There were only three things this game had going for it imo:
1. Art. I really liked the moving still images in the cut scenes. It was a radical substitute to full 3D scenes and it worked perfect.
The textures and the modeling in game was a job well done. Probs to the art team.
2. The coders and programmers did their job. The game ran well and there were minimal bugs.
3. The sound. I liked it, the compositions and the voice acting.
Everything else was absolute trash and in stark contrast to the three above points. The gameplay designers and whoever was in charge of this need never lay their hands on intellectual property, as sacred as 40K, ever again.
@Dullahan said:
After taking some time to process the news, I have to say I am incredibly disappointed in Relic's decision here. I understand the immediate business reasons for making this decision, but the long term rammifications of this decision are either being ignored or underestimate by the person who made the decision.
Relic has not had a game that received straight critical and consumer acclaim since Company of Heroes.
Dawn of War 2 was a very turbulent release, with many people having strong adverse reactions to the new design. CoH1 fans thought it was too dumbed down and fast paced, DoW1 fans thought it was too micro heavy and small scale. The game was incredibly poorly balanced and had that ++heresy redacted++ Games for Windows Live crap and a was missing a ton of quality of life features.
You know what made Dawn of War 2 into the fondly remembered title it is today? Relic put in the ++heresy redacted++ work. They released the "There is Only War" patch at the end of July, a mere 4 months after release, which overhauled game balance. This was the reforming of the foundation of DoW2 that could be built off of for the next 3 years before support for DoW2 was ended prematurely by THQ in its death throes. The Last Stand came out in October, 6 months after release, to great acclaim and then Chaos Rising came out around a year after release that introduced a fan favourite faction, new heroes for The Last Stand and a very ambitious singleplayer campaign. Retribution was even more ambitious, with a new map for The Last Stand, a new hero and a campaign that could be played as any race, in addition to a new faction. (Plus two DLC heroes for The Last Stand)
Company of Heroes 2 similarly released to negative reviews. It's currently sitting at a lower user score on metacritic (I know) than Dawn of War 3. The campain was extremely mediocre and historically inaccurate (hence the metacritic scores) and the balance was pretty messed up. Guess what, Relic put in the ++heresy redacted++ work again. Western Front Armies added two new factions and countless balance patches brought the game to a solid state after about a year. Then a year and half later, UKF was released. And the game received balance updates as recently as December 2017.
Both of those games grew over the years and developed stable playerbases. But it required work and effort and new content and patch support.
So here comes Dawn of War 3. The reaction is stronger than the other two games out of the gate, with a lot more vitriol and outrage. However, the balance is much better and there's a great base to build off of. What does Relic do?
Experiment with major economy and lethality changes, throwing ++heresy redacted++ at the wall and hoping it makes some people happy or something.
Add Annhilate mode and more options for custom games
Releases 3 new elites in October.
Release ~3-4 new maps.
Goes radio silence for 4 months and then announces they are abandoning the game.
And abandoning is the correct word. You're saying collectively as a studio that making content for the Dawn of War 3 audience is not worth your time or effort. You're not even going to support the game with balance patches or quality of life fixes. Did you guys even plan content rivaling Chaos Rising or Western Front Armies/Adennes Assault? Or did you just give up three months after release and sat around talking about how to overhaul DoW3 instead of just adding the simple things people wanted: TLS, new factions, more campaign.
I've been playing Relic's games for over ten years now starting with a collection of DoW1/Winter Assault/Dark crusade I got for Christmas. I've bought every single game you've released since then at full price, on release. I even bought that stupid Blood DLC for Dawn of War 2 just to give you guys some more money. I was hit hard by the recession in Alberta but still, I scrounged up the money to buy Dawn of War 3 at full price a week after being laid off again and being in the middle of a job hunt. Luckily I'm doing much better now, but I just want you to know that I bought your game even though I shouldn't have. I had absolute faith that you would do right by fans of Dawn of War 3, however few of us there are, because I watched you guys support Dawn of War 2 and CoH2 for years post-release. Even if you only did a fraction of the content that you put out for your prior games, I was atleast expecting you to pull out all the stops and try to give it a heroic sendoff with some sort of content. Instead we get three skins and a "Please keep an eye out for our two future projects, AoE IV and Mysterious Game X"
I will keep playing Dawn of War 3 for now but I won't be buying another Relic game again. Dawn of War 3 might have been a failed game, but abandoning it less than a year after release will be the deathblow for Relic as a studio. How many people here are honestly going to buy Age of Empires IV after knowing that Relic doesn't stand by their games? Or whatever your future unannounced project is. (Probably not an RTS anymore anyway.)
