WH40K: Eternal Crusade

[GreenGoo]

https://www.eternalcrusade.com/

Angry Joe Talks it up.

While it's a long way out, I am cautiously excited.

Standard Marine types, multi-person vehicles (driver, sponson, main gun, etc), hundreds of players in battle.

Too early to judge. But I'm hopeful.

[Angnomander]

https://www.eternalcrusade.com/

Angry Joe Talks it up.

While it's a long way out, I am cautiously excited.

Standard Marine types, multi-person vehicles (driver, sponson, main gun, etc), hundreds of players in battle.

Too early to judge. But I'm hopeful.

Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.

[killbot737]

Could be promising, needs a Lot more work. At least the subscriptions and P2P points are true to the GW-style expensiveness of buying minis!

[AWS260]

Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.

Bravo.

[Lordnine]

I remember when this was first being announced that basic Ork boys would be a free to play class. The idea being that they are supposed to be numerous and terrible. I thought that was pretty funny and clever.

This is probably the game I most want to good and yet fully expect to flop. May the developer find the blessings of the machine cult.

"Toll the Great Bell Once!
Pull the Lever forward to engage the Piston and Pump...
Toll the Great Bell Twice!
With push of Button fire the Engine and spark Turbine into life....
Toll the Great Bell Thrice!
Sing praise to the God of All Machines!"

[IceBear]

I want it to succeed as I have been following Steve Lumpkin for his awesome GMing skills in the Rollplay R&D YouTube videos. He's apparently one of the developers for this game in his day job

[GreenGoo]

This is now free to play, with some restrictions that are lifted when you pay real money. It doesn't appear to be a *particularly* egregious business model as far as f2p goes.

I don't play and have never played any of the big name multiplayer shooters. no Call of Duty, no Battlefield etc. I did play Titanfall, which was everything you'd expect from a triple A title. Clean netcode, pretty graphics, fluid and intuitive controls.

Eternal Crusade is not a triple A title in that sense. Lag is hit or miss. Mostly it has been smooth sailing for me, but a couple of times now it has been so bad that teleportation was a near constant occurrence. Controls are relatively smooth, but there is something not quite right about them. Combat is fast. Like, 2 maybe 3 seconds and it's over fast if you run into someone in a room and start firing at each other. That said, the game has decent cover mechanics. Not great, but decent. Melee combat is actually pretty fun despite being a basic rock/paper/scissors mechanic. Out guessing or gaming your opponent is not only possible, but fun and tactical. A heavy strike is interrupted by a fast strike which is interrupted by a parry/strike which is overridden (edit: override, not overwrite) by a heavy strike.

Executions can be performed after downing an opponent. The animations are unique per class, somewhat fun and give an XP boost. Of course you're a sitting duck so you better be sure you've got a few seconds to spare before indulging.

This game is far from perfect. In fact it has all sorts of problems. But. If you like Warhammer 40K, you'll probably find a way to ignore or at least tolerate the problems while you drive a predator, man a sponson, or pile out of a rhino with your squadmates at the next objective. Assaulting a heavily defended chaos heavy bolter nest with your jump pack (pay to play only. Fliers are the only class that you need to pay for), smashing it apart as your tacs charge up the hill, or burning the back armour off a falcon with your lascannon or sniping from range with your stalker bolter or leaping into combat and slashing through marine power armour with your force blade as a banshee is pretty damn fun.

Combat is pretty chaotic but as with any multiplayer squad based combat game, standard tactics, supporting each other and general awareness all apply contribute to success. Newbs running around with their heads cut off abound, but as the game has just gone free to play it's expected. Also, without them, I'd just be fodder for the more experienced players and never get any kills.

The largest engagements I've seen are 30v30. The maps are large and allow for multiple fronts. Despite the numbers, a small group (even just 2, but 3 or 4 more likely) working together can have a major effect on the battlefield.

Eldar/Chaos/SM/Orkz are the current 4 factions. I believe there is some PvE where you take on Tyranids, but I haven't tried that.

It's fun, easy and WH40K. Probably worth a shot if you're a WH40K fan.

[Lordnine]

Can you play Eldar in the free version?

[GreenGoo]

Can you play Eldar in the free version?

Yes, I mostly play Eldar.

Classes available to Eldar are:

Dire Avenger
Howling Banshee
Striking Scorpion
Dark Reaper
Warlock
Fire Dragon
And swooping hawk thingie (if you pay).

[GreenGoo]

Had a wanker that wouldn't shut up about how overpowered the SM stalker rifles are. We were chaos. Just constant complaints. We eventually won through hard work and perseverance. he then writes "EZ win" in global chat.

a) stalker rifles are strong in their role. Duh. The key is not to engage them in their role.
b) the win was not easy. It was hard fought on both sides and was a GG all around. And as far as I could tell, did not involve complainer boy in any way.

Luckily that's the first time I've seen anything near that level of idiocy, but it was annoying.

Had a great encounter with an SM apothecary as a Banshee. We clanged several times (both used the same melee attack), disengaged, re-engaged and generally brawled it out until I came out on top.

2 other experiences as a Banshee last night:

1) Couldn't get near any SM without them boltering my face off. I just couldn't get in range despite flanking and using cover. Very frustrating.
2) ate 3 space marines back to back, leaping from 1 kill to another while my target's allies threw bolts around the room. Eventually I dropped but not before killing 3 SM's in a furball of a room.

If anyone knows how to scream as a Banshee using the keyboard, I'm dying to know. With a pad it's the Y button, but the corresponding key on the keyboard does not result in a scream. Very frustrating.

