Eternal Crusade (WH40K MMO)

[Rahdulan]

I thought they stated that once you purchesed the game, you gain access to all four faction

I think it's essentially going to be B2P like Guild Wars games, but with opportunity to buy individual chunks of the game as you please.

 

[Dwemer Puzzle Box]

No Thousand Sons or Dark Eldar so I could psi-bolt the shit out of everyone or ERP as Hesperax?
Fuck you.

 

[Dr Tomo]

I thought they stated that once you purchesed the game, you gain access to all four faction

Think if you look into the first post I made regarding the interview the lead dev talks about the MT store where you not only can by "awesome" execution moves, but also race packs. It would make sense as not everyone is going to drop $60 and you can get more $ out of people by charging them $20 per faction or at least get a chunk of money out by charging them $15. I know for Guild Wars 2 I am still waiting for the game to hit my price range before I spend $ and so charging $15 for a race I like would get me to try the game out.

 

[Space Satan]

I would surely prefer race pack approach. Because I know that in nocase I will ever touch eldar. So each player would buy whatever he want.

 

[muds_animal_friend]

Isn't Black Library just as faggy and idiotic when it comes to WH40k fluff?

BL is more of a mixed bag. The tabletop game codexes regularly mutilate their own their own fluff in favor of whatever faction GW is whoring at the time so much of the butchery is already done before it reaches spin-off material . And then there's Dan Abnett's hugely popular 'looks like a bit like a 40k duck, waddles a bit like a 40k duck, but quacks like a generic sci-fi take on the universe' to muddy the waters further. You just have to know how to pick and choose your authors.

 

[Space Satan]

"The more I watch it the more I just see Space Marine, and that is kinda really disappointing.
Space Marine in an MMO would be awful. Yep, back then it looked a lot like Space Marine. Part of coming into the development process with us is going to rely on you guys trusting that when we show you something and say "it's not done", it's really NOT DONE."

It's a hard realization hard to come around to, because almost every other game ever only shows players something when it's 95% finalized. I'd say the combat you saw there is maybe... 40% finalized? The point of pre-alpha is to test things and prove things, so that's what we've been doing.
Things we'll be adding soon (or are adding now):

• More classes
• Drivable Vehicles
• A seamless open world
• A cover system (think in the direction of BF4)
• New ways for Jump Pack classes to move around

I'm confident you'll think our next video looks quite different from Space Marine. Releasing this video is a great way for us to show you where we're at now (er, where we were at... then?), but that doesn't change where we want to go in the future.

Could you like, Change the combat prototype to make it not Space Marine.

We already have! The process of making game is constantly taking steps towards what you want the game to be. When we had nothing, our first steps were to make what you saw. Now that we had that, our next steps are to go further in the direction of Eternal Crusade.
Originally, we created a combat prototype with the basic core of our game. Once it was working, we packaged it up nicely so we could show it off.
Then we took it all apart so we could tweak it again.
Now we've tweaked it and added a lot of interesting things, but there's still a ton of rough edges.

That's where we're at right now- the game is a lot more interesting and complex than it was, but it's not nearly as nice looking. Someday soon we'll start packaging it all up again so we can put out another video, and you'll see some huge changes.

Melee - blocking is in the game right now. I thought Space Marine was pretty fun but we need some more depth to melee to support an RPG system.

 

[Caim]

Craftworlds will include Biel-tan, Iyanden, Saim-Hann and Ulthwé. Confirmed classes are Swooping Hawks, Striking Scorpions, Dark Reapers, Guardians, Wraithguard, Warlocks and Farseers.

 

[Jaedar]

Sounds like a proper assortment of rainbow eldar.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Props for striking scorpions. No fire dragons though

 

[Caim]

Props for striking scorpions. No fire dragons though

Those are the classes confirmed so far. There still is hope for the Fire Dragons.

