[Xfire] matteox: Hello and welcome to the Dawn of War: Dark Crusade Developer chat! The developers will now introduce themselves and start answering your questions.
[Relic] Philippe: Hello everyone. Philippe Boulle here.
[Relic] Dandan: Dandan here. I'm a senior designer here at Relic and was responsible for parts of the Single Player campaign in Dawn Of War: Dark Crusade, most specifically, the Eldar and Necron strongholds. Yes, I'm the reason there's 8 fire prisms in that final base. I apologize for nothing, gya ha!
[Relic] Philippe: I'm the campaign/story designer for DoW: Dark Crusade.
[Relic] Bishop: I'm a designer who worked on the skirmish and multiplayer side of Dawn of War: Dark Crusade.
[Relic] Dandan: Question: Skribble: Do you plan to make Any changes with the stealth system? like being able to shoot and stay stealthed?
Answer: We just did! Dark Crusade features this, all stealthed units remain stealthed when attacking.
[Relic] Philippe: Question: tA1nT3D: What is a REAL difference between Dark Crusade expansion and the Winter Assault Expansion?
Answer: Well, first of all, Dark Crusade is a stand-alone product while Winter Assault is a traditional expansion. Beyond that, Dark Crusade introduces a new layer of play -- the campaign map, where you make strategic decisions to conquer an entire planet in single player... Finally, in Dark Crusade you can play single-player as any of seven races.
[Relic] Bishop: Question: TC]Infinity: Why was the decision made to alter the mechanics of infiltration?
Answer: The design team felt that infiltration didn't play a big role in the Dawn of War game. We wanted to increase the uniqueness of the stealth units, thereby allowing them to fulfill a different role compared to other units.
[Relic] Dandan: Question: S4MUR41: Why the decision to choose the Tau and the Necrons in the Dark Crusade expansion over the other remaining races?
Answer: Our budget and scheduling plans for Dark Crusade enabled us to add 2 new races, which left us the choice between Tau and Necron (as you saw), and Dark Eldar, Tyranid, Daemonhunters, and Sisters Of Battle. Those last two were just far too similar to the Space Marines, we wanted to give a couple of genuinely new choices. The Tyranids are definitely popular, and a lotta people pulled for them, however we wanted to use our strengths in creating excellent looking humanoid characters for this game. Dark Eldar are a bit too similar to the Eldar, so in the end we felt the Tau brought an entirely new flavor to the Dawn Of War universe as being one of the few "good guys" and their heavy tech leanings, while the Necrons let us play with a completely new econ model.
[Relic] Bishop: Question: deathking81: Do you plan on making eventually a Warhammer : 40,000 game with all races and units?
Answer: We cannot comment on any future products, or lives will be at risk. Sorry!
[Relic] Philippe: Question: Par2-D2: What was your biggest inspirtation in making Dark Crusade?
Answer: The biggest inspiration for me was the 40K source material. With seven races in the game and the solid DoW gameplay established, we were able to really get the feally of a dark future with warring factions vying for power and control.
[Relic] Bishop: Question: Daniiren: One question most people have is about Tyranids - why were they excluded? Is it because of the game engine, like many people say, or is it because of game balance?
Answer: We felt we couldn't do the Tyranids justice in the current engine and in an expansion pack. They deserve a much grander entrance. :)
[Relic] Dandan: Question: BullZeye: Why did you maked a stand alone game and not a addon like Winter Assault ?
Answer: Because a standalone is better! We believe Dark Crusade offers as much and more as most typical expansion packs- only now, you can actually play a majority of the content without having to purchase the first 2 games if you're a newcomer to Dawn Of War and would like to see the latest we've put out.
[Relic] Philippe: Question: SS2 Maximilian: How much replayability is there in the new campaign? The previous campaigns were partially limited due to their nature, which was linear. What is the new campaign like, in this respect?
Answer: The new campaign is completely non-linear. You can play as any of the 7 races and conquer the entire planet, facing the six other races on various battlefields and storming their strongholds -- which are our rich "boss levels"... When you play again as another race, you'll fight on the same battlefields, but have differrent abilities to call upon and face different enemies. You'll also uncover a unique story thread unique to your race. Lots of replayability, in other words.