Great post,
I hope Relic learn from this debacle, even though I don't play DoW3 at the moment, I thought that Relic would eventually improve the game but abandoning it like this is a really bad look and makes me trust Relic even less than I already do.
I have also for several months seen mention that people cannot use the new elites from endless war update in mods.
Finally a request, make it possible at least with modding to have multiple teams. The obvious reason is to allow free for all and multi team games, but also I have gotten an idea how to add observer mode to the game with existing modding tools, but for it work we need at least 3 teams to prevent observers giving players vision. This idea is further described in the top link. (have to scroll down to my 2nd post)
Whatever "abandon your future games too" means. They were kind enough to bring their past games to the new server arch, and even provided Steamworks support to former GFWL titles, and to salvage CoH1 when Ubisoft bought their previous ones. And all of their games so far had multiple expansions. Having this one left in this state doesn't say anything about the future.
im really sad right now and relic was my favorite studio (and i somehow feel ++heresy redacted++ SEGA didnt let relic to try big changes or add new races) .anyway there is always a first time and it happened.they abandoned their game in less than a year.how can i trust them anymore?what will happen if AOE4 dont sell enough in first year?will they abandon it? i lost my faith...
@Siberior said:
Do you guys check sites like Reddit, steam forums, and other places aside from the relic forums/surveys for feedback as well?
Yep, more today than ever before.
Yeah, I can see why.
Trolls are cheering, community is depressed, suits upstairs are as cold as ever, merciless revenue chart once again dictates the rules.
Abandnment as such will leave a blue eye on Relics face as it'll be extremely difficult for existing loyal players to trust another Relic game.
I know I will not jump on preorders as I used to with previous titles and I doubt I'm the only one.
Its actually great that you're here chatting with us, the only thing worse then this news would be only following silence.
R_BENB, вы хоть понимаете, что натворили? Yes, I write in Russian, otherwise you will never learn our language and continue to produce a localization similar to Dawn of war 3. Вы чем думали, когда в декабре говорили о february content drop? Вы что, не можете понять, что с фанатами нельзя молчать? Они же на фантазируют, что собственно и произошло, а вы потом хапните говна со своими скинчиками. Что, в декабре не было ясно, что игра непопулярна? Что принесла мало денег? Вы зачем народ взбаламутили? Ты же сам, лично сказал, что поддержка не прекратится, что вы попытаетесь исправить ситуацию. Что изменилось за эти три месяца?
Вы же понимаете, что кинули свою преданную фан-базу? Тех, кто несмотря на все ваши фортели с балансом и экономикой, несмотря на месячное молчание, отсутствие контента, все еще продолжали играть. Вы кинули тех, кто считал вашу игру чем-то ценным, перспективным и достойным внимания. Тех, кто отстаивал ваш продукт в спорах со всем остальным игровым миром, стройно орущим, что DOW3 - говно. Иными словами, вы кинули свой людской запас прочности. Вы теперь - студия-пустослов. На ваши игры теперь будут коситься с недоверием и опаской, потому что раз уж вы швырнули фан-базу проекта, который сделал вам имя, то другие игры вы забросите при первых же трудностях. Ведь вы даже не попытались.
Как профессионалы, вы, возможно, неплохи и можете сделать отличную игру. Но как люди - вы кучка бесхребетных слабаков. Земля вам стекловатой.
@Dullahan said:
After taking some time to process the news, I have to say I am incredibly disappointed in Relic's decision here. I understand the immediate business reasons for making this decision, but the long term rammifications of this decision are either being ignored or underestimate by the person who made the decision.
Relic has not had a game that received straight critical and consumer acclaim since Company of Heroes.
Dawn of War 2 was a very turbulent release, with many people having strong adverse reactions to the new design. CoH1 fans thought it was too dumbed down and fast paced, DoW1 fans thought it was too micro heavy and small scale. The game was incredibly poorly balanced and had that ++heresy redacted++ Games for Windows Live crap and a was missing a ton of quality of life features.
