I got to see Star Wars: Empire at War in action at the San Diego Comic-Con and came away pretty impressed. The people playing it were having a good time, the ground combat looked solid and the space combat looked like a lot of fun. I didn’t play it myself because I wasn’t interested in waiting in the line but I think you might be surprised.
I have to say of all the recent RTSs, Winter Assault is the best choice for multiplayer. AOE3 would be as good were it not for the current issues; I’m sure it’ll get patched into shape, though. Winter Assault has the better single-player campaign hands down, though - the ones with AOE3 are just goofy.
And yeah, the IG take some getting used to, but they’re actually one of the strongest factions available in multiplayer (and seemingly everyone’s playing them in gamespy pickup games, sigh) once you learn their quirks. Sure, they’re not as over-the-top as the Orks or Chaos Marines or as twiddly as the Eldar, but sometimes ya just gotta root for the humies.
I don’t deny there’s some decent gameplay in the Imperial Guard. I really like the emphasis on leaders. But I’m down on them because they don’t bring a new style or feel to the game. They’re an amalgam of stuff that’s already in there: Eldar micro, Ork masses, Marine flexibility, and even artwork that was already in the original SP campaign. This is particularly disappointing considering the breadth and depth of the Warhammer 40k universe.
Or think of it this way: compare Winter Assault to expansions like Thrones and Patriots for RoN, Titans for AoM, Zero Hour for Generals, and Frozen Throne for WC3. Now those are expansions!
-Tom
If only they were underpowered. As it stands, they are crying for a nerf. There’s a reason everyone is playing them in multiplayer rated games, and it’s not just because they’re the “newest” fun race.
It may feel like you are withstanding a few rushes; in reality, you are kicking the other side’s teeth in with what is supposed to be your weakness, and then, if you’re smart, churning out priests and chainsawing everyone. Really disgusting to watch in the hands of any half-way decent player.
They both look pretty damn promising. I was also a little sad to see the pre-placed build plots go for BFME2–I thought it was a neat feature that really streamlined the base management portion of the game without taking away the most important element of it (making tough choices about what to build). It also adds more tactical interest to the map by forcing players to compete for building plots. I also liked that same feature in Kohan 2. Still, The rest of the stuff they have planned (especially the War of the Ring campaign mode) sounds cool enough that I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, there.
I especially like the fact that the War of the Ring campaign can be played multiplayer. That is truly awesome.
Roguefrog, Supreme Commander does look interesting, but Chris Taylor hasn’t done an RTS in a long time and I wasn’t too impressed with his Dungeon Siege games. I’m certainly looking forward to it in the same way I’m looking forward to any high profile RTS, but it doesn’t have the promise that comes with Empire at War, Battle for Middle Earth II, and Rise of Legends: namely, a developer who knows RTSs and has been making the ones I really like playing. Nostalgia for Total Annihiliation can only get you so far. :)
I’m no fan of Dungeon Siege either, but that wasn’t an RTS(what was that thing anyway? :D), and I really wished Chris Taylor kept making RTS games after TA. I share his idea of what an RTS should be. Nearly all RTSs these days focus on small scale armies and tactics. I crave for massive scale warfare and grand strategy. CT is making that game! Contrary to other developers, experience aside, I believe he will pull it off. (again)
Just look at TA. :wink:
I think you meant DOMED!
First Suprime Commander- The biggest reason I have hope isn’t becasue of TA, but it is what haqppened when Chris left- TA:Kingdoms. It really showed he was the brains behind the first game.
TA’s formula isn’t hard. Somehow everyone went the Warcraft/C&C route, build limitiations, crappy waypoint systems, less on combat more on resources, even if we do call one of the resources creeps now. I can still fly around the UI of TA better than any RTS that has come since. Why? well, it was intuitive. Build cues- sure pump out 50 of these, 20 of those, 4 Kogroths…and NO unit limitations! Great base defenses, good static offense buildings…mmm Big bertha…See to me the brilliance is on a 1:1 basis the units are balanced, but with the potpurri available, the game can become woefully unbalanced through building.That’s cool. It sounds bad, but the chaos created creates great gameplay.
