Hi guys, Kenton here from Eutechnyx, the dev team currently working on Warhammer 40, 000: Storm of Vengeance. Just wanted to drop by and say hi. Over the coming few months we're going to be releasing increasing amounts of information about the game, and obviously we'd like as much feedback from the hardcore 40K fans as we can get.

Storm of Vengeance is a strategy game for mobile and Steam set during the Battle for Piscina IV. Over the course of 60 missions, you can play as either the Dark Angels under Master Belial or the Ork Waaagh! of Ghazghkull Thraka . Each mission requires you to construct buildings, collect resources, build and deploy units and use unique command skills to overcome the enemy.

Anyhow, we should have some gameplay to show fairly soon, but in the meantime here's a quick preview of one of our new units we haven't shown publicly before today.



All feedback welcome, we'd love to hear what you think!


You can find us on Twitter at @W40KSOV or via Facebook https://www.facebook.com/StormOfVengeance for regular updates.

That's not an Ork!
MOAR ORKS!

Looking forward to seeing more of your game, nice that you're asking for feedback. Will it be on Android, too, and not just on iPhones/iPads?

Yes, we're developing for iOS, Android and Steam.

Good, then I can get it too!

SM vs Orks again?
I wish there was a game that you play where you pick any army and go on a campaign against any of the others. Similar to the actual table top version. Real time strategy with all the fluff and fun that comes with the building of an army and creation of bases like this one in this Storm of Vengeance. Total Annihilation style.
Don't get me wrong, I love the sound of this game!


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 Kentonio wrote:
Yes, we're developing for iOS, Android and Steam.

No Windows Phone compatibility?

Ohh, sounds neat! Now, will this be a RTS or turn-based?

Interesting. Always good to see some VG adaptations.

When you say strategy, do you mean, Real Time Tactics, Real Time Strategy, Turn Based Tactics or Turn Based Strategy?

I find that whenever the term "strategy" is used, it refers to one of those four.

ooo shiny, i could get in on this....i echo Cthulu's question on strategy however....

 louisb1304 wrote:
SM vs Orks again?
I wish there was a game that you play where you pick any army and go on a campaign against any of the others. Similar to the actual table top version. Real time strategy with all the fluff and fun that comes with the building of an army and creation of bases like this one in this Storm of Vengeance. Total Annihilation style.
Don't get me wrong, I love the sound of this game

Dawn of War then?

Big question for me:

Will you be developing the game for PC or Android/iOS first? Because, forgive my cynicism, I highly doubt you'd try and develop both at the same time and you'd rather save resources by porting one to the other.

We're actually developing for all platforms simultaneously. We're used to doing it, as we've made games for PC and multiple console platforms simultaneously in the past.

It's real time, with the game split into a large number of missions, each lasting around 5 minutes to make them suitable for mobile gaming and for those people who don't have endless hours to devote to their game sessions. The game takes place over 5 lanes which you can place buildings and units to try and capture the opponents lanes. Each unit can be individually customized with improved weapon types, grenades, jump packs (for assault marines) that let units jump between lanes, and a large range of other items and abilities. You can also unleash command skills on the battlefield, send Ravenwing or Ork Trukks to push a lane, and much much more. It's a bit of a new approach to the Warhammer universe, but everyone who's played it so far has been really hooked on it.

Anyway, hopefully we'll have some gameplay footage to show soon.

So more like a Tower Defense game meets a basic MOBA?

 Kentonio wrote:
We're actually developing for all platforms simultaneously. We're used to doing it, as we've made games for PC and multiple console platforms simultaneously in the past.

It's real time, with the game split into a large number of missions, each lasting around 5 minutes to make them suitable for mobile gaming and for those people who don't have endless hours to devote to their game sessions. The game takes place over 5 lanes which you can place buildings and units to try and capture the opponents lanes. Each unit can be individually customized with improved weapon types, grenades, jump packs (for assault marines) that let units jump between lanes, and a large range of other items and abilities. You can also unleash command skills on the battlefield, send Ravenwing or Ork Trukks to push a lane, and much much more. It's a bit of a new approach to the Warhammer universe, but everyone who's played it so far has been really hooked on it.

Anyway, hopefully we'll have some gameplay footage to show soon.

Sounds quite cool - looking forward to seeing some footage!

Micro transactions or pay to win and I'm giving this a miss

 Kentonio wrote:
It's real time, with the game split into a large number of missions, each lasting around 5 minutes to make them suitable for mobile gaming and for those people who don't have endless hours to devote to their game sessions. The game takes place over 5 lanes which you can place buildings and units to try and capture the opponents lanes. Each unit can be individually customized with improved weapon types, grenades, jump packs (for assault marines) that let units jump between lanes, and a large range of other items and abilities. You can also unleash command skills on the battlefield, send Ravenwing or Ork Trukks to push a lane, and much much more. It's a bit of a new approach to the Warhammer universe, but everyone who's played it so far has been really hooked on it.

Is this sort of like League of Legends, gameplay wise?

Intrigued both by the concept, and that a dev is looking for feedback from Dakkaroos.

Eutechnyxs last mobile game, Ninja Cats vs Samurai Dogs, was a lane game, similar to the description above.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ninja-Cats-vs-Samurai-Dogs/dp/B00F0PH06W

Having a poke around seems that game reviewed pretty well.
http://www.148apps.com/reviews/ninja-cats-samurai-dogs-review/
http://www.metacritic.com/game/ios/ninja-cats-vs-samurai-dogs

Looking forward to see what you do with Orks.

