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Keep "my game is better than yours"-slapfights out of this. If the discussion devolves into simple bashing, this thread will be closed. |
On May 15 2014 03:43 frajen86 wrote:
As far as financials go, we have no idea how many copies of HotS have been sold since release (other than 1.1 million in the first 48 hours). I don't make games for a living but my guess is that if LotV is profitable based on people buying it for #1-#3 alone, then new AAA RTS games will continue to be developed, even if it's just by Blizzard.
now, if we could get the competitive multiplayer audience to pay a monthly fee, then we're in business.
but, i'm sure Blizz looked into it and saw that it would go over like a led zeppelin.
no one has found a way to monetize competitive multiplayer because the audience just won't pay for it. they'll pirate it for free.
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On May 15 2014 03:33 JimmyJRaynor wrote:RA3 is losing multiplayer support on June 30th when GameSpy shuts down. no ladders, no rankings, no end of month official ladder wars. that said, i'm still in love with Gina Carano. The most beautiful woman in the world entered an MMA the ring with an RTS game on her shirt! + Show Spoiler ++ Show Spoiler +May 2008, that is 6 years ago guys. great times. but, they are over. you'll never see EA put this kind of marketing behind an RTS game ever, ever again.
Seeing how the latest C&C games turned up it's no big loss.
The bar for competitive RTS is super high so it's difficult to tackle. The same is true for other genres, like MOBAs for instance. C&C Generals 2 was canceled because it wasn't good enough, so they had to cut their loses.
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I'm sorry but your concept for what a new RTS could be does not sound fun at all. You took out all the micro-management and ultimately butchered it from a strategy standpoint.
Just because the MOBA market is more successful than the RTS market presently does not mean that the RTS market should be like the MOBA market. I think you're trying to force a square peg into a round hole.
edited for clarity.
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Northern Ireland24460 Posts
On May 15 2014 03:50 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On May 15 2014 03:43 frajen86 wrote:
As far as financials go, we have no idea how many copies of HotS have been sold since release (other than 1.1 million in the first 48 hours). I don't make games for a living but my guess is that if LotV is profitable based on people buying it for #1-#3 alone, then new AAA RTS games will continue to be developed, even if it's just by Blizzard. now, if we could get the competitive multiplayer audience to pay a monthly fee, then we're in business. but, i'm sure Blizz looked into it and saw that it would go over like a led zeppelin. no one has found a way to monetize competitive multiplayer because the audience just won't pay for it. they'll pirate it for free.
I don't understand the reticence, people have shit themselves metaphorically whenever I've brought it up in threads before. There are disadvantages and advantages to any such approach of course, but for me.
1. Incentive for Blizzard to keep on top of things all the time, and improve the user experience, rather than delaying content for the umpteenth expansion.
2. Could help maintain games that might potentially enter a niche bracket/without development support, as a hardcore but smaller fanbase could potentially support a title for years upon years, which feeds into my first point.
3. Doesn't introduce any 'pay to win' variables or a load of ancillary content that splits the playerbase between has/has-nots, or potentially takes up development time from the core game. What works for LoL may not necessarily work for an RTS game like Starcraft, it annoys me that people think the model can just be straight transplanted over.
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On May 15 2014 03:50 Sapphire.lux wrote:Show nested quote +On May 15 2014 03:33 JimmyJRaynor wrote:RA3 is losing multiplayer support on June 30th when GameSpy shuts down. no ladders, no rankings, no end of month official ladder wars. that said, i'm still in love with Gina Carano. The most beautiful woman in the world entered an MMA the ring with an RTS game on her shirt! + Show Spoiler +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujeXXrtQclY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnPLPbIAT2k May 2008, that is 6 years ago guys. great times. but, they are over. you'll never see EA put this kind of marketing behind an RTS game ever, ever again. Seeing how the latest C&C games turned up it's no big loss. The bar for competitive RTS is super high so it's difficult to tackle. The same is true for other genres, like MOBAs for instance. C&C Generals 2 was canceled because it wasn't good enough, so they had to cut their loses.
in the last 11 years Blizzard has pumped out a giant fuck-tonne of content of all sorts.
and only 1 RTS game and 1 expansion.
