Warhammer 40k MMO

These games are likely to come out 1-3 years apart from each other, at least. I think. That’ll help a bit.

P.S. Hey, that preview implementation is pretty cool. Not sure if I ever posted a comment before or if I’ve been just lurking here.

I’m a bit of a Warhammer 40,000 fanboy, so this news cheered me up a lot this week. It’s true that it may be a little confusing for most people, but THQ have said very clearly that they’re banking on Warhammer Online being seen as fantasy and their game being seen as sci-fi, putting them in different genres.

Both Warhammer IPs are awesome, anyway, so it’s not like someone getting the wrong one is going to be disappointed!

they havent even released world of warhammer yet and now they’ve already started work on a newer project?
that sure puts the nail in the coffin for world of warhammer expansions , class reviews , patches or bug-fixes.
by the way, send me an email if you want an exclusive copy of the tyranid mod for dawn of war made by shadow-polar bear studios.

i love how you say world of warhammer when Warcraft is mostly things ripped out of the warhammer universe…

Seriously.. I can’t wait.. I nearly died when I found out BOTH warhammers were going to be MMO’s.. Seriously, I couldn’t decided which one I wanted and would play more.. I have enough MMO’s to play already.. but this is WarHammer… So hard x.x but can’t wait =D

Lester, both games are being develpoed by completely seperate companies.

Two seperate companies are making them so you wont have to worry about them throwing more resources into one or the other. Which is a good thing cause im not really thrilled that warhammer is being produced by the daoc crew. Not to knock the warhammer universe but they don’t have many “original” ideas of thier own either. So saying warcraft is a knock off to warhammer is kind of in the wrong, because gw knocked off several different books and games in thier day and continue to do it.

i dont think it will be very hard to tell the two universes apart, as they are startlingly different.

As a big 40k Fan from Germany the Q&As are really interessting.

i s@%t my pants when i found out about “Age Of Reckoning”, when i found out about a 40k mmo i almost died i actually cant wait for eighther to come out and see what races there gonna through in for the 40k?
plus how there gonna balance the races in aor because im looking at the developing chars and the chosen seems to be a match to anything the humes got, damn i cant wait

I believe that Warhammer 40k will do very well as there is to few good Science Fiction MMOs out there.

To avoid confusion, name it correctly. Warhammer: Age of Reckoning is WAR. Warhammer 40K is 40KO for now. I and my Tabletop buddies tend to call Fantasy “Warhammer” and Warhammer 40,000 “40K.”
I am so excited about Warhammer 40,000. I hope they do it right. The project manager types said they don’t want to make it like WoW thank goodness.

I’ve been looking for a decent sci-fi MMO, and I love the Warhammer franchise. It’s just recently been way too expensive for me to continue to play the tabletop game, and I had to give up my beautiful Eldar army when I moved to the States. I miss my vehicle-destroying Fire Prism…

Anyway, can’t wait to see how they pull this one off. I hope they don’t screw it up.

As much as I love being a Sylvan in Achaea, I fear this game might be the one to eat me alive if done right. Then again hanging around in a fully immersive IRE world might have left me a bit spoiled. Regardless I hope to see great things from this game. Just Iiagine you and a few chaptermates engaging in a deep orbital insertion only to find yourself surrounded by thousands of crazed blood cultists. I mean I haven’t felt that kind of pure outnumberment since I thought about hunting deathknights at age 18.

The only flaw I see here is that people might dismiss it much like Star Wars Galaxies (SWG) after a while but then again SWG was Sony, and their responses towards bug exploiters were a but…unorthodox. “Send them to space!” But yeah, 40K RPG/MMOG sweet gothic sci-fi madness!

They aim for the mainstream which means we’ll see yet another WoW.. omfg

Leneas: I certainly hope that you won’t be able to play any sort of Space Marine, Chaos or regular. They’re just too powerful to balance in a MMO. Most of the others are okay, except for maybe tyranids and necrons. And if you even should be able to play Chaos, there’s plenty of Traitor Guard companies to play. But Space Marines are just too powerful.

nah, you could be able to destroy they’re power-plant/back-pack thingy and they start to get weighed down by the armour, or they’re stats get reduced alot

races could be imperial guard vs orks, eldar vs dark eldar, mixed witch hunters and daemon hunters vs chaos and maybe tyranid vs tau empire just cuz how different they fight.

