Official Release Information

August 6, 2008 – 11:06 am

Read the official news release here: http://herald.warhammeronline.com/warherald/NewsArticle.war?id=173

There is one less date to speculate about!

Warhammer Online will release on September 18, 2008, which is just in time for all the students to fork out money for a post-secondary education and begin the journey towards imminent dropout status due to over-playing the latest, greatest MMORPG.

Don’t deny it… you know it to be true!

At least it won’t cost you as much to play as was previously thought… That’s a few extra dollars towards paying back your parents for college failure! EA and Mythic seem to have come to the realization that charging more per month than their biggest competitor is not a good idea, no matter how deserving it might be. Cadillacs may cost more than Cavaliers, but there a reason, which is going to be a hard sell for a brand new MMORPG coming up against the WoW behemoth. I have no doubt they will push to increase the subscription costs some time down the road though, once everyone has had a taste and is hopelessly addicted.

$14.99 for a monthly subscription
$41.97 for a 3-month subscription ($13.99/month)
$77.94 for a 6-month subscription (12.99/month)

I notice they haven’t included a 12-month or lifetime subscription option. Obviously, they didn’t feel it was worth it, but I’m curious as to the reasons why.

Apparently the Open Beta will be available for download on August 15, 2008 as well. My guess is that you won’t be able to actually play on that day, but that the servers will become available after the weekend (probably Monday, August 18, 2008).

Still no official word on the NDA lift date yet, but Mark says it won’t be for at least another week. Maybe the Open Beta and the NDA lift will coincide? Makes sense, right?

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14 Responses to “Official Release Information”
First Open Beta ever to happen under the auspices of their beloved NDA. Seriously, they really love that thing. Like, it’s unhealthy: their relationship with the NDA. Mythic needs to move back in with its mother and get a restraining order pronto, before we see the tragic result of domestic NDA-breech on 20/20.

Even though that was kind of dumb, I really enjoyed that metaphor.

By Thade on Aug 6, 2008
You brought a seen from Harold and Kumar to mind

By Werit on Aug 6, 2008
I start my MBA program the Wednesday after the open beta download starts. I was worried this game would come too soon. I may have to wait for a couple months to get re-acquainted with my priorities before picking this game up now. This release date close to school starting may also hurt their sales with people worried about time management, as WoW has already laid a track to have people believe in MMO addiction.

By DextarDouglas on Aug 6, 2008
Snafzg:

What are your plans for video posting? Will you host some decent quality ones or just go the youtube route?

By Werit on Aug 6, 2008
Dextar:

There were games before WoW that showed people the addictive nature of MMOs (EQ, DAoC, etc). Though I agree, WoW is much more mainstream so the impact could be larger.

By Travis on Aug 6, 2008
@Dextar - I definitely think it’s a strange time to release to be honest. High school usually starts a bit earlier than the 18th but post-secondary is just getting starting up around then. The sales will still come I guess, just not right away imho.

@Werit - I’m going to be using Vimeo, which supports widescreen and HD. My videos aren’t perfectly HD quality mainly because there’s a weekly upload limit for the site, and I want to make sure I can post 7-10 videos once the NDA drops. Future videos may be as close to HD as I can get them once I’m only posting an RvR video every so often.

I ran a really quick test to check on their quality and I was pretty happy with it even at my current resolutions (840×524). When embedded on this site, I will have to shrink them down to a max width of 600, but you can get higher rez by going directly to my Vimeo profile.

By Snafzg on Aug 6, 2008
Just clarifying my points here.

I meant initial sales not overall, I don’t plan to never play the game. It is a general trend in WoW at least that September brings a down turn in overall players as well. And for my addiction comment I really meant WoW as bringing the “condition” to the mainstream.

By DextarDouglas on Aug 6, 2008
Agreed!

By Snafzg on Aug 6, 2008
Hey Snaffy,

My guess is no lifetime subscription because EA may very well end up losing money if they did this. If WOW offered a lifetime subscription, for example, when the game was released, they would have lost a crapload of money because many people have played the game for easily more than two years.

By singlemalt on Aug 6, 2008
I’m a bit surprised that there’s no yearly subscription, but Mythic is too smart to do a lifetime subscription.

Lifetime subscriptions for MMOs are just a bad idea. If the game is good and you provide quality content updates, then players will stay around long enough that the company loses money on the lifetime sub. On the other hand, if the game is crap, then locking in gullible players with a lifetime sub just pisses off your loyal customer base.

By Lepinski on Aug 6, 2008
Snafzg:

This one works very well:

http://vimeo.com/1334168

By Werit on Aug 6, 2008
Where’d you get the info for the Open Beta available for download on the 15th?

By bagwi on Aug 7, 2008
http://www.warhammeronline.com/preorder/

To register for Open Beta:

1) After August 15, 2008 visit the Mythic Entertainment Account Management website.
2) Create a new Warhammer Online game account.
3) When prompted, enter your Open Beta code.*

By Snafzg on Aug 7, 2008