Dawn of War 2 Expansion

[NBKFuzzy]

Chaos Rising



Continue the saga of the Blood Ravens with your cast of Blood Ravens; Your Force Commander, Tarkus, Cyrus, Avitus, Thaddeus, Davian Thule, and Gabriel Angelos. You have once before defended your home world from the alien threats of the Tyranids, the Eldar, and the Orks... But can you protect the galaxy from yourselves?

-Level cap raised to 30

-Faithful - Chaos meter added to campaign, will you fight against all forces, or end up falling and joining the fight for the Chaos Gods?

-New multiplayer army, Chaos.

[IBBoard]

At least Chaos don't seem to be glowing as much as the Space Marines do! I must have lost track of time, though, because it doesn't seem like it has been long enough since the game was first released

Also, what's the level cap about? And why does it need to be an expansion pack rather than just a patch (assuming it is some limit that they've decided is too low)?

[NBKFuzzy]

In the single player you could only level your characters to 20, now they can go to 30.

I am wondering what will happen with Davian Thule with the turning to Chaos.

[IBBoard]

The "fight for or against" Chaos seems like an interesting idea - hopefully implemented a bit better than the "good" and "evil" in Fable, which mainly just seemed to change your appearance. It seems a bit of an odd one for GW (who normally seem to keep their IP on a short leash) to have approved.

As for the caps, that sounds like something they should have been able to change in a patch rather than an add-on. Either that or there's some scenario-specific reason why it should be higher now you encounter Chaos but not in the main game.

[NBKFuzzy]

I don't think you get it.

The single player campaign you have your Force Commander, Tarkus, Avitus, Cyrus, Thaddeus, and Davian Thule as your squad members. You can only bring 4 squad members each mission. The single player is NOTHING like multiplayer... It's more like an RPG. You do missions, get equipment, and save the world. You could get your guys up to level 20, which was about when the story ends. Now they are adding in Chaos, which presumably will take the next 10 levels.

[IBBoard]

I've not paid much attention to the new game - my old machine couldn't handle it, my 'new' machine was my wife's machine and is sometimes taken up playing Sims, the screenshots looked dreadful*, it didn't have any real modding support, and I've got less time than when Dawn of War was released - so I don't know much about it.

Still, even if it is RPG-like then upping the level cap to 30 instead of 20 still seems arbitrary for a "game feature". They've presumably done it because they think the old cap is too low, but if it is too low then why not up it in a patch?

* I want realism with improved graphics, not stupid and out of place glow effects

[NBKFuzzy]

Ok, last try.

If the level cap was still 20 then the enitre game would take place at level 20 taking out the rpg character progression system.

Get it now? Can't have an entire new game after you already got everything maxed out to you preference, then its just running around killing everything without any effort. You obviously don't play many games if you don't understand.

And if you think the metallic glows are out of place then you have obviously never been to a desert or a place with blaring sun. Because everything with the least bit of silvery color glows and hurts your eyes to look at.

[IBBoard]

I understand level capping, I just don't see why bumping it to level 30 is a "do it in an expansion pack" thing. If 20 is insufficient then why not expand the main game as well (unless it is so limited that you can never get beyond 20 in the main campaign, which sounds a bit boring and would force a replay from the start to get more out of it rather than just playing some more campaign).

Besides, what is the difference between being at level 20 with everything maxed and killing things, versus being at level 30 with everything maxed out and killing things?

As for the desert - I'm British, so of course I've not seen a blazing sun On a more serious note, specific reflections because of light off shiny metal is fine, but glowing Space Marines? And glowing Ork weapons? And shiny Ork skin (unless they fixed that since the early screenshots)? It's not just DoW2 - I've seen some real-world FPS games that seem to have far more shine than is realistic - but all of the screenshots I've seen for DoW2 seem to include more special effects than they need, making it look like a tacky "look what effects we can do because we can" demo.

[stfas]

the progression would be thrown out of the window if they didn't increase it, and as far as i know you can actually keep playing from the save from the original campaign.

also about why it coulden't be an patch: too big, woulden't gain them any money to continue development and the last time i saw a game that have that size in a patch is.... wait i have never seen any.

[NBKFuzzy]

You have said this before about the graphics, I understand you don't like them. Space Marines don't glow, Orks skin doesn't glow, Tyranids don't glow, and Eldar don't glow.

