DOW2 released today, anyone here play it yet?

Koudelka

Senior member
Jul 3, 2004
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I think its great :) It takes all the best ideas from Dark Crusade and original DoW and combines them.

I've only played for an hour and a half but i love it. So this is based on just the first 4 missions. It plays out like Dark Crusade, except in an actual storylined campaign.

You get to select the squads you want to use at the beginning of each mission. They level up as they kill more enemies, and you can put points into atttributes for the individual squads and gain new abilities. You dont actually lose unless every single squad member dies because you just have to click on a down squad and they are revived in short time. But after each mission you're graded on 3 things. How many enemies you killed, how fast you completed the map, and how many squads survived the mission without being killed. You get additional xp and points towards titles.

The story-telling has been excellent so far with quite a few cutscenes :) And most of the missions have boss battles at the end which are quite surprisingly hard. Although i do have it on hard difficulty. They involve utilizing different abilities of the squads in conjunction. Lots of relocating and dodging too.

Thats all i can really say for now. But i think its worth it :)
 

Koudelka

Senior member
Jul 3, 2004
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Just wanted to add you cannot rampage around with a large group of marines or even all your squads and terrorize anymore. You will be cut down to pieces if you do not utilize all of your abilities and the cover. Frag grenades in the game are much more powerful too. A single nade can decimate an entire squad. So when you see one being tossed your way.. its a good idea to drop what youre doing and run for it :)

I'm just really surprised how useful the squad-specific abilities are now. Most of the time the difference between retreating or swarming your enemy is a well placed grenade to blow up enemy cover, or a well-timed ability. Even the scouts now are extremely useful. The enemy likes to garrison a lot of buildings with heavy bolters and the scouts can easily topple a building with a thrown satchel charge. But the enemy can do the same to you :) and they do it often. Half the time i dont even notice a nade they threw at me until one of my squads goes flying through the air in pieces.

It also feels very RPG-ish in the amount of wargear you get all the time. The amount you find depends on how many objectives you complete and how many enemies you kill. Every single squad can be fully outfitted with different weapons/armor/accessories. For example, you can turn your force commander into a ranged unit with a heavy bolter or equip the chainsword/pistol for melee.

At least in the first few missions, your force commander is not nearly as powerful as all previous games. But he is still extremely useful on taking on single squads himself. If you send him in against 2 or more squads by himself.. he's going to be shot down right quick without backup. But with proper covering fire he can really tear it up.

Oh, and just about everything i've seen so far blows up :) its really neat. Its like CoH but taken to the next level. Game is beautiful :) I just hope the SP campaign lasts quite a while and will have some good replay value.

 

Elcs

Diamond Member
Apr 27, 2002
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Alright, it is not released here for another 15 hours so la-la-la :)

Cannot wait to get my paws on it.
 

Jules

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
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Koudelka do you think its worth the $50 bucks? Thinking about getting it. I probably wont play online at all though.
 

lupi

Lifer
Apr 8, 2001
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It's tied to steam meaning it's gonna need a massive price reduction before I touch it. Combine that with the amount of expansions that will probably be released and I'll need to wait till the combined pack is on sale at a discount.
 

Koudelka

Senior member
Jul 3, 2004
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Originally posted by: Jules
Koudelka do you think its worth the $50 bucks? Thinking about getting it. I probably wont play online at all though.

I havent played enough yet to really tell :\ I think for me its worth the $50 bucks because i very much enjoy the W40k universe. It probably wont come down in price until an expansion is released.

The multiplayer has always been a massive selling point for DoW.

When i get a bit further into the SP campaign i'll let you know if it has any replay value like Dark Crusade had. :)

 

Koudelka

Senior member
Jul 3, 2004
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Originally posted by: Elcs
Alright, it is not released here for another 15 hours so la-la-la :)

Cannot wait to get my paws on it.


According to steam.. I looked at DoW2 yesterday morning and it said it would be released in 18 hours. Then later that day after work i got on the laptop and it said it was available.

I think they planned for a release on the 19th then decided what the hell and released it mid-day on the 18th. Because the countdown timer suddenly poofed and it was available almost 12 hours early.
 

