Warhammer 40K: Dark Millennium

[Meresgi]

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/staffblo...Good-News.html

So a few weeks back I wrote about the 40K MMO and how hopeful I was. Now it seems that THQ will be showing the game at E3 this year.

God I hope this turns out good. I love 40k, not sure if I would go Chaos or Ork though.

[Eversor]

40k MMO.... I am not the biggest fan of the fantasy Warhammer but a 40k one could pique my interest. Just wonder how factions you get to pick from.

Wonder if I will be able to make my namesake.....

[Gryffes]

Any warhammer 40k MMO will be brand tarnished by the failcopter that was Warhammer online.

[Meresgi]

If I go Chaos i'll totally RP worship Slaanesh.

[Eversor]

My predictions for starting factions..... Space Marines, Orks, Eldar, and Tau. I imagine the Necrons and Tyranids will be NPC only at first, probably same with Chaos. Probably add them in the first expansion (if it even gets that far).

[Plow]

This will end well.

Spoiler: show

by "well" I mean "2 weeks after launch"

[Nitsuki]

shit worries me, having played Warhammer Age of Reckoning for 2 months, the game got too bland and just plain dumb. The beta was fun, the game was fun as hell at first but it became such a pvp grind and unbalanced that it immediately turned a lot of people down.

The fact that it came out between WoW: BC and WotLK was pretty much an error because people immediately went back to WoW after the expansion came out and talking so much shit about it.

sure miss my Squig Herder tho.

[Nightraid]

shit worries me, having played Warhammer Age of Reckoning for 2 months, the game got too bland and just plain dumb. The beta was fun, the game was fun as hell at first but it became such a pvp grind and unbalanced that it immediately turned a lot of people down.

The fact that it came out between WoW: BC and WotLK was pretty much an error because people immediately went back to WoW after the expansion came out and talking so much shit about it.

sure miss my Squig Herder tho.

Same here i really liked the game but the whole thing just confused me. I liked the PvP but the Quests/ExP Grind really sucked, "Go to that location, kill that monster x number of times etc etc". I hope they learnt their lesson for releasing half assed MMO's.

[Kirbyprime]

If it isn't another WH:AoR I'll try it out, just so I can be a Tau and snipe people to death while my shield drone stops any pathetic stranglers from getting to me. If not, GIVE ME TYRANIDS.

[Cakes]

If I go Chaos i'll totally RP worship Slaanesh.

qft

[Komm Suesser Tod]

If you haven't played THQ's Dawn of War games, specifically Dawn of War 2, don't count this out. They did a fantastic job, not only in representing the feel of the tabletop game and maintaining the Warhammer 40k universe, but in making a truly fun game.

Also, Mythic and EA have their hands nowhere near this, so don't bring up the boringness that was Age of Reckoning.

Personally, I'm very excited by this.

[Komm Suesser Tod]

Incoming concept art dump:

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.massively...1259765057.jpg

http://cache-06.gawkerassets.com/ass...untitled-3.jpg

http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets...untitled-4.jpg

http://cache-05.gawkerassets.com/ass...untitled-5.jpg

http://cache-10.gawkerassets.com/ass...untitled-6.jpg

http://cache-03.gawkerassets.com/ass...untitled-7.jpg

http://cache-07.gawkerassets.com/ass...untitled-8.jpg

http://cache-01.gawkerassets.com/ass...untitled-9.jpg

http://cache-07.gawkerassets.com/ass...untitled-1.jpg

http://cache-01.gawkerassets.com/ass...untitled-2.jpg

All but the last two are Space Marine or Imperial Guard stuff, and the last two are of an Ork Fighta Bomma. And yes, that is how the Orks spell their stuff.

[Kael]

Those are some nice concepts. Just what I would except from THQ as I have played both Dawn of War 1 and 2.

This should be a beautiful grim dark game. My only real concern is how the battle/leveling system will work. But I'm sure they will make it work somehow, they haven't let me down before.


And yes, EA and Mythic are not touching this game so that is a big bonus. lol

[Komm Suesser Tod]

Those are some nice concepts. Just what I would except from THQ as I have played both Dawn of War 1 and 2.

This should be a beautiful grim dark game. My only real concern is how the battle/leveling system will work. But I'm sure they will make it work somehow, they haven't let me down before.


And yes, EA and Mythic are not touching this game so that is a big bonus. lol

The group I play Warhammer 40k with have been talking about what we would like to see for a leveling system, and we think that it would be really, really awesome if they broke from the traditional MMO leveling system.

Instead, and we realize it's a pipe dream, the general notion is that you should control a small group of guys, like you would start play as a member of a squad, then progress to being a sergeant, then get upgrades for you and your squad, such as adding guys or equipment or weapons. Then, after you've progressed enough, you could either continue to upgrade your current squad to even more powerful gear or stop being a sergeant and progress to another type of squad.

For Space Marines, as an example, you could start as a scout marine in a group with a sergeant, then before you exit the starting zone, your sergeant gets killed, and you gain control of the group, and at the end of the starting area, you become the scout sergeant. Then you could either continue to upgrade your scout squad, or progress to a tactical squad, then start the grind all over again.

Not only is it more fitting than simply being one guy running around, but it would be relatively easy to do with most armies in the game. Also, you could split your progress in between different parts of the army.

Again, using Space Marines as an example, after tactical marines, you could progress to devastator squad and progress down the heavy support path, eventually becoming a tank or even a dreadnought. Or, you could become an assault marine, then start progressing down the fast attack path, to bikes, land speeders and assault terminators.

