Praise be the immortal emperor of mankind!
http://pc.ign.com/articles/888/888046p1.htmlA few of the new pieces of information we now know:
*) Supression (think COH) is in the game in addition to the existing morale factor.
*) Squad sargeants are persistent in the single player campaign and gain levels and attribute points, which can be spent on various attributes to unlock special skills. (frag's note: don't be suprised when this is in the multiplayer game too, Relic has basically telegraphed from the beginning that they are going to be going for a lot of persistent elements in DOW2 multiplayer.)
*) "To balance that out, it's also possible to cause enemies to flee if they feel outnumbered, indicated by a large exclamation point appearing over their heads." - CoH style retreats are apparently in.
*) Cover system works apparently a lot like COH-mouse over to find the areas of best cover for your troops.
*) Squad leaders do not die, they flop over when out of health and can be revived by getting another leader near to bring them back to life (sounds a lot like the AOE3 explorer recovery, which works fine).
*) Squads will reinforce either from drop pods (once per mission, presumably only from SM) or, and here is the BIG news-from shrines, which sounds like relic points on map, this time defended by enemies (and will likely be contested in single player).
*) At least in the single player game (and you know this is going into multiplayer as well, Relic is just being a tease), you'll fight extra difficult mobs at the end of missions, and they will drop
freaking LOOT (apparently complete with rarities! OMG grind an RTS for loot!) to equip your squad with.
Here's the blurb on that, so awesome:
The scene looks more like something from Diablo II than a real-time strategy game. The warboss even has a boss health meter visible at the screen's top and special attacks, like a shockwave move and a ground attack that lights up terrain in a line before a string of explosions triggered. The tactics of taking him down involve moving troops out of the way of his ground shockwave, steering clear of his melee attacks, and keeping a squad focused on clearing out the Ork rabble that keeps spawning. Once he is finally killed, he drops his gun, which is labeled as a "blue" item.
*) Game is already running smoothly and obviously looking great. No suprise, given that COH's engine, which DOW2 is based off of, was quite scalable.
It doesn't take a wizard to see where Relic is going with this in multiplayer. They are apparently hybridizing the RTS genre with Diablo-styled loot and levels, which not only better fits the super-customizablility of the W40K franchise, but allows them to open up multiplayer to co-op play in addition to competitive multiplayer.
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