What is waiting Beyond the Gates of Antares?

The Future is a mystery to all of us. 

It stands with its back turned, silent and 

unknowable until we reach it. 

Those who can predict it are often wrong,

 simply because they cannot see all the details

 the Future holds up its sleeves. 

Those who aspire and push forward may fail 

for the very same reasons. 

Because Future does not reveal its secrets easily or 

warn us of dangers ahead. 

Beyond the Gates of Antares is an extremely ambitions and promising project by Rick Priestly, the father of Warhammer and Warhammer 40000 universes. The renown and legendary game designer left Games Workshop in 2010 to pursue new goals as a freelancer. So far he created and participated in number of successful projects, like Bolt Action (WW2 squad-to-company size wargame) and Fanticide  (a homicidal warband tabletop top game). The latter was successfully promoted and launched using Kickstarter, and apparently gave an inspiration and confidence to repeat the experience with BGoA.

For the selfish purposes i will post a video of Rick  Priestly, John Stallard and Rik Alexander (Warlord Games) interview were they describe the "sausage" or the bright palns for new gaming universe to the Beasts of War website. In short and to save you one hour of listening i will summarize the goals of project as quite ambitious.

First of all they are trying to merge Massive Multiplayer Online game with table-top wargame, and give players a real-time online mirror of their table top efforts. So while you are playing the game with your mates and feed result to the website, the script (or admin) will change the big picture of entire universe.

Sounds revolutionary, at least. What is comforting is that big picture will be controlled by the company narrators. 

Secondly, the game mechanics (so far) is similar to tested in Bolt Action system of activation and units status, though system is still in development to adjust for the far far future, sometime couple of million years ahead.

Thirdly, the combat will be affected by pool of command action and every unit will react to enemy actions according to situation and impact, which promises to deliver a very intense game where both players are constantly engaged in the game.

That is IF the project will find required amount of supporters on Kickstarter. At the moment of writing this post, BGoA have collected 31% of £93.492 pledged money and it had 36 day to go. And if would be behind this project i would be worried. Unfortunately i'm not the only one who sees realities of BGoA.      

Blogger Mr. Zweischneid's (dont ask me how to pronounce this name) in his brilliant analysis describes the most obvious reason for worries. Check it yourself, http://pinsofwar.com/rick-priestleys-kickstarter-fail, and you might agree that at the moment, Beyond the Gates of Antares is an incomplete product. To summarize Mr. Zweischneid's post, 

• BGoA will be funded only if will get at last £5000 in donations each day
•  if the vision of game universe will suddenly became clear and focused so that people will know what exactly they are supporting 
• if game mechanics will be finished to at least 90%

             

Looking at the current situation of definitely an interesting project I wounder what might happen in likely case if project will not get requested amount of support.   

1.  Rick Priestly stated: "that this the game I've always wanted to create". We may believe in his commitment to the project, which mean that he will continue working on the game regardless of financial situation. That is promising. 
2. Warlord Games support: John Stallard (the boss) clearly understands that IF this project will take off, and people will start playing BGoA as they play MMOG these day, then his company will become a second Games Workshop. 
3. Arrival of undisclosed investor: frankly I'm speculating, but project of such novelty and potential could attract a third party investor, which means it will get required amount of money and production schedule will be met.     

             

Talons of the Emperor: Elysian Drop Troops codex

Here it is, the book what was a pleasure to write and research for almost a year. Feel free to download Elysian Drop Troop codex from the link below. Any feedback would most welcome.  

Download: Talons of the Emperor: Elysian Drop Troops Codex

thank you

Game designer: Ville "Burger" Vuorella

I am not even going to pretend to impartial: thanks to Ville Vuorella I've realized that i can create and design games and that no matter how weird idea there is, it might have a chance. 

To my readers of coarse it's probably irrelevant, but wait. Ville "Burger" Vourella is the man who wrote STALKER role play game based on original novel by Strugatski brothers. The amount and quality of work put in that book is astonishing. 

Ville Vuorella has been designing games for more than 8 years (full-time). He holds a English Philology degree with Games Research & Design and Academic Entrepreneurship as second specialization achieved in University of Helsinki. In addition he posses variety of skills and studies outside of ordinary curriculum, but very useful for the designers flow of art and craft, like Archeology, Medieval Irish and British studies. He also has EU Specialist Certificate in Game Scriptwriting. Vuorella has been not only game designer, but also an IT consultant and game design lecturer.

