Why is WA dead?

[Kantor]

Seriously. I played a few original DoW online games, and there were usually 10-20 people online.

Recently I bought WA, finished Order Campaign, on mission 5 of disorder, spent hours getting all the patches up to date to find 2 other people online.

I ask one why only 3 people are online, he remarks "The game is dead"

For a supposed game of the Year, selling over a million copies, 30 people are online on DoW, 3 people are on WA, when I buy DC and log on, am I going to find thousands of people?

[Promythyus]

In Short, Yes. Not Thousands, but alot. Coupla Hundred or somethin' like that at peak hour. But most people don't play online, out of the >1 Mil. that bought the game, something like less than 10% play that online. (Something like that, done in some study done by gamespy)

[SubZero]

'WA is dead' is an incorrect statement.
The WA expansion is still being utilised via Dark Crusade - the only difference is that the campaign from Winter Assault will usually have been completed from every angle, so this leaves Multiplayer as the final hurdle.
As Dark Crusade adds more tweaks and units to Imperial Guard and the other races, it is clear why it might be preferred over the vanilla Winter Assault, although i'm sure some Imperial Guard players will disagree ;)

[Adonis]

Yeah, this is more of a general discussion, so I'll be moving it to the main DoW discussion area.

[Vengeance]

Thing is, latest expansions or standalone episodes for a game series (Cataclysm maybe not included to the original Homeworld) are usually more played over the previous expansions and main game itself. Civilization 4: Beyond the Sword is probably more played than Warlords and vanilla Civ' 4 now, so they'll be more dudes and dudettes online to...er...'play'...(and by play, I mean, massacre).
So if you're looking for a decent game, you should go to Dark Crusade online...just wait for Soul Storm, everyone's gonna be hopping on there! ;)

[Haud Hesito]

This happens with most online games that get expansions; A few players will stick around to play the original, the majority of the community will be playing the latest expansion and the rest are split on the expansions (if any) which came inbetween.

You could even compare it with patches. As games get patched there'll always be a few players left behind on previous versions while most accept the new one and upgrade. Allthough this isn't entirely sufficiant in this context as you don't pay for patches, but the principle is the same as far as game content goes.

If you buy DC too (and SS later), you'll be following where the largest playerbase is, and allthough the developers will keep tinkering on things like the tech system and rules like "fire on the move" between expansions, the individual campaigns you get in the singleplayers remain the same, so it's not like you're losing money on the middle-products: as an online game it's an accumulating experience ever growing with new features. Some for good, some for worse, but that's the nature of change.

[martyr3810]

Get Dark Crusade and you will see MANY more people.

[Imperial Dane]

Yeah, getting dark crusade would be the most advisable if you wish to meet more opponents online.

[MercZ]

Yea, most of the players have moved on to Dark Crusade, as mentioned.

[widowson]

4thed? Is that a word?

Yeah, just get and play Dark Crusade.

[DatonKallandor]

This happens with most online games that get expansions; A few players will stick around to play the original, the majority of the community will be playing the latest expansion and the rest are split on the expansions (if any) which came inbetween.
And that gentlemen is why a Standalone Full-compatibility scheme (as implemented in CoH and semi-implemented since DC) is the best solution.

[Arcinatus]

get dark crusade. big battles, big explosions, big units, big guns,
if u dont give a shit about balance and u just like to have a big fight you'll be right at home.....lol

ig vs cron MU.... *shiver* my poor men

[Oishii]

More people should play WA assault =(. It's better than Dark Crusade in my opinion. Just stay away from 3v3s and 4v4s unless the 3v3 or 4v4 has good people, stay away from certain maps, and its organized well enough to stop people from getting to tier 3. Having good fights in tier 1 and having to decide when to tech is just so much better. Though I suppose thats what DCpro is for :p .

[martyr3810]

... WA is not better than DC, not by a long, long shot. At least in DC only one race is really broken (necs) and one race is really weak (IG). The hard caps make the game a bit more about skill and less about, "I have more money, spam more ubers plz!" lol. Prism or Leman spam, ugh.

