The question, of course, is will PvP be enough to lure defectors from WoW? Barnett claims he doesn't allow his designers to play WoW in his presence, not out of spite but to stifle their impulses to emulate it. Ironically, of course, much of the lore Blizzard has lately declared asWoW's principal attraction was brazenly lifted from Warhammer, which boasts a mythology far too elaborate and exotic, Barnett admits, to properly showcase even in a dozen expansions.
There's also the usual corporate prudery to deal with. One popular Warhammer cult is the Slaanesh, a race of hedonistic, in some cases hermaphroditic naked Amazons with crab-claws that Barnett says players won't be seeing at launch because "people would be naughty." But afterwards, once the game's a hit? "Anything goes."
Look for the Age of Reckoning to dawn "sometime this summer."
