Relic and THQ may have announced today that Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War II has gone gold and will ship to stores on Feb. 19, but the developer already has plans for the game's post-release updates. The game's official community site has some hints about those plans via a Q&A with the game's producer Mark Noseworthy.

Noseworthy states that within a week after Dawn of War II ships, "...we'll be adding two additional multiplayer maps to the game." He adds that that they will work with Microsoft to offer a number of updates to the game via Games For Windows Live Marketplace. While some of these updates will be free, it appears that others will be of a premium (i.e. paid) nature.

The upcoming multiplayer beta, which begins on Wednesday, will also allow THQ and Relic to put in some multiplayer balance changes to the full game for a planned "day zero" patch that will be released the same day the retail game ships.