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Chef
10810 Posts
While rendering isn’t so bad, isometric path-finding on square tiles was very difficult. Instead of large (32×32 pixel) diagonal tiles that were either passable or impassable, the map had to be broken into tiny 8×8 pixel tiles — multiplying the amount of path-searching by a factor of 16 as well as creating difficulties for larger units that couldn’t squeeze down a narrow path. Why goons are dumb  | ||
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Shauni
4077 Posts
It's also interesting to see how many features and issues were thought of and reworked or removed because of hardware limitation. I think voice chat would be pretty horrific in Starcraft due to many reasons, a major one is that playing the game with dialup would be even more painful. | ||
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Talin
Montenegro10532 Posts
Here's an interesting snippet from that one: Later in the development process, and after many design arguments between team-members, we decided to allow players to select only four units at a time based on the idea that users would be required to pay attention to their tactical deployments rather than simply gathering a mob and sending them into the fray all at once. It debunks the popular notion that interface limitations were a technical necessity at the time, but also indicates that the developers considered the more mechanical - speed and multitasking - aspects of an RTS very early on (basically at the dawn of modern RTS) and based their design decisions around it. | ||
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Shauni
4077 Posts
On September 10 2012 05:09 Talin wrote: The Starcraft article was amazing, and it also made me read his other articles, specifically one on Warcraft (1) development. Here's an interesting snippet from that one: It debunks the popular notion that interface limitations were a technical necessity at the time, but also indicates that the developers considered the more mechanical - speed and multitasking - aspects of an RTS very early on (basically at the dawn of modern RTS) and based their design decisions around it. Yeah, that article was talked about in this thread recently http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=355837 | ||
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shindigs
United States4795 Posts
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Kaeru
Sweden552 Posts
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Vain
Netherlands1115 Posts
 Very refreshing and i'm eager to see part 2 Also the title made me think this thread was again about the imminent demise of starcraft BW | ||
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Proseat
Germany5113 Posts
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Ownos
United States2147 Posts
On September 08 2012 18:06 ArvickHero wrote: ya I wonder if this guy realizes that some of these "bugs" made the game so much deeper .. Basically, all the quirks are a wonderful accident. Kind of like Street Fighter 2. A lot of later development on that franchise was because of bugs in this game that people ended up liking. | ||
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Ownos
United States2147 Posts
On September 10 2012 05:09 Talin wrote: The Starcraft article was amazing, and it also made me read his other articles, specifically one on Warcraft (1) development. Here's an interesting snippet from that one: It debunks the popular notion that interface limitations were a technical necessity at the time, but also indicates that the developers considered the more mechanical - speed and multitasking - aspects of an RTS very early on (basically at the dawn of modern RTS) and based their design decisions around it. They didn't consider the ideas of hand speed factoring in. In fact they were surprised people took that approach to the game. They've made this clear since like 1999. People complained on their forums why couldn't they just select their whole army and attack-move? It's because they intended for you to micro your units more... in other words, they wanted it to play more like Warcraft; focusing on micro. Unfortunately, they didn't count on Koreans just simply moving their hands fast enough to overcome that limitation and SC became more about macro. They never intended the unit select limit as an obstacle for the player to overcome by hand speed. Like I said they were surprised by the Korean scene when they simply just "played faster". They also added in the "fastest" game speed as a joke. | ||
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Roflhaxx
Korea (South)1244 Posts
On September 10 2012 11:13 Ownos wrote: They didn't consider the ideas of hand speed factoring in. In fact they were surprised people took that approach to the game. They've made this clear since like 1999. People complained on their forums why couldn't they just select their whole army and attack-move? It's because they intended for you to micro your units more... in other words, they wanted it to play more like Warcraft; focusing on micro. Unfortunately, they didn't count on Koreans just simply moving their hands fast enough to overcome that limitation and SC became more about macro. They never intended the unit select limit as an obstacle for the player to overcome by hand speed. Like I said they were surprised by the Korean scene when they simply just "played faster". They also added in the "fastest" game speed as a joke. The last part I find quite funny actually, without the fastest game speed bw would most likely became what it did. Even I can macro really well on normal speed.. | ||
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Taku
Canada2036 Posts
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Nagisama
Canada4481 Posts
As a stand-in, I did implement “numbered group selection”. A user would select a group of units and press the Ctrl (control) key plus a number key (1-4). Those unit-groupings would be remembered so it would be possible to later re-select those units by pressing the number key (1-4) by itself. But those units would move independently even though selected as a group. He made it possible for 1a2a3a4a, pretty badass. | ||