That said, I don't own a smartphone so I'm not getting this simply as I have nothing to play it on, unless you like... release it on steam or something.

I too am curious about the ork play, and I do have an android device to actually play it on. Though I'm curious how the payment will work, because as stated, pay to win and I'll probably say forget it.

Melissia wrote:Looking forward to see what you do with Orks.

That said, I don't own a smartphone so I'm not getting this simply as I have nothing to play it on, unless you like... release it on steam or something.

It appears you're in luck:

Kentonio wrote:Yes, we're developing for iOS, Android and Steam.

shamikebab wrote:So more like a Tower Defense game meets a basic MOBA?

Pretty good description really!

Ouze wrote:Intrigued both by the concept, and that a dev is looking for feedback from Dakkaroos.

We want to get opinions from real 40K fans, we grew up with the IP ourselves so we want to make sure it feels as genuine as we can.

Squidbot wrote:Eutechnyxs last mobile game, Ninja Cats vs Samurai Dogs, was a lane game, similar to the description above.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ninja-Cats-vs-Samurai-Dogs/dp/B00F0PH06W

It's a similar style of game, but we've added a lot more this time.

Melissia wrote:Looking forward to see what you do with Orks.
That said, I don't own a smartphone so I'm not getting this simply as I have nothing to play it on, unless you like... release it on steam or something.

It will be on Steam.

KingCracker wrote:I too am curious about the ork play, and I do have an android device to actually play it on. Though I'm curious how the payment will work, because as stated, pay to win and I'll probably say forget it.

Formosa wrote:Micro transactions or pay to win and I'm giving this a miss

No pay to win here.

OK so since it's on the mobile and Steam, am I correct in saying that you plan to have this as a one-off payment? What sort of price bracket are you aiming for? And will you try and pull a fast one by charging double on Steam like some game companies do?

As for the game itself, I'm not fully sure on how it will play. I'd need some footage of gameplay to understand how it all works.

I´d rather become a Servitor than to pay for micro-transactions...

I'll probably buy this game. I would like to see the ork story be a bit more in depth than orks smash though, i think orks directness is too often translated into stupidity when it simply is a lack of fear coupled with supreme confidence. I'll probably give the marines campaign a miss though, I don't want to sit through all that emoistic saviour of the universe crap.

Hopefully this will be cool.

This:

Bullockist wrote:
I'll probably buy this game. I would like to see the ork story be a bit more in depth than orks smash though, i think orks directness is too often translated into stupidity when it simply is a lack of fear coupled with supreme confidence. I'll probably give the marines campaign a miss though, I don't want to sit through all that emoistic saviour of the universe crap.

I couldn't put this better myself.

Cheers.

 boredbeard wrote:
This:

Bullockist wrote:
I'll probably buy this game. I would like to see the ork story be a bit more in depth than orks smash though, i think orks directness is too often translated into stupidity when it simply is a lack of fear coupled with supreme confidence. I'll probably give the marines campaign a miss though, I don't want to sit through all that emoistic saviour of the universe crap.

I couldn't put this better myself.

Cheers.

X3 as well. The orks have so much potential for good gaming ideas and plots and it's usually missed.

Some more info and a trailer. "No microtransactions" WOO!

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-02-25-storm-of-vengeance-is-warhammer-40k-meets-plants-vs-zombies

Hmmm, looks pretty interesting.

I'm not 100% sold to be honest. I want to like this and it's cheap enough to give it a good go I suppose.

This looks pretty good! Can I ask if there will be a Mac version or am I limited to playing it on my phone? I'm not averse to the idea of playing it on my phone, but I'd rather desktop it tbh.

 mega_bassist wrote:
Hmmm, looks pretty interesting.

I think it looks very poor.

Looks like a spin on Ironclad Tactics.

Not really my sort of thing. Total Biscuit will no doubt do a WFT Is...? on it, as he loves 40K, so I'll wait for that.

It's on Steam now, pre-order gets you into beta.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/254650/

For $10? No thanks.

Is that sarcasm? $10 isn't that much.

 mega_bassist wrote:
For $10? No thanks.

$10 for a game, with no micro-transactions. How cheap are you?

Pretty cheap, apparently

10 bucks for beta access to what essentialy boils down to a mobile game is pretty expensive.

After Space Hulk, I think I'm gonna wait for Metacritic reviews on this one.

I am intrigued by what I have seen so far though.

Uhh... you listen to metacritic? The review equivalent of a million monkeys at a million typewriters?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Uhh... you listen to metacritic? The review equivalent of a million monkeys at a million typewriters?

Not even that, a million biased monkies following 'other important' monkies more like it. I've seen games vote bombed because someone important didn't like it, or like the company of heroes 2 example.

 Soladrin wrote:
10 bucks for beta access to what essentialy boils down to a mobile game is pretty expensive.

Exactly how I feel about it. Hell, Reaper was originally a mobile game, and it's only $5. Not to mention that it looks much nicer, and has been pretty fun.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Uhh... you listen to metacritic? The review equivalent of a million monkeys at a million typewriters?

I generally think I can get a good feel for the game from there. Good reviews will let you know if you will like it, even if the reviewer did not.

I'm mildly concerned that these were the same guys that made Ride to hell: Retribution, arguably the worst game in 2013 (unless I'm mistaken). That isn't helping my confidence to be honest unless some serious lessons were learned.

