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They announced this some time ago. I can guarantee it will be something very similar to Planetside. An FPS where you get experience by taking objectives and killing other players, somewhat like COD4. My only real concern is what will be playable and what won't. If I have access to Space Marines why the hell would I play a guardsman or anything like that? Most likely you'll start off as a chode and have to level up to unlock the ability to wear better armor/use better weapons like Planetside. Vehicles are a must. I doubt they'll add Titans or anything large like that, at least not with launch. You need room to grow. They'll need to get this out soon and do it extremely well seeing as how Blizzard is already working on another MMO which mark my words is Starcraft.

And Fire Warrior was effin awesome! Am I seriously the only person here who liked that game?

Stormtrooper X wrote:And Fire Warrior was effin awesome! Am I seriously the only person here who liked that game?

I really enjoyed it. It wasn't anything new or especially great but I felt like it was solid. The first time that commissar came charging down the trench with his chainsword revving was so great. Plus one boss was a vulture gunship! A understand that a million games have you fight tanks or giant robots or helicopters as boss fights, but come on! A DeVito-sized fire warrior takes down a freaking valkyrie with a couple grenades and an autogun! How can that be bad? But I never got to finish it so maybe it wore on eventually, I don't know.

I don't know if I'd go as far as to say that Fire Warrior was "effin awesome", but as a 40K fan, I certainly enjoyed it.

But your discussion about Planetside makes me think I need to look into this game.

tegeus-Cromis wrote:adamsouza, that particular detail is not at all unique to 40k. Casualties would, "realistically", be the norm in pretty much any milieu in which anyone has cared to set an MMO. If we can believe that a spell-casting midget can go out and slay millions of trolls etc. and never "really" die, I'm sure we'll be able to muster up the same amount of suspension of disbelief for Brother-Sergeant McShouty.

Meh, not really the same.

In WOW magic is part of the core of the genre, you die and magically come back becasue it wasn't your time.

In Star Wars Galaxies, you had clones of yourself.

In City OF Heroes, your wisked away at the last moment by the Emergency Medical Transport System.

In 40K, Legions of people die daily, and no one, save the Emperor, ever comes back.


I realise that suspension of disbelief is par for the course in any video game, but 40K has always been grittier than Mario Bros.

40K lacks cloning, resurrections, etc...

40K can make a great RPG or FPS, but not a MMORPG in the traditional sense. If it lets you play faceless marines etc that are interchangeable when they die its fine, but if Brother Benthor can come back after being eaten by a Hive Tyrant... I'll pass.

Stormtrooper X wrote:And Fire Warrior was effin awesome! Am I seriously the only person here who liked that game?

Yes.

That game wasn't just a joke, it was an abomination. The guns were widly inaccurate, lasblasts just stopped after a while, and when I was fighting off a Vulture as a boss fight, killed it, and it just went 'pop' with a sprite-based explosion, I gave up...

The book was decent though. I enjoyed that.

BYE

I quite enjoyed Fire Warrior. It's not Halo, but it was a pretty decent FPS for the PS2. The guns were hardly wildly inaccurate either - they were more reflective of the fluff than 40k is.

I suspect there's more of a market for a 40k MMO than there is for Warhammer Online. WOW simply rules the fantasy genre. There isn't a good sci-fi MMO that owns the market like that.

Phazer

The game was ok, but as you got deaper into it and eventually came up against the chaos tainted marines the game just started losing its edge. Plus the multiplayer was a joke, that was my biggest gripe with the game. Basically it was polished and was fun for the first few sections and then after that the quality just decreases the farther you play. Possibly due to time constraints on the developers. Over all though it was a neat glimps into what the universe is sort of like.

And in terms of the MMO I hope they don't go the traditional route. Something more akin to a massive Battlefiled game would be neat or letting death be final and building the game around that. Both approaches would require me to play the game and check it out for sure.

The Phazer wrote:The guns were hardly wildly inaccurate either

Yes they were. With the PC version, you could aim at a specific spot not 5 feet from where you were standing, crouch, and fire a single shot gun 4 times and it would hit 4 different spots without you even moving the mouse.

The aiming was horrid. It's the reason the Autogun was so good - auto-aim FTW!

BYE

Even with a Starcraft game to compete against, a 40K MMO will own the market. The 40K developers have got better (more unique) background and a great herd of fans who play the tabletop game even despite getting screwed by the producers on a regular basis. That's fanaticism, and will form a very solid core of users that won't go away unless the concept and play mechanics are really, really botched.

