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Discontent, Ingratitude, and Negativity
Cpt_Fortius
Let me start off by proclaiming, I am not a fanboy.
That kind of behaviour is the ruin of a franchise, for one must not accept everything his beloved game throws at him with mindless glee, rather question and criticize, to ensure it can grow and always become better.
That being said, I'm appalled at the amount of negativity I see regarding the upcoming Dawn of War III game!
Almost every comment on every Youtube video complains about something or besmirches the game in some manner, and such posts are plentiful within these forums as well.
I have made this account with the singular purpose of crying out my response at the world, for as many people to hear as possible. I know I'm not the first, and that is good.
Everything seems to come down to some form of the following issues, real or imagined:
- The game is too colorful, and not dark enough:
This is nothing but a popular thing to say by self-titled hardcore players. Take a look at gameplay videos from Dawn of War II: They look EXACTLY the same in art direction, aesthetics, lighting, minus of course seven years of technical developement. The first game is also similar, though it may be harder to notice due to it's age. One thing for certain, it never looked as dark as some complainers seem to imagine, and it always was colorful.
While I too would enjoy a black-and-red gorefest on screen, I realize this series never looked like that, yet never were - nor will be - the Candy Crush meets Disney Princess sugary brightness that they seem to take the upcoming sequel for.
-Gabriel Angelos's voice is too gruff, bring back the old voice:
It was a long time ago, so maybe you don't remember: Dawn of War II: Retribution was about a civil war that saw the Blood Ravens chapter torn in half and turn on itself, with their chapter master turning out to have fallen to chaos and spreading his taint in the background. Space Marines change over time, shaped by their experiences, like any men does. Turning a bit gruff is an understandable side effect on someone who took part in those events, especially since his shoulders weren't burden free to begin with.
A.K.A. , it's character developement - Something a good series has, and bad ones ignore.
I agree his old voice was awesome. His warcry "I am Death! I am Fearless! I am Invincible!" is among my all-time favourites. But if you recall, at the end of Retribution, Angelos was gravely injured, close to death and most of his body mangled or missing. He was implanted with so many bionics in order to restore him to life, it's a miracle his voice changed as little as it did, and haven't been replaced by a vox-coder. (which, by the way, I think would have been cool: A chapter master who sounds almost like a dreadnought...)
And, keep in mind, so far we've only heard a VERY LIMITED amount of dialogue.
-It's impossible to jump in terminator armor!:
Follow my thoughts for a moment: Any space marine will jump better than any living human of our age. Regular power armor is not just a suit of heavy plate, but also packed with synthetic "muscle" bundles: Wearing it does not worsen your strength-to-weight ratio, rather improves it. It also makes the wearer faster, thanks to all the neural plugs that pick up signals from his nerves ahead of his own muscles. If anything, an astartes in a suit of power armor jumps** EVEN BETTER** than without it.
Of course, you are correct when you say tactical dreadnought armor limits it's user's mobility in favor of added protection, but you forget the second half of that: It still won't make him slower or any less agile than without it - truly, that'd render the suit useless against the kind of foes they regularly face - it just doesn't make him as fast as a normal power armor.
Any kind of limitation is about movement in narrow places, due to the suit's sheer size: You won't always have room to turn around, or do some kind of movement - if the walls are thick enough not to crumble when you touch them.
But, logically speaking, terminator armor is frequently deployed in missions aboard space hulks. Space hulks are famous for having torn up, uneven, unpredictable interiors. To move through them, jumping is certainly an ability one needs to have, if the marines don't want to wait for a tracked lifter servitor to lift them over a gap in the floor or over a ledge in the middle of fighting a brood of genestealers.
We simply haven't seen it before. Seeing Tarkus jump over the warboss in the DoW II teaser, or Proteus and Verenor leaping over the remains of a broken bridge in the Ultramarines film was strange at first, but it made sense.
Plus, several books describe exceptional marines performing unexpected movements in terminator plate, thought unlikely even by their brothers.
Considering Angelos' newfound bionic might, his artificer terminator suit, the constant mentions that it's actually power released from his supernatural hammer that propels him skywards, and that he always was an exceptional hero, leaping doesn't sound impossible at all, merely unexpected.
Gameplay wise, it's just a visual difference to teleporting, probably made to bring something new to the table.
Though I noticed there are at least two different animations for his jumps: The spinning one should indeed be removed - That's an unnecessary movement, no marine would waste time and effort on, though if he wanted to could probably do. The simpler leap animation looks good, just keep using that one.
_
-Capturable bubble cover is stupid:_
It is. No excuses. I'd prefer rocks, rubble, craters, and actual imperial defence lines like those cool Citadel miniatures. Maybe even man the walls of an actual fortress.
To close off, I offer a criticism of my own:
Unit scaling is somewhat off. I understand it was made to help distinguish them from each other, but -to me at least- it never was a problem before, and it does look weird. Maybe those marines could be a bit taller and that knight could be a bit shorter.
Somewhere I saw a height chart for this game that put an armored marine at just 2 meters. That's way too short, probably the shortest an unarmored marine can get. Angelos looking close to twice as tall seems too much as well, even considering he might have been larger than average, and he became larger still after his body was reconstructed.
