CoH World Championship 2020 Confirmed for November!

http://www.companyofheroes.com/blog/2020/08/11/world-championship-2020-coming-soon-0

Company of Heroes fans, prepare for battle! Relic and SEGA are thrilled to announce the return of the Company of Heroes 2 World Championship, with this year’s online event taking place in November.

We are very excited to build on the roaring success of last year’s event and treat fans to another spectacular tournament. World Championship 2020 will feature the best CoH-players in the world, top casting talent, and of course, a substantial prize pool to ensure the absolute pinnacle of competitive 1v1 play.

Full details about the ruleset, exact dates and sign up terms will be posted in the coming weeks, but for now, you can find some important information about the World Championship 2020 below:

• Qualification for this tournament will be drawn from A_E’s Master League standings. We are huge fans of the Master League, and we feel it will make an ideal qualification mechanism for World Championship 2020.
  
• If you want to take part in World Championship 2020, you will need to earn and maintain a top 16 seed in the Master League standings.
  
• At the end of October there will be an official assessment window, and the top 16 players in the standings at that time will be invited to participate in World Championship 2020.
  
• All rounds of World Championship 2020 are likely to take place in mid-November. These rounds will take place over 2 weekends.
  
• Due to COVID-19, This tournament will be a fully online event. Players will have to comply with anti-cheat measures which will be detailed in the tournament ruleset when it’s revealed.
  Prize pool to be announced. Prizing will be similar to last year’s event.
  
• All rounds will be played on the current patch.
  
  Keep your eyes peeled for more information in the coming weeks!

A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one

Possibility of new patch post tournament ?

Poggers

Hopefully coh2 becomes esports.

Can the winner fund a new community manager so we can keep getting patches?

Can the winner fund a new community manager so we can keep getting patches?

I would bet that we will see a bigger patch before the tourney, probably in September/October. Players would have enough time to adjust and OKW would be viable again in 1v1.

I would bet that we will see a bigger patch before the tourney, probably in September/October. Players would have enough time to adjust and OKW would be viable again in 1v1.

All rounds will be played on the current patch.

No patch according to OP before tourney.

No patch according to OP before tourney.

Seems weird considering the current meta has been very boring for several tournaments now.

Hard to get excited for more tournaments of VSL Grens and Osttruppen vs WC51 to be honest.

No patch in the next three months is not a deal breaker, but no good news still

However what is good news is that according to OP apparently this comes with both Relic's and Sega's approval (/financial funding?), so there seems to be some kind of dedication to keep CoH2 going.

However what is good news is that according to OP apparently this comes with both Relic's and Sega's approval (/financial funding?), so there seems to be some kind of dedication to keep CoH2 going.

That's what's surprising to me. With the last developer on the CoH2 team gone, I was sure they were ending support for good. The tournament and cash prize is an interesting development.

Poggers

Hopefully coh2 becomes esports.

Extremely sadly, i don't think any RTS will come close to SC2(in terms of being an Esport). Coh2 matches are too long for audiences tbh.

with or without patch, this is great news and gives at least a sliver of hope coh2 is not left completely abandoned by relic. and while the meta might look a bit stale already atm, i'm sure there will be plenty of great games to enjoy - maybe even involving some yet to be seen new strats...
looking forward to the tourney for sure, as well as to anything else that might be in the cards for coh2 afterwards.

Extremely sadly, i don't think any RTS will come close to SC2(in terms of being an Esport). Coh2 matches are too long for audiences tbh.

Looks awkwardly at 3 hour match on DOTA2...

While they are longer than SC2*/WC3, AoE2 have pretty much long games like CoH2.

*I think the average time goes down heavily due to cheese n all ins. Though the late game is achieved way sooner.


As far as length time goes for COH, i think that VP bleed could be adjusted in future games, in order to speed up the game as far it goes when a player/team is defending 1VP vs 2VP and not trying at all to contest and stalling.

Looks awkwardly at 3 hour match on DOTA2...

While they are longer than SC2*/WC3, AoE2 have pretty much long games like CoH2.

*I think the average time goes down heavily due to cheese n all ins. Though the late game is achieved way sooner.


As far as length time goes for COH, i think that VP bleed could be adjusted in future games, in order to speed up the game as far it goes when a player/team is defending 1VP vs 2VP and not trying at all to contest and stalling.

I'm not saying that the game drags for too long, the game is designed to played for that long, reducing vp count might make the game time shorter but won't be enjoyable to watch(for me that is late game is something that i like) unless one only cares about early game.

That's what's surprising to me. With the last developer on the CoH2 team gone, I was sure they were ending support for good. The tournament and cash prize is an interesting development.

Devs don't own their games but companies do. As long a product makes money companies will throw money so that it makes more money. Coh2 is still quite popular as an RTS.

Only takes a spark to make a fire.

