Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader: Reject Aeldari, Return to Mon-Keigh

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader: Reject Aeldari, Return to Mon-Keigh

EclecticTastes: Sep 17, 2012; "Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything after it. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped."

Terrible Opinions posted:

The all silly satire stuff is either spin off board games from the 80s or people meme posting the very first table top source book from the same time frame. For the majority of its life span 40k has taken itself seriously and occasionally has some comic relief like Warhammer Fantasy. Sometimes with especially bad writers both would become way too self serious.

Okay even I know this is incorrect. Warhammer was originally a fantasy setting, made in 1983. In 1987, Warhammer 40k was made as a largely satirical product, riffing on British culture at the time as well as British nerd culture's then-preference for what they would define as "grimdark" storytelling* (similar to how 1986's Blood Bowl was a parody of American football using the original Warhammer setting). It then rapidly became much more serious due in large part to a ton of people doing the "Wow! Cool robot!" meme at it. Some of the serious stuff is also good, other stuff is bad, and how much you like it will depend largely on both which specific 40k property you're engaging with, and how much you enjoy such a bleak setting.

*SEE: Judge Dredd, et al.

# ¿ Jun 5, 2022 03:11

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 08:10

EclecticTastes: Sep 17, 2012; "Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything after it. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped."

From my read of the Rogue Trader core rules, Seneschals basically seem like just Accountants in Space, so I assume they're the overworked and underappreciated workhorses that not only keep everything running, but usually do half of everyone else's jobs when they gently caress up, and are fueled primarily by rage and coffee.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2022 00:00

EclecticTastes: Sep 17, 2012; "Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything after it. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped."

CommissarMega posted:

They can certainly start out that way, but any good Seneschal would soon graduate to having other people gently caress up and take the blame for them. Also remember that they're usually the ones who handle the Dynasty's finances, making them the shadows behind the throne, so to speak. And coffee? Like a peasant? If you're not humbling anyone apart from the God-Emperor and the High Lords with a single glass from your cellar, can you truly consider yourself part of a Trader Dynasty?

I'm more of a fan of the kind of character that humbles them with meticulously upkept spreadsheets, and who ensures anyone who doesn't properly fill out their timesheets and invoices finds their way out the nearest airlock. There's a certain level of excess at which point bureaucracy goes from dull to cool, and that's a vibe I enjoy. And nobody is too rich for coffee.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2022 07:02

EclecticTastes: Sep 17, 2012; "Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything after it. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped."

pentyne posted:

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/games/warhammer-40000-rogue-trader

No squats confirmed.

Sad.

How much do you want to bet they'll be part of the Season Pass?

# ¿ Jun 17, 2022 00:08

EclecticTastes: Sep 17, 2012; "Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything after it. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped."

Colin Mockery posted:

Are there any books or games that are actually lighthearted and funny, preferably about orks, that someone would actually recommend reading or playing? Actually lighthearted and funny, not "grimdark, but it's ironic" or "satire, but not in a way that makes people laugh". I keep wanting to get into the W40K franchise but I don't really enjoy grimdark stuff, space politics, or military fiction...

Also, for Dawn of War 2, the DLC is only about $3, how necessary is it, or can I just skip it

I'm aware of the Ciaphas Cain series, which is about an Imperial guy who basically lucks his way into glorious victories despite being a complete coward, to the point of being hailed as a hero of the imperium.

# ¿ Jun 21, 2022 23:58

EclecticTastes: Sep 17, 2012; "Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything after it. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped."

Bloody Hedgehog posted:

Sometimes the lore is all jammed up inside you, and you have to take a pill. Then the lore dumps out, and it's full of interesting tidbits, and ~~corn~~Khorne.

# ¿ Jun 24, 2022 15:01

EclecticTastes: Sep 17, 2012; "Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything after it. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped."

Lexorin posted:

I feel like the spacemarines are so ripped, jacked up on steroids, and genetically enhanced that you wouldn't be able to tell the difference in gender without taking their shorts off.

There's precedent for this in the tabletop game space, as the citizens of Alpha Complex in Paranoia, being vat-grown and cloned rather than reproducing the old-fashioned way, have be rendered completely sexless by the assorted chemicals that keep them docile and focused on serving Friend Computer. From what I'd heard of them, that's basically what I'd assumed Space Marines were under their armor, just redrawn by Rob Liefeld.

# ¿ Jun 24, 2022 20:51

EclecticTastes: Sep 17, 2012; "Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything after it. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped."

pentyne posted:

I'm not worried about them loving it up, I'm more worried the game actually works at launch. They're 2/2 with games that release 1.0 in an unbeatable state, and I think that Kingmaker took several months for them to fix after launch.

Hey, now, to be fair, Wrath of the Righteous could at least technically be played to completion at launch, if you managed to avoid all the game-breaking bugs, ignored the dozens of broken quests and glitched items along the way, and more or less fled to the end like a man escaping a collapsing building. And a year later they've almost got it most of the way to being fully functional!

# ¿ Aug 6, 2022 03:40

EclecticTastes: Sep 17, 2012; "Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything after it. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped."

