Warhammer Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader Pre-Release Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Tyranicon]

Come now

That's Slaaneshi worshiper talk!

 

[The_Mask]

I seriously can't remember a Codex thread where people had so much respect towards anyone that might be a newbie to whatever's happening, that they were self-spoiling themselves like this.

You guys are fucking fantastic.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.wargamer.com/warhammer-40k-rogue-trader/owlcat-learns-from-mistakes

Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader learns from Owlcat’s “past mistakes”​

Post-mortems of the team's two Pathfinder CRPGs helped it minimise bugs in Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader, according to an executive producer

In an exclusive interview with Wargamer, Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader executive producer Anatoly Shestov states that “really, really long internal post mortems” of developer Owlcat’s previous titles fed into its upcoming Warhammer 40k CRPG. Both Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous shipped in notoriously buggy states, and Shestov says the team has “taken our time to analyse past mistakes”.

He adds: “In terms of technical solutions, we’ve made informed decisions about how we should tactically approach different aspects of the game and how much quality assurance should be given to different aspects… As a result, you can see that there are almost no critical problems in the alpha we delivered for players.”




Wargamer played the Rogue Trader alpha, which consists of the game’s huge second act and is currently available to people who pre-ordered the premium ‘Developer’s Digital Pack’. While some systems, like ship to ship combat and colonisation, are far from finished, we agree that bugs were fairly tame for an alpha build.

Shestov says that almost the entire studio got involved with polishing the alpha build before it went to customers: “not just the QA team, not just developers, but the full team of game designers for like, two weeks, just playing the game, just finding things that weren’t behaving as intended and fixing them”.



He cites the audio team as an example: “Our sound engineers played it for two to three weeks straight. They’d be like “Guys, on this particular moment, we’ve got like, bad amplitude, we need to fix this””. That attention was evident in our alpha play through: the inferno pistol and boltgun already sound like the Emperor of Mankind’s fiery wrath.

Shestov adds that Owlcat is also “not the same team” that began development on Pathfinder: Kingmaker: “we started as a team of less than 10 people“. Now over 50 are working on Rogue Trader. “It’s almost like a fantasy party that becomes bigger and bigger throughout the journey to defeat the final villain”, he adds.

There’s more news to come from our Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader interview with Shestov, so keep your eyes peeled.

It’s early days for Owlcat’s latest CRPG, but we have high hopes that it might earn a spot on our list of the best Warhammer 40k games. We we love the companions, some of the dialogue is up there with the best Warhammer 40k books, and the prospect of making ourselves a nuisance for all the different Warhammer 40k factions of the Imperium of Man is tantalising.

If you were a fan of Owlcat’s Pathfinder CRPGs, why not check out our guides to Pathfinder classes and Pathfinder races for inspiration for your next character, whether that’s on the tabletop or on PC?

 

[Peachcurl]

I'd really hope they learned. We'll see.

 

[Roguey]

Fewer bugs, but kept kingdom management and all the trash mobs.

 

[Tyranicon]

Fewer bugs, but kept kingdom management and all the trash mobs.

The management portions in both Pathfinder games were so incredibly tedious that I refuse to believe that anybody found them fun.

https://www.wargamer.com/warhammer-40k-rogue-trader/owlcat-learns-from-mistakes

"exclusive interview"

"Uh hey guys, we feel bad about bugs so we're gonna fix them."

 

[Kem0sabe]

They didn't learn anything important. The horrible overworld management system is still a thing.

Why owlcat keeps adding useless features that no one wants or enjoyed in their previous games, is beyond me

 

[ArchAngel]

They didn't learn anything important. The horrible overworld management system is still a thing.

Why owlcat keeps adding useless features that no one wants or enjoyed in their previous games, is beyond me

It is kind of key part of being a Rogue Trader.

 

[santino27]

I remember them saying the same things during the Wrath kickstarter. We've learned from our mistakes! It won't be buggy! if the alpha is polished, it just means the chapters people don't get to see will be incomplete or broken.

 

[Peachcurl]

They didn't learn anything important. The horrible overworld management system is still a thing.

Why owlcat keeps adding useless features that no one wants or enjoyed in their previous games, is beyond me

It is kind of key part of being a Rogue Trader.

The player experience mostly being "super annoying" hopefully isn't a key part.

 

[janior]

when does this game coming out

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.wargamer.com/warhammer-40k-rogue-trader/owlcat-learns-from-mistakes

"exclusive interview"

"Uh hey guys, we feel bad about bugs so we're gonna fix them."

I think it's an excerpt from a larger interview that will be posted later. Common news site practice.

 

[Grunker]

They didn't learn anything important. The horrible overworld management system is still a thing.

Why owlcat keeps adding useless features that no one wants or enjoyed in their previous games, is beyond me

It is kind of key part of being a Rogue Trader.

Poor system design is integral to Rogue Trader?

 

[Dishonoredbr]

Owlcat carries the FGC CRPG genre. They gonna drop another banger that Codex going to say is shit then play for 300h+ and repeat the cycle next time.

It's the Eternal Cycle.

 

[Storyfag]

They didn't learn anything important. The horrible overworld management system is still a thing.

Why owlcat keeps adding useless features that no one wants or enjoyed in their previous games, is beyond me

It is kind of key part of being a Rogue Trader.

Poor system design is integral to Rogue Trader?

Seems to be quintessential to the Imperium at large...

