THQ President comments on 40k MMO

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**Cannerus_The_Unbearable**

Hopefully when your character dies they actually die. No company will have the balls to do something like that but they should. Make it count for something. Gamers are way too wussy nowadays

**metallifan**

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:Hopefully when your character dies they actually die. No company will have the balls to do something like that but they should. Make it count for something. Gamers are way too wussy nowadays

An MMORPG like that would -never- sell. Just because you tend to unavoidably die ten million times when you're a noob, and there's always the one mission/zone/whatever that makes you ragequit at least five times.

I -would- however, like to see it done as either you pass out after taking critical damage and you wake up in a medical tent/post back at your faction's local Base of Ops, or you just respawn as a new nameless grunt at the LZ where the landing shuttles originally touched down for the invasion. Then you have to get your gear from the armoury after reaching the base.

**Cannerus_The_Unbearable**

I wouldn't say that it would never sell. Sure it wouldn't have mass appeal but players who like games for competitive reasons would love it. Screw fighting the same stupid baddies over and over with a group of people you hardly like or care to game with just so you can get one more power up. Level quick, die quick. Rinse and repeat. Winner is the one who keeps his uber dude alive for more than 5 minutes

The reason I'll never play MMOs is because you can't win or lose... you just play forever and then are out way too much money in the end.

**metallifan**

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:The reason I'll never play MMOs is because you can't win or lose... you just play forever and then are out way too much money in the end.

Yep. That's why they're MMOs and not anything else

**bhsman**

Empchild wrote:Read the whole thread please before asking that question. We were talking about THQ saying how they weren't trying to match up to WOW.

What does that have to do with anything I just asked you? All I asked was why that part of your argument had anything to do with it's conclusion. I wouldn't have to read the meager half a dozen posts before yours to point this out.

**Thunderfrog**

I could see a a successful 40k game sitting somewhere in a mix between Borderlands and Hellgate London, with the instanced relative safety of Guildwars tossed in.

They toss you in a hub (command post, space ship, craftworld, whatever..) and you either head out solo into a zone (like Hellgate London) that might lead to other zones or take some friends with you into much larger combat oriented zone. PVP is doable this way without having the roving deathsquads of newbie killers being a huge threat.

Maybe if they did experience similar to the original starwars galaxies that would be nice. Then again, Borderlands weapon system was convenient too. I just think the wow/aion/war/lineage II way of doing things is becoming stale and outdated.

(Newbie zone, kill rats. Lvl up, go to medium zone, kill wolves, go to upper zone, kill different colored rats and bears, go to end game and finally group with another player who hates you for not watching 2 hour videos of boss strategies. You need to raid for gear but cant raid without gear... all that stuff.. its been done to death and is old news. Something rehashed or fresh is in order.)

**Empchild**

Thunderfrog wrote:I could see a a successful 40k game sitting somewhere in a mix between Borderlands and Hellgate London, with the instanced relative safety of Guildwars tossed in.

They toss you in a hub (command post, space ship, craftworld, whatever..) and you either head out solo into a zone (like Hellgate London) that might lead to other zones or take some friends with you into much larger combat oriented zone. PVP is doable this way without having the roving deathsquads of newbie killers being a huge threat.

Maybe if they did experience similar to the original starwars galaxies that would be nice. Then again, Borderlands weapon system was convenient too. I just think the wow/aion/war/lineage II way of doing things is becoming stale and outdated.

(Newbie zone, kill rats. Lvl up, go to medium zone, kill wolves, go to upper zone, kill different colored rats and bears, go to end game and finally group with another player who hates you for not watching 2 hour videos of boss strategies. You need to raid for gear but cant raid without gear... all that stuff.. its been done to death and is old news. Something rehashed or fresh is in order.)

I can see that somewhat working well. What will make or break game wise is which way will they concentrate. Will it be a space game with some ground thrown in or ground game with a couple of cool ships? Also what toon classes are we looking at. Side note BHsman if you can't be bothered to read a whole forum then I won't be bothered to answer you anymore.(ignore list welcomes you).

