The Hopeful Adeptus

As If...

2008-10-12T15:34:00.000-07:00

very busy + limited (NO) dialog + no news from game team = no reason to post. I am watching AoC (age of Conan) closely though. Here's a game with a strong IP, semi innovate game play, and a very strong (800,000 units) lauch that seems to be tanking rapidly. Only lesson learned right out of the gate --- DO NOT release your game with crippling errors and missing game play. Deliver when done and not one minute earlier.

Its all Chaotic

2008-09-23T18:12:00.001-07:00

Well, if there is anyone reading these ramblings, my apologies for the drop off in posting - kitchen remodeling has been chewing up way more time than I expected!!!!

Anyway, to wrap up my thoughts on the Eldar, they would, of course, have a number of vehicles available to them, starting with jet bikes and then progressing up through war walkers, wave serpents and eventually falcons. Its not the wide rage availed to say the Orks or Imperial Guard, but it should keep players amused.

So, its time to through our fourth and final faction into the mix. The forces of Chaos. Here, at least in terms of Warhammer 40,000 mechanics, I'm on pretty thin ground. I've never purchased or read any of the chaotic codexes (I prefer to play the "good guys") so what I know I know from the books and articles in White Dwarf.

Though there are many followers of chaos in the 40,000 universe, its the story of the traitor marines that are (at least to me) the most compelling, so at least initially, our character progression will be that of a new recruit to a traitor legion. I see the Chaos player as a mix between the Space Marine and the Inquisitor professions. Starting as an initiate, the player would gain skill and expertise in a fashion that initially mimics Space Marines.

Before too long though, the player would begin to have the option to progress further down one of Chaos' 5 primary paths. Choosing between the Khorne, Slaanesh, Nurgle, Tzeentch, or perhaps Chaos Undivided. The path chosen would affect the skills and powers available to the player. As they gain power its possible that they players could begin to attract followers (e.g. cultists a'la Dawn of War), but the eventual ("end game") would be demonic transformation.

Along the way, Chaos players would find vehicles available to them, similar to those available to Space Marines. Starting with Bikes and working up to corrupted land raiders, the chaos player will be able to hide behind inches of armor will slugging out with rivals across the battlefields of the 41st century.

There's a lot of material now in the blog that is what I would charitably call "foundation" from here, on the following posts, we'll dive deeper in to game mechanics and play. I would ask though, if you are reading this, leave a quick post, any post, so that I don't get discouraged :-) After all, what would be more pathetic than someone spouting off on a game in development with no line to the dev team and no one actually reading the posts.

Next week - thoughts on Commissars....

Oh those sneaky Eldar

2008-09-11T19:06:00.000-07:00

(no links today - have to edit them in later. sorry)

Well if there ever was a race that would fit the prototypical MMO mold, Eldar are the one... They have a clear set of classes with hierarchies, they have advanced technology and psi powers that look like magic... Of course we're not going to let that happen in our Warhammer 40,000 MMO! Of course, the real trick is to write anything about Eldar without using the words "enigmatic" or "debased".

The eldar are space elves. No way around it. They are essentially immortal and have been bumming around the galaxy for a very very long time. Unfortunately, for all involved, tens of thousands of years before the times of our MMO, the eldar made a huge mistake which resulted in the birth of a chaos god (more about them next time) and the destruction of most of their civilization. Most of those that are left travel about space in enormous Craft World ships.

Players will start out as basic soldiers - Guardians, and as they gain notoriety they will be able to specialize, increasing their powers or focus until they are able to (should they desire to) choose a more specific combat role. Swooping Hawks, Banshees, Fire Dragons - the lore has more than half a dozen options open to the player. The really cool thing for the player will be that if they want to, they will be allowed to change their specialization. According to the lore, most, if not all eldar spend time learning many roles, switching from one to the next over time. Now how this is handled in game, a re-spec or cumulative skill growth should be driven by the lore and I'm not enough of an Eldar-ophile to be able to suggest a direction yet.