[Relic] Bishop: Question: [ŞŵĢ]Redbear: Would it be possible for overwatch to be continued on units even when they are maxed out, for example keep possessed on overwatch so if your squad is destroyed another one begins production instantly or a full army can be set to pre-emptively reinforce before an assault?
Answer: This is a great idea and has been a wishlist feature. We would love to include this time-saving feature, but I can make no promises!
[Relic] Dandan: Question: drktitan56: Dandan what are your thoughts for future games? Are you wanting to continue Warhammer series beyond the one coming out soon?
Answer: I think there's a huge amount still to be done with the W40k universe. I actually knew virtually nothing about it before I came onto Dark Crusade last year, and right now I'm hoping I get to work on much more- I-> I had a lot of fun making DC, and would love to put out another Dawn Of War game.
[Relic] Philippe: Question: EGLN|Renegade: What race did you most enjoy developing in DOW?
Answer: I really enjoyed the Tau, myself. Going into the project I wasn't enamored with them, but as I got under their "skin" I really had a great time bringing their philosophy to life in the game. Working with "good guys" in the 40K universe was fun, especially showing that "The Greater Good" is definitely relative.
[Relic] Bishop: Question: EGLN|Renegade: What race did you most enjoy developing in DOW?
Answer: I really enjoyed working on the Necrons and their whole resurrection from the dead theme. Of course, it could just be my evilness showing... The Necrons are just so unique from the other races, from cool units to a different economy.
[Relic] Dandan: Question: Fr0z3n-316-[CSR]DN: How hard has it been to create these Warhammer games? Have you ever had to make any personal sacrifices to work on the games?
Answer: The very nature of working in the videogames- or more broadly, the entertainment industry, is part and parcel with sacrifice. You don't get into this job without being pretty much insane with the desire to make games, and there's huge competition to do it. Long hours, weekends, phonecalls in the middle of the night, bricks thrown through the window with death threats- at least 3 of 4 of these things will happen when you're in games, and when the product is done and you see people talking on the forums in equal parts about how much "u roxx0r" or "u suxx0r", it's made all worthwhile.
[Relic] Philippe: Question: Daniiren: Have any of you gotten involved in playing Warhammer 40k through your involvement with this game?
Answer: For my part it was more the other way around. I've been a 40K fan for nigh on 20 years and had worked in the pen-and-paper/tabletop games business before coming to Relic for Dark Crusade.
[Relic] Bishop: Question: prime|faebser: What are you planning to do about balancing and the few -but annoying- bugs in DC with the next patch? When will this patch be released?
Answer: We're looking into this. I cannot make any official comment beyond that.
[Relic] Bishop: Question: WW_Toaster: The fire-on-the-move-hit-ratio of 10 percent seems to fairly encourage the use of melee-units. Any "dancing" to avoid melee will result in some gain of time, but will hardly deal any damage. The difference between weapons that are capable of shooting on the move and those that are not is almost reduced to the graphics effect. Why did you do that?
Answer: The reasoning behind this change was to allow players to retreat back away from a lost fight without losing their army. Perhaps we overdid the nerf to damage on the move, it's something we're looking at currently.
[Relic] Philippe: Question: uthanan: What is the best way for the community to voice thier ideas to the developers?
Answer: www.relicnews.com and its forums are probably your best bet for getting your thoughts to us. We all keep an eye on those lists, as do our balancers and other people on the team. We're always looking for input from the fans!
[Relic] Bishop: Yes, and make sure to bother Buggo about any concerns. :)
[Relic] Dandan: Question: >>>Sh1ftY<<<: Do you feel that Dark Crusade is lacking of somthing still is there much more you would of liked to have added?
Answer: Bein primarily an SP guy, I'd have loved to put in some more heaily-scripted, story-based missions like the Strongholds. I think what we put out was solid, mind, I just enjoyed putting those together and feel that hey, more of a good thing is better.
