Licensed Computer Games Warhammer 40,000; Rogue Trader Videogame

[chapter master 454]

Someone clarify for me, is this like an RPG game like Divinity Original Sin where you and a group (which can also include your friends) play and its basically just a game of DnD but without the need for a dungeon master because the game handles that side of things? (and I use DnD as a off-hand comparison, I know they are different systems).

[Redcomet]

Someone clarify for me, is this like an RPG game like Divinity Original Sin where you and a group (which can also include your friends) play and its basically just a game of DnD but without the need for a dungeon master because the game handles that side of things? (and I use DnD as a off-hand comparison, I know they are different systems).

The other games they have made are aingle player games, where you control the entire party of adventures 

[Lord_Ikka]

Preordered (which I haven't done in years...) as it seems like an interesting way to play a system that I am interested in but don't have a group to play with (FFG's 40k RPG system). I'm looking forward to seeing how this goes- I've enjoyed the few 40k digital games I've played (DoW, BFG Armada, Necromunda), so this one should be fun.

[N1SB]

This is hilarious because I was playing Pathfinder: Kingmaker and thought, "If these guys made a Warhammer: The Old World where you're an Elector Count, fighting off monsters while managing a small kingdom, it'd be really good." Instead, they're doing 40k, with a Rogue Trader...which is almost the SAME THING XD

 

So to field some questions, not just to you, but to all our Frateri et Sororitas wondering the same thing:

 

+++ It's both less yet much more than you may think +++

 

On 6/2/2022 at 11:55 AM, chapter master 454 said:

Someone clarify for me, is this like an RPG game like Divinity Original Sin where you and a group (which can also include your friends) play and its basically just a game of DnD but without the need for a dungeon master because the game handles that side of things? (and I use DnD as a off-hand comparison, I know they are different systems).

 

It will be both less yet much more than what you described, less mainly in that it probably won't be co-op, but you will have multiple party members.

 

Rogue Trader will probably be a single-player computer RPG, like their previous game, Pathfinder: Kingmaker, or others in the genre like Baldur's Gate, Dragon Age: Origins, etc. In Kingmaker, get all the RPG bits, you can review the dice rolls, the bonuses, managing loot, typical stuff. Then they included camping rules for resting, like you set shifts for your party members to stand guard at night, who's cooking, etc., which you do in tabletop but you rarely see in a computer RPG. You kinda see all that in the trailer already.

 

And then it goes way more beyond that, Owlcat is really good at messing with gameplay just to create an atmosphere:

 

 

They do these Pencil & Paper type non-combat adventures where it's based on skill rolls, and it's presented in the style of a Bard writing YOUR story. You're not just a character, you're the leader, and sometimes you assign people to do tasks for you. In this situation, I've delegated my Regent, an ex-Paladin (with the scar on her face), to do diplomacy with a group of Barbarians of my conquest of a bandit lord. Now you'll notice the skill bonuses below each of my party member's portraits, she doesn't have the highest one, but I chose her anyway because she was the tank against said bandit lord...and I wanted to her to tell it from her 1st hand experience, so that the Bard can immortalise the moment in our shared history. That's serious RP, yo (just kidding, but you know what I mean).

 

This will be relevant when trying to create a grimdark experience, which is very experience-based. It's not just gothic architecture or Space Marines that create grimdark, it's like a combination of stuff. I think Owlcat can do that well, there's some very different feeling parts in Kingmaker.

 

You start off as adventurers, doing this typical RP stuff, but as is suggested in its title, Kingmaker makes you a monarch. You have to run a kingdom, including:

 

• hold periodic audiences with your subjects using dialogue options
• assign a cabinet...and you can use your party members
• send your cabinet members to do tasks, like dealing with cultists*
• build villages, take over territory, adventure with your party to TAKE territory
• build buildings in said villages
•  

* Note - so you understand dealing with evil cultists in a RPG, fine. But ask yourself...are you for Freedom Of Religion as a king? It's not so easy at that point.

 

You can see how this relates to when you're a Rogue Trader, both going on exciting adventures as well as running a ship that's a kingdom in space.

 

The best part of this isn't just there's so much content, it's how they pace it. JUST when you get tired of grinding dungeons, you get to go back to your castle, make people do stuff for you, which takes game time, and you see the changing of the seasons. One adventure campaign was so long I just wanted to be monarch for a bit, spending time with my ministers, directing kingdom affairs, and by the time I finally stepped back out to do a bit of casual wandering, there was snow outside. I spent an entire season in my castle. I actually did a tour of my kingdom just to see what it looks like in winter.

