Waaagh!
Sure, you've seen that word several times by now. But do you really know what it means? Well, here in the halls of Mythic Entertainment, it means several things. It's an enthusiastic battle cry, challenging both our enemies on the battlefield and ourselves in the office. It's a howl of frustration when at the last moment some piece of code unexpectedly breaks. It's the sound of a rampaging horde of developers rushing to get to the pizza on a night we have to burn the midnight oil to make sure an update to the game is fully tested and ready to go. It's a sort of unofficial slogan we proudly wear on green t-shirts. Oh, and yeah, apparently some Orcs said it once.
As the Live Producer for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, I've become
intimately familiar with Waaagh! in all of its myriad forms. I've been on the
WAR team practically from the first day it existed, when I occupied the role of
Content Director. Back then, it was my job was to infuse our game's quests,
public quests and dungeons with as much Waaagh! as possible. Now that the game
has launched, it's been a lot of fun to watch you, the players, dive into the
story and explore that content. I've enjoyed reading forum posts from those of
you who are finding the fun little secrets and Easter eggs sprinkled throughout
the Warhammer world.
For example, how many of you have visited
Yes, WAR is a pretty big game, chock full of fun discoveries, crazy tome
achievements and cool little secrets to find. Well, I'm here to tell that
it's going to get a lot bigger. You see, I saved the best instance of Waaagh!
for last.
On September 18th we gathered the entire WAR team together in the parking lot outside our studio, and sent an intrepid photographer up onto the roof of our building to take a team photo. On the count of three, we all cried out - you guessed it - WAAAGH! It was both of cry of victorious exaltation at getting the game out the door, but also an exuberant yell inspired by the great things still to come. It was the sum total of all the passion and excitement that makes this team great, given a very loud voice. You see, we know something you don't know. We know what's coming up in the months ahead, and we're just as amped up - maybe even more so - to share the growth and evolution of WAR with you, our awesome community, as we were to get the game into your hands.
Now the game is live, and the war has begun. Now it's YOUR turn to cry
"Waaagh!" Maybe I can help by letting you in on some of the
work we're doing to improve and enhance the game. We're on the threshold of
another maintenance patch and continue to work on fixes which were brought to
our attention by your great feedback. Though they may not all make this next
batch, we are aggressively working on a number of things including knocking out
a bug that limits alliances to just two guilds, additional crash and
performance related fixes, adding a restriction to “need-ing” items in
scenarios in order to limit the option to those careers that can actually use
the loot, preventing AFK’ing in scenarios from being lucrative, and additional
work towards the eradication of gold farmers.
Well, I've probably taken up enough of your time. No doubt you're eager
to return to the killing fields of Nordland, or the dusty wastes of the
