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| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Classic_OMO |
Posted - Mar 03 2004 : 19:33:10
OK I am really interested in this topic. And I am also trying to get some discussion going. My RTS back ground is "Impossible Creatures" was my first RTS. I have been playing this game sense beta. There are things that I love about it and things that drive me crazy about it. Sense I have fell in love with IC I have tried other RTS games(Warcraft 3, Age of Mythology, Sacrifice, Homeworld, HW2, Rise of Nations, Kohan, and most recently Dark Reign 2 and Ground Control). These last two games have made me question some of the things in RTS games and a recent discussion about what people wanted to see in Relic's new "Warhammer 40k:Dawn of War" game made me ask what would be my perfect RTS. What do I like and want out of an RTS? And what do other's want. Obviously we are all going to have different answers. I come from more of a turn based back ground so I like strategy and tactics and am not crazy about resourcing but I understand why they are a part of most RTS games. Allot of new RTS games come out and get blamed for not being innovative but what new can be done in the genre? I also play allot of board games(war, Germain, etc)and I like to think that I am fairly intelligent but I get frustrated in RTS games when I get out clicked in the micro/macro game. One of the things I love about RTS games is the feel of a real war, real pressure. SO how do I bring my two worlds together? Well one way is like "Ground Control" where there is no resourcing or I have been thinking lately about AI in RTS games. I think this is where some new innovation can come. I want to set rules for my units kinda like what the old "Dark Reign" did but on a bigger scale. I want smart gathers like they have in "Rise of Nation" and I want no more then 2 resources if there has to be resources at all. I think I would rather have control points or supply chains that people can fight over. The other area that I think can use some improvement is the interface. The good players all use control groups and hot keys. I like Dark Reign 2's bottom buttons for all of their buildings so you don't have to control key them and you can pump out units no matter where you are. I also like the idea that "Spellforce" tries to do with there 'click N fight' system. The way it works is you click on an enemy and all of the available units that can do something to it with all of the options is highlighted at the top and you click on what you want to use instead of choosing you units, right clicking on the enemy and then clicking on what you want to use(I'm not describing it quite right but it does save time). It's just not totally perfect. I have allot of idea but I want to hear what you guys have to say. What do you love about RTS games, what do you hate about them? What is you favorite game and why, what do you wish was different? What would be your ultimate RTS game? Do you think that there is room for innovation in RTS games or do you think they are all gonna be pretty much the same formula now? Discuss!-) |
| 14 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| BluehairOMO |
Posted - May 23 2004 : 05:38:23
I play a game called "Conquest: Frontier Wars", that has a few things that no other RTS has in my limited(20+ years gaming) experience.
Supply lines and choke points. Each map has multiple systems that can be reached through stable wormholes. Each wormhole can have a gate built on it that only allows that player and his allies to pass through. Every weapon system in the game uses supplies, which must be replenished by bringing along supply ships or being placed near a supply station built on a nearby planet. If you do not have a gate connecting to a system that has an HQ or a HQ in that system, nothing you build in that system will work at all.
Then there are the admirals. Each one lends different attributes and bonuses to the fleet they are attached to. Add in the fact thet there are THREE(and soon to be FOUR) races, and it brings the complexity up a notch.
This brings a great level of strategy to an otherwise old-looking(semi-3d tabletop) game.
If you are looking for a game with no resourcing, but a huge level of tactical and strategic fun, you may want to go to www.battlefront.com and try the "Combat Mission" series. There are three of them out now, covering the western front, the eastern front, and Africa/Mediterranean.
If HW and Conquest ever met in a bar, got drunk, and concieved a bastard child with great development and better support, I think that would be the best RTS ever. |
| Retread_OMO |
Posted - May 22 2004 : 22:24:08
RoN , expecaially with the new expansion, has a great range of capabilities...........you can actually decide at point you want to fight before tha game begins.......you can even make games with no fighting at all, just booming and massing resource............you can disable things like Nukes and Spies..................Probably the most versitile of them all, and my favorite RTS at this time...
