Dawn of War 2 Beta has been released. It is now open to anyone who has purchased soulstorm and will be open to everyone else next week. Also Soulstorm has dropped in price to $7.50 on steam. I have not played it yet, was downloading it last night. Will post with thoughts once I get off of work.

where do you find this?

I'm not that impressed with he game. I wanted to like it. I was so sure I would. But the UI is congested and counter-intuitive. It's a mirror maze to try to figure out how to play a skirmish vs. the computer cause the game wants you to fight other players even though you're completely unfamiliar with the game mechanics. There's really no tutorial. Fewer choices of units for every army. The skirmishes are much smaller scale than in DoWI, so it doesn't feel like much of a battle. Reinforcing squads requires you to be near your base, so that's a headache. There's really no base building which I can't decide if that's good or bad. It seems good, but it feels like there's just something cool missing. Graphics are fantastic, but you can't zoom in close enough to really appreciate them. The sound is great but the music is forgettable. Maybe I just need to play more?

Be a little forgiving, it's still a beta, and doesn't include all the content. I'm sure it will have a liiiittle bit more music than 1-2 tracks in the final game.

If you have played Company of Heroes before, you will be RIGHT at home and be almost an expert on the bat.

If not, it will take some to get used to.

Cover is extremely important in this game. Make sure your ranged units are always in cover!

To get the beta, you need to have Steam, and have bought Soulstorm on steam, or have your CD key ready.

I won't get Soulstorm, but I'm happy and can wait a bit longer if the game is as good as Company of Heroes.

Greets
Schepp himself

Are they really only including four races again though? This aggravates me. I'll wait until it goes gold or platinum or whatever and get all the races at once. Why dole them out in such paltry heaps?

Scottywan82 wrote:Are they really only including four races again though? This aggravates me. I'll wait until it goes gold or platinum or whatever and get all the races at once. Why dole them out in such paltry heaps?

The suckness of Dawn of War was proportional with the amount of races in the game...I hope that doesn't happen with the second part.

Greets
Schepp himself

Company of Heroes is better. This is more or less a CoH for Kids version with brighter and shinier colours. I hate those glinting decals they use for everything metallic. Final verdict is on hold until I've played the full version and not a BETA.

That said, this game is fun. Played three of the four factions a bit and they all have their own little quirks and touches. Orks are straight up balls fun again with their special abilities (suicidal Storm Boyz and trigger-happy Kommandos), while the Nids are outright brutal. Build a Carnifex, charge it into an enemy squad of infantry and you'll see. Marines are okay I guess, but then again they are marines. I did like giving my scouts shotguns and having them fend off large hordes of Nids. The cover system is also nicely done. My tech marine was hiding behind a low wall from Eldar fire and was actually popping up every now and then to rattle off a burst, a really nice touch.

Downsides are rather abysmal voice acting, especially for the marines and orks along with the terrain being easily destroyed by units in terminator armour. My commander could walk through walls and hard cover.

Yeah I am not jumping up and down yet. I pretty much suck at these games pvp, so its more like work than fun, and seems soooo fast to me. Still hant figured out of to go vs the computer yet. Any one what to share how to do that? It really is pretty to look at, but the running back to home base all the time sucks and if an enemy happens to be in your path your guys just stand there and get killed. Mass guardians are BRUTAL and the spore mine units suck so bad, have not played as Nids yet, if those babys are as cheap as the seemed to be sent at me so often, they need to cost more. They blow up and so did every unit they touched the whole game....crazy broken!

Captain Vyper wrote:Still hant figured out of to go vs the computer yet. Any one what to share how to do that?

You have to go to "Multiplayer" then "Custom Games" then "Public". Then click on "Host" and make a name for your game. Pick your Commander. Then click the first box under "Enemy Team" and you'll get a list of options, among which you'll find the computer and different AI difficulties... Took me a while to figure all that out too. Hosting a public game isn't really where I'd guess to go for a 1P game vs. the computer...

I just started playing a couple of hours ago, and I must say that I'm very impressed. This is such a good direction away from any sort of a traditional RTS it's staggering. They've really found the core mechanics they want to focus on and hammered on them again and again and it really shows. The game play is much more to the tune of COH (a vastly superior game to DOWI) but with enough 'give' that it still feels like a proper 40k experience.

The feel of the respective races is really spectacular. Orks are Orky, Marines are Mariney (And I really mean that. I have never actually felt Space Marines represented in either table-top or DOWI, but this is *definitely* the closest.) There are so many different ways to play each faction, and hell, even each commander. They've stuck with the core of units that they should and it leaves all the extra gubbinz for expansions.

I can't really judge the balance at this point, as I've only been fighting experts, but for a beta it feels pretty good. The only thing that stands out as perhaps a little too powerful is the Tyranid Zoanthrope. It's so versatile and ranged that (Maybe just the AI?) doesn't know how to effectively counter.

It is very very micro-intensive, just like it should be. If you want large base building and huge-unit clusterf***s then you're going to want a different game, such as a Supreme Commander, or another comparable RTS.

I'd say that this game is really more to the tune of an RTT, Real Time Tactics. The more I've delved into the Genre, the more I've realized that most satisfying game play can't be found outside of this. COH has it right, and so does this. This game isn't about bum-rushing and blowing up a base (as a matter of fact, that's probably the hardest/worst thing you can do, even later in the game).

It's about finding a niche as far as play-style is concerned, being reactive, aggressive, and inventive when you play. You can't turtle, you can't just set a rally point and click produce.

They've taken out all elements of base-building, which is risky, but I like it a lot. A lot of the "Super Elite" units are only available later or to huge resource cost, which is how it should be. They're not your front line troops, they are to be your "back breakers." It's really just all-around excellent.

I strongly suggest if you value the sort of gameplay described that you get involved in this Beta ASAP.

That's all I can say with a few hours of play, I'll be back to add more later, I think.

I agree on some of the voice acting, its a tad dry. And I knew from the start, they would have to include the obligatory voice actor Steve Blum, the voice of Spike and many many many many other characters in games an anime. Guy gets a whole lot of work. Gets a little old when you notice 2 of the game's unit voices are the same fellow. Can you tell who?

