Welcome to the Warhammer Online Grab Bag, where your friendly neighborhood community manager will answer the most popular, and most interesting, questions in a new regular feature. Many things aren't yet certain, so try to be patient with us. Trust me - we're as eager as you are to see the features finalized, so that we can hear what you've got to say.

A: We don’t know. Ask me again when beta starts.

Okay, that answer is kind of mean, I’m sorry.

Many people have been mentioning the number 36. That is our current best GUESS as to the number of people on one side in a Scenario. But while all Scenarios are instances, instances are not always Scenarios. Does that make sense?

City siege instances will not be limited to thirty six people. Also, there will be different types of instances involved with a single city siege, so I couldn’t give you a single answer even if I wanted to do so. Small-scale combat is exciting, but we are shooting for a bigger feel with an encounter as epic as the destruction of national capital.

That sounds like a very weaselly answer. It IS a very weaselly answer, because we are still doing design, and we have not yet started building the encounters. We want hundreds of people slaughtering each other, the screams of the dying filling the air! We want carnage, looting, and bloodlust! We want to see armies clashing, not squads having a polite disagreement!

But I just don't have a hard number answer for you at this point in time.

A: We’re still kicking ideas around, but one thing is certain – it will not work the way it does in many of your wonderful stories. We’ve been working with Games Workshop to bring on the WAAAGH! in a way that is in keeping with the spirit of the world, without the balance implications that come to mind with hundreds of zerging Orcs.

All I know for certain is that WAAAGH! in WAR is something that only the Shaman can use, as a magical power source. The devil is (as always) in the details, and I hope you can hang on a little longer until we can explain in more depth.

For those of you new to the Warhammer universe, who may have thought that WAAAGH! is just something you scream when you are an Orc and very excited – and it is. But it is also, in other Warhammer games, the word used as shorthand to describe the killing power raised by multiple Orcs screaming and rushing as a group.

Q: As mentioned by Paul Barnett, the Chaos Marauder class mutates his limbs into various weapons in order to slay his opponents. If this is so, does this mean that the class will not acquire stronger weapons in the same fashion as others? How will the Marauder become offensively stronger?

A: Designer Josh says, “The Marauder will definitely have non-mutation weapons and will go through item advancement just like anyone else. Mutations and weapons will both advance, but will do so independently.”

And I, as always, want to remind everyone that the whole team is still putting the shiny on the class designs across the board.

A: I asked Designer Steve. For right now, the answer is “Yes, but only within the PvP areas.” He also told me that there may be some neat guild-chat channel features when it comes to killspam, but that I’d have to wait on details until he finishes the guild system. Drat!

Oh, and Designer Josh said, “Please note, however, that we - as a corporate entity - object to the term "KillSpam." Trademark dilution is a serious problem and we respect the trademarks and intellectual properties of our good friends at the Hormel Foods Corporation.

“To that end, we'd ask that our players please use the term "KillSpicedMeatProduct" in the future.”

I love the designers so much more than spam.

A: Those are beastmen, they are way cool, and they will not be playable at launch.

Q: Any news on whether or not us Australians will be able to play at launch? And what about New Zealand?

A: I am told that we can now say openly that Australia and New Zealand will both be part of our worldwide launch. As a result, everyone who is registered for a chance to win a beta (in other words, newsletter subscribers) from those two countries are from now on part of our monthly beta drawings. Tell your friends to sign up for the newsletter!

A: Oh, this is such a pet peeve of mine. I tend to play games at work, because I have the coolest job ever, but playing at work means I solo – it’s hard to get groups, and I often have to dart away at a moment’s notice to do my actual job. That’s not fair to the one group I do manage to find, you know? Anyway, my circumstances push me to play a lot of hybrid types – a little magic, a little brute force, a little healing, etc. Then at night, I find a group... and aaaaaaaall they want is one of my many tricks, and they complain that I fail to be BEST at the trick they want.

But I digress.

The answer is pretty simple. Boiled down, the answer is “We’re not going to have any one-trick ponies, so your healer will be welcome.” But that’s not nearly as interesting as the conversation I had with Designer Steve and Designer Josh, and I thought you guys would enjoy a peek at the inside of the carnival. It’s no Paul Video Diary, but it’s still cool! It starts up after I sent the original question over to Steve, with my own acerbic commentary for flavor.

STEVE: It boils down to fulfillment of critical roles. Our healers are capable of being a 100% effective healer. They are also capable of fighting, but no healer is ever going to be as good at fighting as a true fighter class.

The reason they will want our healers is because they can fulfill their healing role AND contribute in other ways as well. Besides that, there will be no single-issue healers...all of our healers can fight as well as heal. There will be no preferred healer that is ALL heal, and better at it than the others.

SANYA: Er... no, I think you just directly contradicted the point I made. Players may want to BE the guy that can heal and contribute in other ways, yes, but the groups that those players join do not want their healers fighting. Ever.

JOSH: Being a "pure" healer will be an inefficient play-style based on how our careers are designed. The Warrior Priest, for example, builds Righteous Fury by dealing melee damage. That Fury pool gates some of his support abilities and augments others. If the WP hangs back and just tries to use his baseline, non-fury abilities to act as a pure healer, he will suck like a diesel-fueled vacuum cleaner.

It will be impossible to "focus" on healing rather than damage, so players won't be able to ignore combat healers in favor of "pure" healers because pure healers won't exist.

STEVE: Right. The point I was making is that there is no class that is more effective "just" healing.

For instance, WPs also [at this time] have an aura-based buff system that buffs friendlies IF they are within range of him. This means that he is better off being in the front line where the fighting friendlies can both fight and be in range of his buffs. If he held back and just healed from range, he would not be doing as much good as getting in the thick of it.

SANYA: *squints distrustfully*

STEVE AND JOSH: Have you tried it yet, or are you just assuming?

SANYA: *leaves to go try it*

Okay, Steve and Josh didn’t actually say that last line even though I did give them the evil squinty eye. They didn’t have to. Does this design work in practice as well as theory? Well, so far, so good... you guys should let me know how you feel once beta starts and you get your hands on it all.

See you guys next time - same time, same channel.