Warhammer 40K MMO

[Hotfoot]

The ones that carry entire regiments in their legs are the super large, super rare Emperor-class Titans, which would really be more like dungeons or plot pieces in a large battle/campaign. No one is advocating that PCs be allowed to use those. However, a Warhound class, which is "only" a scout might be playable because it is "only" about 16.5m tall and doesn't carry weaponry drastically more powerful than some of the stuff the Imperial Guard can field, although admittedly in a more concentrated, mobile and heavily armoured package.

Actually, Adrian DID advocate having such huge titans as available for players. Note how in his first post on the subject he waxed poetic on how to get those huge numbers to bear, etc. and so forth. Hence why I went off on him in the first place (not that he understands this, of course).

[18-Till-I-Die]

It's not like it's impossible. It could be a huge effort that takes a long, long time to set up. And no one needs to have actual players in the legs, they could be spawned if and when this is used. Better yet you could actually ENTER the Titan, and they would spawn as defenders on your way up to find and kill the pilots. It'd be like a vehicle and a mobile dungeon.

Personally, and i dont mean this as an insult at all, but i think you're all being way uncreative thinking of this as 'just another l33t vehicle', with effort you can think of about fifty ways they can do this off the top of my head. The only hang up i can see as being any real problem is graphical limitations and technical problems, in terms of gameplay there are innumerable ways it can be incorprated into the game.

They have something similar already, on a similar scale. As i mentioned in EVE they have gargantuan ships (called IIRC Titans) which take huge resources and time to build but dont overpower everything in sight either despite being insanely powerful. In this case we have a chance to take it to another step--adding a mobile mission area/dungeon and a huge ass super-vehicle to the mix. And if you do it right the only real problem is that i doubt it's graphically feasible. But gameplay is easy to fix. I could easily think of many ways both players and NPCs or both could make use of a real Emperor class Titan. The least of which being a mere vehicle.

Also if they do have AdMech but leave out one of the highest ranks in the organization people will feel it to be a cheat, and they'd be right.

[Hotfoot]

And there was a point in time when vehicles had never been done in an MMO, yet they worked in Planetside (or whichever game first had them). I wasn't really making a point at all, rather the purpose of my post was to raise the issue of Titans so as to get some discussion started on the subject. Lo and behold, it did. Though I was hoping for something more along the lines of Academia Nut's posts than your ranting about how stupid I am.

You make a stupid post, you should expect to get people calling it and you stupid. Deal with it. You can backpedal all you want, your post still attempted to trivialize the discussion of balancing space marines by arguing that something else not yet even in consideration would be even harder to balance properly. Dear god, do you even read what you post? There is a simple and non-retarded way to broach the subject of Titans without trying to jump into the argument about Marines being overpowered and making stupid comments. Allow me to demonstrate:

"You know, I wonder if or how they would do Titans in this thing. Because if they put in Titans, that would be wicked cool. Anyone have any thoughts?"

And lo, a point was raised without being moronic. You may want to take notes here, because if you pay close enough attention, you might be able to pass as sapient.

I never said you should arbitrarily give people Titans.

Really? Maybe you forgot that you posted the following:

What about the Adeptus Mechanicus? Seriously, the level of badass inherent in SM doesn't compare to being the Princeps of one of the larger Battle Titans.

IN THE MIDDLE OF A DEBATE OVER IF IT WOULD BE PRACTICAL TO ALLOW PEOPLE TO START THE GAME AS MOTHERFUCKING SPACE MARINES.

Do you just wander around town and interject random retarded comments when you hear a few buzzwords or something? I'm envisioning you as some sort of robot that ambles about waiting for someone to say "Banana" so you can launch into a diatribe about how wonderful Banana Splits are and how awesome it would be if Banana Republics didn't have embargos so they could export more.

They would first have to earn it, and that would probably require being a Skiiritai for a while, then you have to be crew in a Titan, and eventually you get to command a scout one. From there you move up. I was thinking that the Princeps would only be able to move the Titan and use it's melee weapon, all other weapon emplacements would have to be manned by other players. So to get the full use of, for example, the fairly common Reaver, you'd need four players or six players. Then for further balance, a side can't deploy a Titan unless a more or less equal force opposes it, whether it be super-heavy tanks, massed artillery, or other Titans.

Here's a thought: if this is what you MEANT to say, you should have SAID THIS, instead of what you did say, which was unbearably stupid.

