We will not only be stuck on Arkhona, this is strong potential for the next major expansion of content and to mix up both PVE and PVP.

If not I imagine there is more likelihood of Necrons being solely PVE from how the Nids are.

Like I said my above suggestion may appeal to the business side of BE (Via Heroic Class shop purchases) and take the middle road for all expectations I've seen in this thread.

Game framework in place, allows Necrons to be scary as hell in rarity, and opens up a faction that any player from any faction can jump into for limited periods of time just to cause havoc against everyone...the perfect misery faction lol.

Oh yeah forgot to say the Necrons as a Hybrid faction made of Hero Classes only would help prevent longterm attrition of one or several of the existing factions if another fulltime faction is introduced (Most likely the least winning/lower pop faction)...so another bonus of the hybrid system assuming the heroic class cooldown and events aren't 24/7

Actually.... that sounds EXACTLY like multiplayer FPS games.

But in all seriousness, here is my take on things:

You are right, a perfect reenactment of Necron fighting doctrine won't be possible. But the same can be said for Space Marines. They are supposed to be the elite of the elite, extremely efficient and near fearless in combat (almost robot-like). Having Marines running and jumping around on a battlefield randomly fighting enemies isn't exactly lore friendly either. It's just a compromise that has to be done.

Also, the phalanxes of uncaring robots you describe, is mostly how the mindless Necron Warriors fight. And I absolutely am against them being playable. On the other hand, I can definitely see the playable classes, that do have individuality, fight a lot more cautiously and intelligently, not the least because they realize that the reanimation protocols are not perfect.

Actually Immortals and Cryptek are about MEQ. And while a Preatorian and a Destroyer are a bit tougher, I am sure nobody will be too sad if they get toned down a bit for balance's sake (I am basing this on the LSM/Necron list I made in a different thread: http://forum.eternalcrusade.com/thr...r-5th-founders-or-no.20904/page-7#post-408122).

The same goes for the weapons. I don't see them as being so overpowered that they couldn't be implemented. Even in TT rules they are similar. The only thing differentiating a Boltgun from a Gauss Flayer is the "Gauss" special rule.

Well, as I explained in this thread, I actually think the C'tan were the worst part of the old codex - in so many ways. They were just handled horribly in the old codex. Both on the level of lore consistency and rules-lore translation.

First of all, they had the exact same motivation and means (hordes of mindless servants) as the Tyranids - extremely unoriginal.

Second, their story was completely bungled and incoherent. Did they win against the new Chaos threat that emerged after they defeated the Old Ones? Didn't they fight amongst themselves and nearly eradicated themselves? Didn't they consume most life in the galaxy, which forced them to go dormant because there was nothing left to consume?

And then... super powerful Star Gods on par with Chaos Gods as a playable unit on the tabletop??? WTF?

Yeah, the old codex was bad.

And now for the real irony:

Something all the young'uns in the community don't realize because they haven't been playing the game that long, is that the REAL original rules and fluff actually predate the 3rd edition Necron codex from 2002. The original fluff and rules were published in White Dwarf Magazine in 1998 and 1999.
And guess what? No C'tan! The Necrons were an ancient race that transformed themselves into machines but had to go dormant because of a galaxy-wide apocalypse. Oh yeah, and the Necron Lord looked like a Pharaoh (So much for Tomb Kings in space LOL).

The Necrons haven't gotten any part of their souls back. They are completely soulless. What they gained from rebelling against the C'tan is their freedom and independence.
As for their motivations? They are varied, just like it should be for a race made up of many individuals.
Most dynasties want to reconquer their once glorious kingdoms. Others are more preoccupied with their new state as sentient machines and want to reverse it (remember this is the first time since biotransference that the Necrons are actually free, which includes the freedom of thinking about their current state). And others again are very satisfied with their new state, since it was what they had always wanted from the beginnings of their race.

In any case the possibilities are vast. And that's what makes the new codex so great. You are free to create your own dynasty, with it's own characters and motivations. That's not silly, that's great!

Seeing as Sisters of Battle and IG won't make it as the first expansion race/faction (they've said as much, which rules out any splinter groups from each faction announced,) it's most likely up to the Tau and Necron.

Tau gives more player choice to EC as the next instituted race. Necron added as PVE when this happens could be set as a primer to allow them to be built up first then eventually released as a PC race.

I fear that once a race goes npc they will stay npc...i dont see playable tyranids ever happening in EC,
if we need another race to be made npc I strongly suggest to the Devs they pick one or more of the minor races from the 40K universe that are almost never fielded by players...not a race that his its own codexs

I dont see anyone suggesting the Tau as an NPC race, and they would work just as well as Necrons...so why single out any playable race for such a role?

I would point out that with expected ranges for rifles/bolters to be around 100m or less, and heavy weapons to be out probably no more then 150-200m a faction with as fewer possible melee classses would be ill equiped to work as well as another race which does have both ranged and melee classes,

kroot are bad at melee, kroot hounds are good at melee but the hounds without the kroot doesnt make sense, and a playable kroot hound might not be as appealing as a character

Tau battlesuits are large and would probably fall into the Elite bracket like TDA's thus costing higher RP to spawn and having CD's before respawning, not to mention they would be easier targets due to ther size

While I do realize that there can never really be combat that's completely true to the lore, I will say that it's much more important for a possible playable necron race to have changes than a space marine faction. The random chaos of battle is just simply much more fitting for them than necrons. I also realize that compromises will need to be made, and that's really what I can't figure out. What should and shouldn't happen to make a playable necron race make sense? I pointed out that lore wise (or at least before they changed it) necrons tore ass. This is another thing that would have to be considered in order to make them playable. Solving the issue might be up for some debate.

