With my dreams of Stars Wars: The Old Republic looking to be on shaky ground, I was delighted to see a new trailer for the 40K MMO released. On some forums I encouraged someone to do a scene by scene breakdown of it but you know what? I'm still a fucking 40K expert here, ~20 solid years in the hobby does not go away only two years later. If anyone is qualified to have an expert opinion, its me.
0:12 - "It is a time of war." Dude, its 40K. Its been constant war for the past 40,000 fricking years. Talk about stating the obvious.
0:14 - Great Unclean One. Nasty.
0:15 - Orks. No surprise whatsoever.
0:17 - Heretics. Typically referring to chaos cultists in the 40K universe. Possibly might include mutants and renegades (i.e. those humans that reject the Emperor but have not embraced Chaos).
0:23 - Sexy looking warhound scout titans. Probably PvE content. Or cutscene.
0:24 - Ok, something meaningful. Grey Knight squad of three, two troopers led by some character. Possible hint that players control units and that less powerful beings come in larger units as a balancing mechanic, allowing an Ork player to be on par with a space marine player?
0:28 - World Eater chaos marines. Another squad of 3. More support for players are squads theory.
0:29 - Our Grey Knights again. Very nice looking graphics.
0:33 - Ork vehicles. Cutscene fodder or actual hint at player controlled vehciles?
0:36 - Great Unclean One is huge as expected for a greater daemon, but is that a little Tech Adeptus in the middle at the back of the scene? Possible "pet" class?
0:37 - Same three guys, different angle. Oh, Thunderhammer! Good choice.
0:40 - A lot to notice here. One, ranged combat appears to be a lock on mechanic like many MMOs (i.e. you choose target and your character shoots at it while you move). Two, top left looks like your character on the leftmost and the target on the inner right. Health, armour, psychic reserves as a wild guess? Third, on the bottom left we see chat channels, a series of 7-8 boxes for what I'm willing to bet is squad members, a centre bar of 12 button for hot-bar-combat, and then 5 inventory / item boxes? Fourth, upper right is minimap.
0:42 - Chaos bikers! WOOT!
0:43 - Ork Choppa again.
0:44 - There is that warhound titan again.
0:44 - I recognize a bolter, but I'm unsure if that is a space marine with crazy as mask and hood, or an inquisitor who have been known to where crazy stuff before, or a chaos cultist.
0:45 - Grey Knight versus World Eater Dreadnought? No contest! Well... Grey Knights can be tough...
0:46 - World Eater gets blown back by explosion, very nice. But is that an Imperial Guardsman on the ground?
0:47 - Weapon effects look awesome!
0:48 - Grey Knights being cheesey again!
0:49 - Imperial Guardsmen confirmed! Interesting.
0:51 - Ok... we have a human with grenade launcher, skull emblem on belt. Doesn't mean much, both Imperials and Chaos use skull iconography. I'd bet chaos in this instance though.
0:53 - Dreadnought heavy flamer. Good choice for guardsmen, not so hot (HA!) versus Space Marines. I speak from experience.
0:55 - Imperial space marine bike.
0:56 - Squad of four imperial space marines, grey armour, Grey Knights again?
0:57 - Imperial psyker letting off a warp blast. Mage analogue.
0:58 - Warhound titan AGAIN!
OK, so what do we think? It looks a lot like a high fidelity combat version of Dawn Of War and that it not a bad thing. Controlling a squad instead of a character could alleviate a lot of balance issues in terms of the individual members of each race. And it looks gorgeous.
However, conspicuous by their absence is all of the other races in the table top game: Eldar, Tau, Tyranids, Necrons to list the major players. Not to mention the sub factions in Imperial and Chaos forces such as Adeptus Soritas, Adeptus Mechanicus, Inquisition, and the too many to count Space Marine chapters (and that's just Imperial).
Overall, I'm hopeful and look forward to more news about this game.
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Agreed; looks excellent. Hope you're right about the players-are-squads thing. It would certainly make more player types viable due to the inherent imbalance between strengths of individual units in that universe.
ReplyDeleteIt just looks a bit too "WOWish" graphically to me. I would like to see it darker & grittier like the actual game literature. I look forward to hearing more details. Been involved with 40k for about 18 years here, ignoring the last two years where i haven't dabbled.
ReplyDeleteI have to disagree with you on the Grey Knights. Although the color is clearly misleading, they all bear the Black Templar shoulder emblem. At 00:23 you can see the edge of the black cross, and again at 00:28. The other thing that dissuades me from thinking they are Knights is the fact that none of them are holding Nemesis Force weapons. Grey Knights do not carry chain swords.
ReplyDeleteDoes look mighty interesting, but the release date is a bit of a disappointment. The news.mmosite.com article says expected early 2013?! I can't guarantee I'll still be kicking by then! :)
@Th0rg0d: Ah yes, you might be correct. Odd to see Black Templar in grey though. I know, I know, child chapter etc. "Grey Templars!"
ReplyDeletethe titan looked on rails to me like it passes the same point at the same time evry day which would be a disapointment for me, @ Kirith Darkblade, as to the look of warhammer and wow i have always found that wow copies warhammer not the other way round as what i saw seemed very warhammer like.
ReplyDelete