Warhammer: Mark of Chaos (and Warhammer general)

[lars573]

I do hope that new WHFB game is more akin to Horned Rat and Dark Omen than, say, Dawn of War. Although it had its issues Dark Omen was great fun and captured much of the kooky attitude of the tabletop game; DoW was ultimately just a Starcraft copy with a clunky interface and some rather questionable deviations from the tabletop, and not enough of the sheer cheerfully unabashed lunacy of the 40k setting.

Well the rumour is that Starcraft and Warcraft were orginally supposed to be Warhammer games. But the licencing fell through. Still DoW is one of the best RTS games out there. And for me TW=/=RTS games, ever. Totalwar is a class in and to itself. There has only been 1 clone to my knowledge, Imperial glory. And it sucked.

The Warhammer Fantasy setting doesn't seem to lend itself too well for TW style strategy though unless you make the scale really small, so I'd be rather surprised if MoC included it.

Actually it would. The TT game is just scaled down for the sanity of the players. Could you imagine 1 Orc boyz regiment being 500-1000 mini's instead of 20-30?

[drone]

For reasons I can't quite put my finger on, I just think this one is going to be fun. Not fun in a "I just pulled of the most brilliant tactical manoeuver since Hannibal" sort of way, but fun in a "My dwarves just decapitated 50 Orcs in glorious technicolour and are now playing football with the heads, now lets see what the cannon can do" kind of way.

In short, I want eye candy and I want warhammer OTTness and I will be happy. Oh, and I probably want to wait until its a mid price game before buying it, sorry GW.

I feel the same way. It's going to be bloody, and I'm sure oversized helmets and weapons will make an appearance. Supposedly weather and terrain will affect combat, as will the usual fear and flanking aspects from the TT, so there will be some tactics involved, but it would surprise me if the kill calculator is anywhere near as complex as S/MTW's. Nothing wrong with nice, mindless (or almost mindless), rated-M-for-Mature graphical carnage, and judging from the kickin' cinematic they released for E3, we will be getting just that!

As a bonus, MoC and M2TW will be coming out at about the same time, which gives me a great excuse to finally upgrade my PC.

[Ciaran]

The Warhammer Fantasy setting doesn't seem to lend itself too well for TW style strategy though unless you make the scale really small, so I'd be rather surprised if MoC included it.

Though I´ve never played the tabletop game, I agree with Lars. There are limits to what can be reasonably handled (not to mention displayed) on a tabletop, but on screen there´s no such limitation.

[Ituralde]

I just read a new review on www.gamespot.com that sheds some light on the way the battles work.

http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/w...ml?sid=6154635

They are described as being similar to TW, although they contain even more action and will probably play out faster. I wonder how that 'aggro' think is gonna turn out. At least then I can use my previous WoW experience to 'tank' the enemy's troops and other such nonsense.
Besides that, it sounds like the game will be very close to the table top original, wich I have also played. Too bad the Wood Elves didn't make it into the game though. Especially the multiplayer part sounds interesting with the (hopefully) balanced point system. Gonna have a real close look at that game for sure!

[DisruptorX]

Well, seeing as how Total War and Warhammer are both simulations of ancient warfare, they are going to have simularities. The total war series already plays pretty much exactly what a real time version of Warhammer would be like, so I wouldn't really consider it a clone. Of course, Warhammer has emphasis on heroes and generals, as well as magic. Then again, I've seen jedi generals in MTW that made the best Warhammer lords look like wimps....

As for scale, Warhammer uses a representational, heroic scale. Meaning that units represent much larger units and individuals have oversized weapons, helms, etc to make them show up better from normal viewing distance. GW released "Warmaster", which uses a much smaller scale and allows for fielding much bigger armies.

The tabletop game uses morale, charge bonuses, spears, shields, flanking, and pretty much of the features that are found in the total war games. It also is extremely dependant on outmanoevering your opponent, albeit in a turn based rather than real time fashion. If Mark of Chaos at all attempts to reflect that, there's no way the gameplay will be faster than RTW. RTW makes starcraft seem slow paced, its absurd...

I'm looking forward to this because I'm an ex warhammer player (yet another one put off by the ridiculous, constant price hikes) and a huge skaven fan.

As for the person who asked, Warhammer is a dark, gritty fantasy world based on Earth (Empire is late middle ages/early renaissance Germany, Orcs and Beastmen are celts and other barbarian, Chaos are Viking marauders, etc.) Warhammer 40k is a spinoff that is gothic space fantasy. There are many similarities, most obviously Chaos and such. As for the gameplay, 40k is a simple game where the strategy consists of choosing the right army. Warhammer Fantasy is much more tactical, and army deployment and movement is key, reacting to your opponent, rather than rolling the most dice will win you the day. I love 40k's setting, but the game is soooo dull.

