Hi everyone new to the forums just wanted to introduce myself and make a topic.
In case anyone didn't know an Warhammer 40k mmo is in development, by a company called vigil games. There is no solid information other than it will be an mmorpg. Personally i would of loved an mmofps like planet side but yeah. Im just not sure if this is actually going to take form, and be any good. What are your thoughts on this?

Here are some links
http://www.vigilgames.com/games_40k.php (that is who is making the game)
http://au.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/warhammer40kmmo/index.html?tag=result;title;2 (is the gamespot link)
http://kotaku.com/389784/first-proper-details-on-warhammer-40k-mmo ( there are some short Q&As on that sight about it)

FOR THE EMPORER!

There's been a lot of rumours before about a Warhammer 40K MMO, but nothing ever seems to be set in stone. The success of the Warhammer fantasy MMO suggests that they have what it takes, but it would seem that the 40K universe and all it's fluff about how rubbish everything would be hard to translate into a game.

Will it be better than Hammerfest?

Amnestic:
Will it be better than Hammerfest?

not a chance ;)

It would be too difficult to balance Regular humans (IG) and invincible angels of death (Space MArines).

I'm fairly excited about the prospect of an 40K MMO, I only fear that current technology is no where near what it needs to be to do justice to the 40K universe in MMO format. I'm thinking mix EVE with a FPS that can host hundreds to thousands of people and about ten times that in NPC's.

shatnershaman:
It would be too difficult to balance Regular humans (IG) and invincible angels of death (Space MArines).

Have all players as Space Marines and Imperial guard as NPC's, only way I would think you could do it.

Ralackk:

shatnershaman:
It would be too difficult to balance Regular humans (IG) and invincible angels of death (Space MArines).

Have all players as Space Marines and Imperial guard as NPC's, only way I would think you could do it.

It's pretty do-able - kind of a mix between age of conan and warhammer online - check out that link Amnestic put up to my old WH40K idea post.

Hammerfest

urprobablyright:

Ralackk:

shatnershaman:
It would be too difficult to balance Regular humans (IG) and invincible angels of death (Space MArines).

Have all players as Space Marines and Imperial guard as NPC's, only way I would think you could do it.

It's pretty do-able - kind of a mix between age of conan and warhammer online - check out that link Amnestic put up to my old WH40K idea post.

Hammerfest

You do know one Space Marine is more powerful than a hundred orks/eldar/Imperial Guardsmen. Still unbalanced.

shatnershaman:

You do know one Space Marine is more powerful than a hundred orks/eldar/Imperial Guardsmen. Still unbalanced.

Make the Imperial Guard playable, and Space Marines inaccessible to players? A bit of a cocktease to a community, but better than utterly destroying canon or having horrible balancing issues built in.

What I want to know is the answer to the question Penny Arcade asked. (Too lazy to find the exact strip.) How are you going to do factions? NOBODY is ANYBODY's friend in that universe. I don't even think you could lump anybody together, like they did for Warhammer Fantasy (although I'm not that familiar with 40K)

shatnershaman:

You do know one Space Marine is more powerful than a hundred orks/eldar/Imperial Guardsmen. Still unbalanced.

First: that's an opinion/heresay based generalisation. Orks, for example, could easily be as strong as a space marine - they're brutes - space marines are just more trained/equipped/awesomefied :P

An Imperial Guard Squad (i.e. rocket launchers+flamethrowers etc) could take down a single space marine. Especially if they were Karskins[sic] or controlled by skilled players. There are ways to balance everything. No need to make either race unplayable. If you want I could explain how one could balance Imp guard and space marines, but it'd take a bit of typing that i'd rather not do - maybe it's in my hammerfest post

No player Space Marines. Problem solved.

51gunner:

shatnershaman:

You do know one Space Marine is more powerful than a hundred orks/eldar/Imperial Guardsmen. Still unbalanced.

Make the Imperial Guard playable, and Space Marines inaccessible to players? A bit of a cocktease to a community, but better than utterly destroying canon or having horrible balancing issues built in.