Elcs

Diamond Member
Apr 27, 2002
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Originally posted by: Koudelka
Originally posted by: Elcs
Alright, it is not released here for another 15 hours so la-la-la :)

Cannot wait to get my paws on it.


According to steam.. I looked at DoW2 yesterday morning and it said it would be released in 18 hours. Then later that day after work i got on the laptop and it said it was available.

I think they planned for a release on the 19th then decided what the hell and released it mid-day on the 18th. Because the countdown timer suddenly poofed and it was available almost 12 hours early.

Yeah, we had ours put back 1 day on Steam. I've been refreshing the page every time I remember.

Still 7 more hours to go, reckon they will release it at midnight.
 

Sureshot324

Diamond Member
Feb 4, 2003
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Bought this on Steam last night but haven't played it. Really looking forward to this since it looks like it's basically Company of Heroes set in the War40k universe which is a good thing.
 

ZzZGuy

Golden Member
Nov 15, 2006
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Seems like CoH in space with RPG elements thrown in.

Anyone have any idea how to replay those message you sometime get after finishing a mission. It drives me nuts when you get something like that where you can't pause it.
 

Elcs

Diamond Member
Apr 27, 2002
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Purchased, played and love. (SP Campaign comments only)

After a lot of slaying, Ive realised that boss fights are extremely fun and the customisation you can squeeze out of the squads by levelling them up in different ways is immense. It feels a little repetitive at times with the side missions but there are some superb story parts.

Voice Acting is once again below Dawn of War 1 level with people you'll recognise sounding different to how they did before. Fluff-wise it seems to be quite correct or at least on-par with most Black Library publications (WH40k books).

Looks awesome @1080p Ultra settings on my 47" LCD TV and every time Avitus plants his Heavy Bolter and lets loose with a burst of Bolter fire, my Subwoofer rumbles nicely as if it were a cat purring.

Side Note: I have found Terminator Armour to be most disappointing in the Campaign and find my normal equipment and abilities to be superior.

EDIT: Just completed it on Captian Difficult (2nd easiest from a selection of 4, default difficulty) and my instant reaction was "Got to play that again".

This time through, taking it on on the 2nd hardest level and levelling my Marines in a slightly different and better way.

Took down a crazy hard Orc Boss in the Campaign which was an insane fight. Had to retreat numerous times to reheal and regain composure. over 180,000 HP bosses make for fun fights.

My tactics in that fight reminded me of my signature below which is a quote from a WH40k book.
 

gizbug

Platinum Member
May 14, 2001
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Very pricey if you ask me. Is there enough variety in the multiplayer maps to justify 50 bucks?
 

Eeezee

Diamond Member
Jul 23, 2005
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It's pricey if you're only going to play multiplayer, but the singleplayer component is supposedly massive and intricate. That has some value.
 

Koudelka

Senior member
Jul 3, 2004
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Ok... after further playthrough.. unless you're into multiplayer, its not worth it.

The game is currently infested with bugs and crashes and numerous issues.

SP campaign is also very short. As soon as things start getting good into the campaign, it abruptly ends.

Quite frankly i'm pretty pissed with the game. They could have made the SP campaign so much larger and better. And it falls horribly short.

So once again, if you're only playing for the SP campaign, you will be sorely disappointed.
 

Elcs

Diamond Member
Apr 27, 2002
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Originally posted by: Koudelka
Ok... after further playthrough.. unless you're into multiplayer, its not worth it.

The game is currently infested with bugs and crashes and numerous issues.

SP campaign is also very short. As soon as things start getting good into the campaign, it abruptly ends.

Quite frankly i'm pretty pissed with the game. They could have made the SP campaign so much larger and better. And it falls horribly short.

So once again, if you're only playing for the SP campaign, you will be sorely disappointed.

I completely disagree.

There are boatloads of missions to do for extra equipment and certain optional missions against far superior opponents. If you only do the missions directly linked to the storyline then yes you will be disappointed. Primarch difficulty is also completely insane where your marines armour is paper thin. The sheer amount of ways you can level your troops or use your troops is impressive and the fighting styles required are fun, especially on harder difficulties.