[GreenGoo]

Murdered more space marines last night. The combat, particularly the melee combat, or the combination of ranged and melee together in one fight, is very fun. It's very dynamic. I wish it wasn't over quite so quickly though. I had a good couple of duels (note: not actual duels, but 1v1 fights that develop during the regular course of play) where we clashed weapons multiple times, combined with dodges and the occasional bullet.

[GreenGoo]

I have to admit that I'm surprised there isn't one astartes out there itching to run their chain sword through some Xenos.

Especially since it's free.

[NickAragua]

It's this whole "multi-player only competitive shooter" thing. I'm just not into those that much any more.

[killbot737]

I gave this a try the other day, couldn't get into it. I'm sad because I'm a pretty big WH40k fan.

I only tried space marines. The viewpoint was weird, too low and too far off the shoulder for my tastes, even when I zoomed in and out. Everything seemed clunky and laggy. Like I'd click melee and 1.2.3. Now it triggers! It's not like I was expecting ninjas, they are heavily armored Shaqs after all, but there was just something off about moving and fighting and interacting with stuff too. Didn't like it. Also in the future nobody can jump without a rocket assist. Not even hop.

Well, at least I can say I'm glad I didn't spend any money on the thing!

[GreenGoo]

It's this whole "multi-player only competitive shooter" thing. I'm just not into those that much any more.

I hear you, and you are totally correct, but respawn times are like 10 seconds or less and I just run around pointing my gun at things that show up unexpectedly.

I'm too old to be anywhere near the top, but I'm savvy enough to regularly be in the middle, which is perfectly fine by me. More important is how it feels like I'm a space elf and that I can dance around space marines and shriek at them before gutting them like a fish (in fairness, it's just as often me who gets gutted).

I realize that competitive play is not for everyone. As I said, I've never played Call of Duty or Battlefield, or even team fortress 2.

But still, space marines! Waaaagghhh! Blood for the Blood God. Aspect Warriors. etc

[GreenGoo]

I gave this a try the other day, couldn't get into it. I'm sad because I'm a pretty big WH40k fan.

I only tried space marines. The viewpoint was weird, too low and too far off the shoulder for my tastes, even when I zoomed in and out. Everything seemed clunky and laggy. Like I'd click melee and 1.2.3. Now it triggers! It's not like I was expecting ninjas, they are heavily armored Shaqs after all, but there was just something off about moving and fighting and interacting with stuff too. Didn't like it. Also in the future nobody can jump without a rocket assist. Not even hop.

Well, at least I can say I'm glad I didn't spend any money on the thing!

All fair criticisms. I prefer 3rd person perspectives rather than 1st person so this is fine with me. Lag is hit or miss. Mostly it's fine, but sometimes it's terrible. Melee does involve timing, but it's not normally nearly as bad as you experienced. Eldar are faster and more agile in general, although I also play chaos and have been pretty happy with them as well.

It's true that you can't jump, but you can climb...sometimes. For me this is only an issue when you *can't* vault something for some buggy game engine reason, which results in the absolutely absurd situation of being completely stalled by a small waist high barrier. Mostly you can just "vault" these things though, which is an animated climbing over of short obstacles. The animation is different between races and often between classes..

Of course if you can't jump in power armour, you can make up for it by shoulder rolling all over the place.

[NickAragua]

It's this whole "multi-player only competitive shooter" thing. I'm just not into those that much any more.

I hear you, and you are totally correct, but respawn times are like 10 seconds or less and I just run around pointing my gun at things that show up unexpectedly.

I'm too old to be anywhere near the top, but I'm savvy enough to regularly be in the middle, which is perfectly fine by me. More important is how it feels like I'm a space elf and that I can dance around space marines and shriek at them before gutting them like a fish (in fairness, it's just as often me who gets gutted).

I realize that competitive play is not for everyone. As I said, I've never played Call of Duty or Battlefield, or even team fortress 2.

But still, space marines! Waaaagghhh! Blood for the Blood God. Aspect Warriors. etc

I caved and played a couple of rounds as a space marine. Mostly stuck to devastator and tactical. Had two favorite parts. One was driving the Predator tank in circles around an enemy base while my gunner strafed the poor guys as they came out. I pretty much just saw non-stop "driver assist" messages. The second one was parking a transport (mobile respawn point) in the back of the enemy base, which allowed us to make a last-second push to capture the enemy base before time ran out. As an added bonus, I ran over a lot of guys getting there.

We still lost the game on the third base when the other team figured out what I was doing and blasted the transport using a Chaos Predator tank.

It's a very competently made objective shooter, and I think there's even a coop mode vs Tyranids. No campaign mode, though, so that's disappointing. Combat feels pretty meaty, though not as good as "Space Marine". Seems to feature the usual "pay to win" and "f2p grinding" stuff, but I probably won't be playing it long enough to care.

[Daehawk]

Im trying the standard ork soldier guy. We ork boyz are gud at dying is all I can say.

[GreenGoo]

I don't think there is much, if any, pay to win, aside from the 1 jump class for each faction. Most of the rtc (real cash) items are purely cosmetic, and some of them are not as good as their generic items because they have less upgrade slots.

That said, it has progression, and that is grinding, but there isn't much difference between grinding and just collecting xp and requisition (in game currency) as you play for fun, so it's not particularly bad imo.

The biggest thing it has going for it is WH40K. If that's not your thing, I'm quite sure there are better choices out there.

[Max Peck]

Eternity ain't what it used to be.

Server shutdown kills Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade

In a more than ironic twist given the game's name, Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade is no more following a server shutdown on September 10th. With the official servers shut down Eternal Crusade is now dead and gone, with both PvP and PvE modes completely inaccessible. The game client is no longer available for download on Steam.