 

[Space Satan]

• Well actually we are thinking about AI distributed on other servers already - we are running tests for it and there are a few clear advantages to do that - but also, a lot of the logic needs to be duplicated to do that, the biggest problem, AI is dumb, it needs a lot of information and a lot of knowledge about the surroundings to work effective, and that again needs a lot of memory and processing power. Now it is important to share those resources, especially when we want to have a lot of AI.
  So what I am trying to say is that one process for one npc would be very ineffective cost wise - so if we go headless then one server will have to take care of a large amount of AI at the same time.
  As for now we are only in the planning an prototyping phase for these ideas, but in general, the OP has a valid idea, and we might end up doing it.
• we are not planning to release the game on 32bit operating systems! that alone means more RAM possible, the CPU part is mostly an engine question, and the engine we are planning to use makes pretty good use of multiple cores and fully uses DX11.
  this is what we know for sure at this point!
• Now for the concern before it gets out of hand - first of all we will have beta and lots of questionnaires before we launch, so we can have a good idea on what players want to play - also the founders pack will give us a hint of what players like to play. Now if we really hit a faction which is more than 50% overall of all players, we still have the free-to-play Orcs which are not accounted for. And lets say even then we realize that like you said e.g. the SM are way over the estimated counts, we can and will make sure also on registration that players decide for other factions. Now this has not been nailed down, and I am just thinking out loud here - but I can imagine e.g. some bonuses for factions who are lower in numbers until they reach a certain balance. Finally also locking a faction is an option, but like always, I doubt punishing players is the right way
• Personally, I really like suppression systems and I think it's very well implemented in BF4. It's just enough to be effective, but not so intense as to really feel like it's taking things away from you and it gives a real purpose to the Support class.
  For Eternal Crusade we are investigating a suppression system for weapons like the Heavy Bolter (there's a task on it in the queue right now) for exactly the reasons some of you said - it's difficult for a heavy weapon in a shooter to have a place that's either too weak or too powerful without some sort of extra mechanic. Suppression fits pretty well with the notion of pinning in 40k, and it may well be that some factions/classes are better at resisting it than others.
  However, when I say investigating I do mean investigating! We're going to try it out with a few different effects and see if it makes the game better. And I thinks it's pretty likely that investigating will still be ongoing when you guys get your hands on the game. (there's cover and you can lean over it to shoot, etc., but there's no cover snapping.)
• Skill is important (since you do actually have to aim at your targets and time your strikes), but how you specialize and what that means in a given circumstance against what the enemy has brought to the field is pretty key. It's not really that we want to limit "twitch" skills, it's more that we are planning on expanding the use of other gameplay elements.
• For walls & things like that in fixed positions there's definitely the possibility for different levels of them, although we haven't gotten to spend too much time on that feature yet. I'll let you know when we're further ahead on that.
  For mines, yes, there are some possibilities for limiting them and actually you guys have given me some good ideas to investigate. However, we are planning to approach this subject cautiously because if handled poorly then anti-personnel mines could actually prevent players from having a proper 40k experience. I'm wary of anything that can easily kill a lot of people without them even seeing their foe (or their foe getting to watch them die for that matter)! It doesn't mean we won't do it, just that we're going to be careful!
  Dual lightning claws, mirrorswords & chainsabres are top of the list for melee weapons, dual pistols (& bolters for a few badasses) for ranged. But basically we're starting with the most iconic poses first and working our way through, so the dual stuff is going to be added after two handed weapons, pistol/melee combos, heavy guns, etc. That's why I can't 100% guarantee it for launch.
• Now for the bad news - Astartes falling to Chaos are not in the launch plans. Personally, I think it could be an awesome mechanic but it's not in the cards for the moment. We're going to focus on building a sense of belonging first - remember that even Chaos Space Marines need friends!
• Jump Packs in Transports - At the moment, we're looking at taking the logical approach and saying that you can get in a (for example) Rhino with a jump pack, but it might take up more seats or have other consequences.
