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On April 20 2024 18:51 Crimthand wrote:
You are misunderstanding a lot. Yes, in SC BW the first thing to learn is to try to macro better. And it doesn't really matter what units you build. And the learning experience for the game will be different. But making SC BW easier to macro doesn't add strategic depth to the game. It is already there, or not there. Regardless of at which mechanical level the players play at.
Second, you are grossly simplifying how mechanical demand works. This argument about "Hey, in WC1 you could only put 4 units in a control group. So by that logic, WC1 was a better game than SC BW" was made over and over back in 2006. And it was stupid then. Also you misuse the word 'dumbed down'. A game is 'dumbed down' by removing skill separating elements without adding new ones to replace them. I am not even going to argue about unit selection limits any deeper. Just read what people wrote here in 2006.
WC3 was only more popular than SC BW for like 1 or 2 years after release. SC BW overtook WC3 in popularity and has been more popular ever since. Not sure why it is relevant or why you bring it up.
Yes, players are not playing as much RTS and fighting games. Maybe RTS is just inherently less fun to a modern audience? What about that for an argument?
Also, you claim that SC2 having no competition means it was successful? In the same way as no one tried to make an MMORPG after WoW because WoW was just too successful? There's a reason very few game devs made RTS games after SC2. And it isn't because SC2 was so extremely popular and profitable.
I think SC2 failed. But this is not a 'SC2 has failed' or 'SC2 is dead' thread. So I am not going to debate it. It is not really relevant either. I am just referring to the discussions about the nature of RTS, strategy, decision making, mechanical demands, automation, interface we had here in 2006. And how David Kim is pretends to be completely obvious to all that.
Also has nothing to do with esport viewership. If enough people play a game, you get esports. That's it. You just need to make a fun 1vs1 RTS game. And that just isn't achieved by stripping gameplay mechanisms from the game, automating the interface, reducing mechanical demand, and free up time for 'decision making'. Everyone and their dog tried that since the release of SC BW. And they all failed. Including Blizzard with SC2. And it literally killed the RTS genre.
You are misunderstanding my point and honestly confusing.
I meant mechanically challenging does not mean a game has more strategic depth, just as removing mechanical challenging mundane task doesn't mean the game has less strategic depth.
Hence I didn't imply WC1 was a better game with more strategic depth, or that we should keep them, just because it was more mechanical challenging, that's more of a point you would support.
My point is the entire genre had always been moving towards a more friendly approach in all area, be it interface or macro features.
Making a game easier to pick up (less mundane clicks) and allow new players to access more strategic move allows more players able to get into the strategic side of the game quicker, and enjoy it in more levels.
My point is WC3 is mechanically far easier than BW (and SC2 imo), but obviously it did not have a lower strategic depth than BW nor SC2. And WC3 easily overtook BW internationally in pub scene.
The obsession over keeping clicks for mundane task is simply a false equivalence that somehow it would enable more strategic depth.
Obviously it will be replaced by more actions that matter.
Are you implying the triple prone attacks in sc2 is not an effective replacement of skill differential, because if that's not a good replacement then what is? How does Serral or Maru become such a dominate players then?
And just a post ago you were saying you don't drive a car but can still enjoy F1, so you are agreeing with David Kim that the game needs to build around having more players to play it then?
If SC2 indeed killed RTS scene, it's because it was too good to replace, not the other way around.
It's why BW got replaced by WC3 (esp when TFT was released) globally, and SC2 never even had a competition. (competitions had decades to try)
And when SC2 "died", BW also did not replace SC2 globally, BW HD remaster certainly didn't.
The closest competitor is just AOE4 (arguably BAR but doesn't even have a scene) and still not nearly close.
Only a BW purist would ever think SC2 is a failure, even after more than a decade of successful international esport scene.
At this point I am not sure if anyone with this mindset, have anything valuable to contribute on the topic: how a modern RTS should be.
p.s. I am not sure how much gaming you do but there has been quite a few very successful MMORPG, FFXIV, Eve online, Dungeon fighter online, even guildwar 2 still has over 100k+ active players, hell the new dune MMORPG is getting quite a lot of hype.
