WH40K: Dark Millennium Online will be more “actiony” than other MMOs, says Vigil

By Stephany Nunneley

Vigil Games’ founder Dave Adams has said a lot of MMOs throw in the same mechanic over and over again and many don’t focus enough on combat.

Speaking with PC Games, Adams said this is something the development team plans to rectify with Warhammer 40K: Dark Millennium Online.

“[Action has] just not been a priority for [other developers],” said Adams. “A lot more attention is put into console games: if you sit down and you play an MMO, and you actually compared it to a triple-A console game, a lot of the stuff would never fly.

“A lot of developers see that as an opportunity to cut that corner because there’s so much to do on an MMO. They think people care about X, Y and Z. They don’t really care about the feeling of the combat. That disparity isn’t going to be tolerated for too long: eventually someone’s going to do it and everyone else is going to have to follow suit. We want to be those people, and that pushed us toward a more action- oriented formula.”

The game will also put the player into combat almost right away, with a wide range of combat for the action-oriented MMO, which will also be “balanced in terms of player-on-player and player-versus-environment battles”.

“There’s a lot of ranged combat, but also a healthy dose of melee,” said Adams. “You’re not gonna have a bunch of static spawns, you’re not gonna have a bunch of random patrols.”

“There’s scenarios that introduce you to your character class,” added creative director Mike Maza. “We’ll throw you into your very first instance, to get a feel for a very player directed experience. Then you’ll go to your trainers and merchants, then drop down onto the over-world from orbit”.

Dark Millennium will also have no action bar icons and a very minimal interface.

“If you see an MMO 20 feet away you know it’s an MMO,” said Adams. “There’s a million icons on the screen, the interface is the same. They’re so predictable. Our goal is when some guy’s walking past DMO they won’t instantly know it’s an MMO. That depends on a minimal interface: it’s not a full FPS but it looks more ‘actiony’.”

Dark Millennium hasn’t received a just date yet, but its publisher, THQ, is confident it will garner 1 million players.

The game was announced at E3 this year.