**osumicrobio**

I am hoping that they concentrate on ground. The game will really do itself and the 40k universe justice if the devs can find a way to capture not only the constant strife in 40k but the scope. Personally, I prefer open world PvP, sure it can be completely ruthless at times, but for the most part I feel that people are usually willing to band up and beat down people invading their areas.

As far as separating zones or instancing areas to shield newbies if they did something with planets or systems, where the areas meant for newer players are kept safer with stronger NPC defenses that could keep newer players from having their experience ruined by older players who have a good time ruining other people's time.

I really like the ideas that people are coming up with with leveling through ranks. I am thinking of how PvP was with WoW where you were ranked based on your successes and participation. If this opened up new equipment options as you get ranked higher, this could really lend itself well to PvP. The big drawback that I could see though, is the casual player will suffer quite a bit if they cannot maintain a rank with the amount of time they are willing to commit to the game.

**vitki**

osumicrobio wrote:The big drawback that I could see though, is the casual player will suffer quite a bit if they cannot maintain a rank with the amount of time they are willing to commit to the game.

This is a big dilemma. Since the casual gamers are usuailly a much bigger group than the hardcore players, you generally have to cater to them.
The WoW PvP levelling system was neat in theory but was broken as soon as it hit the servers by people sharing accounts and just grinding their way to the top.

Personally I don't really like PvP so I'm hoping they stay away from it. The biggest like I had from WAR was the public quest system. I hope some version of that survives.

**ShumaGorath**

Leggy wrote:Is their anyway to find out revenue for WoW? If they are claiming 11 miilion accounts when only 5 million are active, surely their earnings would take a hit?
Certainly apocryphal evidence suggests fewer people are playing. I used to have dozen of friends addicted to the game, now only a few show interest, and thats when there's an expansion.

They are claiming 11.5 million active accounts. There is no disparity, they are saying 11.5 million people actively play their game. Given that they state an average 18 month market churn, and that the game has been out for six years, it stands to reason that they have had ~46 million accounts created, discounting free trials. If your friends picked up the game early then they would likely have churned out by now. Do they still pay for a subscription?

**Acardia**

I've played a few different games and I think that they need to look at some of the long runners in the industry. I'm suprised no one mentioned Anarchy Online, one of the only sci-fi games or at least one of the first. (which is still going with a new gfx engine in process)

I am playing WAR currently, while awaiting the above. And I love the PVP style even more after the secnarios were tweaked yesterday to create more mid level fun.

**bhsman**

Thunderfrog wrote:I could see a a successful 40k game sitting somewhere in a mix between Borderlands and Hellgate London, with the instanced relative safety of Guildwars tossed in.

They toss you in a hub (command post, space ship, craftworld, whatever..) and you either head out solo into a zone (like Hellgate London) that might lead to other zones or take some friends with you into much larger combat oriented zone. PVP is doable this way without having the roving deathsquads of newbie killers being a huge threat.

Maybe if they did experience similar to the original starwars galaxies that would be nice. Then again, Borderlands weapon system was convenient too. I just think the wow/aion/war/lineage II way of doing things is becoming stale and outdated.

While this isn't a bad idea, the only problem I could see coming from this could be too much time spent at a loading screen. Not to mention having battlefields separated like that gives the impression (to me, at least) that there isn't an overarching battle, but we'll see.

Empchild wrote:Side note BHsman if you can't be bothered to read a whole forum then I won't be bothered to answer you anymore.(ignore list welcomes you).

Last attempt then: I had read the entire thread up to that point, and just wanted you to explain that point you were making, or at least why you felt it was a reason for your view that WoW is doing badly. No need to get so defensive.

I played the Warcraft games myself and while some of the things they had to say in order to justify new stuff may have not made sense, it was still fun to play and that's why I imagine a vast majority of those who subscribe still play.

**ShumaGorath**

While this isn't a bad idea, the only problem I could see coming from this could be too much time spent at a loading screen. Not to mention having battlefields separated like that gives the impression (to me, at least) that there isn't an overarching battle, but we'll see.

