Got sent to the scrap heap when THQ did the initial "we are in trouble" layoff sweep. They said it was being converted to a single player game but it seems to have gotten lost in the sell off. Such a long way off but is a beacon of hope. For me anything Warhammer can only go as low as mediocre due to the sheer awesomeness of the world. I want Mechanicus!
Warhammer 40k: Eternal Crusade
- Thread starter Tearofsoul
- Start date
Faith
Useless lazy bastard.
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Yeah was shit-canned last year, THQ was the publisher and went belly up but not before trying to change it from an MMO to a single player game.http://unsubject.wordpress.com/2013/...-no-one-cares/
Because, nerd-cred aside, WH40K is a niche franchise whichalsohas a complete bastard of a licensor.
hodj
Vox Populi Jihadi
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Gavinmad
Mr. Poopybutthole
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Vigil was a competent studio, they were just owned by an incompetent publisher. But since you've evidently been living under a rock for the last several years, THQ, mainly through Relic, did fine with the 40K license. Dawn of War 1 and 2 were quite enjoyable, and Space Marine, while ultimately rather unsatisfying, at least did an excellent job capturing the visceral feel of rampaging around as a space marine.
It's no surprise that Games Workshop picked a garbage studio for Eternal Crusade, because aside from Relic, pretty much everyone who has developed a video game under license from GW has made a total shitfest.
Space Hulk, The SSI games, Fire Warrior, Mark of Chaos, Warhammer Online.
Hell, even Blood Bowl, which is mostly just supposed to be an electronic adaptation of the board game, is a bug riddled shitfest with a horrible UI and barely functional multiplayer support.
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And yet GW gave the same shitty company the rights to make the sequel.
Or didn't take the rights away.
Considering cyanide does like nothing PR wise, nothing support wise, and pretty much nothing in the field of bugs ..
Maybe GW wants to convince PC gamers that only board and table games are fun, and that all PC games suck.
Erronius
Macho Ma'am
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GW doesn't care though. They don't want to be in the video game business so they'll just keep licensing IPs while studio after studio tries to do whatever segment of their IP "right". Their business model is their tabletop IPs, and it's highly unlikely that they would ever be stupid enough to take on the risk of MMO development themselves. As it stands they can license their IP and make money with little to no risk to themselves as opposed to Developers who are putting their studios at risk.
I mean, look at game like STO, WHO, TOR...if GW went around with the expectation of having an actually successful triple-A MMO made, they'd probably be disappointed regardless. And remember the saying"There is no such thing as bad publicity". Even when a studio fails or rolls out a turd, think what happens: GW still makes money, said studio takes the hit, gamers are still exposed to the GW IP and those who demand a"GW game Done Right"will still show interest the next 20 games that are made using a GW license.
I'm fascinated by the idea of an EVE/DUST 40K world, but you know what...even if they fail, at least some people are looking at the EVE/DUST model. So even if this game ends up being a complete turd at least we'll be moving forward in the genre towards something better.
I actually liked Chaos Gate quite a bit. On the other end of the spectrum for me is Shadow of the Horned Rat, which I'd still like to get my money back for.
I do think that an EVE version would have to bereaaaallycareful with the 40K capital ship side of things (BFG), as you can already look at their current issues with"CAPSHIPS: ONLINE". That said, even if players had tougher restrictions on what ships they could build/buy/use, who wouldn't want to fly past friendly 40K ships when they're anywhere from 0.5km to 5km+ long?
http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs30/f/20...t_Magelord.png
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Besides being pretty crap overall, was the game hard as fuck? Or did I just fail at it?
Never was sure about that.
And despite its abundancy of flaws, in a way it was still cool
Sabbat
Trakanon Raider
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EVE/DUST, the blend of a breathing universe that you have to travel in, and the ground based fighting of an FPS is the only true rendition that could be made from the WH40K universe (adding in small scale vehicles like tanks/gunships). Capital Ships wouldn't be in this WH40K game, they'd be NPC ships only. Those ships can NEVER be created again (humanity has lost the knowledge to create them), and their destruction would be a significant loss to the universe. Likewise ship to ship based combat would be limited to much smaller craft the size of Thunderhawks, so space combat would be limited.
