Dawn of War II - DRM

fallout 3 didn't require you to go online or install windows live unless you want "achievements", and the dlc of course now does unfortunately require it.

just finished a campaign of dark crusade--the tau are great. back tracking to start up a winter assault campaign this evening. never finished the original last year as the space marines just weren't that interesting, and i was even on the last mission or so. probably be a while before i play dawn of war 2. i'll still have to play soulstorm which there's no way i'll get to with the horde of games coming out right quick. i'm intrigued by all of the rpg elements in it and the even further focus on smaller squads. probably pick up tales of valour before it though. geez add those 2, empire, stormrise--all in one month and that's just rts!

Further proof that M$ will not be content until they kill off PC gaming and force us all to XBox 360.

I meant the skirmish mini-game as not as tactically intensive as base building, many more races, and everything else 1 had.

curious said:

fallout 3 didn't require you to go online or install windows live unless you want "achievements", and the dlc of course now does unfortunately require it.

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Yes, at first it didn't but now it does. Guess I should add "*after DLC".

Anyways that's a moot point if DOW2 let's you play offline like wynams said.

@wynams I like it better this way. I could never keep up with other people who can micromanage a lot faster than me.

I've played DOW 2 a little longer now and I'm very happy with it. This is a lot closer to the original Warhammer 40k than any of the other DOW games.

No more Command and Conquer/Warcraft style bases. Instead you chooe the squads that you want to go on a particular mission, just like in the table top game. This is so much better than resource driven strategy game. The characters level up with experience and you equip them with different kinds of equipment found or earned on the battlefield, but best of all you can play offline. That really bugged me, but if go offline on Steam it will still work.

I'm really happy they're getting away from the typical realtime strategy game and going back, a little bit, to the tabletop version of Warhammer.

I ended up buying this off Steam cuz I'm free of WoW and was bored silly.

It is slowly growing on me, but there are a lot of things that mainstream reviewers are not pointing out that they should be.

• Not only is there limited base building, your main 'base' has a whopping 2 upgrades it can do (Base level starts at 1, upgrade once to 2, twice to 3 and you've maxed your base!!)
• In the campaign, you can only play as Space Marines
• There is no wargear dropped in multiplayer skirmish
• While your hero can level in multiplayer skirmish, there is no spending of leveling points like there is in the campaign (campaign you can up the hero's ranged skill, health, etc ... skirmish just unlocks one of 9 abilities you can pay resources to buy)
• If you want to load your campaign save (i.e. you make a silly mistake or just want to reload) and you are already in a campaign, you have to end-task as the only options are Save, Save to Menu, Save to Desktop ... pretty painful stuff.

The clincher for my impulse buy was the RPG aspect of the game, but I really don't care much for Space Marines.

Micromanaging armies is taking some getting used to (I prefer managing resources and bases like DoW, AoE, etc.)

The production value is probably what is deserving of the 9/10s this game is getting. What I have seen of the campaign is good as far as campaigns go, but campaigns are not what keeps people playing. That would be MP skirmishes ... with only 4 races and ~10 units/race this game is going to fade from the headlines quickly.

Graphics - 8
Sound - 8
Gameplay Campaign - 8
Gameplay Skirmish - 5

Deduct a few points for requiring GFWL and I personally would give it a 7/10.

yeah, i really really despise the "forced hardcore save system" thing, especially in an RTS, of all game types. I'll get to a certain spot before the final push, or when Ive just got all built up, or just for the heck of it and I want to save then try different things maybe something totally ludicrous - it's an option that I want to have.

As much as I like Warhammer40k, and I'm sure I'll play the death out of it, not rushing out to buy it at full price, that's for sure.

After getting past my gag reflex of thinking I was going to avoid RTS for a while I had some fun playing some campaign. Not too bad, anyway.

god what did they do to my pretty game.
yeah it's alright right now, feels too much like an instance from wow. you level up and find new wargear, are they paving the way to a WH40k MMORPG?
I dunno just feels stupid, the map is full of xenos and for some reason they don't all combine and kick the ass of my stupid little handful of space marines.
although the marines bickering and arguing among themselves is a nice touch

Many of the limitations could be fixed with a patch.

I hope that any expansions add more RPG elements to skirmishes ... as long as we are blending RPG/RTS so freely, a head-to-head campaign/skirmish covering multiple maps would be pretty nifty imo.

I am playing co-op campaign with a friend making this one of the few games released anymore with viable co-op. We split up the heroes and argue over loot (joking).

Once we finish that tho, I will be back to being frustrated by skirmish and the lack of the ability to play through the campaign as one of the other 3 races.

cptmaxon said:

are they paving the way to a WH40k MMORPG?

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I hope if there ever is one, Relic does it (not Mythic!).

cptmaxon said:

god what did they do to my pretty game.
yeah it's alright right now, feels too much like an instance from wow. you level up and find new wargear, are they paving the way to a WH40k MMORPG?
I dunno just feels stupid, the map is full of xenos and for some reason they don't all combine and kick the ass of my stupid little handful of space marines.
although the marines bickering and arguing among themselves is a nice touch

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Welcome to the REAL warhammer world. Space Marines kick ass and Genestealers are everywhere(I wish they would add Skavens into Warhammer 40K, but I guess we're extinct )

In the tabletop version 40k (real version not RTS hybrid game) every side would have so many points to spend on their army. Genestealer armies are normally quite large because individual minitures cost less than one Space Marine. So you could end up with a huge Tyranid army vs Space Marine army. However, to make up for this, each individual Space Marine is a lot tougher than your normal Tyranid grunt. So in the end both sides come off even IF you spent your points wisely and on a strategy that works.

