Dawn of War 2

[Zpock]

Hmm, it seems like some belgian magazine has pics/info on an upcoming DOW2...

- Uses the Essence 2.0 engine with Havok physics, all optimised for DX10 and multicore support.
- It looks great, think of the DoW intro but with a bit less polygons here and there (in terms of lighting and all that it looks almost exactly the same).
- Units also use CoH-like unit AI for awareness and pathfinding to find cover and such.
- While DoW 2 shares the same (upgraded probably) engine as CoH it won't be "CoH in space", while soldiers in CoH will ask themselves if flanking the enemy is the right option, in DoW2 it will be more like Space Marines asking themselves if they should use their jetpacks to jump over an Ork squad to attack them in the back. Different settings, different kinds of warfare.
- Preview only showed a destroyed city landscape, akin to DoW (but more detailed), other tilesets will offer deserts, jungles, mountains and other cities.
- Only the Orkz and Space Marines were revealed, more races on the way obviously and to be to revealed later this year (though how many isn't known).
- Co-op campaign for both the Orkz and Space Marines, apparently not for the other to-be-revealed races.
- More focus on making units and squads unique; every unit has got a name (at least in the campaign it seems), more details and more animations.
- Relic wants to give players rewards at the end of a mission like wargear (armor, weapons, rare objects); "Let's pimp out squads with cool stuff!", you will see these items in-game as well of course.
- You'll fight your way through the campaign with the same squads.
- You can't control more than six squads! I am not sure if this is campaign-only but the preview made it sound like it wasn't.
- The squads are going to be a lot more interesting than before though.
- A squad leader (one or several?) will need to survive if you want to complete a mission; you really have to look out for your squads and don't treat them like cannon fodder.
- There is a lot more interesting commentary from the units as well; if your SM commander is holding a Thunder Hammer f.e. then the opponent will specifically comment on that, Ork Warchief saying something like "Ooh, nice hammer, but mine is bigger!". The warchief will say something else if the commander doesn't have the hammer.
- The campaign lets Space Marines operate from a spaceship, you'll get a view of an underlying planet and you'll be able to choose from different missions (which are tagged with difficulty colours, green, blue and red).
- Certain reward items won't be useable at once in the campaign, so they'll be taken back to the SM spaceship for research.
- Dreadnought can now also trample Orkz.
- No sea or air units (though jetpacks are still in of course).
- Development team of 55 people has been working on it since September 2006.
- Release in early 2009 or later.

Interesting...

[Caydr]

OMG DIFFERENT IRRITATING REPLIES IF YOU GIVE IT A HAMMER!!!!!1 BETS GAME EVER!!!!!

What a pile of suck. Almost everything there was just visual changes, and everything else has been done in another game already. The only good part was that there's at least another year of development, and it has already been in development for a couple years (albeit most likely with two or three people), which means it will at least be polished - that is, unless it's another dumbass Relic "let's divide our team into 8 different divisions" thing.

[rattle]

OMG BETS GAME EVER!!!!!

He's saying it. Spread the word...

I hope they add a true RPG aspect to the game.

[Zpock]

It would be interesting if they scrapped the basebuilding and made it so you start out with the army at first and then just fight... like the tabletop. From this vague given information it does sound a bit like that. Could be cool combined with a lot of pre-game army customization...

[rattle]

I just kinda like stats and stuff... like soldiers increasing in vitality, accuracy, reactions etc. as they battle. Kinda like JA2, UFO and what the hell else. This is very possible in a persistent campaign.

[Zpock]

Yeah, I was thinking of X-com too... these are the points to pay attention too:

- More focus on making units and squads unique; every unit has got a name (at least in the campaign it seems), more details and more animations.
- Relic wants to give players rewards at the end of a mission like wargear (armor, weapons, rare objects); "Let's pimp out squads with cool stuff!", you will see these items in-game as well of course.
- You'll fight your way through the campaign with the same squads.
- You can't control more than six squads! I am not sure if this is campaign-only but the preview made it sound like it wasn't.
- The squads are going to be a lot more interesting than before though.
- A squad leader (one or several?) will need to survive if you want to complete a mission; you really have to look out for your squads and don't treat them like cannon fodder.
- The campaign lets Space Marines operate from a spaceship, you'll get a view of an underlying planet and you'll be able to choose from different missions (which are tagged with difficulty colours, green, blue and red).
- Certain reward items won't be useable at once in the campaign, so they'll be taken back to the SM spaceship for research.

