Is this game dead? What does the future hold?

[Pseudonymn]

With a daily average peak player population hovering at ~950 players, online games of any kind becoming more and more difficult to arrange (never mind good ones with a minimum of lag), and the most recent forum discussions to be found only in a necromantic thread discussing the tactical merits of nothing more important than a person's paint scheme now left untouched for two days; I feel the time has now arrived to ask these two very important questions:

Is the game effectively dead, left only to those most hardcore of WH40k devotees who will cling to its rotting corpse until the next game arrives? What future projections can be made or inferred from the state we now find it in, if indeed this franchise has any future to speak of at all?

Personally, I would like to hope that Relic are still working on fixes to some of this game's outstanding issues. But, somehow, I doubt very much that that is going to happen. We seem to have some evidence to suggest that they are going to let this franchise go and pursue other things. However, I would like to think that Relic's first venture into exploring the WH40K universe through this medium will not be their last and that they will have learned from the mistakes made here and give us something better to look forward to. Although, I admit I will be very cautious about how I invest myself into it should they choose to produce new material.

I believe Relic tried to do too much at once with this title, taking on both MP and SP technologies. I feel they could have accomplished more by focusing on just one thing to start off, preferably a better SP campaign in order to establish a larger community pool from which to draw more MP participants down the road. As such, I would welcome a second game with a more fully realized story line and single player campaign to kick-start the next title, should there be one. Let them add an MP component as DLC for those who wish it at a later time.

[Gorb]

I thought you weren't playing the game?

I think most players are waiting on the December DLC, which has had no news since it's initial showcasing.

[Shuma]

I think the game is dead.
I think numbers will spike when DLC comes out.
I think Relic will do Space Marine 2 and i think the same will happen unless something changes when it comes to the online stability of the game.
And i think the idea that they should focus on the campaign is horrible, if you're going to have a multiplayer component that's what should be good, otherwise people play the campaign, beat it and never return.

[konfeta]

I sort of play inhouses with a bunch of inhouse minded players. Skyrim is doing a number on distracting me, though.

[Gorb]

Shuma, I know this is a huge surprise, but there are a number of people that find single-player campaigns engaging. I managed to rack up a depressing 150 hours on Retribution, for example. That's more than I spent on either vDoW II and/or CR, and I've played them a good eight times apiece.

It is possible to concentrate on delivering a solid, engaing SP experience. Tying in MP with the SP is often a mixed bag in terms of results, however, though I admit in an FPS environment it certainly makes things easier (compared to say DoW II's hybrid SP style contrasted to the MP gameplay). I mean, people are going to get confused/ask for features ported over between modes regardless (this is the age of the entitled Internet peon). I've lost count of the "zomg Fury would be balanced in MP, no idea why it's not there" threads I have raged over

[Shuma]

I don't disagree, i merely think MP should be the focus in a game like this, not the campaign.

[Civik]

I would love to play more, but terrible pings are terrible. Hopefully the next iteration someone will be smart enough to implement a dedicated server setup so I'm not reliant on the conx between me and the lad/lass from BFE... plus host drops can be somewhat rage inducing since it can take a minute or two for the game to figure out that the host quit. The multiplayer, when it works, is just plain fun.

I really wish that Exterminatus could be expanded upon to be something more like Left 4 Dead instead of just Arena combat.

For the single player, I wanted more of the areas to be similar to the elevator area after dropping the volcano cannon on the orks... massed wave of orks vs you was fun, but it only feels like it happened once. On the second passthrough of the SP campaign I realised that in many areas, the orks seem scripted to run away from you.

Oh, and just for note, it's a sign of trouble if I'm the last person posting to a forum for two days.

[CoraxCartman]

The game is...well...dead. The lag did it for me, haven't played MP for so long that I can't even remember all the boring maps. Also steam downloaded something a few days ago for Spess Mahreen, was nothing big, but couldn't find any changes and then yesterday I was playing Exterminatus. As I beaten the 1st arena I got an achievement. Only then did I realize that ach was the only thing "new" (if u can call it that). I lol'd.