• Building on the battlefield, continued - Player-built walls are a particularly tricky issue, because in addition to the problems of making walls look good on any type of geometry, if people can build walls anywhere then it's not too hard for them to do something that really screws up the gameplay (or griefs their own faction). It's not impossible to address, we just might not pick this battle for now.
• Mines - These are tricky as well, especially in an open-world environment with thousands of players since it's no small loss for any one character to just throw mines out anywhere and thus the world could be blanketed with them! Of course, there are options here as well and we're investigating them. For example, an upgradeable option to put a minefield around a stronghold could make for some pretty cool gameplay. We'll see!
• Recoil - I like the feel of recoil quite a lot, we're planning on putting it in the game. Of course, Space Marines shouldn't have much, if any, recoil on their bolters, since the power armour should take care of most of that, but the bigger weapons have the possibility and many Ork weapons should jerk like crazy (while at the same time packing a huge punch).
• Dual-Wielding - There will be dual wielding for certain types of melee and ranged weapons, if not at launch then slightly after.
• Status Effects - There will definitely be status effects in the game, including poison, although we don't want to treat them like debuffs in typical MMORPGs. Every status effect will be of a relatively short duration but very intense and it should be very rare that you have more than one at a time. Think of a fire DoT in normal MMOs and compare it to being on fire in a game like Left 4 Dead. We're going for something more like the latter.
• Armour Penetration - Yep, this is pretty important. We're experimenting with different ways to do it (destroying armour faster than normal? doing damage through armour?), but it is a major component of the combat system.
• We're working on the overpowered rolling problem right now by the way. As usual it's a little too good
• Personally, getting stuck behind rubble drives me berserk so we're going to be very careful about this! Keep in mind that we're not trying to guide you through levels or anything - this is a full open-world . This means we pretty much have to have a no invisible walls policy and have to make sure the game is comfortable to move around. If a rolling/vaulting policy is causing problems, we'll have to either fix the world or fix the movement mechanics.
• That said: Each class will have a roughly 50% chance to beat each other class, all else being equal. Now... if you're a free Ork and you start charging across the 50 meters between you and a devastator, you no longer have a 50% chance of winning. You probably have a 0% chance of winning. Similarly, if you're a lone devastator and you let a free ork sneak right up behind you with his choppa, you are probably in deep trouble.
• We won't have any ability bars, but you'll have all the usual trappings of shooter games. Boltguns, Chainswords, Medpacks, Grenades, alternate ammunition, and more. Sprinting, jumping with your jump-pack, climbing over cover, etc. You should always feel like you have multiple choices for how you can engage with your enemies and the space around you. Your character build will be heavily dependent on which passive improvements (currently called Accessories) you equip, and what equipment you take with you- so there's plenty of tweaking there. As far as additional active abilities, you may have one or two- generally, though, we're thinking that if you equip something like "Furious Charge*" that's not a completely new ability that you activate- it's just an addon that modifies the way you attack while sprinting, for example.
• Range/Heavy weapons should be usable to block incoming melee attacks (kicks and weapon butt attacks should also be used to attack/counter-attack if you don't have access to your Combat Knife).
• Kill Counter should be there only if it is useful (i.e. some Rage attacks could be possible only when a certain amount of kills is reached). But as a simple stat, it will probably and sadly be nested in a Stats Screen (I want to leave as much space for the important HUD elements as possible).
• About Transparent Character/1st person views in specific occasions... I sadly don't know the answer to that. I think we gonna try to do as much as possible with camera angle switch when needed, etc. and I think that your character will go transparent when needed (which could be only in certain tight environments, etc.).
• Color-wise, we will probably have default colors per factions but let the player choose all-red for enemies like said prevously in this thread. We will try to use different shapes and icons to reinforce the distinction. An additional thing we are looking into, is the ability to customize the colors used as well (mainly to allow colorblind people to pick colors they can distinguish).

