Rock, Paper, Warhammer

Oh dear, we have spent a lot of time talking about flashing pixel adaptations of Games Workshop stuff lately. It's almost as if this site is run by four middle-class Englishmen. This time though, we'll mostly defer to PC Gamer UK, who've dug up the first concrete factlets about the mysteeeeeerious Warhammer 40,000 MMO.

Notably, it's definitely something World of Warcraftian - i.e. an RPG, not some crazy MMO FPS or RTS. Despite my glass-half-empty nature, I'm going to remain cheery, especially because it's been proven that roleplaying in the 40K universe can fit right into whole Only War, giant army thing. Still, I can't quite stop the nightmare visions of solo Space Marines grinding cyber-pigs in cyber-forests for cyber-gold. I'm quite sure it'll be much braver than that, but lawks, I was so hoping for 40K-themed Planetside.

Sounds as though the combat is a notch up from your average hacker-slasherer, though - there's talk of flanking and suppressive fire. Tabula Rasa did some interesting things with dumping shooty fun into an MMORPG environment - hopefully 40K Online's Heavy Bolters of Smiting +2 vs Heretics will go further still.

Multiple races will be 'represented', though no word on which, and whether 'represented' means playable or just NPCs. Can I buy a mana potion please, Dave Tyranid? Intruigingly, the word 'battleground' is used in reference to the PvP, which might consitute a) a dig at WoW and/or b) the promise of massed army, 40K tabletop-esque Only War.

Not a lot to go on, then, though CVG's summary of the Gamer article also drops some hints about the combat and character customisation. It sounds so far as though it's taking a similarly traditional approach to the fantasy Warhammer MMO, Age of Reckoning, but only time and thousands of grumpy beta testers will tell.

(The pic's from the Dawn of War Tyranid mod, by the way).