[Dawnofdarken]

yeah, what most people have covered! highly suggest getting DC and intermingal with rest of the community in gamespy.....

[Kantor]

Turns out it was a non-peak hour. there are usually about 15 people on WA as well.
What I don't get is why so many people still platy the original DoW.

[Imperial Dane]

Because they don't have Winter assault or Dark Crusade ?

[Adonis]

Because there's really no reason not to. People have old games that they'll break out and play because they enjoyed them at some point. I recently installed Ground Control on my computer because I liked it, and I've had it since it came out in 2000. Hell, I even know people who still play games on the Nintendo Entertainment System, and that thing is over 22 years old.

[Dorkdav]

The original Dawn of War was good. Hard counters, intense tier 1 battles, it's the game that got me into the DoW series.

Winter Assault was crap. Basically there are two units that you use in each tier and that's it. The game is unquestionably the worse of the three. That's why no one plays it.

[KotCR]

The balance in it overall was superior to the current balance at least, IMO. Even if your right about it being the worse of the three gameplay wise seems it generally was a 2-unit spamfest.

[Oishii]

More people played Winter Assault when it was the latest expansion, though I agree vanilla Dawn of War is better. At least in Winter Assault you would see more than one or two strats that everyone has predetermined depending on the race they are facing and playing.

[medizichen]

wa just turned out to be a big spamfest. probably people got bored of it and moved on to dc or others games.

[dwarf 104]

ive got all three games and im still only playing winter assault, all my mates are there and its a nice little community we got going. It is sort of dead though to any new players, i always find the same 100 people on every other day or so. i cant play for a while though cos i broke my wrist lol :(

Anyway i suggest buying dc theres a good 200 people on there normaly

[Deathwing_DA]

Get Dark Crusade and you will see MANY more people.

:o

80 ppl online.

[Xanthian]

I don't think anyone on these forums that has played both WA and DC can possibly claim that WA was superior, yet many that played WA thought it was a clear step back compared to the original.

In short, the reason WA is dead is because it deserves to be. It's a game that was rushed out of the doors and never even playtested prior to release (fire on the move grenade launchers on a unit that killed stuff in melee due to bayonnets demonstrated that point rather clearly), then once it went through about a year or so of patch cycles, hit the problem that the design was flawed due to all of the upper tier spamming. The hard caps in DC were aimed at explicitly reversing the damage that WA did to the game, and to that end, they've been rather effective, along with adding flavour and strategic depth to many of the races. I just wish tech speed was lower, myself.

Either play vanilla or play DC, don't complain that a half-baked effort isn't being played anymore because it's been broken since inception.

[Various_25]

No one plays WA, we're on Dark Crusade, there is another expanion ya know

[Kantor]

You're all right. I'll get Dark Crusade as soon as I've finished the WA Disorder campaign for the Orks. It's hard :(

[Takalth]

The original Dawn of War was good. Hard counters, intense tier 1 battles, it's the game that got me into the DoW series.

Winter Assault was crap. Basically there are two units that you use in each tier and that's it. The game is unquestionably the worse of the three. That's why no one plays it.

My opinion exactly. Dark Crusade improved WA, but if you cut out the extra content, it would still be vastly inferior to the original.
Having messed with numerous versions, my opinion is that the most fun is found in the original DOW, but if you want all of the new content, look into DCPro or DOWXp (mods). DCPro adds a lot of depth compared to any other version but at the cost of a much sharper learning curve and a lot of rules. I haven't actually played DOWXp, so I'll withhold any comment on that one.
Anyway, if you're looking for online players, DC has the most, major mods usually have IRC groups or other methods to make sure you can get games, but WA will probably leave you playing alone.

[ImmortalChaos]

80 ppl online.
At the worst. Peak is still 350. And 80 is still MUCH more than the 10 you'll see in the other games.