Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor [Amazon]

It'll be free to play, with microtransactions paying the game's way, while gameplay changes include persistent online characters that you can level up and carry across battles. Those "hero" units will also have charged "super powers", to go along with a newly revamped commander tree that has 48 separate abilities/powers. THQ have just opened a Chinese office to help launch the game, with a Korean version to follow, and a Western version to follow after that (there's already a playable English-language build, apparently).

Company of Heroes Headed to China as F2P Game - Exclusive ChinaJoy Interview [Ten Ton Hammer]
THQ Adds China Office For Company Of Heroes Online, Local Partnerships [Gamasutra]

Starting August 30th, the Opposing Fronts Open Beta will begin. Anyone with a Fileplanet account can attempt to download and play the Beta. There will be key releases twice a week which will continue throughout the remainder of the Beta.

Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts Open Beta begins August 30, 2007 [Relic]

I'm hoping that the work I'm doing breathes more life into COH and the soldiers represented on the battlefield. I hope the player walks away with a window into the hearts and minds of the soldiers. The stories for both campaigns look deeply at the price of war. I am confident we are pushing the medium to new heights. You'll have to finish both campaigns to see what I mean, and yes that is a big commitment.

A lofty order, to be sure, and time will tell if the majority of players feel it's one Dinehart and his coworkers lived up to.

Narrative Design For Company Of Heroes: Stephen Dinehart On Writing For Games [Gamasutra]

The expansion pack for the best RTS on the computer seems to add quite a bit of neat little extra to the game. This next chapter in the franchise adds two new armies, new tech trees, two new campaigns, and a bunch of graphical and gameplay enhancements.

This time around you can play from both the German and British perspectives. The game adds a full dynamic weather system that actually impacts the way you play the game. Rain can mud up an area, making it impassable for some vehicles. There's another level, I was told, where you can only see enemy troop movements by lightning flashes. What a cool idea. You can also set the time of death and type of weather for all multiplayer games.

The British army of the game plays as a very defensive based army. They have a very unique feel and look to them. They react faster than any other infantry in the game. The can build trenches, allowing them to create cover where there wasn't cover before. They can set up mortars, have sniper squads, light machine gun squads, rifle grenade squads and Tommy gun squads, which the developers called the Swiss Army knife of destruction for the British.

On the German side of things you have the Panzer Elite, hard hitting small units. The German units can garrison a squad inside a vehicle (and when they do you can actually see the units getting into the vehicle) and turn all of their armor into mobile weapon platforms.

To balance out the German's heavy use of armored vehicles, the British have self-propelled artillery units. They also get these really neat looking glider units (commandos and tanks) that are dropped in with giant gliders. They showed off a few of those drops and it's pretty spectacular, the engine-less planes just drift into the area you call them too, totally leveling any buildings in their path and dumping out the units.

From what I saw of the game it looks like an expansion that will fully live up to the expectations set by the original title.

I know I just posted about this a couple of hours ago, but it looks like some major new info has broken loose.

Reader Herbert points out that on the official Relic Forums a studio employee has outed John Johnson, who was the producer for Company of Heroes but no longer works at Relic, as the person who started Exoriare. The forum posters also point out that John Johnson is the person who registered the site.

So now we know who's behind the game, we just need to figure out what the game will be. Brian Crecente

Relic Forums

AusGamers is reporting that Company of Heroes Patch v1.5 hits today. The patch fixes a bunch of balance issues and includes two new small maps.

Beaux Lowlands is a two-player map and Lyon is a four-player map. Some of the gameplay fixes in the patch include slightly nerfing the Sherman Callipoe, beefing up the Allied M10 and Allied M8. Hit the jump for the full list of fixes. Brian Crecente

Company of Heroes Patch [AusGamers]

General Fixes
- Games with friends now have a friend icon displayed when browsing the lobby game list.
- Messages regarding game connection attempts are logged to the chat window for all players in the session.
- Rank icons now indicate the type of game the rank was earned in.
- Games with players who have infinite pings now display an "X" for ping in the lobby game list.
- New game list filtering options added to the online lobby.
- Custom maps are now properly supported in multiplayer.
- Losing connection with the lobby while downloading a patch no longer crashes the game.

Sound
- UI sounds have been added to the online lobby.
- Auto match sound notification has been improved.
- Various speech fixes for weapons have been implemented and tuned.
- Destruction sounds have been added to various world objects.
- Repetition has been reduced in battle chatter and with various units.

