I really don't care whether this game is two factions or thirty, but what I read was: "Yeah, we've realized that two factions is easier on the business and the money, so we'll bend whatever lore necessary to make things less complicated."

I'm not condemning the product, I'm just saying that they've had two chances with the Warhammer IP's to do something a little less ordinary for both MMO's, dictated by the world's of the IP, and have managed to wind up strolling down the less interesting, though more standardized and traditional road with each.

Even if for a moment if they can think of the most awesome fluff that makes you go ok i understand and believe these two factions, you cant use black templars as your poster boy chapter for the game, they are the last Sm's that would ever comply with xenos. I cannot put in words how idiotic this looks to be , making life hard for the devs twice over. PATHETIC waste of an IP again, im starting to look at you Games Workshop.

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Originally posted by nennafir
Only having 2 factions is very disappointing. I hope that they will look at the near unanimous outcry about this and change it, but I am not hopeful. MMO makers have a tendency only to adopt rather obvious changes that fans have been yelling for after the game has already failed (and never if the change is too complicated.)

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A near unanimous outcry from a small group of fans who are in denial about decades of game and game lore supporting alliances I dont think should be listened to by any developer or IP holder. but I must be honest, It would be very alarming to me, as the developer to see forum posters lambasting a game based upon false pretenses or lack of understanding regarding the reality of the 25+ year old game system that is 40k.

once again, everyone is entitled to thier own interpretation of the lore, and I certainly accept that, but remember that the reality of the game and game lore clearly state the opposite of what you are suggesting. Order v Disorder and the included alliances have been with the game since near the beggining. I know, it doesnt jive with your personal vision, but it is 100% denotively true. Sorry, it just is. Look earlier in this thread and in other threads here for proof of that. If you dont want to bother looking I will cut and past it all over for you again so you can can read at your leisure. I have been in the hoby since I was 12, 25 years ago and these allainces perfectly fit the game I have played all that time. They arent happy fun time alliances, they are icey aliances based upon mutual survival. 

If you are telling me that you think eldar and IOM would not allign to ensure thier mutual survival, that they would allow chaos to tear them to peices becuase they could not fight a common enemy, then common sense could not convince you at all. They have in the past and will in the future, end of story.

I like 3 factions as well. though there has only been 1 MMORPG with three factions that was succesful and it didnt work as described in DAoC as some here are nostalgically suggesting. At least in the 3 years of me playing that game it didnt. Also, the 1.5 major release games with 2 factions (WoW counts as .5 becuase pvp was so terribly half assed it shouldnt count at all) didnt nail 2 faction pvp. That doesnt mean it cant work, it means that those games had serious design issues completely exclusive of 2 factions. Once again, I dont think I have seen MMO pvp done well regardless of the amount of factions at all. 

Originally posted by Unicornicus

I like 3 factions as well. though there has only been 1 MMORPG with three factions that was succesful and it didnt work as described in DAoC as some here are nostalgically suggesting. At least in the 3 years of me playing that game it didnt. Also, the 1.5 major release games with 2 factions (WoW counts as .5 becuase pvp was so terribly half assed it shouldnt count at all) didnt nail 2 faction pvp. That doesnt mean it cant work, it means that those games had serious design issues completely exclusive of 2 factions. Once again, I dont think I have seen MMO pvp done well regardless of the amount of factions at all. 

Truth be told, I don't think any sort of PvP in ANY form will be considered successful or balanced by the masses. MMO, RTS, FPS - you name it, there's someone out there who can make a convincing argument about why it's poorly done and clearly favors X person/group. I actually thought warcraft's PvP was fun, rewarding, and barring a few extremes, even handed. That is, until they got to burning crusade. After that, they diverged from their PvP roots and tried to make the game an e-sport and failed miserably.

But that's just one example. Other people point at arenas as the pinacle of skill, coordination, intuition and execution. Some say starcraft 2 is a masterpiece while others say it boils down to nothing more than executing a build order better than your opponent and involves no strategy whatsoever. Whatever the case may be, there's always a loser in a competition and people do not take kindly to losing.

that's a real shame...I can't think of any scenario where two factions makes sense for the lore of 40k.  I can only think of gameplay reasons for this...Obviously there are races that stand out as more "good" than the others, namely those belonging to the Imperium, the Eldar, and perhaps the Tau...but never would the forces of "good" unite under a common banner for longer than perhaps one battle under the most dire of circumstances (with the space marines almost never doing this on any scale, their fanatical devotion to the emperor and hatred of xenos basically forbids it)

As for the "evil" factions, the only scenario I can imagine working would be the forces of chaos manipulating the others, but this only would work for say, the orks.  You then have the Necrons, who have their own agenda, the Dark Eldar, who are too cunning to be manipulated by Chaos in that way, the tyranids, who have no allegience...Yeah, I'm not seeing this unless there are only two evil factions, which would again be a shame.  (at the very least I would like to see Chaos, Dark Eldar, and orks)

from a gameplay standpoint this makes sense, but from a lore standpoint it's a damn shame.

