THQ Announces Warhammer 40K MMOG

In our interview with the Warhammer Online team a while back, there were questions as to why we weren't going to be seeing a Warhammer 40K MMOG. Several people seemed quite keen on the idea. Well, for those people: your time is now. THQ has announced they'll be developing Warhammer 40K into a MMOG and mobile games. Gamasutra reports on comments from Kelly Flock, executive vice president of worldwide publishing for the company, about their plan to work with Austin startup Vigil games on the project. Says Flock, "We realized this is one of those few properties that has a high level of interest from the hardcore gaming community, which could be a great launching point to turning it into a great mainstream mass-market MMO ... We're not out to replace World of Warcraft, we think we have a unique offering in the same category that will get its own share of attention if we deliver properly on the gameplay mechanics we'll build our own audience." Flock demures from offering a timeframe for release of the game, saying they're not even going to try to pinpoint a development schedule yet.

Comments

The only problem I predict...

[GodInHell]

is that they have a little trouble keeping that kind of ultra-violent, soul crushing story line interesting to players over the long term.

Everything I like about 40K involves big armies, lotts of drama, and massive casualties. Not the best fodder for a MMO.

Two cents inserted, I go!!
-GiH

Uh..

[Lordfly]

Maybe I've slipped into an alternate dimension, but wasn't there a Warhammer MMOG game being developed like... 4 years ago?

Re:Uh..

[Needs Food Badly]

There is a Warhammer Fantasy MMOG currently under development. That's probably what you are thinking of. On the other hand, this announcement is about a Warhammer 40k based MMO, which is GW's other Warhammer line. One is high fantasy and lends itself more to RPGs, and the other being gritty sci-fi.

Re:Uh..

[HappySqurriel]

I don't know much (well anything) about Warhammer but I could see how it might make sense to create two MMO games, that were based off of similar systems, which are seperated by many months of development ...

If I was Blizzard, and was considering making a World of Starcraft (or world of Diablo) I would try to use as much of the server side code from World of warcraft as possible (obviously, focusing on improving everything over the next 24 months of development) and focus technical development on creating a new client. The result of this would be that most of the features people want (chat, mail, grouping and battle system) would have already been built and tested (all of your competition will spend 2 years of development trying to get to this position).

Obligatory

[Trails]

"We're not out to replace World of Warcraft"

It seems like every MMO announcement includes this. I guess it's boilerplate PR indemnification in case they fail to kill WoW.

Re:Obligatory

[_xeno_]

I think it's more along the lines of "yes, we know it exists - please don't ask us about it, we want to talk about our product and not compare it to WoW."

Otherwise they're basically guaranteed to be asked how they plan to "beat WoW" which ultimately becomes an effort in comparing the new game to WoW and, in a way, yet another ad for WoW.

Re:Obligatory

[flyingsquid]

What they really mean when they say, "we're not out to kill WOW" is "we won't get killed by WOW". If I wanted to invest in or partner with a company doing a MMORPG, my first question is going to be, "how will your company survive if you can't take significant market share away from WOW?" The answer is that you'd have to find a different group of gamers, or offer something different enough that people would play both your game and WOW.

Otherwise... well, Blizzard isn't invincible. If you build a better game and market it well, people will come. But even though it's possible to beat Blizzard, your chances of failure are very high. So if your entire strategy hinged on the idea that you could beat Blizzard at their own game, I'd say you were at best, reckless, and at worst, deluded.

RTS vs RPG

[sanjacguy]

All they've done is announce it as an MMO - the better question is are they planning an RPG or an RTS? Or even an FPS? What I can tell you definatively is that Black Library is currently planning to publish the Warhammer 40K RPG for table top gamers. It should be noted that after I wept openly at this announcement, I read closer and really want to know what they're planning, RPG, RTS, FPS?

Not interested.

[hookedup]

Sorry, but a Space Marine dancing on the mailbox is not going to do it for me.

40k?

[cybereal]

40k... Apparently they already know their peak membership numbers!

Re:40k?

[Crunchie Frog]

40k... Apparently they already know their peak membership numbers! Thanks folks, Cybereal will be here all week. Try the veal.

Re:Not an announcement.

[zyl0x]

From TFA:

"So we worked with Games Workshop, broadened our license, extended it out, and are announcing that we're putting the MMO into development down in Austin, TX."

His actual use of the word "announcing" seems to conflict with your.. interpretation.

Inquisitors and Space Marines

[RockoTDF]

I hope the game comes off like the sub game inquisitor, where you play more as individualistic characters (Inquisitors, Assassins, Rogue Traders, Eldar Rangers etc) rather than just being a soldier or space marine. I get the feeling that if they put the option to be a space marine out there everyone will do it and it will be over saturated just like the table top game. On the other hand, if they don't they will be missing out on a huge part of the market for that game. Perhaps they should consider doing what the Star Wars MMO did with Jedi. You can't start as one, but instead have to get an offer for training and earn it somehow. But then again being a space marine wouldn't be a great deal of fun in an RPG (shoot, shoot, shoot some more) so perhaps they could stick to the specialist chapters like the Grey Knights and Deathwatch who actually have abilities/powers to keep them interesting.

Re:Inquisitors and Space Marines

[servognome]

Perhaps they should consider doing what the Star Wars MMO did with Jedi.

You mean leave it out in the first place hoping nobody discovers how to actually become one. Then when enough people get bored and complain introduce a system that lets them mindlessly macro grind for months through a bunch of professions they don't care about. When they finally jump through all those hoops they discover that the profession is unfinshed. Finally everything gets scrapped a few years later and just make it a regular profession.

Re:So how does one...

[loopback_127001]

Nonsense. Try thinking a little bit outside the box.

Sample classes could be that a Space Marine is a character who is moderately tank-like in nature. Rather than having a player play a guardsman, you instead play a squad leader, and you have 'pets' of guardsmen who fire on your behalf. There's a basic "x number of guardsmen = 1 space marine. roughly." rule of thumb you could go by, and scale that up as characters level, until you become able to have 'pets' as a Commisar such as tanks, heavy artillery, or the equivalent. and the marine works their way up to, say, Terminator armor, or a single rhino/land raider.

If you don't assume one troop unit = 1 player, and break things up, the game could get quite interesting.

Re:Not an announcement.

[Pojut]

BZZZT wrong.

I direct you to Duke Nukem Forever. How many times have they had a release date or release time frame for that monster?

No date does not equal vaporware, just like having a date does not equal it will hit retail within a reasonable date of the original release date.

Re:Not shooting for the stars

[Guuge]

I also found that statement funny, but for a different reason.

Imagine a musician announcing that they're not out to replace Britney Spears. Imagine slashdot announcing that it's not out to replace CNN.