DeadFatDuckFat posted:

Im hopin that this owlcat game will be less buggy, just because it seems less complex without all the pathfinder system poo poo, but thats probably wishful thinking

I have some bad news for you about the complexity level of Rogue Trader.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2022 21:11

EclecticTastes: Sep 17, 2012; "Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything after it. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped."

DeadFatDuckFat posted:

Oh no

Are there really like a billion classes and subclasses like in wrath

It's not as bad, but, Rogue Trader is by no means a simple system, and Owlcat's track record can absolutely continue to be used as a bellwether for how this game is going to turn out.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2022 21:35

EclecticTastes: Sep 17, 2012; "Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything after it. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped."

Janissary Hop posted:

If my eyes are glazing over looking at this stuff I can only imagine what's going on at Owlcat HQ right now

Probably a lot of laughing and high-fiving since, based on the last two games they made, they have hard evidence that they don't need to pay playtesters and can just release the game unfinished and let the suckers who buy it at launch do the QA work for them, and then once the game is actually finished, just rebrand it as an "Enhanced Edition" and get another couple weeks on the front page of Steam/GOG. :shrug:

Oh, also they have little to no meaningful competition in the space (they're the only ones licensing these specific TTRPG properties), so they know that no matter what they do, people will buy their games anyway just to play Pathfinder or Rogue Trader in video game form.

EclecticTastes fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Dec 4, 2022

# ¿ Dec 4, 2022 20:22

EclecticTastes: Sep 17, 2012; "Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything after it. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped."

It's likely that there'll be various tiers of weapons unlocked over time or found out in the world, anyway. Not as much as Pathfinder, of course, but probably comparable to HBS' Shadowrun games. Like, you'll start with access to Poor or maybe Standard quality gear, and work your way up to Best (or whatever terms RT uses, I don't recall offhand). In fact, if they're smart, Owlcat will keep the scope of this Rogue Trader game similar to the Shadowrun games, maybe a bit larger. Rogue Trader isn't really built for the kinds of years-long epic campaigns that Kingmaker and Wrath are simulating.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2022 11:43

EclecticTastes: Sep 17, 2012; "Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything after it. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped."

Issaries posted:

That would be 1/10, would not Rogue trade game.

Rogue Traders are immensely wealthy. You are 0.000000000000000001% of the humanity and your wealth is incalculable, except in abstract sense of profit factor. You own literal planets and your flagship is more valuable than most of them. Your ship has a crew in tens to hundreds thousands of people that have lived there generations as your family serfs.

Oh, sorry, to be more clear, when I say "scope", in this case I mean in terms of the game's length. Obviously you should have the giant ship and be colonizing/exploiting planets, but in terms of how many "missions" or however the game is eventually divided up, they cannot make a Rogue Trader campaign that's as long as Kingmaker and have it feel rewarding to play without completely reworking how equipment scales or how the player levels or any number of other things that are core to the RT system, and the Shadowrun games by HBS are of a more appropriate length. You know, like, fifty hours rather than two-hundred.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2022 07:08

EclecticTastes: Sep 17, 2012; "Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything after it. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped."

"Fighter" could also refer to fighter craft, which would imply the 15 would refer to the complement of fighters the character can deploy/command in space combat (you know this game is going to have space combat). Also, looking over the sheet, it looks pretty accurate to core Rogue Trader rules? As for the little blocks on the right, it looks like they break down as follows:

1. General options anyone can use as part of the core rules, sometimes requiring certain skills (charging, taunting, medicae, etc.). This is pretty much the same as how heal checks, charging, feints, etc. were translated in the PF titles.

2. Benefits from one's lifepath (looks like only homeworld and occupation are reflected here; it's possible that the full lifepath system is implement, but only homeworld and occupation have ongoing effects for your character, they might be there just as flags during conversations/cutscenes to have special dialog pop when needed)

3. Gonna theorize that this is to do with your small craft complement, hence "Fighter" has a 15 on it.

4. Talents

# ¿ Dec 7, 2022 01:39

EclecticTastes: Sep 17, 2012; "Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything after it. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped."

kingcom posted:

Thats a pretty bizarre take, placing that number under 'features' and next to the portrait with a filling bar akin to xp. Also fighter craft are something most ships in Rogue Trader don't even use and 15 is a huge number for squadron count (and tiny for individual fighters) unless you're in a ship thats loaded with squadron bays and very few lance or macrocannons.

It's okay if they've transitioned to a more fixed levelling system because a combat focused take on this game would really want to make sure you have some minimum threshold of power you're hitting , which the xp spend system would present the idea that you can go completely non-combat capable. Though Fighter is a weird name for it.

Whatever it is, I can't really tell what impact it's having on the character sheet. The stats all look pretty normal, though it looks like they've added a normal HP system since RT's location-based damage determined solely by toughness bonus and armor, as noted, lends itself to rocket tag (and also location-based damage in an isometric CRPG would likely be a pain to deal with). Scrapping the normal damage/wounds system also allows them to change the math for how much damage weapons do, how armor mitigates damage, and generally make itemization more like a traditional CRPG.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2022 02:14

EclecticTastes: Sep 17, 2012; "Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything after it. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped."