Sure hope they announce CoH3 at the end, or (more realistic) just another patch

That's what's surprising to me. With the last developer on the CoH2 team gone, I was sure they were ending support for good. The tournament and cash prize is an interesting development.

Why does SEGA invest so much tournament money into a 7 years old game that doesn't even have a community manager?

Microsoft do all the brand/marketing for AoE4 except Alex Delamaire helping them for a year 2017-2018 before leaving. Relic currently only have one brand manager which is Andy (former CoH2 CM).
As the CoH senior brand manager left again (Alex Delamaire) they is re-hiring.
Close collaboration with SEGA’s Marketing team;
https://archive.vn/bEBl0

It's relatively easy to understand why SEGA does this as there are only a few logical conclusions.
It's the when, how, and what that is the mystery box:


As to the "how";
As seen in below job announcement Relic hired a Microsoft vet related to CoH in-game economy and post-launch monetization. So maybe that means Relic/SEGA wants to build on the success of CoH2 user generated content (UGC).

Relic job announcement for a "LIVE OPERATIONS DIRECTOR" content/features/monetization/retention:

https://archive.ph/465Ky
As a Live-Ops Director, you will…
▪Manage and design content, campaigns and features that maximize acquisition, retention and monetization throughout the product life cycle
▪Conduct and communicate in-depth analysis of in-game economy using data insights and strong business acumen to set and achieve KPIs
▪Seek in-depth player insights and develop new content strategies through data- driven analysis
*snip*
It’s a bonus if you have…
▪Familiar with Relic games such as Company of Heroesand Dawn of War

Chris Casanova | Director of Live Operations at Relic Entertainment

https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-casanova/
At Relic we aspire to make our games and studio feel alive to our players. We do this through building and releasing continually evolving, personal, epic experiences to build deep and lasting relationships with our players. This is a new area for us to embrace so expect to see much more over the coming years.

I am leading and building a team to execute this vision.

Age of Empires 4 won’t have microtransactions or in-app purchases:
https://www.pcgamesn.com/age-of-empires-4/dlc-expansions

If AoE4 have an in-game economy/MTX similar to CoH2 that would go against their promise to AoE fans.

holy shit, didnt see this coming at this point in time

2v2 tournaments are 300% better than 1v1 tournaments. Change my mind.
Way more variables to create awesome moments, the requirement for good teamwork, and the added strategy of choosing commanders and factions that compliment each other makes them way more fun to watch.

2v2 tournaments are 300% better than 1v1 tournaments. Change my mind.
Way more variables to create awesome moments, the requirement for good teamwork, and the added strategy of choosing commanders and factions that compliment each other makes them way more fun to watch.

Yes and no

Teamwork and variables are indeed nice

On the other hand, the amount of decently balanced maps is much lower, there is less potential for flanking and higher punishment for flanks going wrong, there is more arty-fest and skillplanes usage, certain synergies just shut down all the non-doc options opponent has, etc

Still, Id sure love some more teamgames tourneys, not just 2s, but 3s and 4s too

CoH2 going eSport?

This tournament money has less to do with CoH2 eSport and more to do with Sega's marketing budget (influencer marketing).
Relic is not a profitable studio without Microsoft money from AoE. That is just a fact.
Studio management hired 4 community managers for AoE4 while CoH+DoW game franchises have zero.


Relic management & self-preservation in a nutshell. Focusing on 'keeping the ship afloat' whatever the cost may be:


Relic employee review 2020:
https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Relic-Entertainment-Reviews-E533032.htm

Relic's game development process is probably the slowest and the most complicated in the video game industry but they don't really care or don't know what to do about it. I haven't seen in my whole life a better example of Parkinson's Laws about bureaucracy and work than Relic.

This studio might end up losing both DoW + CoH IP but management don't seems to care because Microsoft got their back for whatever reasons that may be.
So how do Sega higher ups justify investing this tournament money into a 7 years old game and a studio with too much dead weight?.
2+2=4.

GCS2 Grand Final currently have 831.392 YouTube views which is more than most CoH trailers on Relic's own YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/c/CoHOfficial/videos?view=0&sort=p&flow=grid

Report: EA Paid Ninja $1 Million To Play 'Apex Legends', Which Is Way Too Little:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2019/03/14/report-ea-paid-ninja-1-million-to-play-apex-legends-which-is-way-too-little/

Influencer marketing is the future of game marketing. If done right, influencers is the new access media that sell games.
Sega/Relic also tried this by hiring Geoff 'iNcontroL' Robinson (RIP) to play DoW3.




sources:
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/9-things-we-learned-from-the-2018-user-generated-content-ugc-report/513245/
https://www.tintup.com/blog/38-mind-blowing-stats-effectiveness-user-generated-content/

I'm happy Sega is investing in CoH's streaming community. But no, this is not CoH2 going eSport.