1st player fraud

[fordcobra01]

What is up with relic saying this game has an "engaging" 1 player story line? Im a total rts novice and i finished this game in less than ten hours! I never lost a map even with the difficulty turned all the way up. There were what, like 12 missions? At this point i feel like ive been robbed of my money. Sure the engine is great and online play is ok but i dont have time to sit for long time to actually get an engaging battle going not to mention the aweful lag on 3v3 or 4v4 (yes i have a cable connection so it isnt me). I can honestly say that if i knew this game was an online only game (which it absolutely is) i would never have bought it. I mean cmon i cant even play as the other races in 1 player? This game could have been so much better and so much deeper but instead it reaks of rushed product.

[Bonnet]

Ten hours? Thats 5$ hour, How many other things do you have lots of fun doing that are only 5$ hour?

Avoid the obvious and crude answer...

[Slate_Shale]

Have you tried Skirmish? Versus Comps.? Can be very challenging.

[BeHe]

Aye im not even half way through the campaign yet, just been messing around in skirmish mainly..

[FatalTheRabbit]

Enless you play the campaign on insane you probably wont get much out of it.

It took me several days to beat it...on insane. Of course in total it was probably only like 15 hours. It was ok.

[ceejayoz]

Quick! Call the


It should be noted that a single player game can be engaging even if short, and complaining about there only being one race is a little unfair when they never advertised multiple race campaigns. The fact that there's only one race in single player has been well-known for months.

[BeHe]

OMG! That pic is so fake liek! hahaLOL1!!11!!ROFLCOPTER!Lo!!`1

[ShadeyCharacter]

Well, the fact that you bothered to finish it could be an indication you found it engaging :P

I liked the campaign, really thought there should have been another one and spose it could have been longer but ehh, I was happy with it.

Mods will fill that out. DoW will provide a platform for those mods and in that respect, it may prove very good value.

[Opus131]

People, calm down please, he does have a point, the single player was a great disappointment, there's no denying this.

It was too short and generic, not to mention easy as hell.

This is a great game, one of the best RTS i ever played infact, but not everybody likes to flock on the multiplayer (which, aside for those initial imbalances, is defenatly the highlight of DOW), some people are still mostly single players.

On the other end, i don't think Ford has the right to feel cheated. Most reviews pointed out to the weakness of the main campain (indeed, the only thing that kept this game from getting a 90+ score across the board), and he has only himself to blame for buying a game without informing himself first.

Ford, the game is still pretty hot right now, so you can still sell it back if you so wish without problems, or you can keep it and see if you can enjoy the skirmish and particularly the multiplayer (which is mostly what this game was made for) has much as the rest of us, it's your call...

[Drizzt DoUrden]

well dood, if you got 10 hours to waste to finish the game in one sitting you have enough time to play quite a few online games.


i'm on dsl and rarely have game crippling lag even with 4 v 4 missions.

sometimes people drop, or it takes awhile to load....but generally i get a few great games each night and waste a couple hours a day playing online.


to me the campaign is a fun way to LEARN the game and enjoy the story. i did a few missions a day preparing for online play since i knew it would be a better level.

i agree that there should have been more, at least 8 or so missions a race. but you can hardly say it isn't worth your money.

most of the fun of an rts is the online play, you should know that if you know anything about RTSs.

[Aliasalpha]

I thought it was engaging but too short. I wasn't expecting a campaign for every race but I was a bit annoyed by the type of ending and the way it had a 'stay tuned for the sequel/expansion' feel.

What I'd really like to see story wise for an expansion is how the eldar deal with the events at the end of the marine campaign, it'd be nice to intertwine the core story and expansion without it being a direct sequel.

Assuming the mission/map editors are easy enough to use when they're released, there'll be a dozen campaigns up within a month, probably including one from me

[Drizzt DoUrden]

quality and voice acting wise the story was miles above most RTS.

even better than Warcraft which was pretty tongue in cheek and full of weird holes.


at least the warhammer story followed a thread and stuck with it.

[Sajuur]

Single player is not the main of any RTS, multiplaer is, and thats where the most of the work should go. SP is training for MP, and a bit of fun while your at it.

[Aliasalpha]

Well that's a matter up for debate, I'll take a solid story driven single player only RTS over one with an okay/negligible story & multiplayer any day

[Mirador]

Same here. I play RTS for the story and the involvement. If i wanted online battles where i get killed in 5 mins i would play FPS. Tried RTS online, i'm rather poor at it.