Unfortunately this is going to be a very short post - I'll edit and add to it asap, but ...

Orks Orks Orks Orks Orks Orks

2008-09-02T19:30:00.000-07:00

Lets talk green skins!
In my hope for version of the upcoming Warhammer MMO - Orks would be truely unique. It would be easy give them the same mechanics as Marines, slap some green paint on them, give them a bit of Orky dialog and call it good, but that would really be a disservice to one of the most intersting factions in the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

Similar to the tabletop game, playing orks is not going to work for everyone. If your the type of player that can laugh just as hard when your kustom grenade explodes for a bazillion points of damage in the middle of squad of Eldar as when you kustom rokkit launcher explodes in your face, killing you and half your raid party, then you're an ork.

Orks will all start out as Newbs (if we can have Nob's, why not Newbs?) which, by the time the basic tutorial is done, should have graduated to basic entry level Boyz. Orks will advance for a while, moving up the basic troop types (Slugga to Shoota) before looking into serious specialization. For specialization, Orks can choose to becoming Doc's, or Meks, or can just focus on becoming a Nob.

Becoming a Nob is what it's all about for an ork. Well except for the fightin and looting and what not. Orks are always working to become the biggest and the baddest. Advancement among Orks comes as a cost to someone else. In the fluff, Orks are always challenging for the right to lead, even in the heat of battle orks will turn on each other in fights for dominance. The game shouldn't be too different.

I think this can be done a couple of different ways. For example, the number of Nobs could be capped and to advance, one player must beat a higher level player in PvP combat. If a player declines a challenge or too, maybe there are no consequences, but if a superior player declines to many rivals challenges, he just might find his position usurped anyway. If there aren't enough Ork players of sufficient level available, there could be reasonable NPC's available for all but the highest levels.

Orks are unique in the 40k universe in that the number of Orks in a mob directly impacts their physiology. The more orks there are, the stronger they get, the bigger, braver they are. And usually with a corresponding decrease in accuracy. It'd be a shame not to introduce some game mechanics to incorporate bonuses for larger Ork groups.

When it comes to vehicles, only the orks rival the guard for deploying vast numbers of machines. Our ork faction would begin by introducing bikes early, and add War trucks, Killer Kans shortly after, eventually working up to da big stuff, like Dreads, Looted Tanks, and Battle Wagonz.

I've mentioned before that there is almost no place for Loot in this game. My son started playing Tabula Rasa again last weekend and watching him play, it just grates on me seeing a military sim where supposed soldiers have to collect enemy faceplates to sell to their requisition officer so they can get ammo for their weapons. I mean, come on, really! What the heck is a guy in the middle of a war zone going to do with alien body parts and what does that have to do with equipment needed to prosecute the enemy?

Of course, among orks, Loot has a role. The traditional MMO mechanic of collecting something off of defeated enemies in order to replace / purchase supplies works well for Orks. Orks collect teeth and other loot to trade with other orks in order to get stuff they need. Sometimes a looted bolter might be just the thing a Shooter Boy is looking for - with a bit of kustomizin of course.

Before closing out - a poster over at Warhammer 40K Online (Warhammer 40K Tabletop online, not an MMO site. I still haven't found much operating yet for the MMO) pointed out a problem with faction play. Everyone has a favorite faction and everyone has that one friend that insists on playing something else. As much as I really belive that the primary thrust of this game has to be faction vs faction, I do think that there should be a number of experience appropriate zones, a handful that are PvP and and maybe even some PvE. While the puriest in me really thinks that a combat team made up of two orks, a space marine, and 3 eldar is counter to the basic premise of the Warhammer 40k universe, players are going to really want the chance to occasionally mix it up without repercussion.

Next up - Eldar

You can't spell empire without I

2008-08-26T18:30:00.000-07:00

A quick note about posting; I'd like to keep thes 40KMMO posts regular and spaced out about a week apart. That way I don't end up with daily posts for a month, then nothing for two and three months at a time. Obviously the weekly thing needs a bit of work as I figure out what day works best around home and work necessities... anyway Heeer's your next dream faction:

The Imperial Inquistion.

