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Phloop wrote:I doubt SMs will be playable in the beginning. My guess is that they'll be closer to the fluff and only be avalible at epic levels, like the Death Knight is to WoW.

Since that would probably cut their sales by 1/2 or more, I very much doubt that. 40K is essentially "the Space Marine game". It would be incredibly odd to release a game about Space Marines, and not have them be playable.

WoW's sales would probably have been a lot worse if neither Humans nor Orcs were playable. The same basic principle would apply here.

I'd be incredibly surprised if it did have playable Space Marines.

I'm still waiting to here more details. I'd be happy with a 40K "Battlefield" type game - that would be a pseudo-MMO. That would seem truer to the spirit than a WoW/EQ questing game.

Personally, I think a Dark Heresy CRPG would be great - but it would stretch believability as the basis for an MMO.

Asmodai wrote:I'm still waiting to here more details. I'd be happy with a 40K "Battlefield" type game - that would be a pseudo-MMO. That would seem truer to the spirit than a WoW/EQ questing game.

Personally, I think a Dark Heresy CRPG would be great - but it would stretch believability as the basis for an MMO.

I'm also very interested in what the framework/premise of the game will be (battlefield or even wh-online in space style pvp-centric, or more pve-centric). It's also interesting to see how the Bioware's KotOR-mmorpg will effect the development as it's very likely it'll be published before the 40k game. As being very much in the same vein (space stuff+close range combat on planets etc), it's bound to have some kind of effect, especially if it becomes a hit.

As much as the prospect of a 40k MMO is exciting, I still don't know if I'd get it if it wasn't in the style I've always hoped for: where each player controls a small squad rather than just one character.

Asmodai wrote:

Phloop wrote:I doubt SMs will be playable in the beginning. My guess is that they'll be closer to the fluff and only be avalible at epic levels, like the Death Knight is to WoW.

Since that would probably cut their sales by 1/2 or more, I very much doubt that. 40K is essentially "the Space Marine game". It would be incredibly odd to release a game about Space Marines, and not have them be playable.

Please excuse me if I get a little mean or irrational, I don't intend this to be an attack of any sort, this is just a sensitive topic to me as a long-time W40k fan.

40k is only seen as "the Space Marine game" because GW spends 3 times the amount of effort on the fluff of the Imperium as they do on all the other races combined. If you look at all the artbooks they do TONS of sketches on JUST THE ULTRAMARINES. They have codexs for individual chapters! And this I find insulting as a fan of the 40k Universe.

There are plenty of fans of the Tyranids, the Orks, the Eldar and the Tau. Why don't they get the same treatment? 40k is bigger than just the Imperium, GW should expand on that and pack away their huge hard-on for the humans. But I digress, back to the MMO aspect.

SMs are supposed to be elite and RARE. If a guardsman sees 1 in his entire life it's supposed to be a miracle, hence their mythological status. They're supposed to be 8 ft tall with chests of solid bone and blood that sews their skin together in an instant if they're wounded.

Now how are you going to justify a player starting with a level 1 SM? How is a level 1 SM going to be the same as a level 1 Ork Boy, or a level 1 Guardsman?

Or are we just going to ignore all the fluff and throw open the floodgates and give everyone a turn to be the superhuman warriors of the universe? Because then you end up making them "super average". And that'd be like letting people have a Warboss class, or start out as Nobs.

In my opinion that'd be very, very disappointing and a terribly poor choice by the game developers.

A level one initiate would be the same as a Boy, guardian, or a seargant.

Space marines go:

initiate
neophyte
scout
battle brother
seargeant
veteran

With a few of those switching around. A Commisar would be about the same "level" as a battle brother. A veteran would be about as capable as a warp spider or a nob.

The trick is to balance the levels by classification, rather than by race. Some races will end up "higher" on the scale then others due to the fact that a marine sergeant fluffwise is still beyond the pinnacle that a guardsman is supposed to be capable of. A platoon leader will probably end up getting artillery or NPC pet guardsman to tool around with, much like the mastermind class in city of villains.

It's certainly possible, and not even that difficult to justify fluff differences and attribute levels to them.

So, still no news on the Space Marine game we saw an early trailer for? It was unpolished but assuming it's a THQ release (and I don't see how can it be not a THQ release) we should be seeing it on the charts that streach out as far as 2012.

As long as I can be a Guardsman with a lasgun (and perhaps a demolition charge), I'll be happy

ShumaGorath wrote:A level one initiate would be the same as a Boy, guardian, or a seargant.

Space marines go:

initiate
neophyte
scout
battle brother
seargeant
veteran

This is about right. As a spacemarine and Guardsmen especially, you would start out as a Conscript/Initiate, you wouldnt get your Power Armor for (lets say there are 40 levels) level 20+! If not more... I can actually see this game working out VERY well and I have actually been hoping so much for something like this...