It is a shame and lazy.

Originally posted by Draenor

that's a real shame...I can't think of any scenario where two factions makes sense for the lore of 40k.  I can only think of gameplay reasons for this...Obviously there are races that stand out as more "good" than the others, namely those belonging to the Imperium, the Eldar, and perhaps the Tau...but never would the forces of "good" unite under a common banner for longer than perhaps one battle under the most dire of circumstances (with the space marines almost never doing this on any scale, their fanatical devotion to the emperor and hatred of xenos basically forbids it)

 

As for the "evil" factions, the only scenario I can imagine working would be the forces of chaos manipulating the others, but this only would work for say, the orks.  You then have the Necrons, who have their own agenda, the Dark Eldar, who are too cunning to be manipulated by Chaos in that way, the tyranids, who have no allegience...Yeah, I'm not seeing this unless there are only two evil factions, which would again be a shame.  (at the very least I would like to see Chaos, Dark Eldar, and orks)

 

from a gameplay standpoint this makes sense, but from a lore standpoint it's a damn shame.

You need to do your lore research then..

Look up Eye of terror, black crusade, second editon rules, apocalypse rules. Look at this thread in its intirety, its all listed there.. you are in fact wrong. Look at the other threads in this forum where it is in fact outlined over and over again. Over the course of a war there is literally nothing in the game rules or lore stopping them from allying and everything in the lore states they have in the past and will in the future. Thats just the way it is. Now this alliance doesnt have t be happy fun WoW allaince and I dont think it will. But to tell me that the eldar and impirium wouldnt ally loosely, to fight a common enmy in the most dire of circumstances... like chaos attempting to rip apart the fabric of reality using ancient constructs found in the Sargoss Sector (this is the backdrop to this game) then you need to do more lore research. They have, would and will in a heartbeat. Doesnt mean they have to like it, but they will do what it takes to insure mutaul survival. It made sinse in eye of terror, it makes sense in apocalypse, it makes sense in second edition rules, it will make sense in this game.

Think of dark millennium online as Eye of Terror Online.

I cannot understand why Vigil is saying that 3 factions will not work. It has been proven in games like DAoC and Planetside that 3 factions actually balance the game. Tell me a succesful 2 faction PvP & RvR game. History speaks for itself

In a two faction there always be a winning side and losing side. Eventually the losing side either stops logging or just re-roll. In a 3 faction game you always have the unpredictability of what the 3Rd faction will do.. 3 factions also help with the issue of time zones and healthyt server population. Since certain faction maybe predominant eastern, pacific, europe or even asia time zone. 3 factions allows for diversity and more pvp conflicts.

My final advise for Vigil:

IF YOU WANT PvE, TWO FACTIONS IS ENOUGH. IF YOU SUCCESSFUL PvP AND RvR,  LESS THAN THREE FACTIONS IS BASICALLY A RECIPE FOR FAILURE.

in the name of the emporer it is in the best interest of the sector that the space marines and gaurdsmen and sisters of battle cooperate to save sargos.  in retaliation to such a mighty front odds are that the chaos will hire ork mercenaries and possibly even cooperate with the dark eldar to tear sargos assunder.

I just can't see less then three factions for the game.    What would be really cool, of course, is in PvP, it's every race for itself, but for PvP, you could have a "loose coalition" for PvE.

Unless they are planning it to be JUST space marines vs Chaos, and in expanions add playable orc n elf (lets say, so four factions).

But if they do that, people who put so much time into the first two <.<.  Maybe include all six races, and in the first expansion they break off.

I cannot immagine how two factions could work.People will be just playing their character on the strongest realm making balancing even more difficult.They better be ready to pull a rabbit out of a hat on this  decision because I have rarely seen it work.

The fact is, with only 2 factions Vigil will have to be willing to make the hard choices to help establish faction balance.  From the outset they will have to throttle what faction members go where.  This of course is the sticky part because people will always cry that they wont play unless they can join their guildmates.  Vigil could assign servers to players after character creation and then allow them to queue for a server transfer to get together with guildmates when space is available on the destination server they have decided on.  I don't envy Vigil whatsoever in having to make these kinds of choices.