Players choosing the Inquisition will start out as initiate recruits, working through introductory missions before rising to the level of Junior Inquisitor. Like Marines and Guardsmen, there are no "levels" though there will be new titles and resources that become available as the player gains recognition.

Unlike the other two Imperial professions, the Inquistior player will need to decide very early on if they are going to be a psyker or not. Psykers would be this game's version of spell casters, though the risks and effects of using psychic powers will play out very differently than your standard MMO / RPG Mage. Psykers game play is a big enough topic by itself that it merits at least one post focused only on that, and perhaps several.

In addition to deciding if they will be psychly active, players will also have to choose one of the three career paths open to them. The Ordos Xenos, Malleus, or Hereticus. I thought of initially limiting the player to Alien Hunter or Heritic Bane which would allow Witch Hunter to be a ranking mechanism, but that's really not keeping within the lore.

Game play, Inquisitors are probably the most flexible of all of the Imperial professions. Inquisitors can have henchmen that fulfill a verity of roles. Similar to the Guardsmen player, this would mean that the Inquisitor could have "pets" focused on certain role. As the Inquisitor gains stature, more powerful henchmen would become available, like Grey Knights.

But the Inquisitor can also be a bit of a loner, similar to the Space Marine player. They can requisition all manner of special weapons and armor. They appear in the lore even equipped with Terminator Power Armor. It seems that from an equipment standpoint, nothing is beyond the range of a suffiecently senior Inquistor.

Lets be clear though about one thing... Players will not be able to randomly invoke Exterminatus (the complete death of a planet) in game. I am sure it would make for some hilarious mega-ganking, but i think it would get might old, really quick. Though a mission line that results in a player being forced to decide if killing a world is justified would be very interesting.

Initially I think it would be a good idea to leave the Sisters of Battle out of the mix. Though the Inquisition and the Ecclesiarchy are closely tied, I think that the Sisters might make for a nice expansion profession somewhere down the road and if lots of Inquistors are running around with Sisters as henchmen, that could be awkward.

Unlike Space Marines and Guardsmen, vehicles don't seem to play heavily into Inquisition lore. Or at least military vehicles don't. Most Inquisitors seem to have either militarized civilian vehicles or have borrowed a Chimera from a military unit. I haven't yet come to terms with how this should work in game terms, but I am leaning toward allowing most military vehicles, just at higher ranks and maybe for additional cost.

So this completes the initial view of the three professions open to player of the imperial faction. Time permitting we may go into much greater detail on each in the future, but we have a lot of ground to cover first. Next up "Orks is da biggest and da best"

And they shall know no fear

2008-08-18T18:26:00.000-07:00

Earlier, I've outlined the single-player squad play of the Imperial Guard player. Today, lets move on to the profession that would control only one avitar; The Emporer's Finest - The Space Marines.

As will all the other professions, advancement in the Adeptas Astartes is based on growing recognition. Players will again start as an initiate, working their way through the introduction to the game. Once we're passed the basics, the player will be a full fledged scout. Yes, a lowly scout - it will take a bit before our player can don the armor of a true space marine. Part of of this is to stay true to the lore, part is to keep players from jumping right in and being advanced killing machines with only a few hour play while the other professions spend days or weeks reaching the same level of destructiveness.

As the scout gains more recognition, he'll advanced up to the point where he will be fully initiated into the chapter and be a Space Marine. Using the nearly 2 dozen transplants that occur as a human is transformed into a Space Marine would probably be good check points for the player.

As an aside, without levels, a lot of MMO'ers are going to have trouble latching on to a sense of accomplishment. Or more than feeling that sense, they will have trouble articulating it. It's easy for players to compare levels, but what will it mean when players try to compare a Gunnery Sargent in the Guard to a Ork Nob. It may be difficult, if you want to break new ground, eliminating a 30 year old concept is a good place to start.