Other than that, it's a very polished game. But not up to the tabletop. I find the need to put various weapons in squads that can take them in the tabletop, but were left out in DOW2 for whatever reason. No plasma guns for Tac marines? No melta guns? No lascannons or multi melta for the Dred? Hopefully many more features will be in the final version of the game, but so far I'm impressed.

So far it sounds like exactly the opposite of what I wanted from DOW2......

What werre you expecting? It was explained months ago what kind of game it was.

I think it's going to bring in alot of new people and lose some old fans. Devout players of 40k would probably play this game and fans of CoH probably too.
But a bunch of people won't like the game because it doesn't meet their high expectations or it is not a CLUSTER-FEST as most RTS games are.
Still there's always SC2 for them and those people won't be sorely missed.
It's still the BETA mind you and this game isn't perfect, yet.

I kinda like it. Unit amounts/sizes are A LOT smaller. This promotes micro managing each unit. Using each unit in conjunction with another.

Here is an example. I have been trying nids as its the new race to the series. If you use your termigaunts by themselves they are not impressive at all. However, if you use them with a synapse creature in range they get knock down and more damage!

All in all a very enjoyable game..to me that is.

This game's going to take enough time from me in February; I can wait until then.

I'm more looking forward to the actual single-player portion myself, I'm not a multi-player fan. The MP part seems to be more or less made for victory point matches, when you try to assault an enemy base be prepared to stay there for a while, it took my Eldar and a friends marines a good fifteen minutes to bring down that damned Nid hive structure.

After playing it all day here's my take on it.
Pros:
-The graphics are a huge improvement from the last game, they look great.
-The sound effects are great, the sound of an ork big shoota or dread asscan just need to be heard
-There's lots of units to choose from, the tyranids have everything but gargolyes and some how genestealers are absent

The Cons:
-nids have no genestealers WTF?
-It's too small. In the fact that you get a few units and your already at the population cap, and I mean a few. I played to today and capped out orks with a warboss, unit of nobz, stormboys, shootaboys, a dread and a truck.
-The screen is really full of stuff, at first it's hard to figure out what's going on.
-No base building, while this may seem like a blessing to some, it means when your enemy storms your base, it doesn't take long for them to wipe you. The fact that you only have one building means you can't get units out fast enough to repel any invaders.
-The space marines proportions are off, it's kinda weird, they look taller and skinnier than they are.
-There's way to much micromanaging, from pick abilities to making sure everyone is in cover and facing the right way (yes you have to make sure some units are facing the right way if you want them to shoot), it really bogs the game down at times.

I'm with some of the other people in this thread. It seems like something is missing but i'm not really sure what it is.
If anyone here played the 40k game that game out on the DS last year it's almost the same but real time.

Maybe without the base building it's like playing a FPS with out guns.

Cheese Elemental wrote:What werre you expecting? It was explained months ago what kind of game it was.

I was expecting DOW with a new engine and Tyranids.

It was stated long ago and shown in videos that it was intended to be more squad-based rather than a huge dakkafest. While DoW did capture the feel of large battles well, the squads didn't have many individual options. I haven't played it yet, but this seems to be more about playing an elite strike force or something like that.

Archonate wrote:I'm not that impressed with he game. I wanted to like it. I was so sure I would. But the UI is congested and counter-intuitive. It's a mirror maze to try to figure out how to play a skirmish vs. the computer cause the game wants you to fight other players even though you're completely unfamiliar with the game mechanics. There's really no tutorial. Fewer choices of units for every army. The skirmishes are much smaller scale than in DoWI, so it doesn't feel like much of a battle. Reinforcing squads requires you to be near your base, so that's a headache. There's really no base building which I can't decide if that's good or bad. It seems good, but it feels like there's just something cool missing. Graphics are fantastic, but you can't zoom in close enough to really appreciate them. The sound is great but the music is forgettable. Maybe I just need to play more?

so basically its been less and less of a mass army vs army game , more into micro managing each squads?

*edit... bad move from relic.... that will give people more reason to like sc2
( i thought DoW2 would for sure blow sc2 out of the RTS genre )

Lordhat wrote:

Cheese Elemental wrote:What werre you expecting? It was explained months ago what kind of game it was.

I was expecting DOW with a new engine and Tyranids.

I hoped for that one, too.
But that one is going to be called "Starcraft II".
So Relic really needed something different. And hey, Combat patrol is a fun game, too.

It's not THAT bad a game as most of you have been describing, just a little disappointing that's all.
And it's only the BETA, they are probably trying to figure out what's wrong with the game at the stage and release a patch for it later on, there's still room for improvement.
I recommend buying this game, whilst the dialog would get a bit annoying it's still pretty fun.
And even tough it may not be as popular or hyped as SC2 i find Dawn of War 2 to be an interesting game to play in between Tf2 and L4d.

And I'm not a big fan of SC 2, it's just SC with shiny new 3D graphics, not my cup of tea.

$7.50 for Soulstorm? I'm sold! Just to play skirmishes with the Sisters against my buddy.

Oh and the DoW2 Beta, I'm on that probably before I load up Soulstorm.

If only I didn't have to work till late tonight. :(

sweet now i have to wait for a week =(

Yea, DOW2 is a very different game from DOW. The amount of micro management is crazy. It is a good thing that max squads are so low as they become hard to control fast. Personally I give the game mixed reviews so far. I have only had a chance to play as orks and nids. The orks certainly felt very orky, but it seemed nearly impossible to kill a complete squad of enemy troops. They always managed to run away, where as if I told my guys to run back to base, they hardly ever made it before getting shot down. Also, there does not seem to be an effective counter to vehicals, other than other vehicals. Walkers are just brutal in this game. A deff dread and a looted tank was pretty much an unstopable combo against the computer at least.

"They always managed to run away, where as if I told my guys to run back to base, they hardly ever made it before TURNING AROUND AND CHARGING DA HUMEZ."
Dat's troo orky.