As for IC, I think Reto OMO was working on a Mod to help round out the game and make it play better. If he finished or not, Im really not sure.
As for HW2, I find more jerks in the lobby, and tend not to have as much fun playing anymore.Sorry guys. |
| Bifocal-OMO |
Posted - May 22 2004 : 13:05:58
Well I love the HW2 and have not tired warcraft or ORB as of yet.. |
| Festus-OMO |
Posted - May 22 2004 : 08:32:14
IMHO the single biggest problem with RTS games is that the "rush" strategy usually becomes a dominant tactic in the MP community.
Several games have tried, and failed miserabley, to contain the rush. Warcraft 3 thought they had it beat and their solution actually made it easier to do so.
I'm looking for an RTS where the rush is not a viable option in the early game. One game that tried to deal with it was ORB. It was a real pretty game, with a great concept (resources were located on asteroids that orbited around the game map and would leave your area of control and move thru the enemys territory), but was a miserable faliure for a lot of reasons.
The nice thing about it was, you could RUSH out lower level fighter craft, but they could go attack a base or a Cap ship early in the game but they would still be there shooting at it at the end of the game because they did not have the firepower to seriously damage it. HW2 does something similar, just not to the extent that ORB tried for.
So, what I'm waiting for is an RTS game that finds a way to make rushing impractical. The only thing is HOW? Again, I think HW2 came close, with inties taking a long time to take down larger targets but its not "right" yet.
RON with its "borders" of infuence is interesting, because you can affect your opponent anywhere along those borders adn therby affect his game.
One of my fav games was Starcraft, the first RTS to give 3, not 2, sides to play. Each side was/is beautifully balanced.
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| Toothless-OMO |
Posted - May 22 2004 : 06:08:40
Well, I will jump in a bit here.
I started playing RTS with Lord’s of the Realm, and continued on from there until the point I have seen more really bad RTS games than good ones hit the store shelves.
As a side note, Dark Reign needs DirectX 7 does it not to run? I think that is why I got rid of it after some time, but it was a great game for its time.
Personally, what I have found is that over the years RTS games have turned into nothing more then the same basic game with different interfaces and different looking units that basically did the same stuff in every game.
Then to top it off, neither Developers, nor Publishers supported their titles leaving the user with a bug ridden pile of code called a game.
As it currently stands, I have gotten rid of about 200 games and am down to about 5 or 6. While they may not be the best, I like them enough to keep them.
RTS titles need a fresh wind of creativity, not tons of depth that require months of commitment to become proficient at playing. Most people are very busy and can not devote months into learning a game just so you become "good" at it.
I think that is one reason FPS are so popular. Even if you do not understand the game right off, it is only a matter of a few weeks until you can normally hold your own.
The second thing RTS games need (all games really) is top notch support. When a patch is needed (and when isn't it!) it should be provided to keep the user (i.e. money source) happy and buying more.
It seems like it has come down to pump out a game, get the cash, put out none or maybe one patch and more on to the next money maker.
Some examples are: Warrior Kings, Europa 1400 the Guild, Master of Orion III, O.R.B., and on and on it goes.
I would suggest that if you are looking for a good game that is all about Strategy try Moonbase Commander. It sells for about $5.00 now and it is a whole lot of fun. Granted it is a TBS, but it plays very quickly and it is not a simple as it first appears.
I would also ask do any OMO's play Civilization III?
And one final question is about Homeworld 2. Well two questions! Did they ever fix the Bug in the game with a solid patch? Are there many OMO's that play it on a regular basis?
I sold it, but would be happy to buy it again if it has been fixed and people are playing it.
