Dark Millennium 40K MMO Announced

[Bigred]

Check it out here:

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2010/06/e3-40k-mmo-unveiled-dark-millennium.html

Also, note the updated Dark Millennium sub-forums in the video game sub-forums, (scroll down) for you to post all your thoughts and comments.

Enjoy!

[wittdooley]

Freaking. Awesome.

We should also see some news about Space Marine during E3 as well! Yay!

[fuzzbuket]

yeah theres now NEW SM footage floating about!!! :D looks ammazing

[Melissia]

The site has a Battle Sister (mind you, the art is ripped from Soulstorm, but still) prominently next to the Space Marine on the top right, so I have hopes that "Imperium" as a faction includes my favorite faction along with Guard.

**** Space Marine, this is where the real news is at. I can actually play armies that I care about :P

[Dan-e]

The site has a Battle Sister (mind you, the art is ripped from Soulstorm, but still) prominently next to the Space Marine on the top right, so I have hopes that "Imperium" as a faction includes my favorite faction along with Guard.

**** Space Marine, this is where the real news is at. I can actually play armies that I care about :P

don't mean to disappoint you but the WH40k online website is a Fan driven one, the game doesn't have an official web presence outside of the Vigil company website

[Galadren]

So, so beautiful...

[Melissia]

don't mean to disappoint you but the WH40k online website is a Fan driven one, the game doesn't have an official web presence outside of the Vigil company website

Ah. Still, the faction is referred to as "Imperium", so my hopes are still going.

[HsojVvad]

While the Space Marine trailer failed to impress me, this one did. When I read MMO my eyes rolled, but I thought let me still see. It might show some promise.

Just curious who is gong to control a titan? Wouldn't everyone want to be using a titan and there for turn into Battletech type game?

Was impressed with some of the vehicles being used, bikes choppas.

[Melissia]

I'm guessing that titans will mostly be used in "siege" like games-- protect the titan while it besieges the enemy fortifications, and then storm the fort after it does. If it still lives, it provides fire support.

[emperorsaxe]

I tried to click on it and it said video removed by user. I wanna see, I wanna see.
Respects. Emperorsaxe

[Melissia]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZd4pNXlRxY

[BuFFo]

I want to be an Ork on a speed freak bike, zipping around the battlefield.

Then again, I once wanted to be a Squid Herder in WaR, and look how that awesome 'class' idea turned out....

I love the idea of a 40k MMO, but, I am not holding my breath. Been around the block long enough to seperate fan boy hype from realism.

I'll probably end up being a Space Marine farming Orks for hours on end to get that next level Power Armor anyway....

Sigh....

[HsojVvad]

I tried to click on it and it said video removed by user. I wanna see, I wanna see.
Respects. Emperorsaxe

Well if you read the peoples posts, scroll down, someone posted a new link to it. Not shure if that one is taken down now, but there is how I saw the video. The original link is taken down but seems to be others on, or were on at the time I saw it.

[eldargal]

I like the trailer, it was very impressive. I'm not goingto pre-judge the game one way or the other. I do hope I can play as a Howling Banshee though.

[Kieranator K82]

Dark Millenium now has its own website
http://www.darkmillenniumonline.com/
Enjoy the little amount of content on it!

[krispy]

im normally a plain old space marine - but im SO tempted by CSM from the videos..... i wonder what the gameplay will be like...

[RocketRollRebel]

I normally cant get into MMO's beyond the character building part. This one may sell me just because its a 40k one. Lets hope!

[Artein]

From official site:

On the very edge of the galaxy lies the Sargos Sector. For centuries it was rendered uninhabitable and isolated by volatile Warp Storms. Even now, deep within the sector the very fabric of reality is unraveling. Only the ancient Sentinel Devices hold the Warp at bay.

But the ravages of time and meddling of humanity have weakened the Sentinel Devices-and now, the battle for these ost worlds is at hand. Drawn to the conflict, the great races of the galaxy descend upon the Sargos Sector, seeking to preserve reality-or to tear it asunder.