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There are not many RTSs after the late 2000s because RTS games are difficult and costly to make but didn't make much money compare to other genres that are either more console friendly (there was a console boom for PS3, Xbox360 and Wii and people were talking PC gaming is dead) or more microtransaction friendly, Starcraft 2 was the latest proof of that to the investors.
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Oh, I can assure you, I am not confused.
If you don't believe in this argument about mechanically easier games being better, then why did you bring it up?
You raised WC1 as an example. The fact is that WC1 is less mechanically demanding that SC BW. And has less strategic depth. Despite it having smaller control groups.
I am not obsessed with keeping mundane clicks. First of all, this is all subjective. People find different things fun. RTS are games of mass clicking. This is just fundamental. If someone is saying "I think the clicking should be controlling the army, not building bases or any type of upkeep like supply" then that's fine. But RTS can never be games where you just abstractly outthink your opponent. And when you are losing, you just start to think harder than your opponent, and then you just win anyway.
You have a core gameplay and that's what you are competing in. In RTS, that's controlling units and bases. If you just control units, you have a RTT game. Starcraft had supply for lore reasons. Not for gameplay reasons. Starcraft was basically designed for you to have 1 or 2 production buildings of each. It was not designed to have like 8 factories. If you go back to 1998 and you look at how the average person played 1vs1 Starcraft, that's kinda how they did it. One one thought 'hey let's have a mechanically demanding game. Let's give the player the resource income equal to producing from 6 factories. That's gona be really hard, creating a high APM ceiling." No, that only happened with SC2 and the so-called macro mechanics.
It is fine that in 2024 one no longer thinks mass clicking building supply depots is fun. And you are probably right. But the solution is not to have the game auto build it. The solution isn't to just remove supply. Because if you just remove all these things, you get a lame dumbed down game. Limitations also are why games have strategy.
You need to come up with new limitations that are fun in 2024. That are not considered to be 'mundane clicking'.
Because that clicking in RTS is 100% of the game. People just decided some clicks are fun/good and others are bad/not fun. And people are probably right about this. Bit it is just silliness to say that when you have way less clicking, compressing the skill spectrum, giving the player less tasks to do, then yes making the right decisions becomes more deciding. But you simply can't have a game based off that. You can't have a game based on what units to build or when to expand. That's not the game. That's just about different ways to play the game.
You can envision a game where you only have a few buttons. One button has three positions: expand, tech, and produce. Another one has two: attack & defend. And a third is a more complex slider on what units to build: air, ground, melee, ranged, fast, slow. And that's it. That's the entire game. The rest is automated. I am not saying no one will play that game. But it won't be as fun as say chess. All this decision making. That's all extra. It only matters if the core game already matters. And the core game is mass clicking.
No, David Kim was wrong about F1. People watch both sports and games they don't play themselves. I don't get how you can bring that up asking me if David Kim was right. Let me rephrase. I can't believe how incredibly stupid that statement was. In fact, I am pretty sure David Kim was lying. David Kim is not stupid. He was one of the few people competent on the SC2 team. I didn't follow SC2 balance after WoL and I get somehow the SC2 players gave him a lot of hate. But the problem was always that the senior designers didn't listen to or didn't understand David Kim.
Also, talking about confusion, I thought that bringing up WoW and MMORPG was an incredibly obvious refutation. Everyone and their dog started to make an MMORPG after WoW. Your argument is that they did so because WoW was obviously bad and impopular. And they all knew they could do better. My argument is the opposite. As is SC2. The opposite happened to what happened with WoW. Let me also point out that MMORPGs are extremely difficult to make. But that stopped no one. You need to connect everyone with everyone else in a large world. You need quests. You need tons of skills, classes, items, towns, words, dungeons, stuff to explore, NPCs. And you need all of it.
You can make a 1vs1 RTS game in like a month with a team of say 8 people.
As for some other things I saw David Kim say that are actually good: the different ways the game can involve in in RTS is quite low. And he at least had this concept that you can have way more variation. And that this can make the game way more fun. It seems no one is allowed to say anything relevant about their game because of the DNS. So we won't know anything until maybe June. But I believe this is key. There is a lot of big talk about how this is a turning point in RTS. It is about time! There are so many ways to improve upon a completely lore-based game when you take a perspective of just making a pure 1vs1 RTS. And you step back and actually analyze how an RTS game works and how it is fun. And you take an abstract more mathematical approach. You question every element RTS has had up to this point and wonder if it makes sense for your RTS vision. There is no fundamental reason for example why in an RTS you should start out only caring about a tiny part of the map for the first 2 minutes. You could be doing mass clicking all across the map seconds in. But you could also at the same time still have many divergent paths leading to many different types of games. Which giving like 12 workers or whatever crazy number they now have in SC2 does limit.
