Relic leaves Dawn of War 3 behind

I'm not letting my nostalgia cloud my senses and I'm not going to pretend that they are going to make AoE2 with AAA graphics, like DoW1 fanboys believed DoW3 will be.

And if you do the same, you'll cry less tears when it'll get released.

Wow, so down to earth and so mature. Now I am gonna throw up.

Which 40k game does good and aren't dead again?
Its not Eternal crusade.
Its not Space Hulk Deathwing.
Its not Battlefleet Gothic Armada.
Its not that other Space Hulk game.
Its not Sanctus Reach.
Not Space wolf.
Not Armageddon.
Not Rigicide.
Not Deathwatch Killteam.
While Inquisitor Martyr is not out yet, its going to be a MASSIVE surprise if it won't die within 2-3 months given what it offers and how massively bugged and content lacking it is(they want to release it before end of March).

So, you say relics 40k is only dead?

The quality control from GW side is lacking to say the least, all about cashing in using lowest budget developers and reskinning popular games with Warhammer characters.

At some point they will realize that even Warhammer fans aren't interested in playing a lower-budget L4D or Diablo, because those W40k don't bother with telling a story or providing a better experience than original games.

Total Warhammer is the best-licensed game, but that is largely because the original developers of Total War reskinned their own game as opposed to having lower-tier developers clone and adapt it to Warhammer.

Space Hulk remains a cruel joke, taunting players by the promises of definitive patch more than a year after release.

So, you say relics 40k is only dead?

I mean dead as a franchise which has 0 possibility of releasing a further title. Say: C&C, Medal of Honor, Dead Space, Ultima, Simcity (notice how many EA has killed).

I mean dead as a franchise which has 0 possibility of releasing a further title. Say: C&C, Medal of Honor, Dead Space, Ultima, Simcity (notice how many EA has killed).

Woah woah, slow down there buddy!
C&C has had 7 or so titles already and is been done to death - ok it can die
MoH - They've only JUST started doing modern combat. They can take this back to WW1 and even go back to WW2 Eastern Theatre.
DS - They could easily crank out another 1 + DLC game.
Ultima - NFI
SC - again, could do a futuristic or historical feel.

MoH - They've only JUST started doing modern combat. They can take this back to WW1 and even go back to WW2 Eastern Theatre.

If CoD and BF series did not exist, maybe. Competition from their side is too massive to dive back into a franchise that have not seen a release for years.

DS - They could easily crank out another 1 + DLC game.

Its as dead and as concluded as it can get.
Ultima - NFI

SC - again, could do a futuristic or historical feel.

EA got policy of online only as well as loot boxes and micro transactions everywhere.
The game does not suit this and can't be bent without runing it and they already tried - they are not going to try again-its EA, they'd rather kill studio and move on to murder another then release something they know did not work.

Ultima also isn't going to see anything new, Mortal Online is closest you'll ever get(given we're talking about the MMO Ultima, not the RPG one).

Woah woah, slow down there buddy!
C&C has had 7 or so titles already and is been done to death - ok it can die
MoH - They've only JUST started doing modern combat. They can take this back to WW1 and even go back to WW2 Eastern Theatre.
DS - They could easily crank out another 1 + DLC game.
Ultima - NFI
SC - again, could do a futuristic or historical feel.

C&C: Red Alert, Tiberium wars and Generals were different enough. One of the fathers of the RTS didn't deserve something like C&C 4 TT. Westwood closed and Ex WW didn't make a hit with Grey goo.

MoH: Danger close has been shut down. MoH was supposed to be the title which goes in between years for BF, but as it latest one was a failure, it got replaced with Titan Fall/Battlefront/BF parody aka Hardline.

DS: sorry but Visceral game closed last year. While it wasn't a total failure, they didn't hit the mark with DS3.

SimCity: the last SC had a total failure release which lead to closing Maxis studios.