[LowBrow]

im not too sure but im preatty sure that they said that you would only be able to play as the space marines in SP in the developers commentary and i didnt care at all cause i knew that at least the rest of the races would be available to play on skirmish/multiplayer. They listed all of these things before they put out the game and delivered it. Just do your homework before you pay for a game.

And saying that this game was rushed is total crap. Except for a few balance issues with the races, this game reeks of polish if it reeks of anything.

[Mirador]

Well, even dispite the games faults, i still love it! The look, the feel, and.... well.... EVERYTHING is great. It is well worth the money even for a short SP campaign.

But i also think they have left it open for the mod community to fill in what they left out. I'm sure it will on be a month or so before the next campaign is released by some mod community.

[Freya Crescent]

I'be gotta agree that the single player camapign was horribly brief. When i heard one race I was expecting at least 25 missions, but felt like they got pushed into relasing it with the story 1/2 told.

But ah well, given the over all quality of the game, and the promise of a map editor available for download soon I feel like it was worth the money (maybe priced around 30 bucks would've been more reasonable through).

With the way the game got left though I get the impression they got an expansion pack planned for relase right around xmas time. (probably with a new race or two and the map editor included for added purchase incentive.)

I just hope that Relic doesn't hold off on realising the map editor for download to boost sales for the next expansion pack.

[Thousand_Guns]

"engaging" is an opinion, so they can say it even if it's just one mission. It CAN'T be fraud.

But I do agree, if that's engaging, then the guys who wrote that have really really low standards

[Dalveldrin]

I actually enjoyed it. No complaints here.

[Drizzt DoUrden]

if you aren't good at it that isn't our fault

the fact remains that RTS = Online play

[Freya Crescent]

some what, perosnally I found online play with rts games to be breif and rather boorish. (each game is maybe 15 minutes if that in warcraft III, hardly much fun)

I rather enjoy the single player aspect far more provided it;s backed up with a 1/2 way decent story line like the Home world seires, starcraft, and warcraft III was.

Of course DW has a riviting story line as well, I just wish it wasn;t so dang brief.

[Brannigans_Law]

I don't think that by "engaging storyline" they meant "challenging campaign". They mean the cutscenes; the fluff as it were.

I thought it was pretty cool; If I was a GW fanboy it probably would have engaged me more. I know some people can get really into these sorts of things (not just Warhammer, have a look at Star Wars/LOTR fan forums and stuff like that some time... wow...)

[fordcobra01]

As i said earlier the game has a rock solid engine and multiplayer is good so obviously that part of the game wasnt rushed. My complaint was only about the single player. I did read many reviews that raved about the engine and strategy so i did do my homework that way but i just assumed that this game would take the time to be worth the 50 bucks. Rome total war has a long and engaging single player and this game marketed itself as both a single and online game but the single player is hardly a game at all. Without online this game would totaly suck, am i wrong? So they shouldnt market it to single player people like myself. It was straight up lame to me and no im not going to resell it for 25 bucks, thats hardly worth the time and im sure i will pick up an expansion pack to this game after i read it has a decent single player. Like i said this game could have been special but they just threw it out there as only half a game. If i wanted online id play an fps like ut2004, rts is about DEPTH. Im sorry to all you fanboys but mods making up for relic doesnt excuse them. I will be much more careful on my purchases with relic from now on. I mean cmon doom 3 was atleast 25 hours long starcraft was way long. If you want a large following you have to have more than flashy graphics and online play. No one remembers that, they remember plot twists and excellent AI/gameplay or am i just oldschool?

[fordcobra01]

As for the story line it was good but i felt like right when the game was about to "start" it ended! It was absolutely anti-clamactic to the point where i would tell someone dont even bother bc it isnt challenging and the story will just leave you hanging. I found the maps to be beginner lvl except for the last one it just seemed to be training you for a big hard conflict then whoops its over :Slap:

[hairy potter]

Yeah, I'd agree the sp campaign was a little anemic. Seemed like more of a really awesome tutorial than a game in itself. I didn't get really involved in the game until after I finished the single player and started playing the skirmish maps. Insane AI is TOUGH!

[Freya Crescent]

I agree with you totally fordcobra01, story line and depth of play (as well as replay value) makes a game memorable.

I still remember the fun I had with old school rts games like the very first C&C and SNES rpgs. It was all about sweeping epic sagas, not glitzy real as life graphics and eye candy up the wazoo.

