Dawn of War 2 beta

[Arrqh]

So the Dawn of War 2 beta has been up for a week for owners of the Dawn of War 1 expansion Soulstorm and will be open to everyone on Steam in about 30 minutes. I've been playing it a bunch over the past week and I've been really enjoying it, though it feels more similar to Company of Heroes then Dawn of War 1 (which IMO is a good thing).

Anyone else around here going to play it?

 

[Quantum]

So the Dawn of War 2 beta has been up for a week for owners of the Dawn of War 1 expansion Soulstorm and will be open to everyone on Steam in about 30 minutes. I've been playing it a bunch over the past week and I've been really enjoying it, though it feels more similar to Company of Heroes then Dawn of War 1 (which IMO is a good thing).

Anyone else around here going to play it?

I love RTS games. I was just playing AOE3 a few minutes ago. I was eagerly awaiting the beta release that was scheduled for the 28th. Thanks for the heads up.

Maybe this will hold me over until SC2.

 

[Quantum]

I played it I thought it was terrible. I liked the first one alot, but this one is way different. It is way to chaotic..... It plays like an arcade game instead of a RTS. I am not sure this game qualifies as an RTS..... I am very dissapointed.... O well I will have to put my faith in StarCraft 2.

 

[Arrqh]

Ah, well it's definitely an RTS though it is leaning pretty close to being an RTT. Certainly not an arcade game though!

I guess you haven't played Company of Heroes, but the system used here is very similar in concept with all the resources out in the map instead of by your base. They went a step further in the game and removed buildings entirely to encourage all the attention to be on the battlefield instead of microing your base and I think it's an idea that works really well. It's very different from a traditional RTS but it's still an RTS all the same.

 

[firehawk12]

Penny Arcade says that it uses GFW Live? How does that work?

 

[Arrqh]

Poorly.

 

[firehawk12]

Are they still using their Relic COH thing for matchmaking or is it all GFWL?

I must say, I'm still waiting to earn my first PC achievement.

 

[Arrqh]

It's all GFWL. I never used the Relic thing before as I never played CoH online so I can't really compare. It's actually integrated fairly well, the matchmaking seems to be pretty good in finding people of about the same skill level and stuff. The problem is just GFWL itself. When you, say, want to invite a friend into your game it goes into the GFW interface. Then you have to click on the thing, find their name in your friends list, click invite, then go to another window and click send message... it's pretty much the same as XBL, but it feels clunky and unnecessary.

 

[firehawk12]

Yeah, I just tried it. It seems kind of silly to have both Steam running and then this GFWL thing running as well.

Although, since I'm 360less for the time being, it's kind of amusing to see all the 360 people I know playing games. I wonder if it says playing "Warhammer" on their end.

 

[firehawk12]

I'm just curious - anyone pick up the game? I grabbed it and installed it but I probably won't be able to play it for a while.

 

[Arrqh]

Yup, though I've gotten tired of the multiplayer after playing it so much in beta (and the last balance patch completely nutered the banshees ) so I've just been playing the single player.

The best way to describe it is a cross between Diablo 2 and Company of Heroes. Even more so in coop because each person only gets two squads. You basically crawl through the map, capturing reinforce points as you go, to get to your objective. You only lose if all four of your squads are incapacitated at once. It's gotten hurt in some of the reviews for its lack of variety, but I don't really have a problem with it. More variety and branching would be nice, for sure, but I imagine that's part of their DLC plan. As it is, IMO the solid gameplay and the excellently done 40K atmosphere make it worth it to me.

 

[firehawk12]

How's the co-op matchmaking? Can you play random co-op or is it invite only like Halo?
I'm pretty sure you're the only person I know who has the game.

 

[Arrqh]

No idea if there's matching, I've been playing with a friend. What nice is that he got bonus items with his (the Steam version has none) so I get to use them in his campaign

 

[FPAlpha]

I've bought it on the 20th and couldn't get it to run after 4 hours of trying (matched all prerequisites).

It took me over 1.5 hours before i could press "Start Game" for the first time.. installing the game, installing Steam, updating Steam, updating the Game

And then i found out the game won't start. I made a 2nd try in the evening with no luck. Fortunately the store i bought it from took the game back and gave me a full refund.

Colleagues of mine also have huge problems.. i think it's a perfect case of a game released way too early with too many bugs and now the real beta test has begun.

I'd buy this game in a few months when they've patched it up and not a minute before.

Obviously can't tell anything about the gameplay itself.

It seems Blizzard still is the only company that really releases finished games and whose games you really can buy and expect them to work.

 

[Arrqh]

I've bought it on the 20th and couldn't get it to run after 4 hours of trying (matched all prerequisites).

It took me over 1.5 hours before i could press "Start Game" for the first time.. installing the game, installing Steam, updating Steam, updating the Game

And then i found out the game won't start. I made a 2nd try in the evening with no luck. Fortunately the store i bought it from took the game back and gave me a full refund.

Colleagues of mine also have huge problems.. i think it's a perfect case of a game released way too early with too many bugs and now the real beta test has begun.

I'd buy this game in a few months when they've patched it up and not a minute before.

Obviously can't tell anything about the gameplay itself.

It seems Blizzard still is the only company that really releases finished games and whose games you really can buy and expect them to work.

As with all PC games, this can happen to people and just cause it happens to you doesn't necessarily mean it's widespread. The only problems with it that I had were due to a crash issue with Vista 32 which was patched yesterday.

 

[Leroy]

I'm not going to bother with Dawn of War 2 until they add the Necron.

 

[firehawk12]

I know Steam is finnicky. I had to restart it before it would actually launch the game.

 

[Jono]

Is anyone else slight disappointed with the game?

There are only 6 multiplayer maps and the SP (which is what I'm interestest in) gets old quickly. I don't mind how MP plays but SP gets very repetitive very quickly. Though the hints of backstory after you complete missions is indeed interesting.

Given it all I'm still not sure that the removal of base building was all that fantastic.