Warhammer Dawn of War 3 - DAMNATIO MEMORIAE

[DramaticPopcorn]

It always bugged me that casual skirmish in all DoWs produced gazillions of space marines dead, when losing even a hundred was a huge losses fluffwise. Only dow2 tried to mitigate this rts crap to some point.

Same for me, it's also why I'd rather see IG with special units of SM instead of dedicated SM gameplay.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Neanderthal]

Pity that they're using Servitors, got used to Techmarines in FoK.

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...hammer-40-000-dawn-of-war-3s-new-cover-system

A close look at Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 3's new cover system
It's different, but is it better?

I've played Relic's upcoming real-time strategy Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 3 for a few hours, and have reported on its new mechanics and systems for our recent preview. But one new mechanic in particular is worth going into more detail on: cover.

Cover is hugely important in Relic's RTS games. Squads in cover fight for much longer than they would otherwise. Smart positioning of your units can help turn the tide of battle.

The first Dawn of War, which came out in 2004, used a terrain-based cover system. If a unit stood on terrain considered cover, a tiny symbol would show up above it to let you know. Cover was applied on a unit by unit basis, which meant some units in a squad could be in cover when the others weren't.

To work out the cover benefit of a terrain, all you had to do was move the mouse cursor over it and the relevant symbol would show up. This worked the same for terrain that provided negative cover - that is, terrain that would turn your soldiers into sitting ducks triggered a symbol of its own.

So, with the first Dawn of War, you'd be jostling for position with your opponent, trying to ensure your units were in cover as the enemy's were not. I liked it!

For Dawn of War 2, which ditched the base-building and large armies of its predecessor in favour of more hero-focused gameplay, Relic used a different cover system similar to that in its other RTS: Company of Heroes.

Here, cover was provided by objects in the environment, such as sandbags and walls and other bits and bobs. To place a squad into cover, you had to select it, then move the mouse cursor over the cover. This would display a series of blobs, each representing a unit in the squad, that indicate where the units would snap to the cover. The blobs were coloured differently depending on the level of cover provided. Then, a single click of the mouse button would send your soldiers literally running for cover.

Dawn of War 2 also encouraged players to use buildings as cover. By moving a squad into a building, they would benefit from a huge defensive bonus. And from the relative safety of a building, a decent ranged damage squad could decimate an unsuspecting opponent. I'd spend a lot of my time, as the Space Marines, positioning Avitus' Devastator squad in cover, then directing heavy weapon fire from range. This system worked well for Dawn of War 2's gameplay, which revolved around frontline combat and unit-based tactics.

Moving onto Dawn of War 3, Relic has once again come up with a new cover system. Dawn of War 3 is a sort of fusion of Dawn of War 1 and Dawn of War 2. Base building and big armies are back, but there's still a focus on hero units.

Dawn of War 3's cover system works similarly to Dawn of War 2's buildings I mentioned earlier. Cover is a fixed area on the map that you send units into to capture and then occupy. There's a capture time associated with cover now, although it's pretty quick.

Once you've captured cover, it's yours, and it protects units inside from all incoming ranged damage. Effectively, cover becomes a safe zone.

Now, there are counters to this. The "health" of the cover can be eroded by standard damage, so you can have ranged troops shoot it until it blows up. But this is an efficient tactic. Much more efficient is to send melee units into the cover to carve up whoever's inside.

Dawn of War 3 has a raft of melee specialist unit types. The Assault Marines, for example, use jump packs to leap into the air then smash into the ground, knocking back enemies in the process. Because they can quickly jump over long distances, they can force enemy ranged units out of heavy cover while the rest of your army moves in to pick off their scattered forces.

I found the Space Marine hero unit Gabriel Angelos was also great for taking cover; his jump and hammer slam attack perfect for disrupting cowering enemy infantry. The Assault Terminator squad, another hero unit, can teleport straight inside.

During a recent visit to Relic's office in Vancouver, Canada, I had a chat with game designer Philippe Boulle about Dawn of War 3's cover. He said that the new system was in part about giving melee specialists "a really crisp role" on the battlefield.

Dawn of War 3's cover system gives melee specialists such as the Assault Marine a reason to be, Relic says.

But there's more to it than that. Pretty much everything the developer is doing with Dawn of War 3 revolves around a design mantra the team brings up time and time again: clarity.

Clarity is one of the reasons for Dawn of War 3's divisive new art style, and clarity is one of the reasons for Dawn of War 3's new cover system.

"The Dawn of War 2 and Company of Heroes cover system can be a little muddy, in that it's highly directional," Boulle explained.

"So, that gives great opportunities to flank, but there's not a lot of messaging around being flanked. It works fine when you're a little closer and not dealing with large armies. We're dealing with large armies. Taking five squads of Space Marines and lining them up behind walls and bushes is pretty tedious. Whereas, having a fixed thing where I can just right click and they'll all go in there, that worked better for us.

"And then we really liked the role that created for those melee units. It really gave melee a really strong reason to be."

There is some secondary reasoning for the cover switch, too. Boulle added that the cover system used Company of Heroes makes sense for a World War 2 game, but in Dawn of War 2 it "strains credibility", a realisation that contributed to Relic's decision to think again.

