f13.net

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/954/feature/7493/There-Is-Only-WAR.html

Announced at E3 (this is not a revival of the WH40k: Dark Millenium MMO that was canned early last year).

The article linked above is surprisingly detailed, but the summary is:

- F2P

- Four races (Chaos Space Marines, Space Marines, Eldar (it isn't clear if that means "Dark" Eldar), and Orks.  For some reason, the Chaos Marines are limited to the Iron Warriors chapter (and the Space Marines are limited to the Dark Angels)- give me Word Bearers, dammit!  

- F2P players only get the basic orc class, and it takes 5 of them to take out a Space Marine in PvP(!).  All other races (including advanced orc classes) are purchasable.  

- Very limited PvE element- campaign worlds (see below) will have PvE Tyranids (killing them helps your faction in the campaign).  Unclear if this is twitch-style or MMO-style combat.

- New campaign every 3 months.  One of the factions is declared the winner of the previous campaign, and the next campaign world is completely different (in objectives, resource placement, etc.)- apparently there is an entirely new world every 3 months .

- "Leaders" are elected by each faction, and if you obey orders (attack this fort or this objective, etc.) you get more exp than if you randomly lone wolf deathmatch out in the woods.

- Open beta in 18 months, launch in 24.

Except for the F2P 5:1 pvp power issue (which will be absolute flaming disaster) this concept sounds interesting- four faction Planetside-style PvP that periodically resets onto a new map (with some PvE objectives).   18 months to beta sounds ambitious even if this booted up immediately after the cancellation of Dark Millenium, but I've been praying for a 40K "MMO" (although this is really more Planetside) forever.

F2P that limited is horribly counter productive, making people miserable is not the way to get them to spend money on your game.

It will be horrible if your dumped into a BG style instance and its 8v8 or whatever.

It will be hilarious in any open environment without population caps.

There we go.

Official site (http://www.bhvr.com/eternalcrusade/#), so tisgn up for info.

Main features of the game include:

- Experience the gameworld with 3rd-person, behind the shoulder action featuring precision gunplay and brutal melee combat with excruciating finishers;
- Participate in a persistent online war to conquer the planet, its fate completely in the hands of the players;
- Become a warrior from one of four initial factions, each unique and opposed to one another: Space Marines, Chaos Space Marines, Orks and Eldar.
- Participate in truly massive conflicts that simultaneously bring thousands of players to bear over territories and other strategic resources.
- Get behind the controls of Space Marine Rhinos, Predators, Ork Battlewagons and other iconic vehicles of the 41st millennium;
- Hack through genuinely challenging procedural content alongside your battle-brothers and never have the same experience twice;
- Earn the right to customize your builds in a deep progression system drawing on the rich Warhammer 40,000 universe.
- Found a Battle Squad with friends and prepare for conflict from your customized shared space in orbit – then drop down to the planet together and seek out glory!

I dunno, I'm kinda psyched for it.  It's an F2P predominantly PvP Warhammer MMO with action game controls, sounds like it could be a lot of fun.  Maybe I'm a sucker for the WH40k license, but I'm keeping an eye on it until they do something amazingly stupid.  The whole "play as a crippled peasant for free" idea seems kind of dubious, but it might work if they implement it correctly, if they give them stuff to do and bars to fill in between dying (though that would be tough to balance given the plebs can only play as one faction, apparently, you'd think there'd at least be some Imperial Guard or Chaos Cultist classes for the other groups, I dunno).

I'll log in to witness the hilarity of the Space Marine who has purchased Terminator Armor for 100 bucks mowing down wave after wave of F2P orcs.

The fact that I have to sign up for info that'll be on a wiki in one month doesn't bode well to my interest in playing this. At this point I think I've given up on 40k being a game and just happy to read codex and bolter porn.

I can't even sign up for anything, the site is coded in such a way that it disagrees with my monitor resolution and I can't see anything clickable.  Remember when we used to have things like scroll bars?  It was horrible, people kept seeing your content.  Thank god we have more advanced scripts nowadays, so we can take up half of the screen with a gray bar.  Gotta keep that copyright info in view at ALL TIMES, man!

The other thing to bear in mind about this is the pedigree of the developer behind it. They've pretty much put out nothing but the infamously terrible Naughty Bear, a bunch of shitty licensed shovelware, and Wet. To my knowledge, they've never done anything even really multiplayer, let alone MMO.

I haven't read or watched a thing about this game. Including this thread. I'm that sure it's going to be as successful as all those other online WH40K games over the years.

The "director" though, was in the Anarchy/Age of Conan/Secret World team. If anything, this game could suck but it won't be another clone.

There have been 3 attempts at a Warhammer mmo, two never made release and third was terrible.  I think saying it could suck is optimistically assuming it's going to make it to release.

Oh I agree with all that. I am just glad they are designing out of the box, even though it won't most likely go anywhere.

