What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre? • Hacker News Board

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#201

Post by aerodude » Sun, Sep 15, 2019, 2:41 AM UTC

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.

I think this is the big one. Consoles and CoD dominated the market for a long time. Has the pendulum swung back towards PC games? I have to confess, it's been a long time since I played anything. Games dev companies just stopped making games for people like me.

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#202

Post by Can_Not » Sun, Sep 15, 2019, 2:45 AM UTC

nlh wrote: post #166

Fr0styMatt88 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember when the iPad came out I was incredibly excited. This was surely perfect for RTS games! There was Command & Conquer: Red Alert Mobile, then.... The only other one I remember was an actually really good StarCraft clone by Gameloft (I forget the name). I always thought mobile would be great for RTS and then it just wasn't. Though when I think about it, the keyboard is pretty important and that kind of fast c…

You wrote exactly my thoughts! I was so excited for a new generation of touch-optimized RTS games when the iPad was released and I’ve been disappointed with the options. Do you (or anyone) know of any iPad games that fit the bill these days? I played Vainglory for a while but that’s not a RTS - it’s a MOBA (and was fun and worked super well on touch).

Someone else mentioned Rusted Warfare.

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#203

Post by FrozenVoid » Sun, Sep 15, 2019, 3:31 AM UTC

sueders101 wrote: post #18

The most popular, recently released RTS I can think of is Factorio. It seems like RTS game elements have been splitting into their constituent parts and forming a game around those.(e.g. production to Factorio, or combat to DOTA) It may be that way there’s a greater ROI on smaller/simpler games than building out all the components involved in an RTS game.

Today gamers don't like to multi-task and Starcraft(and its clones) is a multi-tasking monster(scouting,economy, building, combat), so similar RTS which force multiple issues at same time are outfoxed by simpler game mechanic games where attention is more deeply focused and players can gain skills easier. Another factor is RTS are anti-casual, they don't forgive mistakes and only a tiny % of gamers can handle the stress of constant losing/failing, in context of highly demanding, multitasking heavy game. The genre doesn't accept game style variations either - a single cookie-cutter build order is the best one, the rest is suboptimal and loses you either time or money.

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#204

Post by senectus1 » Sun, Sep 15, 2019, 5:50 AM UTC

It died on the alter that EA sacrificed C&C on.

they milked that cow and then cut it up for meat.

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#205

Post by 3131s » Sun, Sep 15, 2019, 5:52 AM UTC

diydsp wrote: post #54

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I liked TA much more than RA. The strategy felt deeper, plus I liked the idea of the Commander unit representing you on the battle field. Sending him into battle was a risky move. The D-Gun made him extremely powerful, but if he died, you lose. The nukes in RA were also just plain pitiful and not really worth the time to build.

we used to play TA at lunch...but cut it off abruptly after an hour.. . so we'd spend 55 minutes building up epic armies then send them to apocalypse for the last 5 minutes :) I tried to fire up my TA disk in a Win7 machine a few years ago, but the graphics came out all wrong :( any suggestions for reviving it?

I play it via WINE on Linux, works well.

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#206

Post by Andr1 » Sun, Sep 15, 2019, 7:08 AM UTC

Unfortunately the article doesn't mention Supreme Commander - Forged Alliance, which is a game still played today with more than enough players and some very good casters. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xny10Dvp_00

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#207

Post by JDiculous » Sun, Sep 15, 2019, 3:35 PM UTC

As someone who's favorite game genre is RTS and all-time favorite games are Warcraft 3 and Age of Empires 2, I've been wondering the same thing. I genuinely believe that RTS games are the most intellectually stimulating due to the incredible amount of strategy involved, and thus the most fun.

Recently I went to a PC Cafe after having stopped playing games about 10 years ago. I started off playing CS:GO due to having loved CS 1.6 as a child, but I didn't find the modern version fun, and after an hour I was bored. Then I played a game of Warcraft 3, and next thing you know I spent the next month completely addicted to the game, watching professional commentaries and playing nonstop. It got to a point where I literally had to uninstall the game since it was taking over my life.