Heh, fielding the Warboss with a power klaw, 'eavy armour and trophy rack is good fun. That is one beast in close combat. He still needs support mind you, but seeing him charge into Tyranid warriors, grabbing hold of one, giving it a headbutt and then tossing it aside is just fun to watch.

I've played a few games of it so far. I'm absolutely in love with the tactical focus of the game. Setting up crossfires against a player that just thinks he can zergRushkekeke me is sublime.

Does anyone have a list of all the Dawn of War 2 pre-order bonus items? I've not been able to find the Ultramarines as a pre-order yet.

Foda_Bett wrote:Does anyone have a list of all the Dawn of War 2 pre-order bonus items? I've not been able to find the Ultramarines as a pre-order yet.

Depends on the country, but each tin-case has a certain amount of special ingame items. The US gets Sternguard armour, special bolters for their Tactical marines and the Sons of Medusa skin while the European version gets a special sniper rifle for Cyrus and the Angels of Redemption skin.

Does anyone have a list of all the Dawn of War 2 pre-order bonus items? I've not been able to find the Ultramarines as a pre-order yet.

You don't need to look anymore as the Ultramarines are already a skin in the game.

There are actually quite a few skins for each race it's pretty impressive

I'll do a run down of them

SM
Black Templars
Blood Angels
Blood Ravens
Dark Angels
Imperial Fists
Iron Hands
Raven Guard
Salamanders
Space Wolves
UltraMarines
White Scars

Orks
Bad moon clan
Bigchoppaz warband
Blood axes
Deathskulls
Evil Suns
Git Wrenchas Ladz
Goff Clan
Goldtoof Clan
SnakeBites Clan
Speed Freaks Cult

All these amount to though is different skins not any different units or abilities.

Got it played it got my ass kicked. I'll have a go against the computer now.

Runs like a brick on my machine :(

BrookM wrote:

Foda_Bett wrote:Does anyone have a list of all the Dawn of War 2 pre-order bonus items? I've not been able to find the Ultramarines as a pre-order yet.

Depends on the country, but each tin-case has a certain amount of special ingame items. The US gets Sternguard armour, special bolters for their Tactical marines and the Sons of Medusa skin while the European version gets a special sniper rifle for Cyrus and the Angels of Redemption skin.

I wish that were true, it seems that in the US and UK you get certain items depending on the store you pre-order from. In the US we have a few options.
If you pre-order from gamestop you get:
* “Cuirass of Azariah” Armor
* “Pistol of Baal” Bolt Pistol
* “Gauntlet of Blood” Power Fist
* “Mantle of the Great Father” Armor
* “Fearsome Light of Faith” Plasma Gun
* “Laurels of Hadrian” Iron Halo
* 2 unique Chapters: “Revilers” and “Angels Sanguine”
* 8 exclusive metallic colors to customize your units (Shining Gold, Mithril Silver, Abyss Purple, Insect Green, Iron, Abyss Orange, Brazen Brass, Metallic Blue)
Too bad they've stopped doing pre-orders

If you pre-order from Fry's:
Sniper Wargear Set
"Grim Silence" Armor
"Initiate's Lesson of Strength" Shotgun
"Deathtouch of the Angel" Sniper Rifle
"Angels of Redemption" armor pattern (chapter)
Four exclusive metallic colors: Abyss Yellow, Chainmail, Abyss Green, Rotting Flesh

Bestbuy had another set of options but I can't find pre-order info for DoW2 on their site.

Hahaha, I'm gonna get Sternguard wargear after all!

I didn't like the game play much last night, but when I gave it a try today, I liked it much better. It's not DOW, but it's a fun game, so far. If DOW = Warcraft2 then DOW2 = Warcraft 3, in how the game changed to be about heroes and smaller raiding parties instead of mass mass battles and zerg rushes. I'm a little sad that it's not the DOW2 I imagined, but it's still looks like a fun game and I can't wait for it to release so I can try the campaign and army painter.

Yes, like others have said, this is CoH for 40k. It is squad based and you won't have huge armies like in DoW. Also this doesn't really support turtling as much...you need to be taking points and harassing the enemy. My favorite armies right now(in order)
1. Eldar
2. Tyranids
3. Orks

See how I didn't list marines? I don't play marines......

Seriously though Eldar are a lot of fun as are all of the armies. It's pretty fun but a big tip...do not forget to Flee!! Things die VERY fast so you need to flee to keep things alive if you run into a few turrets

I just hope they don't kill DoW outright. It's really the only RTS I like. ( I HATE SC) Seeing as how DoW2 isn't really an RTS, I REALLY want support for DoW, even if it IS farmed out like Soulstorm.

IMO DoW2 is a BAD BAD idea, not only is Relic not getting my money, but NONE of the video game industry is now. (the older I get, the less I want to play games which require good 'twitch' skills, which it seems you need to play anything now.) They may not have wanted to compete with Blizzard and SC2, but they would have gotten quite a bit of money JUST BECAUSE IT'S WH40K. Not to mention I know a LOT of people who were waiting specifically for 'Nids in the last format. I have a feeling that the company that realizes that not EVERY player is a video game genius who needs the newest shiniest format to have fun will make a lot of money.

I kinda feel sorry for Nid players who waited forever to see that army represented only to see their wonderful swarm army crammed into an elite, small-squad tactics game... It's an oxymoron. Tyranids were NOT done justice in terms of army size, unit size or unit biomorphs, imo. It would be cool to see Tyranids in the first DOW. I never bought all that "the DOW engine isn't good enough for Tyranids!" BS. If it could handle Orks, it can handle Tyranids.
I hope they continue to support DOWI as well, though I highly doubt they will cause they already have big plans laid out for DOWII. DOWII is an OK game. There's just something about it that feels empty and sparse and 40k battles should never feel empty and sparse.
I also wonder what Relic is thinking about this almost unanimous lukewarm-at-best response to the beta. Do they have developers shedding tears at the way their hard work is being called "Ok, but not as good as the first." and people canceling pre-orders? Yet the game has already gone gold. Relic is invested. Poor Relic. I know I've changed my mind about buying the game. In large part because of the SM-only campaign. I don't give a crap about SMs and I don't care to play them. (Haven't even tried them in beta.) If they come out with Dark Eldar, then maybe I'll buy it... after it's gone down in price.