 

Btw, Brother 454, Dungeons & Dragons is exactly right, because of course Pathfinder is a super-complicated version of D&D, and thankfully...

 

+++ Owlcat can deal with crunch-heavy RPG rules +++

 

On 6/2/2022 at 9:25 AM, A Melancholic Sanguinity said:

Hmm... alright, I'm real interested in how the ol' FFG system translates to a digital medium. IIRC, it's pretty notorious as a crunch-heavy beast to run on TT. I'm curious about the experience with all the calcs and tables handled invisibly in the background.

 

Disclaimer: I don't know what rules Rogue Trader will use, only that Owlcat Games knows how to faithfully reproduce a game system if it so wanted.

 

I think of myself as an experienced roleplayer. I was introduced to it by the 1st ed Red Box, 2nd ed ADVANCED D&D, played 3rd ed the most in Neverwinter Nights actually, when players made Perpetual World servers, skipped 4th by chance, still playing 5th ed now. Of course, I've played Dark Heresy and other Fantasy Flight Games 40k RPGs. I also played a lot of RIFTS, White Wolf games like Vampire the Masquerade, even the original Legend of 5 Rings, Call of Cthulhu, etc. I even looked at F.A.T.A.L. (do NOT, I repeat, DO NOT look at F.A.T.A.L.)

 

Pathfinder was the heaviest system I've ever seen imho. It's not the most complicated, as it's built on D&D, but the sheer gross tonnage of options is overwhelming. Compared to Pathfinder, Dark Heresy or Wrath & Glory are relatively easy, it's just stacking positive and negative modifiers. Owlcat pulled it off. To compare, they included things in the base game of Kingmaker with its many prestige classes that Bioware, a far bigger studio, didn't dare to in Neverwinter Nights, even when they were selling them as DLC.

To give you an idea, Kingmaker had like 15 Player Classes in the base game, each with 5 or 6 Sub-Classes that all play differently. That's before the DLC, at which point I think it's like 160+ class-like things. And I hadn't gone into the dozen or so Prestige Classes on top of that. Owlcat didn't have to do that, it just wanted to give you the most options possible.

 

To give an example, Brother, I remember as you do Dark Heresy was a bunch of modifiers, then situational modifiers, both positive and negative, based on cover, when a character moves into a piece of cover, etc. Not only did Kingmaker have that, but there are certain Team Bonuses, like 2 people with a special phalanx shield training will give each other buffs...but only when they move together. So you understand team bonus modifiers, fine, and you see in this trailer turn-based gameplay. All that makes sense.

 

However, Owlcat also added a Real-Time way of playing the game, which was how I played. Characters are constantly moving in Real-Time, so sometimes they'll get that bonus when they're together, sometimes they're drawn apart, I can see from the game's dice roll window that bonus turning on & off as the ebb of battle flows, when they get separated, when they kill an enemy and march together in formation forward, etc. If you're not sure why a bonus is what it is, you can pause the game, mouse-over that number in the dice roll window, and it'll break down this long equation of how it reached that number. It's a nice tooltip feature, but nothing compared to how Owlcat entered every game mechanic I could think of, including grappling and Coup de Grace'ing a drunken opponent.

 

Btw, even what your characters had for breakfast gives a different bonus. When my party's performed well, I make them chocolate ice cream. I'm not even kidding.

 

TL;DR - this studio, Owlcat, knows how to handle the crunch-heavy Pathfinder system. Dark Heresy or Wrath & Glory are easy-peasy in comparison. With their experience, they could probably write a better RPG themselves tbh.

 

+++ Owlcat let us make own characters AND custom party members +++

 

On 6/2/2022 at 4:00 AM, Focslain said:

Man if this thing allows me to build some of my old Dark Heresy characters I'm in. Will wishlist this once it hits steam.

 

So back in Kingmaker, like any RPG, you make your own single-player character, name him or her, choose appearance, choose voice, etc. Then you get a bunch of pre-made NPCs as party members, voice-acted, with their own backstories and personal sidequests you can help them with, etc. That's standard fare.

 

Then you can also make your own custom party members. So in Kingmaker, I made my own protagonist, or i could go to this vendor who sells custom party members, so I pay a fee based on my current level and hire an adventure, a.k.a. a Pathfinder, of my level, where I name him or her, choose appearance, etc.

