Just to go back to questions about what is planned and related to the OP @BrentEllison @Oveur @NoahWard @Vlordak_The_Mighty So does the map get "pimped up" until launch? At the moment the information of that map is close to zero except for the overall color of the factions(from the day it was introduced to now), which could be given by pure numbers. Maybe showing the percentage of territory held per faction in a corner would be nice even though it would be redundant with the coloring of the map. The overall looks is very minimalist and when I saw the first iteration I was like "well....this is it?! seriously?" I know I know, cause I used the words in the previous sentence, it's the first iteration but I have the gut feeling it will stay like this until launch. So far we only have very straight borders in a minimalist style, very dominant colors and a hint of topology. I am really reluctant to say the word but I have to say it looks a little bit cheap...I very sorry to the person who invested time on this (if someone would say to me my work looks cheap I would also not be in the best mood tbh) Where is the old continent? It would be nice to still get info about the geography and climate of the territories, the most important strategic assets and locations of each territory (which we saw in the old continent map). Some background information in pop-up windows to familiarize with the continent and it's strategic locations, some fluff to read through and to make it worth spending time looking at the map. Even though it's not interactive (but it will "soon" so let us spend worthy time with the map) How will the conquest be represented? Is it just the change in color or do we see changes in the territories according to the faction who owns it? So having some graphical details like growing wraithbone spires and web-way portals when eldar get's hold on a territory. Rivers of Blood and an occasional daemon appearing when Chaos hold's a territory? Ork would build Waagh banners and maybe have some landed big rokks and the LSM would build their gothic styled buildings and maybe a Thunderhawk is flying back and forth some times. (I am speaking about the world map visual changes on the battlefield is a different story ) So all in all kind of nice graphical animations and some love for details, an artistic representation of a " 'ere be dragons" pirate maps...or if that is too fantasy like (don't want the map to look like Heroes of Might and Magic) it could have some more realistic scaled structures like dead hive cities or some destroyed hab blocks and hints of industrial sites and when you hover over it you see the name and information about that site maybe some historical data files about the location before the planet's Exterminatus etc (this could be revealed during the course of the campaigns) with an Adeptus Ministorum and Adeptus Mechanicus time stamp (and maybe the one or the other Inquisitorial stamp and addendum files) How will you show us the battles currently waged? At the moment I see kind of crosses on the map, which I don't know what they refer to, and an icon where I first thought these are fortresses but I think there are not that many in the end or are there that many...what are these? Does it give me the existing instances currently in play in real-time? How is the change in territory calculated? Is it just a win/loss ratio and a heat map where the results gets watered down by thousands of matches or the last 200 matches or the last 20, 10 or 5 (good luck to catch up a bad win/loss ratio if you count in all matches played since start) or is there a more sophisticated algorithm at the background which differentiate between skirmish and grand battles and dynamic in win/loss ratio rather than a bland average value? Even though there will most likely not be spectators but could we get some kind of status of individual matches (the time left, prediction of likely outcome, casualties high/medium/low) which could later serve as information points for commanders and maybe could be further used to apply strategic assets...who knows. These are just the questions about the first two points which are planned at launch! I would be very interested in detailed information for all of the points rather than just a one-liner even though it's a shifting concept or brainstorming of what could be, where people could comment on for the good or bad it would bring... But I know for sure that I will fully start playing the not before an interactive map is in place and we have campaigns and command structure integrated. I'm interested in the meta-game while having fun changing that meta-game by matches in a lobby (but with a direct connection to the map). Until then I will keep me informed about the status regularly of course but I will not grind away my motivation with mind-less lobby shooting of fear that I loose interest in it when the game starts to evolve into something bigger. I was very often asking questions about the campaigns, the maps the command structure like Warlords, Commander and War Council during Twitches, here in the forum and in private convos with you guys and most of the time it got either skipped or the answer was we cannot tell you something because it is too early in production or just a concept, but then when before we could have discussed it (if the community understands and likes the concepts or disagrees) we get this minimalist world map which we have never seen before and looks completely different from what everybody expected and then it is this what stays until launch?! I don't understand that... don't misunderstand that, as a scientist I totally understand that projects (I see game development as a project here), for which I have raised funding from third-party with a proposed grant, constantly change and very rarely will come up at the end with the expected results but rather a "thank you for your money and the trust in working on X but sorry X was a dead end as we found out here and there, however I found Y and that's soo cool it can lead us to Z and with Z we might answer the question to X" and hey I am the person who is most disappointed in not finding X in the first place cause I have done the work, written the concept etc etc....but when I am stuck on something I talk to the community about it, even people who are not experts in my field and you sometimes get some interesting answers which can lead to your solution or open up very new and exciting possibilities. So we are here to talk with you and listen, not only about the cool new stuff but also about the stuff which might not work so well or was underestimated in workload from the beginning
Overwatch is a success exclusively because the brand. Had any other developer made and released it, it would go about unheared and overshadowed by Battleborn most likely. Overwatch is prime example where it doesn't matter if the game is good/bad/repetitive AF/innovative or just reskinned TF2 with butts, its successful exclusively because of brand.
And in the same way, Eternal Crusade is the brand for 40k fans and it will be popular among those. And then theres those guys that... well as always... "WE WANT TO PAINT THE 2D MAP WHEREVER WE WANT AND NOT WHERE A WARLORD TELLS US!"
It feels a lot like TF2 with butts and Pudge to me. Which I actually really enjoy, because TF2 finally fell by the wayside for me this last yea. But the success really is driven primarily by the folks selling it here. Name brand counts for a lot.
@BrentEllison @Oveur @Orobas There seems to be a large canyon between the proposed number of unique match maps at launch (according to the road to open world plan) and the number we have been testing this year. I know it was a long time ago, but the road to open world suggested "120+ unique locations" compared to the... 5? 6? we have now. Are there a bunch of maps hidden away waiting for a big burst of testing? How many unique PvP maps can be expect to see by launch? Frankly I'm unfazed by the lack of player-chosen attack vectors at launch. That sounds very much like a never-seen-before luxury that will only offer a small amount of choice for most players anyway. I feel that making the PvP maps you enter relevant to the battle front is the most important thing. Like if you can see your faction is pushing territory in a snowy region on the world map, you enter battle into a snow map.
@Oveur The main problem, everyone rant source, is here. If you release the game in a lobby shooter only state, without global campaign evolving and dedicated map where you choose your fights, or other MMO's elements, people and press will judge it like this in the day 1 of release. And if a game has a bad rating for the first days, it start a vicious cycle and it fail. We saw it before many times... every MMOS that FAILED release but got better after (1 year after for example) never fully recovered: Warhammer Online TESO Archeage AOC SWTOR etc...
Read up that was scrapped long ago. Edit: Oveur Post: http://forum.eternalcrusade.com/threads/fewer-maps-at-launch.53868/page-4#post-1091801
