Total War: Warhammer Finally Gets Official Announcement

[Kahani]

The lack of any of the Elf factions or the Skaven in the trailer makes me think that they will be dlc. If that is the case then no matter how much I have wanted a game like this for so many years it can fuck right off.

I don't really have a problem with it. Content takes time and money to produce. We already have Empire, Dwarves, Greenskins, Vampires, and Chaos announced, off the top of my head the Warhammer world also contains High Elves, Wood Elves, Dark Elves, Skaven (multiple factions with plenty of infighting), Chaos Dwarves, Bretonnia, Slaan/Lizardfolk, Necromancers (less of a full faction but could fill a nomad horde sort of role), those Egyptian undead guys I forget the name of. Plus Chaos can really be five or six full factions depending on how you split it (the four major gods, chaos undivided, and demons as a separate army from cultists as was done for 40K). That's at least 13 major factions with extremely different civilisations, units and play styles, and probably as many as 20 or more if you really want to go all out. Even if you just want some of the better known and better established factions, you're probably looking at at least 8 (skaven and at least two elves, presumably high and dark).

If you look at a comparable game like Dawn of War, there are only 4 different factions in the original game, and only 9 after three expansions. It's really not reasonable to get upset over a brand new video game not containing all the content from a franchise that has been developed for over 30 years. With a game like this it's an absolute certainty that not all factions will be present on initial release. If some of the ones missing happen to be those you like that's a shame, but not at all a good reason to start hurling abuse at the developers. If we get a decent game with enough content to justify the price, then the addition of DLC later should be considered a good thing, not bad. And if we don't get a good game to start with, DLC will be irrelevant to the abuse it deserves for that.

And of course, that's assuming that the first official mention of the game actually tells us the full extent of the races involved. For all we know there actually are 20 different factions in the game and they just couldn't fit them all in one trailer.

 

[Amaror]

Wake me when the chaos faction is tzeentch focused and plays like crusader kings but with a better intrigue system, skaven are a faction I don't have to pay extra for, or dawn of war 3 and/or space marine 2 has been announced...

Because, I'll say I'm interested in this but the factions need to run the way they're supposed to. For example, chaos, if it includes chaos then it needs cultists and if it has cultists then they need the ability to turn a society on its head from the inside.

And I doubt that kind of fun is going to be part of it.

Well the chaos faction does seem to be tzeentch focussed, though we don't know how that will show. We see a high demon of tzeentch, i think. And that blueish corruption that infects the priest clearly represents the color of tzeentch. Given CA's track record i think diplomacy and intrigue will suck as always though.

 

[Coruptin]

You know what the game needs:

T O M B K I N G S
O
M
B
K
I
N
G
S

Spoiler

Also, holy shit, how have I not noticed that Conrad is writing for the Escapist?

 

[direkiller]

Wake me when the chaos faction is tzeentch focused and plays like crusader kings but with a better intrigue system, skaven are a faction I don't have to pay extra for, or dawn of war 3 and/or space marine 2 has been announced...

Because, I'll say I'm interested in this but the factions need to run the way they're supposed to. For example, chaos, if it includes chaos then it needs cultists and if it has cultists then they need the ability to turn a society on its head from the inside.

And I doubt that kind of fun is going to be part of it.

Well the chaos faction does seem to be tzeentch focussed, though we don't know how that will show. We see a high demon of tzeentch, i think. And that blueish corruption that infects the priest clearly represents the color of tzeentch. Given CA's track record i think diplomacy and intrigue will suck as always though.

The book he was reading had Tzeentch's star on it.
And yes that was a Lord of change.

However that could mean very little as this was just a cinematic trailer and has no value in determining what the game will be like.

 

[talker]

Oh gods yes. I feel like the Total War series is one of the few ways to do Warhammer justice, so long as they don't do something screwing everything up.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

See I'm just not interested in Fantasy. Hardly anyone is, at least compared to 40k numbers. Don't get me wrong, the Fantasy video games are kinda' fun. But every time I play one I always think I'd be having more fun with a chainsword.

