Today I (along with fitzeh and mad doc grotsnik) attended the Dawn of War II community day, where a bunch of people from the wargaming community got to play Dawn of War II for four and a half hours. First off, though I started taking pictures, I learned as I took my last picture that pictures were prohibited, so no pics from me I am afraid. free pizza and a free tshirt buys some loyalty.

So where to begin.... Dawn of War II is indeed a squad based game, in which you control up to 4 units at once (at least in the Space Marine campaign). The campaign we played had a tactical squad, assault squad, devastator squad, scout squad and commander, and you were forced to leave 1 squad behind. There are no build it yourself bases in the single player game. There are hack and slash / RPG style drops which will give you powerups that let you drop a limited number of turrets in to place, and you can capture some strategic buildings which give you bonuses such as additional orbital bombardments, but it is a very different game to DoW1.

Each squad has an experience level that goes up with each kill and each victory. Squad members can die but they are reinforced at strategic points that you can capture on the map. The last member in a squad does not die, but gets KOed and can be revived by other troops or healing abilities. Power ups are gained either by experience points being allocated to abilities (health, ranged damage, melee damage, will - aka mana, etc) or by getting actual items dropped when key enemies are killed (bosses at the end of each level), or random drops from killing enemies. Squad members can be equipped with weapons including upgraded weapons like longer range heavy bolters, more powerful chainswords, etc. They can also have abilities like orbital bombardment, heal all troops, frag grenades (which are very powerful), demolition charges, and so forth. Finally, they can have better armour and additional bonuses like purity seals.

I didnt get to play multiplayer but I did play the skirmish mode. This is more like DoW1, but instead of having a big base that you can build up, you just have one building that produces units (at least for Orks anyway), and a couple of gun turrets. You can build units and go and capture requisition and power resources, until you have got more points than the enemy in a sort of points based tug of war.

(more coming soon)

What are the missions like? Any idea as to how varied they will be? One of the downfalls of the RTS is they all seemed to revolve around wipe-out the opponent's base. This is fine, until you've done it literally for 10-12 years.....

The campaign starts off against the Orks, then moves to the Eldar and finally the Tyranids. The Orks were quite fun to battle, and the AI is a lot better than DoW1. The Eldar were a little more annoying to fight, but I had geared up all my troops for brutal firefights and they couldnt respond as well to the warp spiders jumping all over the place. After I tweaked the next batch of experience points the Eldar became a lot easier and a bit more fun to fight. Finally, the Tyranids came along and were quite brutal. There were a few levels where they felt like they were without number (mainly thanks to the ripper swarms), and only some violent assaults by jump pack held them at bay.

The gameplay was quite addictive, I went about 2 hours before I got a little bored and had a break, but then when I went back to it I was very into it until the end of play. The levels are a little bit formulaic, each consisting of level up, fight some enemies, get some objectives, fight a big boss, win. Fortunately, the array of environments makes it a bit more exciting and the usual RPG-ish addictiveness of leveling up and getting drops keeps the smaller conflicts interesting. Some of the boss fights went on a bit too long, and there never seemed to be any real danger of dying as you can fall back at the click of a button to the nearest point which will heal you and replace any dead squad members, so the fear of death is not really there to keep you on edge. Cover is critical and you have to plan every move to take cover into account or you will get ripped apart. The cover system is very good though, and you can destroy cover with the more powerful weapons. You can also destroy cover by smashing enemies through it with a grenade as well which is very cool to watch.

The one thing that was very very cool were the Tyranid battles. Perhaps it is just because I spent hundreds of hours playing DoW1 and never saw a single Tyranid, but when they first came on screen I was very excited to finally fight them. They move like you think they would and are much more like insects than zerg which makes it as far as can be from a starcraft clone. Their weapons are all very cool too, and the narrative for fighting them is provided by a member of your scout squad who was in the Deathwatch which adds to the atmosphere a lot. Mowing through a horde of gaunts with a heavy bolter equipped devastator squad is very satisfying.

The squad based combat is quite different to other RTSes and it leads to a lot of moments similar to an actual game of 40k. The whole game structure lends itself quite closely to 40k and it feels a lot more like the actual boardgame than DoW1 did. You remember moments in the game rather than actions - in DoW2 I can think of loads of cool little things that happened in squad vs squad combat, where terrain was destroyed or where a frag grenade ripped apart a whole squad which let me flank the rest of the defenders, whereas in DoW1 the more memorable moments were capturing bases or sectors of the battlefield. I prefer the way things are handled in DoW2 as it seems like it would become less repetitive over longer term, and would lead to some really memorable events in multiplayer.

edit: I'll be adding more later, but this is enough for now. Any questions, please ask. Fitzeh and Mad Doc Grotsnik will no doubt chime in with their opinions later as well.

So does it seem like Multiplayer/Skirmish will be similar to the DOTA mod for Warcraft, or have the possibility of being easily modded into a DOTA clone?

Because I could totally get on board with that.

How do the handle the drops? I have this horrible picture of 'Commando' from the eighties in my head with flashing drops all over the screen. Sounds....unappetizing.

I'm very disappointed to hear that multiplayer and skirmish are smaller scale, or at least have almost no base building.

Sounds very 'Warcraft III' inspired.

How many COH-style morale effects survived? e.g. hitting dirt, keeping a squad pinned until they run away, etc. Is it, like I fear, only applicable to non-marines while the marines run around fearless?

The single-player campaign sounds like Diablo 40k like was said in the previous DOW2 thread.

Gabe wrote:So does it seem like Multiplayer/Skirmish will be similar to the DOTA mod for Warcraft, or have the possibility of being easily modded into a DOTA clone?
Because I could totally get on board with that.

Somewhat similar. There is no single central objective, but there is one hero (commander), and a bunch of smaller units.

Amen Brick wrote:How do the handle the drops? I have this horrible picture of 'Commando' from the eighties in my head with flashing drops all over the screen. Sounds....unappetizing.

The drops are decent enough. They are just things that you click on to pick up. You dont even need to move a unit there, just click on one if you see it. Some are in ammo crates that you have to shoot before you can pick them up but it is not very intrusive.

stonefox wrote:How many COH-style morale effects survived? e.g. hitting dirt, keeping a squad pinned until they run away, etc. Is it, like I fear, only applicable to non-marines while the marines run around fearless?
The single-player campaign sounds like Diablo 40k like was said in the previous DOW2 thread.

