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That sucks. Well, I'm glad I didn't drop the $40 on it then.
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Apr 23, 2015 17:43
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Deptfordx posted:Let's face it the graphics, even for the time, were terrible. And the gameplay was pretty much shoot at the other side until their morale level gets to zero. There wasn't much in the way of maneuver of skill required.
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Apr 23, 2015 18:41
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Arquinsiel posted:I disagree with you there. The graphics were a bit lame, but there was a lot more mechanically to the game that wasn't obvious from play. Various guns did more or less morale damage, some had "splash" morale damage, there were command units that improved morale for X radius etc etc. As well as the basic wargame staple of "use terrain to get lots of mans shooting at one man while only he can shoot back". I've played through it a dozen times or so, using different techniques every time. Probably the most efficient is actually running a mechanised infantry army with some tank support and moving at most half speed and dismounting everyone for overwatch fire before packing back up and pushing on even if there were some enemy infantry behind you. Like, say, how 1MEF made the push to Baghdad in 2003. If you can pull off an IRL strategy in a game then there's plenty of depth to it for my money. A disagreement? On the internet? Is that even allowed? More seriously, it was more that the AI wasn't very capable. Sure you could putter about with your various units satisfyingly. I did say i finished it twice and it's not a short game. But the AI's tactics was trundle towards the nearest enemy in a direct line and shoot at them. Or sit in place and shoot, depending on the scenario. It never stretched you, or made you work for a victory. I remember the bigger Titans being basically invulnerable as well. Yes, i know fluff etc, but it made for a boring battle when they were involved.
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Apr 23, 2015 18:49
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I liked how the Griffon Mortars made a bonnnng sound when they fired.
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Apr 23, 2015 19:08
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Fried Chicken posted:
People sure like to hate on the Ultramarines, but Guilliman is the only primarch that genuinely left something good behind himself in a galaxy of misery. Hell, the whole dividing of the Legions is really a great act of humility on his part, essentially admitting that despite him being the best guy for the job of ruling The Imperium he is still vulnerable to Chaos like all his brothers, and the risks of him falling while being on the primary seat of power is to great. His edicts and method of thinking still are responsible for one of the only good places to live in the Imperium outside of a few other locations, ones likely not heavily touched by the Administratum. Anyway, back to the argument about power armor. While nothing is "canon" a good reading to go off of is the Deathwatch rulebook by Fantasy flight, which sets standard Power Armor at 180 Kgs, and Terminator Armor at 400 Kgs.
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Apr 23, 2015 19:42
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Deptfordx posted:A disagreement? On the internet? Is that even allowed?
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Apr 23, 2015 19:43
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Gapey Joe Stalin posted:I disagree. The writer should be able to actually describe something evocatively so that you don't need "it's a lion" to give you a mental image. On the other hand, maybe they have other poo poo to talk about and don't need to spend a paragraph describing some ancillary detail when the same meaning could be conveyed in a word and then they could get on with the real plot. Not to defend GW authors in general but not every book needs to descend into Redwall-style detail porn over sidenote.
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Apr 23, 2015 21:59
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If you can't be arsed to describe the monsters that plague the native people of the planet your hero grew up upon and was destined to spend his life slaying, you are a bad writer.
Lovely Joe Stalin fucked around with this message at 23:07 on Apr 23, 2015 |
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Apr 23, 2015 23:01
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Arquinsiel posted:You've got a point there, but the AI was playing Orks so... that's what Orks do. Playing against someone else made it interesting, but it was kind of hard to do without a ref back in the day. Never did that, that might well have made for a more interesting game. A shame they never got the chance to do expansions for it as well. I know there was a fan-mod chaos army but i'm sure i remember reading Holistic wanted to release official expansions with new factions but sales didn't justify it, soooooo.  I've tried the Armageddon game, didn't like it. Not wanting to sound like i'm graphic obssessed, but I wasn't impressed. I thought the weapon animations were mediocre as were a lot of the units. The Titan animation was outright terrible. Also the AI and gameplay seemed uninspired. There are two basic setups. Attack: Advance up the map shooting, the orks basically sit there until your scouts reveal their prescence. If the random number generator likes you, you'll win with a turn or two to spare. If you're unlucky you'll lose, not through any lack of skill, you just failed to kill the Orks quickly enought to capture your objectives. Defence: Sit there and shoot at several waves of orks until you win. I admit there are minor variations, but that's basically it. Possibly the end game has more interest and variety. I gave up halfway through, I'd be very suprised to hear it however. Deptfordx fucked around with this message at 23:22 on Apr 23, 2015 |
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Apr 23, 2015 23:19
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The "fan mod" actually... wasn't. It was published by one of the devs who worked on the expansion using released assets and his own scripting work. He actually released the tools they used for making units on a yahoo group. I had some fun with adding in new weapon types and editing existing units to use them. Just adding one heavy bolter to every Ork vehicle that didn't already have them was a huge change in difficulty for the game.
