Somebody Tell Me About DoW2 Retail!

[Losonti Tokash]

Did you somehow miss the part in the text you quoted about how it's trivially easy to get around needing Steam?

[Shinova]

Campaign is more enjoyable than I expected. Sure it's not jawdropping or awesome by any measure, yet at least. But it's not boring. Yes, at least.

(Tyranids just showed up at where I am)

[Stark]

I'm past that point and nothing interesting has happened yet and the missions haven't become any more difficult than 'walk to boss, micro your guys to run in circles until boss dies, equip incrementally better equipment and unlock perks that make your guys even more invincible'. It's arguably better than the DoW1 campaigns which were garbage, but unless it becomes dynamic or the mobs become aggressive and interesting it's going to continue to be a giant snooze.

Amusingly after all the splooging tyranids in MP are entirely conventional.

[Acidburns]

Anyone tried the co-op campaign yet?

Yes, basically it's limited to two players and your forces are divided equally between both players. You can change who controls which unit inbetween battles. Fairly straight forward and makes what would be a very average campaign a bit more fun.

[White Haven]

Oh my god do Iron Halos break the SP game. Granted, I'm not exactly playing on Primarch, but with a decent Iron Halo drop in my commander I just solo-killed the entire Zoanthrope mission, all three minibases and the Zoa included, because when killing things, I regenerate energy fast enough to be functionally invincible against all but the most larginest forces. I just parked the squads on a central control point and let them hose the occasional wayward Tyranid for kicks while I went on a chainsword rampage. Overall, fun popcorn game so far, was gonna wait to pick it up, but some friends were talking about playing coop, so that got me to grab it.

[Uraniun235]

Uhh, shut up. Not wanting to use Steam is a perfectly valid reason not to buy the game. Steam is pretty invasive so far as it goes, and there are plenty of people who don't like the idea of having their gametime and hardware recorded automatically. Wanting to keep your details of any sort private isn't childlike behaviour by any standards.

Yes, having your gametime and hardware included as an anonymous cog in their statistics is truly a gross breach of your privacy.

Oh no! Some unscrupulous Steam employee might possibly (if extremely improbably) be able to determine that I, John Smith of 1721 Main St, have a crappy computer! And that I play far too much Counter-Strike 1.6!! WOE BETIDE ME, ALL IS RUIN.

So, yes, "having irrational fears" and "silly demonstrations of MY RIGHTS" are indeed "perfectly valid reasons" to not buy a game, but they're also "perfectly valid reasons" for us to not give a shit and to mock you mercilessly for it.

[Acidburns]

Oh my god do Iron Halos break the SP game. Granted, I'm not exactly playing on Primarch, but with a decent Iron Halo drop in my commander I just solo-killed the entire Zoanthrope mission, all three minibases and the Zoa included, because when killing things, I regenerate energy fast enough to be functionally invincible against all but the most larginest forces. I just parked the squads on a central control point and let them hose the occasional wayward Tyranid for kicks while I went on a chainsword rampage. Overall, fun popcorn game so far, was gonna wait to pick it up, but some friends were talking about playing coop, so that got me to grab it.

I've found that on Primarch difficulty by the time you get an Iron Halo its impossible to succeed without a banner on your commander. The powerful heal over time and anti-suppression ability on cooldown is essential. In fact it was on the Zoanthrope mission that we tried to make do without it.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Yeah - it's all about the banner. I wanted to play around with the other commander items, but without that banner's Rally ability your dudes just go down like punks. I'm kitted out in Terminator armor now so I've only got the Terminator teleporter for my commander anymore, but with Tarkus and Thaddeus in Termie armor too it isn't as big of a deal.

I hate how it restricts the wargear, though. If I want to give a Terminator a power sword, I'll give him a power sword goddamnit. And separating Termie power fists from regular ones is retarded.

[General Zod]

Yes, having your gametime and hardware included as an anonymous cog in their statistics is truly a gross breach of your privacy.