Jack Trades posted:

If Owlcat decides to shoehorn in Vancian Casting into this game somehow then I'm gonna scream.

I'm usually first in line to poo poo on Owlcat for their poor QA and eagerness to offload said QA work onto paying customers, but I think a lot of assumptions are being made based on two contextless numbers on an otherwise-accurate character sheet. The alpha's supposed to go live soon, and to my knowledge there's no NDA involved, so people can probably explain what those things are meant to be in the near future, but as far as "faithfulness to the RPG" goes, Owlcat's track record is pretty good (on that and basically nothing else), so this is one and exactly one thing I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2022 07:54

EclecticTastes: Sep 17, 2012; "Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything after it. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped."

Megasabin posted:

As someone who has not played their 2 previous games, the idea I�m getting from reading this thread and others on different forums, is that this is an amazing concept for a turned based RPG, but Owlcat is not at all equipped to be the company to pull it off with the merit the concept deserves.

Owlcat's final, end result is usually pretty good. The process they use to get there is inexcusably awful and people should absolutely hold them more accountable for that, but they never will, so every game they release will continue to be buggy and barely-complete at best for at least the first three to six months, as The Gamers are used as unpaid playtesters and thank Owlcat for the "privilege".

But yeah the final game will probably be pretty good. Wait until they release the "Enhanced" (READ: Finished) Edition before picking it up, though.

# ¿ Dec 14, 2022 02:26

EclecticTastes: Sep 17, 2012; "Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything after it. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped."

Buschmaki posted:

In the Old Republic you can romance Vette while having not freed her from slavery and keeping a shock collar on her at all times. It's very bad

I don't know if this was the case at launch, but I checked and based on some forum posts I found, it hasn't been true since at least 2012 (for a game that launched in 2011). I played the Sith Warrior story a couple years ago, and you can't romance Vette without freeing her and removing the collar. Probably still a little weird for those players who didn't free her immediately, but either that was always the case, or Bioware immediately realized they hosed up and changed it within the game's first year.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2023 20:58

EclecticTastes: Sep 17, 2012; "Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything after it. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped."

pentyne posted:

I know this is for the other Owlcat games but mounted combat in Rogue Trader would be amazing, let me ride that tentacle mouthed lion thing that keeps killing me and charge at my enemies with a chainsaw lance.

I will leave that post up for posterity, but yeah, I got mixed up and thought this was the other Owlcat thread. Whoops!

# ¿ Oct 27, 2023 00:13

EclecticTastes: Sep 17, 2012; "Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything after it. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped."

SpaceDrake posted:

Said Youtubers are basically "games media" at this point and are playing with what's close to a review build (and will evidently get updated to such in a few weeks). While I'm impatient too, I'm fine waiting a few more weeks for the final polish patches to be pre-applied.

I'm significantly more encouraged by the fact that Owlcat feels confident enough to send out preview/buildup-to-review builds this early. Release is still 29 days away.

This assumes there wasn't some back-channel deal for positive coverage. Plenty of larger studios only send advance copies of games to outlets and reviewers that consistently give positive ratings, while more critical voices quickly find themselves blacklisted, and I wouldn't put it past Owlcat, who are pretty shady at the best of times (putting games out in a barely playable state and "rereleasing" the game after the major bugs are fixed as an "Enhanced Edition" in order to get more time on the front page of storefronts, for one thing). Warner Bros., in particular, got caught making explicit deals with Youtubers to send them advance copies of, IIRC, one of the Middle Earth games, in exchange for uncritical praise. I'll wait to see the reviews from people who had to buy the game themselves.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2023 08:32

EclecticTastes: Sep 17, 2012; "Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything after it. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped."

After Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous, I think I'll give this one a year to be actually playable from start to finish. As I recall, Owlcat's previous games also came out to rave reviews, despite being barely playable past the first few hours. Given the studio's shady behavior up to this point (releasing what could be generously called a beta, claiming it's complete, and then "re-releasing" it as an "enhanced edition" a year later in order to get back on the storefronts' front pages once they fixed all the game-breaking stuff and can actually call it finished without it being an outright lie), I wouldn't be shocked if the beta for RT was deliberately polished up to make sure it looks like "no really we've improved this time trust us bro" and then the whole back half of the game is, as in the last two times this has happened, barely functional. Definitely excited to play it once it's done, though.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2023 20:57

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# ¿ May 12, 2024 08:10

EclecticTastes: Sep 17, 2012; "Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything after it. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped."

Clerical Terrors posted:

If you want to play the most optimal version with the least amount of bugs it's always a good idea to wait at least another year on a CRPG, this has been a truism for a while now.

There's a huge difference between "most optimal version" and "you can actually reach the end of the game without a bug rendering the whole thing unplayable". Fallout: New Vegas was riddled with bugs at launch due to Obsidian's outdated QA practices, but you could at least finish the game. Maybe you didn't play the other two Owlcat games at launch, and didn't experience just how badly broken they were, but they were absolutely in a condition where no honest studio would ever have claimed they were ready to be sold.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2023 21:10

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