Dawn of War 2

Man, NOT a good day. Nine straight losses-ONE of those was a genuine gae, others were disconnects or games where one or more of my partners quit.

Finally won game 10- straight game, but exceptionally poor sportsmanship from the other side who were able to get a kick vote against one of my team despite the game being perfectly playable. Luckily theior underhandedness did not work and we still won but the kicked man deserved his win.

Frankly- other people suck. It's the problem with all online gaming.

That why ive not gone online yet despite needing more of a Challenge than the A.I can provide, I dont want the challenge to be in the form of trying to get on with or escpaing the various internet fools on there who want to ruin the game for other people rather than play fairly.

The main reason I am doing it is... well ok it is practice.

But you DO get visual unlocks for your army as you go up in Rank, and you still sodre for losing.

hard to notice a lot oft hem though... grr...

It's worth noting btw that the computer AI isn't exactly poor- it's actively unfinshed; most of the AI files (which have been analysewd and found to be a very similar structure to DoWI and CoH) are virtually empty.

The Tyranids are the only faction whrere the AI can even actually build all the units. I think one of the factions the AI is restricted to only using 3 of them. They cannot use global abilities, and unit specific abilites trigger wrongly (the Dreanought, foer examp,le, activates its stomp ability as soon as enemies come into SIGHT range, not the range of the ability).

So when we look at the AI right now we are not seeing a finished product- which is of course very aggravating for a retail game.

As I say, Relic say that major AI updates will come soon, gfor which I am reading "We're actually going to finish building the AI." Good news is they have lots of data to work with now.

Woo-hoo! Made a comeback from 450-15 down!

That's the kind of game that makes you want to play more, but generally speaking you still get more hassle than good times playign with random allies.

Right now the jury-rigged fix is in for the pop cap bug but it has apparently strengthened marines as a side effect. Hmm. The proper code patch for all this cannot come too soon.

Meanwhile- one month in and no news on the oft-mentioned downloadable content? Booo! This game is going to need all that stuff and ASAP. And we don't even have a schedule or any idea of what ti is yet!

Just an update here- a recent consierable patch added a new map and has fixed all of the notable bugs and gameplay issues (though I styill got dumped out a game earlier, today, which annoyed). I am having enormous fun in this game again now that they have fixed Warp Spiders.

The patch currently scheduled for May is apparently going to be several times larger, which will be impressive. It is meant to contain new maps, seevral user interface improvements, several thinga that apparently they cannot talk about yet, and the liong=promised AI improvement for skirmish games.

If DoWII keeps improving like this every month- or every other month- then it is soon going to be an impressive thing indeed. If this AI fix (read: completion) works out, then the game will finally be in the state that perhaps it should have been upon release, and from there it can inly get better.

No idea what the things they cannot talk about yet are. But... poke around the video files in your Steam directory and you will find included the animatics for cutscnes from Ork and Eldar campaigns. Inquisitve users have also found that the names and animated portraits for the Ork and Eldar heroes are already in the game files. All this ismore or less proof that these have been being worked on for some time. Guess is that they will be purchasable content.

They are certainly keeping up the pace here.

A patch earleir this week added 2v2 mode (not before time too) and has completely re-worked the AI, as long promised. The difference with the AI is enormous and makes playing skirmish considerably mroe fun- though unfortunately with the new strat priorities they have gtiven the computer, he doesn't build enough power early game so you can steamroller him with aggressive early play.

Put the AI on Expert, where he recieves extra resources, and he is now a VERY credible challenge especially in larger games.

Two new maps for the 2v2 mode came this time, small issues introduced are beign fixed in a patch on Tuesday, and they are already working on 1.4 which will bring stull further maps and more AI improvements, as well as a long-awaited (by whiny fans anyway) re-balancing.

It is strange, watching the way this game is kinda falling together as the months go by, but it leaves me impressed, to have agneuinely and regularly improving game, and this is before they've ven started the paid-for DLC yet.

BF, Raoul, you still playing? Going in as a team against the computer would be neat.

I do play when i get the chance, though it's been a while lol...

patch looks good. i've installed but haven't played...

I haven't played in a few months. I still need to finish the last mission.

Originally posted by BackFire
I haven't played in a few months. I still need to finish the last mission.

you should... tis awesome.

so... its been a few months. how are you guys doing with this game?

i "discovered" dow and itd expansions for the first time a week ago... theyre really fun. i had no idea that the makers of CoH made a warhammer game. shock

so i downloaded the demo for dow2 and... well... the campaign is really repetitive. -_-

imo the original DOW games are superior to DOW2. repetition one of those reasons but also armies and vareity of them.

I'm starting to like DOW2 SP. I can only play it in short bursts and I do like the RPG elements in the game (granted, if they were not there the SP would be alot worst and tedious).