Manufacture and trade should figure highly in this game, the acquisition of materials and STCs should be a major point of content for players.
My major sticking point with a WH40K game is the races and restrictions on grouping up, and the well, lets face it -- people, being people. If you wanted to stick to trying to make the experience as immersive as possible, players would only be allowed to play Chaos, Orks or Imperial Guard.
as said many time, the only way someone can picture a 40k mmo done right is to create a completely open pvp game like EVE, with "Battlefield" type of combat and with territorial control
even this system however doesnt mean it can work. Infact, while EVE gives the player a completely free, factionless system, with only the will of the players determining the alliances and affiliations of groups of players, in 40k you must have a faction based system
so, while in EVE the only thing that stop a group of players from conquering a territory is their inability to forge alliances or improve their corp, in 40k the strenght of a faction is determined by the number of players playing it
in few words.....what the Ork players can do when they face the Imperium faction and their 5 times bigger playerbase?
the alternative is to compromise to a more "friendly" system, with faction alliances (Like it was dark millennium and its Eldar/imperium vs chaos/orks)
but that would be no 40k. I don't want play a game where i risk to stumble upon a SM sergent having cybersex with his girlfriend eldar banshee while walking inside my fortress monastery
even this system however doesnt mean it can work. Infact, while EVE gives the player a completely free, factionless system, with only the will of the players determining the alliances and affiliations of groups of players, in 40k you must have a faction based system
so, while in EVE the only thing that stop a group of players from conquering a territory is their inability to forge alliances or improve their corp, in 40k the strenght of a faction is determined by the number of players playing it
in few words.....what the Ork players can do when they face the Imperium faction and their 5 times bigger playerbase?
the alternative is to compromise to a more "friendly" system, with faction alliances (Like it was dark millennium and its Eldar/imperium vs chaos/orks)
but that would be no 40k. I don't want play a game where i risk to stumble upon a SM sergent having cybersex with his girlfriend eldar banshee while walking inside my fortress monastery
Helldiver
Bronze Knight of the Realm
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Well I guess if a 40K game was done Eve style, they'd have to make up a bunch of ships. BFG doesn't really have that many ships. We really only know of Battleships, Cruisers, Battlecruisers (really just a cruiser with lances on top), Light Cruisers (or Strike Cruisers their SM cousin), and Escorts (Heavy Escorts), but that's just Chaos and Imperial Navy. The other fleets are severely limited:
-SM, really only have their main Battlebarge, Strike Cruisers, and Escorts. The worst in the game.
-Eldar (and Dark Eldar), pretty much just their Cruisers and Escorts. They've got the void stalker I suppose, but the eldar in general are very rare.
-Orks probably bring the next amount of variety with their Kruizers, and rocks.
-Chaos is actually supposed to be rare.
-Everyone else (Grey Knights, Inquisitorial Black fleets, Tyranids, Necrons, Craftworld Eldar, Rogue Trader Fleets) are supposed to be very rare. Not enough to build an entire faction the likes of Amarr or Gallente.
Other than that, everything else is very limited. Same goes with the standard 40K pieces. It isn't like Eve where you have this open setting that the developer can just make up what ever they want as they go. Their framework allows for that. We'd end up with everyone being Imperial navy which I guess goes with the fluff.
A lot of new players to BFG don't realize that the Imperial Navy is like everywhere pretty much and that all the other fleets are strike fleets. Even Chaos which has as many classes as the IN, really only compose strike fleets during a major incursion. I just find it near impossible to do 40K justice in an Eve MMO environment. Even if you did grand alliances at this scale you're talking some major stepping over the fluff.
So your choices when you start would be Ork and Imperial Navy? With everything else being AIs or special units you could contract as "pets"? I suppose the other way to do it is to focus on a specific sector of space (Gothic Sector more than likely during the wars for Armageddon)
I prefer the Planetside idea much better.