And when i look at my collection of games and think of what to play, it's the ones with story lines I found fun and enjoyable that I want to load and play. Those with just flashy graphics is fun for maybe a week, then the novelty wears off and you;re left wanting.

It's a real shame most games these days, be they rpg, rts or even fps seem to be all about snazzy graphics rather than engaging storylines. if only someone could whack the developers of their collective heads and make 'em realize we want depth more than graphics. (ahtlough DW did deliver a nice taste of things to come with it's prelude single player storyline)

Of course the nuts and bolts of it is what sells. Fancy graphics catch the comsumers eye, and since its hard to advertise a sweeping saga story line on the front of a box or screen shot (which is what catches most games eyes first off) the compaines keep being forced to release games with better graphics than their competition to draw in the cash to make more.

That's one of the sweetest things with map makers (provided they're done well like warcraft III's) is they allow the community to make an unlimited number of sweeping epic sagas.

I just hope the expasnion for DW has a solid 20+ mission single player campaign. As for it being ephathisied for online skimish, if that was the case they should've had at least a good 25+ skirmish maps availbe with the inital release, it would';ve gone a long way to adding depth to the game.

[Drizzt DoUrden]

my average play time is 23 minutes.

/shrug

[Maz231]

I love the voice acting in this game, the FC is the best! If any of you ever watched Ronin Warriors back in the day (btw the whole thing is on dvd now) you would know that the voice of the FC is the same guy that did the voice of Anubis in that! It frickin rocks that he is doing something else I like very much! This game is so great!!

[Freya Crescent]

yeah Drizzit, short and not very sweet. online skirmish games are way to freaking intense and short for any real fun. What I;d like to see is some kind of multi player missions vs custom A.I's. (like the space marines and eldar working together to over run a chaos invasion, or maybe just some type of play that lasts for a good 45 minutes and isn't so much rush and bash-player who gets bigger force first wins type.

Like in the tt version it's all balanced with strategy being the deciding factor, not who can build more first.

[modern_messiah6]

i have to totally agree with freya crescent, the online play is only about who can build their army the quickest.

When they advertised for this game they said you wont spend the entire game watching your base like starcraft and warcraft but then you play the online games and its all about who has a better build order.

also the SP campaign was so crap, i first played it on normal because normal usually means the difficulty is was designed to be played on but then it hit me, i was on like the 8th or 9th mission already and the game was almost over

ONLINE PLAY SUX, GO LAN!!!, its alot more fun when you know who your smashing into oblivion

[Freya Crescent]

kudo's Modern, LAN with my husband is absolutely awesome, we can set "house rules" like no assault for 1/2 hour if we want time to bould up our defenses or what not.

Also it's tons of fun to team up over LAN and take on 2-6 insane cpu oppoenets (almost inpossible to win as well but fun none the less) Nothing beats being able to discuss your attack strategy in real time then have to stop building and what not to laboriously type an attack plan.

[NotAClue]

For all those complaining that the campaign was too easy, here's something to try for a challenge. Crank the difficulty up and then try to complete the entire campaign with as few casualties as possible, as if the men were real and you actually cared whether they got blown to bits or not. It's a lot more difficult that way, since any child can simply reinforce over and over and over.

[Bioh@zard]

Lol this is the 40k Universe.

There are trillions of people in the galaxy...

The Emperor gets hundreds of psyckers for supper every day...

The Imperial Guard is probably the biggest supply source for Steaks-R'-Us

But you are totally right. It is much more difficult. I am just brainwashed by the GW fluff stories, so don't mind me

[NotAClue]

Bio, I'm a GW fluff fan myself as well but the glorious SMs don't have infinite numbers, a fluff fact that is simply impossible to get across in DoW.

[ionfish]

So the SP wasn't great. So what? I don't feel robbed; and if you do, no one's stopping you from taking the game back to the shop. It was apparent from the get-go that the campaign would only have one race and would probably be relatively short. That's not why I, at least, bought the game - I got it for the multi. If you bought it for the SP alone then I can see how you might well be disappointed, but as I say, them's the breaks.

[modern_messiah6]

it would have been better if the AI was a little harder, on the hardest difficulty the gameplay can be hard but the ai is still predictible and always has the same weak points

[TheLoneKnight]

You guys realise that Relic put together a great, (albiet short), Single Player Campaign with less time, less money, and more effort than most gaming companies do, right?

And Blizzard..BLIZZARD..omfg.. It was SO nice to see a game FINALLY worth its cash that WASN'T delayed for month upon month.. until it ended up being a year.. =_=

Stupid..freaking..blizzard..argh..