That, and £9 for a mobile game is putting off impulse purchases. I happily paid £11 for Final Fantasy 4 because it was a full-blown RPG. This however, as far as I know from reviews, is plants VS zombies but in 40k. Eeeeeh...

 Ouze wrote:
I generally think I can get a good feel for the game from there. Good reviews will let you know if you will like it, even if the reviewer did not.

Yeah but that's precisely my point. Metacritic isn't a good way of showing good reviews. Fanboys will jump on that site and give max scores to games they like, even if they haven't played it yet. At the same time games can get their scores tanked by angry fans. You are far, far better off watching detailed independent reviews and analysis than you are a mass conglomerate website that can be abused and misused.



And that is as hipster as you will ever see me. I need to take a shower…

Ranor wrote:
That, and £9 for a mobile game is putting off impulse purchases. I happily paid £11 for Final Fantasy 4 because it was a full-blown RPG.

Hi, the game is £6.99 not £9.

 Kentonio wrote:

Ranor wrote:
That, and £9 for a mobile game is putting off impulse purchases. I happily paid £11 for Final Fantasy 4 because it was a full-blown RPG.

Hi, the game is £6.99 not £9.

Ah, my mistake.

If I can ask, aside from the 40k licence and a lack of micro transactions, what sets this apart from other games of a similar type or genre?

Turns out the game is also a direct copy/paste of Ninja Cats VS Samurai Dogs with only a (Less appealing) art change and an obviously lower amount of effort put into the atheistic. I sincerely hope during the beta (if it is one) that you take all feedback on board and improve the game quite significantly, because aside from the 40k licence it seems to have nothing going for it.

Alot of these new 40k titles have some pretty nice, faithful to the miniatures, graphics. This particular title even has some decent animations and sound effects. More's the pity that they aren't combined with more engaging gameplay experiences.

Totalbiscuit the Cyinical brit takes a look at the history of Warhammer 40k video games, and a look into the newest title: Warhammer 40k Storm of Vengeance. He makes a fair few points about how the new game is a clone of the game 'Cat Ninjas vs Samurai Dogs' with a re-skin into Warhammer 40k.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGXsOorkgpg&feature=player_detailpage

wow, this is made by the people who made ride to hell? feth these guys and their game, go screw another game over!


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also, what happened to the facebook titan game?

And there's the quote:

“In the grim darkness of the far future there are only horrible video games and a license being dragged through the mud.” – Total Biscuit on Storm of Vengeance

Does kinda sum up GW when you consider they allowed this piece of gak to be made and they also cracked down hard on some promising fan made stuff which wouldn't have cost them a thing.

Not only did TB do an awesome summary of 40k video games, he gave a highly entertaining rant on this game. Charging $10 for it on PC is insulting. As a $1 game that you can play on the golden throne... it's generic but maybe worthwhile though I'd probably still avoid as it doesn't even seem good at what it does.

By Tau what is this!

 Overlord Thraka wrote:
Totalbiscuit the Cyinical brit takes a look at the history of Warhammer 40k video games, and a look into the newest title: Warhammer 40k Storm of Vengeance. He makes a fair few points about how the new game is a clone of the game 'Cat Ninjas vs Samurai Dogs' with a re-skin into Warhammer 40k.

It's not a reskin of Ninja Cats, it's a complete new project that has taken a full development team over six months of hard work to create. If people don't like it then that is of course completely fair of them to say, but calling it a reskin does a disservice to some very dedicated and hard working people.

 Kentonio wrote:

 Overlord Thraka wrote:
Totalbiscuit the Cyinical brit takes a look at the history of Warhammer 40k video games, and a look into the newest title: Warhammer 40k Storm of Vengeance. He makes a fair few points about how the new game is a clone of the game 'Cat Ninjas vs Samurai Dogs' with a re-skin into Warhammer 40k.

It's not a reskin of Ninja Cats, it's a complete new project that has taken a full development team over six months of hard work to create. If people don't like it then that is of course completely fair of them to say, but calling it a reskin does a disservice to some very dedicated and hard working people.

Didn't someone from the studio themselves say it was a direct clone..?

 Soladrin wrote:

 Kentonio wrote:

 Overlord Thraka wrote:
Totalbiscuit the Cyinical brit takes a look at the history of Warhammer 40k video games, and a look into the newest title: Warhammer 40k Storm of Vengeance. He makes a fair few points about how the new game is a clone of the game 'Cat Ninjas vs Samurai Dogs' with a re-skin into Warhammer 40k.

It's not a reskin of Ninja Cats, it's a complete new project that has taken a full development team over six months of hard work to create. If people don't like it then that is of course completely fair of them to say, but calling it a reskin does a disservice to some very dedicated and hard working people.

Didn't someone from the studio themselves say it was a direct clone..?

No. Ninja Cats was our game to test out the style of gameplay and experiment with how well different things worked. It reviewed extremely well, so we used what we'd learned to build Storm of Vengeance.

 Soladrin wrote:

 Kentonio wrote:

 Overlord Thraka wrote:
Totalbiscuit the Cyinical brit takes a look at the history of Warhammer 40k video games, and a look into the newest title: Warhammer 40k Storm of Vengeance. He makes a fair few points about how the new game is a clone of the game 'Cat Ninjas vs Samurai Dogs' with a re-skin into Warhammer 40k.

It's not a reskin of Ninja Cats, it's a complete new project that has taken a full development team over six months of hard work to create. If people don't like it then that is of course completely fair of them to say, but calling it a reskin does a disservice to some very dedicated and hard working people.

