And the wordings... a bit not suitable for the under-age. Got to tailor it to suit all age range.

2. replace: fxxx this with a sign that says DOTA in cross, like no smoking.

Let me just say "officially" that, yes, we look at this thread (and many others, across multiple forums, as often as we are able) and do our best to be aware of the community's concerns regarding DoW. In fact, we've already made some decisions (both in art and design) which were driven by opinions or ideas we saw expressed on these forums--in one instance we even fully remodeled and retextured a unit upon seeing it had a lukewarm reception in screenshots.

In a joint effort of the Relic balance team, the Iron Lore design team, and our closed beta participants, we're putting a lot of effort into achieving a high level of quality (and I'm including good balance when I say "quality") for all our new content, while doing everything we can within our available time/resources to improve the existing content. Lots of balance tweaks and bug fixes have already gone into Soulstorm, and more will be coming before we go gold.

Although I'm obviously quite biased, I think that both DoW fans and those new to the game will really enjoy all the new content, and that existing DoW fans--especially those who are on the more "hardcore competitive" end of the gamer spectrum--will be pleased with all the improvements to the balance of the game, both for the existing races and the new ones.

P.S. - Dark Eldar ftw.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Imperial Dane
would that retextured unit be the warp beast ?


Bingo. We've done tweaks to some other units as well, but the one which you've already seen in screenshots which was completely redone was the Warp Beast. There was a bit of an internal debate as to the best way to handle them, and seeing the community's feedback to the screenshots finally settled our collective decision on what to do. We, Relic, and Games Workshop are all much happier with their new look, and I think you will be as well. Keep an eye out for upcoming screenshots and video capture to see them!


Quote:
Originally Posted by Imperial Dane
But it all sounds good that you seem to be putting a lot of work into it.. but if i may ask, what about the campaign ? is that getting a lot of attention too ?


The focus of most of our playtesting and balancing efforts lately has been the campaign, both the meta-level and the custom Stronghold missions. We've put a lot of effort into trying to make some new missions which are substantially different from those in Dark Crusade, so that SS will feel like a truly fresh and unique experience for seasoned players of the DC campaign, and I'm hoping you'll enjoy the result.

Related Note: For those of you who are fans of the "fluff", I'd recommend playing through the campaign as all 9 races, as some of the subtler aspects of the story will not become clear until you've seen what's going on from everyone's perspective--plus the campaign victory cinematics are probably my favorite cinematics in the game, so I want as many people to see them as possible. 

Yikes, lots of questions! Here are some answers:

1.) Yes, this metagame still has war gear and honor guards. We've added a bunch of new War Gear as well--half of all the war gear for the existing races has been replaced with new stuff, plus obviously the two new commanders have all new wargear.

2.) Our race intro cinematics are shorter than DC's, our victory ones are a bit longer, and there are 2 more races than before and therefore 2 more Strongholds worth of cinematics than before, so it ends up being probably a bit bigger in that regard. We're not talking about like 2x as much or anything, but definitely a bit more than before. I wish we can manage to squeeze in even MORE cutscenes, because I'm kind of a story/character junkie myself, but unfortunately cinematics are really resource-intensive, so it wasn't realistic to do a ton more of them with sacrificing quality.

3.) The problem of a metagame campaign potentially getting tedious is something we've discussed quite a bit and I'm pretty happy with what we've done to address it. Here are a few items:

a.) We've changed the way garrisoning works--you can now garrison both buildings and units, and garrisoning is MUCH MUCH more valuable/effective now than it was in DC. The auto-resolve formulas have also been completely redone, so if your territory strength is much higher than the enemy's army strength when he attacks you, you're generally going to win that fight if you choose to auto-resolve it--so folks like me who get annoyed at having to personally defend a territory over and over as it gets attacked repeatedly, even if you clearly have a much more powerful force than the enemy, won't have to.

b.) Although most non-Stronghold missions are skirmishes, as in Dark Crusade, territories which include ancient Eldar Webway Gates (the best means for getting from planet to planet in our star system which is effectively "snowed in" by a Warp Storm) utilize a Take and Hold victory condition, so the goal is to hold that Warp Gate rather than just kill the enemy.

c.) The metagame now utilizes a "supply lines" design much like in Company of Heroes, so your territories must be contiguous in order to keep getting planetary req from them. This makes choke points between worlds like the aforementioned Ancient Gates very strategically valuable, and the AI commanders will tend to prioritize them in order to cut you off from your req. And naturally you can do the same to them.

