Dawn of War III

Falthyron

To sum up what I have so far:

- No 360 rotation of the camera, at least not from what I tried.
- Units feel weak and the combat is nowhere near as gritty as Company of Heroes 2.
- The camera feels too close to the ground. Maximum outwards zoom doesn't go far enough.
- The heroes feel like the main units with other units simply being there to complement them.
- Cover mechanic from DoW2 and CoH2 is effectively gone.

Overall, it really reminds me of Battle for Middle-Earth, an RTS released back in 2003, iirc. There were heroes (Gandalf, Aragorn, etc.) in that with lesser units making up the difference. It was a solid enough game, but striking the balance of focus between 'normal' units and 'hero' units isn't easy. So far, I feel Relic have failed to achieve that balance. In fact, I really want to play Company of Heroes 2 now...

degrassinoel

Yeah, very cartoony looking. Reminded me immediately of C&C4.
Played the 3 tutorials, didnt bother with multiplayer because you cant play versus AI for some random reason..

not preordering this, smacks of moba.

Sephiroth_dude

That a real pity, I'll be avoiding for now anyway.

Varik

Heroes aren't that powerful, you have to be careful at times to keep them alive.

I've taken out a few just today with a sniper team or heavy bolters and keeping them bogged down with melee. Tend to be keeping my own heroes back a bit and just using them as shock troops or buffing when needed. If anything is a bit too OP it's the end game super weapons but then again they are end game.

TerrorFirmer

Is there base building in this or to what extent? Closer to DOW or DOW2?

Varik

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Is there base building in this or to what extent? Closer to DOW or DOW2?

DOW, you can build anything anywhere as long as it's in range of either an existing building or a control point.

will56

Really liked DOW2, will not be buying this.

To echo what others have said, Elites seem to die too easy, even regular troops seem to just get chewed up far to quickly.
This seems like a game was designed more towards the multiplayer battles instead of building on the previous DOW games and leaning towards an RTS.

Colours and animations seem to cartoony, since when has terminator armour allowed forward somersaults ??

Lone Stone

it doesnt even have base defenses and upgrading your hq just nets more resources =/ i play the crap out dow2 so like this just feels like a shell of a game.

will56

Lone Stone wrote: »

it doesnt even have base defenses and upgrading your hq just nets more resources =/ i play the crap out dow2 so like this just feels like a shell of a game.

Agreed, even adding turrets to resource points is a no no early on in a bid to build up your army as fast as possible

I also thought DOW 2 allowed a bit more strategy in the battles, allowing better use of troops, that didn't just die en-masse at the first engagement.

Maybe the single player campaign will be better but the multiplayer experience does not leave me wanting for fork out for this.

Tenger

degrassinoel wrote: »

Yeah, very cartoony looking. Reminded me immediately of C&C4.
Played the 3 tutorials, didnt bother with multiplayer because you cant play versus AI for some random reason..

not preordering this, smacks of moba.

The beta is multiplayer only. This was communicated out. Full version will have a campaign.

And 40K is often quite cartoony so this style is familiar to longtime fans of 40K.
"Red 'uns go fasta"

Lone Stone

DoW 2 still has an active player base and you can get it with all the xpacks for cheap and a mod that pulls the view way out, Probably worth looking into if your disjointed in dow3 and didnt play the final version of dow2.

degrassinoel

If anyone bought it - it's going live at 3pm apparently, should be interesting to see how it goes in reviews

Shiminay

Any early reports? I looked at a few YouTubes of it in action, I don't know if it's gonna be my cuppa tea when I've got Total War Warhammer to entertain me...

will56

Shiminay wrote: »

Any early reports? I looked at a few YouTubes of it in action, I don't know if it's gonna be my cuppa tea when I've got Total War Warhammer to entertain me...

Few reviews I've seen of the Campaign say it seems to be geared towards introducing players to the Multiplayer aspect

Shiminay

That's no bad thing in fairness, online RTS can be very daunting for people unfamiliar with the mechanics so a decent means of introducing that is a great idea.

degrassinoel

Shiminay wrote: »

Any early reports? I looked at a few YouTubes of it in action, I don't know if it's gonna be my cuppa tea when I've got Total War Warhammer to entertain me...