I will agree that having the literal Nightbringer on the field was a bit ridiculous, but they really could have written their units in better than that. Both attempts at it so far have been complete hand-waves.

But they didn't. Every race in the universe wants to eradicate every other race in some form or fashion aside from maybe the tau. Necrons were actually sort've the opposite of the tyranids in almost every way. Tyranids thrive where organic life is and feed off of it; Necrons just hate organic life and want to purge it all from existence.

I don't know if I would call it incoherent, just not completely fully realized. For instance: it is stated that the Necrons basically eradicated everything and then went to sleep. It is not specifically stated that they were asleep when the chaos gods rose to power, but if you use context clues you find out that they were. (The C'tan went to sleep with them, by the way.) That is, if you want to use the human events theory as the creation of the chaos gods. Otherwise nobody really knows for sure when the chaos gods emerged. I feel that the C'tan suffered specifically from the same thing. There just wasn't enough written about them. What was written for them was cool, dark, and mysterious, and there was honestly no good reason to get rid of their presence.

I appreciate the history lesson. Really, I do, but I don't see what it does for your arguement. They definitely were tomb kings in space at that stage, and that was it. They then grew into their own thing with the third edition codex. It stayed that way for 9 years, and then got flipped on its head. That's why we're here today debating this.

Well whatever you want to call it, be it a soul or free will, my point still stands. Most of them still don't really have free will. Only the higher ranking royalty have this ability. It seems pointless to do many of these things when you and a few close friends are the only ones with sentience. They have no culture left, no people to rule, and no gods to serve. All they have is their army. So what else is there to do? I guess you can have a few guys who are insane or want their real body back, but what's the point if they are one of a handful of necrons that might achieve that? So they can be literally forever alone?

They weren't completely subservient to the gods before either. The C'tan gave their higher ranking soldiers some free will to play around with because it was their job to make individual tactical decisions. They don't all share one mind like the tyranids, they just served their gods like followers of the chaos gods do. The warriors just happened to be drones. In this instance they have much more purpose, and are therefore much more focused on war. I'm not completely disagreeing with you however. They did need a little more than just that. So I can see bringing in the dynasty thing as well, but I wouldn't make it as prevalent. Star gods fight with each other too. The lore could have been fleshed out that way, without tearing out a portion that many people loved. Otherwise I guess it just comes down to preference. Those who never liked the C'tan in the first place got their wish, and those who liked them got shafted pretty hard.

From a development perspective, it isn't better to get it over with sooner rather than later, that would make the game poorer by including everything from the outset. It's why DLC has come to the fore in recent years, brings people and money in once new games and boredom set in. As well as giving developers time to put out a worthwhile game and then adding additional content over time, once original sales and feedback has come through.

As I said in my post, I totally understand why everyone is wanting their races involved, however, the point remains that people don't need quite so many threads about in it the forums, if this will be addressed it will arrive at a later date. I haven't seen many tyranid players wondering whether they will become a playable faction, or that they have fears they have been reduced to an non playable status.
I personally don't see Necrons arriving as playable characters for some time, simply because from a gaming perspective they perfectly fit the role of player vs environment, just as the Tyranids do. They both have similar objectives in that everyone is their enemy, the same cannot apply to the forces of the Imperium, who if added, would have to fight each other, which suggests they will also not be arriving for some time.

If there was no PvE then people would complain, as they already do, about not enjoying the game as PvP. Keeping it only Tyranids means that eventually the gameplay will dull over time. Adding Necrons as a secondary PvE race adds a new twist to gameplay and story. Sure it would be nice for them to be playable, but at least they are included in the game.

Except, I forsee the ability to turn ANY PVP race into a PVE one. Think about it...it adds variety to the enemies you might have to fight. You could keep 'Nids as the primary overworld enemy of NPC but add some variation to the underworld. I'm pretty sure Chaos would like to take shots at Space Marines, etc, etc, in the underworlds.

The problem with the minor races is that they most likely won't have a decent reason to be here. They're also low profile...people would want to fight another large army type that is threatening. Necron are it. I never said other races couldn't be NPC...but Necron fill that role a hell of a lot better then almost anything else besides the 'nids.

Just to note, most races (not all,) like the Necron are on the list of possible inclusion one day as an PVP race.

I would prefer they make it as PVE first, though. How scary would that be if you're expecting 'Nids (and how they work AI wise,) when a line of Immortals or something breaks into your lines with a different strategy.

Who said Tau need melee? It's an FPS...even if they have weak as hell melee they're fine...it's just another playstyle.

well Necrons were actually mentioned in the very early stages as a potential PvP race along with other factions,

the Devs have said that melee is a big part of the EC experience, hence the fact you CAN run out of ammo,

fluff wise any race or creature can be given a reason for being on arkhona..they ae already bending credulity to have the 4 PvP factions on one world as it is, more is hardly going to make much of a difference,

yes marketing might make DLC a great idea, but as yet we've been told that we buy the game and we play it, no more cash required..and that existing players at the time of a new factions inclucion will get a FREE character transfer to the new faction..so they are already more or less saying we wont be paying for it,


and there were member who complained biterly about not being able to play tryanid but that was months ago, theyve probably gotten used to it, not so advocates for the other races/faction who still have hope of not having their favorites turned into a "poor mans" enemy in a PvP game,

we all know AI is easily defeatable given its limited options and routines, thats why PvP enemies are always more challenging then a PvE enemy

and since I seem to be one of the advocates for necrons now days I'd like to add for the record I'd much prefer DE to be added, but i've seen enough polls to see that the real chance to inclusion goes to tau or necron, and of those two I picked Necron