Total War: WARHAMMER officially confirmed!

[Karnil Vark Khaitan]

... you do know that Ulthuan is destroyed now, right?

Ghhheesss Spoiler Warning!
hehe yes if just those pesky high elves could have accepted Malakith as their ruler!
And those Brets peasants think they had it hard before, just wait till they now a neighbour to the Druchii :3

True, i like lotr's alot to but it's the normal fantasy. Warhammer have alot more freedom when it comes to writing.

Yeap As I said it is just more or less a tale of good vs. evil, in warhammer even the Chaos god stands for something good!
And Malakith leads a war for his rightful place and there are even good Vampires o_o

But not a huge Fan Of "the end times", it is a nice "what if" story, but I don't hope to see it in the game.

[Cope]

That shows you didn't understand the question.

I disagree.

I'm not censoring you, I'm simply pointing out the fact that your opinion is baseless and uninformed.

I don't think it is.

That's a logical paradox: If you know nothing about something you dislike then you have no logical reason to dislike it.

Though I do know something about it.

I often criticize Warhammer, often quite harshly, there is a lot of stupid crap in Warhammer, just like the Star Wars EU, or Middle Earth Lore, or the Dune Universe, but that doesn't negate the awesome stuff in those Universes. The difference is I know what I'm talking about when I criticize something.

Ok then...

[Gryffon]

lol, so still a game for children then? Does it have dragons and orcs also? ha ha!

We heard your point, we respectfully disagree, now please stop with the meaningless spam
I personally only played this game a bit when I was eleven, then I tried Medieval Total war (I was a huge history fan back then) and immediatly thought about how great a warhammer total war would be. Stopped playing warhammer really fast because, well, I outgrew it a bit, but the SETTING is incredible for a strategy game.

Think about it : it's a mix of medieval warfare, 17th century warfare, with a couple modern (early 20th) machines. Then to add to the complexity you have : flying units + Big single units + heroes (small pretty strong and customized) + magic (buffs/debuffs and game changers)

In a nutshell, it's all about the setting, who cares if it comes from toys and if the narrative is bad in the warhammer universe : Total war games are sandboxes anyway.

[Emishi]

I think we reached a point where we don't have to give Leving's mature and refined opinion more attention than it is worth.

[Karnil Vark Khaitan]

Think about it : it's a mix of medieval warfare, 17th century warfare, with a couple modern (early 20th) machines. Then to add to the complexity you have : flying units + Big single units + heroes (small pretty strong and customized) + magic (buffs/debuffs and game changers)

Yeah it is really the big question how will flying units work, even more so magic?

I think we reached a point where we don't have to give Leving's mature and refined opinion more attention than it is worth.

indeed

[von stoker]

It's funny, but all of Leving's posts can be summed up in his own words.

Its just a deeply childish narrative

[Himster]

Yes, by suggesting that any opinion which is not supported by thousands of hours of experience is baseless and uniformed.

It is based on what you've said.

Then you should assume that I do know something about it, in which case your entire position is baseless.

I know that you know exceptionally little about Warhammer based on what you've said.

Please refer to my previous response. I know enough about Warhammer to be able to criticize it broadly.

You've demonstrated in your "criticism" that you know next to nothing about Warhammer.

For want of a better analogy, I don't have to have read the Communist manifesto to disagree with the general principles of the ideology.

You would however have to have a working knowledge of the principles of Communism in order to make valid criticisms.
If one is utterly ignorant of Communism there is absolutely no way to make cogent arguments against it.

I'm not objecting to your dislike of Warhammer, I am objecting to your pretense that your "criticisms" are cogent.

[Cope]

<delete>

[Ciciro]

Ghhheesss Spoiler Warning!
hehe yes if just those pesky high elves could have accepted Malakith as their ruler!
And those Brets peasants think they had it hard before, just wait till they now a neighbour to the Druchii :3




Yeap As I said it is just more or less a tale of good vs. evil, in warhammer even the Chaos god stands for something good!
And Malakith leads a war for his rightful place and there are even good Vampires o_o

But not a huge Fan Of "the end times", it is a nice "what if" story, but I don't hope to see it in the game.

I'd say its as much a spolier as saying Horus dies in the end, seeing as they have already released a timeline for most of it.