What I want to know is the answer to the question Penny Arcade asked. (Too lazy to find the exact strip.) How are you going to do factions? NOBODY is ANYBODY's friend in that universe. I don't even think you could lump anybody together, like they did for Warhammer Fantasy (although I'm not that familiar with 40K)

Problem with that is everyone wants to be the big hero characters, so I say let them. Let people play as ork nobz and warbosses rather then the normal cannon fodder ork. Same for Eldar, let people play as the specialist classes rather then a gaurdian/Warriors.

You could even work through a progressive balanced level for each of those if you let people play as normal orks first that rank up to a nob or warboss.

As for factions why can't they actually have more then 2 factions fighting for control? Have them all in the game against each other like it should be. You would never be without a fight then.

Syphonz:
FOR THE EMPORER!

Amen brother.

51gunner:

shatnershaman:

You do know one Space Marine is more powerful than a hundred orks/eldar/Imperial Guardsmen. Still unbalanced.

What I want to know is the answer to the question Penny Arcade asked. (Too lazy to find the exact strip.) How are you going to do factions? NOBODY is ANYBODY's friend in that universe. I don't even think you could lump anybody together, like they did for Warhammer Fantasy (although I'm not that familiar with 40K)

The Imperium faction.
Or you could go by Regiment(IG), Chapter(SM), Tribe(Ork) etc.

urprobablyright:

First: that's an opinion/heresay based generalisation. Orks, for example, could easily be as strong as a space marine - they're brutes - space marines are just more trained/equipped/awesomefied :P

An Imperial Guard Squad (i.e. rocket launchers+flamethrowers etc) could take down a single space marine. Especially if they were Karskins[sic] or controlled by skilled players. There are ways to balance everything. No need to make either race unplayable. If you want I could explain how one could balance Imp guard and space marines, but it'd take a bit of typing that i'd rather not do - maybe it's in my hammerfest post

Even a karskin is worth less points than a Space Marine (Tabletop) and not even close in the official books. Unless you want to complicate the guard players with a billion different pieces of equipment or having Space Marine players play as one person and others play as squads.

shatnershaman:
and others play as squads.

That's baaaaasically the idea

hippieshopper:

Syphonz:
FOR THE EMPORER!

Amen brother.

Praise be the Emperor and strike down his foes!

I suppose you could just dumb everything down... they do it in other games...

I dunno, I'd be happy with the Space Marines ;D

urprobablyright:

shatnershaman:
and others play as squads.

That's baaaaasically the idea

Sounds like a lot of micromanagement, unless the squad acts as one which eliminates most of the advantages of having a squad.I guess the the game could take control of the other members of the squad but then both of the previous problems come into play.

shatnershaman:

Sounds like a lot of micromanagement, unless the squad acts as one which eliminates most of the advantages of having a squad.I guess the the game could take control of the other members of the squad but then both of the previous problems come into play.

Not gonna let me get away with a three word answer, are you? :P The game's instances and PvP areas would be of varied gameplay elements, involving stealth, subterfuge, command and outright action components - alot like the Battlefield games - Each of these instances would be split into teams based on race relationships (i.e. Imperial Guard and Space Marines would be in one group) and players would enter the battle filling up slots of each group (i.e. each side can have 20 aplfa-slots - slots for Imperial Guard and comprable characters - 10 Beta slots - For heavy characters like Space Marines and advanced Imperial Guard and Inquisitions units like the Sisters of Battle - and 2 Command slots - to be filled by units like Inquisitors, Space Marine Captains, elite Grey Knights etc.) all left over slots after a 10 minute staging time would be filled by NPCs.

Fighting would be balanced by commanders assigning differen unit types to appropriate situations (by controling their spawn locations) i.e. Karskins and Space Marine scouts would deal with Special Ops regions of the map (i.e. taking out an enemy NPC commander to get at the controls to a gate) There are, btw, many ways to make sure the commanders don't do a-hole things, like putting restrictions on how many of which class can go where, or by having Game Masters present in each battle/cash incentives to doing things right.

All the balance would be born out of the specific numbers of units (maybe a 5:1 alpha:beta ratio - based on the map style) and the NPC component would be used to avoid long waiting queues (since every 5 minutes the battles would be automatically filled out and begun)

I don't really have much time to read through/edit/add things that might be missing so I've just done one quick look through

I would absolutely go batshit insane due to sheer amount of endorphins rushing through my brain if they managed to pull off a dynamic and living 40k universe and using MOM (Massive Online Multiplayer) to do it, but sadly, development costs and technology will stop that from happening.