Side with the forces of Order, or the vile hosts of Destruction, in a war that will unlock ancient secrets, reveal dark purposes, and determine the fate of the Sargos Sector. For in this dark millennium, there is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter.

The last paragraph (this part about Order and Destruction) sounds bad, really bad.

[Melissia]

Not really. It's pretty much what anyone should expect. MMOs tend to do better when there's a very clear enemy for everyone to group up and attack.

[Galadren]

I liked it better when the "leaked" info a few months back said it was a free for all between Imperium, Chaos, Orks, and Eldar...

If this is WAR all over again, with only two sides, I might cry.

[Melissia]

I liked it better when the "leaked" info a few months back said it was a free for all between Imperium, Chaos, Orks, and Eldar...

If this is WAR all over again, with only two sides, I might cry.

I doubt it's WAR all over again (the WoWfags might say otherwise, but the opinions of mediocre people obsessed with a mediocre game don't matter at all to me), but it likely is two sides. Which sucks., I agree... it's really what I expected though...

Take heart, though, in that the official website uses a Black Templar on the front.

[Galadren]

Oh, believe me, I noticed.

And on further though, Order or Destruction doesn't necessarily mean Chaos and Orks are allies. It still has room to be a Three For All.

[Artein]

I really hoped it'd be free for all. I don't want to play, for example, SM and team with an Eldar Farseer just because he's a healer :(

[Splug]

To be honest, I thought Warhammer Online was a decent game (and included several innovative concepts), plagued with two problems: the gameplay was choppy, and it couldn't retain enough playerbase to keep the early levels afloat. Just a month or two after release, getting up to 40 felt like a massively single-player online game. Maybe things have gotten better now, but I doubt it. I know I didn't look back, and I imagine a large number of people didn't either. The fact that they really went against the Warhammer lore by joining the order/chaos factions together couldn't have helped them from a perspective of drawing fans, but that was a total non-concern for why I dropped the game quickly.

The conceptual background behind good/evil being allied is even a bigger stretch in 40k, but that excerpt implies everything is centered around one sector or system. There is precedent for the Ultramarines working with the Tau on a small scale, and the Eldar reinforcing... well, pretty much anything that will save a single colony in the long run. What's going to make or break the game will be the actual gameplay, of which we know almost nothing.

[Splug]

I have to wonder if they'll stick with the current (extremely successful) model of tank/healer/damage roles, or try something novel because that paradigm really doesn't strike me as fitting into 40k. If anything, that would be a bigger case of sacrificing lore to make gameplay work than the whole faction alliances deal. It would be interesting to see a company try a more FPS-style system, where encounters are fought by attrition: each player has X lives (or members in their squad, who successively take field promotions as the last sergeant dies, whatever) to make it through the encounter with. If the carnifex decides to eat you, then oops - you're down a reinforcement. When players get low on lives, they need to play more cautiously, hang back a bit, and let the guys who haven't died as much soak the losses. It'd be a different mentality than tank holds mob, dps shoots mob, healers spam tank (and occasionally dps who fail at standing out of the fire). I don't know if that's what they're going for, or if that would even be a good thing; but it'd be different, and it would feel a lot more like 40k than the current mmorpg group script.

[Melissia]

To be honest, I thought Warhammer Online was a decent gameIndeed, with the exception of the size of its player base, I'd argue it's far superior to WoW in every way.

[Splug]

Indeed, with the exception of the size of its player base, I'd argue it's far superior to WoW in every way.And that's why Blizzard stole half the innovative ideas that were put forth in Warhammer Online. I have no idea how the end-game in WAR played out either, so I can't compare those, but I did feel the gameplay in WAR was not as fluid. Part of it was framerate issues (even at low settings and with a fairly decent machine) and part of it was... something else. It felt like the global cooldown in WAR was longer than the actual tooltip animation for the GCD; maybe it was server latency?

Retaining a friendly/enemy target, healers being able to DPS to heal, public quests, and tanks having a defensive purpose in pvp are just a handful of the things I saw that really impressed me. The game had lots of great ideas, it was just missing a few key elements (like... people).