All in all, be glad Relic survived the fall of THQ, and that a much loved franchise gets a new sequel. I know I am.
Comments
HohesHaus
I'm also suprised how much people emphasise about the graphics, the voice of Gabriel and stuff.
Stormbearer
@Cpt_Fortius
I agree with you fully. One cannot run down a game completely , before it even had the chance to show everything and maybe shine. Yeah .Yeah still hoping for the best....
Cataclaw
Thank you OP for this thread, made me happy to see there are people who think just as me.
I just hope the gameplay itself is sustainable for a competitive environment.
LadderGoat
I am one of these doomsayers you speak of, I think it is right that myself and those that share my criticisms are able to voice their opinion as I and I'm sure nearly all the others are saying it because they TRULY love this franchise and don't want it to continue in this direction and to ultimatel see it ruined. Please bear in mind through this comment none if it is designed to cause offence.
I am afraid I disagree with you on this looking exactly like Dawn of War 2. Dawn of War 2 (& 1 for that matter) looks more detailed and more "nitty gritty" and has this dark, serious and sinister vibe to it to. The artwork in DOW3 is hugely cartoony in comparison from what we've seen so far. I mean, even NOT in the game, look at the cheesy Gabriel Angelos picture in peoples signatures on these very forums? I think the game itself seems to be doing a HUGE disservice to that amazing trailer that was released for this game, as the game looks NOTHING like that and doesn't even seem close to capturing that atmosphere.
The way Gabriel Angelos looks and plays I find embarrassing... he really does look like a LOL character, look at the footage again, I'm sure you'll agree.... Please remember I'm not saying any of this to be snarky but I just won't fall in love with this game like I did the others with this art style.
The cover (as you already mentioned) is painfully bad.... it just strips so much from the game. I personally think the ideal game would have been a MUCH larger scale DoW2 with base building - that would be incredible.
I realise it's still very early days yet but.... do you not find it a huge step backwards to just see blobs of units just standing still shooting at each other?
I guess all I'm trying to say is..... the Dawn of War's DIDN'T have that childish cartoony MOBA/Blizzard graphic style to it and that contributed HUGELY to it's appeal because it felt like a mature, serious RTS that was just COOL. I and many others are so scared that we're losing Dawn of War to a horrible Blizzard looking world and it's literally my worst nightmare
LadderGoat
Oh and one last comment, I really dislike Solaria's animations too..... a lot of it is kinda.... cheesy, like the pose-like burst of flames when it lands. It looks too mobile in my opinion and adds to the cheesy child friendly vibe
Mr_Ruin
I am just afraid I am looking at another C&C4 or C&C Generals 2. I expected both with glee, was really happy about it and what those two turned into? A mess.
Why? Cause they had a completely wrong vision, and DoW3 looks like it will be similar. In which way? Overemphasizing clarity with powers which are too bright and hurt my eyes and are silly (Dunking Gabe, Flexing Solaria), decreasing graphical detail on a single unit to put more into the game so they can have a bombastic tag of massive battles (in which those aforementioned powers will make your entire screen explode in colors in a pitched battle and destroying any clarity) and breaking lore left and right in these few minutes we saw. What more lore breaks to expect? What crazy decisions that don't make any sense to anyone except the guys making the game?
And now if we keep quiet, what will happen? All those things and more will end up in a finished product, which will therefore be something we will not want to play and boom, game is dead. So I would rather scream and shout no matter what happens, even under the possibility of canceling the game (God Emperor forbid) instead of getting the game which kills the franchise once and for all and only good RTS which remain are CoH and Starcraft.
3D killed Dune, MMO killed Warcraft, stupidity killed C&C and Red Alert, I don't want to count DoW on that list.
Bezagron
Strange I find the concept of an energy shield built cover alot more likely them some random bush, crater or rocks stopping most 40k weaponry or targeting systems locating targets hitting them.
Gameplay wise cover system was alot of fun in DoW 2 but many of the covers used felt silly that they would provide any cover for the weapons & unit targeting systems they provided cover to.
But I'm one thinking & hoping the energy domes not all there is to the cover system. Still holding out for directional cover plus a description of what cover does as it sound like what the dome does is add basically a second health bar that has to be destroyed before they take damage again from ranged attacks.
So this brings up is there even a chance to hit or miss? Or are we looking at 100% chance to hit when within range with only skillshots missing if you move out of effected area before effect takes effect.
A change to hit or miss is needed to be known about before we can go forward even talking about how a cover system will work. As 100% hit chance really only means cover is a hard damage reduction system. Where as chance to hit or miss is a random damage reduction system that depends on the random element that a attack will hit. Hit take damage, miss take 0 damage.
Just this is an example that we really know nothing about how DoW 3 will play. It's just too early & too little information. But as such all of us should take guesses & discuss these possibilities as they can respond to & change their ideas & system before spending more time on something because they didn't have this information.
KanKrusha
I think a little respect would go a long way. This game has been in development for 2 1/2 years and a lot of the ideas have been tested.
