BREAKING NEWS: NEW DAWN OF WAR 2 FOOTAGE

[Nick_i_am]

Yeah, looks that way, I thought they comfirmed that Orcs would be playable in coop along with SMs but that might have been crazy dev talk.

[Moatilliatta]

Or just early dev talk.

 

The campaign is still coop though. Just so that's clear.

[Llyranor]

I'd rather they focus on making the campaign as awesome as possible rather than just spreading out their resources and making clumsily-disguised skirmish missions with a backstory no one cares about to accommodate all the races.

[Moatilliatta]

So you didn't like the Dark Crusade/Soulstorm model?

 

I didn't like them either as they tend to break down quite fast and become unfun and tedious. I do like the idea of non-linearity as it makes the campaign more meaningful to me through player choice. The ideal campaign, in my opinion, would be a shorter but non-linear normal campaign as most RTS campaigns get boring towards the last half.

 

I want to shoot myself for admitting that shorter == better.

[Llyranor]

I only played the original campaign of the vanilla game. I think I got bored at about the Eldar. Stopped right there.

[Nick_i_am]

Basically in the new addons you got a 'strategy map', Risk style, when you attacked other provinces it would literally put you in a skirmish game, unless they were a special province (one with a strategic bonus or HQ).

 

The non-liniar metagame (you could fortify areas, upgrade your armies and equip your commander) was interesting, but was taken down several notches by repetative skirmish battles.

[tripleRRR]

I did like the dark crusade/soulstorm single player campaign model. At least the first couple playthroughs, after that it becomes repetetive and annoying have to kill the same enemies on the same maps. Your race may be different but once you get enough of the commander upgrades and a big escort the game essentially becomes a "point starting army toward enemy, then watch your elite strike force pile up the bodies" kind of game.

 

The more I read about DoW2 campaign the more excited I get about it. Can't wait for this game.

[Musopticon?]

I liked being able to smash enemy settlements to pulp with an elite strike force. It was a welcome change to the toil of the regular skirmish gameplay of constant expansion and fortification, a gameplay that was, by the by, hampered because the tech trees were perhaps a bit too extensive to be benefit to the strategy model of rapid expansion. Being able to use specialists early on(vehicles and infantry with anti-armor capabilities for instance) was what kept me going towards the end of each campaign. Building that entourage was a treat. If Relic can successfully implement choice and consequence into that system by persistent wargear and experience...well, I'm sold.

 

Not that I'm not sold already, I'm scrounging cash to build a new rig for DoW 2 as it is, it's just that seeing them implement each new cool feature is like a little victory to an rts player. It almost makes every long-awaited Kane's Wrath and Rise of Legends that didn't live up to the hype bearable.

[Moatilliatta]

Jonny Ebbert talks Tyranids in DoW2.

 

So why is it not 2009 yet?

[Llyranor]

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/40921.html Space Marines Campaign footage.

[Nick_i_am]

Awsome.

[Zoma]

Points:

 

-No more base building?

 

-One squad = 3 men team?

6 to 5 squads at most in play?

 

-Squad leaders don't die. Revived with the means of 'rez' by another surviving SL

 

-Squad customization seems to be only restricted to the squad leader(?)

 

 

If the game is going to be designed like this, I really much prefer the scale to be as large and huge like World in Conflict or Ground Control maps instead of Company of Heroes. The game seems to be designed looking simple and likely to be linear in strategy for the Single player game.

 

Total impression: Seems to be far too simple game for one that revolves around squad gameplay. I want to be proven wrong for this.

 

Awaiting for further info for how multiplayer games match is going to be played.

Edited October 8, 2008 by Zoma

[Nick_i_am]

Points:

 

-No more base building?

 

-One squad = 3 men team?

6 to 5 squads at most in play?

 

-Squad leaders don't die. Revived with the means of 'rez' by another surviving SL

 

-Squad customization seems to be only restricted to the squad leader(?)

 

all that has pretty much been confirmed already, yeah.

[Moatilliatta]

The point where you go wrong is to assume that it is a strategy game.

 

Relic has moved their games much more towards being tactical games where the fun lies in maneuvering small amounts of squads and now in this game also RPG elements and customisation.

 

If you didn't like CoH then you don't like Relics direction.

 

 

Also, WiC huge? I thought it was relatively small. Opinions I guess.

[Musopticon?]

Looks pretty much how I expected it to look - much closer to tabletop and has that Chaos Gate vibe.

 

Now the only ting remaining to see is the story and some heavy optimization.

[Morgoth]

I'd have to agree with Zoma: It looks too simple right now. But I still have faith in Relic to make a worthy sequel, even though the focus will be different.

[Nick_i_am]

While I loved World in Conflict i'm failing to see how this is more simplistic than what basically came down to rock-paper-scissors with tanks.