[Carach]

need more maps.
need more types of online gameplay.
need dedicated server.
singleplayer-wise the campaign did need strengthening, nothing can be done about that tho unless a no.2 game comes out.

but i think its all a bit late really. This is why things need to be provided in the bloody release..

apart from that it can be super fun. i like meltagunning ignorant ASM's in the face as they drop by me :P i dont like devastator plasma gun sploding me and 5 others capping a point at start of round :'( (laaaame lol)

[Akagi_Ryu]

Being absolutely -unable- to connect to a game around 80% of the time did it for me. I lost count of the times when I was so hyped for a quick shootout and stared for around an hour at the "looking for game" messages, then turned it off and played something else.

So, for me, yeah, it's pretty dead

[dirtyprotest]

... i merely think MP should be the focus in a game like this, not the campaign.

Yep multiplayer for long term gaming.

[Gorb]

Dedicated servers would not magically fix and/or prevent people from lagging.

All the game needs with regards to bad hosts is better host selection/migration. The investment require for dedicated servers is completely unnecessary. Of course, being able to host a game on a local (i.e. community) dedicated server would be a nice possibility. I don't personally like it, too much admin abuse

[Imperial Honour]

There are bigger problems then just host selection and migration in my opinion, sometimes Space Marine cannot fairly balance a team by latency to the host. Putting all the low latency players on one team and all the high latency players on the other is usually NOT balanced (often regardless of skill at times), in the games I play anyhow. Not to mention the Matchmaking either needs be improved to better put players in good games from the start, since it loves to sometimes dump me in some laggy games first and then when I search again put me in a decent game finally (and the second game must have existed at the time since it is currently in progress, with exact same parameters as before), or allow the player to select which game to join out of the possible current options found. Seriously just because a game is Peer-2-Peer doesn't mean you can't give me a list of available games to join and let me choose which one to join, which might lead to me getting in to a decent game sooner or the ability to choose the least worst options.

I like playing Space Marine's multiplayer so it annoys me when the experience is not as smooth as it probably could be. The declining community does not help either, but that is a bit of a cache 22 since it is a bit of a chicken and the egg situation.

[Zallis]

Not to mention the Matchmaking either needs be improved to better put players in good games from the start, since it loves to sometimes dump me in some laggy games first and then when I search again put me in a decent game finally (and the second game must have existed at the time since it is currently in progress, with exact same parameters as before), or allow the player to select which game to join out of the possible current options found. Seriously just because a game is Peer-2-Peer doesn't mean you can't give me a list of available games to join and let me choose which one to join, which might lead to me getting in to a decent game sooner or the ability to choose the least worst options.

This.

It's particularly annoying when there are a few games available, but you keep getting put into the same damn laggy game.

Exterminatus is worse with the starting thing. It comes when some people choose to leave a game after they've all died and you're voting on whether to continue or not. No problems when people leave during the middle of the fight, but it's oh-so-annoying to constantly leave and rejoin the same damn match because some people left in the previous match.

[Akranadas]

Never finished the Single Player. Got tired of chain swording Orks and Chaos.

Single Player couldn't even compete with the likes of Dawn of War 1 story, even though it was the same thing essentially.

[BigSteve]

The lag, and lack of acknowledgement of light at the end of the tunnel by Relic/THQ whoever killed the game for me. Im a hardcore 40k nut (even a smurf nut at that) and I cant stand the MP. Its an insult to a patient gamer who was been playing games for the last 15yrs at least. For the game to be retail for 3m+ now and still no real 'visible' work by the dev's other than balance fixes for the small community that enjoy the game in its intended enviroment seems like they have given up to me.

Its a real dent in the companies rapport with myself, and I will actually question purchasing another product on release, whereas circa 12months ago I would loyally pre-order pretty much any relic product I wanted.

Bad.

[Mantaray]

so i got bored of the campaign today and went and installed dark crusade, and decided to space marine all over that planet. and i enjoyed it alot. because of the nice little scripted boss/base missions. but i wouldnt NOT have enjoyed it if it was -JUST- plain linked skirmishes. dawn of war 2 took that idea and ran with it. but dropped a few nice pieces on the way. like.. base building and.. ARMIES?

space marine to me just feels like there's some guy looking over me, Titus and his squad and just attack moving me to the end of the map, except i do all the tedious ork slaughtering instead of the RTS player.

single player is important. but if you want a game to last then DEAR GOD let the community run some servers and mods! im not saying this would fix it overnight but i'd happily go join a 16plyr no final vengance UK server rather then sit through terrible matchmaking.

