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I'll gleefully play a mere guardsman if I'm the one commanding the Stormblade...

I think you missed the point. Yes, there will be marines, but by the time they are actually full on Chaplains or Librarians or what have you, its practically endgame anyway. In WOW terms, you wouldn't actually make power armor till level 35 or something, 60 or so before you go to be a "hero level marine". There won't be any incentive to play them in regards to power level, but in style of play. Did you read my other post? I think thats a pretty good way to keep it stretched out(again, its in WoW terms)

By that time, people who started as orks will be frackin Warbosses, people who started as Guardsmen of some type will be a commisar or something. Hell, they'll probably have artistic license to just make things up to compensate. Do you really want to start as a guardsmen w/flashlight, and 400 hours of playtime later, want to be that same guardsmen w/ flashlight? If you said yes, reevaulate why you are playing an mmo in the first place. An mmo is about progression, thats what keeps people addicted to it.

Kotrin, sure, you just won't start that way. It's the point of an MMO.

I play MMOs/FPSs to hang out with friends sometimes when we can't hang out in real life. I know some people play it cuz they need online validation cuz they suck in real life, but from my experience most normal people played WoW to hang out with friends and not so they can repeatedly piss people off like the SA goonsquad. So heroic supersoldier or not, I'll play it as long as not everyone else is a supersoldier. If everyone's on equal footing as a guardsman, marine recruit, or imperial bureaucrat or one of those flying babies, it should be fine.

I would very much like to believe that the publisher will do as you say, but let's be realistic. People want to be SPAZ MARIENS the same way people want to be OMGJEDI. And they shall have it. But, if I do have money to spare I will try and get a few friends to play with me so we can be rainbow warriors.

Railguns wrote:I think you missed the point. Yes, there will be marines, but by the time they are actually full on Chaplains or Librarians or what have you, its practically endgame anyway. In WOW terms, you wouldn't actually make power armor till level 35 or something, 60 or so before you go to be a "hero level marine". There won't be any incentive to play them in regards to power level, but in style of play. Did you read my other post? I think thats a pretty good way to keep it stretched out(again, its in WoW terms)

By that time, people who started as orks will be frackin Warbosses, people who started as Guardsmen of some type will be a commisar or something. Hell, they'll probably have artistic license to just make things up to compensate. Do you really want to start as a guardsmen w/flashlight, and 400 hours of playtime later, want to be that same guardsmen w/ flashlight? If you said yes, reevaulate why you are playing an mmo in the first place. An mmo is about progression, thats what keeps people addicted to it.

Kotrin, sure, you just won't start that way. It's the point of an MMO.

I'm going to note that that is exactly what I said in my first post, which in fact predated any of your posts. Of course it's about progression. And that sliding scale is about keeping the progression equal. A space marine seargant is more powerful than a commisar in every aspect. He may have less wounds on the tabletop but that's just to keep game balance. Only one of them can lift a tonne, has two sets of lungs, and can eat rocks. The space marine would crack him in half with a rough glare. The sliding scale ensures that that endgame makes some lick of sense. As well as the midgame. And the early game. In fact I think thats what everyone keeps saying, though you seem really against and idea that was apparently yours to begin with as of the post I am quoting.

Not everyone should be able to be chaplains. In fact no one should. That would be like making everyone lord BigMcLargeHuge whose power is maximum. It's just kind of stupid to have -everyone- be on the highest tier of power available in the fiction. Should everyone get to be chapter masters too? I wan't to be solar macharius! Oh, hey lets go invite some more chaplains to the team so that we can go fight 15 warbosses in PvP! That would be a bit silly.

"Oh, hey lets go invite some more chaplains to the team so that we can go fight 15 warbosses in PvP! That would be a bit silly."


Sounds like an APOC game to me.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

MMOs should be based off (what seems like) good ideas in APOC. Here comes my gravy train of tyranid sporemines!

I didn't mean that literally everyone will all be Chaplains or Warbosses, those are just examples. I don't think I brought them up in the first place(maybe warbosses though ). And no, I don't think the developers should follow the fluff very deeply for putting character types in perspective. Then we WOULD have the stupid exaggerated characters that would cause a Star Wars Galaxies effect. I hate to use Wow as a template and all, but the game will likely follow them anyway, as it has put down some fairly ubiquitous aspects of MMOs by now. Take the difference between humans and Tauren, story wise, for example. Tauren are supposed to be huge, uber-tough minotaur men, and humans, well, not so much. But a Human Warrior and Tauren warrior aren't much different gameplay wise or even power-wise besides some statistical differences and racial bonuses. They don't religiously follow the fluff and make Tauren the un-killable, rampaging monsters they are described as, so we don't have to make marines the unkillable, rampaging, two lunged, rock eating, acid spitting sun-farting psychotics that every two bit writer in GW's stable says they are. Give them some advantage for being marines, sure, but give everyone else some advantage to compensate.

