Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Blind faith is a just cause. (WH40K)

In his Glorious Majesty’s realm, blind faith is a just cause. Granted that says an awful awful lot about the world of the Imperium.

A quick look at my blog list this morning got me a few links. On the one hand we have Shadow-War and We Fly Spitfires on the cautious but positive view. On the other we have Syncaine in his crusade against all things WoW taking a snarky tack, along with The War Realm being unimpressed.

To each their own really. Syncaine insists that Dark Millennium doesn’t look dark and gloomy enough and is WoW in the future. War Realm has come down on the side of the trailer being CGI and thus useless (coughOldRepubliccough).

They may have a point. Perhaps games have been unfairly influenced out of all proportion by World of Warcraft. At the same time maybe that’s because the influences weren’t all negative. Maybe the trailer doesn’t give everything you want to know, but hey that to me looked pretty damn slick and THQ did all its cinematics in the engine for Dawn of War. If they were going the CGI route full of pretty and no substance, they could have gone further.

Me? I’m all for it. We’ve gone from what was just a bullet point on a THQ statement, through small bits of concept art into a trailer that shows me some pretty exciting things. Maybe Syncaine is right and the Kopta isn’t piloted and is more like WoWs griffins. Maybe there will be a ridiculous amount of PvE questing. Maybe all the naysayers will be right on the money and it will be World of Warhammercraft 40k.

Or maybe… just maybe it’s as good as it looks. Given the option of being negative or being an mmo blogger… I’m going to have to go with the unbridled out of proportion optimism. I have faith in Vigil Games and THQ. I am not yet ready to call for the Exterminatus on the Dark Millennium.

Blogging or living in the grim darkness of the far future, blind faith is a just cause.

5 comments:

Krosuss said...

Good post and I agree. The trailer only shows a little bit and we know so very little about how this game will be.

Like you, I am optimistic as I'm a huge fan of 40k. I do agree that in game better look pretty darn grim ... but I can understand a need for variation of environs.

Enjoy your blog and I've added you to my blogroll!

Ardua said...

I want it grim. I want it dirty and run down. I want the intergalactic version of JFK Airport.

Everyone and their donkey has had battlegrounds in wide open fields and valleys...and while they'll be great for vehicular combat I want a Forge World. I want to fight in a Hive.

By all means seal us in, make it dangerous and let us go to it. Heck... the perfect planet/scapegoat would be a Fourth Armageddon War.

We Fly Spitfires said...

Still very early to really know anything concrete yet I'm definitely optimistic. 2011 could be a good year for MMOs!

Terry said...

There's nothing necessarily wrong with it being World of Warhammercraft 40k, as long as it's done correctly.

And doing it correctly is doing it the way WoW ultimately did. They took various MMO staples, tossed out what people didn't like, improved what people did like, and released an extremely polished and accessible product. They then took that extremely polished and accessible product, did their research on what was working and what wasn't, and improved it again. And they continue to do so.

Any MMO that wants to be successful in the market will have to do the same things. People say they want to do new things. I constantly hear that "If I wanted to play WoW, I'd just play WoW", and there is some truth in those statements. The key is, however, that while people want to try new things, they want to do so within the comforting confines of the familiar. They may not want WoW, but what they generally do want is a twist on what WoW has to offer.

But it has to be compelling, it has to fun, and it has to work as advertised.

Unlike just about everything in the previous attempt at MMOing a Games Workshop property.

Gamer Hudson said...

I can see the Character Selection Screen now…

CHOOSE YOUR CLASS

# Space Marine (Ultramarine)

# Space Marine (Space Wolf)

# Space Marine (Blood Angel)

# Space Marine (Dark Angel)

# Space Marine (Other)

# Psyker

# Xenos (You will be purged)