WH40K: You Didn't Really Want To Be A Space Marine

Posted on August 20, 2010 by Scott Jennings| 119 Comments

See? See? I'm the 47th Tyranid from the left. That's me, baby.

The new Warhammer 40K MMO from Vigil and THQ hasn’t seen a lot of discussion. Well, in time honored fashion of science fiction MMOs developed in Austin, some of the beans were spilled by a company executive in an interview.

They were not very good beans.

It has a lot of the same qualities of WOW in terms of ease of use and how the interface is. I want to say that if you play WOW, you’ll be able to jump into Dark Millennium Online really easy.

But you won’t be able to be a Space Marine right away, because that’s a very unique class, if you know the universe. The road there is a great road, and they are in the game.

*blinks*

*blinks again, slowly*

NO YOU STUPID GIT, YOU DO NOT RELEASE A GAME AND CALL IT WARHAMMER 40000 AND NOT LET YOUR PLAYER BE A SPACE MARINE! DO YOU MAKE A MODERN WARFARE GAME AND TELL PEOPLE THEY CAN’T SHOOT A GUN? NO, YOU DO NOT. DO YOU MAKE A STAR WARS GAME AND TELL PEOPLE THEY CAN’T PLAY A JEDI? NO, YOU DO NOT. FOR GOD’S SAKE PEOPLE, LOOK ONE STORY DOWN. STOP WASTING MONEY ON ARTSY-FARTSY DESIGN-IS-LAW BULLSHIT AND LET PEOPLE BE A GODDAMN SPACE MARINE THE SECOND THEY INSTALL THE GAME… NO, LET THEM BE A GODDAMN SPACE MARINE WHILE THEY INSTALL! I WANT TO BE WAVING A GODDAMN CHAINSWORD WHILE FILES ARE COPIED TO MY COMPUTER! BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT WARHAMMER 40K IS, YOU STUPID CLUELESS CORPORATE GIT, NOT A FUCKING SURVEY ON HOW MUCH BETTER YOU CAN CLONE THE WOW UI THAN EVERY OTHER GAME THAT CLONES THE WOW UI. IF YOU DO NOT LET ME JOIN THE ULTRAMARINES WITHIN TWENTY FIVE SECONDS OF INSTALLING YOUR STUPID GAME THAT SAYS, AND I QUOTE, WARHAMMER 40K ON THE BOX, I WILL TURN YOU OVER TO THE ECCLESIARCHY FOR A MINDWIPE. FOR GOD’S SAKE WHY DON’T YOU JUST SAY YOU ARE ONLY LAUNCHING WITH THE IMPERIAL GUARD AND THE KROOT AND EVERYTHING ELSE IS A GODDAMN CASH SHOP ADDON TO BE PATCHED IN LATER I HATE YOU ALL GWWAAAAARRRRRGGHHHHHHH

OK, I feel better now. How about you?

Regretfully necessary edit:

Note to all the people being blind-linked here. The rest of you can ignore this!

Hi. My name’s Scott. Welcome to my blog.

- I was being funny.
- I work in the MMO industry. Most of my blog entries relate to MMO business decisions and the pros/cons thereof.
- I do not actually own a single Warhammer miniature.
- I specifically was parodying a “nerd rage” rant.
- More specifically, I was pointing out that making “spehs mahreen” or whatever other cute slang term you use for that iconic image of Warhammer 40K not something you can immediately play will be about as popular with the non-fanatic community (i.e. NOT YOU) as making a Star Wars MMO where you have to unlock the ability to be a Jedi.
- I actually have a number of friends who work on WH40K at Vigil, all of whom IMed me 5 minutes after this went up to laugh about it. It was a JOKE. I really don’t want to be THE IMMORTAL GOD EMPEROR in an MMO.
- I did, actually, nerf your 47th level Holy Asperger’s Paladin Of Elven Light. U mad?

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  • http://Website Kaeru

    “DO YOU MAKE A STAR WARS GAME AND TELL PEOPLE THEY CAN’T PLAY A JEDI? NO, YOU DO NOT.”

    Didn’t this happen with SWG?

  • http://Website J.

    You found the irony!

  • http://Website Angstrom


    Kaeru:

    “DO YOU MAKE A STAR WARS GAME AND TELL PEOPLE THEY CAN’T PLAY A JEDI? NO, YOU DO NOT.”
    Didn’t this happen with SWG?

    Well spotted.

  • http://shadowwar.wordpress.com Shadow War

    Wow, that’s god-damn-ridiculous.

    Also, the above on the SWG reference.

  • http://Website Kaeru

    The Jedi experiment ended up being a failure, right? Haven’t we learned that “hero classes” in MMOs really just don’t work?

  • http://www.antipwn.com/blog IainC

    The problem I had with the stuff coming out regarding DM:O is that so far they’ve been mostly talking about how they really like WoW and how awesome WoW is and not very much about WH40k at all.

