Warhammer Alliance's Tomb Kings Interview With Mark Davis

[PhoenixRed]

In anticipation of the upcoming Land of the Dead, Warhammer Alliance reached out into the ether to see what kind of details and juicy tidbits we could find out about it. Luckily, Mythic answered the call, and Mark Davis, Live Events Lead and one of many significant folks leading the Tomb Kings effort, was kind enough to answer some of our questions. Read on to find out more about Live Events as it relates to Tomb Kings, the lead-up to the release of Land of the Dead, and how the staff keeps their sanity in such a busy development environment.



Tell us about Tomb Kings and Land of the Dead. What is it all about?

Nehekhara, or Land of the Dead, was once a vibrant, lush land. Its rulers, now known as the Tomb Kings, sought a way to cheat death so that they could live out eternity in their paradise. Their Liche Priests toiled relentlessly for the secret to immortality and when their research failed them, they prepared their King’s and Prince’s bodies for entombment so that they could rise from the grave at a later time. Centuries later, emerging from their tombs, they discovered their lands were in utter decimation and barren. Their once paradise is now a wasteland where they rule with a vengeance.

There are treasures of vast power buried here, but at what cost will you pay to obtain them from the likes of the immortal Tomb Kings?


Talk a little about the lead-up to Tomb Kings. What kind of details might we see in this Live Event that build on previous ones?

In Call to Arms: Bitter Rivals, players got the first piece of the puzzle when/if they assembled the three pieces of the lost map of the southern sands. Completing the quest the assembled map informed us that Destruction was planning on stealing plans to construct an airship that would carry them to the mysterious deserts to the south. In Beyond the Sands we will begin to uncover what it is the forces of Destruction are searching for in a rather spectacular manner. Keep your eyes on the sky.


The lore of Tomb Kings appears to be quite expansive. Players have already seen allusions to it in a questline focusing on a map during the last Live Event. Can we expect more background information about the lore in the next live events? And if so, how will it be presented?

Absolutely! You’ll learn more about the story in the form of quests, Tome unlocks, and open RvR Public Quests.


How much of the content from Land of the Dead will players be able to see during the upcoming Live Events (Beyond the Sands and Rise of the Tomb Kings)? Will they be able to access part of the new areas? Will we see enemies associated with the Land of the Dead in familiar areas?

Beyond the Sands will give players a taste of what is to come from the Land of the Dead. While the action will take place entirely in familiar lands, some of mysteries of those far, southern lands may find themselves confronting you head on.


So far, Live Events have been focused partially on introducing things into the game that did not make it into release - Heavy Metal and Bitter Rivals come to mind, as well as the introduction of new emotes through holiday celebrations and the RvR influence bar. Will the Live Events associated with Tomb Kings add any additional content or RvR mechanics beside what will be introduced in the expansion?

Each event is different in its own way, and Beyond the Sands has a lot to offer. You’ll find old favorites such as Open RvR Public Quests, and new additions such as Event Epic Quests, whose chapters open with each new day of the event. As far as long-term introductions, the Elite Reward will have implications down the road, so hang on to them. Additionally, some of the rewards can be “cashed in” later when the Expeditions to the Land of the Dead begin in earnest. That’s cryptic, I know, but uncovering the mysteries is half the fun!


Give the players a tease of what's coming up for Tomb Kings. If you could reveal one thing at this time that would whet the players appetites for this, what would it be?

The Forces of Destruction are obviously interested in large flying vehicles for expeditions to the Land of the Dead. Can you imagine what they might bring back with them from the Land of the Dead with an airship? Oh, the horror!


If there's someone out there who tried Warhammer and unsubscribed, what in Tomb Kings and the Live Events will bring them back?

Imagine everything you love about Public Quests and Realm vs. Realm combat – now, mix them together and put them down in an Egyptian-like setting where the Tomb Kings reign over their powerful and mysterious artifacts and treasures, protected by cunning traps and devices. Imagine this and you might begin to get an idea of why players should be excited to return – the journey into the desert is going to be the expedition of a lifetime!


Tell us what kind of planning goes into a Live Event of this nature? What kind of timeline do you typically see for proposal, planning, design, and coming soon, implementation?

Events are labors of love – love that takes anywhere from 60 to 90 days to mature. They run the course from concept to design to production, and finally to launch. Some of our more ambitious events planned further out take even longer. More on that coming soon!


