Company of Heroes: Playtest Announcement!

[Relic]

Hi everyone,

Relic is proud to announce eligibility to an upcoming currently unannounced Relic Beta for qualified participants in the Company of Heroes - Balance Playtest! We will be capturing metrics (accumulated time in-game, number of games, etc…) to decide our winners. The winners will be notified at the conclusion of the Playtest. The Playtest does not currently have an end-date, however one will be given approximately two weeks prior.

The top 100 participants will receive the aforementioned beta key!

You can download the Company of Heroes - Balance Playtest installer at the following address:

Download Installer Here

NOTE: The installer will not modify your existing game files. You will need 8gb of hard drive space free in order to install the Playtest. Feel free to use your usual username/password to log in. Please make sure the email address associated with your account is correct!

The Relic Team

[Trizzdog]

I hope this motivates more people to play... or make people who can't play the beta really sad. Hope to see more of you online.

[Fryloc]

this sounds quite good

[ebevan91]

ugh... I'm stuck at 98% installing....

[scoiatollo]

It's somehow amazing. The playtest forum exists for ages now and some people haven't realised it...

[Bayard]

Oh! Oh! Oh! How do I win ?

[Hirmetrium]

David, we all know Relic employees get to playtest games without these things, else the playtest/beta wouldn't have very many testers....
I'm interested, but realistically I'd have to spend every waking minute in a game. Even I'm not that devoted a fan, I have work every day

[scoiatollo]

Maybe we shold add that they are now adding NEW maps!

[Fryloc]

To bad my installer crashes at 97%

[roflmao]

It has to be Dawn of War 2 beta. =D. Time to play 24/7.

And even if it isn't DoW2 beta, anything Relic does is awesome, so I want in.

[Relic]

Sorry DavidB, Relic employee's are not eligible....

[Bayard]

Sorry DavidB, Relic employee's are not eligible....

*Sad Panda*

@Fryloc. Make a post in the tech support forum. post the error number. What's going wrong ? Do you have enough hard drive space ( atleast 8 gigs. probably slightly more ) Have you run any mods or opened any of the .sga files with an editor of some sort ?

maybe keep your patches and uninstall / re-install, repatch, check you can get into regular COH or OF? then try it ?

[1SSPzGrenLehr]

Is this the normal way to beta test things?

I gave up on beta tests after the last one that was for "balance" and the majority of people couldn't even load the beta until the end of the testing... now Relic is actually making the point to exclude people? odd.

Anyway, I would try it but I have no time for it anymore, and what time I do spend with CoH/OF or any Relic product is in Mod Making and Mods... I haven't played Online in months and don't really have any more interest in it... I perfer the better balance and fun of Mods out there and it would be nice if Relic released the docs for the OE and additional mod tools to extend the game's life span.

For the most part, and it's nothing personal, I don't plan on any more relic products for the time-being, SS didn't hold any interest for me and I have shelved he rest of th DoW, HW looked fun but it's pretty dated (though the BSG and B5 Mods look fun for that) and BotB and Corsix Tools are the only reason I spend time on CoH/OF...

So, I guess you lost me with the "vanilla" game...sorry, it's just become too much of a burden to really want to play ranked or even pick-up games with the way the game has devolved into arcade play.

[SuchisLife]

I'm interested, but realistically I'd have to spend every waking minute in a game. Even I'm not that devoted a fan, I have work every day

I agree but it's good to see that Relic are trying to get more people involved. I'm tired of spending 20 minutes waiting in automatch for a game before I give up and go back to the retail version.

[Fryloc]

Mmk, I'll go make a post in tech forum.

[sighman]

I'm sorry if I don't understand, but when you mean an unannounced Relic Beta, do you mean some kind of new game you are brewing?

[BoDyBaG2224]

*cough* Dawn of War II *cough*

[daroach1414]

me likey. Me want beta.

@1SSPzGrenLehf

Why even post then?

[salan]

after meeting a lot of the relic crew and their fans at the open house, this is something i'm definitely going to try to get in on

[Chubba]

Time to lock myself in doors and get that beta key. Gimme gimme gimme.

[The0ne]

Guess I'll play the beta now. lol

[Pyros]

This is a great idea! The beta needs more people, and it makes sense that the top beta players would be useful in finding bugs in this unannounced beta

[Noir]

DoW 2 would be wwwaaayyyy too obvious. This is obviously either:

A. A new CoH expansion(perhaps with the Russians in it)
B. HOMEWORLD THREE OMGWTFBBQ.

In any case, it's great to see Relic doing this.

(There's also C. Something New, but I feel like being delusional so there )

[Shaitan]

Does skimishing count because as is there's rarely anyone online to play with, and I want to maximize my time in the beta.

[Border Patrol]

can someone come play me?

[DarkWarrior]

hm, this may make me wanna get this Beta.

