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Will Warhammer 40K MMO succeed? Discuss.....
maxtlion
Member Posts: 79
Having just seen the trailer for the upcoming Warhammer 40K MMO, I'm very excited to see how this one develops. But what is going to set it aside from the countless other MMOs which either sputter out or do not achieve enough to keep them live? Here are my thoughts:
As an existing IP with decades of history, the lore is established and can be used in-game and as background.
Properly planned and executed, a reasonably small cross-section of available races can offer players a good starting choice, while leaving an immense number of expansion options later on.
The Warhammer 40K IP is an extremely popular one and with decent feedback and beta testing from a potential player base, it can tick boxes for a what players want to see, by fiollowing the existing model and lore.
Weapon and combat balancing has, to a large extent, already happened in the table-top game - this can be used to leapfrog a lot of the effort that new concepts have to go through and which really hack players off if it's done badly.
Non-fantasy MMOs generally attract more attention as there are fewer of them around.
The point most in favour of this game is the available lore. You can make a fantastic game with flawless animation, amazing graphics etc, but if there is no sense of purpose behind the player's action, then it just turns into a competition for who has the biggest fwang, which swiftly loses novelty.
Just for novelty, lets try and keep the thread free of unnecessary flames - please focus on the reasons you feel that this game can succeed and what you hope will be included.
I wanna drive a Warhound!
Comments
Lore of Warhammer had been discuss before Warhammer Online came out, and at the end it all come down to gameplay. If the game is not fun and engaging to play then the lore wouldn't help much in keep player play the game.
Beside that, the trailer look interesting. I can only hope that the direction this game taking is more toward group of players than focus on individual hero story where it lead player in a path to pick up quests and do them until they reach the end game and wait for the next expansion come out.
I think it's way way WAY too early to tell how this game will fare.
Now, I'm a real old-school WH40K player, and I absolutely love the IP, much more so than Warhammer Fantasy. Like you mention, the IP has a large following already, and it would be not too difficult (I would think) to adapt the RPG system used in the Warhammer Fantasy RPG, or from Rogue Trader, even.
However, there are many places a game like this could go wrong. First and foremost, the basic idea of Warhammer 40k is that it's war. All war, all the time, no exception. You play (the boardgame) to fight, not to quest or chat. Even if the fighting is completely visceral and immersive, having just that to do, and nothing else, will get boring pretty fast.
Second, leaving out any of the races might be dangerous (at least without announcing that they -will- be in at some point), as each race has a fanatic following. For myself, I'd want to play a Space Wolf, an Eldar or a Tau or the game is a no-sale for me. I'm sure others feel the same way about their favorite races.
Third, it's already been announced that this will be a two-faction game. This dynamic, while appealing to MMO designers might be a bit too... used by now. It would be more interesting to see some sort of alliance system instead. Perhaps with sides changing during the run of the game (pre-planned 'storyline' changes that happen every few months or so).
Fourth, and this relates to the first point, people -want- to play the iconic races and warrior types (space marine, space ork etc.), even though other aspects of the 40k universe would be better suited for an MMO setting with small-scale units. Here, I'm thinking in terms of Genestealer cults, Necromunda Gangs, Gorkamorka tribes, Eldar Harlequin troupes, Inquisitor bands and, of course, rogue traders.
So, the fate of this game, I think, will depend entirely on how the 40K universe is implemented for the MMO setting. I will be watching at least.
http://machineborn.guildportal.com - Now recruiting players!
They need to do away with this 2 way faction crap that it sounds like they're going with..
3-4 factions would be nice,Id even be fine with alliances within those factions (ie SM and IG within one faction)
though Im sure some pairings would be conflicting according to lore and piss off some 40k purists.
Still... it would be much more fun than this good vs evil 2 way faction garbage.
The faction thing is what concerns me the most really. One of the reasons I love the 40K world is because there are no real good guys. Just neutral-ish guys, bad guys and worse guys.
Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Eldar and Tau I could see allying with each other. But they might as well be at odds. Sure, the imperial guard is human, but they are under the influence of their planetary governor and it's happened many times that a world goes rogue, and the space marines are sent in to reel them in. The Eldar are pretty alien, and have their own agenda which most of the time coincides with the humans, but sometimes completely doesn't. The Tau are the closest thing the 40K universe has to good guys, but even they are a conquering race. They conquer and absorb other cultures - for the 'greater good' as they call it and while they are nice to those they conquer/ally with, they are and can still be at odds with everyone else in the galaxy.
The evil races are even worse, really. The Necrons and the Tyranids do not play well with others at all. Chaos and Dark Eldar might be a bit more reasonable, and the Orks are more likely to fight any other species for the hell of it, than they are to admit they need an alliance.. Not that I'd call the Orks evil, they just like to fight.
I just don't see this fitting well into a two-faction system.
http://machineborn.guildportal.com - Now recruiting players!
Yup, thecipher, you pretty much nailed it. Most of the "races" are like factions to me with a slim chance of an alliance once in a blue moon. Used to play the bugs and wanted to play the necrons and tau but had to quit just as they were coming out, although the necrons were around never as a full fledged army when I played. Oh well its a wait and see for me cause like some people have said in this thread and others that they want to drive such and such vehicle, I want to "drive" a carnifex or a harridan but no bugs or necrons count me out.
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.
Groucho Marx
They better not mess this one up. The tabletop battles provided many a happy memory from yesteryear, don't want that ruined.
From the THQ webiste.
On the very edge of the galaxy lies the Sargos Sector. For centuries it was rendered uninhabitable and isolated by volatile Warp Storms. Even now, deep within the sector the very fabric of reality is unraveling. Only the ancient Sentinel Devices hold the Warp at bay.
But the ravages of time and meddling of humanity have weakened the Sentinel Devices—and now, the battle for these lost worlds is at hand. Drawn to the conflict, the great races of the galaxy descend upon the Sargos Sector, seeking to preserve reality—or to tear it asunder.
Side with the forces of Order, or the vile hosts of Destruction, in a war that will unlock ancient secrets, reveal dark purposes, and determine the fate of the Sargos Sector. For in this dark millennium, there is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter.
http://us.thq.com/us/game/detail/5991
This yells "steaming pile of poo" to me.
2-factions. In one area. With a "story".
Amazingly my hype rating fell from 9 to 1 in about 30 seconds flat.
I'll leave it to others to analyze how awesomely wrong this is. Maybe it's in THQ's corporate interest for the game to fail? That could be an explanation for this, especially considering that they know what happened to WAR. I don't know how anyone with half a brain could write this concept, if you take a look at the larger picture in the past few years. Whatever. I'm redirecting my attentions elsewhere. "WH40K MMO? What WH40K MMO? Oh that, meh. Yawn."
its way too eartly to play guessing games, but we could do some extrapolations with Mythic's WAR:
- Mythic are well known ball droppers
- fantasy IP is less known and loved than 40k
- WAR was released in a dire state, and still hasent improved that much 2 years after releasing
- WAR presents a cookie cutter same old same old point and click gameplay that everybody and their dog is tired of by now
and still WAR holds some stable +100k subs
assuming that Relic-THQ-Vigil develop and release a game in a better shape than WAR (they usually dont make failures), considering that the target audience is bigger for 40k than it was for fantasy, that the genre is itching for sci-fi AAA titles, and taking into account that 40K is adding non-overused concepts like vehicle combat and shooter gameplay, they could count on 500k subs at least...
The 40K license is just about the best out there for an MMO. It gives the game a huge boost in terms of opening week sales and balls out coolness. What I'm really afraid this game is going to turn into a WAR 1.6 in space due to the already discredited 2-faction system and the sneak peek we got from the trailer. The devs really ought to take some things out of the already forgotten Planetside and learn from that game. Even with its many faults Planetside did some things really good like the sandboxxy (pun intended) world.
