‘Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade’ Ushers MMOs Onto The Future Battlefield

Until recently, the Warhammer property has remained a relatively unknown entity in the world of video games, instead dominating tabletops. Following some high-profile releases, however, this wargaming staple has made itself known to the masses. While its first foray into the massively multiplayer online gaming world may not have been a resounding success, the Warhammer franchise is speeding into the future with their signature Space Marines and Orks to take another chainsaw-augmented stab at the MMO genre with Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade.

Not only will this represent the series’ return to the MMO genre, but it will also be Warhammer 40K’s first foray into the genre. This time though, Mythic Entertainment will not be helming the project, which will instead be developed by Montreal studio Behaviour Interactive. As one might expect from the source material, Eternal Crusade will be more “fantasy in space” than hard sci-fi and will bring the MMO genre a taste of PvP-centric third-person shooters.

This is not to say that fans of PvE content will be left out in the cold, but the developers have stated that the focus of the title will be on inter-player warfare and interactions. Behaviour plans to use this focus to create a player-driven world where – like EVE Online - players can be elected to positions of power by their colleagues, control the future of the game’s world, and provide wartime objectives for others.

As with any MMO, races play an important role in developing the game world. In Eternal Crusade’s case, there will be four races to start with: The bulky Space Marines, mysterious Eldar, treacherous Chaos Space Marines, and destructive Orks. Within these races, there will also be more specific sub-sets in the form of classes that make MMO players feel right at home.

One of the most interesting points about the game’s races comes in the form of the game’s monetization. Eternal Crusade will be taking a cue from Guild Wars 2 by charging a one-time fee of $40 in addition to a non-pay-to-win cash shop, doing away with monthly subscription fees. For those looking to try out the game, a free trial of sorts will be offered in which players will be able to play the entirety of the game as a special sub-set of the Orks.

“Wouldn’t this unbalance the game by having one race greatly outweigh the others?” you might ask. This is actually a conscious effort on the part of the developer in order to make the Ork race more true to its lore. As a race of barbaric, destructive, disorganized beings, Behaviour hopes to cultivate an in-game culture among the Orks in which their battlefield tactics will rely less on the talent of longtime players and more on the sheer quantity of free players who jump onto the battlefield for a battle or two.

Speaking of the battlefield, Eternal Crusade will be very much about capturing and controlling territories. The planet on hand will be comprised of 40 of these territories and will not require any loading when moving between them. In this way, Behaviour wants to differentiate these territories from conventional MMO zones. Also acting as a wildcard meant to impede the conquering of the four warring races is the inclusion of the Tyranids as a wholly-destructive race whose only prerogative is the decimation of all other forms of life.

Finally, while only extremely early prototype footage was shown, it’s already evident that Eternal Crusade is on a promising track. Whereas some action MMOs claim to put action first, they invariably fall into the typical genre trappings. Eternal Crusade looks to be a third-person shooter first with MMO elements added to further supplement this. What this means is that taking cover, vaulting and executing weakened foes will all be core elements of the game rather than gameplay afterthoughts.

Judging by what was shown, Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade is on the right track and could very well succeed in bringing the MMO genre into the stars. The game is still in its pre-production phase and is expected to move to its next phase by the end of the month, so changes can be expected between now and release. With such a heavy emphasis on interaction with the community though, the prospect of changes could be an equally encouraging one.

Are you interested in taking another Games Workshop-tinged jump back into the world of MMOs? How would you like to see Behaviour Interactive handle the line between MMO and third-person shooter?

http://gamerant.com/warhammer-40k-eternal-...de-mmo-e3-2014/

Here is the official list of basic (non-elite, non-hero) classes that are guaranteed for launch. More will be coming down the line!

Space Marines
Tactical
Devastator
Assault
Apothecary

Orks
Shoota
'Eavy/Loota (final name TBD)
Stormboy
Painboy

Chaos
Tactical
Havoc
Raptor
Aspiring Sorcerer

Eldar
Dire Avenger
Fire Dragon
Dark Reaper
Swooping Hawk
Howling Banshee
Striking Scorpion
Warlock

You may be asking, "Why do the Eldar have more classes than anyone else?" Hold on, I'll tell you...

A Space Marine (or Ork, or Chaos) class is very flexible – for example a Tactical marine can be excellent at mid-range anti-infantry with a boltgun, be a short-range vehicle killer with a meltagun or take the sniper role with a Stalker Bolter. An Assault Marine performs a very different function depending on whether they equip a Jump Pack or a Storm Shield and a Devastator can be in the front lines with a Multi-Melta or stand far at the back with a Lascannon. They can also modify their accessories to get more accuracy, survivability, etc., in their role.

The unique flavor of Eldar Aspects, on the other hand, is that they are very specialized. A Swooping Hawk’s job is always to fly overhead and take out infantry, while a Dark Reaper tries to stay as far away from their targets as possible. So while the Eldar have as much customization as the other factions, it’s spread across a larger number of classes and there are fewer combat roles per class.

Our goal is to do justice to each faction, so rather than try to cram the same system into the Eldar, we opted to widen their class selection in order to give them the roles they needed to be competitive on the battlefield.



