73 replies to this topic

[Gorays]

Gamespot and IGN previews are up, I like this one bit from Gamespot,

Quote

Snow slows you down, and your units will leave tracks for others to discover. These tracks are persistent, and astute players will learn to spot the differences between various tank treads and footprints to gain insight into what their opponent is fielding--even if they can't see the units themselves.

Gamespot Preivew:

http://www.gamespot....ngTheFrozenHear

IGN Preview:

http://www.ign.com/a...big-differences

[Erix]

That sounds incredibly cool. O.o

[Gorays]

Two factions have been confrinmed for MP thus far, Soviets and Ostheer(German army). Here are some confirnmed units thus far,  

Soviets:

* Conscripts

* Engineers

* Maxim HMG

* T-34

* SU-76

* IS-2 - Heavy soviet tank

Ostheer:

* Grenadiers

* MG42
  
* Mortar
  
* PaK

* Panzer IV

* Tiger tank

[Sean_Seanston]

Gorays, on 25 May 2012 - 02:01 AM, said:

* Conscripts

RA2 all over again

Gorays, on 25 May 2012 - 02:01 AM, said:

* IS-2 - Heavy soviet tank

I like it.

Nothing surprising from the Germans...

I do hope they still have the Goliath. They could tweak it up a bit maybe if they felt it needed it, but it was a really cool idea. Especially interesting now with the True Sight system.

[Gorays]

New Q&A

Q:Just quickly, is there any movement on a new Homeworld game at all?

A: That was my first game at Relic and so I have fondness for that, but yeah, we're not announcing anything at the moment......

Q: In the years since CoH you guys have done Dawn of War, and then Dawn of War 2 which changed the style of gameplay dramatically, will Company of Heroes 2 be following suit? Is this goodbye to base-building and zones of control?

A: No, when we said during the presentation that we weren’t going in a new direction we were very serious. It’s about maintaining all the things we love about Company of Heroes, and tweaking and elaborating and presenting them in a better way. There are some changes to parts of the game, and we’re going to talk about them later, but the overall affect is that the pace, the authenticity, everything you love about Company of Heroes is the same. I mean, we have this great metacritic, and that wasn’t about doing something drastically different.

Q: Do you not think the strategy genre has moved on from static bases then? It doesn’t seem to fit with the fluidity that the Eastern Front implies.

A: No I think players in strategy games still enjoy that element. I mean Dawn of War 2 was a great game but in the multiplayer we think that element (base-building) was missed by the players. Bases are an expression of their strategy, and their will to a degree… and they become an important part of the game because they’re scoutable, for example, you can see what your enemy is doing… especially with the introduction of TrueSight. Also, players just like a place where they can feel comfortable, like a Den and so not having base building was never an issue, and we will talk more about that in months to come, but the thing about Company of Heroes is that we tried to make everything very contextual, so base-building will be the same – as contextual as possible within the environment.

Q: Do you think of Company Of Heroes exclusives as a Second World War franchise, was there ever any thought that the sequel could be set in a different time period?

A: There's nothing that prevents us from going outside World War II. I think what we found was that it's an area that still interests us. And that's one of the reasons we went to the Eastern Front, because it's a story… I don’t think we could leave that experience without telling the biggest story of World War II. And that was very, very important to us.

But one of the reasons we went back and looked at our creative vision again is that original vision was very tied to Normandy. And what we wanted to do is build something that was location and history agnostic. And so now we've got an idea, a much stronger idea, of what Company Of Heroes means. And we could take it to the American Civil War, we could take it to the near future, because it'll always feel like a Company Of Heroes game.

Q: How big a scale do the battles get in Company Of Heroes 2? I mean it's not like you're a general or something, controlling the whole of the war?

A: No, we take that company of heroes almost literally. And companies are commanded by captains or maybe majors. But it's the level of involvement that allows you to bridge the command of troops, which is important because it's part of the narrative experience, and also the ability to call in the big stuff - airstrikes and these kinds of things.

And so for us that's kind of the sweet spot in the command layer. We don't want to be abstract where you're a general moving an army around, because that loses engagement. So we're at the level of the troops you can kind of relate to, because you see them.

