Matt: As I mentioned before Warhammer is essentially a skills based system, however we do still have levels for the player to advance. These levels are not a measure of power for the character but are in fact a measure of how famous they are within the Warhammer World.

Hunting down snakes in the woods, while helping the character to improve his/her skills, won't actually earn them any glory or improve their level. However hunting down the nearby tribe of Orcs that has been troubling the local farmers probably will. Killing the zombie dragon that has been rampaging across the countryside, eating the peasants, will definitely help make you famous. Assuming you survive…

What is combat like? How will characters fight, and how is death going to be handled?

Robin: Like many elements of the gameplay in Warhammer Online, the principles that underpin our combat system derive from the character of the world itself. One of the absolute characteristics of combat (in any world - real or virtual) is that the outcome is largely unpredictable. It's this unpredictability that makes it such an exciting feature. We wanted to get away from the 'safe bet' combat systems that allow you to 'con' a creature to evaluate its strength and then get a text message to tell you whether you are likely to win or not! The real world simply doesn't work like that.
We're looking for a much more 'organic' approach where your in-game knowledge and experience begins to inform your ability to evaluate the outcome of a combat. The AI team is working on routines to ensure that our 'monsters' will not stand idly by while their mates get chopped up by passing adventurers and who will run and get back-up if they think they are in trouble.

General weapon skills - sword, club, knife, etc. will be available to all players. On top of that they will be able to learn more specific skills within the careers system. A period spent with the Altdorf City Guard will allow you to learn pole-arm or pistol shooting, but if you want to master muskets you'll have to train with the Hochland Long-Rifles, etc.

On top of these advanced skills, we also have a system of 'combat techniques' that players can learn and call upon in specific circumstances.

Taken together, these elements combine to make a combat system that will be edgy, risky, and dangerous. We wanted something more than the players simply hitting the 'auto attack' button and then sitting back with a cup of tea and, if it all works out as planned, then we'll get it.

The fact that we are working primarily with a skill-based system, rather than stat-based, means that we also can't simply level-up our players or monsters by piling on a few more hit points. The key to survival in the Warhammer world lies in training, developing and honing your combat skills - and what could be more fun than that?

Long debates about this one… but player death will be handled through incapacitation and movable revival points. Some of the details of experience lost through death, equipment loss, etc. are still to be worked out, but we're unlikely to do anything radical here. Player characters need to be treated with the greatest respect, just like your real-life friends.

In some of the screenshots, we noticed there appeared to be retainer characters. What is this all about? Will characters be able to acquire henchmen?

Matt: Players will be able to buy and own a variety of animals, such as cats and dogs, as well as being able to buy and own horses. These "pets" can be used in a variety of ways, from guard dogs that help protect the character from attack, to riding horses to help the players cover long distances in a shorter period of time.

In addition, certain NPC characters will join the player for some missions and help him achieve a specific goal.

Will players be able to fight in teams, or war bands? Can players form up armies?

Matt: That's entirely up to the players themselves. There are many areas that a player can wander around and explore but once they head out into the wilderness it's a good idea to team up with some other players for mutual protection.

Will tabletop rules that are unique to wargaming be applicable in Warhammer Online? Such as morale checks? Will certain races and peoples bear hatred towards others?

Robin: Tabletop and Online are such completely different gaming platforms, that it's highly unlikely that any rules will make a direct translation from one to the other. However, Warhammer Battle, Warhammer Online, Warhammer Role-play, Black Library fiction and comics, etc. all draw their inspiration from a Warhammer background that is common to all of them.

So of course, Dwarfs and Elves don't get on! (Humans aren't so keen on either of them. And Dwarf NPCs are unlikely to have any truck at all with an Elf player character unless he has gone a long way to improving his standing with the Dwarfs through his own efforts and actions. How the players interpret all this though is really up to them.

Were the new 6th edition tabletop rules taken into consideration for the game?

Robin: The simple answer is no. As I've said, we're in a very different place to a tabletop game, where the players are fighting a battle using dice, tape measures and model soldiers on a landscape that varies with whatever buildings landscape features and equipment they have in their collections. The rules you need to describe the myriad of situations that can occur on the tabletop are quite different to the structure you need to facilitate an online world game.

The big similarity between the two arenas - tabletop and online - is that in both sets of circumstances you are attempting you provide your players with a framework within which they can explore your world - a sandbox not a sandcastle! Wrap the game too tight and there is no creativity for the players, leave it too loose and you are wide open to exploits and abuse - it's a subtle and difficult tightrope to walk. If I can guarantee one thing to you today, it's that we will get this balance wrong in places and once we go live we'll have to go in and patch. This is as certain as day following night!

Will players of the tabletop wargames be familiar with the concepts in Warhammer Online? Would players of Everquest or similar games recognise it better? Does it draw from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay?

Robin: Warhammer Battles, Mordheim, Warhammer Role-play, Black Library Fiction, the Warhammer Monthly comic, Citadel Miniatures, Forgeworld resin kits, etc. all draw their inspiration from the same source. Games Workshop has been developing the Warhammer World for more than 20 years now so that, with the possible exception of Tolkein's Middle Earth, it is one of the best documented fantasy settings in the world. Fans of all of the above will find familiar reference points in the landscape and background of the game.

However, it's essentially an online RPG and, as such, will be recognisable by fans of EQ, DAOC or other persistent world online games. We also hope that players of these games will give us a try. Even if you've never seen or heard of Warhammer, if you've a taste for dark, gothic horror, you might like us.

In certain areas, the game does unashamedly pull from Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play (WHFRP). We're quite proud of this. At the time it was first published in the mid-80s, WHFRP was extremely radical in that it dispensed with the standard class/race matrix that characterized D&D and that has remained the staple of fantasy games ever since, and replaced it with a skills and careers system that enabled the players to genuinely forge their own destinies in a very biographical way. The fact that WHFRP is still in print under license all these years later is, I think, a tribute to the then originality of this approach.

It's this WHFRP based skills and careers system that we've very liberally plundered and applied to our game in order to give our players a very personal and biographical character development system.

At the end of the day, games are like stories. After a session of Warhammer Online we'd like to think that our players meet down the pub (in the real world not online - although they can of course go for an in-game ale at the Dwarf's Armpit in Altdorf!) and tell each other their online tales. When that happens I know that we'll have made a good game.