There's thousands of ideas to explore. Different win conditions for example. This can give a lot of complications where both players are racing towards their own win. Which is analogous to chess where both players can almost mate the other. But wouldn't usually happen in RTS because when your army & economy is larger than your opponent, then that affects the same thing. With the extremely rare exception of a base elimination race. But in RTS it could literally mean that one player is trying to gain X amount of resources. While the other side is trying to reach Y amount of experience. And where player A having a huge army because they have a ton of resources could actually help get player B a win through experience points reached, because he is losing in a traditional RTS sense, but since he is gaining XP points very efficiently, in part because his opponent controls most of the resources and has huge armies, player B can try to steal a win.
You could even have very skilled players play on a second or third map, with diminishing returns. Beginners can completely ignore this and still hold themselves against players who play on the second and third map.
You could have a whole secondary game where you can try to steal units or resources from your opponent. Like a hacking cyber warfare game.
You can make it so that the win condition isn't to have a huge army, but instead reach some balance. And you have to approach it gently so to not overshoot it. Like to create some pattern or achieve some balance. So that having a ton of units and resources is just as bad as having very little.
You could make it so that players can decide to use different types of resources. So maybe your opponent build their economy using resource Z rather than resource R. And you need to figure this out and limit your opponent from controlling resource Z. Or maybe when you use resource R, it actually deposits new amounts of resource Z near the opponent for them to use. So there's a trade off.
Maybe there is some sort of virus that can affect your units so that rather than building an army to defeat your opponent, you can invest in using viruses. Maybe resources are actually physically stored and you can come in and steal them. Or maybe you can use energy weapons to convert or destroy or corrupt the resources of your opponent.
Many of these things can function as comeback mechanics as well.
Maybe every action a player takes changes the map permanently.
Either way, these actions have to involve clicking on the map. Because that is what RTS is. And it has to be about directly engaging with the enemy and their actions and responses.
There's so many ideas one can have. The problem is putting them in an elegant way into a good game.
But right now, everyone is just making Orcs in Space 3.0, but dumbing it down by removing mundane clicking. Claiming that RTS games are fundamentally too hard. That one can only have fun playing RTS if one can become a top player. Or that it is a problem that a beginner has absolutely no chance vs a top player as the top player can do whatever they want. Yet David Kim is also repeating these myths.
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On April 20 2024 21:13 qwerty4w wrote:
There are not many RTSs after the late 2000s because RTS games are difficult and costly to make but didn't make much money compare to other genres that are either more console friendly (there was a console boom for PS3, Xbox360 and Wii and people were talking PC gaming is dead) or more microtransaction friendly, Starcraft 2 was the latest proof of that to the investors.
Sure but then look at indie scene, what did they release in the genre?
Tower defence/base building like they are billions. (Which could very well had been a RTS game), C&C style like 8bits army, SC style (BAR) etc.
(Not counting games that some would consider as RTS like against the storm/frostpunk)
Even arena shooter/retro shooter are making a strong comeback in indie scene all along.
We only really have new big classic RTS games development for the past few years, each of them are going up a massive titan.
Anyone think sc2 is a failure has a distorted perception what a failed game looks like.
As if another massively success RTS that don't fit their vision would be a loss for the RTS scene.
I can comfortably say there can be no valuable input from these crowds, that's also the biggest reason why we should just move on.
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Whether SC2 is a failure is depend on what the supposed goal is, to prove the RTS genre is worthy of a lot of investment at that time? It's a failure like other RTSs around that time like C&C3 and Supreme Commander.
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On April 20 2024 22:45 qwerty4w wrote:
Whether SC2 is a failure is depend on what the supposed goal is, to prove the RTS genre is worthy of a lot of investment at that time? It's a failure like other RTSs around that time like C&C3 and Supreme Commander.
Yeah, I guess that shows how far the genre has fallen after BW and WC3 lost their audience to Dota.