[Melissia]

Dunno, I never had any graphical problems and I always had it set on highest. Mind you, I play games like Supreme Commander so I have to have a good computer I suppose.

[Splug]

The framerate was a fairly minor concern; I don't really get annoyed until things get under 15 FPS, and it wasn't quite in that range yet. I do remember a lack of fluidity being an issue I had with the skill usage itself though; I can't recall what exactly my gripe was since it's been a year or two since I played the game, maybe it was downtime between abilities or something. I do remember disliking the extremely simple/linear talent trees, but that's entirely my personal preference, rather than a fundamental gameplay issue.

[Doomgrin]

I for one like WAR. I think the only downfall is that Mythic chose a 2 sided conflict rather than using their DAoC model of 3. With the 3, things really seemed to balance themselves out in RvR (later frontiers). This game definitely looks alot for MMO and less RPG which is what you have when playing SM or Orks is possible, and the way I think I will like it!.

[Porty1119]

If it's more than 2-sided and you can get Valks, count me in!

[AirHorse]

I would expect there to be more than two sides considering it looked very much like orks, chaos and imperial forces were playable in that video and its early days. Having chaos and orks allied worked a little in WAR, but I dont feel that it would work very well in a 40k at all(i didnt think it was that great in war, but war had many disapointments and that was the least of them :P)

I would expect a race like eldar to be featured too since most mmos like to cover lots of ground with their character types and only having bulky, brutal races like chaos, orks and space marines would seem a bit of a poor effort to me :P.

Its early days yet anyway, so not very much to judge. Though I was pleasantly surprised to see that it seems like bikes and other light vehicles appear to be a feature. Hopefully it will pan out nicely :)

[Artein]

WAR is still a fun game. They've reduced number of servers down to 2 (EU ones, not sure about US) and it's really nice now. Loads of ppl. Capital cities became playable. All end game is achievable. It's really nice now.

[Commissar Lewis]

From that vid, I saw Imperial Guardsman. If Guardsman are playable, I'm in. I'm fairly gung-ho like that; I don't need no freaking power armor or bolters. Gimme some flak armor and a lasgun and I'm good.

[Melissia]

From that vid, I saw Imperial Guardsman. If Guardsman are playable, I'm in. I'm fairly gung-ho like that; I don't need no freaking power armor or bolters. Gimme some flak armor and a lasgun and I'm good.

Or carapace armor and a shotgun.

Yeah, I would be deeply amused by running around shotgunning Marines in the face. Teach their pansy ***** to wear helmets!

[eldargal]

I've just started playing WAR again to see how it has changed, and I do think things have improved. Whether or not it will hold my interest long term I don't know.

It would be nice if they had some free for all aspects to represent the shaky nature of the alliances between the various races. I'm all for Eldar helping out the Imperium but there shoul be plenty of mutual distrust and loathing to go around.

[synack]

Meh. I said this is going to be crap. Looks like it's going to be crap. I'll wait till it becomes stale, they start allowing people to download the client for free and give away to week trials... then I'll try the game out.

[Melissia]

Meh. I said this is going to be crap. Looks like it's going to be crap. I'll wait till it becomes stale, they start allowing people to download the client for free and give away to week trials... then I'll try the game out.Somehow, I doubt there's any way they could make it that wouldn't cause people to say this. Can't please everyone.

[Galadren]

http://pc.ign.com/articles/109/1099584p1.html

The important parts:


One thing you can tell from the trailer is that you'll be fighting on foot and within vehicles, as Warhammer fans would expect. On the style of play, Madureira said "We want MMO players to be familiar with it because we want that accessibility. But obviously because of the race, weapons and vehicles and things like that, the back-and-forth trading blows kind of thing just doesn't work very well for this [intellectual property]. There's definitely a little bit more of an action vibe." Specifics regarding combat were not given out.