For a group that likes to charge a bazillion dollars for plastic figures they sure are tight on the purse strings when it comes to developing the digital environment.  I have no desire at all to go to a comic store and play with (unpainted) figures with smelly war gamers.  I'd be willing to sit on my couch/ at my home desk and do it.

The team working on this is a significant portion of the best of the Secret World group which Funcom left behind when they moved back from Montreal to Durham. Don't worry about the company's pedigree; this is completely different.

This game targets a niche of a niche.  I still don't understand why anyone would pay for this IP to mass market an MMO.  Seems you could do better financially making a knock-off and branding it as something else.

It's chicken & egg, they need the IP for the funding probably.  I agree with you though, I'd rather they came up with game play ideas instead of trying to make an IP fit what they think they can produce.

I'm mildly interested as I do like the IP. I'm not sure how the "only Ork Boyz are free to play" kind of thing will work or if it will even last until release. It sounds like typical GW fuckstupidery. The GW guys really know fuckall about how to adequately leverage their IP in the digital market. I've been begging for almost 20 years now for a digital translation of the 40k board game and the closest they've ever come is the goddamn RTS's from Relic.

That could have been worse. Cyanide could have got the rights for the digital boardgame.

This is going to be entertaining no matter how it ends up, is how I look at it. Epic clusterfuck, or that 0.5% chance that it all actually works the way they want it to.

Motherfuckers have been shot for less than that.

Cyanide should have gotten the rights and decided to make a MMO (and gotten Brad McQuaid&Curt Schilling -duo to lead the development)  :why_so_serious:

If they made a good, digital adaptation of the minis game, why would anyone play the physical version? Also, how could they justify charging you $40 for 10 digital figures to use in your digital army?

If they make digital versions of books, why would anyone buy the paper form?   :why_so_serious:

Some people prefer the tangible, hands-on version.  It's always better to have more choices.

This.

However, if they could charge me $5 DLC per squad or $20 for an army, why are they turning my money away?

There's no reason in today's DLC/digital distro market that Games Workshop cannot CLEAN UP on selling various reskins of the same models.

$20 isn't even 10% of what you would pay for a comparable, physical army.

And probably 10x (or more) as many people would buy it.

Don't get me wrong, I'd play the shit out of it (though I would prefer Fantasy to 40k). I just think GW is like WotC: unwilling to sell a digital version with a significant discount for fear of damaging their physical market. I agree that they would make moneyhats doing so, I just don't expect it to happen.

They may believe it, but they're wrong. In WotC's case it might be semi-true; in GW's case the barriers to entry into physical play are already so high that their customer base consists of nothing BUT the hardcore, and those people won't make the shift (or would just buy both).

They need to make the jump before 3D printing hits the mainstream and guts their core business.

Space Marine was a bloody fun game, I wish they'd make more like that. Although looking at the number of games GW have licensed over the years, maybe this was just the one that stuck by sheer dumb luck.

Thats a very interesting (and true) point.  I'd add something else in, a lot of physical play these days is going into GW stores on a Friday night to play with 11 year olds.  Sorry, I'm not doing that for fear of being called out as a pedophile or something.  Yet allow people to do that online (as long as you can mute voicechat) and I'm sure you'd get a lot of people like me who haven't played for almost 20 years dipping our toes in the water.

This project reeks of failure. Just that initial set of bullet points is laughable. New campaign every three months? Good luck with that.

Depends what kind of work is involved in a "campaign."  I get the impression that it's just different maps, and you can assemble those from prefab pieces pretty quickly.

That's fair enough. I guess it will depend on how much work the developer intends to put into it - which is what I question.

I'd also like to gripe about choosing the Iron Warriors and the Dark Angels.  On the Chaos side, I'm not sure they could have picked a blander and less fleshed-out Traitor Legion- at last 6 or 7 of the 9 would be more interesting (my pick would be Word Bearers, but the Emperor's Children, World Eaters, and Death Guard would also be fairly visually distinctive and lend themselves to interesting abilities).  The Iron Warriors are siege experts that shoot artillery at stuff from far away- meh. 

I'm less versed in Imperium lore, but the Dark Angels also underwhelm.  Why not lead with Ultramarines, or Grey Knights, or something at that level that jumps to mind immediately when you think Space Marines?     

I'll start buying the digital Codex' once the are significantly cheaper than the [now hard backed] physical copies.

Until then I'd rather feel I got something for my £30! (full disclosure - I play so infrequently now I buy them used on eBay)

I love physical stuff, but I'd play the hell out of a digital Warhammer boardgame. It's nowhere near the whole "in person" experience, but it allows you to play a) whenever you want b) without arguing about rules c) slightly faster than the pretty long real thing. these three factors are what basically resurrected Blood Bowl as a hobby. Warhammer does not need to be resurrected, but I feel lots of people who just don't have the time to commit to the real tabletop game would jump into the digital one in no time. Hell, the online client almost got me into Magic: the Gathering (then I realized I don't need such an expensive addiction).