Oh no! Some unscrupulous Steam employee might possibly (if extremely improbably) be able to determine that I, John Smith of 1721 Main St, have a crappy computer! And that I play far too much Counter-Strike 1.6!! WOE BETIDE ME, ALL IS RUIN.

So, yes, "having irrational fears" and "silly demonstrations of MY RIGHTS" are indeed "perfectly valid reasons" to not buy a game, but they're also "perfectly valid reasons" for us to not give a shit and to mock you mercilessly for it.

Steam records your hardware info? Since when? (Not that I really care about steam recording anonymous statistics, I just never noticed it until now and find the complaint amusing).

[Zablorg]

Steam records your hardware info? Since when? (Not that I really care about steam recording anonymous statistics, I just never noticed it until now and find the complaint amusing).

I think they send a poll that you can fill out every month.

I have no problem with Steam uran, but Thanas put the argument up so elequently. Although I did put Shinova's thing out of context so its irrelevant and my fault anyways.

[Stark]

Oh my god do Iron Halos break the SP game. Granted, I'm not exactly playing on Primarch, but with a decent Iron Halo drop in my commander I just solo-killed the entire Zoanthrope mission, all three minibases and the Zoa included, because when killing things, I regenerate energy fast enough to be functionally invincible against all but the most larginest forces. I just parked the squads on a central control point and let them hose the occasional wayward Tyranid for kicks while I went on a chainsword rampage. Overall, fun popcorn game so far, was gonna wait to pick it up, but some friends were talking about playing coop, so that got me to grab it.

All kinds of the 'power-ups' make the game laughably easy even on Captain. Even the mid-melee perk that allows the force commander to go apeshit and knock people around makes him nigh-unstoppable.

I just lol at how power axes seem to suck so bad.

[Chris OFarrell]

Annoyingly when I tried to play it for the first time, it refused to load unless I had at least 1.5 GB of virtual memory running.

Never mind I have 4GB of ram -running Vista-64 on this computer in a way that has very little overhead- but I have to turn virtual memory back on.

Rather annoying.

[Lonestar]

Has anyone else besides me been having severe problems with GFWLive? It seems like more than half the time I get a "The LIVE service may be unavailable, or it may be an issue with your home networking equipment or firewall." error and am unable to log in. Hilariously I tried to log into the client independently of DoW2, and it refuses service on the basis that "The Windows LIVE ID or password you entered is not valid. Code:80048882 "

This is hilarious, because unless a secret Ninja broke into my apartment and changed my password without my knowledge, it's a complete and utter false statement. I have the information stored on the client so all I have to do is hit "login"...and it was successful in logging in when I got it the game Friday and when I played it yesterday.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Has anyone else besides me been having severe problems with GFWLive? It seems like more than half the time I get a "The LIVE service may be unavailable, or it may be an issue with your home networking equipment or firewall." error and am unable to log in. Hilariously I tried to log into the client independently of DoW2, and it refuses service on the basis that "The Windows LIVE ID or password you entered is not valid. Code:80048882 "

This is hilarious, because unless a secret Ninja broke into my apartment and changed my password without my knowledge, it's a complete and utter false statement. I have the information stored on the client so all I have to do is hit "login"...and it was successful in logging in when I got it the game Friday and when I played it yesterday.

You aren't the only one. The system is bloody irritating at times, and refuses to log me in from time to time. This is quite irritating as campaign games are tied often to the account.

[Stark]

I don't have any problems with Windows Live, but when I installed F3 I had ten million problems getting it updated. Making the Windows Live framework a standalone download that doesn't need to self-update WHILE IN A GAME might be a tiny improvement here; I think the current system broke Flash's F3 install. Having Live on Windows is a good idea, but trying to implement it in the exact same way as on 360 is stupid. Why can't I just run a Live client? Why do I have to be in a game? Why can't I configure or check Live externally? BECAUSE MICROSOFT ARE IDIOTS.

