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We wanted to share something else special with Homeworld fans this week in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the game. Homeworld continues to be great creative fuel for us, and members of our team will occasionally return to the universe when looking for inspiration, as a way to sharpen their skills, or just to revisit the past. This new desktop wallpaper was created by Senior Artist Dave Cheong and features a scene inspired by the game. Even though we have our hands full with Space Marine, Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising, and Company of Heroes Online, Homeworld is where it all began for us. We hope you enjoy it.

Those aren’t ships from any of the released Homeworld games!

(They’re a re-imagining of Kushan Interceptor/HW2 Interceptor. Nice work Dave!)

Relic has posted a neat Q&A with two of the remaining Homeworld developers, Quinn Duffy and Dave Cheong. Quinn and Dave are the last two members of the original Homeworld team still at Relic.

What do you remember most about the development process of Homeworld?
Quinn: That it was a self-induced struggle, but that the team was so passionate about the game that you had no doubt it was going to succeed. People poured themselves into the game and into Relic, and it showed. Strong relationships were forged that lasted for years after Homeworld shipped, and I realize I had worked with so many great people - it’s fun reminiscing now, thinking about all the stories I just can’t tell!


There were also some crazy standards - good wasn’t good enough, and lots of the game was reworked several times until it felt just right. Sierra was a patient partner though and I think they knew they had something.

There’s a couple of quotes there about possibly another game in the Homeworld universe… maybe you should go read it?

Update: Both Relicnews.com and Relic have been getting reports that the link is not working. It’s a valid link, and works for some people. Something’s wrong on the server side.

While today’s supposed to be all about Homeworld, apparently life still goes on at Relic. It looks like the Dawn of War II facebook group has posted some screenshots from Chaos Rising.

Shown are a Chaos Predator, Dreadnaught and some of the “winter” terrain set.

Will try and update the post if I find a better link for the images.

On the video side of things, there’s a 30 second exclusive video up at the DoW 2 community site.

As everyone’s probably seen, we’ve managed to get Raider Retreat rereleased.

There’s also the “How to play Homeworld” thread for those looking at learning how to play for the first time.

If you’re looking at playing Homeworld multiplayer more regularly, there’s the Saturday meet up thread.

In addition to that, there’s also the “What do you remember about Homeworld” thread and the Fan Art’s sub forum crew are starting a “Make something for the anniversary” thread.

I expect some features from Relic today as well. I’ll update this post with links.

Ten years ago, on September 28th, 1999, Homeworld was making its way onto store shelves. The release of that game hinted that the future for Relic Entertainment would be bright. Since then, Relic’s developed six additional titles (with another six expansion packs spread amongst them), with more in development.

Relic’s work with THQ on Dawn of War piqued the publisher’s interest in the studio (who until working with Relic on Dawn of War had only released two titles and one expansion) resulting in Relic’s purchase by THQ. As a result, the vast majority of people who have played Relic’s games have been fans of games other than Homeworld. To correct this, on the tenth anniversary of Homeworld’s release, Relicnews.com is proud to announce the rerelease of the Homeworld Raider Retreat standalone demo of Homeworld.

If you’ve found your way to the Relic community after playing Impossible Creatures, one of the Dawn of War games or expansions, Company of Heroes, “The Outfit” or you are learning about Relic for the first time and never had the chance to play Homeworld, Raider Retreat is a great introduction. Raider Retreat is a version of Homeworld that has five single player missions (including one that was not in the original Homeworld). It also allowed unrestricted skirmish against the AI and full multiplayer over LAN.

We touched on this earlier, but now, thanks to GameRanger and Worthplaying, people who missed out on Homeworld and its slow burn multiplayer can now have the chance.

With the death of Homeworld’s built in multiplayer (WON.net), the small but enthusiastic fan base has moved to other venues, mostly using software that simulates a LAN to enable multiplayer. As Homeworld Raider Retreat has full LAN play, and GameRanger was one of the popular services that Homeworld players were using, we contacted Scott Kevill at GameRanger. As a result, GameRanger has added support for Homeworld Raider Retreat into GameRanger.

The Raider Retreat download is just under 200MB. To help us get this relatively large file distributed, we contacted Worthplaying.com. Rainier at Worthplaying’s usually been the first to contact Relicnews.com with patch mirrors when Relic releases a patch or demo and he stepped up to host this as well.

For more information on this release, download links and multiplayer tips, please see the “Homeworld Quickstart Kit” put together by long time community member molo (and others).

THQ officially announced the next expansion to Dawn of War 2. Chaos Rising will feature the traitorous Chaos Space Marines.

Chaos Rising will feature a new Blood Raven single player campaign that return players to Aurelia where a lost ice planet as reappeared from the Warp.

- More wargears, new abilities, and squad level 30 cap(from level 20) are some of the expanded features from the original Dawn of War II.

-The campaign will feature some kind of corruption system which will go back and forth between your loyalty to the Empire and possible heresy in embracing Chaos.

Chaos will also join the other four armies in multiplayer. The other four races will see new units to reinforce their armies.

No official release date, but probably sometime in 2010

via THQ, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II - Chaos Rising

So, as many of you know, the Homeworld launch was 10 years ago on September 28th. We’ve got nothing special planned so far, but as you may have seen, there’s been a small uptick of interest on the forums.

A while ago, damn almost a year ago, Scott Kevill of GameRanger asked me to post a bit about their software. GameRanger allows you to play LAN games (500+) across the Internet. As many members of the Homeworld gaming community apparently know, Homeworld works well over this service.

Molo and I tried a game tonight, and we’ll be posting a guideish/info type thread with more info that I’ll link here when it’s posted. Update: Discussion here.

Basically though, it’s pretty easy.

• Install Homeworld
• Patch Homeworld
• Install GameRanger (and create an account)
• Log into GameRanger
• Host a GameRanger lobby selecting Homeworld as the game (or join a hosted game)
• When the host launches, the other players will be able to launch into Homeworld.
• When all players are in the game, they need to go into the LAN multiplayer option and pick TCP/IP.

Handy Links:
Homeworld 1.05 Patch here.
Gameranger download here.

Update 2: We’re looking at finding hosting for the Raider Retreat OEM version of Homeworld. It offers full LAN play of Homeworld, so it would work over WON. It would work over GameRanger as Homeworld does, so I’ve asked Scott at GameRanger about supporting it. Sierra was giving it away free back in the day, and allowing downloads of it. Might have more info about that shortly.

Few of our moderators have been getting stuff in the mail from THQ. One of them has gotten this.

This was on the back of the box. The Blood Raven emblem is on the back along with the text “MMX” which means 2010.

We’re guessing it is a Dawn of War II expansion, and it’ll probably have the Chaos in it.

Or it could be that THQ is celebrating Intel’s MMX technology. It is currently 1999 and you are waiting on the release of Homeworld.

Update: I got one too, sent from “The Eye of Terror” (with an address of THQ Headquarters in CA). The signer finished his signature with the Symbol of Chaos. I’d say for sure that it means a Chaos expansion for Dawn of War 2 for 2010. - ÜberJumper

THQ and Korean publisher, Windysoft, announced yesterday that Company of Heroes Online will be heading to Korea. Windysoft will be handling all the content and support relating to COH:Online.

Company of Heroes Online is a MMORTS, co-developed by Relic and Chinese developer Shanda, originally made for the Chinese gaming market.

THQ Partners with Windysoft to Bring Company of Heroes(R) Online(TM) to South Korea