Sc2 just isn't enough even being the largest RTS title for more than a decade.
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On April 20 2024 22:04 Crimthand wrote:
But RTS can never be games where you just abstractly outthink your opponent. And when you are losing, you just start to think harder than your opponent, and then you just win anyway.
Well, RTS have many dimensions, you can be losing in one and have an advantage in another one. E.g., counter attacking and winning after suffering crippling eco damage. I'd say this is one example where 'thinking' (decision making) is crucial and can indeed win games. Sure, nobody will win by proving a math theorem during an RTS match.
On April 20 2024 22:04 Crimthand wrote:
No, David Kim was wrong about F1. People watch both sports and games they don't play themselves. I don't get how you can bring that up asking me if David Kim was right.
I think David Kim was saying that ppl are watching sports even if they don't play it, so he'd be right about F1. For video games, you might disagree but I also believe that by and large viewers are also gamers. I'm sure there are individual exceptions but they wouldn't matter in the grand scheme of things.
On April 20 2024 22:04 Crimthand wrote:
Claiming that RTS games are fundamentally too hard. That one can only have fun playing RTS if one can become a top player. Or that it is a problem that a beginner has absolutely no chance vs a top player as the top player can do whatever they want. Yet David Kim is also repeating these myths.
Again that's a fairly bad distortion of what I heard. He's absolutely saying that the game should be hard. Also, he was not saying noobs can't have fun - they're just playing a different game. He'd like to create a game where more people can experience the 'fun' part he experiences from SC, which requires a certain mastery of basic mechanics acquired through rote drills. But yeah the part where noobs beat pros must be interpreted a bit - it doesn't make sense on its own, unless the game is rolling dice.
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Northern Ireland23617 Posts
On April 20 2024 23:10 KingzTig wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2024 22:45 qwerty4w wrote:
Whether SC2 is a failure is depend on what the supposed goal is, to prove the RTS genre is worthy of a lot of investment at that time? It's a failure like other RTSs around that time like C&C3 and Supreme Commander. Yeah, I guess that shows how far the genre has fallen after BW and WC3 lost their audience to Dota. Sc2 just isn't enough even being the largest RTS title for more than a decade.
How big do you want a game to be? IIRC it was in the top 10 selling PC games of all time with WoL, you can still find games in seconds to this day, it’s supported a pretty vibrant eSports scene for a decade+
Most games would kill for those sales and long-term interest
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On April 20 2024 16:38 Crimthand wrote:
C&C was in 1996 bro. SC2 was released in an era where games had bigger budgets than movies, C&C was literally the first RTS game with it's own story, as Dune 2 was Dune the novel's story.
dont know what budget has to do with an intentionally cheesy story
No, I am not contradicting myself. Level design is not the same as story-writing.
It just shows people play RTS for the gameplay. And that often turns out to be single player gameplay. But that's just a decision by the devs. If they don't put in any single player, then there is no issue.
Playing a campaign is literally playing through a story. It is the entire concept. Single player can also be just playing 1vs1 against increasingly more difficult AIs. Or the same AI on different maps. Or with different units. Or different game modes.
you are literallly saying that ppl prefer to play single player but removing single player mode isnt an issue, if that isnt a contradiction i dont know
SC2's story wasn't over the top. It was bad in every way.
that sure isnt just an opinion. but if you arent able to see that there is no sensible discussion to be had here have fun rambling
Also, can you please proofread your posts and try to use proper grammar and punctuation? Thanks!
looks like you understand my words just fine, but you are welcome anyway
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On April 20 2024 22:04 Crimthand wrote:No, David Kim was wrong about F1. People watch both sports and games they don't play themselves. I don't get how you can bring that up asking me if David Kim was right. Let me rephrase. I can't believe how incredibly stupid that statement was. In fact, I am pretty sure David Kim was lying. David Kim is not stupid. He was one of the few people competent on the SC2 team. I didn't follow SC2 balance after WoL and I get somehow the SC2 players gave him a lot of hate. But the problem was always that the senior designers didn't listen to or didn't understand David Kim.
You completely misunderstood what he said. He said esports are unlike sports, in the sense that people mostly only watch games they themselves play or have played.