They'd be better off making Total War: Armageddon or Total War: Hive Fleet. Then again, they also need to make Supreme Commander: Horus Heresy

 

[Ihateregistering1]

A little disappointed that it won't be shipping with Lizardmen and Skaven playable. But, besides that, this is me right now:

 

[TallanKhan]

Love this, love everything about it but unless I can get it DRM free I will alas not be playing.

 

[TallanKhan]

Love this, love everything about it but unless I can get it DRM free I will alas not be playing.

Captcha: i'm batman - So, you finally found a way to make me admit my secret did you?

Oops, accidentally double posted.

 

[catalyst8]

I'll wait for reviews to roll in before I even consider purchasing this game. Got horribly burned on Rome 2 [...]

After the atrocious & broken botch of Rome II, I can't bring myself to consider any Total War game. I hope I'll be convinced otherwise, but the contempt for the customer that Rome II demonstrated is nigh on unforgivable.

 

[Kerethos]

Well, I swore that Rome 2 would be my last CA purchase, I give credit to them for coming up with gimmicks to make me interested at least.

Still not entirely sure if I'll pre-order. I have an uncomfortably few hours logged into Rome so far and as far as I'm concerned they didn't bother fixing the major issues before moving on to Attila.

They've burned you before, there will be no shortage of the game. Just act like a sane responsible human being and do the right thing. Wait for it to release and find out if it's actually good before dropping money on it.

They need to earn your trust and your money. The company is not your abusive, yet lovable significant other. They have to come to you, they beg you to come to them, they have to earn the right to even partake of your time - let alone your money.

You are the one in control and making the decisions, so do the right thing: DO. NOT. PRE-ORDER. EVER!

You can still buy the damn game on release, if it turns out to be good and no shenanigans about not allowing reviews until after release are going on (and no reviews on release is a pretty good indication of a stinker). You lose nothing by waiting. BE STRONG!

OT: Won't lie, I really want this to be good. But I'm not filled with confidence they'll be able to pull it of. There's very high expectations, given how complex the source material is. Purists will complain to no end no matter what, that much is clear already, but I sincerely hope they'll manage to build a good game out of the Warhammer material.

 

[Selucia]

Im concerned that with recent releases such as attila and the fact that they are reducing factions because of asset diversity that other factions will be rather lacking if even included in attila there where only four major faction diversities with the celts just using germanic units.

 

[PunkRex]

I guess I can make do with Gobos and the Undead until the eventual Lizardmen DLC... which will inevitably happen if this does well.

 

[DarkArk]

So it turns out the expansions while standalone also combine with the main game to add more factions and sections of the map. Which means that the single greatest problem with the TW series, that CA never follows up on their games, isn't going to happen. It means we will likely be getting at least twelve factions represented well by the end of this.

Also I find the people complaining about Rome 2 to be rather hilarious. Do you not follow the series at all? Were you not there for Empire or the first Rome (which, yes, was horrible on release)? The first game in an iteration being bad is pretty much par for the course with TW. Shogun 2 is the only one where that isn't the case, and even then FotS is legions better than the main game.

What this means for Warhammer TW is that that isn't happening, because they are now apparently following some of Paradox's much better DLC model. This is a very good thing, if you want quality gameplay.

Which is also the only way we're going to get the Warhammer world represented anywhere close to how it should be. That isn't going to come in a $60 product, and I'm glad that CA seems to be recognizing some of their limitations. Yes I'm sad that playable Chaos and Bretonnia won't be in the main release, but I can live with that if the base game they make is fantastic.

Also, we seriously need naval battles done well. I need my Dwarven ironclads, and they're going to need to be in there if we want to represent the High and Dark Elves' power properly. So I'm guessing they'll come with the expansion that adds Naggaroth and Ulthuan.