The closest I would see a 40K BFG mmo, would be like Star Trek online, without the ground stuff. Actually come to think of it, a PvE centric MMO like STO, heavily instanced might work. Pvp could be in battle zones both ship and ground versions. They could release with Imperial Navy first, then later on release Chaos. Little by little they could release additional races (maybe Orks and then Eldar), kind of like STO did. Space Marine ships, and the "other" factional ships would be like cash shop purchases (kind of like how STO does with the Andorean, Orion, and Gorn ships).
-SM, really only have their main Battlebarge, Strike Cruisers, and Escorts. The worst in the game.
-Eldar (and Dark Eldar), pretty much just their Cruisers and Escorts. They've got the void stalker I suppose, but the eldar in general are very rare.
-Orks probably bring the next amount of variety with their Kruizers, and rocks.
-Chaos is actually supposed to be rare.
-Everyone else (Grey Knights, Inquisitorial Black fleets, Tyranids, Necrons, Craftworld Eldar, Rogue Trader Fleets) are supposed to be very rare. Not enough to build an entire faction the likes of Amarr or Gallente.
Other than that, everything else is very limited. Same goes with the standard 40K pieces. It isn't like Eve where you have this open setting that the developer can just make up what ever they want as they go. Their framework allows for that. We'd end up with everyone being Imperial navy which I guess goes with the fluff.
A lot of new players to BFG don't realize that the Imperial Navy is like everywhere pretty much and that all the other fleets are strike fleets. Even Chaos which has as many classes as the IN, really only compose strike fleets during a major incursion. I just find it near impossible to do 40K justice in an Eve MMO environment. Even if you did grand alliances at this scale you're talking some major stepping over the fluff.
So your choices when you start would be Ork and Imperial Navy? With everything else being AIs or special units you could contract as "pets"? I suppose the other way to do it is to focus on a specific sector of space (Gothic Sector more than likely during the wars for Armageddon)
I prefer the Planetside idea much better.
The closest I would see a 40K BFG mmo, would be like Star Trek online, without the ground stuff. Actually come to think of it, a PvE centric MMO like STO, heavily instanced might work. Pvp could be in battle zones both ship and ground versions. They could release with Imperial Navy first, then later on release Chaos. Little by little they could release additional races (maybe Orks and then Eldar), kind of like STO did. Space Marine ships, and the "other" factional ships would be like cash shop purchases (kind of like how STO does with the Andorean, Orion, and Gorn ships).
Burren
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Battle Fleet Gothic is a really bad way to judge what's in the 40k universe. The literature (via tabletop 40k, novels, and other literary canon for 40k) talks about avastarray of ships that the little BFG game doesn't touch on, because it's a game and has to be simple (and unfortunately, one they don't support much, IE. cost). The material is out there, big time, so EVE-like 40k is actually very, very easy to do, for all races you can think of (with the exception of maybe Necron).
Helldiver
Bronze Knight of the Realm
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Actually, No, it does a pretty good job.
BFG has a lot of fluff, mostly through the BFG magazine that filled in a lot of what you didn't get in Armada, the Blue Book and so on. I've also read the 40K novels, the BFG novels, and there really isn't anything else from what I mentioned. Now if you're talking about ship variants, than sure, you're right, there's a lot of them out there, but it's all Imperial Navy.
I think you're confusing ship classes, with ship variants? But the issue isn't so much the ship classes and variants (the imperial navy still dwarfs all others in that department). It's the size and capabilities of the other factions when compared to the IN.
Except for specific campaigns, the other factions aside from IN, aren't really an equal match in the way you see in Eve. Orks are the exception, since fluff-wise they span the entire galaxy. However, it's arguable whether or not Orks have enough waagh power in large enough numbers to form large fleets that give the IN a run for their money, aside from the occasional campaign (such as Armageddon and so on). Large ork waagh fleets have historically petered out nearly as fast as they get formed. Which really doesn't make Orks on par with IN in any way.
