Much as we would like it to be it's not always smooth sailing when it comes to modding. This month we finally called in the Grey Knights and dealt with one of the Demons plaguing Exterminatus. Namely the "dropship" based spawn system. What was intended to produce a seamless "cinematic" player experience, turned out to be real pain for the contributors who wanted to map for EX.
It might have worked on another game engine, but dropships just needed too much open space for Source mapping. As a result we've had to enable maps without dropships, respawning of players based on a timer, rather than when the dropships had landed. This should make it easier for the mappers and allow a greater variety of spawn locations, such as underground and inside buildings, where dropships were previously incapable of landing. As a result of this change we're going to have to release a second Map Development Kit for Exterminatus.
The new MDK will also include additional props, textures and a large Tyranid for accessibility testing. If you can think of anything else that would make mapping for EX easier drop us a line. I bet you'd rather have the mod than another MDK, but it's just not ready yet. But we can give you a little taster with these shots of the teams in-game and an action shot from this months testing.
It all looks just a little bit too shiny... WH40k is rather dirty and dark. Models are true to form, though. Just not textures.
Depends on your point of view, go look at 2nd ed 40k, specifically orks or eldar.