Robin: There is a visual style that pervades everything Games Workshop does. If you look at our rulebooks and supplements you'll see that there is a kind of gritty realism to the images we produce that is born out of the inspiration of the artists I mentioned a few moments ago. You can often see a synergy between the visual style of many computer games and that of contemporary comic books and graphic novels. To me they appear to be drawing from a common visual lexicon, and it's not a bad way to go as there is a dynamic to comic book art that translates well to the slightly cartoony look of most computer game graphics.

However, as you might expect, it's not where we wanted to be. The instruction to the art team was to render the Warhammer world in as 'real' a fashion as their technology would allow - complete with mud, blood, filth and decay!

To help with this, Dave Gallagher, one of the Studio's senior artists, spent three months working with the art team at the start of the year and he continues to come along to the regular art review meetings to help shape the look and feel of the game. Dave's involvement has sometimes led to some hilarious discussions such as the time we tried to decide just who it was that climbed into the Skaven Rat Ogre's cage each morning to put on his loin cloth in order to preserve the Ogre's modesty. Needless to say, our Rat Ogre's now have artfully crafted 'hair down there' rather than the typical loincloths.

Seriously… our current copy line for the game is 'Dark Horror and Adventure in the Warhammer World!' That pretty much sums up where we are headed. We want our players to be stunned, overwhelmed and perhaps a little scared by the environment they find themselves in as I hope they'll see over the coming months.

"Our current copy line for the game is 'Dark Horror and Adventure in the Warhammer World!' That pretty much sums up where we are headed. We want our players to be stunned, overwhelmed and perhaps a little scared by the environment they find themselves in."
-Robin Dews-

What kind of scope is the world of Warhammer Online? How large is it, what kinds of different areas and terrain types can be explored? Are there indoor and outdoor areas? Are there cities?

Robin: We've covered much of this already but here goes… The area of the Reikland we're focused on extends for around 400 square km. The design team is currently mapping this area at a scale of around 2.5km per square centimeter and so they've got massive sheets of graph paper covering every horizontal surface in their office.

We were a bit worried at first that we wouldn't be able to get the diversity of environments that our players would demand within such a homogenous area but that's proven not to be the case at all. The northern area around Marienburg is surrounded by low-lying swamps and dank marshlands, the peaks and valleys of the Grey Mountains, rather than simply being a barrier to player movement are adventuring areas in their own right complete with upland glaciers and snowfields as well as hidden tombs and dungeons. The vast expanse of the Reikwald forest dominates the center of the map (think Mirkwood or Fangorn!), and further south, the land around Nuln and the River Sol give way to rolling grasslands and steppes. We think the players will have a lot to go at without us having to invent 'northern snow lands' or whatever.

We also envisioned the cities in Warhammer Online to be just that - cities - and they are adventuring areas in their own right, too. In most of the other games we've looked at, the towns and cities appear to be merely trading posts where the players go to buy, sell or bank stuff before once again heading out to the wilderness to butcher a few more defenseless creatures.

We wanted to flip this around and make the cities large and complex enough for the players to spend weeks or even months exploring them - urban jungles indeed. The towns and cities are also the focus of our skill and career system. Here you can get a job - Rat Catcher, Beggar, Sewer Jack, etc. and build a little fame, wealth and re-known before you risk your neck in the wider world.

It's the spaces between them, where law and order no longer exist, and where Orcs, Beastmen, Mutants, Outlaws and Cultists pray on the weak, that you really don't want to venture into alone.

Many of the locations will be familiar to fans of the battle game or Warhammer Fantasy Role-play (WHFRP) as well as readers of our novels and comics. For example, we intend to create both Blood Keep and Castle Drachenfels in-game, complete with their subterranean dungeons and catacombs. They will both be located in the Grey Mountains, but I'd advise players to up their survival skills a little before venturing out that way.

What sorts of races and cultures exist in this area?

Robin: I seem to be answering the questions before they are asked! The big back-story behind the Warhammer world is that ever since the warp gates at the poles of the world collapsed, Chaos energy in ethereal form as the winds of magic and in condensed form as Warpstone has been pervading the world. The constant exposure to the warping effects of Chaos has led to a world that teeters on the brink of collapse. It's a mediaeval world where civilization survives (just) but is assailed on all sides by mutants, deviants and cultists who wish to accelerate what they see as the inevitable triumph of Chaos. Witch Hunters and Religious zealots stalk the land - rooting out and torturing deviants but also terrorizing and persecuting the very populations they purport to defend. It's not a nice place!

Expect to encounter tribes of Warhammer Orcs, Goblins, Beastmen and a whole range of creatures large and small - Trolls, Rat Ogres, Wyverns, etc. You should also expect these creatures to behave in as intelligent a way as we can make them. We don't intend to have our Orcs simply wandering around the landscape waiting for a passing adventurer to hack them down, or standing idly by while one of their mates gets butchered. Wolves will travel in packs and we expect our hunters to suddenly find themselves the hunted.

