Dawn of War 3 - Failure, or just the usual drama?

We've all seen the player numbers, with Company of Heroes I currently getting about twice as many players as Dawn of War 3. Personally, I tried Dawn of War 3 during the end of the beta, and I didn't care for it.

Then again, this reminds of a certain something: the launch of Company of Heroes II. I tried the beta for CoH2, and I thought it was shit. I ignored the game for awhile. On the forums, it seemed like a lot of people agreed with me. Later, after many patches, I bought the game, and it became one of my favorites.

So what's up with Dawn of War 3? Is it actually a horrible game, or is it just suffering from the usual hand wringing that happens a game gets released? Even if it's bad now, might it be transformed into something better through updates?

It is both drama and failure. A drama started with a dumb question raised by Relic. Can RTS games, learn from MOBA elements?

It is both drama and failure. A drama started with a dumb question raised by Relic. Can RTS games, learn from MOBA elements?

+1


DoW3 fail.

Its bad game, but not because of the mechanics or so on, but mainly because of the content and price.

Because for real releasing a game with 3 factions, which are not deep in their playstyle. Sure I wont expect starcraft 3 depth but even CoH2 on release was MUCH more deep and enjoable and much more tactics were awaible only with 2 factions.

Secondly only one gamemode and only like 8 maps on release. This is a joke. Looking at coh2 again, there was VP gamemode which ppl liked and always played on the other hand DoW3 had new moba like gamemode which towers and shit which ppl didnt really like.

Really bad and unfriendly UI.

And the main thing - we all understand that DoW3 was supposed to be milked with DLCs.

the devastor firing animation stands for everything that's wrong with this game

the devastor firing animation stands for everything that's wrong with this game

The animations look terrible, and that's hardly a nitpick in a visual medium.

I wouldn't say it a bad game, rather that the target it aims at is noexistent. If you want to play a moba like game you can choose from full blown mobas that are much more popular and simply better at being mobas and generally better games. If you don't, you don't want any moba elements in your rts. There is little people that enjoy both genres and as of now they most probably just picked up their favourite moba and rts and need no mix.

I think Relic is going for recency effect: sure its shit now, but people will warm up to it once new stuff comes out (which their so-called apology blog was meant to remind us of). Abandoning COH2 also means people will tire of the latter and start going into the former, which brings the next point:
When they release new content people will finally buy and forget about all the initial pain, and CoH2 will be remembered as that bugfest of old and DoW3 becomes the new de facto Relic fan favourite. Then rinse and repeat with CoH3.

After all that's basically what happened with DoW2. It's just a cycle.

Not even CoH2 was as bad as what DoW3 is on release numbers wise, even when 2/3s of the original playerbase was cut on release, CoH2 still maintained, and rebounded, and has at least grown over the years. DoW3 is the exact opposite in an important factor, keeping the main fanbase alive. As you can see even after one month of release compared to CoH2, DoW3 has not only lost it's main fanbase, but almost 90% of it's original playerbase as well, due to moba elements, dow3 experiments gone wrong, pissed off dow1 fanboys, and balance that lacks clarity. At least CoH2 had a decent and relatively similar experience to it's predecessors, even if it was a shitshow on release in terms of balance and optimization, it still had rts elements to it in general terms, no serious deviations. DoW3 however is something completely different, that has been rejected, even when more people tried it on release compared to CoH2.

DoW3 has had 10 times the refund rate coh2 did on release, meaning most people who tried the game for a few days decided afterwards that it had no chance in it's current state.

I hope Relic has learned a valuable lesson when creating rts games in the future.

http://steamcharts.com/cmp/231430,285190#All

The only thing that will "slightly uplift" the playerbase for a temporary time is it's expansions. But I have doubts even with expansions, it will merely die out within a month again, at the same rate.

Absolute failure:
- Single game - boring, done very cheaply and badly. For me Single game is a huge and important part of the game. It's like watching a great film, but the tendency for the last few years is to completely ignore a single game and just pull money out of people
- Multiplayer - just disgusting. It is designed for fans of DOTA. The whole game boils down to a huge blob, most units are useless, tanks including
- Graphics ... it makes my eyes bleed
- and one more item (but no less important for me) is the absence of the Imperial Guard

I'm repeating myself here, but the game is just straight up ugly. I showed it to a casual gamer who didn't know anything about the game and they thought it was really hideous looking. Gameplay matters, but if your game is ugly no one is going to even bother finding out if they like it or not.

