Really shortsighted view of it. Just because you make a new RTS that is more generally appealing is not going to change the existence of those that preceded it or their fanbase.
this post was submitted on 11 May 2024
197 points (94.6% liked)
Games
16806 readers
829 users here now
Video game news oriented community. No NanoUFO is not a bot :)
Posts.
- News oriented content (general reviews, previews or retrospectives allowed).
- Broad discussion posts (preferably not only about a specific game).
- No humor/memes etc..
- No affiliate links
- No advertising.
- No clickbait, editorialized, sensational titles. State the game in question in the title. No all caps.
- No self promotion.
- No duplicate posts, newer post will be deleted unless there is more discussion in one of the posts.
- No politics.
Comments.
- No personal attacks.
- Obey instance rules.
- No low effort comments(one or two words, emoji etc..)
- Please use spoiler tags for spoilers.
My goal is just to have a community where people can go and see what new game news is out for the day and comment on it.
Other communities:
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Last year brought us Baldur's Gate 3.
In what way can "nerd things" not be mainstream?
TIL that BG3 is an RTS. I thought it was just an MMO or a DotA/LoL predecessor.
Woosh
TF is crate ent. on about? They've not even made an RTS, let alone one with love and care out into it? They've got an RPG* (grim dawn) and a city builder (farthest frontier) on steam. Neither come anywhere close to what an RTS is supposed to be, and like others have said, Dune (don't know the specific name), C&C, warcraft and StarCraft we're all impressive mainstream games, all RTS.
Haven't read the post, but what if kind of detached world do they live in?
The first sentence says they're working on an RTS currently. Even if they weren't, the CEO is probably allowed to share his opinion on RTS games even if he hasn't made one, just like all of us can. I think what's missing is the qualifier "will never be mainstream across all major continents again"
I think someone should reboot the Dune RTS game from like 30 years ago. I played it as a kid on my Sega Genesis, and right now it's a ripe time to do it. Interesting parts:
- feels like C&C, but with spice worms
- lots of factions, but could stick to three: Atreides, Harkonnen, Corrino/Emperor (optionally add the Fremen as a fourth)
- cool, unique tech and setting
So, here's what I suggest:
- copy C&C gameplay with updated graphics, and swap units appropriately
- add spice worms as a "random" event based on greed (keeps stronger players in check)
- balance like in Starcraft - harkonnen are like Zerg, corrino/empire are like protoss, and atreides are like Terran; Fremen faction could work like Zerg, in which case harkonnen works more like Terran
I think that could sell well.
Have you tried the new one?
Huh, it actually exists! That said, from one of the reviews:
Feels like a tablet or phone game. Your PC will be insulted. This is one of those games that make you think you played it ten years ago. Actually 30 years ago, Dune II back in 1992 was a better game and was groundbreaking at the time. This is not on any level. 5 units types per faction, that's it. No ground vehicles to speak of that you can control.
I'll probably be disappointed.
That review is bullshit. It's not going to tax your machine, but that's a good thing. The unit type thing is also missing that not the entire game takes place on the battlefield, there's multiple layers to it and you almost never win through pure domination.
EDIT: Also, ground vehicles? This is Dune, you can't cross sand in a vehicle, and they couldn't go up cliffs. No, instead you airdrop, which is way more flexible.
K, I'll watch some gameplay footage then.
C&C was mainstream. Fuck you EA.
The problem with modern RTS games is that developers don't really make proper RTS games. You don't see C&C or SC anymore, instead you get a mixture of tactical missions, RPG levelling and other shit. I don't want to play stealth infiltration missions and level up my hero, that's not RTS.
Warzone 2100 did the RPG elements as much as was needed in a RTS. Sure individual units gained XP,.and they carried over from one mission to the next. You could also recycle units to upgrade their chassis. That was it. You could also just churn out basic troops and just throw away armies if you wanted.
Wasn't that going on as far back as WC3? If I wanted an RPG I would have bought one.
Yeah, that's why it's not on my list. The first two games were better.
Yup, if I want to level up my units, I'll research upgrades for my units. That requires resources, not combat. I honestly never saw the point of a mechanic or medic in C&C, because if I won a battle, I would usually go on to destroy their infra, not heal up to go again.
Starcraft got this right.