Like Fucker said you'd end up having to come up with bullshit fluff to explain why several factions join each other in order to bulk them up. Which kills the whole thing before it starts. In the end you're just not going to keep people like me happy, and it'll be another shit 40K mmo. The STO idea would probably be the best solution.
Erronius
Macho Ma'am
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I view it in the same way I do the ships in the Star Wars universe. Obviously giving players Star Destroyers might be a Bad Idea, and even if you look at specific naval fleets there are literally scads of smaller sub-capital ships out there. And just because GW hasn't really focused on smaller ships, especially nonfleet ones, doesn't mean that they don't exist or that a game couldn't create ships for players.
I also think that when I mention BFG and EVE together that you're assuming that I'm visualizing Minnie = Chaos, Amarr = Imperium or something similar. I'm not. What I envision is the game engine and the game itself modified for the 40K universe. I think it's a mistake to look at the 40K factions and think that they either have to exist as a stand alone major faction where they hold and take territory, otherwise thinking that they "wont work" in the EVE universe. Bollocks. Take Eldar and Dark Eldar as an example. Build their faction less around conquering territory, and more about piratical activities, surgical strikes, advanced movement and deployment, and perhaps give Eldar the ability to fight over some of their seeded planets or whatever else people can think of.
I honestly don't know where you're getting this "Imperium or nothing" mindset. First, most of the 40K universe isn't even fleshed out at all. Ergo, a developer CAN just make up a lot of shit as they go. Planet 348A23T-4 in the Hemorrhoid subsector? Who the fuck gives a shit? Outside of the notable major hubs and named areas very little is written in stone and in the time since the Great Crusade (not to mention since the Dark Age) all sorts of aliens have set up shop hither and thon. I mean EVE has 5k+ systems right now...that's a metric fuckton of systems to play with.
Second, with all of the factions that don't hold space in a standard fashion, the Imperium argument might be moot at best. Wormhole space can handle a lot of this, and some factions could (would) have EXTENSIVE holdings outside of the "material" universe.
Third, being a member of a "parent" faction doesn't mean that you are out taking territory for said faction; in actuality, it's somewhat the opposite. Take EVE factions: I could be Minmatar but if I were to conquer territory I'm not doing it for any of the Minmatar factions. And that's really only possible in 0.0 anyways. In areas like lowsec you could have "Imperium" sovereignty in name only while Dark Eldar or Orks or whoever actually run a specific system. And in regards to hisec/lowsec/nosec, in the 40K Universe there might actually be very few true 1.0-0.8 systems. A lot of their system control, sovereignty and security is very short ranged and you can have vast stretches of lowsec/nosec outside of that.
I think that while the Imperium does have a number of large monolithic organizations, you can't just look at something like a 40K political map and declare that the Imperium is 99% of the Universe. Imagine something like a map of military strength and I think you'd see numerous pockets of Imperium concentrations, but that they would be like pinpricks on the map of the universe. I liken the Imperium to a nation that fortifies it's holdings, but outside of those castles and keeps it's a tossup as to who is actually in control.
In fact I think that most actual Imperial Navy fleets would be in high-sec areas anyways, while most "Xenos" races would play elsewhere (making them somewhat of a non-factor, depending on specific game design).
My first issue with this is that if you have to dredge up sources this obscure (and make no mistake, they are definitely obscure) then that casts doubt on your position from the beginning. Next I have an issue with the fluff. BFG was never a big deal for GW and for the most part the official fluff was pretty thin. And in regards to fluff, it's not written to support internet nerd arguments, it is written to give you a little backstory and flavor. It is rarely written to be "definitive", and in regards to BFG stuff, I don't think anyone wrote any of that fluff thinking that the ONLY ships in THE ENTIRE 40K UNIVERSE are the ones that THEY WROTE ABOUT. So really, what does some obscure fluff matter? I mean it's great to whip out if you want to show someone that something specific exists, but you can't really use that same fluff to say that what exists in the game-world is LIMITED to whatever fluff you're talking about, especially when we're talking about fluff like BFG stuff. Add in the fact that GW just nuked Specialist Games not long ago (at least afaik they're phasing it out) and with the way that GW likes to rewrite and retcon fluff wholesale (perhaps the worst fictitious universe for consistent fluff anywhere) and I kind of have to laugh about all of this.