I didnt play COH (to my shame) but it is the same engine and from what I understand very similar. Squads can be pinned by heavy fire which makes them move very slowly. They can have morale broken (if not space marines - marines can break on purpose though) in which case they run really quickly back to their last captured objective. Squads can also be effected by other things like blind grenades or some annoying eldar ranger grenade that makes you move annoyingly slowly until he picks you off with his sniper rifle. Marines still get suppressed by heavy fire but some abilities can void it - it is possible to affect their morale but it is harder than doing it to other forces.

The single player campaign really is like Diablo 40k.

This does not bode well for the multiplayer aspect of this game, which is at the heart of the RTS experience. :(

http://kotaku.com/5108704/warhammer-40k-dawn-of-war-2-+-tyranids-battle-strategies-and-smack

This is a good description of the multi-player action.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

i dunno, base building got boring especially as half yth etime it was just same old same old (coming from a fammed turtler t hats saying somthing....

sorry but that just sounds a load of absolute crap.

Lego - My biggest concern with the game is if it really has any strategic or tactical depth. Let me explain.

In DoW, you eventually reached a point where it didn't matter what your guys were armed with. Anything could destroy anything in that game, so given enough time a Bolter Marine could take out a Land Raider. By the late game in each mission it wasn't a case of carefully using your units, it was a case of 'Select All > Attack until Dead > Select new target'. Because everything caused damage to everything, when you had loads of squads you'd just click on one target and then the next, draining their health bars until they were dead. And this process repeated over and over and over and over and over again.

It was dull, and is one of not just DoW's failings, but a lot of RTS's.

My fear with DoW II is that this will still be present. It won't matter if a certain unit is better against another, because just selecting everyone and attacking it until its dead is always the better choice, thereby removing all depth from the game.

I'm interested to hear what you think about this based upon your experience.

BYE

DoW:SS is a great RTS, with a lot of tactical depth and really fun to play. Is it perfectly balanced? No, but it is pretty good and still being patched.

My main concern with DoWII is obviously multiplayer (single player looks fun). I really hope that the multiplayer keeps (and hopefully improves) the tactical nature of DoW and puts emphasis on using your units well.

I really can not judge till seeing and playing a final copy.

Can you give a list of new squads for space marines please?


EDIT: Just remeber DOW2 doesnt have chaos.

Sounds fun.

Also sounds nothing like Dawn of War whatsoever, so I find it curious that they're getting people's backs up by naming it as such.

Phazer

sorry but that just sounds a load of absolute crap.

A brilliant and well stated opinion with a supporting argument!

DoW is a great RTS, with a lot of tactical depth and really fun to play.

I love the game and own all of them, but no. It does not have a lot of tactical depth. It is a rock paper scissors game of board control where the crux of it involves building an armada faster than the other guy then selecting everything and wiping the opponents base. Unlike more strategic games like starcraft or the CnC games (I also own all of those, I'm an rts fanatic) once the game starts hitting its max build queues the strategy basically stops.

n DoW, you eventually reached a point where it didn't matter what your guys were armed with. Anything could destroy anything in that game, so given enough time a Bolter Marine could take out a Land Raider. By the late game in each mission it wasn't a case of carefully using your units, it was a case of 'Select All > Attack until Dead > Select new target'.

The CoH engine dynamic tends to fix issues like that, and having such a limited number of units on screen would almost ensure a higher level of tactical involvement. By all of the writeups I have seen it really is a very tactical game, and IGN and kotakus writup on the multiplayer note that its use of the CoH engine is in fact better than its use in CoH. If you have never played company of heros before it's an RTS where units take cover, can get pinned, need the correct weapon loadouts to win the day, and have a control structure that lends itself to army control rather than economic micromanagement (which is what DoW1 was all about).

H.B.M.C. wrote:Lego - My biggest concern with the game is if it really has any strategic or tactical depth. Let me explain.

In DoW, you eventually reached a point where it didn't matter what your guys were armed with. Anything could destroy anything in that game, so given enough time a Bolter Marine could take out a Land Raider. By the late game in each mission it wasn't a case of carefully using your units, it was a case of 'Select All > Attack until Dead > Select new target'. Because everything caused damage to everything, when you had loads of squads you'd just click on one target and then the next, draining their health bars until they were dead. And this process repeated over and over and over and over and over again.

It was dull, and is one of not just DoW's failings, but a lot of RTS's.

My fear with DoW II is that this will still be present. It won't matter if a certain unit is better against another, because just selecting everyone and attacking it until its dead is always the better choice, thereby removing all depth from the game.

I'm interested to hear what you think about this based upon your experience.

BYE

Hi chaps, thanks to Lego I got to go too !!

I think if you're looking for a direct comparison between games, DoW II is a heap closer to CoH than to DoW I - cover system, reinforcement, lack of base building in the campaign. I don't happen to think that's a bad thing - CoH is one of the finest RTS games ever made.

HBMC - regarding the "shoot everything" query, I'd say it's more complex than that. That would be true if you were facing just one oponent type at once. With the nids you've got a bunch of gaunts running at you, rippers being a PITA and then some big beasties fething you up with stranglers, which pin you in place. You really have to shoot the right gak and the right targets. The combined arms aspect is also awesome - pin or suppress the enemy with your devastator squad, and then jump a assault squad in. For extra kudos lob a frag grenade timed to perfection so it detonates just before your assault squad lands, enemies knocked on their butts and then chainsworded up. It's really awesome fun.

On top of that there are a lot of activated abilities to make sure you are getting the most out. Your force commander has a range of buffing abilities which affect his mates, or he can buff himself, scouts have special sniper shots, the Devs have focus fire abilities and stuff. I think the closest thing I can think of comparing it to is like controlling a whole RPG party on your own.

I have to say that the Campaign had me hooked right in the whole afternoon. The guys at Relic have done a really good job of developing attachments with your squad. In an RPG you might have one character "levelling up" every so often. In this you have 4+ squads and your FC who are all potentially developing, needing decisions made on abilities and equipment, and which ones to take with you. Its really, really cool.

My only gripe is that it uses essentially the same graphics engine as CoH - which actually still looks dead good, but I like my eye candy. Also means you can play it on a 3/4 year old machine pretty well I suppose.

