Warhammer Online gets first big patch

Goes live 12 December in Europe

11 December 2008 19:31 GMT / By Verity Burns

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning is in the middle of receiving its first big content update since its release back in September.

Update 1.1a is now live for North American gamers, however European operator GOA has said that it is expecting the patch to go live on European WAR servers tomorrow morning. There will be around three hours of downtime while the patch is applied, starting from 7am.

As we told you at the beginning of the week, update 1.1a will mark the official debut of the game's two new careers - the Knight of the Blazing Sun and the Black Guard - even though these have been available for a few days now.

Another part of the patch is the introduction of an "influence" system to open-world realm-versus-realm warfare, which it is hoped will add extra incentives to challenge other players in the game's currently-quiet open-conflict zones.

Another problem with the game's population-distribution are the Public Quests, which have quietened down since the game's launch. Now one Public Quest per chapter will be rebalanced to an "easy" level so it can be played between one and three players.

Of course, you can expect some new quests and lairs from the batch, with a boost in item rewards too. There will be revamped armour sets for all levels, new drops to help out in some of the harder dungeons and a higher chance of getting good rewards from Public Quests.

Apparently a lot of the improvements made have also been to the "responsiveness" of the game, which was criticised early on. Lag has been reduced, animation glitches sorted, as well as a whole host of fixes to the user interface.

A lot to look forward to then, Warhammer fans.