content in there even for high-level players.

Jeff: Too, when the cities are captured, there's nothing stopping solo players or a group of PvE players from going into the city to do some dungeon crawling beneath the city. Once the city is captured, the opposing realm is pushed out until your side loses control, so there's no danger of players attacking them.

Once a City is captured, what happens to the inhabiting players? Where do they go for all of their basic needs?

Jeff: Outside the captured city is a refugee camp, and a black market. That's where the players who don't want to experience any of the RvR can go to get basic commodoties. They're not going to be crippled while the capital city combat is taking place. That said, we really want players to defend their city, and there are some great benefits for doing so. When the Fortress falls, if you're in the city, the game gives you the option: fight or flee? If you pick flee, it pushes you straight into the refugee camp. If you pick fight, you head into the instance and you're fighting directly against your city's attacker.

How long do you expect it to take players to crack into the end-level content?

Jeff: We'd be really excited if nobody could kill a king for a couple of months. That's the hallway conversation. There are definitely certain things we have in place, it's not just a matter of getting to him. You have to have the right gear, you have to take out the sub-bosses, you have to be set and ready.

Even to get to the king, you have to go through the campaign, you have to get through the fortress, you have to sack the city, you have to get through the gates ... we'd love a couple of months, but we'll see what happens.

Did you enjoy this? Make sure to check out all of our previous Warhammer Online coverage, and don't miss any of the rest of the articles in this series as Massively goes to WAR!

Tags: ea-mythic, endgame, featured, joystiqfeatures, massively-goes-to-war, pve, war, warhammer-online

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

muub said on 12:05AM 6-06-2008

Thank you guys for getting on this topic, it really helps knowing that there are PvE elements in the endgame scenario. Even though RvR will be huge its nice to know that there will be variety.

Leak said on 6:25PM 6-07-2008

I think it's really cool that to open end-game bosses you have to RvR.
That's actually an amazing idea.
I'm stoked to see how it turns out.

I'd just hate to play a realm that sucks at RvR..

J said on 6:20PM 6-09-2008

Biggest thing that's on my mind is whether these "raids" will require a the same number of people like WOW (25); that will probably decide whether I'll be playing this or not.

chriskovo said on 10:41AM 6-11-2008

Wow reading this, it might mean a deal breaker for most players. I mean come on you have to wait to sack a city before you get to raid a boss? Real people live on schedules and cant wait for the game to ALLOW them to raid. I mean come on i only have a limited time to play most of the time because of RL and id like to raid on my schedule. I like the fact that in wow i can sign up for a raid on the weekend and have immediate access to it, no muss no fuss. If they impliment it the way they are talking here its going to drive away alot of the older crowd. Which is also usually the more competent and mature people. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

yifes said on 5:06PM 6-12-2008

"I like the fact that in wow i can sign up for a raid on the weekend and have immediate access to it, no muss no fuss."

2 things:
1. You can still raid on your own schedule via WAR's public quest system.
2. When a faction's capitol is ransacked, the raid instances are open to you for like a week, so it is quite flexible when you raid.

"If they impliment it the way they are talking here its going to drive away alot of the older crowd."

You can still raid, but you can't farm the same raid boss repeatedly ad nauseum. This will not have much of an impact considering most people hate playing the same shit for the 50th time in a row.

chriskovo said on 9:04AM 6-13-2008

Already playing public quests and they are not the same thing. They are fun mind you but they are not a real raid. Not to mention that the pqs mainly benifit the people doing the most dps with loot so the healers are always screwed.

A week is not enough time, and you would never know what week you could get in, scheduling would be a bitch for big raids.

Also now that wow has opened up its raids to everyone its alot less boringing. Do Black temple one week then switch to Mount Hyjal or goto SSC or ZA. By time you get back to one you were bored with its not as boring then.

Melas said on 10:06PM 6-14-2008

Hey mate...if u dont like how the game system works...or if u dont ,as u say, have time to play in Raids... dont play the game! Or just sit tight in your WoW plaything...

U can instead pvp a lot , cause pvp is fun...WaR is mainly about PVP (RvR) ... So whoever doesn't like this...dont play the Game! Stay with WoW or LOTRO ..i dont know...

P.S.: I hate of ppl comparing MMOS ...(e.g. : wow is better, l2 is better, this is better of that, this doesn't have the feature of that mmo!)... ffs ! I am not saying u are one of them! But i cant this mmo comparison things...

Adam said on 9:24PM 7-02-2008

Well if you're really in the Beta, you're violating the NDA. All you're supposed to say is that yes, there is a beta, and that you're in it.

Waiting... said on 5:23PM 7-08-2008

Honestly, if you only dip into a raid once/month in WoW you'll burn most of your raid out fast by never progressing. By the very nature of the way that game is set up it takes awhile to train up people on how the fights work. So saying you can skip around on a week by week basis is pretty naive, unless you have the content on farm status in which case who really cares?

Now maybe you can flip-flop between two different raids, sure. But from everything I've experianced in order to get anywhere raiding in WoW you have to dedicate a decent chunk of time (we run an extremely light schedule - 2 nights, 3 hours a night - and even that seems like a chore some weeks). Especially once you add in things like rep grinds, repair grinds, consumable grinds... you get the picture.

I, personally, am looking forward to a game I won't have to schedule my time around in order to feel like I'm progressing. I love the idea of the PQ's, especially with there being what - like 300 in at launch? Sounds like something cool to grab a bunch of guildmates up and do when the bug hits us, and not being hung up by 3-4 people not making it online is even better sounding.

Last I heard they were still tweaking the way the loot was handled as well (from this past Origin convention - there's a youtube video up in 3 parts from the convention that's worth checking out). I'm pretty hopeful they get a good mix between tanks/DPS/healers for their contribution. That sort of thing would take time though, so maybe you just haven't seen the most recent version yet?

In any case, I'm ready for something far more casual than the endless grind that Bliz seems to think takes the place of fun. I'm hopeful it will be WAR - only time will tell.

Moirenn said on 11:51AM 7-24-2008

PQs are NOT raids. They are a mindless zerg fest of kill 30 archers now kill 15 mages now all zerg the boss mob if your side is the one that doesnt have a tank you get the dps to kite the boss.

If your side has a tank then you have the boss mob tanked everyone else just hits it. The end roll on loot /rinse/repeat.

There is 0 strategy involved in public quests. Good idea, terrible execution.