IRC Chat mit Thunder - der Chatlog

Dawnofwar.de: Ok, first off, welcome to the Interview with Thunder from Relic!
Dawnofwar.de: Well, the first thing/question is the obligatory introduction of yourself, Thunder.
Relic|Thunder: I love this question
Dawnofwar.de: So please tell us, who exactly are you and what are u doing in Relic?
Relic|Thunder: Hi everyone - thanks for coming. I'm Graham "Thunder" Somers, Community Manager at Relic Entertainment
Relic|Thunder: I post in the forums, read forums, and post content on our websites
Relic|Thunder: occasionally...I get to answer questions directly from fans
Dawnofwar.de: ok great, exactly like this time :>

Dawnofwar.de: Well, the first real question is for our modders: What new things are awaiting them in the Chaos Rising Map Editor?
Relic|Thunder: Oh man - that is a question I am not able to answer. I have been too busy playing the game to fire up the map editor at all.
Relic|Thunder: Without a doubt, the modders will know more about the editor soon enough than any of us at Relic
Dawnofwar.de: Ok, well, that's unfortunately, but luckily for the editors, they can find out themselves in a few hours (if they live in Europe)

Dawnofwar.de: Well the next question is quite general: Where do you want to go with the franchise and especially with the chaos rising add-on?
Relic|Thunder: The Chaos Rising expansion builds off of what we had with the original game - we wanted to improve the campaign experience. We wanted to improve the multiplayer experience. Give players more of what made the original game fun! With the campaign they scenarios are all hand crafted, taking out repetitive boss killing scenarios
Relic|Thunder: With multiplayer we've got new units, a new faction, leaderboard decay. We want that experience to be rich and rewarding too.
Relic|Thunder: We're not thinking too far beyond Chaos Rising right now, and support it through launch
Relic|Thunder: So beyond it...can't say right now.
Dawnofwar.de: And hopefully also some time after the launch?
Relic|Thunder: Absolutely.
Relic|Thunder: Launch day is always hectic, getting through these days is exciting.

Dawnofwar.de: Ok, then in the changelog you mentioned some performance tweaks. Now some people are having problems with it. Do you have any more information about that?
Relic|Thunder: Some players are indeed seeing performance (positive and negative) changes after the 2.1 patch. These range some sound issues to framerate hits and even a crash or two. We're evaluating this feedback right now and looking into potential causes and fixes.

Dawnofwar.de: In the patch there are a lot of hidden changes - like the changes to armor which was mentioned in the Xfire broadcast. Do you know some more hidden changes, or is Relic planning to release these hidden changes?
Relic|Thunder: It's always a challenge to put together complete and comprehensive patch notes while you're working on various patches and an expansion at the same time. We don't intentionally try to hide things. Honestly, the best and usually quickest way to seeing changes made that we neglected to include in the patch notes is to hit the forums. Players there often quickly post changes that we've missed there.
Relic|Thunder: You can usually tell that more than one person puts together patch notes...
Relic|Thunder: How changes are written from section to section change a little, because more than one person is involved.

Dawnofwar.de: Ok, now a question which simply has to be asked in every single interview: The question about the custom badges. Any new information about that topic, because as far as I can remember you have posted on the official forums that you try to get new information about that, some time ago.
Dawnofwar.de: Sorry, but that had to be asked
Relic|Thunder: Did I? Sure it wasn't TASK3R? It has been talked about here at Relic of course, since it has been brought up in the community many times. At this point I have no new information on custom badges to share.

Dawnofwar.de: Ok. Sad to hear. Next question: In 1.4, the patch "There is only war", there was a beta for it to improve balance and find bugs more quickly. Why was there no beta for Chaos Rising and do you plan on having betas for upcoming patches?
Relic|Thunder: Right, good question indeed. For There is only war - we were making massive changes to multiplayer and felt that organizing an open beta would truly help us ship a great patch. Community feedback was really a big help.
Dawnofwar.de: But Chaos Rising with all the new units and a complete new race are also massive changes.
Relic|Thunder: With Chaos Rising we were focused on shipping a game, which is a massive undertaking. To hit our deadlines and ship our game on time we did not have the time to organize an open beta that would give us a window to actually implement feedback from the community
Relic|Thunder: Essentially the community would be playing older code in such a beta, because the balance team was constantly changing things on our end, and we'd have no time to implement changes.
Dawnofwar.de: But is there the possibility to include the community in helping with the balance for future patches also ingame?
Relic|Thunder: I wouldn't rule it out.
Dawnofwar.de: Ok, great, because there are many people out there who know the game very well and would be glad to help
Relic|Thunder: Yes, we're reminded of that every time we put out patch notes.