[Relic] Bishop: Question: [TC]Infinity: Will new patches be derived more from player input and comments?
Answer: We're always reading through posts on forums and especially like seeing replays showcasing issues.
[Relic] Philippe: Question: }gS{DeAtH_DeAlEr/Xan888: For future releases of Warhammer40k, do u plan on adding air units or would they just not fit into the 40k universe?
Answer: I can't discuss future products (see death threats from Bishop, above ;-) ) -- but if we can find a way to include air units that is both true to Warhammer and fun for the players, I'd love to see air units in a future game.
[Relic] Dandan: Question: ^Toy/P3rv3rs10n?: What did you study as a career? I'm currently in college and I'm really interested in programing/graphics/game development, any advices you could give me?
Answer: Great question. I personally studied Comp Sci for 1 year at university, and then was one of the 2nd year graduates from Digipen Applied Computer Graphics School, hoping to get into games. If you want to get into programming, you simply can't go wrong by continuing to study programming, comp sci, and makin' it your hobby. I don't recommend for or against any of the Video-Game Specific schools out there- they're of wildly variable quality. If you want to get into Design, work on writing, art, messing with mission editors, all sorts of gaming hobbyist stuff, and try getting in as a tester- designers are often promoted from there.
[Relic] Bishop: A great path also is to graduate with a computer science degree at a college. Working on mods or your own game while doing this is very impressive to programmers who are interviewing new candidates.
[Relic] Philippe: Question: ßφⁿⁿ¥: is relic happy with the change from the standard progressive story based RTS like DOW and WA to the map take over style of DC and is it in your oppinion better this way, from both gaming and programing aspec
Answer: Well, we better be happy with it -- we put it in the game! ;-)
Seriously, though, we are happy with the results. The linear campaign model is easier...
[Relic] Philippe: ...but the lack of choice for the player, I think, makes it limited in terms of fun.
[Relic] Bishop: Question: hellhound_77: Tell me, was there any units that you guys had to disclude for incompatiblity or other reasons (any race, just any units that stick out) eg. the chaos dreadnaught
Answer: We had to cut some units from Tau, but I cannot tell you which. ;)
[Relic] Philippe: Question: FlashhBang: The intro scene to DoW: Dark Crusade was pretty awesome. On average, how long do you estimate it takes to make those cinematics?
Question: Infinity: What happened to the awsome opening trailer that we got in Dawn of War? That was some serious movie quality work!
Answer: 2 questions I'm gonna answer together. Cinematics take a lot of work, especially ones like the original Dawn of War opening, which was done by a very talented animation house. We felt, however, that fans had already seen that cinematic, and we wanted to show off some of the new content, so we created the new intro (featuring Space Marines and Necrons) internally over several weeks. Our talented animators (mostly Cody Paulson, if I recall) created that great opening, from a script by Owen Hurley. It rocks!
[Relic] Dandan: Question: WNx Blue Dragon: Witch race do you feel is the "prettiest and ugliest?"
Answer: Based on folx reactions, Eldar and Eldar. People primarily seem to play Eldar because of how they look, whereas the folks who can't stand the Eldar can't stand them... cause of how they look. Elves In Space ftw!
[Relic] Bishop: Question: WW_Toaster: With the next patch will be added 3 really great Community Custom Maps. Will their be more mapcontests in the future so that the game will get more great community maps?
Answer: It's definitely a big goal to get the three awesome community maps in with any potential balance patch, and in the automatch rotation. Everyone at Relic was impressed with the maps the community designed. I know Buggo has been smashing heads to make sure this happens.
[Relic] Dandan: Question: [ŞŵĢ]Redbear: Do you think this game will be as timeless as other RTS classics like StarCraft and Total Annihilation?
Answer: We sure hope so! Right now, as expansions go, Dark Crusade is (as I'm told) rivalled only by Brood Wars for its ratings. A lot of folks love the innovation of squads that was created in DoW. And who knows what the future holds for the franchise. Well, besides us, anyway. heh heh heh.