"I'm in WW2, okay I get a little stone wall will block bullets from a rifle but won't from an anti-tank gun, or whatever," he said.

"But superheated plasma versus lasers versus mass-reactive self-propelled explosive bolts? I can't tell you which one of those will do better against a masonry wall, right? So there becomes a bit of a suspension of disbelief issue."

Then there's map design's influence on cover. The directional cover system of Dawn of War 2, which required loads of objects placed in the environment that could be used as cover, meant maps were quite crowded.

"It makes it much harder to have open, sweeping maps," Boulle said. "And then when you have big armies and floating tanks and stuff, you want that open sweeping map. So, ultimately it was a choice of what style of gameplay did we want."

Since Dawn of War 3 was announced, the series' most ardent fans have debated the rights and wrongs of everything from its new art style to the way you upgrade units on the battlefield. The new cover system hasn't exactly caused a furious row, but there's a healthy debate.

And I can tell Relic agonised over the decision to ditch Dawn of War 2's cover system, too.

"You know, I see that the potential of the directional cover system was always very high," Boulle admitted, "and there was so much great gameplay that came out of it, that, yeah, it's obviously something where, why would you take that out?

"It's a great debate to see. These are people who really care about this game. That's really gratifying."

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, of course. I found Dawn of War 3's new, simplified cover system easy to grasp, and it was immensely satisfying to capture cover points in the right way - that is, by sending Assault Marines leaping into them for maximum splash damage.

But I do miss the spectacle of the environmental destruction of Dawn of War 2. Ripping apart cover with heavy bolter fire was one of that game's most delicious pleasures, and it's a shame Dawn of War 3 doesn't repeat the trick.

Let's be honest, though. Dawn of War 3's Orcs will no doubt make this new cover system sing. I can't wait to send an army of Stormboyz descending upon a squad of Space Marines holed up in their "safe zone".

 

[Space Satan]

All I am hyped about DoWIII is soundtrack.

 

[A horse of course]

All I am hyped about DoWIII is soundtrack.

Soule is in semi-retirement. He's not doing DoW3.

 

[Kem0sabe]

I don't want no fucking safe spaces in my Warhammer!

 

[Space Satan]

Best of them all

 

[Jaedar]

Best of them all

Apparently made by this guy: http://www.jimcrewmusic.com/
Bizarre.

Really great soundtrack though, captures Imperium very well.

 

[vonAchdorf]

My favorite 40k soundtrack is the Ultramarines one.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Chaos Gate had the most perfect WH40k music.

 

[hello friend]

Jeremy Soule is overrated. Guild Wars and Morrowind music was pretty gud, but most of the games he's scored have the same generic ZOMG EPIC BRASS music. Gets old after the first ten minutes. And it's everywhere.

I don't think it's a good fit for Warhammer, but it's a shame stuff like Frank Klepacki, Mark Morgan, or Matt Uelmen's work isn't used in more games. Original Starcraft OST was great too.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

All I am hyped about DoWIII is soundtrack.

Soule is in semi-retirement. He's not doing DoW3.

was about time. worst composer ever.

 

[A horse of course]

Soule is great at conjuring up an ambience of wonder, mysticism and xenophilia, which is why virtually everyone remembers his work on Citizen Kabuto, DoW1's Eldar themes and general atmosphere tracks in fantasy games (NWN forest theme, Morrowind exploration etc.). But his action music and main title compositions tend to range from generic to slightly above average.

edit: Sorry it wasn't the Eldar theme, think it was just some of the atmosphere music.

 

[Neanderthal]

Gotta admit I stopped eviscerating the Heretic and Xenos filth just to listen to music in Space Marine:

 

[A horse of course]

Soule didn't work on Space Marine's OST afaik. The official release credits Cris Velasco and Sascha Dikiciyan.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

fuck all the soule's cockworshippers. pick ANY, i fucking swear, *A-N-Y* track from chrono trigger or chrono cross and come back again telling me again how memorable is the shit from that talentless hack.
ANY.
i played the former two times and the latter three and i can sing along each and every track.
i played at least two thousand hours on morrowind, guild wars and skyrim combined and all i can remember is morrowind main theme.

 

[A horse of course]

I was actually just thinking, most of the only good action tracks Soule has done are in the Giants OST (in which he collaborated with some other guy, forgot who and to what extent), e.g.

fuck all the soule's cockworshippers. pick ANY, i fucking swear, *A-N-Y* track from chrono trigger or chrono cross and come back again telling me again how memorable is the shit from that talentless hack.
ANY.
i played the former two times and the latter three and i can sing along each and every track.
i played at least two thousand hours on morrowind, guild wars and skyrim combined and all i can remember is morrowind main theme.

I don't know how you can't be touched by ambience like this though:

 

[Neanderthal]

Jeremy Soule? Dint know he did DOW theme, fairly wide range then considering all I knew him from before is IWD, they were fucking brilliant:

 

[praetor]

Soule also did the Total Annihilation soundtrack, which is about 17 orders of magnitude better composed and more memorable and much, much more than any jrpg soundtrack

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

 

[Infinitron]

 

[thesheeep]

Whoa, he is using stuff by clicking on it.

