Gaming Age: The game itself, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War is obviously set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. How close is Relic Entertainment going to stick to the traditional Warhammer tabletop game?
Tim Lewinson: Games Workshop has been really good in regards to giving us a fair bit of leeway. We're staying true to the Warhammer universe; the units, the races… we're making sure that the universe and mythos is properly represented in the game. But they're also recognizing that at Relic, you know what, we want to make a great game. There are some aspects of the tabletop game that don't necessarily translate well when it gets to the PC arena. So they told us, "You're Relic, you know the RTS genre, bring that element to the table by all means". So it's going to be staying pretty close to the universe, there are some aspects of the game that won't make it in, but we're trying to stay very true.

GA: Can you elaborate on which aspects of the game don't really translate too well?
TL: As far as unit damage, for example, when you're playing the tabletop game, you can target the front/side/back of a vehicle, but it's just based on which side of it you're on. You can't specifically choose who in a squad you're firing at, and you can't take out treads etc. From certain rolls of the dice you can destroy specific weapons, but the owner of the unit gets to decide which weapon. We do have unit damage in the game, just varied somewhat.

GA: Okay, so you can't take out individual limbs or parts of a vehicle?
TL: Actually when you have some of the larger units, for example, the Blood Thirster, picking up units, ripping them apart, and sending them flying, believe me, it's extremely visceral and impressive to watch. You're not getting that Mortal Kombat-style, over the top gore, but you are still seeing that type of vicious, hardcore feedback that the Warhammer gamers want.

GA: Can you go into how each of the four in-game races differ from one another as opposed to how they differ in the tabletop game?
TL: We've been true to the tabletop game in terms of representation of the races. The first race, the Space Marines, they are more or less the best for beginning players. They can take on all comers and handle pretty much everything that comes against them. The Orks…they're born and bred for combat. The great green horde is how they are referred to by the Space Marines; they come at you in numbers, and their brute force disguises their slyness and cunning. The Eldar are very quick, and use their speed to compensate for not being as well-armored as the other players. More skilled players will have a fun time using the Eldar just because you're able to zip in, do a lot of damage, get back out… their style of play really rewards the skilled player who is willing to put in the work. The final race is the Chaos Marines - think Space Marines turned on their head 180 degrees, they are completely evil, representing all that is unholy in the Warhammer universe. They employ certain bonuses as part of their alliance with evil, but there's always a price to pay…you'll just have to wait and see. One thing that the designers and balance team is really concentrating on is making the races feel and play differently from each other. We don't want a game where you'll have one unit on this race and in another race it'll just have a different texture while playing exactly the same. That's lazy, and it's not fun for the end user. What we're doing is saying, look buddy, if you have a specific style of play, there's going to be a race here that you're going to enjoy, that's going to fit the way you want to play...and your chance for success will rely solely on your skill, not by abusing the characteristics of one race or another.

GA: Can you elaborate a bit on the morale aspect of the game and how it translates from the tabletop game to the PC game?
TL: Morale is a lot of fun, actually. You can break a unit's morale by using specific unit's such as snipers. If a group or a squad feels like they are being overrun by superior forces, or if a squad is being shot at by the snipers and they can't see them or where the bullets are coming from, their morale goes down. Once their morale gets down to zero, the squad breaks and their shooting accuracy just goes completely out the window. Players will be able to regain morale - moving out of the fire zone is one way, and there are other strategies you can employ which I can't reveal yet. I have to stress this, however: at no time do we take control out of the player's hands when morale breaks, that's one thing as gamers that we don't want to do. You always want to be able to control your units, but once morale breaks, you need to hustle your guys out of there.

GA: In comparison to your competition this fall, Warhammer is clearly the best looking game out there. What kind of hardware will players need to run the game adequately?
TL: Thanks for the compliment! To be honest, the hardware that I use is an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro with a 1.5 Ghz machine, and it runs great even at this early stage of development. The minimum specs are about 1 Ghz with a DX 9 compatible video card -we're trying to reach as many people as we can and we will be supporting a broad range of older cards as well. Obviously, the faster your rig, the better your performance will be.

[Note: Minimum specs are as follows; Windows 98/2000/XP/ME with Direct X 9.0b, Pentium III 1 GHz, 128 MB of RAM (256 MB of RAM for Windows XP), Direct X 9.0b compatible video card with hardware transform and lighting capabilities - 32 MB, Direct X 9.0b compatible 16-bit sound.]

GA: In terms of the campaigns that are going to be featured within the game, will there be separate campaigns for each race or will players have to switch off between the races during one main campaign?
TL: We're concentrating on the Space Marines, more specifically the story of a unit commander named Gabriel. You actually see the story through his eyes, and as it unfolds you start to come across all of the different races as you go through all the different missions, but we're telling the story from the Space Marine's point of view.

