Just wondering why they decided to go with Hawks instead of Warp Spiders?

Both could be "jumpy" assault troops but Warp Spiders could have brought a unique twist to it with actual teleportation abilities. After all they did want an asymmetrical balance to the game. I can only imagine that Hawks are probably going to function pretty much how Assaults do now with jumps(maybe not the slam and whatnot but probably just leaps). I can't imagine they will constantly fly in the game but maybe I'm wrong.

Would you guys have preferred Spiders to Hawks or are you way more pumped for Hawks?

I think they mentioned it in one of the early twitch streams, Miguel era, that the Spiders, while really freaking cool, just can't be implemented properly how they want to. Sort of like flamethrowers. Something we might see in the future but it's on the backburner.

I think Warp Spiders will eventually be an elite or hero unit - they're kind of the creme de la creme of Eldar aspect warriors: plus in an FPS game, the ability to instantly teleport is kind of insane, let alone the ability to do so on point capture-style maps.

W40k is insane though, so we need a little Warp Spider insanity eventually - but I can understand their desire to, for now, stick to units that don't teleport behind you mid-gunfight: people's minds will be blown enough by the 40K combat initially.

Then again, Unreal Tournament used teleporters since the 90's and it enabled all manner of fun trickery - but wasn't game-breaking or anything. They have lots to do though - I forgive them for not having WS at launch

Hehehe heh, backburner....

I guess you answered your own question, Dreadspectre. Spiders would indeed bring 'a unique twist' to the game - the problem is, it'd be a bit too unique at the moment. Notice how they didn't limit Eldar classes to standard four but promised all that were in any way viable (so no guardians because of the power gap, and Spears for their reliance on a specific vehicle). I'd assume it was never a question of 'either or' - Hawks will be relatively easy to implement, even if they'll become the most unique unit in the whole game (with the exception of Scorpions perhaps).

Spiders on the other hand would be too time consuming to design, implement, test, and modify based upon feedback to be implemented at launch. They need more work and attention and that's why they'll be a bit late to the party.

It's the technical side of things. There's a big difference between jumping into a glide, and outright blinking out of existence, teleporting, and reforming x distance away without clipping into terrain.

+1 Strictly a coding pain in the butt. Hawk will take less coding time to get the game to launch. Spiders will totally be in later down the line, when they have the time to code for "X" amount of crazy people teleporting around shredding Mon-Keigh.

They will come eventually. The day they do, I may feel slightly bad for the other races, but not really lol.

For those of you who are coders, what exactly is the difficulty involved in pathing/movement via teleportation? I'm learning C# in unity and it seems to me it would just be as simple as making the spider temporarily invisible and invincible for the fraction of a second it takes to teleport and increasing player movement to near light speed(I use the term loosely). I don't see why collision or clipping would be an issue if you simply make the spider unhittable rather than intangible entirely(removing collision/hit box)? I'm a coding noob tho so enlighten me.

I too have a feeling they will be added at a later date as an elite unit and that leaving them out of alpha is simply a result of them establishing the basics first, which I applaud them for.

Everytime you ask for a warp spider, a level designer dies.

Jokes and programming issues aside, the ability go trough walls is freaking insane, removes the defender advantage because you are able to flank them no matter where they are positioned and it will even let you go to places you are not supposed to be... I guess we will eventually get warp spiders, hell they are as popular as warlocks, but I'm not sure we will get the warp spiders we want because it can break the game.