My biggest complaint with the 3D RTS’s is can we make the maps any smaller? that is sarcasm. It is suppost to be a battlefield, not an arena, and that is what they feel like in CC:Generals and WarHammer.
the only ones
I still play occasionally at this point is Rise of Nations, and Homeworld II with the Star Wars mod. Nothing cooler than having a group of Republic Star Destroyers and a huge flight of X-wings.
This is a bit of an old man’s “get off my lawn” post regarding Total Annihilation. I always sort of understood why people liked it so much, but could never really get into it myself. It almost had too many units - it felt like unless you played the game constantly and for a long time, you would not be able to figure out quickly at a glance what a specific unit was, and why you would want to build one unit versus another unit.
In simple speak, all the units looked like gray little robots with blue or red edging, and I had no idea what was what on the battlefield.
I do understand that this sounds a bit like the 50 year old reminiscing about Pong, back when there weren’t so many “spanglies” to make the game confusing.
I think that is part of why I prefer fantasy or present day RTSs. I instinctively know what works against what (e.g. cavalry gives the beatdown to archers). I do not need to memorize as many rock/paper/scissors combos, as they are obvious. I have had similar problems in Age of Mythology because of this - in a flash in the heat of battle, how the hell do I know what a scorpion charioteer is supposed to be good against?
So with BFME2, do you upgrade buildings the same way as before? Like to get a new type of unit the building must build X amount of units first.
My understanding is that they got rid of that. Which is a good thing, since that was one of the most fundamental flaws in the game mechanics of BFME1.
Well i haven’t really looked at BFME until now. Might be ok, i’ll still wait for the reviews.
AoE3 is a game the game i love to hate, or hate to love, or something - get beat by the keyboard kiddies. Winter Assault isn’t bad if you think of it like a ‘mission’ made by some RPG group for the table top game. The IG are horribly imbalanced in multiplayer though.
That’s what pissed me off about BFME. Here I am trying to keep my troops alive, and to upgrade buildings, they have to die. I should fire it back up and just have a sacrificial unit, huh?
In skirmish games, it wasn’t a big deal. But in the campaign, where you keep your units between missions (a feature I really like, BTW), it was really nonsensical. Levelling your units up and keeping them alive made it impossible to get upgraded buildings. It was the biggest beef that I had with the game, so I’m glad to see that mechanic go.
build limitiations, crappy waypoint systems, less on combat more on resources, even if we do call one of the resources creeps now. I can still fly around the UI of TA better than any RTS that has come since. Why? well, it was intuitive. Build cues- sure pump out 50 of these, 20 of those, 4 Kogroths…and NO unit limitations! Great base defenses, good static offense buildings…mmm Big bertha…See to me the brilliance is on a 1:1 basis the units are balanced, but with the potpurri available, the game can become woefully unbalanced through building.That’s cool. It sounds bad, but the chaos created creates great gameplay.
Exactly!
Other games force you to move groups of units instead of simply having the ease to lasso an entire mass, or click on factors to create a fresh queue every five minutes because it maxes out, or order peons to collect from a new spot because the resource stash has ran out. TA had none of these microchores. You could build multiple structures, repair some damaged units, reclaim some wreakage, build some more structures, attack some dude then start a patrol route all via queue and then cancel any command in any order without the whole thing collapsing on itself. Also there were nefty key commands like alt-w that selected every combat unit on the screen minus the commander. Very handy given the potential for mixed unit environments.
I really can’t think of another RTS that had static offensive structures…
I instinctively know what works against what (e.g. cavalry gives the beatdown to archers). I do not need to memorize as many rock/paper/scissors combos, as they are obvious.
TA isn’t like rock/paper/scissors given there are no infinite velocity weapons that always hit. For instance a PeeWee(lvl1 kbot) can destroy a Goliath(lvl2 heavy tank) 1on1.
For comparison: a Siege Tank in SC will always kill a Space Marine 1on1.
