The Warhammer Universe Ultimate Thread

m00b · April 14, 2009, 1:47am

I still haven’t played any MP since the game came out, but I finally found time to finish up the campaign. Holy shit that was amazing. Assault Termies are ridiculous in single player…

MrBlank · April 15, 2009, 1:40pm

yeah they serve the shit out of any vehicles.

Geese_Pants · May 2, 2009, 2:52am

Patch 1.3 coming soon

Also…

DAWN OF WAR II SOUNDTRACK RELEASED

We are really excited to bring to our fans the Dawn of War II Official Soundtrack. This is the product of a lot of work from some very talented people including our Composer, Doyle W. Donehoo and our Audio Lead, Jason Ross with contributions by Artist, Noah Stacey and Noobie Noobinson. We would really like to thank Games Workshop and THQ for giving us the go ahead to release this to the fans free of charge ? most people make you pay extra for this kind of thing ? and to Steam for hosting it.

Below you will find 20 great tracks, streamable from youtube and downloadable in high 320kbps quality. We?ve also turned the incredible Soundtrack Album art into wallpaper for you to slap all over your desktop. After that there is commentary about the Soundtrack and the people contributing to it. It?s certainly worth a read.

01 There Is Only War (opening title) - 2:55 Stream -
02 Angels Of Death (Space Marine Theme) - 3:02 Stream -
03 Primarch?s Honour - 4:37 Stream -
04 No Mercy No Respite - 4:39 Stream -
05 March Of The Waaagh! (Ork Theme) - 3:05 Stream -
06 Purge The Xeno Scum - 4:39 Stream -
07 Forged In Battle - 4:39 Stream -
08 Ancient Rites (Eldar Theme) - 3:05 Stream -
09 The Green Horde Rises - 4:40 Stream -
10 Khaine?s Wrath - 4:35 Stream -
11 Attack Of The Heretics - 4:38 Stream -
12 Xeno Presence (Tyranid Theme) - 3:04 Stream -
13 For The Craftworld - 4:41 Stream -
14 They Come In Waves And We Push Them Back - 4:40 Stream -
15 The Great Devourer - 4:36 Stream -
16 To Battle Brothers - 4:43 Stream -
17 Hunting The Hive Tyrant - 4:42 Stream -
18 The Emperor?s Victory - 2:05 Stream -
19 Show Me What Passes For Music Among Your Misbegotten Kind (credits roll) - 13:31 - -
20 Meridian Nights (Noobie?s Grim Dark Future Remix) - 2:36 Stream -

Jason Ross on how the soundtrack came together
?We have had a lot of positive feedback regarding the music in Dawn Of War II, from people sending fan email to our composer, to others asking if there will be release of the soundtrack. Hopefully fans want a soundtrack so it can be played at excessive volumes during tabletop games; frightening the neighbors and scaring pets. All the positive comments brought on talk of getting the music out to the fans, but before we could get our ducks lined up, a clever community member made the in-game songs available to the forum community.

However, as sound lead for DOW II, I had issues with this. First up, the tracks in-game are meant for the adaptive music engine, so they?re split into multichannel files which music playing software doesn?t always know how to handle. Therefore people were likely only hearing half of the music. Secondly the tracks in-game are edited and mixed for longer gameplay matches, so they?re not actually what Doyle W. Donehoo intended to be the final stand alone track. Lastly, there were some mixing issues when all channels were collapsed to Stereo which are not a problem in game, but can sound odd when played as a regular music track.

At Relic we like to deliver the best possible quality on whatever we touch, so the versions floating around the net didn?t make me happy. I knew how good this music could sound, and people weren?t hearing that. Therefore, I spent a couple of weeks going back to the original uncompressed ?stem mixes? delivered by Doyle, restored the original edits, balanced the mixes, then mastered & sequenced the whole thing together into a proper album. Someone even snuck in a little something extra for the fans before we encoded it all at 320kbps, a higher bitrate than the in-game content, and attached some killer cover art.

While we let ?the suits? figure out how/when/where to get this out to the fans, I sent the development team a link to the soundtrack. These were folks who had been hearing much of this music for the last couple of years while playing the game, and yet they STILL got juiced hearing the themes, playing the album at their desks and outside of work. I heard reports of people listening to the DOW II music while playing other games (instead of that games? soundtrack), loving how huge and epic Doyle?s music made everything feel. As for me, I like hearing the music while careening through downtown traffic on my bicycle at high speeds, the huge horns of the Emperor putting to shame any kind of car horn taking issue with my relaxed interpretation of traffic laws. (note: Relic accepts no liability for damage caused by individual stupidity at the hands of Musically Huge Pure Epicness)

So I hope you enjoy the official Dawn Of War II soundtrack, I think Doyle did a great job crafting the musical sound to our game, and now you can enjoy it as it was meant to be heard, and that makes this audio lead happy.

