Rise of Nations spoiled me with so many gameplay mechanics, I loved how borders worked and getting armies into formations. RON is one of the reasons why alot of newer RTS games aren’t that fun to me.
I’m with the frog here. I still play TA ocassionally, and it holds up just fine, unlike Doom, which I also burn through once a year-and will again in a couple of weeks- which really hasn’t held up.
I’m gonna check out this Battlecry game.
Seriously though, out of the AAA titles which one can you grab your builder unit, and just place waypoints here and there and they are smart enough to do the right things along the way- repair, collect metal from wrecks, help with other workers building exc. In TA I could spend two minutes mid game, and have my workers doing all sorts of stuff with zero micromanagement after that. They just did thier jobs. So I could spend my time doing what you are suppost to be doing in an RTS…blowing shit up.
C&C even at it’s best, could polish the TA commanders dome, and other than bunkers and AAA what static defenses? TA had like 30 of them.Some would take half the match to build, like that pinwheel gun, but they were always well worth it…and you could group them with a squad. Attack here- Boom Boom Boom…single select and shut it off when your guys reached that point of the map…brilliant.
You could truly turtle in that game if that was your style…and there were alot of people that did just that…turned the game into an assault map.
There is alot I love about RoN and Warhammer, but I guess , even today, the action game feel of TA still holds me. But what do you expect from a FPS whore?
SolomonGrundy and roguefrog, whether Doom is obsolete isn’t material to the point I was making:
I’m sure TA holds up. My point is simply that it’s no longer the standout innovative godsend to RTSs that some people make it out to be. Instead, it’s just another good title that the genre has passed by.
That’s cool that you guys are still into its “style” and “feel”, but frankly, that sort of subjective experience is probably going to be the hardest thing for Chris Taylor to capture after so many years, with a different team, using different technology on radically different hardware, within the context of a genre that’s evolved mightily. Personally, I’ll just be happy if he makes a good RTS.
-Tom
Yeah, let’s not set the bar too high for Mr. Dungeon Siege. I hate to keep ragging on this game (then don’t!) but it was a colossal bummer for me. In the interests of evenhandedness I’ll note that several people on this forum liked it. I am hoping that this time around, Taylor will make a game that I like.
I wasn’t a fan of the original BFME and doubt I’ll be interested in the sequel. I’m not really sure I see where the idea of an RTS set in Middle Earth comes from, when the original series was clearly less about combat (or getting your second gold mine and aging up, for that matter) and more about travel. I’m not sure what the gameplay model would be for a travel-centric game in Middle Earth. Carmen Sandiego? Myst with ponies?
Games about Star Wars often suck, but when they’re good, they’re pretty damn good. Of these three games, I’m most interested in Empire at War. So it has a huge potential to suck – what game doesn’t? I probably won’t pick it up at release, but I’ll be keeping an eye on what people are saying about it.
Can anyone provide a link to some info on these games? Supreme Commander and Rise of Legends. Gamespy had zip.
I use to be heavily into RTS until Starcraft. And then nothing IMO has ever eclipsed that game. I did enjoy War3 and Dragonshard though. TA never did it for me.
Also there have been plenty of “wargame” type games set in Middle Earth. There is a whole backstory of building alliances and mobilising armies. One I remember on the Amiga let you play the game emulating the book almost 100% (small group of heroes getting into Mordor and destroying the ring) or militarily (the same heroes mobilise armies and fight their way in to destroy the ring).
Well Tom, what I ment by style is the “massive scope” of the game. There’s just a ton of everything. So you deal with larger numbers across the board. For instance in any C&C 30 units is a lot. In TA 30 units is nothing, 200 is more accurate. From what I’ve read of Supreme Commander(everything avalible), it’s hitting a similar vein.
I am hoping that this time around, Taylor will make a game that I like.
“Don’t worry, it will be great™”
CT’s already let slip a few neat features like units being able to converg at a set location at the same time, zooming out so far that entire armies are represented as icons (so we can assume the maps are ridiculously huge), and smart click prioritizing.
I don’t mean to keep harping on this, but it’s not in the least bit unique to Total Annihilation. Rise of Nations routinely has hundreds of units onscreen at once. Shogun/Medeival/Rome has more than that. The Age series, Empire Earth, Empires: Dawn of the Modern War, hell, even Cossacks, a fifth-rate RTS from Eastern Europe, all support larger scale engagements.
So, yeah, if you’re limiting RTSs to smaller tactical scales like Warcraft III or Dragonshard, then Total Annihiliation stands out.