You know what made Dawn of War 2 into the fondly remembered title it is today? Relic put in the ++heresy redacted++ work. They released the "There is Only War" patch at the end of July, a mere 4 months after release, which overhauled game balance. This was the reforming of the foundation of DoW2 that could be built off of for the next 3 years before support for DoW2 was ended prematurely by THQ in its death throes. The Last Stand came out in October, 6 months after release, to great acclaim and then Chaos Rising came out around a year after release that introduced a fan favourite faction, new heroes for The Last Stand and a very ambitious singleplayer campaign. Retribution was even more ambitious, with a new map for The Last Stand, a new hero and a campaign that could be played as any race, in addition to a new faction. (Plus two DLC heroes for The Last Stand)
Company of Heroes 2 similarly released to negative reviews. It's currently sitting at a lower user score on metacritic (I know) than Dawn of War 3. The campain was extremely mediocre and historically inaccurate (hence the metacritic scores) and the balance was pretty messed up. Guess what, Relic put in the ++heresy redacted++ work again. Western Front Armies added two new factions and countless balance patches brought the game to a solid state after about a year. Then a year and half later, UKF was released. And the game received balance updates as recently as December 2017.
Both of those games grew over the years and developed stable playerbases. But it required work and effort and new content and patch support.
So here comes Dawn of War 3. The reaction is stronger than the other two games out of the gate, with a lot more vitriol and outrage. However, the balance is much better and there's a great base to build off of. What does Relic do?
Experiment with major economy and lethality changes, throwing ++heresy redacted++ at the wall and hoping it makes some people happy or something.
Add Annhilate mode and more options for custom games
Releases 3 new elites in October.
Release ~3-4 new maps.
Goes radio silence for 4 months and then announces they are abandoning the game.
And abandoning is the correct word. You're saying collectively as a studio that making content for the Dawn of War 3 audience is not worth your time or effort. You're not even going to support the game with balance patches or quality of life fixes. Did you guys even plan content rivaling Chaos Rising or Western Front Armies/Adennes Assault? Or did you just give up three months after release and sat around talking about how to overhaul DoW3 instead of just adding the simple things people wanted: TLS, new factions, more campaign.
I've been playing Relic's games for over ten years now starting with a collection of DoW1/Winter Assault/Dark crusade I got for Christmas. I've bought every single game you've released since then at full price, on release. I even bought that stupid Blood DLC for Dawn of War 2 just to give you guys some more money. I was hit hard by the recession in Alberta but still, I scrounged up the money to buy Dawn of War 3 at full price a week after being laid off again and being in the middle of a job hunt. Luckily I'm doing much better now, but I just want you to know that I bought your game even though I shouldn't have. I had absolute faith that you would do right by fans of Dawn of War 3, however few of us there are, because I watched you guys support Dawn of War 2 and CoH2 for years post-release. Even if you only did a fraction of the content that you put out for your prior games, I was atleast expecting you to pull out all the stops and try to give it a heroic sendoff with some sort of content. Instead we get three skins and a "Please keep an eye out for our two future projects, AoE IV and Mysterious Game X"
I will keep playing Dawn of War 3 for now but I won't be buying another Relic game again. Dawn of War 3 might have been a failed game, but abandoning it less than a year after release will be the deathblow for Relic as a studio. How many people here are honestly going to buy Age of Empires IV after knowing that Relic doesn't stand by their games? Or whatever your future unannounced project is. (Probably not an RTS anymore anyway.)
I agree with a lot of the points you mentioned. I can only put the change of development practice down to a more commercially driven games industry. Games devs of old used to produce great games through passion and hard work, now the priority seems to be more about making a game financially viable first and foremost. I used to think Relic was one of the former but times change I guess.
Best of all is to see ppl here that always defended the game as "IT IS FUN yada yada".
Who would imagine that being approved only by few wouldn't be enough, right?
