With the Warhammer 40K: Dark Millennium Online MMO restructured to well, no longer be an MMO, that still leaves the question: will there be a 40K MMO to fill that void? We certainly hope so, and in this week's The List we're offering up five developers we'd like to see take up the reins.

Like many of you, I have been playing the new Warhammer 40K 6^th Edition these past few weeks. While the tabletop game goes through changes, it got me thinking about the work being done over at Vigil Studios. THQ had announced Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium a while back and it got everyone excited. Until that is, things ran astray for the MMO. Back in March the company announced that they were taking Dark Millennium in a new direction. The game would be launched as a single player game with multiplayer gameplay as side feature. Does this still count as an MMO style game? Not really. It almost sounds like a computer game with optional battlefields to join up and fight in. Not the worst thing to have for 40K fans, and in many ways this could be awesome. However, it does not qualify as an MMORPG.

Read more of Garrett Fuller's The List: Best Devs for a 40k MMO.

actually i would prefer to see the game executed as a themepark into a sandbox, with the GW2 gameplay, and a sandbox style like Darkfall or Archeage

anyway my fear is that Blizzards project Titan might be something like a combination of 40k and Starcraft, like it was at the beggining the Warcraft series from the strategy to the MMO ... and in that case the amazing world of 40k will become like a good european/asian movie re-produced by hollywood ...

blizzard went from RTS to MMO.... so should relic :D

their Dawn of War series is freaking awesome... not to mention Company Of Heroes

only way for Blizzard or CCP to make WH40k MMO is if they had full control over IP. same thing probably counts for Zenimax.

Blizzard-CCP- or Bioware-should pick this up.  This game made me as excited as GW2 when mentioned and still have hopes for this to become an mmo!

warhammer has the best Lore out there for a successful franchise!

a MOBA would be beats Wrath of heroes is doin fairly well already! nice following. and Firefall is in the same pond as W40k...

Relic gets my vote. It's not just the excellent gameplay they got right in the 40k rts games, but they captured the atmosphere of 40k brilliantly. 

Originally posted by spinner_vis

only way for Blizzard or CCP to make WH40k MMO is if they had full control over IP. same thing probably counts for Zenimax.

This.  Games Workshop is impossible to work with.  If I were a developer, I would not touch any Warhammer title because your design is subject to their wishes.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Originally posted by spinner_vis

only way for Blizzard or CCP to make WH40k MMO is if they had full control over IP. same thing probably counts for Zenimax.

This.  Games Workshop is impossible to work with.  If I were a developer, I would not touch any Warhammer title because your design is subject to their wishes.

Double agreed, I think GW ranked up there with, (the old), Marvel in terms of difficult third party licensing relationships.

I'd be fine with any of those, but I'd give the nod to Relic simply because they've shown that they can make awesome 40k games.

I always invisioned any Warhammer MMO as needing a large focus on PvP. However, I think some fantastic things could also be done in PvE, so I am open to a primary focus on either.

Ideally, entering my fantasy realm, I would want an open world MMO with options for leveling beyond combat. Some would argue that being Warhammer means everything is combat centric and should be here. The only way that is true is if every player starts off as the elite of the elite, ala Warhammer Online. Not everyone needs to begin as a the equivalent of a Bright Wizard. Would it be so terrible to start off as a grunt, or even lower, and work your way up from there? The characters I most enjoy in the Black Library novels have all risen from near nothing or been put into a position where they are forced to be great.

Here we go again... Won't happen. Wouldn't be good if it did. Just think of how ONE space marine behaves by himself? One eldar? one Whatever, even the Orcs have this WAAAGH chemistry that keep them united and working as a warband.

in all the factions, travel and assignements are handled by above. You go where the chapter goes (or the racial equivalent) and fight where the chapter wants you to fight. RPGs are about choices and freedom of movement. if you remove those elements, you have a single player or co-op storyline at best.

I could maybe imagine an orc picking up his choppa and his brakka and going off into the wild looking for a fight. but space marines, Eldars or others? I don't think so... unless everyone plays a scout marine, then ok, you can roam around a little bit. otherwise, you are too valuable and too dedicated to leav the unit like that, you stay and wait for the next battle, the next assignment and the next Warp jump.

A game like 40K would be strongly instanced and linear. you don't roam around from planet to planet... Mercenaries? never heard of those in 40K. What's left? One campaign on one world, or one system with tiered content on different planets? OK but it still doesn't solve the question of individuality and exploration.

If you're one asking for a sandbox... oh my god! 40K is SO not sandboxable! why, you want housing for your marine? Crafting for your Imperial guard? gathering warpbone with your Eldar? Tyranid politics? None of these things can happen in the lore!

Which leaves me to this conclusion: the only (barely) playable race for a MMORPG in 40K is the Orks.

I'm looking into MWO for my future RPG fix... ok, may not be much of a RPG but from what I see the devs are making it interesting.

I think it is a no-brainer that Relic should do it. They know 40K the best.

@chbautist

It sounds like what you describe would limit it to a path driven MMORPG. Is that really so bad? While I prefer sandbox games, I can still enjoy following a path. Often a path means there can be more elaborate encounters with mechanics that are unique.

Going to different planets and encountering mercenaries are both possible. I really don't see any reason why they could not happen from a mechanic standpoint, even in a linear journey, and they could certainly happen from a lore standpoint..

Originally posted by theniffrig

Relic gets my vote. It's not just the excellent gameplay they got right in the 40k rts games, but they captured the atmosphere of 40k brilliantly. 

+1

@MaxJac: not the mechanics, but the lore...

The 40 Lore doesn't work well with the concept of mercenaries. It's a dogmatic setting. The only faction that looked somewhat mercenaristic were the Squats and they were removed from everything GW.

Traveling from planet system to system, requires the kind lifespan and planning OR technology and logistics that are just not available to anyone. not mechanics, but lore... if you donT' follow the lore, then why do a game about it?