Silkroad Online Forums

Been playing it for the last 2 months. It's awesome, although I can't say anything about it without chances of getting sued. I will however say that I quite enjoy the Magus and Sorceress classes (The Magus floats around on a really cool looking disc).

Also, from the looks of it, it's going to be in closed beta for about another month. After that, I'll post all the awesome high level pictures I've compiled.

Actually hopefully the NDA will be lifted tomorrow because, Mythic has a showing at comiccon or something.

CrimsonNuker: There is PvE, but most of the game is about RvR, and PvP.

EA PREPARES FOR WAR AND ANNOUNCES SHIP DATE FOR
WARHAMMER® ONLINE: AGE OF RECKONING™


Mythic Entertainment Declares September 18, 2008 a "Day of Reckoning"


FAIRFAX, Va. - August 5, 2008 - Hot on the heels of spectacular showings at E3 and Comic-Con, Mythic Entertainment, an Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) studio, today announced that fans will be able to enter the gritty fantasy world of Warhammer® Online: Age of Reckoning™ (WAR) on September 18th, 2008 when the highly-anticipated MMORPG goes live. After three years in development by Virginia-based Mythic Entertainment, WAR will open its North American, European and Oceanic servers and offer players a variety of flexible subscription options. Gamers who pre-order WAR in North American will enjoy special benefits including open beta admission, a live game head start, and bonus in-game items.

Based on Games Workshop's epic and longstanding tabletop fantasy war game, WAR is a unique MMORPG that features revolutionary Realm vs. Realm™ (RvR) gameplay that will immerse players in a world of perpetual conflict for years to come. WAR has been recognized for its unique play style that appeals to novice MMO players while offering incredible depth for more seasoned players.

Consumer demand for WAR is mounting with all units of the game's Collector's Edition having been pre-sold in North America. In addition, the title is receiving significant media attention, picking up numerous critic awards at this year's E3, including "Best PC Game" from G4's XPlay, "Best MMO" from IGN and Voodoo Extreme, and "Top 10 PC Game" from Gamespy, as well as being nominated for the prestigious Game Critic's Awards "Best PC Game".

"The countdown has officially begun. Mark your calendars! September 18th is the Day of Reckoning," said Mark Jacobs, founder and general manager of Mythic Entertainment. "For the last three years, the entire team at Mythic has poured their hearts into making Warhammer Online the next great MMORPG. We are so excited to open up this world and share it with the fans that will live in it, quest in it, go to war in it and make it come alive."

Fans looking forward to laying siege to their enemy's capital city will have several pricing options available, beginning with a $14.99 monthly subscription. Additionally, collectible 30- and 60-day prepaid Game Time™ Cards will be available at many game retailers. WAR subscription options include:

* Monthly Subscription: $14.99 USD
* 3-Month Subscription: $41.97 ($13.99 per month)
* 6-Month Subscription: $77.94 ($12.99 per month)

Players can now pre-order their copy of WAR to secure their spots on the frontlines with a special pre-order package that includes:

* Open beta admission: Pre-order customers can experience the glory of battle and the thrill of WAR by participating in the open beta test.
* Head Start program: Players can begin their adventures in the Age of Reckoning before the game's official launch.
* Bonus in-game items: Players can equip their characters with two bonus in-game items by pre-ordering from select retail partners.
* Universal Fighting System™ Battle Deck: The Emperor Karl Franz and Tchar'zanek, dread Champion of Tzeentch, go head-to-head in this exclusive collectible card game from Fantasy Flight Games. (Available in a limited supply from select retailers.)

Participating pre-order partners include Amazon.com, Best Buy, Circuit City, Direct2Drive, EAStore.com, EB Canada, EB Games, Fry's, Futureshop, GameCrazy, GameStop, GoGamer.com, and Walmart.com. (Pre-order offers will vary by retailer.) The European pre-order program is scheduled to begin in late August. For more information about the North American pre-order program, visit http://www.warhammeronline.com/preorder.

Available for the PC, WAR is rated "T" for TEEN by the ESRB. WAR will be the first MMORPG to launch servers simultaneously in North America, Europe, and Oceania when it goes live on September 18th, 2008. For more information, visit http://www.warhammeronline.com/.

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About Warhammer® Online: Age of Reckoning™
Experience the glory of Realm vs. Realm™! Declare your allegiance and join hundreds of thousands of mighty heroes on the battlefields of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, the new MMORPG from Mythic Entertainment, the creators of Dark Age of Camelot™. Enter a grim fantasy world of perpetual conflict to fight for the Realms of Order (Dwarfs, High Elves, and Empire) or Destruction (Greenskins, Dark Elves, and Chaos). Invade enemy lands, besiege imposing fortresses, and sack sprawling capital cities for the glory of your Realm. Wield devastating magic and deadly weapons, battle monstrous creatures, and join your brothers-in-arms in epic Public Quests™. Climb the Bastion Stair, carry your Guild Banner into battle, and unlock the infinite secrets of the Tome of Knowledge as you travel the world. Sharpen your blade and unleash your inner mutation; the Age of Reckoning has begun and WAR IS EVERYWHERE!

About Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA), headquartered in Redwood City, California, is the world's leading interactive entertainment software company. Founded in 1982, the company develops, publishes, and distributes interactive software worldwide for video game systems, personal computers, cellular handsets and the Internet. Electronic Arts markets its products under four brand names: EA SPORTS™, EA™, EA SPORTS Freestyle™ and POGO™. In fiscal 2008, EA posted GAAP net revenue of $3.67 billion and had 27 titles that sold more than one million copies. EA's homepage and online game site is http://www.ea.com. More information about EA's products and full text of press releases can be found on the Internet at http://info.ea.com.

EA, EA SPORTS, EA SPORTS Freestyle, POGO, Mythic Entertainment, Dark Age of Camelot, Public Quests, Realm vs. Realm, and Game Time are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Games Workshop, Warhammer, Warhammer Online, Age of Reckoning, and all associated marks, names, races, race insignia, characters, vehicles, locations, units, illustrations and images from the Warhammer world are either ®, ™ and/or © Games Workshop Ltd 2000-2008. Used under license by Electronic Arts Inc. All Rights Reserved.

All other trademarks are the property of their respective licensors.

Folks,

Well, the big day is here as this morning saw some major announcements hit the newswire. I’ll now go into some detail regarding the press release as well as make some other announcements here. I’ll also give some color to the stuff that has been swirling around here lately:

1) Our launch date of September 18th is indeed official. Last week I had said that this week’s news wasn’t going to cover the release date but some things came together just a wee bit faster than we expected (and how surprising is that?). Plus, with the retailers announcing the date (though some did put in the wrong date), we felt that we owed it to the community to announce our release date a little earlier than planned. Coordinating all the partners, retailers, etc., is as usual, *interesting* so we made the decision to announce the date today. As always, that date is still dependent on the remainder of beta going well, but as of this morning we are still on track for the 18th. As to why it’s on a Thursday, in order to ensure a simultaneous launch in North America and Europe and Oceania, we determined that Thursday was the optimal day and date. Coordinating a simultaneous launch in North America and Europe alone is quite challenging and because we did not want our European customers to have to wait even a few days longer than those in North America, we chose Thursday as the best possible day of the week to launch. With a launch on the 18th, WAR’s development time will still rank as one of the shortest of any major North American and European MMORPGs to date. I am amazingly proud of our team’s effort and I hope, in about a month, you’ll agree that WAR is a great MMORPG.

2) As to the subscription pricing, this subject has been debated continually since we announced the development of WAR. We have been very upfront with the community about our willingness to charge more than what is the current “established” MMO subscription rate, just as we did when we launched DAoC. We have seen lots of polls, heard lots of comments and after much thought and discussion, we decided to keep prices on the same level with the competition. We know that the vast majority of the community will be happy with this decision so we’re happy to be able to do this for our players.

3) Regarding the pre-order, Collector’s Edition and the Standard Edition, I’m pleased to announce that we will be holding a special “Preview Weekend” in addition to the normal Open Beta. Those people who pre-ordered the CE will be given priority entrance into the PW. You will need to download the client (of course) from one of several download options, none of which will require any additional payment of any kind. Once the CE buyers have had their chance to register and download the client, we will allow our Closed Beta testers into the PW as well. We would like to have around 100K people load testing and playing the game so depending on how many CE purchasers sign up for this, we will invite other people into the PW as well.

4) Regarding the pre-order, Collector’s Edition and the Standard Edition, we are extending the Head Start for the pre-order CE (not the SE) buyers by at least an additional day as an added thank you for buying our CE. Just as with the PW, no additional fee will be required to play in our Head Start.

5) Regarding the pre-order, Collector’s Edition and the Standard Edition, we are pleased to announce that we will also be inviting our pre-order CE buyers into our Closed Beta test starting next week. There will still be some hardware spec requirements (but they are much lower than our current requirements) since we are still in Closed Beta but we expect that the vast majority of our PO CE buyers will meet the lowered requirements. We gotten a lot of feedback from the community on this point over the last few weeks asking for this and we are now going to make it happen.

6) Regarding the start of OB, we are still working out all the details and when we are 100% locked into a date, we will be happy to confirm it unequivocally. As the history of MMOs has shown, a bad OB can hurt both the long-term and the short-term the success of a game just as surely as a great OB can help the game succeed and we need to make sure that we are ready for OB on the day it begins.

7) Regarding the NDA lift, we hope to lift the NDA next week, one month before launch. I wish I could lift it right now but as I’ve said elsewhere, we need to take care of a three issues before the NDA is lifted. One has already been taken care of and I hope that by the end of next week, the other two will be taken care of as well. Once we lift the NDA I’ll go into more detail as to what the issues were and why I wanted to hold things up. The remaining two issues are not earth-shattering by any means but when I explain things, I hope you’ll understand why I wanted to wait another week.



So, that’s it for today’s announcements. We will have more over the remaining weeks before launch but I believe that all of these announcements are both great news for the community and well in keeping with our long-standing approach of talking with and getting feedback from the community. Whether it is the longer HS, the extra PW or the subscription pricing, we have shown that we are responsive to the needs/desires of our community and will act accordingly.

I hope that these announcements both fulfill my promise of major news this week as well as news that was going to make the entire community very happy. This message is chock full of more positive things that almost any I have been able to deliver about WAR since we signed the deal for Warhammer three years ago.

I also hope that these announcements, taken along with the previews that we have been receiving, show the community that WAR is both coming and coming along nicely.


Mark