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Apr 23, 2015 23:31
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Riso posted:Are they.. any good? I liked Nagash. I've read a chunk of the last gotrek book and it's not bad. The end times novels aren't particularly friendly to people who aren't familiar with the fantasy setting and characters though.
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Apr 23, 2015 23:52
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Huh, they actually did release Nemesis as an audiobook. Bringing together the best assassin of every order to form one kill team. Such a great concept, such a wasted execution.
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Apr 24, 2015 10:02
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Lincoln`s Wax posted:I liked Nagash. I've read a chunk of the last gotrek book and it's not bad. The end times novels aren't particularly friendly to people who aren't familiar with the fantasy setting and characters though. That's a good warning and the biggest hurdle I suppose. I still have other stuff to read, including Eisenhorn, so it's no big loss. I was just curious about GW ending that line (for now).
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Apr 24, 2015 10:08
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Deptfordx posted:Huh, they actually did release Nemesis as an audiobook. I also happen to like part of the idea behind Spear, that on this piece of paper there's a single drop of the Emperor's blood, and getting access to that drop is enough to super turbo charge a daemon into something truly horrific. No shortage of good ideas in Nemesis, just most of them terribly executed. I think the assassin kill team idea should have been saved for the tail end of the Heresy, going after Curze. We know a Callidus assassin kills Curze, and revising that whole thing into an entire assassin kill team comprised of the best of the best could have made for a wonderful story. And I want to see Zso Sahaal in the Heresy.
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Apr 24, 2015 11:31
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Cythereal posted:I think the assassin kill team idea should have been saved for the tail end of the Heresy, going after Curze. We know a Callidus assassin kills Curze, and revising that whole thing into an entire assassin kill team comprised of the best of the best could have made for a wonderful story. The point is that M'Shen doesn't kill Curze because she's especially The Best, or lucky, or the plan is good. She kills Curze precisely because he permits her to, all to prove a point. If you retconned it so a team of Assassins get there, and they do so on their own merits, you're devalueing Curze massively. It's one of the strongest stories in the 40k mythos because it implies some self-awareness beyond BADASSSES DOING BADASS THING *Bolter Chunk* so it would be a really, really terrible thing to toss away on something like that.
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Apr 24, 2015 11:40
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Shockeh posted:The point is that M'Shen doesn't kill Curze because she's especially The Best, or lucky, or the plan is good. She kills Curze precisely because he permits her to, all to prove a point. If you retconned it so a team of Assassins get there, and they do so on their own merits, you're devalueing Curze massively. The two ideas aren't mutually exclusive. Curze might permit one assassin to kill him, but that doesn't make the others' stories and sacrifices less meaningful. Might even underline Curze's point that he permits the Callidus assassin to kill him: he could have stopped her like he did the rest of her team. Edit: I suppose the difficulty with the Nemesis kill team idea lies in the fact that we have virtually no big names in the traitor Legions whose fates aren't already known who would be worthy of such a force. We know what happens to all of the traitor primarchs, so only Curze has any potential for being the target of a good assassin story and that has its own drawbacks as has been noted. I could buy such a team going after Abaddon, Erebus, Kor Phaeron, Sevatar, or Ahriman, but we already know what happens to them as well. We know where Kharn dies for the first time, and Lucius at this point doesn't seem like a high profile enough figure to warrant such an effort. Maybe Argel Tal or Cyrene, but ADB deals with them in Betrayer. Possibly Eidolon, but he's likewise dealt with already in a book. Can't be any of the Iron Warriors trident guys, because they're in Storm of Iron. Cythereal fucked around with this message at 12:23 on Apr 24, 2015 |
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Apr 24, 2015 12:10
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I've said it before. Nemesis shouln't have been a Heresy book. Because as you say we pretty much know what happens to everyone important. They should have taken the dirty dozen as assassins idea and used it for a 40k book. My previous suggestion for a target was taking out the head of an entire forgeworld that was about to corrupt it into a dark mechanus ally. You'd have a Vanus fighting an infowar against the masters of information. A Venenum who has to learn to poison what isn't alive. A Callidus having to imitate metal with flesh. And of course the Vindicare and Eversor matching their skills against machine warriors. All working together to infiltrate and overcome the defences of a master of an entire forgeworld. Edit: Make the poison master a Dark Eldar for maximum fun. That's just one example of course. You could come up with a dozen more with a little thought. Such a waste of a great idea. Deptfordx fucked around with this message at 12:46 on Apr 24, 2015 |