Honestly, I thought you were contradicting me in your second post. I didn't say anything about chaplains or Librarians until then, you did. I did not see your first one, otherwise I would have acknowledged that and agreed. Sorry for that then. I was thinking more like, the Warrior equivalent would be a Veteran Sargeant (capped rank) that had obtained terminator armor, specialized in CC type talents, and was equipped with assault Termie weapons. A firepower guy could be some vet devastator with a tricked out missile launcher or assault cannon(creative license to give power armor an assault cannon if they wanted too, depends.) and a bunch of shooty talents.


My ultimate point is that it isn't necessary to restrict the players when you can expand the game. Why punish people for playing marines when you can give everyone else the same power level? I don't even particularly care whether they are in the game or not. I'm just saying that if they are, then it isn't like its impossible to balance the game. You may change the focus of the game, sure, but it isn't a death sentence to a playable game.

Why punish people for playing marines when you can give everyone else the same power level?

Why make everyone the same power level when they can appease the marine kids and ensure the money keeps flowing in?

I said nothing about pleasing marine kids. Honestly, I have never played marines and swore against ever doing so when I started because there were so many.
As far as making a good game though, I think it would be a step in the right direction. I think there is more money to be made pleasing gamers as a whole with a balanced product, than by trying to please the Spaze Mahreinz!!11(Hurr!) kiddos out there. I mean, if you want to play a marine, than play a marine, but I'm guessing the uninitiated gaming community at large isn't as likely to have huge agglomerations of Space Marines as the table top game would, especially if the game just happened to have other, just as viable options.

Personally, I think it would be awesome if the quality of the character was inversely proportional to a number of NPCs that the player could control.
Basically, Space Marines would start out playing a Sergeant leading 4 other marines. Guardsmen would start as junior officers leading a platoon. Tau and Eldar would lead something like 2 10 man squads or something. As they progress they gain favor or fame within their faction, which can be used to upgrade equipment, repair existing equipment, replace casualties and even expand the size of the group they lead.
This would allow any large PvP event to include hundreds of soldiers fighting without having to have hundreds of players.
In addition, players would have to manage replacing casualties with fresh recruits as well as acquiring armor and equipment for the entire group.
Recruits and equipment could all cost varying amounts to represent the general skill level of the soldier and the technology level of the equipment.
A Space Marine squad losing three guys will hurt a players pocketbook as much as an Imperial Guard player losing 3 squads of his 4 squad platoon.

Like Kingdom under Fire? I liked that system, actually. You controlled a unit, and when you actually went into combat, control switched to your hero so you could help your unit fight it out. What a particular unit did was determined by the skills you gave its officer. Although equipment was done on a unit basis(except for officers, they had their own because you could switch them around units), not by individuals. It would be more convenient that way, as long as you could simply retain the option for, say, 4X heavy bolters in the unit.

Sounds like an APOC game to me.

*facepalms*

Honestly, I thought you were contradicting me in your second post. I didn't say anything about chaplains or Librarians until then, you did. I did not see your first one, otherwise I would have acknowledged that and agreed. Sorry for that then. I was thinking more like, the Warrior equivalent would be a Veteran Sargeant (capped rank) that had obtained terminator armor, specialized in CC type talents, and was equipped with assault Termie weapons. A firepower guy could be some vet devastator with a tricked out missile launcher or assault cannon(creative license to give power armor an assault cannon if they wanted too, depends.) and a bunch of shooty talents.

Looks like we just misinterpereted one another. I thought you were arguing for an ultra powerful end game full of Spez Mahreeens!!1 commanders teleporting around and fighting epic superbattles while leaving all the other races behind because it would be cool. One missed post can cause so much confusion X.X .

What could match a veteran seargant in terminator armor though for the other classes? A nob in mega armour could do it I guess, but unless IG vets get to command squads themselves (ala city of villains), or the Eldar exarchs get a hefty boost in power it would be difficult.

