Some saddening news today for Warhammer Online fans. We've just learned via an interview on MMORPG.com that four classes and four racial capital cities have been removed from the game.

In an interview with MMORPG.com, Mark Jacobs, the VP and General Manager of Mythic Entertainment (formerly EA Mythic), announced the news and explained the situation of the company to the public. To put it simply, certain sacrifices had to be made for the game in time to come out at its fighting best at launch, and so the company chose to remove the things that weren't working well at present.

The classes being removed from the game are the Choppa (Greenskin), Blackguard (Dark Elf), Hammerer (Dwarf), and Knight of the Blazing Sun (Empire), essentially two tanking classes and two melee DPS classes. Remarks Jacobs,

Of all of the news in this interview, this is the worst. Having to cut these guys out, even though it’s the right decision, I am really sorry that we have to do it. I truly am. I don’t like going to the guys and telling them ‘hey sorry, we’ve got to cut these guys out. They’re just not good enough but that was what we had to do.'

As for the racial capital cities needed for RVR battles, these have been trimmed down from six to two, retaining only the capital Cities of Altdorf and Inevitable City for the time being. The word according to the interview is that the other cities will be integrated into the game at a later date, though a timeline for those additions has yet to be announced.

Regarding all the changes, Jacobs didn't beat around the bush, explaining that the company wanted to be upfront about the changes they were making to the game:

We’ve always believed that it is important to go to the community with both good news and bad. Whether it’s the state of the games, or just talking in the forums, we’re professional enough to confront bad news head on and not try to hide it and not try to play games and wait until the last minute when people have already bought the game to tell them. We will not play those kinds of games.