Well, I wanted to talk about vehicles so I brought it up. I thought you had adequately explained your position on Space Marines and that it was a good time to introduce another point in the overall discussion of "Warhammer 40k MMO". As for Chaos Gods and the God-Emperor, that is a complete strawman of me raising Titans. A Titan could potentially be implemented, especially if the game is balanced more or less according to how it is in Warhammer Epic. That's pretty much what I've had in mind all along. Incidentally, using that as a template pretty much balances everything.

Your initial post, in context, is attempting to hijack the debate about Space Marines and balance by trivializing the entire issue by bringing up Titans at random. You didn't explain further, your post was, at it's core, "lolz, so what if there's imba, titans R wurse." This itself has nothing to do with the debate at hand OR raising the point of vehicles as a separate debate. It's simply you being a stupid fucking dick. This is you backpedaling because I called you on it.

I introduced the subject of Titans which I feel does add to the discussion, as shown by Academia Nut's posts.

Wow, so because you were a fucking moron and more intelligent people picked up the slack for your stupidity, that makes you not stupid?

Brilliant. I suppose this means that if Ann Coulter or Bill O'Reilly accidentally have a legitimate point but raise it in the most retarded fashion in existance, it's okay because even though they didn't intend to raise it, now that it's there they'll take credit for bringing it to our attention.

Space Marines don't need Titan killers. They're so badass they blast a hole in a convenient bulkhead and kill it from the inside.

Exhibit B, your honor...

[Imperial Overlord]

On the subject of Marines I had ideas of something along the following:



Level 1: Ordinary human prospect
Level 2-19: Various implants obtained, special quests necessary
Level 20: Scout
Level 40: Full fledged Marine

[Adrian Laguna]

I thought you were done talking about Space Marines so I introduced a new topic. If you don't like the way I did it then bully for you. I thought it was perfectly acceptable to go "Hey, here's something else that's hard to implement because it'll be overpowered."

Wonderful, we're arguing about the proper way to introduce a new topic of discussion. You can wail on me more of you like, but I won't waste time on talking about this any more.

The ones that carry entire regiments in their legs are the super large, super rare Emperor-class Titans, which would really be more like dungeons or plot pieces in a large battle/campaign. No one is advocating that PCs be allowed to use those. However, a Warhound class, which is "only" a scout might be playable because it is "only" about 16.5m tall and doesn't carry weaponry drastically more powerful than some of the stuff the Imperial Guard can field, although admittedly in a more concentrated, mobile and heavily armoured package.

Actually, Adrian DID advocate having such huge titans as available for players. Note how in his first post on the subject he waxed poetic on how to get those huge numbers to bear, etc. and so forth. Hence why I went off on him in the first place (not that he understands this, of course).

Yes, I did advocate huge titans. Though I had in mind nothing larger than the Warlord-class. If it were up to me, I'd cap it at 1 Warlord or 2 Reavers, and 4 Warhounds. The chief problem is a graphical one. A battle must be huge to warrant having Titans. But even if you have each Imperial Guard player commanding four other AI soldiers, once you take into account the Marines, the tank crews, and the Titan crews, you're still looking at 80-100 players just for the Imperial side. I have no doubt that making a game capable of this is possible, what I worry is whether it can be made at a graphical level acceptable to the average consumer. The more stuff you put in, the more shinies need to be sacrificed.

Space Marines don't need Titan killers. They're so badass they blast a hole in a convenient bulkhead and kill it from the inside.

Exhibit B, your honor...

That was meant as a joke, but now that you mention it I may have raised a valid point. If you're stupid enough to deploy your Titans without infantry support then you deserve to get boarders soft-killing its crew. And the boarders don't need to be SM, Imperial Guard would be more than capable. You just need to find an access hatch and blow it open with a satchel charge, or cut through it with a torch.

Of course, I can picture the computer committing suicide at trying to render a gigantic moving vehicle that also has interiors while in the middle of a battlefield. That can be solved simply by making it an event type thing. If enemy infantry somehow get inside, the Titan's crew dies, satchel charges are planted in its core, and everyone runs away before it blows. Hijacking a Titan is a no-go because their machine-spirit won't allow just anyone to command it.

[Hotfoot]

I thought you were done talking about Space Marines so I introduced a new topic. If you don't like the way I did it then bully for you. I thought it was perfectly acceptable to go "Hey, here's something else that's hard to implement because it'll be overpowered."