Or all against Space marines lol

ROFLZ COPTERZ LOL NUB ZOMGS DID GON B WIKED!!!!1111!!!!1

Warhammer is in the past, warhammer 40.000 is the future

Im hoping for great things for the 40K mmo, if itll be anything like Planetside ill buy it just for the shooty goodness, even if they just dressed planetside up in warhammer costumes idd play it caus its just the best sci-fi mmo out there that fits the warhammer spirit. Though to be more serious i hope there will be some sort of “mission” system in there involving you, friends/enemies, and npc’s.
my idea would be (in-game):
Standard mission, race: Space marine, avalability: anytime at given contacts (ever seen the city of heroes newspaper missions? just request a mish and you get one easy)
What is the mish about?: Standard space marine drop pod assult, you and teammates present at the designated position (spaceship orbital operations bay) are instantly droped via “drop pod” (traditional orbital assult weapon used by marines) the mission starts as you and friends and a suitable number of NPC marines (npc teammates lead by you and your team), the mission is about attacking an enemy installation (the enemy would be native to your position in the galaxy area) or counterattacking an enemy assult (if in a friendly area of space)

The game should be something like that to/fro, i myself suspect that to keep it simple it would rather be planetbound rather than space based, meaning drop pod assults are out of the question, but NPC teammates are definite musts (no marine will ever wenture into the battle alone) and a proper way of advancing a character must be present, i would personally much rather bumm out some xenos players and make it a simple choise of races: Marines, Necrons(or mabe eldar), Chaos, (possibly Tau)
why these? Marines are classic and by not including guardsmen as playable races there will be no trouble balancing the players of those factions, chaos are evil marines anyway, both necrons and eldar have potential to equal marines on power vs power basis (marines are brutes and eldar are tactical masters), and Tau have super awesome gunz, and gunz speak for themselves. These are my thoughts on what should be done with warhammer 40K mmo building.
(i also have ideas on “simultanious missions” whereas when races initiate standard missions they might find themselves in pvp)
Its a long post i know but i must air my opinions somewhere, hopefully somewhere someone working on the game might see them

Oh i forgot to mention, i would not put a xp based character progress in this game, rather “connections” based, gain friendly status here by working for him (or something) and he will allow you to use a certain gun or control certain teammates (teammates could be like mastermind pets in CoH, you have a bunch of troops following your “attack/defend/go there” orders

I think this is going to be the biggest game to ever come out. I have only dreamed of a day that this would come. The Warhammer 40k universes is one of the greatest stories ever written. I commend the person who is going to make this happen.

On the question of balance; 40k Space Marines arn’t thrown out into the field after six weeks of boot camp as is. They spend maaaany years establishing themselves as credible warriors so that the chapters take an interest; then they’re inducted into trials, the very best of the best will survive. Then they’re implanted with gene-seeds and spend decades fighting as Scouts before they finally become your ‘bog standard Space Marine’.
Given that, it comes down to level; average space marine is level 40.
Average Guardsman is level 10.
As for the balance being taken by Dawn of War players; the tabletop edition was liberaly re-interpreted for the purposes of that game there’s no reason that a 40k MMO can’t adjust them differently for it’s needs.

No balance issues at all. It’s all just relative.

Well, I might be looking at this a little biased, but if you compare races and traits - granted I’m pulling from the THQ’s DoW and lore from the Black Library - the main focuses for 40K players is going to be imperium and chaos. Now everyone is going to want to either play one or the other. If the focal point is from that perspective, think about what other races you would need to compliment the two and give them balance. I would gander a guess to the story and say the eye of terror is spilling out into the imperium at an exponential rate which gives the Chaos’s forces their power. Orcs, Chaos’, and Dark Eldar (Dark Elves) feed from this power and grow with it. Since it’s a large group facing the “non-warp” planets, The imperium might have to look beyond their current “Human’s only” Government and create a cease fire with other races… So who rival space marines? Eldar are one and Tau are another whom aren’t possessed by the warp. Granted I’m basing this theory off “infantry” strengths. Since this is an MMO, and character are in essence infantry. So there is your 3 on 3 in my mind.

So the next question is, why not Imperial Guard, Adeptus Mechanicus, Necron, Sisters of battle, or tyranid?

Well, If you look at both tyranid and necron, both are autonomous entities that would kill everything in their paths, imho. Adeptus Machanicus is in large a transportation and mechanized group primarily to serve the imperium, not necessarily fighting for it. Imperial guard is like cannon fodder and it’s hard for them to stand on par with a space marine, though the IG have taken on Chao’s space marines and survived at a heavy cost. Sister’s of Battle are fickle creature - but if Vigil games wants to keep the balance, they might add this one later if in an expansion.

