There’s something visceral about seeing the places in 3D and their relation to one another. How many books and codices have I read with just random slapped down markers on the galaxy? There’s so much that can be done to extend this project from the lore - logistical movements and timeline accounts of various crusades and invasions. Great project! Thanks for linking it
This is awesome.
It would be cool to see what books talk about each world when you click on them. Also to be able to search for books and see what worlds are talked about in them.
The Latin seems quite wrong... e.g. "segmentum pacificus" should actually be "segmentum pacificum" [1] to keep genders correct. Was it the same in the books (which I don't know)?
Which is to say, the original authors didn't care and were just writing latinesque gibberish that sounded cool.
One of the critically important things to remember about 40k lore is that the game was originally a joke. Their "real" game was Warhammer (the game to be later called "Warhammer Fantasy"). Originally it was just "Let's put space opera tropes onto a game board and have them fight D&D monsters". Then they shoe-horned the chaos stuff in, then had a (presumably drunken) exercise in lore writing where they "invented" "Grimdark" by essentially turning the Despair knob up to 11.
And then it turned out to be popular, and it was time to start trying to write real stories on top of the mess. And... people loved it. Including a lot of people for whom the comically ridiculous Grimdark stuff turned into a kind of authoritarian wish fulfillment, which wasn't great. But you have to remember it was all a joke to begin with.
It was more than just a joke. It was a satire on England and 1980's society.
The "Imperium," which is led by the possibly-dead body of a entombed demi-god, sustains its control over the galaxy with a mix of intense faith, authoritarianism, and a massive space navy with marine shock troops.
That's England! The Imperium is the British Empire. The dead-God Emperor is Jesus and the Imperial Cult is the COE. The Imperial Navy is the British Navy and the Space Marines (who in the older versions were just common criminals, not super-soldiers), are the British Naval Marines.
One of the old slurs against Christians was that they followed a "corpse-god." They say the same thing in 40K.
Plus, all the rampant materialism, corruption, stratification, militarism, promoted and encouraged by the Imperium. All straight out of 1980's society.
The barrier of entry is admittedly high for playing the game, but it's tons of fun. You have to pick an army, start collecting models (which aren't cheap), then you have to build them and at least sort of paint them. Honestly the best way is just go on to a local store on they 40k open play night (most have one weekly) and ask around. Folks are extremely kind and generous and will often loan you some models to play against them and try out the game. Some stores even have loaner armies in stock for this purpose.
The "pay to win" feeling is really just in the competitive scene. You can choose to chase the ever-changing meta or just enjoy playing more narrative games.
ps. you can learn the basic mechanics of the game pretty quickly by watching "Battle reports" on youtube. Search for 11th edition specifically as it just came out in June and the rules changed a good bit.
There are multiple legs to The Hobby (tm), the painting and modelling, the game, and the lore.
For me, painting is the fun bit. I find the game broken and totally driven by marketing. Horrible pay-to-win stuff.
Gaming you need people, you gotta get down a shop and say hi. I prefer independents, as they sell other games, but what's available depends on where you are. Even without shops, finding a group isn't that hard, there's an organised one in my very small town. Facebook etc. can help.
For painting, it's easy, just find models you like the look of, the official site can suggest paints, and have a crack. Your first ones won't be great, but it's the progress that's fun. There's an absurd amount of YouTube content. My crew like Cult of Paint.
Lore, I know least about, I find the books unreadable, but the Black Library is vast. The Horus Heresy is the canonical backbone.
A friend actually writes some short stuff on the fantasy side, do him a favour and grab a collection with Jake Ozga.
Great start, awesome idea! Definitely need all the Xenos maps from all the various codexes (Lexicanum usually clarifies which codex has the most recent map for each, IME). The crown jewel, ofc, is to see the Tyranid fleets hitting the galaxy from two sides and then below, then zooming out to reveal the oncoming mass, still flying through the void towards us from Andromeda... Terrifying!
UI wise, there's definitely a sense of latency when just moving my mouse around. Obviously 3D (three.js?) has FPS limits, but this should be preventable. Also, a lot of the text overlaps on my random (medium sized) browser window.
EDIT: Also you gotta take the stars outta the intergalactic void! Would be much cooler to see the occasional super distance galaxy, anyway ;)
[1] see Latin dictionary: https://www.online-latin-dictionary.com/latin-dictionary-fle... and https://www.online-latin-dictionary.com/latin-dictionary-fle...
https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/High_Gothic
One of the critically important things to remember about 40k lore is that the game was originally a joke. Their "real" game was Warhammer (the game to be later called "Warhammer Fantasy"). Originally it was just "Let's put space opera tropes onto a game board and have them fight D&D monsters". Then they shoe-horned the chaos stuff in, then had a (presumably drunken) exercise in lore writing where they "invented" "Grimdark" by essentially turning the Despair knob up to 11.
And then it turned out to be popular, and it was time to start trying to write real stories on top of the mess. And... people loved it. Including a lot of people for whom the comically ridiculous Grimdark stuff turned into a kind of authoritarian wish fulfillment, which wasn't great. But you have to remember it was all a joke to begin with.
The "Imperium," which is led by the possibly-dead body of a entombed demi-god, sustains its control over the galaxy with a mix of intense faith, authoritarianism, and a massive space navy with marine shock troops.
That's England! The Imperium is the British Empire. The dead-God Emperor is Jesus and the Imperial Cult is the COE. The Imperial Navy is the British Navy and the Space Marines (who in the older versions were just common criminals, not super-soldiers), are the British Naval Marines.
One of the old slurs against Christians was that they followed a "corpse-god." They say the same thing in 40K.
Plus, all the rampant materialism, corruption, stratification, militarism, promoted and encouraged by the Imperium. All straight out of 1980's society.
The "pay to win" feeling is really just in the competitive scene. You can choose to chase the ever-changing meta or just enjoy playing more narrative games.
ps. you can learn the basic mechanics of the game pretty quickly by watching "Battle reports" on youtube. Search for 11th edition specifically as it just came out in June and the rules changed a good bit.
For me, painting is the fun bit. I find the game broken and totally driven by marketing. Horrible pay-to-win stuff.
Gaming you need people, you gotta get down a shop and say hi. I prefer independents, as they sell other games, but what's available depends on where you are. Even without shops, finding a group isn't that hard, there's an organised one in my very small town. Facebook etc. can help.
For painting, it's easy, just find models you like the look of, the official site can suggest paints, and have a crack. Your first ones won't be great, but it's the progress that's fun. There's an absurd amount of YouTube content. My crew like Cult of Paint.
Lore, I know least about, I find the books unreadable, but the Black Library is vast. The Horus Heresy is the canonical backbone.
A friend actually writes some short stuff on the fantasy side, do him a favour and grab a collection with Jake Ozga.
Good luck.
UI wise, there's definitely a sense of latency when just moving my mouse around. Obviously 3D (three.js?) has FPS limits, but this should be preventable. Also, a lot of the text overlaps on my random (medium sized) browser window.
EDIT: Also you gotta take the stars outta the intergalactic void! Would be much cooler to see the occasional super distance galaxy, anyway ;)