[Master_Thief]

I just watched an excellent gameplay video at pc.ign.com. It seemed to show exactly what the game would be like and it looks promisingly like total war. Only concerns are the small scale and the long distance views which seem reminiscent of Half-Life 1 (i.e. 2D and slightly blurry). Apart from that the game looks pretty damn good.

[drone]

Here are 2 interviews with the lead producer with some of the game mechanics.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com....php?id=143867
http://www.computerandvideogames.com....php?id=143936
Looks like the engine will support larger battles than I expected, there is mention of 4-5 thousand troops at a time. Looks like I need a new PC for sure this fall.

PS. Lady Frog, can we get the two Mark of Chaos threads merged?
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=67548

Edit - Thank you, although to be honest I bumped the old one when I probably should have just moved on to the newer thread. I'll keep that in mind.

[frogbeastegg]

Usually where there's a significant time gap between threads I leave be, only merging when two similar threads are about at the same time. It gets a bit obsessive otherwise, with me spending loads of time hunting down and merging.

But since the old thread just got brought back ... :skewers the topics with a merging hairpin:

[drone]

They released a beta test version today to "selected" testers. By "selected", I think every member at the official forum got a key. So the game is progressing. An unfortunate side effect of this is that now the forum will be a very boring place until release, since the beta NDA stifles discussion, and all the hard-core fans now are muzzled.

Unfortunately, I'm too swamped at the moment to beta test, so I guess I will have to wait and see the final product.

[drone]

IGN has a preview on a preliminary build. Battles apparently are similiar to TW, campaign map is more linear. No words on multiplayer or AI skirmish.

Release date is supposedly some time this month, but the general opinion from the beta testers on the forum is that they should take a little more time. Sound familiar?

http://pc.ign.com/articles/736/736583p1.html

[Bob the Insane]

That all reads really good, but I have been given pause by the movies I have seen where everthing does appear to be a bit of a click-fest and more mob tactics than formations...

[Spino]

I could swear this game looks like it was made by the same developer who did Mythic and Mythic 2. The little green circles under each soldier and the way in which the formations move are practically the same as in the Mythic series.

[Watchman]

Actually it would. The TT game is just scaled down for the sanity of the players. Could you imagine 1 Orc boyz regiment being 500-1000 mini's instead of 20-30?

Uh... I was talking about strategy, not tactics. The latter is where your assorted colourful psychopaths slaughter their foes to the tune of your mouse; the former is where you move armies and (at least in TW) build stuff.

And the strategic aspect is somewhat... shall we say... secondary to the WHFB world and experience, which is why I'm wondering how well it could be realized in a computer game if that is actually even planned.

Or, put this way: Archaon's vast all-conquering Chaos horde would start looking sort of pitiful as the MTW Mongol stack with its notorious income issues.

[econ21]

That all reads really good, but I have been given pause by the movies I have seen where everthing does appear to be a bit of a click-fest and more mob tactics than formations...

Indeed. The report was promising - facing and morale are key factors for a decent wargame; MoC having them is good. But I did not really pick up their effects in the movies I've seen. It was more like mobs clobbering each other and calling in special attacks.

The linear mission-based campaign is disappointing. The Dark Crusade expansion to Dawn of War is more promising in that respect, offering a TW style strategic map.

[Soulflame]

So the other day I saw a few movies about Warhammer; Mark of Chaos, and I was pleasantly surprised.

A few gaming sites (IGN included) have some video's and interviews. It seems that it has a lot of the mechanics of the TW series; deployment phase and no buildings (not common in standard RTS), battle standards that display health and fatigue, regiments of units instead of single units (except for special units and heroes).

It actually looks like a real fantasy setting TW game, except maybe one generation back (Rome style; nice 3d graphics, but clones and not polished).
Although it does have hero units that are special and have a more RPG like feeling (they can have special abilties based on special talent trees like Diablo and WoW).
There isn't any talk of moddability, and not all races of Warhammer Fantasy are present (expansion?), so it could be better, but it's still pretty interesting

My personal feelings are; great! finally a fantasy setting grandscale wargame. There were actually a few barriers in the TW engine (not able to create single unit regiments for heroes, or flying units) that prevented a real fantasy setting, so this game might fill that hole nicely.
Now the choice actually becomes; do you want to play with fantasy creatures and heroes, or with historical units and historic battles.
I might get both games, but I want to know your opinion on this (probably first real competitor ever) to the TW series.

