Ethereal Knighthood: News

Mythic has finally committed to a solid release date, they have officially lifted most of the NDA as of this morning and Open Beta starts on the 7th of September. There is also a preview weekend happening this weekend for all CE pre-orders and the first 50,000 SE pre-orders that registered on the EA Mythic account site. This news bit is going to contain quite a bit of information in it as it has been a while since I've updated.

Let's start with the launch date. WAR servers will be going live at 10am Eastern on September 18, 2008. Unfortunately, Mythic will be splitting up the US and European servers which means our chances of playing with Ginnunga again are pretty much nill as we've recently found out they will be subscribing to the European version through GOA. I truly wish them luck as I remember all too well the stories from Europeans about the kind of service GOA provided during the days of Dark Age of Camelot.
Mythic announces launch date for WAR

With the release date set in stone now, we'll be making strides towards establishing an EK group to play when it goes live. I'll be posting more information on that in the weeks to come as we near launch date. Mythic hasn't released a list of launch day servers so we have no idea which one will be our home as of yet. We will however be playing Order unless someone can convince me with concrete evidence as to why we should play Destruction. Keep this in mind if you want to try...I've had a High Elf Tabletop army for over a decade. I'm a High Elf through and through. My EQ Enchanter was a High Elf, so is my EQ2 Coercer.

I listed off the Open Beta start date earlier, it is going to be a rather short open beta. It also looks like the only way to get into it if you weren't a Closed Beta tester is through the pre-order, which you do have time for if you get on it soon. The client is being offered through Fileplanet but does not require a subscription to download. You are required to authenticate with your Open Beta key so not just anyone can download it. They also have a torrent you can download but I always get better performance from Fileplanet.
Open Beta Time!

The preview weekend is this weekend. Anyone with a Collector's Edition has access as well as the first 50,000 Standard edition users to add their open beta key to their account. EA Mythic has introduced a new site that combines your DAoC account with your WAR account into one area for easier management so if you played DAoC, you already have a Mythic Account Management Login. Your DAoC login becomes your master account, very similar to how PlayNC's Master account system works.
Mythic Account Center

In addition to all this, Mythic is also running an Early Start program for people that have pre-ordered. You will be able to log in and play the live game 3 days before the official launch if you have the Standard Edition, 4 days if you have the Collector's Edition. I have my Headstart code entered already so I'll be playing from the 15th on.

The last bit of news for this section is the lifting of the NDA. While there is still one server under lockdown, most people will be able to talk about their experiences. As with any MMO, reviews so far are mixed though with more people saying they enjoy the game than not. As always, take these with a grain of salt. As is, I don't even trust reviews from most of the professional review sites. A lot of them gave Age of Conan a high rating and I personally felt that game was horrible. I'm hoping to be able to get some time this weekend to log at least a few hours but I may end up having to work pretty much the whole time. I will be playing in the Open Beta though and I'll be tossing out a lot of information about how that goes for us. If you see something of interest about WAR posted on the web, be sure to toss it up for us to check out.
WAR is no longer under NDA!

And finally, as I mentioned, I'll be posting information and updates on our plans for WAR as we get closer to the launch date. If someone truly wants us to go Destruction, let's get the debate going. Be sure to check back once in a while for new updates, most of which will be posted in our forums.