DOW II beta - your impressions?

thanks kevin! i'm not sure cause i want at least 40 fps minimum even in big battles for micromanagement. so i'm not sure if the computer i'm looking at will do the job for me. perhaps if i lower the resolution to 1440x990

 

Yeah if units moved a little faster. What gets me is putting a squad leader in a squad is like 5 pop....and a defense turret is like 4(not sure). 150 and it would be perfect. I would be fine with 100 cap if when I lost units I would be able to dispatch more quickly. Having only one place to make units and it takes somewhat of a long time to make them with only 100 cap is kinda restricting. Of course this would not be a problem in highly coordinated multiplayer games where one player defends one area etc. But in single player, the cpus are dumb and they never really do anything productive except rush the enemy base or run their hero around capturing points but not defending them.

 

I am downloading it now!

 

I'm downloading at an absolutely face melting 10 kb/s!

 

Yeah I actually did play on 1440x900 sometimes, and that should give you your 40fps. But do keep in mind that a GTX will give you at least five more frames than my GT does, and if you get something like my T9800, or an X9100, you'll hold 40 for sure. The game is also fully threaded, so if you go Core 2 Quad, you'll blow it away.

To be honest, when I'm fully zoomed out, playing on medium or ultra, the difference doesn't matter much to me.

 

Disappointed. Its good, but not as good as the first one. It felt too restricting. It no fun having one building for everything. Not a game I'd buy. Although I was playing with Patrick (fellow mod) and destroyed 10 of his tanks with orbital bombardment. He was pissed. :laugh:

These special abilities are another problem. Its too easy to regain them and considering how easy they destroy you units, it felt abit unbalanced.

 

My impressions so far? I pretty much agree with what this guy says...
http://www.gamereplays.org/community/index.php?showtopic=446502

 

Yeah, me too. pretty good analysis.

 

Heh, Windows Live won't let me log in to play the game...I created two different gamertag accounts and neither work. Each time, the game keeps saying it the Windows Live Service isn't there. BUT, I can log in to xbox live online, and using the standalone log in program. So what the hell?

 

Been playing the Closed beta since saturday.

Impressions?

The gameplay is similar to Company of heroes with the emphasis on small bodies of troops, capture of key points for victory and no base building. The notable difference is the addition of the commanders and their upgrades.

Multiplayer is fun especially the 6v6 maps and pretty fast too. Most games take less then 30 minutes and tend to go over that in case of strongly tied teams only. There is plenty of variety in the 4 races and each one behaves differently.

Graphics is pretty good and detailed and is an upgrade on the COH engine. The animations are cool especially stuff like walkers or warboss taking hold of an enemy unit to smash and throw him afar.

Connecting to games especially ranked ones are seamless thanks to an updated GFWL but sometimes it may take a few minutes (about 3-5) to connect and pair 6 ppl. I think this may be solved as more ppl start playing (remember it was closed beta) and its easier to find ppl to play.

All in all, its one of the best strategy games to come down the pipeline especially one that's not dumbed down for consoles but exclusively for the PC!

 

You mean the 3v3 maps right? I don't think there are any 6v6 maps in the beta... I love the warboss. Can't wait till the full game is out!

 

Well, finally got it downloaded, and here are my first impressions.

Totally different strategy game than I'm used to. I'm used to the Stronghold-esque, huge epic battles, while this takes a lot of micro-managing of small squads of soldiers.

I'm totally addicted.

 

Mine's incredibly buggy

Can't alt-tab out without it crashing and then after a game the mouse becomes anchored to a random point on the screen.

Took me 5 restarts to get into a game, but that one game was fun!

 

this game is HORRIBLE for me it lags like crazy for me even 1v1 or 3v3 or whatever , maybe it's my problem but every minute my frames go from 40 or so to 7-10 fps n it stutter and lags but then 10-20 second later it goes back to normal and it keeps repeating a vicious cycle, is it me or does anybody else have that problem... is there a fix? i thought it was me and i ended up reinstalling it but it still happens.

 

This new game takes me a long while to get used to after recently playing Soulstorm. To be honest, I like part one better, but part two seems like a good game.

 

I share you sentiments. A taste for the epic scales seems to be missed a bit, even if the new 'smaller focus' works well.

I'm finding that most games, even 6 player games tend to be over within 15 minutes, perhaps I'm just too good.

Seriously, am I the only one who thinks the Human, err, Space Marines are very underpowered when it comes to the different races. Their squads need an extra person each. Especially considering that they're slightly more expensive as well. Otherwise, I don't think the balance with the other races is too poor.

 

After playing a few rounds, its pretty graphically intensive even though the graphics aren't all THAT much better than the original. Though they are better.

 

I think that the performance hit comes mostly from how much more the environment interacts with the battlefield (physics processing, water impinging on units, etc).

 

Is anyone playing the beta on a Macbook (9400M integrated GPU)? If so, what are your settings and frames per second?

 

My brother ran the beta with an 8600M GT (GDDR3) at high (1280x800 I think) and it was a bit slow at times. I'd imagine on medium it would have ran fine.

I think you should be able to run it, settings on medium at a lower resolution fine, or low at the same resolution.

Tell me otherwise if you do run it higher sucessfully.

 

what about you narsnail, what kind of settings are you running it at and what kind of fps are you getting?

 

well on my desktop, with a Q6600 and a 3850, I run at 1680x1050 maxed with no AA, it runs fine with AA but it starts up WAYYY faster if its off, and I can barely tell the difference, it only lags at the start of games when there is 5 computers. It takes advantage of all of my cores, so it runs really good.

 

what about with your laptop? i'm considering 3 options for a laptop now but most important is it runs this game well.

option 1. msi laptop with ati 4850
option 2. 17 inch sager with 9800mgtx
option 3 15.4 inch sager with 9800m gts

if option 3 is good enough i'll just go with that or option 1. i'm suprised to hear a 3850 runs it so well. thanks for the prompt reply narsnail

 

my laptop is currently dead, and is being revived, but should be able to run at similar settings, cause it is a lower res.

I say opt for the sager 15.4, or the MSI, waiting on 4850 benchies, but it looks to be a monster.

 

thanks . thats what i'm thinking too. considering getting the msi from xotic pc. what do you think of them?