After playing through the first game and trying to get through the first expansion (way too hard and tedious for me), it goes to show you that CoH is the perfect blend of RTSing and small unit tactics for me.

The game is getting another massive update next month (it had an enormous one in July that got its own name, 'There is Only War', which did a heck of a lot of good for the game) including an all-new co-operative game mode called 'The Last Stand', where you take one of three heroes and play as a team fighting against waves of incoming attackers; you level up between games and customise your character. Not at all bad for free content!

Also the first solid evidence of a Chaos expansion next year has emerged. Rumour has it that some Chaos units will be attacking you in The Last Stand; the Imperial Guard certainly are so the scope of the game is broadening.

I'm very happy with this game- and the post support launch has been amazing. I've never seen a game more supported. The last major content update contained more maps than the original game shipped with. New modes have been added, AI revamped (though it still needs work), new wargear, new features, and all regular. More games should be like this.

I did also enjoy the campaign but it's an area you can easily think of improvements for them to put into the next one, which cannot be far off. That the campaign was co-op is also something I very much approve of. They say that future camapigns will be able to take more than two players working together, which is good. The only shame of it is that only one player is getting the persistence and the rewards; the others are just 'helping out' by controlling his units. It would be nice if there was a campaign co-op mode where each player commanded his own team.

The biggest problem with the game is still its harsh learning curve in skirmish/multiplayer.

quick question: are the space marines as tough in multiplayer as they are in the campaign? because one squad of non-upgraded tactical marines in the campaign can mow down like four or five squads of shootas even when theyre in cover!

Well, obviously the multiplayer mode is balanced and you don't start with levelled units and each unit is not led by a hero. Tac marines are tough but few in number and expensive.

Your above scenario is also untrue on higher difficulty.

Originally posted by Ushgarak
The game is getting another massive update next month (it had an enormous one in July that got its own name, 'There is Only War', which did a heck of a lot of good for the game) including an all-new co-operative game mode called 'The Last Stand', where you take one of three heroes and play as a team fighting against waves of incoming attackers; you level up between games and customise your character. Not at all bad for free content!

Also the first solid evidence of a Chaos expansion next year has emerged. Rumour has it that some Chaos units will be attacking you in The Last Stand; the Imperial Guard certainly are so the scope of the game is broadening.

I'm very happy with this game- and the post support launch has been amazing. I've never seen a game more supported. The last major content update contained more maps than the original game shipped with. New modes have been added, AI revamped (though it still needs work), new wargear, new features, and all regular. More games should be like this.

I did also enjoy the campaign but it's an area you can easily think of improvements for them to put into the next one, which cannot be far off. That the campaign was co-op is also something I very much approve of. They say that future camapigns will be able to take ore htan two players working tigether, which is good. The only shame of it is that only one player is getting the persistence and the rewards; the others are just 'helping out' by controlling his units. It would be nice if there was a campaign co-op mode where each player commanded his own team.

The biggest problem with the game is still its harsh learning curve in skirmish/multiplayer.

Yeah, co-op is pretty damn cool actually. I didn't realize that the other player doesn't get any of the war gear, which is an oversight. I also don't like how you can't choose who control. I wanted to control Avitus, but I can only control the commander and the scout team.

Overall, though, its a pretty fun game. Could be less repetitive but its still a fun game. Graphics are fantastic also.

The way it is set up, it would not be possible for both players to get the wargear and xp, because there is only the one campaign being played and that campaign 'belongs' to the host. So there is no choice in the matter... but it's still an oversight in a way as I feel it should have been created differently from the ground up, where each player can bring their own characters into a campaign in the same way you would bring your own character into a multiplayer RPG on a computer.

Can you mess around who is controlling whom by changing the number assignment?

The charge of repetitiveness is an interesting one. It IS repetitive, though the misisons are short enough for it not to matter THAT much, with the campaign the length that it is. It could have done with more storyline missions, for sure, so there needed to be less filler. But the thing is, that the alternative in RTS campaigns is normally just a bunch of slightly altered skirmish maps... and it is hard to say that those were not repetitive either. I'm still waiting to see that Starcraft II has to say about single player.

If Relic do a second campaign and it is noticably better than the first, then they are onto something. If it comes down to more or less the same thing, then their idea has failed.

You might be able to change who is controlling by number assignment. I never thought of that. It would make sense.

Your right, the missions are pint size so the repetitiveness isn't really a problem but the game would be a lot better if it was not. They way the missions are setup, the map are essentially dungeons so having maps similar to CoH might not work for the game.

Chaos expansion (named, with great imagination, 'Chaos Rising'😉 has apparently been confirmed.

This pic was sent out by Relic to the mods on their forums.

http://community.dawnofwar2.com/