That said, update on lategame; the game becomes massively easy and FUCKING TIRESOME on Captain. It's got Total War disease, where once you control all the sectors/resources you have to fight 3-5 random do-nothing utterly easy bore-fests for every story-relevant mission and there's no autofight. Once you get the dread, power weapons and the right perks you can kill a carnifex in two attacks and the only challenge to bossfights is 'mirco to avoid the massively powerful spam special attacks'. I'm right near the end of the game, but I'm not sure I can be fucked slugging through another dozen defend missions where the dread flattens everyone.

[Acidburns]

On primarch my friend and I have ran into a brick wall on the Angel Gate mission (one that gives you the plasma cannon). Just can't kill the damn canifex's while we're being fucked over by everything else and still trying to operate the control centre. We're going to try a combine remote demo charge, smoke grenade and orbital bombardment next time. I was told there were some cool setpieces later, but that the gameplay remained the same with no real tactical development.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Agreed on the end game. I finally got tired of it and just completed the final mission rather than grind out more savior points.

Also, killing carnifexes is easy: Dreadnought with assault cannon + upgraded assault cannon ability. If you time it right it's a guaranteed kill.

Also, on Angel Gate I wouldn't bother with Cyrus. You need all your other squads (though I can't remember if that mission is before or after Tarkus goes off to do his thing). Upgraded Dread if you have it, otherwise you need the firepower from your Devs and Thaddeus to spam assault jump on everything that moves.

[Stark]

I didn't bother with Cyrus the moment Thaddeus shows up. A bunch of useless skills and zero armour or melee = fuck off. Amusingly I throw so much loot away he's level 16 anyway.

BTW, aren't the uplinks supposed to be checkpoints? I just got wiped by the Farseer's 'lol kill everyone' attack that fills the entire platform on Secret of Angel Blah Blah and now I have to start again from the beginning? Pffft.

And man, if I'd thought about the achievement name for the bio-toxin more and got the Dread earlier, the game woudl have been EVEN EASIER. Upgraded melee attack = everyone dies, all cover is destroyed, everone is stunned, and has about a 6s cooldown. All the cannons I've found suck balls by 'kill carnifex in one hit' comparison. The only downer is the melee big guys can fuck him up pretty fast (I lol at him having 800hp and the carnifexes having 9000hp and him winning because Relic have taken a bizarre approach to balance). BCG, are you playing on captain? I know you warned people off it before.

[Stark]

On primarch my friend and I have ran into a brick wall on the Angel Gate mission (one that gives you the plasma cannon). Just can't kill the damn canifex's while we're being fucked over by everything else and still trying to operate the control centre. We're going to try a combine remote demo charge, smoke grenade and orbital bombardment next time. I was told there were some cool setpieces later, but that the gameplay remained the same with no real tactical development.

Oh Captain, the spore drops only occur a few times; if you position your guys some distance down the lane to either side, send a guy to activate the gatehouse then jump out they'll land and you can kill them and heal/repair then trigger the next lot. Eventually they stop landing and you only have to deal with the random guys running in the gate (which is only small guys if you have enough mortars running).

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

BCG, are you playing on captain? I know you warned people off it before.

Yeah. I just didn't like it because it got so tedious and so damned hard to get 5 Resilience stars consistently.

[Stark]

Wow, it's as bad as Fallout3 (worse, really); if you finish the final mission you can't play on, and if you left the plot-useless 'angel forge under threat' mission alone you don't get credit for finishing the game... and you can't revert to an earlier save. Oh... yay?

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Uh, yeah you can. It autosaves your campaign to a separate entry before you do the final mission.

[Stark]

Mine didn't; the only campaign I have on my list is the one listed as 'complete' which just shows you the end points tally screen.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Strange. I got both the end-credit save, and a separate autosave.

[Stark]

I think it's because I didn't do that mission. Fucking Eldar horseshit. You must email me your save to assuage my shattered patience!