Dreadp00l

Someone has probably already made this point, but I wanna cover the bases. Warhammer 40,000 actually had its start as a 'book, pencil and fist full of dice' RPG called 'Rogue Trader'. I know it sounds weird, but before Nintendo, this was how we did multiplayer =D.
The game was a well visioned move to take the background story and IP from Warhammer Fantasy and drop it into a sci-fi genre. The RPG had just been made obsolete when I was introduced to the tabletop game, although when I bought the tabletop game starter set, you could still find the Rogue Trader book in the 'new' rack at some comic/game/hobby shops, as well as the 'rogue trader' branded 10 man marine squads in the 'Mk. V' armor style complete with the chainsaw attatchments for the bolters (ala Gears of War). With the recent resurgence of interest in oldskool roleplay, GW has come out with a new RPG called 'Dark Heresy', I just got a copy but haven't even had time to get past the credits and table of contents. Sadly, only Rick Priestly had a hand in creating the new RPG. I don't know what happened to the other original creators such as Andy Chambers, but I suspect a gory dismemberment by the corporate machine. As much as I love the game, I'm equal amounts disgusted with the Games Workshop monster. When I put my models on the shelf for good, it felt like the army lists were being restructured every 12 months, and that meant getting new Coda for each army I played (Chaos Undivided, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Cadians, Tyranids) and in the case of the Tyranids, the changes were so sweeping that 90% of my painstakingly painted brood were no longer legal to field at tourneys or sanctioned events without heavy modifications. If you take your army painting seriously (and I mean serious enough to put the care and effort into so your army looks as good as one in a White Dwarf battle report) , you know how slim the odds are of taking a finished, based and armor-coated figure and modifying limbs and weapons and having it look as good as good as the original. I felt like GW was going far beyond making a tidy profit on their schwag. I tallied the cost I paid for all my squads, commanders, coda, vehicles, 3rd edition upgrade (etc ad nausem), and estimated the cost of 5 years of citadel brand supplies (not just cause GW makes em, but becuase they are, IMHO, the most perfectly formulated paints available for scale modeling. I've tried them all and Citadel outperforms any other)based on 3 months of receipts from Hobbytown USA, and the total was approx. $12,000 over 7 years of playing!!! Still though, as disgusted as I am with what GW has evolved into since their stock went public, I wouldn't even catch a glimpse if Blizzard released a 'World of Starcraft' (and you know they will... probably 8-12 months after they release Starcraft 2) at the same time THQ released Warhammer 40,000 online. If THQ can get it right that is. Soulstorm was a purchase I regretted about 2 hours after install. They are a quality developer, and I've enjoyed playing quite a few of their titles, but they havent done a project that stands out in the 'shock and awe' category, and as I mentioned a bit ago, some of their titles really seem impressive and exciting, but are an epic buzz-kill at runtime. I've checked out the teaser's for Dawn Of War 2 and they look effing phenomenal. I'm a bit leery about their decision to go with a non linear single player campaign mode again. It was a fun concept in DOW: Dark Crusade, but they got lazy with Soulstorm and kept the single player campaign at the status quo. Content wise, Soulstorm amounted to nothing more than an expansion to Dark Crusade, and I'm a little pissed about paying core price for it. I'm really praying and hoping that DOW 2 smokes Starcraft 2 at relase time. Starcraft was a blatant cut and paste of some of Warhammer 40,000, and I know I'm not the only one who sees it. You would have to have an IQ of 10 to not see that Zerg = Tyranid clone, and that the Terrans and Protoss are based heavily on the Imperial Space Marines/Guard and the Craftworld Eldar. At this stage, THQ really looks poised to go head to head with Blizzard in the sci-fi RTS arena, and I think that whoever wins that battle is going to have a lock on the market share of subscribers when the MMOs are released. I know that Blizzard hasn't said a single word about developing a Starcraft MMO, but WoW has got to die sometime, and I'll wager the time of death will be a year and a half after Wrath of the Lich King arrives, notwithstanding them raising Sargeras from the dead to get another expansion out to milk every last drop from the monster. Blizzard has made a fortune from WOW. They've got their nails into more fiends than the Columbian cartell, and yeah, WoW is cheaper than crack, but only a fool wouldn't have a brand new drug ready to roll when crack, er, WoW isn't fun anymore. Common sense says that Blizz has development of a Starcraft MMO well underway in a sealed underground bunker somewhere to keep it all hush hush until they are set to drop the hammer on the MMO junkies, and you know that they are going to use all the knowledge of what they did right with WoW in its development. Starcraft was Blizzard's crown jewel prior to WoW, and it's not a question of IF, but simply WHEN it will release, and as far as content and gameplay goes... it's gonna be pure chiba. I'm hooked on WoW right now, but when the WH40K MMO drops, I'll be subscribing on day 1, but if it fails to deliver the goods, you know Blizzard will have something amazing cooked up for me to waste another cople of years on.