I wish they did something like that for BattleTech too. Unfortunately the dream has been crushed when whoever is making the "Tactical" videogame thought they could make more money by butchering the original tabletop game.

I agree overall, though while I love Grey Knights, it wouldn't work lore wise.  They are the smallest but most elite marine chapter, whos existance is kept a strict secret.

They should have picked the Angry Marines (http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Angry_Marines).   :awesome_for_real:

Dark Angels are one of the most popular chapters.

Those digital codexes are really nice. Everything is hotlinked with rules pop ups, etc. and they are automagically updated with FAQs so you never get some couchbag saying, "Well it's in the FAQ." The only real problems are that they are ipad only and that they are gigantic at over a gig a piece.

Since two people have failed the connection now: Nebu wasn't talking about WH books, but books in general.  The excuse being used is nonsense, because your market will expand and those who want to buy physical will still do so.  Will your physical sales drop? Yes, but the uptick on the digital end should more than make up for it.

Consumers in general are OK with not owning things now.  They're stupid for it, but as a retailer not taking advantage of their stupidity is a business failure on your part.

Also I got the idea that they were going to generate the content procedurally so there would be less design time.

I got an email from GW last week saying they were [coming] out on Kindle and Android (presumably the Google Books thing) athough I havent checked though.

Be interesting to see if Amazon make them cheaper...................................(fat chance!)

As I was looking for that earlier post about them, I noticed that they are now available in .mobi and .epub format from the Black Library. Surprisingly, they are $17 cheaper than the physical or the iBooks. There is a note that the interactive elements are only available on the iBooks version. That's undoubtedly all the extra photos, but most likely the really handy rule popups that make the ibook version so handy.

Some new tidbits of information on the official site (www.eternalcrusade.com).  Space Marines will have at least four chapters from the First Founding (Ultramarines, Dark Angels, Blood Angels, and Space Wolves).  In addition to classes common to all chapters (Devastators, Tac Marines, etc.) each chapter will have at least some unique bonuses/attributes.  Good news- probably means we'll see some interesting CSM legions as well (I'm hoping some or all of Word Bearers, Death Guard, World Eaters, and Emperor's Children make it in). 

But the FAQ has some weird stuff:



So...we're getting a 3rd person twitch MMOFPS, or maybe something DCUO style?  These factoids don't seem consistent with each other.

3rd person pop action makes me think DOA or LOL,so yeah those two points aren't exclusive. 

A warhammer 40k MOBA would be fun as fuck

This sounds pretty cool if it really will be 100% twitch with melee and range. I wonder if it will have Mount & Blade style melee? It's still the gold standard out there in both simplicity and skill depth.

I don't see how they can possibly work in the power differentials between these classes though, between champions and grunts. Action games like world of tanks and war thunder that try have to do a careful balancing act and mostly keep them separated.

I would think you would have to do something like allow weaker players to control multiple units. So a player who is playing ork grunts can bring a squad of 5-10 of them. They fight alongside his avatar with AI, and if his avatar dies he jumps into control of next one. Buying new classes from them is not necessarily an I win button, just gives the player different, cooler classes, but still has basically the same raw power as a guy just running around with a tonne of ork grunts. So let's say you give the best unit (dreadnought, demon champion, etc.) a value of 500 points, everyone else would get that too, but the guy playing basic account would only be able to spend it on orks that cost 25 points each (but he gets 20).

Founder's Program announced.  Pay up to $450 a year and a half before release (plus $35 each for limited edition pre-Heresy blasters)!
https://www.eternalcrusade.com/founder-store

I know its pre-alpha and all, but God damn this looks like dog shit.  Every in game video they have looks terrible.

I've seen some epic battles in Planetside 2, a screen full of land vehicles, air and troops, and with my new gfx card, a full on firework display of particle effects between the two sides. Looks incredible, and one of the few games ive got that immerses me in some really large scale battles.

So why can't they just do Horus Heresy with this technology I don't know.

also, any MMOG with ongoing episodic content has never worked out that way, numbers drop a bit and boom... static world time.

ARISE!

I never contributed to this, but I do get the emails.  Apparently the tech for an open world FPS is impossible, so now the game is down to 1 continent with 120 "match-based" sub areas that over 10 people can fight in!  Oh yeah, release delayed indefinitely as well.

Yeah, Planetside 2 - a game I have been playing a lot lately - is really the model here. Now, PS2 did have some growing pains as they optimized those large battles, but nowadays I can play with everything maxed out and still get a reasonable framerate in large battles and anything aside from the those huge battles is smooth as butter.  No excuses.