Pales in comparison to it's predecessors - sound is good, voice acting is above average but it's pretty much a moba, even in the single player campaign.

Sadly they've gone that route where you HAVE to play all three factions to progress the story too. The Orcs and Space Marines are alright but the eldar are a pain in the hole.

couple of things that are annoying are that, the elites and doctrines are done all assbackwards compared to where they picked up that mechanic, ie: COH2. Which imo they got it perfectly right - the doctrines supplemented an already good army roster with special abilities that were useful but not game breaking good or bad (ye know, support stuff), and they came with their own elites. The way it works in DoW3 is awkward at best, and frustrating at worst.

Units are all weak as fcuk, and they all have upgrades which add an ability which can in turn be frustrating to use when you're spamming a horde of orcs at a hardpoint..

imo, they overthought a lot about this game, mostly the unit abilities, and mostly because they wanted it to be a moba.

The graphics reminded me of Heroes of the storm in that cartoony way, but with a little more detail and better sound, sad but HoTS is a better moba too, and it's free.

Lads, i bought the key off cdkeys yesterday for 30odd quid, and i'm disappointed with it.

Don't blow 60quid on this.

degrassinoel

oh, another thing/s is

the soundtrack is really good.

If the game crashes on you, like it just did with me right now and ye get a bugsplat report to send like so..

Crash Report #13634
Dawn of War III has crashed. We're sorry. The crash report you have sent will help us improve the stability.
To check for general issues, we have a troubleshooting forum page here.
If you continue to have problems, contact Sega Support for assistance.

and you're about 3/4 the way through an hour long ****storm eldar mission, your progress isnt saved coz it's a feckin moba. :mad:

Angron

I'm really disappointed the reception has been so poor. I've loved the Dawn of War games in the past, so hearing that they've shat it all up by making it MOBA like is depressing.

degrassinoel

Arch Warhammer reviews it here

TerrorFirmer

Been watching a ton of gameplay videos and I'm incredibly disappointed. I was disappointed with DOW2 at the time but I still bought it and enjoyed it for what it was, but this looks horrible to me - a MOBA with a colorful, cartoony art style.

Fair enough they're trying something new and maybe it's good in its own right if you're into those sort of games but I'm pretty certain the overwhelming want of the community was a middlepoint between the original DOW and DOW2...not this.

Shiminay

I wasn't able to play DoW 2 cause of Games for Windows Live always being broken. About a year after it's release, I gave it another go and it finally started to work, but I'd lost all enthusiasm and interest for it and when it wasn't a standard base building RTS like the first, I was even more disappointed. I'm even less interested in it now that they've made DoW 3 into a MOBA style game, I have no interest in MOBAs at all.

Gbear

There's different kinds of RTS. Commandos and games like that were RTS of a sort.

DOW 2 was somewhere in between.

I thought they really nailed the tactical gameplay, the rewards system, the progression system, the feel of the loot and then the general production of it was fantastic with excellent music, animations, voice acting and the whole lot.
It's an excellent polished game with a proper sense of identity and a really strong anchor to the 40k universe, even if it's not your cup of tea.

This doesn't look like any of those.

The biggest disappointment is that if DOW 1 was ****, they still could've theoretically released the Dark Crusade, but there seems to be so much fundamentally wrong with this from an aesthetic and mechanical standpoint that I don't see how they're going to fix it.

I'll pick it and the DLC up for tree fiddy in 18 months time but other than that, I'm not arsed.

ED E

To call it a MOBA isnt fair, but it shares some traits with them.


TB's review is pretty decent for those that dont despise him. Personally really let down that they went so far from the lore/canon. GW has pissed away the IP in the last 2-3yrs. Feckin shame as some games (DOW1, BFG) have been great uses of it but the chess games etc bring the whole thing down.