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Apr 24, 2015 12:35
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The lack of original characters in the Horus Heresy series in general is a weak point, in my opinion. We know the fates of all the big players, and the high notes of their careers. Original characters are all relegated to "There's a reason we don't know about them already" folder, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. While I have my issues with his writing, ADB does a really good job with Argel Tal, Cyrene, and the Word Bearers. The existing major figures of the Word Bearers - Lorgar, Erebus, and Kor Phaeron - are always around and make good impacts, but they give Argel Tal and Cyrene room to breathe and be their own characters. Dan Abnett likewise does an excellent job in Prospero Burns with a new character who offers interesting insight on existing events and figures. Other books, I feel are strangled by either telling events and characters we already know about with little room to breathe on their own (Graham McNeil I feel is particularly bad about this for all that the events of Fulgrim and Angel Exterminatus are new) or are wholly irrelevant one-offs that add nothing to the ongoing story (Nemesis, Battle for the Abyss, etc). It's quite possible to tell a good story about characters and events we already know about, adding a lot of new information, character, and general texture to the story, but I feel that's a sweet spot too rarely hit. The ADB-Abnett trilogy of The First Heretic, Know No Fear, and Betrayer does it brilliantly and represent my three favorite books of the series so far.
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Apr 24, 2015 13:00
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Uroboros posted:People sure like to hate on the Ultramarines, but Guilliman is the only primarch that genuinely left something good behind himself in a galaxy of misery. Hell, the whole dividing of the Legions is really a great act of humility on his part, essentially admitting that despite him being the best guy for the job of ruling The Imperium he is still vulnerable to Chaos like all his brothers, and the risks of him falling while being on the primary seat of power is to great. His edicts and method of thinking still are I'm a long time Ultrasmurfs fanboi but I can understand why people hate on them. Guilliman is the most effective of the Primarchs at actually building something, the Ultramarines themselves manage to balance their position as inhuman warriors with being the greatest that humanity can create. They understand and try their best to accomplish their role as part of humanity's Empire. Frankly I think it makes them the best legion/chapter by quite a way. On the other hand that doesn't exactly create compelling stories and definitely not fun bolter-porn. I think Abnett (or was it ADB) did a really good job of making the Ultramarines more believeable and much more interesting. Their problem is in the hands of writers who are looking at bolter porn or aren't really equipped for any kind of complexity they can really only portray the Ultramarines as generic soldier types or super-strict rules followers. Unlike the Blood Angels or Space Wolves there aren't any easy characterising hooks to use. Which is why most people think of them as boring vanilla types.
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Apr 24, 2015 13:42
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Everything wrong with the portrayal of Ultramarines stems from gross stupidity on the part of people writing about the Codex Astartes without actually thinking about what the thing has already been established to be. There's a contradiction that has reached the point of cliche in how adherance to the Codex is portrayed. The authors create a paradox that absolutely will not permit any story involving Ultramarines to be good. Abnett is a glaring exception to this, because he isn't as thick as pig poo poo and actually thought about what he was writing. Lovely Joe Stalin fucked around with this message at 13:50 on Apr 24, 2015 |
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Apr 24, 2015 13:47
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Gapey Joe Stalin posted:Everything wrong with the portrayal of Ultramarines stems from gross stupidity on the part of people writing about the Codex Astartes without actually thinking about what the thing has already been established to be. There's a contradiction that has reached the point of cliche in how adherance to the Codex is portrayed. The authors create a paradox that absolutely murders any story involving Ultramarines.* Also a huge part of the Ultramarines hate comes from the last Codex: Space Marines, or the one before that, the one written by Matt Ward, for the tabletop game. Ward's really good at designing an army from a gameplay perspective, but the fluff he writes is atrocious. He was writing lines about how basically every modern Astartes chapter envies the Ultramarines and tries to model themselves after them, regard Guilliman as such as their "spiritual liege," etc and generally making them ridiculously virtuous noble paladins who never lose.