[Shuma]

I doubt we're going to see mod support if any on Relic's future titles, what with them knowing that people will buy DLC now, i mean, we didn't even get mod support in DoW II, just the map editor and we got even less in Space Marine.

[dirtyprotest]

Questions of lag, migration & waiting times.

suggestion:

1) Additional server browser, allow players to pick & choose games / hosts.
2) Option to create public session with looping map list.

[Ogra_Chief]

Pseudonymn, man can you be anymore self-invloved?

The game is and was always intended to be a quick buck for Relic/THQ. It's an average shooter, w/ a decent story and a great IP. I think Relic did a pretty decent job their first time out in this genre. Can one argue the game was overpriced for the content at release... yes, but how many games ever equal their retail price in comparison to enjoyment? That's a small group of games if your honest. Enough w/ the doom and gloom. Pseudonymn your concerns are valid, you've stated them. Move on if you don't like the game.

There are some issues w/ the game. If Relic hasn't taken note... they never will. Do we need to endlessly revist this wateringhole. Hopefully Relic will take the time to flesh out SM1 so we can all see a much improved SM2. Every game dies, some faster than others. SM is not dead yet.

Go Team Relic, b*tches!

[Dimension]

I'm playing this thing regularly.

Maybe its because I group with people from my country these days, but I've actually felt like lag has improved. Could also be because people from the more out-of-way places have dropped the game. and don't fudge it up for the rest of the players.

But yeah,I've noticed some hours where you won't find more than a couple of games.

Not saying the lag still doesn't suck, but I really feel its gotten better.

Looking forward to the DLC's coming out soon as well.

[Pseudonymn]

Gorb, I loaded it up a while back to check out the latest update. You may recall my having mentioned that at some point, although to be fair I can't quite recall when either. At any rate, I kept it around to play the SP campaign when I'm really bored and just want to bash in some ork skulls, which hasn't been often since picked up Skyrim. You know, just trying to squeeze some value out of my purchase.

but how many games ever equal their retail price in comparison to enjoyment?

Skyrim.

113.9 hours played (Actually a fair bit less, I left it running once or twice after being called in for an ASAP work assignment). Enjoying every minute of it; I've identified maybe half of the map locations and, of those, have explored maybe half again as many. I haven't even gotten 20% of the main plot quests completed yet either. 'Nuff said.

Honestly, I think a self-involved person is one who goes on internet forums and calls out other people for being what they think qualifies as self-involved people in their own minds. But that's neither the topic of this thread, nor my intentions, which are to get some discussion going in a place that is blowing around as many tumbleweeds as SM has been lately.

Seems to be working as intended.

[titlams]

Skyrim, that game that crashes constantly on any setting but the lowest even though it says I can play ultra. And no you can not play that game on anything but Ultra so until it get's fixed I can't play .Admittedly I don't play Space Marine any more although I hope the DLC will bring a small raise of players back and I might play some games then.

[Gorb]

I doubt we're going to see mod support if any on Relic's future titles, what with them knowing that people will buy DLC now, i mean, we didn't even get mod support in DoW II, just the map editor and we got even less in Space Marine.

Worldbuilder and SCaR documentation (don't knock the SCaRdoc). Given that the archive and attribute formats were cracked within a week of the game being released, the only thing Relic could've provided was an Object Editor - however, given that they never officially provided that with CoH, it's unlikely we'd ever see such a thing.

