Praise the Emperor, the details have arrived! (With a teaser trailer, too!)

"The game is $40. We're not selling at $39.99,
that's a cheesy marketing mechanic."

Those are the exact words of Miguel Caron, Studio Head at Behaviour Interactive. We met with him last Friday, and he passionately explained the Founder's Packs for Warhammer 40K: Eternal Crusade. The Behaviour motto "Be true. Be fair. Be transparent." was never more evident. This is clearly a company with nothing to hide, and loves what they're doing.

Today, they've launched their official site and the details of their Founder's Packs!

Note: We just ran a very short Founder's Pack giveaway! See the winners!

All Founder's Packs

• Full Game, All 4 Factions, 4 Character Slots
• Pre-Launch Game Access (First come, first serve testing!)
• Reserve Names for your Character, Squad, Strike Force, and Guild
• "Arkhona Vanguard" Title
• "Founder Lounge" Access on Forum

$40 – Warrior Pack

• 40,000 Rogue Trader pts.
• Early Game Module Access (Third Wave – 60 days after Initial Access)

$80 – Sergeant Pack

• 92,000 Rogue Trader pts. (80,000 + 15% Bonus)
• Early Game Module Access (Second Wave – 30 days after Initial Access)
• Limited Edition Emblem

$120 – Captain Pack

• 150,000 Rogue Trader pts. (120,000 + 25% Bonus)
• Early Game Module Access (First Wave – Initial Access)
• Limited Edition Banner

They're also offering a huge Heresy Pack ($250) and a massive Xenos Pack! ($450)

So, the two main benefits of pre-ordering? A ton of Rogue Trader points and playing the game early. That's something Miguel emphasized: WH40K: Eternal Crusade is a pre-order, not crowd-funding. The game is fully-financed, and launches in 1.5 years.

It's a typical buy-to-play model with a small hybrid F2P element. The only free-to-play aspect is that one faction is free: the Ork Boyz. This is partially because Behaviour predicts they'll be the least-popular faction, and making them F2P will fill their ranks – and better the game overall.

"Absolutely no pay-to-win."

The Rogue Trader points in the Founder's Packs are used for the in-game shop. Miguel insists that nothing in the shop will be unfair, and that everything is meant to give a varied and customized experience.

Currently, the highest valued item is 25,000 points; cheapest is 5k, but cheaper ones are coming. Behaviour is starting with 10 items (symmetrical between factions), but Miguel emphasized “this is just the beginning,” and that items will be added “every month during development.”

 "We need to make sure players
want to spend money, not have to."

Don't have enough points in the Rogue Trader store? You can grab some more!

$5 – 5,000 pts. – 0% bonus – "Squig Bundle"
$15 – 15,750 pts. – 5% bonus – "Boy Bundle"
$30 – 33,000 pts. – 10% bonus – "Nob Bundle"
$50 – 57,500 pts. – 15% bonus – "Boss Bundle"

The best part: point bundles add to your total spent, and will upgrade which pack you're a part of. If you buy the $40 Warrior pack, then later buy $80 in points, you'll become a part of the $120 Captain pack.

 "We try to find areas we can monetize where people love it
without making an impact on gameplay."

Already spent all your Rogue Trader points? Refund them! You can refund all your points and buy new stuff – especially helpful when a friend wants to play another faction. Refunds can happen anytime up until launch.

Speaking of friends, referrals get you – and your friend – $4 worth of points each (4,000). Wooh!

“Players requested an optional subscription. They don't want to make impulse buys, and want to spend fixed amount in the month/year.” There is a 100% OPTIONAL point subscription for Eternal Crusade that costs $10 a month for 10,000 points – or more, for steady subscribers.

Month 1-3: 10,000 pts.
Month 4-6: 12,000 pts.
Month 7-9: 14,000 pts.
Month 10+: 16,000 pts.

Occasionally, there will be a small amount of purely aesthetic, real-cash items. They'll be scarce: the first item will only have 5,000 available (at $35), and later quantities may be around 5-7% of the player base. Prices will vary, but they'll be “a bit more expensive” than a typical item in the Rogue Trader store. Again, these are rare items with no affect on gameplay.

"If you monetize progression, you kill retention."

Behaviour Interactive wants to involve fans in the development cycle. Pre-ordering allows fans to do that, and help make sure the game and game mechanic is “on-target”. Miguel emphasized “not just the very loud voices”, they want to hear everyone. You can tell they mean it.
 

Some other miscellaneous points to note:

• Executions will be a key item in the Rogue Trader store.
• Graham McNeil, Veteran Warhammer 40K Game Designer and Novelist, is the writer for Eternal Crusade. Concept art is being done by Kai Lim, whose illustrations are the covers of many recent codices.
• When playing a faction, EVERYTHING is set for that faction: the user interface, the ship, etc.
• When you buy the game, you can enter a Guild Name. Large guilds will get some fun perks, and bigger guilds will get better perks. Guilds don't appear in-game. They'll be arranged online, and they can advertise their information on guild pages.
• Eternal Crusade will interact with the upcoming Razer Nabu.
   

Our take? This is pre-ordering done right! $40+ of in-game currency (and all the other perks) feels generous. If you're interested in the game and have faith in the developer, it's a great system that should feel rewarding. Behaviour Interactive's open doors approach is refreshing, and it sounds like they truly care about the game, the 40K universe, and its fans.
 

Colt "ShdwFlm" Casey
Deputy Editor