No, of course not. That would defy the point. The whole point of it would be that we would get to see the IG in all their glory, en masse. Rather than shackled to this MMO. In fact the new game could be an MMO. Not like this one though. Maybe first person, with huge battles with thousands of players versus NPC 'nids or orks or even player armies of heretics.

The idea is that everything that can't be put into this game is unleashed, artillery bombardments, infantry charges tank battles and elite drops on vital objectives. All on one battlefield. Don't say you can do that here though, you can't purely because none of the other races fight like that and you would be destroyed. There would have to be a strict chain of command and that is not going to happen with casual players in this MMO.

Hm, not sure what I want to bring up first. But, Battlefield 2 used to have a bunch of everything you stated.

Actually, it's well known that Imperial Guard armor is superior to Ork armor. In fact, they even get a save against Shootas. That's not even considering carapace armor, which is available to Veterans. They may not be as tough as Nobs with their three wounds (that's what Ogryns are for) but in a shootout they'll definitely get good ratios against Boyz.

As far as the game "not being designed for thousands of players and hundreds of tanks", this whole game would be in trouble if that was the case because that's exactly what they're advertising! If this game actually performs as advertised, we should definitely be able to field more men and tanks than you'd see in any TT game or DoW game.

We could even use the equipment gap between conscripts and Veterans to justify buffing up the Player infantry a bit: just state up front that the Player Characters are Veterans, and thus will be equipped with the more durable carapace armor and have access to a wide selection of advanced weapons. That would give them the same armor as Fire Warriors, a wider selection of weapons, a higher accuracy stat, plus both frag and krak grenades are standard-issue for Veterans.

Let me express my issue with why I think IG wouldn't work in the game (Not why I don't want them in the game, I'd really like for them to be in the game.) and therefore why they can't be in the game.

This is an MMO, the population isn't scaled towards lore. Say IG was a faction and there's 400 players defending a base. The same number of enemy players attack them. 400 CSM vs 400 IG, we all know who's gonna win that, regardless of how great a tactical geniuses the IG players are. To assume that this would not be the case is foolish. If the IG get the same amount of players as most of the other factions then the battles will be either greatly swung in favor of one side or another. So even no. is a loss for the IG, they can't compete. They charge an enemy position and each CSM brings down at least 3 men before he goes down. Even if the Ig are buffed up to the max it is possible to be for them they still can't compete with a SM, they just can't, if they could there's have been no need for the Space Marines would there. They can't win. Even if the IG have a majority then the IG will need a three times numerical superiority just to be on an even footing. If they're outnumbered they don't stand a chance.

So how to balance this, especially as the IG will probably have less players than other races, not being f2p and having a high attrition rate will probably influence this. Tanks? Well the thing about tanks is that they're expensive and can be destroyed by infantry. So say if you use one Leman Russ to replace the 30 men down you are (to use your example rasczak). Unfortunately out of those 30 men the enemy has extra 3 are equipped with anti-tank weapons and your Leman Russ is destroyed. You lose.

I do not mean commander controlled stuff that you call down on the map. I literally mean thousands of players firing macro-cannons and driving tanks. Hundreds of men simultaneously charging the enemy. As far as I am aware Battlefield 2 was not an MMO.

It was an MMO. What you're suggesting is something that transends the world of gaming we all know. A game that works for everyone and lacks almost nothing. MMO means Massive Multiplayer Online. Battlefield was an MMOFPS. With all the servers and maps and such, it was still classified as an MMO. What you could be looking for is something that the people here are this good studio are trying to make. An MMORPG that mixes in RTS elements and stratagems to the table. I think Eternal Crusade can try and fill that spot, but we're never gonna get a perfect copy until way into the future. Try playing Planetfall 2, it's what everyone likes to play around here.

Not all in one place. No way. You will not have an IG tank company storm a base alongside thousands of mechanized infantry. About a thousand people per "area", maybe two is what I've heard. Also the problem is that even if that is the direction the game takes people won't do that. They'll do the exact same thing with Space Marines. Why? Because there's nothing stopping you from doing it and you're 10 times better in combat, because no matter how much training, experience or gear a Guardsman has he cannot and will not equal an Astartes. That was the whole point of them in the first place. If the Emperor could have gotten the same results with upgunned Imperial Army troopers why would he have bothered? Casual gamers aren't going to make themselves weaker for the sake of being a Guardsman. Yes you'll probably have a few thousand dedicated IG players but compared to everyone else that'll be nothing. They will not be played enough to make it worth adding them to the game.

Hey, the number one reason why a lot of people play Guard is because they can relate to them. Bunch of average Joes just picked up from their planet and given a gun and a purpose. I think you doubt that a lot of casual people can relate to the human characters that well. Humans are probably the most played race in the history for forever in every game.

Only the Necrons and Tyranids don't quite fit for playable races in this game. The Necrons don't fit because they are mostly filled with mindless automatons and they are suppose to move very slow not to mention their god like technology(damn you resurrection orb) would make for some fun npc fights.. Same goes for the Tyranids except they are made of flesh and are not slow. obviously.. Tau could work i suppose though they would seriously get devastated in close combat.

They USED to be mindless robot people. Now some have personality thanks to a new Codex and shattering their gods.