Recently, Killer Betties got to participate in a conference call with the folks over at Mythic Entertainment about their upcoming MMORPG Warhammer Online. The guys were there mostly to talk about the unveiling of their two newest armies – the Empire and Chaos – but they shared some more info on the game as a whole as well. So sit back and enjoying reading what Mythic Entertainment representatives Paul Barnett (Senior Designer), Josh Drescher (Senior Designer) and Jeff Hickman (Producer) had to say about Warhammer Online in a call that was both enlightening and hilarious. You'll also find exclusive Warhammer Online screens that were only available to participants of the conference call.

Question: Do you want to start off with a quick introduction from each of you? A quick one-liner about what you do on Warhammer Online?

Jeff: A quick one-liner? I don't have any quick one-liners…that's probably the best one-liner I have actually. I'm kind of the fact guy. I like to sit and ramble about all of the things about the game. I can give you a lot of detail. I'll try to not stretch it out too much and let Paul try to infuse as much fun into the discussion.

Paul: Always walk softly and carry a light bulb!

Josh: I do whatever Jeff and Paul want me to do. So I'm carrying a big stick and a light bulb right now.

Question: Can you give a quick introduction to the recently released Empire and Chaos armies from Warhammer Online?

Paul: It's basically humanity in its two forms. The humanity which is struggling to survive and doing its best to make end's meet in a world of grim darkness, represented by the Empire. And Chaos, humanity totally converted and corrupted by tentacles, and tendrils, and puss, and the Bird God, and magic, and all sorts of armor, and axes, and stuff. So it's basically the two sides of humanity represented by classes – the Empire has got things like knights, Witch Hunters (very Anglo-Saxon - they hunt witches), Bright Wizards who throw fire everywhere (and that's all they do), Warrior Priests are the holy priests who go in to battle with big hammers and the more they smash up the more faith they get (they radiate healing), so kind of the stock standard medieval done a bit mad.

And over on Chaos you've got the corrupted side, things like Marauders who are these huge, great big fighting guys who go completely bonkers and their arms turn into great big hammers, axes, and twigs and hands of meat, and crab claws…

Jeff: And tentacles.

Paul: And tentacles. You should all write tentacles in big red…

Josh: Nobody write tentacles.

Paul: Our art department really likes it when we said we wanted to have massive amounts of tentacles. And then you've got the Chosen, great, big, armored knights, basically WWF wrestlers covered in armor with horns and axes. We've also got the Zealot, who is kind of this crazed guy with daggers and skulls and who throws enchantments around and is utterly mad. And we've got the Chaos sorcerer, a guy on this enormous disk – is always on this disk – and he flies around hurling lightning at everyone with his great big staff, and his disk has got tentacles, and spikes, and teeth, and worms, and it gets bigger, and it's terribly fantastic.

So that's what we are talking about: humanity and corrupted humanity. They are both great!

Jeff: So you have to imagine while Paul was doing this in the room, if you don't get the full effect of him standing on the table, like he just was, dancing around…it was crazy.

Paul: I'm passionate.

Jeff: You are passionate.

Question: Please give us a general overview of the Empire's careers.

Paul: I just did that! Do you want to do that again?

Jeff: So the way I always look at it – and Paul you can smack me around – is Empire is of course medieval Germanic Europe (like Paul said) on the brink of extinction. They are struggling for survival. As far as they are concerned it is the end of the world, and Chaos – in fact everything is intruding on all sides – like Chaos, the Green Skins, and even the Dark Elves are pushing into them on all corners of their empire so they are kind of struggling to hang on.

So each one of the races has four distinct classes that really fit into the tanker, ranged DPS, melee DPS, healer/fighter or magic user type role, so each one of these four classes fit into one of those. On the Chaos side, it really truly is what Paul said, humanity gone bad. Humanity with tentacles. Can I say tentacles?

Paul: You can say tentacles.

Jeff: So it's humanity with tentacles. It is Chaos that is corrupted, or humans who have let themselves be corrupted by Chaos, and again, they have four classes – the Mages, the Chosen, the Zealots, and the Marauders. So same type of thing, they have a tanker (or someone who can take a lot of damage), they have a melee DPS guy, they have a kind of healer magic user, and they have a ranged nuker or ranged DPS guy who is always on the disk.

Josh: I hope they ask a lot more questions about the disk.

Paul: You can't ask enough questions about the disk!

Turn To Page Two To Continue The QA