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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?

#121

Post by chrisan »

temporaryvector wrote: post #79
caymanjim wrote: post #73

> Blizzard had a long distraction with WoW, then they made Starcraft 2 followed by the MOBA Heroes of the Storm. They’re still insanely successful. Now they’re remaking their old games, recently releasing a HD remake of Starcraft 1 and are about to release a remake of Warcraft III. Blizzard went off the rails by dumbing down WoW steadily over ten years, appealing to the lowest common demoninator. Modern WoW is boring…

>Blizzard went off the rails by dumbing down WoW [...], appealing to the lowest common demoninator. [...] WoW is boring, unchallenging, and appears designed to provoke the least amount of whining by a vocal but dispassionate player base. I was around the MMO scene back when Blizzard was developing WoW, and this was the general sentiment around the community even at the time, it was seen as the care-bearest of the all…

> I was around the MMO scene back when Blizzard was developing WoW, and this was the general sentiment around the community even at the time, it was seen as the care-bearest of the all the care-bear MMOs (which is what people at the time called MMOs that weren't hardcore enough for them, particularly in the PvP area). A lot of people that WoW was a step backwards for MMORPGs.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who remembers this. I find it extremely humorous all the people saying WoW is too spoon fed and they want Classic for a "real challenge".

I remember many friends not wanting to touch WoW because of how themepark it was when it came out. They wanted something _more_ challenging that what they had experienced, not less.

I remember MMOs where you printed out a generic map and had to navigate the world like you would in person (well... a person without a gps these days lol)

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#122

Post by jonbaer »

elihu wrote: post #4
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?

0AD is pretty good.

Also this game is fully open source and is a great resource if you are learning something like Blender or want to dev a game / side mod in .js ... https://github.com/0ad/0ad

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#123

Post by fruffy »

Mirioron wrote: post #103
Ntrails wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure I buy into this narrative so much anymore. The game is old and the original userbase has moved on. I am not convinced that WoW could ever have kept catching new players and retaining the old ones however they chose to proceed. The burst of excitement for Classic will last a while and then fade too. I think , at least.

I think Classic will fade, because it's hyped up to be more than it really is. Old WoW was difficult, but part of that difficulty was that people just weren't as good at the game back then (or games in general?). Many people were already doing Molten Core just a few days after release of Classic.

I do not know. Those are hardcore players so that was expected. A lot of people are looking for the community feeling and a slower playing pace which does not focus on min-maxing. Classic can definitely give you that.

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#124

Post by sha666sum »

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.

Dawn of War hasn't aged very well for me. The camera is super zoomed in and the user interface takes up huge swathes of screen real estate.

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#125

Post by axython »

caymanjim wrote: post #73

> Blizzard had a long distraction with WoW, then they made Starcraft 2 followed by the MOBA Heroes of the Storm. They’re still insanely successful. Now they’re remaking their old games, recently releasing a HD remake of Starcraft 1 and are about to release a remake of Warcraft III. Blizzard went off the rails by dumbing down WoW steadily over ten years, appealing to the lowest common demoninator. Modern WoW is boring…

I'll disagree so, so very much with this and I am certain this comes from someone who hasn't played the game for a while or played very casually. Yes, doing quests and just roaming around has became way easier than before, however the game has tons of room for anyone who actually wants a challenge. I don't want to go super deep, but high end raiding is still alive and finally started getting monetized/sponsored plus you can always push mythic+ dungeons. It has to be noted, that all of this is group content and what WoW lacks right now is difficult solo content and I'd give you that.

Basicly right now the retail WoW can be played as time-intensively and on whatever difficulty you want. There is always something to do, however you hit diminishing returns quite soon. There is tons of hard, engaging content to be done with friends.

I think Classic is kinda fad, something a lot of people think they wanted, but after some time they will realize they did not. Of course, I might be wrong in which case I am happy they got a completely new game to play and hope they enjoy it as much as I enjoyed the two years of WoW Legion(had to stop, because I did not have time to play at the level I wanted).