4.) With the exception of the new Necrons unit, which is not a flying unit, yes, all the new units added are flying units. As in the previous xpacks, each race gets one new unit.

5.) Ok, no one asked about this, but Vorn's "new maps" comment made me think to mention it: I think the new art sets we've made are pretty sweet, particularly the Chaos Corruption and Paradise World sets--keep an eye out for those!


P.S. - Seriously people, DE FTW. Fear them and all their soul-sucking darklance-shooting evilness.

Ah... Chaos or DE..... DE or Chaos.... two evil races for me to choose....

Cool info, thx for the update, Cheesenium, more reason to get DoW:SS.

i hope it is not another hoax like NFS pro street video interview

From the way they said on SS, it seems like the campaign will be the same as DC one... *sigh* sucky campaign, again.

What if i put my sherman firefly versus this unussual Lame Raider, who will win???

hey cheese, did u heard something like about people make a warhammer40k MOD for COH???
it will be fun if i can see Ork in Essence Engine. Ork vs Nazi

Thanks for the update dude. I wonder whats the new unit for the Orks.....i hope its Ork Kommandos.....

LOL.... those trailers are like teasing the viewers... the commanders just simply melee their opponents and not showing what ability they possess.... Hope they can give show more info in their trailers next round...

@ Waba: Didnt mean to make enemies, my clan will pwn me for  that... Anyway on this Monday we'll be free!! So yes a clan war sounds fine (have to check with the rest). Also can u guys join the gocc hamachi network?

On another note: Fighting insane AI is a waste of time, you dont increase ur skill.. After a while you can predict what they're gonna do so thats why I said its easy FTW. But since we only got at most 6 players on hamachi we have too la [invitation to join our network. PM me]

Not interested.. i had enough for the FFK.

hey guys, i just saw Ravana at COH singapore chat channel. maybe he is preparing for WCG2008?

Oh my god... I'm so tempted to DE now...

*start digging the history of DE*

http://pc.ign.com/articles/838/838707p1.html

Two new units from the emperor biatch + DE.

Well because of a lot of things.. Some including me will be starting college soon. Others are working part time. N i think some are playing TT atm...I'm not giving it up forever la, I'll still buy soulstorm n play the game.

I just checked the warcraft 3 forum, it seems like FTZ upstairs has started to operate again, but not the ground floor. Can someone confirm on this one ??

Oh good news atlast....

More importantly, is Brother Cheese finally joining us?

New SM face = more righteous look, still ok.
New CSM face = yer, helmet is always cool, though the evil face still ok.
New IG face = this one looks more "blur" to me.

Yupe, DC's CL looks and voice still the best among all. Dont you think he sound calm and sexy ??
You are the only one said it's look promising

All I care for is good after sales online service + great balancing + constant patching, I would expect a warrior of your caliber expect no less.

thanks for the info.....Gabriel Angelos is still the best FC.......however for the evil side...i prefer the Socr Sindri....he was devious....ultimately nothing beats the Warboss Gorgutz...........
As expected.......Kong, would like to know if there is a compilation pack this time as well....Im still interested in collecting it.......

i am more into COH nowadays too, is the best rts game in my opinion. juz played SS demo, it gives me the feeling that DE cant integrate well into the game and much more disappointments. the feeling is juz totally different from playing the DC demo last 2 years and the SS demo now, i guess i am not buying tis shit.

You got your wish lol, the Dark Eldar are in the demo. It has some bugs though, one of the vehicles got stuck behind a building and couldn't move out.  I really hate that you have to request for more than three. I mean why can't they just put out six per team instead of putting out three and making you request for the other three ? 

The graphics are great though