Warhammer Online is celebrating the fourth of July and summer in general by offering some in-game bonuses, and providing some explosive incentives for participating in RvR. WAR's James Nichols announced the event's official opening yesterday, saying, "It's our way of saying thanks, have fun, and enjoy the start of summer with a BANG!" As part of the event, all players can now take advantage of a 10% bonus to experience and renown gain. On top of this, slain enemy players will drop fireworks that can be used to revel in your victory -- we imagine large skirmishes will end with a whole bunch of colorful explosions for the duration of the celebrations.

These bonuses will be in effect for about a week and a half, ending on the 7th of July.

Today is patch day for Warhammer Online players -- huzzah! Bug and balance fixes are of course in full swing, but the big news is the Land of the Dead live event launch. Of course, before getting to any of those juicy new content areas, players will have to participate in the brand new live event: Rise of the Tomb Kings.

This event is the final chapter for Mythic's Call to Arms content expansion and functions as a good intermediary between those initial massive updates and these new ones. So while plenty of content is indeed being added today, there's a lot more on the way in the coming months, too.

We'll be giving you plenty of coverage on the ins and outs of patch 1.3, so keep your eyes peeled for more.

The 1.2 patch for Warhammer Online is barely a week old, but Chaos Moon managed to speak with Mythic's Carrie Gouskos about many a things -- including some hints for the 1.3 patch. There was also some general discussion of future updates to the Tome of Knowledge and much love from Carrie concerning the Book of Grudges mod. We're pretty excited to hear stat tracking for Scenarios and oRvR battles are on their way.

Of course the big news concerns clues of what to expect in the next big patch. Following some of Carrie's comments, it sounds as though the Tome of Knowledge could be getting a new feature or two in the 1.3. update. Additionally, some further UI information and visual improvements are on the was as well -- although Carrie mentions the visual boost will be minor.

What sorts of UI improvements could be on the way? The added layer of information to the open party and world map systems in 1.2 have been very well received, but going from Carrie's comments it seems as though something much more exciting is on the way. Given the size of the first two live events, something tells us Mythic will be showing off whatever it is they're working on next in a big way.

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	Mythic has announced the first expansion to Warhammer Online! Check out the announcement itself, the two brand-new classes coming to the game, and the enormous new dungeon/zone slated for a few months away! Plus, don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!

Warhammer Online players are in the midst of the Bitter Rivals live event, plus another big new patch. I'm going to guess that it probably took a lot of development muscle to get the Black Guard, Knight of the Blazing Sun, Slayer and Choppa in a fun, playable shape. Not to mention the improvements to open RvR, Scenarios, PvE and general quality of life fixes.

I have no doubt that the east coast developer has the next several patches planned out to some degree. Nonetheless, Mythic, Warhammer Online and its community are at a development crossroads -- and so today I'm going to explore a few possibilities.

Dwarf Slayers are just about ready to start hitting the live Warhammer Online servers for all their worth. With the orange tide imminent, I've been running around the test server for the past several days, looking to learn all I could about these wonders of Dwarven kind. Including -- but not limited to -- the underlying cogs of their special mechanic, how they handle PvP and PvE, and most importantly where they hide their booze -- here's a hint: it's underneath something.

Now, with many honorable deaths under my massive beard, I've come here to present you, our dear readers, with a neatly packed bundle of information.

In stark contrast to the extremely in-game-oriented Grab Bag No. 8, Grab Bag No. 9, the "CS Special", focuses on interactions with the game's CSRs. The Customer Service team put together a list of some of the questions they see on the job and then answered them in detail, so that maybe, just maybe, a handful of players will find out what they needed to know and not have to bother them.

Some of the answers are quite interesting. For example, did you know that you can't check whether a player you appealed for exploiting ended up getting banned, due to privacy policies? If you really hate them, perhaps you should send along some extra complaints to make sure your dirty work is carried out -- okay, that sort of goes against the spirit of the Grab Bag to make less work for the CSRs, so let's not do that. Only if you really really hate them.

