Warhammer Online: Recruit-a-Friend System

Warhammer Online is, more than many other MMOs, a team oriented game, especially if you are at all interested in RvR. Keep sieges require a coordinate and communicate force for a successful take, and it helps to have people you know fighting on your side. A group of friends that covers the major archetypes can hold off a much larger force of disorganized foes. But how to get your friends to join? Well, Mythic makes that pretty easy, and gives you a good reason to do it.

The recruit-a-friend process is a fairly simple one. As a paying subscriber to Warhammer Online, you receive up to six total recruitment referrals, gaining two for every month of subscription if you happen to use yours up. These referrals appear on your master account page, and it is a simple matter of clicking the referral, putting your friend's name and e-mail into, and sending. You can specify the server you play on and the side you fight for, and your friend, until they fully subscribe, will be able to play only within those specific realms. These referrals expire after thirty days, and you can recall them at any time. If your friend accepts, he or she will receive ten free days of play time.

While there are two item rewards for recruiting friends, keep in mind that for every friend you have who subscribes, you receive a free month of play time. Once you have two friends who have not just upgraded but subscribed to the game as well, you will receive your first reward for recruitment: a loyal companion. This takes the form of a unique non-combat pet. For the side of Order, this is the Imperial Hunting Hound. For the side of Destruction, this is the Warlord's Fell Hound. Unfortunately, it does not appear that there is any combat functionality for these pets, and there are some issues with them bugging out or not appearing. They are, however, extremely rare.

This is the real reward for participating in the recruit a friend program. Once you have recruited four total subscribers to fight with you, you will be rewarded with a specific in game item: a gift from the leader of your faction himself. For Order, you receive the Rod of Service, a gift from Karl Franz, which grants a specific power, called Apprenticeship. For Destruction, you receive the Collar of Servitude, a gift from Tchar'zanek, which grants a specific power, called Indenture. These mirror abilities allow you to raise an ally of your choice to within two levels of you, much the same way sidekicking worked in City of Heroes. In addition to this, these items add a constant 5% experience and renown bonus while in a group.

Despite all the fantastic rewards, there are some problems with the Recruit-a-Friend system. There are some issues with its functionality, in that often rewards or referrals are slow in coming or even non-functional. In addition to this, if you restarted your account instead of creating a new one, then you may not receive any referrals at all. This is a well known bug. Also, there is very little incentive for your friends to join unless they are genuinely interested or very altruistic. The RAF program offers few benefits to them. Still, it is a simple enough process, and if you have friends who you would like to invite, there is practically no reason not to participate.

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