Didn't someone from the studio themselves say it was a direct clone..?

I believe they did...
There's nothing wrong with building on old works of course, many studios use assets and inspiration from earlier games.
However, this does appear to be merely a 3D reskinned version of Cat ninjas vs Samurai Dogs. The gameplay mechanics are identical and frankly really boring.

 Soladrin wrote:

 Kentonio wrote:

 Overlord Thraka wrote:
Totalbiscuit the Cyinical brit takes a look at the history of Warhammer 40k video games, and a look into the newest title: Warhammer 40k Storm of Vengeance. He makes a fair few points about how the new game is a clone of the game 'Cat Ninjas vs Samurai Dogs' with a re-skin into Warhammer 40k.

It's not a reskin of Ninja Cats, it's a complete new project that has taken a full development team over six months of hard work to create. If people don't like it then that is of course completely fair of them to say, but calling it a reskin does a disservice to some very dedicated and hard working people.

Didn't someone from the studio themselves say it was a direct clone..?

Apparently so. I don't where the message is lurking so I can't find it.

@Kentonio: While we, the 40k community, appreciate the time and effort that you and your team has spent on making a 40k game, is it not an interesting problem where a direct footage comparison of your game VS a previous title of yours is show near-identical interface, gameplay and customisation? It doesn't bode well when it appears, to the customer, that your dev team decided to reuse assets from an existing game then slap a 40k makeover on it and charge lots more.

 Juvieus Kaine wrote:
@Kentonio: While we, the 40k community, appreciate the time and effort that you and your team has spent on making a 40k game, is it not an interesting problem where a direct footage comparison of your game VS a previous title of yours is show near-identical interface, gameplay and customisation? It doesn't bode well when it appears, to the customer, that your dev team decided to reuse assets from an existing game then slap a 40k makeover on it and charge lots more.

It's just one of those things that I don't think is really a fair judgement on the game. We've never tried to conceal in any way that Storm of Vengeance is an evolution of Ninja Cats, in fact we discussed it quite openly. We pointed out that we took gameplay we'd previously tested with Ninja Cats and built a lot more on top of it for SOV, including building the game in 3D (which is far from a small task) and the entire cross platform multiplayer system (which isn't exactly an industry standard).

We're genuinely talking about over six months of hard work by a sizable development team. We don't want to come out and start waving our fists in the air and shouting and wailing about it, but you can understand I hope why it's quite a frustrating thing for us. We're releasing Storm of Vengeance at what we think is a pretty reasonable price point (£6.99 on Steam) that we think is fully justified by the huge amount of man hours of development the project has taken.

You raise fair arguments, but at the same time £6.99 is high enough to push away people from impulse purchases en mass.

In addition, it isn't helping the bad rep issue when you push a game on steam as beta but not under early access. Yes, the game may well be nearly finished, but from a consumer perspective that's immoral. Early Access is intended for unfinished games.

Your game is in beta, ergo it is unfinished and should have an early access label, not sold as a finished product in the full library of steam. Not to be harsh, but that gives people the -idea- you may be trying to rake in money by not putting it under early access, where typically games do not sell overly well until release even if you did stick (BETA) in the title.

I like how my posting that video seems to have turned the thread completely in the opposite direction. People are starting to see just how much cloning has been done.

 Kentonio wrote:

 Juvieus Kaine wrote:
@Kentonio: While we, the 40k community, appreciate the time and effort that you and your team has spent on making a 40k game, is it not an interesting problem where a direct footage comparison of your game VS a previous title of yours is show near-identical interface, gameplay and customisation? It doesn't bode well when it appears, to the customer, that your dev team decided to reuse assets from an existing game then slap a 40k makeover on it and charge lots more.

It's just one of those things that I don't think is really a fair judgement on the game. We've never tried to conceal in any way that Storm of Vengeance is an evolution of Ninja Cats, in fact we discussed it quite openly. We pointed out that we took gameplay we'd previously tested with Ninja Cats and built a lot more on top of it for SOV, including building the game in 3D (which is far from a small task) and the entire cross platform multiplayer system (which isn't exactly an industry standard).

We're genuinely talking about over six months of hard work by a sizable development team. We don't want to come out and start waving our fists in the air and shouting and wailing about it, but you can understand I hope why it's quite a frustrating thing for us. We're releasing Storm of Vengeance at what we think is a pretty reasonable price point (£6.99 on Steam) that we think is fully justified by the huge amount of man hours of development the project has taken.

As much as you may dislike it, the fan of 40k are not th ones who like this game, which is your target audience gone. I am sorry that you wasted your manpower but saying that we should put a fair judgement n a game made by those who made the "worst game of 2013", not going to happen, sorry.

I say on this thing, if a game is released to public and is a clone of a previous title. It just shows you the game developers and game designers as lazy and inconsiderate.

The critics will wail on you and you will be disliked by the industry at large. Your game developers! Learn to use the tools and skills you have learned! Learn from other games, play your old games see where you went wrong. For you all I suggest you just watch extra credits for dos and do nots.

This is just something as the industry we need to avoid. I understand you just need a game out there. But you need to scrap it and think of a new game plan. Look at extra credits, look at other games. Study those games, learn from those games. Become better from experience! (But this does not mean copy from other game! This means using ideas and implementing them in your own unquie way. Just as Hemingway used John Donne in his book!)

This is something as an industry that needs to happen more often.

The gameplay itself is repetitive and no overall strategy is seen or is prevalent.

You need to re evaluate this game and compare and contrast.

