A Necromundan MMOG

[FerociousBeast]

Concerning the announced 40k MMO, I personally don't think that it could work in the 40k universe proper, unless some form of Battlefield-esque game were used.

The main problem? Most MMOs are individualistic by necessity. People log in at different times, have different goals, different play styles. However, the galaxy of 40k is not individualistic. Quite the opposite. A Guardsman is a cog in a machine. He has no choice. Same with Commissars, Lord Generals and even the mighty Space Marines and Inquisitors. Same with Tau, Eldar, even Chaos to some extent. None of them are the masters of their own destiny, they all follow orders. But that wouldn't make for a very fun MMO environment. So for a WoW-esque game set in the 40k universe to work, either fluff or game principles would have to be thrown out the window.

However. Not so for a game set in the more limited confines of the nightmare hive city of Necromunda.

The door slides open and you step tentatively out of the rusting freight elevator that brought you down to this hellhole.

A bleak scene greets you. Dim lighting everywhere. Ramshackle hovels, piles of garbage, large ratdogs darting by. Mean looking men and women lounging in doorways eye you up and down. You're suddenly glad you look as poor as you do. Maybe, just maybe, you'll last what passes for a night around here. The superstructure of the hive groans and creaks and a smattering of dust sprinkles down from the rafters two hundred feet above.

It doesn't matter who you are, where you came from, why you left, what you want. You are in the Underhive now, and that you means you are the lowest of the low, the uncleanest of the unclean, the poorest of the poor, the slovenliest of the sloven. There is quite literally nowhere to go but up. You have only the clothes on your back, an old stub pistol, a rusty knife and a couple of credits to your name. If you want to survive, it's going to take a lot more than that. Some guts, a low cunning and a lot of luck would be a good start.

No matter why you're here, you're here. There is opportunity and riches to be had if you're strong enough and smart enough to take it. But there's no time to lose. You can bet just about everyone here would like to see you dead before that happens, so you'd better get cracking.

Welcome to the Underhive, scum.

Seriously, this sounds like the perfect setting for a 40k MMO. You start out a newly arrived Underhiver in one of the shanty towns, and your career after that is up to you. Join a gang, make a solitary career as a gunman or outlaw, start as a ratskin, join the Merchant Guild, build an Underhive empire inch by blood soaked inch of girders, scavvie settlements, archeotech hoard and pipeways, but always always watch out for the Enforcers. Of all the groups out there, you don't want them noticing you....

I would be quite pleased if this is the approach taken by THQ and GW, but since Necromunda is one of the lesser taken paths of 40k, unfortunately it seems unlikely, perfect though it would be.

(@ moderators: I thought this a distinct enough subtopic of the other locked threat that it warranted a thread of its own. Not intended to be a restart of the thread earlier locked.)

[snrjefe]

That sounds quite tasty. I'd prefer that kind of environment vs. here's another battlefield filled with bad guy x. Kill them all or capture this one particular thing. Certainly there could be quests and body count missions, but there could also be political machinations, gang rivalries, and a wider range of personalities than a purely military game.

[Freeman]

its alot like i brought up in the other thread, that would be an amazing game, however with no compuyer games to distarct me i still cant get round to finishing painting my nids.

[Fannin]

It's important to realize that MMO and MMORPG are not necessarily the same thing.

[DatonKallandor]

And that THQ took care to mention that Necromunda and that other sub-IP (orkamorka?) are also included in the recent contract.

[Shinsei]

I don't know how appealing Necromunda would be to the general audience (eventhough I love the idea). When people hear of Wh40k, even those not that involved in the genre, they instantly expect space marines with chainswords ripping the guts out of orks, only to get eaten by a giant carnifex who afterwards gets gunned down by a leman russ etc. etc. People want to see boltguns, powerfists, chainswords and tanks, and I don't think Necromunda has much of that to offer. Frankly, the design and variation in characters isn't exactly that appealing, and it might end up looking like something close to Matrix Online (style-wise).

