What is Make War Not Love?
Make War Not Love is an annual celebration of our great strategy games and studios; it's an opportunity to have some fun and a chance to foster a bit of friendly rivalry/comradery amongst ourselves and our great communities! Time and Place?
MWNL Sale – runs from 6pm GMT on the 12th Feb – 6pm GMT on the 19th Feb
MWNL Event – runs from 9am GMT on the 14th Feb – 9am GMT on the 19th Feb How do I get involved?
All you need to do is SIGN UP (and get two free SEGA Mega drive titles from the outset!) and then play any one (or more) of the MWNL feature titles. Your play hours throughout the MWNL event will then be added to the combined communities total play hours. If the communities combined efforts achieve the daily hour target**, a free prize bundle will be unlocked for everyone!
For more details about entering the promotion, please ensure you read our terms and conditions.
*Sign ups need to be over 18 and provide a valid Steam ID and email address to register
**Daily hourly targets will be measured through a 24-hour period from 9am GMT - 9am GMT What are the prizes?
For each day that the combined hourly target is met, we will release a bundle of content*, direct to your Steam library, that will contain a mixture of a free SEGA game, DLC and/or great discount coupons on select SEGA releases. *Content will be delivered within 24 hours of each day’s target being met
Great promotions and discounts
As part of MWNL we like to try and make our whole strategy catalogue as easy for anyone to jump in and try as possible. All the titles involved, and a wide selection of their associated franchises, are offered at great discounts over on Steam, so there's never been a better time to try them all out! I need help!
If you have any issues with the sign up, prize redemption or anything else please contact our support team via http://support.sega.co.uk
Will John “JoRoSaR” Sargent be the pro-caster/event manager like last year?
John “JoRoSaR” Sargent is a host and commentator for esports and gaming events, beginning his career commentating on StarCraft II in 2011. After being discovered for his energetic play-by-play commentating, he travelled to work with many of the world’s premier gaming events including MLG, Blizzard’s WCS Finals, IGN ProLeague, DreamHack and the Intel Extreme Masters.
He also covers a variety of other games including Overwatch, commentating at the world’s first LAN event and then going on to cast the FACEIT / ELEAGUE Overwatch Open. As a former Formula One engineer for a championship winning team, he has a particular passion for SIM racing games and is a regular streamer away from the stage as well.
John also covers multi-game competitive and community events as a host, such as for Multiplay Insomnia’s Esports Stage and SEGA’s Make War Not Love events.
Valentine's Day is coming up, and that means Sega's yearly anti-Valentine's celebration is about to begin. Make War Not Love 5 was teased today after the competition's official website asked visitors to sign up their email address for information on "how to participate in MWNL5" and "redeem daily prizes."
The page, which remains relatively sparse, also features logos for Relic Entertainment, Creative Assembly, and Amplitude. Little other information is given, even after verifying an email address to follow the event. But between the ad's "coming soon" message and previous Make War Not Love competitions, it's safe to say this year's celebration will be a big one.
Here's how Make War Not Love has worked recently. Players hop online and join a faction based around their favorite community. Last year, that was Dawn of War II, Total War: Warhammer, Endless Legend, and Company of Heroes II. From there, gamers compete with each other in events ranging from duels and streams to time spent in online matches. At the end, the winning team receives a free DLC pack for their game.
Alongside the event's festivities, there's also discounts on each franchise and series focused on during the discount, with cuts previously available for everything from Endless Legend to Company of Heroes. For now, it's unclear what those discounts will look like for 2018. But seeing how Amplitude, Relic Entertainment, and Creative Assembly are all involved–and each company released a new game in the past year, including Endless Space 2, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III, and Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III, respectively–then some post-holiday discounts may be on the way.
MWNL4 - Challenge 3: COH2 Livestream COH2's exciting casters Stormless and A_E cast top players HelpingHans & Luvnest as they go head-to-head live from the MWNL streaming booth at the PC Gamer Weekender event in London.
Relic Breaking News:
"One bad game away from the studio shutting down" This was posted Jan 3, 2018 on glassdoor studio reviews by a current Relic dev/employee + official response by Relic GM (the studio boss/director);
- Relic has a talented and hardworking engineering team that is the backbone for keeping Relic up and running.