We were working on a big milestone with a 60-man playtest on Wednesday with everyone available from the company. Even though we're still in pre-production the network results were very promising and we've still got plenty more optimization we can do.

Before getting to the rest of the questions, I'll say this again about jumping - if you feel like you really need jumping when playing the game we will have failed. As a non-jump pack character you've got a quick movement action you can hit at any time and we're implementing vaulting and climbing to get you around the environments. There should be no circumstances where it feels like a little bit of geometry blocks your progress and achieving this is the responsibility of both the game design providing great geonav tools and the level design establishing rules to make your movement around the world as fluid as possible.
- Minion NPCs & Defense -
You guys have pretty much hit the nail on the head. Minion NPCs and automated defenses are there to provide a minimum level of defense. They slow down ghost capping, prop up small groups of defenders, and are pretty much irrelevant in large-scale conflicts.
Of course, different types of bases have different levels of automated defenses, and we're looking at ways to let players invest in better defenses. We'd like this to include larger defensive structures that should be built before the conflict (walls, minefields, etc.), but you should also be able to spend requisition on defense when the enemy is at the gate, just like you spend requisition to buy attack vehicles when assaulting a stronghold. This could include turrets, repairing walls, etc.
- Power Weapons -
Right now we've scoped for the basic ones at launch (Swords, Mauls & Axes), but there's plenty of room to expand! We're planning for the Eldar have a few of the more distinctive power weapons as well.
- Weapon Degradation -
We're not planning a traditional equipment degradation system where it's just a tax on using your weapon, but Michael's looking into some options for honing your weapons down particular paths. Poke him about it some time!
- Psyker Classes -
At the moment, we're planning for all factions to have access to Psykers, it's just a question of how common they are (primary vs elite/hero class). You can probably guess which factions we're thinking should have more regular access than others!
- Leader Executions -
Yeah, that's pretty awesome. What I've been thinking up until now is that certain classes (Chaplains, particular types of Sorcerers, etc) would have some group-affecting abilities tied into executions, but we could potentially have anybody be able to spec into it if they wanted to play more of a leader type character. I'll make note of it! I love the idea of everyone gathering around a leader as they execute someone.
- Command Powers -
The plan is for Commanders to have access to extra strategic deployables based on controlling particular territory, spending from the Council, etc. This includes (but is not limited to) air strikes, long-range artillery, supply drops, etc. So for example, if you control a big gun in a region, a Commander is able to call down some fire on another target in that region (with an associated resource cost and cooldown).
The plan is for there to be a lot more localized powers than global powers in order to keep the fight for any given region interesting and prevent steamrolling across the whole planet, but a faction still needs to have the option of spending resources to make a concerted effort in order to muscle into a new space.
-Character size -
we've been adjusting both the size of the character and the camera as well. It's a bit less disruptive than it was in the footage now, but it's still a continual work in progress.
-Rock, Paper, Scissors -
We don't intend for factions to have this sort of strategic relationship between each other, factions should be balanced but better in different situations. At the moment for the Space Marine and Chaos Space Marine classes we're also not quite going RPS-style, instead it's more about context and situation. It's not just Assault beats Heavy, instead a Devastator will likely kill a Raptor at long range (depending on his weapon), but a Raptor will likely kill a Devastator up close. Thus deploying Devastators counters Raptors in open terrain, but Raptors counter Devastators better than anyone else if there's a way for them to get close without exposure, either by coming at them from another angle or rushing them forward in a transport.
-Heavy Bolters, etc. -
We don't have these in the game yet, but they're on their way!
-Engagement Range -
This is something we're feeling out right now. In fact, Steven put together a nice measuring stick on our test map so we can try it out! Expect open-world ranges to be quite far, and engagements inside strongholds to be much smaller, like in any game of this type. Like in the tabletop, if you expect to footslog your assault units across an open field for too long, they'll die, so you need to pick the right tools for the situation and make smart use of metal boxes.
-Building defenses -
Strongholds, outposts, etc., are in predetermined places, but they may have defensive elements and upgrade options - this is still under development. As for fortifications you can create anywhere, it's unlikely you'll be able to build walls out in the world, but turrets are something we're looking into (no promises yet).

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

Shit, this is actually starting to look good.

Too good. What's the catch?

 

[Excidium]

The catch is the game will be released lacking 80% of the systems to be implemented on future mega patches but lack of enthusiasm from D1Pers and silence on the dev front will make it leak playerbase until they are forced to revamp it as a full F2P arena shooter.