Once our intrepid player has amassed sufficient renown and passed the requisite trials, they will be a full fledged Space Marine. Space Marines, like Guardsmen would be able to use the recognition they earn to continually advance and to purchase new or different equipment. While the lack of loot means that we don't need a complicated inventory system, Marines should be limited in the amount and nature of equipment they carry during a mission. Marines should be able to carry a variety of lore appropriate weapons (Bolter, grenades, knifes) but should not be able to cycle through ten different weapons to find the right one for the given situation. Either you carry the Multimelta or you carry the heavy bolter, not both.

Marines can continue "advancing" through rookie designations (10th company, pup, etc) through veteran and to elite. At some point they should also be allowed to look into specializations that would take them out of the normal advancement tree, like Librarian, Tech Marine, Apothecary, or Chaplain.

A quicky side note: It's also intersting to consider that, unlike the Imperial Guard, Space Marines are often equally at home bringing home the Emporer's wrath at a distance or up close and personal. After I cover my suggestions for the factions and professions, I'll dive into how the combat system could / should work.

Vehicles are important to the 40K world and our perfect MMO shouldn't be any different. Marines would start by gaining access to motorcycles as scouts. Later, assault bikes and Rino transports would become available. This, of course, could lead to a player population that specializes in taxi services. It used to be fairly common in EQ1 and in SWG (i think, i really didn't play SWG for more than a couple weeks before getting bored and wandering off). Rino's would be followed by Land Speeders, Demolishers, and Razorbacks. Land Raiders should be left to a future expansion.

On the topic of vehicles, there is one that I still have not determined how to deal with. Dreadnoughts. Dreadnoughts are iconic Space Marine features, and it should be a huge thing for a player to choose to be encased in the armored sarcophagus. Maybe that's not much different than choosing to be a Librarian - it just feels bigger. Either way, Dread's should not be treated like any other vehicle that players could hop in and out of.

As with the Guard, origin is an interesting problem. Should Marines all start out in the same Chapter? Should they be allowed to choose a chapter? I think initially, all marine players should start out in the prototypical Space Marine chapter - the Ultra Marines. Maybe later we could introduce a few non-codex chapters that have different strengths and weaknesses like the Space Wolves or Black Templars. We could even let players form their own successor chapter if they can get X number of other players to go along - let them pick their own colors and maybe strengths and weaknesses.

Next up well round out the Empire with "You can't spell empire without I"

The Little Gears of War.

2008-08-13T19:32:00.000-07:00

As I noted before, I've been thinking about this for quite a while. At least as long ago as my EQ1 days. I find myself tying to add format and coherency to what amounts to a 6 year brainstorming session. My apologies if this gets (is) messy.

I really want to see the 40KMMO break new ground and to that end, I will try hard to not reuse standard MMO terms. Terms like Level and Class date back decades to the old table top days. Sure everyone knows what they mean, but they also bind us into a certain way of viewing the world.

In my version of the 40KMMO we'd start with 4 factions initially, The forces of Chaos, The Eldar, Orks, and The Empire of Man. I'll start detailing out the factions with The Empire of Man (aka The Empire).

To start with there would be three professions available to players; The Inquisition, the Space Marines, and the Imperial Guard. I'll deal with each in turn, starting with the Imperial Guard.

Each Guard player will start as a new conscript. As we run through a series of missions to familiarize the player with the controls and (more importantly) the history of the guard, they will gain the status and recognition to rise to the rank of Private and the game will begin in earnest.

Leveling (and that will be the last time I use that term!) will be based on rising in rank Private, Corporal, Specialist, Sergent and then into the officer corps. The Guard will be unique among the professions and classes in that many of the ranks do have a numerical designation too, like Private First Class, Private Second Class, and so on. I truly hope that I will never log into this game and see "/OCC Lv41 Space Marine LFG". Anyway, moving up in rank will rely on gaining recognition for completing missions and combat patrols. Missions and patrols will be covered in greater detail in another post.

