Joshua Drescher at Something Awful!

Volkmar

For all people that missed it, the dev have been firing it off at their forums for a while. the folks at warhammer alliance made a edited compilation of his answers and boy there are some!

Link: http://www.warhammeralliance.com/article/war-news/joshua-drescher-dev-quotes-somethingaweful.html 

Pasted for the lazy ones:

So can you touch on character advancement at all?

No levels. Four tiers, with ranks within each tier. You'll have 4 XP bars that allow you to select "packages" of advancements - abilities, static buffs, skills, etc. that you want to work on. Three will be "standard" bars, one will be RvR-specific.

The packages allow you to select advancements that interest you without level-locking them. So, if you're a big fan of exploring and you want to get a mount earlier than - say - an improved combat ability, you can choose a package that includes the ability to use a mount. Packages will have SOME restrictions - most likely tier-specific - but they offer players the ability to wind up with all of the stuff they want eventually, but also the ability to get it in the order of their choosing.

As I understand it, there are 4 classes per realm which seems fairly limited; although I saw a Goblin Battler in one of those videos so I'm a bit confused since I thought that was an Orc class only.

Well, one of the things that's causing the "limited" classes is the requirement that every class be combat-effective and serve an immediately recognizable role. We have no pure "support" classes. In addition, we don't have rogues or stealth classes. We're not fond of hybrid classes either, though there will almost certainly be SOME degree of hybridization for some races.

Regarding the Battler, don't rely too heavily on the models you saw in the demos in terms of what to expect from the final design. They were chosen mostly for aesthetic reasons and aren't intended to represent exactly what you'll see when we launch (or even when we go into beta later this year). The class-limiting for Greenskins is mostly designed to allow us to use both Orcs and Gobbos without having ridiculous stuff like a goblin Warboss running around as a powerful melee character.

Four careers seems a bit low and I'm afraid there will be too much overlap, or are those classes just base arch types like we saw EQ2? Basically, in what ways can a player build his character to differentiate from the next person?

In short, we're looking for Gauntlet-style, iconic classes. To use the Gauntlet classes, a warrior beats the snot out of you, a Valkyrie sucks up damage all day long, a wizard blasts the crap out of you and an elf runs around really quickly, pinging you with arrows. You know exactly what you're in for simply by looking at your opponent.

Regarding differentiation, there are a number of things to consider:

1) In terms of simple aesthetics, customization will play a large role. Armor dying and trophies, primarily, will allow players to be visually unique without breaking the aforementioned "iconic look, iconic role" rule. When I say trophies, I mean things like orcs wearing belts of dwarf beards and the skulls of fallen opponents impaled on the spikes of their armor.

2) In terms of personal advancement, we have the package system. I explained this earlier, but it basically lets you play the class you want to play and advance in exactly the way that appeals to you, in exactly the order you want to do it.

3) And in terms of combat, we have tactics. This system is a strategic layer of combat where players choose from a pool of available "tactics" before combat that they are then locked into for a set period of time (minutes or hours, not days). Tactics can be things like persistant buffs, race or mob-specific attack bonuses, etc. As players advance, additional slots open up allowing players to use more - or more powerful tactics. Weak tactics are worth one point, the most powerful tactics are worth - say - five. So if you have ten slots open, you might choose ten minor tactics or two extremely powerful tactics or a mix of five of the former, one of the latter. Or any other mix in between.

This is designed to help players avoid being locked into a specific character spec in any significant way without giving them the ability to respec on the fly without any advanced thought. And, of course, to avoid the typical "I hit these three buttons and - SOMETIMES - this button over here too" style of play.

Also will character creation be just choose gender, choose class, choose head, and thats it? Or do we get more?

Still in discussion on that one. Your character's appearance WILL change over time, though. Orcs will get larger and more muscular, dwarf beards will grow longer, etc.

Will each faction have the same 4 classes? Fighter, shooter, healer magic, offensive magic? Or will it vary from faction to faction?

Absolutely not. We are 100% married to the IP when it comes to stuff like this. Dwarfs and magic don't mix, so the closest you'll get to a magic class will be a priest carving runes into things. And I can't say this enough - EVERY class will be a combat class. Nobody will be running around, healing all day long and trying to stay out of the fray.

What I want to know, is that how do you plan on balancing parties in PvP?

Current plan: Don't get much sleep at night, lie awake fixated on making it all work.