Bullshit bullshit blah blah whine whine blah backpedal.

Oh, I'm sorry, were you trying to make a point? Why don't you just own up that you did something stupid and move on?

Wonderful, we're arguing about the proper way to introduce a new topic of discussion. You can wail on me more of you like, but I won't waste time on talking about this any more.

Hey, you wanted to know why I went off on you, and I told you. I can't help it if you can't say what you WANT to say when you say it. I mean seriously, is it really so hard to not be a fucking moron? By the way, fantastic way to gain awesome points by completely ignoring a valid criticism because I was mean about it. So cry, go cry more. You were being a fucking idiot, you know it, move on.

Yes, I did advocate huge titans. Though I had in mind nothing larger than the Warlord-class. If it were up to me, I'd cap it at 1 Warlord or 2 Reavers, and 4 Warhounds. The chief problem is a graphical one. A battle must be huge to warrant having Titans. But even if you have each Imperial Guard player commanding four other AI soldiers, once you take into account the Marines, the tank crews, and the Titan crews, you're still looking at 80-100 players just for the Imperial side. I have no doubt that making a game capable of this is possible, what I worry is whether it can be made at a graphical level acceptable to the average consumer. The more stuff you put in, the more shinies need to be sacrificed.

It's nice that you're able to forsee massive battles of nearly thousands of people all going at it at once, but the fact of the matter is that the technology doesn't exist for that sort of game. If you look at EVE's combat, you can get large numbers, but even there, the game chugs when you reach a few hundred people on each side, plus their drones, missiles, etc. This has little to do with graphics by the way, but with networks and how much data can be shoved back and forth and processed at any given time. Thousands of unique players online at any given time is a pie in the sky dream at the moment. Never mind the fact that for all we know this is going to be just another MMORPG like the Warhammer Fantasy MMO, WoW, EQ, or whatever, and not a MMOFPS like Planetside.

That was meant as a joke, but now that you mention it I may have raised a valid point. If you're stupid enough to deploy your Titans without infantry support then you deserve to get boarders soft-killing its crew. And the boarders don't need to be SM, Imperial Guard would be more than capable. You just need to find an access hatch and blow it open with a satchel charge, or cut through it with a torch.

Most Titans have shields that can't be penetrated by anything short of a huge fucking cannon, and the armor is as tough as it comes. Most boarding parties would be stepped on, if not just outright shot.

Of course, I can picture the computer committing suicide at trying to render a gigantic moving vehicle that also has interiors while in the middle of a battlefield. That can be solved simply by making it an event type thing. If enemy infantry somehow get inside, the Titan's crew dies, satchel charges are planted in its core, and everyone runs away before it blows. Hijacking a Titan is a no-go because their machine-spirit won't allow just anyone to command it.

Moving vehicles with interiors isn't as bad as you might think...well, unless you let people travel through joints, which is just silly.

And it's not entirely without reason for Chaos to corrupt an Imperial Titan.

[Adrian Laguna]

It's nice that you're able to forsee massive battles of nearly thousands of people all going at it at once, but the fact of the matter is that the technology doesn't exist for that sort of game. If you look at EVE's combat, you can get large numbers, but even there, the game chugs when you reach a few hundred people on each side, plus their drones, missiles, etc. This has little to do with graphics by the way, but with networks and how much data can be shoved back and forth and processed at any given time. Thousands of unique players online at any given time is a pie in the sky dream at the moment.

I was thinking hundreds, not thousands, of players. "A few hundred people on each side" is more than enough, I was hoping for a few hundred total.

Never mind the fact that for all we know this is going to be just another MMORPG like the Warhammer Fantasy MMO, WoW, EQ, or whatever, and not a MMOFPS like Planetside.

Ideally, you would have combat zones which would be Planetside style, and non-combat zones which would be more traditional MMO style. It would be even better if the arrival of a hostile force would turn an area into a combat zone, and the victory of one power in a particular world would make it into a non-combat zone. So you might potentially have cycles of war, rebuilding, and war again in the same world.

Most Titans have shields that can't be penetrated by anything short of a huge fucking cannon, and the armor is as tough as it comes. Most boarding parties would be stepped on, if not just outright shot.

I doubt those shields drag on the ground, it might be possible to dodge them simply by lying down and waiting for the Titan to get close.

