Hey all, Armyghy here (formally freakishbean on the MMORPG forums). What concerns me is about how little of the world we know. With such diversity in the 40k universe, I obviously expect big things. The world itself in an MMO is one of the biggest draws, and as we discuss combat and charcter customization/creation I feel like the world has fallen by the wayside. I'm not talking about fortifications, but more like geography, world history. Why the races of the 40k universe want this planet. It should be more then a mcguffin. We know there will be different landscapes - plains, deserts, arctic areas, and jungles. Is all this procedurally/randomly generated? How much of it is artist created? Can we expect civlian cities and urbanized areas or is it all military/industrial? Landmarks? When new worlds roll out, what can we expect from those? Can we fight over forge worlds, hive worlds, shrine worlds? Worlds colonized by other races? What about the Tyranid tunnels beneath the surfaces? Can we expect truely alien landscapes? Forests that can be burned? How about indiginous life? What do you guys want from the world?
I want big, permanent, conquerable battlefields that I can build structures on and where I can go and conquer structures that other people have built and vice versa. I want to organize an army. I want to wage a real war, destroy things and build things. I want to be allowed to get creative and put my fingers on this world and shape it. I've not got many expectations about the environment itself; you can krump anywhere. Hell, most of the time I played TF2 and Day of Defeat I preferred to play in the Orange maps, optics aren't as important as gameplay. But alright, I'd like to see some sort of trench warfare-area, where there's been firing lines dug and where one side keeps trying to unsucessfully charge the other. A moonscape of crates, mud, incessant rain and the blasted remains of forests, little towns and once-green fields.
I want everything the lore can suppourt. But personally Urban areas with vehicles destroyed lying around to be used as cover and the like, factory districts / urban districts my favourite. as well as bridge fights, long bridges with check points to capture.
We might get to fight on a forge-world at some point Though I don't think many people will want to play Urban combat 24/7 for 3 months. What I'm gathering is that they'll probably get some form of random-generated map system and then hand-craft it in all the important areas to make the gameplay impact they desire. The under-world I'm guessing is a huge system of randomly-generated caves for each instance with a ton of tyrannids in each akin to Left 4 Dead zombies.
Well I think they said something about Graham McNeill and Anthony Reynolds helping to develop a story for the game Edit: correct author
As far as story of the world... you'll hopefully be seeing more on this front soon! And as for what the world looks like, how big it is, how it's built... I'll hopefully be writing up a great newsletter on exactly that subject in January or February. January or February because it's a big undertaking, and we'd like to be solid enough that we can feel 100% confident we can deliver before I tell you all about it. It's going to be a large open world, largely procedurally generated, though guided and shaped by your level designers, and then touched up and made beautiful by your environment artists. That's the plan, anyway!
I'm with you on this. Have you played Red Orchestra 2? Particularly the map 'Bridges of Druzhina'. Loooong excruciating fight over bridges and such for the attackers. Back on topic - I can't wait for that newsletter Steven! Will it come with possible screen shots?
Nope, but i have a love for those long bridge fights ever since Nintendo 64 battle tanks tower bridge mission. I can not remember other bridges in games but i do love in fact the choke points, it was so much fun defending them and holding in timed warfare or none timed, a bridge is the ultimate choke point for my part. Just leaves one with an great sense of satisfaction and an epic moment to remember the fights one had. None can rush forward blindly and it takes pushes, trench warfare, it is beautiful! you got to time the pushes and you got to prepare for the pushes, you most know and have the skill, and be prepared to jump away to the closest cover, and you most know to not take the same damn cover as everyone else so you do not stack up. It is harmony and tactical teamwork in the entire team where all roles most be in sync in order to push. Hence why i would love to see bridge battles long ones, one can even name their strike force for example, "The iron Warriors Bridge Strikers" or something, specialized in choke point combat and are a famed strike force for knowing how to trench fight and synced teamwork. Example of a battle, two trenches, and no mans land in the middle of the bridge with some covers here and there, a few Space marines are at no mans land behind the covers. So you strategies, throw nades at the same time to make the entrenched no man lands marine to fall back, while the 2-3 havoc marines with a few other chaos marines with rocket launcher are suppressing fire, to let the tactical marines rush forward into no mans land, however this has to be done fast and at the same time as soon as the marines start running so it got to be synced. Now the skill comes in handy, when you have told everyone where to go you most push one more time, or else space marines might do something as well like you did to them, so as you have entrenched your self, you prepare for the final push, you move forward with havocs, while no mans land and rocketers keep the suppressing fire up, so the havocs rush in, and then as they are firing from middle range they got into the effective range, suppressive fire is effective, and by then let the assault marines charge forward followed with the tactical marines at no mans land to back them up. And you have had an epic teambased and skill based combat takedown.
You would like Red Orchestra 2 Araghast, me thinks. I agree on bridges being very fun choke-points. The bridges map on Space Marine was super fun to play for the first few times