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Northern Ireland23617 Posts
On April 21 2024 06:58 maybenexttime wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2024 22:04 Crimthand wrote:No, David Kim was wrong about F1. People watch both sports and games they don't play themselves. I don't get how you can bring that up asking me if David Kim was right. Let me rephrase. I can't believe how incredibly stupid that statement was. In fact, I am pretty sure David Kim was lying. David Kim is not stupid. He was one of the few people competent on the SC2 team. I didn't follow SC2 balance after WoL and I get somehow the SC2 players gave him a lot of hate. But the problem was always that the senior designers didn't listen to or didn't understand David Kim. You completely misunderstood what he said. He said esports are unlike sports, in the sense that people mostly only watch games they themselves play or have played.
Yeah I think this was the big mistake in some recent attempts. Too much trying to copy what real sports do, notably the Overwatch League.
Most good games have a lot of fun mechanics, but unless you know what they are, you can’t appreciate how artfully a pro uses them.
Whereas I can watch golf, tennis, cricket, F1 and sorta know what’s going on. I’ve maybe played each 1-5 times, and I don’t even drive but they’re easy to follow. I’ve played a lot of pool, am still pretty mediocre and a snooker table is beyond me, but it’s one of my favourites nonetheless.
I’ve played a lot of games, hell even dabbled in WC3 DoTA and I still have zero clue what’s going on if I check out a League/DotA2 broadcast. Indeed I think RTS is probably harder to play but easier to follow (based on my limited attempts to explain it to my better half, who isn’t much of a gamer)
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On April 20 2024 16:38 Crimthand wrote:
C&C was in 1996 bro. SC2 was released in an era where games had bigger budgets than movies, C&C was literally the first RTS game with it's own story, as Dune 2 was Dune the novel's story.
Pedant sidenote regarding Dune 2:
It had its own story (stories) and wasn't just the story of the novel(s) of Dune. A lot of the themes are the same obviously because it was using the Dune IP, but I certainly wouldn't call it the story of Dune, especially with notable absences like house Ordos (one of the playable factions in Dune 2) not being present in the novels, and none of the main characters of the Dune novels (as far as I know?) being present in Dune 2. Dune 2 is in a different time period than the novels, if the emperor of its time is any metric.
C&C being the first RTS with its own IP/universe, sure (except it wasn't), but Dune 2 doesn't tell the Dune novel stories.
Ok nerd shit over you're all welcome.
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On April 21 2024 00:18 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2024 23:10 KingzTig wrote:On April 20 2024 22:45 qwerty4w wrote:
Whether SC2 is a failure is depend on what the supposed goal is, to prove the RTS genre is worthy of a lot of investment at that time? It's a failure like other RTSs around that time like C&C3 and Supreme Commander. Yeah, I guess that shows how far the genre has fallen after BW and WC3 lost their audience to Dota. Sc2 just isn't enough even being the largest RTS title for more than a decade. How big do you want a game to be? IIRC it was in the top 10 selling PC games of all time with WoL, you can still find games in seconds to this day, it’s supported a pretty vibrant eSports scene for a decade+ Most games would kill for those sales and long-term interest
Yeah that's my point. I was just being sarcastic that some here think sc2 was a failure and caused the decline in RTS.
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Northern Ireland23617 Posts
On April 21 2024 10:00 KingzTig wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2024 00:18 WombaT wrote:On April 20 2024 23:10 KingzTig wrote:On April 20 2024 22:45 qwerty4w wrote:
Whether SC2 is a failure is depend on what the supposed goal is, to prove the RTS genre is worthy of a lot of investment at that time? It's a failure like other RTSs around that time like C&C3 and Supreme Commander. Yeah, I guess that shows how far the genre has fallen after BW and WC3 lost their audience to Dota. Sc2 just isn't enough even being the largest RTS title for more than a decade. How big do you want a game to be? IIRC it was in the top 10 selling PC games of all time with WoL, you can still find games in seconds to this day, it’s supported a pretty vibrant eSports scene for a decade+ Most games would kill for those sales and long-term interest Yeah that's my point. I was just being sarcastic that some here think sc2 was a failure and caused the decline in RTS.