Your in luck Archonate...there is actually a mod for the Tyranids for DoW and it is fantastic. Very well done...just have to look around for it

Lordhat wrote:I just hope they don't kill DoW outright. It's really the only RTS I like. ( I HATE SC) Seeing as how DoW2 isn't really an RTS, I REALLY want support for DoW, even if it IS farmed out like Soulstorm.

IMO DoW2 is a BAD BAD idea, not only is Relic not getting my money, but NONE of the video game industry is now. (the older I get, the less I want to play games which require good 'twitch' skills, which it seems you need to play anything now.) They may not have wanted to compete with Blizzard and SC2, but they would have gotten quite a bit of money JUST BECAUSE IT'S WH40K. Not to mention I know a LOT of people who were waiting specifically for 'Nids in the last format. I have a feeling that the company that realizes that not EVERY player is a video game genius who needs the newest shiniest format to have fun will make a lot of money.

Apparently there's been some talk in Relic about making Epic scale strategy for 40K, something like Supreme Commander 40K. They thought about upscaling CoH for that kind of play but decided it's staying as it is for the second installment, so something else would have to be introduced. I don't know how valid is that rumor, but it makes some sense to have three scales for three different games. Less overlap=more profit.

I gave it a try last night and really enjoyed it. I loved getting my squads in buildings, and working my way behind a falcon to see a lovely "Rear Armor Hit' with my heavy bolter.

I also loved that when the assault squads planted melta bombs on the grav tanks, little timers started to show how long the tank had until...BOOM!

Ooh, and watching a cyclon missle launcher fire from the back of a Termi... freak'n beautiful.

If you liked Company of Heroes, which was critically hailed as one of the best, most inovative RTS's in a LONG TIME, you will like DoWII because you will understand all the tactical options available to you.

If, however, your only RTS experience is from games that pre-date CoH, then you probably are not aware of all the things you can do. Of course, the full game of DoWII will have a tutorial to help you out.

My tip? Download the Company of Heroes demo (for free) and play the tutorial. THEN try out DoWII.

I think this game will be a big success.

This sounds hella fun. I like CoH, so a 40K version is just chock-ful of win. If only my blue-skinned battlesuiting friends were in the initial game. Guess I'll be waiting for an expansion.

I'd just like to clear this up, DoWII is not Company of Heroes 40k.

DoW II is much smaller than CoH, CoH suppots much larger armies, and lots more vehicles.

The easiest way to say this is that in CoH you build a company or a reinforced company, in DoW II you build a reinforced platon at best.

Yes both games utilize a cover system and small unit tactics like flanking and covering fire.
But CoH is still a tradional RTS in that you need to build bases, and defend your base.

IMO DoW II focuses to much on micromanagment and using special abilites.

After putting many hours into CoH and the DoW II beta, i can say that CoH is a much better game.

Iwould normally buy DoW II anyway but i don't know that in this economy i'm going to be buying DoW II.

To me one of the major differnences is in the late game, in DoW II when your enemy is storming your base it's pretty much over. In CoH I can't count the amount of times i've had enemies stomping all over my base only to build a key unit to push them back and end up winning the game.

Daggermaw wrote:I'd just like to clear this up, DoWII is not Company of Heroes 40k.

DoW II is much smaller than CoH, CoH suppots much larger armies, and lots more vehicles.

Perhaps, although I'm going to reserve making judgements like that until I've seen the full version of the game. We're only playing a Beta copy right now.

My only point with the CoH comparison is that if you play this game using the tactics you learned in CoH, you'll do fine. If you try to play the game with RTS tactics from the original DoW or older RTS titles, you may be confused and frustrated.

^ Ive had that problem before, I went from playing DOW right into COH.... *Storm that pioneer squad you maggots!* Blegh! Auggh! Im on fire! Augh! Im on fire!, three rifle squads later.... wasn't good times.

So far I like dawn of war 2. The one thing that has me worried is the "you only get this by preordering from X place" colors and wargear. It seems really stupid to not be able to paint your army a certain color because you bought your game from a different place.

I've played about 30 beta games so far...really liking it thus far.
Good graphics, very tactical gameplay.
I do miss the base building a bit, but its a different kind of game than DoW2.
The battles are a decent size once the game gets going..but yes for the first 10 mins or so its 3-4 squads vs 3-4 squads.
Is it better than DoW I or CoH? Don't know yet. Seems to be an evolution/fusion of both.

Map sizes do seem to be smaller than CoH..but battles end up being the same size or larger from what I have seen.

The game's a great mix of World in conflict and CoH. Pure RTT and no RTS BS. I love it. I'm surprised that Marines can be suppressed. Firefights are decisive quickly compared to CoH but I guess it keeps the pace up.

e: The only prob I have is that against melee units, the retreat option is a no-loss option. You can easily kite units this way. For casual players I'm guessing this won't be a prob cuz the chasing unit can then cap points on the way back to the enemy base but I can see poopsocking players abusing this by juggling units and such.

Lordhat wrote:I just hope they don't kill DoW outright. It's really the only RTS I like. ( I HATE SC) Seeing as how DoW2 isn't really an RTS, I REALLY want support for DoW, even if it IS farmed out like Soulstorm.

IMO DoW2 is a BAD BAD idea, not only is Relic not getting my money, but NONE of the video game industry is now. (the older I get, the less I want to play games which require good 'twitch' skills, which it seems you need to play anything now.) They may not have wanted to compete with Blizzard and SC2, but they would have gotten quite a bit of money JUST BECAUSE IT'S WH40K. Not to mention I know a LOT of people who were waiting specifically for 'Nids in the last format. I have a feeling that the company that realizes that not EVERY player is a video game genius who needs the newest shiniest format to have fun will make a lot of money.

Multitasking and being aware of unit positions is not twitch skill. Twitch skill doesn't get you a whole lot in this game.