One thing that may be interesting here is a "drill" feature, where you lock up a unit for some time and expend some resources to get a higher tier unit. That way you can spam units early on and replace them later for cheaper, but the total cost would be higher than building that unit initially.
I bought the C&C collection because I loved it when I was younger. EA fucked up C&C3 with an update that turned it into a constant zerg rush by the AI and Red Alert 3 has the same bullshit AND a shitty AI co-commander blowing through resources while doing fuck all. There's no strategy, just frantic clicking and attack alerts.
Battle for Middle Earth was my favourite game ever probably or at least among top 3. Honestly between the 4x warhammer total war and rts bfme I think bfme was slightly more fun.
It’s a real shame the genre is so forgotten.
RTS is more organic genre without incessant thinking about numbers and save scumming while 4x always feels like Math.
Every game session of RTS game is slightly different even with the same map and enemy parameters providing for a way more replayability value and unpredictable chaos that you need to manage in real time. It’s much more engaging this way.
It’s still about numbers under the hood but more organic while 4x feels like an excel spreadsheet sometimes. There are less solutions to victory, sometimes even only one proper, predetermined before playing and that’s boring.
Another gem was Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Dark Crusade. They made 2 sequels but none captured the gameplay of the first one. For some unknown reason they scrapped everything what made the original good in the second game, making it completely different. The third one was an attempt to go back to the mechanics of the first one but it was mediocre.
Oh yeah bfme is a real gem
And you cannot play it anymore due to the BS drm crap. I don't need a remake, just let me play it somehow
Games of that era are also just to big to easily pirate. A SNES ROM? Ezpz. But a full DVD game? Not without torrenting
I think this is all you need nowadays, it’s one click install I think. https://www.moddb.com/mods/battle-for-middle-earth-patch-222/downloads/patch-222
Hell, I will give it a go myself tomorrow
Dang, thank you!
Yw yw have fun (hopefully it works, haven’t checked myself yet)
I played it quite recently I think the community has solved that problem, even online iirc it worked. Don’t remember the links though. It’s still fun and a good escape when warhammer gets stale.
I do remember it was bashed for drm on release though. I also remember these things called no-dvd cracks you pulled form the shady websites with disgusting porn ads to not have to have the disc in your drive at all times. Also avast antivirus shenanigans. I wouldn’t say it was good old times but it all had certain flavour though I probably wouldn’t want to go back in time haha.
Gaming is generally in an amazing place now with an exception of few things lost along the way one of which is aaa RTS and another early Bethesda rpg genre, they totally changed their games starting with oblivion.
For a moment, I was swapping 4X and RTS in my head, making me absolutely agree that it'll never be mainstream.
Yeah, I don't know enough about RTS games to make a claim, but I'd like to think games like Civilization are well known enough to make them mainstream.
Unless I'm missing something new in later civs, the civilization series is missing the "real tine" part. Unless we're talking about the fact that it takes place during real time periods. Hah.
Fair enough.
The RTS genre will never be mainstream
StarCraft: exists
Lmao what the fuck is this guy even talking about
Grandpa...
Starcraft hasn't been mainstream for over a decade.
Which one? Sc1 is still a mainstream game in Korea played religiously. Sc2 on the other hand is losing players since it didn't hook people the same way (impossible to do, people only have one childhood to waste nostalgia on). That's understandable though since there hasn't been new content for it for a long time.
And then you find out that a premium mount in WoW made more money than the entirety of Wings of Liberty and you kinda understand why they haven't made a new one.
Sure, it's popular in one country, that doesn't mske it mainstream. Fortnite or Minecraft are mainstream games. There's no RTS that's even close to the popularity of those games.
For real - I’m visiting Seoul right now and I’ve popped into a couple of Internet cafes just to see what’s what. Tons of people still play SC1. There are, like, championships here for SC1, and they seem to have quite a decently large following.
I'd actually be OK with a SC game that has tons of cosmetic paid DLC. Pump money into the game to keep them developing it, and add some visual variety on the map.i stead of fighting against 3 Teran teams that all look the same, you'd have 1 team that looks like zombies or a football team or other wacky shit.
There are literally 3 free2play RTSes based on Blizzard dev studios / players etc doing exactly that.
view more: next ›