Granted - this is my opinion and I would love conversation on this. Again, I’m focusing on infantry here and how they might be paired from imperium to chaos.

I’m hoping for a Space Marine Librarian class…

Adeptus Astartes my brothers! Knowledge is power and guard it well!

Thanks!

I’m thinking, if people are going to start out as individual marines, balancing against imperial guard/cultists shouldn’t be a problem. You could probably have IG/cultist human players command whole squads of crappy guys, enough to take on a marine w/ lvl equal to the players. I think that would make things interesting, having different styles of play in the same game: be one well-armed guy and play it like an FPS, or be an officer and play a fusion of FPS and squad-based strategy (is SW republic commando like that?).

Any thoughts?

THQ had better be dam good because the huge WH40K fan base is expecting so many features and Its up to everyone that has an amazing vision for this game to let the developers know how to game should be. I’m seeing more and more forums and articles on the perfect ideas for this game, I want to remind everyone that it is up to US to SHAPE THE GAME. It seems like we can’t do much but our opinion is the most important this to big game developer companies. So email them, speak up in the companies forums, scream in there ear what we want. This is going to be the biggest game since… well there is no game that has been or will be bigger than this game.

hey, this is my first post. i think this game should have an open environment like wow without instances x2000 land mass and an always pvp environment, The races could easily be Space marines, imperial guard, necrons, tyranids, eldar dark eldar, tau, and chaos. You ask how could this work? Lets see 3 major factions, Imperium, whos home base is Terra, The Tau and Eldar (team up for no reason), Chaos tyranids and dark eldar/necros can become gay together and fight agains the imperium and tau. There could be various planets, and missions you can fight on. Because if i know the 40k community, everyone is going towant to run around blowing each others heads off at will all the time, so the open constant battles that actually affect the worlds planets and gameplay would actually work, ya think so? They can work out the issues between forming parties (or squads) during the battles and people would have different ranks due to the ammount of kills or playtimes, People could form chaptes (hence guilds) giving them there own headquarters (kinda like in GW guild hall) and also letting the primarch (or guild leader) give special ranks or the devs can impliment some of the famous chapters/ companies/ empires (for the tau) or hives to join as you create a character.After joining the chapter you can climb through ranks from scout to Chapter leader, that can also be constantly changed do to exp or honor(honor not like wow but like bringing honor to the chapter) you should also be able to lead the chapter on the path of chaos or follow the imperium. this is my game play incite on how i would like the game made or played, now for the class balance issues

Space Marines-
Squads 2-6 marines(only 2 heavy weapons per squad) , 2-4 assault marines. 1 squad sergeant or leader reports to greatwolf/captain/co

Space marines and guard fight together so no issues there right?

Guard-
6-18 in a squad, (6 heavy weapons per squad) + armored support as power up of some sort. Commisar, or company leader./CO

Tau-
4-8 in a squad with assortment of equipment + armor

Chaos Marines-
Passive abilities from gods. 2-6 in squad + assault squads 2-4(same as space marines) Some armor + leaders

Necrons-
(there gay)

Dark Eldar-
2-8 in a squad, Special squads 3-5
This is all i have for now,

Feel free to add to the list corrections, Change up the squads as you wish repost and w/e, i hope alot of you like my ideas! (please no criticism this is just my opinion and ideas im throwing out on the floor)
40k freak

Personally I think it’s a little too soon to be talking exact numbers, that’s more of an issue for the people actually making the game. What we need to be discussing here is what we want for the general feel of the game.

I’ve seen multiple different ways of experiencing the Wh40k universe. Playing the tabletop game, playing real-time strategy games on a PC, and reading the fluff (the in-universe literature, like gaunt’s ghosts). The fluff has always been my favorite of the three, for one specific reason: rather than focusing on the overall strategy of a battle, it immerses the reader in the experiences of a single character or small group of characters. Unlike the tabletop and PC versions, you get an idea of what everything looks like on the ground. In my opinion, that is best possible way to experience Wh40k. If THQ ever does follow through and make a Wh40k MMO, I want to experience first-hand what it would be like to be a soldier on the ground in the Wh40k universe. That more than anything else determines how I want the game to look and feel.

