Relicnews: the definitive source for all things Relic

I’m still dealing with a bit of Homeworld nostalgia. It seems that those that worked on Homeworld are still feeling it as well. The story concept for Homeworld’s credited to Dave “The Smoking Dog” Williams. You might say his contribution to the “Stone Soup” was the pot.

…it seems like only yesterday me and Rob Cunningham were poring over spaceship drawings in his warehouse-loft over Hastings Street trying to figure out what the thread was that tied it all together while junkies howled and gibbered in the alley beneath us and we contemplated endless galactic suns.

Check out his website for more.

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.

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).

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.

• 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.

Second book by a Homeworld god is out!

We posted about his first book last year. I picked up a copy a while back and quite enjoyed it.

Check out the trailer for The Burning Skies. The trailer’s done by Paul Ruskay of Studio X, the guy behind a lot of the Homeworld sound.

Round 5 is up!

This time it’s Relic Vs Bioware. We’re down the the final four now. It’s Bioware Vs Relic and Turbine Vs Nintendo.

At the time of this post, Bioware is up 608 to 540. Vote once, and vote with your heart. Bioware’s another great developer so it’s no dishonour for Relic to lose to them. For me though, it still comes down to Homeworld :-)

Round four of The Escapist’s March Madness begins tomorrow. Voting starts at 6am EST Tomorrow.

Relic Entertainment made March Mayhem history today by becoming the winner of March Mayhem’s first overtime match. In the process they also participated in March Mayhem’s most epic match to date. Surely it will go down in this event’s history as nothing less than a classic.The Harmonix match was nearly as impressive with a close finish.


If you thought a poll between two videogame developers couldn’t be down to the wire nail-biting fun, think again. Can these two developers, so disparate in the types of games they make yet so similar in their devotion to quality, deliver a Round 4 classic?

Harmonix makes Rock Band for those that have enjoyed it.

The next round is up!

Can Relic take on the Blizzard Juggernaut and WIN? They’ve defeated Insomniac AND Infinity Ward. Blizzard though… that’s a tough one! At the time of this post, Relic is up 55 votes to 36! Can they hold the lead? I guess we’ll find out :-)

UPDATE: After Relic holding the lead for most of the day, Blizzard’s devs have posted on their forums encouraging users to vote. Blizzard’s just pulled ahead by 24 votes in the last view minutes. Count at this time, 1231 to 1207 for Blizzard.

Seriously folks, every vote counts! But no ballot stuffing, that’s just wrong.

UPDATE Morning of 3/27: It’s neck and neck folks. 1780 for Activision Blizzard versus 1782 for Relic. Seriously, your vote counts!

Update Morning of 3/28: Polls closed at 6am Pacific time. The Escapist staff were on hand to close them and have indicated that they will be doing a dupe check. It looks like at this time, Relic has a 4 vote lead (2636 to 2632)! I suspect a lot of strategic voting went down by other studio fans from other brackets to help prevent Blizzard from moving on.

UPDATE 2 Morning of 3/28: Polled closed, and The Escapist staff dumped a bunch of duplicate accounts. It ended up in a tie! Voting is now re-opened until 3pm Eastern tomorrow! GET YOUR VOTE IN AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOSH NO DUPLICATES

UPDATE Morning of 3/29: Polls close at 3pm EST Today. Relic’s down by 30ish votes (2996 to 2965). If you’ve not voted, please take this time to help Relic win this Internet Popularity contest :-)

UPDATE Afternoon of 3/29: Polls closed, and when they did, it looked like Blizzard was up with big lead. It looks like that after the duplicates have been removed, Relic’s won! 3012 to 3026! Next up, Harmonix. Will update with a link later!

As per our last post about The Escapist’s March Mayhem feature, Relic was up against Insomniac. They’ve won that round and are now up against the Infinity Ward juggernaut.

The 5th vs 12th seed upset, one of the most consistent upsets in NCAA basketball and certainly no different for Relic Entertainment. But after scraping by in the last round, can this underdog possibly hope to win against Call of Duty juggernaut Infinity Ward? Sure Relic Entertainment makes genre defining RTS games, but is being a big fish in that niche genre’s pond enough?

It’s the battle of the acronyms as the RTS faces off against the FPS.

When I saw “Infinity Ward” I knew Relic’d be in for a tough fight. Relic at the time of this post is up 333 votes to 285… how long can they hold the lead? Can Relic pull out a win? This’ll be tough!