Ah apologies for the misread
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On April 20 2024 22:15 KingzTig wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2024 21:13 qwerty4w wrote:
There are not many RTSs after the late 2000s because RTS games are difficult and costly to make but didn't make much money compare to other genres that are either more console friendly (there was a console boom for PS3, Xbox360 and Wii and people were talking PC gaming is dead) or more microtransaction friendly, Starcraft 2 was the latest proof of that to the investors. Sure but then look at indie scene, what did they release in the genre? Tower defence/base building like they are billions. (Which could very well had been a RTS game), C&C style like 8bits army, SC style (BAR) etc. (Not counting games that some would consider as RTS like against the storm/frostpunk) Even arena shooter/retro shooter are making a strong comeback in indie scene all along. We only really have new big classic RTS games development for the past few years, each of them are going up a massive titan. Anyone think sc2 is a failure has a distorted perception what a failed game looks like. As if another massively success RTS that don't fit their vision would be a loss for the RTS scene. I can comfortably say there can be no valuable input from these crowds, that's also the biggest reason why we should just move on.
Well I think the majority of RTS players want single player or coop games. So with that out of the way games like They are Billions are a good example of a popular modern indie RTS. If you design a game from the ground up to be fun in single player it often plays differently than if you design it to be engaging in PvP. You need a core mechanic that makes multiple games against AI interesting and build from that, different design core even if how you control/build etc can be the same.
I think AI War is also a good example there. Where you are not supposed to be able to steamroll your opponent but instead have to play around it.
Eufloria is also a good example of a fun but limited RTS that I think probably plays decently using touch based devices.
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On April 21 2024 06:58 maybenexttime wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2024 22:04 Crimthand wrote:No, David Kim was wrong about F1. People watch both sports and games they don't play themselves. I don't get how you can bring that up asking me if David Kim was right. Let me rephrase. I can't believe how incredibly stupid that statement was. In fact, I am pretty sure David Kim was lying. David Kim is not stupid. He was one of the few people competent on the SC2 team. I didn't follow SC2 balance after WoL and I get somehow the SC2 players gave him a lot of hate. But the problem was always that the senior designers didn't listen to or didn't understand David Kim. You completely misunderstood what he said. He said esports are unlike sports, in the sense that people mostly only watch games they themselves play or have played.
No no no. He is simply wrong. He is saying they are different. And that we thought they would be the same during the development of SC2. That's completely backwards. During SC2 only Koreans were watching SC BW on tv. And it was just a few SC BW people on TL pushing the idea that even in the west, people would watch games they didn't play.
We didn't have Justin.tv/Twitch yet. There was no live streaming on Youtube. We had to connect to some server using VLC to watch Korean tv to see SC BW. Or use this weird Korean p2p streaming plugin for your browser. And it was just a mini-niche here on TL, and South Korea.
It seems people have a really strange recollection of that time. I saw a video by Tasteless and there he claimed people in the US should have just put SC BW on tv and it would have been bigger than in South Korea. That was so surreal for me to see him say that. But that some boomer execs what MTV or ESPN just didn't get it. Compared to Korea, literally no one was playing SC BW in the US at the time he said it should have been put on US national tv.
Then SC2 came out and it literally was the game that made Twitch. Now, everyone and their dog watches games they don't play themselves.
Yet David Kim said we all had this false idea that people would watch games they wouldn't play because that was a totally normal thing to expect. And that then it strangely didn't happen. But it did happen and he should know better than everyone that people on the SC2 team didn't expect it to happen.
I get this is confusing because it is such a strange statement for David Kim to make. Honestly, at this point I am starting to think that what David Kim is saying was so strange and confusing, you all just assume he meant the opposite of what he actually said. Maybe he meant to say that the SC2 dev team expected even more people to just watch and not play. But I find that really strange, because when SC BW people on TL talked to people coming into the community just for SC2 because it was announced, there was a huge resistance to the idea of people watching SC2.
As for singleplayer RTS vs multiplayer RTS, I am not saying one would be more popular than the other. But so far, all RTS games have been made to be single player games, with a multiplayer mode tucked on. No game was designed from the ground to be multiplayer only. At least no game I am aware of. I am sure there could be some niche indie game that did.
Of course less people are going to play the multiplayer mode if multiplayer is just a secondary game mode that is just spun off from the single player game mode.