  • http://gorstagg.wordpress.com/ Gorstagg

    You’ve got to be fucking kidding me?

    What the FUCK are these moron’s doing? The very FIRST thing they should be doing is playing a Space Marine… going through a Space Hulk.

    By the gods the idiots who breed these moronic offspring, and find their way into power… is just … infuriating.

  • http://joshdrescher.com Josh

    I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – there is one, easy way to make this game awesome:

    http://funtax.tumblr.com/post/927381230/hey-vigil-theres-still-time-to-add-orktimus

  • http://Website Mandella

    Lum is back. And welcome.

  • Bopper

    Looking forward to Cataclysm. More Austin fail? Where’s the surprise there?

  • http://Website Soulflame

    Truly, a righteous rant, and with a well deserved target.

  • http://Website Jesse

    I’ll reserve judgement until I can see someone actually playing the game. It could be that you become a Space Marine at level x.

  • http://Website Jesse

    Also, I’m not buying until I can play Tyranid or Eldar.

  • http://Website Hatch

    Lum found capslock again. It’s been like 10 years since that happened.

    With everything going online in some fashion the difference between an MMO and regular game seems to be that MMOs make you work your ass off before you can have fun and regular games are designed to provide fun from the get-go.

    MMOs are failing because of this.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/mwisconsin Thomas Valley

    I HAVE SUBSCRIBED TO YOU ON TWITTER, FACEBOOK, AND RSS, AND I STILL SEEK TO SUBSCRIBE TO YOU MORE, GOOD SIR.

  • http://www.multiplaying.net Rer

    The internet cookie for awesome is your’s sir!

  • http://Website Amaranthar

    Damn, gamers really are pussies.
    Gamers, don’t play a sport. You could, like, lose a game or something.

  • http://Website Definiendum

    That’s like releasing a Star Wars game and not letting anyone be a Jedi from start.

  • http://krosusssaysburn.wordpress.com/ Krosuss

    Perhaps players won’t be starting the game as a full-fledged Space Marine. Even within the SM ranks there is a progression.

    Imagine going through this progression:

    Recruit>Scout>Trooper>Vet

    The goal would be to level up and become a SM but players shouldn’t simply start and be one. If you’ve ever played the tabletop the SM army is tough and even their rank and file would be considered champions.

  • http://Website Njal

    And the reason characters shouldn’t be allowed to start out awesome is? Oh yeah we want a grind before you can do anything except kill 10 rats. More fail.

  • http://Website Uglek

    Maybe they are trying to create a more well rounded space marine by making you grind threw dancing and the arts before you can become one?

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  • http://idempot.net/blog/ Matthew Weigel

    Gee, did someone want to be a space marine?

  • http://luminance.org/ Kevin Gadd


    Matthew Weigel:

    Gee, did someone want to be a space marine?

    Maybe they should send out a survey to interested customers asking them to rank their interest in being a space marine on a scale of 1 to 10 so they can consider it for inclusion in a further expansion pack.

  • http://Website Sentack

    They might actually try the class tier structure like we saw in Everquest 2 release. Of course a year latter they dropped that idea and let you pick right from the beginning.

    The only game I saw that did a Hero class that sort of worked was WoW with the Dark Knight but that was something people only really knew about when Wrath was released. It wasn’t like Jedi where people knew about Jedi, they wanted to be a Jedi, and they screamed when they learned they couldn’t be a Jedi.

    When it’s your own lore, and most people only have a vague idea of what’s going on, Hero classes don’t sound that bad.

  • http://Website Chris Hockabout

    Been running a Dark Heresy game and been enjoying the crap out of it. But if the ultimate goal in WH40KOL is to just become a Space Marine, I’m not that interested. I’d rather be an Inquisitor.

  • http://Website Mordur

    That rant was so righteous that even I feel better.

  • Scott Jennings


    Matthew Weigel:

    Gee, did someone want to be a space marine?

    Maybe?

  • http://Website Otis

    @Sentack: Death Knight and they were announced before it even went into beta.

  • http://Website Gx1080

    Not letting people be the race that has FIVE CODEXES and is showed in your face by GW in the SECCOND YOU BUY A 40K PRODUCT is fucking BRILLIANT!!

    Corporate dipshit.

    Also, both are wrong on other thing. Blood Angels > all.

  • http://Website Viz


    Otis:

    @Sentack: Death Knight and they were announced before it even went into beta.

    And furthermore they were only a “hero class” in that they were ludicrously overbalanced for the first few months of that expansion.

  • http://syncaine.wordpress.com Syncaine

    Naw no one wants to be a space marine, just like no one was really looking forward to playing a slayer in WAR…

  • http://Website Grimjakk

    If they’re gonna walk down that dark road, they’d better freakin’ stick to it. (I loved SWG back before all the glow-stick jockeys got let out of their perma-death bottle.)