[Imperial Honour]

Hey now it was officially supported and provided by Relic there for a brief moment . Just because it is these days unofficial and unsupported by Relic doesn't negate the point that it was originally developed and provided by Relic for the CoH modding community and has unofficially done much good for the CoH mod community. The lack of documentation, a reason for pulling the CoH OE, was eventually overcome through sheer dedication and persistence, and the community now has their own documentation written. Unless Essence v2.0 has changed so massively as to make an OE entirely impossible it is more a case of finding someone with the time and know-how, who would possibly have to do it in their spare time so as to not incur any costs on THQ (otherwise one has to convince THQ of the worth of paying someone to do it). Which I think may have been your point... so I wouldn't call an OE entirely impossible, rather just infeasible so far in my opinion (oh how much I pray for such tools to make my life easier), and it seems I'm just rambling here.

If Space Marine gets a sequel anytime in the future I sure hope THQ\Relic either package the base game with more content, if additional DLC content is going to take a month to finish developing and release, to tide people over or discover a way to speed up the process of developing and releasing DLC for Space Marine. Since a healthier multiplayer population would generally lessen the current problems affecting the game, what with the larger range of potential low lag games to join and so on so forth. Now that does not solve the issue of those who left due to non-content related issues, but no doubt some people left due to a perceived lack of content and at the lack of speed at which new content has been coming. Impatiently waiting for the new CTF game mode, but it will be all for naught if there aren't enough people in the multiplayer community to sustain it as well as the pre-existing Annihilation and Seize Ground.

[Arbit]

I jump and play some annihilation every now and then. I don't have problems with lag in vs but it's pretty unbearable in Exterminatus.

Skyrim sucks. That's right, I said it! Easy broken (you don't even have to try), no challenge, bad quests, bad combat, leads you by the nose everywhere. I'm embarrassed to say I spent 40 hours on it... I feel like I got 5 actual hours of enjoyment out of it, the other 35 being inventory management, compulsive grinding/looting, backtracking, killing stuff without even trying, etc.

But it's huge, FUS RO DAH, arrow to the etc.

[Pseudonymn]

As far as sandbox games go, you could do worse. I'm not saying, I'm just saying.

[Jaimas]

I stuck around through the lag.

I stuck around through the fact that the game's ping was often so bad that connecting to games bordered on trying to create an orbital station from socks and vaseline.

But the mappool sucks (five maps? fucking seriously? Metroid Prime 2 shipped with more than five maps.), the playerbase has been steadily hemorrhaging (you know, exactly like Hirm, me, and Pseudo said it was going to if base issues Space Marine had weren't resolved), and class balance remains utter shit. Multiplayer is a repetitive, lag-ridden, characterless slog, one that is increasingly hard to get games to start on.

The game isn't dead yet, but it could very well be if the most pressing issues the game has aren't addressed. It's not like people haven't brought those very issues up on every single forum, including the official boards, either - so there's really no excuse for this at this point.

[Fat_Bloke]

On PC SM is most certainly dead. This is a shame as the things that have lead to its demise are almost all preventable. While I hear what gorb says about single player it is good multiplayer that keeps a game alive. Having no dedicated servers on a PC title was always going to kill the MP. However, this was not the only element contributing to the problems SM is having. To be blunt, both Relic and THQ dropped the ball when it came to community relations, the complete lack of communication has put me in a position where I no longer trust either group. Hopefully, Relic and THQ can understand the damage they have done to their brand names in all of this and learn from it. Finally, there was the incident with the high street retailers that was handled so badly, both in terms of the agreement itself, as well as the stubborn refusal to either apologise or account for such a bad decision.

[Gorb]

I disagree that class balance "remains shit", Jaimas. Though, people often equate the near-omnipresent lag issues with balance, which can't be helped.

I don't disagree with the lack of attention on the community forums, however. Technical Support is a shambles, for instance (and I'd imagine if Pulse is even associated with Space Marine, post-launch, he's too busy handling the tech support sections of the DoW II community forums and this site).

Furthermore (more towards Fat_Bloke here), dedicated servers wouldn't have "saved" this game, even if they'd been present since the beginning. Which is unfeasible in my opinion anyhow - the best suggestion I have seen was the suggestion of community-hosted dedicated servers, and even that comes with it's own problems.

People with terrible connections would still lag, teleport across the map and inflict hits on you that you weren't even aware of.