Also, Ultrajoe made a thread about this, and we practically designed the game in that thread.

The developers could go with Order and Disorder alliances, like in Dawn of War: Winter Assault. Have the constant arguments in each Alliance and they could pull it off.

Yeah we did basically design this game in another thread. There I mentioned they could have the "Alliance of Convenience system", wherein each faction would have a "Nemesis" Faction that they would always be hostile too, otherwise ingame events or on the fly Player "Parties" could ally up any faction against another. Ex: The Eldar would always be opposed to the Necrons, but might team up with the Orks to attack the Imperium for some reason or another. Conversly, the Tau will always be opposed to the Orks, but might ally with Chaos to attack the Necrons.

TsunamiWombat:
Yeah we did basically design this game in another thread. There I mentioned they could have the "Alliance of Convenience system", wherein each faction would have a "Nemesis" Faction that they would always be hostile too, otherwise ingame events or on the fly Player "Parties" could ally up any faction against another. Ex: The Eldar would always be opposed to the Necrons, but might team up with the Orks to attack the Imperium for some reason or another. Conversly, the Tau will always be opposed to the Orks, but might ally with Chaos to attack the Necrons.

By the gods he has got it. That is a brilliant plan there, may need tweaking but it could easily work in a game. Now could you just please send it to the developers?

Dommyboy:

TsunamiWombat:
Yeah we did basically design this game in another thread. There I mentioned they could have the "Alliance of Convenience system", wherein each faction would have a "Nemesis" Faction that they would always be hostile too, otherwise ingame events or on the fly Player "Parties" could ally up any faction against another. Ex: The Eldar would always be opposed to the Necrons, but might team up with the Orks to attack the Imperium for some reason or another. Conversly, the Tau will always be opposed to the Orks, but might ally with Chaos to attack the Necrons.

By the gods he has got it. That is a brilliant plan there, may need tweaking but it could easily work in a game. Now could you just please send it to the developers?

Hammerfest

yeah we should send it in, i don't know how tho. The 'alliance of convenience' thing might be a bit weird, story wise, because some races (i.e. orcs or tyrannids) absolutely never team up.

If we could figure a way to make that idea work, you might also have a different type of said alliances by using the guild (or, in this game, company/army/waagh/depending on race system) in which different guilds(sometimes from different races) can team up according to the map's provisions/scenario. I.e. you can have two guilds of imperials (Imp guard/Inquisition/Space Marines) for one guild of Tau when you go up against a cultist/chaos marine infestation on a planet in the border zone between the Tau commonwealth and the Imperium of Man.

The Tyranids wouldn't be a player race. Sorry. It's just not really... feasable. They make a far superior PVE race. Same thing for Necrons really. And I already posted this in hammerfest.

Tau V Imperium V Chaos V Eldar V Dark Eldar (maybe, I always found the DE Superflous but some people love them...)

Tyranids and Necrons and Pirates V everyone.

The "Alliance of Convenience" System removes the need to have balanced "Order" or "Chaos" factions- each race would be a self contained faction. This would create a dynamic of shifting "alliances" to promote the ends of your faction, or to confound your "nemesis" faction.

Removing the necessity for two balanced "factions" in the vein of WoW free's you up alot and helps differentiate you. Instead, you 5 self contained factions that are somewhat disparate.

I also figured on a branching "Perk" system so you can customize your character, making each character class more of a "base" for whatever you want to customize it into.

TsunamiWombat:
ARGH I keep losing my posts.

Look, I didn't say that SoB's were Female Space Marines- I was suggesting to the vast majority of outsiders that they would APPEAR to be, and that to satisfy the niche a female space marine would fill one should just USE the SoB's. A female space marine is just silly and would frankly be fugly, and would also not be accepted by the imperial faction and is thus unfit for a player character.

You have to simplify things, if you saturate it with too much fan stuff and too much fan customization you dilute the message and theme of the story. Alternative space marine chapters with different stats would be too much- as would different eldar craft worlds or chaos gods. K*I*S*S. Otherwise it frankly, smacks too much of fanservice or worse, fan fiction.