Recognition is also the currency that will allow players to improve their weapons, armor, and other equipment. For the Guard that may mean trading in laser carbines for laser rifles. Frag grenades for krak grenades. It is also how additional personnel and vehicles would be requisitioned. Back to an earlier comment on the concept of loot. In a universe of organized war almost no-one loots. You see some looting in modern wars, but it is for a few collectors items or a few valuables that can be pawned off when the soldier returns home. Needed equipment is supplied by quartermasters, not dead enemies. Nor are soldiers usually allowed to purchase better / different fighting gear with money. Unless you're an Ork, just say no to loot.

If you are familiar with the 40K lore, you know that Guardsmen are soft and squishy compared to most of their adversaries. They make up for that softness in volume. One to One, a soldier is usually not going to be the equal of a Chaos Marine. Guard players will be no different. One to one vs a Chaos Marine or Ork Nob should quickly result in a death animation. Nope, the guard player is going to have to bring friends to every fight.

Since it would be very difficult, not to mention unfair and unpopular, to force Guard players to team up to accomplish anything, we'll make Guard players a team of their own. A "pet class" if you will. At lower ranks, the player would have just one or two squad mates, fighting by their side. As they rise up into the officer core, it could be a dozen of soldiers under their command. The player could issue basic commands (attack, take cover, free fire, focus fire, retreat, etc) and the game would manage the rest (aiming, moving, etc.).

As rank and reputation increase, the player could not only kit-out his/her avatar, but also their squad mates. This could allow for tremendous customization. Suppose a Master Sargent has enough pull to have 5 soldiers in their unit. I might decide that two are going to form a missile launcher heavy weapons team, one will be a communications specialist with a vox unit, and one will carry a melta. You might decide to gear up everyone with camo-cloaks, sniper rifles, and an extra close assault weapon. How cool would that be?!?

Armor and vehicles will be important for all factions and professions, but non more so than the Guard. The limits on requisitioning vehicles will be much lower for guard players than for other professions. Even low level offers should be able to pack their team up in a chimera and head off across the landscape. Initially I think the vehicle pool would include chimeras, salamanders, sentinels, hell hounds, and, at the top of the pack, the venerable Leman Russ battle tank.
Eventually, as expansions are written and released, baneblades and shadow swords, aircraft, and even titans could be made available for high ranking players.

Guard players would be able to freely ally and work with any other Imperial profession. As for differences in unit origin, e.g. Catachan vs Cadian vs Tallarian, I think that initially players should be modeled after the Cadian standard, but if the time, art assets, and desire is there, I suppose that a couple different regemental types could be available.

Since spelling chimera has seems to be slipping out of my grasp, it must be time to knock off for the night. Next post - They Shall Know No Fear

Ack!

2008-08-08T17:59:00.000-07:00

I had hoped to post every other day, but remodeling is keeping me away. Tomorrow. For Certain.

Player vs Everything

2008-08-05T18:59:00.000-07:00

Ok, so we all want our games to be revolutionary. Well, maybe not always. Some day I’ll go off on a tangent about gamers that say they want cool new stuff, but in reality they are looking for the same ‘ol –same ‘ol. That means it can’t be World of Warcraft. In fact, WoW should be left completely out of any discussion of a new game. Don’t copy ideas “because it worked in WoW”. Don’t disregard ideas “because they do that in WoW”. Easy right? :- )

A 40KMMO should start by embracing the Warhammer 40,000 universe, NOT MMO conventions. Stop assuming there should be things like loot, or potions, or even levels. Those are all tools that date back to Dungeons and Dragons and its antecedent Chainmail. Start from a clean slate. With apologies to Richard Garriot, what we need is a real tabula rasa.

Of course now I am going to sound all hypocritical because I will discuss my vision in terms of other games, and take a top down approach. I hope you’ll trust me though when I say that I game to this design from the other way around. Envisioning the game play and building a game to support that vision.

So at the highest level this should be a war game. It is mostly a realm vs realm game, with a strong player vs player element with a good deal of player vs environment. There! That should be easy to do right? Nice and ambiguous.

