Warhammer Online Empire and Chaos Previews
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The jewel in the crown of the Empire is the capital city of Altdorf. This lively metropolis is the place for a citizen of the Empire to be. Filled with massive buildings, loads of NPCs going about their scheduled business, and double dollops of Warhammer style, Altdorf is almost enjoyable enough that you won't want to leave once you arrive.
When you do arrive in Altdorf, you'll be deposited at the gyrocopter pad in the Market District. Though the city is definitely high-level content, even low-level players can come here to see the sights and sample the wares. What's available in the city will even change over time as players work to improve the overall city rating. Altdorf (and all other capital cities) can climb through five levels of city rating, with more services and quests becoming available at higher levels. As players complete quests within the city, the city rating will gradually improve and once it reaches a new level, players will find new NPCs, newly opened doorways and a host of other new content.
While GameSpy explores Chaos:
The Chaos Wastes are part of the northern region of Kislev but the terrain shows the influence of near total Chaos dominance. Vegetation is oddly mutated, showing off unusual colors and behavior not normally found in plants. Trees, for example, shade from ordinary-looking bark into branches that have become purple twitching tentacles. The ground is littered by bones, some of which erupt into actual monsters as we pass. The ground is also torn up by what looks like archaeological digs. Teams of Chaos slaves are laboring to dig up mysterious black stones for use in raising the Empire's dead. These mark some of the more significant PvE zones in the area as Empire players will attempt to stop Chaos from harnessing the power of the stones.
The area also marked our first sighting of a Chaos keep. Keeps and sieges are one of the most significant features for Warhammer Online's RvR combat system. Essentially lifted directly from the successful system in place in Mythic's own Dark Age of Camelot, each RvR region in the world will have two keeps, one geared toward each opposing race. Holding keeps will be a significant factor in possessing the region and pushing the borders of the war toward the all-important city sieges. In this case we were looking at an old Kislevite fortress that had been taken over by Chaos who had built their typical Gothic steeples and spires atop the lumpy stone walls. The place looked ugly, scary and pretty darned solid.
