Dawn of War Custom Modifications
Custom Mods for Dawn of War seem to fall into
three basic categories: those that add armies, units or features from
Warhammer 40,000 game lore that weren't included in Dawn of War; those
that attempt to "fix" game balance issues; and those that want
to take the shackles off and crank up the game's scope as far as they
can before the CPU starts to melt. By far, the most common DoW custom
mod is the first one one: Warhammer add-ons. These are usually by dedicated
fans whose armies or favourite units and heroes missed the boat. Relic
had to make some hard decisions in their interpretation for RTS, and when
you think that every player's W40K army is specially customized and uniquely
painted, then you can be pretty sure Warhammer mods will be applied to
with some vigour. And my God - there's no end to them.
Outside the Warhammer mods, the only other mods you see are those that
tweak the numbers and to produce some player inspired "improvements;
i.e. balancing mods. Ever since the original
Dawn of War 1.0 came out, there have been serious
issues raised by the fans over game balance and variety, not without some
good cause. Unit spam and "imba"
have dogged this game until only recently, (after the Winter
Assault 1.5x patches). Many custom mods have appeared in
the first few years of the game's life to address these concerns. There's
the fan built, custom Dawn of Skirmish
AI out that knocks the default AI into a cocked hat, almost to the
point where its starting to resemble a actual human player; while the
DowPro mod retunes the game practically
from scratch for a more diverse and deeper strategy game.
Dawn of War must be the only moddable PC game
that doesn't have a Star Wars or Star Trek total conversion in
the works. This is partly due to Games
Workshop refusing to tolerate any outside elements to be mixed with
their precious W40K content; so don't expect any off the wall Killer Hamsters
versus Space Marines any time soon. (So, no Daleks either.
:( )
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Dawn of War Modding Links |
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Relic
Developers' Network (RDN). Relic Entertainment is actively supporting
the modding community around Dawn of War and Winter Assault with its
own official resource site. Any would-be modders need to sign up and
register to be able to access the RDN tools,
Wiki and other files. |
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Relic
Community Wiki |
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Relic
Entertainment has launched a Wikipedia, just
for modders. It covers both Dawn
of War and Company
of Heroes. |
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Age
of Squats |
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Apart from
hosting the now closed Age of Squats custom
mod, there's a large selection of modding tutorials,
including workarounds, tricks and tips based on user experience. |
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Corsix's
Mod
Studio |
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A excellent home
made set of modding tools for Relic's games. The general consensus
amongst modding fans is that these tools are easier to use than the
RDN's official
Attribute Editor. Corsix is a notable member
of the RDN forums, and his modding software is smartly laid out and
easy to use. |
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Dawn of War
MODS |
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Established
in February 2007, this is
a modest modding and resource site still in its infancy. |
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DoW
Domains
Forums |
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A forum site that
hosts a large number of small custom mods for Dawn of War. |
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DOWFiles.com's
Downloadable
Mods Page: The all-in-one Dawn of War file site naturally has
its own file section devoted to all kinds of custom modifications,
ranging from incidental tweaks to a particular unit right through
to some of the big total conversions. |
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Mikes
Mods |
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A forum site that
hosts a large number of small custom mods for Dawn of War. In particular:
the Necrons, Warhammer Fantasy Battle,
Feral Orks and the Lost and the Damned Mods. |
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Skins
@ Hiveworld Terra: going beyond just simple colour schemes and
decals, Skins@Hiveworld Terra delves into
completely new unit and vehicle textures, harking back to the original
tabletop paint schemes, where possible. There are also tutorials
and other resources here for budding skinners. Well worth a perusal
if you think the almost mono-chromatic Space Marine look is a bit
too ordinary... |
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RelicNews:
Adeptus Modificatus |
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This is the
RDN's
official modding
and mapping forum. If you want to keep tabs on any new mods,
or have any questions on maps or technical issues answered, this
is a great place to go. You can browse the forums as a guest without
any problems, but if you wish to use RDN properly, or access its
Wikipedia for some serious map making
or modding, then you will have to register to do so.
There are also some other notable modding threads here:
Current
State of Dawn of War mods lists all the currently active custom
mods in the DoW modding community.
Look
Here For List of Dawn of War Mods is an older, 2004 list of
the same.
Thread
With Downloads is another old 2004 list of mods with actual
downloadables.
Current
Information on Modding and FAQ collates all community based
modding info and essential knowledge for any serious DoW modders
out there. |
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Strategy
Informer DoW:WA Mods List |
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The Strategy
Informer game site has a nice big list of Dawn
of War: Winter Assault custom mods
and maps - all with downloads. Nooiice! |
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