Rumor: Warhammer Online set to release on September 23rd

by Matt Warner Jul 26th 2008 at 6:00PM

Filed under: Betas, Fantasy, Events, real-world, Launches, New titles, PvP, Warhammer Online, News items, Rumors

We have a date! Not that kind of date, not the awkward first kind. This is a better date, one where Warhammer Online will be released unto the masses. There have been many 'release dates' since the game went into Beta testing, but this one seems like it might have legs. The preliminary launch date is September 23rd. This release date has been updated on several retail sites, but what lends to its credibility is the official EA site was recently updated with the same date.

The developers acknowledged at E3 2008 that Warhammer Online was pretty much done and that the team is in high-polish mode. The guild beta will also be the last beta phase before the open beta starts. Of course, nothing is official until EA and Mythic Entertainment release an official press release or statement but the pieces are falling into place. Aside from any unforeseen circumstances September 23rd is the day that Warhammer: Age of Reckoning will launch. Delay after delay, no longer. There is no denying that WAR is inevitable, and if you need a heads up on what to expect catch-up on all our exclusive WAR coverage.

[Via Nullword]

Tags: betas, breaking, ea, eamythic, joystiqfeatures, launches, mythic, mythic-entertainment, new-titles, release-date, september-23rd, war, war-launch, warhammer, warhammer-age-of-rec..., warhammer-online

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

SomeDude said on 9:37PM 7-26-2008

I'm so sick of WoW, please let this be true! I want some great RVR!

BookhouseBoy said on 9:44PM 7-26-2008

"Pretty much done", after they scrap 4 classes and 66% of the PVP capitals.

RogueJedi86 said on 5:16AM 7-27-2008

That's what I was thinking.....it's easy to be ready for release when you cut content. Don't you love deadlines?

Rastley said on 3:31AM 7-27-2008

Awesome but... what about the open beta? If that's the official release date I don't see it happening in any other way as a fsk-off week long demo.

Iconic said on 4:47AM 7-27-2008

Mark Jacobs has talked about the NDA dropping as quickly as a few weeks into guild beta (which is about a week old). So that *could* be as soon as next week. Open beta could occur with a few weeks after that, which means middle of August. That leaves potentially 3-4 weeks plus a head start weekend when the game goes live. That's cutting it all very close but it's still possible, if not likely, to have a decent length open beta.

exero said on 5:53AM 7-27-2008

I know Gamestop is never a good source for trusting release dates, however I got an email this morning from them advertising WAR, saying it will be released on sep 23rd as well. I pretty much disregarded the date until i saw other sources of it.

I hope it is true as well.

recursive said on 6:02AM 7-27-2008

Hmm.. release date coming up very soon, with no (or a very short) open beta period. But they assure us it's all done and open beta is a "publicity thing" anyways. I know another game where they thought of open beta like that..

Doesn't bode well imo.

recursive said on 6:45AM 7-27-2008

@Iconic

Keep in mind they have to go gold somewhere in that time as well. Are we starting off with an ueber patch or just no larger population testing?

pufonthis said on 10:04AM 7-27-2008

For those saying they dropped 66% of the RVR content and classes to make the date this is a little misleading.

For one, there are still twenty classes in the game. Far more than most other MMO titles. I'm sure you'll find something you like.

And second. A lot of new content (better content perhaps from the sound of it?) was added to the two remaining cities. Also they added fortresses in the areas that cities were taken out. These things make up for a lot of the lost content.

The point is, there will be PLENTY to do upon release. The game will play better because the stuff was removed and finally, they can (and probably will) be adding these areas back into the game at some point.

pufonthis said on 10:11AM 7-27-2008

There are so many people testing this game right now. Having a short "open" beta really won't make much of a difference. What WILL make the difference is if they have LISTENED to the large amount of people currently testing the game.

That other game you elude to seemed like they either didn't listen to the testers or just didn't have time to fix things.