That is the one thing I HATED about DOW. You didn't purchase your army before the battle, you had to build a stupid base and get the resources and then buy new squads. You had to do all this while trying to get strategic hard points/fighting off the enemy/building the base/using certain squad skills/getting more resources/building defences....etc. I liked this for awhile, but only in SP mode. MP is too twitchy for my taste.

Just let me buy my squads, equip them, set them up on the battle field and try out different strategies. I am much happier with this game now and might actually be able to fight against some real humans this time around and WIN!!! For me, it's easier to focus on the pure strategy part of the attack instead of dealing with the micromanaging nonsense.

@Sammy The maps arn't that big. A normal map would only take one hour or less to complete. I liked that they got rid of the savegame option, although if it was possible they should of made it an option instead of forcing it on you. For me it's fine, for others not so fine

Exactly - I haven't minded so much, but from time to time I wish I could save and retry again ... choices should be for US to make ...

Ok, I couldnt resist.

Broke down and got it. Like most, my initial impressions were indeed "wtf!" and I didnt like it. I almost shut it down and re-installed DOW. As time's gone on, I'll admit it's grown on me a bit, it must be since I was up til 2:30 playing it last night. I'm to the first "Eldar section" of the game.

The DRM is pretty draconian in a way I suppose, but I dont really participate in the online section. You can create an offline GFW acct, which is what I did, and then you dont have to be on the network to play. You can also play w/ steam in "offine mode". Still, yes, you need to pass that steam check as well. So basically, the first time you play, you have to set everything up and be online. From that point on, you could theoretically play offline forever. I just shut down my connection and fired up steam in offline mode and was able to get the game goin.

Having steam open while you play - well, it's just a fact of life I guess. Which kinda sucks in a way for users like me, who have an old P4 3.4ghz w/ 2gb ram. I need every KB I can get, to the point that I'm going thru all my processes before some games shutting down absolutely everything that isnt necessary for my machine to run. That said, Steam doesnt have too big a footprint, I'm showing 45 mb right now. But stilll......

It was a pain at first and I wasn't pleased at all about being forced online again, but like you said if you shut down everything you still can play. I sorta understand with all the piracy issues, but it still sucks.

So Sammy has it grown on you yet or still having trouble with no bases?

I've stopped playing after about a week of it half-way commanding my attention. Not due to DRM issues, rather as my tastes in RTS are more along the lines of micromanaging my resources and bases than spitting out units and micromanaging my squads.

MP skirmishes feel brief and insubstantial. I have played a half a dozen online and they are over in less than 15 minutes always. I played Age of Empires 2 semi-competitively back in the day (fansite tournaments and such) and a good match on that could top an hour.

I did have some fun co-op thru the campaign, but after the first time there is no need to do it again (you can only be space marines).

I looked up on metacritic today and found something interesting.

The critics think exactly the same of DoW1/2 (both earn an 86/100), however the users prefer Dawn of War I by a pretty substantial margin.

I never tried Company of Heroes, but after DoW 2, I can pretty much assure myself I would not care much for it.

the funny thing is that while I have to suffer with steam on all the time, my friend has a pirated version that works great offline lol.
it's funny really being a legal customer just got the hussle of all sort of restrictions.

@wynams
To each his own, as they say. I coudlnt' stand Age of Empires either, same reason as with DoW 1. I'm willing to cut DoW 1 some slack because well, it's WARHAMMER Give me Age of Wonders over Age of Empires anyday of the week.

@cptmaxon
Piracy issue is a pain. Especially when the products being offered are superior to the ones bought. Same thing faced the music industry. The music industry wised up and started making it easier for normal people to buy their music online.

Unfortunatly you probably coudln't use that same strategy. Sure it would help sales, but there has got to be something more in addition to easier downloads. Music bands have a whole bunch of songs to choose from. Computer games only have the main product and that is it.

A RTS without basebuilding? What's next? A FPS without weapons?
I'll pass.

wynams said:

[*]In the campaign, you can only play as Space Marines

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That's reason enough for me to pass on it. There's no excuse to release a modern RTS game with only 1 controllable faction in the single-player campaign. Especially with a license like Warhammer 40K, where multiple factions is the whole focus.

wynams said:

I never tried Company of Heroes, but after DoW 2, I can pretty much assure myself I would not care much for it.

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I just purchased CoH GotY Edition this week, got it for less than $10 off Ebay. Not sure when I'll have time to install it though. I want to try it after hearing so many people heap praise on it.

I generally prefer RTS games with larger scale battles, ala Supreme Commander, so I'm not sure how I'm going to react to CoH' more tactical experience.

JDR13 said:

I just purchased CoH GotY Edition this week, got it for less than $10 off Ebay. Not sure when I'll have time to install it though. I want to try it after hearing so many people heap praise on it.

I generally prefer RTS games with larger scale battles, ala Supreme Commander, so I'm not sure how I'm going to react to CoH' more tactical experience.

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I've held off this long on CoH for reasons like we've mentioned, but I would welcome you chiming in once you've put some time into CoH (It is relevant to this thread in my opinion as I am the OP and both are relic squad management RTS ).


@skaven
I agree wholeheartedly! re: To each his own, as they say.

I think Relic could have marketed this better by calling it Dawn of War: Tactics or something along those lines. II implies it builds upon I, which I think not many agree with.