Dawn of War: S#&@storm
Dawn of War: Soulstorm was released on March 4. DoW continues to be a fun, casual RTS. Its absolutely insane DPS charts (here’s one for just one unit– scroll down a bit), some one-dimensional races (i.e. here’s your build order), and the sheer impossibility of balancing 7-9 races kept it from being a truly competitive RTS. That may not be a bad thing: how many people loved Starcraft, but never felt the need to play random strangers online after their first 60-second Zerg rush loss?
Still, a game has to offer at least a sense of fairness and logic. Dawn of War has had difficulty concretely communicating which unit trumps another, in part because of the crazy amount of flexibility it gives you in equipping and using your troops. Who would know, for example, that Imperial Guardsmen do an incredibly good job of blowing up buildings– but only with their bayonets, and not their guns? (That’s since been fixed.) Who would know that your anti-vehicle unit doesn’t work against vehicles classified as “vehicle_armor_heavy”, which often look the same size as “vehicle_armor_medium”?
For a casual RTS, though, that’s quibbling. You can still get some fantastic team brawls going on late into the evening, enjoying Dawn of War’s awesome finishing moves, like a mech spearing a helpless infantryman and shaking him around. (During this animation, by the way, the mech is invulnerable to enemy fire.)
This is all a very long way of coming around to what isn’t quibbling: since its release on March 4, Dawn of War: Soulstorm’s two new races have been essentially unplayable online, and competitive ladder play has been destroyed. Due to a fairly simple infinite resource bug, one of the races is unbeatable– except by the same race, exploiting the same bug. Unranked matches generally won’t allow the new races in.
You might think it’s not very profitable to support the third expansion for a PC game. You’re probably right. Then again, does anyone think Blizzard would let a game go this broken for this long? And does anyone think that might have something to do with the relative excitement for Starcraft 2 vs. the recently-announced Dawn of War 2?
April 7th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
In fairness, I think we solidly established that the Imperial Guardsmen were using their bayonets to unscrew the screws holding the buildings together, and that the “fix” was an adaptation by enemy factions involving a strategic shift from screws to rivets.
April 7th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
Currently, Sisters of Battle can get as much money as they want by the following:
* build a listening post
* build a Holy Icon on the listening post
* cancel the Holy Icon
* repeat second and third steps
That’s because Holy Icons get more expensive each time you build another one, and when you cancel building it, you get the full cost back– in this case, the new, higher cost.
This “bug” is simply taking advantage of the fact that in the war-torn future, all races have exceptionally poor accountants. The fix should simply be all races acquiring the Improved Bookkeeping bonus.
April 8th, 2008 at 1:03 am
Furthermore, this sounds like a bold sociopolitical statement on the part of the developers regarding the incorporation of women into military service and the subsequent effect on their empowerment in greater society.
Are they hot?
April 8th, 2008 at 1:19 am
Maybe if they weren’t such fashion disasters.
http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u72/Bob_Hunk/whatsmellslikeblog/SoB01.jpg
What does she apply lipstick with, a cat? Also, she’s liable to hurt herself with that massive thing swinging around between her legs. Finally, the only reason I can think of for the tit-covers to be perfectly round is if they’re screw-top. I give the whole outfit a 7.6.
Also, agreed re: empowerment, progressiveness, etc.
April 10th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
“Also, she’s liable to hurt herself with that massive thing swinging around between her legs.”
It is best if you never, ever, let Nakaki know you thought this in any context.