Like I said earlier, I think that you're framing this in very narrow terms, and IMHO something like the IN would be more eye candy or window dressing, and it might very well never have a bearing on MMO gameplay in a hypothetical MMO in any event.
Gavinmad
Mr. Poopybutthole
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The Imperial Navy is fucking miniscule compared to the size of Imperial space it's expected to cover. Other races will typically have vastly superior technology (both Dark and Craftworld Eldar, Necrons, Tau), vastly superior numbers (Tyranids and Orks), or in the case of Chaos, somewhat superior technology in the form of older ships or wonky shit with various warp stuff.
Sabbat
Trakanon Raider
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Am I alone in the fact that when "EVE style" was brought into the discussion early, I believed we meant skill systems, trade, manufacture, discovery and avastopen galaxy with planets we could hot drop onto and fight for resources and territory with a multitude of races, factions and sub-factions? .... and very little of flying ships in space.
The reason I(and Erronius, I'm assuming, please say otherwise if you don't)have looked at the WH40K universe as a great place to play an MMO is because it's not limited to flying around in space, or a parking lot, or a building, or keep sieges. You've got a metric fuckton of lore, story, style at your fingertips, add in the Warp and there's pretty much nothing you cannot actually do in a game like that. Want to have a hot drop style encounter with dinosaurs? Done. Want to survey a new planet that's populated with Amazonian women? done. Want to establish trade relations with you neighbours? Want to bomb the ever living fuck out of your neighbours? Would you like to sail on seas of blood while fighting a fleet of renegade Banshees that are scouring the ocean looking for an STC? Would you like to explore a recently opened planet that was once enveloped in the Warp, only to find out the scenario you are in is warp fragment from Seattle in the 1990s?
This is the major reason why developers and even Games Workshop themselves with BFG as an example, take small sections of the WH40K universe to task at a time. It's on a scale you cannot even begin to imagine at first.
The next major hurdle after that is the content itself. The religious, political, and social issues the WH40K universe plays with, isn't terribly appealing to the average joe. It's a dark future, so fucking dark it's impossible to comprehend in real terms. With the massive pall of negativity hanging over the game world, I can't see many people picking it up and sticking with it. You think it's rare to find chicks playing MMOs that aren't a little bit cutesy now? That figure would be horrifically low in this game world.
The reason I(and Erronius, I'm assuming, please say otherwise if you don't)have looked at the WH40K universe as a great place to play an MMO is because it's not limited to flying around in space, or a parking lot, or a building, or keep sieges. You've got a metric fuckton of lore, story, style at your fingertips, add in the Warp and there's pretty much nothing you cannot actually do in a game like that. Want to have a hot drop style encounter with dinosaurs? Done. Want to survey a new planet that's populated with Amazonian women? done. Want to establish trade relations with you neighbours? Want to bomb the ever living fuck out of your neighbours? Would you like to sail on seas of blood while fighting a fleet of renegade Banshees that are scouring the ocean looking for an STC? Would you like to explore a recently opened planet that was once enveloped in the Warp, only to find out the scenario you are in is warp fragment from Seattle in the 1990s?
This is the major reason why developers and even Games Workshop themselves with BFG as an example, take small sections of the WH40K universe to task at a time. It's on a scale you cannot even begin to imagine at first.
The next major hurdle after that is the content itself. The religious, political, and social issues the WH40K universe plays with, isn't terribly appealing to the average joe. It's a dark future, so fucking dark it's impossible to comprehend in real terms. With the massive pall of negativity hanging over the game world, I can't see many people picking it up and sticking with it. You think it's rare to find chicks playing MMOs that aren't a little bit cutesy now? That figure would be horrifically low in this game world.