What I hate in MMO's, AoC in particular, is the Mario-like feeling of a plumber going through a series of tubes or instances chained together in a couple of strings. A more open world a'la UO or Planetside would do wonders for this game. Another thing, which has already been seen, that got my attention in a positive way is the vehicles. The thought of storming an enemy stronghold with Thunderhawks filled with angry Space Marines makes my eyes bleed. Not to mention the titan! Though I'm already drooling for this game, I've become pretty cautious due to the disappointments that have been the recent big MMO releases. To repeat what everyone has already said: please, Vigil, don't screw this up!
Thanks for this. Again the basic setup that is doomed to fail. order and destruction...ugh.....
Well, at least now I do not have to keep this in mind and can I let the hype pass me by
I don't know but it better be better than Warhammer Online because I thought that game was terrible.
Even the wording: Order vs. Destruction screams "FAIL INCOMING! TAKE COVER!". A measure of success might be achieved by emulating the formula made famous by DotA: players waging war between NPC grunts against other NPC's and players. Old formula, dating back to Starcraft (and beyond?) yet good and I feel appropriate for a WH40K MMO.
Maybe, but from the description I'm not playing it. If some folks dig that kinda thing then let them go ahead, np. However according to the blurb they are sticking really hard to the same-old concepts which are frankly DEAD. They were DEAD at least 3 years ago but no one really noticed. Warhammer died not only becaue of the crappy state the game was at lauch technically but because of the ancient EQ paradigms built into it and which are now the real reason it cannot take off, now that the technical problems are solved.
In 2 years time the whole concept 2-factions, 1 story etc etc is going to be laughable. Just the implication of "determine the fate of Zargoss sector" speaks volumes.. is this a console RPG wannabe? What fate of the world are you going to decide in a MMO? What ultimate secrets am I going to uncover along with thousands of other players? Even my dog cannot eat that crap anymore, and willing suspension of disbelief is his racial skill. Even the major MMO devs can't anymore ignore this inherent problem in sticking square pegs (traditional RPG) into round holes (MMOs) and are at least trying to do something about it. Even the goddamn Bioware is refraining from such wording in their blurbs. People are going to say, "wtf is this, Pacman lol?". A shame. They are repainting the same old slag into WH40K colors, and with vehicles, yeey. Amazing. If they invested 1 percent of the budget that goes into media assets and programming into overarching game design they might go somewhere. It's like making a $100 mil movie and saying "Oh, the script? Who cares? We've got the actors and production, lets just grab some old rag and change the names..." Jeezus.
i have no idea. but it better not be a RvR mmo. because RvR with 2 faction sucks.
*points at Warhammer Online* Look there for an answer.
Warhammer is one of my favorite IPs. Warhammer 40k isn't. But when i look at the video they shown i see a "soon after launch to be FTP like LOTRO and DDO " game. The target audiance for Warhammer 40k is even smaller then for the original Warhammer IMHO. The grpahics is a WoW standard which could be a good thing but won't be competing with the huge changes in graphic standards in 2011 MMOs. I don't really expect the gameplay to be to innovative eaither... Altho on that i have little info on.
One thing for sure. I won't be playing it ot even looking in its direction myself.
P.S If they made Warhammer online with AoC graphics and a real PVP/RvR system i would be playing it right now.
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If they made Warhammer online with 3 faction I'll still be playing that now.
If they let players be anything other then Space marines this will fail...
They have to change up things, we allready have Order vs destruction in WAR and look how crapy that turned out to be.
I say let us make our own chapters(not using names for them that dont fit in the universe) that consist only of space marines, DIE IN THE NAME OF THE GOD EMPEROR.
Also the game needs to be seriously Racist, We Humans HATE the alien RACES and they need to BURN NOW... BURN HERETICS BURN.
Last but not least we need a twist and that TWIST is that YOU and your CHAPTER can become corrupted by CHAOS... and Fall from the grace of the EMPEROR. THis has to happen over time and the still Loyal CHapters can now pvp fight with these traitors. Who now have sworn themselfs to one of the chaos GODs. Also these chaos chapters can war amongst themselfs effectivly making them hostile to everyone exept there own Chapter/guild they belong to. They can make treaties and ally with other traitor chapters but not with those still loyal to the Emperor.