I really can't comment on the MP aspect of the game since I didn't play it (too addicted to the campaign), but I've played Relic games competitively online since the release of Homeworld in 1999 (HW, HW:C, DoW, CoH and HW2) and they haven't let me down yet. Have faith brothers.

sounds kinda like battle for middle earth 2

I hope it's not like WC3 or DOTA, both played very poorly to me at least. The original DoW is awesome.

CoH: 40K, now that sounds like music to my ears

H.B.M.C. wrote:LegoIn DoW, you eventually reached a point where it didn't matter what your guys were armed with. Anything could destroy anything in that game, so given enough time a Bolter Marine could take out a Land Raider. By the late game in each mission it wasn't a case of carefully using your units, it was a case of 'Select All > Attack until Dead > Select new target'. Because everything caused damage to everything, when you had loads of squads you'd just click on one target and then the next, draining their health bars until they were dead. And this process repeated over and over and over and over and over again.

It was dull, and is one of not just DoW's failings, but a lot of RTS's.

To be fair, DoW made greater effort to decrease the effectiveness of certain weapons vs. certain units than most RTSs do. That said, I agree completely that some guns just shouldn't do anything to some units. Surround a land raider with guardsmen firing lasguns and they should do no damage at all. Just like in TT. If S10 has a 50% chance to get through the armor, S3 should have no chance.

It didn't seem to work that way though. If I had 6 HB turrets set up and four squads with 4 Heavy Bolters, and someone rushed me with a pair of Predators and a Land Raider... I'd still win because the damage output would be enough.

In DOW certain weapons were more effective against a specific type of target rather than certain units simply being immune to attacks. So a plasma gun was better against a Marine than against a Land Raider, but it still did damage to the Land Raider, so if I got enough of them, I didn't have to worry.

BYE

Vaktathi wrote:I hope it's not like WC3 or DOTA, both played very poorly to me at least. The original DoW is awesome.

It is similar to WC3 in description, but feels completely different. It is a lot more tactically in depth than WC3, and just feels better. I never got into WC3 as much as WC or WC2, and I would say DoW2 is certainly better than WC3 (at least what I have played of DoW2 so far).

H.B.M.C. wrote:In DOW certain weapons were more effective against a specific type of target rather than certain units simply being immune to attacks. So a plasma gun was better against a Marine than against a Land Raider, but it still did damage to the Land Raider, so if I got enough of them, I didn't have to worry.

DoW2 certainly seems to have a lot more focus on this than other RTSs, and it seems like it has the most out of any RTS that I have heard of - certainly better than DoW1. Although weak weapons still damage strong targets, you wont win due to the limited numbers of troops you can throw at things - the maximum we had under our control at any time today was 11 troops from 4 units.

Like it has been said, Relic makes very good games, with numerous game of the year awards. Those guys know video games and have a great development and design team. Even if it's 100% different from dow1, it will still be a good game.

H.B.M.C. wrote:It didn't seem to work that way though. If I had 6 HB turrets set up and four squads with 4 Heavy Bolters, and someone rushed me with a pair of Predators and a Land Raider... I'd still win because the damage output would be enough.

In DOW certain weapons were more effective against a specific type of target rather than certain units simply being immune to attacks. So a plasma gun was better against a Marine than against a Land Raider, but it still did damage to the Land Raider, so if I got enough of them, I didn't have to worry.

BYE

The land raider relic unit of the space marines could take heavy bolter turret fire for like five to ten minutes before going down. It had very heavy antipersonnel armor and close to twenty thousand hit points. As for it being damageable at all, thats something that is required in an RTS system, engagements aren't as detailed or pre prepared as they are on the tabletop, and that kind of inherent complication doesn't work on largescale realtime battles. People just aren't quick enough for it. If the average tier 1 unit in force can't take down a top tier unit then the game scales poorly across the board and becomes a rush to research higher tiers and equip for fighting that upper tier metagame. That sounds good and realistic in concept, but does not translate well into enjoyable gameplay. This is afterall a real time strategy game, not a digital tabletop equivalent.

I'm not asking for a tabletop conversion. I'm asking for a 'makes sense' approach to weapon damage.

If I walk up to an Abrams armed with a 9mil, shooting at it will do no damage. Having 30 of my closest friends also with 9mil's shouldn't change that. That's what I'm getting at. Certain weapons should do nothing to certain targets.

My usual squad setup in Dark Crusade was a full Marine squad w/2 Missile Launchers, 2 Heavy Bolters, a Plasma Gun and a Vet Sergeant w/Plasma Pistol. I usually had 4 such squads. When a tank came along it wasn't as if the Missile Launchersd allowed me to fight the tank, they just sped up how quickly it died. If I had taken 4 HBs in each squad the result would have been the same, it just would've taken a little longer.

So in a game like DoW II, where you can level your guys, you can just go all out on damage output, so that whenever you encounter something you just select all>attack and watch their health bar drain, and while they're off doing that you can micromanage abilities (probably healing abilities in this case, so that your guys can keep up their damage output).

If I'm wrong then great, but as soon as I saw the Ork Warboss' health bar appear in one of the first demo videos, I got worried.

BYE

H.B.M.C. wrote:I'm not asking for a tabletop conversion. I'm asking for a 'makes sense' approach to weapon damage.

If I walk up to an Abrams armed with a 9mil, shooting at it will do no damage. Having 30 of my closest friends also with 9mil's shouldn't change that.

That's what I'm getting at. Certain weapons should do nothing to certain targets.

BYE

But thats what was required within the framework of the game. It technically shouldn't have taken a dozen railgun shots to bring down the land raider either, but the land raider is supposed to be the final tier megaweapon of the space marine side, so concessions must be made in order to make the game playable. Besides I think you're over inflating the point a bit, it takes a ludicrously long time to kill an armored unit with boltguns and shurikan catapaults. The landraiders own damage regeneration will outpace twenty guardsman shooting lasers at it. This is kind of a mountain out of a molehill. If you're going to take exception with anything make it the fact that anti vehicle weapons like the lascanon do practically nothing to infantry.