City of heros is entirely instanced, every single part of the game is demarcated by either loading zones or doors (which are just load screens). It works very well to strongly separate PVP and PVE content, though it does make the world slightly less contiguous.

Last attempt then: I had read the entire thread up to that point, and just wanted you to explain that point you were making, or at least why you felt it was a reason for your view that WoW is doing badly. No need to get so defensive.

With 65% of the MMO playerbase in blizzards game alone world of warcraft is not doing badly.

**Empchild**

Ok the reason we brought that in was because AKA_Mythos mentioned about competition with WOW. I have several friends in this industry and have chated with them about their companies feelings on WOW and it's effect to the global MMO market. Was using this as a corner stone for what was to be the rest of the thread since this thread has popped up onnumerous occassions. You can now go off the ignore list..have a seat right there..in that corner....

**c34r34lk1ll3r**

Necros wrote:I completely disagree that wow is losing popularity, when they have had over 10 million subscribers for a long time now. Though I do wonder sometimes if that's 10 million ACTIVE accounts, or total accounts? Like with facebook, you can cancel your facebook account but facebook will never, ever delete it. They keep it and count it in their totals because they use that # to give to their advertisers to get more money out of em. When you go back to facebook, your account is still there just as you left it, it was just hidden the whole time. And the same thing happens if you cancel your wow account and go back to it 2 years later (like I did).

anyway, as far as gameplay goes I really liked how Borderlands did it. They took WOW's quest system, but built it around a FPS. You still got levels and all that stuff, just the gameplay was a bit different.

They are gonna need endgame content to keep subscribers happy, but not so much at launch. No one will be high enough for it. Yeah there will be lifeless kids who want to race to be the first one to level 500 on their server and don't realize that no one will care but them. If there's a couple of high end areas and they continue to regularly add more they should be fine. One thing I don't like about wow and other games is when it comes time to release an expansion it's geared only toward high level folks, low levels are stuck with the same old areas that become ghost towns. Of course they should focus on the majority of the players, but it would be nice if they didn't forget the little guys in the process.

I quit playing wow a bit over a year ago and I have the feeling that the 10 or 11 million is total accounts. I still get things from them asking me to come b back but with no incentives. If they could get their heads out of their asses and work on the lore or just kill the game and make a Warcraft IV I would be happy. but the solid sodomization of their own creation to make money drove me away.

**metallifan**

Thunderfrog wrote:I could see a a successful 40k game sitting somewhere in a mix between Borderlands and Hellgate London, with the instanced relative safety of Guildwars tossed in.

They toss you in a hub (command post, space ship, craftworld, whatever..) and you either head out solo into a zone (like Hellgate London) that might lead to other zones or take some friends with you into much larger combat oriented zone. PVP is doable this way without having the roving deathsquads of newbie killers being a huge threat.

Maybe if they did experience similar to the original starwars galaxies that would be nice. Then again, Borderlands weapon system was convenient too. I just think the wow/aion/war/lineage II way of doing things is becoming stale and outdated.

(Newbie zone, kill rats. Lvl up, go to medium zone, kill wolves, go to upper zone, kill different colored rats and bears, go to end game and finally group with another player who hates you for not watching 2 hour videos of boss strategies. You need to raid for gear but cant raid without gear... all that stuff.. its been done to death and is old news. Something rehashed or fresh is in order.)

It doesn't sound like this game is going to be anything even remotely like WoW. For one, it's focus is on ranged combat. CC plays a part, but unless you're specifically set for playing a CC character like a Banshee or something, it's a bad idea. If you're just a TFG that plans on running circles around noobs while knifing them to death, you'll probably get chewed up by anyone with a gun thanks to the True Damage system they appear to be using.