Plus you need to redeem yourselves of a previous failure it may be hard, but you need to all work together and think about it as a team and discuss what should we change? What should we do next? How are we going to change the way we do things?

 Overlord Thraka wrote:
I like how my posting that video seems to have turned the thread completely in the opposite direction. People are starting to see just how much cloning has been done.

/

I knew who they were at the beginning XD, I was like. I've heard that name before. Then I remembered. "Ah yes! Ride to Hell Retribution!"

I personally didn't see this thread. But right now there is a monopolization on warhammer 40k ip. But eh thats just me.

I'm still waiting for my inquisitor 16 bit JRPG

I think it's Naive to scold a developer for re-using mechanics with such misplaced indignation. It's been a practice of game developers since the dawn of the industry, what is Rogue trader but a 're-skin' of the Warhammer ruleset?

The thing is, Ninja Dogs vs Pirate Cats or whatever looks just as boring to play.

The dubious 'beta' status of this product is however harder to defend.

 Perkustin wrote:
I think it's Naive to scold a developer for re-using mechanics with such misplaced indignation. It's been a practice of game developers since the dawn of the industry, what is Rogue trader but a 're-skin' of the Warhammer ruleset?

The thing is, Ninja Dogs vs Pirate Cats or whatever looks just as boring to play.

The dubious 'beta' status of this product is however harder to defend.

And then charging full price?

Well if they reuse a game's pathing and systems instead of improving on those systems then it can be blamed and can be scolded for not doing something different.

While people are keeping a pretty open mind, giving the devs the credit of "Borrowing assets and mechanics" also seems to be going a little far. During the side-by-side comparison in TotalBiscuit's review, he not only shows that mechanics and even the setup of the purchase screen are almost identical, he shows that three entire screens are word for word copied and pasted.

I think it is pretty deceptive for a dev to say this is a complete redesign that builds on the previous game, when they cant even, in their "Six months of hard work", take the five seconds it would require to write new instruction screens.

 Kentonio wrote:

 Juvieus Kaine wrote:
@Kentonio: While we, the 40k community, appreciate the time and effort that you and your team has spent on making a 40k game, is it not an interesting problem where a direct footage comparison of your game VS a previous title of yours is show near-identical interface, gameplay and customisation? It doesn't bode well when it appears, to the customer, that your dev team decided to reuse assets from an existing game then slap a 40k makeover on it and charge lots more.

It's just one of those things that I don't think is really a fair judgement on the game. We've never tried to conceal in any way that Storm of Vengeance is an evolution of Ninja Cats, in fact we discussed it quite openly. We pointed out that we took gameplay we'd previously tested with Ninja Cats and built a lot more on top of it for SOV, including building the game in 3D (which is far from a small task) and the entire cross platform multiplayer system (which isn't exactly an industry standard).

We're genuinely talking about over six months of hard work by a sizable development team. We don't want to come out and start waving our fists in the air and shouting and wailing about it, but you can understand I hope why it's quite a frustrating thing for us. We're releasing Storm of Vengeance at what we think is a pretty reasonable price point (£6.99 on Steam) that we think is fully justified by the huge amount of man hours of development the project has taken.

I understand and sympathize with the hard work that was done by your development team to create this title, but I don't understand WHY that work was done in the first place. From what I understand, Warhammer 40k is a tabletop turn-based strategy game, and a great deal of its player base consists of individuals who enjoy the game's serious and complex military strategy gameplay. However, the game which Storm of Vengeance bares more than just a little resemblance to, Ninja Cats, is a casual lane-based tower defense mobile game similar to Plants vs. Zombies. That genre simply does not coincide with the audience or the subject matter of Warhammer 40k. In fact, Storm of Vengeance is probably the last thing I would envision if I were a developer that wanted to create a game with the 40k license. No matter how I look at the situation, it seems that there could have been far better ways to utilize the development team's time and energy than the realization of this ill-conceived idea.

I'm genuinely curious as to what reasoning (or indeed, what motives) whoever greenlit this project had in mind, but for the sake of both the Eutechnyx team's financial success and the gaming community at large, I hope they reevaluate their approach and/or their priorities in the future.

(Personal bias disclaimer: I have little to no knowledge of the Warhammer 40k series, and I am an active subscriber of TotalBiscuit's Youtube channel, which clearly may influence my opinions.)

Well.. without adding the insulting comments towards devs gracious enough to speak with us I only mean to add a pointer towards entering into this niche market:

If you're going into the mobile and steam market to entice this community you have to realize a few things:

1. For the most part, the community disagrees with most of GW's policies and is becoming increasingly jaded and unwelcoming of any title that doesn't wish to be extremely ambitious since the downfall of SM.

2. Although a tug of war mechanic type game is clever, it works a lot better when it is cute like Plants vs. Zombie's or your previous title and can be marketed to a wide audience. 40k fans are not interested in a title that even remotely looks like a game of tug of war even though it clearly has some serious investment in the stragetic element within.

3. 40k fans are interested in a strategic, horrifying, and violent game with RPG and story elements that give it depth. A tug of war game doesn't fit the niche market. If you were asking me 10 dollars for a mobile game, I would pay it if it looked like an M version of AdvancedWars from the Gameboy Advance.

Yeah, this one:



It's "tug of war" element is really just an aside, a visual representation of a RISK style game where tactics determine the winner.

Honestly, I would definitely pay you 10 dollars to play a 40k version of Advance Wars with a mobile graphics update. Hell, I'd pay 15 if it was multiplayer.

