Warhammer Mark Of Chaos - How Is The RTS?

Steven Williamson writes "HEXUS.gaming's resident wood elf, Steven W, jumped at the chance to take the eye-opening trip to the Games Workshop HQ in Nottingham, home to the unique venue that is Warhammer World. What started out as a run-of-the-mill press event to see the latest real-time tactics videogame set in the Warhammer universe ended up capturing my imagination and quashing any previous hang-ups I almost certainly had about the people who played Warhammer and indeed the tabletop game that has spawned this latest PC game, Warhammer: MOC."

Slashdot editors.

No punctuation sentence fragments very hard to underst

Where stereotypes touch reality

Is that the comic book guy [nohomers.net] on the bottom-left side of the photo [hexus.net]?

Hangups?

quashing any previous hang-ups I almost certainly had about the people who played Warhammer

Hangups? What, people who play Warhammer are too nerdy for the slashdot crowd?

Yeah, I play 4 different GW games, I'm sure that they will be much better than any Warhammer computer game, at least until Age of Reckoning comes out...

Headline Not Parse The Sense Can't Make

For a second I thought the Warhammer series had turned into a manga, with a title like that...
Alas, no. Just monday morning slashdot posts pre-coffee.

Now, work am off to I do time no more waste.

Fluff piece

This guy is really enthusiastic. You have to dig through the dythirambic spew to get the meat. At least you can't have the standard GW step 3 aka buy tons of figurines at high cost. Yeah I skewed against them, cry me a river ;oP

Skaven over Orcs?

What on earth prompted the inclusion of Skaven (rats, basically, for those of you playing at home) as a 'core' race over Orcs? Unless there's been a significant change since I last visited my local GW, Orcs have a far bigger following.
For the non-wargamers, this is akin to FIFA 2007 letting you play with Manchester City instead of Manchester United.

I'm not against the idea (of dropping either Orcs or Man U. *grin*), I just find it curious. Won't they have the same problem as with Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War, when all the Imperial Guard players had a sook about not getting to play their army (except as a "Dog of War" in one mission)? Or is the percentage of people buying this game who actually come from the tabletop version so low that it just doesn't matter?

Re:Skaven over Orcs?

Probably just wanted to avoid those claims that Warhammer is just a clone of Warcraft.

I used to work there

I used to work at GW. Both in the US, and across the pond [When they were located in Lenton, and for about 2 months after they relocated to the new building.]

HUGE building, big spacemarine on the top. And, they have their own pub :P [seriously]

Stuff like computer programs have ALWAYS been the bastard step child of the company. They are always Licence deals, and the company itself keeps creative control.

Little known fact, Blizzard entertainment origially wrote 'warcraft' to be a RTS of warhammer. Approached (i think it was) Steve Godber on the board, for a licencing deal, and was turned down. Instead the deal was given to Mindscape, who made 'Shadow of the Horned Rat' which was a colossal failure.

The guys at Blizzard were big Games-Workshop fans:

Warcraft = Warhammer
Starcraft = Warhammer 40k
Diablo = DungeonQuest / HeroQuest

I think the guys at Relic finally got it right, and that the Studio(At GW) finally got someone with a clue to make video game decisions. [although the MMORPG that they had going, died, but it seems that they moved the licence over to Relic .. so who knows.]

RTS vs. RTT?

can someone explain the difference between a real time strategy and real time tactics game for me please? Are these names just synonyms, or is there an actual difference in the gameplay (like RPG vs. Action RPG)?

Re:RTS vs. RTT?

Tactics is units, movement, and positioning.

Strategy is which units, resource management, and larger scale goals.

It's the macro/micro thing. Strategy is the macro, the big picture. Tactics is the micro, where the rubber meets the road.

Ummm.....?

Warhammer Mark Of Chaos How Is The RTS Homer no function beer well without.

/.ed

Slashdot effect strikes once again.

Headline?

Seriously, what does the headline mean? How mark of chaos is RTS warhammer? Huh?

Why the RTS and not the MMO?

I find it strange that they found the RTS awe-inspiring as opposed to the amazing MMO being made by the *soon to form* EA Mythic. [warhammeronline.com] I can't imagine the guys at GW not *more* behind the up-and-comming MMO, especially with some crazy guy [thewarband.com] promoting it from his phone, and the fact that they had issues with the previous developer and could use all the confidence re-building behind this new game.

It's about time...

It's about time that people stopped calling RTSes stratergy games and started refering to them as tactical.

Did they really??

Is it just me or did they somehow manage to double post an entire _article_?

Gee... I'm sure that doesn't help with pipe cloggage.

Games Workshop is the Microsoft of gaming

Games Workshop is the Microsoft of the gaming world. Many RPG and Tabletop enthusiasts still have vivid memories of GW severly abusing their market power to push independent vendors to take minimum quantities of their stuff only to prepare and probe the market for their GW-only outlets in close proximity to these exact shops. This all started in the early to mid nineties.
GW is a mean bunch of quasi-monopolists pushing overpriced stuff and comes at position #2 for killing of diversity in the Tabletop/Fantasy/RPG Market - right after Magic.
As a result I don't buy stuff from them and encourage any Tabletopper to play game from other vendors. Warmachine from http://www.privateerpress.com/ [privateerpress.com] is a very neat (I'd say better) alternative to Warhammer. Check it out.

Game sounds exciting

I've liked previous releases, but, as I boot 'Doze less and less, I'm wondering if they'll release GNU/Linux compatible versions.

Granted, marketing in stores probably won't be realistic, but how about straight from the company?

Re:Champions?

Champions have been a major feature of Warhammer Fantasy Battle long before the Warcraft authors played Dune 2...

Re:Champions?

Well, Warhammer had unit champions way before W3 was even planned. And they're not at all like the unique Warcraft characters; each unit can have a champion. They're kinda like squad leaders.

Re:Champions?

There's a Penny-Arcade comic (my favorite of all time) that says it all - but of course their site is crippled beyond any use so I can't find it to link it. Anyone else know which one I'm talking about?

-stormin

Re:Champions?

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/04/10 [penny-arcade.com]

Re:Champions?

This comic immediately comes to mind.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/04/10 [penny-arcade.com]

Re:Snoooore...

Yeah, and Blizzard had nothing to do with the fact that I haven't bought an Xbox 360 and have absolutely no plans to buy the PS3 or Wii.

I'm a longtime PC gamer, and Warhammer is boring to me. Not everybody will be into it, but that doesn't mean PC Gaming is dead. I think this is big news for Warhammer fans, and that's about it (although I know no PC gamers who are Warhammer fans).

I like WoW for the whole MMORPG experience, and I see nothing on the Xbox 360 or PS3 that comes close. I have a friend who's been trying to get me to buy an Xbox 360 for months, and he can't give me a good reason to buy one considering I like MMO's. He's an Xbox 360 gamer purely for eye candy, and that's not the kind of gamer I am.

Not to mention that I'm not the kind of gamer who takes over the living room for myself when nobody else wants to watch me play games. I have a wife and 3 kids with far different interests than the games I play.

Consoles just don't work for guys like me, and with the gamer demographic constantly increasing in age, there are more and more gamers like me. The only thing that would come close to replacing my gaming laptops would be a handheld like DS or PSP with built-in networking for some kind of (good) MMO. I'd buy that...