Frog friend. :) That may be true, but I was speaking more generally. Some units have indirect fire. Some units are speedsters. By definition, there should be some units that are better at something than others, otherwise there would be no reason to have so many different units.
I’m with SlyFrog in that I respect what TA did way back when, but I think you guys are seeing it through rose-colored lenses. It’s like talking about how great Doom was without acknowledging that there have been several games that have learned from Doom – and indeed improved upon it – since then.
Neither do a lot of current RTSs. TA is no longer anything special. You ever play the Battlecry games from the former SSG guys in Australia? They took the resources system and queuing routines and hotkeys from TA and polished the dickens out of them. For instance, did TA let you insert an action into a queue with an alt-command like Battecry does?
And you want a commander? Pfft. Try one of the heroes from Battlecry. Now that’s a commander!
Everything else you mention has also been done, and done better, since TA. Keys to select all units on screen and static offensive structures are old news that have long since been adopted in the C&C series.
And there have been several games since TA that have improved the genre even further, pushing it in bold new directions that make TA look positively quaint: Kohan, Rise of Nations, and Dawn of War, to name the best and most innovative.
So, yeah, props to TA in its day, generic robot units aside. And I’m glad Chris Taylor is revisiting the genre. But as far as I’m concerned, he’s got to earn his cachet all over again before he’s in the same league as Petroglyph, the BFME team, or Brian Reynolds. :)
-Tom
Any word on whether you can slow BFME2 down during play? If this option was present in BFME, I couldn’t find it, and it made the game too clicky for me. I’m certainly no threat to anyone in the online RTS world, but for single player, I get the most enjoyment out of RTS games that let you slowwwww down the action. Dawn of War was the last of the recent crop that let you do this (RoN as well), and while the DoW single player campaign was insultingly short, I’ve had a lot of fun playing skirmish games.
Kevin, as far as I know, that team has never built a variable speed into their games. It’s not in the C&C games or Battle for Middle Earth. Their thinking seems to be that this is the pace at which the game is supposed to be played and if you don’t like it, you can boot up Civ. :)
But I hear you, brother. I sometimes like a slow RTS too, particularly when I’m learning it or helping other people learn it. Madfastclickskillz requirements are really fucking annoying and they make it hard to appreciate what’s going on as you’re learning.
Just another reason why Rise of Nations is a god among RTSs…
-Tom
I don’t think the Doom comparison is fair since I can’t think of a single RTS that follows TAs gameplay style. You’re right in that there are some now that incorporate a few of its mechanics. But see, Doom as a shooter is pretty much obsolete. TA as an RTS still retains some uniqueness today. The last time I played TA was maybe 4 months ago so my memory shouldn’t be that clouded. I have been keeping up with current RTS games as well since it is one of my favorite genres, but I’m not seeing some of the stuff you’re seeing Tom. Maybe I’m not playing the right ones. Case in point: Battlecry. I might have to check that out now.
Keys to select all units on screen and static offensive structures are old news that have long since been adopted in the C&C series.
Keys to select all the units on the screen is standard, but I don’t recall any static offensive structures (ala Long Range “From Across the Map”/“Base to Base” Artillery) anywhere in the C&C series. Just staple super-weapons.
And there have been several games since TA that have improved the genre even further, pushing it in bold new directions that make TA look positively quaint: Kohan, Rise of Nations, and Dawn of War, to name the best and most innovative.
Throughly played Dawn of War and Rise of Nations. Excellent games in their own right, and both share a similar unlimited resource system with TA, but they are also a lot different from TA’s style which is what I really crave. Massive maps, tons of units, large scale battles of attrition and strategy oppose to small groups/tactics and fine tuned paper/rock/scissors balance.
So, yeah, props to TA in its day, generic robot units aside. And I’m glad Chris Taylor is revisiting the genre. But as far as I’m concerned, he’s got to earn his cachet all over again before he’s in the same league as Petroglyph, the BFME team, or Brian Reynolds. :)
You don’t like those robot buzzes and whistles?
CT is going to create his own league. I mean this is good kool-aid. :)