Or with the Orks, start out as a boy, then to Nob, then you could choose to go with either bikes and trukks, stormboyz or deffkoptas on the fast attack side, or go with lootas, killa kans, battlewagons, deffdreads and the like for heavy support side.

I've sat down before and thought about what each army could have in their path, and it seems like it would be easy to set up each army in this way.

[Meresgi]

The group I play Warhammer 40k with have been talking about what we would like to see for a leveling system, and we think that it would be really, really awesome if they broke from the traditional MMO leveling system.

Instead, and we realize it's a pipe dream, the general notion is that you should control a small group of guys, like you would start play as a member of a squad, then progress to being a sergeant, then get upgrades for you and your squad, such as adding guys or equipment or weapons. Then, after you've progressed enough, you could either continue to upgrade your current squad to even more powerful gear or stop being a sergeant and progress to another type of squad.

For Space Marines, as an example, you could start as a scout marine in a group with a sergeant, then before you exit the starting zone, your sergeant gets killed, and you gain control of the group, and at the end of the starting area, you become the scout sergeant. Then you could either continue to upgrade your scout squad, or progress to a tactical squad, then start the grind all over again.

Not only is it more fitting than simply being one guy running around, but it would be relatively easy to do with most armies in the game. Also, you could split your progress in between different parts of the army.

Again, using Space Marines as an example, after tactical marines, you could progress to devastator squad and progress down the heavy support path, eventually becoming a tank or even a dreadnought. Or, you could become an assault marine, then start progressing down the fast attack path, to bikes, land speeders and assault terminators.

Or with the Orks, start out as a boy, then to Nob, then you could choose to go with either bikes and trukks, stormboyz or deffkoptas on the fast attack side, or go with lootas, killa kans, battlewagons, deffdreads and the like for heavy support side.

I've sat down before and thought about what each army could have in their path, and it seems like it would be easy to set up each army in this way.

This would be very cool, and STO seems to have a system sort of like this with their ground missions. Where you have a team of AI npcs to accompany you. I would like to see it happen in a 40k MMO but with the added ability like Dragon Age/FF12 where you can set priority lists for the NPCs to follow. So you dont have your medic healing you for no reason, or one of your guys tossing grenades at a single target.

[Komm Suesser Tod]

This would be very cool, and STO seems to have a system sort of like this with their ground missions. Where you have a team of AI npcs to accompany you. I would like to see it happen in a 40k MMO but with the added ability like Dragon Age/FF12 where you can set priority lists for the NPCs to follow. So you dont have your medic healing you for no reason, or one of your guys tossing grenades at a single target.

Oh definitely, if they went with a squad system (and I hope they do) the AI would have to be good on them.

Another thing, if they were to really try to capture the feel of the tabletop game, they would almost certainly have to focus on pvp, although that wouldn't be a problem, games have done it before. The real problem would be making it so almost every unit in the game could kill or at least damage most other units, just like in the tabletop game.

That's one of the things that really makes the table top game special. No unit is invincible, and even a small far less powerful unit can still take a chunk out of the super armored Space Marine Terminators, or latch a blast charge on the side of a tank.

For those of you that don't play, Warhammer 40k (and Warhammer Fantasy as well) operates on a point system. You set a predetermined point value and each player makes an army, and each unit in the army costs a certain amount of points.

For example, a basic Space Marine, no upgrades or anything, costs 18 points. An Ork Boy on the other hand, costs 6. That being said, if an Ork gets close enough, even though it's three times the point cost, it can still be a threat to the Space Marine. I think them keeping that as part of the game would be integral to making it a Warhammer 40k mmo, and not just an mmo with Warhammer 40k back drop

As far as making an mmo goes, that seems to present a problem. If they have an actual level system, like in WoW, or Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, or countless other mmos, it would be impossible to contend with higher level people, and that's just not how Warhammer works. Unless a unit is super powerful and costs a shit load of points, most things will at least have a chance to damage it. Maybe not a great chance, and in the grand scheme of things, even a next to negligible chance, but damn it, you can hurt them.

A real game example for the unfamiliar: An Ork Deffkopta (45 points), a flimsy, barely functioning helicopter with a rocket launcher taped on, shoots a rocket at my Space Marine Dreadnought (105 points), an armored titan of war, centuries old. It hits, penetrates my Dreadnought's armor, and it explodes. That was the first turn of the game, it hadn't even gotten to move.

That would be almost impossible to portray with a traditional leveling and gear system, and I hope against hope that they forgo the traditional systems.

[Gokulo]

There's a game called Grando Espada that has you controlling a team consisting of 3 characters. Never played it though so I can't comment on how it exactly works.

[Kael]

New Trailer for the Warhammer 40k MMO. Along with some screen shots here:

http://www.gameslave.co.uk/newscomme...shots--Trailer

Looks epic!

THQ will do this game right.

[LD]

Holy shitballs, this actually looks like it has potential. The only thing that worries me regarding that trailer is that the 'world' of WH40k, the entire horrid, bloody universe, might not be represented on the scale I was hoping for. However, creating a fuckton of areas takes time (not to mention non-euclidean areas may be a little tough to create.), so in the short term I'll be happy with decent combat and progress.


BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!
SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!!

[Cleverness]

I saw the Marine on the Bike and creamed myself, looks awesome. Interface looked sort of bland but all I really care about is that it plays well.