Well, I think all they really need to do is buff them up, go a little beyond the blunt comparison the table top rules make them out to have. They may have to fabricate things completely. An Eldar Harlie could have a huge advantage in attack speed and critical attacks, or you contribute huge amounts of ranged damage as a reaper Exarch. The IG could have a "pet" squad, or be able to call in Valkyrie strikes(like my Senior Officer/Mage idea). I'm not really an IG guy though, thats why I suggested that "human" characters would eventually become Eversor Assassins, Inquisitors, etc. Not Space Marines, but killy enough in their own respects to match or exceed what a marine could do in certain situations, so that a mixed party would be the preferable approach. Need that Chaos Sorcerer hiding out back dead before he can debuff your party? Have someone playing a Vindicare or Pathfinder take care of him. Some huge, stompy Tyranid engaging your ranged guys? Throw a guy In Termie armour to tie him up and allow the support guys to do your thing. Your party about to be overwhelmed by mobs? Have your IG commanding officer to call in a lance strike or Basilisk attack.

It would be funny with the idea I said if someone took an IG platoon and made half of them medics and half of them plasma gunners. Combat would go like this:
plasma gunners fire
masses of badguys take massive damage along with plasma gunners having their weapons overheat
medics try to patch up the plasma casaulties before the next volley

Before its patched for being BoRken!!1!! in PvP.

Maybe an IG would be like a Master Mind in City of Villians. You start as you but as you go up in level/rank you get more IG under your command and at high level you have 4 or 5 guys like a command squad with one being a medic and one being a special weapon troop. Make up for less straight up damage with overall numbers.

Will I be allowed to have Chaos Marines and Daemons in my group when we go in a raid? Or can't they be mixed?

BYE

If I were on the dev team?

Yes, yes and yes.
Holy game law number 1.!
Expand the game, don't restrict the players!

Please send your resume to the GW Dev team. They need people like you.

BYE

ShumaGorath wrote:Not to have everyone be some sort of bronzed herculean god capable of cracking moons in half with a rough glare.

For some reason, that made me think of Chuck Norris.

I think a 40k MMO is going to leave a lot to be desired. I would hope that they would try to make something original, like a squad based MMO-RTS. In going the MMO route for 40k I hate to say but I think to make it a good game they may need to take an imperial centric game play. Some like inquisitor or the Dark Heresy tabletop would probably serve as a better model than what is sounding more and more like random individual marines and guards roaming across the countryside of a wasteland of a planet, spam killing squiq and gretchin to level.

I just hope that its not slowed.

Maybe if they did what was proposed in that Star Trek MMO that sank. Actually have a high command that the players have to do together. Or make the missions party neceszsary like in Guild Wars.

As to make up for the marine thing.

How about every person starts off as either a human guardsman or a Chaos cultist? (Just focusing on those two for now) That way you could possibly fill a 40 man requirement for a mission rather quickly seeind as every low level player owuld be one. Then when you get to say level 40 you can start to break away to the other paths. You could do a faction specific quest to become recruited to a space marine chapter or part of the inquisition. And for from there, so at ~40 you would be a spacemarine scout. With all the wicked coolness of the table top. You could then have a seperate skill trees for the scouts that would eventually replace the skills you would have as a high level guardsmen. (say a storm trooper?) And for the cultist you would be a mutant or something that would then acheive either daemon hood or be inducted into the Chaos Space Marines. And instead of having scout traits make them worse then regular marines but as they level up let them be boosted by demonic powers or possession. While neither would get farther than Terminators. (and no terminator seargents or Aspiring Champions.) Though their stats and weapon and gear options would increase as well. And say... make 60 to be a fully conducted space marine and 90 to be a termie.

As for mounts, you could have Bikes or attack bikes or jump packs of some kind. This would be cool especialy in a battleground setting as you could do something similar to BF 2 and have an over commander who isn't actually present in the battle but is issuing orders. Though he would have an in battle avatar who could be assasinated and thus your entire team would lose both an overall view, and tactical cohesion. The over commander could also be the one in control of the vehicles in terms of movement and sshooting. While the individual players could decide whether or not to embark/disembark or even follow orders ingeneral. Oonce the generals avatar is killed he reverts to his basic character and all the vehicles would then be player controlled. Also, you could have it so that certain roles are limited before heading in to the battlefeild. So in say a 100 per side battle only 10 would be space marines of any kind and the rest would be gaurdsmen or inquisition of varying levels. (or say 30 marines of varying type, and five termies being seperately commanded but with 200 gaurds running around dying and with a seperate commander. Yet the two oovercommanders on the same team would be able to communicate.)

That would make for some kick ass gameplay don't you thing?

Yep, using artistic license to have Marines recruit from exceptional _adult_ human beings rather than juveniles would make this work. You can become a Space Marine neophyte when you are already heading for uber status. It's really only in recent fluff (Descent of Angels, other HH fluff, Grey Knights series) that I recall seeing the requirement for only younger humans to be recruited into the Space Marine ranks.

It seems like an easy fix, really, with minimal fluff rewriting.