 

[janior]

Owlcat carries the FGC CRPG genre. They gonna drop another banger that Codex going to say is shit then play for 300h+ and repeat the cycle next time.

It's the Eternal Cycle.

what was the first banger? kingmaker kinda sucked after early levels

 

[Tyranicon]

I was reminded today that Wrathfinder lost Codex GOTY to a mod for a 20-year-old game.

But it did come in 2nd. If that gives any idea about this site's tastes.

I think this was before the requirement that only allowed codex registered members to vote though.

 

[Mikeal]

Poland strong.

 

[Salvo]

I was reminded today that Wrathfinder lost Codex GOTY to a mod for a 20-year-old game.

But it did come in 2nd. If that gives any idea about this site's tastes.

I think this was before the requirement that only allowed codex registered members to vote though.

Archolos is a better game than Wrathfinder and I say this as an Owlcat fan

 

[mediocrepoet]

I was reminded today that Wrathfinder lost Codex GOTY to a mod for a 20-year-old game.

But it did come in 2nd. If that gives any idea about this site's tastes.

Insanely inconsistent?

"Elden Ring is no RPG!"

"Gothic "

 

[Humbaba]

If I didn't already bet my account on Erdoğan getting reelected I would bet my account on Rogue Trader being fucking great.

Owlcat keep improving. Kingmaker was about BG1 levels of quality, while Wrathfinder surpassed any other crpg that has come before it with the exception of PST. Yeah they were buggy at launch but so was New Vegas and now that the bugs have been fixed no one gives a rat's ass. I don't hold up much hope for this iteration's kingdom management but at worst Kangz' and Wrath's management mini games are largely inoffensive and don't actually detract from the experience as the haters would have you believe.

 

[Tyranicon]

If I didn't already bet my account on Erdoğan getting reelected I would bet my account on Rogue Trader being fucking great.

Owlcat keep improving. Kingmaker was about BG1 levels of quality, while Wrathfinder surpassed any other crpg that has come before it with the exception of PST. Yeah they were buggy at launch but so was New Vegas and now that the bugs have been fixed no one gives a rat's ass. I don't hold up much hope for this iteration's kingdom management but at worst Kangz' and Wrath's management mini games are largely inoffensive and don't actually detract from the experience as the haters would have you believe.

PS:T is an odd standard to aim for because what made it great was largely the writing/characters, and not the standard RPG mechanics.

Then again, the writing/characters is what Owlcat games are lacking. I would say they did a fairly okay job at adapting Pathfinder tabletop mechanics.

All they need to do is get better writers, characters that aren't stupid or nonsensical (Wrath was even worse at this than Kingmaker, were those tabletop legacy characters again? Goddamn Paizo, wtf), and add an option to ignore management mechanics without missing out on critical content.

There you go, slam dunk 10/10, game of the decade.

 

[Mauman]

If I didn't already bet my account on Erdoğan getting reelected I would bet my account on Rogue Trader being fucking great.

Owlcat keep improving. Kingmaker was about BG1 levels of quality, while Wrathfinder surpassed any other crpg that has come before it with the exception of PST. Yeah they were buggy at launch but so was New Vegas and now that the bugs have been fixed no one gives a rat's ass. I don't hold up much hope for this iteration's kingdom management but at worst Kangz' and Wrath's management mini games are largely inoffensive and don't actually detract from the experience as the haters would have you believe.

PS:T is an odd standard to aim for because what made it great was largely the writing/characters, and not the standard RPG mechanics.

Then again, the writing/characters is what Owlcat games are lacking. I would say they did a fairly okay job at adapting Pathfinder tabletop mechanics.

All they need to do is get better writers, characters that aren't stupid or nonsensical (Wrath was even worse at this than Kingmaker, were those tabletop legacy characters again? Goddamn Paizo, wtf), and add an option to ignore management mechanics without missing out on critical content.

There you go, slam dunk 10/10, game of the decade.

To give them credit, they DID make the writing of their game (their Wrath) much, MUCH better than the writing of the tabletop Wrath (you think Iomadae was bad in the game? Oh boy howdy.....)

I never really got why Wrath was so popular. It was always one of Paizo's worst.

 

[Harthwain]

PS:T is an odd standard to aim for because what made it great was largely the writing/characters, and not the standard RPG mechanics.

It had some interesting RPG mechanics: you had to actually learn your class from a teacher (meaning you had to find someone willing to teach you) and stats had very important roles outside of combat. It is actually sad we didn't really see this kind of approach being used much after Troika Games died. I can only think of Torment: Tides of Numenera and Disco Elysium, with the latter pretty much revitalizing the whole idea with its critical and commercial success.

 

[Humbaba]

All they need to do is get better writers

From the few bits I've seen (which admittedly is not much) it looks like they may have gotten some native English speakers on board this time at the very least. Looks a lot less wordy and stilted compared to Wrathfinder. 40k has a very specific type of writing and GW would want to make sure the brand is represented accurately. After all, these tie in games are little more than advertisements for GW's actual products, the miniatures.

Ever notice how basically all 40k games put a disproportionate emphasis on visuals, atmosphere etc. and how gameplay usually suffers as a consequence? This is no accident. GW suits are in the devs' ear. Somewhat worrying news for Rogue Trader but Owlcat has a proven track record of making good stuff as opposed to other GW collaborators, like Fatshark who are a shit dev that has released nothing but mayfly after mayfly.