Think about this...

Initate - Nothing special, has a combat weapon and autopistol and does "Trials" for Chapter X
Neophyte - Has passed the trials of an Initiate, has gained some augumentation, still uses combat weapons and autopistols
Scout - Augumentation, gained: Black Carapace etc. Allowed to wield Bolter, Chainsword, Special Weapons (3 mastery Paths: CC, Bolter/Overall Tactical, Heavy Weapons)

and so on...

From the scout you start specializing your mastery

do you want to focus on learning to wield your Sword better? the CC path would allow better equipment/more damage from CC. Allowing you to use jumpacks, and the Final "uber" specialization would be to be allowed to use Terminator Assault armor (USE not get it for free)

Tactical would go the Veteran Commander route giving you better overall equipment and strategic informations assistances --> Better grenades, stronger Bolter, inspiring presence (does X), Standard Bearer, special weapons (plasma/meltaguns/flamers) This path is a mix of CC + Heavy Weapons + a bit of Command.

The heavy weapons route lets you wield Heavy Bolters, Plasma Cannons, Snipers Maybe? (Serenity Sniper Squad of the Mantis Legion?), etc... The final route probably giving you access to Standard Terminator Armor....

The idea is having a tree that snakes out allowing to chose what you want to be able to use/improve on your character. Like in the assault tree maybe "All your CC Weapons become master crafted increasing their damage by X%" and stuff like that. A jump pack or terminator armor or being able to use a bike (may be going to far?) would be "final" choices for your characters specialization.

Allowing you to even join a company of the chapter might even help to specialize more giving you different bonuses for which company your in?

And through the game, having different armor would effect your character, Terminator Armored guys cant go into Rhinos, can't ride bikes, can't use X weapons, while scouts can gain "stealth" etc...

You pretty much see im throwing out a lot of messy ideas, but I just wanted to show how promisingly cool a game like this could be!

Foda_Bett wrote:Notice that there's no expansions for DoW2 planned.

yeah that sucks i'd rather see an expansion for DoW2 then an mmo

gennadius wrote:

Foda_Bett wrote:Notice that there's no expansions for DoW2 planned.

yeah that sucks i'd rather see an expansion for DoW2 then an mmo

Company of Heroes - Tales of Valor isn't listed as well and that's also an expansion. All that's planned for DoW 2 now is a patch that includes a new 3v3 map.

For guardsmen as you reach higher levels/higher classes and space marines are starting to become assault marines, veterans, devastators, whatever, a guardsman could start on the road to becoming an inquisitor, or an assassin.

I'm personally planning on being a Cadian shaman. It's a prestige class that you unlock after you're a high enough level guardsman, but if you spec in it you can't (d)evolve into an ogryn.

GrimTeef wrote:I doubt that the necrons or the Tyranids will be playable races. They will be in the game somewhere, no doubt, but playable? Highly doubtful. Look at Warhammer Online. The undead are not playable in any way, but they are in the game. The Nids and Tin'eads just aren't individual enough in their thoughts to warrant being played.

I, for one, would relish the opportunity to sneak into an Imperium fortress as a Lictor and run rampant slaughtering newbies and evading the guards. I'd have the chumps so scared of shadows and corners, calling for their high level friends to help, that they'd never reach an actual battlefield.

Railguns wrote:

GrimTeef wrote:I doubt that the necrons or the Tyranids will be playable races. They will be in the game somewhere, no doubt, but playable? Highly doubtful. Look at Warhammer Online. The undead are not playable in any way, but they are in the game. The Nids and Tin'eads just aren't individual enough in their thoughts to warrant being played.

I, for one, would relish the opportunity to sneak into an Imperium fortress as a Lictor and run rampant slaughtering newbies and evading the guards. I'd have the chumps so scared of shadows and corners, calling for their high level friends to help, that they'd never reach an actual battlefield.

Brings Player Killing to a whole new level.

Anyhow, So long i can i play as a Tau battlesuit i don't care ;3

Your breaking it into armies how about the break down of fighter, healer, tech/magic.?

I'd be very happy if a 40k MMO could leave the beaten to death path of lvl-progression. It only ends up being a transport run to reach the "real" game at top level. I'd love to see more progression coming from storyarcs, factions to gain friendship with (and I'm not asking to grind myself to exalted with Netherwing again, I want story, reason intelligent NPCs etc etc). I do appreciate the need of some sort of tutorial run, and getting your tricky abilities one at a time. But it can be done better than 200+ hours of doing the same "quests" for the fifth time.