Being able to converge on set locations at the same time? Sounds like an interface nightmare. But for the record, the Earth 2140/2150/2160 series has had this for nearly ten years: tap a key to record orders, queue up orders, tap another key to execute them all.
Huge maps would be cool, although that can present problems of pacing and balance. Many RTSs can support ridiculously large maps if they want. The problem comes from striking a balance between room for maneuvering (which can give units with mobility too much of an advantage) and forcing players to bump into each other to fight (which is a concept that drives the resource system in many RTSs).
And I have no idea what “smart click prioritizing” means, but it sets off my buzzword alarm. :)
-Tom
Surely, you’re kidding? Did you see the movies? The battle of Helm’s Deep? Minas Tirith? The Oliphaunts? The scenes of Sauramon sending out orks to clear cut forests? I was watching those thinking, “Damn, that Tolkein guy must have dug his real time strategy games!”
The thing to keep in mind is less the license and more the developer. Petroglyph is, I believe, mainly ex-Westwood guys, veterans of the C&C series. They know what they’re doing.
And solomani, I’m pretty sure Big Huge Games and Microsoft haven’t done a lot on Rise of Legends since E3. There should be another wave of previews out soon, so expect more information as the holidays subside.
-Tom
RTS development experience certainly counts for something, but weren’t the Westwood RTS games all basically variations of the same old Dune 2 game mechanics? I dunno, maybe I’m just jaded from playing generic Westwood RTS #8.
- Alan
A great thanks. I misspelled Suprime when doing the search. No wonder I got zip. :oops:
RTS development experience certainly counts for something, but weren’t the Westwood RTS games all basically variations of the same old Dune 2 game mechanics? I dunno, maybe I’m just jaded from playing generic Westwood RTS #8.
- Alan[/quote]
By the end thats how I felt though I still played them. Loved the cutscenes!
Hardly. There are certainly reasons to dislike Westwood’s games, but calling them variations of Dune 2 is like dismissing id’s games for being variations of the first Doom. Oh, wait, maybe that’s not the analogy I should use…
-Tom
Surely, you’re kidding? Did you see the movies? The battle of Helm’s Deep? Minas Tirith? The Oliphaunts? The scenes of Sauramon sending out orks to clear cut forests? I was watching those thinking, “Damn, that Tolkein guy must have dug his real time strategy games!”[/quote]
I only saw the first movie. Besides, I kind of formed my opinion of Lord of the Rings somewhat before the movies came out. I was never a big fan. (Even now you are likely crossing yourself at the revelation that I haven’t seen the whole trilogy of films.) I – and I know this is really inviting Twosixteen to post his usual post right after this one – have always despised the shallowness and racism of Tolkein; I feel he exemplifies what fantasy should NOT be. He was… trite. Like a Hallmark card, but at length. Please don’t respond defending Tolkein or the films; I am perfectly aware that a lot of people either do not see or are willing to overlook their problems. That’s okay. I’m not trying to win converts.
Anyway, travel through breathtaking and diverse environments of varying hostility and the accompanying logistics (i.e., transport, food, clothing, shelter) were the things I took away from the trilogy (of books). It was a surprisingly direct approach to the goal of showing the reader a fictional world, and I’m a little surprised that more authors didn’t adopt it – it seems that they’d rather twist the kings-and-battles spigot all the way open. I would actually like to see a computer game that captured more of the “hiking and camping” aspect, even if it wasn’t licensed. Although to pull off something like that, there would need to be a high level of atmosphere and tremendous sense of place. I still think it could be done, but I don’t think it would sell very well, so it’s kind of a pipe dream, no?
The best thing to come out of Tolkein directly or close to directly is of course Zangband.
The thing to keep in mind is less the license and more the developer. Petroglyph is, I believe, mainly ex-Westwood guys, veterans of the C&C series. They know what they’re doing.[/quote]
Sure, the developer’s important. It’s Star Wars that makes me notice the game, though. Every game might suck, but if this game kicks ass, it’ll be a kickass Star Wars game. Even if it’s just okay, it’ll be an okay Star Wars game. (You liked SWBG, so you know what I’m talking about.) I’ve had some good times with Westwood games, but the evolving Westwood model is hardly my favorite template for RTSes overall, and if this developer was doing some other project, it would have to have some other intriguing aspect for me to pay any attention to it pre-release.
A lot of recent RTS games have been really bad, and my natural inclination in general is to ignore them unless word of mouth is strongly positive and indicates that they do not revolve around tasking your peasants to stone pits. But like a damn fool – and even worse, like a damn fool who didn’t just rant about how he hates that fucking reactionary J. R. R. Tolkein and his fucking Nazi elves – I will bark like a dog for Star Wars. Even I am unsure why. But hey, what the hell.