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Apr 24, 2015 13:50
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Gapey Joe Stalin posted:Everything wrong with the portrayal of Ultramarines stems from gross stupidity on the part of people writing about the Codex Astartes without actually thinking about what the thing has already been established to be. There's a contradiction that has reached the point of cliche in how adherance to the Codex is portrayed. The authors create a paradox that absolutely will not permit any story involving Ultramarines to be good. ADB's portrayal of the Ultramarines (well, their successor chapters, which is basically the same thing) in one of the Night Lords book -- the last one, I think -- is really cool.
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Apr 24, 2015 14:30
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berzerkmonkey posted:
WFB games were, as far as I know, the inventors of the regiment-based RTT genre as such. Dark Omen and Shadow of the Horned Rat are still good games and compare favourably to Mark of Chaos, which was made a decade later
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Apr 24, 2015 14:39
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Dat trailer...
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WFB seems to be getting some decent games soon. Mordheim and Vermintide both look promising.
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Apr 24, 2015 14:42
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I don't know about Vermintide, from what I've seen it looks like a game from 10 years ago.
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Apr 24, 2015 14:53
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Riso posted:I don't know about Vermintide, from what I've seen it looks like a game from 10 years ago. It's basically Left 4 Dead Skaven Edition, by the dev of War of the Roses, which was a fun game a lot of people liked.
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Apr 24, 2015 15:00
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Gapey Joe Stalin posted:Everything wrong with the portrayal of Ultramarines stems from gross stupidity on the part of people writing about the Codex Astartes without actually thinking about what the thing has already been established to be. There's a contradiction that has reached the point of cliche in how adherance to the Codex is portrayed. The authors create a paradox that absolutely will not permit any story involving Ultramarines to be good. The Space Marine game tried to touch on how sticking to the Codex completely didn't make you a good soldier.
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Apr 24, 2015 15:20
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Azubah posted:The Space Marine game tried to touch on how sticking to the Codex completely didn't make you a good soldier. I sure am glad they gave Space Marine a giant cliffhanger of an ending 
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Apr 24, 2015 15:28
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They've explained what was going to happen, Titus was going to fight with the Inquisition for a while, then become the chapter master of a new successor chapter.
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Apr 24, 2015 15:30
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The greatest crime of not having a sequel was that you didn't get to beat Leandros within an inch of his life in a lovely QTE.
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Apr 24, 2015 15:32
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Why the hell did he even pick him to join his honor guard?
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Apr 24, 2015 15:40
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Azubah posted:The Space Marine game tried to touch on how sticking to the Codex completely didn't make you a good soldier. I've always imagined the Codex to be some combination of The Art of War, The Book of Five Rings, Clausewitz's On War, and The Evolution of Operational Art. Which is to say, it starts very general before going to suggestions, and massively open to interpretation.
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Apr 24, 2015 15:42
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MasterSlowPoke posted:Why the hell did he even pick him to join his honor guard? Probably because he seems competent and needs more seasoning and experience, hoping Titus and the other guy would rub off on him.
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Apr 24, 2015 15:42
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PantsOptional posted:The greatest crime of not having a sequel was that you didn't get to beat Leandros within an inch of his life in a lovely QTE. I think it would be great if he just says "you did the right thing" and is totally chill about it.
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Apr 24, 2015 15:43
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Mechafunkzilla posted:ADB's portrayal of the Ultramarines (well, their successor chapters, which is basically the same thing) in one of the Night Lords book -- the last one, I think -- is really cool. Yeah, I forgot about that. That's the perfect example of how adherence to the Codex should be portrayed. Azubah posted:The Space Marine game tried to touch on how sticking to the Codex completely didn't make you a good soldier. My whole point is that sticking to the Codex does makes you the best soldier, because the Codex isn't a set in stone BEEP BOOP list of things to do. That's the paradox I was talking about. The greatest, ever-expanding, treatise on warfare, strategy, and tactics ever written is usually portrayed as something which rules out any form of initiative or free thought. That is the stupid cliché of the Ultramarines, that the Codex is treated as a cheap hindrance to the hero instead of his greatest advantage. The Codex is the sole reason that contemporary Marines have an advantage over first generation Legionaries with thousands of years of personal experience and Chaos boons. Lovely Joe Stalin fucked around with this message at 15:51 on Apr 24, 2015 |
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Apr 24, 2015 15:44
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Honestly, Leandros seems like the kind of guy who's super competent but still locked in his ways. It's probable that Titus put him on the squad in the hope that Leandros might learn to be a little less by-the-book. E: Mange Mite posted:I think it would be great if he just says "you did the right thing" and is totally chill about it. This would also be pretty great, yeah.