[econ21]

We'll see. Real tabletop Warhammer is rather like Total War - a genuine wargame. But my hunch is that Mark of Chaos will turn out to play like a "tactical" RTS like Battle for Middle Earth and Dawn of War. It looked to me a little like "group a bunch of units", order "attack", then "click special attack", rinse and repeat. Hope I am wrong.

But this topic belongs in the arena, where it will probably be merged with the existing thread on MoC.

[Beelzebub]

Competition in the TW genre is good regardless. It will force CA to put out top notch stuff, cuz if they slip again (like the mediocre release that RTW was) they might pay for it next time if someone releases a better game of similar style.

[Monarch]

Multiplay campaign, woohoo!

Battle For Middle Earth 2 had one of those, was more a reason for playing battles than anything else. Not very interesting.

Anyway, I'm not into Warhammer at all, but recently I bought DOW and my hatred for stupid click fest RTS has faded, I expected resources, and loads of micromangement. The micromangements still there, alot, but I'm not too bothered because its interesting stuff like upgrading soldiers, not making sure your farms havn't run out (aoe...).

I've already reserved my copy of Dark Crusade, looks great. So I might be a little interested in this now (even though I originally didnt buy dow because I don't like warhammer, but dow could be any fantasy game really, not so much emphasis on warhammer so im happy lol), but tbh I don't like games that try to copy other games, so if it obviously tries to be TW, and fails. Then I'll hate it.

[Bob the Insane]

Battle For Middle Earth 2 had one of those, was more a reason for playing battles than anything else. Not very interesting.

Anyway, I'm not into Warhammer at all, but recently I bought DOW and my hatred for stupid click fest RTS has faded, I expected resources, and loads of micromangement. The micromangements still there, alot, but I'm not too bothered because its interesting stuff like upgrading soldiers, not making sure your farms havn't run out (aoe...).

I've already reserved my copy of Dark Crusade, looks great. So I might be a little interested in this now (even though I originally didnt buy dow because I don't like warhammer, but dow could be any fantasy game really, not so much emphasis on warhammer so im happy lol), but tbh I don't like games that try to copy other games, so if it obviously tries to be TW, and fails. Then I'll hate it.

If you like DoW and have a decent machine and a liking for WWII then you own yourself "Company of Heroes"...

[Kalle]

I've already reserved my copy of Dark Crusade, looks great. So I might be a little interested in this now (even though I originally didnt buy dow because I don't like warhammer, but dow could be any fantasy game really, not so much emphasis on warhammer so im happy lol), but tbh I don't like games that try to copy other games, so if it obviously tries to be TW, and fails. Then I'll hate it.

If anyone copied anything it sure is not the warhammer computergame series. I never played Shadow of the horned rat but I played Dark Omen a lot and that game is years older then any totalwar game and has all the elements of morale, charges, flanking and so on. Of course there are lots of diffrences aswell.

It would not surprise me if some peoplo from the shogun team were involved in the making of dark omen or at least draw inspiration from it.

Hopefully the new game coming is made in the same spirit as dark omen but even better.

Kalle

[doc_bean]

Demo is out !

Only played the first tutorial and about a minute of the campaign game. Visually it's a *little* less impressive than M2TW so far (not as much grass, trees not quite as pretty so far, models a little bit smaller and smaller unit sizes, shasows not quite a snice, this is with everything turned on, on a pretty high end machine), though zoomed out I think it looks better zoomed out, there is more diverse terain present and there have been some things I didn't quite expect:

-individual soldiers: no clone armies !
-individual combat animations !
-units of 50 soldiers definatly exist, small compared to TW, but reasonable for this kind of game imo.

The interface and controls will seem VERY familiar to anyone who has played a TW game. I'll have to play with it some more, but it looks like a very promising clone at least. I might actually have more fun with it than with M2TW (I'm a bit burned out on TW games).

[Bob the Insane]

Yikes, 1GB demo... Downloading now...

[The_Doctor]

I got the demo yesterday, its very good.

[Bob the Insane]

That is pretty sweet... Plays kind of half way between TW style and regular RTS style... No building units on the battlefield...

[Ciaran]

[...]that game is years older then any totalwar game and has all the elements of morale, charges, flanking and so on. Of course there are lots of diffrences aswell.

That´s because this is also crucial in the tabletop, which in turn is a somewhat more streamlined modification of the "Kriegsspiel", originally designed to train officers and to test scenarios. It has all the crucial elements of "real" warfare, maybe short of the logistics. So, an RTS-style adaption of Warhammer could almost be seen as a betrayal of its very concept.

