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DoW3 Silver Lining and Post Mortem
vindicarex
Some of you may know me; I was one of DoW3's fiercest defenders (albeit critical and harsh at times), defending Relic in the trenches of the forums, even assuring the community that surely a Chaos/Necron DLC expansion is just around the corner - there's no way Relic would release this sparse content and call it quits?
But Low, that's what we got.
DoW3 Could've been a great game in it;s own right, imo. But the biggest disaster is the concerning lack project management on the goals-end. In Systems Engineering, we say "Did we develop the correct product?" rather than "Did we develop the product correctly?" It seems to me Relic is guilty of the ladder - sure DoW3 was a quality game in and of itself, technically refreshing to play compared to DoW2/CoH2; however, it missed the mark when it came to an appropaite Dawn of War game, or even sequel.
Right off the start ill portents loomed with DoW3's E3 gameplay reveal trailer w/ the Gabriel Angelos mission. Relic was so busy making the game they came up with good that they didn't realize the foundation of that the game was built off of and gave us something like a straw house on a steel floor. An enormous amount of people did not like the "cartoony" or "SC2-like" graphics. And while an amazingly gorgeous game - in it's own right - it, missed the mark. DoW1 & 2, hell - all of 40k - is all about that "Photo-realism" art style. To make it as realistic at possible so that all the bombastic gritty and grimness can immerse you in the dark fantasy. And make no mistake, like any fantasy, there are certain unwritten rules the community at large have large agreed on - and one is a fondness for what "looks" 40k. This trend is why people love The Lord Inquisitor movie (only a prologue out) that will probably never get made any time soon. It's why people love the sound of autocannons and Space Marines yelling and creaming at the top of their lungs some log-winded inspirational morale booster quote, garbled through vox comms and corny as it may be. Thus, DoW3's shift toward a more conventional graphics style started to alienate fans - imagine if Battlefield started to become more like Call of Duty.
Additionally, the bits and doo-dads on the battlefield were trimmed down in DoW3 (e.g. no cover) in favor of power core mode. Why Relic decided to shift into this direction for DoW3 I can only speculate - but it clearly had huge, fundamental gameplay impacts that separated it from the previous DoW's further. Details like economy escalation phases, Elite points, Commander/Elites themselves, and power-income system were all changed significantly. Instead of choosing an identity in either 1 or 2, Relic chose to try to "marry to two" iirc, but beyond did not merge their chosen traits well at all. Sure, loads of line-infantry had abilities to use, and all Elites had killer abilities that could slaughter your forces in a blink if you weren't too careful - trying to imitate DoW2's emphasis on all units having important abilities to activate at appropriate times (one of it's core gameplay traits). On the other hand, the escalation phases, listening posts, and overall large economy meant you were constantly building or reinforcing stuff, giving it a DoW1 macro-style feel. However, these two combined meant that you had large numbers if infantry marching about, all with individual squad abilities (that were often too strong or too weak), while at the same time facing off vs Elites who have even stronger and faster abilities, so you're trying to macro and build and move and get your stuff off while at the same time fighting and dodging the enemies' similar stuff flying your way. You can see how this hectic gameplay can quickly get out of control for the average player - meaning it was often very likely that both players would lose large portions of their line infantry, making it hard to keep them alive if you wanted to use them effectively. A perfect storm of an imbalanced fiasco combined with the aforementioned pr nightmare of marking to what DoW3 "should've been," started to seal DoW3's fate.
And while Relic made some real improvements to the game before it's abandonment, it's clear that the game should never have been like this in this first place. Sure, everyone may have a different idea about what the "perfect DoW3 should've been," but I don't think it's wrong to fault the concept that there is some ideal game out there to rally the community as its champion. This idea can be thought of as "the perfect Dawn of War game - one that was not bound my time or resources." Imagine a cinematic-level graphics with amazing fight animations and blood-curdling cries around for DoW. Ya - a pipe dream, but you get the point. Ultimately, it's up to the developers, the producer, to meet the needs and desires of their audience, or consumer. This idea is what I meant by "Did we develop the correct system?" It's not that you can make the system run and that's what good. The goal is to find out WHY the system is being made, consider all stakeholders' interests, at all levels (like the community's interests), and satisfying the requirements of those stakeholders.
