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[pisskop]

1st Edition Realms of Chaos makes current 40k, of any flavor, any race, look like Candy Land crossed with WoW. The original Space Marine novel? So hardcore it has been all but disavowed by GWS as having ever existed, it was that brutal.

A google search is convinced I meant 'first/original space marine chapters instead of novel/book/edition.

[Tack]

Ork Spore, taking you from grot to ork boy to warboss eventually waaaaghing across the galaxy

Can you create slave races in Spore? Because if so, yes. Start as a squig and work your way up.

[LordBaal]

Saldy no, it might have been planned at some point when the game was about actual evolution and more serious but then it was meddle with by EA and took a turn for the garbage can.

[Teneb]

Gorkamorka CK2 mod when

Oh, it'll never happen under the current shovelware 'n sequels-based licensing scheme, but a grand strategy game in which you play as Gork & Mork would be a genuinely innovative and weirdly lore-accurate deconstruction of the 40k video game formula of virtual tabletop play. (Which is another reason it would never happen.) Randomly generate the boyz, leave them under AI control, and only let the player control them via the allocation of WAAAGH! energy (read: blessings) and occasional prophetic vision to boost the bosses and Oddboyz with the best randomly parameterized AI/most immediately useful traits. Let fighting make them bigger, more technologically advanced and more volatile. Lead them to fight pretty much anything, lead the victors to fight everything else, and just wash the galaxy in a barely-directed green tide of utterly autotelic ultra-violence. The various Dawns of War and Battlefleets Gothic have dealt with the ultimate nihilism of 40k by focusing on artificially discretized and therefore notionally winnable conflicts while pretending they matter; why not have a game that acknowledges that the whole setting generates endless war for its own sake ad infinitum and just gets a good laugh out of the meaningless slaughter of trillions until victory and defeat are indistinguishable under all the blood?

Heck, if GW weren't so litigious I'd start coding that now.

Didn't chapter master dodge that by making an engine and having the 40k part of it be technically a mod?

[Dorsidwarf]

No, and the fact that is wasn’t is why the project died really.

All the successor remake attempts are, but they all die off quickly

[Trekkin]

Didn't chapter master dodge that by making an engine and having the 40k part of it be technically a mod?

That would also be antithetical to my point about shovelware, though. Putting together a generic engine for someone else to mod would end up feeling like, well, a generic game with a skin-deep 40k paint job. Like Slitherine's Armageddon games, or maybe Gladius. There's just no safe way to get it to feel right.

[Jopax]

Sooo, anyone here tried the new Mechanicus game out?

It's a bit rough and clearly could use some more work in certain aspects (like say animations not being stop-motion levels of quality) but so far, it's a pretty neat take on the X-com formula with enough added stuff to make it different (mainly the cognition and the ability to use a bunch of shit every turn). Plus the way they're depicting some of the techpriests is damn entertaining too (you know the one I'm talking about )

[Kot]

I liked it. I wish it was more... open, though. XCOMs strength is replayability, Mechanicus is very "funneled", and I was somewhat disappointed by the level of customization. Looked nice in theory, but in practice I wish it was... more. Cogboys being cogboys just begs for random-ass upgrades and unique enchancements that impact the game severely, and weird weapons and whatnot, but in game it just ends up being a glorified inventory + level item unlock system with few types of weapons. It's like, that's my problem with a lot of WH40k games. The basics are all there, the idea is good, the finished product isn't even bad, but the sheer scale of WH40k begs for options and more... sandboxy feel.

[nenjin]

I liked it. I wish it was more... open, though. XCOMs strength is replayability, Mechanicus is very "funneled", and I was somewhat disappointed by the level of customization. Looked nice in theory, but in practice I wish it was... more. Cogboys being cogboys just begs for random-ass upgrades and unique enchancements that impact the game severely, and weird weapons and whatnot, but in game it just ends up being a glorified inventory + level item unlock system with few types of weapons. It's like, that's my problem with a lot of WH40k games. The basics are all there, the idea is good, the finished product isn't even bad, but the sheer scale of WH40k begs for options and more... sandboxy feel.

This sense is what has stopped me from getting it. So many 40k games fit the visual bill but fall short in terms of content. Even the best ones like Space Hulk: Deathwing have a semi-casual feel to the mechanics that the sheer crunchiness of 40k leaves feeling pretty inadequate.

Didn't chapter master dodge that by making an engine and having the 40k part of it be technically a mod?