Perkustin wrote:
The dubious 'beta' status of this product is however harder to defend.

I'm genuinely confused by this. We not only wrote BETA in the game title, but then overlaid every screenshot with the word BETA, and the game description repeatedly talks about it being a BETA. We chose originally not to go Early Access because we made the call that Early Access games are usually starting out from an earlier stage of development, and as we only wanted to run a month of Beta time that it might confuse people.

Obviously the wrong call as we seemingly confused people anyway (which is why we've now moved the game into Early Access) but I have absolutely no idea how this is supposed to somehow translate into a 'dubious' practice. How exactly is being open and upfront about the fact your game is in Beta not being straightforward?

Asherian Command wrote:
And then charging full price?

The game cost's £6.99. It's not exactly like we're trying to charge people £29.99 for the title, is it?

Perkustin wrote:
I think it is pretty deceptive for a dev to say this is a complete redesign that builds on the previous game, when they cant even, in their "Six months of hard work", take the five seconds it would require to write new instruction screens.

The game is in Beta. There's various bits of placeholder text in there at the moment. While writing the text is an important job, it's not at the very top of the priority list during development.

Rhombohedron wrote:
I understand and sympathize with the hard work that was done by your development team to create this title, but I don't understand WHY that work was done in the first place. From what I understand, Warhammer 40k is a tabletop turn-based strategy game, and a great deal of its player base consists of individuals who enjoy the game's serious and complex military strategy gameplay.

There's an awful lot of 40K fans out there who simply don't have the time in their lives any more for heavy duty strategy that's going to require big chunks of game time, due to work, kids etc. There's also plenty of people who just want a dose of 40K that they can play in small chunks between other activities. Not everyone's going to like the game and we've always been well aware of that, but it's incredible how widespread the love for 40K actually including amongst people who really aren't hardcore strategy people but were introduced to the universe as kids and loved it.

Will the game's price go up after it leaves beta?

As Demetri Saids, this is all a big mistake you've wasted 6 months of your dev team that are famous for their lack of talent, on a game who's main target audience has NO interest in. It is like making a star wars game for middle aged stay at him moms.

 Kentonio wrote:
There's an awful lot of 40K fans out there who simply don't have the time in their lives any more for heavy duty strategy that's going to require big chunks of game time, due to work, kids etc. There's also plenty of people who just want a dose of 40K that they can play in small chunks between other activities. Not everyone's going to like the game and we've always been well aware of that, but it's incredible how widespread the love for 40K actually including amongst people who really aren't hardcore strategy people but were introduced to the universe as kids and loved it.

The problem is that it's the wrong genre for the franchise. Make a bullet hell game based on Bommerz over da Sulphur River and you'd give people the 40k they want in casual-friendly gameplay. This... doesn't.

 The Dark Apostle wrote:
As Demetri Saids, this is all a big mistake you've wasted 6 months of your dev team that are famous for their lack of talent, on a game who's main target audience has NO interest in. It is like making a star wars game for middle aged stay at him moms.

Woah there kid! That's pretty out of order, there's no need to be rude. One thing that can't be ignored is that Kentonio has been kind enough to take the time out to engage with fans of 40k and has done so with tact and patience. (Even if he did attribute something i didn't say to me )

These were the people who made ride to hell retribution, a famously bad a lazy game, something I feel should be discouraged heavily in the gaming industry, I'm not saying every game needs to be a master piece but each game should have heart and soul in it! No be a reskin of a 99c PvZ clone. And then bumping the price by €6. And as the guy above you said, it's the wrong genre for the wrong fans

 Perkustin wrote:
(Even if he did attribute something i didn't say to me )

Urg, sorry I was having a bit of a quote nightmare earlier.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Will the game's price go up after it leaves beta?

Nope. Plus with Steam sales etc it will be available even lower than it is currently at various times.

 The Dark Apostle wrote:
These were the people who made ride to hell retribution, a famously bad a lazy game, something I feel should be discouraged heavily in the gaming industry, I'm not saying every game needs to be a master piece but each game should have heart and soul in it! No be a reskin of a 99c PvZ clone. And then bumping the price by €6. And as the guy above you said, it's the wrong genre for the wrong fans

Regardless, I think you owe Kentonio an apology. The game may not be to your tastes, but effort has clearly been put in. The 3D models are decent (better than Dawn Of War) even with a bland art style. I agree that the game seems to be a poor fit, in terms of genre, but maybe play it before you condemn it eh?

Thanks to Kentonio for attempting to engage with the community, by the way.

Cheers guys.

 AlexHolker wrote:
The problem is that it's the wrong genre for the franchise. Make a bullet hell game based on Bommerz over da Sulphur River and you'd give people the 40k they want in casual-friendly gameplay. This... doesn't.

Fans asked for many different types of games which is why GW gave licences to something like a dozen studios. If this isn't your thing have a look at Carnage or Space Wolf.

I don't think many people were asking for low budget 40k games...

 Soladrin wrote:
I don't think many people were asking for low budget 40k games...

Yeah, we want them to be like our miniatures, way too expensive!

I will probably give the game a try.

 The Dark Apostle wrote:
As Demetri Saids, this is all a big mistake you've wasted 6 months of your dev team that are famous for their lack of talent, on a game who's main target audience has NO interest in. It is like making a star wars game for middle aged stay at him moms.

Don't even presume to agree with my viewpoint with that chagrin. I am not condescending a developers efforts, merely suggesting my opinion what the 40k fans would likely play on a mobile device.