[Relic] Jonny: Illuminati Application
1. Real Name (no nicknames are allowed):
2. Company you work for:
3. Company Web Site:
4. Your position:
5. Your current project:
6. Your last project:
Question: WNx Blue Dragon: Witch race do you feel is the most advance?
Answer: I think the Necrons are supposed to have the most ancient and advanced technology of the known races, but some might argue that the Eldar have caught up to them, and that the Tau might eventually overtake them both
[Relic] Jonny: whoops
[Relic] Jonny: copy paste snafu~
[Relic] Dandan: Pay, uh, pay no attention to Jonny. He's got Touret's syndrome.
[Relic] Philippe: Jonny has been targetted by the Gnomes of Zurich....
[Relic] Philippe: Question: Dandrict: Do you plan on continueing the original story line from the original dawn of war?
Answer: I would love to pick up some of the threads from the first Dawn of War. Although we didn;'t deal explicitly with the 3rd company in Dark Crusade, we did add to the Blood Ravens mythos and laid some groundwork for future stories.
[Relic] Philippe: Question: Is widescreen monitor support available in Dark Crusade?
Answer: Yup.
[Relic] Bishop: Question: SkylineGTR: Do you guys play the warhammer 40k bd
Answer: There are tabletop players from all disciplines here at Relic. Even those crazy artists!
[Relic] Dandan: *bows to RustyO's* I'll be here all night, try the buffet.
[Relic] Bishop: Question: SS2 Maximilian: We've heard a lot about the new 'hard cap' system to prevent spamming of top tier units. Why was this done, and how effective do you believe it will be in the long run?
Answer: Upon reaching the higher tiers, the early units weren't viable. The hard caps make the higher tier units feel stronger, and the earlier units are no longer obsolete. Players see a larger variety in the late-game armies due to this change.
[Relic] Dandan: Question: EGLN|Renegade: Do you guys ever take ever take a break from developing to get some gaming sessions in to relieve the stress?
Answer: Yes and no. The gaming sessions don't exactly relieve stress- they're mandatory! Part of the job is playing the living daylights outta the game to make sure we ourselves think its fun.
[Relic] Philippe: Question: EGLN|Renegade: Do you guys ever take ever take a break from developing to get some gaming sessions in to relieve the stress?
Answer: Hell ya, bucko! Besides the electronic crack-- um, games, we also play a bunch of pen-and-paper stuff. A whole lot of Carcasonne got played during the development of Dark Crusade, and I ran some folks through an Exalted RPG game too.
[Relic] Dandan: Worth noting, I suck in MP. But on the rare occassion I teleported a bonesinger behind Bishop's base and warped in an armade of Firedragons to gut it while he was off schooling somebody else, it was all worth it.
[Relic] Bishop: Question: prime|faebser: why can't HWT and broadside not be told which unit to attack? is this a bug or so planned by you?
Answer: It's a really nasty bug and something we're looking at.
[Relic] Dandan: Question: SS2 Maximilian: Has the Artificial Interlligence changed at all, or is it still the same as it was in previous versions?
Answer: Another newcomer to the project was an AI programmer who did some heavy revamping of the AI. I mean, he had to code it so that Tau and Necrons in particular knew to use their tricks, we couldn't just fall back on the old stuff. Based on the times we played 5 humans vs 3 AIs and got ourselves tore-up, I'd say he did good.
[Relic] Philippe: Question: Skribble: Alot of the maps in the campaign were 6-8 player maps but the most that were played were 3 players,why such big maps for the campaign?
Answer: 2 reasons: (1) we wanted to give a bunch of maps that were usable in multiplayer, where the larger maps are often more useful; and (2) we wanted to provide some variety of scale, so that on some maps, you'd have some time to tier up before being in the thick of it. The larger maps allowed for that.
[Relic] Jonny: Question: C3ll BullZeye: What was your first impression when you heard that you will create a W40k game? Do you thought that it would be succesfull ?