 

[Space Satan]

Prealpha video release

 

[Space Satan]

• No magic roll or dice will decide if you have hit or not - that's your skill in aiming with mouse or keypad - though you have a factor accuracy of the gun and yourself ofc in there - e.g. a pistol is less accurate than a bolter gun. but besides that - you will see a hit on the enemy, he will loose health! simple as that.
  the 'rate' of hits i was talking about is purely for guns which have a very high amount of shots per second - but even there we do a collision check to see if you hit or not, actually we are currently even discussing to do a check for every single bullet, even though we want to pack the information into 1 network message with e.g. 5 bullets, rather than sending 5 messages, one for each bullet.
  in case of optimizations we are currently also discussing in cutting down on those collision tests per round in a pack of 5 and do only 1 collision test for a certain area - this might be cheaper on the cpu of the servers - but we have to test that.
  AoE will work simple, everyone in an area will get hit, your armor may weaken the hit, but not completely remove it - though I guess best to ask Micheal about this.
• I think the best way to describe the difference to a shooter is: in a shooter you have a randomized vector of where the projectile is fired to, e.g. a deviation from the perfect line of where your crosshair is aiming at. we plan to do that 'deviation' on the server after the shot is sent, that way we don't need to send 5 shots, but only 1. The result will not be exactly the same, but it should look the same and feel the same - and that's what we aim for. on paper it is exactly the same, you can do the math if you want the only difference on paper is that instead of doing random shots and checking each shot for a hit, we do check one shot for a hit and ranomize the result.
• for a normal bolter gun, because it's currently only firing 4 bullets a second every bullet gets checked against collision.
  for a higher rate shooting gun, e.g. a minigun (storm bolter, or anything that shoots faster), we group the shots.
  we still only want to send 4 network packages to the server and back, so we say. e.g. 20 shots per second are 5 shots per packet. now at the moment we do for those 5 shots 1 collision check (very expensive, again a reason why we can't do exactly what an FPS does) and check "did we hit or not". If we did, we check how good did we hit, distance from the middle of the body to the silhouette - and if we are e.g. in the 25% of the middle, all 5 bullets hit, if we are in the 25% of the outer only e.g. 2 bullets hit - but never the less, it will look to you as if it's a normal spread of the bullets caused by the gun. basically the same thing as in a shooter, because e.g. a minigun has is not a sniper rifle, we don't need to be as accurate with it. If you do the math, we are calculating the same way, just instead of randomizing the direction of the bullet, we randomize the hit
• Yes, it's basically a third person planetside 2, with elements of bolderlands 2 and elements of spacemarine.
• What I am saying is, that every time you click or press the fire button we do a raycast - check against real collision on the server, and determine that way if it's a hit or not.
  now in the example where we do this for 5 bullets at the same time we check e.g. how close you are to the middle of the character (full hit) and reduce the amount of bullets really hit if you e.g. only at the border of the silhouette of the character. so if e.g. you only barely hit in the collision detection, then out of the 5 bullets probably only 1 or 2 hit in the calculation - this can be described as spread of the gun.
  And here you can see, this is not a FPS, we don't do this for every bullet, because I guess you can imagine how much network traffic this would cause if you have a combat of 500vs500 players!!!
  so simple math should be able to tell you that while an FPS has usually a max of 64 players, how much more they are doing to make this work, and how much less they allow for leeway or higher latency.
• When it comes to gameplay effects, at the moment there is an affect on your accuracy/scatter when you're getting hit, but we're feeling it out at the moment. Big hits like missiles or melee attacks can stagger, slow, or knock you off your feet (as calculated through a force vs. stability system), but we're going to be very cautious about applying high force values to automatic weapons
• ==Psyker Powers==
  Still no ability bars, but you will be able to take a small set of abilities to the field and switch between them (most likely using either the weapon switch or fire mode switch key). At the moment, the plan is to replace firing pistols with firing psychic powers so you can still have a force weapon in the other hand at the same time. You could still bring a pistol to the field and switch to that if you want, of course.
• =="Ruses"==
  Nothing's stopping you from faking the enemy out any way you can, but when it comes to your ability to trick them about the size of your force a lot will depend on the type of information we automatically give to the players. This is something we'll keep in mind as we develop those systems, so thanks for the reminder
• ==Armour Crunching==
  Since all the factions wear armour, you can imagine that it's pretty important to our FX artists & audio designers. Even right now we have chainsword-on-armour SFX in the game, and we intend to take it further as the game progresses. Mathieu Lavoie's our audio guy if you want to poke him about it!
• ==Repairing, etc.==
  Bridges, gates, etc., are the sorts of objects that are most likely to be destructible in Eternal Crusade. At the moment we're thinking of tying in their repair to a cross-territory "Supply" system, whereby major Strongholds are linked to nearby Depots. Cut off the supply by either conquering or disabling them, and the Strongholds have a whole host of problems. On the other hand, a Stronghold with lots of linked Depots have special benefits. We're going to be experimenting with this system in-game with our first multi-territory milestone, but for right now we're focusing on getting a good experience out of of a bunch of guys from one base driving over to assault an adjacent base (which is a bit simpler).
• ==Sub-Faction Abilities==
  It always bugs me in dungeon crawlers when there are four classes and four races, and there's an obvious Mage race, an obvious Fighter race, etc. The pressure is even greater for a PvP game, so I totally hear you when you say it would be lame if you felt like you had to be a Blood Angel to be an Assault marine. We're going to allow for unique weapons/accessories/statlines for the sub-factions, but we want to do everything we can to make sure they don't create this situation. Having very situation-specific powers is one potentially good solution.
  The plan, of course, is for you guys to be involved in giving us feedback for this once you get your hands on the game!
• ==Chaos Gods==
  At launch, the Chaos Gods will be present, but not out in full force. That's going to be coming with time. Instead, expect to see the Chaos Gods flavour your builds with accessories. These should be major accessories though, so we fully expect you to be able to call this a "Nurgle" build, or a "Khorne" build, etc. You're just not devoting yourself yet, so you can switch it out at will.
  Psychic powers are generally pretty tied to specific gods, of course. This lets us give them more flavour, but is also handy for balancing purposes.
• == Combat, Combat, Combat ==
  The Eternal Crusade team is devoted to a great combat experience. In fact, I think it's pretty unlikely that there has ever been more visceral combat done in the MMO space before. We have more environmental interaction than Space Marine (vaulting over cover, wall-jumps, etc.) and we're really targeting that third-person shooter experience.
• A free ork will not be "less powerful" than a paying player- and certainly not 1/5th of a paying player. Free orks will not be as flexible as other players, but within their specialty they will be strong. For example, if a boy with a choppa runs at a Devastator across an open field, yes he'll be blown to smithereens! But if that same boy pops around a corner right behind a Devastator, he'll probably cleave the marine in two.
  
