WH40k MMO Details

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**grey_death**

They're not much, but they're something!

Here's the link

Here's the info:

PC Gamer magazine (UK) has scooped first real details on THQ's Warhammer 40,000 MMO, shedding light on the game which was unveiled in March '07.

According to the info, the title's definitely an MMORPG as opposed to what could have been a Planetside-esque MMOFPS. But despite that it appears developer Vigil Games is aiming for a reasonably in-depth combat system, as it's orientated around cover, suppressive fire and flanking.

Firefights will take place on a larger scale than those planned by EA Mythic for Warhammer fantasy MMO Age of Reckoning, says the info. Players will be able to form squads, and presumably the WH40K equivalent of guilds - Chapters, will that be? - although that's information being kept under wraps at the moment.

"All of the races important to Warhammer 40,000 lore (not to mention the fans) will be represented", creative director Joe Madureira has explained, adding that "We want each and every race to have weight in the game world... and feel distinct."

He adds there'll be "Tons of stuff hanging off your character, weapons, scrolls... we are going to have the coolest looking characters of any MMO, ever. Once we begin releasing images, feel free to call me on that."

Vigil Games general manager David Adams, meanwhile, cryptically offers that "The term 'Battleground' takes on an entirely different meaning" in the game - which is obviously a reference to WoW's Battlegrounds PvP stuff but who knows what Adams actually means?

"Players", PC Gamer says, "will get to explore cities, alien temples, Chaos shrines, deserted battlefields (er, woo?), mysterious ruins, ancient structures, and - here's the cool one - 'drifting hulks in space'. Space hulks, we call those".

Thanks to PC Gamer magazine for the information in this article, which appears in its new issue #187 which is now in the hands of subscribers and hits your newsagent shortly. The magazine also has a massive feature on Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 2, so don't miss it!

**VermGho5t**

I.
Cannot.
Wait.

On further thought, I wonder how well they will be able to include "all the races essential to Warhammer 40k Lore". It seems rather ambitious. we shall have to wait and see!

**Bahkara**

That means Dark Eldar are out since they aren't an "essential" race

**Nerf_IG**

I'm totally gonna be a Cadian Battlemage.

**Stelek**

Essential races at release:

Red Marines.
Blue Marines.
Yellow Marines.
Black Marines.
Spiky Red Marines.
Spiky Blue Marines.

HEY!!!!!

Ok.

Eldar.
Spiky Eldar.

HEY!!!!!!!!!!!!

**The Grog**

This is going to be interesting to watch.

They have to overcome the basic problem in the 40K world of races being better than others on the single person scale.

An ordinary Terminator should be able to smack down any single IG player. A starting Space Marine should beat just about any other starting player.

Working things so that the fluff holds is going to make some interesting knots.

I'd rather that a player controled a *unit* rather than a person. Then you could have PC vehicles, and a starting IG could be a Sgt. in command of a remmant squad while a starting SM could be the senior in a Scout duo or triplet. Working up to SM retinues or entire IG vet platoons.

**Deadshane1**

its gonna suck

**Breotan**

Deadshane1 wrote:its gonna suck

Like Champions?

**Deadshane1**

Breotan wrote:
Deadshane1 wrote:its gonna suck
Like Champions?

40k players couldnt get that lucky.

**Stelek**

The 40k franchise in games is like star wars and star trek.

Great IP, looks ok, controls are crap, and content...what's that?

Personally I look forward to the cost overruns, GW's cash problems, and another poorly executed game (like say Warhammer Online, delayed till when again?) to give us another game to play on the Sony Station pass.

Only 29.95 and all this can be yours!

========================

========================

**bigtmac68**

I have to disagree on one count. Dawn of War was an excellent RTS with some innovative features, awesome graphics for the time and tremendous replay value.

Pretty much every other interpretation of the IP has been bad or worse but DOW is a real gem!

**Narlix**

Stelek wrote:The 40k franchise in games is like star wars and star trek.

Great IP, looks ok, controls are crap, and content...what's that?

Personally I look forward to the cost overruns, GW's cash problems, and another poorly executed game (like say Warhammer Online, delayed till when again?) to give us another game to play on the Sony Station pass.