Q: And in that sense it seemed as if you were using tanks almost as a kind of mini-boss…

A: Yeah.

Q: But how many vehicles and troops will you see in a single map?

A: Oh it's pretty easy to get up to a hundred troops a side, and a large number of vehicles. But what we found from a control standpoint, because vehicles are big and intimidating, is that when you get more than like a half dozen in one place… it's like a London traffic jam. They get into each other's way, they're big and imposing.

So again there's a sweet spot to the amount of control we want to give a player. And one of the reasons we invested more time and energy into the vehicles is so players feel like a vehicle is a much bigger concern than it was in Company Of Heroes. It's not smoke and mirrors to hide anything, we don't give them less, but we want each of those experiences to be more engaging.

Q: I suppose it’s too early to talk about Multiplayer?

A: Yeah, I mean we’re going to have it; it’s an important part of the legacy of the studio and a vital part for the fans. So yeah, we’re going to have it and support it long-term… we’re not talking about specifics at this point, but we’re excited about it.

http://www.strategyi.../interview.html
http://www.metro.co....soviet-strategy

[Sean_Seanston]

Gorays, on 25 May 2012 - 09:27 PM, said:

A: Oh it's pretty easy to get up to a hundred troops a side, and a large number of vehicles.

That sounds like a lot more than COH, right? Good stuff.

Large number of vehicles... that sounds very new. Then again, SP may have been different to MP but I don't remember a large number of vehicles in COH ever.

Another thing I thought of: Really really really want the Nebelwerfer back, and much more practical to use than ever . I hate when fun things aren't practical to use. Seems to happen far too often in games.

[BOTA:99]

Sean_Seanston, on 26 May 2012 - 05:10 AM, said:

That sounds like a lot more than COH, right? Good stuff.

Large number of vehicles... that sounds very new. Then again, SP may have been different to MP but I don't remember a large number of vehicles in COH ever.

Another thing I thought of: Really really really want the Nebelwerfer back, and much more practical to use than ever . I hate when fun things aren't practical to use. Seems to happen far too often in games.

It might work like that one mod did that was decentish. It took the quantity over quality approach to the commies and your squads were bigger, but weaker, than zee Germans.

[Sean_Seanston]

Hope it's something like that.

Space Marines vs Imperial Guard, in other words.

Except these Imperial Guards... are filthy Bolshevists
[Too much Red Orchestra 2...]

Edited by Sean_Seanston, 30 May 2012 - 06:50 AM.

[Gorays]

So it looks like Relic will work on Dawn of War 3 after Company of Heroes 2, no sign of Homeworld 3.


Q: I have to ask about Dawn of War 3, which you've spoken to Eurogamer about before. You mentioned an announcement that didn't materialise. What's happening with it?

A: There's a lot of rethinking going on right now with the RTS 40k stuff. We're going to do something different, but we're in a bit of a rethinking mode. What we had to do at Relic was prioritise Company of Heroes 2 now and then move back to 40k. With that we moved that over here for a bit - just a bit - because we needed to load all the resource onto making Company of Heroes 2 awesome.

But look, everybody at Relic loves 40k. I love 40k. I also have tremendous respect for Games Workshop and the people I work with there. They're some of the best people I've ever worked with in my career. So I personally feel really strongly about that brand.

Q: So Dawn of War 3 isn't dead?

A: No. But we're doing some rethinking. What that really has to do with is the RTS business, and what's the best way to present RTS? We're not getting out of RTS. It's just, what's the best way to present it in the future? We'll be talking more about that later. There are aspects of Company of Heroes we haven't talked about that are progressive and forward thinking, that we'll roll out between now and the launch of the game. We're just giving you the first look at Company of Heroes 2. There's actually more to it.

http://www.eurogamer...core-games-boss

Edited by Gorays, 31 May 2012 - 12:13 PM.

[Gorays]

A teaser has been released along with a new screenshot, teaser seems to be a cutscene from the campaign.

