Relic Thanks Fans With Dawn of War Free Weekend, and Added Bonus Content
Even at more than 10 years old, the Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War franchise still has a strong, passionate player base, and we at Relic would like to celebrate and show our thanks! From September 24 10AM PDT through to September 27 1PM PDT, Dawn of War I and II, plus all expansions, are free to play on Steam. As well, for new recruits, or veterans looking to complete their collection, both titles and all expansions are 75% off until September 28 at 10AM PDT. As a special thank you to all our loyal players, and as a welcome to anyone new to the franchise, we’ve also added some bonuses to DoW I and II.
• The Temple of Cyrene is a brand new, official multiplayer map we’re adding into the Dawn of War I rotation. This map will be playable in DoW the Dark Crusade and Soulstorm expansions. The Temple of Cyrene sits on the blasted landscape of a world scoured clean by the Exterminatus of the Imperial Inquisition. Homeworld of Gabriel Angelos, Cyrene is now a ghost-world of ruined cities and ashen fields. Fight for supremacy amidst the remains of Cyrene’s once-mighty temples. Claim the three critical locations at the heart of the ruins or drive into enemy bases and deliver annihilation.
• In Dawn of War II, we’re giving away four free sets of Wargear; The Vanguard, Sniper, Sternguard, and Destroyer, to equip in the main campaign that were previously only available as pre-order DLC, or as rare loot drops. Now everyone will be able to equip items like the Veteran’s Grenades, Blade of Ulyus, Armor of the Destroyer, and many more to complete your sets!
Dawn of War II Trading Cards
We’re very pleased to announce that one of Relic Entertainment’s flagship titles, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II has introduced Steam Trading Cards to the experience, and is having a massive sale to celebrate! As players take up arms in the campaign or multiplayer modes, they will unlock Steam Trading Cards, chat emoticons, Steam profile backgrounds, and more! To celebrate, Dawn of War II will be on sale for 75% off until July 20 at 10AM PST. We can’t wait to usher in a new generation of Dawn of War players, as well as show veterans some love with new unlockables.
Developed by award winning Relic Entertainment, Dawn of War II ushers in a new chapter in the acclaimed RTS series - taking players to the brutal frontlines of war to lead an Elite Strike Force on a mission to save the galaxy.
Dawn of War Trading Cards
Prepare yourself for the grim, dark future of the 41st millennium, where alien races battle mankind for galactic domination in a universe of unending war.
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War has been updated to include Steam Trading Cards to enhance your experience! As players explore through the campaign and multiplayer modes they’ll unlock Trading Cards along with new badges, chat emoticons, and Steam profile backgrounds! To celebrate, Dawn of War will be 75% off until July 13th at 10AM PST.
Space Marine Trading Cards
Warhammer fans, good news!
The Space Marine Collection is on sale for 75% off on Steam from April 27-May 4.
The game has also been updated to now include Steam Trading Cards! Collect cards, earn badges, and do it all FOR THE EMPEROR!
Server Maintenance - Today at 3 pm PDT
A quick notice for all of our players: our Dawn of War servers will be down for maintenance from 3 pm PDT until 3:30 pm PDT. This downtime is for maintenance only, and does not include new content or a patch. As always, we have specifically scheduled this maintenance to fall outside of our peak player hours. We thank everyone for their patience during this time!
Patch Notes and a Quick Community Update
Hello, fans! I wanted to take a quick moment to address our Dawn of War community and provide an update for you all!
First off, I'm very happy to announce that a minor patch that will be going out today. This update addresses a few technical issues, corrects some statistical anomalies and adds minor button functionality to our automatch completed game page.
In addition to this update, we also wanted to let everyone know that we will be building out our community team this year. We've shrunk in size here at Relic - from three people to one - and recognize that we need more assistance to better serve our Dawn of War community! We ask our fans for patience during this time, and are looking forward to introducing you to new staff as they come on!
Patch notes for today's update are as follows:
Dawn of War 2 Titles
Updated build:
ver. 2.6.10236 Dawn of War 2
ver. 2.6.10236 Dawn of War 2 Chaos Rising
ver. 3.19.1.10235 Dawn of War 2 Retribution
1. WorldBuilder <*> Resolved crash issues with the Worldbuilder when creating user generated maps.
2. Automatch
<*> Can now click “continue” after a ranked game is complete.
3. Statistics
<*> Corrected issue where stats were only being recorded when a player conceded or ended a game.
4. Statistics
<*> Corrected issue where some achievements would not unlock.
• i.e. Primarch and other difficulty achievements.
• i.e. Unlocking Last Stand war gear progression items.
5. Pause
<*> Pause/Break Key now functions for Single Player.
<*> Pause/Break Key during Replays now function.
6. Lobby/Chat
<*> Some behavior with Party Chat and General Chat have been adjusted.
• i.e. Party Chat isn't automatically selected when entering a party/lobby if the general chat is already open.
Dawn of War 1 Titles
Updated build:
ver. 197807 Dawn of War Game of The Year / Winter Assault
ver. 197806 Dawn of War Dark Crusade
ver. 452 Dawn of War Soulstorm
1. Misc.
<*> Resolved some server exception issues.
This update will go live at approximately 11am pacific standard time.
