Relicnews: the definitive source for all things Relic

For those of you in Australia that purchased Opposing Fronts and are having trouble patching, this is most likely because an older pre-gold build of the game was sent to the CD/DVD presses in Australia.

This will manifest itself by the English patch failing when you attempt to install it. What’s happening is the patching app checks to see if the file being patched matches what the patching program expects to see. When it sees this old data on the Australian install, it fails. As a result, the Australian players cannot play online.

Good news though a fix is inbound now!

See this thread for more info.

Edit: Looks like the patch is out. Make sure you check that thread. Best policy would be to start fresh. Uninstall CoH, Uninstall OF, delete the install directories (IMPORTANT: Make sure you clear out the patches from \my documents\my games\company of heroes\patch\ directory or just remove \my games\company of heroes\ completely), and then re-install Opposing Fronts. When you sign into Relic Online it should patch automatically and pick the right patch for you Aussies.

Edit:

Further clarification on the cause. It wasn’t that a different version was sent to Australia, it looks like a manufacturing defect. See this post for more info. (Same effect though, it looks to fail comparison on the files when patching)

With the release of Opposing Fronts, Soulstorm is next on Relic’s list.

Here is the opening paragraph from this morning’s press release,

AGOURA HILLS, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Sept. 26, 2007–THQ Inc. (NASDAQ:THQI) today announced Warhammer® 40,000™: Dawn of War® - Soulstorm™, the next standalone chapter in internal studio Relic Entertainment’s award-winning Real-Time Strategy (RTS) franchise, is scheduled for release on Windows PC in spring 2008. Featuring an extensive interplanetary campaign spanning an entire star system in the Warhammer® 40,000™ universe, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm introduces two all-new factions for an unprecedented total of nine playable races.

Here is what we know according to the press release,

- The game will be developed by Relic Entertainment and Iron Lore.
- Two new races, Dark Eldar and race to be announced.
- The campaign metagame will now span across a star system, compared to Dark Crusade’s Kronus.
- Air units will be introduced.
- To be released in Spring 2008

Check out the press release here

There’s currently a lot of hubbabaloo on the forums about the new copy-protection method that Relic’s using for Company of Heroes Opposing Fronts. Before that though, there was a little bit of noise from people concerned that Relic was launching Opposing Fronts before it was ready. I was one of the people concerned about the game launching early.

I got a chance to air my concerns with Relic, and Josh Mosqueira’s answered some questions.

For those people concerned about the new authentication method, pay close attention to this portion of the article.

First it was critical for us to have a world-wide simultaneous ship. Not having one could have delayed the RTM (release to manufacture - UJ) date of Opposing Fronts but this was not a call we wanted to make. Why, piracy.

Not having a world-wide launch of OF means more opportunities for illegal copies of OF to flood the internet. Looking at the data that we have, piracy hurt the sales of CoH especially in regions that shipped CoH after the main release of the game.

We did not want the same to happen with OF so the decision to simultaneous ship was made. This is why the September 15th RTM existed in the first place - we wanted to give localization and operations enough time to wrap up so this is where the November ship date came from.

So, Relic got screwed by software piracy. I wonder if that would piss anyone off? It got me so mad I made angry words appear on people’s screens on the forums and I got a one week (delayed) suspension for it.

If folks have more questions for Josh, perhaps we can get him to answer. Post your comments in this post and let’s see if we can generate some answers. Don’t be angry like me :-)

Bridger posted that Tales of Heroes 50 is up.

It’s an 80 minute interview with Josh and Quinn from Relic.

Looks like there’s a hidden unit in CoH:Opposing Fronts.

Thanks to Kolath for the heads up.

There’s a picture of the inspiration for the unit in the thread.

edit: the picture was messing with the formatting. -SG

edit 2: Youtube video of Donkey in action.

Ve3d.com stilllll kickin’ after all these years!

Andy sent word that they have a batch of screenshots up for your viewing pleasure. Looks like some shots from the Single Player campaign in there!

So if you’re like me and won’t have OF for a couple of days, pop by and check them out! Almost missed his email, got filtered into my junk mail folder!

This post is for those of you NOT purchasing Opposing Fronts.

In advance of the 1.8 patch going live, you can download it here. This patch will enable you to play with the Opposing Fronts players with their shiny new armies.

READ CAREFULLY. Don’t go installing it until the servers are ready, or you won’t be able to play AT ALL.

Edit: Modified information to indicate that you should NOT install the patch until the servers are up.

Looks like Opposing Fronts should be in stores today.

Cookie for the first person who sends in a shot of their purchased copy of Opposing Fronts!

Watch Relicnews.com for an interview with Josh Mosquiera soon!

Looks like Future Shop’s got a special on for Opposing Fronts.

Only $29.99!

More Info Here

Edit: Looks like they’ve removed the last listing, and are now listing it at $39.99.

Slow_Runner brought this to my attention. Under GFW extra you’ll find,

Dawn of War: Soulstorm Unit Breakdown COMING SOON: A detailed description of new Dark Eldar units from GFW’s exclusive first look at the next Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War expansion, Soulstorm.

It appears that the next expansion will feature the Dark Eldar.

That knocks off one of the announcements for 2007, but what is the other?