Toothy  |
| Vasectomy OMO |
Posted - Mar 10 2004 : 07:11:33
Guess it goes back to being a chess player, I like strategy, the more there is, the more variables/options, the better I usually like it. Additionally, games that capitalize on team play are my favs. Sharing a win, working together, is a kick for me. Love adapting to other players styles to compliment/combat their moves. Anticipation of an enemies tendencies, switch & bait and sacrificing elements to attain bigger goals, hell sounds like chess.
If its a "how fast can u push the button" game, I lose interest.
Homeworld is the game that does it for me now...right up my ally as far as things mentioned above. Like Timeless says, no two games are alike and strategy/teamplay is usually more important than the ships u chose. Team working together will beat the snot outa 3 great individual players-and that is the way it is in life as well.
Smurfing never bothered me, just adds to the variables. Hell, got smurfed by OMO more times than I can count. |
| Petrified-OMO |
Posted - Mar 09 2004 : 09:51:54
Never tried Dark Reign (1 or 2). Sounds like I missed some fun.
Starcraft is still a favorite, even though I do not play it anymore - I like it better than WC3. IC was great. Reviewers must be getting old and stoggy - that or only the timid have time to write reviews. Due to Router issues, I was unable to play IC multiplayer and never could get the patch to work properly.
Ground Control was great. If GC2 is supported well, I will be there.
HW and HW2 are both good, but with the smurfing and lack of players in HW2, I pretty much have given up on it. RoN is another fun one.
Massive Assault is a simple and fun TBS. Make sure you patch it and that you don't run from the desktop shortcut (I just discovered it has something called Secret-Crush which is a part of the Armadillo CD rpotection). Deleting the provided short cut and running the straight .exe keeps it from phoning home. Otherwise, my firewall kept blocking it. grrr.... Other than that, its a fun game.
What they need to do is make it possible to add player AI unit scripting more.
Spellforce is good hmmm? Maybe I'll dust off Sacrifice again to remind myself why that game beats the snot out of me (it's AI acts faster than I can) - perhaps why it did not catch on as well as it could have. Otherwise, it was a kicker. |
| elfANGEL |
Posted - Mar 09 2004 : 07:55:08
I think IC has very good worker controls,like giving henchies a guard ground command and they automaticly heal units and repair buildings within there sight,also after giving henchies a build command press shift(for giving multi commands) and right click coal pile and they start resoursing after building(s) are done.
I don't like giving they AI to much control over units to me this takes away from game play and allows for send and forget type of play,to me this would be boring.I want peeps to have to be tactically awhere of all aspects of game play this is where the novice and expert are seperated. I don't like HW2 (as much) because units will start fighting on there own without being giving orders.
More than one or two resourses make sense in some RTS's like AOE,EE,ect.But even games like Ground Control(no resourses or research)have there place in the RTS world. |
| Timeless_OMO |
Posted - Mar 08 2004 : 21:06:17
Well, you guys first ran into me in HW and Cata, but we didn't really start teaming up a lot until DR2. I still remember dying all the time, leaving you two to mop up 3 good players, which most the time you guys did, lol.
-----
Anyway, Fuzzy (aka Classic), there have been some great games come out in the past 5 years, but very few were properly supported/advertised and many of them suffered from poor mp interfaces. For years, I have been looking for a game like Starcraft that not only was supported nicely but had tons of people to game with. I've seen some unfortunate and often inexplicable failures, mostly.
IC almost did it, but the reviewers chewed it up and we ended up with a paltry community. HW1 was phenomenal but I never liked the controls or the lack of being able to target or fight from sensors and other odd quirks (most OMO loved HW1, so I'm looking over my shoulder for a bolt of lightning, lol), CATACLYSYM was buggy as hell, DR2 was ruined with a patch, Sacrifice was too far ahead of its time and while great, too OUT THERE. The list goes on and on.
HW2 seems to be the game, minus the big community. I got on and played a few with Vas and Scrambled and some other guy and had a hell of a time the other night. This game is truly genius in the amount of tactical/strategic options available and I find that no two games are ever alike. You should give it another look because they fixed it to where moving in 3D space is much easier and refueling is a thing of the past. The more you play HW2, the more depth you discover. And it is absolutely friggin beautiful graphics-wise.