Concessions like damage scaling are things you will see in every adaptation game, if you don't have them then it becomes very hard to make an actual enjoyable experience from the source material. If I have six defilers and 40 chaos marines I can't be bothered to attempt to pick out every anti tank weapon my opponent is fielding. I don't have the capability to do so in a pitched battle. A real time game with largescale battles must be operated fundamentally differently then a turnbased tabletop one. However if it assuages your fears at all this is exactly why they have chosen much smaller scale battles, as you don't need to dumb down the experience when you focus on a tenth as much stuff at once.



Also the real gripes about dawn of war 1 should be the horrendous pathing, the million expansion packs, and the poor game balance.

o in a game like DoW II, where you can level your guys, you can just go all out on damage output, so that whenever you encounter something you just select all>attack and watch their health bar drain, and while they're off doing that you can micromanage abilities (probably healing abilities in this case, so that your guys can keep up their damage output).

Popular gaming press doesn't have a problem with the current format, and all the videos and writeups suggest that being carelessly aggressive serves to get you killed. So I'm not too worried.

ShumaGorath wrote:Besides I think you're over inflating the point a bit, it takes a ludicrously long time to kill an armored unit with boltguns and shurikan catapaults. The landraiders own damage regeneration will outpace twenty guardsman shooting lasers at it.

You are missing my point utterly.

It doesn't matter if the Land Raider's regeneration out-paces bolters or whatever. Forget specific units. It doesn't matter if its a Land Raider or a tin can or whatever. What matters it that it shouldn't even be possible in the first place. It doesn't matter if it does light damage, or takes a long time, or regeneration renders it moot - a tank (any tank, regardless of what it is) should have nothing to fear from a bunch of guys pointing rifles and SMGs at it. It should be worried about the rocket launcher in the squad though, as that can damage it, not just damage it more quickly than non-rocket launchers.

I want to see some actual hard-counter paper/scissors/rock play in there. If a tank shows up and you haven't got an anti-tank weapon, you should go "Oh crap... none of my pittly pop guns can do anything to this... I need a Dev squad up here now!" rather than "Oh well, I'll just select all my anti-infantry units and we'll chew through eventually, I'll just have to spend a bit more reinforcing squads and it'll take a bit longer."

I haven't played much CoH, but I remember from the demo that when a group of my guys found themselves up against a tank they couldn't anything about it except for the guy with the captured Panzerfaust, and once he was dead, I lost.

Dawn of War was easy because I could just drain anything's health by selecting all my units and just foucising fire one one target until it died and then moving onto the next. Late game was never a challenge, it was a chore. I don't want DoW II to be like that.

BYE

This new DoW sounds really weird. It's an RTS with RPG elements. I really suck at RTS but I love RPG's, so I will probably love the single player and hate the multiplayer. I just hope they add Chaos stuff later.

Think of it kinda like Warcraft III's 'Diablo' levels, only expanded quite a bit with more in dept RPG elements.

BYE

I'm not a big RTS player, but love DoW, so I don't really have a comparison point. But from description of squad-based game, sounds similar to X-Com (an old favourite of mine) - any similarities?

All I can pray for is that I can play Tyranids as my force instead of Marines.

The thought of selecting a Carnifex and sending it rampaging through squads of Guardsmen is highly entertaining.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:Besides I think you're over inflating the point a bit, it takes a ludicrously long time to kill an armored unit with boltguns and shurikan catapaults. The landraiders own damage regeneration will outpace twenty guardsman shooting lasers at it.

You are missing my point utterly.

It doesn't matter if the Land Raider's regeneration out-paces bolters or whatever. Forget specific units. It doesn't matter if its a Land Raider or a tin can or whatever. What matters it that it shouldn't even be possible in the first place. It doesn't matter if it does light damage, or takes a long time, or regeneration renders it moot - a tank (any tank, regardless of what it is) should have nothing to fear from a bunch of guys pointing rifles and SMGs at it. It should be worried about the rocket launcher in the squad though, as that can damage it, not just damage it more quickly than non-rocket launchers.

I want to see some actual hard-counter paper/scissors/rock play in there. If a tank shows up and you haven't got an anti-tank weapon, you should go "Oh crap... none of my pittly pop guns can do anything to this... I need a Dev squad up here now!" rather than "Oh well, I'll just select all my anti-infantry units and we'll chew through eventually, I'll just have to spend a bit more reinforcing squads and it'll take a bit longer."

I haven't played much CoH, but I remember from the demo that when a group of my guys found themselves up against a tank they couldn't anything about it except for the guy with the captured Panzerfaust, and once he was dead, I lost.

Dawn of War was easy because I could just drain anything's health by selecting all my units and just foucising fire one one target until it died and then moving onto the next. Late game was never a challenge, it was a chore. I don't want DoW II to be like that.

BYE

Thats more a problem with the conventions of the RTS genre than DoW1 then. It's just how the design has gone for the last twenty years. partially because micromanagement isn't fun on a large scale and partly because most RTS games are about timing and economic management and not battletactics. DoW1 should be aplauded for using things like squad upgrades and unit coherency, even if you don't think it plays very heavily into the gameplay (I disagree about that, but I don't know just how you play it). It was one of the very first games to ever really do so, and it was certainly the first one to gain mainstream appeal.

If you have an issue with steamrolling computer opponents try playing online a bit. I'll play you, I prefer Dark crusade but I can play all of them except winter-assault (lost my damn cd key). Sure, its easy to steamroll an opponent and ignore things like damage tables when playing against the computer with a large host of bodyguard units given to you at the start, but against an actual human you had better know how to manipulate things like antitank options. Otherwise you're going to be in trouble.

hink of it kinda like Warcraft III's 'Diablo' levels, only expanded quite a bit with more in dept RPG elements.

Thats kind of a shallow analogy. The hero and upgrade system may be superficially similar to WC3 but the gameplay itself looks to be very, very different. WC3 was standard-starcraft grid based economy management with a poorly implemented tiered hero system. Remove the heros (which I wish you could have) and you have WC 2 with a 3d engine. DoW2 looks much more similar to a mix of CoH and fallout tactics with 40k IP material.

All I can pray for is that I can play Tyranids as my force instead of Marines.

The thought of selecting a Carnifex and sending it rampaging through squads of Guardsmen is highly entertaining.