And yeah, I know Titans will take a long time if they ever show up. That's why I'll be doing everything necessary to become a Terminator with combimelta/chainfist by then.

And Firewarrior the novel is _definitely_ among my top three Black Library novels ever (out of an embarrassing 30+ that I've read). The best part is that the writer makes the protagonist approachable, but never overly human.

A 40k MMO will not likely "own the market". In almost every instance of an MMO being made from a franchise the creators have turned a blind eye to background. Now don't get me wrong they include aspects of those world but not in any sort of a way that truely meshes it into the background. D&D Online, they set in a part of the world without a background written yet; StarWars Galaxies this glactic war between the Empire and the Rebels was limited to walking into the middle of nowhere and bumping into 5 stormtroopers. The thing is that the hardcore fans of 40k will be the least forgiving if anything is not spot on.

That said, I think they will need to focus on a particular area of the galaxy and not try to do too much. Maybe something along the lines of the Cadia and the whole Eye of Terror episode with a single highly contested zone and several smaller planets in the same system. Also I think its slim chances of seeing everything in the initial release; there is just too much. I think that space marine would be something you'd have to work upto, no one would ever be much else if they can be a wrecking ball of a space marine right off the bat.

The other route is to do what Inquitor and Dark Heresy were doing where you play as an Inquisitor's retinue doing missions for him. It all depends on how MMO and how RPG they want to go.

adamsouza wrote:

tegeus-Cromis wrote:adamsouza, that particular detail is not at all unique to 40k. Casualties would, "realistically", be the norm in pretty much any milieu in which anyone has cared to set an MMO. If we can believe that a spell-casting midget can go out and slay millions of trolls etc. and never "really" die, I'm sure we'll be able to muster up the same amount of suspension of disbelief for Brother-Sergeant McShouty.

Meh, not really the same.

In WOW magic is part of the core of the genre, you die and magically come back becasue it wasn't your time.

In Star Wars Galaxies, you had clones of yourself.

In City OF Heroes, your wisked away at the last moment by the Emergency Medical Transport System.

In 40K, Legions of people die daily, and no one, save the Emperor, ever comes back.


I realise that suspension of disbelief is par for the course in any video game, but 40K has always been grittier than Mario Bros.

40K lacks cloning, resurrections, etc...

40K can make a great RPG or FPS, but not a MMORPG in the traditional sense. If it lets you play faceless marines etc that are interchangeable when they die its fine, but if Brother Benthor can come back after being eaten by a Hive Tyrant... I'll pass.

It could be done a couple of different ways:

If you are still at a reasonably low level and a regular guardsmen, when you come back, you're just a different guy. You can say that you rifled through the corpse's gear or whatever. But continually getting new guardsmen with a different name and appearance after you've been cleaved by a bezerker would have a cool effect in showing the brutality of the universe.

At higher levels, once you're a space marine scout, or a storm trooper or whatever, you get dragged off by your compatriots and healed in the backfield. If you are out on your own, or a an entire detachement gets wiped, then the same thing occurs: new storm trooper, new scout, etc.

At really high levels, once you're a full space marine, you'll have apocatheries to revive you on site, and if not that, it can just be explained away in the manner that most 40k casualties are for SMs: that they are ridiculously tough, and most injuries do nothing to them, a small amount wound them enough to take them out of the fight but be healed later, and an even smaller amount kill them outright. There could be a persistent aspect to this as well, if your marine gets shot in the auto-senser 30 times by an eldar long rifle, causing a respawn at the drop pod rally point or even back on the battle barge, he gets a bionic eye. Just cosmetic (or maybe not) but something to keep the realism there.

I'd actually like a game with a high death rate. You lose
levels as quickly as you gain them, but you can only access
skills that you've reached before.

Would this be a bit extreme?

Example:

Start of game, 50 players storm a hill and 40 day. 10 guys
reach level 2. Those 10 guys join other level 2s in
storming the next hill. 10 out of THOSE 50 survive and
reach level 3.

The dead who never reached level 2 now reach level 2
sooner. Those who reached level 2 before dying now
reach level 3 sooner. All of this happens in the span of
an hour or so...

Probably wouldn't scale very well...

I guess I'll be the Planetside Fanboi here, and mention how it's "level" system worked, and how great it was...