They give me the impression of scrapped base building...

[Argh]

Sounds cool as hell to me, tbh. But meh, I really liked DoW, period, especially after modding my versions a bit...

[Comp1337]

Sounds cool as hell to me, tbh. But meh, I really liked DoW, period, especially after modding my versions a bit...

Yes.
Are you other guys on a period or what

[rattle]

Nope just crack.

[KDR_11k]

Wait, SMs capturing stuff for research? I thought it was imperial doctrine that captured equipment is to be destroyed immediately, anything else is heresy?

[Neddie]

Wait, SMs capturing stuff for research? I thought it was imperial doctrine that captured equipment is to be destroyed immediately, anything else is heresy?

Truth.

[Guessmyname]

I was under this assumption myself...

Maybe it's actual Imperial tech, but just broken much (thus needing repairs before it's actually useful)

[Neddie]

I was under this assumption myself...

Maybe it's actual Imperial tech, but just broken much (thus needing repairs before it's actually useful)

Unless you reinsert Squats you're not going to run into much Imperial Tech that is worth repairing, and we know they're not reinserting Squats.

[tombom]

Sounds cool as hell to me, tbh. But meh, I really liked DoW, period, especially after modding my versions a bit...

Yes.
Are you other guys on a period or what

It sounds cool but I don't really trust Relic (or really, pretty much any game company right now) to make a decent game that's not too buggy and support it.

[Fanger]

I was under this assumption myself...

Maybe it's actual Imperial tech, but just broken much (thus needing repairs before it's actually useful)

Unless you reinsert Squats you're not going to run into much Imperial Tech that is worth repairing, and we know they're not reinserting Squats.

Bullshit, the Admech is constantly on the lookout for a fully functioning STC, or even parts of one. The Imperium wasnt always the Imperium. The dark age of technology before the emperor came to power was a period of very advanced tech, most of which was lost or scattered. Many of these advanced items could be on worlds not yet controlled by the Imperium. The Imperium would go to great lengths to regain a piece of equipment from the dark age of technology if they thought it useful, espeically a piece of a STC.

What do you think Space Hulk was all about.. just wipping out genestealers? No, they dont send spacemarines aboard spacehulks just to wipe out the possible inhabitants, even though that is one aspect. Some spacehulks date back to the dark age of technology, and may containt STC components, or some other useful technology. Spacemarines are often asked to cleanse such hulks so they may be safely towed in for study by the Admech.

The Imperium does not generally just destroy all unknown tech they find in the field. The admech is overly religious but not entirely retarded, whilst they would frown on making use of xenos technology, they certainly have no qualms about at least examining it. How else would you find out how to best take it down.

[Neddie]

I stand corrected.

[Comp1337]

Sounds cool as hell to me, tbh. But meh, I really liked DoW, period, especially after modding my versions a bit...

Yes.
Are you other guys on a period or what

It sounds cool but I don't really trust Relic (or really, pretty much any game company right now) to make a decent game that's not too buggy and support it.

Yeah you have a point

[Zoombie]

Yeah, if the Space Hulks didn't have possible tech value, they were fusion bombed to dust.

Which must have been an awesome light show.

Personally, this look AUCKING FWESOME! But that's because, in my opinion, the best thing about Warhammer 40,000 is the fluff and if the game around the fluff is fun too, all the better.

I mean...Space Marines are hardcore, genetically engineered, nine foot tall, acid spitting religious zealots wearing century old power armor, fighting DEMONS, using automatic rocket propelled grenade launchers that fire self propelled, self reactive, armor piercing mini-rockets!

Also the basic navigation guide for the Imperium requires the sacrifice of 1000 psykers daily as they have their souls sucked out of their bodies, inches by inches.

What's not awesome about that!?

[KDR_11k]

using automatic rocket propelled grenade launchers that fire self propelled, self reactive, armor piercing mini-rockets!

While looking exactly like SMGs!

[Zoombie]

They're a bit bigger in some pictures, a bit smaller in others.

Also, Space Marines are *huge* so big guns may look like small guns.

But yes...the fluff and the rules don't mix very well some times...