Though during his career (up to current moment) he has not worked (yet, i hope) on multimillion projects but he retains individuality and thoughtful approach to his work. One of the cornerstones of his work is a well structured design documents and concepts, which allows player to immerse into the game-world without the fear of being disrupted by the glitch or inconsistency.     
 
I'll just point out some of the 25+ games he was working on:

Stalker RPG, - a single serious RPG on stalker universe, complete with 5 Zones and unique game system. (https://www.facebook.com/StalkerRPG) 

 Burnout, Mobile phone game, for the company called Electronic Arts 

Need for Speed: Carbon, mobile phones version.

Crown of Byzantium: a MMO games based around combat achievements not pig farming. Unfortunately by the time of writing this words game ceased to be. 

HAX: MMO-cyberpunk game of freelance hackers (coming soon).
http://www.haxgame.com/en/


Vuorella's full CV in blog format could be found here: 
http://www.burgergames.com/notes/summer11.htm#220611
What's more important for me as an aspiring game designer is his blog, and honesty Ville is writing about creative process, his ups and downs and life as freelancer. I have never met him or visited his lessons, despite living in Helsinki for some time, but I cant stress enough how important and influential his working notes were for me while I was trying to understand how and why RPG systems work, and how to reach a certain understanding of what you creating. Again, I'm being personal and affectionate, but it's my blog, after all. 

Most creators and designers rightfully hide the workflow or kitchen of creation, Vuorella is not an exception, but the detailzation, thoughtfulness and openness of stuff he puts on his game-related part of the blog http://www.burgergames.com/notes/content.htm is really under appreciated.  

Last but not least, there is a healthy portion humor, rudeness and self-depreciation which only truly strong characters may allow themselves without the fear of being mocked. So that is my first entry of important game designers: Ville Vuorella. 

Thank you for reading.

  


            

Game designer.

Human perception is a strange thing, we love stories and things which resonate with our emotions, but rarely we care about who created this story we just consumed. Unless this person have created numerous stories or something which became a main stream of our culture. Cinematography is perhaps one of the biggest examples of that, James Cameron received a PhD degree in oceanology for his work on Titanic, but what most of us care is poor chap played by Leonardo di Caprio and tragic love story between him and redhead.
   
Most people who like games are no exception. Who created Doom? Quake? Starcraft? Total War? Dungeons and Dragons? Warhammer? Axis and Allies? Settlers? Panzer General? Need For Speed? Tetris? Minesweeper? (I am going a bit over the top with some games). 

Civilization series are probably the lucky ones: they proudly carry name of Sid Meier who actually wrote and designed only first game. But thanks to his marketing department his name became well-known, and In a way a mark of quality. 

In posts labeled Game Designer I will try to look at some inspirational figures in game desing, their careers and lifepaths, probably to justify my own dreams and avoid anonymity of Wikipedia, and acknowledge people who's games made an impact on my perception and flow of ideas.

Sincerely, yours

Mark. 

Apocalypse vs. Boredom

Ever since human being realized that they are mortal the idea of Apocalypse have emerged. However only Christian tradition have taken this idea to its extremes and made it popular and well know to every brain they could reach. Religions of India and Far East do not use excessive fear of Doomsday, Judgment Day and Savior as a last hope.  They postulate concept of everlasting and ever-changing world in general. I'd like to stop my reference to religions and philosophical practices at this point, to avoid going astray.   

Like it or not, Apocalypse is used and re-used countless times in movies, books and other cultural references. It is part of any European cultural understanding of world, and majority of  other cultures at least understand what do we mean by Apocalypse.

In game design however it has became an ultimate answer to boredom and i think the ultimate excuse in setting development. Whenever you need to portray dark, hopeless future/past or situation and therefore justify the need of exterminating the opponent "A" in various forms is present. To bring some popular examples which allows player to act out of mundane life restrictions: 

1) the War, which wipes out humanity and finally allows us to kill everything that moves,

2) invasion of horrible aliens - no sentiment here, get out of my lawn you alien/nazi punk!,

3) zombie horde - I will remain alive-white-human-armed-with-shotgun no matter the cost!

4) we made it - human activity finally screwed everything on the planet. Yuppi! Its shotgun time!

5) personal "A" - they killed my dog/family/canary/planet/tentacle choose appropriate, guess what's gonna happen.

6) Not on my shift! - apparently the "A" is about to happen and player must stop it using lots of bullets and pressing the red button in the end.  