On the subject of PvP, not many details were available, but Madureira did say "We definitely want to be true to the license and we want to be competitive with the best of the best out. There's thing that you're used to in your triple-A MMOs that are going to have to be represented in our game. I think it's pretty safe to assume there'll be PvP given the [intellectual property]. There is only war, after all. We're just not really at the point where we can show it. We really want to show stuff when we talk about it so we're not just talking. This is just an early glimpse."

We can also assume there'll probably be more races than were seen in the E3 2010 teaser video, and we'll update when we find out. The overall structure of the game, we're told, will be familiar to MMO gamers. "You're going to have quests, you're going to go out and kill stuff, you're going to group up, you're going to join larger scale battles. It's structured very much like a traditional MMO. I think the Dawn of War series does an amazing job with tactical, squad-based stuff, [Relic's console-based action game] Space Marine is an awesome, visceral action adventure like one dude kicking ***. For us it's really more of an RPG. You're living the life of this dude not for the life of a console adventure but for hopefully months and maybe even years. What do these guys do off the battlefield? What are their interactions like with other races and in various worlds? It really gives you a unique perspective because it's a hero in that universe, not just a unit."

[Melissia]

Neat. So they're going more for an action-rpg feel than a traditional type.

[Splug]

Neat. So they're going more for an action-rpg feel than a traditional type.I certainly think that will fit the 40k universe better, so I'm glad to hear that. I do hope they've learned from Age of Conan that trying to change too much all at once results in players hitting almost a culture shock effect though; it would be a shame to see this go too far overboard and scare everyone off. It does sound like they're keeping that in mind though - that quote all but says "we're going to do some new things, but we saw what AoC did, and we have learned from it."

Very promising on the whole, but again it's hard to pass judgment until there's at least more information.

[AirHorse]

There was talk about them making alot of use of a cover system, so I think the game will have a reasonable amount of tactical play to it as well which is cool.

[eldargal]

I just hope the environments have a suitably epic scale to them. One thing I really dislike about WAR (and WoW) is the minute size of the game world. Actually its not so much the actual size, as the feel of scale. LOTRO has similarly sized areas but it feels much larger, I almost feel claustrophobic in WAR (and WoW).

[Commissar Lewis]

I'm hoping I can play as a Guardsman. I'm not too fond of playing SMs - I like charging into war with weapons and armor that are inferior compared to everything else.

Reminds me of my Celtic ancestors who'd run into battle naked. Gotta respect someone who runs into battle as the very definition of "balls-out".

[Asp]

Interview with one of the Devs (http://www.massively.com/2010/06/17/e3-2010-interview-with-warhammer-40ks-mark-downie/)

Not a lot of info, but if you're expecting the game to release soon, you may be in for a wait.. He's projecting early 2013, and these things rarely release on time.

[DarkLink]

There was talk about them making alot of use of a cover system, so I think the game will have a reasonable amount of tactical play to it as well which is cool.

Heck, if it's just an mmo rip-off of Gears of War, with more chainsaw bayonet style action, I won't complain.

[Melissia]

So based on the most recent interview, in this MMO there will be only sausage. Its just idiotic...

[Galadren]

Where'd you see that at? In the interview I read they just weren't saying what they were releasing. Though admittedly females units will look scarce for Chaos. And of course, Greenskins... But they haven't said that Sisters won't be in for Imperial (they could seriously just make them Space Marines with a different model and different labels on their specs and abilities). Also, there are women in the Imperial Guard.

[Melissia]

Where'd you see that at? In the interview I read they just weren't saying what they were releasing. Though admittedly females units will look scarce for Chaos. And of course, Greenskins... But they haven't said that Sisters won't be in for Imperial (they could seriously just make them Space Marines with a different model and different labels on their specs and abilities). Also, there are women in the Imperial Guard.

In the BoLS blog post interview, they stated you will not be able to play humans on release.

Therefor, assuming Imperium / Orks / Eldar / Chaos, only one faction MIGHT have females.

Ergo, sausage fest. Three entire factions of only males.

[Galadren]

That's not what it says.