Why isn't (my favorite unit) on the list?

In some cases, we want certain units to be an elite or hero class due to the power it has on the battlefield, and this is just a list of the basic classes that cost no RP to spawn. We will give you more updates on elites and heroes as production continues. Here's a hint: with a few exceptions, if it's an elite or HQ in the books, it's probably going to be considered an elite or hero in EC!

Other units may center around gameplay roles that we don't plan on featuring prominently at launch - for example, on-the-fly teleporting or extreme sniping. We plan to add these mechanics later, but we already have a lot on our plate putting the rest of the roles in place and making sure they're as good as they can be.



Isn't this list a little different from the last time I saw it?

If you're referring to a certain leaked email from a certain studio head that went out on Friday, that was a pre-confirmation list that needed to be checked with all the relevant parties before going out, so yes, it changed!

Honestly, we wanted to make sure that we could commit to everything we put out there and when I wrote that email we were only 80% sure on the Striking Scorpion for launch. Based on discussions with the art team and Eldar players' feedback we dug deeper into the scope and decided that we could push to a 100% commitment at launch. But uh, don't expect that to work every time!

Official Basic Class List

International Pricing And Tax Handling

Here is our final International pricing for NOW but we will add this summer more payment processor for UK Pounds, Mobile payments etc.

The following simple rule is applied. Prices are the same across the planet as the base price is adjusted for currency rates. Over and above, the applicable sales tax is included depending on their residence.

Eternal Crusade Price INCLUDING ALL taxes like mentioned below

1-Canada: 42.8$ cnd + 5%-15% in taxes (depending on resident province) = 44.94$C-49.22$C

2-US: 40$ usd – no taxes = 40 $ USD

3-Europe: 29.41 Euro + 20% VAT (7.35 EUR) = 36.76 EUR

Not offered at start:

UK: payment in GBP not accepted at start

Russia and other currency/country: Other currencies not accepted at start

BUT ANY one can buy it using our first 3 currency.

We might round up the total numbers to 37 Euro for exemple but its to give you FULL transparency again.

International Pricing And Tax Handling

the 5th Faction will be decided by YOU/Founders through voting later on. We will give you a big short list of the faction our licensor allows us to add and yes TAU and Necron are on that list but NO Squat are NOT.

Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade: Plenty of WAAAGH For Every One

It's been an interesting ride for the long-rumored Warhammer 40k MMO. In the works for many years, it eventually perished due to lack of funding. For a while, it looked like it would return in the form of a single-player RPG, but hopes for that also died, along with its publisher, THQ. Now that its cousin game, Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, shut down last year, conditions couldn't be bleaker. But like a dreadnought dropping out of warp space, Behaviour Interactive has arrived with Warhammer 40K: Eternal Crusade. Dubbed a Massive Combat RPG, Eternal Crusade is more Planetside 2 than World of Warcraft. Recently, I got to talk with Miguel Caron, Behaviour's Head of Studio, about Eternal Crusade, and how its recently-launched Founders Pack program works.

Behaviour's primary goal behind Eternal Crusade is to make the player feel like "an elite warrior in the 41st millennium," according to Caron. As we all know, in the grim, dark future of the 41st millennium, there is only war. Massive, thousand player war. Eternal Crusade will have a huge number of players from four different factions fighting over the pivotal world Arkhona. No hotbars, no cooldowns, just lots of twitch action with RPG progression across a single, persistent server.

As Caron puts it, "it's Space Marine meets Planetside 2 meets Gears of War, in a sandbox setting". In fact, the dev team is currently spending a lot of time playing Planetside 2, studying it. Miguel said that SOE's high-pop shooter gets a lot right, but the glue isn't there. "[The] time to kill is too aggressive," he said, referring to the quick way many Planetside player's lives are ended, "it alienates new players." That's something that Eternal Crusade aims to correct. One way to do that is by making melee and ranged combat both equally important. While a long-ranged shot might down an enemy, someone will have to go up and execute them before a teammate gets them back up again.

Eternal Crusade will primarily be a player-run game. Caron described a situation where a new player lands on Arkhona, fresh off the dropship, and right away a commander issues him an order to grab a freshly-requisitioned tank and take out a nearby Eldar Fire Prism, allowing two nearby friendly squads to advance on an enemy outpost. Each player is dropped into a squad. Ten squads make a strike force, which are in turn controlled by the five players on the war council. Repeat this four times for each faction. Each level of this hierarchy is completely player controlled, similar to Eve Online. Unlike Eve, Eternal Crusade is all about the WAAAAGGH. As Caron joked, "no one wants to be an elite merchant in the 41st millennium."

To get all this running, Behaviour is harnessing some new tech. To get all the players in a single game world, it's using Pikko server tech, which was used to break the world record for simultaneous players back in 2012. It allows the devs to use many smaller servers to dynamically power a larger one, so everything can rebalance itself behind the scenes to power the massive battles you'd expect from 40k. Additionally, it will feature extensive voice chat from Razer, which will also have the ability to modulate voices so they sound appropriate for their respective races.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/v...H-For-Every-One