- Reasonable annual bonuses have been provided even though the studio hasn't been profitable.
-Overtime isn't crazy for the most part outside of the necessary crunches before a milestone or game launch.
- Solid history of successful and well-known games in the back catalog.
- Good effort at promoting social events from the big events like Summer BBQ and Xmas Party and small ones like movie and gaming nights.
- Nice central location in Yaletown close to transit hubs and restaurants, but the office itself isn't great as there's always funky smells from the restaurants below and a lack of office perks like ping-pong, massage chairs and casual spaces.
Show Less
Cons
- There's a lack of career growth opportunities with no structure or guidance in place to help people advance their careers.
- Annual compensation increases for cost of living and inflation are very poor (around 1% or less each year)
- There's no great office perks or benefits to take advantage of aside from the gym membership discount.
- There's some serious cultural and people issues that need to be addressed (see advice below).
Show Less
Advice to Management
The Game Side
The RTS and Strategy genre is pretty much dead and unprofitable outside of a few titles like Total War and Starcraft. As a studio we need to evolve or die and unfortunately we haven't chosen to really evolve and make games that people want to play in this current market. We should take a very serious look at what the landscape for RTS and Strategy games are and assess if we have the right people and technology to create hit games. The People Side
I think the biggest issue with our current leadership team is that we may have the wrong people in key decision making roles when it comes to the game's direction. We don't understand what gamers want and end-up over-analyzing what we think they want. There's no culture or support for speaking-up as a couple of people on a team will make decisions that everyone has to follow. This has led to a culture of distrust and apathy. Advice
- Don't do these post-mortems and bring in experts if there's never going to be a proper follow-up or attempt to change and improve things. It frustrates the team when we do this big show around self-review and wanting to change and then never doing anything afterward. It's good to see that we're aware that there are problems that need fixing, but it's a real downer to see that we don't follow through at all with improving things.
- We need to look at a different system of developing games where the balance of power and decision making isn't placed on a couple of people who ignore team feedback and lead us down the wrong path. It caused a critical failure with Dawn of War 3 and it's now causing our next big game to be an epic failure as well because the team's opinions simply don't matter. It's insane that a couple of team members decide the entire direction of the game without any real effort to get input and buy-in from the team. This approach could work if we had the right visionary type people, but we don't - instead we have design leadership who are invisible, out-of-touch or who are extremely difficult to work with due to their arrogance and bully-like approach.
The Bottom Line
A lot of us love working at Relic and working with each other. But we're all honestly saddened by the direction the studio has taken over the past few years. It's clear we lack an identity, a positive culture and the right leadership to inspire and guide us forward. There is a heavy feeling in the studio that if and when our next big game releases and is a flop then it's game over for Relic. We're not going to get a 2nd or 3rd chance especially after the Dawn of War 3 fiasco. Talk to your people and really dig-in to what worries them and keeps them up at night. There will be a common concern that we simply aren't equipped with the right leadership to lead us to success.
Response by Relic General Manager/Studio Director;
Relic Entertainment Response Jan 15, 2018 – General Manager
Hey,
First, I want to say thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts, I really do appreciate it. Many of the points laid out here we’re aware of, but you’ve given me a lot to think about as well.
We’ve been growing a lot as we gear up for our new projects. This is a really great thing for the future of Relic, but with that comes growing pains as well. I totally hear where you’re coming from regarding the dynamic with your leaders and managers. I’m not happy that you (and likely other employees) feel that you’re not being heard. Our games are the product of each and every person in the studio and I don’t believe we can be successful if we aren’t listening.
Given that you’re a current employee, I have a favor to ask of you – keep the feedback coming! Speak up at our AMAs, we can go grab a quick coffee, or you can just send me an email. I always want to hear your thoughts, not only about the good things, but also where we can improve and if I’ve let you down. Especially if I’ve let you down.
I’m proud to work with some of the most talented people in the industry, and it really will take all of us to keep Relic great.
Justin
Former Creative Assembly employee and full time youTube/twitch producer DarrenTotalWar talk about AoE4 and Relic in recent youtube videos (see below). Darren predicts Relic will close down if they mess up with AoE4.
33:47 - Excited for Age of Empires 4?
