WAR is coming

I was going to write a big long rant about blog comment wars and how psychotic some people get (not meaning anyone here, mind you) but then I thought maybe that wasn’t a very productive topic. I’m never going to change the minds of haters (who can’t even manage to get my name right) and the internet is a big place, so best to just walk away and let Karma deal with them.

Heh, ok, now I’m REALLY going to let it go.

So Warhammer Online. I haven’t talked about it much, but since my love affair with Age of Conan crumbled, its been my rock. If WAR let’s me down, I’m not sure what my next handhold in the swirling vortex of the MMO-verse will be. I’ve been in the beta for a few months now, and with the NDA in place I haven’t wanted to talk about it for fear of giving away something I’m not supposed to. And honestly I’ve been a crappy beta tester, ironically, because I enjoy the game so damned much that I don’t want to ‘spoil’ it for myself before launch. So I’ve been testing pretty lightly, trying to skip over ‘lore’ stuff and just test game systems.

Anyway…today the news is reaching a fever pitch, which is good because the community has been faltering a bit in the wake of some classes and content being pulled for launch and some other unpopular decisions on the part of Mythic & EA. But today, as JoBildo pointed out, we got a date for when Open Beta can be downloaded (Aug 15th). Presumably the beta itself will open shortly thereafter.

Bigger still, the War Herald announced a US launch date for the servers, Sept. 18th. Considering games usually ship on Tuesdays, and the 18th is a Thursday, I wonder how this will work. Will the game ship on Wedneday, to arrive on Thursday? Or will it ship on Tuesday, causing much confusion to those who get it on Wednesday and can’t log in. No matter, just pre-order and get early access.

Lastly, pricing, which is pretty standard:

* Monthly Subscription: $14.99 USD
* 3-Month Subscription: $41.97 ($13.99 per month)
* 6-Month Subscription: $77.94 ($12.99 per month)

Oh, and the guild JoBildo mentioned now has a name and a website: Casualties of WAR. The guild is open to bloggers and friends of bloggers. So far it seems like a great bunch of people in there.