Warhammer Online Loses 66% of Capital Cities, Multiple Character Classes

Quality concerns have prompted developer EA Mythic to remove four classes and four capital cities from its upcoming PC MMO Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.

Though franchise mainstays, the four classes--Choppa, Hammerer, Blackguard, Knight of the Blazing Sun--were axed from the fall launch as they just "weren't coming out well," Mythic VP Mark Jacobs told MMORPG.com. The title was originally planned to have 24 classes across its six races.

"I wish we didn't have to do it," he elaborated. "I really wish we didn't have to cut them out, but it's better for them to be cut out than to have classes that aren't great and that we would spend more time trying to make them great post-launch than we should have to."

The studio's decision to scale back on the number of capital cities represented a similar issue. Initially, each of the six races was set to have its own city. Now, the game only sports two capitals, one for the Empire and one for the Chaos faction.

"We wanted to make our capital cities the best cities in any MMO," Jacobs reasoned. "We think we're doing that, but it came at a price and that price is that the other cities aren't going in the game right now."

Jacobs also revealed that Warhammer Online, which just entered the guild beta phase today, will be the first PC MMO to feature PunkBuster's anti-cheating technology, which was used in the PC editions of Splash Damage's Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and Infinity Ward's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, among other titles.

"By doing this deal with PunkBuster, [we wanted] to show the players that we're willing to go an extra step for them," he explained. "Anything that gives a player an advantage over another player in an RvR-centric game is a very bad thing. We take this stuff incredibly seriously, our history shows that."