Dawn of war: End is near?

[Spulm]

I am a bit troubled by the active numbers of players in DoW. Last week I finally saw less then 100 members in the whole GS lobby for the first time I play DoW.
A total of like 90 players.1 Day later, when I come at the same time, I see the players dropped to 80. Now, a few 2 days later I join the lobby and I found a number of 50 players online in all lobbies.

I know they will all come online at another time and I don't fear DoW might die in the near future. But still, players are dropping and it might get even more quiet.

I BLAME THE BUGS!

M.

[Mistress Crystal]

I blame Half-Life 2 and GameSpy.

The bugs are liveable - Gamespy is what people have to actually deal with. Players randomly drop from games, games don't load, people without teams and clans who rely on random team mates get screwed by dropping players and blame GameSpy connectivity.

The interface isn't horrible, but it's not -half- as professional as B.net was, and apparently that's what most hardcore RTS players are used to.

Not to mention the lack of GameSpy presence - Monitors are in there, but they don't do anything. People see this as neglect. DoW will die and it'll be a sad day when it goes.

I'll be there keeping it alive as long as I can, though.

[MVB]

I blame imbalances and repetitiveness. The game on a competitive level is extremely repetitive, and most people don't enjoy playing games that are not competitive in some way. The imbalances are awful, and it is easily the most imbalanced rts I've ever played, and I've played quite a few.

That being said, I still enjoy playing it, but *shrugs* a lot of people are moving on or moving back to games they enjoy more.

[Apocalypse]

Gamespy should never have merged with Mplayer, Although Mplayer had it's problems, it also had a whole host of admin people knocking around and it's what i grew up with online (Alien v Predator.......oh the memories)

[Weavern]

Allot of the low pop comes from other games comming out which people are more interested in and the fact that as MVB said it is repetative. Still the fact of the matter is DOW has more players online then HW2 ever did. DOW will eventually return to an approximate 200 player lobby and will become a great game in two patches. However if those two patches never arrive you get at the same problems that other games have faced they simply die off. I hold some enthusasm towards the modding community to bring out something that may spark at least a few dozen players to return to DOW but I dont hold my breath. It is doubtful THQ will let DOW die so soon without something to say about it.

[amir]

i hope DOW doesnt die because i really like the game and its the only game i am in TLSC for.
But i fear that if things dont get sorted soon on it most of the players will leave to other games out.
It was also a bad time to release it because halo 2, san adreas, need for speed underground 2 came out at near enough the same time.

[Foree]

guys remember to have TLSC tags on when playing :P

[The Fell Hand]

Fell hand doesn't fit though...damn short gamespy names -_-...that's really the only reason i'm not tagged

[ilia]

Unless the Expansion will be absolutely kick ass, DoW WILL Die regardless of future patch quality after ~ July - August 2005...

[DrunkenUno]

I blame imbalances and repetitiveness. The game on a competitive level is extremely repetitive, and most people don't enjoy playing games that are not competitive in some way. The imbalances are awful, and it is easily the most imbalanced rts I've ever played, and I've played quite a few.

OMG Drunk was Right?!?!?!?!?!??!?!??!?!??!?!?!?!?!??!

[MVB]

You were right, but premature. You popped your load too early, Mr. 1minute

[Mistress Crystal]

MVB's right - Repetitiveness is a -major- low blow to this community.

I think that's really what kept StarCraft around so long, was their UMS culture with that amazing map editor. So much variety... if they didn't have that, I'd think that Starcraft's playerbase would have been cut in half long ago.

[The Fell Hand]

Good old SC...I'll admit after stopping for a year, I have been playing somewhat periodically. The SC community seemed to disappear around the same time myself and my mates stopped playing...all the good players left, joined WGT or switched to other private servers.

And yeah, you're right...SC had immaculate balance etc., and every game is almost always exciting from start to finish...but if you ever were to get sick of it, thousands upon thousands of custom games were available, and should you EVER tire of those, the most balanced/popular rts ever was still waiting for you back at the menu screen.

Even in SC, there is constant repetition, the same matchups of the same units, time and time again...but somehow I managed to stick with it since its release, and never once have I been found it to be unenjoyable for more than a game or two. Your main, and 4 workers. Somehow those first 5 minutes of the game were what I always enjoyed most, personalizing your style of play was so easy, even if it was all the same stuff...was it the individual unit micro maybe? Because -_- the first five minutes of a 1v1 in DoW are quite frankly the most assified part of the game, whereas it'd make a world of a difference if instead it were the best.