Only 29.95 and all this can be yours!

========================

========================

Thats a little hard don't you think, DoW looked good, had good controls ( well minus some pathing issues) and decent content, epcially for a RTS that was primarly designed for online play. Also some starwars games were good too Tie-fighter, X-wing, some of the jedi knight stuff. I will give you no one has made a decent star Trek game to save their life though.

While Warhammer Online has been pushed back again its somewhat expected it still less than a year overdue , and your average game normally has 3 months or so of push backs. the average blizzard game has over a years worth. The guys over at Mythic are haveing a long extinsive beta it seems and are actually correcting the issue in both graphics and game play that are getting reported, soo a push back means a cleaner game upon shipping.

Also got to remember that GW has very little to do with this game besides IP stuff ,its actually going to be more like free money to GW not a cost.

as for the 40kMMO and some races ( ie Space Marines) being better than a lowly IG guardsman or Eldar Guardian, well there is a very Traditional method for handing this, XP Penalties. If some one loses 40% more XP per a death and Gains it 40% slow it helps balance stuff out. The power issue between the races would also depend on how PVP the game is going to be since the more PVE it is the less it will matter. It WILL still matter but not as much.

**H.B.M.C.**

bigtmac68 wrote:I have to disagree on one count. Dawn of War was an excellent RTS with some innovative features, awesome graphics for the time and tremendous replay value.

Yes, but at its bare bones, Dawn of War was just 3D Starcraft with a coat of paint*. Nothing it did hadn't been done before.

BYE

*This is not to start another discussion about who ripped who off. What I'm saying is that DoW's game mechanics, unit structure, buildings, upgrade system etc. were very StarCraft like.

**tegeus-Cromis**

Original? Maybe not. Good game? Hell yeah. Put it this way: DoW and its expansions are way better RTSes than 40K is a tabletop game. If this is what mediocrity looks like, I wish GW could be this mediocre all the time.

**Strimen**

Accept for the fact that you didn't just mine gas and minerals all day long no matter who you were.

Or that units were squad based.

Or that units had morale and cover factors that mattered and played a role in the game.

Or that they had many more races and tactics that each had their own feel to them.

Then there is the very well done campaign mode that brought strategy and tactics together on multiple levels.

Wargear for your leaders and elite troops that you could earn and place before a battle ever began.

Yes just a carbon copy of SC with a paint job and nothing new... SC was all about the hordes and rather bland. DoW was much better and still is. Lets see how the new versions of each game fare in the future though. Here's hoping for two awsome game instead of one great game and one game heavily slanted towards korean only tournament play. "Hey man I'm totally gonna beat this kid. His clicks per minute are only 60!!1! Rolfcopter! Silly noob, gonna be pwned."

**Wehrkind**

Star Craft is also what, 5 years older than DoW? Give them a little credit here

Still, DoW is a great game, and other than WoW is the single largest impediment to me getting my miniatures projects done.

I am desperately hoping the 40k mmo will be good and really capture the feel of the universe. It probably will be disappointing, but then so were a lot of my ex-girlfriends, and I put up with them for the feel for quite a long time.

**snooggums**

H.B.M.C. wrote:
bigtmac68 wrote:I have to disagree on one count. Dawn of War was an excellent RTS with some innovative features, awesome graphics for the time and tremendous replay value.

Yes, but at its bare bones, Dawn of War was just 3D Starcraft with a coat of paint*. Nothing it did hadn't been done before.

BYE

*This is not to start another discussion about who ripped who off. What I'm saying is that DoW's game mechanics, unit structure, buildings, upgrade system etc. were very StarCraft like.

Bah! the building structure of StarCraft was based off of WarCraft/Dune/Red Alert type RTSes. What HBMC means that I agree with is that DoW had a better resource system (taking area matters/denying area actually matters not just bases) characters and units that were handled better, Overwatch! and many other improved features. DoW had a very smooth and relatively low system requirement zoom and rotate ability with decent detail even when zoomed all the way in. And the replay value is there because of how many different ways it could be played from assassination to area control to the standard annihilation.