I think in the Rush to make DoW3, a game SEGA/Relic knew would sell on the name alone, a deadline was set, Relic, being the not-as-well-funded-as-we'd-like RTS developers they are, had a budget and set of to make DoW3 in ~3 years. IIRC, DoW3 was intitaly brainstormed before THQ went under, then revived after SEGA. Bought in 2013, we know Relic focused on CoH2 quite a bit (I would know, I was there playing CoH2 on release) for a long time. As a long time contributor and purveyor of Relic game news, It would seem that maybe Relic started to initiate DoW3 project in 2015. I would be surprised if Relic, who were working quite a bit on CoH2 expansions and DLC, had the resources to devote anything more to DoW3 beyond brainstorming before that point, but who knows. Regardless, seeing how DoW3 came out in 2017, that gives 2-3 years total time. Let's say they fully planned out the DoW3 project and the game in !6 months and then started actual development, leaving 1.5-2.5 years of actual development time. In any case, it seems like a woefully small time alloted to the squeal of the most beloved 40k video game franchise - nevermind the fact that they priced a full $60.00 with a game that released with the smallest amount of content in the history of DoW2.
A perfect storm of un-evaluated expectations, business deadlines, pr nightmare, and the roughest release in DoW history killed the game, in hindsight. For example, if DoW3 released with, say, 5 races - we may yet be seeing a Dawn of War future alive. To note, I don't think DoW3's gameplay was the unsalvageable garbage the haters say, but it needed work like any new game.
All in all, this game reeks of "here's a deadline, go make some money" by who-ever greenlighted DoW3. And in Relic's haste to make a game, they forgot to have the needed creative vision, the essence of what makes Dawn of War, and 40k, great. While this idea can be hard to encapsulate into a checkbox, it is nonetheless necessary for a successful sequel. If DoW3 was released but in another IP, I think it would've been received far differently than being judged as a Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War game. I sincerely hope Relic - or any 40k developer - concentrates hard on what their audience wants; as has been seen in CoH/DoW, we are OK with technically unpolished games so long as they capture that spark we all felt when experiencing our first pitched-battles.
Comments
Chronoslayer
I think the problems mostly stem from the rushed development period -- that more time invested would've seen most of these flaws ironed out. Iterative design testing (do potential players actually enjoy it?), iterative balance testing (htf does this become an after-thought for an RTS genre product?), and time to create the amount of content that the game should have released with. Pardon the, by now, broken record speculation, but I think this game was intentionally moved on from before it was ever finished -- released and given slow-drip post-launch support because leadership at Relic couldn't wait to re-allocate resources to AoE 4. I think it was never given the chance that a Relic product normally gets to succeed - and that its overall performance was hamstringed by this treatment. $60 when the product had the flaws and paucity of content that it released with? I think it was definitely meant to have more and be more polished, originally.
Despite the pitchfork mobs of haters, the actual flaws of the game are nothing that Relic couldn't fix. Some IMBA/OP fixes and some more factions and maps in an expansion pack. That's frigging RTS 101, and what happened with literally every Relic RTS prior. They could have done the game justice, leadership just chose not to.
Anyway, while we're talking about DoW III's flaws again, what was the big econ change that got patched in that a lot of players didn't like? Something to do with power? I think even I might try my hand at modding, as I feel the gameplay is solid but for a few nagging flaws (like ranger spam) that shouldn't still be in the game by now.
Ololo111
I think it's simple: considering the amount of spotted content, like models, animations and so on - that never landed on actual game -, DoW3 might have been re-done at one point.
If that is not the case, then Relic went for the fair cash-in they used to do on their own playerbase.
Like, was it really a 3 months effort to implement Anihilation in the game? I doubt that.
I fell like there were 2 different parties when the game was alive: one, that makes 3 new Elites from the dcrapped assets, and the other one, that moves CM as soon as Freeweekend starts; one, that rolls up 1,3gb in the last attempt to fix mod tools and another one, which anounces that the game is getting abandonded on the next day.
I've goten used to it since CoH2. But I'm not going to tollerate this anymore.