In Planetside they had 20 levels (and I think later 30). Those levels give you one point each to buy skills. Skill costs are weighted by their usefulness, but each one lets you do something like use a more powerful gun, wear heavier armor, fly a plane, drive a tank, hack enemy equipment, etc.

What this all adds up to, is that even a relatively low level character can do one thing as well as anybody else. For example, they could drive a light tank as well as anybody else in the game, and also repair it. However, if their tank gets blown up, and they have to go it on foot, they might have a weak rifle compared to more experienced players.

It's not hard to participate evenhandedly as a lowbie in a battle by simply doing the one thing your character is good at. The higher level guys are no better at that one thing. They're just more flexible, and can transition into more useful or more advantageous roles.

It's really a great system. It gives major advantages to veteran players, but still allows new players to participate in the game on a level playing field, and not just getting punked over and over.

Planetside ounds like games that are designed where high level
players can have a billion powers, but they can only equip
8 of them. The selection pool is wider, but once you hit
the battlefield it's pretty even.

It's the argument I use about the "release balance" of
Hordes vs. Warmachine. Sure Warmachine has more stuff
out (and even more this August), but armies are still
constrained by the point limits of the battlefield.

Planetside was really a lot of fun. The diversity you got from being higher level was really necessary because battles changed so quickly.

On the way to an enemy base, everyone would get a vehicle and a huge tank battle would ensue at their border. Once that battle pushed up to the base itself, players would suit up in heavy armored suits (MAX suits, think terminator armor - or Rexo more versatile, can heal and revive players) to enter the base to try to: stop the enemy from respawning, stop them from getting vehicles, shut down all the defenses, or make a stab at claiming the entire base.
All the while an air battle is going on overhead, cloaked assassins are running around knifing people and hijacking their vehicles, huge Galaxy air transports are picking up 10 guys and dropping them on top of the base (bypassing the tank battle), defenders are getting spec ops groups together to try to hop the lines and break the attackers respawn locations, and commanders are coordinating this insanity while occasionally dropping orbital bombardments where they are needed most.

Yeah... good times.

What... where am I? Oh right, we don't need a 40k MMO. We need a Planetside revision.

So, how was death and resurrection/respawning handled in Planetside? (Or was it? Did you just respawn and that's it?)

Do not expect extreme death penalties in the 40K MMO, while realistic, it is certainly not fun. While the UO generation of gamers might have coped with losing everything on death, I can't see the current crop of MMO players standing for such things.

The planetside system souds great, but it still seems more like a MMOFPS with a skill system than a MMORPG.

Replacing you with another generic charecter works great as well, but that again is more of a MMOFPS thing than a MMORPG.

I think WH40K could make a great MMOFPS, expecially if PVP is going to be part of the game design, but I still think the high mortality rate setting that 40K has been up till now doesn't lend itself well to the 'never really die' setting that MMORPGs create.

It was an MMORPG in the sense that you developed a character and played a role. It was not an MMORPG in the sense that by spending a lot of time in it you would not automatically beat down someone who hadn't.


For Planetside death/recovery:
On death you would get a timer counting down. Medics would see you automatically on their radar and could revive you during that timer. If you choose to forego a shot at being revived, you would release and go into the queue for respawn. The more frequent your deaths, the longer you'll wait for respawn.

Respawn in this game was 'explained' by super technology that could scan you once and replicate you later on.

On respawn you would appear at the nearest friendly 'respawn-tube' to the spot of your death (you could also bind yourself to a particular tube, if you had a plan). The tubes are found deep inside the bases, in towers nearby, and a special vehicle (AMS) that deploys tubes in the field under a cloaked field. All forms of tubes could be destroyed in some manner (this is usually what the commanders orbital strike was saved for "Get out there and ping their AMS! Bring the rain!")

The only penalties were a longer timer to get back into the fight and a cooldown period where your implants (things earned with levels) would not function. You would also respawn with only a SMG and would need to requisition gear and vehicles from terminals (usually nearby, also destructable).

adamsouza, I take your points, but I really doubt they'll bother more than a handful of people. Having a good reason for a respawn is always a nice touch, to be sure, but not having one is forgivable. It doesn't bother me that my partner in Halo 3 co-op can keep respawning indefinitely and for no reason. It doesn't bother me that Gordon Freeman can stash a dozen heavy weapons about his person. It doesn't bother me that almost all video game characters have a handy bar telling them precisely how many more times they can get shot and still live. I don't play WoW, but it apparently doesn't bother people that a warrior can quantify exactly how much damage he deals when he smacks someone with his sword, and exactly how frequently he's able to smack someone with it. These conventions are necessary, or at least convenient, evils.