DOW1 was a fun distraction, but as a game it was broken. It was just resource farming then rock paper scissor style giant army fights. Certain forces auto won against others (chaos vs orks being an autowin for chaos) and once your army broke you were basically done. Not to mention the utterly awful unit pathing. It was a pretty game, and it was fun to play if you're bad at RTS games because it was fairly simplistic and catered to the timmy crowd. DoW2 seems much more designed with the johnny crowd in mind, you play your army to your commanders theme, but it's not just turtle up to a big flashy army. You have to be there from the start.

this is actually like what a battle in 40k should be like seriously except the nids should have more and so should the orks but if you think about it 40k fluff thinks alot about humongous battles while in our time right now its guerrilla warfare. so i think theyre trying to capture that idea. it brings so much more than dow 1 in that 1 you just charge and usually win

The big hordes are reserved for the single player part of the game, multiplayer doesn't allow for really big hordes, especially not when squads take up a lot of pop-cap and resources to produce.

Except single player is going to be space marines only, and space marines aren't really a horde army.

Apparently, an apothecary tank with early shotgun scouts then assault marines is the combo used by the top-ranking players. Wonder how long it'll take Relic to fix.

Archonate wrote:Except single player is going to be space marines only, and space marines aren't really a horde army.

Marines won't but the enemy will field large hordes.

Sounds fun enough for me, I like the campaign of Dawn of War and Winter Assault much better than the whole di yourself of Dark Crusade and Soulstorm. (Plus aircraft in that game sucked ass...) If I wanted a sandbox RTS I would simply go and play Medieval II: Total War. Its a heck of a lot better in that department.

A game personally is only as good as its campaign mode. The multiplayer is nice but it always comes back to the campaign mode for me. It sets the tone and backstory of the game itself.

I just don't know how to play the game. Last RTS I played was DoW and the expansions. I loved those games, and while I find the initial games of DoW2 frustrating as hell, I'm open minded enough to realize it's because I have no idea what the hell I'm doing or how to play rather than it being a bad game.

I have learned that in DOW2 you have to keep your shooters in cover. Always. A squad of scouts in cover will murder a squad of marines out in the open. Also did anyone else notice how quickly marine squads die? Also fire support squads are hella good. You really have to play tactically. You advace squads from cover to cover, and only move up your support squads last, always keeping them toward the rear.

I'm currently downloading the game. What's this windows live stuff I have to register?

Greets
Schepp himself

X-box live for pc games. If you already have XBL you don't need to re-register.

Yeah, but you have to open up a bunch of ports on your router for that crap to work properly. :(

Hm...I generally dislike stuff I have to register for (just for the sake of registering apparently), but I suppose the full game will also require this portal to play over the net, won't it?

Greets
Schepp himself

I'm fairly sure you'll need it to play online.

I just had an annoying ass time with it because of my router. Granted that was because I have UPnP turned off and already had entries for XBox live to go to my actual XBox, which caused some grief (and a switch over to port triggering).

RussWakelin wrote:My only point with the CoH comparison is that if you play this game using the tactics you learned in CoH, you'll do fine. If you try to play the game with RTS tactics from the original DoW or older RTS titles, you may be confused and frustrated.

QFT. I think many people are getting upset because how they want to play and how they need to play are different. In DoW II, you can't build up a large army and smash into your opponents large army. This is not DoW I with a new coat of paint, and people need to realize that. Everybody needs to give it a week of playtime before deciding what's what, and the people who are complaining without even downloading the game need to go download it and try it for themselves.

It seems from other posts that people's expectations were inaccurate to reality (as is always the case), and is making them dislike the game. Don't go into this game thinking you're going to hate it because it's different; you will end up hating it. Just give it a chance, and you may like it after you figure out its gameplay. One thing is for certain, it is not DoW I. That's not such a bad thing.

Maybe it's just me but I'm missing the semi-funny voice bits of the Orks. They don't seem to be around in this game.

Ratbarf wrote:a game personally is only as good as its campaign mode.

I agree completely... Problem is I think playing space marines is about as exciting as a kick to the groin.
The fact that the campaign is SM-only is one of the biggest complaints.

synchronicity wrote:I think many people are getting upset because how they want to play and how they need to play are different. In DoW II, you can't build up a large army and smash into your opponents large army. This is not DoW I with a new coat of paint, and people need to realize that. Everybody needs to give it a week of playtime before deciding what's what, and the people who are complaining without even downloading the game need to go download it and try it for themselves.

It seems from other posts that people's expectations were inaccurate to reality (as is always the case), and is making them dislike the game. Don't go into this game thinking you're going to hate it because it's different; you will end up hating it. Just give it a chance, and you may like it after you figure out its gameplay. One thing is for certain, it is not DoW I. That's not such a bad thing.

I'd bet the vast majority of it's critics are people who went into the game fully expecting to love it. They wanted to love it so badly that they made a concentrated effort to learn it's mechanics and tried hard to see what Relic was trying to show them. In the end they were disappointed. It simply wasn't what they wanted. Another big complaint we hear is that maybe it would have been more fun if it had just been DoWI with a new coat of paint...

I Just had my first 3v3 online game with victory points for the mode, on the ruined city map

my team consisted of me(commander), another SM player(apothecary), with elder(warlock)
vs.
SM(tech marine), tyranids (hive tyrant), orks (mek)

this was a very enjoyable game when at start i held off a tyranid rush with my hero,scout,devastator team (might i say green cover can save the game). i held that point for the rest of the game. as it went on i fought of waves of orks and tyranids, strangely the enemy SM player just used infiltrated scouts with shotguns not succeeding in much. once i got another devastator squad backed up with a razorback the game was in our grasp and it was pretty much gg when i got my commander w/ thunder hammer, armour of speed(?) and teleport backed up with an assault squad which halted there attacks with ease. there was about 150-200pts left when i set the check mate as i had an orbital bombardment that wiped out the whole army(healing at base ) when i just received my predator and was attacked there undefended base backed up by 3 dreadnoughts (ally) while the elder was defending all the points. we win 490-0 . as i checked the scoreboard i was named champion () with 127 kills and 4 losses (arhahaha).

overall was a very enjoyable game and is (as most might know) a completely different game. very much similar to CoH (durr) and cover wins matches, this game is much more tactics and realism (e.g. 3 marines against 12 tyranids+) instead of my "army is bigger then urz rawr1!" which makes a game in general more enjoyable to play, true it does take time to get used too (3-4 matches against AI for me) but it is for good.

just my 2cents in

(if you have an account pm me if you wanna play!)