Whenever it will be AoE4 or CoH3 they are releasing next, it should be flawless. Flawless design, flawless support, flawless community work which DoW3 lacked so much.
I mean, just look at Steam reviews. It wasn't been all about jumping Angelos and MOBA accusations back in May of 2017. Those guys were minorities, as people got other concerns about how light on content the game is (I had the other opinion). Even Eurogamer, which bashed DoW3 after it's falldown rated it 4 out of 5 initially.
Some heads may need to be popped. Or, actually, why, since DoW3 was a profitable project, after all?
Ololo111
Vindi, you sound like a vile Eurogamer. That "not appropaite Dawn of War game" is the wrong tag. It was made by degenerates, serves to fill their lack in common knowledge and RTS-speciffc field.
It appears, you couldn't write this much without adding some "negotiability" with wider public, which, sadly, just isn't here.
Majority can be wrong, there are a lot of ++heresy redacted++ in the modern world, because it's very foundation is rotten.
But, back then, I think you shared the same liablity as Relic - you have a bad approach to confront the masses. They don't give a whim about the volume of your text. It works with short afforistic phrases like "Hard game for hardcore players" (about Darksouls), "it's MOBA!", "Not a Dawn of War game" (about DoW3).
I just doubt there would be anyone who fully agrees with the opinion of yours. You can surely have a lot of people by your side... partially, by the very limited time.
I can't get mad at your sentence, because it's not lacking the reason, but those additions meaning to made it "acceptable" to the wider public is just not right. There is no reasoning with the slaves.
vindicarex
Sure, a lot of the criticism was unfounded and asinine to be sure, I received it in my twitch chat daily.
However, it is also clear that this outcry was a sign of a fundamental problem - an image problem. First impressions are everything and DoW3 made a bad one. Whether the customer/fan base is acting rationally or not, it's up to Relic to know the kind of game they need to deliver. And whether YOU think DoW3 was a perfectly acceptable game does't change the FACT that it left a bad taste in the mouth of a lot.
Draconix
That sad. But to be honest I don't blame Relic but rather Sega for letting release it in such rushed state.
Of course perhaps this game would be received better if there was less focus on MOBAs althought didn't bothered me anyways. Yet again don't blame Relic for trying something new. But truth to say is that you can't please everyone. I guess this franchise's problems actually happened not with Dow3 but making Dow2 different from Dow1 and that splitted fanbase so much - although I heard that sequels often split fanbases anyways.
By the way, VindicareX, I know it is offtopic, but since you are here now, I curious to hear what you think about upcoming Iron Harvest? Is there is something you can tell about this?
vindicarex
Idk looks like a watered down CoH2, but I'll be keeping my eye on it. More interested in that Warcraft: Reforged vibe now Kappa
S4ngetsu
I think the main reason why DoW3 wasn't successful is the part that @Chronoslayer mentioned:
There was not enough time to further develop DoW3 and Relic was forced to release the game whether because of Sega or because of AoEIV project it doesn't matter.
Fact is the game was rushed and we all can see the results...
Relic/Sega tried to make the most money out of DoW3 with the least effort. Even tho it's an AAA product it's a really cheap one.
The second big reason was "Power Core Mode".
A lot of people hated this new mode because it destroys the freedom a player had to harass a base like in DoW1. They've realised their mistake so they've decided to bring annihilation modes with a further patch. But it was already to late because everything - the maps, the gameplay, the ressource system was designed around power core mode. The ranked automatch was also with power core mode. I think that was the point where they had realised that it would be pointless to further work on DoW3 without loosing money and they decided to silently abandon it wtihout telling the community. (Must have been 2 month after the release.)
I hardly doubt that the balance was a problem and a reason why people left the game. It was all about the new Power Core Mode, bugs , lack of maps/ content and the bad campaign.
Also a lot of people hesitated to buy the game because there were only 3 races and their favourite races like Chaos and Necron were not included so they did decide to wait until they were released. For those people PCM was not even a problem, they just wanted to play their races.
Warcraft 3: Reforged is the way to go now, Blizzard is going to own the RTS market once again and the AoEIV project will fail like DoW3.
I bet in 2-3 years there will be a Warcraft 4 announcement by Blizzard too... wouldn't be surprised when Relic goes bankrupt.
