Dawn Of War "I can't play as xxxx online!"

[Gandalf]

Brain dump of things I have found out....

If you are playing any of the 3 expansions, and want to play any of the races that come from an earlier version, then what is needed is for the registry to be aware of the CD Keys from the earlier expansions. "But it's steam, not a CD!" I hear you cry. Indeed it is - and these so-called CD Keys are of a different format to the actual CD Keys (which in my case, I still have).

The problem is, these CD Keys are not being stored in the registry for the two expansions, on an intermittent basis. So for example id can play with the Dark Crusade races (Necrons, Tau) in Soulstorm, but others of us can't.

Registry guide
*INSERT USUAL DISCLAIMER ABOUT HOW MESSING AROUND WITH YOUR REGISTRY CAN CAUSE TERRIBLE PROBLEMS, DO SO AT YOUR OWN RISK*

The Keys are under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> Software -> Wow6432Node -> THC

Here you will see Dawn of War, Dawn of War - Dark Crusade, and dawn of war - soulstorm. Note there is no Winter Assault - that was an add-on for the original, the other 3 can be played alone.

In Dawn Of War you will see an entry called cdkey. This is your original Dawn Of War cd key. If you are very fortunate you will also see WXPCDKey, this is the cd-key for Winter Assault.

The Dawn of War - Dark Crusade folder has w40cdkey - this is the original Dawn Of War cd key. If you are lucky you will also see DXP2Key .... this is the Dark Crusade key. I suspect id3nt1ty has this.

Then finally in the Dawn of War - Soulstorm folder, you will see the w40cdkey, again this is the cd key for the original game. Now if you had the Winter Assault and Dark Crusade CD keys, you could copy them into here - and you would be able to play all the races. In fact you could even uninstall the other games, to save space. This is what the "Soulstorm unlocker" program does (a 3rd party program someone created for precisely this space-saving reason).


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The bad news? This problem seems to have been around for months. There's a suggesting that the recent-ish trading cards update screwed it up. Example forum post... -> http://steamcommunity.com/app/9450/disc ... 605153032/

Other possible solutions I have read... "load & play an online game with each of the original 3 games" - that didn't work for me. Another possibility is uninstall & reinstall (I would also delete the game folder before reinstalling - found under Steam\SteamApps\Common\Dawn Of War whatever). I think I did have the Dark Crusade key after one such install/uninstall cycle, but I wouldn't assert that as gospel.

The other possible route to resolution lies with talking to Sega, who handle customer support for the game right now. I have a ticket open with them at the moment, I will let you know if anything comes of that.

[Raveen]

I found that running the games in ami admin mode brought up the CD key dialogue in soul storm but sadly I don't have the CD keys to put in. If I click the CD key link in steam it just says it's requesting the key.

[Gandalf]

I tried the "get CD key" link in Steam too - I suspect it just returns what is in the registry (if anything).

The "CD keys" in the registry is actually a different format to the keys that came with the retail version of the game! So not much good for putting into the front-end of the game.

[Raveen]

It was progress to even be asked for them

[Gandalf]

http://steamcommunity.com/app/9450/disc ... 0368454255

Apparently the latest patch has fixed the issue! I have yet to try it out myself though.

[lawastooshort]

Ooh - so we could play massed IG tanks and fodder!

[Gandalf]

Sure we can

I just loaded up Soulstorm, went to online games and I could choose any race. So looks like it is indeed fixed. Anyone up for a game this bank holiday weekend?

[Raveen]

Absolutely, not Saturday most likely but either after the bb on Sunday or Monday evening

[lawastooshort]

Possibly me too, yes

[Andon]

I'm up for Monday as well

[id3nt1ty]

I'm at work, because Scotland.

But if you're playing this evening I'd be keen!

[Gandalf]

I should be around after 9pm tonight.

[id3nt1ty]

I'll be about