So who is fighting who? I’d recommend the sticking to the basics; The Empire, Eldar, Orks, and Chaos. This leaves the door open for expansion factions (Tau, Necrons, etc.) but still gives a good mix, lots of diversity. And diversity is key! The factions will each be very different from each other. I HATE games (Soulstorm I’m looking at you!) that “balance” their factions by giving each similar units. I’ll go into much more detail in future posts, but suffice to say, the way each race is going to seem like an entirely different game when compared to the others.

Quick tangent, if each faction is going to look, act, advance, and play so different from one another, how are you ever going to balance game play? Great question! It’s a universe at war, if one faction begins to get beaten down to badly or gets two powerful, the others may find NPC’s gaining strength and/or advancement curves subtly altering. 40KMMO is going to have to be a dynamic universe.

And it should be just one universe a’la Eve Online (or maybe two or three tops if the player loads force the issue). No picking servers. No servers with different rules. One universe. That may mean lots of instancing, but so be it.

So imagine if you will, with each of our four factions starts out in with home planets. Each planet has a handful of PvE zones. This is where your character is going to get its start and your going to get the introduction to the faction and the game controls. Each Planet will planet will be connected to each of the other factions planets by a set of increasingly “difficult” zones. Close to home, the zones have stronger PvE elements and stronger NPC’s of the character’s faction. As you move closer to the enemy planet, your NPC’s grow weaker, opposing NPC’s grow stronger. Directly in the middle is a balanced no-man’s land where RvR rules.

For example, The Ork home world and the Eldar Home world would set five zones apart. Moving from Ork to Eldar,
Zone O – Ork Stronghold
Zone 1 would strongly favor the Orks,
Zone 2 would favor the Orks
Zone 3 would be balanced, favoring neither Orks nor Eldar
Zone 4 would favor the Eldar
Zone 5 would strongly favor the Eldar
Zone E – Eldar Stronghold
With the same for; Eldar to Chaos, Chaos to Ork, Empire to Eldar, Chaos to Empire, and Empire to Ork.

Connecting all four factions would be a set of zones that balance in the middle set up for true PVE. This would be the only place that you could have split faction groups as in the literature, only under the most exceptional duress should opposing factions work together.

Initially, The zone map looks a bit like a four sided pyramid to start out, with each of the factions occupying one corner and the peak representing the free-fire PvP zone (equidistant from each of the four starting factions).

That’s all for tonight. Future posts will include; “Looting is a capital offense soldier”, “No, this isn’t my level”, and detailed discussion of the four starting factions.

In the begining

2008-08-05T17:32:00.000-07:00

Everything has to start somewhere, so this is where I start. This blog is the first of what should be regular postings, giving voice to my hopes and hearsay concerning the recently announced Vigil Games/THQ Warhammer 40,000 Online MMO.

I hope that, over time, it will be more than just what I want. That you (who ever the heck you are) will also take a few minutes to share your ideas, refine (and probably shoot down) my ideas as well.

I am very excited about a 40k MMO franchise. I started collecting Space Marines in the late '80's, before I even knew there was a Warhammer game. In the decade I've re-discovered the Warhammer universe. The books, the models, and more recently the Dawn of War series. I have, on and off, thought about what would make a good MMO for 40K, often heavily influenced by what ever other MMO I was playing at the time.

PC Gamer Magazine featured the Warhammer universes in June issue, including a full page to a 40K MMO. That put my mind squarely back on what I wanted to see in this game. The guys over at Channel Massive said something about "truly revolutionary game play" Sorry, I don't remember which episode. I've just recently discovered their podcast, and, well, you listen to 30 consecutive episodes and the details get a bit blurry. Anyway that really made want to get my voice out there. THQ doesn't have game/user forums. Ten Ton Hammer doesn't have anything up yet. Games Workshop doesn't seem to either. In fact I didn't find a single place to set up my soapbox and start singing, so I had to create a stage.

Initially, we're going to use the base template here. For a while it will be quick and dirty. I am gainfully employed and have a number of family obligations as well which mean that posts may be erratic. Or maybe not.