Games

[mees]

I've had this sitting around my house for a little while but haven't gotten around to trying it out yet. In the meantime, I've been searching for some decent criticism on the game and, of course, every review I've read so far has been the same old "LOL SINGLE PLAYER IS LIEK DIABLO GUYZ!!! MULTIPLAYER COOL TOO" along with some intimations that the game is not quite as good as Company of Heroes.

This really disappoints me because, outside of not knowing how to balance their games very well, I was increasingly thrilled with the path Relic was taking, starting with Dawn of War.

Anyway, is anyone here and RTS expert? Or, at least, has anyone here even played Dawn of War II?

[dai jou bu]

I've finished the single-player campaign, and the most concise explanation I can give you for it is WoW dungeon crawling (as Diablo II is super-fast last time I remembered it) mixed with Dark Crusade mission selection if you took over that spaceport which allowed you to go anywhere in one turn (which they call days). Like in the Dark Crusade campagin, there might be key structures on the map you selected which are claimed like you normally would capture a strategic point. Sometimes there's two on the same map, but if both are unclaimed by you, the game will only allow the capture of one of them. Don't worry about it though, since the game usually gives you another reason to return to it anyway. Some of the reasons is that you need to defend these key buildings, while others are some random excuse to kill a boss there. Those kinds of missions are optional and tend to have a time limit to complete them before they get replaced by another one or you lose your captured key structures on that map and have to reclaim them again. The sole reason for keeping these strategic assets is a simple one: without these key structures, your most powerful items (which cannot be replenished by supply crate drops) cannot be used as frequently (ie- the more communications arrays you have, the more times you can call an artillery strike).

Okay, I'm falling asleep here. I'll try to continue this tomorrow.

[Vnonymous]

The multiplayer aspect of the game is largely impossible to review, for a multitude of reasons.

The first is the absolutely garbage "Windows Live" matchmaking system, which just does not work (I live in Australia, and could never play the game due to living in an "unsupported region"). From when I played it at a friends', the matchmaking was stupid - it had some sort of "trueskill" ranking algorithm, which it completely ignored and matched experts up with beginning players. While good for the beginner player, it really wasn't for the expert. So there's a gigantic barrier before you can actually start playing the game. On release, the multiplayer aspect of the game was largely nonexistent for half the people playing.

Secondly, the patching. During the beta, there was an amazing balance between "micro" and "macro". In games like Zero Hour, where macro strategies were largely ineffective and useless because a sufficiently micro'd rockvee could turn any number of enemy units into scrap, you actually had to pay attention. A fighter equivalent would be having a game where yomi and mind-games were useless, as the characters controlled so horribly that only your ability to combo mattered at all.

This has of course been changed and nerfed and then buffed through a succession of patches that, last time I checked, had done little more than leave Eldar "unfun" and 43 of the top 50 players tyranids.

It is entirely possible that an engaging, fun and deep multiplayer experience has arisen out of the clusterfuck that it was when I stopped caring, but given my experience with Dawn of War I, I'd probably laugh at you if you told me.

[Crow]

I think there's something fundamentally wrong with the game's single-player campaign, which is a mix of WoW-esque dungeon crawling played on RTS maps grafted onto a larger overworld map. Pretty much what dai jou bu said. So yeah, it's a lot like those mods that turn RTSes into tiny CRPGs. The problem is that you only ever get to use the same 6 units (hero units, not unit types) and only the Space Marines. To "compensate", they've added half-baked CRPG elements that don't go much beyond attributing ability points, deciding who uses the grenades or the invincibility spell and changing equipment every time a better random drop shows up. And yes, they've added leveling just for the sake of being annoying. CRPGs already exist, why turn RTSes into cheaper versions of them?

I think the ideal single-player campaign in a RTS should let you progressively see every unit and every faction the game has to offer, from human infantry armed with pea-shooters all the way to cosmic horrors and living doomsday machines. Just graft some kind of semi-decent storyline for context and add a few themed missions for diversity and you're set. Dawn of War II's campaign doesn't even show you the real units used in multiplayer matches or the way resources and buildings work, so expect a bit of a shock the first few matches. On the other hand, single-player campaigns teach some bad habits for multiplayer: the computer usually starts with a large army to compensate for its uselessness, so this encourages playing more defensively and waiting in your base while building a large army. This is the kind of stuff that gets you wiped out in multiplayer very quickly. Nevertheless, the important part is that you get a feel for how every unit works. A single-player campaign should show you everything the game has to offer. You can then take things to the next level by playing against human opponents if you want more or move on to something else.

Some RTSes use freeform campaigns with an overworld map fought over turn by turn, RISK-style (like Warlords Battlecry II or Dawn of War Dark Crusade and Soulstorm). Those usually end up being a long series of deathmatches against the computer, with very little variety in the missions themselves, except a few shallow strategy elements added to the overworld map, like movement restrictions and units that follow you from map to map. This style is okay too, it's just that the games I've played don't seem to add enough extra strategic aspects to beat a well-built linear campaign. Maybe I've missed some of the better games of this type?