As a matter of fact they look gritty. I don't know why you say this, I played in dx9 and now dx10 and its not glowing. The only way it could glow would be light bloom of a metallic coloring, which you have to select. Sometimes, the bloom looks cool, sometimes it doesn't. You could give an ork metallic tattoo coloring to make it give a shine, but not their skin. I have posted screenshots of orks in a previous thread and there is no glowing skin.

[IBBoard]

Releasing the whole expansion as a patch would be silly, but what about just increasing the cap? I'd have expected caps to be fairly arbitrary limits (they normally are) that shouldn't need much to change them. It's all just random musings on why they've done what they've done.

As for the graphics, just about all of the screenshots I've seen on Hangar-8's forums (I can't remember who posts them) have some form of strange glow or reflection on them. Horses for courses - some people might like them, but personally I think it makes a mess of the game.

[NBKFuzzy]

Ok, last try, evar.

Its very simple. In the original game you level to twenty. When at twenty, sometimes your guys arent even all at twenty, you beat the game doing the final final mission.

Ok, lets recap kids. The amount of experience you get throughout the entire game is what takes you from lvl1 to to lvl20. This is how games that use RPG features normally work.

Now they added an expansion. You continue your same guys from the original game who are level20 or less in this new story fighting Chaos. Instead of just doing random missions and not getting anything, they raised the level cap to thirty.

Ok, lets recap kids. The amount of experience you get throughout the entire original game takes you to twenty. Now, you have a new expansion with new stuff! So instead of just not getting anything the whole way through, they add ten more levels for you to get, therefore gaining new abilities!


If you still don't get it, you need to game more.

[NBKFuzzy]

On a second post, I want to say that I cant wait for ten extra levels for my original guys, so I can experiment on them . I think I'll put the extra 10 points I will get into my Force Commanders ranged weapons, so he can use a heavy bolter, and I'll see how that works out.

Maybe I will give Tarkus and his tac squad melee, and Thaddeus and his assault marines ranged... always wondered what the assault guys did with the bolter rifles.

Davian Thule using melee would be cool, granted a dreadnought in melee is always good, I went ranged for the hellfire ability.

[IBBoard]

I understand the concept of leveling. I understand the concept of having level caps. I understand the concept of altering caps. I just don't understand the concept of making such a big deal of it in an expansion Also, your tone could be taken as somewhat more impatient/rude than I think you're intending.

From what you're saying the missions must be horribly linear with (for example) 20 missions, each of which lets you level your characters up once (so you always finish the game on level 20). If that's the case then I'm glad I didn't buy it. If not then the initial game's cap is a bit arbitrary and limiting anyway, so why don't they bump the level cap in the original through a patch rather than trumpeting "you can get ten levels higher" as an expansion pack feature?

My wife played through Oblivion, and I've had a quick play at it (I tend to program and mod more than I game). To the best of my knowledge they added entire new campaign threads with expansions like Shivering Isle and Knights of the Nine but didn't have to bother upping any level caps because they'd set them at a sensible level in the first place and given people enough continuity of characters and room for expansion in the levelling system.

[NBKFuzzy]

Sorry didn't try to be rude

And there is actually infinite number of missions. It takes multiple missions sometimes, unless you wrack up a ton of kills in the mission, to level your characters. But you have four guys each with their own exp, and then two others who you don't use you wont be generating exp. Only character you have to use is Force Commander, who has all the attributes evenly.

You either spend attributes in health, melee, ranged, or energy. Health, besides raising the health obviously, gives you some neat upgrades. Takus gets his squad members upgraded to veterans, and get that sweet white armor. Energy raises their energy which what they use to spend on abilities, and also neat upgrades. Davian Thule gets Vernerable, so you can be a Vernerable Dreadnaught, making you much stronger.

Melee raises melee damage and gives you melee oriented abilities, as with range. One of the best abilities is Avitus, the devestator marine, who can make him not need to "set up" his heavy weapon. He just runs and stops and shoots that heavy bolter, or plasma cannon, instead of having a wait time for him to start shooting.

Tarkus, and Force Commander all have Terminator Honors. Avitus, and Thaddeus can learn Terminator Honors in the melee skill tree for Theaddeus and health for Avitus. Later on in the game you get terminator armor and it transforms your unit into a terminator squad. Thaddeus, being the Assault Marine, because Assault Terminators.

I love the single player, and its fun to play it again even to try out different things, like giving your force commander a heavy bolter and tac marines power swords