Marines are the only race in the single player campaign (kind of hard to have a story driven campaign with the tyranids). The skirmish games and multiplayer allow for all the races to be fully represented. By the sound of it they all haven an equivalent amount of content so the space marines don't get any sort of bonus for being the single player guys.

Did you have the chance to check out the army painter? I heard they gave it an upgrade of some type. I am hoping for more color areas, half/half, quarters, and the like.

padixon wrote:Did you have the chance to check out the army painter? I heard they gave it an upgrade of some type. I am hoping for more color areas, half/half, quarters, and the like.

Yes I did and it was very cool, but was clearly still in development as there was a lot of polish needed. Marines can be halved, quartered, and shoulderpad focused. There are 4 main colours to choose from (main colour 1, main colour 2, weapons, details). The tyranid army painter was very cool as well but did not have any special features, it was just nice to finally see it. The painter now only uses citadel colours, and includes metallic options for gold and silver.

ShumaGorath wrote:

Also the real gripes about dawn of war 1 should be the horrendous pathing, the million expansion packs, and the poor game balance.

Abso-farking-lutely. Considering how aggravating pathing is to any player (single or multi), it would make sense to dedicate a programmer to its cause (as it benefits both sales). It's all about the compute cycles I suppose...

H.B.M.C. have you really sat down and played COH?

based on what your criticisms of DOW you should definitely check it out/ give it a retry.

It's the most realistic RTS i've ever played, and as a former Marine that's saying a lot, there's nothing worse than a Panther rolling up on your troops and you don't have a anti-tank weapon to use. it's very frustrating watching your sherman shoot a panther or tiger and the shells are bouncing off the front armor.

ShumaGorath wrote:Thats more a problem with the conventions of the RTS genre than DoW1 then.

Funny you should say that, because:

H.B.M.C. in my first post in this thread wrote:It was dull, and is one of not just DoW's failings, but a lot of RTS's.

Amazing, huh?

ShumaGorath wrote:If you have an issue with steamrolling computer opponents try playing online a bit.

Against real people?

Yeah, that. People, in general, are morons. Disconnecting just before they lose, calling someone a 'cheater' just because someone is better than them. I've had my fair share of multiplayer experiences. It's why I'm such a big proponent of single player games.

BYE

Daggermaw wrote:H.B.M.C. have you really sat down and played COH?

As I said before, only the demo, and the impression I got is that there were hard counters and units that were immune to other attacks. And that's good. If DoW II is really heading down that path, then great, but I want to see some proof of that.

Daggermaw wrote:It's the most realistic RTS i've ever played, and as a former Marine that's saying a lot, there's nothing worse than a Panther rolling up on your troops and you don't have a anti-tank weapon to use. it's very frustrating watching your sherman shoot a panther or tiger and the shells are bouncing off the front armor.

And once I have a computer capable of running such a game (long story) I will do so.

BYE

Against real people?

Yeah, that. People, in general, are morons. Disconnecting just before they lose, calling someone a 'cheater' just because someone is better than them. I've had my fair share of multiplayer experiences. It's why I'm such a big proponent of single player games.

I don't do any of that! I'll play you any time.

Sounds an awful lot like a real-time version of Chaos Gate. Cool! Surely I can't be the only one that remembers that game...

Now if only I could get Final Liberation to work with Windows XP....

I thoroughly recommend that any one wanting more info or pics, picks up January's issue of Edge. Mine arrived in the post this morning and it has a really good spread on the game, putting stuff more eloquently than I could

I particularly like the phrase "Space marines don't chop trees".

DoW multiplayer produced better games than DoW singleplayer by a longshot.

There were a ton more tactics online that were necessary to know and be prepared for than were required against a computer controlled opponent.
Yes, a landraider can be damaged by 40 space marines with bolters BUT those 40 space marines will be slowly destroyed not to mention cost a lot more resources than the land raider did. No one ever wins by trying to kill a land raider with marines w/ bolters...maybe against a cpu but never against a player who has any understanding of the game.

Like somebody already mentioned, the fact that the land raider CAN be damaged is for the playability of the game. There isn't a hardcap in that sense. But if predator shows up in your base and all you've got is a bunch of guardians it might as well be a hard cap because you're screwed. ...if it is so bothersome just imagine its 'fluffy' and the 1 damage point the bolter does out of the land raider's 5000 points of armor represents the land raider slowly getting beat up to the point where after 5000000 shots someone hits a lucky weak point in the armor or one of the driver's was dumb enough to stick his head out of the hatch..whatever

Just selecting everything and clicking one target until it is dead and then clicking the next will also get you killed in multiplayer very quickly because, as with TT, certain things are better at killing certain other things. There are different types of armor, etc. If you know what you are doing you can do things like run away from chasing melee units, quickly set anti tank against vehicles, set your plasma against berzerkers, whatever. Although sometimes at max population cap the game does degenerate into a spamfest, I'll admit that. The beauty of the game is usually the first 15 minutes or so, that is where most of the tactics seem to take place. Hopefully DoW II can capture that intense tactical feeling and make it last the entire game. For the record, I only played a little Company of Heroes, and from what I've read DoW II is an expansion of those ideas (just like Company of Heroes was an expansion of the first DoW's ideas).

it is supposed to be a "swirling melee".

Sounds interesting, I look forward to playing it. Even if the gameplay is weak they can tweak it with expansions, mods, patches, etc, etc. One thing to point out, there is still room for playing Dawn of War for the next couple of years if the game play is so different.

Very pleased you could attend the event, sounds like you enjoyed it

I'm hoping to have some pictures of the day for you all later.

And now for my thoughts on it! (Couldn't get to a PC last night I'm afraid).

Now, this was the first time I had played this particular style of RTS. The others I have dabbled with include the C&C Series, and of course Dawn of War. So, from the view point of a relative NooB, I found this game absolutely fantastic fun.

The way the units interact can be horrendously powerful, if you think about what you are trying to achieve. For instance, say my Devastators have been atttacked in HTH by an enemy unit or two. They are going to go down nice and fast. But thankfully, an ability of the Assault Marines involves knocking the enemy to the ground when they charge (activated ability with a recharge time). This allows me to knock the enemy over and then put the boot in, whilst pulling out the beleagured Devastators.

Grenades...are FUN! Got an enemy in a building? Steg a Grenade through the window and see them fly! Enemy grenades are flagged up with a countdown, and it's highly reccomended to leg it away from them as much as possible. Friendly grenades however, detonate on impact, but can also take out friendlies, so you can't just lob them around willy nilly.