Oh, I also play SC because I have a large group of gaming friends there, and...well, even if I get stuck with randoms, in SC, should you be experienced enough, defeating several opponents of lesser skill is quite a frequent miracle...DoW...doesn't happen so often I'd think.

[laserflip]

lol yes drunk, he is admitting that you were right. in a non-submissive way ;) you know how MVB hates to admit he's wrong. ive never seen him admit that he was wrong, ever...wow. never have!

[G6killer]

Dow wont die, i will make sure of that :P
Im not playing currently because im making a transit from cable to dsl (my isp is being a dick about sharing cable) and im playing GTA san andreas :D
But beware all u DOW haters! i will hit u in the head if u diss DOW! Hockey mask... -check- ... baseball bat... - check-... ready to swing!! B)

[DrunkenUno]

You were right, but premature. You popped your load too early, Mr. 1minute

I'll take that as an admission.

look forward to playing Guild Wars with you.

[MVB]

Agreed

Although, even though it has a monthly fee, I saw World of Warcraft yesterday, and man ... it blows Guildwars out of the water; game is really hot, and best of all is the whole fact that the two islands are at war, so people literally just can cross over and go right into the other CITIES (normally safe-zones, right?) and just start uberfucking everyone up.

Once people level up enough, it's going to be constant WAR, not just pvp guild v guild shit.

[DrunkenUno]

Agreed

Although, even though it has a monthly fee, I saw World of Warcraft yesterday, and man ... it blows Guildwars out of the water; game is really hot, and best of all is the whole fact that the two islands are at war, so people literally just can cross over and go right into the other CITIES (normally safe-zones, right?) and just start uberfucking everyone up.

Once people level up enough, it's going to be constant WAR, not just pvp guild v guild shit.

I've heard really bad things about the PVP, theres no death penalties, its almost all consensual, and theres a PVP server and a non-PVP server...

[MVB]

The PvE servers you can still PvP on, it's just not as easy to do so ... but you can still manage it and run right into the cities of the other folks and pvp them.

There are plenty of rewards, but there are not a lot of penalties. Frankly, I think that's a good thing, considering how relatively easy it is (even in pve) to sneak into enemy cities and start ganking unsuspecting lowbies. There are immense benefits for PvP in a hardcore style, though, and IMO they are pretty darned good.

You waste tons of time running back to your corpse too, so there "are" risks. Plus there's the risk of wasting hours of time for no benefit at all if you suck at it.

[JADezimar]

ya but whats the point of the pvp. Just sounds mindless other than to earn some cool stuff.

[MVB]

some cool stuff is a bit of an understatement; you gain exceptional standing in the faction, quests no one else has access to, assignments and duties which no one else receives, special titles, weapons items and armor that are unavailable to unaccomplished or non-participating pvpers, PLUS there is a ranking system, basically like a ladder, where the top PvPers are listed and ranked

[/<yle]

GC2, far superior

[JADezimar]

So.... There is no like ... Real motivation for pvp ? hehe I mean it dont hurt the enemies position. Its more like A way to earn stuff............ I still dont c that pointful o0.

[Morpheus]

Connectivity is the worst problem to deal with by far. There isn't much modders/developers can do about it.

Repetitiveness can be fixed with expansions/mods and map variations. The one great thing about SC(and WC3) is the ability to create non-standard maps by using triggers. You can play all kinds of attack/defend style games that have nothing to do with normal gameplay intentions. I really liked that alot.

Imbalalnces should be the easiest to fix, once we all can agree on what needs to be fixed. In team games every race can use its best strategy with other races complementing any deficiencies, so the imbalances are minimal.

[MVB]

Dez, there are real motivations for PvP ... enormous ones; you cannot max your character's abilities and access rights and quests unless you PvP a lot.

There are just no drawbacks for PvP ... if anything, it encourages more PvP than not.

[Abyss]

Whats so imbalanced? The first patch fixed alot of things but what are some examples of the imbalances in DOW. Personally i've played with all of the races and i dont find any one race with a major imbalance. Except for maybe the ork wartrakks/trukks.

[eXoRciSt]

The game does get a little repetitive and boring, il admit that, and Kyle i played GC2 and dow owns it.