@Ben: couls you please give the message to top management that community still continue to follow you and still is waiting for new developpment for dow 3? It can't ends so fast or relic/sega are stupids ! Go for another try with Chaos dudes !!
Man chaos with the dow3 engine would have been super epic. So many people just waited for chaos or heck even necrons, but its to late as i said. Dow3s head was cut off and not by the players.
@r_benb said: @spirit@Hirmetrium Based on player feedback at launch, we had to shift our focus to the overall health of the game (the foundation) rather than plowing forward on new content (the things you put on top of a healthy foundation).
Seems strange though that the majority of the updates were maps, skins, balance patches, I would consider those to be putting content on top of or refining a foundation. Removing skulls was a bold move but in the end it does not affect the gameplay that is the foundation. Adding annihilation and the 30% health buff are the only things I think changed the foundation and 30% was not very bold given how strong the complaints were; that is why I and many other players feel you did not try enough to rework the game. Something like what that very dedicated developer tried to do and more would have been more interesting to see early on.
Of course this is all retrospective, and it is easy for me to say this today.
This isn't a failure in the engineering team, this is squarely on the leadership. I see a ton of over-thinking and misplaced priorities and the game just misses every easy layup that it's expected to hit. Ultimately, I think this game is alright enough as a basic game but it seems clear that the community itself had different expectations of what they were getting.
If I were you, Relic, I would seriously reconsider putting the same leadership in charge of AoE4. I don't think you could afford another blunder at this level.
@Atlas said:
This isn't a failure in the engineering team, this is squarely on the leadership. I see a ton of over-thinking and misplaced priorities and the game just misses every easy layup that it's expected to hit. Ultimately, I think this game is alright enough as a basic game but it seems clear that the community itself had different expectations of what they were getting.
If I were you, Relic, I would seriously reconsider putting the same leadership in charge of AoE4. I don't think you could afford another blunder at this level.
something tells me it's not up to relic.
Something also tells me the person who leads, doesn't come from relic.
Still relic could defend its "baby" dawnofwar is surely one of their most beloved projects and to let dow3 die without even to try to resurrect it with a additional race and to try and make it great is a big disaster for me.
I appreciate that you guys are communicating with the community; I am also terribly sorry for all of you having to read half the stuff posted on the forums.
Is there a chance of a post-mortem as far as events go? Not to fling mud but as a general education sort of thing. I find it really fascinating how things work behind the scenes and some of the more dull, practical measures that have to be put into place influence larger design choices down the road.
The thing is, you dont throw more money at something that is already known to not be profitable. Making a new race for dow3 would only increase losses and result in less investment from the publisher for future games.
Accepting the truth instead of burning money needlessly is a good decision by relic and sega.
What they can do now is go through what went wrong and find solutions for those issues.
But you cant know if you burn money or win money. Dow3 had a big chance to rise with a new race im sure of it but we will never find out and now the hate is real and relic pretty much kicked their their fans that is us in our asses.
@Andtaxes said: @r_benb
Is there a chance of a post-mortem as far as events go? Not to fling mud but as a general education sort of thing. I find it really fascinating how things work behind the scenes and some of the more dull, practical measures that have to be put into place influence larger design choices down the road.
Maybe...sort of? We're pouring all of our lessons learned into our other projects knowing that making them great is our best way forward. We'd love to share more on how that change is coming to life in the studio when we're able to talk more openly about those projects.
@Spirit said:
Still relic could defend its "baby" dawnofwar is surely one of their most beloved projects and to let dow3 die without even to try to resurrect it with a additional race and to try and make it great is a big disaster for me.
What do you want them to do, take donations? If SEGA isn't paying for it, it isn't going to happen.
@nachocheese said:
with the low amount of players, there was no chance to make profit with a race. Content doesnt help if the base game is disliked by people.
Man 25000 online day1 noone can refuse to see this. Dow has more fans than you think and many people watch out for a good rts.
@Illuminaughty said:
I'm thankful for the communication today. The story about the dedicated developer who tried to make something work was a good touch. Let's me know Relic knew what was up! I understand this decision is way beyond the staff of Relic's control.