On the other hand, I can't wait for Warcraft 3 Remastered, that will work by default with most of old custom maps. I am taking a week off for that. :)

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#126

Post by pcdoodle »

farah7 wrote: post #58

I've been waiting for Warcraft 4 for 15 years now (can't believe it's been that long!). Warcraft III/Frozen throne are quite simply the best games that I've ever played, none have ever come close. I'd give honourable mention to Age of Empires/Rise of Nations. I think it was killed due to the success of World of Warcraft.

Same here. It has everything and more character than any other RTS ever made. The damn menu music puts me into Warcraft Meditation Mode. When playing on a CRT monitor the particle effect are "lickable". Major sense of accomplishment playing hard in single player too.

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#127

Post by GeneralTspoon »

dwighttk wrote: post #42

Don’t know if it counts but did anyone else like the close combat series? I only ever played the first one because the others were PC only. I’ve even bought a few of the later ones recently on GOG, but I can’t get them to run with WINE.

CC3: The Russian Front was amazing! It feels kind of like it fits into a separate genre of “digital tabletop war games” (due to the fact that you pick your units from a large roster using points, rather than build them in-game, and had a focus on campaigns where the balance of power swung back and forth).

The demo of the British one (CC2 maybe?) was the one that got me into it.

I think they were remade by another company a few years back actually - but I’d definitely throw money at a modernized take on a similar concept.

Does anyone know other similar games?

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#128

Post by axython »

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.

Warcraft 3 Remastered is coming quite soon, supporting all old custom games! :)

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#129

Post by twoquestions »

b0rsuk wrote: post #74
b0rsuk wrote: post #69

I think it boils down to four things: - RTS games, since the first C&C, used an interface for selecting rectangles and pointing them at a single target. It scales extremely poorly. Innovations in this area have failed to catch on. Keyboard used for shortcuts only. Come on, we can do better than that. We have Vim. Action, range(movement key). Alternatively, the Kakoune way: selection first, action second. Either way g…

I just came up with a 5th: - RTS games work poorly on consoles. They need a precise input device.

Tooth and Tail was pretty good, and it's only playable with a controller. I also played the hell out of Battlezone 64 back in the day, which is a FPS/strategy game.

It's a doable thing, people just haven't tried (aside from the above) very hard.

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#130

Post by ece »

temporaryvector wrote: post #77

My take on this is that RTSs are generally unpopular because of their long feedback loop. In an FPS game, or even a modern MOBA, the decisions you take result in an almost immediate death (yours or the opponent's). If you're doing something wrong, you'll know pretty much immediately, rarely will you have to wait more than a minute between doing something wrong and getting punished for it. This also means that you ten…

I can't help but compare RTS to TBS more: Civ 2 came around the same time as SC, and the Civ series has kept growing in popularity. People are ok with the long feedback loop IMO ie. chess. The gameplay just needs to be fun and challenging-enough, which SC/BW and AOE2 had in spades for both beginners and experts. Like the OP says though, subsequent games in the original RTS mold just weren't as good.

Certainly F2P, and genre-mixing happened, but those players could still come back to playing RTSs. My main point is: what truly distinguishes Brood War from everything else is the level design and gameplay. Which is what games like They Are Billions is bringing back even if only in part. RTS level design peaked with BW it seems, and is only now making a come back. Over the past ~20 years, you can see the evolution in action/RPG/platform/sim/puzzle/TBS games as they have added to level design and gameplay where RTS games didn't and thus lost out. Focusing on what made BW good; make better level design and gameplay than BW, and you'll get people playing again.

I played Warcraft 2, SMACX, AOE2, and SC pretty much when they came out, and I've only recently played Paradox games, Homeworld and Total Annihilation. People have their favorites, and I can see liking any of these games based on the type of gameplay and story you enjoy the most. I just hope AOE4 has enough new ideas in level design and gameplay compared to AOE2 like the difference between Civ 2 and Civ 4.

You can also see what the major studios have been up to: Valve went into publishing tech, Blizzard is going more and more into F2P (Tencent is almost all F2P), but it's the studios/publishers like Square Enix, 2K, Sony, and Ubisoft and indies which keep making games that aren't lootbox filled.

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