You really ought to, because I think you’ll be surprised at just how unique Total Annilhiation is compared to modern RTS. I haven’t played quite as many as you have in the last five years, but I’m probably one of the few that’s close on this board and I can tell you that nothing has a feel even close to the scale of the battles in Total Annihilation.
Also, I’m not sure anyone has properly done anything like the power of the Commander unit and the D-Gun.
When I look at those shots of Supreme Commander, it really does get me excited because the battles in Total Annihilation made for awesome war stories after the fact. So few RTS games give me that same sense of conflict from the first few skirmishes and on up to Nukes, Big Bertha guns, swarms of Brawlers, etc. It’s really unmatched in its uniqueness.
I’ve played almost all the RTS games produced and I still feel TA is the best. I had battles in TA years ago that I still remember in awe to this day. All the things mentioned above setting TA apart have appeared in other games but no game put them all together in a slick package like TA.
If anyone is down with getting some TA multiplayer going, shoot me a PM. I have no idea if this is challenging to get working over the modern intarweb, but I would love to get a couple of games in - TA is my favorite RTS of all time too.
Personally, my favorite aspect thus far is the huge scale this game is going to offer. Almost Civ IV-style - but it looks like zooming out will actually be useful.
Reinstall it, Tom and then get back to me…
In the meantime, can you tell me what the specific sub-groups are in RTSes so I know what I can and can’t compare? Is ‘action-oriented’ the polite thing to call busy-work intensive games or is there a sub-section of RTSes that is ‘hyperaction-oriented’? Because they’re the ones I don’t like.
Depending on how you read it, I don’t think that pointing out that five different games picking up one of the good features each disproves my point, especially when I meant ‘picked up the list’. All of the games you mentioned have their roots in either C&C or Earth 2140 (Which had its own ‘action-oriented’ problems) or RoN. (Also, can you give peons in RoN a patrol route like that whereby they’ll help build, then repair, then harvest whatever is on their route? I didn’t think so.) What is the spiritual heir of TA?
I think I better reinstall the game too to make sure that my positive-bias filters are okay. Does anyone know how to get it working online? I tried to do so with a friend about 8 months ago but failed. Is there a router issue that anyone knows of?
Anyway Tom,
‘doesn’t seem to be very in touch with RTSs’ ‘George Lucas’ reputation’ ‘None of them are particularly innovative’ ‘disabuse you of notions that Total Annihiliation is unique’ ‘absolute malarky’ ‘waaah!’ ‘quite a slog’ ‘not very friendly’ ‘fanatics’
when did the Core Commander run over your dog?
Yes, that was exactly my point. Thanks for reiterating it.
Peter, you tried to say something I hear a lot about TA. I’m going to quote you for the third time to make sure there are no misunderstandings:
By pointing out games that have indeed done “things that TA did right” – i.e. the concepts you listed immediately before that statement – I think it’s clear that either you were wrong or that I misunderstood your point.
If it’s the latter, please elaborate, as I’m curious what you meant. What are the things in TA that no other game picked up and ran with?
when did the Core Commander run over your dog?
What is the deal with fanboys that you can’t try to temper hyperbole without them insisting you hate their game? Sheesh.
At any rate, if you have to assemble a bunch of bits from my posts and quote them incompletely and out of context in an effort to illustrate that I hate TA, then you’re really reaching.
This is probably the point Peter was trying to make. And I don’t disagree in the least.
However, there are warts. There are things that other games have done better, including things that TA introduced. Many of TA’s innovations are no longer innovations. I think there’s a definitely lack of personality in TA that hurts it next to other games. There are even RTSs that some of us think are ultimately a more comprehensive package (Battlecry and RoN, for instance).
I don’t understand why saying these things pisses off TA fans, or makes them feel the game isn’t being given its due.
I love TA and still feel it is one of the best RTS games today (along with RoN). I for one do agree with your judgement about TA, that it lacks personality and no longer has unique features. TA fans generally get upset about the lack of credit given to TA for paving the way. Just as Kohan and Myth are so often overlooked while flashier more modern RTSes are called innovative when in fact they aren’t, like Dawn of War (which I still enjoy for sheer viceral quality).
When Starcraft gets touted as the best RTS of all, it irkes some of us. When you ask a Starcraft fan what it added to RTS games all you hear is the lame three sides argument. Yet Starcraft wins the gamers because of polish. When majority of gamers, who are TA ignorant, demand new RTS games, they look to the creators of Warcraft3 and AoE3 to expand the genre. The TA fan knows it’s not going to come from there. Now I’m not sure Chris Taylor can pull out another TA-like revolution, but if you are dismissing him then where are you looking for new and innovative RTS design? Relic played it safe and went for style. Timegate took one step backwards with Kohan2. Rise of Legends? It’s looking cool, but a revolution? The new stuff still seems to stay within the AoE mold.
Don’t put words in my mouth. I never said that 300 units was a strength of TA. Seriously thought, Starcraft was exactly like the gameplay for Warcraft. Yes they mixed it up with the units and basebuilding, but it came down to variety and polish in the same dated package.
Speaking slowly, 'There is a large list of things that TA did right that no other game companies have copied. I am talking about the list, not parts of the list. Other game makers have copied parts of the list but not the whole (or even most) of the list. The list isn’t exactly a unique design document which would only create exact clones of TA, rather they were design choices that were generic enough for games to appropriate. I consider it strange that people haven’t gone for a similar style game (with extra chrome or tweaks or whatever added) in the way that companies have copied the UI, resource collecting, combat style, gameplay choices etc of the other two leaders. I’m not going for some semantic dodge here either.