He and the rest of the team have been reading along all day. I know they'll appreciate the shout-out
That can't have been an easy read today @r_benb. The community is very, err passionate about a lot of different things. I kind of felt let down by DOW3, not because it's bad particularly but because it's just not my playstyle I guess, too some extent neither was DOW2, although I did also rinse TLS and have ended up buying DOW1 and all its expansions twice over on disk (lost the bloody keys) and then on steam (no cd drives anymore) and have bought DOW2 physically and digitally too. Even though 3 maybe wasn't what I personally wanted I still think certain elements of this backlash are way over the top. Its unfortunate it didn't get in front of more people at earlier stages maybe through like the steam early access program. There's such a varied community, perhaps it could have been possible, not to try and completely please everyone in one mode but boil it down to two akin to call of duty zombies using the same updated engine and assets, its obviously a large percentage more dev time but it could have in a way continued both paths while bringing it up to date. Anyway I hope mistakes are learnt from, processes are changed, everyone doesn't get too disheartened and we see lots of AOE concepts and stuff and community interaction moving forward
day 1 numbers dont really matter when they drop down to 400 in less than a year.
would need quite a lot of sales to make a race worth it, especially since there was no other paid DLC
Ben dude, tell ur management that DOW 3 needs Chaos. We are players from DOW1. We know what we're talking about. Personnaly I've played since 2005 to the first dow. I don't just arrive on "dow market". i know DOW series very well. I founded DOW 1 great since vanillia to Soulstorm. I found DOW 2 average (no drop pod, fake orbital strike, fake heavy bolter). For me DOW 3 is the best from far !!! This game just had encountered lot of critics at start because lake of content and mix moba, but it really have all potential to be an amazing RTS. Just add a new race as Chaos and im sure this will boost the game and profitability will go on !!! Realisation is your best made from all DOW serie, honesty ! Just add Chaos and lets see how it's going on !!!
@r_benb Sorry but it's really hard to believe that the "foundation" was that poor. It shows very little faith in the product. I won't pretend to understand how this decision was reached, but that signals to me that it was put out unfinished if there was so little convinction.
Skins certainly wouldn't fix the foundations, and neither would an annihilation mode which never made it into automatch. Are you telling me that the course to correct the ship was to throw out the plan to work on Necrons and push skins the whole time? I cannot believe that, and it certainly wasn't going to fix the problems. Unless you are referring to the balancing that took place?
Was a Victory point mode ever considered at some point?
One thing I will say about this ridiculous PR crap is that it is in NO-WAY on the fans that this game died. You say DoW1 & 2 fans are so different... Yet you created a game that appealed none of them
Don't try to save face here Relic. You fucked up big time. Poor leadership is to blame. I appreciate Ben coming on here and answering questions but let's get this straight.
@nachocheese said:
day 1 numbers dont really matter when they drop down to 400 in less than a year.
would need quite a lot of sales to make a race worth it, especially since there was no other paid DLC
And why those numbers dropped?
The campaign was terrible there was no freaking content, only such few maps in multiplayer, there was only power sword asm t1 spam balance was horrible. Also the game only had 3 races on top of it. Every blind fool could tell you that the number would drop like they did.
They had a good chance to make all good now with a game rework and a additional race but they refuse to do so and kill their baby, kill their fans kill everything.
@benb
Just realize dude that DOW3 was just at the start of his history. You can't (Relic and Sega) seriously believe that you would have taken all rts players in a 3 races game, even if this one was really great and well produced ! DOW history (all dow serie) has been built in many versions in which you had each time added a new race (for dow 1 = WA, DC, SS and for dow 2 = Chaos rising, Retribution, etc). Each version brings new players market but it is not build in 6 months ! You don't let time for the game to take his place in rts market. Don't stay focused on the number of players in Steam charts at this day ! It will grow with all improvement you will bring ! Your decision to stop developpement is really sad because all dow players (me since dow 1) had lot of expectations for it ! Please reconsider your decision and give us a good Chaos dlc, you can do it ! Dont't let people think that Relic/ SEGA aren't serious companies
I've loved Dawn Of War since the begining; Relic introduced me, and just from how they interpreted everything into an RTS was astounding.