[Fat_Bloke]

I agree with you, gorb, that dedicated servers would not have saved the game, I just feel that dedicated servers would have been a good starting point. In fact, I do not think you can realistically try and build a multiplayer community, on PC, without them unless you have the kind of market dominance enjoyed by games such as CoD. They do solve a hell of a lot of lag issues though. In a PTP system you are not just relying on the your internet connection strength but that of the host as well, with dedicated servers at least one end of that spectrum is covered as the server hosting companies are selling you a connection with enough bandwidth to accomodate the number of players your server will hold.

It also allows the player to choose what server they wish to be on. In TF2, for example, there are plenty of servers that report a ping too high for me to play on,however, I have the choice not to play on them. Instead I can choose to play on servers where I get a good ping return. Further to this with the ability to admin said servers it is possible to kick those that do join with high ping in order to improve the experience for others.

Personally, I do not regret buying this game. As a massive 40k fan, the campaign alone was worth the purchase as no other game has captured the 40k universe in quite such a cinematic style as Space Marine. It is much more the support and interaction from and with Relic and THQ that has caused me concern. I think Relic is one of the most innovative and interesting developers around and I am afraid that this episode will curtail what they are allowed to do in future in the light of the problems surrounding this title.

[Jaimas]

I disagree that class balance "remains shit", Jaimas.

Let's see: We have one class whose phenomenal durability and firepower let them OMFGWTF other classes to death in short order, one class which can reliably best this class in close-combat, and one class that tends to get its ass handed to it unless handled well due to the fact that its weapons are nowhere near as powerful as the former and the fact that it has weak-as-shit melee. If you're playing tactical, you're running Stalker, Melta, or Stormbolter, or you're just a pale imitation of other marine builds as far as DPS and efficiency goes. And that's not even counting the lag-based issues, which are everywhere and make all the problems in the game that much worse.

Furthermore (more towards Fat_Bloke here), dedicated servers wouldn't have "saved" this game, even if they'd been present since the beginning.

They may not have saved it, but they sure as hell would have cut down on connectivity bullshit and inability to join games. Just saying.

[konfeta]

So the durable ranged powerhouse beats out other people in range with ranged firepower and durability, the melee class beats things in melee, and the Tactical class has access to a sniper/shotgun weapon that gives it a competitive chance of fighting against the two other classes. Hardly "shit" balance.

[Master Flagg]

I wholy agree with Konfeta, when i play tac i really never have a hard time taking out the other two types of classes. all you got to do is play smart.

[Gorb]

Fat_Bloke, a good post well-made. I've never disagreed that the current state of the game could be improved; the main bone I had was with people believing that dedicated servers would magically fix whatever problems they were having

@Jaimas: I'm sorry, but you seem to swimming against the tide with your opinion(s) of the Tactical class. Personally, it's the class I have the most success with due to the inherent flexibility afforded by the weapon(s) and perks you can equip.

[Codex]

Kraken bolter is still good. Vengeance launcher is amazing if you know how to use it; I've had some pretty good results without lag, and it feels awesomely satisfying when you get a direct hit on targets in mid air. Storm bolter, stalker bolter and melta gun, all good options. Yeah, I love tactical.

I run as the other two classes quite frequently, but least of all as dev. Lascannon is still OP imo, if you use something to mark out the middle of the screen it's still pretty easy to 2-shot people without using scope.

[Jaimas]

I'm not saying it's a bad class, Gorb, though I apologize by misspeaking earlier. What I am saying is that in every way, you've invariably got better options. Standard Bolter can't compare to the Storm, Heavy, or Stalker's DPS outside of a very specific range, and Melta is amazing, but Plasma is stunningly lackluster, Vengeance doesn't do anything that the Plasma Cannon doesn't do better and more efficiently, and the Knife.... Less said the better. The Tac's got three "power" weapons, with all his other options being notably middling in contrast, and that's one area I have major issues with, since if you're not using the best weapons it has, you're going to get rolled.

It certainly doesn't help that on the console version, Tacs are by far the least-played Marine class, with Devastators outnumbering them by a nearly 3:1 ratio. Fuck yeah, let's hear it for Lascannon Conga Lines.

Fun note: my longest KS was with a Tactical, and centered around the Stalker - 22 kills.
As a contrast, my closest KS after that was with a Power Sword Assault, with 20.