Gameplay
Sherman Calliope:
- Sherman Calliope's main tank gun has been removed and the Calliope Barrage ability is now free to use.
- Sherman Calliope Barrage range increased from 130 to 150 meters.
- Sherman Calliope now has cap of 2, similar to the Pershing Heavy Tank.
- Sherman Calliope cost reduced from 600 Manpower to 560 Manpower.
- Sherman Calliope Barrage ability recharge timer increased to 105 seconds
M10 Tank Destroyer:
- Allied M10 Movement improved: 15% increase to acceleration and 10% increase rotation rate.
- Allied M10 Tank Destroyer weapon damage has been increased and Fuel cost has been reduced by 5.
- Axis Armoured Car (Puma) 20mm main cannon rear penetration vs. the Allied M10 significantly reduced.
M8 Armored Car:
- Allied M8 Armored Car's accuracy on the move increased. Now on par with the M4 Sherman and M10 Tank Destroyer.
- Allied M8 Armored Car's accuracy penalties vs. the Axis Armored Car (Puma) have been removed.
- Allied M8 Armored Car Armor upgrade Munitions cost reduced by 25.
M26 Pershing Heavy Tank:
- Allied Pershing penetration rate vs. the Stug increased to 80%.
- Axis Stug penetration rate vs. the Pershing has been reduced to 45% from 74.6%
Allied Commander Tree Improvements:
- Armoured Fury Branch changed to: Raid to Allied War Machine to Calliope.
- War Machine Branch changed to: Fast Deployment to Field Repairs to Pershing.
- Allied War Machine Command Point Cost reduced by 1
- Sherman Calliope Command Point Cost reduced by 1
Infantry AT weapon changes (Allies and Axis):
- All Infantry Anti-Tank weaponry (Bazooka, Recoilless Rifle, Panzerschreck) are slightly more accurate when firing at moving light targets.
- Allied Bazookas and Recoilless Rifles now deal slightly more damage to Light Vehicles
- Panzerfaust accuracy against infantry targets has been reduced as intended. While there is still a chance to directly hit and kill targets like snipers, - Panzerfausts are now more likely to cause splash damage rather than kill infantry.
- Panzerschreck Damage vs. base buildings lowered by 25%.
- Bazooka damage vs. base buildings has been lowered by 25%.
Allied BAR and suppression changes:
- Allied BAR Rifle upgrade now gives 2 BAR Rifles rather than 3. Allied BAR Riflemen squads will now be able to pick-up MG42 and Panzerschreck items
- Allied BAR Rifle damage increased by 40%.
- Allied BAR Rifle will take slightly longer to Pin units that are in a Suppressed state
- Allied BAR Suppression ability can no longer suppress and pin units in heavy cover.
Construction Changes:
- Players may no longer delete Sand Bags or Tank Traps.
- Allied Observation Post built from Riflemen now has the same build speed as the Observation Post built by Engineers.
- Allied Observation Posts, Axis Observation Posts, and Machine Gun Nests now have the appropriate target type while building; now like all other buildings they will be much more susceptible to damage while under construction
- Axis Volksgrenadiers can now utilize the same build menu as the Grenadiers - this allows them to construct Barbed Wire and Sand Bags.
Smoke Changes:
- All Barrage weapons no longer have a 50% chance to miss targets in Smoke.
- Projectiles will no longer pass directly through Sherman's on registered "Misses" - they will now behave like all other tanks and those hits will be registered as a non-penetrated "deflection".
- Sherman smoke launcher recharge rate was less than the duration of the ability, now set to 45 seconds
Axis Officer:
- Axis 'Leutnant' Manpower cost decreased to 260 from 340
- Axis 'Leutnant' Build Time increased to 60 from 30.
General Squad and Weapon Changes (Allies and Axis):
- All Snipers more effective against units garrisoned inside of bunkers.
- All Allied Rifles slightly more effective against Axis Motorcycles
- Allied Engineers with the Flamethrower upgrade are no longer resistant to Sniper Shots
- Fixed an issue where the Stug's main gun Area-of-Effect was too effective against infantry squads.
- Axis Assault ability will now break pinning/suppression and prevent pinning/suppression while the ability is active.
- Increased Axis Infantry passive health regeneration bonus received from their first level of veterancy by 40%.
General Vehicle Changes (Allies and Axis):
- Panzer IV accuracy while moving set to the same value as other tanks.
- Axis Goliaths now destroy Tank Traps in a single explosion.
- Axis Armoured Car Puma 50mm Cannon upgrade now requires Escalate to Battle Phase upgrade.
- Axis Motorcycles damage vs. units in light or heavy cover has been slightly reduced
- Axis StuH 42 now effectively kills infantry as was originally intended
- Axis Armoured Car Puma 50mm Upgrade accuracy reduced vs. infantry. It is intended as an anti-armor upgrade.
General Heavy Weapon Team Changes (Allies and Axis):
- All Mortars now have a chance to deal Mobility Damage if they hit Light Vehicles.
- All Anti-Tank guns are now more accurate when firing at moving and stationary Light Vehicles.
- Allied 57mm Anti-Tank gun firing cone has been increased by 20 degrees to match Axis 50mm Anti-Tank gun.
- Allied HMG Armor Piercing Rounds ability price reduced from 50 to 35 munitions.
- Allied Howitzer Gun Barrage is less accurate when firing into the Fog of War.
- Axis Nebelwerfer Manpower cost has been reduced by 20
- Axis Nebelwerfer Rocket Suppression area of effect increased.
- Axis Nebelwerfer Rocket area of effect damaged reduced. Direct hits and near misses will still damage infantry units.
- Axis Nebelwerfer will deal a reduced amount of damage to units in light, heavy, bunker, and garrison cover types.
- Axis Flak 88's are more resilient to Artillery, off-map attacks, and satchel charges (the crew manning them is not).
- Axis Flak 88's and Nebelwerfers can now be re-manned by 2-man Pioneer squads.

In the interest of full disclosure and satisfying my curiosity, let's see what's inside!

Uh oh. Vista mouse pad? I'm scared to look further.

Huh. Not too bad. That's not a copy of Vista, mind you, merely a Windows Vista Launch Kit CD. But that is a full retail copy of the crtically acclaimed Company of Heroes. Score! Plus, there's a 2GB Sandisk pen drive, a Vista branded pen drive of unspecified capacity, a Belkin Easy Transfer Cable and two cards for free Office Live Basics. That last one is going right in the trash!

At least I'll have plenty of storage space.

Oh, by the way, another pen drive was just brought to my hotel room, courtesy of AMD. These things are worthless! Michael McWhertor