    That was a classic rant, but I’ll wait until I hear more before screaming.

    What I DON’T wanna see is DIKU-in-space, with a Marine texture on one guy, a psyker on another, and techno-magus on a third. WOOT! Holy Trinity. (Yawn.)

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  • http://snafzg.mmofansites.com Snafzg

    My guess is that your shouts should be directed at Games Workshop instead of Vigil Games. I seem to remember GW kiboshing a lot of ideas/features when Mythic was developing WAR.

    That said the more I hear Vigil devs comparing WH40K to WoW the less and less interested I become in the game. I mean, crap, WH40K’s release date is some time in 2013 isn’t it?

    Way to shoot for the stars guys…

    Then again maybe they can pull it off. Weren’t the Blizzard devs responsible for WoW big fans of EQ1?

    Let’s hope they can at least iterate and improve…

  • http://tremayneslaw.wordpress.com/ Tremayne

    Epic primal scream there, Scott. I’m proud of you. All of you guys are gonna wish Cryptic had been given the WH:40K licence by the time this is done …

  • http://Website Andyf

    “Wanna be a space marine ? Sorry kid, no can do. But tell ya what. Go home, find a nice girl, get married, have kids. When they’re 18, bring em by and I’ll take a look. If one’s got what it takes, maybe that one can be a space marine. NEXT!”

  • http://idempot.net/blog/ Matthew Weigel


    Kevin Gadd:

    Maybe they should send out a survey to interested customers asking them to rank their interest in being a space marine on a scale of 1 to 10 so they can consider it for inclusion in a further expansion pack.

    Just as long as I can play a Chaos Space Marine, I don’t care.

    Wait… I’ll get to play Chaos Space Marine from the start, right? ‘Cuz that would be awesome.

  • http://Website Helicon One

    “Mighty Space Marine, I require 10 Squig pelts for my new coat. Go forth and slay 10 Squigs in the name of the Emperor!”

    Yeah.

    No.

  • http://www.multiplaying.net Rer

    Gotta love how they use the name “WOW” more than “WH40K” in their interviews… christ.

  • http://geldonsgaming.blogspot.com/ geldonyetich

    A Warhammer MMORPG that looked and played like WoW? Gee, seems like something that we’ve not only done, but we’ve had done by some of the most experienced MMORPG builders in the business. It performed mediocre (though at least it’s not canceled) and apparently caused their CEO to jump ship (or was he thrown?).

    If they really want to be faithful to Games Workship Warhammer games, they’ll stop making MMORPGs out of them and start making MMORTS out of them. Because RTS and Warhammer works well.

    Then, for additional authenticity, they can have you pay $15 per virtual figurine, paint them with virtual paint, and let you assemble battle fields out of virtual plywood and Christmas tree flocking.

  • http://rorschach.net/wordpress Paul

    Brilliant!

  • http://Website Zensun


    Kaeru:

    “DO YOU MAKE A STAR WARS GAME AND TELL PEOPLE THEY CAN’T PLAY A JEDI? NO, YOU DO NOT.”
    Didn’t this happen with SWG?

    Hell yeah! And it wasn’t until they introduced Jedi* that the game started going down-hill. It completely ruined immersion for a vast number of people that had been playing. Then one bad decision after another killed it for anyone who wanted to play in an Empire-era SW mmoRPG.

    *Ok, I’ll be kind – until they removed Jedi perma-kill, which meant Jedi began running around in the open flashing lightsabers.

  • http://Website Bob

    I remember when I first heard about this game years ago and my comment on the game to my buddy at work was “What are we going to play in addition to Space Marines?”

    Did these guys even bother to talk to the team who did Dawn of War?

  • Siege

    If there’s one mmo they should make a special effort to get right it’s Warhammer 40k. This is the motherlode. This is the one that would let you start printing sacks of your very own money…..if you get it right.

    This isn’t something you want to do half-assed or use the same, tired formulaic mmo design. This is the kind of thing where you wait for the right sort of inspired genius(or insanity depending on your point of view) to come along. If it’s not time then you simply sit on the license and wait.

    I’m getting the feeling they should have waited on this one.

    I’ve sort of resigned myself to the fact that any mmo that gets released is probably going to suck and playing it would be like spending time in the 9 circles of Hell. Which circle depends on which company made the game.

  • http://Website Siege

    Also, there’s a certain amount of irony in a Warhammer mmo trying to copy an mmo that started out as a clone of Warhammer.

  • http://Website paperjack

    Space Marines are lame pussies, real 40k aficionados play IG or anything apart spess mahreens

  • http://Website Tox

    @Lum: If you really, really want to be a space marine, there’s always DOOM. ;)

  • Bopper

    Stick a fork in it and turn it over, it’s done.

    Wonder how long before THQ shuts this studio down? Darksiders, nice C game, sold like crap.

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