Based on my experiences playing Final Liberation, a game based on Warhammer Epic, Titans are not particularly effective against infantry, especially in light of how expensive they are.

Furthermore, just because the armour is really thick doesn't mean a surgical strike can't breach it. In Star Wars, the Empire's AT-AT walkers are described as being impervious to anything short of nuclear weapons. Yet, Luke Skywalker breaches the armour in one using a glorified blowtorch. All boarders need to do is find an access hatch. The bigger problem might be that to get to a hatch they'd have to literally climb the Titan.

Though on final analysis I probably should have left it as a joke.

And it's not entirely without reason for Chaos to corrupt an Imperial Titan.

Ah yes that's true, one of the cardinal 40k rules: Anything the Imperium can have, Chaos can steal. This applies to weapons, tanks, aircraft, titans, space ships, entire Space Marine chapters, and even Primarchs.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

On the subject of Marines I had ideas of something along the following:



Level 1: Ordinary human prospect
Level 2-19: Various implants obtained, special quests necessary
Level 20: Scout
Level 40: Full fledged Marine

Oooh, I like this. And, of course, the horrific fatality rate for new recruits ought to be simulated in some way as well. (What is it? 15-20% of prospects actually survive to get a Black Carapace?)

[Adrian Laguna]

Oooh, I like this. And, of course, the horrific fatality rate for new recruits ought to be simulated in some way as well. (What is it? 15-20% of prospects actually survive to get a Black Carapace?)

Depends on the Chapter. For the Space Wolves the figure is about 10%, and unlike most other Chapters, all failed applicants die.

[Utsanomiko]

On the subject of Marines I had ideas of something along the following:



Level 1: Ordinary human prospect
Level 2-19: Various implants obtained, special quests necessary
Level 20: Scout
Level 40: Full fledged Marine

Oooh, I like this. And, of course, the horrific fatality rate for new recruits ought to be simulated in some way as well. (What is it? 15-20% of prospects actually survive to get a Black Carapace?)

I look at the prospect of leveling to earn Marine characters in the same light as any end-game content; just replace any example level progression with WoW's and you see a large portion of Marines in every situation by the game's first half-birthday.

This game needs to either stick to the Marine's playing field (near exclusive focus on combat where everyone on all sides begins at least as powerful as a 4-implant Neophyte) or regulate warzones by how many people are in them and how many NPCs are in them, which may include human-level players controlling whole squads or Marines & other monstrous beings simply fighting over a different level of objectives with greatly differently-scaled achievement rewards.

[Balrog]

I'm finding myself agreeing with people like Hotfoot, if the game's going to work then Space Marines are out as PCs. Because no matter what, after a few months the crazy lunatics who spend 16 hours a day playing are simply going to grind through whatever process you put in place to become one, and soon the vast majority of the population will be homogenized as being an Ultramarine, or a Dark Angel, or whatever Chapter GW lets in.

After all, getting rid of Space Marines as PCs isn't exactly limiting your choice; you're still going to have the Imperial Guard and all its varients (Cadians, Catachans, ect.), the Ecclesiarchy with all its different sects, the Adeptus Mechanicus, the three orders of the Inquisition, the different temples of the Officio Assassinorum, Imperial Navy, Sisters of Battle, and even Adeptus Arbites, and those are just official galaxy-wide organizations of the Imperium. You could easily build an MMO around just the IoM, never mind including the Orks and such.

Though I get the sinking feeling that GW's simply going to look at their profit margin, realize Space Marines will make the game sell like hotcakes, and end up trying to squeeze them in as a choice along with the more squishy choices.

[Covenant]

They could do like that LotR mmo did and let it be that extremely squishy bunches work in groups, instead of alone. Space Marines and other extremely potent warriors--being more expensive models--would be the lone character you command. But if you're some variety of low-ranked squad leader of IG, you'd get 3 other guys with you essentially as pets.

[Imperial Overlord]

They're going to bend fluff as much as necessary to get Space Marines as PCs. Marines are just too damn popular and there is no way that group of fans won't get their service. I agree with Hotfoot that to be faithful to what they are in universe you shouldn't, but that's not going to happen.

As a small aside, the 40K RPG that Black Industries and Green Ronin are producing is slated to only have marines playable in all marine, high powered campaigns.