  One of the reasons we don't want to offer more F2P classes/races is because we don't identify as a free-to-play game. We're a premium game- like Guild Wars 2! Our DNA is a premium experience, and if you buy the box you should have a fantastic play experience. But we also want to offer a way for potentially interested players to try the game without buying it. Since Orcs are the least popular faction on common polls (some on these forums!), AND since they're a horde army, it makes perfect sense to us to offer them as the "limited free-to-play" option.
  
  As a couple of other posters have mentioned, we have some mechanics designed to help combat massive faction imbalances, but we also aren't expecting or relying on our factions being balanced- we know they won't be. As such, we're designing a PvP game that's fun even when your faction is outnumbered. Your goals aren't about conquering the world, but about claiming a small number of focused objectives in order to obtain lasting benefits.
  

 

[Night Goat]

That actually sounds like it might be good...but hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.

 

[Space Satan]

"A small mind is easily filled with faith"

 

[Caim]

Small initial role for the Chaos Gods? Alpha Legion confirmed as fifth Chaos warband. Hydra dominatus!

“Before we go, let me say this: I understand the conflict in your hearts, how one may beat for duty while the other bleeds for your Legion brothers who will be sacrificed. But this is civil war. It is a time of confusion, and realigned loyalty. We have many heads but we act as one – one Legion with a single will. We are a union of the alike and the like-minded. We will not tolerate treachery. We will not allow our compact to fracture. We will not suffer the short-sightedness of our brother Legions, nor the averted gaze of the wider Imperium. We are Alpha Legion and we take the long view.”

 

[RK47]

*azzrape*

 

[Space Satan]

Small initial role for the Chaos Gods? Alpha Legion confirmed as fifth Chaos warband. Hydra dominatus!

It'll be Word Bearers. It's always Word Bearers.

 

[Caim]

Small initial role for the Chaos Gods? Alpha Legion confirmed as fifth Chaos warband. Hydra dominatus!