To be honest I think it will be yet another wow-clone with better graphics, because it is pretty easy to make money that way.

Ten to one this MMO will be like all the others out there: PAIN FOR LITTLE GAIN.

You want to be a marine powerhouse? Grind bitch!

You want that XV-88 Suit? Best start grinding.

You want tentacles sprouting from every oroface? You know what to do.

The grind is the heart of the MMO formula, whether we like it or not.

Railguns wrote:

GrimTeef wrote:I doubt that the necrons or the Tyranids will be playable races. They will be in the game somewhere, no doubt, but playable? Highly doubtful. Look at Warhammer Online. The undead are not playable in any way, but they are in the game. The Nids and Tin'eads just aren't individual enough in their thoughts to warrant being played.

I, for one, would relish the opportunity to sneak into an Imperium fortress as a Lictor and run rampant slaughtering newbies and evading the guards. I'd have the chumps so scared of shadows and corners, calling for their high level friends to help, that they'd never reach an actual battlefield.

the game you refer to here was called Aliens V. Predator

BrookM wrote:Ten to one this MMO will be like all the others out there: PAIN FOR LITTLE GAIN.

You want to be a marine powerhouse? Grind bitch!

You want that XV-88 Suit? Best start grinding.

You want tentacles sprouting from every oroface? You know what to do.

The grind is the heart of the MMO formula, whether we like it or not.

That much, is pretty true. However, the ideal of 'grinding' is being worn down to a bloody stump >.> You know that they have had about 1 to 1 1/2 years already on this project in secert? My money is either on KotoR MMO or this game.

The greatest idea of a MMO that works is give a player a common objective towards a "greater good". For world of warcraft it was raiding, a perception of fighting epic fights. That has worked for quite some time now and it's still a fine idea, however i believe that it's being bleed dry.

We need to see some sort of breakthough if the next-gen MMO can even stand a chance agaist the monster that is known as world of warcraft less it will crash before it even gets off the ground (Warhammer online, age of cohan)

Mellon wrote:I'd be very happy if a 40k MMO could leave the beaten to death path of lvl-progression. It only ends up being a transport run to reach the "real" game at top level. I'd love to see more progression coming from storyarcs, factions to gain friendship with (and I'm not asking to grind myself to exalted with Netherwing again, I want story, reason intelligent NPCs etc etc). I do appreciate the need of some sort of tutorial run, and getting your tricky abilities one at a time. But it can be done better than 200+ hours of doing the same "quests" for the fifth time.

To be honest I think it will be yet another wow-clone with better graphics, because it is pretty easy to make money that way.

With the fluff of warhammer 40K, i don't think that storyarcs and factions are going to be a problem.

QFT btw. If i see a large yellow ! above someones head i'l............

I like how people claim to be tired of the grind formula but don't have any reasonable replacements that ensure continuous monthly pay.

Railguns wrote:

GrimTeef wrote:I doubt that the necrons or the Tyranids will be playable races. They will be in the game somewhere, no doubt, but playable? Highly doubtful. Look at Warhammer Online. The undead are not playable in any way, but they are in the game. The Nids and Tin'eads just aren't individual enough in their thoughts to warrant being played.

I, for one, would relish the opportunity to sneak into an Imperium fortress as a Lictor and run rampant slaughtering newbies and evading the guards. I'd have the chumps so scared of shadows and corners, calling for their high level friends to help, that they'd never reach an actual battlefield.

Raiding spaz mariens bases will be the source of awesome nerd rage for this game.

am i missing something or are people reading into this wrong, this is an MMO, massively multiplayer online
not mmorpg massively multiplayer online role playing game.

this could be like the old MMORTS shattered galaxy (god i loved that game)

Demogerg wrote:am i missing something or are people reading into this wrong, this is an MMO, massively multiplayer online
not mmorpg massively multiplayer online role playing game.

this could be like the old MMORTS shattered galaxy (god i loved that game)

I keep saying the same thing. With THQ being the the publisher I think there is a possibility that they'd play it safe and use a formula they know how to do and make it like DOW II but MMO. When I originally played DOW II, I played it on CO-OP campaign and my impression, it felt like a prototype for something intended for many more players to use. I imagine something like DOW II, where each player controls a small squad, upgrading the Sgt as their character. As the game goes on they can customize the unit into different types of specialist. Where the different squads have different ways of interacting, allowing for a cooperation that enhances the supporting units.

I think a 40k MMO(RPG) would be impossible to get all the races into by release, a MMO(RTS) would be simpler in incorporating races and opens up the game to the larger elements of the 40k universe. Imagining 10 squads controlled by 10 players makes alot more sense than 40 characters going up against chaos Warhound. With the RPG, their too many factions to incorporate the races as factions, with an RTS you can justify players having a wide array of units from the tabletop game.