[Carach]

playing it on the ps3 for quite a while now and i dont see tacs being outnumbered 3:1 by devs, i dont see lascannon conga lines.

i do however see devastators locking down an entire side of hab centre with their damn plasma cannon that has massive aoe damage.

i myself pretty much always play a tac these days and i top the scores regularly with stormbolter and melta gun combo.

plasma cannon is about the only weapon i got a problem with. i never use it myself and when i do it seems useless lol, but it is nigh on unstoppable by people that know how to use it.

[Jaimas]

On the 'Box version, Devs are the most populace class by a substantial margain, and most of the remaining players are veterans. HB Devs mostly, but you see a lot of Plasma and Laser Devs too. Frequently what occurs is that a small group of them take and hold the chokepoints whilst their team's Assaults go around capping and running counter-operative actions. On Waste Management, this oft culminates in spawncamp hell until a particularly moxious tactical chucks out a few Master-Crafted Blind Grenades.

Other maps aren't quite as bad, but Hab Center and Shattered Bridge are notoriously bad for similar setups.

[konfeta]

Funny. The most popular class on PC I see so far are Tacs (only weapon being under-represented is Plasma Gun), Assault second, Devastator third (though occasionally Assault/Devastator switch places). The only time I see Assault or Devastator spam is on coordinated teams pubstomping (pub players typically don't know how to deal with assault waves or Devastators that cover each other).

Bolter is very popular among the best Tac players I see because it does damage comparable (if not better) than Stormbolter at close and still is a threatening weapon at range. Vengeance Launchers, I see them all the time now, and let me tell you, Plasma Cannon is not really a comparison to it in use. Completely different weapons - VL is not really grenade launcher, it's more akin to a rifle.

[Kalimac]

When I'm playing (on PC) the most used classes seem to be Devs and Assault, although the Tac is far from under-used. I don't agree with the Bolter being bad (I got my 100(?) kill streak thingy with it yesterday), or the Stormbolter seeing the most use along with melta and stalker bolter for Tacs. Plasma is however, as previously mentioned, almost never seen at all.

As for the game being dead or unplayable, I have no trouble finding seize gound versus games almost completely without lag, and can most of the time have a good time when I fire up the game. I guess the playerbase is diminishing though, and I sure hope the new maps arrive soon to hopefully bring some of the players back.

[Pseudonymn]

the main bone I had was with people believing that dedicated servers would magically fix whatever problems they were having

I really don't think anyone was saying quite that, Gorb. The real message there has always been that it was a contributing factor, in the same exact way that it was a contributing factor in the demise of other consolized p2p games like AvP2010, whose longevity should have been much greater than they turned out having. It was one (totally preventable) weak link in a chain full of weak links with a relatively easy solution. Nothing more than that. You can't really believe that it didn't have some part to play, however small, even in your mind.

[titlams]

Lets not do this again. That discussion has been beaten to death a hundred times by now.

[Imperial Honour]

Not going to bother arguing that point since I ended up with a wall of text, and we have been over it a thousand times already. I will however say that dedicated servers cannot save a game from having a dearth of content, which is just as much a complaint and problem as those about the peer-2-peer setup used. Many a mediocre game has died a quite death due to a lack of good content despite having dedicated servers for multiplayer, Red Orchastra 2 has plenty of good dedicated servers but that hasn't saved it from having a small online player base due to other problems.

Games often succeed or fail due to a number of reasons, otherwise Modern Warfare 3 wouldn't sell as well as it does despite the lack of dedicated servers in ranked play. That may or may not have changed, but at release MW3 forced peer-2-peer matchmaking upon players if they wanted to play ranked, dedicated servers are unranked.

[Gorb]

I really don't think anyone was saying quite that, Gorb. The real message there has always been that it was a contributing factor, in the same exact way that it was a contributing factor in the demise of other consolized p2p games like AvP2010, whose longevity should have been much greater than they turned out having. It was one (totally preventable) weak link in a chain full of weak links with a relatively easy solution. Nothing more than that. You can't really believe that it didn't have some part to play, however small, even in your mind.

