EA Mythic toted along its highly anticipated Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning to this year's Comic-Con International San Diego, and I tracked down producer Lance Robertson for a chat about the game.

Robertson spoke on how the company's experience with Dark Age of Camelot influenced Warhammer's balance between realm versus realm and player versus enemy, why the game will work for both PvP- and PvE-loving players, how Mythic works with licensor Mythic and new owner Electronic Arts, what players can expect in the way of story and quests in the game, why the Warhammer universe is a more compelling than, say, Warcraft's, and more.

Fans of the Warhammer Fantasy Battles miniatures game and those who have been following Warhammer Online devoutly will be pleased to know that Robertson confirmed the imminent unveiling of the High Elf and Dark Elf races at Leipig, Germany's upcoming Games Convention being held August 23-26.

For the rest, read on.

Shack: Given Mythic's pedigree, one of the big things with Warhammer is the PvP. How do you plan to balance that with the lack of a more traditional endgame that other MMO players might expect? Will there be enough to keep them interested when that's the focus?

Lance Robertson: God yes, very much so. MMOs really shouldn't have an "endgame." The point is to hook people and keep them engaged in activities as long as we can manage, and keep them entertained. The [realm versus realm] system and everything about it plays to that. Those are the long-term players, the players we want.

We learned a lot from Camelot, and its system of give and take--"I hate those Hibernians, I hate the guys from Midgard, it's all about Albion." We found that the realm pride and the bragging rights drive so much about that endgame, and that's really important to us here. We took what we did in Camelot, looked for ways to improve upon it, and what we came to was that Camelot was kind of a segregated system where you had PvE on one side, then you go up to the front tier to battle the enemy.

So there are two things: we decided we want the story to drive everything about the battle, and then we also have RvR in every zone of the game, so it's built in from rank 1 when you start the game all the way to the top of the game. You can level up through PvE, or you can press up through the ranks through RvR equally. We really would encourage people to do kind of a nice blend of the two, but if people aren't interested in killing other players, there are great quests you can get into, and there's stuff I can talk about there.

Shack: What are you doing with quests and NPCs that you see as out of the ordinary?

Lance Robertson: There are all kinds of innovations. It's not just RvR for us, it's the PvE innovations too. We've got public quests, which are great dynamic stories done in groups that are going on in the world, and as you wander the world you come into areas where there are these activities going on, where these stories are happening. It's a collective example of "We're trying to beat this area."

In the game now, there's a giant in the game and you need to convert him to your side, to get him to help you out to beat the Dwarfs. As you come into the area, there are other people killing Squigs because the giant doesn't like Squig, then after that stage it becomes getting beer to get him drunk so he helps your side, then the giant goes and gets a giant bomb that he carries over to the Dwarf gate, and when he blows that open Dwarfs come out.

There are hundreds of these things in the game, where you come into the area and contribute with other people without being grouped. It's not the traditional, "I go to the NPC and put my blinders on." You get rewards for contributing, there are incentives to helping out, it builds community. If you take it to its logical extreme, we're going to have those things in the RvR areas, we're going to have those in the cities, so it's really interesting.

Shack: What kind of measures are you taking to ensure that one side doesn't just dominate the other?

Lance Robertson: You have two main realms, order and destruction. Each of those is made up of three races, and each race is paired off against its ancient enemy, so Dwarfs versus Greenskins for example. But the thing that contributes most heavily to the campaign game--that is, the overall zone capture game--are what we call scenarios, which are instanced, matched fights. That's important so it's not just a population thing. You won't just get bulldozed by the guy who has more people.

Shack: What elements of PvP come into public quests?

Lance Robertson: Well, certainly there are RvR quests where some of your objectives happen to be in RvR areas, but we don't pull the gun to your head and say you have to engage in that if you don't want to. People shouldn't be afraid to try. We want that nice blend from both sides. We'll encourage people to venture into those kinds of quests, but it's not required.

Shack: How do the PvP and PvE zones interact geographically?

Lance Robertson: There are areas that--well, I don't want to say outright boundaries, but it's very obvious where you're going to cross, and you'll get warned about it. People don't tend to blunder into them. It's no fun to trip into an area and get jumped. But, we also want those areas out there and on display, so you can look out there and see cool battles going on and think, "I want to get in on that." That's another thing we learned from Camelot too, where we had the frontiers where the front was elsewhere. This is much more of a local fight--we're in our own zones fighting the enemy. It's right there. You can see it going on.

Shack: For the players who do want to stick entirely for PvE, what do you have for the endgame there?

Lance Robertson: There are plenty of things to do that benefit your realm that don't always involve killing other players. It will contribute to the campaign, there will be things that make your city more worthwhile for the enemy to take, things that make it more difficult for the enemy to take your city, all that involve PvE. And there are things that will become available for PvE that are triggered specifically by things in RvR. So there's going to be plenty of stuff. You'll want your side to do well, so you have more stuff to do in PvE and RvR.

Turn the page for responses on Mythic's relationship with Warhammer creator Games Workshop and new owner EA, integration of story in Warhammer online, thoughts on item sales, and more.