Thanks for listening.?

Noobie Noobinson on the Remixed Track
?Noobie Noobinson is a mysterious orb-headed being that hails from the far reaches of deep space, where his great musical accomplishments have garnered a fanatical following amongst many different races of advanced beings.
He is most famous in this part of the galaxy for his work with The Double Boomskees; two musicians from Vancouver, Canada, whom he periodically stays with to write music, party, and play video games.

It was during one such gaming session that Noobinson developed a love for Dawn of War II, and went straight to THQ executive headquarters with a proposition to remix a song, to which they agreed after only seconds of closed-door deliberation.

The finished track is a twisted concoction of the original orchestral tracks, mixed with various sound effects from the game itself, as well as a light spicing of dark beats, space bass, and grim guitar riffs.

He hopes you enjoy it, and maybe you?ll see him online??(check out his website http://noobienoobinsonandthedoubleboomskees.bandcamp.com/)

Noah Stacey on the Cover Art
?Personally, I feel that the Tyranids are the star of DOW II; the fans have wanted them for a long time, and Space Marines always get all the glory, so this time I wanted to give them the spotlight.
This Carnifex howls at the sky in satisfaction as spores rain from the clouds and high-level Tyranids run amok devouring anything and everything.?

Link for ENTIRE ablum made available in DOW2’s Steam Page…

Geese_Pants · May 13, 2009, 4:23am

New update…

Updates to Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

New Content

Two on Two game mode is now available for ranked play.

Two new four-player maps have been added to the game: (4p) Medean Cliff Mines and (4p) Ruins of Argus. These are available for ranked and custom games.

We have added a benchmarking performance test; you can find it in the Graphics options tab.

There are eight new sync kill animations in the game. Keep your eyes open for some new carnage!

New Options

We have added a “Push to Talk” option for in-game voice chat. When enabled in the Game Options screen, tilde (~) will control chat.

We have also added a “Advanced Sub-selection” game option. When enabled sub-selection behavior will be the same as Company of Heroes, where a sub-selected squad will be the only one to receive orders.

Stability

Fixed several crashes where invalid data was being written to logs.

Fixed a common multithreading crash.

Fixed some out-of-memory crashes on Vista 32.

Fixed a crash that could occur if Avitus was reinforcing when a game ended.

UI Change

The previous PvP squad decorators have been replaced with decorators based on the squad role. The new decorators identify units in a way that is consistent across races. A new loading screen tip has been added to explain the new images.

Replay Improvements

Added a 4x speed.

Capture progress bars are now visible.

Commander wargear and squad upgrades are now visible on unit selection panel.

Build queues are now displayed.

Replay control buttons now have audio.

Decorators now show up in replays.

Gameplay Bug Fixes

Fixed a bug where a unit with an energy shield could become unkillable if they also had very low health.

Fixed a bug where the Carnifex would stop meleeing units after killing a hero in melee.

Tankbusta targeting priorities have been improved, now prefer to target vehicles.

Fixed a bug where demolition charges could pass through terrain and not detonate.

Fixed a bug where the Techmarine could continue to repair after being knocked down.

Squads now unload from a vehicle when it is destroyed.

Full resource refunds are now granted when a building that hasn’t started construction is cancelled.

Adjusted refund costs on the Webway gate.

Adjusted refund costs on the Techmarine’s Space Marine Heavy Bolter turret.

Fixed a bug where a melee leaping unit would follow a teleporting or jumping unit a long distance.

Fixed Warp Spider Exarch Enhanced Warp Generator and Improved War Generator.

Adjusted Scything Talon knockback and suppression.

Fixed a pathing problem on (6p) Typhon Arena.

Put a build time on Ravener Tunnels. Tunnels are also vulnerable during construction.

Text Bugs

Fixed tooltip on Lictor Hero’s Adrenal Gland wargear.

Fixed tooltip on Catalyst ability.

Fixed tooltip on Warlock Champion’s robe.

Fixed an incorrect tooltip on the “Luv da Dakka” ability.

Custom Games

Players are no longer prompted to dispute a match when a player is kicked from a non-ranked game.

Players can now select chapter colors for AI players.

Matchmaking

Removed the “Submit Player Review” prompt that would appear if a player left the countdown before a match started.

Fixed a situation where a party could get broken up when host migration occurred.

Post-game stats

We now show a “Player has left” message for all players when you quit out to the post game screen.

Achievements

Fixed a bug with the Sweeping Advance achievement. Previously it wouldn’t be awarded if the retreating unit was the last entity in the squad.

Audio Improvements

Speech events now fade out if a higher priority event triggers.

Medium sound quality preset now chooses 44100Hz instead of 22050Hz.