 

Let's say your Dark Heresy character was a high-level ex-Guardsman in an Inquisitorial warband. Using what Owlcat did in Kingmaker as a point of reference for their plans in Rogue Trader, you can hire him at the start and he'll be a low-level Guardsman that just shares your character's name, or you can wait until your Rogue Trader reaches a high enough level to properly represent your old character, build him as a high-level character, like a continuation of his story (like he's still working for his Inquisitor, but just posing as an experienced soldier to work on a Rogue Trader's ship).

 

+++ Heresy +++

 

I noticed the Rogue Trader trailer mentioned Heresy.

 

Even in Kingmaker, there's a lot of Heresy...and it's not even a Warhammer game. There's Lawful Evil, Chaotic Evil, or my favourite, Evil In The Name Of Science:

 

 

Btw, on the right is an Undead Inquisitor, just to show you the levels of Heresy even in Kingmaker. Just in case you're wondering what's up with these character names:

 

 

My character was a Moon Elf named Nadire. Due to her pale skin, she was nicknamed "Grey" Nadire. She was a worldly scholar that had studied various disciplines, including some magic, but also enough Alchemy to make bombs. These bombs were so effective that she trained her companions to use them, to the point they became known as Grey Nadire's Guards, shortened to Grenadiers, and the bombs themselves became known as Grenades.

It's a pune or a play on words.

 

+++ Expect a brilliant game clearly made by a small studio +++

 

Rogue Trader should be a great game, but it will have bugs, typical from a small studio. I think Kingmaker still has some memory leak issues now, though nowhere as bad as Inquisitor: Martyr. Overall I was very impressed by Kingmaker, both from a technical perspective as well as just having a really fun time, including here:

 

 

Pictured above, that Heretical Undead Inquisitor is roasting on a spit in my castle. I don't know why, this wasn't one of the scripted events (I've absolutely executed people, sometimes personally, in Kingmaker). That's my High Priest, a dwarf, and I toasting her being burned as a witch, apparently. This is just a bug.

 

It's just one of those hilarious glitches. I'd rather have a buggy passion project than a soulless big studio big budget one, Owlcat Games has been great at that.

 

The studio is really amazing, just having to deal with the limitations of a small studio, and if they deliver a game half as long as Kingmaker (it's like 5 campaign books) with half the class options, it'll still be more than we ever expected. I don't speak for them, but assuming they just re-skin Kingmaker, Rogue Trader will be amazo.

 

Edited after forum upgrade for better readability.

Edited October 13, 2022 by N1SB

[Redcomet]

Bugs are fine, until they actively block your progress. I had a bug in Wrath where I couldn’t level up. Lasted for 2 months before it was fixed

[sairence]

I'm very excited for this. Kingmaker and Wrath of Righteous are both excellent...I think I spent over a hundred hours on my first Wrath & Righteous playthrough alone, just exploring and levelling up my holdings. The depth of stories there was absolutely mindboggling and I'm sure I've missed loads.

[Doghouse]

I was left a bit confused at first. I think the intro is the first animation in that style for 40k where I actually thought wow this cartoon looks really good I want to watch this and might seriously get warhammer plus to see it if it is a series. Then I felt disappointed that it was a game but after watching the rest of the trailer thought it might be good.

 

So I think I will look into it more once it comes out.

[sitnam]

Just gimme a Kroot companion and I'm in

[Son of Sacrifice]

blah blah blah

 

Well sir, you absolutely buttered my buns there, on both sides. I will buy this.

[Evil Eye]

I even looked at F.A.T.A.L. (do NOT, I repeat, DO NOT look at F.A.T.A.L.)

Ah yes, the RPG Tzeentch made for Slaanesh as a "gift" (with writing assistance from Nurgle and at the suggestion of Khorne). That's a spicy one!

 

Anyway, from the sounds of things this should be a really good game. Now I'm looking forward to it...

[Viridia]

Apologies if not the right place, but I've not found any mention of this on the forum. I've just come across this trailer for a videogame adaptation of Rogue Trader, set in the Koronus Expanse no-less. The trailer is accompanied by some concept art, as well as the lead narrative designer talking through the game as well.