My one fear might be the missions becoming slightly stale after a while. We played more or less 5 hours solid, and at no point did I think 'here we go again' with a mission, but they all involve taking out a key character in the end. Fun, and varied enough, but I do worry about replay factor. Having completed the first 11 or so missions, I have no problem slogging back through it, but I may change my tune once I've completed the game, as it appears there are few alternate outcomes on offer (everytime you defeat the Nids, their invasion falters, which is nice).

And now for a multiplayer tidbit. When you choose your race, you choose from one of three commanders. Tyranids for example, can be lead by a Tyrant, Lictor or Ravener. Depending on who you take, you get different Buffs and Abilities. I have to say this appeals to me greatly as a theory, but I got far too engrossed in the Missions to really play any multiplayer. I shall now attempt to list the three from each race...

Space Marines - Commander, Apothercary, Techmarine
Eldar - Farseer, Warp Spider Exarch and (I think) Ranger.
Tyranids as above.
Orks - Warboss, Mekboy, Kommando Nob.

You do have a central base in Multiplayer, but beyond that I didn't really play it, as things were called to a close just as I ordered a Devastator Squad!

ShumaGorath wrote:Marines are the only race in the single player campaign (kind of hard to have a story driven campaign with the tyranids). The skirmish games and multiplayer allow for all the races to be fully represented.

Was this referring to the current 'demo day' being discussed, or will this be the final launch-version of the game?

If you can only play Marines in the retail version single-player game, I likely won't be buying it. I find this extremely disappointing. :(

As for the comments about las-guns taking down Land Raiders and such... I feel much the same way that HBMC does about the matter - some weapons should do zero damage to some targets, and require certain other resources to address. But, as you described, for the purposes of what the RTS is trying to do, I understand that concessions often have to be made for playability reasons.

Thank you to the folks who have tried the game for sharing your views!

Oh, and on the subject of vehicles, in the 10 or 11 Missions I managed to plow through, you only properly encounter 1, and thats an allied Predator Destructor. There is an Orky Trukk, but you land your Drop Pod on it, which made me giggle!

Certainly the demo day version only seemed to have Marines as a playable race for the missions. Others might be added later on, I don't know. However, the missions are extremely story based. Think more original Dawn of War than the latter additions to it.

Regaining squad mates is also a lot harder. Rather than just dumping them back in as and when, you need to retreat to specific points around the map, once you have activated them.

Plasma Guns, Flamers, Power Weapons and Powerfists seemingly do turn up eventually, but I never found any. I think Fitzeh blagged a power axe from a drop, but I just kept finding different suiys of power armour and better Bolters. But hey ho, all good fun!

The single player campaign will be Space Marine only.

I think it's a bummer that nobody seems to have done much multiplayer since it's really the big unknown at this point, other than your personal opinions I don't think we really learnt anything about single player.

Single Player is fantastic.

But you are right. I think the sensible thing would have been to agree who was assessing what at the beginning, but we were too excited to bother!

One thing I can mention about the Multiplayer is the team gaming. Sadly not working when we played (don't know if this was a hardware or software based problem) but it seems you can have 3 on 3 games. I assume from this team members use the same species, but can choose different commanders. For example, the Tyranid Ravener player can create Tunnells for troops to strike from. In a one on one, this is pretty useful, but in a 3 on 3, this will be deadly if pulled off in cohesion with your buddies!

http://pc.ign.com/articles/938/938132p1.html

For those of you too lazy to use google, there was recently a press event held by relic where they invited all the gaming presses to play the multiplayer for a few hours. Screens and video included.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:Besides I think you're over inflating the point a bit, it takes a ludicrously long time to kill an armored unit with boltguns and shurikan catapaults. The landraiders own damage regeneration will outpace twenty guardsman shooting lasers at it.

You are missing my point utterly.

It doesn't matter if the Land Raider's regeneration out-paces bolters or whatever. Forget specific units. It doesn't matter if its a Land Raider or a tin can or whatever. What matters it that it shouldn't even be possible in the first place. It doesn't matter if it does light damage, or takes a long time, or regeneration renders it moot - a tank (any tank, regardless of what it is) should have nothing to fear from a bunch of guys pointing rifles and SMGs at it. It should be worried about the rocket launcher in the squad though, as that can damage it, not just damage it more quickly than non-rocket launchers.

I want to see some actual hard-counter paper/scissors/rock play in there. If a tank shows up and you haven't got an anti-tank weapon, you should go "Oh crap... none of my pittly pop guns can do anything to this... I need a Dev squad up here now!" rather than "Oh well, I'll just select all my anti-infantry units and we'll chew through eventually, I'll just have to spend a bit more reinforcing squads and it'll take a bit longer."

I haven't played much CoH, but I remember from the demo that when a group of my guys found themselves up against a tank they couldn't anything about it except for the guy with the captured Panzerfaust, and once he was dead, I lost.

Dawn of War was easy because I could just drain anything's health by selecting all my units and just foucising fire one one target until it died and then moving onto the next. Late game was never a challenge, it was a chore. I don't want DoW II to be like that.

BYE

I'm not sure what you're getting at here - if the Landraider is barely being touched by what you're throwing at it, you should be worried! While yes, if you don't bring the right countering weapons to bare against a tank, then eventually, you will indeed bring it down... But you've just overcommited such a huge portion of your force against something that costs a fraction of your investment, you should be easy pickings. Enjoy focus firing your army on each of my Tanks. In the mean time, my dedicated anti-armour has wiped out your tanks in a fraction of the time, and my dedicated anti-infantry weaponry has sythed through your men. The only way your strategy could work is if your army completely dwarfs mine, in which case congratulations, you've completely slaughtered me in the macro-management aspect of the game.

As has already been said, it's game balance that is the reason why tanks are not completely invunrable to vehicles. It's also game balance which is the fustrating reason that in T1, a squad of Guardsmen can slaughter an equally numbered squad of Marines. If you're arguing over common sence or realism within the 40k universe, claiming it's unrealistic that small arms are reducing the hitpoints of a vehicle; it's a bit odd to pick out that one element - I mean, this tank is unable to run your infantry over, and it's Lascannon - the weapon that can wipe out another tank in seconds - just bounces off a Guardsman as if it just fired a Laser pointer! Really, it's like arguing that it's unrealistic that Mario should get an addition height bonus from his jump if he first lands on a Koopa...