[GuppyShark]

I don't see any real problem with SMs as player characters - I'd be more likely to play a 40K MMO that was "Marine Only" than "Everything But Marines".

There's a reason they're popular. They are very well fleshed out and have no shortage of 'plot hooks', have a bewildering array of wargear they can be assigned, vehicles to pilot, etc etc.

I'm starting to think a Marine Only MMO would be the way I would do it, actually. There's lots of variety within the Chapters to keep groups interesting.

[Ayrix]

I have actually daydreamed up a way to make a 40k MMO work,
though it would have to be different than alot of other MMOs to make it anything but elves in space.
There are classes, sorta, but in each of these there are different set ups, (battle brother, assault marine, etc) however they all lead to the same next story line, they just do it differently.

Space Marine: Must be earned rightfully, and is played like socom or halo. you are nearly invincible to gunfire, and can take massive punishment before falling. however, there arent alot of you (only PCs, not NPCs) so your going to be operating yourself a bit. However, only at the highest levels do you start getting squads of your own (veteran sergeant) and at the highest you get two squads under your control and your command squad (brother captain)

Guardsmen: The default human, you start off low, as a soldier following NPCs that do your quests for you (think guildwars with actual AI), then it eventually comes up to a mix of your badass Lt/Captain mixing it up in close combat with his advisors and commanding/strategizing on a HUD your available squads of guardsmen. However, to make it better on you, all the men in your command squad must die before you yourself can take fire, so it evens out with a marine player.

Inquisitor/Lord: A bit unique, you have the stat line (except for WS) as a gaurdsmen captain, while having access to things that even a space marine couldnt dream of. However unlike the guardsmen, you dont have alot under your control (usually), and must rely on your *Powerful* retinue, and your *very* powerful equipment to see you through. However, being an inquisitor you can call for different types of reinforcements, from gaurdsmen squads to actual space marine squads, to eventually terminators (on a long cooldown)

Chaos: I really havent come up with a good way to make this work yet, probably same premise as their loyal enemies but more....chaotic.

In the matter of PVP: it could probably be battlegrounds like in WoW, using your units and those of others on yourside, including space marines, though it would have to be balanced that no more than X amount of marines can be in one team. I like the idea of the awesomo meter mentioned earlier in the thread, as if you were charged as a guardsmen Captain by a squad of chaos marines, perhaps chance based, you could be inspired by the emperor to guide your blade true, and would go into a super duper luper close combat mode.

On Death: your characters minions should be murdered in very, very inhumane ways, but for your character himself, he should just be grievously wounded, and perhaps have a mini teleporter (like that Inquisitor from the Ciaphas Cain novels) and automatically teleport back to a hostpital ship, where you spend a good 30 seconds getting patched up before your launched back into the battle ground. Extra fun for drop pods, where you pick one place to drop and it scatters.
1) For character creation, I say at first only allow humans, and maybe xenos in the expansion. However, when you first start off, your a small child of 10-13 in your own instanced agri world, which would serve as not only a hub to tutorials, but lead on to the next part which is...

2) quest based character class: your class is determined not by whats on your selection screen but by what choices and quests you choose to do instead of killing bunny 23 and gaining a level. For example, you could be a 13 year old, and you have to go talk to the local PDF station to see if they need anything, while doing your duties your jumped by creature 7#, and while fighting it off you notice a robed man with the ultramarines U on his clothing, watching you (this isnt pointed out for you, you have to actually see it). Do you A) continue on and forget him (leads to being a gaurdsmen) or B) follow him and see what he could want (potentially lead to space marines)
Also, you could make it like how it has been suggested in the thread, that becoming a marine is insanely difficult, but balanced. How this would work is not only would becoming a marine be a skill based challenge (beat this training mode on legendary in under 4 minutes, twice) but it would fit in, as if you were a marine, you'd be just that, a marine. you could group up with other marines but thats about it.
Now for guardsmen, its a tad different. Its less skill based and more based around what your play style apparently is (you better at shooting, driving that vehicle, etc) and putting you in a squad of NPCs. Now for Progressing in this type of MMO, it couldnt work well with the standard level up system. It would probably go by ranks, and would follow sorta this type of progression:

1-10: your training days, you arent really anything yet, but can get a taste of everything before you decide.
11-20: (IG) your picked up, and put in your first real squad. Now the squad consists of 4 NPC pets, who'll follow you around town, but when it comes to quests once you accept they automatically move on their own and expect you to keep up. for (SM) this would be your preliminary tests, which would make or break if you keep going. by lvl 18 you should officially be in your carapace armor, However you are not assigned a squad.

