In other news, "trading GFWL for Steamworks" named the year's biggest new trend in PC development.
Dawn of War II: Retribution, the second expansion to Relic Entertainment's great Warhammer 40K RTS, will not ship with Games for Windows Live support as its predecessors did. Retribution will instead use Steamworks, which means you'll be able to invite your Steam friends into online matches, earn Steam achievements, and use Steam chat in place of the features offered by Microsoft's service (which mostly amount to Xbox achievements accessible in a PC game).
For Relic, this switch means that entirely new systems have to be built. According to the game's official community web page, Relic is in the process of creating an all-new matchmaking and ranking setup. The studio is also putting itself in a position to take advantage of all the things Steam allows its creators, including weekend deals, faster patching, and content preloading.
As previously reported, Retribution will be a standalone expansion that adds a major twist to its campaign component: other races, one of which will be an Ork faction. On the online side, Relic is giving each of the five races a new unit and is also adding a sixth new race to an already delectable roster.
Eager to get your hands on Retribution? According to the same post on the website, owners of Dawn of War II and Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising will be receiving beta invites for Retribution's online component next year. That's definitely not a bad deal for hardcore fans still taken with the games' strong fiction and narrowed, tactically satisfying approach to RTS design as a whole.
Dawn of War II: Retribution, the second expansion to Relic Entertainment's great Warhammer 40K RTS, will not ship with Games for Windows Live support as its predecessors did. Retribution will instead use Steamworks, which means you'll be able to invite your Steam friends into online matches, earn Steam achievements, and use Steam chat in place of the features offered by Microsoft's service (which mostly amount to Xbox achievements accessible in a PC game).
For Relic, this switch means that entirely new systems have to be built. According to the game's official community web page, Relic is in the process of creating an all-new matchmaking and ranking setup. The studio is also putting itself in a position to take advantage of all the things Steam allows its creators, including weekend deals, faster patching, and content preloading.
As previously reported, Retribution will be a standalone expansion that adds a major twist to its campaign component: other races, one of which will be an Ork faction. On the online side, Relic is giving each of the five races a new unit and is also adding a sixth new race to an already delectable roster.
Eager to get your hands on Retribution? According to the same post on the website, owners of Dawn of War II and Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising will be receiving beta invites for Retribution's online component next year. That's definitely not a bad deal for hardcore fans still taken with the games' strong fiction and narrowed, tactically satisfying approach to RTS design as a whole.
Microsoft should just end the whole damn thing, I mean their is no problem in trying to take on Steam and I have had no problems with it but when it seems to have no effort or drive behind it what the point in going on.
Wow. Screw points; if I have to choose between GFWL and Steam, it would be Steam without hesitation. Valve have proved much more competent at understanding what it takes to create a framework for delivering PC content than Microsoft has ever shown. I'd make the same move in their shoes.
I suppose this is fantastic news for all the people who have had problems with GFWL, and I suppose it could also mean that they could include some decent anti-cheat stuff in the game.
Personally I haven't had any issues with GFWL so far, but it certainly hasn't added anything to any of the games I've played which use it, unlike Steamworks titles, especially those using the cloud and SteamPlay are just awesome.
This kind of sucks in my opinion. I prefer Live Achievements over steam (mostly because my real world friends have Xbox Live and I rather hang with them) and having 2 of the 3 titles one a different system just splits the user base which isn't that great to begin with.
Great news, inviting people to games was such a hassle everytime, not to mention it's filling up my friendslist.
For those asking I believe the old games will basically become redundant, Retribution will include all races (including Chaos), the other 2 games will be in their own world and people will only play them for achievements and the campaigns.
Nope. They're basically left to rot. Buying Retribution will give you all existing content and the new stuff. An unfortunate side effect of switching matchmaking providers but it's what the community has wanted for a while, and spending the extra $20 (Assuming that they're going to sell it full price, they may still be awesome and sell it at an expansion pricepoint) will be well worth it.
I'm a huge multiplayer fan though, I'd imagine if you're just in it for the singleplayer stuff you'll likely get Retribution anyway. (In which case you're covered on the multiplayer front should you choose to play it)
@Milkman: What precisely makes Steam achievements less real than Live achievements? They're both just a check list of in game tasks created by a developer (well in Live's case mandated by Microsoft) which increase your standing in global Meta game specific to a platform. One simply assigns a numeric value, the other gives out little digital merit badges. All achievements are created equal on GB.
Steamworks is an awesome move, it's the best multi-player game solution on the PC bar none.
Nope. They're basically left to rot. Buying Retribution will give you all existing content and the new stuff. An unfortunate side effect of switching matchmaking providers but it's what the community has wanted for a while, and spending the extra $20 (Assuming that they're going to sell it full price, they may still be awesome and sell it at an expansion pricepoint) will be well worth it.
I'm a huge multiplayer fan though, I'd imagine if you're just in it for the singleplayer stuff you'll likely get Retribution anyway. (In which case you're covered on the multiplayer front should you choose to play it)
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Yeah, they haven't given any word yet on if they are going to continue supporting the previous expansions. Though in their best interest and the unity of the community, I don't think they are.
Good on them for getting away from GFWL. I absolutely can't stand that service. I try to play a game and then the interface takes over and wants me to sign in, and if I don't I won't be able to save, and then it takes forever to navigate through it and I get all sorts of errors... BAH!
It won't split the userbase. The DOW2/CR userbase will migrate over to RT. There won't be a userbase for the base games within 3 months of RT coming out. Anyone who plays multiplayer actively will migrate over.
" I'm still confused, I mostly play Last Stand (fucking love it), so if some guy gets the expansion....are we playing Last Stand over GFWL or Steam? Also, iirc, aren't both the games stand alone? So is this one working the same way? "
This will be totally stand alone, even the matchmaking, it will include all races (even Chaos), the GFWL matchmaking will still exist but only on the previous games. Only reason to play the old games will be for achievements and the campaigns.
Basically the old games will be dead. I'm the same as you and love Last Stand, it might mean we lose our level 20 characters (hope not) but on the upside there will be a new commander unit to play with over Steam.
If this fixes the matchmaking from being complete and utter shit I’m loving the change, but I’m unsure as to how much the multiplayer is effected by GFWL.
That was my ONLY problem with DoW2. Completely fucked unbalanced matchmaking that always decided to pit me and my rag tag band of randomized newbies against a rank 50 arranged team playing on 10 year old Dells and hailing from Siberia that seemed to only have one way (my way) lag.
The mess of a multiplayer ruined my experience with that game and my perception of Relic.
I really really hope Gabeworks makes it all better.
@Vorbis: Pretty sure you'll keep the chars as they are just swapping the way to find people to play with, as the game is p2p not hosted on a gfwl or steam server and with I'm pretty sure they will just be able to load all your old multi-player data into the new game
So how will the old games work with this one. Are they going to patch it out or split the userbase. Either way, it seems like a bitch. Also, good to get GFWL, since it slowed down the patching big time.
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