I may have missed some interpretations of Apocalypse in games but the point of "A" remains the same: give a player an excuse to act without thinking too deep why he is doing it, a strong emotional anchor that he not only pressing the right button, but he is making something IMPORTANT. Some players may bluntly ignore the storyline, especially in FPS games or table-top war-games where primary activity is concentrated around annihilating opponent, but the reasoning why has been done before the game begin: my action matters.  

Accordingly, the bigger the threat of "A" the more important player should feel himself, when in fact he has not even left the sofa. The better the reasoning behind it the more people relate to matters of game and characters on the screen, the more real the Apocalypse becomes and more meaningful players actions become. 

After all how many chances we get to save the world in our mundane lives? That is the biggest catch of a really good and well-selling games (with exception of solitaire, perhaps :-) ). 

 

Oddly enough, computer games industry have outperformed movie industry in volume of sales by 2005 (i think),  a good proof that some real talents are going there to make this illusions believable and keep players occupied and happy. 

 

  

         

Elysian Drop Troops codex: what to expect?

Elysian Drop Troops Regiments are air mobile infantry of Imperial Guard. They do the dirty jobs Space Marines are not bothered to. They epitomize the best qualities of human warriors, but remain humble and numerous, provide ingenuity when everything else fails. Drop Troops require bold and skillful commander. If you, my friend decide to download and try my codex and make a play test of it that is what you may expect:

Combat Drop: unlike Space Marines, Drop Troops do not use drop pods, they jump from the back ramp of Valkyrie and land on the enemy gun blazing. This rule will allow you to deploy half or all of your army using Deep Strike method.

D-mode: different battle zone dictate different methods of landing.Your soldiers will be able to Deep Strike, land with heavy weapons and Sentinels, land on tight spot and disembark from hovering aircraft without scattering.    

Talon's Tactics: tired of failing orders? tired of incompetent commanders and rigid gunlines? Try new tactics! Troops will perform suppressive fire, deadly volleys, resupply damaged units and even fire Overwatch on full BS.

Doctrines: the doctrines are back! Using reworked doctrines from 3rd and 4th editions of IG codex as well as completely original ones you may customize tactics, equipment and skills of your entire regiment or veteran unit. Doctrines are divided into 3 groups: Sweat saves blood, Special Equipment and Battle Scars.

Redefined Army list: units have more blood to spare, Elites units offer choice of Commando units, Medics and Combat Engineers. HQ will allow you to field Adeptus Arbites Judge, Ordo Hospitaller Sister as well as various non-comissioned officer to bolster strength of your airborne regiment. Some units are unique and will significantly improve your firepower and accuracy as well as unique special characters with background in Drop Troops regiments.

Different types of platoons: drop troops operate without tanks or heavy support, but they compensate for it using different platoons. You may choose between  
Assault infantry platoon, for all those Normandy landings,  
Fire Support platoon in case if bridge too far, or 
Mechanized platoon for daring raids and outflanking as well as landing troops in armored vehicles behind stunned opponent.  
       
 

   

Elysian Drop troops codex

Current Imperial Guard codex by Robin Cruddace is an example of really good work in my opinion. It allows player to customize layout of his forces and with certain success imitates the chaos of battle, and dependance of individual soldier on successful organization and command structure. The last one is both strong and weak point of Imperial Guard.  If opponent wipes out Company and Platoon commanders then remaining troops seriously lose their efficiency in firefight. Guardsmen are useful as close combat force only in large numbers with surplus of Commissars and Priests. 

However overall idea, fluff, structure of codex and feel of the army leaves a feel of errr... huge mamoth wasting human lives and resources for a minimal gains with no real understanding of enemy, but huge guns. Which is very true not only for Imperial Guard of Warhammer 40000 but for most armies of humanity.
 

     
But if i want to have something more heroic, more personal and effective without going vanilla smurf Space Marines? To be more specific, what if I want 82nd Airborne Division landing somewhere behind Orks lines and creating havoc amongst them?

The current legal way is simple: Veterans mounted on Valkyries and disembarking under enemy fire. Apocalypse formation: Storm Trooper Strike Force even allows you to have Special rules like Storm the Objective, Strike Force and Strategic Assets. See here for yourself.
The other way is maxing out Storm Troopers squad at the expense of other branches and pray to Emperor that they will not get chopped to pieces too quickly.

If that is not enough, Forge World has an outstanding (but expensive as always) line of Elysian Drop Troops, something which really stands out in sea of marines. What more they even get their own share in Imperial Armor books. However so far in every book Elysian's are being wasted by either incompetent command (Project Aphelion), or by combination of poor planning and enemy superiority (Operation Comet). Not a great advert for an elite force.        