Don’t get me wrong, I still like the strategy element. Depending on how detailed/open the game is, I could really get into that. But even then, I want the experience to be that of a commander leading his troops ON THE GROUND. No more of this looking-down-from-the-heavens stuff, sometimes it just gets so unrealistic and detached.

I actually like some of the previous guy’s ideas on organization. Organize by chapters/regiments/craftworlds/legions/whatevers as guild equivalents, maybe even have battles be fought by guild units rather than people randomly walking onto a battlefield. I’m thinking kinda like a WoW raid, with two sides. I also agree that rank within a guild should be at least partially determined by performance/playtime, though I would also like to see some element of politics, where a commander promotes one of his buddies to be his lieutenant even though there are better players in the guild. Maybe a commander is given complete discretion over who gets the positions, but can make notes after raids about particular successes and failures. That way, if he looks at a player’s profile and sees that he/his predecessor wrote that he was a useful officer/soldier in a previous fight, the player is more likely to get a promotion. I would like to see that element of discretion and recommendations, because it reminds me of how officers get promotions in the real world. Like I said, my biggest priority is to have an experience where I feel fully immersed in a military experience.

As to what ranks would be good for, I’d like to see multiple levels. Maybe at the lowest ranks a player will either command a squad of crappy AIs or be a single non-crappy guy in a squad of human players (as I suggested in my previous post). Then, as you advance, you get more options, like commanding a squad of human players, or commanding several human officers, who each command their own squad of crappy AIs, or even be a lone specialist, like a scout or a vehicle commander. And so on, up to commanding all the forces available to your chapter during a raid. Commanding other humans would be hard to set up, but it would be really cool if the developers could do that. Maybe balance it by allowing officers/commissars to perform summary executions to enforce obedience, but at the same time allow subordinates to complain to their superiors’ superiors and recommend demotion or whatever. Then at higher levels you have that discretion thing to reward/punish lesser officers.

I should mention that one of the other things I want to see is a fight between 10 or so human-controlled Chaos Marines and 10 human-controlled Imperial Guard officers, each officer commanding their crappy AI squad, making for a grand total of about 60 IGs (minimum 40, maximum 100? it needs to be balanced). That’s the other big thing that’s been guiding my vision for the MMO.

Sorry if all this seems incoherent. I just have a lot of ideas running around in my head.

Squiddy! I think you hit one major key point on the head as for immersion of players into the lore portion. It’s granted for the tried and true success for games is the play experience. The GUI needs balancing as usual and enviroments have to challenge players enough to give them a sense of accomplishment so they continue. This brings me to a key point that recent MMO’s have been lacking in as in end game content!!! Tabula Rasa, Conan, and several other newer MMO’s concentrate on the graphics and flow of the basics, that they never get into completing the WHOLE MMO experience. I’m hoping warhammer online picks it up better then the recent additions, but I feel this is a major setback for many of the recent additions. Also, here’s an Idea: For the Guilds (Chapters/Cabals/Companies/etc.) - there are actually goals that you need to complete in game for you to progress in rank! Think COD4 where you were required to have so many kills and other goals. The servers keep track of your player stats now, why not track their progress as well! We all know about the WoW armory is where you track your basic of your character, but what if you were able to put that into code so your assigned Chapter. When you start a chapter - the chapter master (Original guild petitioner) along with ten others fill in the request and they all start out as sergeants. Granted the original petitioner has an edge in the requirement in having a couple completed - but still he as well as the rest of the chapter need to complete the requirements for you to officially take control of the chapter. This requires the officers of the chapter to put time and effort into their chosen professions and gain experience. This forces players to learn their jobs and understand the game. Granted, the rank goals can be the tougher part of the game cause casual player might be remiss to put forth the effort, but it gives people who are dedicated to the game a reason to remain dedicated. With your time and effort, your granted leadership, just like in the military. Anything thats handed to you is never appreciated, but what we struggle for makes what we get all the more sweeter.

Now for the political part. The final positions of the council can be chosen but the end players who’ve risen through the ranks. Now, if the Chapter master has kept up in the rank requirements along with his officers, they are now the commanding body of the chapter. Chapter master can have any job class take the position, but the other officers need to be job specific for their portions. 2 scout, 2 librarian, 2 chaplain, 2 captains and 2 apothecaries. Granted this is just a basis for debate and nowhere near perfect. After the positions are filled, the rest of the chapter will progress and can have a max of 100 players per chapter - 10 players per company, but have have a wealth of recruits. This keeps the group close knit and competitive for recruits. The recruit basin can be limitless, but the actual members of the companies need to have attained the rank of battle brother for them to be assigned into a company, just like in the lore. This will motivate players to level and complete their rank requirements. Codex Astartes will dictate the rest of the Chapter set-up. I mean come on, the lore gives enough structure on how to set-up a chapter.