This is the original announcement from gamespot, almost a year ago:
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/warhammer40kmmo/news.html?sid=6166560&om_act=convert&om_clk=newsfeatures&tag=newsfeatures;title;1

They refer to it as an "MMOG" so you guys talking about Planetside are probably on to something. It might be more of an FPS.

If they wanted to do an RPG I can think of a few settings in 40K that could work. It could be Armageddon, which has areas engaged in total war but also probably areas of relative safety where lower level players can begin. A hive world like Necromunda--they had genestealers, space marine scouts, Tau technology, and Eldar in the rules, I'm sure there's worse stuff on the planet if you want to look for it. If they're going to incorporate space travel (and they'd freaking better) the worlds near the cadian gate work pretty well too. You're protected on your homeworld, where you learn how fight through sewer systems filled with grots or ripperjacks or whatever, but once you've got a grasp on the game it's off to the ruins of Caliban or the tomb worlds for a real challenge. Not to mention the Eastern fringe, where men are men and mutants are everywhere, or even stuff around the Maelstrom, that little-mentioned mini Eye of Terror right near Earth.

tegeus-Cromis wrote:adamsouza, I take your points, but I really doubt they'll bother more than a handful of people. Having a good reason for a respawn is always a nice touch, to be sure, but not having one is forgivable. It doesn't bother me that my partner in Halo 3 co-op can keep respawning indefinitely and for no reason. It doesn't bother me that Gordon Freeman can stash a dozen heavy weapons about his person. It doesn't bother me that almost all video game characters have a handy bar telling them precisely how many more times they can get shot and still live. I don't play WoW, but it apparently doesn't bother people that a warrior can quantify exactly how much damage he deals when he smacks someone with his sword, and exactly how frequently he's able to smack someone with it. These conventions are necessary, or at least convenient, evils.

Multiple Lifes, Life Counters, etc... are par for the course in Video Games that aren't MMORPGs.

MMORPGs are suppossed to be RPGs on a grand interactive scale.
Most Pen & Paper RPG vets will testify that 9 out of 10 times when your charecter dies you just start a new one.

I'm all for a Massive Multiplayer Online Warhammer 40K experience, but if my Inquisitor can just pop back to life in a medbay after being exanguinated by a Chaos Demon then it's not really a Role Playing Experience, it's just a dumb video game that will let me whin through attrition as I can only be stopped momentarily.

The Nintendo Generation may need infinte lives to salve their ADD, but it doesn't mean it's the right fit for the genre.

If I just want to mindless kill stuff in a 40K setting I already have Space Hulk, FireWarrior, and Dawn Of War.

A MMORPG should be different. If I am going to spend 400+ hours playing a charecter, he shouldn't be generic or easily replaced, and there should be a tangible penalty for his death, other than the time it takes for a loading screen and the time it takes to run back to the fight.

If you haven't played a proper MMORPG, you won't understand how it's significantly different from a FPS, and that it draws a different crowd.

MMOFPS is all about twitch - player refelxes, and memorizings maps and learning how to aim the weapons, etc...
MMORPG is about RPGing, sometimes in charecter, building up your charecters attributes, and strategy

Actually larger scale FPSs like the BF2 mod Project Reality with it's 16sq lm largest map involves way more strategy than twitch reflexes (and plys nothing like regular BF2 BTW). I would like to have a 40k game in that style with vehicles having room to maneuver and troops having places to hide.

I missed Planetside but I have been hoping for a sucessor to it in the same style.

Vapor until there's a box on the shelf at EB Games.

I'll care if it's Battlefield 40K. If they try to make it like SWG or Tabula Rasa it will suck.

What... where am I? Oh right, we don't need a 40k MMO. We need a Planetside revision.

Well, both. As I've said, I think Planetside with modernized engine and set in the 40K universe would be RIDICULOUSLY cool.

The planetside system souds great, but it still seems more like a MMOFPS with a skill system than a MMORPG.

It absolutely was, I didn't mean to imply it was an MMORPG, I meant to imply it's awesome.