But we have these devs talking about how it is their ambition to make a multiplayer 1vs1 RTS game. But then they just copy a single player RTS game, like SC BW, and strip away a bunch of stuff they call 'mundane', add QoL that reduce mass clicking because 'mass clicking isn't fun' and 'to free up more time for strategy'. While also adding no new innovations to gameplay. And then they say it is the next iteration of RTS.
To David Kim's credit though, he is literally the first person to at least talk about thinking about how game design affects multiplayer game states. And therefore strategy and decision making. This seems like the most basic idea, but I have never heard anyone in the SC2 development talk about this. And no one either for Stormgate.
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On April 20 2024 23:26 teapot_ wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2024 22:04 Crimthand wrote:
But RTS can never be games where you just abstractly outthink your opponent. And when you are losing, you just start to think harder than your opponent, and then you just win anyway. Well, RTS have many dimensions, you can be losing in one and have an advantage in another one. E.g., counter attacking and winning after suffering crippling eco damage. I'd say this is one example where 'thinking' (decision making) is crucial and can indeed win games. Sure, nobody will win by proving a math theorem during an RTS match.
There is only one win condition and that's destroying the opponent's buildings. Everything you refer to emergent.
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United States12224 Posts
On April 21 2024 14:59 Crimthand wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2024 06:58 maybenexttime wrote:On April 20 2024 22:04 Crimthand wrote:No, David Kim was wrong about F1. People watch both sports and games they don't play themselves. I don't get how you can bring that up asking me if David Kim was right. Let me rephrase. I can't believe how incredibly stupid that statement was. In fact, I am pretty sure David Kim was lying. David Kim is not stupid. He was one of the few people competent on the SC2 team. I didn't follow SC2 balance after WoL and I get somehow the SC2 players gave him a lot of hate. But the problem was always that the senior designers didn't listen to or didn't understand David Kim. You completely misunderstood what he said. He said esports are unlike sports, in the sense that people mostly only watch games they themselves play or have played. No no no. He is simply wrong. He is saying they are different. And that we thought they would be the same during the development of SC2. That's completely backwards. During SC2 only Koreans were watching SC BW on tv. And it was just a few SC BW people on TL pushing the idea that even in the west, people would watch games they didn't play. We didn't have Justin.tv/Twitch yet. There was no live streaming on Youtube. We had to connect to some server using VLC to watch Korean tv to see SC BW. Or use this weird Korean p2p streaming plugin for your browser. And it was just a mini-niche here on TL, and South Korea. It seems people have a really strange recollection of that time. I saw a video by Tasteless and there he claimed people in the US should have just put SC BW on tv and it would have been bigger than in South Korea. That was so surreal for me to see him say that. But that some boomer execs what MTV or ESPN just didn't get it. Compared to Korea, literally no one was playing SC BW in the US at the time he said it should have been put on US national tv. Then SC2 came out and it literally was the game that made Twitch. Now, everyone and their dog watches games they don't play themselves. Yet David Kim said we all had this false idea that people would watch games they wouldn't play because that was a totally normal thing to expect. And that then it strangely didn't happen. But it did happen and he should know better than everyone that people on the SC2 team didn't expect it to happen. I get this is confusing because it is such a strange statement for David Kim to make. Honestly, at this point I am starting to think that what David Kim is saying was so strange and confusing, you all just assume he meant the opposite of what he actually said. Maybe he meant to say that the SC2 dev team expected even more people to just watch and not play. But I find that really strange, because when SC BW people on TL talked to people coming into the community just for SC2 because it was announced, there was a huge resistance to the idea of people watching SC2. As for singleplayer RTS vs multiplayer RTS, I am not saying one would be more popular than the other. But so far, all RTS games have been made to be single player games, with a multiplayer mode tucked on. No game was designed from the ground to be multiplayer only. At least no game I am aware of. I am sure there could be some niche indie game that did. Of course less people are going to play the multiplayer mode if multiplayer is just a secondary game mode that is just spun off from the single player game mode. But we have these devs talking about how it is their ambition to make a multiplayer 1vs1 RTS game. But then they just copy a single player RTS game, like SC BW, and strip away a bunch of stuff they call 'mundane', add QoL that reduce mass clicking because 'mass clicking isn't fun' and 'to free up more time for strategy'. While also adding no new innovations to gameplay. And then they say it is the next iteration of RTS. To David Kim's credit though, he is literally the first person to at least talk about thinking about how game design affects multiplayer game states. And therefore strategy and decision making. This seems like the most basic idea, but I have never heard anyone in the SC2 development talk about this. And no one either for Stormgate.