However there is enough information about real life paratroopers and their successes and mishaps which may indicate couple of simple things: 
1. Airborne troops have a different, more aggressive and independent tactics and approach towards combat.
2. Due to the lack of heavy equipment airborne troops must rely on either captured equipment or lighter equivalents of army weapons. 
3. Airborne units have a higher morale and image of elite shock troops.
4. Training and structure of different airborne units may vary from task to task, and available equipment.

But real life is boring, we all know that. In addition, GW is not going to release a separate codex for IG branch which potentially may compete with their bread and butter - space marines. Freelancers and fans did not undertook any projects which involved rethinking of how this particular Imperial Guard branch would play different. (correct me if am wrong, please). So, after careful consideration and after finishing my first great project Iron Hearts Space Marine codex I've decided to try and write a codex or fandex if you like for purely drop troop regiments. It took me approximately 6 months or pure working time from idea to complete book, i started in March- April 2012 and finished in the end of September 2012. The result will be posted a bit later on my blog.  


       

Simple Soldier: Ollanius Persson

Anyone who has even remotely heard about Warhammer 40K universe has heard or read about epic duel between Emperor and his beloved (turned traitor) Horus. It was written by William King, and originally published in WHITE DWARF #131 dated November 1990. The description of this epic duel however has changed from edition to edition and as if its reflected in million broken mirror shards has been repeated and twisted in the lore. In it core it still retain pretty simple structure:

The Emperor is fighting Horus, who just managed to mortally wound Sanguinius and slaughter dozen or more marines. In a short conversation disrupted by sporadic fighting Horus is almost triumphant.  (As it it well known true evil is obliged to have a profound monologue before finishing off the good guy.) In this case the final monologue of evil incarnate is postponed by intervention loyal Emperor's soldier, who death finally forces Emperor to kill his beloved Warmaster Horus (finally). The more detailed description of this battle could be found http://www.inisfail.com/archives/emperor-vs-horus.html or in Horus Heresy books. 

I deliberately keep description of this epic event as short as possible in order to pay tribute to that unnamed soldier and how his role and description has changed. First of all he is almost never identified, he has no name, no belonging except his reckless bravery in the face of Horus. Or is it?

The Horus Heresy as pivotal point in Imperium's history was not conceived until 4th edition of the rules and i believe early 90's. According to interview of 40K "fathers" Alan Merret, Jervis Jonson and John Blanche in White Dwarf of February 2012, it was Rick Priestly who "wrote a throwaway passage of text about a civil war that had happened a ten thousand years ago. Rick has put it to simply make the background more mythic in tone, to add a texture to these great passages of time."  So the idea of what happened and who saved the sorry butt life of the Emperor have been made and remade quite often in last 12 years.  

I'm not going into great details of all the books on the subject, i'll simply name the incarnations of this heroic soldier: 

Adeptus Cutosdian, 

Marine in power armor, 

Legion Astartes Terminator, 

Marine in Terminator armor, 

unidentified bodyguard who served with Emperor for several hundreds years and saved his life on numerous occasions (Emperor cannot remember his name, oddly enough) 

and finally an Imperial Army (or Imperial Guardsman in older books) soldier - 

Ollanius Pius or Ollanius Persson. 

The name of Ollanius pops up in two version: Imperial Guard saint and Perpetual (apparently something or someone everlasting). First one is likely to be a iteration of latter, as Imperial Saints are known for their death resisting qualities. Ollanius may be a variation of the same silent soldier who gives Emperor a second of breathing space. 

During this unintended research i have decided to re-tell old story of Emperor's battle and ultimate sacrifice of his soldier. 

As the battle for Imperial palace grew desperate and bloody, as the casualties mounted on the both sides, as rage of assaulting Chaos spread on Terra the Emperor finally saw the opportunity to end the bloodshed before it was too late. As Horus clearly saw that with each passing day of Imperial Palace resistance rallied the loyalist and bought time for the reinforcements to get closer to Terra, he spread the wave of destruction upon every human soul, every piece of knowledge, on everything so dear to the heart of the Emperor.  Though in doing so he left void shields of his flagship Vengeful Spirit down. Willingly or not we may never know. What is known that the Emperor took this chance and gathered the forces he could muster to face the traitor. Primarch's Regal Dorn and Sanguinius, force of Terminators and combined force of Adeptus Custodes and loyal Army cadre followed him as they always did, to the death and beyond.

Amidst the whispering darkness of the ship Emperor and his men were scattered, fighting for the survival instead of delivering a killing blow to the enemy.    