[Moatilliatta]

The only reason WiC was good was because of the multiplayer.

 

Actually I think I've posted this opinion on this forum somewhere already.

[Nick_i_am]

Agreed, WiC MP was great stuff, but it played more like a game of DoDs (or another teambased zone-control FPS) from an RTS perspective than an actual RTS.

 

That is to say, no RU management and a focus on territory control rather than player (not unit) elimination.

 

It was about action, teamplay and good aim with support powers which was awsome, and more so for its relative simplisity compared to other RTSs (no fluff, just right in), which is why i'm suprised that people are comparing DoW2 negatively to it.

Edited October 9, 2008 by Nick_i_am

[Moatilliatta]

DoDs?

[Nick_i_am]

whoops, Day of Defeat: source, in which the primary victory mechanic is in the players using various classes to take and hold victory ponits around the map, exactly the same as a domination map only, in first person.

[Moatilliatta]

Thought for the day: Even a man who has nothing can still offer his life.

 

There is an interview with Jonny Ebert on the relicnews forums and it is quite good with lots of stuff on both multi and singleplayer:

Jonny: Yes, there’s a very big difference. I can't dive into heavy details on multiplayer because we have a big reveal coming up but I can tell you a few things. First, a lot of journalists noted that there is no resource gathering and base building in single player and extrapolated that applies to the whole game. That's not true, there is base building and resource gathering in multiplayer and there are some cool innovations on both, but they are there and we'll be giving the details on it soon. We've done some really innovative things in single player, but multiplayer will feel very comfortable and familiar to people who loved the original DoW.

 

I haven't read the entire thing but it seems to be good and interesting all the way through.

 

Edit: forgot the link.

Edited October 11, 2008 by Moatilliatta

[Calax]

Hmm... While I like the way the game is going I'm wondering if the Marines are going to be the unstoppable killing machines of the fluff and backstory of 40k or the more normalized versions for tabletop and DOW1 gameplay.

 

I still think this will be a good game and intend to get it if only for the singleplayer campaign.

[Moatilliatta]

So basically it was a catch 22, we could either make our Space Marines really bad-ass, to scale, feel heroic like the backstory, and give the intimate experience or we could make them disposable and numerous. We chose the former.

They're trying at least.

[Llyranor]

Here you go

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=309996^

The only race that will be playable out of the box on day one is the Space Marines. More are certain to follow via expansions and DLC, but for now Relic wants to deliver the most engaging experience it can across a single narrative arc. Fair enough. Other races come into play in multiplayer. The five-mission demo at Relic offers a solid sample of the Campaign's style, taking in action across two worlds, sprawling squabbles with Orks, the Eldar and numerous jabbering bosses, while laying out the core features. Missions are deliberately short; squads are limited to a maximum of four, each with their own pumped sergeant; resourcing and base-building are jettisoned in favour of bloody rampage; perks and upgrades flood in.

Persistence is essential to the attachment Relic wants us to feel for our squads. The squads you start the game with, you'll finish it with, so it helps if you care. Mercifully, despite what Relic staff do in their spare time, bonding in-game doesn't require 20 pints of Stella and rolling around in the street with a bouncer. Instead it comes through gradually upgrading abilities, like health and melee skills, in-between missions with currency that has been accrued. So the characters not only develop through the narrative (and nifty CGI cut-scenes add a lot here), they also grow in stature according to the way you play the game. And Relic is keen to add that the story itself is not strictly linear: you will have a degree of choice of which missions you choose and where you go in the campaign.

Before long you will have more than the four-squad limit at your disposal. Then it's down to your own tactical choice which you choose - but it's handled neatly via a drag-and-drop menu pre-mission.

"Some publications have mistakenly said there's no base-building in the game, there's no resource gathering," says Ebbert. "That's not true - it's still in multiplayer." This is the result of one of the most significant design decisions Relic has taken: to treat the single- and multiplayer components largely as separate games.

Unlike the Marine-focused campaign, multiplayer offers a choice of four races: Space Marines, the Eldar, Orks and - making their long-awaited DoW debut - Tyranids. Crucially, after picking a race you must choose a hero to lead your assault. Each race has three heroes, representing different classes.

Progression also features in multiplayer, although unlike the Campaign, it only lasts within a single session. Heroes can be levelled up to a limit of level 10; boosting tactics include killing an opposing hero and reviving a teammate. A level-10 Force Commander, Relic assures, will "kick the ass" of one at level 1. As you'd expect, really. Meanwhile, customisation of heroes here happens during battle - with war gear becoming available as you harness more requisition and power.

Hmm, don't know if I'll care about the multiplayer. It all rests on the co-op campaign. I'd want to say it's an easy sell, but it'll depend on the quality of said campaign.