When they announced DoW3, I was over the frikken moon. When beta launched and I saw how much of a skeleton it was from prior games, I decided to watch it and hold onto my money; hoping it'll be developed more, as well to reintroduce that winning recipe!
You guys are bowing out, on a reason of "foundation". Is this a foundation of the base game engine, foundation within your staff, or a foundation which is monetary?
After everything is done, and the dust settles: is Dawn of War dead? Will you continue the IP? I'd certainly hope so, the previous iterations are the only RTS/RTT I truly enjoyed playing.
@Hirmetrium said: @r_benb Sorry but it's really hard to believe that the "foundation" was that poor. It shows very little faith in the product. I won't pretend to understand how this decision was reached, but that signals to me that it was put out unfinished if there was so little convinction.
Skins certainly wouldn't fix the foundations, and neither would an annihilation mode which never made it into automatch. Are you telling me that the course to correct the ship was to throw out the plan to work on Necrons and push skins the whole time? I cannot believe that, and it certainly wasn't going to fix the problems. Unless you are referring to the balancing that took place?
Was a Victory point mode ever considered at some point?
Okay, this won't be a perfect answer for you but maybe the extra details will help...
The main key issues (shown by in-game data) were that players weren't progressing very far in the campaign and weren't transitioning to multiplayer. Two pretty good causes of a retention problem, right?
We tried a bunch of less obvious things to nudge these around for new players coming in after you. Things like difficulty tuning in the first three missions, UI changes to streamline multiplayer, suggested Vs. AI matches to warm people up to the competitive side of things, and even removing the skull system to encourage experimentation. That's what I mean when I say we shifted our focus to the foundation from content.
VP was considered but not prioritized given the percentage of players making it into the multiplayer ecosystem.
I am rather sad about this, even with the issues the game had. I did have good times playing DoWIII and it definitely had its high points: in terms of general presentation, it was top-notch, great sound design (my only quibble being some of the SM units lacking the gravitas I think should be present, though the Elites had that in spades), clear effort put into making the races feel distinct, no technical issues I ever encountered.
That said, it's obvious that mistakes were made with it, and though I'm sad we'll never get to see Chaos, Tau, Tyranids, Necrons and the like realized with the detail that we saw Space Marines, Eldar and Orks receive, I am encouraged by the thought that at least lessons are being learned that perhaps one day can be used to build a stronger Dawn of War 4 atop the ruins of Dawn of War 3. It may take as long if not longer than we had to wait for 3 after 2, and it may never come, but I love this universe and Dawn of War has always been one of the pieces of 40k I'm most attached to, so should you ever announce it, at the very least I'll check it out. And in the meantime, I wish you well with AoE4 and your other project, and hope that they're successes.
The beta just too late for making needed changes before release.
Why relic not make a alpha or included more old player as test group?
Do you think relic need to rethink the decision process of game direction?
Did the relic team learn enough to make a good AOE4?
I am a AOE fans too(not much as a DOW fan), I only have more doubt for RELIC's ability after today.
Your points about betas and players as part of our process have been a huge point of discussion in the studio. I can't get into much detail here but even before the launch of DOW, the AOE team has been working very differently to make user research, early play-testing, and community consultation a much bigger part of how we make games.
finally dear god.
heres to 5 more years before dow4 or coh 3. Hopefully, you make community test environments (CTE) , Betas and alphas mandatory.
EVERYTHING comes down to the data. Learn from this and avoid assuming..and hire dedicated 10-20yr vets of RTS games.... not college grads that never played RTS games or never heard of WH40k.