And btw..longer does not mean better.. the Voice Acting in DoW was far better, imo, than in any of Blizzard's Games. Not only that, but Blizzard's games have always felt..well.. fake, to a degree. Artha's Betrayal was nowhere near as entertaining as the corruption in this game. Were any of the Wc3 or SC characters truly -torn- between duty and honour? Torn between what they know should be done and what they know they will do? Of course not. Despite the shortness of the Campaign, they fit a whole lot of emotion & twists that actually -fit- the storyline. Things that weren't just pointlessly tacked on.

Oh..and to top it off, they never changed their entire history just to make a storyline they like better. =P

[fordcobra01]

Look, like i said it was just short. All those great things you talk about just highlight how great it could have been. Who cares about voice acting and plot when the GAME itself is terribly short. Yes the voice acting was top notch, all 5 minutes of it! I cant return the game, here in austin tx best buy doesnt take software returns and i dont care about relics problems or budget those are just excuses. Do you know how easy it would have been to make this game better? Try about 20 more maps and spread the existing story out a little bit? they have a map editor and making maps isnt that hard; although maybe it is for relic since the maps they included are pretty basic. Lokk blizzard releases quality product, if it has to be delayed so what? If this was delayed till xmas for 20 more maps the game would have been much better recieved. Instead of 8.8 it would have gotten 9.9's thus making alot of headlines and making relic alot of money not to mention NOT shafting its sp customers. So if you really like this game dont go to bat for relic bc they need to know that this was a bad business decision. I mean why spen all that effort on a great engine and creative characters to just 12 missions? if you care that much wouldnt you want to make the game longer? This game wouldnt even be the right length on a console :werd:

[Kaizoku]

You bought the wrong game for the wrong reason, get over it. There is a definite, unforgiving trend towards online games. If you spent a mere fraction of the time you spent posting in this thread to actually research the game beforehand, you would of figured out that Dawn of War was built with multiplayer skirmish mode in mind.

It would of saved you 50 bucks and us having to hear you complain.

[shadowmage]

Multi-player is great fun, but all companies need to keep in mind that the majority of players buying RTS games buy them to play single player.

More missions would have been nice. I can also see though that they needed to get it out the door. Extra campaigns can always be released as free downloads or in an expansion.

However Blizzard has set a standard with Starcraft and Warcraft 3 and other RTS games will be marked down if they have multiple races and dont have a campaign for each race.

I enjoyed the single player campaign and thought it provided a lot of good background fluff for people not familiar with the WH40K universe.

Its nice to finally have a decent WH40K game after all the previous poor IMO games that Games Workshop have had.

[K4G3]

For me it was enough to hear relic was doing a new game, and after realizing it would be a 40k one i was soooooo looking forward, i cant even tell (even when i stopped playing wh40k tt about 12 years ago=).How 2 flame one of THE best rts creators ever ? i mean they didnt only copy lotsa features like its common amongst rts, but they implemented a lot of new stuff: squad based micro, area effects, visceral INTERACTIVE cc, ... just to name a few (and stuff that will change the face of rts forever)

the only thing i can say is: whenever i touched another rts after playing dow i just got bored with those silly units standing away from each other only slicing air ...

for me its like wc3 on steroids, imho the best innovative rts game i ever came across (the last one would be HW1 =) ... and besides any1 who can read would have known theres only 1 race campaign, 12 missions, and the game mainly based on multiplayer experience. Who buys a RTS for SinglePlayer experience ? Those games are meant to be played online =) .. and if you wanna complain about the AI you just never visited the worlds of wumpus. Im not an Ai crack but that stuff is pretty hard to handle and imho they managed it pretty well (just tryout the cheating insane bots=). If u want it 2 be more complex behaviour buy an earth simulator on ur own, and code an ai that cant be predicted -> good luck =)

You guys at Relic have done a great job. once again
PRAiSE THE RELIC CREW

[draenn]

don't feel the necessity to reduce blizzard games, because I think DoW is very great like warcraft3 and have no need of that =) I think you can expect to see lot of blizzard games fans playing DoW too like me

[Movac]

I managed to snag it when it was only $40 at Best Buy. So far the best RTS I've ever played. Tops both RA2 and WC3.

[Opus131]

"don't feel the necessity to reduce blizzard games, because I think DoW is very great like warcraft3 and have no need of that =) I think you can expect to see lot of blizzard games fans playing DoW too like me"

Thank you...