It has been stated by Mark Jacobs that the game is far enough along right now that it's in the "polishing stages". If this is true then what do you expect massive amounts of new beta testers to test? - "Yes uh, I think that piece of armor should be green, not red".

Waiting... said on 11:50AM 7-27-2008

Yeah, the people tossing around "66% of end-game content" so casually are being quite misleading. The main focus of the game is still there, and there will be four other capitols in down the line that we won't have to pay for.

Now losing the classes sucks, sure, but this is an example of them listening to their Beta testers rather than going forward with someone's pet design vision that wasn't working. Open Beta really isn't the place to do much more than stress testing - if you're testing major parts of the game in OB, you're probably in trouble anyway.

Very much looking forward to giving the game a whirl.

Pingmeister said on 11:55AM 7-27-2008

I gave up all PvP when it started getting exclusive. Groups would only take you if you had a specific spec or armor sets.

If this game can make casual PvP accessible I may give it a shot.

I don't care what the company does at release. I'll wait it out in another MMO and see down the line what this game turns into.

recursive said on 12:14PM 7-27-2008

Well, you're entitled to your opinion, but I've not seen anything besides what Mythic has promised us.

I think you're understanding of the use of a beta period is a bit lacking btw, especially after just rebalancing a lot of the content. Will be interesting to see if the NDA lifts anytime soon.

Tony said on 2:56PM 7-27-2008

I actually bothered to pre-order this one because the bonus stuff was actually cool for once. Looking forward to it!

possum said on 3:10PM 7-27-2008

i have a really good reason to do this................*cough*

Jon said on 7:51PM 7-27-2008

There actually can't be that much balancing to do. Of the 4 classes removed, 2 are mirrored classes of the remaining 2. So yes, they did have to balance the classes that survived the cut to appropriate the loss of a melee and tank class for each realm, (by adding more options to the career mastery of the Black Orc, Disciple, Ironbreaker, and Warrior Priest to add melee and tank specs respectively) but as far as balancing the remaining classes, removing equal values on both ends of the equation is gonna leave everything still equal. That's just algebra!

Anesthesia said on 11:40PM 7-27-2008

I'm tired of this 66% cut nonsense. They cut 4 cities. Let's call them zones. They each had 3 'raids'; two equivalents to Bright College and Temple of Sigmar, and the King Fight. Let's figure they also had 2 dungeons like Altdorf seems to, the skaven and the Nurgle ones.

In total, that's 4 zones, 12 city raids and 8 city dungeons cut.

What's still in the game?

Well, there's 29 other zones, 6 city raids, 4 city dungeons, ~100 public quests, 15-ish Scenarios, the Tome of Knowledge, yaddah yaddah blah blah blah.

That's not 66%.

And neither is cutting 4 out of 24 classes.

Seriously, so what? It's not like they released this stuff and then took it away from you. They just talked about it and then said sorry, it's not in.

Play the game or don't, I don't care. But just stop with the 66% nonsense.

Tim said on 7:28AM 7-28-2008

my ovaries are quivering with excitement

BookhouseBoy said on 11:34AM 7-28-2008

The funny thing is it's only the people who are complaining about my use of the phrase, "66% of the PVP capitals" who are changing it to mean something else, and then complain about it !

I said, specifically, the PVP capitals. 4 out of 6 is 66%. It's not my fault that this is the way math works, but it is.

Waiting... said on 11:44AM 7-28-2008

Actually Bookhouse, if you scroll back up there you'll see that the way you phrased it it a bit odd.

'"Pretty much done", after they scrap 4 classes and 66% of the PVP capitals.'

Doesn't help that the word capitals in your post wraps around to the next line so the eye naturally flows into thinking you said "after they scrap 4 classes and 66% of the PvP".

There's just so much more to the game that it's become a pretty big point of contention. Personally, I like to think they know what they're doing and have a vision of a final product that will be excellent. Without all the data we don't share that vision, so how bout we just wait and see?