Gabriel is not jumping in terminator armour so the lore is not broken
It's not Gabriel jumping, it is the power of the hammer, like thor's hammer, dragging him through the sky. The weight of the armour is irrelevant because it is being powered by the equivalent of a rocket. Some of his moves do seem to break the rules of inertia.
The cover bubbles have been carefully thought through
Melee counters cover, but in DOW2 jump troops would regularly get focus fired as they jumped into position. In addition, with no retreat mechanic there is no melee bonus on retreat so melee units become irrelevant. Solution: cover that protects both the attacker and the defender. This cover would need to omni-directional like a bubble, or Cubble, as I have started to call it.
Lascannons take a while to warm up
The developers wanted more responsive units so got rid of set up time and tear down time on heavy weapons squads. The warm up time replaces the set-up time because they need a handicap to counter their effectiveness. Oh, and have you ever actually seen a laser cutting through something? It takes time
Graphics and animations are pre-alpha
At least 6 months of fine tuning expected here. Walking and running can take a long time to get right
Ellie
I feel like the lascannon bit is a wip. from the trailer and gameplay, it shows the dark reaper eldar squads having a pretty reasonable setup time, with a bar and everything showing it. I can hope this carries over to all heavy weapon squads, and the lascannons where just shown off for e3 stuff, to be special looking. (since just a few las shots wouldn't be 'cool' for an e3 trailer)
GABBO90
Man that tarkus animation in the dow 2 teaser was over the top but más also BADASS, like the wh40k universe always has been.
The new animations are over the top but dont look badass at all, they look childish and silly.
Thats the main problem i have , i can tolerate more colourful and cartoonish graphics but not that horrid animations that look directly ported from LoL and other shitty games like that
HohesHaus
Quote for truth
MiniCloud
What most players want is a W40K representative game, not a game with a W40K skin.
They are aiming at doing a game inspired by popular franchises, instead of a game inspired by w40k lore.
I think this is what brings us to all the main concerns
folklore
Thanks for posting this. Keep in mind my greatest opinion right now is just wait, watch, and have faith in the False emperor or the Chaos gods. Not the eldar ones, never have faith in the eldar gods.
McNash
And certainly not the C'tan, the necrons actually getting rid of them was quite impressive.
folklore
As a huge Necron fan i was rather irritated at first, but in hindsight its pretty funny and I would say helps differentiation them more. Also it might help to follow Gork and Mork, though I'm not certain what would come from them.
Helpless
Nah, it doesn't make sense. First up, Gabe has had the hammer for 2 games already and has shown nothing. Secondly, there is no weapon in 40k that isn't daemon possessed that would allow someone to do that. Thirdly, it just doesn't suit the lore and the IP, the unnecessary hammer flip and bouncing terminator armour just doesn't fit the bill.
Its a simple design and aesthetic choice that doesn't mesh with 40k, no sense trying to make sense of it or justify it in any capacity.
Ellie
I can hope that they show gameplay on other maps soon. shown in that pc gamer article a few months ago, the different styles they're going for look great, and pretty grim as well.
Bezagron
Yes so hope to see what other tilesets will look like. City next pls
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Warnoise
So you call negative comments as "ingratitude" and then you proceed to start off with "i am not a fanboy"?
Remember, among the people who are negative towards the game's direction have the right to criticize, whine and cry rivers if they could because they love the DOW franchise as much as you do.
If you are ok with the new Gabriel Angelos, good for you, the other majority of the community (among the ones who expressed themselves) have different opnions from yours, the same goes for the jumping terminator.
nice ad hominem there, those "self-titled" hardcore players played the game long enough (maybe longer than you) to notice that the game "feels" less dark. It is not a specific part like arts or graphics, but more like the general feel of the game that includes, anumation, special effects, etc...
There so many good games where the characters don't change drastically (why the hell would they?) Character development is good when the character evolves in an interesting way that fits the settings and his personality.The civil war and the stuff you talk about is everyday business in Warhammer 40k universe, that would sure as hell not affect a guy like Gabriel Angelos in any way. I agree that we have seen just a little bit so far, but from the few that we have seen, a lot of people think that Gabriel Angelos talks bad, acts bad and looks bad.
As about the jumping terminator, in the books (excluding the trash from C.s Goto and Matt Ward) some special terminator marines managed to jump few meters.
In here we have a dude that jumps like 15-20m in the air, wtf?
Anyway, negativity doesn't hurt the game in any way, we are not here to pat the devs on their shoulder and say "you'll be fine champ, my wallet is ready"
SharKnight
Looks interesting altought I prefer the sort of ruined cities from DOW1,WA and DC. Wasnt a fan of fighting on hive city spires.
folklore
I do hope they start revealing more information soon, i'd love to see fighting in a necron tomb in either DoW2 or this new engine or maybe fighting on a craftworld for once.
Telastus
Dude I don't know what kind of rig you played DoW II on but it must have sucked if you think DoW II looked just like DoW III. Also, DoW I did not have overly cartoony graphics as a bunch of people say it did (in my opinion). I think DoW I was more of the realistic style of game for the time (2004). Look at Warcraft 3 that came one year earlier I believe - THAT is a cartoony game. Which I will argue worked well for that game b/c it fit the atmosphere of the game.