That's my subtle oppinion, anyway - and apologies if my arguements sound patronising or insulting, certainly not intended!

I think we should not forget to distinguish between Multi- and Singleplayer.

DOW Single Player campaigns were -for exactly the reason HBMV described- bland and boring. Same went for Mark of Chaos btw.

Now Shadow of the Horned Rat or Dark Omen. Those were game...........

There's some photos up on Flickr now: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thqgames/sets/72157611255780933/

Take a look, maybe you are in some of them

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thqgames/3113859176/in/set-72157611255780933/

Thats me that is, with my hand afore my Gob!

On the topic of Diablo Style Weapon Drops.....

I'm sure it was a well thought out decision, butI think it would be rather interesting if instead of scavenging whole suits of power armor and functioning plasma cannons off of Eldar guardians on the battlefield, would it make more sense if you earned rolls on some sort of armory table after battles, with randomly assorted pieces of equipment? I'm fully aware that there are decisions made for gameplays sake, but it doesn't seem like it is an entirely necessary insanity. Maybe the better you do, the more chances at equipment you get at the end of a mission? Maybe add extra rolls as a reward for low casualties and speedy completion, or complete eradication of the enemy or some such thing. Even extra special stuff for completing certain secret objectives as rewards from grateful Techpriests in the sector?

The vast majority of the drops are just boosts to disposables, like Frag Grenades.

And if you don't want a piece, you can dump it and blag extra XP.

Bob Lorgar wrote:Sounds an awful lot like a real-time version of Chaos Gate. Cool! Surely I can't be the only one that remembers that game...

This is what I've been saying! It totally sounds like real-time Chaos Gate... I wonder if that was intentional. Equip your boys between missions. Find powerful artifact weapons. Loot dead enemies. Make use of cover. Move into buildings. Choose which part of the galaxy to attack in what order. Everything seems to have come right out of Chaos Gate...

Spiritual successor maybe?

Kinda sounds like the old 40K Chaos Gate game but less turn based. I LOVED that game and would have happily bought expansions. I like the idea of gaining XP and tooling up units though!

If this game really does turn out to be the real-time successor to Chaos Gate, then I'll be all over it like DD on an illogical argument.

Chaos Gate was a great game - if a little buggy - and all the little voices in it were great. I loved it when Marines would yell about firing the 'power of a thousand suns!' when shooting a Plasma Weapon, or the monotone 'Come to Chaos' of the cultists before I made them asplode to bolter fire.

BYE

One other thing I did enjoy in DoW2 was that you would hear the orks sometimes shout 'Dakka Dakka Dakka Dakka' when engaged in a firefight

Daggermaw wrote:. it's very frustrating watching your sherman shoot a panther or tiger and the shells are bouncing off the front armor.

Ummm...isn't this what actually happened in WWII?

I've not played this Chaos Gate, but it looked cool. Though apparently there was a level where your marines went into the realm of chaos and didn't get insta-spawned.

BTW, did the devs mentions anything about plans for chaos forces? Surely they're in there somewhere?

I have never been a fan of micro management that was such a huge part of RTS games.

I have never been good at the games. I could basically manage to win a 1 player campaign, and then switch to multi player, get absolutely slaughtered, have no fun at all, and uninstall the game.

so the idea that only marines are playable in the 1 player campaign is highly upsetting. In every other RTS I have played the 1 player campaign switches you around through the races to play from each side of the story. which acts as a tutorial for each race.

If everyone plays through the 1player game as marines, thy will become familiar with all the tactics, pros and cons for each unit. then as people go to multi player, the experience level of marine players over the people attempting to play newly opened races is going to be a painful frustrating steep learning curve.

There's always skirmish mode. *weak smile*

BYE

There are benefits to focusing a story based around the narrative of a single race. The dawn of war games never had a good storyline before, perhaps what they need is a cohesive narrative that doesn't force them to mash up 7 races at once.

Besides, dawn of war single player was nothing but skirmish mode fights anyway once you got into dark crusade and beyond.

If everyone plays through the 1player game as marines, thy will become familiar with all the tactics, pros and cons for each unit. then as people go to multi player, the experience level of marine players over the people attempting to play newly opened races is going to be a painful frustrating steep learning curve.

True, but I doubt it will stay that way for long online. Its rare for the singleplayer game to really effect the online multiplayer in any game.

There's always skirmish mode. *weak smile*

You mean all of dark crusade and soulstorms single player? We've had "skirmish mode" for the last three years.

At least Dark Crusade's single player was interesting, even if the non-special missions were just Skirmish missions. I never finished DoW's single player and I hated the way they did Guard so much that I never bothered with Winter Assault.

BYE

sounds fun

Vladsimpaler wrote:

Daggermaw wrote:. it's very frustrating watching your sherman shoot a panther or tiger and the shells are bouncing off the front armor.

Ummm...isn't this what actually happened in WWII?

Oh yes indeed, thankfully the game isn't as skewered in favour of the Allies and a fictional historical outcome as other games, like say Medal of Honour or that crap. You want your puny Sherman to get that panzer? Flank it and shoot it in the arse. Or you should have wizened up and gotten that Firefly instead. That 17 pounder shoots through panzers like they are wet paper.



Biggest pro over CoH is that the squads in DoW 2 are named and you can decide how they grow, this in contrast to CoH where your squads gain XP, get a little better and you can take them to the next mission where they can die and you still don't know their names.

I love the Dawn of War series. I can't wait for this one to come out... Thanks for the info.

THQ have kindly uploaded a bunch of Dawn of War 2 screenshots to the dakka gallery:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/tag/1357-Dawn%20Of%20War%202.html

enjoy! Now I want to go and play it again, I might have to buy company of heroes before the end of the week to make do :S

And since I managed to avoid being in any photos, here are some photos from the actual playtesting event for those who are interested: http://flickr.com/photos/thqgames/sets/72157611255780933/

Archonate wrote:

Bob Lorgar wrote:Sounds an awful lot like a real-time version of Chaos Gate. Cool! Surely I can't be the only one that remembers that game...