DoW was not just a 3D StarCraft, it is far too different to just be that. StarCraft II however will be Starcraft in 3D with a new coat of paint because it will still have the same resource gathering units/no real map control tactics and so on. I'll still get that and play it because I enojoyed Starcraft so much, but the games are only comparable in that they are RTSes with buildings that give upgrades.

*hopefully the 40K MMO will have innovations like DoW had for a standard game type, but i'm not holding my breath on that one. I've been pleased with Project Reality's imporvements to the FPS genre but it was the only one out of hundreds of Battlefield mods that pulled it off, so a real imporvement in FPS style games is pretty rare also.

**Stelek**

I spent alot more time playing Starcraft (campaign AND multiplayer) than I did playing Dawn.

Dawns campaign was what, 3 hours? Then playing MP was boring, sooo many wannabes. Is the MP function a failure on their part? Well, if you wanna say it's a MP game and it's competitive, don't make a crappy MP system.

Tie Fighter is still one of my favorites. Hell, I joined a online club for that, it was so good.

**Morathi's Darkest Sin**

I'm really interested in this, and I'd probably give it a go when and if its released.

I think my main concerns, of things I would like to see answered would be,

What races do they consider we feel are important, as I would think most of us would say any with an army book which is obviously not going to happen, unless they are mad. Also how would the set it up, 2 factions like WaR containing diff races. Split and combo so you'd an Imperial faction, Chaos faction and then some side attractions like Tyranids and Orcs. (The only way I could see Tyranids in there)

How are they gonna do player balance, Guard can melee a Space Marine quite happily, or Guard sees a Marine, he runs in terror as he has no chance. However I do fear the this might make it a strong reason that the races will be Marines, CHaos Marines, Orcs and Eldar, remove guard from the equation. As they can rationlize Orcs as able to equal a marine combat wise, and Eldar could be Aspect based.

I'm gonna watch this space basically, I like the idea behind it, and have WaR to keep me busy in the meantime when its released later in the year, but in general the idea of a 40K MMO is very appealing to me.

**cerebaton**

dear god i hope there aren't any marines in it - although i'd say their inclusion is the one thing we can rely on.

personally, i'd much prefer the game to be closer in style, scale and setting to inquisitor/necromunda than 40k. it just doesn't make any sense to me that a space marine (or chaos marine, eldar aspect warrior, even imperial guardsman) would be running around on their own doing missions, exploring 'dungeons' or pvping - to me marines only operate in squads on the orders of their chapter on the battlefield - they wouldn't be marines if they were just milling around doing what they pleased (the same goes for the other character types i mentioned too).

i think it makes much more sense to have inquisitors/tech-priests/arbites/rogue traders etc. as human characters, cultists/sorcerers etc. for chaos, pirates/rangers etc. for eldar, and so on. then you could have things like genestealer hybrids as 'nid characters.

still, i suppose it's too early for conjecture - i think thq stand a much better chance of doing a good job of it than most.

**Ozymandias**

Could be a Deathwatch Marine out running errands for his Inq.

See, just fit Marines in there. You can't escape them.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

**Destrado**

Hadn't seen Joe Madureira's name in quite some time. Good skills, but a little too cartooney/american manga.

Example: http://www.entrecomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/ultimates-3-1.jpg

Wonder if any of this will reflect visually in the game.

**stonefox**

Strimen wrote:Accept for the fact that you didn't just mine gas and minerals all day long no matter who you were.

Or that units were squad based.

Or that units had morale and cover factors that mattered and played a role in the game.

Or that they had many more races and tactics that each had their own feel to them.

Then there is the very well done campaign mode that brought strategy and tactics together on multiple levels.

Wargear for your leaders and elite troops that you could earn and place before a battle ever began.

Yes just a carbon copy of SC with a paint job and nothing new... SC was all about the hordes and rather bland. DoW was much better and still is. Lets see how the new versions of each game fare in the future though. Here's hoping for two awsome game instead of one great game and one game heavily slanted towards korean only tournament play. "Hey man I'm totally gonna beat this kid. His clicks per minute are only 60!!1! Rolfcopter! Silly noob, gonna be pwned."

Then came Company of Heroes.