Draconix
Interesting insight @S4ngetsu , but about Warcraft 4 not sure if it will happen, because it had to be integrated with the WoW lore which in some or even more people's opinion it becamed ruined by Blizzard or if anything. Overall, I hardly doubt that we might see Warcraft 4 in near future or ever.
Also, considering that Warcraft 3 Reforged is set to be released at the end of next year, I probably have a theory that Blizzard probably wants also compete with King Art Games and their Iron Harvest, which is going to be released at the end of next year as well. But we have to see once both of them are released.
But to be honest, whereas Blizzard probably pleased Warcraft audience with it, they also lost in eyes of Diablo fans with its mobile game Diablo Immortal, probably for Chinesse market. And whats more, they want to make mobile games for every IP they own. I guess that even Blizzard is slowly but still, losing respect from their fans. Well perhaps it is natural for even well known Developers in gaming brand.
Gorb
I think assuming things about Relic's internal motivations and any apparent economic pressure is going to be utterly futile. Not only can you never prove it, it's just a way to reconcile your individual hopes and fears with the end result.
It's easy to rationalise it away by saying Relic did something obvious and basic wrong. That doesn't mean it's right, though. All video games (well, nearly-all of them) are rushed. Saying DoW III was rushed is about as useful as making that claim about any game Relic has ever released.
Opinion post.
Decepticats
@Draconix Blizzard no longer has to care about their fans anymore. They are now a company that has so much money (over $7.5 billion made last year, with over half of that coming from loot boxes and card packs) and the inertia of people's investment in their IPs will make any product they fart out profitable. They are not beholden to their fans (enough of whom will buy their stuff no matter what the prevailing narrative), they cater to their shareholders. And shareholders only care about growth. Thus: Diablo Immortal. Such is the distortion in our economy. Investors, not customers, drive the product and marketing decisions of these behemoth corporations.
As to DoW3, I agree with @Gorb, until RELIC provides a post-mortum we can't do more than speculate about why they abandoned DoW3 so quickly. Because ultimately, that is where the game ended. With continued support and additional content, DoW3 would PROBABLY (obviously speculative) have eventually found its place in the hearts of all us Relic fans and sustained a moderate but loyal fanbase for years to come.
But they bailed. That's the only fact we can say for sure. The official reasoning from Relic seemed to be that they needed to reallocate resources to other projects. Why that decision was made or what the results will be can't be known.
I guess we'll see. But I for one remain very disappointed and wary of any new Relic products.
Codex_Astartes
Imagine a team that every member is a businessman and all of them are talented people that also can develop games, team's first game had a bad impression, technical problems like input lag and so on added salt to the wound, would this team continue creating content/bugfix/balance said game or start from scratch for AoE, i mean let's face it wh40k is niche compared to AoE's RTS legacy. Sucks to be betrayed 'tis life yes but you can only answer with your wallet.
Ololo111
I would have totally agreed with your post, if it wasn't been for this part.
Blizzard is surely aiming to take the whole RTS market to themleves.. by re-releasing games they once made and going F2P. They just strangling other RTS devs on the already shrinked market. Just like they did with SC1 (I can't help but to see it as the poke to DoW3, because it came earlier than was intially planned).
I think, Blizzard is taking their time to make another "unique" game, like Hearthstone or Overwatch. Maybe, Diablo Immortal is supposed to fill this role (who knows, Pokemon GO was a blast one day).
Considering Relic, they can always make Space Marine 2 as "devoted" WH40k adaptation for doll-lovers's delight. Because, * I suppose*, DoW3 was a profitable project, after all.
AoE3 was really bad at release. It was literally unplayable without 5-10 minutes of ceasefire, which were the only way tourneys were played. Warchiefs was a terrible expansion as well, with at least "native_light" and "native_heavy " types making a complete mess of unit types.
It wasn't been Ensemble, to begin with, but Big Huge games who fixed that mess into playable state (with cease-fire made into obligatory, at least when I played it). I think, it's the effort which built AoE3's community which stands off within their own franchise (not in a best way, I have to say).
Just like it was with DoW2. If it wasn't been for 2 more expansions, I doubt anyone would remember this failure by know, though one can never underestimate fanatism of WH40k boys.