[Brad18]

man everything about this game is great..yes the campiagn was short and ends wierd but that leaves u wanting to go and buy the expansion when it comes out( u sly relic devils u lol j/k)

[Aliasalpha]

Is it only me that'd prefer to be thorougly entertained for 10-15 hours by 11 great missions interspersed with a really good story than be bored shitless for 2 weeks by 25 stupidly easy or moronically hard missions with a loading screen in between that might have a quick bit of scribble as to why you're suddenly at war with China?

I don't really play MP games at all and I don't feel ripped off by Dawn Of War

[Kaizoku]

It's not just you, Aliasalpha. But I've never be in any RTS purely for the campaign, especially not these days.

[JackieO]

While I have already gotten more than my moneys worth from this game, I have to agree with fordcobra - the single player campaign did seem rushed, short, and kind of a let down considering how well this game is made in other respect (read: multiplayer) AND the fact that Relic made (in my opinion) the best single player game *ever* in Homeworld I.

Edit - let me add that I am not saying that I would rather have 25 long drawn out missions that make a point of taking up my time needlessly. The fact is that the missions in DoW were not that interesting, the story was subpar, and cutscenes were pretty abysmal, and it wasn't immersive at all (this is all, imo, of course). Considering the pedigree, I am not at all shocked some people are disappointed with it.

Luckily for me, I am an avid MP player and will enjoy this game fora long time to come, however for those of you who bought it for the SP only, well, I don't blame you for feeling a little shafted. Just my $0.02.

[TheLoneKnight]

So Cobra, if I'm getting you right, here.. You don't care that Relic was running out of funding, and you think that the Devs should have spent extra months and delay the game, (it would have been far past Christmas before they got to release it, buddy), and all without being paid? Wtf?

The Devs have shown in their work that they are trying their damndest to stay true to the fluff-universe of Warhammer 40k, as well as trying even harder to create an RTS more fun than your average romp through mindless killing. Heck, only a couple of weeks after the game's release they had patched it, and a couple weeks later, they're going to be patching it again. That's pretty quick, imho, and considering the kind of massive support they've given to the modding community, it's become all to clear that they love their game.. but would you work four-five extra months just to make more missions? Do you think the voice actors would have lended their voices to the game without pay? Heck, do you think ANY of this would be even half as good if the Relic crew hadn't put some severe amounts of sleepless nights and overexerting efforts into making one of the best RTS games in recent history?

They've created a game that, along with a campaign of their own, is easily moddable, they'll be releasing a map-editing tool soon enough, and to top it off, have come out with fantastic graphics and many depths of strategy that aren't very common in mainstream RTS games. From the very beginning Relic has been underfunded. In fact, when they started out, if I recall, they were in debt and were only able to create DoW because another company bailed them out & bought them. (Of course, I might be wrong..but I could swear I heard news of it a while ago.. Feel free to correct me).

Regardless, they've worked their BUTTS off. But without money they CANNOT create a longer campaign. Even if the devs WERE willing to work for MONTHS for free, (much to the dismay of their stomachs and family, no doubt), the voice actors wouldn't. And would you have settled for 20 missions that have no voices, no new music.. no nothing? It'd just be text that would likely undermine the entire effort. You call having no money an excuse-- I'd like to see you tell that to their families. Would you starve yourself and your family to make a few random whiners happy? To pander to their respective tastes, and copy big-name companies with nigh-unlimited funding? HECK NO.

Next time you call lack of funding an excuse, perhaps you should spend four or five months without food and drink. Perhaps your family, (if it exists), would appreciate your efforts more, then.

And above all that, there was the Deadline. A company like Blizzard which has billions to throw around as they see fit can delay and delay as long as they want without any problem. Relic cannot. Once the deadline passes, they aren't going to be recieving money. Once the money stops, the development stops. The only reason they can continue patching/fixing/upgrading DoW now is because of the money you paid for your game.

So seriously, stop whining about the Developers thinking about reality over pandering to your tastes.



Edit: Now look what you did. You made me rant. And I was trying SO hard to stop, too...

Oh, and to add to my comments above.. Because Relic is developing the game rather than paying for it.. the deadline is set by the paying company. If they don't get money after the deadline, the funding stops, and Relic can no longer work on the game without serious problems. Perhaps later they'll expand the campaign through downloads and whatnot.. but right now they've got better things to do, like fixing bugs. So stop bitching.