DoWpro

This article is awesome. Do not fuck it up.

Hey. Do you remember when Dawn of War was good? Like back in Vanilla?

Back before Winter Assault raped everything and turned the game into a techfest rife with unit obsolescence? Back before Dark Crusade showed how little Relic gave a shit about the series? Before Soulstorm was rushed and sat in a completely nonviable cesspool for months?

So do we.

And that's why an alternative exists, one that takes this game and turns it to its full potential. It makes use of everything that works - including the mountains of cut content from the original and its expansions - and makes everything more balanced, more customizable, and closer to Fluff. Were you annoyed when Dark Crusade had nonfunctional Heavy Weapon Teams and when Space Marines had Terminators that couldn't melee correctly? Were you pissed when Relic's idea of "fixing" the fire-on-the-move fix made Faggot Space Elves into unstoppable overpowered death machines?

So were we.

The Mod Project

Dawn of War: Professional (DoWpro) is a mod for Dawn of War and its expansions that has been developed over many years (since Winter Assault hit and brought us completely dysfunctional Chaos), and seeks to inject copious amounts of both fluff and crunch to improve your options whilst at the same time, improving the game's normally-atrocious balance. Putting it simply, it's Dawn of War if someone competent were placed in charge of it.

No longer will units become obsolete as you gain higher tech, and no longer will you have to spam a certain "overpowered" unit in order to win. In DoWpro strength through diversity is deeply-promoted, and with the return of the "hard counter" system from the original Dawn of War game (that which made the game work), DoWpro offers the player dozens of different choices on their path to victory. This makes for very interesting games, as two consecutive games between players can turn out completely differently!

Some touted features:

• You can now use Wargear in multiplayer and skirmish games.
• The dude who made the world-famous Dawn of Skirmish AI mod made the Skirmish AI for this mod.
• The Camera Mod is included.
• Improved visuals due to dozens of textures simply left out by Relic being implemented. New graphics and visuals for every race.
• Exciting and fun gameplay that differs greatly from Dark Crusade in ways of how you research abilities and use your units.
• New units and plenty of cool new options for every single race.
• Sizeable community of its own, and can be played through Gamespy online, Hamachi Server, or Direct-IP.
• Tier 1 units do NOT become obsolete, as every unit can play an important role in the game. Hence mpre strategy options are viable!
• Available versions for every single release of Dawn of War after Vanilla. The others are called DCpro and SSpro, respectively.
• You can easily switch between DoWpro and standard games as needed through the in-game management tool.
• Every bit of cut-content from previous Dawn of War games are re-added and re-balanced. These are too fucking numerous to mention, and go on for pages, but it's a lot and includes awesome things like Guardsman Flamers and Randomized Ork Heads.

In Short

If you're a fan of the Dawn of War series and were a bit cheesed by how shitty Dawn of War 2 was at launch, there's an alternative, and it's this. Give a a shot. You won't be fucking disappointed. This mod is fucking amazing. The ModDb version only covers up to Dark Crusade, which most players don't mind because Soulstorm in general wasn't all that great.

But there's substantial awesome in the air for those of you who want to play Dark Eldar: SSpro, the newest DoWpro version for Soulstorm, has been in production for some time and is currently at v3.59. The Sisters of Battle have not been implemented yet (they are being revamped, much as the Guard was in Winter Assault), but the Dark Eldar are - and like the other races in DoWpro, are fucking done well.

A current link to SSPro v3.59 is here, with links to mirrors once they become available:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZMR87BIJ

Check it out, and as ever, be sure to give feedback either on the official channel or message board (see below). This project would not be possible without community support.

Inquisition Add-On

An add-on is in the works for the game, planning to integrate the Inquisitorial forces into one coherent fighting force with Sisters of Battle, Grey Knights, and more all under a unified banner with a 2-tier structure. Existing units for other armies (such as Grey Knights for Space Marines) will be replaced by army-specific versions whilst not removing the various armies options (such as replacing Grey Knights with Vanguard Veterans for Space Marines). It's only in the alpha phase right now, but it looks like it has huge potential. Should you wish to try the alpha out, you can download it here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?g9euqunubib4xzi

Check it out and give feedback at either the official IRC channel or message board (links below).

Links and More

Official Community IRC Channel

The channel #dowpro on Quakenet.org

http://www.moddb.com/mods/dowpro - ModDb Link

http://z15.invisionfree.com/DoWpro/index.php?act=idx - Official Message Board