**As an aside, the retail version of DOW II forces you to register to both Steam and Games for Windows Live. Windows I can understand, but Steam? That's odd, I thought I was buying a physical copy to get away from digital distribution. They even have the gall to tell you your CD-key has been permanently registered to your account, no switching allowed, after you type it in. That wasn't written on the box case at all. You can't sell the game or lend it to a friend, so what's the point of a physical copy? Why bother to put in a DVD at all, just put a game download voucher and be done with it. It's the first PC game I've bought legitimately in a long time and this is what I get... so I guess it's back to piracy.**

[Qpo]

Warning for some spoilers:

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/s ... ?t=2199848

Campaign used to be longer

I remember trying Dawn of War 2 original before Chaos Rising came out, and the campaign was very long and full of extra defense missions, and keeping up with them all and not losing any strategic assets was hectic and intense on a strategic level, and it was challenging and fun.

Then I got Dawn of War 2 on Steam in a bundle with Chaos Rising, and I played Chaos Rising and never went back to Dawn of War 2 original campaign until recently (because I want to play it co-op with a friend of mine who FINALLY got around to actually buying the damn game). The original Dawn of War 2 campaign is significantly shorter now, mimicking Chaos Rising's quick and streamlined approach. However, I don't think I like it that way.

Not that it's bad (the missions did get somewhat repetitive before with only the Sit Here And Defend and the Go Here And Kill This Boss styles of mission and no others), but having eight available missions at once, each with its own serious consequence for failure, conveyed a great sense of epic four sided war going on, and I enjoyed that. The shorter streamlined campaign works well for Chaos Rising because of its multiple endings. Shorter campaign means you can replay it a few times without getting too bored. But, the longer campaign with many more missions fit better with the Blood Ravens desperately waging a massive war, I feel. I also remember there being more dialogue, like Avitus yelling at Administrator Derossa more.

So, my question is this. Does anyone know how to get back the old length campaign, or play the original Dawn of War 2 without Chaos Rising attached?

Those defense missions added nothing to the story or the unique map count. One of the major criticisms for the first game was the repetition of maps. I did enjoy the fact that you could keep playing to get that 1 achievement for holding everything, and basically stripmining the game for all the special loot. But again, it wasn't very substantive beyond that.

The new campaigns do seem shorter, but it's because they've trimmed the fat. Now they're jam-packed with plot and dialogue (even if the only plot that matters is the Blood Raven branch).

I meant the original Dawn of War 2's campaign was longer before the game got merged with Chaos Rising. There was more wargear and all the defense and kill missions that come after you've gotten the three objectives completed were mingled with the first part of the game. Getting each piece involved something like eight objective missions to complete, Alpha Tyranids to kill for gene samples, Orks to hunt down for clues about the array, and Eldar raiders that Derossa was using you to get rid of while she delayed securing you access to the forge. There was a bit of dialogue after each one, especially on Meridian. All of that, plus four or five available defense missions with three day durations, all at the same time. It made you work for your Additional Deployment, because you needed it.

Now all but a handful of those missions are clumped into the end game, and a lot of that dialogue is cut out. My question was whether or not anyone knew how to get them all back and play the Dawn of War 2 campaign before it was shortened.

What do you mean? The original campaign was never shortened in DoW2, even when Chaos Rising came out. Each campaign is listed in the Campaign menu, and you can play the original with all its missions for as long as you want. Just don't play the last mission and you'll be fine.

No, it was shortened. Well, technically not I suppose, because yes, all the missions that were cut out of the Campaign are now tacked onto the end. But what I mean is that after Chaos Rising came out, more than half of the missions were moved to the end, and plenty of dialogue was cut. I remember something about Derossa saying that she had secured use of Angel Forge for you after you complete five or six Eldar missions on Meridian, but then she says that the Blood Ravens only get one half of one percent of the forge, and we'll get it a hundred days from now. That's gone now, because Idranel and the Tyranids show up much earlier and she freaks out and stops being totally smug.

Back then the only two types of mission were defense and priority target, either defending a strategic building or moving through the map towards a boss. Now they've mixed it up by adding some base destruction in as well, which admittedly is very nice, but I preferred the overarching epic feeling of having three available defense missions at the same time as having four available Objective missions.

I guess I should say rather than the campaign being shorter, now the campaign has been shuffled and all the meat of it has been shoved to the back and is optional. Like was said earlier, it was all the "fat" of the game, but I enjoyed the gameplay enough that repetition was actually desirable, and without the Objectives stringing them all together, all the fat just feels pointless to me now. Yes, it was just as much pointless fluff as it was before, but it didn't feel like it when there were still objectives to complete. The dialogue, experience, and wargear rewards after each level gave them all a small sense of accomplishment; the feeling that progress was being made, however slow, and it fit the tone of Warhammer's signature desperate struggle. You'd finished a battle and won, but you knew there were many more ahead.

The new wargear and experience added new abilities that changed how the game was played a little bit at a time. And on top of it all, the more time spent hunting for gene samples, the array, and Idranel made the rewards of finally reviving Thule, accessing the array, and stopping the Eldar much sweeter.

I played the original campaign but eventually quit because doing defensive missions over and over became too much, and skipping them and letting the xenos gain ground wasn't an option. I played on the hardest difficulty and had restarted once or twice though, and it was only closing in on the end that I had had my fill.

I started playing the "abridged" version last night, but it felt off, so I went and found the above which explained why. In short, I like the game and share all of ElevatorEleven's sentiments: the original version is the one to play.

[Qpo]

I eventually managed to find the original version online and the campaign is much better. Units have lower health so the action is better, the superior pacing makes it feel more like an actual war campaign (without being grindy), and all the cutscenes the "abridged" version cut out creates a different and better story.

The campaigns of the two expansions are much shorter and not as fun. I speculate they cut down the original campaign to match them.