Every day I went to a forum or Facebook to see if you posted anything. I really believed in relic. I imagined how the Necron would come out by myself. I thought I would add at least one race. Because I showed Necron on the campaign ending. However, the game ends without adding one race. You tricked the user twice. You guys are such a bunch of garbage that bombs out if your game gets a little lower than you expect. The fans who like the game do not feel at all. Is the balance stable? I hear this and I feel that you have abandoned the game for a long time. So what? You did not give up the game ?? Will you continue to develop? Do you think there is a future for a company that can not keep its promise with users? At least you have to keep what you said. Why do you make the game without doing such a thing?
Already the Company of Heroes 2 users have heard of this and a lot of people are disappointed with you. You do not know how to make a game, you do not know about management, and you can not do marketing either.
Do you think Age of Empires 4 that you made will do well? Thank you very much for killing the game I enjoyed the longest in my life. Is it only three skins that I will let you wait for three months or more? It is already confirmed by World Builder. Is that it? Really? Elite, not a unit, only skin? The name Relic has now become dirty. Who will trust you and play your game? Do you think users who have experienced this will trust you? I will eat popcorn when I see the Age of Empires 4 fall and you guys get screwed. When the Age of Empires 4 Forum comes out, I will post periodical criticisms of you. Curse Relic.
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Comments
AstartesUltra
@Ben: couls you please give the message to top management that community still continue to follow you and still is waiting for new developpment for dow 3? It can't ends so fast or relic/sega are stupids ! Go for another try with Chaos dudes !!
Spirit
Man chaos with the dow3 engine would have been super epic. So many people just waited for chaos or heck even necrons, but its to late as i said. Dow3s head was cut off and not by the players.
Martin
Seems strange though that the majority of the updates were maps, skins, balance patches, I would consider those to be putting content on top of or refining a foundation. Removing skulls was a bold move but in the end it does not affect the gameplay that is the foundation. Adding annihilation and the 30% health buff are the only things I think changed the foundation and 30% was not very bold given how strong the complaints were; that is why I and many other players feel you did not try enough to rework the game. Something like what that very dedicated developer tried to do and more would have been more interesting to see early on.
Of course this is all retrospective, and it is easy for me to say this today.
Atlas
This isn't a failure in the engineering team, this is squarely on the leadership. I see a ton of over-thinking and misplaced priorities and the game just misses every easy layup that it's expected to hit. Ultimately, I think this game is alright enough as a basic game but it seems clear that the community itself had different expectations of what they were getting.
If I were you, Relic, I would seriously reconsider putting the same leadership in charge of AoE4. I don't think you could afford another blunder at this level.
Lockerd
something tells me it's not up to relic.
Something also tells me the person who leads, doesn't come from relic.
Spirit
Still relic could defend its "baby" dawnofwar is surely one of their most beloved projects and to let dow3 die without even to try to resurrect it with a additional race and to try and make it great is a big disaster for me.
Andtaxes
@r_benb
I appreciate that you guys are communicating with the community; I am also terribly sorry for all of you having to read half the stuff posted on the forums.
Is there a chance of a post-mortem as far as events go? Not to fling mud but as a general education sort of thing. I find it really fascinating how things work behind the scenes and some of the more dull, practical measures that have to be put into place influence larger design choices down the road.
Akryum
This is sad news indeed... Wishing all the best for Relic staff!
Is there a possibility to have the most popular community maps added into the matchmaking pool?
nachocheese
The thing is, you dont throw more money at something that is already known to not be profitable. Making a new race for dow3 would only increase losses and result in less investment from the publisher for future games.
Accepting the truth instead of burning money needlessly is a good decision by relic and sega.
What they can do now is go through what went wrong and find solutions for those issues.
Spirit
But you cant know if you burn money or win money. Dow3 had a big chance to rise with a new race im sure of it but we will never find out and now the hate is real and relic pretty much kicked their their fans that is us in our asses.
r_benb
Maybe...sort of? We're pouring all of our lessons learned into our other projects knowing that making them great is our best way forward. We'd love to share more on how that change is coming to life in the studio when we're able to talk more openly about those projects.
TokyoDream
What do you want them to do, take donations? If SEGA isn't paying for it, it isn't going to happen.
nachocheese
with the low amount of players, there was no chance to make profit with a race. Content doesnt help if the base game is disliked by people.
