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The beta for ‘There is Only War’ update will commence this afternoon at 2:00pm PST and will last until July 13th. This includes all the balance changes, fixes and World Builder.

Here is a quick snip from their community page,

By participating in the Beta, you’ll get to play ‘There is Only War’ early, where you can play with new balance changes, new updates, and new features, all before the update is officially released. Steam will update your copy of Dawn of War II when you decide to participate. By playing the Beta and giving us feedback, you’ll also become an active contributor towards the game’s development. The more you tell us about your experience in the Beta, the better the game will be when ‘There is Only War’ is fully released.

Follow this link for instructions on how to participate.
Patch Notes

Edit: Delayed until Thursday, July 2nd, 2pm PST.
Edit 2: Now on steam.

World Builder, the map editor for Dawn of War 2, will be released in the next major update. There is a quick snippet of what to expect from this map editor,

World Builder lets you add victory points, power nodes, and requisition points under Urban, Desert, Tyrannoformed, and Jungle map tilesets. You can deform terrain, place cover objects, choose the weather, and define the size of the map. Maps can be released for two, four, or six players.

Relic will also include a sample map and documentation on how to publish a map for online usage.

No word on online distribution of maps.

Dawn of War II ‘There is Only War’ Update to include Map Editing Tool

Gamereplays had the opportunity to fly (on Relic’s coin) one of their people up to Relic to report, first hand, on some of the changes going into Relic’s upcoming “There is only War” patch. They focused largely on the Replay and Gamecasting features.

Commentated on and compiled by our resident cast-guru - Senior Gamecaster Bentguru - the replay used is a curious hybrid of two eras. Featuring the brand new replay and observer featured but added into the current 1.3 retail version of the game, the cast showcases all of the fantastic additions Relic have given us free reign to reveal and explain to you all! With commentary on the new features provided by the ever-present vocal talents of Bentguru and a crystal clear visual representation of some of the additions we can look for this summer, this ground-breaking exclusive is a must-watch for anyone with more than a passing interest in Dawn of War 2

There’s a video report posted in addition to an interview.

Bentguru’s an old school Homeworld player, so he knows Relic’s games as well as anyone!

Relic announced a major update for Dawn of War 2. Dubbed “There is Only War”, this update will add new features such as observer and referee modes (sounds very tourney like), balance improvements, and new maps.

Starting early July, Relic will launch the open beta for this update. They will announce details on how to join the beta in the next couple of weeks.

Announcing the Dawn of War II ‘There is Only War’ Update

Game Replays had a chance to interview Graham "Thunder" Somers, Relic's community liason. It's a two pager that covers a fair amount of detailed info, mostly focusing on balance and multiplayer issues.

GameReplays.org: Could you tell us a bit about the procedures Relic use to balance the game? How many people are working on DoW2 balance issues? Do they work solely on balance or do they also have other tasks? Is Relic going to hire expert players with good community involvement as balance testers like they did with DoW1? When balancing the game, does Relic focus on satisfying the more casual player or do you aim at high-level competitive play balance?

Relic: We are playing the game a lot, looking at costs, statistics, and the forums to gather information. Our balance department is involved full time on balance along with our full team of designers and programmers who contribute to the process. We have some of the best RTS players out there involved in balancing the game with some members of our team having been attendees at the World Cyber Games. The entire DOW II crew will play games to try out new changes which we did recently with a build of 1.4. The whole team is committed to making DOW II balanced and fun to play.

We don’t currently have any positions open on our balance team, but when we are looking for balance testers the community is the first place we look.

There's some great info on the second page giving you some insight into the work behind designing RTS games.

Co-Optimus is holding a Dawn of War 2 co-op event for May 26th @ 8pm Eastern (GMT -5). They’re looking to give away some prizes as part of the event. They’re looking to give away some prizes for participating in the event,

10 Prize Packs that include:

* Dawn of War T-Shirt
* Dawn of War Poster

3 Grand Prize Packs that include:

* Dawn of War T-Shirt
* Dawn of War Poster
* 1 Copy of the game Signed by the developers

You may also post a comment on this page for a change to win.

Co-Optimus, Games for Windows Live Co-Op Night for May - Dawn of War 2

Small changes for today’s 1.3.2 patch. These are the patch notes that were released a few days back,

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Patch 1.3.2 - May 14, 2009
===========================

Dawn of War II 1.3.2 Patch Notes

- Adjusted the Orbital Bombardment ability to increase damage. Outer radius increased to 150 from 100.
- Fixed an issue in the campaign where one point was getting auto-allocated at level-up if the player resumed an old campaign.
- Made changes to the Mekboy mines. The mines now do drastically less damage and suppress infantry.
- Adjusted lighting on 6P Tiber Outpost.
- Fixed an issue where Guardian squads would switch to melee stance if upgraded with a Warlock, then with Battle Equipment.
- Regenerated AI tuning data.

In addition, they’re hard at work on the 1.4 patch. It is suppose to include “many bug fixes, a balance update, new maps, and some awesome new features.”

Patch 1.3.2 - Relic’s DoW2 Community Site

The Dawn of War 2 Community Site posted up some details on the upcoming patch. Here is a partial list of additions,

- We are adding a Two-on-Two game mode, with two new four player maps. Two-on-Two is a ranked game mode with leaderboard support.

- An improved, more challenging Skirmish AI.

- Push to talk voice chat and Company of Heroes style sub-selection options.

- New squad decorators and significant UI improvements.

- A performance test to help measure Dawn of War II performance.

Relic is looking to push the patch out sometime in early May. Good to see a new game mode and maps.

DOW2 Community Site: THE ROAD TO PATCH 1.3

Gamereplays.com has let us know that they have two events with cash prizes.

One is a monthly Clanwars league. This requires a valid paypal account to join.

Second is a DoW2 tourney with a top prize of $100 and a signed DoW2 poster.

Relic has announced that they are offering the complete soundtrack of Dawn of War 2 for free from Steam.

We are really excited to bring to our fans the Dawn of War II Official Soundtrack. This is the product of a lot of work from some very talented people including our Composer, Doyle W. Donehoo and our Audio Lead, Jason Ross with contributions by Artist, Noah Stacey and Noobie Noobinson. We would really like to thank Games Workshop and THQ for giving us the go ahead to release this to the fans free of charge - most people make you pay extra for this kind of thing - and to Steam for hosting it.

Head on over to the Dawn of War 2 Community site for more information.