I just wish you all from Relic taste this Failure very very well. Take your time and
Enjoy every second, cause you sure deserve it
Whatever "abandon your future games too" means. They were kind enough to bring their past games to the new server arch, and even provided Steamworks support to former GFWL titles, and to salvage CoH1 when Ubisoft bought their previous ones. And all of their games so far had multiple expansions. Having this one left in this state doesn't say anything about the future.
im really sad right now and relic was my favorite studio (and i somehow feel ++heresy redacted++ SEGA didnt let relic to try big changes or add new races) .anyway there is always a first time and it happened.they abandoned their game in less than a year.how can i trust them anymore?what will happen if AOE4 dont sell enough in first year?will they abandon it? i lost my faith...
Don't care too much about AoE. I'm still not sure how it will be distributed, like a WinStore exclusive? That way it would almost be doomed for sure. I'm wondering what's that another project they are working on atm. Its not hard to guess it may be CoH3, its been a while since 2013.
But yeah, sad to see it being abandoned like this, not even ten months after... Numbers said their thing. I'll play it sometimes, even though I already got my moneys worth from it. If nothing, I'm really enjoying its soundtrack, Arrival of The Blood Ravens is my daily drug even today. At least I get to keeps something out of this.
SEGA stop to make console because they always make the worst choise , and now they kill all the good games. and the relic staff need to go work with bioware...
I agree with a lot of the points you mentioned. I can only put the change of development practice down to a more commercially driven games industry. Games devs of old used to produce great games through passion and hard work, now the priority seems to be more about making a game financially viable first and foremost. I used to think Relic was one of the former but times change I guess.
Yeah. An article title in my country says: not enought sales of dow3, there wont be expansion.
It draws a picture of studio that cares for fianncial success mostly
@Psykapott said:
SEGA stop to make console because they always make the worst choise , and now they kill all the good games. and the relic staff need to go work with bioware...
Uhh total war is good,isolation had good scores too...
I think there will be more harm than good in devs abandoning the game. Haters will redirect their attention to AoE and will see to it that it fails just like DoW3, the actual quality of the game won't matter.
@Robomate said:
Is the new skin update actually "masters of war skin pack" from the preorder/Special edition
Nope. New set.
Twas a joke
At this point can you share anymore information about the new skins
Will the masters of war skin pack be sold or released as in the past on the forums its been requested along with the soundtrack
Ah, got it. I am taking everything very! seriously! today. My bad. The artist said he'll get me a sneak peek of the new skins for you. I'll post it here in an hour or so, hang tight.
Soundtrack has been available for purchase for a while. Google to find your retailer of choice.
Pre-order skins, I expect, will stay as pre-order skins.
@Robomate said:
Is the new skin update actually "masters of war skin pack" from the preorder/Special edition
Nope. New set.
Twas a joke
At this point can you share anymore information about the new skins
Will the masters of war skin pack be sold or released as in the past on the forums its been requested along with the soundtrack
Ah, got it. I am taking everything very! seriously! today. My bad. The artist said he'll get me a sneak peek of the new skins for you. I'll post it here in an hour or so, hang tight.
Soundtrack has been available for purchase for a while. Google to find your retailer of choice.
Pre-order skins, I expect, will stay as pre-order skins.
Its really sad to see this game being abandoned by the devs so quickly after its release.... I was really hoping for a nice patch, some free content drop and a race announcement that maybe could have saved the day and bring us a larger playerbase to build up on.
Instead the decision was made to let dow3 die so quickly after its release thats really a shame. Im really dissapointed by that decision cause relic doesnt even try to ressurect dow3, just 1 last try you know and if that fails and also if 1 extra race doesnt resurrect dow3 then i would understand the decision to turn their back on the game. How its down now is a shame for every gaming company noone should do like this, the games release was horrible, so little content and such terrible balance and now they simply go away with our money and try their luck with different projects.
Pah shame on relic seriously i grew up with dow as a child, i played each dow on the highest level and enjoyed every dow even with all their draw backs but what relic is doing now is simply unacceptable for me.
Leaving a dow game behind with 3 races only is the biggest slap into the fan base anyway, but as i said 1 last big try to ressurrect it and i would stick to relic, but how its done now is a shame.
@Robomate said:
Is the new skin update actually "masters of war skin pack" from the preorder/Special edition
Nope. New set.