How terribly ineffective!

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.pcgamesn.com/warhammer-40000-dawn-of-war-iii/dawn-of-war-3-gameplay

Dawn of War 3 is a surprisingly conservative RTS

It’s not an outlandish claim to say that Dawn of War III is very, very different to the games that came before it. Relic’s tenure with the Warhammer 40,000 license has been akin to a great band experimenting and evolving with every new album. Everyone loved their debut, but the follow-up was somewhat divisive. Now it’s time for the confident third record, and Relic have returned to their original base-building blueprints. They’ve created a game that feels more traditional of the RTS genre, for better and worse.

My hands-on time with Dawn of War III is a bit of a tragic tale. Gamescom, despite its name, is actually the worst place to play a game. Being alone in a bright white room where a PC awaits its next player isn't the most immersive feeling. No tutorials or presentations prefaced this hands-on. And while I love Warhammer and have enjoyed the previous Dawn of War games, I’m not the best RTS player.

So armed with the basic knowledge that Dawn of War III shares more blood with its oldest sibling than the middle child, I sat down and took command of the Blood Ravens.

It’s a bit like StarCraft

After just a few minutes of play, the biggest difference in Dawn of War III is clear: it feels far more like a traditional RTS than ever before. Rather than Relic’s previous Warhammer games, I’m reminded of StarCraft II more than anything. The camera doesn’t zoom in close enough to study the skull decals on the side of a bolt gun, it instead hovers at a mid-level height that’s been of service to so many strategy games.

This is almost certainly due to the number of units in battle, which is a leap ahead of what you could field in the first game. It’s never quite of Zerg quantities, but when going up against an Eldar force there seemed to be far more lazers whizzing across the screen than I remember in previous outings. While squad sizes remain intact, there’s just more of everything else. As such, the prevailing feeling is that of everything being expendable. Space Marines become replaceable ants, rather than formidable veterans encased in plasteel and adamantium.

This comes across in their combat effectiveness, too. I’ll admit my fondness for the series lies in the squad-based tactics of Dawn of War II where each of your very few units can shrug off incoming fire like rain, but even compared to what I recall of the first game, Dawn of War III’s Space Marines seem to drop like flies. They don’t feel like the hardy, best-of-the-best soldiers that the lore proclaims them to be. As my army was being minced to pieces by the Eldar, I realised that something has been lost in this rendition of the 40k universe.

Eldar are far more ferocious than you remember

Games Workshop’s space elves are never given quite enough credit as they deserve, and Dawn of War III is looking to make sure everyone knows the Craftworld can spit out warriors that can best the Imperium’s finest.

This time around Eldar have something called Battle Focus, which grants them a regenerative shield that must be broken through before they take damage. They do go down pretty quickly once the shields are destroyed, but until then their ability to shrug off shots and dash around the battlefield with significant speed makes them a notable adversary. Indeed, they’re probably going to be a far more interesting race to play as than the deeply traditional Space Marines, and perhaps even the fleshy battering ram that is the Ork race.

Imperial Knights are definitely not OP

Dawn of War III’s most flashy addition to the formula is the huge special hero unit. While the hammer-swinging Gabriel Angelos will always have a place in our hearts, the forty-foot-tall Imperial Knight Lady Solaria is our new fixation. A mech with gatling guns for arms and shoulders made of missile pods, she’s absolutely a force to be reckoned with. At least, she probably is if you’re any good at the game.

As I mentioned before, I went into the gameplay session with no introductions to the game at all. There was no in-game tutorial or even any pop-up tips to help out, and it’s been a decade since I played the first Dawn of War game. In other words, I was practically begging to be slaughtered. I expected to lose some Space Marines in the mess, but I didn’t expect to see Lady Solaria fall apart in a giant nuclear explosion.

See, while she’s a colossal super unit, she’s not invincible. All her weapons have a long-distance minimum range, meaning if anything charges at her legs she’s got no way of defending herself. And when you get into a resource crisis like I did, you’ll quickly find that if you can’t replace the squads of marines protecting her, she’ll go down eventually. She can respawn, but you’ve got to wait five minutes for her to be re-assembled.

So Imperial Knights are definitely not the no-brainer solution to every problem, and this is likely true of the other races' super units, too. They’ll only become truly super when backed up by the correct tactics. I’m positive that people with only a smidgen more RTS knowledge than me can manage that (they’d need to, say, realise that Listening Posts are a thing again, and you need to build them to gather resources), so getting the most out of super units looks like it won’t be too tricky, provided you realise they’re not a crutch for your whole army.

Despite my woeful performance on the battlefield at Gamescom, I think there’s reason to be positive about Dawn of War III. It feels capable and well-built, with interesting units and a brilliant universe to further explore. But my excitement for a new Dawn of War is damped by how conservative it all feels. Where the first two games were distinct beasts that stood out from the RTS crowd, this third outing feels far more akin to the many strategy games you’ve played before. And while being like other good titles is in itself nothing to be concerned about, I worry that Dawn of War is on a path to lose some of its unique identity. I can’t understate what a great loss that would be.