Moreover, there needs to be cohesive 'sides' to the war. This is not to say having every faction fight each other is a bad idea, but there also should be an option for on the fly alliances. To simplify things the Imperials should be boiled down into ONE faction- the Imperials.

The Imperials would have Space Marine, Imperial Guard, Inquisitor, and Sister of Battle as classes.

The Eldar could have the Wailing Banshee, Warlock, Warp Spider, and Striking Scorpion classes.

The Tau could have the Kroot Warrior, Fire Warrior, Kroot Shaper, and Pathfinder classes.

Chaos could have the Chaos Space Marine, Sorcerer, Heretic, and Traitor Guardsman classes.

Da Orkz culd have da Slugga Boyz, Shoota Boyz, Wierd Boyz, an da Pain Boyz classes

The Dark Eldar could have the Warrior, Haemonculus, Wych, and Mandrake classes.

To supply the level of customization and the many unique units not given their own class, a "merit" system very similar to Fallout's 'perks' could be implimented. Every 10 levels or so you take a Merit which gives you status effects, new abilities, equipment, or equipment options. Ex- to play a Commissar your Imperial Guard character could take the "Indomitable Will" merit which supplies you with an aura that increases allies resistances and weakens enemies, the "dual wielder" merit which allows you to dualwield melee or ranged weapons OR combi wield a sword and a pistol, and the "Fencer" merit which increases your attack and parry/block speed and ratings in melee. To make a "Seraphim" character your character could take the "Indomitable Will", "Dual Wielder", and "Jet-Jump Pack Certified" merits.

The Biggest "Elephant in the room" problem is the fact that unlike Warhammer Fantasy, in Warhammer 40k everyone is everyone elses enemy- but also will sometimes work together when the need is great. I suggest an "alliance of opportunity" system, wherein different factions can band together temporarily to wage war with certain other factions. Except to this rule would be "Polar Opposite" factions that would never ally, work alongside, or just agree not to shoot in the head the other under any circumstances: The Tau-Orks, Imperials-Chaos, Eldar-Dark Eldar. Each faction would thus have a defined enemy and also "allies", but Warhammer 40k being Warhammer 40k nothing would be certain.

Oh, and each class would have the requisite 3 or 4 skill tree's/paths in addition to merits. Jump Pack Certified Sanctioned Pysker, woot!

How about this? Screw balance.

Yeah I said it. Lest stop obsessing about 'everyone is just as special as everyone else' and just make a FUN game where people who are supposedly 'weaker' can still have a game play experience that is FUN!

Now if you want to go into particulars you could always have squad formations for each player so they each have a few lackeys following them around and being armed with better gear. That ay Impies have the numbers they need to take on a few members of a mighty Space Marine chapter (or a sucky one like the Ultra'nellas). It would work, but sadly games are being destroyed anyways because people want to be good at everything rather than wanting to play a part in a story. Its why trying to RP on an MMO is pointless, its like being in the worst min/maxed D&D game ever.

Still it won't matter. My sisters will just hang out with an inquisitor with an itchy exterminatus finger.

TsunamiWombat:
The Tyranids wouldn't be a player race. Sorry. It's just not really... feasable. They make a far superior PVE race. Same thing for Necrons really. And I already posted this in hammerfest.

You're right about that part mate, Tyrannids and Necrons NPC enemy races, that'd be cool. The expansion that I planned to introduce Tyrannids and Imp Guard could introduce Imp guard and Cultists fighting the new big enemy - tyrannids. Then The Inquisition class and Tau could be introduced with a Necron expansion.

Though u might not agree with withholding the guard 'till an expansion :P My reasoning is that it'd be good for the game to start off relatively simple - Space Marines vs. Chaos Marines vs. Orks vs. Eldar - in fictional encounters, then mature through expansions into more story-based instances like the Cadian encounter i just wrote about on Hammerfest

Depening on the playable races, it wont work. They could balance Space Marines, Eldar, Ork, ok, everyone except the Imperial Guard. If they leave them out, I wont even consider buying it. Actually, I probably wont buy it anyway

TerraMGP:
How about this? Screw balance.

Yeah I said it. Lest stop obsessing about 'everyone is just as special as everyone else' and just make a FUN game where people who are supposedly 'weaker' can still have a game play experience that is FUN!