In-Game HUD and UI

There are now two map ping buttons, Attack and Defend. (Hotkeys are F8 and F9 respectively.)

Added a Retreat All hotkey. (ALT-X)

Added a Retreat Hero hotkey. (SHIFT-X)

Fixed an issue where the camera would get locked to a position if you band-box selected and landed on a button, then pressed it without moving the mouse.

The camera no longer strafes when starting a move facing or band-box selection.

Squads that have sergeants now display the count correctly on the reinforcement UI.

Unconscious heroes no longer get selected when bandbox selecting multiple units.

Targeted abilities are now usable on multi-select portraits and on squad tabs.

Implemented a fix for starting squads not receiving hotkeys when another player loaded slowly.

Player list bars no longer fade in and out while using voice chat.

Fixed an issue where “Rear Armor Hit” kickers were triggering multiple times.

Selection circles no longer disappear on a selected unit that is performing a sync kill.

Fixed a bug where greyed-out unavailable abilities would show up when a squad was retreating.

Fixed an issue where the portrait health of a unit could display zero when the unit was still alive.

Clicking a squad tab on a unit in a Webway gate or Ravener tunnel will now correctly select that squad.

Fixed a bug where squads with a sergeant would sometimes get two decorators when exiting a webway gate.

Reinforcement UI no longer displays when a hero is selected.

Fixed an issue where a blank square would appear when a squad was reinforcing.

Opposing players no longer see random players’ race selection in the Player List panel.

Fixed a bug where helptext on purchased hero accessory wargear wasn’t visible.

Fixed an issue where a black border would sometimes appear on a garrisonable building.

Pressing space bar in a chat no longer results in two spaces entered.

Game Options

Fixed a bug where sound for buttons in the Game Options screen would disappear after adjusting brightness.

AI Player improvements

Expert and Hard players now provide higher early game pressure through a variety of tier one units.

AI players now purchase a variety of wargear for their hero, and take better care not to hurt their economy.

AI players now purchase an appropriate amount of generators.

AI players will engage the enemy and attack more aggressively than before.

AI players are ber at preserving units, and retreat at appropriate times both in melee and ranged combat.

AI players are now much better at using unit abilities.

AI players will upgrade existing units with a variety of upgrades more intelligently.

AI players prioritize capture points in a more intelligent fashion.

AI players tech to tier 2 in an appropriate timeframe and purchase later game units based on combat needs.

AI players tech to tier 3 and purchases late game units including Carnifexs, predator tanks, fire prisms, etc, based on combat needs.

AI players now can flank suppression weapons out of combat.

AI players now purchase dead heroes at more appropriate costs.

AI players no longer buy and cancel generators when enemies are around.

Campaign

Mission briefing speech now only plays the first time a mission is opened.

Fixed an issue where the starmap button didn’t highlight the first time a player had to travel between planets.

The character level up screen now accounts for rewards granted by the mission.

Fixed a fatal SCAR error on Angel Gate.

Fixed a fatal SCAR error on the first Lictor encounter.

Co-op

Added a countdown timer to campaign mission start.

Fixed an issue where the other player in a coop games hotkeys were always set to 5.

Localization

Added support for Hungarian language.

Geese_Pants · May 29, 2009, 7:33am

EuroGamer’s Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine Preview

I almost forgot about this…hope it turns out great.

Geese_Pants · June 3, 2009, 8:06am

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine Official Site is up.

Some game info…and current trailer.

I’m hyped, brothers.

Geese_Pants · June 10, 2009, 9:13pm

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine First Look

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine First Look

News by Brian Ekberg, GameSpot Jun 3, 2009 12:50 pm PT 71 comments

Relic unveils its next Warhammer 40K game with this action RPG stunner.

In the future, there is only war. And that’s a very good thing in Relic’s upcoming Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine. The developer, best known as a creator of real-time strategy games and, in 40K circles, as the minds behind the two Dawn of War games, is stretching its development muscles with Space Marine, which will be an action role-playing game that aims to give players an immediate and action-soaked look at the Warhammer universe.

Today, behind closed doors, Relic developers showed a four-and-a-half-minute trailer of Space Marine. Although no concrete gameplay was shown, producers made a point of saying that all of the footage shown in the trailer came from in-engine action, which was impressive, considering the visual quality on display.

The high-level story of Space Marine will follow your character as he and his fellow power-suited badasses try to stem the tide of an invasion by the green-skinned Orks on a forge planet (the planetary factories where space marine weaponry is created). Beyond that overview, we don’t know much else about the story in the game.But, honestly, when the rest of the trailer was filled with action-packed shots of Space Marines and Orks mixing it up in glorious fashion, who really cares about the story?