 With a sufficiently large world, such as a single shard style server architecture similar to the way EVE works, faction imbalance can be mitigated by giving players more places to go.  

They could institute a 'hardened fighters' buff for the underdog faction that, for example, buffs hit points based on the percentage they are outnumbered.  Outnumbered 1.5:1, underdog gets 50% more hitpoints, 2:1 = 100% more.  The metric on this would be difficult to calculate, but not impossible.  

I can't say what the right option is, just spitballing ideas hoping that Vigil has the foresight to learn from the mistakes of other development houses.

Originally posted by Dnomsed

The fact is, with only 2 factions Vigil will have to be willing to make the hard choices to help establish faction balance.  From the outset they will have to throttle what faction members go where.  This of course is the sticky part because people will always cry that they wont play unless they can join their guildmates.  Vigil could assign servers to players after character creation and then allow them to queue for a server transfer to get together with guildmates when space is available on the destination server they have decided on.  I don't envy Vigil whatsoever in having to make these kinds of choices.

 With a sufficiently large world, such as a single shard style server architecture similar to the way EVE works, faction imbalance can be mitigated by giving players more places to go.  

They could institute a 'hardened fighters' buff for the underdog faction that, for example, buffs hit points based on the percentage they are outnumbered.  Outnumbered 1.5:1, underdog gets 50% more hitpoints, 2:1 = 100% more.  The metric on this would be difficult to calculate, but not impossible.  

I can't say what the right option is, just spitballing ideas hoping that Vigil has the foresight to learn from the mistakes of other development houses.

I personallyt would like to see them put in regulatoy systems that will level the playing field

Originally posted by Avathos

I cannot understand why Vigil is saying that 3 factions will not work. It has been proven in games like DAoC and Planetside that 3 factions actually balance the game. Tell me a succesful 2 faction PvP & RvR game. History speaks for itself

3 faction systems help regulate PVP by allowing the 2 weaker factions to gang up on the stronger.

This system, though effective, results in situations which run directly counter to the lore, and since the lore is the backbone of this game and it's main draw this would be counterproductive.

Whether you like it or not the 2 faction system does work lorewise (and has been frequently used by GW themselves in large multi-race campaigns) especially since it means that a cogent lore-friendly explanation can be used to provide the reason why such a shaky alliance would be in place.

Compare this to the 3 faction system where you could have Chaos in an alliance with loyalist marines, or Eldar sideing with Chaos (the great enemy!). Obviously if you know anything of the lore you can see why this will not work. (and Cudos to Vigil for being smart enough to understand that)

Long story short, whenever Chaos is included as a playable race it scuppers the 3 faction boat.

If it was Orks vs Imperium vs Eldar (or indeed any race except Necrons, Tyranids and Chaos) then 3 factions would work, lorewise. But that would consign Chaos (a player favorite) to the role of npc and I can't see that ever happening.

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Originally posted by Nephaerius
A recent interview confirmed that there will only be two factions present in the new 40K MMO.  Perhaps there will be a third non-playable faction, but I don't think that's what most people were looking for.
"Strategy Informer: I assume you're going to divide up the playable races by factions? They only thing is, apart from ones like Imperial guard and Space Marines who can stick together, not all of the other races fit neatly into 'factions'. The Eldar, the Tau, the Necrons, Tyranids Chaos... had to generalise them. Are you going to try sticking with the traditional two factions or branch out to more?

Tim Campbell: We're going to have two overall factions in the game, and all of the playable races are going to fit into one or the other.

There are compelling reasons why that works in this situation and our game, and Games Workshops are completely on board with it so we're not doing anything that violates the IP or the fiction – the details though will be revealed in the near future."
http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/warhammer40000darkmilleniumonline/interviews.html

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LOLOLOLOLOL!!!!

This is such a shame - what a waste of good IP. Games Workshop should be shot for allowing this travesty! 2 factions my ass.

Originally posted by FreedomBlade

 

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Originally posted by Nephaerius
A recent interview confirmed that there will only be two factions present in the new 40K MMO.  Perhaps there will be a third non-playable faction, but I don't think that's what most people were looking for.
"Strategy Informer: I assume you're going to divide up the playable races by factions? They only thing is, apart from ones like Imperial guard and Space Marines who can stick together, not all of the other races fit neatly into 'factions'. The Eldar, the Tau, the Necrons, Tyranids Chaos... had to generalise them. Are you going to try sticking with the traditional two factions or branch out to more?

