Yeah, I certainly see them dropping the Eldar more readily than Chaos. I get the impression that a) Relic have the hots for Chaos, and b) no-one really plays Eldar.
I’d love it if they mixed it up a little by going with a different flavour of Chaos - Nurgle would be spectacular.
I don’t think it’s in Games Workshop’s interests to allow a computer game that emulates the tabletop experience so effectively.
I’d love to see a broader range of chaos units - though that might be a job for a modding team somewhere, personally, I’d like someone to allow me to field squads of noise marines.
Didn’t Mark of Chaos emulate the point-buy system (somewhat) and customization of units and such for Warhammer Fantasy Battles?
If I had to wager, they will put in the races that either a) sell the most or b) new product launch. :) Space Marines, Orks, Chaos, and Tyranids seems like a good guess to start with. I would like to see a real single player campaign again, complete with chaos-tainted Tyranids and Orks.
To be honest I’ve never played the tabletop version and didn’t even know it used a point system. My thought process was more along the lines of the Combat Mission series. I always thought Company of Heroes would have been fantastic … well, more fantastic if they had a point based skirmish mode.
A static amount units and resources would do a lot to bring the game more in line with how the table-top is played, but I would think it would be unlikely for the genre (although Myth did it).
I love the idea of RTSes but I hate the economy/resource management aspect. Don’t get me wrong, I love building bases. I loves me a good turtle. I love making first line contact defenses and fallback positions. I love managing the troops. I love the blitz. I even like losing to a good opponent who outfought me. What I dislike is the artifical “gather x resource to produce y unit” system that most RTSes use. I dislike losing because while I’m planning my attack my opponent knew the right combination of early game advances and shows up at my door with Tigers already. I’d rather either start with all the resources I’m going to get and have to decide how to use them or pick my units in the beginning. I’d even be down with “You get 10,000 points to build your base and 20,000 points for your army” type thing. Give me a few minutes (or while paused in a single player game) to build my base and decide on where to initially place units. That’s much more in line with how battles are actually fought and the kind of wargaming I like. I fundamentally dislike juggling the abstract, wholly unrealistic effort of of gathering arbitrary resources like gasoline or food or wood or ammo or whathave you then creating units. I’ve put up with it since Dune II and I think it’s time to change the model. We all love tactics and that’s why tactical wargame/boardgames were so popular. It’s why Combat Mission was so awesome, because it was like tactical wargaming realized. To me most RTSes are a step backwards. Or a t least a step away from wargaming. To each his own and for people that like that kind of thing, fantastic. But if they just added a few more options to play a more “pure” strategy/tactical game I think they’d win a lot of customers.
I think you can still have an exciting game by using the Company of Heroes model of having victory points that act to tick down your opponent’s flags or outright exterminating them.
My favorite parts of Company of Heroes was setting up fire lines and arcs of fire for emplaced machine guns and fire teams and units to support each other and unleashing them. To me, all the micromanagement of having to worry about having to grab and hold some node then deciding right then whether to buy a tank or an AA halfttrack distracted from the game. It was like each time I was trying to recreate the ending of Saving Private Ryan. What do we have? Let’s use that. Tom Hanks never had to worry about fuel points. Let me pick my units, formation, and defenses beforehand and then use some actual tactics instead of clicking like mad to make sure my infrastructure supports my tactics.
Sure, many people like the infrastructure and tech tree thing. I’m just not one of them. I’m more a pure wargamer who wants to leave the operation and strategic side of war outside of the actual tactics (much like the Total War series does).
I don’t think it will happen.
DoW is a pretty brutal game. Units routinely get insta-killed and annihilated by plasma, rockets, and all kinds of other shit. If they took out the unit production aspects of the game, you’d probably spend more time at the map’s loading screen than in the game.
Hopefully they’ll do some decent AI for it. Company of Heroes is a lot of fun but the AI is pretty dull, which is a problem when you mainly play comp stomps and skirmishes. Tends to just build one or two unit types and send them at you in an endless wave, and god help it if you do anything like blow up a bridge. Also wonder if they’re going to do Company of Heroes command trees and powers or not.
I’m guessing they will balance the races by ‘alignment’. They have Space Marines (good) and Orks (evil), they won’t go Tyranid(evil) and Chaos(evil). They are more likely to go one more good and one more evil, if they are going with four. So I’m guessing either Tau or Eldar, as the Imperial Guard / Sisters of Battle / DaemonHunters are still humans. And then one more evil race…hopefully Tyranid, but Chaos is hard not to choose, since all its models are very similiar to Space Marines. Though they did just release a straight up Demons codex in tabletop…
Yeah - the Good/Evil thing was the main thing, other than the Tyranids as Expansion thing, which made me think they wouldn’t go for Tyranid or Chaos.
That said, it’s worth remembering there isn’t a Good and Evil thing in the 40k universe. Space Marines view Eldar in much the same way they view Orks.
KG
The only factions that can reasonably ally are the various Imperials - space marines, imperial guard, and assorted inquisitorial and ecclesiarchal factions.
I’m with ElGuapo in that I’d really like to see another resourceless RTS, much in the style of MechCommander, though not necesarily in the same universe. I don’t know why I love that game while I hate Westwood/Blizzard commando style missions, though.
Unless you’re an author looking for an alien force to temporarily align your Space Marines with when they must face the unstoppable hordes of Chaos in a last ditch attempt to save the X, Y, or Z.
Much absolution to follow, of course.
Amen, that’s one of the most charming parts of the 40k universe to me. No artificially sappy and heroic good guys, just a bunch of bad guys with big big guns.
STUNTIES!?
Absolution?!? Well, back in my day we’d reward the force by conscripting the leaders into the inquisition and killing all the line troops and then virus bomb the planet just to be sure. Only the Emperor’s light will save humanity. The only good Xeno is a dead Xeno. What are you Tau boy? You wanna go hang out with your Tau friends and start some coalition?
Believe.
KG
Squats are never coming back.
I bet they save Tyranids for an expansion.
There will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth. And many copies of the expansion sold.
FYI, DoWII is also in the June issue of PC Gamer US.
Soulstorm left a pretty bland taste in my mouth after a few hours of play. Like it’s been said many times before, it just doesn’t have the polish that the other games had.
That said, I still have high hopes for DoWII, and playing as the Orks. Nothing else matters :P