1:08:49 - Will AOE4 be good? Darren Disclaimer; I rely on steam spy stats to discern that DOW3 was a failure commercially. I don't know how SEGA view it internally. I don't know the budget for the game. I worked as a video editor on a marketing team within the Total War team, in a different continent.
This is just speculation. I predict industry news for many studios, based on articles, steam spy information and playerbases etc. I do not, nor have I received insider information about anything going on at Relic. So I have not "confirmed" anything. I just also share the feeling that after a few bad games, a studio may close down.
On a personal note;
I applaud the current/former devs that so far have spoken about Relic internal troubles.
Community and customer trust is earned by being honest/consistent, so plz no more smooth talking leaders.
Remember transparency is a double edged sword so it's time to clean house.
Just: You will maybe surprised what the plan is from Relic.
It's highly unusual that the CoH community has been without an official CM for 3+ months now. Despite its flaws, CoH2 has a higher player retention/average playtime than any other steam RTS game which is important when Sega calculate potential market profit from CoH2/CoH3 DLC.
"Myself and Mathieu are both fans of two games - Mathieu is a big, big fan of Company of Heroes [Relic]. And I have been a big, big fan of Total War [Creative Assembly] from the very beginning. I can't even begin to think how many hours I have spent in those games.
I have mentioned this in previous posts. I strongly suspect they are going to expand on new modding tools/community content (UGC). Relic and Sega have hinted at this previously in several posts/interviews, such as the much delayed 2016 roapmap; http://www.companyofheroes.com/blog/2016/12/09/coh2-the-road-ahead New Content (UGC)
Although we plan to continue releasing new in-game content in future updates, we will now be leveraging UGC such as vehicle skins and maps to help offer new gameplay experiences to the community. We hope that advances to COH2’s modding tools will also take place in the coming months, allowing additional forms of content to be created by the community as well - however this is still to be confirmed.
From CoH1;
Company of Heroes gets a massive modding update 10 years on https://www.gamespace.com/all-articles/news/company-of-heroes-modding-update/
From the press release:
Company Of Heroes 1 Update & Modding Celebration
Real-time strategy classic Company of Heroes continues to mark 10 years in the trenches with a celebration of its dedicated fan base. The game’s community has played an integral part in its enduring appeal through the submission of incredible user-generated content and innovative mods.
Company of Heroes 2 to give 50% of Proceeds from Polycount ‘War Paint’ Skin Competition back to the Community
“This is a unique opportunity to test a self-sustaining model where players can access top quality content, reward the content creators, and fund community-led events,” said Alex Price, Brand Director at Relic. “We’re excited to see how this might pave the way for more collaboration with players and designers across our portfolio of games.”
Former Creative Assembly dev and full time youTube/twitch producer DarrenTotalWar talk about AoE4 and Relic in recent youtube videos (see below). Darren predict Relic will be RIP if they mess up with AoE4.
IMO, worst scenario they will be merged into CA so they can continue development with CoH3 and possible spin-off games/Total War DLCs.
Also by looking at recent Sega/Relic recruitment campaign
and new Relic chief operating officer (second in-studio command), there is no doubt Sega expect Relic to succeed with AoE4 (or else).
Both the two top leaders in CA have moved up within the ranks of Sega Europe.
Gareth Edmondson joins Creative Assembly as COO - Formerly the managing director of Ubisoft Reflections and the CEO of Thumbstar, Edmondson will bring 20 years of industry experience to his new role as the COO of one of the UK's leading development studios. Edmondson replaces the outgoing COO Martin Servante, who has taken the role of Senior Vice President of Strategy, Business Planning & Development Services at Creative Assembly's parent company, Sega.
The other promotion sees Creative Assembly studio director Tim Heaton bumped up to executive vice president of studios. While he will continue to oversee the Total War studio, Heaton will also work with other studio directors within Sega Europe on best practices and studio collaborations.
When THQ went bankrupt and sold Relic to SEGA it was in a state of turmoil. The developer was deep into making Company of Heroes 2 and they had to ship this game in a matter of months. They were lacking a general manager to oversee the studio and this was causing problems across the studio.
SEGA asked one of their other studios, Creative Assembly, to help. Tim Heaton stepped up and began running both Creative Assembly in the UK and Relic over in Canada.
Writing in a post on Develop, Heaton says his first impression on visiting the Vancouver based studio was that “there was very little studio leadership.
