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Interview with Bentguru, Guru of "There Is Only War"

By L.A.G - 19th June 2009 - 17:37 PM

You might know him as Bentguru. Senior Game Commentator here on the Dawn of War 2 portal, Prince of Darkness and the black sheep of the staff community, he spends much of his time here yelling at his Game Commentator minions and getting in everyone's hair. In a desperate attempt to get some peace from him, we came up with a brand new, fiendishly cunning plan to get rid of him for awhile. Having played through nearly every Relic game released since the original Homeworld, Bentguru was perfectly placed to undergo a top secret mission for GameReplays.org...

Recently, you flew out under request from Relic to their headquarters in Vancouver, Canada. How did this opportunity come about and what were you asked there for?

I was contacted by Ninjabutter via e-mail a little over a month ago about an opportunity to go to the Relic offices in Vancouver and take a look at patch 1.4 for Dawn of War 2. Since it would have a lot of new features geared to the gamecasting/replay watching crowd Relic wanted to bring up a Game Commentator from GameReplays.org to do an early demo of it and explain some of the new features to the general public. Of course I instantly jumped on the opportunity and flew up.

What were you first impressions of the Relic HQ? From what we've seen in previews, their interior design seems... unconventional, to say the least.

They are actually in a surprisingly slick building. You can tell immediately once you're in the Relic offices, since the floor outside the elevator has a projector that constantly plays the Warp-jump cut-scene from Dawn of War 2. The massive Space Marine in the lobby, the life-sized Sherman tank bursting through the wall, and the huge WH40K statue are also pretty obvious giveaways. I actually only saw about half of the offices since apparently they're working on some stuff they want to keep secret for the moment.

How did the visit play out? I assume having an all-expenses paid trip to the developers of one of your favorite games will never be a negative experience, so what did you do there?

After going over the general plan for the day I got to meet one of the Dawn of War 2 producers, Jeff "EgonSpengler" Lydell, who was able to show me some of the new stuff coming out in the patch. We went through all the new observer and replay features added in for patch 1.4, several of which were completely unexpected but definitely needed. After that I had the chance to play a few games on the new build that Relic will be releasing.

As a Game Commentator sent there to test their new replay and casting tools on behalf of GameReplays.org, how did you find the updates? Do you feel that these will genuinely help you in your role?

They're definitely great additions. I'll be going into a lot more detail about the features in the upcoming gamecast - which was taken from the current retail build with those new tools worked in - so you'll be able to see for yourself!

The recent release from Relic on their community forums showed us that patch 1.4 will go into open beta very soon. Were you able to play a full working version of that beta? If so, how did you consider it compared to the current retail version in terms of balance and features?

I was able to play something close to the latest build Relic had. I have no idea what they're using for the beta specifically, so there could be small changes/bugfixes from what I saw. But what I did get to play with was massively better than retail in every way I could think of, I don't see why anybody would choose retail over the upcoming open beta.

Patch 1.4 has promised a great many things. How much can you reveal to us now about what will be included in the update? Any sneak peeks or hints to share with the community yet or is it all still to be kept strictly under lock and key?

I obviously can’t say what it includes yet, hopefully I will be able to soon but just to sum things up for now they definitely haven't been pulling a Duke Nukem Forever and running around their office gurgling water for the past month or so. It's apparent right from the start that there have been major changes in balance, unit responsiveness and design.

Of course, being my fully cynical self, I expect a lot of people to throw a hissy fit when they see some of the changes. When taken out of context they'll probably sound insane but after playing several 1v1s against Jeff and Josh "TheFellHand" Long - who is an old clanmate of mine working in multiplayer design (and is also featured in the cast) and a couple of 2v2 games, I can say with confidence that they are very positive changes to the game.

How do the Relic employees compare in terms of skill? Are they as hopeless as we all suspect at playing the game?

Actually playing against the Relic staff was an absolute blast and I think it's completely unnecessary to mention that I won every game.

All things considered and with the trip behind you, what can you say about the direction patch 1.4 is taking the game?

Overall it was definitely a fun and insightful trip. Patch 1.4 will easily fit the definition of a big patch, the sheer amount of maps added should give people an inkling of the size and scope of it. What Relic has done in terms of balance changes are pretty sweeping and definitely not what people will expect, and for that reason I fully anticipate a lot of knee-jerk reactions to the patch notes but from what I saw the game balance is much, much better (keep in mind I only played 6-7 games) and more importantly the game is actually fun to play again.

Thanks very much to Bentguru for taking the time to talk to us about his experience! The gamecast will be released on the Dawn of War 2 portal very soon so keep your eyes peeled for this very exciting, exclusive insight into the There Is Only War update!

Discuss this interview and the new update information in our Discussion Forums.