Warhammer 40:000: Dawn of War II Preview

VideoGamer.com: Right. To clarify something else... the main single-player campaign in the game will just focus on the Space Marines, right?

JL: That's right, you play as the Space Marines.

VideoGamer.com: So what are your plans to release campaigns for the other races.

JL: We're talking about that. We obviously know that the community wants to buy those races: it's the biggest question that we get asked whenever we announce our games: which races are in it, which races are in it?! The Games Workshop fanbase all love their own race, whatever it happens to be, and they want to see it done up in that form. So yeah, we're looking at it.

VideoGamer.com: Blizzard took quite a lot of flack for splitting the campaigns in Starcraft. Were you worried about provoking a similar reaction? What was the thinking behind the decision?

JL: Really it comes down to how much focus you want to give to each campaign. If you're only doing one, you can give it more attention. We've seen a real trend where the games that spend fewer hours being... that focus on fewer hours, are doing quite well. We have a fairly long campaign, as it turns out. We didn't expect it, but we ended up with more than 20 hours, as far as we can tell. But by focusing on one story with one race, you're going to be able to deliver it to a higher degree of fidelity - and that's what the audience ultimately wants. Good entertainment.

VideoGamer.com: As opposed to a rushed job...

JL: As opposed to a rush job. Or as opposed to a later job. It's all a function of time and effort.

VideoGamer.com: So how nailed down are the plans for what happens next? Is there a timeline for release?

JL: It might be nailed down, but I'm still head down in my own project! I want to ship the first one before I worry about the next. But we shipped three expansion packs for the first Dawn of War, all of them were successful and we want to continue expanding the content of the Dawn of War series.

VideoGamer.com: You've got four races here... the plans would presumably be to do campaigns for those before bringing anyone new in?

JL: I can't comment on the details, but rest assured that we've spent a lot more effort on our expansions than I think most studios do, and we have no plans to change that.

VideoGamer.com: We might be on thin ice here, but what do you think of the idea that some developers just see expansions as... well, not as a way to make a quick buck, but perhaps that they don't bother to put much effort in.

JL: I wouldn't characterise our expansions that way. We've invested more content, typically, in our expansion products. The biggest thing that we see out of expansions is that you don't have to spend the same amount of time developing technology, and you can focus on adding content and crafting what's there, and really tuning the game you have and making it into something better. Whereas with your first project, it's a monumental effort to get it out of the door at all - no matter what it is! While this one is coming together at the end, there was a lot of time we spent figuring out how systems were going to work. Working on an expansion means you can take that for granted for a project or two.

VideoGamer.com:What was the biggest hurdle you guys overcame in the development of this game?

JL: Technologically we had a few rendering things that we had to solve, and I'm pretty confident in saying we solved them, because the game looks pretty neat! From a gameplay standpoint, it was adding melee to the campaign hero-squad movement. That's a hard problem and I think only a few people in the world can solve it, so we're fortunate to have one! You wouldn't think that someone running up and hitting somebody else with a hammer would be complicated, but when everyone deciding where to go, and they might need to be standing in a certain spot for the hammer to work, it actually does get pretty complicated. It stops being complicated once it works! [laughs]

VideoGamer.com:We wanted to ask you about the co-op campaign. Co-op gaming seems to be becoming increasingly important across the board. Do you agree with that? Why is it such a big deal now?

JL: If you're like me, you're busy - and when it comes time to playing games, you usually have other people that you want to hang out and socialise with. You don't have a lot of a time to plan out for that, and if you can play a game and hang out with your friend, you're doing both those things at once. In my case, if I'm playing co-op games with my wife, I'm playing video games and I'm spending quality time with her! I think that's a really strong incentive, because if you look at the age of gamers, they aren't kids. They're people who are my age, and it's continuing to stay at that level. I don't think co-op is a requirement, but if you have a game that can support it, you're wise to do so.

VideoGamer.com: What part does Windows LIVE play in your plans for this?

JL: LIVE certainly makes the match-making part of that simpler. It also gives us a few extra things, like the fact that you can see when your friends are online, you can see what game they're playing and send them an invite. Getting that persistent community base out there is a good way to get people who weren't in the circle already playing together.

VideoGamer.com: So how has LIVE opened doors for you guys? Do you just feel that there's a level of support that wasn't there before?

JL: It's mostly that Microsoft has invested heavily in it. They have a big console to support, and they've invested many dollars beyond what we'd ever usually see in keeping the online system alive.

VideoGamer.com: What do you think the impact of Windows LIVE will be?

JL: I won't comment directly on how successful it might be. The online matchmaking thing is anyone's game, there are a lot of services out there. But what I do hope is that more people play online in the near future.

VideoGamer.com: Thanks for your time Jeff.

Dawn of War: II will be out next spring on PC.