All those games has seen their studios shut down. Just check here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Arts#Defunct

CnC 4 was just a dumb flop as the devs mis-read their fans and took the game in a moba/free 2 play direction while including things like limiting units behind time spent playing the game making it hard for new comers. The lack of real base building, poor story, music, and unit designs contributes to the reasons behind it, not to mention its DRM, and expensive price tag.

Generals 2 (idk if you guys got into the closed beta) was a hot mess that felt more like starcraft rather than Generals 1 or even basic CnC.




Relic should leave dow behind and I respect their decision to do so. They are in no way going under especially now that they are getting a new studio and Sega has pledge 50 more jobs in the area. DoW as a game was okay but failed to satisfy both parties (MOBA/RTS fans) b/c of the lack of depth it provided.

The one good thing about DoW3 is its engine improvements which even with its cartoon art style still proved to be a step up for foreground map elements which is cool.

I dont know why they did this, they had 99,9% of the planet telling them not to do things the way they were doing it and people told them what they wanted to see in the game and they still did what they want. It seems that they want to make games for theirselves and not for the players like they said. They paid for what they did so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

==========
- Because people telling them NOT to do this or that were DOW/COH faithful loyalists. Who didn't
want to see one of their flagship RTS go the way of the MOBA.

DOW/COH faithful loyalists were NOT the target audience.

DOTA 2 addicts were the target. Offering them a 71.00$ game at launch that had 3 factions, and
few heroes to lure them away from their FREE DOTA2 game, where ~ 16 million people play, have a
strong player base, and they've already paid for all their pretty cosmetic doodads.

71$ Category-B game. vs Free Category-A game.

As for DOW, I consider it to be a niche, it's similar to StarCraft, or StarShip troopers.
Think of them as Trekkies. Now, try to make a StarTrek movie that ignores all and EVERYTHING
that Trekkie fans want and say, and try to make it appeal to Joel Osteen's faithful.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Osteen).



Here is a more proper analog : Let's make a vegan dish then try to make it appeal to meat lovers :

http://rebrn.com/re/the-only-correct-response-3290858/
http://www.youtube.com/v/GXhJPey3i_A

Recent DoW3 news/update;
Another DoW leader abandon ship. This time, it's the DoW3 art director Matt Kuzminski.
Now; "Independent Consultant"
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattkuzminski/
Credits:
http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,362584/


DoW3 Credits (not complete):
http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/warhammer-40000-dawn-of-war-iii/credits

Fun fact, Axis Animation that made the great DoW3 trailer with NO COMMUNITY FEEDBACK has one Executive Producer involved from start to finish but not the game itself.
Where are the DoW3 Executive Producer, Stephen MacDonald? Or DoW3 brand manager Danielle Robinson?

To quote myself:

FYI; neither the DoW3 brand manager (Danielle Robinson) that worked on this game PR/marketing for years and the executive producer (Stephen MacDonald) was not even included in DoW3 end credits.
‘A Surreal Lucid Nightmare’: The Making Of ‘Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III’ Trailer
http://www.cartoonbrew.com/videogames/surreal-lucid-nightmare-making-warhammer-40000-dawn-war-iii-trailer-140474.html

Look at Axis Animation http://www.axisanimation.com/ that made the awesome DoW3 announcement trailer and vastly outclass anything Relic could have done. With no community interactions, Axis Animation (not Relic) captured the essence and art style of DoW perfectly.

They are in no way going under especially now that they are getting a new studio and Sega has pledge 50 more jobs in the area.

Yes, but this does not change the fact that "New Relic" is not in a good shape to compete against anyone important outside of CoH, let alone Blizzard (AoE4 vs SC2).

Contrary to "old Relic" management, "new Relic" did not get to the top of RTS by competing with top RTS studios but by the process of elimination. Can you imagine what would happen if a highly competitive leader like Steve Jobs (RIP) was running Relic?