Twas a joke
At this point can you share anymore information about the new skins
Will the masters of war skin pack be sold or released as in the past on the forums its been requested along with the soundtrack
Ah, got it. I am taking everything very! seriously! today. My bad. The artist said he'll get me a sneak peek of the new skins for you. I'll post it here in an hour or so, hang tight.
Soundtrack has been available for purchase for a while. Google to find your retailer of choice.
Pre-order skins, I expect, will stay as pre-order skins.
One more question @r_benb , are you considering doing at least a remaster for Dow1 SS? Would be nice to me too, since the version I have feels outdated to me. So I might spend time later to overcome sadness after ceasing Dow3's support. And oh, would be nice if you add a new expansion for remaster.
I have a question, could you work on Dawn Of War Soulstorm and edit the game so we have all races there in one game? So we do not need the other games? And could you add SteamWorskhop for mods? These 2 things would be amazing.
Menu
Comments
Soul_Splitter
There were only three things this game had going for it imo:
1. Art. I really liked the moving still images in the cut scenes. It was a radical substitute to full 3D scenes and it worked perfect.
The textures and the modeling in game was a job well done. Probs to the art team.
2. The coders and programmers did their job. The game ran well and there were minimal bugs.
3. The sound. I liked it, the compositions and the voice acting.
Everything else was absolute trash and in stark contrast to the three above points. The gameplay designers and whoever was in charge of this need never lay their hands on intellectual property, as sacred as 40K, ever again.
r_benb
Yep, more today than ever before.
IpKaiFung
Great post,
I hope Relic learn from this debacle, even though I don't play DoW3 at the moment, I thought that Relic would eventually improve the game but abandoning it like this is a really bad look and makes me trust Relic even less than I already do.
Martin
@r_benb regarding modding tools here are some things that would be good.
Apparantly there are problem with the new version of mod tools as written in the posts by OLOLO111
https://community.dawnofwar.com/discussion/16017/gauging-interest-in-a-community-driven-balance-content-mod#latest
https://community.dawnofwar.com/discussion/16006/rollback-to-the-post-previous-version-update-modtools#latest
I have also for several months seen mention that people cannot use the new elites from endless war update in mods.
Finally a request, make it possible at least with modding to have multiple teams. The obvious reason is to allow free for all and multi team games, but also I have gotten an idea how to add observer mode to the game with existing modding tools, but for it work we need at least 3 teams to prevent observers giving players vision. This idea is further described in the top link. (have to scroll down to my 2nd post)
aghabozorg
im really sad right now and relic was my favorite studio (and i somehow feel ++heresy redacted++ SEGA didnt let relic to try big changes or add new races) .anyway there is always a first time and it happened.they abandoned their game in less than a year.how can i trust them anymore?what will happen if AOE4 dont sell enough in first year?will they abandon it? i lost my faith...
Katitof
Yeah, I can see why.
Trolls are cheering, community is depressed, suits upstairs are as cold as ever, merciless revenue chart once again dictates the rules.
Abandnment as such will leave a blue eye on Relics face as it'll be extremely difficult for existing loyal players to trust another Relic game.
I know I will not jump on preorders as I used to with previous titles and I doubt I'm the only one.
Its actually great that you're here chatting with us, the only thing worse then this news would be only following silence.
elbarto30
R_BENB, вы хоть понимаете, что натворили? Yes, I write in Russian, otherwise you will never learn our language and continue to produce a localization similar to Dawn of war 3. Вы чем думали, когда в декабре говорили о february content drop? Вы что, не можете понять, что с фанатами нельзя молчать? Они же на фантазируют, что собственно и произошло, а вы потом хапните говна со своими скинчиками. Что, в декабре не было ясно, что игра непопулярна? Что принесла мало денег? Вы зачем народ взбаламутили? Ты же сам, лично сказал, что поддержка не прекратится, что вы попытаетесь исправить ситуацию. Что изменилось за эти три месяца?
Вы же понимаете, что кинули свою преданную фан-базу? Тех, кто несмотря на все ваши фортели с балансом и экономикой, несмотря на месячное молчание, отсутствие контента, все еще продолжали играть. Вы кинули тех, кто считал вашу игру чем-то ценным, перспективным и достойным внимания. Тех, кто отстаивал ваш продукт в спорах со всем остальным игровым миром, стройно орущим, что DOW3 - говно. Иными словами, вы кинули свой людской запас прочности. Вы теперь - студия-пустослов. На ваши игры теперь будут коситься с недоверием и опаской, потому что раз уж вы швырнули фан-базу проекта, который сделал вам имя, то другие игры вы забросите при первых же трудностях. Ведь вы даже не попытались.