21-30 (IG) your moving up the ranks, and you have proven yourself worthy of command, as such you are promoted to sergeant and get total command of a full 10 man squad, and to make this work your camera can zoom out, and you can move the squad as a group, and make them focus fire like how you would simply shoot with your mouse, though for heavy weapons I assume you could switch to an alternate fire mode and then shoot them, along with a long cooldown. Also, you start getting access to the armory, and now you can requisition weapons like power swords and hellguns, nothing terribly fancey.

(SM) You continue up your ranks, getting more implants. You now have the ability to join groups with other marines (not IG) and can now request different weapons from the armoury (bolt pistol, chain sword or bolter?) At 29, you take a final, large test which if failed too many times will lock your character from the chapter, thus either destroying him or putting him in the guard (albeit a buffed one).

31-40 (IG) you have gotten promoted once more, and are now lieutenant of your platoon. you are now placed in a command squad, and have 2- 10 man squads under your command. These you could command like you would a DoW guardsmen unit, and can set them to do different things. Also, your character has become more skilled than most guardsmen, setting himself above the rest. He now gets noticed by imperial scrutiny, and also by the forces of Chaos.

Here the poor Lt has to deal with a mini plot line, at first dealing with being kidnapped by Chaos, tortured unbelievably by cultists of Slaanesh and finally being 'rescued' (for lack of a lesser term) by inquisitorial stormtroopers accompanying an Inquisitor. The inquisitor talks to you a bit, and not matter what you say, you then have to quickly get away from the inquisitor before he and his retinue aggro you, and you procede into a big get away mission.
Once that is completed, you go through a plot line (which will lvl you from 31 to 38) to either clear your name, and in the end you confront the inquisitor in one on one combat. You defeat him, and are at a choice to either kill him, or be merciful and let him go, if you kill him, you either go back into the guard or fall to chaos, and if you let him live you are looked highly by inquisitorial agents or you go back into the guard. This eventually leads to a divergence at 40.

(SM) Not ones to be ignored, SMs also get a large mini plot to follow, one that I really havent been able to come up with, atleast one that doesnt sound too corny, However the end result is somewhat the same, you either A) choose to kill and fall the chaos (in this case a chaos marine/red Corsair) or return to your chapter, or B) forgive and get the chance to become one of the death watch, or return to your chapter.

40-50 (IG) your big chance, your really getting up in the ranks, and are soon called to talk to not only your regiment leader but the leader of the planet of your origin. They apparently have been talking highly of your skills, and have been wanting to promote you to Captain, however, theres one problem. Theres a hooded figure who wishes to see you and he has an Inquisitorial Signet, and when this happens people usually end up dead, so they want you to talk to him first, and if things are in the clear, then your on your road home.

So, you talk to him, and not only are you not about to be killed, but the Inquisition has taken a keen eye on you for not murdering one of their newer inquisitors, and they have seen your personal combat skills and are so far impressed. (of course you can turn this down and continue as a guardsmen) So insert more hand waving and you get the chance to become one of the three ordos of the inquisition, however, there is again a catch. you must take a test, not to test yourself physically, you have allready proven that, you must prove that you are loyal to the emperor beyond a doubt, so begins a long ish quest that determines your not only loyal, but if your going to be in the Malleus, Hereticus, or Xenos, depending on how you deal with your quest.

After this, you take a very interesting turn. You stop being in a command squad and now have your own retinue. You and your retinue take very tough, long, unique quests, but these end up with a boat load of XP. Not only this, but you can summon/call in squads of guardsmen and at higher levels a squad of space marines/terminators (inquisitor lords only).

Now its getting a bit late, and tomorrow Ill finish my guardsmen, marines, and chaos 40-50s, and other stuff.

[Hawkwings]

Your idea gets flawed when there are 3000 marine players and 200 other players online wanting to pvp.

Personally, I want Space Marines to be some sort of "You get one chance" class. You work your way up to like level 20 or so, then you have to do a series of quests where if you fail, your character *really* dies and you have to start over. Or maybe force Marine players to PVP for the right to become full marines. That would be interesting. Put 20 Marine candidates into an arena, and say "The last one standing gets to become a Space Marine!" Ooh, I like that idea. It even has evidence in fluff!