No, I’m just trying to temper some hyperbole of my own.
And quoting.
Actually, I’ve forgotten what I’m disagreeing with you about. TA was great for its age and a remake that is about more of the same + extra stuff should be great. Oh wait, that’s what I’m disagreeing with you about- you think that games that are already out bear a similarity to TA. And that Chris Taylor is overrated.
Since I derailed the point you made at the beginning, I’ll ask you instead- which game provides the most similar gameplay to TA in your experience?
I’m sure there’s a pretty wide definition gameplay that could be used but I’ll be happy with whatever you go with.
I’d actually agree with you on all those points… I actually have more fun with other rts games now than with TA just because graphics and interface have improved so much since then (which is why I play TA Spring instead of TA now). But the overall unique satisfying gameplay of TA has not been touched since. No rts has done terrain, long range artillery, radar, debris and line of sight like TA has. NONE have the feel of a theater of operations like TA had. To NOT get this means you really didn’t play TA much.
I must have play over 50 multiplayer matches of TA. I have yet to play another RTS like it. The amount of build options, units, maps, and strategy is unsurmountable.
In most RTSs only a couple theaters of war are covered. TA has it all and then some: infantry, vehicles, aircraft, navy (with huge capital ships and subs - some with sonar/radar/powerplants built in) long range artillery, nukes, anti-nukes, EMP, hovercraft, amphibious infantry/vehicles/aircraft/buildings (both above and underwater), cloaking, krogoths…
I think it’s a problem with the direction of the RTS genre. It calls itself stratergy but has no relation to that name, being mostly about tactics and optimum research trees. Blizzard produced probably the most famous and most played RTS there is, Starcraft, yet it is everything TA fans tend to hate about most of the RTS genre because it’s almost the opposite of everything TA stands for.
What, IMO, most people miss about TA is the one thing no game has ever gone with: the scale. TA could be ENORMOUS. You could have literally thousands of troops per side (unlikely, but hundreds wasn’t un-common in top games). Watch a replay of some great players fighting it out, and the entire map is covered with their bases, huge columns of troops probe for a weakness in the enemy lines… TA was beautiful because the interface worked for you, unlike a Blizzard game where the interface is intentionally crippled to make you micro more. TA had a greater focus on the macro, which is something RTS games very rarely do, and that is why fans still pine for it no matter how many other games borrow elements from it (and truthfully I don’t think it had the influence it should have, most games have oviously drawn from Starcraft/Warcraft III), because its overall play style was so different from other RTS games, especially then.
Another element would be that I think it was a very newbie friendly game. People will tell magical stories of their six-hour game where they tried to break down each others defences. You knew they had played it all wrong, but it didn’t matter because they came out feeling they had achieved a mighty victory and they loved every second of it. The only other game I’ve ever seen capture this is Dawn of War, where the Bloodthirster is about as useless as the Krogoth, but people still feel like it’s a mighty battle when they get one out.
TAs biggest problem was that it was released before Blizzard made balancing post-release fashionable, and TA suffered from many MANY redundant units, and later an online system which, compared to Battle.net, was rather clumsy.
However, TA was a special game because, while there are many games which play like Starcraft and many which play like Age of Empires, and even some that felt like Command & Conquer, no one has ever really tried to recreate the experience TA provided, which is why there is such nostalgia for it. There’s simply nothing to replace what it did, yet.
Just look at the first expansion, Core Contingency. It added tons of maps, and in Hovercraft another theatre all together, totally changing what was possible on any map involving water! It’s probably the best RTS expansion ever release. It didn’t act as a big patch, it added a ton of new stuff.
I can’t wait for Supreme Commander as TAs biggest problem was balance, and in this day and age I would fully expect to see some balance patches this time around. I also think, from the interviews he’s given, that it sounds like he’s taking TA the next logical step.
I’ve played most RTS multiplayer since Dune2. Multiplayer is the only reason I play RTS - in fact, I can’t remember completing any single player campaign in any of them. While I agree with Tom Chick, that a lot of really good RTS’ has been released since TA, I have to say that no other game has given me the amount of fun and entertainment that multiplayer TA did. The excellent design, interface and general concept allowed you to fight the wars - not the game. Lot’s and lot’s of tactical decissions decided the outcome of the battles. The regular release of new units kept the game fresh for a long time, because new strategies was constantly being designed around the new units. Not to mention the introduction of the Boneyards - to my knowledge the first persistant RTS “world”.
A lot of the things that made TA stand out as great, has already been mentioned in this thread. But what really has me exited about SC is the fact that it seems as if Chris Taylor is aiming for the same “feel” as TA. It might just be nostalgia, but I would love to get that “feel” back…
One thing I think TA did that no other RTS has done since then is downloadable units. For a while, every Friday meant a new unit that dynamically changed the way the game could be played. The Flakker (and its counterpart) would decimate a Brawler/Rapier rush. The Flash rush ended up getting chewed up by the plasma cannon (I forget the official name) that was released just before the downloadble units stopped.
For the most part, each new unit added an element of gameplay that countered some of the top strategies gamers had at the time, forcing players to go back and rethink how to win. They couldn’t rely on the tried and true every time, because the devs came up with a counter for it.
To this day, TA is my favorite RTS and even though I haven’t seen SUPCOM since Chris first unveiled it to us in June of last year, I felt confident that he and his team still knew what they were doing. The little we got to play of it really rekindled what made TA fun.