Not crossing myself, just wondering why you’d even comment on the suitability of the story for a strategy game if you aren’t familiar with the story. As it happens, LotR is very suitable for this sort of game, since the War of the Ring provides the backdrop for the journey of the Fellowship. Tolkien described all the major battles in great detail, and Jackson did a superb job translating them to the screen. LotR–both books and film–are as much about the war between the free people of Middle Earth and Sauron as the Star Wars films were about the war between the Rebels and the Empire.
So, contrary to your original comment, I can’t see how anyone could come out of either reading the books or watching the films without thinking that they’d make great material for a strategy game.
Anyway, travel through breathtaking and diverse environments of varying hostility and the accompanying logistics (i.e., transport, food, clothing, shelter) were the things I took away from the trilogy (of books).
That does get a lion’s share of the page count in LOTR, but the backdrop is a war and there are several battle scenes as well, obviously; so the strategy-game connection is hardly a stretch. Nor is it a new idea – there was a turn-based 8 bit game in the 1980s called “War in Middle Earth.”
Not crossing myself, just wondering why you’d even comment on the suitability of the story for a strategy game if you aren’t familiar with the story. As it happens, LotR is very suitable for this sort of game, since the War of the Ring provides the backdrop for the journey of the Fellowship. Tolkien described all the major battles in great detail, and Jackson did a superb job translating them to the screen. LotR–both books and film–are as much about the war between the free people of Middle Earth and Sauron as the Star Wars films were about the war between the Rebels and the Empire.
So, contrary to your original comment, I can’t see how anyone could come out of either reading the books or watching the films without thinking that they’d make great material for a strategy game.[/quote]
You know, at first I kind of bristled at the suggestion that I’m not familiar with LotR’s story. I’ve read the books. But then I realized that while I may have READ it, I didn’t GET it. I still don’t get it. And you guys clearly do. A lot of people do. If you want to correct me on what the books were really about, well, I barely remember them and didn’t even like them, so you probably know better than I do.
The entire Lord of the Rings thing aside, I dabbled briefly in BFME and was underwhelmed. I have to be honest, it was running on my weak-ass system, and having the graphics cranked all the way down may have hurt it. Also, my experience was with the initial missions of the evil campaign, which might not have been the best starting point. While there were one or two things I liked about the game – the thing where you can merge archers with a melee unit screening them comes to mind – there were too many other games I solidly liked to justify playing BFME. It just seemed kinda mediocre. Maybe once again I simply didn’t get it.
In the first two films. RotK was full of CGI, jolly-green pirate ghosts, and lots and lots of slo-mo. Very sad considering the promise of the first two.
But from all the talk, I’m looking forward to BfME 2 myself. That and RoL should keep me very happy in 2006.
In the exciting thrill ride that is this thread, I forgot all about Rise of Legends. I’m not sure what to think about it. Rise of Nations was extremely impressive and had a lot of clever ideas that make me wonder (as did Dark Reign and Total Annihilation) why everyone doesn’t do it that way. And I was going to mention how impressed I was that Brian Reynolds still frequents this forum despite E5 calling him a fucking fucker or whatever, but then I remembered that was Brad Wardell. With Brian Reynolds it was Met_K and FUCK U FUKKER I STOLES UR GAME. Glad to have you back, Brian.
However! I often felt overwhelmed by Rise of Nations. I always seemed to be doing okay for the first few minutes, and then I’d remember that hey, wasn’t I supposed to be doing something with my library? I could also never figure out how to pace my naval buildup. I probably could have figured this stuff out given time (I think not having played Age of Empires very much put me at a bit of a disadvantage) but I wound up setting the game aside for other games. When Thrones and Patriots came out, I tried to get back into it, only to discover to my horror the additional early building that you have to make important choices in. Important choices are hard!
The sad truth is that Rise of Legends will probably be a great game that I suck at. But – and I do mean this as a compliment – of all games where wrangling villagers is an important gameplay element, Rise of Nations is my favorite.
Unicorn, I’m with you on Lord of the Rings. I’m not a big fan of the hobbit movies or books. But now that we’ve beaten you down on that topic, it’s time to move on to this topic:
Really? Like what?
On the contrary, I think it’s a vibrant genre that’s really thriving creatively. Although I’ve been disappointed with a few recent releases, I still love them. In fact, I’d be hard pressed to think of any recent RTS that I’d call “really bad”.
As for Rise of Nations, just use the pause and speed control and play it like a turn-based game! And remember that the tab key will take you through everything you need to do. I dare say that Rise of Nations is pretty much idiot proof! :)
-Tom