[lars573]

I tried the demo. This game is TW battle system combined with WC3 hero system, and DOW campagin elements. The linerarity of the campagin is a huge turn off. I hate the standard model of RTS campagin. And I'm abivilant about TW battles. Still leveling up your units as to increase it's man power is a nice element. Eg. Chaos warriors undivided start with 16 men at lvl. 1 and by lvl. 4 are 48 men. The hero system draws a lot from WC3. But the large number of skills for the hero give you more options to customize them to your liking. Also as you attach them to your units their is less of a focus on them. Outside the duels (which I like).

[Ciaran]

I´ve also tried the demo, and to be honest, it´s not what it´s cracked up to be. Yes, the units do consist of numerous men, but those rather seem a visual representation of the hitpoints of traditional RTS, morale, stamina and unit direction seem to have very little impact, I´ve sent my troops running over the whole map in the first mission and they never really seemed to get exhausted and units didn´t break and run until they were almost completely beaten anyways.
The duels are a nice idea, I agree with that, though I didn´t have the opportunity to extensively test them. With the heroes and Wizards, however, it seems more like a graphically up-to-date Warcraft.

[Meneldil]

Hornet Rat and Dark Omen were by no mean a clone of TW games, since both were released way before Shogun TW. I'd rather say that STW was a clone of Warhammer games. When I first played STW, I thought "oh cool, this is just Warhammer Dark Omen with samurai and a campaign map".

[econ21]

When I first played STW, I thought "oh cool, this is just Warhammer Dark Omen with samurai and a campaign map".

I can see that, but of course both games really owe their debt to classic tabletop minatures wargames. Warhammer is such a beast. And I gather the core CA designers were wargamers who, in their youth, when they were not pushing counters over hexes, were pushing minatures over tablecloths.

Playing both Warhammer tabletop and TW, I can testify to how much better the computer is than the tabletop for such a game. For the rather anti-social, like myself, it gives you an opponent in the AI. And for everyone, it gets rid of the big fat rule book and, even better, the rules lawyers.

Aside from the rules, etc, I gather TW really started off as a demonstration that CA could animate hundreds of little men in battle on a computer. That delivered the initial "wow!" factor that led the game to be greenlighted and to pick up such good sales. Even now, with M2TW, it is that spectacle that gives TW its PC Gamer front cover status. Warhammer Dark Omen did nothing comparable to that - graphically, it was mundane and unexciting.

However, nowadays, games like Mark of Chaos, BFME, DoW etc are pressing hard on the heels of TW in terms of the visuals and spectacle. But TW still is much closer to my heart, because it is closer to its origins in historical wargaming. I suspect that may be why CA have not gone for a "Fantasy Total War" - without the historical depth, the brand will lose much of its distinctiveness.

[econ21]

I tried the demo. This game is TW battle system combined with WC3 hero system, and DOW campagin elements. The linerarity of the campagin is a huge turn off. I hate the standard model of RTS campagin. And I'm abivilant about TW battles.

I tried the full game - not got very far with it, yet, of course. So far, I am not enamoured of it - for a start, I can't find a "pause" button, which is a biggie for me. Also can't find how to slow down the scroll speeds, so the battles all feel rather out of control. Maybe I'll get use to it (M2TW also took a while).

Right now, the battles feel more like Battle for Middle Earth than Total War. It's true, they are slower and also you have bigger units. But it feels RTS like - there's none of the deliberation of TW. It's not about terrain, flanking or morale. It's about piling your units onto the closest enemy units, killing them, rinse and repeat.

The campaign also feels like Battle for Middle Earth. A lame campaign map with virtually no freedom to wander off your pre-ordained path.

The hero levelling up system reminds me of Guild Wars - you can put points in lots of different spells, special attacks or passive abilities. But it feels like variety for variety's sake - they are not the kind of choices you would pour over in order to pick the most powerful (unlike, say, feats, spells and fighting styles in DnD).

One redeeming feature is that there is no farming-type resource gathering or base building. You have gold to spend on units, replacements, upgrades and magical items. You can pick the units you want to go into battle with. However, again the choices don't feel very strategic or interesting (as Empire in the first few battles, you probably want 2 melee units with maximum upgrades and 2 missiles to go with your 2 heroes).

Visually and in sound etc it's ok, but it does not have the sharpness or character of Dawn of War. Nor are the gameplay or choices as challenging or potentially interesting. Overall, the presentation is inferior to BFME and DoW.

My son and I had a chance to try out both Mark of Chaos and DoW: Dark Crusade today. He chose DoW:DC, I chose MoC (I really like the Warhammer fantasy fluff - he's into the 40k stuff). I think he made the best call.

But I doubt either can compete with M2TW or NWN2 for my gaming time right now.