One of the more OP ways to play DOW2 is with a SM player only using 3 units. Scouts with shotguns, Assault marines, and Dreadnoughts. Basically everything knocks you on your back so you can't fight back. It really only works if you grab the apothecary, for the invulnerable tactical support and the wargear that heals everyone around you.

First impression was that the game was kinda slow. It was kind of 'eh' to me. After a few games I got use to it and 3 v 3 go much faster then 1v1.

Impression of the game as of right now. Shooting(surpession being the big one) is a bit overpowered. I've been trying to run nids and orks mostly, melee being the order of the day. Melee simply just does not hold up to shooting. Once you start getting surpressed the only thing to do is either die or go back to base. Well to get around surpression, what do you need? A vehicle or large creature of course. Well these are much later in the tier so it will be awhile before you can get these, so they won't help you in the beginning. I probably won't be buying this game when it gets release. Not too excited about the campaign. And with multiplayer I see this happening since there are so few selections of choices when building you army. That a power build will be found(right now it appear spam shuriken cannon with eldar backed by regular guardians, or scouts w/ shotguns and assault squads) Though I've seen more of the eldar spam the the marine one. To me melee just doesn't seem to have a place unless you are rocking a killa kan, dreadnought, carnifex, wraithlord, or an avatar(though if you have an avatar you are clearly on the winning side before you even spawn him). Regular troop melee just don't seem to hold water to shooting. Mainly because cover rules and if you are trying to get into melee well...you aren't in cover.

That is just me though, I'm sure there are others out there that will buy this game day 1 and love every minute of it. This game just isn't for me though.

Plastic People wrote: To me melee just doesn't seem to have a place unless you are rocking a killa kan, dreadnought, carnifex, wraithlord, or an avatar(though if you have an avatar you are clearly on the winning side before you even spawn him). Regular troop melee just don't seem to hold water to shooting. Mainly because cover rules and if you are trying to get into melee well...you aren't in cover.

I don't know, supported with fire support I've found melee unites to be quite handy.

There's also a great Ork tactics article here:

http://community.dawnofwar2.com/blogs/?p=481

Seems to me the beta makes me not buy the game. I

play it so much of the beta that the hype is gone.I feel

like the game has become dead to me. Playing to my

hearts content creates the feeling that i have allready

explored what it has to offer.

DoW was a better game. DoW II is Warcraft meets Company of Heroes Skinned to Warhammer 40k.


HQs make TOO much of an impact and the game is easily decided in the first skirmish.

Basically the game is.... Cap, CAp, Recap, push,push, win skirmish, and win game.

That and overpowered Suppression.

Heritor wrote:DoW was a better game. DoW II is Warcraft meets Company of Heroes Skinned to Warhammer 40k.


HQs make TOO much of an impact and the game is easily decided in the first skirmish.

Basically the game is.... Cap, CAp, Recap, push,push, win skirmish, and win game.

What? You are talking about Warcraft 3 I guess where the first encounter was the last one. If you see that you lose as fight, you have to retreat, if you don't then you are supposed to lose the game. HQ's are powerful, but you can easily get them if your enemy uses his commander not carefully.

It's heavily Company of Heroes based, that's true.

Dawn of War II requires you to be aggressive and use different units in conjunction with one another, which is different than traditional RTSes. You also need to worry about where you approach enemy units from; if they're in cover and can suppress you. hit that exclamation point and hope you don't lose the unit.

Schepp himself wrote:

Heritor wrote:DoW was a better game. DoW II is Warcraft meets Company of Heroes Skinned to Warhammer 40k.


HQs make TOO much of an impact and the game is easily decided in the first skirmish.

Basically the game is.... Cap, CAp, Recap, push,push, win skirmish, and win game.

What? You are talking about Warcraft 3 I guess where the first encounter was the last one. If you see that you lose as fight, you have to retreat, if you don't then you are supposed to lose the game. HQ's are powerful, but you can easily get them if your enemy uses his commander not carefully.

It's heavily Company of Heroes based, that's true.

No Warcraft because your hero was VERY important. DoW you could win without bringing your HQs to a fight but in DoW II an UPgraded HQ will slaughter its way through most things. Take an Apothecary with Purification rites, the Armor that reduces cooldown on your heal, and the Power Axe. If playing against Melee and properly Micro'd he will slaughter through any melee sent at him and an HQ of equal lvl and gear...

He is best against Tyranids as he is capable of wiping out 8 hormagaunt squads and a Hive Tyrant. Just have him kite melee around while spamming the self heal.

The game is not built for 1v1 as the game becomes a "Who wins the first skirmish decisively.". In group this can be skirted as players can concentrate on certain zones which allows then to micro easier but in the end its still about winning the first battle and then never letting you opponent have breathing room.

DoW II is very linear in its fighting as a player either wins or loses. There is no comeback like in DoW as once your opponent scores a very decisive blow all he has to do is pursue and never let up on pressure.

My thoughts on DoWII?

Lame.

I'll be sticking with Company of Heroes... it kicks the crap out of DoWII any day.

DoW II is very linear in its fighting as a player either wins or loses. There is no comeback like in DoW as once your opponent scores a very decisive blow all he has to do is pursue and never let up on pressure.

I've come back from a few games. If it looks like you can't win militarily just take their points. As a tyranid player who lost virtually all of his forces early game I simply mass produced rippers and proceeded to skirt around his army, retreating every time it approached a squad. Having taken 80% of the points this way and having forced him to micro around just to chase my troops I was able to build up a sizeable force to take on his once he split it up to chase my rippers around.

There are plenty of ways to compete in DoW2.