 

[Thunderous Cacophony]

Well that was the quickest Chaos corruption I've ever seen. 0_0

I remember reading a Witch Hunter comic where Nurgle zombies were attacking a village; as soon as they touched someone it was instant rot, hunger, and general blasphemy. I guess most people aren't able to fend off such an attack on their soul, especially if there really was a Lord of Change bound up in there.

Also I find the people complaining about Rome 2 to be rather hilarious. Do you not follow the series at all? Were you not there for Empire or the first Rome (which, yes, was horrible on release)? The first game in an iteration being bad is pretty much par for the course with TW. Shogun 2 is the only one where that isn't the case, and even then FotS is legions better than the main game.

I remember those, but the difference was that those games did eventually get better because CA kept working on them. Almost 2 years on and there's still huge bugs in Rome that makes it almost unplayable. Usually they do much better support.

If it releases in a playable state then at least it will be an improvement. I also heard that there is going to be 2 stand alone expansion this time, instead of the usual 1. Any ideas what those will be? End Times seems like an obvious choice, and maybe Storm of Magic or Sigmar's Rise.

I imagine that the two planned ones are going to be a Storm of Chaos-esque one where they expand the map north and bring in playable Chaos and High Elves, and a Lustria one for Lizardmen, Tomb Kings, and Skaven. I can't see them doing a big jump in time back to Sigmar because they would have to rewrite all the armies back a couple thousand years, or trying to do the stupid End Times plot because that takes away from the player trying to achieve victory by just blowing everything up.

OT: I spoke with some other people about it, and the conclusion we came to is that they are going to break up the races into different factions; for example, the Empire by Province, the Dwarfs by Hold, etc. They've said that there's only the 4 playable races, but they imply there's going to be more factions. I hope it pans out well, and they can handle the "different factions working for the same goal" better than they did with the Roman Senate.

 

[Rituro]

OT: I spoke with some other people about it, and the conclusion we came to is that they are going to break up the races into different factions; for example, the Empire by Province, the Dwarfs by Hold, etc. They've said that there's only the 4 playable races, but they imply there's going to be more factions. I hope it pans out well, and they can handle the "different factions working for the same goal" better than they did with the Roman Senate.

I pity whoever tries to play as Stirland with the intent of winning.

"Right, Talabheim sent in a few legions of pikemen, Nuln is lining up a whackton of cannons and Middenland sent an entire cohort of Ulric priests. What's your response, Stirland?"
"We send in our elite guard!"
*six thousand half-naked, starving dirty peasants armed with pots and pitchforks charge the battlefield*
"Oh dear."

 

[Elfgore]

After initial joy faded, cynicism came in real quick. CA has confirmed four factions for play-ability. I fully expect those units to have diverse and large unit rosters. I also expect each faction to play very differently. With so few factions available for launch, I don't think I'm asking for the world here with this. Those DLC factions better not be sky-high either. I want my Chaos and Skaven damnit!

Honestly, if they need help they should just look to Mark of Chaos. Which did a lot wrong, but still was a pretty great strategy game. A lot of units and fun gameplay, just a shitty story.

 

[Amaror]

The book he was reading had Tzeentch's star on it.
And yes that was a Lord of change.

However that could mean very little as this was just a cinematic trailer and has no value in determining what the game will be like.

Yeah, cinematic trailers pretty much mean jack sh** for how the actual gameplay's going to be, but since the chaos is very clearly tzeentch focused in the trailer i think it's save to suspect that it will be as well in the game. Since the chaos doesn't seem to be a playable faction on it's own i think it will be something like the rebels in the other total war games. Instead of a "rebellion" meter you have a "corruption" meter, which fills up if you don't have enough churches or inquisitors or whatever in the cities and they may defect to the chaos.
This sounds kinda like how tzeentch may go about conquering the world and with CA's track record and think it's save to say there won't be complex diplomancy or intrigue mechanics.
I don't think i will get this game or any other total war game in the future. They're just way too focused on graphics, spectacle and broad appeal. And Rome 2 was just a giant reminder how many magnitudes better the Paradox Interactive Grand Strategy games truly are.