At what point of the timeline are the current Live Events? Take us through your current typical day in planning and preparing them.

Currently, we’re finishing production on the next live event “Rise of the Tomb Kings” which will take place around the end of May. We’re also in pre-production for our Summer holiday whose details have not yet been announced. This week we’ve been play testing and making final tweaks to the “Rise of the Tomb Kings” live event which involves a lot of playing, making edits, play testing again, and so on. This is the part where we stop coming up with “wouldn’t it be cool” ideas and suggestions, and really start tightening up and balancing what we’ve got completed. With our deadline approaching and the beginning of a new event production cycle looming, we’re putting the final touches on our baby and then it’s off to our internal play test group.


Tell us which other teams you usually work closest with when developing Live Events.

Who DON’T we work with is probably a easier question to answer! Live Events touch every aspect of the game, be it the Tome of Knowledge, UI, RvR, PvE, Items, Cities – we’re everywhere! That being said, we probably work the most with the Items team since at the end of every great event is a great reward! We work continually with them to craft rewards that are widely usable by all, and attractive to wear. I’m looking forward to acquiring my Aviator Goggles for my Dwarf character from Beyond the Sands. They’ll go nicely with my Battle Brew Backpack from Keg’s End!


Over in Live Events, tell us some of the crazy, random, odd things your staff does to keep their sanity wrangling an MMO like WAR every day. Of course, working on the game takes priority during the workday, but what else do you do?

What makes you think we’re sane? Mwa ha ha! Each member of the team has their own thing they like to do that defrags their brain. Some folks Photoshop lol Squigs (don’t ask), some people juggle. Occasionally a bout of Rockband will break out, and of course, there’s always message boards and YouTube. Perhaps the most interesting thing for fans are the occasional bouts of blog plottery that goes on. We’re constantly kicking about new ideas about how to highlight live events to the community. That’s how things like the Night of Murder Bloody Valentines came about. Someone wrote a bad poem, someone else was like “Hey, we should send this out!” and someone else sat down with a fountain pen and a load of red ink and made the cards.

After seeing how people wanted a more complicated puzzle in the next blog event, we thought, ”OK, well you asked for it.” So, we’ve been whittling and painting and all sorts of ideas. And occasionally cackling too. We have a great set of challenges coming up for everyone. It’s amazing what you can do with 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there.


You've got the floor for our last question. Talk to the fans and community about something you haven't mentioned yet that you want them to know about Tomb Kings.

With every event, we like to sneak at least one Easter Egg into the event for players to discover. Sometimes they’re rare items that drop from monsters and/or players, sometimes they’re titles like “Death by Pie”, or hidden quests. I challenge you all to discover this next event’s secrets. This time around, they’re hiding from you in plain sight if you have eyes to find them.

---

Thanks to Andy Belford, Robert Mull, and of course, Mark Davis at Mythic for giving us the opportunity to talk to them about this much-anticipated event!

[PhoenixRed]

As always, guys and gals, positive and negative feedback is allowed, but keep it productive.

[Condorrr]

Good read and I just hope those labors of love blossom with PVP. I would hate to see a city that lag to it knee in heavy orvr because its poorly optimize.

I just wanna see that new contents contain lots of area that encourage pvp, and of course small skirmish group or solo player able to go in, stalk and kill it victim without getting overwhelm by an zerg.

Being a career PVPER. I have little interest in Pve or scenery, as long the place is well optimize for low to med end PC user and attracts lots of action with loots, I'm all good for those new changes.

[Autokarma]

Hopefully this will be catalyst the game is needing to spice things up and get people coming back to the game.

Ever since this was first mentioned, I've reminisced about the great times i had in Darkness Falls and the many great pvp fights that were had from 1 v 1 fights to larger group v group.

[Meteorfall]

Any guesses on the mentioned easter egg ?

[Softbuns]

Originally Posted by PoweredbyDestrotears

The onyl thing I really fear is server (un)stability.

I love the idea, I love PVE in WAR where you discover all sorts of things about Lore, I love getting some loot, but there is big BUT.

We all know that server crashes are normal since 1.2.1 and since all people will rush to this new zone when it comes out who can guarantee us that we will not suffer severe lag and constant crashes when this comes out (taking into consideration that enough people will be in game and not run of to play something else).