What we would get is sort of like a starting zone or central zone that is controlled by The Emperors forces, say 5 star systems. where everyone starts out. But over time those that become corrupted or smi corrupted have to venture out into unkown space and fight for recources and conquer thier own territories. And those that stay behind can go on crusades to fight these traitors and take back resources to friendly space.
Die hard pvpers and people that like to control thier own star systems would probably want to be corrupted as this ads dangour and conflict to the game. Those that like Pve stay loyal to the emperor but can at any time make the choise to go on a crusade to fight the traitors ading a fun but not constant PVP ellement to thier gameplay.
All the 4 chaos gods hate one another and CHAOS stand for disorder and conflict. So It would fit nicly that all the traitor chapters war amongst themself or make treaties, merge with one another etc... And what we in the end would get Is a mush more player controled world....
You get the safe starter zone and when you are ready you go out into the unknown either to conquer your own space or to crusade against Traitors(players) that have betrayed the Emperor and embraced the powers of chaos.
This would be a diffrent way of playing that we havent seen before...
All depends on the game play.
DAoC style RvR was fun. WAR style fight in instanced battlegrounds all the time was boring.
Also agree with the "good vs evil" faction thing. You need at least THREE factions to change it up a bit and keep things unbalanced.
You are totaly correct here. Spot on so to say. If the dont change the format all this game will do is fail and fail horriably as we have all played the mechanics before. And where it might work in DOOM that now is COD. in a game you are suposed to spend mush of your time this just dosent fly anymore. An FPS dosent have so many angels or concepts it can use but an MMO needs to be alot more Inovating if people are going to spend hundreads of Hours playing it....
you sir is on to something. lol. i hope to god it doesnt get fucked up like war and ruin the 40k world. it be so wrong to watch this IP not to reach is full glory.
IN THE FACE!
In the grim darkness of the future there is only war. There is no frickin' "Order" and everyone who opposes the Emperor is "Evil", so they better keep it that way!
If they go with 2 factions it's an instant negative mark against the game before it even comes out. Just look at WaR Online.
It boggles my mind how anyone can read through the wealth of lore under Warhammer or 40k and come to the conclusion 2 factions is the way to go, having 2 factions only is just flying in the face of one of the ideas that underpins the base of Warhammer lore.
This is my most anticpated MMO of all time. I have been playing 40k since the Rogue Trader days and the release of this game cannot come fast enough. Though, I have no problem with them taking their time to get it right.
I'm a dedicated Marine player on the tabletop. The two faction thing concerns me a bit. Not only am I a Marine I'm a Black Templar so the thought of having to work along side some filty xenos race makes me unhappy. Still, there are instances in the lore where Marine chapters have worked along side alien races when they shared a common objective. I will reserve judgement until there is more details about the factions and the story line are released. Hard to make a judgement about a game we know so little about.
As for wich particular Marine Chapter or Guard Regiment we get to play, I could care less. Sure, I'd love it if it were the Black Templars (who do seem to be featured in the trailer
) but I'm willing to play any Loyalist Chapter. I know ultimately this game isn't being made to please only me and I'm willing to deal with thoes kinds of comprimises.
P.S. I love mmorpg.com. It's a great site and I've learned and been able to tryout games I wouldn't have known about becuasue of it. But...can we finally get the 40k mmo added to the list of games? I know for a long time it was a shadow of a rumor that the game existed but that is not the case any more!
For the Emperor!!
Hard to tell at the moment.
.
It even depends on what games are released at the same time. Will Guild Wars 2 compete with this?
.
Will the company implement some feature that pisses fans of the IP off?
.
I hear there will only be two factions, many want 3.
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
My honest opinion. No, i don't think it has the shadow of a chance to meet the hopes of it's investors. Unless these investors are setting very modest expectations. Not only did this trailer make it look like a somewhat beefed up browser game the bulk of the "inherent" fanbase are not MMO:ers as shown with WAR. It will spike and then flounder.
This have been a good conversation