It'll be Word Bearers. It's always Word Bearers.

Word Bearers are already in, as are Black Legion, Iron Warriors and Night Lords. Alpha Legion is the only logical choice if the role of the Chaos Gods will be limited, and Huron Blackheart can go fuck himself.

 

[Angelo85]

"A free Ork will not be "less powerful" than a paying player". Curious. The F2P race will have the highest player count naturally. So Orks will potentially dominate the other factions with sheer numbers. 10 specialized guys vs 4 general guys of equal power doesn't sound balanced.
I think I read earlier in the Development process that they were originally planning on doing just the opposite: Orks would still have been plentiful because of them being the sole F2P choice, BUT to balance the numbers game out, the F2P unit would be weaker than the other units. That sounded like a good compromise to me.

 

[Caim]

Maybe the P2P classes are more powerful against individual Boyz in certain cases, but the Orks make up for it by being more versatile (Slugga Boyz and Shoota Boyz can have quite a few toys) in general?

 

[Mangoose]

Maybe the P2P classes are more powerful against individual Boyz in certain cases, but the Orks make up for it by being more versatile (Slugga Boyz and Shoota Boyz can have quite a few toys) in general?

The opposite was explained though, with Orkz being more specialized and less versatile.

 

[Space Satan]

• We currently have the front/side/rear armour rules working in the game, but it's a bit experimental at the moment. Depending on the accuracy of the anti-vehicle weapons it may be a bit silly to have separate front and side armour since it's generally extremely easy to target the side or top in 3D space and therefore all that front armour might be wasted. Fortunately, the system is very flexible and we can easily change and try things throughout development.
• Smartly deployed Terminator Squads making a difference is good, a whole army of Terminators not so much. So while Terminator armour should be treated as special, it's quite a bit different from heroes like Imperial Psykers or Chaplains, of whom there are really only a handful in any given chapter. These sorts of characters are the ones we're putting the most restrictions on.
• Terminators on the other hand, are such an iconic part of the IP and seem to be a part of most major offensives. So while we plan to restrict them by giving them a resource cost per spawn, we don't want to put up too many barriers to allowing anyone to play as them IF that's how they choose to spend their resources. But (as has been said many times) we also don't plan on making them an upgrade that's just a no-brainer - they're a unique class with their own specialties and weaknesses. Deploy them right and you'll destroy your foes - otherwise you might be better off using something else at your disposal. So I'll say it again - we want players to coordinate and learn what tactics work, and then through our balancing and mechanics create situations and behaviour that create the 40k feel rather than put in hard restrictions that prevent individuals from playing with iconic parts of the faction they've chosen.
  
• Some of those things we will definitely have at launch (Power Mauls), some of them we will probably not (Power Flails). The current list of non-Terminator weapons for Space Marines has twelve melee weapon/shield types on it (not including the many variations we'll have), although it's certainly not final. It should be possible to include things like the Mace of Absolution as well (planned at the moment) in order to add some nice chapter flavour, it's just a matter of what fits both production and gameplay-wise for our launch date.
• Some examples of the things that happen in pre-production: laying down the "foundation" of the game (as you saw with the pre-alpha gameplay), establishing the work pipelines for each of the different departments, estimating how much time will features take to implement, deciding at what pace/time during development will they be implemented, estimating how many people in each department are needed to achieve this, early concept work and designs, trying out those concepts, etc...
  Some examples of the things that happen during full production: coding of the intended features, refining designs, making 3d models for characters/objects/items/map decor and props, creating textures, creating animations, setting up the world/maps/layouts, full scale QA testing and bug fixing, polishing up the game... all things needed to make the game a whole game!
• The randomization we have there has 2 reasons - one to have something to improve on your character (e.g. becoming more accurate over time) and second to have less impact on the network. while I am sure it takes no scientist to figure that with thousands of players there is a lot of network traffic going on - this was really the biggest bottleneck for most shooters, why they could not have more players fight together in one battle. The random number generation does not have a huge impact on the server performance. mostly because modern cpus can do that quite fast, and second of all, because it does not need to be a very big, unique or prime number - we have many servers at the same time handling a different group of players - that way the load is shared !