We look forward to a bright year for both the Dawn of War 1 and Dawn of War 2 communities!
Dawn of War II Server Maintenance
We will be performing maintenance on the Dawn of War II servers on September 29th at 10:45 pm PDT (5:45 am GMT). The servers will be offline for approximately one hour and players will be unable to access online features during that time.
Thank you for your understanding and support.
The new Dawn of War site & forums
We're excited to announce the launch of a new website and community forums for the Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War series. The site will be the home for all things DoW, including an all new set of forums.
The Relic community team and members of the development team here at Relic who have been working on the recent updates to the Dawn of War franchise will be active on the forums providing support and taking your feedback.
The forums will be where our primary focus is for technical issues and feedback, so please head on over. We will however continue to monitor the Steam communities, though not as much as we have been.
Thank you for your continued support of the Dawn of War series and we hope to see you at the official site soon!
Dawn of War II: Open Beta
Last month we began the process of transitioning the original Dawn of War and its expansions from the GameSpy servers that hosted the games, ensuring that players continue to have access to Dawn of War’s multiplayer features after the shutdown. Moving the original game to a combination of Steamworks servers and our own Battle Servers allows us to continue to support the game.
We are committed to providing the same long term support to Dawn of War II and its first expansion Chaos Rising. Thus we are beginning the process of moving these games to the same server systems that we are using for Dawn of War, Company of Heroes and Company of Heroes 2. We thank Dawn of War II players for their patience while we work to transition the Dawn of War servers.
The first step of this process is an Open Beta of the new Steamworks version of Dawn of War II and Chaos Rising. This Beta is open to all owners of Dawn of War II and Chaos Rising.
To join the beta:
• Right Click Warhammer 40,00: Dawn of War II in your Steam game Library
• Select “Properties”
• Click on the “BETAS” tab in the Properties Menu
• Select “openbeta” from the list of betas
• Download the new Beta
The Beta is a work in progress and currently there are some features that are not working, or are in progress.
Here are some known issues we are working through:
• Statistics, Win/Loss Counters, & Leaderboard data.
• AI Multiplayer Behavior.
• Referee Functions (May remove completely).
• Team Free For All related issues.
• Observer mode.
• Chat Mute/Unmute does not function.
If you come across an issue that causes your game to crash we would appreciate if you would submit a bug report. This process is automatic and will launch after the crash. Doing so will allow us to discover potential issues more quickly.
The re-launch of the Dawn of War products comes with the introduction of the Battle Servers. This technology solves the connection and latency issues associated with peer-to-peer game play. Lagging players will no longer affect your multiplayer experience since each player connects directly to the Battle Server. This technology will allow you to experience multiplayer with a wider audience than was previously possible. As a result of the new Battle Server implementation we intend to remove LAN and peer-to-peer multiplayer.
Features removed:
• LAN / Direct Connect
• Ability to “Pause” during multiplayer.
Other:
• Games For Windows Live Removed.
• Previously Dawn of War II and Chaos Rising Shared the same Leaderboards & Achievements. These have now been separated per title.
These removed features are unfortunate side effects, but we strongly believe that continuing to support the multiplayer and online features of Dawn of War II and Chaos Rising outweighs this loss.
We thank everyone in the Dawn of War community for their support of the game over the years, and are excited that we are going to be able to keep it running into the future.
Thank you.
- Relic Entertainment
Dawn of War Letter from the Designer
Hello all –
On May 22nd, the original Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War and its expansions underwent a major update in order to preserve multiplayer gameplay for all these titles.
Since their launch, Dawn of War and its expansions (Winter Assault, Dark Crusade and Soulstorm) have relied on the GameSpy service for multiplayer matchmaking. Since they are about to shut down their services for good it would otherwise leave these games without any way to play multiplayer. That is not an outcome anyone at Relic would want to see.
Dawn of War II and its first expansion (Chaos Rising) also rely on other external servers so we also intend to take this opportunity to migrate them over to Steam in order for a consistent multiplayer experience across the entire portfolio. This migration is in progress and we’ll have more details soon.
So, all titles in the franchise are being updated to use the same matchmaking and backend developed for Company of Heroes 2. This will not only mean multiplayer can continue on these titles, but the matchmaking experience will be improved. Matchmaking/login and so on will thus all be through Steam.
In the short term, there are likely to be some technical issues with the new setup. Recreating the multiplayer infrastructure for seven titles is no small feat, and there will be bugs. Ultimately, we felt that it would be better to get the update out in a slightly imperfect state in time to prevent an outright interruption in multiplayer play. So, bugs.
We are committed to tackling these bugs and getting all titles to be fully Steam enabled.
This update – and continued further support for DoW and DoW2 – is a big step for us at Relic. It’s a concrete signal of support for the Dawn of War franchise from us and from SEGA as a whole. Ever since SEGA acquired Relic we’ve been working on continued support for the Dawn of War back catalogue. It’s great for some of this to see the light of day at last.
I came to Relic in 2005 to work on the product that became Dark Crusade and went on to run narrative and campaign on both Dawn of War II and Chaos Rising. To be working on these titles again is a joy, and on behalf of all of us, I’d like to thank the fans who have continued to keep DoW in their hearts. You guys rock.
For the Emperor!
Philippe Boulle
Design Lead, Dawn of War Franchise