Personally, I hope they try to portray what the 40k universe is all about in a not so RPG'ish fashion, and hopefully in a manner that hasn't been pioneered yet. If you don't mind a small hi-jack, here's something I had in mind:

Ever played GuildWars? It's a non-p2p mmo leaning mostly towards pvp, but has a good deal of pve in it aswell. Now, everywhere you go is an instance, whether its in a pvp match or in a pve mission. In every instance you can bring a group of friends or bring the AI (henchmen/heroes) to help you. When in these instances, you have only 8 skills to use. Basically, balance-wise it puts you in a sort of a M:tG strategy, yet it still has player skill in the form of reflexes, communication, fast-thinking and just overall micro.

Now, what I was thinking was just taking a little of that, and incorporating it into a combat patrol squad-based form. Basically, instead of controlling a character, you control a squad in sort of a RTS fashion. You can move each character in your squad individually, but the others will adjust accordingly to keep the squad together. Different kinds of squads = different numbers of men, for example a squad of guardsmen would ofcourse be much larger than a squad of tactical marines. The goal of the game is the same as GuildWars', to be fast-action pvp (possible tournaments) with pve thrown in, be based on strategic and gaming skills, and also possibly be team based (multiple squads working together, forming an army, so it'd be army vs. army). It'd take a whole lot of balancing, but what wouldn't. You could make it real juicy in PvE too, using instances (crazy Wh40k environments exploding around your squad). PvP should be ready to jump into without requiring much "grind" etc, however if PvE'ing, you can advance your squad in ranks, weapons etc. (perhaps add some nice unique aesthetics for those with squads who have accomplished different pve things, so they stand out in pvp). Eh, there's plenty more I could add, but it's just to get the idea across.

I don't know, It was just one of the many viable possibilities for a 40k MMO. I just don't think people should be so quick as to claim that it can't be done for 40k =/

[Фeanor]

The Necromunda idea sounds cool.... except you're wrong about inquisitors.... ever read the book Eisenhorn? It's about the inquisition. An Inquisitor would be able to control his own fate.

[Dr. Awesome]

Necromunda is a good setting, but using it wouldn't be taking full advantage of a futuristic Universe. We play 40k for the aliens and marines, whereas we can a have a gang war in any setting.

[Open Blue]

What you seem to be describing sounds very much like the Elder Scrolls games. I'm not sure how it would work, but if you take morrowind, make heavy armour into power armour, make spells psykic powers and bows into bolters, I think you can get an idea of what it might be like.

Possibly, most characters are freelancers and all player squads are joined together based on who is online, while specalised squads are groups of player aranged friends that only work when all are online.

This MMO seems like an epic task in itself (for a software design student, even a simple zelda-esk game is a little daunting) so I hope they pull it off, because I'll be the first one to get it.

[nareik123]

I thought of Obvlivion style, but you would need a LOT of characters and stuff.

I prefer a Knights of the Old Republic style game, that would be awesome, having a completely insane party.
Having a blood angel rending people up front, having a guardsmen with a plasma gun shooting, and having a Tau firewarrior as a long range support unit.
Or Battlefields 2 style.

"I bolter the Ork to death before pulling out my pistol and annihalating the other. As i fight, i notice the other side of the battle is dieing thanks to overwhelming odds, so i hotswap to the marine heavy bolter and pour fire onto the Ork Nob's. Then i hotswap to a scout sergeant and place a beacon down to call down terminatros, which i then hotswap to the assault cannon armed one to lay down more firepower. As i think i've finished, a killakan comes out, so i hotswap to the dreadnough and power fist it."

How i've always wanted to win a battle, hotswapping madness!

[CPT Aleksander]

Marrying two of the ideas here...

I love the idea of a player controlling a squad when it came time for a big ole fight. You take the role of the squad leader, and the rest of your squad follows your orders/lead.

I also like the idea of being able top play something with an individual flare, so some roleplaying elements can come into it. A Space Marine veteran sergeant isn't going to have much cause to hobnob with anyone outside his chapter.

And how to play aliens ?

Take a cue from WoW. Different servers represent different races. One one, you have the hive city, with folks playing hivescum, Arbites and Guardsman. On another you have a Space Marine chapter world, including the recruiting population (a la Space Wolves, Ultramar). On a third you have a major Ork base, with a blend of various clans. On another you have a Tau city complete with varied allied races. Lastly, you have a Crone world and Craftworld for the eldar and daemon worlds for Chaos.