This just went to Steam early access.  I am a Founder because the smell of burning money doesn't give me that high anymore and I needed to try something else.  Again, this is now a lobby shooter because the tech to make Planetside doesn't exist yet.  Also, no orks or eldar (yet, they are coming in next few months).  I am having mild fun in alpha as a jet pack guy, though.

This looks terrible.

I think it also wins the price of "Game with the largest cuts from the original advertised design ever".

I saw this in Steams GW sale and ignored the -20% offer on today. The video reminded me of Space Marine MP, which was just laggy and inaccurate and their bullshit about Planetside tech not being invented yet doesnt win any favours. I usually buy GW stuff on sight too.

However, I did just pre-order Battlefleet Gothic Armada. Hope it doesnt suck too much. I bought it blind as I like BfG but read the dev/engine has only produced an average game before but i havent found a decent BfG mod on any of the space RTS games I own.

How does this game stack up to Space Marine multiplayer?  Without large battles, without other factions, it sounds basically the same, except with Space Marine you also got a single player campaign (and horde mode etc.)

It is the same.  It's a Space Marine 16v16 lobby shooter with 3 maps and 2 game modes.  That's it.  It's pure pvp with a bit of tyranid npc invasion type stuff.  L4D meets Battlefield I guess.

So, they released the Eldar this weekend.  They look good.  I've only monkeyed around with them for a few minutes in the garrison, but they seemed slower than I would have expected. 

Fixed it for you. Wah wahhhhhhh....

I kid only because I bought a founder's pack when they first announced it.

How is it?  I heard the shooting and melee combat, you know the important stuff, isn't very good.

So, this went live today.  Played a little bit, and I really suck at shooters.  Eldar seem a bit overpowered.

Is PvE any good? Didn't realize they added that. WH40K: Space Marine multiplayer PvE (aka horde mode) was quite fun.

Steam reviews aren't being kind to it. I also thought it was going to be F2P with one race free and the others paid unlocks. Or is that some other 40k game?

IIRC, it was originally going to be F2P as an Ork grunt, but they dropped that some while back.

PvE has been tough in pugs, since there's no coordination, and everyone tries to rush through it like it's WoW.  If people would just slow down, and clear the area of Tyranids, it'd be a lot easier.

That sounds like what I remember; shame they didn't go that route. If I could check it out for free I might give it a shot but not for $50.

I like it, it being 40k is the main reason. I haven't tried the tyranid PvE portion of it yet, but stomping about as an ork with other orks, stabbing marines with my giant orky arm syringe or zapp-sniping Eldar and vehicles with my shoulder-mounted zap kannon is enough for me. I just want one of these damn Warhammer games to do well for once is all. The novelty will wear off I know, but I don't play these type of shooters all that much anyhow, so I guess this is my CoD or Battlefield, etc.

Was PS2 with Warhammer skins really that hard to do?

ok guys so we're gonna buy this license to a thing, get some thing models and sounds, and paste it all into a sweet Unity tutorial I found online

we'll get a few more models and put 'em behind a paywall

because fuck everyone buying video games

ARISE!

So yeah, I grabbed this in the latest Humble Bundle and have put about 3 hours into it, enough time to be able to get some kills.

This. Game. Sucks.

Ok, it's not HORRIBLE. However, it's pretty bad. It takes forever to load sometimes but not all the time. When you actually get in a game, it runs decently but sometimes getting into a game is the hard part. The game crashed twice on me just trying to get into the fucking tutorial area. You start the game with the absolute worst set of gear on the planets so get ready to die to people who have better gear a lot and not have one clue why. The controls are slushy, probably owing to it being a 3rd person game instead of 1st person. Left click to shoot your ranged weapon, right click for melee, no matter which set of gear you have equipped. You can get some help with melee by holding down the control key (it locks you onto a target, but only for melee attacks). Owing to the fact that melee often requires you run around flailing like a fucking pair of idiots circling each other, melee weapons are stupidly overpowered except for the combat knife every one gets. Be prepared to grind and die a lot in PVP battles until you can build up enough requisition points to buy decent weaponry (or buy them with real money). The maps are too big yet manage to funnel most of the action around one or two points the entire game. Be prepared to be constantly surprised by someone coming around a corner because there isn't a lot of open space outside buildings and there are a lot of buildings and detritus on every map. The maps are also pretty drab looking affairs, even when you are on the lava river map. Vehicles have lots of spaces for other players but you'll generally be driving them by yourself unless you squad up with friends, meaning you park the vehicle in a spot and switch to a gunner's seat hoping someone comes along to shoot at.

This game really isn't even worth buying if you are a huge 40k fan nerd. There are much better shootery experiences with gear grinds - like Battlefield of any flavor.

I was thinking of getting the Humble Bundle just for this game.  Your words have saved me $10. :awesome_for_real:

Yeah, it's definitely not worth the bundle if that's the only thing you are interested in.