GA: Regarding units, how do they break down across the races? Will they have the same number of units? We've already established that it won't be the same units with different textures.
TL: To answer one question, there aren't an equal amount of units between all of the races. They're fairly close, but again because we are still balancing there's some stuff that might be added or dropped by the time we ship. So for all we know there could be an equal amount of units across all races. But in regards to your other question, the uber units that you saw at our E3 booth demos are awesome. For example, the Chaos Marines employ the powerful Blood Thirster, while for the Orks you have the Squiggoth - think of a giant armored elephant that has guns coming out everywhere - and it will run roughshod over nearly anything in its path. But there are still marked differences. The Squiggoth is fine whether it's kicking ass or resting back at the Ork headquarters, but the Blood Thirster thrives on battle and spilling the blood of its enemies. If the unit isn't actively killing someone, its health suffers, and game elements like that reflect the true nature of the Chaos Marines. They need carnage, they thrive on evil, they need to sow destruction, and that's just one example of how we're differentiating between the races.

GA: Speaking of balancing, how will it be setup so that users don't abuse the more powerful units in the game, like as mentioned, the Squiggoth?
TL: A lot of that falls directly on the shoulders of the balancing team. Frankly, you can make huge strategic changes to the way the game plays just by moving where units are placed on the tech tree. We're not going to give you the top-notch units right off of the bat. The balance team that I work with right now, they're all top notch RTS tournament winners. We have one gentleman that had just come back from South Korea where he had spent a year competing professionally in StarCraft. The guys are very smart, they know their math, they know the genre inside and out. Our focus is to make sure that there are no tank or tower rushes, for example. Thanks to their hard work, we're creating a game that's accessible, yet deep. We don't want exploits or abuse and I think we're well on our way to making that happen.

GA: Could you elaborate a bit more on how the tech tree will work?
TL: When you first start off with the Space Marines, for example, you have your regular squads. As you explore and tech up, there will be scouts, snipers and as you move up the tech tree, you get assault terminators, you get tactical squads; you get bigger and better vehicles. The cool thing about it is that you can modify each of the squads with different kinds of advanced weaponry. So I'll have one squad over here where it's a mix, two guys with plasma guns, and two guys with flamethrowers, in a squad of four. And over here I can have a squad made up completely of heavy bolters. All of that comes into play when setting up support, using cover, etc. It's really a lot of fun; there are a lot of different combinations to be discovered.

GA: The economy, how will that work? We understand that you won't be able to stockpile resources.
TL: It's the name of the game - war. Having your soldiers go out and mine gold doesn't make sense in this particular universe. What we wanted to do was to encourage players to fight and get after each other, it's Warhammer, it's about fighting and bloody combat, and it's what we want to do. We have requisition points set around the maps, and you're fighting and holding onto these points in order to gain requisition and fuel which you use to order units. In multiplayer your opponent will be fighting for those points just as hard as you, as these are really the key to success. There's a lot of back and forth - back and forth. It actually rewards the player for being aggressive and not for sitting back and farming. This isn't your typical "let's just sit back and mine ore, build everything we can and then throw it out there", this is constant battle and that is one thing I think people are really going to appreciate.

GA: In regards to multiplayer, 8 players is the maximum correct?
TL: Yes it is.

GA: Will broadband be a requirement?
TL: It won't be actually; we'll be supporting 56k dialup as well.

GA: As far as multiplayer play modes how many different types of play will Warhammer incorporate?
TL: Right now we're juggling between 10 and 12 different multiplayer play modes, just testing them out and seeing what makes sense for inclusion in the final version and what doesn't. So it's not going to be strictly capture the flag, so to speak. We're going to have strategic objectives, holding on to a part of the map, timed objectives, tons of stuff. The designers have come up with some amazing ideas, most of which I can't share with you right now but trust me, it's not going to two or three play modes, we're going to provide a serious bang for your buck.

GA: How do you guys think you will fare against your competition this year? You guys seem to have the most press buzzing about you, so how do you feel you will stack up against the other RTS games this fall in terms of sales and such?
TL: We're confident in Relic's ability to create high-caliber RTS games, and proud of our pedigree in the RTS genre. Homeworld, Homeworld 2, Impossible Creatures, these are all titles that have won, you know, best of E3 accolades, that have won awards left, right, and center. Being able to take such a strong license such as Warhammer, which has hardcore fans all over the world, and use our expertise with the support of Games Workshop and THQ in bringing this universe to life on the PC… I have a ton of confidence in our product.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War looks like it will be another solid showing for Relic Entertainment, one that fans of both the Warhammer universe, and the RTS genre in general will be looking forward to. Look for more information on Dawn of War as it's revealed here on Gaming Age, including the rumored upcoming beta test period.