In 2003, CPL held a poll for which new game would be added to the game roster for the upcoming 2004 season. Naturally, Brood War was on the list, and TL mobilized as we often did. CPL had denied the inclusion of BW in the past, and TL was even more motivated to prove that there was a real possibility to harness an untapped market in the West. I actually emailed Angel Munoz through his personal assistant pleading for fairness and, having just reread that email, basically coming from the position of a person unjustly scorned. Munoz did reply, essentially saying that he doesn't have to like a game to include it in the roster (and in fact, he personally didn't like Counter-Strike, their largest game), it just has to have widespread marketability. BW was eventually relegated behind Call of Duty in 2004. In October of that year, when CoD failed to meet their registration quota of 100, a CPL employee notified me that the most members in IRC representing their game would get the opportunity to register, but I only managed to gather about 20 people before the deadline (I believe we were edged out by Day of Defeat). TL grew even more bitter at CPL, demonizing Munoz, but in reality, our community was just... small. We had a real opportunity to showcase our grassroots movement, but we simply weren't as large as we thought we were.
Tasteless said stuff like that because we really believed it, especially at the time. But we didn't have actual skin in the game like Angel Munoz did with CPL - it was his (and his advertisers') money, and we didn't have to prove the case and provide ROI models for partners, but he did. Frankly, he probably had BW on his radar for years already (since he knew how big it was in Korea) but just didn't see the numbers making sense in the Western market. That was the aspect we weren't considering. It's easy to gamble with other people's money. So, an initiative like putting BW on national TV probably wouldn't have worked either. But yes, TL for a very long time had this collective delusion that things could be like they were in Korea, if only these old heads would step aside.
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On April 21 2024 15:52 Crimthand wrote:Show nested quote +On April 20 2024 23:26 teapot_ wrote:On April 20 2024 22:04 Crimthand wrote:
But RTS can never be games where you just abstractly outthink your opponent. And when you are losing, you just start to think harder than your opponent, and then you just win anyway. Well, RTS have many dimensions, you can be losing in one and have an advantage in another one. E.g., counter attacking and winning after suffering crippling eco damage. I'd say this is one example where 'thinking' (decision making) is crucial and can indeed win games. Sure, nobody will win by proving a math theorem during an RTS match. There is only one win condition and that's destroying the opponent's buildings. Everything you refer to emergent.
From someone who asked somebody else to proofread their post, I'd expect better writing. Not that I care that much.
But aside from the form, I genuinely don't understand what you're saying. You're also often referring to chess; in chess, there's only one win condition, too. So it's all emergent?!
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On April 21 2024 16:26 teapot_ wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2024 15:52 Crimthand wrote:On April 20 2024 23:26 teapot_ wrote:On April 20 2024 22:04 Crimthand wrote:
But RTS can never be games where you just abstractly outthink your opponent. And when you are losing, you just start to think harder than your opponent, and then you just win anyway. Well, RTS have many dimensions, you can be losing in one and have an advantage in another one. E.g., counter attacking and winning after suffering crippling eco damage. I'd say this is one example where 'thinking' (decision making) is crucial and can indeed win games. Sure, nobody will win by proving a math theorem during an RTS match. There is only one win condition and that's destroying the opponent's buildings. Everything you refer to emergent. From someone who asked somebody else to proofread their post, I'd expect better writing. Not that I care that much. But aside from the form, I genuinely don't understand what you're saying. You're also often referring to chess; in chess, there's only one win condition, too. So it's all emergent?!
Then just reread my posts. Or have ChatGPT summarize them or simplify them.
@Excalibur_Z I don't blame anyone on TL or Tasteless for trying or being passionate. But it was just jarring to see Tasteless reflect in a recent video and lament why what happened with SC2 didn't happen earlier, as if that was even a possibility of that. It is just strange how on one side David Kim says people watching games they don't play never happened. And Tasteless saying it could have happened in 2000-2010 with SC BW in NA.
There's a reason it happened in SK. And you'd think someone like Tasteless who lived in Korea for so long and who was literally there during SC BW AND SC2, would be able to reflect on these things more accurately.
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