Or it means that their entire focus for this patch was (still) on "fix the game" rather than "add new content". I'm sure that Relic's resources are now much tighter compared to pre-launch, but it doesn't mean that their team is too small now to save CoH3
Help me out here, what exactly was the great march 2014 update? I could have sworn that was the patch where they just released two new doctrines with Wehr Puma and Soviet M4C Sherman in order to promote the upcoming WFA DLC. And at that point CoH2 multiplayer was in a pretty "hated" & unpopular state because of the blatant pay2win crap going on
You forget that this game is positioned as a live service. And now, almost a year later, content was given that was ready before the release (screenshots of the Italian Coastal Defense were shown around the release date). If this was given in 3 months, and similar content was released with a regularity of 3 months, well, it can be called a live service. But now, at this rate of development, if SEGA allows it, then CoH3 will arrive in some kind of playable and content-filled state in another two years.
As a live service game, the game has already failed.
Yes... things seem to be really lousy for Relic. Give in a year what was already created before the release. Italian Coastal Defense Soldiers were announced via screenshot somewhere around the release date.
Considering they didn't even do anything for the game's 10th Year Anniversary which was on June 25th of this year I doubt there will be anything else honestly.
I'm actually pretty surprised that nobody else seems to have noticed this as well, I thought there'd be more of an uproar or something that they've forgotten.
What can we expect from the studio if, for their gratitude to the community, they are not even able to make several new models for the VDV? Jeez, spend a few days or two to make unique models and parachute animation. Moreover, it was their own initiative in gratitude, but this gratitude looks like a mod for the game.
Fair enough Stefan, but remember the promotional material for coh3 back then, where they proundly mentioned how they did "research" and went to museums and shit to have the most authentic ww2 experience?
The criticism is valid, albeit its kind of pointless since the black prince happend.
Quinn Duffy has already said exactly the same thing about the CoH2 company. And so, for the sake of historicity, they went to the museum of St. Petersburg and the Seelow Heights. But the end result was political propaganda.
Welcome to Company of Heroes: Vanguard. Here you will see:
- Black Prince, prototype ready after the war. In Africa 1942-1943, with the wrong model.
- Thompson SMG with night sight
- a set of ugly non-historical skins
Don't miss this year's hit Company of Heroes: Vanguard.
About Russia, it's not SEGA's decision or a marketing issue there.
Well, I don't really agree here. This is a SEGA question. A good example is Warhammer Darktide. GW banned the sale of any Warhammer games in Russia, Darktide was closed for sales before release, but later, apparently, GW realized that money is money, and before release, Darktide was allowed to be purchased and returned to Steam. If the purchase of CoH3 was not marketing, then CoH3 could be purchased with a global key, but it does not work. Yes, you can change the region of the country, manipulate currencies and buy CoH3, but after what I saw in the game, I don’t see the point in this.
Those developers and publishers who want to sell their games are still selling, and those who wanted to demonstratively slam the door, slam the door and do not make a profit.
What’s funny is that SEGA refused to localize its DLS for Total War: Warhammer III into Russian. But here's the news, the money is still winning and Total War: Warhammer III localization is returning.
For a strategy game with MP focus, these numbers don't look that bad. CoH3 has stabilized after the release and backlash, there's no real outflow anymore. Many other studios would love to have 2000+ players in peak times. But these are studios with 50 devs or less, not a company of Relic's size.
I guess even if Relic dropped the game right now and half the players leave the game out of frustration, the game might not be dead right away. Maybe the numbers then stabilize around CoH1 levels, maybe they slowly dwindle over time.
My assumption is that SEGA/Relic have decided that this game will not financially support more than a small group of developers in the long term. That's why we see mostly smaller updates, because the majority of Relic has been moved to another project. I guess the expansion is another decision point where they will adjust how many people for how long etc will work on CoH3.
I think it looks bad. Even if compared to CoH2, the release of which was worse due to the fact that their main publisher went bankrupt and the scandal surrounding the single-player campaign. Even there the numbers were better. And if you compare it with some Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront, the developers of which are even smaller than Relic, and their game is even more niche and hardcore compared to the casual Company of Heroes which has a certain recognition and name. There are almost similar online numbers, but Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront did not lose its audience dramatically like CoH3 did from 30,000 players to 2,600. Only from 3,800 maximum to 3,000 peak over the last 30 days.
In my opinion, this is a catastrophic failure of Relic. And the dismissal of 120 employees only proves to me that SEGA does not see the point in fixing games.
You are probably correct. I dont see many players coming to MP from the DLC either. I too feel MP is dead until a few months after the DLC drops. But the thought of Relic putting resources in to get 1k or 2k new players in MP sounds like a very bad idea for them. They probably wont do it.
Best case scenario is Relic letting a small crew loose on fixing the game while the rest of the company focuses on the next big project.
There even wasn't a need to add USSR, Russian localisation and availability in the store would be enough, but we have what we have...
Also, that greedy Japan price policy, that previous 10% discount was a complete joke, like for a game, that didn't fail completely... They should have make 40% discount, like Criterion done for that shitty recent NFS Unbound
Well, localization and return of the sale is the minimum that can be done. But you also need to understand that people want to play what they like best. I might have bought CoH3 if there was an Italian or Soviet Faction, because I'm not interested in playing USA, Britain, Germany for the third time. I might even buy DoW3 if there was an Imperial Guard at launch (my favorite faction in Warhammer).
I assume the Russian market is for CoH3 has shrunk compared to CoH2 since the game covers a completely different front, and regularly people are really picky if their nation (or at least one they find interesting) is represented. People from eastern Europe (Poland, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Czechia, Romania and many more) don't play as much CoH3 as they do CoH2 relative to other nations like Germany, the US or the UK that are represented in both games.
But I agree, they're definitely missing out on some sales. Especially pricing the game according to more wealthy Western countries cuts a lot of people off. I've read somewhere that buying CoH3 in Turkey at release cost the equivalent of half or a quarter of the average monthly net salary. I don't know why they decided to do so. It's really unfair to the people living in these countries.
Whatever will happen on that "front", Relic plans to fulfill their legal responsibility of delivering an expansion in 2023 in December. I don't think they plan on halting development, otherwise they could just push a shitty expansion out now and call it a day, but it might be an internal break point for their business decision making.
Well, Relic has every chance to attract a Russian audience. Make a Russian localization, open the game for sale. Make the USSR a DLC - there is a huge potential, both in a single game (if Relc learned the release of CoH2) and in multiplayer, the USSR still has units for three factions, I can be an opponent of the German-Hungarian Faction and the place of Balaton is the last major offensive of Germany in World War II War.
Whether SEGA will go for it and whether Relic will screw up again, well, this is a big question.
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cblanco ★ 
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VonManteuffel 
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