Spirit
Man 25000 online day1 noone can refuse to see this. Dow has more fans than you think and many people watch out for a good rts.
WelshBrok
That can't have been an easy read today @r_benb. The community is very, err passionate about a lot of different things. I kind of felt let down by DOW3, not because it's bad particularly but because it's just not my playstyle I guess, too some extent neither was DOW2, although I did also rinse TLS and have ended up buying DOW1 and all its expansions twice over on disk (lost the bloody keys) and then on steam (no cd drives anymore) and have bought DOW2 physically and digitally too. Even though 3 maybe wasn't what I personally wanted I still think certain elements of this backlash are way over the top. Its unfortunate it didn't get in front of more people at earlier stages maybe through like the steam early access program. There's such a varied community, perhaps it could have been possible, not to try and completely please everyone in one mode but boil it down to two akin to call of duty zombies using the same updated engine and assets, its obviously a large percentage more dev time but it could have in a way continued both paths while bringing it up to date. Anyway I hope mistakes are learnt from, processes are changed, everyone doesn't get too disheartened and we see lots of AOE concepts and stuff and community interaction moving forward
nachocheese
day 1 numbers dont really matter when they drop down to 400 in less than a year.
would need quite a lot of sales to make a race worth it, especially since there was no other paid DLC
AstartesUltra
Ben dude, tell ur management that DOW 3 needs Chaos. We are players from DOW1. We know what we're talking about. Personnaly I've played since 2005 to the first dow. I don't just arrive on "dow market". i know DOW series very well. I founded DOW 1 great since vanillia to Soulstorm. I found DOW 2 average (no drop pod, fake orbital strike, fake heavy bolter). For me DOW 3 is the best from far !!! This game just had encountered lot of critics at start because lake of content and mix moba, but it really have all potential to be an amazing RTS. Just add a new race as Chaos and im sure this will boost the game and profitability will go on !!! Realisation is your best made from all DOW serie, honesty ! Just add Chaos and lets see how it's going on !!!
Hirmetrium
@r_benb Sorry but it's really hard to believe that the "foundation" was that poor. It shows very little faith in the product. I won't pretend to understand how this decision was reached, but that signals to me that it was put out unfinished if there was so little convinction.
Skins certainly wouldn't fix the foundations, and neither would an annihilation mode which never made it into automatch. Are you telling me that the course to correct the ship was to throw out the plan to work on Necrons and push skins the whole time? I cannot believe that, and it certainly wasn't going to fix the problems. Unless you are referring to the balancing that took place?
Was a Victory point mode ever considered at some point?
Bitterman
One thing I will say about this ridiculous PR crap is that it is in NO-WAY on the fans that this game died. You say DoW1 & 2 fans are so different... Yet you created a game that appealed none of them
Don't try to save face here Relic. You fucked up big time. Poor leadership is to blame. I appreciate Ben coming on here and answering questions but let's get this straight.
Spirit
And why those numbers dropped?
The campaign was terrible there was no freaking content, only such few maps in multiplayer, there was only power sword asm t1 spam balance was horrible. Also the game only had 3 races on top of it. Every blind fool could tell you that the number would drop like they did.
They had a good chance to make all good now with a game rework and a additional race but they refuse to do so and kill their baby, kill their fans kill everything.
AstartesUltra
@benb
Just realize dude that DOW3 was just at the start of his history. You can't (Relic and Sega) seriously believe that you would have taken all rts players in a 3 races game, even if this one was really great and well produced ! DOW history (all dow serie) has been built in many versions in which you had each time added a new race (for dow 1 = WA, DC, SS and for dow 2 = Chaos rising, Retribution, etc). Each version brings new players market but it is not build in 6 months ! You don't let time for the game to take his place in rts market. Don't stay focused on the number of players in Steam charts at this day ! It will grow with all improvement you will bring ! Your decision to stop developpement is really sad because all dow players (me since dow 1) had lot of expectations for it ! Please reconsider your decision and give us a good Chaos dlc, you can do it ! Dont't let people think that Relic/ SEGA aren't serious companies
Ashurais001
.This is extremely tragic.