Buuuut, I think there was another phenomena for AoE as the frachise around that time: in late 00's, there was a lot of people in Eastern Asia playing AoE1-2 due to.. technological overtake. I visited Vietnam twice around that time, and witnessed myself how a lot of people playing AoE1-2 on CRT monitiors. I also learned that there were a number of online services, like GGC, operating in Eastern Asia to "replace" Gamespy.
There were astonishing number of people back then, exceeding what I could have seen on GS hubs (never played AoE1 myself). So it's no wondering for me why I saw so much people not speaking English when AoE2 HD was released.
With us aging, an average consumer on videogames market is only getting younger
So, I'm afraid, those people who experienced CoH2 for free last year - with all the content it accumulated through the years of development - may return as grateful buyers of CoH3 in 2-3 years.
This could also hit DoW3, by the way. Because I'm not so sure that the current DoW2's playerbase had seen what they idolize on release. And THQ bankrupcy sales made it nearly free.
Amoc
This was the primary criticism I had for the game. I was saying right after the open beta that DoW III was a game that nobody wanted or asked for, ever. It was a design-by-compromise mess and you explained the gameplay issues succinctly with:
Trying to mix larger-scale strategic army/economy management with the faster-paced and ability-focused combat was never going to be a successful marriage. You say this was a PR nightmare for Relic, and you're right, but it was both self-inflicted and deserved.
This is also an argument I frequently made (usually with Gorb). On a certain level, I agreed with him, primarily on the idea that Relic did a good job on DoW III. By that I mean they successfully executed on their design concepts. Those design concepts, however, were deeply flawed.
but unfortunately I can't agree with you here. This wasn't a perfect storm of separate issues aligning to take DoW III down. The game failed at the conceptual design stage. No amount of extra content would have saved it.
Could it have been salvaged? I think so, but I always contended it would have been a tear-down effort requiring a complete overhaul of the core gameplay mechanics and math. Something akin to, "Here's your engine, your art assets and your physics. Make a new game out of that." There might have been a future in that (however unrealistic), but as we know Relic didn't feel there was a viable solution.
Dullahan
DoW3 was not a rushed game. It had a ~3 year dev cycle at the very minimum.
People think that because there wasn't seven game modes and four factions that the game was rushed. The decision to have 3 factions was made in preproduction, not because of time constraints. The entire campaign structure revolves around the three factions interacting. Likewise the multiplayer factions are completely designed around the Power Core game mode. They didn't include annihilate because it quite frankly does not work with the design. The armour type system is not balanced for a game mode where you must destroy production structures that don't have a regenerating shield or a giant ray gun on them. For whatever its perceived and actual faults, DoW3 is very much a complete package. Even the maps have more unique art assets and hand crafted visuals compared to past games that just slapped together simple terrain and art assets from the campaign.
This is immediately apparent by the presentation and mechanics in DoW3. Things like the Codex and comprehensive tooltips, unique UI elements for almost every ability (targeting reticules or status effects for example) and how tightly designed the factions are. Just think about how detailed an ability like Gorgutz's Klaw jump is in terms of animation work, almost every Elite has very detailed ability animations. Take a close look at infiltrated scouts or rangers and notice that the visual effect is subtlely different. There's even details like Critical Strikes triggering more visceral death animations for nearby units. To my knowledge the only thing in DoW3 that didn't work exactly as intended is the Liftadroppa Scrapnel Throw being broken. The AI can use every single ability in the game and is leaps and bounds better than DoW2's AI that can't do anything except capture points.
There was a level of polish on the content in DoW3 that simply did not exist in any of their past games which I would credit to the lean and tight design. Honestly I doubt we will ever see the like of it again from a Relic product but with how tight lipped they've been about AoE 4 perhaps there's a chance that atleast internally they can recognize the great strides they made with DoW3 even if the gameplay wasn't a success.
Amoc
Relic is a talented studio. We've known that for a very long time. It's really hard for me to fault the game on any technical level. It looks good, plays smooth and wasn't a buggy mess on release. It just wasn't very fun to play for me. I just can't understand who they thought they were making this game for...even in the early design phases.