The reason I think I found CS:GO boring was because it felt like there was little to no strategy. It's basically just a game of reflexes and hand-to-eye coordination, and you only control a single unit. Meanwhile I think I found WC3 so fun because there's so much to it - what buildings/units to make, whether to harass, rush, and/or turtle/tower up, scouting your opponents and adjusting to their strategy, when to expand, whether to creep / level up your heroes or go in for an attack, etc. It's like a game of chess on steroids, where your opponents' pieces are completely different (if they're a different race), yet somehow the game is remarkably balanced.

I hate to sound like an arrogant old crank and my RTS bias is definitely clear, but I feel like most of the mainstream games today suck, and are of a lower intellectual bar. I can't understand the whole MOBA thing (eg. League of Legends) - I never got into DOTA because I always found it extremely boring, and I think it's just less intellectually stimulating (and also probably because the games are an hour and a half).

I'm glad that WC3 and AOE2 are being remade and released this year (though unfortunately I'll probably have to opt out due to how easily I get addicted). I hope that more game developers will see this and try their hand at the RTS genre. As much as I love WC3 and AOE2, they certainly have their flaws as well. For example, I feel the beginning in WC3 is too slow, making buildings/units is a bit too slow, and I find it a bit too micro focused (particularly for orcs). But I absolutely love the RPG element of heroes, and it's probably one of the main reasons why I've spent more time playing WC3.

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#208

Post by Ntrails » Sun, Sep 15, 2019, 4:25 PM UTC

fruffy wrote: post #123

Mirioron wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I cannot help but feel community cannot exist if you don't have single shard worlds with no cross server play at all

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#209

Post by superkuh » Mon, Sep 16, 2019, 4:01 AM UTC

BuckRogers wrote: post #180

superkuh wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt it. Age of Empires 2 is pretty much the entire AoE scene left. And Age of Empires 2 definitive edition (AoE2DE) is coming out soon. And that'll only work if it accurately recreates the AoE2 experience with better graphics and slightly better interface. I expect any modern non-AoE2 AoE game to be just as bad as any other modern RTS. Even AOE2 DE was/is probably going to be requiring Win 10 just to force people…

Not an unreasonable request, Windows 7 is a decade old. Computers are tools and you need to keep your tools up to date, at least if you're not writing the code yourself to keep it secure and running.

Not unreasonable in general but there's absolutely no reason that AoE2DE needs to use DX12 and the Win 10 requirements that come with it. And there's a significant reason why they shouldn't.

A large fraction of the player population is in countries without access to large purchasing power or modern computing equipment. If it requires 10 then a large part of the playerbase will simply stick with AoE2 AoC on voobly or HD on steam. So DE will only be new players or players in rich western economies. MS is showing they either don't care or don't understand the AoE2 scene.

Re: What Happened to the Real Time Strategy Genre?

#210

Post by BuckRogers » Mon, Sep 16, 2019, 5:59 AM UTC

superkuh wrote: post #209

BuckRogers wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not an unreasonable request, Windows 7 is a decade old. Computers are tools and you need to keep your tools up to date, at least if you're not writing the code yourself to keep it secure and running.

Not unreasonable in general but there's absolutely no reason that AoE2DE needs to use DX12 and the Win 10 requirements that come with it. And there's a significant reason why they shouldn't. A large fraction of the player population is in countries without access to large purchasing power or modern computing equipment. If it requires 10 then a large part of the playerbase will simply stick with AoE2 AoC on voobly or…

Windows 7 mainstream support ended in 2015 and extended support ends in 2 1/2 months. I can't wrap my head around why I would support that, encouraging people to stay on an OS that is insecure. It would make more sense to support a current RHEL-based LTS release. An option for unsupported systems will be streaming, given their investment in Azure Gaming. I don't disagree there's no technical argument to not be DX12-only but I would've only agreed with your stance a year or 2 ago, not this close to the extended support ending on Windows 7. There's always a cut off point and today seems reasonable for titles still in development.

One thing Microsoft does need to do is offer an ad-supported, Microsoft Store only, free-of-charge Windows-S 10 to everyone to download. Since it would only support their stuff, it could be optimized to run on lower end hardware.