Как профессионалы, вы, возможно, неплохи и можете сделать отличную игру. Но как люди - вы кучка бесхребетных слабаков. Земля вам стекловатой.
Colgul
I agree with a lot of the points you mentioned. I can only put the change of development practice down to a more commercially driven games industry. Games devs of old used to produce great games through passion and hard work, now the priority seems to be more about making a game financially viable first and foremost. I used to think Relic was one of the former but times change I guess.
Tobi
Well THE ONLY THING.They screw up big time
Siddha
I just wish I could refund this fiasco...
Best of all is to see ppl here that always defended the game as "IT IS FUN yada yada".
Who would imagine that being approved only by few wouldn't be enough, right?
I just wish you all from Relic taste this Failure very very well. Take your time and
Enjoy every second, cause you sure deserve it
Renner
Don't care too much about AoE. I'm still not sure how it will be distributed, like a WinStore exclusive? That way it would almost be doomed for sure. I'm wondering what's that another project they are working on atm. Its not hard to guess it may be CoH3, its been a while since 2013.
But yeah, sad to see it being abandoned like this, not even ten months after... Numbers said their thing. I'll play it sometimes, even though I already got my moneys worth from it. If nothing, I'm really enjoying its soundtrack, Arrival of The Blood Ravens is my daily drug even today. At least I get to keeps something out of this.
Psykapott
SEGA stop to make console because they always make the worst choise , and now they kill all the good games. and the relic staff need to go work with bioware...
Tobi
Yeah. An article title in my country says: not enought sales of dow3, there wont be expansion.
It draws a picture of studio that cares for fianncial success mostly
Tobi
Uhh total war is good,isolation had good scores too...
Achernar
I think there will be more harm than good in devs abandoning the game. Haters will redirect their attention to AoE and will see to it that it fails just like DoW3, the actual quality of the game won't matter.
jambai
Back to DoW 2 elite mod.
r_benb
@Robomate here's a look at one of them!
Achernar
Is it paintable?
Martin
........dayum
r_benb
Sure is
Spirit
Its really sad to see this game being abandoned by the devs so quickly after its release.... I was really hoping for a nice patch, some free content drop and a race announcement that maybe could have saved the day and bring us a larger playerbase to build up on.
Instead the decision was made to let dow3 die so quickly after its release thats really a shame. Im really dissapointed by that decision cause relic doesnt even try to ressurect dow3, just 1 last try you know and if that fails and also if 1 extra race doesnt resurrect dow3 then i would understand the decision to turn their back on the game. How its down now is a shame for every gaming company noone should do like this, the games release was horrible, so little content and such terrible balance and now they simply go away with our money and try their luck with different projects.
Pah shame on relic seriously i grew up with dow as a child, i played each dow on the highest level and enjoyed every dow even with all their draw backs but what relic is doing now is simply unacceptable for me.
Leaving a dow game behind with 3 races only is the biggest slap into the fan base anyway, but as i said 1 last big try to ressurrect it and i would stick to relic, but how its done now is a shame.
WelshBrok
Perhaps it should have gone the steam early access route to get more interaction between the iterations
Robomate
Neat im guessing thats for wraithlord?
What about the other two, please don't be another gabe skin
Martin
What are you saying? necron gabe or riot!
r_benb
A new Gorkanaut and Imperial Knight coming your way next week.
Draconix
One more question @r_benb , are you considering doing at least a remaster for Dow1 SS? Would be nice to me too, since the version I have feels outdated to me. So I might spend time later to overcome sadness after ceasing Dow3's support. And oh, would be nice if you add a new expansion for remaster.
Vukasin
I have a question, could you work on Dawn Of War Soulstorm and edit the game so we have all races there in one game? So we do not need the other games? And could you add SteamWorskhop for mods? These 2 things would be amazing.
mauritos
same question as draconix asked soulstorm remastered?will you realase mod tool for importing new units in the game?