Confirmed via THQ’s news release about the subject, CoH has gone gold and is off to manufacturing.
Included is information that it will be on shelves later this month (September 24th perhaps?).
I’m going to be there day one to buy my usual two copies. I haven’t seen the single player, but seeing how awesome the two new armies are in the OF Beta has increased my desire for this product by a factor of, well, lots. We’re getting two campaigns for OF, one from the British side (Battle for Caen), and one for the Panzer Elite side (Operation Market Garden).
I’m still very annoyed at THQ though. The multiplayer connectivity in the Beta is still functionally impaired for users behind NAT connections (behind a router essentially) in spite of the improvements from Monday’s patch. At this point, I think the best we can hope for is a Zero Day Patch that helps improve the multiplayer compared to what they have released to us in the Beta so far (I doubt there’s unreleased components that are coded and ready to go for multiplayer, as they’d have gotten them to us already). Heck, the way Relic Online is structured, they could ship the game with only the ability to sign into Relic Online, get a warning that you need a patch, and then download the actual guts of Relic Online the first time you try to get into Multiplayer.
This is not Relic’s fault though, we know they’re working on it as evidenced by the sweeping changes in the Relic Online code in the last couple of days. How much can they fix and have ready for a zero day patch before the game’s on shelves? That’s the big question isn’t it.
THQ’s seemingly made this decision to move the game up from a November launch (as advertised in the Beta’s game launch screens) to meet a financial goal. I checked yesterday and indeed it seems that their end of this fiscal quarter looks like it’s in September (please do correct me if I’m wrong). I can understand their need to juggle the books, but I don’t get the disconnect about shipping unfinished product. Some bean counter at THQ (or a group of them) has more information than I do to make this decision, so I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
I wonder if anyone told them that Halo 3’s shipping around that time as well? Maybe someone at THQ went “Hey, let’s let Relic finish the multiplayer while people are playing Halo 3 peer to peer online with no problems!”
I will post as soon as I have the 1.0 version and manage to get online. I expect to get my money’s worth out of the single player, so even if the Multiplayer’s still broken at launch, I’ll be buying my copies. I just wish THQ didn’t drop the ball on this.
3 comments on this post. Add your own. Comments feed?
Posted by BOTA:99 at September 12th, 2007 at 11:07 am
Sadly, this is the way the PC Gaming industry works. I am certain Relic is not relishing launch day remembering how ROL worked when CoH was released, and I hope ppl keep it in mind on release day. And with any luck any issues can still be fixed before the game actually hits the shelves?
Posted by ÜberJumper at September 12th, 2007 at 11:13 am
That’s what I’m hoping BOTA, I have no doubt Relic can fix it, but I’m disapointed (to put it mildly) with THQ shipping the game in an unfinished state. PC games should be treated like console games that can’t be patched ever. Just because you can ship a zero day patch doesn’t mean you should.
Posted by Wow at September 12th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
Amazing, guess I will wait a couple of months (when it is cheaper) ratehr than put up with the mess that is RO.
Wonder if they will get arranged teams up and running for release (doubt it)