This is what I've been saying! It totally sounds like real-time Chaos Gate... I wonder if that was intentional. Equip your boys between missions. Find powerful artifact weapons. Loot dead enemies. Make use of cover. Move into buildings. Choose which part of the galaxy to attack in what order. Everything seems to have come right out of Chaos Gate...

funny peopel should start tlaking about that i installed it and managed to get it working on my widescreen screen and on vista was very satisfying... brilliant soundtrack

legoburner wrote:And since I managed to avoid being in any photos, here are some photos from the actual playtesting event for those who are interested: http://flickr.com/photos/thqgames/sets/72157611255780933/

Muahaha, which one is me, and which one is the lead developer??

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3248/3113028501_61fd4d578e.jpg

Duh. You're the one with the spazzy pancreas, obviously!

No it is a trick question, there is no lead developer, but there is a lead designer. Very tricksy.

Never mind splitting hairs over whether he's a Developer or Designer, what about the fact he is made from Lead?

I though GW had switched entirely to White Metal.

Once again it's one law for us, another for the man sized automatons involved in the Comptuer Games Industry!

Noisy_Marine wrote:I've not played this Chaos Gate, but it looked cool. Though apparently there was a level where your marines went into the realm of chaos and didn't get insta-spawned.

BTW, did the devs mentions anything about plans for chaos forces? Surely they're in there somewhere?

Well, I dont think theres any in the game, but on the wiki for DoW 2, it said theyve confirmed expansions that'll have other races, so Im guessing chaos will be one of the first, seeing as theyre so popular.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Never mind splitting hairs over whether he's a Developer or Designer, what about the fact he is made from Lead?

I though GW had switched entirely to White Metal.

Once again it's one law for us, another for the man sized automatons involved in the Comptuer Games Industry!

Maybe Canada hasn't yet adopted the ROHS legislation?

The more I read about this the more excited I get. Sounds awesome!

Daggermaw wrote:. it's very frustrating watching your sherman shoot a panther or tiger and the shells are bouncing off the front armor.



Ummm...isn't this what actually happened in WWII?

yes its exactly what happened in WWII, that's why i was recommending the game to HBMC. i love the fact that shells bounce off the tigers, it means you have actually have to think about tactics and flanking the enemy instead of just spamming units with fire.

And when i say the shells bounce off the tanks, in the game you can literally see the shells bounce off and go spinning into the distance.

If DoW2 is as good as it sounds I may give it a go, I hated the first one as it was just the same old churn out units game.

CoH is the best RTS out atm and certainly worth getting it, if your interested in history don't get excited about the "realism"

I have a couple of questions that I would like to get clarified before I make any comments.

1) The posts seem to indicate that there is no base building, only upgrades, even in multiplayer. I assume this means there are no base defenses to amount to anything?

2) What does having a control point do for your army? More resources, high population limit?

3) How much squad/character level micro management is in the game?

4) How long is the campaign? Mission & play time estimates.

THere are base defense turrets, but I'm not sure how you go about getting them deployed. In the single player, a piece of Wargear allows you to deploy some depending on how many Factories you control. The Nid one spits out Spore Mines, that much I can tell you!

Control Point? Dont know to be honest, but I assume it increases requisition.

Not a great deal. Between missions you get to choose the loadout, but thats about it.

I played 10 or 11 Missions, each taking around 20 minutes on average (some were quicker). The number of missions that make up the single player, I don't know. Though there are occasional defence missions you can play to retain your gubbins.

1) The posts seem to indicate that there is no base building, only upgrades, even in multiplayer. I assume this means there are no base defenses to amount to anything?

Support classes like the techmarine can deploy on the spot static defenses like tarantula turrents and whatnot. At your central base area you can lay down defenses on what I believe are pre ordained points along your perimeter. Same with control points you secure. You can still lay down turrets, you just don't get to decide where they go since they "surround" your central command structure.

2) What does having a control point do for your army? More resources, high population limit?

More resources and they are where you can reinforce squads and and where you retreat too when battle doesn't go your way.

3) How much squad/character level micro management is in the game?

Between missions you micro character and squad weapon layouts, and in mission you handle leveling when your squad leader levels (he's the only one to get upgrades, but they often transfer to his squad). There is a high level of micromanagement when it comes to using abilities like grenades, special assault charges, and weapon targeting. Though the AI is pretty good about things like diving behind cover and going to ground on its own.

4) How long is the campaign? Mission & play time estimates.

Most missions are ~15 minutes. The campaign is said to have like 80 or something of them. I think. I dunno. Expect something like a 10-12 hour game with a replayable branching campaign/story.

Techboss wrote:I have a couple of questions that I would like to get clarified before I make any comments.

1) The posts seem to indicate that there is no base building, only upgrades, even in multiplayer. I assume this means there are no base defenses to amount to anything?

2) What does having a control point do for your army? More resources, high population limit?

3) How much squad/character level micro management is in the game?

4) How long is the campaign? Mission & play time estimates.

1. No base building, but you can call down support structures as a special ability using wargear (I could call down 3 heavy bolter turrets in later missions).
2. In single player it regenerates lost troops. In multiplayer it gives you power or requisition to buy new units from your HQ building (you get an HQ building along with 2 turrets at the start). You can also upgrade the HQ building to allow you to build better troops, but it doesnt visibly change (yet anyway)
3. As mentioned by MDG, not a great deal but you can choose armour, weapons, wargear and abilities so you can go RPG and turn one squad into something like tanks, one into something like mages, etc by leveling up their specific options (health, range ability, melee ability, will power).
4. MDG has the same info as me here. To me it felt like it might be at least 15 hours for single player but there could have been way more twists in the storyline that we wouldnt be able to guess which could greatly increase it. Each mission took 20-25 minutes on average for me too.

legoburner wrote:Each mission took 20-25 minutes on average for me too.

On hard I presume?

No idea, the campaign was already set up for me. I think it was medium as it did not seem too difficult at any point.

Is that a bad thing?

BYE

sounds fun. I hope they have the same armour penetration style as was used in COH, in Winter Assault I could bring down defilers in 6 seconds with a full compliment of Storm Trooper squads...

http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=209865

Just came across this. It's a list of all the freebie stuff that comes with the various pre-order deals in the UK. Unique armour and items and shizzle.