dawn-of-war-ii posts

If you thought the latest StarCraft II beta patch had lots of balance changes, we apparently aint seen nothin' yet. Relic Entertainment's RTS title Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War II is prepping a new patch for release next week that will have a ton of unit balance adjustments.

You can check out the full patch notes on the game's official message board. As you can see all of the game's various factions are affected and there are also a few bug fixes in the next patch. There's also a chat with Relic's Clint Tasker as he answers some of the questions that have come up from the community about the patch. If you want to get into the nitty gritty of game design this is a great example.

As previously hinted, developer Relic and publisher THQ have just announced plans for Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War II - Chaos Rising. It's the first stand alone expansion to the sci-fi RTS game that was released last February. The new game is due out in spring 2010 and will introduce the Chaos Space Marines as the new playable side in the series.

Chaos Rising will continue the storyline in the original Dawn of War II and you can even use your squad's items, experience points and more to fight the Chaos Marines in the new single player campaign. The level cap has also been raised from 20 to 30 and there will be new multiplayer maps and new units for the three playable sides in the first Dawn of War II game.

Relic Entertainment has been generous with free updates to their sci-fi RTS game Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War II. But are they prepping a full fledged commercial expansion? Relic News seems to think so. The long time fan site of all things Relic have been sent some interesting packages from publisher THQ.

The package contain a Games Workshop minature of a Chaos Space Marine, a big hint that Relic plans to introduce them into the game at some point. The package, as you can see above, has "MMX" on it which is likely not a reference to Intel's old MMX processor but the year "2010", a possible hint as to a release date.

We've already reported that Relic and THQ are planning to release a major content update for their sci-fi RTS game Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War II later this month. Today they plan to release an open beta version of the update which can be accessed via the Steam service.

The open beta for the 1.4 update, titled There Is Only War, will be made available at 2 pm PT (5 pm ET) and will include eight new multiplayer maps, the World Builder map editor, the new Observer feature and lots of other new features, balances changes and bug fixes. The patch will remain in beta until Monday, July 13. You can check out the entire patch notes at the Dawn of War II community site.

It's one of our most anticipated PC games of 2009 and today the official community web site for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II has officially revealed the system requirements for the upcoming RTS title from Relic and THQ, Not only that but the site states that info on how players can get into the beta test for the game will be announced on Thursday.

With that out of the way let's get to the system specs:

Minimum Requirements
* Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista SP1
* P4 3.2 GHz (single core) or any Dual Core processor
* 1 GB RAM (XP), 1.5 GB RAM (Vista)
* A 128MB Video Card (Shader Model 3) - Nvidia GeForce 6600 GT / ATI X1600, or equivalent
* 5.5 GB of Hard Drive space

Recommended
* Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista SP1
* AMD Athlon 64×2 4400+ or any Intel Core 2 Duo
* 2 GB RAM (XP and Vista)
* A 256MB Video Card (Shader Model 3) - Nvidia GeForce 7800 GT / ATI X1900, or equivalent
* 5.5 GB of Hard Drive space

One of the biggest problems for real-time strategy (RTS) games has been the detached and disinterested attitude many players exhibit when faced with playing them. More often than not, a lot of people who consistently play RTS games are doing so out of their love for the strategy element. That's all well and good, but there's a caveat: The problem continues. Why? It does so because the cache of players who're highly dedicated to RTS games don't count for much of the PC gaming contingent.

I've considered Relic Entertainment a top-drawer developer ever since I casually sat down to play Homeworld 2, only to discover a game that would absorb several tens of hours of my life. So when initial previews revealed that Dawn of War 2 (DoW2) wouldn't focus on player-built structures, I was intrigued. I continued to read up on the game and subsequently found even more provocative information. Players will only control five or so squads in any one battle? These squads are to stay with you over the course of the game? This was a glaringly unprecedented change, and I loved it.

Click the image above to continue reading "Alt-Tab: Can RPG + RTS = cute baby?"

A trio of Dawn of War II trailers graces your Big Download news page today, demonstrating cinematics and gameplay from Relic's upcoming RTS sequel. Though we embedded the cinematic trailer for you last week (courtesy of GameTrailers), Big download now hosts high definition versions of each, so feast your eyes on some Dawn of War II goodness.

Download the HD Dawn of War II cinematic trailer from Big Download

Download the HD Dawn of War II gameplay trailer from Big Download

Download the HD Dawn of War II "Watch for Ambush" trailer from Big Download

"This planet is ours, witch."
"No, this planet is theirs."

Whose planet is it? View the included Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II cinematic teaser, courtesy of developer Relic and publisher THQ, to find out. The trailer, shown during this year's E3, shows a gory ambush portrays a gory ambush that shows two factions battling for dominion. Chainsaws, headshots, multiple stab wounds, and prime visual entertainment abound.

The newest wave of news about Dawn of War II is coming out of Relic and 1up.com has not only a three page interview with the game designers up, but a podcast discussing the game and even a short gameplay video. One of the biggest pieces of new information is that the strategy game will not feature base building. Instead players will control up to about five squads that stick with them throughout the singleplayer campaign. Of course Relic is keeping their lips sealed about whether or not a similar structure exists in the online mode.

Another subject that they're not speaking on is additional races beyond Space Marines and the Orks. Relic has said in the past that they would consider doing Tyranids Zerg Tyranids for DoW2. We're sure that by this point fans of the "Great Devourer" have become an extremely vocal crowd considering their race was the only one never to be officially featured in the original Dawn of War, even after numerous expansions. Maybe we'll see a new playable race revealed at this year's E3 and if fans are lucky they'll finally get .

On Monday we heard from Midway on their latest financial numbers. Today it's THQ's turn to the plate as it revealed its latest financial results for both its latest quarter and its full 2008 fiscal year that ended on March 31 For their last quarter the publisher recorded $187 million in revenue, up slightly from $172.1 million for the same period a year ago. However, THQ recorded a loss of $34.5 million for the quarter, which is a much higher loss than the $6.5 million that it got for the same period a year ago. THQ stated that while some games like Frontlines: Fuel of War either met or exceeded their sales expectations, other previously released games did not meet their expectations.

For the full year THQ had revenues of $1.035 billion, up slightly from revenues of $1.026 billion for the fiscal 2007 time frame. THQ had a loss of $35.3 million for the full fiscal year, down from a profit of $68 million for the fiscal 2007 year. THQ has already taken steps to cut costs, shuttering a development studio and canceling games late last year. it is also rumored to have laid off workers at two more internal development studios. THQ's upcoming game line-up for the PC includes the third person shooter Red Faction: Guerrilla this fall and in 2008 the highly anticipated RTS sequel Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II from developer Relic.