So you reject the notion that Warhammer is a poorly constructed and contrived fantasy universe designed to be sold to hormonal teenage boys. Fair enough. I'm glad that you (and others) are able to joyfully engage with the exceptionally creative brilliance of Warhammer which bought you such inspired factions as the "lizardmen", the "beastmen" and the "vampire counts" and is in no way childish, uncultured or dreadfully designed.

Are we talking about Warhammer here or Total War?

[Himster]

So you reject the notion that Warhammer is a poorly constructed and contrived fantasy universe designed to be sold to hormonal teenage boys.

I know enough about Warhammer to know that is not true.

Fair enough. I'm glad that you (and others) are able to joyfully engage with the exceptionally creative brilliance of Warhammer which bought you such inspired factions as the "lizardmen", the "beastmen" and the "vampire counts" and is in no way childish, uncultured or dreadfully designed.

Any normal person can appreciate the universal literary theme of "Man versus Himself", being the central philosophy behind the design and tone of Warhammer Universe: the geo-political strife/factional interplay is comparatively superficial and is primarily fueled by already established Fantasy tropes that even Tolkien used (and George RR Martin pastiches). Originality does not come from these tropes, it comes from how they are composed, which is influenced by the previously mentioned central theme, which is why the Warhammer Universe is one of the most celebrated and influential Fantasy Universes in the world.

That doesn't mean you're forced to like it, it simply means calling it "childish, uncultured or dreadfully designed" is patently false and reveals more about you than Warhammer.

[Karnil Vark Khaitan]

I'd say its as much a spolier as saying Horus dies in the end, seeing as they have already released a timeline for most of it.

hehe it was more as a joke, I haven't read the books yea nor will I because of the high prize!
But I have been following it on 1d4chan.

[walterbarrett]

I always get a laugh out of people that talk about Total War like it's some great serious minded historical masterpiece and defend it as such.

Bring on the warhammer. Total War is about eye candy and fast paced action filled battles.

[daxter]

So you reject the notion that Warhammer is a poorly constructed and contrived fantasy universe designed to be sold to hormonal teenage boys. Fair enough. I'm glad that you (and others) are able to joyfully engage with the exceptionally creative brilliance of Warhammer which bought you such inspired factions as the "lizardmen", the "beastmen" and the "vampire counts" and is in no way childish, uncultured or dreadfully designed.

Even if that were true, you cannot deny the amount of people that enjoy that franchise and its totally legit for CA to make a game around that franchise.

Also warhammer 40 has one of the best written novels with good reviews, this is fact not opinion.

[Diocle]

Dealing with Warhammer fluff is not easy as dealing with History, that is: it won't be easy falsifying the Warhammer Fluff.

Nobody can change even the smallest detail of the Fluff. Fluff is Religion for Games Workshop and its fans. All the Warhammer Fluff is strictly under copyrght rules, Games Workshop owns all the rights about the fluff and they are absolutely rigid in the treatment of their materials, so I'm pretty pessimistic about this story. Nevertheless I can see a great job opportunity for the thousands lawyers working for GW: Be ready guys, the future belong to you!

[Cope]

Even if that were true, you cannot deny the amount of people that enjoy that franchise and its totally legit for CA to make a game around that franchise.

CA can and do do whatever they want of course.

[Karnil Vark Khaitan]

Even if that were true, you cannot deny the amount of people that enjoy that franchise and its totally legit for CA to make a game around that franchise.

Also warhammer 40 has one of the best written novels with good reviews, this is fact not opinion.

If you ever got time read "The Sundering" by Gav thorpe, Its really really great.
Gav Thorpe always showed great respect to the elves.

[Goutlard]

Total War Warhammer.. Interesting
I'll wait for major, full-conversion historical mods or not buy it, I guess

[Ciciro]

If you ever got time read "The Sundering" by Gav thorpe, Its really really great.
Gav Thorpe always showed great respect to the elves.

... you do know that is one of the most panned Black Library series ever, right?

[Evan MF]

Honestly guys, I think it's a curse in disguise for Total War to be going down this route. It's a slippery slope when you take your franchise out of the grounded world of historical reality and open it up to the endless impulses of fantasy.

Warscape has already ruined unit melee combat and has been present for so many years now you just wonder whether CA still have the design ethic or design philosophy to ever reimplement a combat engine that is as good as Rome and Medieval 2's were. If you now add a set of fantasy release on top of that it sort of allows them to jump the responsibility having to emulate realistic unit interactions or realistic physics. It gives them the licence to contrive all sorts of corner-cutting, shallow mechanics under the guise of 'It's only fantasy!! It's not real life, things work differently in this universe'. There isn't that pressure of realism on their backs to make sure they don't distort the game's universe to suit mechanics.