Answer: Most of us were extremely excited. But there were a few who were worried that it might be a niche license (since none of the previous 40k games had sold particularly well). Once we got our first prototype up and running, though, we were pretty sure we could make a game that people would get really excited about, even if they weren’t familiar with the license
[Relic] Dandan: Question: TheGreatLegato: ^^^Can you give us details about the playtesting for Dark Crusade that goes on at Relic?
Answer: It ranges from having a bunch of guys who're ranked championship-type players who somehow manage to win money for playing games sit and go at each others throats 8 hours a day to tell us what units, abilities, and strats are 100% borken or unbeatable or unfun, to me going to them and saying "On Mission B, if you play the Eldar against Chaos, the game crashes to desktop after an hour 1 in 25 times. Make it happen and call me." It's a hard, caffiene-laden existence.
[Relic] Philippe: Question: ßφⁿⁿ¥: Has the devolpers at Relic ever thought about doing sprate CG scenes in the case of different races being killed in a certin order, or one race being killed last having a different scene?
Answer: We looked at a variety of ways to handle cinematic scenes in Dark Crusade. The major challenge we faced was that with seven playable races, if we did lots of custom cinematics it would scale to very large proportions very quickly.
[Relic] Bishop: Question: >>>Sh1ftY<<<: Bishop. You Designed the Necrons What do you think are the Key Features of Them And also what do you like most That you put in yourself?
Answer: The Necrons revolve around the coolest commander evah: The Necron Lord. He has so many sweet abilities that can be used in combination with their units in creative ways. I got a real kick out of designing and seeing the abilities slowly get added to the game. I love the fact that Necrons never seem to die, and are always resurrecting on the battlefield. And, of course, who doesn't enjoy a fully restored monolith!?
[Relic] Dandan: Question: drktitan56: Dandan I hve been doing computer programming developing software for many corporations but would love to get started in gaming. What program would you recommend me to start out with?
Answer: If you mean what programming language, you can't go wrong with C and C++. If you mean developer suites, I can't help ya. As for application of these skills, get hold of any game that offers heavy mod or scripting support, and make yourself some cool levels and scripts. These are great complements to a resume when applying as a Jr. Programmer to a game company.
[Relic] Philippe: Question: grand master: Do you guys make sure that the units and story lines are viable according to Games-Workshop stories?
Answer: GW reviews and approves everything in the game. They are really great to work with, though, and have a property that is very rich -- so has a lot for us to play around with. Being faithful to the essence of 40K is very important to us.
[Relic] Jonny: Question: WNx Blue Dragon: Why was DC a stand alone prodcut instead of a regular X Pack?
Answer: We didn’t think it was fair to make potential new fans buy two previous products if they wanted to try out the universe, and still experience some of the new content in DC. So we made the expansion stand-alone, and the previous versions of the game simply unlocked additional content. We thought of it as a win-win situation
[Relic] Bishop: Question: st.Revolt: INgame online with the Necrons you can get many more gound units than allowed by killing them off and using a "Massive Reserection" after producing several new squads bringing your overall squad cap over the limit. Was this intended or is it a bug that will be removed?
Answer: This is a bug. Mass Resurrection should be capped at 24 (slightly higher than the standard cap of 20)
[Relic] Philippe: Question: FlashhBang: Release dates, release dates, release dates. Did you guys have to cram development of the game to get it finished by the time the date came by?
Answer: Not really. We had a great team and worked well together. We went into the project knowing the timetable and making realistic estimates of what we could get done (and then exceeded them ;-) ) so we kept the cramming craziness to a minimum.
[Relic] Dandan: Question: Bacon {Gnak} ^_^: What are your plans for the future of gaming, do you think that there will be future DOW's in the future?
Answer: *cue asteroids, planets, little explosions* ...2007!!!!
In other words: maybe.
[Relic] Philippe: Question: tauwarrior: Looking 5 years down the road, does the team feel that Dark Crusade will be considered a classic?
Answer: Five years is a long time in the PC games world, but we're certainly proud of our work and feel it stands up well. Dawn of War itself has proven to have legs and seems to have won a place of respect in fans' hearts. Ultimately it's the fans who will determine if we're a classic or not.