33:47 - Excited for Age of Empires 4?
1:08:49 - Will AOE4 be good?
The team at Creative Assembly has lifted the veil on its next project. Called Total War: Three Kingdoms, the epic strategy series will simulate the battlefields of ancient China for the first time. More surprising still, the PC title is scheduled to release this September.
The Total War series blends pausable real-time combat with grand strategy. Over the years, Creative Assembly has set the series in ancient Rome, Europe in the Middle Ages, feudal Japan and even Games Workshop’s Warhammer fantasy universe. With the rise of Steam in China, the time seems right for the series to cater to that demographic.
This is the second entry in the Total War franchise scheduled for release in 2018. Total War: Thrones of Britannia is part of an ongoing initiative to create spin-offs of the franchise centered around key historical events. However, that game still doesn’t have a release date.
Three Kingdoms will be set in the year 190 CE, in the midst of turmoil for the Han Dynasty. With a child emperor on the throne, the empire is in chaos.
“He is but a figurehead; a mere puppet for the tyrant warlord Dong Zhuo,” reads the trailer’s description on YouTube. “It is a brutal and oppressive regime, and as Dong Zhuo’s power grows, the empire slips further into the cauldron of anarchy.”
The action will center on three different heroes who will defend, or potentially betray, the child emperor. The game is billed as a “historical strategy game,” so expect a healthy dose of lore to accompany any footage of the game over the next year.
A few tidbits of information on the subject;
CoH2 doesn't require much APM compared to SC2, so plenty of time to type some shit in chat.
There is also a lot of forced politeness in SC2 and social media which is destroying authenticity.
This video is a great example of forced politeness; Aziz Ansari’s recent SNL sketch on ratings pressure
Also get this; Facebook’s Founding President Sean Parker Admits Social Network Manipulates Human Psychology (designed to be addictive to "likes/ratings")
Sean Parker, the first president of Facebook, has a disturbing warning about the social network: "God only knows what it's doing to our children's brains."
Then you also have Generation Cry Babies/victimhood culture (easily offended) that is an emotional train wreck just waiting to happen.
Day9 did a good video of generation cry babies and how they constantly fail to calm down;
Day[9] addresses the misconception that some multiplayer game communities are overwhelmingly toxic, explaining the difference between people who initially enter a game with intent to be toxic, and those who are quick to return toxicity when prompted. He then goes on to explain the important "Rule of the Internet."
Riot Games wants you to behave yourself when you play League of Legends, so it’s turned the game into a virtual lab
For some quality SC2 "Esport drama" go watch destiny; The Road to Relevance videos
Also, don't forget South Park did an entire season 19 how forced politeness (language police/PC culture) is destroying authenticity. That season was a masterpiece of debunking PC culture. You can watch the entire season for free on their website.
Randy must prove he understands what it is to be a PC bro -- part of this week's Season Premiere episode "Stunning and Brave"
So Kyle recently updated his linkedin profile and has resigned as CoH CM: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kylejfehr/
New job role in Relic;
Associate Designer
Good luck to Kyle in his new position and great thx for being a good CM for CoH2.
For reference this was posted by Kyle a long time ago, so this move was not really a big surprise;
*SNIP*
Lastly, I have a dedicated passion for improving my skills in game design. In my free time I enjoy making game mechanics and prototypes using the Unity game engine and read books on game design to further improve my knowledge and skills. In the near future I hope to use my experience, knowledge and abilities to transition into a game design and/or production type role.
Studio side communications and press coordination.
Creating content for Relic's social media channels and website.
Providing communications support for the Dawn of War and Company of Heroes brands.
Organizing and participating in both internal and external events.
Reinvesting in Age of Empires
Celebrating the 20-year anniversary of the Age of Empires franchise with the community at gamescom this year was epic. We announced Age of Empires IV there, which has long been on many fan wish lists. Add that we are partnering with Relic Entertainment, one of the best RTS developers in the world, and there is a lot to look forward to with the storied PC franchise. It’s just the beginning, as Age of Empires: Definitive Edition launches early next year, and Definitive Editions of Age of Empires II and Age of Empires III are planned in the future.
Denmark
Cobra
Ozena
Relic Entertainment
cblanco ★ 
보드카 중대 
VonManteuffel 
