Relicnews: the definitive source for all things Relic

TVG have a Q&A session with Quinn Duffy, Senior Designer on the Company of Heroes team. There’s some good stuff about the CoH squad AI; here’s a taster.

Our squad AI is very cool, very advanced, and pretty self-sufficient. The big thing to get across is that squads will always do what the player ordered. However, squads have a strong sense of self-preservation in that they’ll seek nearby cover, use appropriate weapons against the best targets, and intelligently handle enemies and friendlies moving around them. They also pick good formations depending on the terrain they’re in. The squad AI adds to the believability of the world, and frees up player time because they don’t have to babysit every unit on the battlefield.

Read the article here. Thanks to TheDeadlyShoe for the link.

Holy crap, it’s that time of the week again. No, I’m not talking about bees and flowers here, and I don’t mean Mr. Umur’s special kebab friday either - even though you have to admit that 2.50 for a large kebab with a coke sounds pretty darn good.

No, it’s time for our weekly forum roundup! I’m fairly sure that all five of my readers (hi mom, thanks for stopping by!) are eagerly awaiting this week’s top threads.

This week on the Relicnews forums…

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Dave sent me a note linking to IGN’s top 100 games list.

Why it Made the Top 100 List: Story is one aspect of gaming that doesn’t always receive the attention it needs to move a game from good to classic. Homeworld provided one of the most unique RTS story experiences ever seen on the PC. It was hard not to become connected to the Kushan as they fought across the galaxy to regain their lives and their home while teetering on the brink of extinction. The fact that it was also the first fully 3D RTS (meaning you could move units on the Z axis as well) only helped create wicked challenges in a new type of environment. Homeworld was an excellently crafted game that will forever remain in a place of honor among other real-time strategy greats.

So there you have it, Homeworld in the Top 100 at number 66. As a side note, since when was it ok to only have one space after a full stop?

IGN posted a preview about the Imperial Guard. It’s a pretty interesting read. Here is a quick quote,

It came down to a “shortlist” of the Tau, Necrons and the Imperial Guard. What stood out for us with the Imperial Guard. We decided to go with them because we could leverage their defensive play style on the tabletop to create a compelling, unique experience in the RTS. All of the other races in Dawn of War are very assault driven. They are played very fast and aggressively. The Imperial Guard, however, play very differently. They are methodical, defensive, and intimidating in their power.

You can check out the article here. There are also a bunch of new screenshots as well as a video.

You can also discuss what you read and viewed here

I love that a mod is already in the works for Company of Heroes.

More info here

As you know, the Expansion pack is due out in the next couple of months. As such, online sales are picking up. A forum reader (thanks elite 451) spotted the entry for Dawn of War Gold Edition which includes Dawn of War and the expansion pack. The interesting part (that I’d not heard yet) was this tidbit.

Winter Assault Expansion Pack:

Lost amongst the ruins of a leveled city lies an Emperor Class Titan, a war vessel of untold power forged in the planet-wide furnaces of Mars, and revered by billions as the epitome of Imperial dominance.

The one who controls it will command the power to destroy, or defend, a world. The Imperials will summon it to overcome great evil, Chaos will corrupt it for their own designs, Orks will destroy it in their bloodlust and Eldar will disregard it in their arrogance.

Weee Titans!

It looks like there has been a change to the Winter Assault Box Art.

Thanks to Tank Hunter for the heads up and to Acturas for the link to a larger image.

Hi, I’m Moe. You may remember me from such instructional videos as “1001 fun things to do in the desert” and “how to entertain your readers by ripping off quotes from The Simpsons”. I’m here today to talk to you about last week’s threads.

This week on the RelicNews forums…

Those of you who think web design is interesting (and I’m not saying you should be ashamed. No, really. Embrace your strange passion! Go out and share it with the world!) should take a look at this excellent tutorial on how to create image-based navigation bars with XHTML and CSS. Written by ionfish, the guy who designed this very site, it demonstrates how to create a navbar in an elegant and standards-compliant fashion with a minimum amount of code.

It also demonstrates how ion can’t keep track of the names he uses for his divs. Or so it would seem. However, I know that this is all just an incredibly clever ruse, designed to get people to think that they can design their own pages. Then, when they are stuck, ion will swoop in and sell them his services. Call me crazy (I know my other self does - but what does he know, he is schizophrenic), but you will all thank me for that warning one day. I’m watching you like a hawk, ion!

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According to an article on Gamespot, Winter Assault, the upcoming expansion for Dawn of War, will be released on September 19th.

Major retailers like Amazon.com already have the game in their pre-order program but don’t seem to mention a specific date, the price tag here is $29.99 (USA). Not sure how accurate their info is though, especially considering Amazon claims that this game will run on a pocket PC…

If you can barely contain your excitement and would like to discuss this, this thread is where you want to go.

Thanks to Warlock for pointing this out.

There’s a small amount of gameplay footage from The Outfit up at Game Trailers dot com.

Pretty Pretty! Remember, that’s running on the alpha dev kit, not final hardware. You can discuss the footage on this forum thread.