Finally the Emperor and his few remaining men breached into the bridge of the vessel, firing and charging in. They were met by a sole, dark figure reeking with warp-twisted hatred and arrogance. Horus. He turned to face them and lazily stepped over body of an angel. Sanguinius lay dead on the floor, defeated but still defiant to the will of Chaos. I one silent gesture Emperor commanded his men to cease firing and wait for his orders.

- This fool of yours, made a wrong choice, - grunted Horus with power that shook the very reality, - he could have been my brother in the new world order. In my order! He could have been worshiped like god and truly become one.

- Horus! - replied Emperor, his voice heavy with sadness, - he was your Brother! The one who shared you victories and heritage...

- Be silent, - spat Horus, - your puny rule is over! I command the power which will lead humanity into a new era! I command the very Chaos itself! 

- You command only your delusion, my friend, - replied Emperor and single tear escaped from his eye as he finally realized how deeply fallen his son is, how hopelessly entangled in the puppet web of Chaos he is, - Stand down before it's too late, Horus, thou your are a pawn, not a master.

Horus laughed in return with echo filled with will-bending darkness.  

- This shall be your last threat, Lord of Humankind!,- roared Lupercal and attacked.                 

The battle of the Emperor and the Traitor became lighting exchange of blows in physical realm and titanic psychic storm in the Warp. Even gene-modified reactions and senses of Astartes were inadequate to capture the movements of those bitter enemies: the Lord of Humankind and Champion of Chaos, for mere conversation between them took a toll on surviving men of Emperor. Some were shattered to pieces by lashes of psychic hatred, some become disorientated and lost from Lupercal's voice domination, few were strong enough to withstand it but hesitated to break last order of the Emperor and enter the fray.

The battle was bending the reality as Lupercal lashed the bolts of daemonic powers and Emperor was throwing his might in swift lunges and parries of the sword. Traitor thruster his lighting claw with battle hardened expertise, Emperor dodged it and lunged a paralysis inflicting bolt into Horus. The room was shattering and crumbling as swing that missed target were carrying enough power to crush the columns and crack steel only by pointing at at.  Though for Emperor's men have passed a mere seconds, for fighters it was eternity as both were charging and fighting on level of gods.

As powerful Emperor was, he realized that he was losing. The unholy daemonic powers of Horus were constantly changing it nature, its resonance becoming more and more difficult to withstand and counter. What is hurting him most, is that he fighting his son, his best general and a close friend. Should he be swallowed by anger and hatred all will be lost, the darkness that possessed Horus will possess the Emperor of Mankind.

Lupercal had no such limitations, for he was consumed and empowered by the Dark Gods.  Their fury and magic gave Lupercal an upper hand, and eventually he managed to land a devastating blow crushing Emperor's armor and sending him flying to the ground.        

As Emperor fell on the shattered ground, Lupercal roared again: 

- So, who is deluded now? Who is a Master of Mankind?, - and he stepped down towards the fallen Emperor intending to prolong his torture before the final blow is struck. As he walked through devastation towards mortally wounded Emperor a single figure appears between them.  

 A figure of soldier carrying lasgun and badge of imperial Aquila on his uniform. 

- You shall not pass!, - at the top of his lungs screams soldier at approaching Traitor. Without even a glance Horus lashes a magical bolt at him as if he was annoying insect. Soldiers figure flashed with bright light and he struggles to stand on his feet, but he remains alive. 

- Strike me down Traitor and ten more will take my place! Kill them - hundreds will deny you! Then thousands and millions of us!, - shouted soldier on approaching monster and squeezed couple of shots from his lasgun.  

- We fight for the Emperor! We die for the Emperor!,- shouted soldier as Lupercal's lighting claw slashed him in half. 

- I am sure you do, - grinned Lupercal and turned to finish the Emperor.

As soldier's body fell the Emperor attacked with the power of billions souls behind him and his every move. The time he gave him enough to gather all his strength and might for one last blow. Horus must be destroyed even if it cost to Emperor his life.

In one single blow, in the one unstoppable attack, the soulwave of Emperor's might combined with billions of human lives relying on him struck Traitor.  Shocked by the unexpected power of this attack Horus fell. No armor, no trickery of Chaos, no hatred or skill would save the Traitor.

When Regal Dorn fought his way into the ships control room he found the Emperor, barely alive. Despite being mortally wounded, Emperor was holding in his arms his beloved Primarch Sanguinius and Ollanius Persson, a simple soldier.