[Cheeseinator]

They'd better speak in Russian, with subtitles. I suppose I could handle good russian accented english, but full Russian dialog would be far more appropriate and realistic.

[ChessRules]

http://www.rockpaper...-2s-cold-front/

Hearing about the ice on the lake refreezing reminded me of Tiberian Sun.  It's been a long time since an RTS game (that I've heard of, at least) has done something interesting with the environment as a gameplay mechanic.  Feeling more pumped now.

[Gorays]

Gamespy has a preview up too, to summarize:

- Infantry have "thermometer gauge", the longer you move your troops through deep snow during a blizzard, or neglect to provide shelter for them in buildings or troop transports, the shorter their battlefield life expectancy becomes. When the thermometer gauge above the squad drops, they'll be turned into a bunch of human icicles.

- Campfires, Combat Engineer is the only unit that can deploy these pits of fire on the battlefield. As long as your troops can huddle around these blessed flames, their thermometer gauge will remain in the safe zone. When one isn't available, putting troops into cover will shield them from the wind and allow them to wait out the storm

- Blizzards will also affect off-map abilities

- If the ice is destroyed, it'll will freeze back over after a few minutes -- faster during blizzards.

http://pc.gamespy.co.../1225519p1.html

Screens

Edited by Gorays, 24 July 2012 - 07:21 PM.

[Erix]

Holy crap. That sounds amazing. O.o

[Gazdakka Gizbang]

While it looks all well and good, I'm kind of bothered that a bunch of the story cutscenes - instead of being cool CGI - are just going to be that lame comic book 3D stuff they did across the original Company of Heroes and Dawn of War 2. I hope it's not, but I hope even more that this game trumps its predecessor while remaining an awesome game. And not a 15-minute zergfest that is practically every Starcraft 2 game.

[Gorays]

New interview with some new info,

* There will be summer maps. About third of the campaign is based in cold weather conditions, rest takes place in spring, summer and fall.

Q: Will you be allowing players to tweak the weather settings themselves?

A: That kind of thing is still being looked at for players that are setting up their own matches, and we’ll see how that goes and what level of optional settings work for different games.

Q: How far do you think you can take the realism aspect before it stops being fun, or makes the game too difficult?

A: I think it gets too far when it goes beyond the realm of most people’s experience. Everyone can understand a guy freezing because you can show their breath and we can deliver the feeling of cold through the ambience of the game.

Having your tanks freeze up from the cold and their treads seizing up, those are things that players have more of a challenge understanding and often just feels random. So we’re not going to push things as far as that, even though that sort of thing did affect both sides. Other things like a blizzard coming in and it preventing you from calling in bombing runs with your aircraft, players can understand that cause and effect situation and it’s something that they’re happy to contend with in terms of gameplay.

Full interview in the link below,

http://www.incgamers...g-on-greatness/

[Gorays]

So COH 2 is playable at Gamescom, which means there's going be impressions from fans and press. And the first impression has been posted already, so to summarize:

* Maintains overall vide/feel of COH 1.
* Resources are a bit different, as you actually have to build your fuel or ammo points on a captured point.
* Blizzards are heavy, you do not have good vision anymore and so on…really affects gameplay. Same with snow. Really slows you down.
* Wehr tanks can be captured with infantry only if the entire crew is killed.
* Heavy emphasis on keeping your infantry warm from the cold, which leads to more micro.
* You can zoom out a bit more.

More info with screens coming soon...

[Erix]

Only question I have about this game so far is if I'll actually have the time to play it.

[Sean_Seanston]

Gorays, on 15 August 2012 - 06:37 PM, said:

* Resources are a bit different, as you actually have to build your fuel or ammo points on a captured point.

Hmm... interesting. Sounds like mandatory Observation Posts or whatever.

Erix, on 15 August 2012 - 06:39 PM, said:

Only question I have about this game so far is if I'll actually have the time to play it.

Despite my relative lack of interest in games lately... I think I'm going to have to MAKE time for this if I have to.

[Gorays]

So it's offical, this game will be on Steam and will use Steam for online MP.

Edited by Gorays, 16 August 2012 - 06:50 PM.