I couldn't agree more. I love the game in itself but content is starting to become very repetitive and I can't wait for new zones and dungeons. I am only worried about the crashes and lag.
If they do not introduce new zones along with the new content I will be very dissapointed.

[Kazamxi]

The real problem is we have heard this all before.

The things coming really do sound fantastic, but then so did city sieges and they were a disaster. I think its going to have to be a case of seeing is believing rather than falling for the hype this time.

[Earlydawn]

You know, I play WAR for RvR, but I'm still excited to take a nice PvE break and enjoy the desert sun.

[maximsuon]

the desert setting seems lame and the egyptian backdrop is even lamer. all the pve stuff is ok i guess. but then again i thought this was a pvp game. i think pvp type of mmos are out the wayside

[PhoenixRed]

Originally Posted by maximsuon

the desert setting seems lame and the egyptian backdrop is even lamer. all the pve stuff is ok i guess. but then again i thought this was a pvp game. i think pvp type of mmos are out the wayside

Did you play Darkness Falls in DAOC at all? This is sort of similar. A lot of people are mistaking this as a wholly pve encounter when you are sure to encounter roaming enemies in the Necropolis as you do the content. DF was a well-loved blend of RvR and PvE that engaged players on both fronts. Whether or not it will be successful in WAR remains to be seen, but I do like what I've seen so far.

[Needlepoint]

Originally Posted by maximsuon

the desert setting seems lame and the egyptian backdrop is even lamer. all the pve stuff is ok i guess. but then again i thought this was a pvp game. i think pvp type of mmos are out the wayside

Read the article? He talks about this just as much as an RvR event as a PvE event. And I can't see how the egyptian setting is "lame".

I for one love the "Egyptian" setting and the Tomb Kings lore, and can't wait to participate in this event. Wonder if we're gonna see armor sets that look slightly "egyptian", though not so much that it will change the original class look too much.

[Kazad Karazin]

Nice interview,I'm considering about coming back but will join the US server this time.Gonna watch for some more feedback first

[grimdeath]

Originally Posted by Paelias Painbringer

Any guesses on the mentioned easter egg ?

answer: Elite influence reward - Aviator Goggles

They grant a power that lets you see hidden treasure....which is mostly likely hidden in the open

[Rimarlk]

I'll say this.



In DAoC in the Old Frontiers before they ruined it(this is according to an mmo veteran who played UO and DAoC from beginnings) you felt like you were in a sandbox for RVR. What you did was up to you.

The zone was very, very big and it seemed overwhelming, yet that's what gave you the rush that made you stick with the game. Mythic provided the sandbox, you decided how you played in it.



The new "Land of the Dead" needs to be big. Not these little zones in T4 that it takes 5 minutes to run everywhere and you have to take virtually one road to get everyone.


It needs to big. It needs to be immersive and give players that Old Frontiers feeling that you controlled what you did and you weren't force one way like you are currently in T4. Land of the Dead needs to be very, very big or else I believe it will fail and WAR along with it.

If they get it right, Land of the Dead can revive this game, but this is one of their few last chances.


/crosses fingers for "Land of the Dead"!!!!!!!!

[Pakanohida]

Originally Posted by Rimarlk

I'll say this.



In DAoC in the Old Frontiers before they ruined it(this is according to an mmo veteran who played UO and DAoC from beginnings) you felt like you were in a sandbox for RVR. What you did was up to you.

The zone was very, very big and it seemed overwhelming, yet that's what gave you the rush that made you stick with the game. Mythic provided the sandbox, you decided how you played in it.



The new "Land of the Dead" needs to be big. Not these little zones in T4 that it takes 5 minutes to run everywhere and you have to take virtually one road to get everyone.


It needs to big. It needs to be immersive and give players that Old Frontiers feeling that you controlled what you did and you weren't force one way like you are currently in T4. Land of the Dead needs to be very, very big or else I believe it will fail and WAR along with it.

If they get it right, Land of the Dead can revive this game, but this is one of their few last chances.


/crosses fingers for "Land of the Dead"!!!!!!!!

I agree, for a game about open world rvr we really don't have room to do actual force maneuvers. Can't exactly have group 3 of a warband ride south and flank destro in Dragonwake as an example.