on. Because he was pushing the technological envelope with "3x the tick rate" and "rollback netcode"! Except that these things didn't matter one bit for the player experience, and ended up being a complete waste of time and resources.
He did the same deception technique with Victory Games and C&C online to buy the studio time.
I for one understand a "Blizzard style RTS" as a polished and refined RTS
I disagree. In late 90s and early 2000s, multiple AAA studios were making RTS games that had high production quality and polish. Age of Empires, Command and Conquer, Company of Heroes etc. Those games each had significantly different design philosophies compared to Blizzard RTSes. Blizzard RTSes of course have differences among them but there is a unique feel and design philosophy that they share.
I for one understand a "Blizzard style RTS" as a polished and refined RTS
I disagree. In late 90s and early 2000s, multiple AAA studios were making RTS games that had high production quality and polish. Age of Empires, Command and Conquer, Company of Heroes etc. Those games each had significantly different design philosophies compared to Blizzard RTSes. Blizzard RTSes of course have differences among them but there is a unique feel and design philosophy that they share.
Good point, though one could argue while these were good and beloved games, WC3 and SC 1 & 2 had the most polish. At least that is how I remember it. AoE and C&C always felt clunky and slow compared to Blizz games.
I for one understand a "Blizzard style RTS" as a polished and refined RTS
I disagree. In late 90s and early 2000s, multiple AAA studios were making RTS games that had high production quality and polish. Age of Empires, Command and Conquer, Company of Heroes etc. Those games each had significantly different design philosophies compared to Blizzard RTSes. Blizzard RTSes of course have differences among them but there is a unique feel and design philosophy that they share.
You make a good point. Age of Empires and Command and Conquer both have a different feel to their gameplay.
For Age of Empires, I think this difference was largely due to the vastly different theme and setting of the game, which was a deliberate choice by the developers. There's a great interview with Bruce Shelley, one of the founders of Ensemble, where he discusses this:
Bruce Shelley said: .. we were talking about games around the world, he's basically a talent scout, a business development guy and he said: "Well, I saw like half a dozen Diablo games coming out of Asia and I really couldn't buy any of them, there was nothing there for us, they were just clones..." ... I think we were different and we were innovative and we didn't really try to imitate, we borrowed but we didn't try to imitate, and some other some of the games that don't make it too well or fail often are too much of an imitation. ... I absolutely believe that our game being a historical game was a huge part of our success, versus the other games in the market of time which were based on science fiction and fantasy. And even today, we're just beginning to see now like five years later, that other people are starting to do real strategy games in historical periods, so they left that space to us. And i think we were happy to have it all to ourselves for a long time
Choosing a historical theme led to a bunch of different decisions that affected the gameplay, like the concept of "Ages" to clearly delineate technological progress, rather than simply building a new building to get to a different tech. Having lots of different "civs" available also affected how gameplay would work, because you could do different things in terms of unit counters without worrying that you've thrown off the balance for 1/2 or 1/3 of your game.
Frost Giant didn't even make the attempt to innovate in terms of setting or theme. Perhaps once science fiction, fantasy, and historical settings were taken care of, there wasn't much else to explore in the RTS space. But they didn't even try.
On June 26 2026 01:55 Jeremy Reimer wrote: Frost Giant didn't even make the attempt to innovate in terms of setting or theme. Perhaps once science fiction, fantasy, and historical settings were taken care of, there wasn't much else to explore in the RTS space. But they didn't even try.
1. Post-apoc with heavy scavenging mechanics and oil/water as contested resources? 2. Cyberpunk with cyberspace as an additional battlefield? 3. Apocalyptic, with parts of the map falling apart and some hidden resources appearing to fight for? Everything is better than knockoff TvPvZ in the least inspired world ever.
P.S. I was so impressed by WC1/2 wood chopping mechanics, I dreamt of PvPvE RTS with hostile forces of nature as a threat ever since. You have to chop the forest, fight guardians, and it gets more dangerous the further you go. Atmosphere of danger and hostility. And mystery.
They made this game. It is called Against the Storm. But it's not an RTS. But everything else just from my dreams. It's by far my favourite game now. I recommend this game for everyone, it might be one of the best games ever made. The Scouring also does this for a bit.
On June 26 2026 01:55 Jeremy Reimer wrote: Frost Giant didn't even make the attempt to innovate in terms of setting or theme. Perhaps once science fiction, fantasy, and historical settings were taken care of, there wasn't much else to explore in the RTS space. But they didn't even try.
1. Post-apoc with heavy scavenging mechanics and oil/water as contested resources? 2. Cyberpunk with cyberspace as an additional battlefield? 3. Apocalyptic, with parts of the map falling apart and some hidden resources appearing to fight for? Everything is better than knockoff TvPvZ in the least inspired world ever.
P.S. I was so impressed by WC1/2 wood chopping mechanics, I dreamt of PvPvE RTS with hostile forces of nature as a threat ever since. You have to chop the forest, fight guardians, and it gets more dangerous the further you go. Atmosphere of danger and hostility. And mystery.
They made this game. It is called Against the Storm. But it's not an RTS. But everything else just from my dreams. It's by far my favourite game now. I recommend this game for everyone, it might be one of the best games ever made. The Scouring also does this for a bit.
On June 26 2026 01:55 Jeremy Reimer wrote: Frost Giant didn't even make the attempt to innovate in terms of setting or theme. Perhaps once science fiction, fantasy, and historical settings were taken care of, there wasn't much else to explore in the RTS space. But they didn't even try.
1. Post-apoc with heavy scavenging mechanics and oil/water as contested resources? 2. Cyberpunk with cyberspace as an additional battlefield? 3. Apocalyptic, with parts of the map falling apart and some hidden resources appearing to fight for? Everything is better than knockoff TvPvZ in the least inspired world ever.
P.S. I was so impressed by WC1/2 wood chopping mechanics, I dreamt of PvPvE RTS with hostile forces of nature as a threat ever since. You have to chop the forest, fight guardians, and it gets more dangerous the further you go. Atmosphere of danger and hostility. And mystery.
They made this game. It is called Against the Storm. But it's not an RTS. But everything else just from my dreams. It's by far my favourite game now. I recommend this game for everyone, it might be one of the best games ever made. The Scouring also does this for a bit.
I actually made it halfway thru the second last paragraph and was about to yell at you to play Against The Storm, then wisely chose to read the rest of your post first and saved myself the foolishness.
On June 26 2026 01:55 Jeremy Reimer wrote: Frost Giant didn't even make the attempt to innovate in terms of setting or theme. Perhaps once science fiction, fantasy, and historical settings were taken care of, there wasn't much else to explore in the RTS space. But they didn't even try.
1. Post-apoc with heavy scavenging mechanics and oil/water as contested resources? 2. Cyberpunk with cyberspace as an additional battlefield? 3. Apocalyptic, with parts of the map falling apart and some hidden resources appearing to fight for? Everything is better than knockoff TvPvZ in the least inspired world ever.
P.S. I was so impressed by WC1/2 wood chopping mechanics, I dreamt of PvPvE RTS with hostile forces of nature as a threat ever since. You have to chop the forest, fight guardians, and it gets more dangerous the further you go. Atmosphere of danger and hostility. And mystery.
They made this game. It is called Against the Storm. But it's not an RTS. But everything else just from my dreams. It's by far my favourite game now. I recommend this game for everyone, it might be one of the best games ever made. The Scouring also does this for a bit.
I actually made it halfway thru the second last paragraph and was about to yell at you to play Against The Storm, then wisely chose to read the rest of your post first and saved myself the foolishness.
I second the recommendation!
Hahaha same here. Was just about to click quote and start yelling