Naturally, by then the IG players are starting to drive tanks and command platoons of grunts.

[Ar-Adunakhor]

Personally, I want Space Marines to be some sort of "You get one chance" class. You work your way up to like level 20 or so, then you have to do a series of quests where if you fail, your character *really* dies and you have to start over.

If you implement this, it would have to be a unique quest for each player. There is, seriously, no way that you could prevent a walkthrough from popping up on the net as soon as the first player finishes it. Just look at what happened when they figured out Jedi in SWG. And if you make it a team-event, you will have players who really deserve to be SMs dragged down by complete and utter morons who don't know what an aggro radius is. Completely infeasable, unless you somehow weed out 99% of the players beforehand and are able to design a unique GM-monitored quest for each player.

Or maybe force Marine players to PVP for the right to become full marines. That would be interesting. Put 20 Marine candidates into an arena, and say "The last one standing gets to become a Space Marine!" Ooh, I like that idea. It even has evidence in fluff!

/roll 100

Problem Solved.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Personally I am wondering how you would handle the different aspect paths, or handle becomming a deathjester....

[Vehrec]

Personally, I want Space Marines to be some sort of "You get one chance" class. You work your way up to like level 20 or so, then you have to do a series of quests where if you fail, your character *really* dies and you have to start over.

If you implement this, it would have to be a unique quest for each player. There is, seriously, no way that you could prevent a walkthrough from popping up on the net as soon as the first player finishes it. Just look at what happened when they figured out Jedi in SWG. And if you make it a team-event, you will have players who really deserve to be SMs dragged down by complete and utter morons who don't know what an aggro radius is. Completely infeasable, unless you somehow weed out 99% of the players beforehand and are able to design a unique GM-monitored quest for each player.

You might not need to make it totally unique, so long as there are several variations that are mutually incompatable to win, and can only be overcome by godlike skill. Or you could change it as time went on, so after about a month, the quest is different, and the old way of doing things no longer works. It would be a lot of work, but would be worth it for the shear frustration that would be created.

[Hawkwings]

Just instance the quest for each player, and have a list of variants. Then change them every week or so. And every month, the quest completely changes. That way, the first people that finish it get their SM qualification, write up a walkthrough for variant 1. Maybe they get 10 variants. That's 10 different authors that finished the quest, wrote a walkthrough, and published it in a week. Then the next week, that has to happen again. Sure, at the beginning you'll get the hardcore players that do that sort of thing, but it'll taper off. And the original authors really can't contribute anymore since they've already finished.

[Kojiro]

I don't think marines (imperial or chaos) should be playable. They should be ultra elite baddies in the top level dungeons. They just don't work well with groups who aren't marines. This is not to say you can't have power armour and a bolter, or have yourself genetically modified or get cybernetics (an interesting take on the WoW gem slotting) but to be a marine is as much a mindset as a skill set. Marines are nutbags and let's be honest they wouldn't condescend to associate with most of the Imperium, let alone that Eldar you've got in the party. Of course it could happen, but marines as PCs would just destroy it for me. Someone dearly needs to make a FPS with them but not an MMO.

Making it hard or difficult to become a marine won't do anything but make your marine population longer in showing itself. If there's anything we know about MMOs it's that people will grind ridiculously long for something they want. The other thing to consider here is do you really want the marines to be *that* much better than everyone else? If you can get cybernetics, bio implants, power armour and a bolter and powerfist does it really matter that you're not also a brainwashed killer gorilla?

[Uraniun235]

Battles of sufficiently large scale to feasibly include Titans would likely make most any server cry tears of melted silicon.


...Which leads me to wonder if maybe an MMORPG might not be well-served by looking into the possibility of developing a server platform based around more traditional "big iron".

[LaserRifleofDoom]

Battles of sufficiently large scale to feasibly include Titans would likely make most any server cry tears of melted silicon.


...Which leads me to wonder if maybe an MMORPG might not be well-served by looking into the possibility of developing a server platform based around more traditional "big iron".

You mean a computer the size of a small room? I actually think that would work well, since you could spread out the components and introduce better cooling.

But the first thing that came to mind was a MMO based around tank combat.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Really, the 40K series doesn't seem to lend itself well to a traditional MMO at all. Seems like it would be better served if it were like Planetside with persistant characters that accumulate money and gear.