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SEA KarMa
Australia452 Posts
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lololol
5198 Posts
On September 10 2012 11:13 Ownos wrote: They didn't consider the ideas of hand speed factoring in. In fact they were surprised people took that approach to the game. They've made this clear since like 1999. People complained on their forums why couldn't they just select their whole army and attack-move? It's because they intended for you to micro your units more... in other words, they wanted it to play more like Warcraft; focusing on micro. Unfortunately, they didn't count on Koreans just simply moving their hands fast enough to overcome that limitation and SC became more about macro. They never intended the unit select limit as an obstacle for the player to overcome by hand speed. Like I said they were surprised by the Korean scene when they simply just "played faster". They also added in the "fastest" game speed as a joke. Did you just make that up? This is completely backwards. "Play more like warcraft?" WHAT? Warcraft 2 was a macro game. Back then RTS was macro, spell casting and attack moving(and micro and macro didn't exist as game related terms), there wasn't any "real" micro. That's why they didn't have auto-mine and had a limited unit selection - they wanted to keep players busy, so claiming they didn't consider hand speed factoring in is ridiculous. If they didn't intend for hand speed to be a factor or wanted players to focus on micro more, they would've allowed selecting and producing from unlimited number of buildings at the same time and would have auto-mining. Warcraft 2 players even complained that adding queues and rally points made the game too noob friendly ffs! It was the effectiveness of actual micro(i.e. not just attack moving) that was discovered and which the developers hadn't anticipated, that's why the first very famous player - Boxer was a micro oriented player. All the bugs that players like are ones that add micro to the game. The macro revolution came later, because players had to micro and macro optimally at the same time. As much as Oov is regarded as a macro player, he had top notch micro at the same time, which allowed him to take expansions earlier and survive with smaller armies until his better economy kicks in, he didn't simply click factories faster and attack move groups of 12 units faster. | ||
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Chef
10810 Posts
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Lobotomist
United States1541 Posts
On September 09 2012 07:58 Xiphos wrote: I think Valve may be doing that right now, with the release of HL3.I don't know why haven't anyone thought of NOT releasing the date of the game's planned day and only release any information after the game have been complete. think about it, the crowd won't get pissed off, gives you time to fix any kinks, and plus you don't have to worry about stress but work comfortably so that your product's quality is certain to be on the top echelon. Its kind of like giving you a nice buffer zone to not worry about it. Plus you can play around with the hype and manipulate the customer until finally they'll go "Oh, lads and gents, here is the moment you have been waiting for..." accented by the cries of millions of fans. + Show Spoiler + Yes, I'm looking at you D3 | ||
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Flamingo777
United States1190 Posts
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JieXian
Malaysia4677 Posts
On September 10 2012 05:09 Talin wrote: The Starcraft article was amazing, and it also made me read his other articles, specifically one on Warcraft (1) development. Here's an interesting snippet from that one: It debunks the popular notion that interface limitations were a technical necessity at the time, but also indicates that the developers considered the more mechanical - speed and multitasking - aspects of an RTS very early on (basically at the dawn of modern RTS) and based their design decisions around it. Wow....... I really hope he's aware of the true extent of what their game has become | ||
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bgx
Poland6595 Posts
On September 11 2012 02:12 Chef wrote: Pretty sure Total Annihilation had unlimited unit selection in 1997. Pretty hilarious people think that was a hardware limitation. C&C from 1995 had unlimited or very high limitation aswell, and Total annihilation blew up all competition in terms of technological advacement even 2 years past its release. So ye the technology "was there". Starcraft was regarded as slightly technologically behind vs competition. By that i dont mean art, gameplay design, etc. I think the design of limited unit selection was first a homage to warcraft line, like said in Warcraft 1 you could select 4 units, in wc2 you could select 9 or 6 (cant remember) in Sc1 you can select 12. I remember when i first played starcraft demo and was already a veteran of C&C/other RTS i simply accepted it as game distinctive design, it was a specially apparent for people who played both C&C/red alert and WC2 at times as they were releaesd because red alert and wc2 were not that far away and both were competing, and a red alert was played totally different to how wc2 was played yet both were regarded as best games of its genre, even if in Red alert you could make 50 tanks and group them with 1 mouse swing it didnt make it clearly superior (note: but generally Red Alert was a better game ^^) I think it was part of game series defining features to put unit limitations, other games never had unit potrait, for example it enabled unit portait selection to that extent that later turned out into certain gameplay mechanic (disselection, cloning). So in fact those "limitations" (whether they were designed or was side effect of technological procceses) gave birth to total new way of playing RTS and dethroned Westwood style of RTS forever. (And i am one of the biggest C&C1 fanboys, and i said that). | ||
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