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A lot of people have been complaining about cheaters using a disconnection exploit to boost their stats. THQ is now actively banning CD keys from online play and deleting stats if they catch someone using this exploit.

Tranj from THQ posted this announcement:

We have banned several accounts that were caught using a disconnect exploit. Anyone caught cheating in any way will immediately have their stats removed and their CD-Keys banned permanently.

Raphael van Lierop from Relic posted this on our forums:

Just an update. This patch will address a wide variety of issues covering pretty much every area of the game — SP missions, gameplay, some art, performance issues, balance tweaks, along with some of the other things Tranj has already mentioned.

As I’m sure you can appreciate, patching a game like CoH is a hugely complex process which involves extensive testing of the entire game, and every version (so, all locales — US, UK, Germany, France, etc. etc.).

Hopefully this gives you some idea of why it takes a bit of time to put this stuff together and to validate our fix list.

Once we know EXACTLY what has been fixed, we’ll post the list for you guys to rant/rave about.

Thanks for your patience!

In addition, once QA has validated the patch we can expect a full changelog. This may take the aforementioned one or two weeks though.

For those of you wondering why this is taking so long, QA is the final stage of patch testing. They attempt to find bugs with the patch, and if they find any the whole thing gets sent back to the developers, who then fix it and re-submit it to QA. This may seem like a long-winded process, but it is necessary in order to keep the patches as bug-free as possible.

Our one and only Buggo has posted what appears to be a full changelog for Dark Crusade. This log compares Dark Crusade to the latest Winter Assault version and is long and full of juicy details.

Read all about it in this thread.

Relic has just confirmed that a patch for Company of Heroes is in the works. Barring any issues that pop up during QA (that’s the testing phase for the patch), it should be released in the next two or three weeks.

We don’t know what the patch will contain, however Tranj from THQ promised that the SLI issues are being addressed in this patch.

Check out this thread for more info.

IGN gave Dark Crusade a 8.7.

Games Radar gave it a 9/10.

Thanks to Kasmapalities and Nessy for the heads up.

Expect the game to be in stores tomorrow.

Here is a quick quote from the press release,

AGOURA HILLS, Calif., Oct. 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — THQ Inc. (Nasdaq: THQI - News) today announced that Warhammer® 40,000™: Dawn of War: Dark Crusade™, the highly-anticipated hybrid expansion to Relic Entertainment’s critically acclaimed Real-Time Strategy (RTS) franchise, has shipped exclusively for Windows PC. The critically acclaimed title delves deeper into the futuristic Warhammer 40,000 universe, introducing two all-new factions, an immersive single and multiplayer experience, plus additional features that become available when played with other titles in the Dawn of War franchise. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Dark Crusade, is now available for a suggested retail price of $29.99.

You can check out the press release here.

It’s almost that time of year again!.

Let’s see if we can beat last year’s total.

Thanks to our awesome technical wizard Delphy, Relicnews is proud to present our all-new Company of Heroes Replays forum.

Buggo’s 2nd Podcast is up online. The links can be found in the forum post here.

The Podcast includes,

- We tell you what secret, surprise download that I’ve been talking about all week is going to be, and when I’m going to post it!
- Detailed information on changes to existing Dark Crusade races
- Changes to Dark Crusade tech trees
- Interview with Mark Noseworthy about what he does as a Producer at Relic
- Dark Crusade and Company of Heroes gameplay tip from the pros from Josh Long and Matt Watt (balance team)
- Interview with Nessy (Vanessa Vanasin) at THQ about upcoming Dark Crusade PR activities

Edit: Buggo’s secret download is a Dark Crusade replay of Stefan Haines vs David Kim (Both in the balance team). You can find the video links here.

The next video from Buggo is up. The videos are available in youtube or a mp4 format (right-click to save). You guys can talk about the video in the forums.

Buggo also hyped up more information and things coming out this week including,

Other things coming up for the rest of this week…
- Another podcast
- A surprise download that I’ve been hyping up to you guys about
- A wallpaper
- Concept art

Digital crack is awesome.