I really doubt they'll use levels either. More likely it'll be some sort of FPS-style rank system. The higher your rank, the more gear that gets unlocked for you at the armoury. You'll probably still be able to get additional non-reg gear from civilian stores in towns, same-race enemies, and various missions, but I'm betting that most of your weapons, armour, and mods will come from unlocking them via rank. Would also be a good way to fix the "broken economy syndrome" that most MMOs suffer thanks to gold farmers and some of the more arrogant endgame players.

I'm just not sure why so many people have discarded this as a crappy WoW Clone already, especially looking at THQ's post-2000 game titles. Sure they don't have the experience with MMOs that Bioware or Blizzard might have, but just the sheer amount of awesome that THQ annually puts on store shelves should at least be grounds for a fair deal of confidence.

**ShumaGorath**

I quit playing wow a bit over a year ago and I have the feeling that the 10 or 11 million is total accounts.

It is not. It is current active accounts, the company has repeatedly stated as such, and in 2009 stated the community as "continuing to grow". Given the lack of real press over continued stratospheric recruitment rates it's likely that the games population has finally settled, though it's unlikely it has decreased a notable amount.

If they could get their heads out of their asses and work on the lore or just kill the game and make a Warcraft IV I would be happy. but the solid sodomization of their own creation to make money drove me away.

People ever played the game for the background? It's been a joke since warcraft 3.

**Morathi's Darkest Sin**

Thought I'd share this, not exactly a safe source coming from /tg/ hell some would say that makes me posting it a waste of time I'm sure, but I thought I'd at least put it out there.

Migellius on Warhammer40konline.net wrote:
*DISCLAIMER*

I got this from /tg/ just now. Anonymous might not be the most reliable source for news but they're still a source none the less.
I guess it's just up to you to believe all of this or not.

As for me, I can handle waiting in anticipation for E3 and actually hear it from the horse's mouth.
Maybe some of this might be true, we'll never know until E3 i guess.

...then again, all of this might just be complete troll-foolery.

This is channel /tg/ news helicopter high above the THQ headquarters giving you live feed about the upcoming Warhammer 40k MMO. This is newsreporter anonymous maximus, reporting.
"From THQ private company conference of 20th january concerning E3 presentation plan:
Playable factions:
- Imperium
- Eldar
- Orks
- Chaos
Features:
- Focus both on Meele and Long range Combat
- covering system
- 29 Zones (21 claimable, 8 invadeable)
- Open-World
- PvP around resource gathering and taking strategic points
- center zone features a conquerable stronghold
- No playable Tanks or other Warmachines at release but implemented possibility for expansion
- Tyranids as full fighting PvE-Faction
Lore (being discussed concerning certain faction-plots at the moment but here are the things we determined with Games Workshop so far):
- Game takes place in the southern border-sectors of Segmentum Tempestus
- Factions fight over a destroyed imperial forge world called Tarelis and its hive-city Cerberus X (newly added to the lore!)
- The story of the game will NOT take place in a parallel universe! Just like the Planet Kronus (made by our colleagues at relic) Tarelis will be part of the lore!
- Tyranids will be main-antagonists
- Unfortunately Vigil-games was not allowed to use Relics Gorgutz 'Ead 'Unter as Ork Warlord as he will make a final appearance in the second DoW2 expansion
Costs:
- 49.99$
Monthly fee:
- being discussed but most likely around 13$
Rating:
- targeted Teen/PEGI 16
Fully revealed at E3 2010."

Okay its probably rubbish, but there was a concept shot of a Hive city from Vigil (which this may well be based off) but I suppose discussion is good.

**bhsman**

Even if it's fake, it'll give us something to chew on until E3. First question that pops in my head: Will Chaos+Orkz be allied a la W:AR (likewise with Imp + Eldar), or will it be 4 separate factions?

**metallifan**

Well, the info did seem pretty specific - I heard the same rumors on another site but they didn't put down any names or numbers, and a few of them at Gamespot or Gamestop (can't remember which). Given that it's now three times I've seen some of this stuff circulated, I'm going to assume that /tg/ post is more than just hot air.