But HW2 was released as a buggy mess so the only problem atm is having tons of players to play with. Nevertheless, we never have to wait long even when hosting 6 player games.
I'll comment more on your other questions later but I have an early meeting out of town tomorrow morning.
BTW, haven't seen you on voice in a couple of days. Stop in some night soon and have a chat.
Time |
| Medicare_OMO |
Posted - Mar 05 2004 : 11:17:40
Dark Reign 2 was an absolutely great/beautiful game. But let me tell you that the developer/publisher totally put that game into an early grave by not supporting it properly. I stopped playing it after the second patch which made the game virtually unplayable as opposed to fixing minor bugs. There wasn't much I disliked about DR2 other than support. It was a great game. That's where me and Geritol ran into 1_bullet(now Timeless) first. |
| Arcane |
Posted - Mar 05 2004 : 00:33:02
Dark Reign... now there was a hell of a game (both SP and MP).
Maybe it was because it was my first RTS... not sure but I've not come across one that I liked to play MP as much since.
I even was on OZDRIL for a while... never in the top 10 but I wasn't bad. Went by "Harbinger" at the time.
I really liked the ability to set the AI behavior... one of the best things. |
| Bifocal-OMO |
Posted - Mar 04 2004 : 19:08:31
I like ground control but lost the disc about a year ago. Used to play alot befor my comp blew up... |
| Classic_OMO |
Posted - Mar 04 2004 : 17:45:25
Medicare what did you think of the AI options in Dark Reign? I never played it when it was out but have read great things about it's AI options for the time it was made. I recently got it off ebay and have messed with it a little and I have to admit I'm impressed but it also plays too fast on my P4 2.43GHZ machine. But the customization of the unit AI is really cool. And I have been playing Dark Reign 2 with Timeless_OMO lately and it has some neat additions to the RTS genre that I like but they messed up on the 3d camera, the mini map, and no replay feature. But for the time it was out it was ahead of it's time, but it got over shadowed by "Earth 2050" and "Ground Control". It has a little of the same AI for units but not quite as in depth as the original DR. And as I stated above I like the slots they had on their interface for their buildings.
There are certain things in RTS games that I think they make us waste our time on that distract from the game that we shouldn't have to. The AI should take care of it. For instance docking for repairs and refueling in HW2. Or dumb henchmen they should automatically start harvesting after giving a build order. They shouldn't just sit there waiting for you to tell them what to do. I like the way "Rise of Nations" handles that aspect of the game. I like the ability to set thresh holds on my units and priorities on my units so they attack what I want and retreat with out a lot of micro management. For instance in IC the creatures always attack buildings before units. I want to be able to set priorities of what to attack and when so I don't have to keep giving them attack move commands. Or I want to be able to setup concentrated fire. Or how about this automatically take out more powerful units before grunts. Now don't get me wrong I still want to be able to micro when I want or need to I just want to setup smart AI so I can worry about strategy more and then tactics on the important battles that I need to concentrate on. |
| Medicare_OMO |
Posted - Mar 04 2004 : 14:47:29
RTS games are mostly the same with little sub-genres like Ground Control and Mech Commander. What I like about new RTS's is when they come up with a new concept like they did with Impossible Creatures. I do think that all RTS games will in the future still be tied to resourcing, building, killing in that order like they are now. And I really don't have a problem with that formula. I usually only play an RTS game for a few months before I lose interest. I think that is mostly a function of my personal preferences. I find that I play FPS games for a longer period of time. IMHO the best RTS games that I have come across are (in no particular order) Homeworld (orig), Starcraft, Impossible Creatures (I give this the award for the most inventive concept in RTS's ever), Ground Control, Dark Reign (1 and 2), and Warcraft 3. |
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