[Cleaver]

If it was DOW2 why wouldn't they just say "100 keys for DOW2 beta later this year". We already know DOW2 is on the way and there is gonna be beta for soulstorm users.
To me it seems , it's definetely something else.

[Cobra5]

I'd liuke to ask as well... does skirmish count?

I'd really like to know so, not because I like SP better (I don't...) but because, as mentioned, there are not very many people to play with...

[aerziel]

hmmm I'm hoping and guessing its COH expansion the way it was said is iffy to me and if its DOW2 they could have said DOW2 keys instead of unannounced beta key.

[drChengele]

Oh crap. I recently uninstalled CoH until I finish my internship. :kills self:

[aerziel]

btw is this announcement available on the normal game cause I can't get online and see it yet.

EDIT: and when i say normal game I mean on the lobby.

[Quercus]

Just to clarify this - is this competition designed to encourage more people to play in the already running CoH balance test beta?
And is this therefore the "big news" that was listed in the beta test news section last week?

I have been playing a few games with my friends in the beta and am more interested in seeing that through to conclusion than I am in beta testing a new game, but I agree that it is a nice way to drum up more support.

[Chubba]

Well, since Automatch dosen't work it seems I'm screwed.

Hurrah!

[Bayard]

Chubba, what's wrong with Automatch ?

[lance81]

Has to be DoW2.

On a slightly un-related note. Didnt Relic give away DoW2 BETA keys with Soul Storm? I was going to buy Soul Storm just for that.

[MykC]

I'd guess its the new CoH expansion because the audience who are playing the BETA would be a good crowd to balance/play test an expansion to a game they already know. They would also be a person who doesn't mind playing BETA quality software with changes being made to the game often. It wouldn't make as much sense if it were for DoW2 or any other game because of the inherent advantages that the demographic already belongs to.

[THE_SMASHER]

company of heroes 3 i bet.

[akn102991]

'currently unannounced beta'

DOW2 beta was already announced.

I am DYING for more COH, russians plz. I wANTS it. I NEEDs it.

[Eidorian]

I sure hope this gets my friends to play the beta with me. *prays*

[Pankake]

DavidB - Lots of the time automatch will reach '3' and then stop, and chat in the Team Automatch window will stop working, then the automatch will drop back down to '1' or '2' and start again.
I don't know if that's a connection probelm on the other end (all out ports are open, no Xs in lobby and pass the 6112 UDP port proble at: http://66.134.89.225/~sic/nettest.html) or something, but it happens regularly.

[Chubba]

@ DavidB Can't reach other players and connection to hosts keeps timing out, its a problem I have at every initial CoH MP Beta.

My normal CoH connection is just fine.

[Zephyx]

Can we play test against computers (multiplayer "comp stomp", NOT skirmish) and have that count towards our chances at the beta keys?

(There are very few people playing in the beta playtest so I've been testing each faction/doctrine in comp stomps. It's faster than waiting around for ages in automatch when there are a total of 5 people online and 3 are AFK.)

[Cobra5]

My problem is the time frame.

Because of my work schedule (4:30-1:00am, 5 days a week), the only times I have to play are 2:00am-5:00am or so my time, which is Arizona (We sorta have our own time zone...). That's about 6am GMT or 4am East Coast USA.

At these times, there is no-one on... Which is sad, I really really like the beta and want to participate. Relic is an excellent company, in my opinion, they are second only to Stardock in the treatment of their fanbase. I love being able to give a little back by playing and testing the beta, not to mention, help make a more balanced game for myself and us all.

Hopefully this "contest" will bring out more night owls like myself.

[some1one]

It's DOW2. It says unannounced beta, if it was something else they would of said unannounced game.

Skirmish better count since the only other way is to wait a few hours for a game. But that would defeat the purpose of getting people to play so whatever.

[Slovko]

I'm really happy that Relic has decided to go in this direction as I think it will help encourage more testing. Unfortunately, for as popular as the beta forum has been lately, the actual beta testing has been dead, at least when I've been on. Like others who have posted here, my tests have been limited mostly to skirmishing which at most gives only a minimal impression on how these changes will affect online gameplay.

Personally, I love being a part of the development process. My work schedule will probably prevent me from being one of the top 100 testers, but heres hoping!

[bottenbreker]

Beta here i come! i kinda gave up hope on balance Beta's after last one cause there was nobody online. now this is a very clever plan relic! thx! XD

[Q77]

Why would it be DoW2? Why would I even want that? Just because I play CoH doesnt mean I want some dow-key that I dont care about.. I hope its CoH-related.

[CptBanana]

DoW2 is using the CoH engine. CoH-related.....confirmed.

[Q77]

DoW2 is using the CoH engine. CoH-related.....confirmed.

Yeah that.. makes a lot of sense,lol. My guess is it will be a coh-thing, cant imagine them using this beta to advertise for a different game.

[Widowmaker1]

hahaha, who gets to test Eastern Front first is it? lol