Seriously, though, RvR combat will come in three flavors:

Skirmish RvR - players stumbling across enemy players in RvR areas and fighting right then and there.
Battlefields - Static, objective-based areas (take objective in question, plant flag, etc) that help to focus skirmish RvR a bit.
Scenarios - Instanced, point-balanced, objective-based "arenas." This is our closest cousin to Fantasy Battle. All players will be worth a certain number of points based on a "we're-not-discussing-how-at-the-moment" set of stats. Players will be matched up evenly and groups with fewer points will be bolstered by NPC "Dogs of War." Dogs of War will be - obviously - worth less than their PC counterparts, but they'll allow us to avoid long queues AND one side constantly enjoying a slight but significant advantage due to population wierdness.

Finally, we're relying on an extensive, year+ long beta, coupled with everything (good, bad and otherwise) that we've learned from Camelot.

The focus of the game makes it so you'll primarily be working with people of the same race, right?

Primarily, but by no means exclusively. Dwarfs, humans and High Elfs can all work together as they see fit. Ditto with orcs, Dark Elfs and Chaos warriors.

What default size group are you guys shooting for? 5, 6?

To be determined. Balance is crucial, especially for campaigns and city capturing, so this will be one of those "under microscopic scrutiny" issues that we bang on non-stop until it's just right.

How does PVE factor in to the game?

Fully-realized PvE is absolutely going to be there. Players don't ever need to set foot in any RvR zone in order to move through all four tiers. And vice-versa.

I would like to know how much time /played is your goal to "level" a character?

To be determined.

Leveling Grinds have been getting shorter and shorter, will Warhammer continues this trend?

By offering full-blown PvE and RvR in every tier, we hope to make the process essentially painless for most players. Nothing depresses our world designers more than the idea that people might blow through 80% of the stuff they hand-craft with love and disturbingly intense affection to get to the last portion of the game.

I am also interested in advancement through RvR. Will this be as speedy as normal "grinding", or at a mere fraction of normal XP rate?

I can't speak for final speeds, numbers, etc. but our intention is that players will find compelling reasons to engage in PvE AND RvR in all tiers.

How does the mechanics of tanking work?

Player collision for enemies. You won't collide with friendly PC characters, but you will with enemy units. As a result, you won't be able to simply run through enemy tanks in order to get to less defensively-significant players. You also won't be able to clip back and forth through someone to hit them from behind, then the side, then the front, etc.

I don't see what's stop people from running around you and getting to support guys.

Again, player collision is the one bit that's been announced. That said, it can be VERY effective for protecting less defensive players if groups know how to make use of it properly.

Will there be knock back of some kind?

To be determined. I'm personally a huge fan of it.

Are Halflings actually in Warhammer? I know they're the token comedy team in Bloodbowl but I haven't seen them in fantasy.

Yes. And - as noted above - they're DELICIOUS. Mmm... free range halfling... *drools*

Notice the clarification on character advancement that is VERY welcome and the bomb: NO ROGUES/STEALTH in the game!!

Pantastic

Not that suprising really, didn't Mythic have a ton of trouble getting stealth classes to work right in RvR, where they'd pretty much bounce between being virtually untouchable and practically useless? It seems like it would be hard to get a setup for stealth to where it would always be useful, make sense on the battlefield, and not be overwhelming.

Plus WFB doesn't have stealth at all IIRC, and WFRP had more limited, realistic stealth than fantastic stealth, where you'd only be able to sneak in the dark, in buildings with limited light, etc. You should be able to do that kind of stealth in the game, would be nice if you could slowly crouch or something similar while trying to infiltrate.

Volkmar

you are mostly correct. DAoC had problems (and still has?) with stealthers, mostly because Stealth is a "Win/lose" mechanic. Rogue is not detected= win. Rogue is detected = lose.

Plus, the rogue can go around mostly without repercussion and if he has a bow, he became a deadly one-shot sniper that nobody can see until he already killed the first victim

And yeah, WFB do not have much stealth, but a little bit it has. Skavens are known for having skilled assassins as are Dark Elves. But that's about it and they do not have a really big role in WFB anyhow.

So good riddance to stealthers.

Waaagh!

Good riddance stealthers indeed.  Couldn't agree more.

Nothing worse than being ganked all day from invisible players with personality disorders. 

The skill involved is just so incredible.  They must be terribly proud.  *oozes sarcasm*

I'm really hoping for some solid battle tactic teamwork to emerge from this game.

nero0102

finally CD might make it into an MMO, so tanks can actually play thier role without  being ignored and killed last.

no stealth is great, losing the few people who love stealth classes for thier role, along with the countless that just love to cause others grief is what I would call acceptable casualties.  stealth is just to powerful, unless an MMO finally decides to use a model like the early thief games, where you have to rely on being stealthy, isntead of clicking the invisible button.

Man I can't wait til beta starts.

I'd settle for Alpha news