Steve Jobs (Apple co-founder) still teaching lessons to today's CEOs:
Memo by Apple's late CEO a lesson in vision and competitive thinking.
https://www.thestar.com/business/2014/04/11/steve_jobs_still_teaching_lessons_to_todays_ceos_olive.html

Most important, though, is that the Jobs revealed here — not for the first time, to be sure — is a sworn enemy of complacency. Jobs’ memo describes a company busy reinventing itself.

Complacency is the leading cause of death, and brushes with death, among once-great enterprises.

Falling into the trap of complacency is one of the reasons Relic management underperforms/getting sloppy. This was clearly demonstrated by DoW3 and taking crazy risk with this IP for no good reasons. Imagine if Blizzard has released Warcraft 4 in 2017 to compete with DoW3.
Except maybe Iron Harvest, CoH as niche game has no real competion and that is what keeps the game alive with a "core fan base" similar to Total War series. As a consumer, the lack of competion is not a good thing. That's not how you get "good value" for your money.

Relic burned a great deal of "fan goodwill" with CoH2 mistakes, even more so with DoW3.
The studio is by no means dead yet, but the challenges they face are immense.
We should not confuse Relic self-preservation with loyalty to CoH/DoW fans. It's not the same thing. At best CoH3 will be another business for Relic/Sega, that's good enough for me. I'm not the guy looking to "make friends" with Relic, but we should expect them to act as gaming professionals (or else).

Recent DoW3 news/update;
Another DoW leader abandon ship. This time, it's the DoW3 art director Matt Kuzminski.
Now; "Independent Consultant"
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattkuzminski/
Credits:
http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,362584/


DoW3 Credits (not complete):
http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/warhammer-40000-dawn-of-war-iii/credits

Fun fact, Axis Animation that made the great DoW3 trailer with NO COMMUNITY FEEDBACK has one Executive Producer involved from start to finish but not the game itself.
Where are the DoW3 Executive Producer, Stephen MacDonald? Or DoW3 brand manager Danielle Robinson?

To quote myself:



Yes, but this does not change the fact that "New Relic" is not in a good shape to compete against anyone important outside of CoH, let alone Blizzard (AoE4 vs SC2).

Contrary to "old Relic" management, "new Relic" did not get to the top of RTS by competing with top RTS studios but by the process of elimination. Can you imagine what would happen if a highly competitive leader like Steve Jobs (RIP) was running Relic?


Steve Jobs (Apple co-founder) still teaching lessons to today's CEOs:
Memo by Apple's late CEO a lesson in vision and competitive thinking.
https://www.thestar.com/business/2014/04/11/steve_jobs_still_teaching_lessons_to_todays_ceos_olive.html

Falling into the trap of complacency is one of the reasons Relic management underperforms/getting sloppy. This was clearly demonstrated by DoW3 and taking crazy risk with this IP for no good reasons. Imagine if Blizzard has released Warcraft 4 in 2017 to compete with DoW3.
Except maybe Iron Harvest, CoH as niche game has no real competion and that is what keeps the game alive with a "core fan base" similar to Total War series. As a consumer, the lack of competion is not a good thing. That's not how you get "good value" for your money.

Relic burned a great deal of "fan goodwill" with CoH2 mistakes, even more so with DoW3.
The studio is by no means dead yet, but the challenges they face are immense.
We should not confuse Relic self-preservation with loyalty to CoH/DoW fans. It's not the same thing. At best CoH3 will be another business for Relic/Sega, that's good enough for me. I'm not the guy looking to "make friends" with Relic, but we should expect them to act as gaming professionals (or else).

Hi, fun fact, relic lost for 8 month 85% of their proffesional veterans. Lelic never was in so bad state even when THQ go bankrupt.
P.S. Nearly all employers that left dow 3 development before complete writed in special thanks without roles in official credits, unlike previous lelic games where roles was always written for 99%. For example in coh 2 they write in special thanks only Jennifer Lewis that was audio director on coh 2 until March, 2011. All other devs that left development was writed in roles or not even included (Ryan Haksi, Ben Sanderson)