Relicnews: the definitive source for all things Relic

Looks like the lazy bugger who updates the Dawn of War community links list at the main THQ page finally got around to updating it. If you know of any fansites that aren’t listed, make sure they drop him a line.

Apparently they’re not taking Clan Sites, but perhaps if there was a Site that Listed Clan Sites…

Think you’ve got what it takes to be the best in the world at Dawn of War? Then check this out!.

The World Cyber Games will include two new titles for the 2005 competition in Singapore, according to an announcement from the WCG Committee today. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War and Dead or Alive Ultimate join the official list of the competition, which is expected to draw 1.25 million players. The new titles replace Unreal Tournament 2004 and Project Gotham Racing 2, which were part of last year’s roster.

Go here for the official World Cyber-Games Site.

I saw on blue’s that Dawn of War has been nominated for two AIAS (Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences) awards. The first nomination is for “Outstanding Achievement in Online Gameplay“, and the second nomination is for “Strategy Game of the Year“.

Winners are to be announced on Feb. 1st, and we’ll keep you posted on the results. Congratulations to Relic for the nominations.

I just got a report from oXo that there’s a Dawn of War Novel on stores in Sweden.

For more info: Check the Black Library.

RPG vault posted an interview with some of the Relic folks. Producer Jonathan Dowdeswell, Lead Designer Jay Wilson, Lead Programmer Dominic Mathieu and Art Director Andy Lang gave their hand in the interview. Here’s a quick snip:

The Team
Jonathan Dowdeswell: Dawn of War was developed by Relic Entertainment, now a subsidiary of THQ, in Vancouver BC. We had about 30 people on the project, although five to 10 more helped for a month or two here and there. The leads on the project all came from Relic’s previous land-based RTS, Impossible Creatures. Other members were drawn from the Homeworld 2 team and other companies as well as local schools. It was a really great team of talented people, and I’m proud to have worked with them all.

You can check out the 5 page interview here

Raphael @ Relic has just made the following announcement on the forums regarding the Dawn of War Ladder system:

To encourage regular online play, and to ensure that someone can’t stand undefeated in the top ranks because they played a lot when Dawn of War first came out and little since then, we’ll soon be implementing a system of points decay.

Basically, this system works as follows:

If you are currently ranked in the Top-100, you must play at least 2 games per week to avoid point decay. You will lose 40 points in any week you do not play at least 2 games.

If you are currently ranked in the Top-1000, you must play at least 1 game per week to avoid point decay. You will lose 20 points in any week you do not play at least 1 game.

Your score will never decay below 1100 points.

The system only reviews your activity once per week, on Sunday night.

The new Points Decay system will go live on GameSpy on Monday, January 17th, 2005, at 3:30AM. So, you have almost 2 whole weeks to get in the number of games required to avoid point decay.

We hope this will help keep the online playing community active, and give those players who are hovering around the 100 or 1000 ranking level added incentive to get their scores up there!

You can discuss this development in this thread.