We both share an opinion, even if mine is a stronger one.

 Kentonio wrote:
There's an awful lot of 40K fans out there who simply don't have the time in their lives any more for heavy duty strategy that's going to require big chunks of game time, due to work, kids etc. There's also plenty of people who just want a dose of 40K that they can play in small chunks between other activities. Not everyone's going to like the game and we've always been well aware of that, but it's incredible how widespread the love for 40K actually including amongst people who really aren't hardcore strategy people but were introduced to the universe as kids and loved it.

It may be true that there is a demand for the sort of game you've described, but I don't agree that Storm of Vengeance has accurately met that demand. I would argue that the game you have made is too simple and will not appeal to many fans of the 40k franchise, including those who are seeking a less time-intensive, mobile 40k title. While Storm of Vengeance may be accessible and simple to learn, it does not (in my own opinion) offer a significant amount of strategy or depth to warrant any extended interest or replayability beyond initial purchase. I think DemetriDominov's idea for an Advance Wars-inspired mobile game set in the 40k universe would have been better suited for that purpose by creating an easy to learn yet difficult to master strategy game.

Take the classic strategy board game Reversi (AKA Othello) for example. The rules and game mechanics are remarkably simple to learn, yet the game still requires a great deal of strategy and experience to master. This is precisely what gives Reversi its depth and replayability, which is what any game needs to justify its price tag and maintain an active player base for multiplayer. These qualities are inherently subjective of course, but I find Storm of Vengeance to be lacking in this regard and I am confident that the game's sales and player counts will reflect those shortcomings.

I think SoV will have a place, yes. But it's unlikely to be overly successful unless some severe overhauling is done, alternately you could make a different title under the same licence that has much more strategic depth and action. As personally I don't call rock-paper-scissors and lane-based combat to be very tactical at all.

The game appears too long to play while sitting on the loo, but it's far too shallow to enjoy for long periods. For a mobile market; where does it fit in time-wise? And what benefit is there to the PC version? As said it lacks the depth to sit and play it for too long.

 The Dark Apostle wrote:
We both share an opinion, even if mine is a stronger one.

I disagree that you share an opinion. Do you plan to apologise to Kentonio, or are you leave that remark about him wasting 6 months of Dev time? Because that breaks Dakka Rule #1. It's not polite.

I apologise to Kentonio, thats with my thought perception that he is more of a community manager or along those lines. I think this was all a bad move on GW and Eut-whatever-the-name-is and I admit I focused all my rage on only the devs rather than GW and their poor control over the IP.

I wish them all the best they can with the metaphorical cone of shame they have branded on their foreheads.

 The Dark Apostle wrote:
I apologise to Kentonio, thats with my thought perception that he is more of a community manager or along those lines. I think this was all a bad move on GW and Eut-whatever-the-name-is and I admit I focused all my rage on only the devs rather than GW and their poor control over the IP.

Big of you to apologize!

 The Dark Apostle wrote:
I wish them all the best they can with the metaphorical come of shame they have branded on their foreheads.

Oh, wait.

 The Dark Apostle wrote:
come of shame...on their foreheads

Oh, my... *cue George Takei laugh*

Well played, darktraveler777. You had me snickering.

An Advance Wars 40k reskin with a couple of tweaks would be a great time. I loved that game, we used to make some really fun custom maps for it.

Oops meant to say cone


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And when I reference to the cone of shame it's ride to hell not this game, but yes, now they know what we like and our opinions so hopefully they'll make good use of the IP.

Pre-emptive - yes, I've read other responses. This is a direct response.

 Kentonio wrote:

 Juvieus Kaine wrote:
@Kentonio: While we, the 40k community, appreciate the time and effort that you and your team has spent on making a 40k game, is it not an interesting problem where a direct footage comparison of your game VS a previous title of yours is show near-identical interface, gameplay and customisation? It doesn't bode well when it appears, to the customer, that your dev team decided to reuse assets from an existing game then slap a 40k makeover on it and charge lots more.

It's just one of those things that I don't think is really a fair judgement on the game. We've never tried to conceal in any way that Storm of Vengeance is an evolution of Ninja Cats, in fact we discussed it quite openly. We pointed out that we took gameplay we'd previously tested with Ninja Cats and built a lot more on top of it for SOV, including building the game in 3D (which is far from a small task) and the entire cross platform multiplayer system (which isn't exactly an industry standard).

We're genuinely talking about over six months of hard work by a sizable development team. We don't want to come out and start waving our fists in the air and shouting and wailing about it, but you can understand I hope why it's quite a frustrating thing for us. We're releasing Storm of Vengeance at what we think is a pretty reasonable price point (£6.99 on Steam) that we think is fully justified by the huge amount of man hours of development the project has taken.

It is indeed true that many will not understand how difficult it is to make a game, let alone build one that has multiplayer and 3D models. Unfortunately we are a consumer generation, and as such there are many vocal people that would dislike a product no matter how hard you try.
I can also understand building upon something you've already got. If the main reason Storm of Vengeance looks like Ninja Cats because you build upon existing assets to create a better experience, then OK. Nothing wrong with that - that's how games evolve. I suspect your main problem was though that instead of, say, building upon the Ninja Cats game for a future release - building upon a new franchise - you instead opted to use the 40K license for the next step. This is a rather volatile IP I've noticed, since games either flop or shine on how the game is accepted. IN your case, the game was received poorly; probably because most 40K fans did not want nor expect this kind of game.