**engine**

Joe Mad! doing the concept work? Wow, sweeet. I loved what he did with Battlechasers, even if it ended prematurely. Please let there be a collector's edition of this game that includes a concept art book.

Now I am actually interested.

engine

**Abadabadoobaddon**

Narlix wrote:as for the 40kMMO and some races ( ie Space Marines) being better than a lowly IG guardsman or Eldar Guardian, well there is a very Traditional method for handing this, XP Penalties. If some one loses 40% more XP per a death and Gains it 40% slow it helps balance stuff out.

Not gonna happen. All you'd accomplish by penalizing space marines is aggravating the majority of your customers. Face it - nobody wants to be a chump guardsmen if they have the option to be a space marine, so if you let people play space marines then 90+% of your customers are going to play space marines. Then you'll have a situation where you're obligated to cater to the space marine faction. It's just like Jedi in that Star Wars MMORPG - and much like that game, it will suck.

**Necros**

If they have all the races, I wanna play a squat!

Anyway, reserving judgement till I get to play the beta in about 7 years...

**Moopy**

I like the idea, but I have big reservations.

Marines vs Guardsmen? Bad times. Balancing issues will be a nightmare since the very BASIC troops are going to vastly different. What works on the table top isn't going to translate well to MMO where each PLAYER controls a piece. Too bad it so happens YOUR piece is 16% weaker, more vulenerable, shoots worse and has crappier gear than my basic piece.

HUGER than WAR? Every race represented? This dilutes the players all over the map(s) making it harder to get a concentration of players together to fight each other (which is what is toted), or get a swarm/mob together. "Hello? Anyone here in this bg?? Damn...."

**Moopy**

Abadabadoobaddon wrote:
Narlix wrote:as for the 40kMMO and some races ( ie Space Marines) being better than a lowly IG guardsman or Eldar Guardian, well there is a very Traditional method for handing this, XP Penalties. If some one loses 40% more XP per a death and Gains it 40% slow it helps balance stuff out.

Not gonna happen. All you'd accomplish by penalizing space marines is aggravating the majority of your customers. Face it - nobody wants to be a chump guardsmen if they have the option to be a space marine, so if you let people play space marines then 90+% of your customers are going to play space marines. Then you'll have a situation where you're obligated to cater to the space marine faction. It's just like Jedi in that Star Wars MMORPG - and much like that game, it will suck.

100% agreed. I worked on SWG waaaaayyyyy back in the day (in a very minor roll). We really didn't want JEDI to be a profession because of those issues, but were overrulled by SONY. JEDI = Marines and it's going to suffer the same problems.

**Necros**

I got the idea that you wouldn't be able to play marines or maybe not right off the bat.. they could take some liberties there... where power armor or terminator armor are the WOW equivalent of high end raid gear.. or take away the "superhuman" part and have em be normal humans that can get access to better armor and gear as they level up .. so you might start out as a guardsman type but by the time you max your level you'd be more like a marine in strength.. same goes for like Eldar starting as a guardian and working their way up to an aspect warrior or something like that.

Don't expect it to be an exact 100% representation of all the fluff, you'll just be disappointed. If they can put together a game with awesome graphics that's really fun to play, it will be popular no matter how closely it follows the fluff... And I'd rather they focused more on making a great game, than making every fanboy happy in a game that's so boring only the fanboys will ever play it.

Not only that, but if ya read it the guy says all races will be "represented" .. so, necrons and nids might just be things you kill on your quests and stuff, playable races could end up being only humans for all we know, where things like guardsman, hive ganger, inquisitor and cultist are like classes. There's really no details out there so all we can really do is wait and see

**Jay of Moore**

There are a ton of ways of addressing the space marine issue.

1- You have to be recruited by a marine chapter
2- You start off as a scout (so not that far above a guardsmen) and the other races/classes are able to keep up in terms of upgrades, for example a marine upgrades to power armour, a guardsman increases in rank and gains control over 9 bot guardsman, an eldar chooses an aspect, etc.
3- Make being a marine a difficult class to play in the non-combat parts of the game.

And so on.

If the design team is creative enough the marine issue can be addressed to create a fun environment. If the design team is looking to just cash a paycheck there will be a bunch of unintelligible space marines running around complaining about their bedtime.