Specifically, the color palette looks like they chose from every dark shade of red and vomit, and the ground textures just look weird.

Failure, total failure.

The game is ok! The main reason of the failor at release is the high price on the start. And now we see that sega saw this (-25% discount after 1,5 months).

Anyway it's a new RTS. It's like a reincarnation of WarCraft 3 in new conditions. The game will be developed and (re)gain its fanbase. Balance patches and new content will make the game better. This game may start new era in RTS like iphone without jet earphones port.

But anyway the game showed us that lelics became VERY LAZY (awful localizations and optimization (AGAIN), design flaws etc). Anyway I was glad that release was in April not in the Autumn.

The key to success now is in patches that will fix balance issues, add more FREE content to make the gameplay more diversified (doctrines, early and midgame elites). And after this I'm sure I will se all u in this game.

P.S.: I bought this game at retailers with -30% discount at release.

I think Relic is going for recency effect: sure its shit now, but people will warm up to it once new stuff comes out (which their so-called apology blog was meant to remind us of). Abandoning COH2 also means people will tire of the latter and start going into the former, which brings the next point:
When they release new content people will finally buy and forget about all the initial pain, and CoH2 will be remembered as that bugfest of old and DoW3 becomes the new de facto Relic fan favourite. Then rinse and repeat with CoH3.

After all that's basically what happened with DoW2. It's just a cycle.

Not happening. Relic is not Rockstar or Bethesda...there is no sizeable cult following that buys whatever they put out. This is not a dev that routinely pumps out a GotY, Relic had a good space game before phones had cameras on them, a gem with COH1 11 years ago, a few above average games, horrible expansions, and now this shit sandwich. I know there is a few people on here that really like Relic and buy all there stuff to "support the devs" or whatever in hopes that some day they will remember how to make a good game, but this is a tiny niche group. Most of us will probably buy COH3 because we are overly optimistic that 3rd times a charm, but Relic is wrong if they think that their fanboys will keep them afloat if their games continue to suck.

The game is ok! The main reason of the failor at release is the high price on the start. And now we see that sega saw this (-25% discount after 1,5 months).

Anyway it's a new RTS. It's like a reincarnation of WarCraft 3 in new conditions. The game will be developed and (re)gain its fanbase. Balance patches and new content will make the game better. This game may start new era in RTS like iphone without jet earphones port.

But anyway the game showed us that lelics became VERY LAZY (awful localizations and optimization (AGAIN), design flaws etc). Anyway I was glad that release was in April not in the Autumn.

The key to success now is in patches that will fix balance issues, add more FREE content to make the gameplay more diversified (doctrines, early and midgame elites). And after this I'm sure I will se all u in this game.

P.S.: I bought this game at retailers with -30% discount at release.

Looking at SteamCharts, even the sales 25% off haven't even slightly increase the playerbase. Scary.

i want to know sold copies of games, for this purpose steamspy is a valid source ? for example owners of DoW 3 is 250,000, this is valid ?

Not happening. Relic is not Rockstar or Bethesda...there is no sizeable cult following that buys whatever they put out. This is not a dev that routinely pumps out a GotY, Relic had a good space game before phones had cameras on them, a gem with COH1 11 years ago, a few above average games, horrible expansions, and now this shit sandwich. I know there is a few people on here that really like Relic and buy all there stuff to "support the devs" or whatever in hopes that some day they will remember how to make a good game, but this is a tiny niche group. Most of us will probably buy COH3 because we are overly optimistic that 3rd times a charm, but Relic is wrong if they think that their fanboys will keep them afloat if their games continue to suck.

At the same time strategy genre is a continuously falling player base.

To put it in the crudest possible terms, when I hopped back online to try out Dawn of War 3's big update last week there was, for a period, just one public game in the multiplayer lobby. One. In a major, multiplayer-focused PC game, available on Steam, and less than a month after launch.




source:

Is Annihilation Mode enough to save Dawn of War 3?


http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-06-27-is-annihilation-mode-enough-to-save-dawn-of-war

At the same time strategy genre is a continuously falling player base.

Is it though? Total Warhammer has like 8,000 average players the last month, and even older Total War games like Shogun still have 2,000 player averages. Age of Empires 2 averaged 7,000 players the last month. Civ 6 average concurrent players is 14,000.

Meanwhile DoW3 is rapidly converging towards Soul Storm player numbers.

i want to know sold copies of games, for this purpose steamspy is a valid source ? for example owners of DoW 3 is 250,000, this is valid ?

There is a small margin of error but it is still a valid source.