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Hybris posted on the forums that Dawn of War has been awarded Strategy Game of the Year from this site.

The Dawn of War Dev Crew (some of them at least) have sat down with an interview with the guys over at Bit-tech.net. Dominic Mathieu, Lead Programmer; George Hornmoen, Programmer; Richard Sim, Programmer; and Raphael van Lierop, Assistant Producer all chipped in information for the Interview.

Bit: What would you say the dream system setup is for playing Dawn of War, and what will it give a gamer that a mid-range setup won’t? What are the advantages of the components you would recommend?

Relic: Processor: The game is primarily CPU-bound, so a faster processor is recommended. Nothing beats the AMD Athlon 64 for performance at this point.

Memory: To maximize the visual options (model, texture, sound, effects qualities), lots of memory is required. 1GB of fast RAM would be ideal.

Video card: Something with a screaming fill-rate and lots of video memory. Right now, the game seems to run best on a GeForce 6800 with 256MB of RAM.

Check out the interview here. Thanks to Mac_bug for firing off a link to the Interview.

Relic has just announced Mapping contest for Dawn of War, here are the details:

Think you have what it takes to create an uber-map for Dawn of War? Want to have your map judged by Relic developers, and released to the community so thousands of players can enjoy your work?

Post some screenshots and a download link to your map in the ‘DoW Mapping Contest’ thread at the official forums , and the team behind Dawn of War will run it through the gauntlet. The best 3 maps will be released to the community in a special Map Pack, and the winners will receive signed Dawn of War posters.

Please remember to include (in your post) a short description of your map, the number of intended players, and any other information you think might help us when judging it. Contest ends January 30th, 2005 (so you have about a month).

So post away!!! We can’t wait to see what you’ve come up with. You can submit as many maps as you like, but we will only select one per map creator. If you have any questions, post them here and I will answer them.

Thanks, and happy mapping.

Raphael van Lierop
Assistant Producer
Relic Entertainment Inc.

Here’s the thread announcing the contest, and here you can find the forum dedicated to the contest here. Good luck to all who participate.

I noticed on Blue’s that HomelanFed has slapped up an interview with Geoff Thomas of Relic (who was the Assistant Producer on Homeworld 2) discussing the games of 2004-2005. Here’s a snip:

HomeLAN - Overall, what do you feel was the most significant thing that happened in 2004 in the video and PC game industry? Geoff Thomas - A lot of oh-my-god huge titles shipped. Doom 3, Half-Life 2, Halo 2, World of Warcraft, GTA: San Andreas, and Everquest II to name just a few…it was hands down the biggest fall season for AAA games that I can remember. So much so that there’s a lot of great stuff out there right now that’s under the radar (Metroid 2 and Pirates for example).

Dawn of War has earned Tom’s Hardware’s “Must Have” Award for the Month of December, 2004.

Check out the 9 page article here.

Thanks to Elsmore for the heads up.

IGN and Gamespy have unleashed their GOTY awards.

Highlights:

7th Best PC Game of 2004 according to Gamespy
Best Use of License according to Gamespy
Runner Up, Best Strategy Game of 2004 according to IGN
Runner Up, Best Multiplayer Game of 2004 according to IGN

Ign’s Article here.

Gamespy here.

Still a few more awards to come, we’ll see if Dawn of War reels any other awards in.

Just got word from Relic that a new patch, bringing Dawn of War up to version 1.2 is up. Here’s a list of the changes/additions:

• Seer Council ‘Conceal’ ability fix – It now only applies to individual members of the Seer Council. Chaos ‘Taint’ ability fix – It now only heals in the second tier, but applies to Chaos Commander units as well as infantry.
• 2-minute Drop fix – Now players cannot drop out of games before the 2-minute mark without it counting as a loss. Lobby Spamming fix – Fixed some issues with the lobby system which should decrease/eliminate spamming in the lobby.
  

The patch also includes 2 new multiplayer maps, as an extra bonus from Relic in light of the holiday season!

• Railway (2P) – “Thats right, it’s the ‘One Way Railway’. Called that by the Guardsmen who were stationed here when I was younger. They say if you got on a path in this here piece of jungle, you never came back.” – Anonymous
• Crossroads (6P) – Once a major driver of the Imperium’s commercial engine, all was changed when Warboss Orkamungus and his warband ravaged the area. These days, the Crossroads are hotly contested as a supply route, with all takers hoping control will give them an edge in their greater conflicts on this planet.

You can discuss the patch in this thread.

There’s a customized Alienware PC up for sweepstakes at Maximumpc.com. One special person will get the PC, 5 others, copies of Dawn of War.

Pretty eh?

(Contest open to most US Residents only)

Gamespot has their Best and Worst of 2004 awards started. Looks like Dawn of War is nominated in at least one category (Best Strategy - All Platforms). They’ll also have a viewers choice awards up on the 21st, and DoW could very easily show up as Best PC Strategy Game.

Thanks to Evil Avatar for the heads up.

Gamespy’s Gamer’s Choice Awards are up and running.

Dawn of War is mentioned in several categories, notably PC Strategy, PC Multiplayer and PC Overall.

There’s a lot of games and categories to vote for, so make yourself heard!