Now if you want to go into particulars you could always have squad formations for each player so they each have a few lackeys following them around and being armed with better gear. That ay Impies have the numbers they need to take on a few members of a mighty Space Marine chapter (or a sucky one like the Ultra'nellas). It would work, but sadly games are being destroyed anyways because people want to be good at everything rather than wanting to play a part in a story. Its why trying to RP on an MMO is pointless, its like being in the worst min/maxed D&D game ever.

Still it won't matter. My sisters will just hang out with an inquisitor with an itchy exterminatus finger.

So any I.G. players will just need, what? A whole squad to contend with the SM players? Or any other race actually. A full squad with heavy and special weapons, heavy bolter, plasma gun, whatever. The fact is the game has to be balanced. If players can go around ganking IG players, no one will play IG cause whats the point? Theyre actually shit. And its not just a bias against them, theyre actually shit. What would you pick, the normal human who dies at the drop of a hat and has a laser pointer for a gun or the giant Angel of Death who can spit acid, has awesome armour and his normal gun is essentailly a rapid fire RPG? Or even the Eldar, at least they can dodge every thing to throw at them. Orks can just soak it up and kill you in one hit. You wouldnt even see any Tau, cause theyre guns have such an damned long range. The only races IG could content with are other IG and Chaos Cultists.
Its the same in any mmo. Look at wow. If it wasnt balanced, gnomes wouldnt be a viable playable race because youd just have to /slap to kill them.

If I can be a commissar and would have to die horribly for making that choice, I'd still be a commissar. Those wussies in their over-powered tincans can dance the hokey pokey for all I care; it's time to execute someone!

They're going to have to bend the rules of this universe anyway. I can see it work in various ways and can't wait to see what they come up with.

How about the reintroduction of the Squat?
That'd blow my mind.

But maybe not as much as the reintroduction of Electro-Priests.

Haha, the Squat. A guy once got kicked out of a GW conference for asking about them.

Edited: Wrong damn thread.

urprobablyright:

First: that's an opinion/heresay based generalisation. Orks, for example, could easily be as strong as a space marine - they're brutes - space marines are just more trained/equipped/awesomefied :

Not canonwise. Canonwise a Space Marine tactical squad could take down an entire IG army without much difficulty, they're far more powerful than any Ork below warboss status.

The Tabletop game tones down SM's to a massive degree, if the MMO were to stay even vaguely on canon it would have to either be hideously unbalanced or human only. Personally I would love a Human only one but it ain't going to happen.

Syphonz:
FOR THE EMPORER!

Emperor you crazy fool! if your gonna shout something, shout it right :P

im not to keen on this, how would different races abilities be determined... being a nid would suck cos of the hive mind...

rosac

urprobablyright:

Dommyboy:

TsunamiWombat:
Yeah we did basically design this game in another thread. There I mentioned they could have the "Alliance of Convenience system", wherein each faction would have a "Nemesis" Faction that they would always be hostile too, otherwise ingame events or on the fly Player "Parties" could ally up any faction against another. Ex: The Eldar would always be opposed to the Necrons, but might team up with the Orks to attack the Imperium for some reason or another. Conversly, the Tau will always be opposed to the Orks, but might ally with Chaos to attack the Necrons.

By the gods he has got it. That is a brilliant plan there, may need tweaking but it could easily work in a game. Now could you just please send it to the developers?

Hammerfest

yeah we should send it in, i don't know how tho. The 'alliance of convenience' thing might be a bit weird, story wise, because some races (i.e. orcs or tyrannids) absolutely never team up.

If we could figure a way to make that idea work, you might also have a different type of said alliances by using the guild (or, in this game, company/army/waagh/depending on race system) in which different guilds(sometimes from different races) can team up according to the map's provisions/scenario. I.e. you can have two guilds of imperials (Imp guard/Inquisition/Space Marines) for one guild of Tau when you go up against a cultist/chaos marine infestation on a planet in the border zone between the Tau commonwealth and the Imperium of Man.

sorry for the double post, but maybe send it to jervis johnson via the post? he leaves his work adress in WD, so it would be easy to send this to him. he may just ignore of course, but it may end up somewhere...

rosac