http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050215/latu009_1.html
Color me unimpressed. Imperial Guard as the only new race? No Tyranids, Dark Eldar, or Necrons? They’ve already got the IG grunt, Leman Russ and Commisar models and voices in the game, there’s not a whole lot else.
I love DoW, played it some more over the last few weeks, but waiting until fall for the IG and some new maps? There’d better be a bunch of campaign missions for single player in there, or no money for you.
Campaign was my favorite part, I never really got into the Skirmish, and the online patch software wasn’t working for me (in effect, couldn’t play online either). So having a campaign thats longer, and as cool as the original campaign, would be great.
As for the races, I never really was a Warhammer fan, so I really don’t have anything useful to add. There seems to be enough races, though. All different enough from the others.
Only one new race is disappointing, but I’ll be satisfied if they give each of the 5 races a single player campaign. I’m looking forward to it.
Yeah, that’s what’s going to sell it for me. The press release seems to allude to more single player content so I’ll only be buying the game if they provide a good amount of SP missions. I’m not too enthusiastic about playing as the guard, because I’m not sure the “Finally someone more fragile than the Eldar” niche needed to be filled.
Chatter on the relicnews forums alludes to a single player campaign for the IG only.
For those not familiar with the fluff, IG is the main army for the humans. The Space Marines are the elite special forces, whereas the IG just overruns them with armor and manpower. Space Marines number 1,000 to a chapter and there are about 1,000 chapters in the galaxy. IG armies number in the 10,000s, and most developed worlds are required to field an army once a generation.
Tyranids are pretty much what the Zerg in Starcraft were modeled from. The Necrons are undead zombie-robots, and the Dark Eldar are the Eldar fallen to Chaos (like the Chaos Marines). I also forgot the Tau in my original post: Anime influenced high tech aliens that look like Greys and run around in battle armor and hovertanks.
Yes, I’ll probably buy it when it comes out, but I think they could have had more impact by choosing another alien race instead of the other human force.
I’m not that familiar with the Warhammer40k universe, but I’ll be very disappointed if what you said is true. If the universe is as rich as everyone claims it to be, why not use it to your benefit?
Just a minor nitpick. Dark Eldar are just viciously evil Eldar, they are not fallen to Chaos. :)
Well, I’ve sold my copy long ago and this mini-expansion won’t make me buy another one. Who wants to play the Imperial Guard of all things?
Well, they do get cool vehicles. But yes, it’s hard to get enthused about the guard. I loved them way back when I used to play table top WH40K because it was so satisfying to have 5 times as many troops on the board as the opponent. When you have to manage that crowd in an RTS, that looks a lot less appealing.
Is it conceivable that Relic will change their mind and do a different race if they see that everyone (everyone online at least) doesn’t want the Guard?
It’s a surprising choice for a new race, that’s for sure. I thought a DoW expansion was a slam dunk for introducing the Tyranid. They remain a very popular Warhammer race. Aside from the massive armor that they get, the Guard is a pretty ho-hum choice.
If they do, I’ll lose a lot of respect for them.
My bad… Kalle is correct, they’re more pirate-y hit-and-run, raid-and-pillage types than the full on warp-addled slaves to Chaos.
I think the Imperial Guard is actually pretty cool, and think it would be fun to play.
I, however, will not be buying if/until it appears that they actually have a stable multiplayer base.
I liked the missions with the Imperial Guard a lot so I’m looking forward to this but, yeah, another race would have been nice.
Money. I’ve always gotten the impression that Games Workshop has no problems with milking their fan base.
I would have rather seen any faction but imperial guard, but since a bunch of models were already in the game from the single player game, it’s probably the path of least resistance. I’m hoping they spice it up by adding some inquisition or sisters of battle stuff to them.
And in regards for the Eldar: Many millenia ago (before the setting of warhammer fantasy!) the Eldar were the most powerful race in the galaxy. Their success afforded them too much free time, basically, and they became hedonistic. Eventually their perverted pleasures caused the chaos god Slaanesh to be born, when that happened, the eye of terror formed - a section of the galaxy where warp space and real space overlap. All of the eldar homeworlds were sucked into the warp. Very few eldar escaped the time of the fall, most of the survivors being on great trading ships known as craftworlds. Most Eldar are dedicated to fighting the forces of Chaos that decimated their empire, and will do anything to push them back. The Dark Eldar, however, have a different philosophy. Slaanesh is the god of pleasure and pain, and the dark eldar believe that only by placating that god can they get rid of her. Thus, they take slaves and torture them, taking sadistic pleasure in it, or force their slaves to fight to the death in arenas…all in the name of getting Slaanesh off everyone’s back. Or so the story goes, in my understanding of it anyway.
In tabletop game terms, where the eldar are fast and fragile, but hit hard, the dark eldar are faster and even more fragile, and hit even harder. They are probably the least forgiving race to play in the game, and the one that requires the most finesse.
Well, it is too bad that we’ll have to wait until Fall '05 for any additional single player missions. Has anyone managed to cobble together any missions beyond the original campaign? The Warhammer setting seems well suited for the asymmetry that makes for entertaining single player missions.
A relic dev has already posted in their forums that they’ve ditched all the model, texture assets from the IG in DoW and are recreating the race from scratch for the expansion.
As long as we’ve got a decent SP, and a high polish on the 5 races present in the expansion, I’ll be buying this on release. Actually, I’m sure I’ll buy it even if it gets a mediocre response. I love(d) DoW.
Screenshots:
http://www.pcgames.de/screenshots/original/3106.jpg
http://www.pcgames.de/screenshots/original/2145.jpg
http://www.relicnews.com/images/dow/screens/display.htm?snow_05.jpg