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What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

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Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#91

Post by nestorD »

russellbeattie wrote: post #37

The domination of StarCraft has always bewildered me. I really loved the Battle for Middle Earth games back in the day as they were much more slow paced than SC. I absolutely loved spending an hour in total silence frantically constructing a base or two with massive armies before sending them off en masse against my opponent(s) - usually a friend or two connected via a LAN so you could hear their occasional grunts an…

Battle for Middle Earth 1 is definitely one of my favorite RTS, I love how the constraints on buildings played into the mecanics of the game (not a fan of the second one which was more classic).

By the way, if someone is still playing out there, the dwarf hold mod was a great extension to the base game : https://www.moddb.com/mods/the-dwarf-holds

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#92

Post by gmueckl »

azernik wrote: post #17

> Some people from Relic split off to found Blackbird Interactive. They made a prequel to Homeworld which is apparently really good. They’re now also working on Homeworld 3. Said prequel is Deserts of Kharak, and is indeed quite good. Am replaying it right now, and despite being land-based and 2D rather than space-based and 3D, it still feels like the original Homeworld in terms of pacing and strategy.

Yes, they manged to carry over essential design elements into their land based setting: there are no stationary bases. You have a huge, unique carrier vehicle instead of a mothership. The harvesting mechanics are almost identical. The biggest difference really is the terrain. The game has an easier time shaping the challenges by making use of terrain. In space, breaking the uniformity of the map was more challenging and the original Homeworld series didn't do too well in that regard. Finding in-universe reasons to make space non-uniform is apparently hard. There are resource spots and regions which affected ship systems, but that's it.

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#95

Post by drdeadringer »

b0rsuk wrote: post #72

Am I the only person missing the old C&C style games, before Generals? I'm not saying C&C:Generals was a bad game - it was quite popular - but from design point of view it was a Starcraft clone. They abandoned the old, quirky Dune2/C&C design with low count, remote harvesters, multiple factories which only sped up the rate of production, instantly deployed buildings, instant selling etc. These things had some flaws,…

This may be unpopular, but I enjoyed the entire C&C run right to the very end. This includes the first-person shooter stint along with the "mobile MCV" stint.

Kane as a character holds a place in my heart and memory, as does Tiberium. Soundtracks and cut scenes were great too.

May I enjoy this block of Memory Lane as much as I am able.

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#96

Post by AstralStorm »

nitwit005 wrote: post #62
dleslie wrote: post #3

IMHO, the core series focused too heavily on maximizing the experience for esports, and that spoiled the genre for the mid-range gamers that were its bread and butter. And still, Dawn of War, Company of Heroes, Supreme Commander, Planetary Annihilation et al were not so long ago. And OpenRA itself has been somewhat of a success. BTW, C&C has a Red Alert reboot coming out before too long. It will be classic in design.

You seen to either get games where the multiplayer scene is non-existent, or hyper competitive like SC2, where you feel a bit brutalized. One reason I think I was drawn to the warcraft/starcraft custom games when I was younger was that it just seemed too much effort (and kind of tedious) to get "good" at the main game. Goofing about with strange maps seemed more attractive.

That is the main reason I liked Total Annihilation, you could be decent with only some practice, and the scene wasn't hypercompetitive.

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#97

Post by Havoc »

azernik wrote: post #17

> Some people from Relic split off to found Blackbird Interactive. They made a prequel to Homeworld which is apparently really good. They’re now also working on Homeworld 3. Said prequel is Deserts of Kharak, and is indeed quite good. Am replaying it right now, and despite being land-based and 2D rather than space-based and 3D, it still feels like the original Homeworld in terms of pacing and strategy.

>Said prequel is Deserts of Kharak, and is indeed quite good.

I thought the missions were quite tedious tbh. I gave up after the 3rd case of "where is the last enemy unit on map" hunt

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#98

Post by Havoc »

superkuh wrote: post #50
dchuk wrote: post #2

I don't play games much anymore, but when I did, I always had an affinity for RTS games(Command and Conquer, Age of Empires, Warcraft, etc), and Action RPGs (Diablo, Torchlight). It's exhausting to find games nowadays that don't nickel and dime you to succeed. I like the Kingdom Rush Tower Defense games on iPad when I'm traveling. Any other suggestions?

The Age of Empires 2 scene is actually growing these days. There's plenty of people to play at whatever skill level you are. It's better than ever.

That's insane. Is that org or remaster?

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#100

Post by danielbarla »

dchuk wrote: post #2

I don't play games much anymore, but when I did, I always had an affinity for RTS games(Command and Conquer, Age of Empires, Warcraft, etc), and Action RPGs (Diablo, Torchlight). It's exhausting to find games nowadays that don't nickel and dime you to succeed. I like the Kingdom Rush Tower Defense games on iPad when I'm traveling. Any other suggestions?

In addition to the Path of Exile suggestions, I'd recommend Grim Dawn as an alternative. An extremely fun and interesting Diablo clone. Coincidentally, the prequel / same engine was used for 2006's Titan Quest, which is now available on iOS and Android. Although I haven't actually played the mobile versions, I think as per the original, there won't be any microtransactions, or multi level marketing schemes to "win", just dozens of hours of campaign. Both games are highly recommended in general, the class systems offer such interesting and unique combinations.
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