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Apr 24, 2015 15:45
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Gapey Joe Stalin posted:Everything wrong with the portrayal of Ultramarines stems from gross stupidity on the part of people writing about the Codex Astartes without actually thinking about what the thing has already been established to be. There's a contradiction that has reached the point of cliche in how adherance to the Codex is portrayed. The authors create a paradox that absolutely will not permit any story involving Ultramarines to be good. Ok, Abnett's Ultramarines are written during a time when Gulliman is there to specifically tell them that the Codex is meant to be a guideline, and that they need to adjust accordingly to the situation at hand. 10,000 years later, you have a different situation where the remaining bits of the codex are revered like religious texts and are the absolute last word and are not meant to be interpreted or modified in any way. 40K is all about superstition and religious fervor - having a chapter who can't deviate from the codex their whose primarch wrote fits in perfectly with the atmosphere. It also allows for some chapters to cherrypick and still others to disregard it entirely to create conflict within the universe. Look at the bible, koran, torah, etc - there are people who strictly adhere to them as being the word of God. Any deviation will be severely punished. Why is it so difficult to believe a group of space warrior-monks in a dystopian future wouldn't be capable of the same thing?
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Apr 24, 2015 15:57
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Mange Mite posted:I've always imagined the Codex to be some combination of The Art of War, The Book of Five Rings, Clausewitz's On War, and The Evolution of Operational Art. Which is to say, it starts very general before going to suggestions, and massively open to interpretation. It is supposed to be based on the roman text De Re Militari (which is itself mainly a recreation of what they could still assemble from the remaining works of Gaius Marius and the standard practices he laid down that they were still following). De Re Militari lays out "this is how you train, this is how you March, your camp will always be laid out this way, you assemble a phalanx like this, you maneuver it like that" as pretty explicit instructions, right down to where to build latrines and how often to move them, and that tools should be hot before the medicae used them. The standard organization and practices worked, even if they didn't know "making GBS threads near each other and the drinking water spreads disease" or "heat kills bacteria". The parallel is pretty heavy; you have the patched together remnants of a great work from a real genius that was full of knowledge and understanding now lost, but by following the scraps of it rigidly you can achieve effects similar to if the man himself was there organizing things. Similarly, the uplifting infantryman's primer is based on The Soldier's Catechism: rules, regulations and drill procedures of the New Model Army. Obviously, how each author handles this varies Fried Chicken fucked around with this message at 16:17 on Apr 24, 2015 |
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Apr 24, 2015 16:13
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berzerkmonkey posted:Ok, Abnett's Ultramarines are written during a time when Gulliman is there to specifically tell them that the Codex is meant to be a guideline, and that they need to adjust accordingly to the situation at hand. The Codex is canonically still being added to and adapted. The Ultramarines are written as simultaneously the best because they use it, and the most incompetent because they use it. I would also say that real world religious texts like the Bible are not a good comparison for a number of reasons, not least of all because the Codex is, as I said, canonically still serving it's original purpose. And also, presumably, if anyone still has copies of the original founding document it is the Ultramarines. Whose very existence is in accord with the Codex. Even if it had never changed from the day Guilliman sat on his eternal toilet, it is absolute tosh to portray the Codex as a flaw and an impediment. And it is done simply because it is the most obvious way of creating drama and having The One Interesting Loose Cannon Genius Ultramarine rediscover the simplest and most obvious tactics over and over again. Because the writer knows gently caress all about even the basics of combat. This is why you will always have some stodgy old sergeant chiding the Captain for daring to feint a retreat, and wiping out the enemy who fall for the trap. What with taking cover, ambushing, and falling back all being against the Codex. It's cheap and it's lovely, and it does not make sense. Lovely Joe Stalin fucked around with this message at 16:32 on Apr 24, 2015 |
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Apr 24, 2015 16:26
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Mechafunkzilla posted:I sure am glad they gave Space Marine a giant cliffhanger of an ending Bioware picked up the rights to make the next one I think, so that sure might be a thing. Can't wait for some eldar lady with a huge rear end to try and seduce Captain Titus and he just screams "KILL THE ALIEN" and blows her head off.
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