What races will be playable? Will players be able to have Bretonnian characters as well as Reiklanders? Will all elves be generic, or could one be a Swordmaster of Hoeth?

Matt: This is actually a pretty big question covering everything from races to careers to skills but I'll try and keep my answer nice and short.

Initially players will be able to choose to be Humans, High Elves, Dwarves, Halfings or Ogres. As time goes on we'll be looking to expand this choice to include the racial variants such as Bretonnian's or Wood Elves.

There is no such thing as a "generic" race in Warhammer Online. Once the player has chosen a race and determined his statistics it's entirely up to them which career path they wish to follow. Some will become famous warriors, some will follow the path of magic and many others will do something entirely different. Obviously there are some restrictions - the Dwarves are never going to let an Elf learn how to become a Runesmith but generally most career choices are open to most characters.

That said, there are some career choices that will have a direct effect on what you can do later on down the line. For example, becoming a Witch means it's unlikely that the Witch-Hunters will welcome you with open arms. Well they might do… but you should probably start running if that happens! However, most of those careers restrictions can be overcome with some hard work. To go back to that previous example, it's entirely possible for you to repent and attempt to improve your standing with the Witch-Hunters through a serious of tough quests. However this really will not be a trivial thing so when you embark on a career like the Witches you should be sure that the path you have chosen is the right one for you. Don't worry though, not all careers are like that. Joining the Rat Catchers is unlikely to upset too many people.

What kind of character generation system is in place for Warhammer Online? Are there specific classes, or is it a skill-based system?

Matt: I've briefly touched on this already but let me be more specific.

Once a player has selected his race he, or she, will have a set of statistics covering things like strength and willpower. The starting values for those stats will be based on the race that was chosen and each race will have a different set of values reflecting their racial strengths and weaknesses. What that really means is that Ogres are inherently stronger than Humans, Elves are smarter and faster, Dwarves are more resilient. Basically, everything you'd expect from the Warhammer races.

Once the race has been chosen you will then be able to adjust the statistics however you like, within certain limits or course. You do this by spending extra points and allocating them to the statistic you want to improve. For example, if you want to make your Ogre that little bit smarter than average then you spend your "spare" points on intelligence.

Once that stage is complete the player will choose a starting location for their new character and then enter the world. At this stage your character will only know a few of the basic skills, such as running and swimming. In order to learn more advanced skills you will need to join a career and in order to do that you need to explore your surroundings and find one of the many career masters and persuade him to let you join. Obviously some careers are easier to join than others. It's going to be fairly easy to join the Rat Catchers but joining the Assassins is going to be impossible until you've learnt and improved some stealth skills and improved your standing with that group.

Why were the evil races kept as non-player character (NPC) only? What sort of reactions to this decision have you received? What role will the followers of Chaos play? The Skaven?

Robin: As I've said elsewhere, this was really a very difficult decision. We knew that many Warhammer fans would love to be able to play an Orc or Skaven Grey Seer as their character, but once we'd made the switch to a player vs. environment game it was inevitable. The only way we could have made this work would have been to have some kind of team PvP system of the kind they have in World War 2 Online or Dark Ages. Within the context of the Warhammer World, it simply would not have been credible to have an Orc turn up in Altdorf, buy supplies, or go off adventuring with a party of Humans, Elves and Dwarfs!

We've already talked a lot about where we'd like the game to go next and one of our favorite ideas is to have the Vampire Counts as a playable race. After all they are simply one of the noble families of the Empire who at some point in their history decided to drink blood and avoid sunlight.

It would be great if the only way you could become a vampire would be to get a 'blood kiss' from another player and you were then restricted to moving around during the hours of darkness. I digress a little…as that's an idea for the next version of the game, but you can see where our heads are at.

One of our design principles has been that player's don't have to be 'good'. We have a very subtle system of tracking the relationship between the players and all other NPC entities in the game, a value we call 'standing'. If you really want to go out there and study at the Amethyst College, learn the Lore of Death and then split with the programme and become a Necromancer then good luck to you! But… be aware that the Witch Hunters both PC and NPC will be on your trail and that you'll find that life, in anywhere but the most out of the way locations, will become very hard for you (But never mind… you can always raise a few dead bodies to be your mates.)

Finally…we are actually currently modeling the Skaven as in-game entities but intend to reserve them for GM's and game designers' use. This backs up the secretive and clandestine nature of the Skaven and the way in which they operate in the Warhammer world. It also means that if the players ever encounter a Skaven in the game world - in the sewers under Altdorf or the swamps around Marienburg - they'll know that this is no simple AI drone, but a real intelligence looking back at them and ready to react.