Here's an overview in their own words;

Quote

In Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader players will take on the role of a Rogue Trader, a scion of an ancient dynasty of daring privateers, that reign over their own merchant empire and explore the fringes of Imperial space with the blessing of the Emperor Himself. Thanks to their Warrant of Trade - the Rogue Trader is endowed with privileges and power beyond imagination as well as the task of expanding the borders of the Imperium. At their disposal is a gargantuan voidship of immense strength and innumerable personnel ready to follow any undertakings of the leader. Show your subjects mercy or disdain, stay faithful to the Emperor or consort with enemies of Mankind - every decision and every act of the Rogue Trader sends ripples throughout entire star systems, changing the in-game world and those who inhabit it.

The action will unfold in the Koronus Expanse, a dangerous and unexplored region on the far frontiers of the Imperium of Man. Many explorers have fallen victim to this dangerous place and never returned. Remarkable and sophisticated companions are one of the pillars of cRPGs and Rogue Trader is no exception. A mighty Space Marine, a mercurial Aeldari Ranger, or even a courageous Sister of Battle armed with bolter and ardent prayers are just a few of the many characters that will join the Rogue Trader during your adventures.

Personally, I'm hoping if this is sucessful, that more of the setting from the FFG books comes back in. They were some of the best additions to 40k lore I've seen, and it's nice to see more games focusing on the lesser-known parts of the universe. (Honourable mentions to Mechanicus, Inquisitor - Martyr, and Necromunda; Hired Gun for all doing their part as well)

Edited July 17, 2022 by Viridia

[Lord Nord in Gravis Armour]

 

[Viridia]

5 minutes ago, Lord Nord said:

 

Thank you frater. If a mod could lock this, that would be appreciated.

[Subtleknife]

Looks excellent. I hope it lives up to the hype.

[Orange Knight]

I'm very excited for this game. I've been looking forward to a new RPG in this style.

This appears to tick all the boxes, and it's using the beloved 40k IP.

[twiglets]

Very hyped for this. IMO we are entering the golden age of Warhamer 40k games with Rogue Trader, Space Marine 2, DarkTide, Boltgun, and Shootas Blood & Teef.

All five of those games look to be at minimum good enjoyable games, and likely fantastic. I believe Darktide will be realising first in september and then Shootas blod & teef in october, and the rest in 2023.

[Tyriks]

Threads merged.

[D3L]

Owlcat have been consistently outstanding with their adaptations of Pathfinder (I run both pf and DH/RT games irl in HK)

Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader will easily be within their scope, the interview with the dev video, has some layover imagery, which clearly showed d100, so I would bet heavily it's literally Rogue Trader ported

Edited July 18, 2022 by D3L

[Halandaar]

3 minutes ago, D3L said:

Owlcat have been consistently outstanding with their adaptations of Pathfinder (I run both pf and DH/RT games irl in HK)

Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader will easily be within their scope, the interview with the dev video, has some layover imagery, which clearly showed d100, so I would bet heavily it's literally Rogue Trader ported

Per their community manager on Reddit, "it won't be a direct transfer from tabletop to a videogame" although they are playing and drawing inspiration from the FFG books.

[D3L]

15 minutes ago, Halandaar said:

Per their community manager on Reddit, "it won't be a direct transfer from tabletop to a videogame" although they are playing and drawing inspiration from the FFG books.

exactly what they said about Pathfinder (it's marketing to cover bases in case people dont like the subtle tweaks for tabletop->screen)!

this happend with both previous games, it was a literal port, with a few tacked on mechanics for quality of life interactions with the world skills

I can believe this is no different, and that's a good thing!

Edited July 18, 2022 by D3L

[Blindhamster]

On 7/18/2022 at 9:37 AM, D3L said:

exactly what they said about Pathfinder (it's marketing to cover bases in case people dont like the subtle tweaks for tabletop->screen)!

this happend with both previous games, it was a literal port, with a few tacked on mechanics for quality of life interactions with the world skills

I can believe this is no different, and that's a good thing!

The pathfinder games are excellent but not literal ports, they do change/remove/simplify things. Not always for the best. 
 

That said, I’m excited as a big owlcat fan (I even made a mod for kingmaker that added the arcane archer prestige class and owlcat familiars - a touch of magic, over on nexus lol).

[HamezIsGroot]

Off topic slightly but did anyone ever play squad command on the PSP that was a classic 

[mawhis]

Sorry to wake this one back up, but we've just had a Faction Announcement!

 

 

[Scribe]

Oh my....

[Scribe]

Is there a Kickstarter on this one, I imagine not?