In all seriousness, the Grab Bag does give some good insight into exactly what the CS team can do for you, and how to approach certain issues. Make sure to check it out before you file your next appeal.

Another round of mysterious packages have been sent to the Warhammer Online blogging community, but this time it's not about additional classes -- oh no, this time it's personal. As in it's something of a personal ad sent by those blood-obsessed individuals known as Witch Elves. Rainbow MMO was the lucky recipient of this not-so-subtle hint at something happening in the second week of February, and of course it didn't take long for others to get in on the action as well.

The prominent guess by the fellows over at Wizards & Wenches is all of this is related to an official Dark Elf holiday called Death Night. This would be an evening where Witch Elves go crazy, pulling anyone off the street and sacrificing them to their dark god. Some of these crazed death-worshipers even go so far as to raid people's homes, which is why many Dark Elves board up their doors and windows in fear of being witch-napped.

Assuming this is landing on Valentines day (second week in February) and that Mythic is all about embracing the horror and "awesomosity" of the Warhammer IP, we'd wager that the Death Night guess is a pretty good bet.

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	WAR has gone 1.1! Check out our full coverage of the 1.1a patch, along with our interviews exploring upcoming content and the open RvR changes. Plus, don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!

Gather around folks, get comfortable; we've got a tale of fantasy, kings and wizards to share with you. As seems to be the norm with our friendly neighborhood Mythic developers, Brian Wheeler has done his best to avoid bringing us a boring and straightforward Dev Diary, instead opting to explain his role of Senior Designer for Warhammer Online through a short story.

It turns out that game designers are not unlike the great wizards Merlin and Gandalf (coincidentally, these two exist in the same space in Wheeler's fantasy world, and often enjoy a pint together) in that they come up with multiple ideas and solutions for a single problem, and present them all to the king to decide which will be used. They aren't necessarily ideas that the king couldn't figure out on his own, but the wizards can afford to spend all their time researching every possible strategy, giving the king the freedom to attend to other business. That's the short version -- to read Wheeler's longer and much more entertaining take, visit the latest WAR dev diary.

We've asked our readers before if they like to roleplay, but maybe more folks would jump on board with a little primer to help them along. The GOA team have made their "Short Guide to Roleplaying" available on the Warhammer Online site to promote RPing, and educate those that have a vague interest in the matter but don't know what to do. It all begins at character creation. Hint: there's more to it than just choosing how your avatar looks (although that's important too). Deciding on your character's personality and background is also part of the creation, as well as fitting everything into the existing Warhammer lore.

The guide itself isn't too WAR-specific, and could be used by any MMOer looking to brush up on their roleplaying skills. GOA did however interview a roleplaying fan from the Burlok server, who said that the lack of a "walk" option and the inability to sit down are two things that could be changed to make the RPing experience even better in WAR. Despite the issues that seem to come up in most popular MMOs with RPing, the interview suggests that WAR's roleplayers are already having a pretty good time.

Okay, that's a pretty sensational headline, so we're not going to waste any time at all here. WARHAMMER ONLINE. Yep, a computer game. Not the bad kind of war. The people of Russia will get to enjoy a new game -- we're not in the business of reporting on emerging world conflicts. A fully localized version of WAR will be released in Russia on the 5th of February in three versions: a barebones jewel case package that includes the game and a key for an account with 14 days play-time; a limited edition pack with metal casing, a Russian user manual and 30 days play-time; and a collector's edition that has the perks we've seen in other regions, and is limited to 5100 copies.

Brand new servers will be opened up for the incoming Russian players. Better yet, they will be locally based, and so will the region's customer support. Apart from that, there's not really much more to say here -- in fact, we're going to call it right now before the temptation to use the "In Soviet Russia..." line takes over. Welcome to the WAR, comrades.