An RPG format would just result in 20 Space Marine Captains taking on a blood thirster with plasma cannons and +20 gold-uber charged power swords of slaying.

Designer notes stated that it would be an MMO with RTS / strategic elements.

Picture it.

HottyFemCommisar11: Ok, are we ready for the Cadian Gate Raid? Quibgibber do you have your mind war charged?

Quibgibber: yeah it's charged. Leeroy you rea..

Leeroy Jenkins: LEEEEROOOOOOYYYYY JENKKINS!!!!

The greatest idea of a MMO that works is give a player a common objective towards a "greater good". For world of warcraft it was raiding, a perception of fighting epic fights. That has worked for quite some time now and it's still a fine idea, however i believe that it's being bleed dry.

Only a minority of players in that game actually utilize the raid content. There's a reason the dungeons get smaller and smaller every expansion they release.

We need to see some sort of breakthough if the next-gen MMO can even stand a chance agaist the monster that is known as world of warcraft less it will crash before it even gets off the ground (Warhammer online, age of cohan)

AoC crashed. Warhammer is putting alone just fine in the contested second most popular MMO out there rank spot. It had problems on release, but was solid enough that it will likely maintain its current playerbase and grow.

With THQ being the the publisher I think there is a possibility that they'd play it safe and use a formula they know how to do and make it like DOW II but MMO.

I don't think you realize just how much more complicated that would be then pumping out another generic grind based MMO. Every largescale RTS game that has been published has failed miserably. 2d Isometrics don't lend themselves well to the scale an MMO is supposed to convey.

Phryxis wrote:I'll do what I normally do every time the 40K MMO is mentioned. I'll blabber about how I loved Planetside, and wish this game was it, only with better netcode and better fluff.

I can say one thing for sure: If you didn't like Planetside, you're a bad person and are probably going to hell.

Very rarely am I 100% in agreement with a post.

But I am 100% in agreement with this post.

Vanu 4 life.

I'm seeing alot of hysteria and assumption going on in this thread. I've been following this game since it was announced and alot of what's going on in this thread is blatant lies or fan-boy fantasy.

The 40k MMO will not be an FPS, it will play just like an MMORPG, third person view and all of that. The studio has stated that it will have the most detailed characters of any MMO we've seen or will see for quite some time. This also debunks the thought of it being an MMORTS.

As far as all races being playable at launch, likely, but not with the way everyone in the thread has been looking at it. You guys have been saying "races" and then following it with "guard, marines, orks, furry kittens". It's being looked at wrong, Human, is a race, guard and marines are an army. Look at it more like, you choose to be a human, then you choose your class of guardsman, marine, what have you.

I'm also seeing shouts of,"Nothing but grind!" well, maybe, alot of MMOs look at things this way, but that doesn't mean they have to, THQ is a good company, and we'll see what Vigil can do when Darksiders comes out later this year for the 360, maybe give the company a chance before you start guessing at what a game they plan to have out in two years is going to be like?

Here are a few more things I can tell you about the game that are actually confirmed: The battle mechanics won't work like the majority of MMOs that we've seen, in WoW you just run up and start hitting something, in 40k the combat will be something like Gears of War, it will rely heavily on cover, flanking and other combat maneuvers. The likelihood of races mixing parties and raids or whatever will be unlikely, and each race will likely be it's own faction.

This is all the information I have, I've been following this game for almost a year and a half now, flame me if you want, call me a liar, I don't mind because I know what I have stated are facts that have come directly from the company, not guesses and fantasy.

BrookM wrote:Designer notes stated that it would be an MMO with RTS / strategic elements.

That sounds cool. At the very least if it has RTS elements it will be different than WoW which is a plus for me. (disclaimer: I play wow but it is not the game to end all games)

Chris Gohlinghorst wrote:

Phryxis wrote:I'll do what I normally do every time the 40K MMO is mentioned. I'll blabber about how I loved Planetside, and wish this game was it, only with better netcode and better fluff.

I can say one thing for sure: If you didn't like Planetside, you're a bad person and are probably going to hell.

Very rarely am I 100% in agreement with a post.

But I am 100% in agreement with this post.

Vanu 4 life.

I add my 100% agreement to bump this up to 200% agreement factor!

It was a great core game, just needed to be a little more stable and have a bit more story. Attacking random base #452 for the fifth time did get a little boring, but seeing an entire platoon dump out of two Galaxy dropships, regroup at the rear base door, and then plow through all the base defenses was a rush. If this MMO has a similar sense of teamwork (be it FPS, RPG, or RTS) it'll rock.