There is no comeback like in DoW as once your opponent scores a very decisive blow all he has to do is pursue and never let up on pressure.

There wasn't much comeback in the original DOW. That decisive fight just didn't take place until later in the game (for lower end players).

WHat did that guy turtle? Sounds like your opponent either A didn't know what he was doing or B didn't realize he should have base rushed you.

If you lost 80% of your force and your opponent is at T2 with some Vehicles out you lose....

There is no way around it unless your playing against the CPU as the way the bases are made for each map its not hard to contain a player if you follow up.

I mean hell the 1v1 Desert map all you need is 2 dreads to hold each flank of the enemy base... Ripper Swarms are great against shooty heavy armies but BLOW against any melee unit such as assault marines and Banshees...

If you really lost that bad of your force he should have just based camped you while slaughtering your base....

Anti-Tank turrents at the base would be nice...

Greets
Schepp himself

With only 7 maps DOW2 is getting boring fast. The really bad news is the game is only shipping with those 7 maps and no more!

The unit selection is also horrible right now, and to make matters worse everyone seems to be playing a spam the 1 or 2 best unit strategy.

Maybe one should look beyond the multiplayer component? More time has been put into the single player / coop segment of the game than the multiplayer part.

Heritor wrote: WHat did that guy turtle? Sounds like your opponent either A didn't know what he was doing or B didn't realize he should have base rushed you.

If you lost 80% of your force and your opponent is at T2 with some Vehicles out you lose....

There is no way around it unless your playing against the CPU as the way the bases are made for each map its not hard to contain a player if you follow up.

I mean hell the 1v1 Desert map all you need is 2 dreads to hold each flank of the enemy base... Ripper Swarms are great against shooty heavy armies but BLOW against any melee unit such as assault marines and Banshees...

If you really lost that bad of your force he should have just based camped you while slaughtering your base....

It would take 20 minutes to kill a base with a basic t2 force. Sure, he may get my turrets, but the base itself is going to take all day. I wasn't playing annihilation. Also, ripper swarms are fine against a melee force. They aren't there to kill anything, and if you're sweeping points then thats what you're going to do. They outrun orc and marine close combat units, and banshees take forever to kill a squad of rippers.

2 dreadnoughts is a considerable expenditure, for that same cost I can produce 5 ripper squads (or just run some invisible scouts by you) and cap all your points. You can't recapture or prevent that with the dreads and if you move away from my base to attempt to prevent me from capping then you're just giving me back the two closest points and wasting a considerable expenditure (rippers reinforce for free and can outrun a dread no problem). I think you're just playing some poor opponents if beating them in one encounter then rushing their base with two dreads is working for you. Pressuring the base itself is almost useless in a victory point match and overextends you're force quite heavily if you're playing an opponent who knows how to use fast units or anything that can stealth.

I have found out that sending a tech marine forward early game and placing a turret or two around certain points near the enemy base can sometimes help in keeping the enemy constrained to certain paths. On the other hand it is a waste of needed resources and a good opponent can circumvent them.

ShumaGorath wrote:
It would take 20 minutes to kill a base with a basic t2 force.

Yep this right here...this is sooo true. Unlike so many other games..rushing the base doesn't do a whole lot w/ out A LOT of support. Bases take so long to destroy that a player has plenty of time to just re-rez his HQ over and over....capping quickly and often is what wins. God forbid it's Annihilation, than the game just takes to long.

With only 7 maps DOW2 is getting boring fast. The really bad news is the game is only shipping with those 7 maps and no more!

Counterstrike has 2 maps named dust. They are its only two maps. Starcraft has hunters and big game hunters. WoW has what? 6 battlegrounds?

The major problem is unit balance issues and the limited unit selection. The game has more than enough maps, they are even pretty well designed.

I guess I'm a weirdo in that I'm more into the single player campaign for RTS's. Any idea what that's going to entail (other than only being Blood Ravens, of course)

chaplaingrabthar wrote:I guess I'm a weirdo in that I'm more into the single player campaign for RTS's. Any idea what that's going to entail (other than only being Blood Ravens, of course)

You get to fly around the star sector and do missions on worlds ranging from rescue people to the age old "apply bolter and chainsword to alien scum", with boss battles sprinkled in between.

I'm personally looking forward to the coop segment of the game, I'm really hoping for a Castle Crashers segment where your force commander and the one of your ally need to duke it out to claim that special drop.

Over ambitious I say, a very shiny game but not one that would last, in a way like Farcry 2 as nothing new happens.

ShumaGorath wrote:

With only 7 maps DOW2 is getting boring fast. The really bad news is the game is only shipping with those 7 maps and no more!

Counterstrike has 2 maps named dust. They are its only two maps. Starcraft has hunters and big game hunters. WoW has what? 6 battlegrounds?

The major problem is unit balance issues and the limited unit selection. The game has more than enough maps, they are even pretty well designed.

Counterstrike and WOW are 3D games which are much more complicated to develop maps for. Counterstrike was created by the MOD community 2 maps is a lot when your not getting paid. No real gamers play WOW, virtual treadmills are about as exciting as real treadmills. Examples thrown out.

Starcraft has thousands of maps AND a map editor example thrown due to stupidity.

Dawn of War shipped with 25 maps...25...They only complexity they added to the maps in Dawn of War 2 were buildings you occupy.

ounterstrike and WOW are 3D games which are much more complicated to develop maps for. Counterstrike was created by the MOD community 2 maps is a lot when your not getting paid. No real gamers play WOW, virtual treadmills are about as exciting as real treadmills. Examples thrown out.

Having modeled in counterstrike mods, no. No it's not particularly difficult to make a counterstrike map. It also has thousands of maps, over 20 of which came with source at purchase. People only use 2 of them.

Plenty of real gamers play WoW. Treadmills are about as exciting as point and click adventures (point mouse shoot man).

Starcraft has dozens of maps, and a map editor which has been used to create millions of maps. People really only play BGH in any competitive fashion. Everything else is mirrored open infinite$$ maps.