I mean, consider what they did with Rome 2, they cut so many corners and made so many illogical contrivances from historical reality to suit them not having to build a new engine that would truly represent the Roman period in all its glory. The 'special abilities' that appear to exist on every unit now are an example of CA substituting Total War's core maneuvering/formation based strategy with a shallow tactical cop-out. Instead of building an engine that could reflect a large range of abilities spatially and visually, in the form of unique unit formations, stances, weapon types etc, they overwhelmingly opted for the kind of stat power-ups you would see in a MOBA game or traditional StarCraft type RTS because they were cheaper to implement. Trample, whip, second wind, etc are complete cop-outs from a Total War strategy perspective and prove that CA is willing to import tactical tropes that are unsuited to their game if it ticks boxes and allows them to market the game as having 'tactical depth'.

Another example was CA contriving Shogun 2's siege mechanics by blowing the idea of climbable walls out of proportion. They overused the notion of slanted walls on Japanese castles and extrapolated it as their dominating siege mechanic. In reality, we know Japanese sieges were not giant rock climbing conventions where ever Japanese soldier had the scaling abilities of spiderman. It's pretty clear CA contrived this mechanic simply because they had not been competent enough to program a siege AI that could handle realistic siege machines such as ladders - this is an example of CA's willingness to be disingenuous to our faces in an effort to cover up game flaws, rather than actually face the flaws and tackle them with the work, expertise or finance required.

With Warhammer there is the potential for this practice to go out of control, because all of a sudden there wouldn't be the pressure of historical reality on their shoulders preventing their marketing spinners from justifying outrageous design decisions with 'historical sources'. You could see the soul of Total War ripped apart, the battles change beyond recognition to suit their development practices, all under the guise of their new fantasy 'artistic direction'.

You may argue that Warhammer won't affect the historical series, they'll be kept 'separate'. This is where the other part of the slippery slop argument comes into play. Warhammer will quite literally pollute the franchise. It will bring in a set of design philosophies and game mechanics that will have a direct impact on how they develop future historical Total Wars. Whether it be in the form of the game engine code or more specific mechanical functions in the game, the fact that the brand 'Total War' is attached to it will obligate future Total War teams to, at the very least consider, the use these mechanics in future historical titles. You could easily see mechanics that suit the fantasy setting making their way into a historical Total War in some adapted form which, one hand would save them the cost of developing new code, but on the other may be really out of place or a downright cop-out like previous examples.

We also know that CA has been hiring a lot of new staff lately for the Total War team, including many Warhammer experts, one of whom you see in the Total War PR department, hired specifically for her Warhammer knowledge. With a change of people you get a change of culture. Institutions rarely retain philosophies, it's people who carry them. Just think about how many of these new staff will NEVER have worked on historical Total Wars LET ALONE the pre-Warscape Total Wars before. They will never have the knowledge of what made the old Total Wars so fun and addictive. Some of them may not understand the concept of a historically accurate game if they're completely new. If these people settle at CA without ever having worked on a historical Total War or perhaps never knowing how good pre-Warscape melee combat was, their ignorance will have a direct effect on how future Total Wars are designed.

I actually already think the old design philosophy of the pre-warscape games has been completely lost this way. Very few of the developers who were on the original Rome are still present at CA today, and those who are have largely moved into higher level management, away from the core development process. I believe the Warscape Engine-era, with it's complete unsuitability for melee combat, has probably removed a lot of the 'knowledge' of how to make a great melee battle engine from the organisation, because in all those years not a single Total War has fully realised melee combat properly and the droves of new staff that have jumped on board since will have never touched Rome or Medieval 2. Warhammer could do the same again but for other aspects of the game, perhaps the historical authenticity side and the scale, and as a result Total War could move even further away from what many of us originally loved it for. If you think Rome 2 was the limit of how bad it could get and the low for the series you could be mistaken, it could get a whole lot lower with Warhammer's influence on the franchise. It would have been far better if this title was it's own separate franchise.

To conclude: be careful what you wish for. Opening the doors to fantasy will effect a lot more than just a temporary change in artistic direction, it'll inevitably affect the entire design philosophy of the franchise.

[Karnil Vark Khaitan]

... you do know that is one of the most panned Black Library series ever, right?

It could be :3 I just really liked it, ofc I have a Bias (love Druchii)