I've loved Dawn Of War since the begining; Relic introduced me, and just from how they interpreted everything into an RTS was astounding.
When they announced DoW3, I was over the frikken moon. When beta launched and I saw how much of a skeleton it was from prior games, I decided to watch it and hold onto my money; hoping it'll be developed more, as well to reintroduce that winning recipe!
You guys are bowing out, on a reason of "foundation". Is this a foundation of the base game engine, foundation within your staff, or a foundation which is monetary?
After everything is done, and the dust settles: is Dawn of War dead? Will you continue the IP? I'd certainly hope so, the previous iterations are the only RTS/RTT I truly enjoyed playing.
r_benb
Okay, this won't be a perfect answer for you but maybe the extra details will help...
The main key issues (shown by in-game data) were that players weren't progressing very far in the campaign and weren't transitioning to multiplayer. Two pretty good causes of a retention problem, right?
We tried a bunch of less obvious things to nudge these around for new players coming in after you. Things like difficulty tuning in the first three missions, UI changes to streamline multiplayer, suggested Vs. AI matches to warm people up to the competitive side of things, and even removing the skull system to encourage experimentation. That's what I mean when I say we shifted our focus to the foundation from content.
VP was considered but not prioritized given the percentage of players making it into the multiplayer ecosystem.
Edit: typo
PhantomRevenger
I am rather sad about this, even with the issues the game had. I did have good times playing DoWIII and it definitely had its high points: in terms of general presentation, it was top-notch, great sound design (my only quibble being some of the SM units lacking the gravitas I think should be present, though the Elites had that in spades), clear effort put into making the races feel distinct, no technical issues I ever encountered.
That said, it's obvious that mistakes were made with it, and though I'm sad we'll never get to see Chaos, Tau, Tyranids, Necrons and the like realized with the detail that we saw Space Marines, Eldar and Orks receive, I am encouraged by the thought that at least lessons are being learned that perhaps one day can be used to build a stronger Dawn of War 4 atop the ruins of Dawn of War 3. It may take as long if not longer than we had to wait for 3 after 2, and it may never come, but I love this universe and Dawn of War has always been one of the pieces of 40k I'm most attached to, so should you ever announce it, at the very least I'll check it out. And in the meantime, I wish you well with AoE4 and your other project, and hope that they're successes.
Batpimp
finally dear god.
heres to 5 more years before dow4 or coh 3. Hopefully, you make community test environments (CTE) , Betas and alphas mandatory.
EVERYTHING comes down to the data. Learn from this and avoid assuming..and hire dedicated 10-20yr vets of RTS games.... not college grads that never played RTS games or never heard of WH40k.
Firestone
Every day I went to a forum or Facebook to see if you posted anything. I really believed in relic. I imagined how the Necron would come out by myself. I thought I would add at least one race. Because I showed Necron on the campaign ending. However, the game ends without adding one race. You tricked the user twice. You guys are such a bunch of garbage that bombs out if your game gets a little lower than you expect. The fans who like the game do not feel at all. Is the balance stable? I hear this and I feel that you have abandoned the game for a long time. So what? You did not give up the game ?? Will you continue to develop? Do you think there is a future for a company that can not keep its promise with users? At least you have to keep what you said. Why do you make the game without doing such a thing?
Already the Company of Heroes 2 users have heard of this and a lot of people are disappointed with you. You do not know how to make a game, you do not know about management, and you can not do marketing either.
Do you think Age of Empires 4 that you made will do well? Thank you very much for killing the game I enjoyed the longest in my life. Is it only three skins that I will let you wait for three months or more? It is already confirmed by World Builder. Is that it? Really? Elite, not a unit, only skin? The name Relic has now become dirty. Who will trust you and play your game? Do you think users who have experienced this will trust you? I will eat popcorn when I see the Age of Empires 4 fall and you guys get screwed. When the Age of Empires 4 Forum comes out, I will post periodical criticisms of you. Curse Relic.