**Ahtman**

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:Hopefully when your character dies they actually die. No company will have the balls to do something like that but they should. Make it count for something. Gamers are way too wussy nowadays

It sounds like you want some of the persistent worlds on NWN 2. There are some that are permadeath where if your character dies then it is gone forever. Didn't Diablo 2 have something like that as well?

metallifan wrote:Well, the info did seem pretty specific - I heard the same rumors on another site but they didn't put down any names or numbers, and a few of them at Gamespot or Gamestop (can't remember which). Given that it's now three times I've seen some of this stuff circulated, I'm going to assume that /tg/ post is more than just hot air.

It read like someone took WAR and changed the terms to 40k ones. It is a little to close to it for me to think it is real, but who knows?

**metallifan**

Ahtman wrote:
Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:Hopefully when your character dies they actually die. No company will have the balls to do something like that but they should. Make it count for something. Gamers are way too wussy nowadays

It sounds like you want some of the persistent worlds on NWN 2. There are some that are permadeath where if your character dies then it is gone forever. Didn't Diablo 2 have something like that as well?

Yep. Diablo 2 had Hardcore mode, but it was entirely optional. An optional hardcore mode for this game would work, but making the whole game hardcore would not.

Ahtman wrote:
metallifan wrote:Well, the info did seem pretty specific - I heard the same rumors on another site but they didn't put down any names or numbers, and a few of them at Gamespot or Gamestop (can't remember which). Given that it's now three times I've seen some of this stuff circulated, I'm going to assume that /tg/ post is more than just hot air.

It read like someone took WAR and changed the terms to 40k ones. It is a little to close to it for me to think it is real, but who knows?

That's what I was thinking, but hey, then again how many MMOs out there are nearly identical in certain aspects?

**gutseren**

Can't wait to get a bunch of my buddies together for a sound WAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!

**Drake_Marcus**

Interesting... The flexible pricing model could be a huge competitive advantage.

**metallifan**

Drake_Marcus wrote:Interesting... The flexible pricing model could be a huge competitive advantage.

Agreed. I think they'll have another huge 1up on other MMOs because you're now only paying for the time you use, while the bracket still maxes out at a reasonable average monthly cost. So if you only played for 30 hours one month, you'd only pay for those 30, rather than a whole month. WAY better system than most MMOs.

**Cyporiean**

metallifan wrote:
Drake_Marcus wrote:Interesting... The flexible pricing model could be a huge competitive advantage.

Agreed. I think they'll have another huge 1up on other MMOs because you're now only paying for the time you use, while the bracket still maxes out at a reasonable average monthly cost. So if you only played for 30 hours one month, you'd only pay for those 30, rather than a whole month. WAY better system than most MMOs.

I fail to see where this was even mentioned?

**metallifan**

Well, they said "Flexible Pricing", and my guess is that it translates into a flexible fee based on time played up to the monthly fee, whereupon you pay the full monthly, rather than saying "It's $XX.00 for a month, use it or lose it" like most MMOs.

If they did that, there would certainly be a huge appeal because players are now potentially looking at a cost that's signifigantly lower than most other MMORPGs out there. If the game is good, and the costs are low, then there would be a huge customer base.

**ShumaGorath**

Flexible pricing means traditional monthly subscription rates in North America and Europe while utilizing micro-transactions in Asia (which have been incredibly successful there, and don't have the stigma related as they do here).

It does not mean some sort of variable play plan.

**Cyporiean**

Yeah, but he didn't actually say anything about flexible pricing... just a flexible business plan.

And a flexible payment plan can also just mean:
$14.99 USD - One Month
$41.97 USD - Three Months ($13.99 per month)
$77.94 USD - Six Months ($12.99 per month)

**Ahtman**

Cyporiean wrote:Yeah, but he didn't actually say anything about flexible pricing... just a flexible business plan.

"The way we're building the 40K MMO, and we think it's the right way, is with a flexible business model in mind. We think the subscription model still works in North American and Europe, It's more challenging in Asia, so we're building it in a way that we can either use time-based sessions or microtransactions as the business model in different markets," Farrell said.

Actually that is almost exactly what he said.