It's always a thrill to see an invitation appear in my inbox to take part in a Warhammer Online conference call. For starters, you're destined to get a ton of quality information that you've probably not yet seen anywhere before. Secondly, the gang always puts on a show and will make you laugh as much as you learn. Where else can you hear people talk about not wearing pants, pig hats, and much, much more? Read on to find out what we found out.

Usually the calls involve only two people, but you know what, the more the merrier. On this particular conference call the following people were on to chat about Warhammer Online: Jeff Hickman (Senior Producer), Adam Gershowitz (Combat / Careers Lead), Josh Drescher (Associate Producer), Destin Bales (Content Director), and Paul Barnett. We've tried to list who told what when applicable, but sometimes the voices merged into one and it was hard to tell one voice from the next.

The conference call first started out with a general inquiry of how things were going with Warhammer Online now that it is in closed beta. Josh started to tell us that they just "finished testing some of our mid-level elven content," but soon he was yelled at not to spoil anymore. Paul clarified where they were at by saying, "It's not an open beta, it's a closed, targeted beta. We're not just randomly letting people wander around the game. We're opening targeted bits of the game and asking you to put all your efforts into this one little piece so we can test it, break it, and repair it." Josh did get to chime in at the end adding, "We're currently testing the campaign game – the high level campaign – which is the highest RvR sections of our game and testing out all the scenarios, keeps, and sieges."

There have been MMOs in the past where the beta processes haven't gone so well, often leading to a complete redo because of things players are saying negatively about the game. When it comes to Warhammer Online, however, it doesn't seem like there is a single negative thing being said anywhere. When asked about the feedback they are seeing coming from the beta, Jeff said, "Let me give you some feedback I got today that was written into our feedback system last night. I'm quoting. 'The terrain is incredible guys. RvR is really fun and it's great trying to push them back and makes the game really fun. The best. Using siege weapons are great. The art looks just like I'd expect, great job. This phase is awesome. I love the campaign – that is all. RvR is amazing.' That's just some quotes from beta last night."

For fans of the team's last MMO offering – Dark Age of Camelot – a question was brought up regarding what lessons have been learned and modes adapted from DAoC to Warhammer Online. "We learned a lot of great stuff from Dark Age of Camelot," said Jeff, "as far as how to balance out realms, how to balance out population, how to balance classes, what’s fun, what’s not, what do they enjoy doing in short bursts, and what do they enjoy doing in long bursts. A lot of the stuff we are doing with Warhammer was derived from Camelot. Some of these are the 'if only we could do this' when we were making Camelot, but we couldn’t. Warhammer builds on the great foundation that Camelot put in place for us, but it also differs greatly. Where Camelot was one frontier with a set number of keeps and zones that you could fight over, Warhammer is three different battle fronts, with battles raging across the world; open world RVR, unmatched combat, open world battlefield objectives, keeps with siege and also in scenarios which are evenly matched instanced combat. There are over 30 of these in the game at this point, with at least one in every zone. So, you have all these options and choices for the RVR game and all of that culminates into city sieges. Ransack your enemy’s capital city, burning, looting and pillaging, going for the ultimate prize the crown jewels of your enemy’s capital city."

A huge part of the RvR experience seems to be tied in heavily to the idea of siege weapons, giant tools you'll use to help turn the tide of war in your favor. One such siege weapon is the catapult, which isn't as easy as pointing and firing, as you have to adjust for things such as wind factor as well. Another weapon that seems to be a favorite among the women – or at least Jeff's wife – are the tubs of boiling oil you can spill on people trying to break in. " My beautiful wife Rayne absolutely loves standing on the parapet and spilling boiling oil on the enemy below trying to ram open the door. She giggles on hours at ends."

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