If I'm honest, you could have probably got away with not having a PC release. I know it limits your market but then you're really appealing to those on the go - people with little time to play something big, or need to kill 5 minutes. Putting it on PC, with a large and time-burning community as a whole, may give the impression that this game can be played for a long stint, which I suspect is not intended.

I know another problem your dev team will have is the label you acquired with Ride to Hell: Retribution. I won't go into that but I know it's not classed as a good game. As a consequence it's now rubbed off to the "know-it-alls" that your devs aren't so good at making games. I personally have no opinion on this matter but I'm sure your devs have good skills towards making a game, whether it's coding or animation or imagery or whatever. Just bare this in mind when reading reviews and they say "by the guys from Ride to Hell: Retribution" then slate you because of it.

Also, can you explain why the game is in Beta/Early Access? What's actually missing from the current product?

I'm quite enjoying this game. There are a few bugs showing through, but I guess that is to be expected in Beta, hopefully they'll get those cleaned up.

Is this thread the place to discuss strategy for the game on Dakka Dakka or are people enjoying windmilling about it too much?

 Juvieus Kaine wrote:
I know another problem your dev team will have is the label you acquired with Ride to Hell: Retribution. I won't go into that but I know it's not classed as a good game. As a consequence it's now rubbed off to the "know-it-alls" that your devs aren't so good at making games. I personally have no opinion on this matter but I'm sure your devs have good skills towards making a game, whether it's coding or animation or imagery or whatever. Just bare this in mind when reading reviews and they say "by the guys from Ride to Hell: Retribution" then slate you because of it.

I can't really talk about Ride to Hell because I wasn't on the team who made it, all I can say is that I work alongside the guys who did and they are some extremely talented and unbelievably hard working professional developers.

 Juvieus Kaine wrote:
Also, can you explain why the game is in Beta/Early Access? What's actually missing from the current product?

We're still tweaking functionality and lots of balancing and interface stuff. We actually added a new feature with the sergeants the other day based on ideas put forward by the community, so it's proving a really helpful way of tightening up the gameplay and trying out new things.

 Kentonio wrote:

 Juvieus Kaine wrote:
Also, can you explain why the game is in Beta/Early Access? What's actually missing from the current product?

We're still tweaking functionality and lots of balancing and interface stuff. We actually added a new feature with the sergeants the other day based on ideas put forward by the community, so it's proving a really helpful way of tightening up the gameplay and trying out new things.

That's quite nice!

 Reeniee wrote:
I'm quite enjoying this game. There are a few bugs showing through, but I guess that is to be expected in Beta, hopefully they'll get those cleaned up.

Is this thread the place to discuss strategy for the game on Dakka Dakka or are people enjoying windmilling about it too much?

I'm sure you can feel free to discuss the game itself, most of those in the thread (myself included) are discussing the circumstances surrounding the game. I would like to stress I'm not bashing for the sake of it or being overly harsh as some others I can see here, as I would like every game to have a chance at succeeding and feedback like this can be valuable.

In regards to rise to hell; I highly suspect that if they were indeed talented, then I expect there was external interference (publishers, time constraints, lack of QA, etc) that impacted it. That said, I hope some valuable lessons were learnt from that release.

It is heartening to see feedback is being seriously considered, but the problem remains as to where exactly this game fits in. As said; too long to play in the bathroom, too short and shallow to play dedicated (for me anyway).

Who knows though, perhaps there'll be an overhaul down the line, perhaps it'll turn out very good on release. And it may turn out to be a decent mobile game. And steam may release a 'steam tablet'.

Ranor wrote:
I. As said; too long to play in the bathroom, too short and shallow to play dedicated (for me anyway).

I guess you have more fibre in your diet than me.

Anyway: Currently I'm playing multiplayer when the client lets me, and my plan at the moment is: Build 5 wierdboy towers, and sit back doing nothing but generating warp points. Then when they spawn guys killing them/squigging them to hurt their towers. When Waaaagh is off cooldown, I use it, prophet of the waaaaaagh, use it again, and then continue as normal.

It leads to some strange but fun games! It's been pretty effective so far, but I've not played against anyone who spawns trukks yet, I have no idea how good it would be against trukks.

Hi guys! We've just started our painting and 2D art competition to support the SOV launch. We've got some nice prizes to give away, all you need to do is paint a model or diorama or draw a piece of 2D art related to the Battle for Piscina IV to be in with a chance of winning.

Competition rules are here..

http://www.stormofvengeance.com/features/painting-piscina-iv/

Hope to see some of your work!

What would the prices be, that sounds nice actually?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
*prizes

I wasn't very interested in this game at first, but now I am, because you've been endearingly polite and are clearly passionate about it.

 The Dark Apostle wrote:
What would the prizes be, that sounds nice actually?

We're going to put together a nice prize bundle for the winners of each category. I'm afraid I can't tell you exactly what's going to be in it because we're still putting them together.

 VorpalBunny74 wrote:
I wasn't very interested in this game at first, but now I am, because you've been endearingly polite and are clearly passionate about it.

Thank you.

 Kentonio wrote:

 The Dark Apostle wrote:
What would the prizes be, that sounds nice actually?

We're going to put together a nice prize bundle for the winners of each category. I'm afraid I can't tell you exactly what's going to be in it because we're still putting them together.

 VorpalBunny74 wrote:
I wasn't very interested in this game at first, but now I am, because you've been endearingly polite and are clearly passionate about it.

Thank you.

Did you work on Ride to Hell?

He answered that before. He said no.