Dawn of war shipped with 25 awful maps. They were alleys, and raised terrain. They were starcraft maps with minor terrain features like craters. Starcraft was released almost a decade prior.


Dawn of war 2 maps feature cover, destructible cover, indestructible cover, buildings, fire lanes, alleys, flanking areas, and all matter of other things that don't traditionally mean anything because unit facing and cover was meaningless in RTS's before CoH. A DoW2 map is more complicated then a counterstrike map. They may not be three dimensional, but the player interacts with his surroundings in a far more important fashion then in counterstrike.

DOW2 has great potential, although this was a rather weak Beta in my opinion (More like Alpha!). I still have video issues that can't be resolved and I have rather standard gear...plus there is quite a bug list for it being Beta. They add polish, I'll buy it. The terrain is a mod makers dream....

Of course I liked War 3 so could be why I'm biased to it *shrug*.

ShumaGorath wrote:

ounterstrike and WOW are 3D games which are much more complicated to develop maps for. Counterstrike was created by the MOD community 2 maps is a lot when your not getting paid. No real gamers play WOW, virtual treadmills are about as exciting as real treadmills. Examples thrown out.

Having modeled in counterstrike mods, no. No it's not particularly difficult to make a counterstrike map. It also has thousands of maps, over 20 of which came with source at purchase. People only use 2 of them.

Plenty of real gamers play WoW. Treadmills are about as exciting as point and click adventures (point mouse shoot man).

Starcraft has dozens of maps, and a map editor which has been used to create millions of maps. People really only play BGH in any competitive fashion. Everything else is mirrored open infinite$$ maps.

Dawn of war shipped with 25 awful maps. They were alleys, and raised terrain. They were starcraft maps with minor terrain features like craters. Starcraft was released almost a decade prior.


Dawn of war 2 maps feature cover, destructible cover, indestructible cover, buildings, fire lanes, alleys, flanking areas, and all matter of other things that don't traditionally mean anything because unit facing and cover was meaningless in RTS's before CoH. A DoW2 map is more complicated then a counterstrike map. They may not be three dimensional, but the player interacts with his surroundings in a far more important fashion then in counterstrike.

Wonderful argumentative skills, your point is entirely based on how often people play a map and not how many are included in the game which you know was the original topic.

Daggermaw wrote:After playing it all day here's my take on it.
Pros:
-The graphics are a huge improvement from the last game, they look great.
-The sound effects are great, the sound of an ork big shoota or dread asscan just need to be heard

The Cons:
-It's too small. In the fact that you get a few units and your already at the population cap, and I mean a few. I played to today and capped out orks with a warboss, unit of nobz, stormboys, shootaboys, a dread and a truck.
-The screen is really full of stuff, at first it's hard to figure out what's going on.
-No base building, while this may seem like a blessing to some, it means when your enemy storms your base, it doesn't take long for them to wipe you. The fact that you only have one building means you can't get units out fast enough to repel any invaders.
-There's way to much micromanaging, from pick abilities to making sure everyone is in cover and facing the right way (yes you have to make sure some units are facing the right way if you want them to shoot), it really bogs the game down at times.

I'm with some of the other people in this thread. It seems like something is missing but i'm not really sure what it is.

I agree with the above. With the low unit cap and lack of defensive structures, which typically don't count against population, the game becomes a huge game of cat and mouse. Most maps don't have enough choke points to allow sections of the map be locked down. This makes the game very frustrating because you running circles trying to lock recapture nodes as your enemy takes them. I find all the factions to be fairly fleshed out, but they all seem to race to vehicle at which point it's ownage till a counter is produced. My comments on each army:

Tyranids
- I have yet to find the melee upgrades useful because the units move fairly slow and can't run down units.
- Venom cannon fexs are the end all be all.

Space Marines
- I don't like the heavy plasma squad
- Terminators are really, really expensive so I can't gauge if they are worthwhile
- No Land Raider that I can see
- Lack of lascannons is disappointing IMO

Orks
- The ork tank is a reskinned Predator and is really lazy game design, it should be a battle wagon
- Ork units seem really brittle
- No ranged weapons on Dread
- No mega armor

Eldar
- I don't like the platform mechanics
- Because of the large number of platforms, the unit options seem very small as it's basically the same unit with 3 weapons options
- Would like to see Fire Dragons and Dire Avengers

As of right now, I don't plan on purchasing this game.

Linkdead wrote:
Wonderful argumentative skills, your point is entirely based on how often people play a map and not how many are included in the game which you know was the original topic.

And how hard is it to understand that the number of maps a game ships with has no bearing with how many players will constantly use and enjoy?

The ork tank is a reskinned Predator and is really lazy game design, it should be a battle wagon

It's a reskinned predator because it's a looted predator.. The orks had a looted russ in DoW1. They've never had a battlewagon in the DoW games. Orks use other peoples vehicles, it's fluffy!

LunaHound wrote:
so basically its been less and less of a mass army vs army game , more into micro managing each squads?

*edit... bad move from relic.... that will give people more reason to like sc2
( i thought DoW2 would for sure blow sc2 out of the RTS genre )

DoW2 had NO chance of beating out SC2 for Market share. Flat out Blizzard has too good a name for putting out top quality games.

Yea and I'm sure in 2012 when the first part of the Starcraft 2 trilogy finally launches Relic will lose some market share.

Even though I loove DOW I feel the series went downhill after the first one.Hopefully the new one(not beta the real game.)will be better.

ShumaGorath wrote:It's a reskinned predator because it's a looted predator.. The orks had a looted russ in DoW1. They've never had a battlewagon in the DoW games. Orks use other peoples vehicles, it's fluffy!

1) Predator =/= Russ
2) I don't seem to recall the Orks having a looted tank in the most recent codex, for that fact, they don't have any looted equipment. Lootas have their own gun that normalizes the previous version of lootas.
3) Not having a battlewagon in previous down of war games has little meaning to this conversation.
4) They took the time to put in Deff guns, they can put in a battlewagon

Balance!

Sheesh, if the skins get the Battle Wagon the marines might as well get the land raider, throwing off the balance even more.