I had one crash in a 10 hour session with Alt+Tabbing on Ultra settings which is apparently the most bugged.

Maps are often repeated during optional missions but the fights are always different. I waltzed into a boss fight expecting just a simple Carnifex fight again... only to get the shock of my life when two more Carnifexes join the fight 10 seconds into it.
 

PhatoseAlpha

Platinum Member
Apr 10, 2005
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It's not a bad game. Hard to really characterize the single player game as a strategy game though - it's much closer to a simple action rpg then your typical RTS.

Bosses become very annoying quickly, simply because they happen once per mission. Every mission. It's as predictable as r-type. And it all honesty, the hp levels on some of these things are friggin absurd. Not FF11-lets-kill-our-players-in-real-life absurd, but all the same, if my walking tank has a little over 1000 or so hp, the boss shouldn't have 40,000 unless it's the death star.

I may have missed some important command somewhere, but I seem to have issues with controlling my guys properly. My commander has the annoying habit of simply stopping attacking after a single enemy goes down, requiring stupid amounts of micromanagement just to keep him doing something useful.
 

Fenixgoon

Lifer
Jun 30, 2003
33,370
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Originally posted by: WelshBloke
Me no like :(

Me want 'Warhammer 40K: Total War' :Q

Oh Yes.... Me Want

Me Want Now

it's called starcraft2 ;)


i really enjoyed the DOW2 beta, i'll pick this up eventually.
 

lupi

Lifer
Apr 8, 2001
32,539
260
126
I went over to the relic forums thinking about posting my love that steam is required, but I didn't need to seeing how there was locked threads all over the place of others already doing so.


Brought a tear to the ole eye :)
 

RedArmy

Platinum Member
Mar 1, 2005
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Well, I got the bug where Planet Meridian won't show up and the 1.1.1 patch they released didn't fix it. Awesome.
 

Elcs

Diamond Member
Apr 27, 2002
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Originally posted by: RedArmy
Well, I got the bug where Planet Meridian won't show up and the 1.1.1 patch they released didn't fix it. Awesome.

Havent heard of that one yet but thats just crazy. They are up to 1.1.2 already.

I have had two random crashes and both I have been less than happy with. Both have involved me wiping the map only to get in one instance just to the boss and the other, about 20 minutes into a boss fight only to hard crash and reboot my PC.

The squad sizes are really awesome. Although it is closer to real WH40k fluff from Games Workshop's Black Library, I had reservations on how well the small squads would work. It really works well and you can appreciate just how powerful a Space Marine really is.

Vehicles disappoint me greatly. The appearance of an SM Predator is a welcome sight but falls far too easily to enemy fire. Seeing enemy armour should give you cause for concern but it doesnt, it will fall quickly. Even a Venerable Dreadnaught can get torn to shreds by simple melee infantry.
 

MarcVenice

Moderator Emeritus <br>
Apr 2, 2007
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Haven't had a single crash. SP lasted some 12 hours or so for me, maybe a little more. I liked it overall, but some things could have been better. I thought scouts were pretty much useless, and I never really used Tarkus all that much, coz he isn't great at anything he does. Only with Terminator armour and lots of special actions can he be usefull. Then Thule, you get him only untill very late in the game, and for a long time I didn't find a gun for him, so he had to be hand-to-hand, but my commander and thaddeus were allready specced at hand-to-hand. There was another gripe, but I can't quite remember :p Oh wait I do remember, when wearing Terminator armor, they just knock over all the cover? You can't position them behind cover anymore, which kinda sucks, and makes a big part of the game useless, cover! In the end Thule felt a bit overpowered btw, with his freaking huge cannon. Thaddeus became rather weak instead, had to fly, and pull him the fuck back, or he'd die.

Gonna get started on MP soon.
 

nosfe

Senior member
Aug 8, 2007
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scouts are fun to play with, once you have the ability to maintain cloak when using items. Go in front of a big pack of enemies, plant the remote detonation bomb thingy and blow them all up. Sure, its faster to just right click on them with all your squads but on higher difficulty settings it won't work very well