Hmm.. that idea has some merit too.
As for vehicles, I think it would be neat if different areas of the game would be better for vehicle use(your mounts) and on foot. Different sections of a siege, or even different players playing different roles, on foot characters supporting vehicle bound people in battles.

This is how the ideal 40k MMO would go in my head:

It would be neat if the primary 'combat' areas of the game were meant to be multi-functional 'theaters' of combat instead of just the usual dungeon-equivalents.

Basically, have a non-combatant area for between-adventure stuff. The necessary shops, crafting areas, commissaries, etc. The idjits who want to goof off with /dance commands can hang out here. Depending on the 'theater' you're in, it might be a Hive City section, a troop ship, or a more rustic small town.

Entering the 'Theater' is a trip to a door representing a shuttle (or other transport).

The Theater is a large map. Perhaps multiple zones, even. If support for joining the Ruinous Powers or Filthy Xenos is in, I'd add that, if not I'd say it should be a design consideration, as it's a likely expansion opportunity.

A Theater might be a contested city, a space hulk, or some other target. Each Theater would correspond to a band of levels. Each Theater would also have a large 'base' for the Imperials (and the other factions if involved). The shuttles/respawns are in the base, and various non-combat skills can be used to keep the base up, making the geam kind of a MMO version of Team Fortress.

Let's assume the Imperial City Theater. The base might be a battered section of defensive fortifications. Our players grab a shuttle in (In this case, it may actually be a steam-punk train system from the inner core of the city). This is a low-level zone, so we have a Space Marine Scout (who just started today, so he hasn't even picked up the Sniper Rifle power set yet), an ImpGuard Grunt (who's a bit more experienced: He's got the Basic Vehicles skills as well as Heavy Weapons I. Plus he had enough credits to pick up a Quality Bolt Pistol from the merchants), an Assassin (Who started as a commoner, but chose the assasin path and now ahs access to disguise and backstab type powers) and their friend who's been playing since day 1, a Commissar (high-level ImpGuard Officer with lots of buffing abilities).

They spread out into the Theater. The quest log has several open missions and mini-map indicates that this zone is threatened by Orks, so they chat (voice-chat would make sense) and decide the best strategy. The Commissar is here purely to help his friends: The Theater he should be in would require taking a shuttle to a dropship that connects to a Theater where there's a nasty Hive Tyrant at the end of a dark Hulk, but he's not in the mood for it.

The Space Marine pretty quickly moves out ahead, while the others hang back. The Guardsman finds a vehicle bay in the base and uses his Requisition skill to have a Sentinel sent down while the Assassin goes to see what the Space Marine is up to. The Commisar goes to the upper level of the Fortifications and grabs a terminal, which gives him an RTS-style view of the group he is with. he looks over the group's missions and selects a mission to relieve a ImpGuard fire-team. It's got a healthy reward in Requisition and advances the Imperial Lines a bit. He does so, and uses his Requisition to spawn a handful of NPC guardsmen to escort the party. back in the lower fortifications, the Guardsman has finished his requisition and the Sentinel has been dropped off. he mounts up, and starts stomping around, looking for the SM and Assassin. The Commissar points out the way and sues an RTS interface to give them a route.

As is common in such games, the group doesn't quite follow, but it's close enough. The SM and Assassin take on some small Orks as they wait for the Guardsman to show up: they'll need his firepower if they end up ina tougher mission. Getting to the mission site is a long process, and they lose a few Guardsmen in the process, but the Commissar respawns them. They're not particularly effective, but they're cheap and they can help draw fire. The 'Stategic Console' options differ for each class: The Assassin might have no other options than an air strike, while the Space Marine might call Space Marines or Terminators at high levels. The group wishes they had someone on playing a Techpriest, as being able to spawn better vehicles for the Guardsman would have been nice, as well as air strikes and artillery. Still, if they had a Techpriest, they might want him along to fix the defenses they've seen... There was a bridge a ways back that was destroyed when overrun. If they had a Techpriest he could have fixed that and saved them a lot of time.

At the missions scene they find a small ImpGuard firebase. They fight the Orks assailing it and the Guardsman switches to a convenient Heavy Bolter after his sentinel is destroyed. This is a 'territory' style mission: once the group is on-site they are constantly harrassed by orks, but need only occupy the site logn enough to have considered it complete.

Completing this mission opens up another mission leading the group further into the Theater. Eventually the group comes upon the enemy base but the defenses are too tough. The Assassin wanders off, using a new ability to look like an Ork. The Assassin sneaks through the base which, overall, has similar 'stations' to the Imperial fortifications. Up on the top floor the Assassin backstabs an NPC Mechboy who is keeping the defenses up. The NPC Warboss kills the Assassin, but this gives the group a chance to rush the opening. If not for the Assassin, they would have require a lot more people and Requisition expenditures to crack the defenses.