Well, the first week of Warhammer Online 'Age of Blogging' has come and gone. It sure did go by in a Mary Poppins on 'spoonfuls of sugar' blur. So what was the eventual end-product of all those bloggers pounding their fingertips for the last 168 hours? A whole truck-load of posts collected by The Greenskin blog about Warhammer Online from lots of new sources, which was certainly the goal -- albeit for the month of January.

There are posts covering everything from exploiting terrain in-game to roleplaying your Orc or High Elf. So hats off to you, new and old WAR bloggers, for taking the first steps towards creating a robust community around your MMO of choice. Of course, now the trick is to keep the steam running high and the rails hot with locomotion. Wait, did we just use a train metaphor? I think we did, oh boy.

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	WAR has gone 1.1! Check out our full coverage of the 1.1a patch, along with our interviews exploring upcoming content and the open RvR changes. Plus, don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!

As was hinted at in a video featuring Mythic's Jeff Hickman not so long ago, the latest update to Warhammer Online's Fortress gameplay was only the beginning of a larger plan to improve the playability of this important aspect of the game. Mark Jacobs has now elaborated on these future plans, at the same time as giving a report on how the new update has been going on the live servers -- on the night of Jacobs' post, there were no Fortress-related crashes, and general performance was better but not quite where they want it yet.

There are three initiatives that the dev team hope to put their focus on in the coming weeks. One of these is simply to see how the new population threshold is working, to determine if and how it should be tweaked with respect to balance and design issues. At the same time, they will be keeping an eye on the Fortress Lords to make sure that their difficulty aligns with the number of players attending a siege. The third change will involve optimizing the code that deals with large-scale battles, in the hopes of being able to open up the population threshold some more. Let's hope they succeed with this last effort, as some fans already have their torches and pitchforks out due to the reduced scale of these end-game encounters.

Warhammer Online's Grab Bag 7 discusses the recruit-a-friend and trial programs, as well as a handful of quite specific questions relating to dungeons and items found later in the game -- in other words, it's got a bit of something for everyone. There's good news for Europe, as the recruit-a-friend promotion is being sorted out by GOA right now and should be available to Europeans soon. Some confusion regarding the trial client is also cleared up; yes, it is the same as the retail game client, but trialing players who want to subscribe will still need to pick up a retail copy to get an account key.

Perhaps the most interesting bit of trial-related information is that a standalone trial, independent of recruit-a-friend, is on its way too. The introduction of free trials usually feels like the beginning of a new stage in an MMO's life, reminding you that they're not that new anymore and should have had time to find their feet.. Occasionally free trials are brought about in an attempt to save a sinking ship, but we really don't think that's the case here. You can read about the trials, along with the answers to some other miscellaneous questions, at the latest Grab Bag.

The Greenskin blog has put together a top ten list of what they'd like to see for Warhammer Online in '09. Aimed at making sure the game finds continued success in the coming year, the list focuses on giving the game a lot of polish and fine-tuning. Specifically it calls for the death of bugs, CTDs and endgame performance issues. We don't think anyone would really disagree with these sentiments, because nothing is worse than suddenly seeing your Pretty Pretty Princess wallpaper right when you were about to capture The Inevitable City.

As for the expansion announcement in 2009, we do think it would be very nice to hear, but only if fixes and such have been plentiful by that point. The best thing to do, in our humble opinion, would be to get all the kinks out, massage some new features in and then make an announcement.

Update: Mark Jacobs has responded to the list, here was what he had to say,

"Folks,

Done. While I don't agree with everything contained within the paragraphs under the priorities themselves, I think that the top ten is just about dead on balls accurate. We have a number of other things I'd add to the list but I'll talk about them down the road.

Nice article.

Mark"

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	WAR has gone 1.1! Check out our full coverage of the 1.1a patch, along with our interviews exploring upcoming content and the open RvR changes. Plus, don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!