This forum isn't the only one discussing Space Marine, and there are people on here who have said that. I'm not targeting individuals here, I'm not targeting you or Jaimas (even though Jaimas has possibly said that ). I'm basing this on the huge amount of traffic the official forums have seen, which by far dwarfs the small number of individuals on these forums discussing the game. RelicNews, as far as being representative of the online gaming community goes, is incredibly small. It's amazing Relic even pay attention to us anymore, especially considering how easily we turn from supporting them to deriding them.

And again, you are making this sound easy. It is not totally preventable nor relatively easy considering THQ's financial (fiscal?) situation(s). You're not going to persuade a publisher to fork out for dedicated servers across the world when the majority of their revenue comes from the initial selling of the game. Especially considering that dedicated servers may only positively affect people in remote regions that are getting matched with people in other areas of the world (South America, Australia/Oceania, South Africa).

You're not going to persuade a gaming developer, post-release (or even their publisher to provide the manpower/resource allocation), to rewrite their network code to account for third-party dedicated servers when every single game they have released on the PC platform has been P2P, and has not suffered unduly because of that.

[Liljagare]

Not to nitpick, but, the official forums are pretty much.. well.. at the very best, not very active.. :}

Not in comparison to most forums I visit atleast!

[Gorb]

The dedicated servers petition thread has over a thousand replies (probably past 1,500 by now); that more than any single thread on this forum outside of certain games modification threads that have been open for years. It obtained this size in a matter of weeks.

In terms of activity, at least for me, the SM official forums are the second-most active forums I frequent (the winner going to the S2Games official forums). GameReplays is probably pretty active, but I only frequent a couple of games sections over there

EDIT: remember, here we are discussing Space Marine. The official forums are far more active than this place has been, from release to this date.

[Ogra_Chief]

EDIT: remember, here we are discussing Space Marine. The official forums are far more active than this place has been, from release to this date.

Gorb, that's because we're the Relic Elite. We choose to b*tch about only the most important of concerns the lesser net denziens could not hope to understand. That's why Relic hangs on our every word. Were like Canada, HUGE, but stealthy.

Hopefully the new content will plus up some numbers for the game. I've been enjoying myself all day. Having now seen how flags are carried... I want flags all the time everytime to pimp out my totally awesome self. Who needs capes?

[uncle_anaesthesia]

nah the games not dead its just got the obvious probs but the new content is a definite plus, the games have been full today

loving the new maps, first impressions are that they seem to favour assault and melee tacs more so than devs.
and the flag carrier looks ace when he/she is bolting for home

for the future after this im hankering that the orks to get to multiplayer with some more skins and maybe just have dlc parts rather than full body work
it looks a tad annoying having the exact same looking marine x 5 in your team

[Pseudonymn]

You're not going to persuade a publisher to fork out for dedicated servers

I realize you're not singling anyone out per se, but there again, I don't think anyone has said that it's Relic's sole responsibility to provide dedicated servers. I don't even think that any expectation for that exists in the minds of anyone who's made this request. In all my years of playing online games, I don't think I've ever - ever - played on an "official" dedicated server hosted at the expense of the publisher. They've always been privately funded and operated.

Does Notch run official servers for his game (Minecraft)? I could be wrong, but I don't think he does and yet his simple little game has legions of followers, a significant portion of whom play online on privately funded dedicated servers. I doubt that Minecraft would be as successful as it is were it not for the fact that it is so easy to share one's creations with other people and make friends while doing it. (Community über alles!)

I feel safe in saying that what the dedicated crowd wants has always been to have privately run and administered dedicated servers around which to form a community. In all the discussions we've had, I think that that point more than most has been lost on you as you keep talking on and on about the expenses incurred by the publisher in and through such a model and how we'll never convince them to fork over the dough, etc., ect.. We're not asking them to; we just want(ed) our own servers. (past tense since it's a dead game and this is now all acedemic anyway)

Anyway, I don't want to get much more into this as it's been hashed out elsewhere. All I'm saying is that it was a contributing factor and Relic could have given the community, at the very least, the option to set up their own dedicated boxes at a minimum of expense to themselves.