An important thing is that the Theater is instanced similar to how City of Heroes and other games does it: A 2nd instance is only created if the first is considered 'full.' Each Theater has a number of mission spots (both the simple one shown above and more complex ones) an can be 'won' by either side. If the Theater is won all Imperials in the theater are rewarded with Credits (for merchants, etc.... A relatively rare resource), Requisition (This is used for in-Theater things like spawning NPC helpers, vehicles, buildings, etc.), and Experience (classic RPG-style leveling, perhaps with some room for various classes to branch with experience.

I just hope that it doesn't suck.

ok look at warhammer online its going to be summed up basicly the same race and class wise.

Marines and IG will be under one spot like orcs and goblins from the fantasy mmo.

(dont forget Warhammer online doesnt like single type classes they enjoy classes with multiple roles . )

The space marines will choose either a "tank class with a little of something else" or a "something else with a little tank." (the something else either being range dps or range tank or some kind of healing aspect.)


the imperial guard will oviously not be as strong but get something along the lines of like, a commissar controls (like from City of Villian.) a range of minions at his side that get stronger (IG vets) as you level up. Your abilities will be things like shoot one in the head to make the others go crazy strong or w/e and other buffs and some abilities of your own vs. your opponents.
Their other class would probably be something like a sniper of some sort with really high damage output and lots of stealth, maybe to the point of one shotting fairly decent targets if waited long enough with a really good shot, maybe get a spotter NPC of some sort. and probably really nice healing output.

witch hunters, sisters of battle, daemon hunters, are probably going to be playble but not as an entire race really only as certain classes ie. the sisters of battle would be a space marine class choice as the daemon hunters would be another choice.

Chapters are going to be guilds.

they might add the mechanicum (I kno spellling sux. ) as the 3rd side to the "good guys."


The baddies are probably going to be chaos marines and traitor guard.


They might do a couple of other sides or just do the same ol Good Vs. (what they think to be good.) evils
we all know orcs will be playable what decent mmo doesnt have orcs anymore >.> *hides while I play eve online.*

if they do do that then expect races like Tau for some reason tricked into working with Chaos by some sort of Tzeench magic (honestly though the Tau will proably be a NPC race... cause well they have no allies, other than themselves.). (we all know theres no way in the Nine hells or the will of the 4 chaos Gods that the imperials would do ANYTHING with aliens.) Orcs will be tricked into work with chaos... again...

The Eldar will probably somehow be a good guy race even though the space marines would honestly NEVER approve... the only way would be maybe the tyranids took over a very important world and the marines were forced to ally with them... the chaos tricked the orcs because they see the imperium is weak and this is their chance to strike. (another reason for eldar to be good guys.) Dark eldar... well they are a dying race so probably not going to be included...if they are we know what side they are on.



tyranids and necrons... sorry fanbois (tyranid player myself.) they in no way will be playable... thank you.... any attempt is just false hope.

All in all look at warhammer online the fantasy game and see its exact same clone to make tons of money for 40k thats going to be the 40k mmo... why change something that aint broke right? Just "fix" it to be in the 40k universe.

If they do have each race as seperate sides (like the fluff.) be ready for a more condensed imperium and tau as a playable race along with eldar, orcs, chaos marines, of course space marines and imp guard on one side, and no witch hunters/ daemon hunters (unless it becomes a side trait you get to pick.) and sisters of battle is honestly just going to be a gender change when you pick your character (maaaayyybee they will have a high dex and lowwer str trait.) (just more condensed than the other races by themselves.) (not daemons, or tyranids, or necrons... they will be the PvE quest enemies of course XP.) IF necrons are playable your going to be a pariah enough said. and IF tyranids are playable your going to be a rouge character, classes being, lictor, genesteeler, or zoany (bigger maybe.)

In terms of leveling and such you WILL NOT get as high as a chaplin or w/e because well... the fluff isnt designed to have hundreds of chaplins attacking a necron tomb... sorry. If players get the chance too it will ONLY be open to the best PvP'ers of the week/ month (special pvp rank armor and buffs.) Same goes for the big meks and others. B4 you quote me about the commissar well... how many commissars are their in the IG army? yeah.... a lot.... enuf said.

GLHF!
that was my rant with my years experience as a GM and a beta tester for many mmos... btw... wow sucks.... yeah thats right. w/e bye bye.

*Face Palm*

Over a year, and no more news, and you think we would be interested in your opinion NOW?

Peace.

sa

I dub thee necromancer of threads long dead and curse thee for wasting my time...