Are we all going to have to be Imperial Guardsmen, Space Marines, or Inquisitors? I press gently on this point and Georgina Verdon is willing to break the embargo just a little. No, we are not going to have to play as a human from the beginning. When I ask her which brand of Xenos would be available to us, for instance the Orks or Eldar, she grins and says “We won’t be making all the races playable at first. We have to leave something for expansions.”

From the way I read it, there will be racial choices, just they won't be putting every race on the table. If I get the hint rght the Eldar might be the ones off the table.

[Melissia]

How does that post do anything but affirm what I just said?

[Galadren]

. No, we are not going to have to play as a human from the beginning.

As in, "No, it is not mandatory for you to play as a human from the beginning." Not, "No, you are not able to play as a human from the beginning."

[Melissia]

Thank you.

[Galadren]

Quite welcome.

[Galadren]

So, saw new trailer for 40k online at Dames Day today. Apparently the "races" for the Imperium are:

-Space Marines
-Imperial Guard
-Mechanicus

Now, from what I saw of Mechanicum there did look to be a bit of variation, like one guy who looked like a bit of a rogue tossing grenades. Didn't see much for the new guys.

Edit: Found the video on YouTube.

Dark Milllenium - Imperium Faction (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtKvwTX-SeM&feature=player_embedded)

[Duke]

Gotta say, this looks a lot like DOW2 gameplay footage in a lot of respects (Obvious as to why). I like the way it is looking right now. So, it seems that the races roles are:

Imperial Guard: Ranged DPS

Mechanicus: Support

Marines: Close DPS

I know that those are all pretty obvious roles for those armies, but what they heck.

All in all I am looking forward to seeing this in real life.

Duke

[eldargal]

Hm, no SoB, they better have Eldar as a playable race at launch or I won't be bothering with it.

[Eyespy]

Gotta say, this looks a lot like DOW2 gameplay footage in a lot of respects (Obvious as to why).

Because the shot of the ships entering the warp at the beginning is lifted straight from DoW2?

[Porty1119]

I'm hoping I can play as a Guardsman. I'm not too fond of playing SMs - I like charging into war with weapons and armor that are inferior compared to everything else.

Reminds me of my Celtic ancestors who'd run into battle naked. Gotta respect someone who runs into battle as the very definition of "balls-out".

Agreed. But if vehicles make an appearance (crosses fingers), then the IG will almost undoubtedly have the best/most. Quantity has a quality all its own!! :D

[Duke]

From those cut scenes it looked like there was a heavy amount of vehicles involved... The only question is if those vehicles are instances battle grounds or open world things.

Duke

[Beta_Ray_Bill]

I really hope these guys take a page from Sony's Planetside playbook. If this game plays like that, then I'm in!

Has anyone seen any chapters aside from Black Templars? I guess they make the most sense, seeing as they don't stick to the 1,000 marines per chapter rule, and their command structure would work fairly well for a somewhat linear leveling tree. Going from initiate to marshal would seem kinda fun.

[Lordgimpet]

I agree Planetside was a great game for its time, what little info I have been able to gleen from various dev interviews and what not, it may end up being another MMO STC or another way to put it wow with guns,
but if the 2013 release is accurate there is still plenty of time to change things. It was also stated that it will be 2 opposing factions much like your wow horde/ alliance or WAR with order and destruction etc. which if turns out to be true would be lame, imagine playing an orc dps spamming a channel "looking for CSM tank" etc.
It be nice to have each race as seperate factions and massive campaigns like WWII online has, where you could log in play on the front line for a while comback a day or so later and see how the battle lines have changed etc. but then again thats my whishful thinking lol.

and sadly Eldargal I can't as of yet see any information of Eldar as playable :(

[renton13]

I am curious as to how they will handle factions. There is a reason why most MMO's only have 2 factions. The more factions you have the more you fragment the player base. If you have even 4 "factions" you need twice as many ppl playing to make the server feel as "full" of ppl in a 2 faction game. I don't think a 2 faction setup work well at all for a 40k MMO so I am really interested in how they are going to handle this.