And last idea - the petitioning group can say whether they want to set up their new chapter via the Codex standards, or opt for a different structure like what the space wolves and other have set up. The Codex obviously will set your chapter up in a template and the Chapter master can assign people to the Captains’ (Officers) slots for each Company. This is the reason in my mind why 11 applicants need to be on hand when petitioning for a new chapter. Then it’s up to the officers to recruit new players for their companies. Once a battle brother has been allowed into a company, they can jump companies if friends or other player want them in another company, but brother need an invitation from the captain to join which ever company he wants into.

Now - The Breakdown Codex Style:

Chapter Master: (Guild Master and lord overall)

First Company: As usual - this is for the chapter veterans, Who ever makes the next highest rank besides Chapter master will be the captain of this.

2nd Company: Any Captain can be assigned here. Typically your assault squad

3rd Company: Any Captain can be assigned here. Standard marines

4th Company: Any Captain can be assigned here. Standard marines

5th Company: Any Captain can be assigned here. Standard marines

6th Company: Any Captain can be assigned here. Standard marines

7th Company: Any Captain can be assigned here. Standard marines

8th Company: Any Captain can be assigned here. Standard marines

9th Company: Any Captain can be assigned here. Heavy Weapons or “Devastator squad”

10th Company: Any Captain can be assigned here or highest ranking recruit can command if no captain is on hand.

This is a rough figure so far, but is your opinion?

I’m not quite sure what you’re getting at with the political part. The second sentence in that paragraph is a little confusing. Are you advocating for a mix between performance and political factors for gaining/maintaining leadership, or a purely performance-based system? Personally, I think it would be interesting to allow more politics. It would still be easy for a competent player/leader to retain power because his superior would care about getting results, but an average player could also try to get ahead using social connections with superiors. Example: a chapter that is mostly controlled by a small group of friends that already knew each other before the game came out. Some recruits/battle-brothers might show greater skill, but the officers could stay in power because they’re friends with the chapter master. On the flipside, the chapter master would have to be careful about doing this because if newcomers to the group can’t get ahead or if the chapter doesn’t win often due to crappy leadership, then they might not get many recruits.

On the other hand, having to choose between pleasing your friends and attracting fresh recruits would kinda suck. Maybe just performance-based would work fine, then. Politics would be interesting to watch, but could end up being very unpleasant.

Ooh, Ooh!! We can let the evil guys also use murder-fights! I read about that somewhere in the fluff, that you can challenge a guy to single combat and if you win you get his job.

lol, interesting view since it was necromongers from ridick that paraphrased the saying” You keep what you kill…”

Anways, to answer you questions squiddy - the political part with a brainstorming or a verbalization of what I was thinking about since how the guilds in WoW were corrupt and a possible way for plausible players to become officers versus friends screwing up a perfectly good game cause of childish comradery. I was trying to have the original members stay captains, but try to make it challenging enough for them to try and hold their positions. Cause in WoW, your automatically awarded officer positions cause you know a person or your in politically with the guild. This sucks cause you never generally get a knowledgable player in an officer position versus some nerd who thinks he’s god now that he’s vice-guild master… (Cough Cough). Anyways - that was the attempt…

I love Neodaishi’s and Squidslapper’s post(s) but I would hate to see the game become overly focused on Space Marines (though I admit, it’d be the first thing I’d roll up even if every class and race from the lore were present).

The biggest problem I forsee with player run chapters is attrition. In other MMO’s most guilds grow, peak, and peter out leaving just a hand full in the guild - In the lore, the most powerful warriors are usually the leadership - Would that make the remaining members more powerful by defualt or maybe some sort of level minumum to be chapter master?

Leaving the chapter masters as NPC’s allows the game to use them to assign missions when needed.

To Squid’s comment “you can challenge a guy to single combat and if you win you get his job. ” - I think not only would that be a good fit for Ork players, but downright manditory for advancement! A Waaaah can only have one leader… To many Nob’s in the kitchen spoil the Squigg Stew and all that.

:-)