Tim Campbell: We're going to have two overall factions in the game, and all of the playable races are going to fit into one or the other.

There are compelling reasons why that works in this situation and our game, and Games Workshops are completely on board with it so we're not doing anything that violates the IP or the fiction – the details though will be revealed in the near future."
http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/warhammer40000darkmilleniumonline/interviews.html

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LOLOLOLOLOL!!!!

This is such a shame - what a waste of good IP. Games Workshop should be shot for allowing this travesty! 2 factions my ass.

My hunch is that it is actually Games Workshop that is behind this idiocy...

What is in common to Vigil and Mythic? Nothing except that they both work on Games Workshop IP... and they both insist on 2-faction system. Hmm...  If we look at all that happened with WAR reasonably and with a hindsight I see no reason why Mythic would discard a proven, widely celebrated concept that they themselves pioneered (3-faction RvR) except if they were strong-armed into it by someone holding raw power over them... and now that EA is not in the picture I can see only Games Workshop as the possible culprit.

Remember, the people holding GW now are NOT the same who initially created the Warhammer concept. Some folks may still be there but imo the company's been hijacked by money-grubbing suits a long time ago... and in their mis-informed arrogance and naivete they probably believe "good vs evil" sells better than shades of grey, regardless of the fact that by doing this they would make Warhammer IP just one in the sea of fantasy/sci-fi wargames and therefore loose its competetive edge.

Originally posted by Avathos

I cannot understand why Vigil is saying that 3 factions will not work. It has been proven in games like DAoC and Planetside that 3 factions actually balance the game. Tell me a succesful 2 faction PvP & RvR game. History speaks for itself

 

In a two faction there always be a winning side and losing side. Eventually the losing side either stops logging or just re-roll. In a 3 faction game you always have the unpredictability of what the 3Rd faction will do.. 3 factions also help with the issue of time zones and healthyt server population. Since certain faction maybe predominant eastern, pacific, europe or even asia time zone. 3 factions allows for diversity and more pvp conflicts.

My final advise for Vigil:

IF YOU WANT PvE, TWO FACTIONS IS ENOUGH. IF YOU SUCCESSFUL PvP AND RvR,  LESS THAN THREE FACTIONS IS BASICALLY A RECIPE FOR FAILURE.

 idd.....if you want successfull RVR you need 3 factions or more......2 factions just dont work.

Originally posted by Pilnkplonk

Originally posted by FreedomBlade

 

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Originally posted by Nephaerius
A recent interview confirmed that there will only be two factions present in the new 40K MMO.  Perhaps there will be a third non-playable faction, but I don't think that's what most people were looking for.
"Strategy Informer: I assume you're going to divide up the playable races by factions? They only thing is, apart from ones like Imperial guard and Space Marines who can stick together, not all of the other races fit neatly into 'factions'. The Eldar, the Tau, the Necrons, Tyranids Chaos... had to generalise them. Are you going to try sticking with the traditional two factions or branch out to more?

Tim Campbell: We're going to have two overall factions in the game, and all of the playable races are going to fit into one or the other.

There are compelling reasons why that works in this situation and our game, and Games Workshops are completely on board with it so we're not doing anything that violates the IP or the fiction – the details though will be revealed in the near future."
http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/warhammer40000darkmilleniumonline/interviews.html

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LOLOLOLOLOL!!!!

This is such a shame - what a waste of good IP. Games Workshop should be shot for allowing this travesty! 2 factions my ass.

My hunch is that it is actually Games Workshop that is behind this idiocy...

What is in common to Vigil and Mythic? Nothing except that they both work on Games Workshop IP... and they both insist on 2-faction system. Hmm...  If we look at all that happened with WAR reasonably and with a hindsight I see no reason why Mythic would discard a proven, widely celebrated concept that they themselves pioneered (3-faction RvR) except if they were strong-armed into it by someone holding raw power over them... and now that EA is not in the picture I can see only Games Workshop as the possible culprit.

Remember, the people holding GW now are NOT the same who initially created the Warhammer concept. Some folks may still be there but imo the company's been hijacked by money-grubbing suits a long time ago... and in their mis-informed arrogance and naivete they probably believe "good vs evil" sells better than shades of grey, regardless of the fact that by doing this they would make Warhammer IP just one in the sea of fantasy/sci-fi wargames and therefore loose its competetive edge.

except that... you know... 2nd edition rules allowed for allied factions on the tabletop AND provided lore for them... was that before or after the "suits" took over the company?