That would also be antithetical to my point about shovelware, though. Putting together a generic engine for someone else to mod would end up feeling like, well, a generic game with a skin-deep 40k paint job. Like Slitherine's Armageddon games, or maybe Gladius. There's just no safe way to get it to feel right.

Yeah. This is why I can't get behind the "generic" Chapter Master remakes. Details and art are what make 40k, and those are two things that the sanitized remakes either have to get rid of or work around.

[Trekkin]

So many 40k games fit the visual bill but fall short in terms of content. Even the best ones like Space Hulk: Deathwing have a semi-casual feel to the mechanics that the sheer crunchiness of 40k leaves feeling pretty inadequate.

This is, unfortunately, the long-term consequence of GW's intense IP QC, exacerbated by their microscale approach to sublicensing. Carving up the IP down to the level of individual units leaves holes in the overall feel anyway, and the broader the editorial authority ceded by the licensee, the harder it is to confidently fill in the gaps non-generically and the bigger a question mark goes next to every creative decision made. It's understandable, then, why recent 40k games have simple, generic mechanics: they're fast to rebuild and robust to endless executive meddling. It's just not possible to achieve unity of effect between the assets and the mechanics when the assets keep changing under you, so that leaves dissonance or blandness. Of the two, blandness is vastly more likely to let the game ride brand recognition to the sort of sales numbers that get GW's weird post-hoc sink-or-swim approach to advertising started.

Thus we get a flood of games that, while disappointing in and of themselves, effectively advertise the tabletop. With the halcyon days of the THQ 40k license behind us, that appears to be their sole objective now.

[nenjin]

Yeah, to GWS it's the opposite problem they used to have. Before there was so much creative control that you needed a big studio like THQ spending 2 years working on the game because GWS wanted itself presented in the best possible light.

Fast forward to now and they're less concerned about every game portraying 40k in the best possible light, and more concerned about multiple licensing deals padding out their quarterlies.

But I think they're starting to reap what they've sown. Armageddon, Mordheim (technically fantasy but still in the same licensening universe), Inquisitor Martyr...while not BAD games they're not GREAT games like the Dawn of War series, and so gamers who look to 40k games are starting to get gunshy. For every really quality 40k game made (Battlefleet Gothic is dialed to the 9s), it seems like there's two to three subpar games (Mechanicus, Titanicus immediately come to mind) out as well. To the discerning 40k fan, they will sort the wheat from the chaff even though they wish it was all wheat.....but for average gamer who doesn't know much or anything about 40k, they might grab one of these lesser titles and decide that most things with 40k label are going to be like it, and aren't going to open their pocketbooks again.

I feel like there's room for all kinds of 40k games out there, from cheap indie games to mobile to big AAA games.....but it seems like lately all we've gotten is the former two, and the latter have disappeared. Without a big studio with big money to gamble, we'll keep getting these truncated, unfleshed out experiences.

Maybe the new Cyanide Space Hulk game will feel really fleshed out, because Cyanide has the resources to do something like that. But so far I'm not holding my breath. As gorgeous as Space Hulk:Deathwing is, and for how much it clearly loves 40k canon, a lot of gameplay felt like a big ol missed opportunity. Like, devs spend 70% of their effort and money on the visuals and the voice acting, and the remaining 30% is just some uninspired generic gear or leveling grind.

[Trekkin]

But I think they're starting to reap what they've sown.

Two months ago I'd have said something snarky about how they're reaping substantial increases in revenue for the past two years, but their stock price has been falling lately and I'm not sure how sustainable the new editions' momentum is going to be.

[nenjin]

I'd be interested to know about the impact of their digital products on their stock price, versus their physical goods. I'm pretty far removed from the GWS table top experience so it's not really germane to me anymore. For many years now I've felt that video games are the only real future GWS has, because I doubt there's any chance of returning to their tabletop heyday. So I'm wondering if they've learned anything about licensing games in the past few years. Unfortunately they seem to be of the mind that any 40k game is better than no 40k game.....and after playing a few of those, I think I disagree. I'd take fewer overall 40k titles per year if it meant the quality and depth of said titles is higher.

[Trekkin]

Well, per the BBC, they got only £10m in royalties of £219m in total revenue, so presumably it actually is the plastic.

[nenjin]

For me I guess it's a case of "if I'm not interested in it then clearly no one else is." I would have guessed that royalties made up a much larger % of their profits.