On each server, you have opportunites for small side missions, with your personal skill determining how you get by, progress, etc. Maybe you have some PVP there,with rivalries forming between squads/gangs/clans, etc. However, these are battles of individual avatars.

Next, you allow scheduled 'invasions', maybe using a seperate server to mirror whatever world has been declared the target. People can gather for the battles and when they arrive they have thier AI squads with them. In essence, 10 players of space marines would represent a whole company of thier chapter. Now imagine what a horde of orks would look like. Or a Chaos regiment. Hive gangers would be 'impressed' like Savlar Chem Dogs to either defend against or attack thier world's enemies. You can see the numbers of warriors present would be HUGE on a popular battle, but most would be scenery and support for the players.

From what I've seen of many MMORPG's, the computing power would only be a problem if you didn't put a limit on the number of players per big battle. Hell, you could drop res on the 'miirror' world so you could simulate more avatars and drop in scenery like waves of air support or orbital strikes.

Am I totally off base with this idea? I play these games but I don't have any idea how tough it would be to program them.

[Lord_Daris]

Necromunda sounds ok AI guess but how bout taking the orders aspect to heart? each player makes a character. say for this example bob is a guardsman

Bob starts the game at a recruitment center on [<insert planet>] he is told for his first quest he must get to the barracks across town, resent gang activity is high and the usual transport hasnt been back in over a week.so Bob enters an independant instanced travel zone (as seen in guild wars) and he must travel through this zone now you also are joined by other players with the same mission so you all fight your way to the baraks and even get the side quest of locating the transport and rescusing its crew.

Now while bob goes through his human male aquires points through various actions the points are alocated to 1 of 3 categories Gunmanship Leadership and Technical Skill. he can then use them at the baraks to begin training in a career option so commisar would be obtained from leadership so you becme an initiate in the commisar academy, points in technical skill give you the career of techpriest so you are then sent to the temple of the machine god in the manufactorum, anjd gunmanship allows you to train in one of two options. either A: Sniper or B:Heavy Weapons platform each has thier own training zone, so the second quest is gettng to these training centers. However having a balanced amount of these points allows you to attain the job of officer and so you train to become a junior then senior officer.

Now once the training begins you are refered to sergeant [<insert name>] who will lead you squad, you cna now increase your ability in your profession by getting the previously mentioned points and can increase your reputation and popularity amongst both your squad,regiment and company by gathering reputation points awarded for certain actions, these allow you to get promoted atthe end of the month but the require ment gets higher and higher with each promotion to the point where your the one giving orders.

This also allows for special mass instances where players sign up and are pitted against the opposing faction in a huge battle field.

[TS_ahriman]

Mass appeal 40k games are going to be gritty and epic.
Necromunda's gritty, but epic....not so much.

[FerociousBeast]

Problem is, I don't think you can have a suitably epic MMO to fit the Warhammer 40k universe. Unless, again, it's a Battlefield style game.

However, what could work would be a MMOFPS with very limited RPG or 'leveling' attributes set in Necromunda. Whenever the designers want to expand the game, they could open up a new section of spheres (or whatever the spheres that make up a hive city are called, can't remember) to allow the players something new to fight over. Maybe even let players eventually go higher in the hive, up to the hive city proper.

There could be Chaos cults, zombie infestations, inquisitorial purges, marauding Chaos Space Marines, eldar plots, mutant uprisings, excursions to the hive bottom, player controlled empires, Enforcer shoot outs (definitely this), bounties, boltguns, chainswords, psykers......

I'm sold.

[nareik123]

Unreal Tournament style then. Have an invasion style scenario where you and a few others have to kill wave after wave of enemies. From tyranid gaunts to chaos cultists.
Level up? In invasion if you kill something, you get exp, kill enough and you can raise certain stats or gain abilities.
Admittedly, i think if they made a game, an MMOFPS would be more suited to 40k, as an MMORPG is too much hassle.