[Relic] Jonny: Question: Minski: Did the development of Dark Crusade require any screaming?
Answer: A fair amount of screaming…and a few smashed tequila bottles for good measure ^_^
[Relic] Dandan: Question: -= IHM =-: Do you ever plan on adding garrisonable buildings into this, back on the board game I recall being able to stick guys into buildings, but in DoW we cant.
Answer: This is one of the Imperial Guard's primary abilities- many of their buildings can be garrissonned and fired from with infantry..
[Relic] Dandan: Question: RED_Mike: what do your parents say about your job?
Answer: My first choice in college was to become a piano major. Getting into game programming was actually a relief to my folx.
[Relic] Philippe: Question: ÂÂÐpilot: what can you say was the coolest move you guys ever made?
Answer: That's got to be Dandan's double-back-flip leading into a spin kick to Bishop's head, combo'd into a flying scisor kick at my face. That Dandan... he has serious moves...
[Relic] Bishop: Question: CoLateral DaMaGe®™: How do you guys keep the creativity flowing?
Answer: That's what's really great about Relic: artists, programmers, testers, etc toss us some great ideas. Whenever a designer is blocked we can just lean on them for some inspiration.
[Relic] Philippe: Question: DS DIR Imperial: Did you need to learn how to play the tabletop game before you could fully develop the system behind this game?
Answer: We strive to be true to 40K, but that doesn't mean just aping the tabletop rules. RTS is it's own animal and we work hard to bring the essence of the background to bear in new and exciting ways. So playing 40K isn't a job requirement, but we do do some playing (and keep up on the rules) in order to touch base with the source material (and for the fun of it, of course).
[Relic] Dandan: Question: kingslayer06: do you think that if anyone puts there mind to game design they can seceed?
Answer: If by Put Your Mind To It you mean study the needed disciplines, love gaming, become a skilled writer, be willing to move to where the work is, be willing to work up through testing if need be, and accept that your job may last no longer than the end of your next project if it flops for whatever reason- then yes!
[Relic] Dandan: Last question for me: RebornAce: While developing Dark Crusade, what was the most important factor for the team? E.G. Fun, Replayability or Realism?
Answer: Fun. If you don't have that, the other 2 don't even matter- nobody's gonna play it. I hope y'all figure we succeeded, we really tried.
[Relic] Philippe: Question: |Ly©an: Wher is the dev team located?
Answer: Relic works out of beautiful downtown Vancouver, British Columbia.
[Relic] Bishop: Thanks for the questions everyone. I have to get back to the grueling task of working on games for a living. Hey, someone has to do it!
[Xfire]TwiceUzi: Thank you to the dev's from Relic!
[Relic] Philippe: Thanks for everything guys. Like Bishop I need to get back to making more toys for y'all, but it's great to get a chance to chat with you.
[Xfire] matteox: Ok, that concludes the chat. Thanks again to the developers from Relic!
[Xfire] matteox: And now onto the prizes!
[Relic] Dandan: Thank you guys all for coming and bantering with us, and thank you all for playin' our game. The most fun I have in this job is seeing folks enjoying what I worked on, and I hope you've all done just that. Seeya next time!
[Xfire] matteox: The following 10 lucky participants win a signed copy of the Dawn of War: Dark Crusade game:
[Xfire] matteox: 10. Assassin.SA
[Xfire] matteox: 9. prime|faebser
[Xfire] matteox: 8. Dandrict
[Xfire] matteox: 7. C3ll BullZeye
[Xfire] matteox: 6. MADJACKAL
[Xfire] matteox: 5. TheSarge
[Xfire] matteox: 4. WW_Toaster
[Xfire] matteox: 3. kingslayer06
[Xfire] matteox: 2. [TC]Infinity
[Xfire] matteox: 1. WNx Blue Dragon
[Xfire] matteox: Congratulations to the winners! I will be PMing the winners shortly so do not sign off just yet and thank you everyone for coming out for the chat.