It does have elements of RPG to it, in that there was a diversity of skills, special upgrades, and you could set up different equipment kits, etc. etc. When compared to a game like Guild Wars, which is considered an MMORPG, it's really not far off in RPG elements or complexity/uniqueness of character.

MMOFPS is all about twitch - player refelxes, and memorizings maps and learning how to aim the weapons, etc...
MMORPG is about RPGing, sometimes in charecter, building up your charecters attributes, and strategy

This is generally accurate, but there's a lot of crossover.

In WoW PvP for example, yes, it's mostly about your build and your ability to play it, but there are reflexes involved. They may not be primary skills, but they are important. Keeping faced in the right way, keying off powers at the right moment, rapidly assessing what's being thrown at you, spotting new targets, etc.

Conversely, in Planetside there are a lot of twitch skills, but there are ways around these. For example, a skilled Reaver pilot who uses good tactics can do fine, without having to have snappy reflexes. Also, having good skill builds that work well in combination is important. Having good weapon and equipment combinations is also important.

It seems like you have a good picture of how MMORPGs work, so in order to appreciate how Planetside ran, picture what it's like when five very slowfingered players ambush one elite player... They still always get him. Or picture a really good player on foot going against a slow player in a tank. He loses. Very rarely are the fights fair... And the skills that lead to getting lots of unfair fights in your favor aren't twitch skills. They're more tactical, seeing the big picture, etc.

There's a lot of crossover... The possibilities to expand upon Planetside are extensive.

What's great about the game, is that in the end, there's a place for many different styles. If you're a twitch player, you can specialize in the combat inside bases, where those skills are critical. If you're more tactical, or thoughtful, there's many, MANY opportunities to win battles by placing AMS vehicles (to help your team spawn), flying transports, etc. etc. etc.

I can't stress what a total mystery and disappointment it is to me that there hasn't been a new version of Planetside put out.

Agreed.

Battlefield 40K would be great, but it would also be a MMOFPS, which is my point.

World of 40K, City of 40K, or 40KRasa, would most likely blow chunks.

Don't belive me ?
MATRIX ONLINE - FAIL
D&D ONLINE - EPIC FAIL
LOTR ONLINE - FAIL
TABULA RASA - the first MMOFPSRPG - ZOMG IT BURNS IT BURNS KILL IT WITH FIRE
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/2326-Ze ro-Punctuation-Tabula-Rasa

LotR Online isn't fail. It may not be WoW, but no one is going to touch WoW for some time if ever, it is a cultural phenomenon.

The rest failed because they were just bad. Haven't played TR though so that one I can't say for sure.

Speaking of Fail, anyone ever play World War II online? I think that was what it was called, it has been awhile.

adamsouza:

Multiple Lifes, Life Counters, etc... are par for the course in Video Games that aren't MMORPGs.

MMORPGs are suppossed to be RPGs on a grand interactive scale.
Most Pen & Paper RPG vets will testify that 9 out of 10 times when your charecter dies you just start a new one.

For better or worse, MMOs have left pen and paper behind. To most players of my generation, respawns will feel perfectly natural.

I'm not saying you're wrong to find the idea silly and destructive to your suspension of disbelief. That would plainly be absurd. I'm saying that I don't think there are many like you, and that it therefore isn't really a factor in whether the game succeeds or fails.

I'm all for a Massive Multiplayer Online Warhammer 40K experience, but if my Inquisitor can just pop back to life in a medbay after being exanguinated by a Chaos Demon then it's not really a Role Playing Experience, it's just a dumb video game that will let me whin through attrition as I can only be stopped momentarily.

Does it follow that any game featuring such a mechanic is "just a dumb video game that will let [you] whin through attrition"? If not, why not? I'm talking gameplay here, not fluff. You seem to be conflating the two.

The Nintendo Generation may need infinte lives to salve their ADD, but it doesn't mean it's the right fit for the genre.

The genre being MMOs, and the most successful example of the genre being--what, exactly? Oh, right, a game with infinite lives. (And come on, spare me the "it wasn't your time" hand-waving--how is it that it's never your time, whoever you are, however you die?)

My point, really, is not that infinite lives is a great thing, but that I don't think most people will have a problem accepting it.

Why cant they do a FPS in the style of Call of duty or halo for marines.

Gears of war with giant shoulderpads. Done.

Throw in some 40k fluffy buddies like werewolf guy, vampire guy, and secretive-in-a-dress guy!