Combat will be one of the key factors in Space Marine, and though the specific control mechanics are still under wraps, Relic reps told us that they intend every button to be capable of a violent action. We’re not quite certain if means that you’ll be able to decapitate your foe with a press of the select button, but we get the point.

One thing we do know is that your space marine will have access to plenty of different weapons at hand, including energy swords, chain blades, and huge, electrical hammers that will be effective for dealing with swarming enemies. There will also be ranged weapons, of course; we saw one marine picking off Orks with a pistol, and another spraying bullets out of a belt-fed machine gun. Choosing which weapons you wield will be only part of the customization options in Space Marine; the footage also showed some leveling aspects, wherein the player will be able to upgrade attributes such as strength, attack, and defense.

So far, only space marines and Orks have been confirmed to be in the game but, given that the game is early in development, there’s always the possibility that could change in the future. From the demo, the Orks look to be ferocious (and slightly stupid) enemies, perfectly in keeping with their “chop first, never ask questions” approach to battle. Relic is also being tight-lipped about online options in the game, but hinted that they look to do justice to the Warhammer universe’s tradition as a shared experience.

We can’t wait to see how Space Marine shapes up, particularly with regard to the customization elements of your space marine, which has always been a 40K hallmark. No release date has even been hinted at yet, but here’s hoping the hard-hitting combat that 40K tabletop players have always envisioned in their mind’s eye will be brought to life in the game. Stay tuned for more Space Marine coverage in the coming months.

So Chaos was taken out this time around…shame.

But once again I am looking forward to this game.

Geese_Pants · June 15, 2009, 10:23pm

[media=youtube]gvjICeeoPAU[/media].

Yes yes yes…and more YES!
Please let there online co-op.

Xero_Kaiser · July 6, 2009, 10:39pm

Anyone trying out the new DoW2 beta? Space Marines feel like they’re made out of paper now. I have no idea why they’re still so expensive

Geese_Pants · July 6, 2009, 11:15pm

Hopefully that will be fleshed out come the official release…I think the Orks are overpowerd in the beta

Saikyo_Joe · July 7, 2009, 1:00am

I can’t wait to get back into the tabletop version of 40K… the games are good but the tabletop is the real deal

NECRONS FTW

Sheng-Long · July 7, 2009, 1:14am

wtf no space marine for PC?

Geese_Pants · July 9, 2009, 10:05pm

Blood Bowl is out for PC…digital download only.

FoldoutChair · July 12, 2009, 8:06pm

How is the Blood Bowl adaptation?

Also go Goblins or go home.

Geese_Pants · August 2, 2009, 1:34am

Brothers…THERE IS ONLY WAR!!!

Dawn of War 2 update 1.50 is out…release notes here!
A whole lotta changes, fixes, and additions!

To celebrate…all Dawn of War and Company of Heroes games are 1/2 off on Steam this weekend only.

AYO · August 2, 2009, 1:38am

Hey cool the Warhammer thread, think I posted in here long ago, no idea.

Right now building up some Blood Angels, specifically the 5th company. For Fantasy, I’m going OK, because giant killer retards is fun. Plus I can use them alongside Chaos Dwarfs when they are eventually released.

Not usually a MEQ player, but all of ours suck and I was challenge to build up a competitive force, so seeing how well Dante & friends will do.

vegavak · August 2, 2009, 5:31am

There is only Tier 1

Prince · August 13, 2009, 12:05pm

I’m considering getting back into tabletop 40k, I collected/gamed around 2002-03 so its been a fair while and I wasn’t very serious back in the day.

Whats a good army for a re-beginner (I think i just created a word there…) to get into? Are there any I should stay away from at the start? Ive been looking into IG simply because of their versatility, but I’m not sure. Any help or tips would be appreciated.

Geese_Pants · August 29, 2009, 8:43am

Oh freaking yes…

Coming in October, THQ will be releasing free DLC for Warhammer 40,000?: Dawn of War II, wich will feature a new cooperative multiplayer game mode and maps. Check out the Last Stand announcement trailer for a tease at the upcoming game mode.

The Last Stand is a cooperative survival mode that gives gamers control of an individual hero unit and drops a small multiplayer team into a battle with impossible odds. Players can choose between a Space Marine Captain, Eldar Farseer or Ork Mekboy and will team up with two other squad-mates in an attempt to hold out as long as possible against wave after wave of relentless attackers. Hero units level up and are fully customizable as new armor and weapons become available from game to game. Working together to devise innovative strategies is the key to success in this brand-new battle mode.

The Last Stand update, which will be free, also contains two new multiplayer maps, balance updates and bug fixes for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II.

For the CHAPTER…

MrBlank · August 29, 2009, 8:49am

SWEET!

this is happy news.

no news of a new expansion yet but im hoping my chaos makes it back in already.