Dawnofwar.de: Ok, next one: Currently you can read many negative comments about the balance in different forums. Especially nearly all the new units like Wraithguards seem to be overpowered. Any comment on that?
Relic|Thunder: Yeah - we fully appreciate the concerns over some of the recent balance changes and the new units. We will be actively looking for further feedback on balance over the coming days and weeks as players get a chance to use them in multiplayer games.
Relic|Thunder: If we need to make some changes for the sake of balance, we will.

Dawnofwar.de: ok, let’s leave the balance questions behind: Can we expect some new DLC for Chaos Rising like new game modes, new maps etc.?
Relic|Thunder: No more balance questions? Awe - just a point regarding Wraithguard specifically then. I am hoping that players will get a handle on them after facing them in a few games. They really are useless if you can get them into melee.
Dawnofwar.de: But getting there is too much for my skill, tbh
Relic|Thunder: Regarding DLC for Chaos Rising and beyond...I can't talk about that.
Dawnofwar.de: Mhh, sad to hear, but our hopes are still up!

Dawnofwar.de: In DoW1 you had the possibility to get some "offline" statisitcs, like total games played by a race, win/loss ratio of a race etc. Is this also planned for Chaos Rising?
Relic|Thunder: No - I would say the biggest change as far as stats goes in Chaos Rising is the introduction of Leaderboard decay
Relic|Thunder: Players that do not play a ranked match for 60 days will have their stats reset, to keep the leaderboards active and current.

Dawnofwar.de: Any plans on organizing an eSport tournament by relic themselves?
Relic|Thunder: A tournament to compete with the ESL, or do you mean Relic sponsoring a tournament?
Relic|Thunder: We wouldn't want to organize an event to compete with something being run for our game like the ESL does - but we have and certainly will sponsor events
Dawnofwar.de: Well, the community is definitely happy with both :D. But at the moment mean a tournament by Relic and not any other tournament site.
Dawnofwar.de: ok

Dawnofwar.de: Well, i just got another balance question, so let's ignore my previous statement about the balance. The tanks were slowed significantly. What was the reason for that and will the speed be changed back as the vehicles are really, really slow now?
Dawnofwar.de: I have to translate all questions and type them, so that's why it takes a little bit time
Relic|Thunder: Ahh - vehicles were indeed slowed, and platforms/artillery like weapons now have a difficult time hitting moving units. These changes go together. Making vehicles move quicker would make anti-vehicle weapons potentially less effective. We'll see how it plays out.
Relic|Thunder: My German is limited to a few words, you're forgiven Tok.

Dawnofwar.de: Then the last question: Do you plan on making a new add-on or play the Warhammer 40k MMORPG (which will be released in the far future!)?
Relic|Thunder: I can't talk about plans for a new add-on. I will definitely play the WH40k MMORPG! I'm quite looking forward to seeing how it turns out.
Relic|Thunder: The art that has been released for it thus far looks pretty damned cool.

Dawnofwar.de: If you have time for a single and simple question as it just got in and it is quite important for the community to know: the asm melter bug. It is still not fixed and known since, well release of Dawn of War 2. Is it the top priority on your "to patch" list?
Relic|Thunder: Yes - TASK3R mentioned it this morning. It is a high priority for us to fix.
Dawnofwar.de: Ok, that concludes our interview and we all say thanks to Thunder, the community manager of Relic.
Relic|Thunder: Thanks for the questions - and the translation.
Relic|Thunder: I hope you all enjoy Chaos Rising!
Dawnofwar.de: And as i was asked from one of the users here, i shall thank you for not letting Dawn of War 2 down like some other publishers(developers (*cough* EA*cough*) does.
Dawnofwar.de: with their games at least
Relic|Thunder: We do our best.
Dawnofwar.de: Then thank you again, and the flame of the community (like always) shall begin!