No LotV reference on the Blizz.com main site and not 1 word about RTS in the previous investor call where ATVI brought in record revenues nad profits for a Q1.
Morhaime knows which side his bread is buttered on.
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On May 14 2014 20:38 Incognoto wrote:Show nested quote +On May 14 2014 20:04 maartendq wrote:On May 14 2014 19:52 SatedSC2 wrote:On May 14 2014 19:31 Incognoto wrote:On May 14 2014 19:17 SatedSC2 wrote:On May 14 2014 19:07 maartendq wrote:On May 14 2014 17:47 SatedSC2 wrote:
Can someone explain to me why it is a bad thing if RTS games remain a niche?
I think that if RTS games become more mainstream then they will lose what makes them entertaining for those people who currently play them. Yes, they can be horribly complex. Yes, they can be really difficult to get into. Yes, you will lose lots of games in a row before you start winning. And yes, it's even harder to master than it is to learn. But that's what the people who play RTS games are looking for, something complicated. Because there hasn't been a good new RTS ever since Starcraft 2: WoL came out four years ago. It also doesn't help that Blizzard's main competitors (Redwood, Ensemble Studios, Relic etc.) either went bankrupt, got shut down or suffered financial difficulties. I don't see the problem with that. I asked for someone to explain to me why it is a bad thing if RTS games remain a niche; all you've done is point out exactly why it is a niche. In any case, the complexity of RTS games means that you only need a good RTS to come out very rarely. People were still coming up with new things towards the end of WoL, people will still be figuring out HotS by the time LotV rolls around, and then LotV will still carry us for a good few years after that. I'm really not that worried. I think SC2 is in a good place right now (Swarm Hosts aside) so s'all good IMO. No, maartendq hit the nail right on the head. The fact that RTS is becoming a niche compared to video games (remember that until recently video games themselves were niche) means that game devs aren't really inclined to make a good RTS, since making a good MOBA or a good FPS would be way more profitable. So we, the RTS players, are going to have no new titles to work with. That's why RTS games being niche could be a problem, we won't get any good new titles. RTS games are complex to play yes but that doesn't mean it's hard to make a good RTS. All the titles I've mentioned before are excellent RTS (Dawn of War, Brood War, Age of Empires 3, AoC, AoT, etc). We haven't had a new good RTS come out since SC2, that was 4 years ago. Don't tell me that making good RTS is too hard, there are a number of excellent RTS games out there, thing is they're all quite old. You may enjoy SC2 but that doesn't mean everyone does. SC2 is all we've got in terms of RTS and that sucks, you can't just assume that everyone enjoys SC2 so the RTS scene is fine and that's it. That's where the problem is, even if you don't see it, the rest of us can. I'm starting to believe more and more that the RTS scene will be supported by its fanbase. I wish I knew how to code shit but I can't; I'd already be working on a stand alone game. ^^ The games you listed are hardly new, nor where they all produced in close proximity to one another (and certainly not in close proximity to SC2), and most of them are from the same damn series as one other. RTS games have never been a mainstream thing, expecting new games to come out all the time is unrealistic. It used to be pretty mainstream during the nineties and early 2000s though. Command and Conquer, Warcraft, Starcraft, Age of Empires/mythology, Cossacks, Suppreme Commander, Total Annihilation ... Even non-real time strategy games like Civilisation and Sim City were mainstream successes. Just to add to this, my general point is that in 2006 ish, you had several active RTS communities. Off the top of my head: DoW, BW, Aoe3/T, AoC, WC3 and Supreme Commander all had active communities. Now we're really down to just one active RTS community, we're down to only SC2. RTS went from being an "arguably niche" genre to a truly niche genre with only active game. E: Well not only one active game, I'm pretty sure that both BW and AoC are still alive and kicking, but both games are over 10 years old and they're still kicking because they're legendary games.
http://www.aoczone.net/ Age of Empires 2 community. Its small-ish but very active.
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imo, the most active multiplayer community for a Non-Blizz game is RA2. i could be wrong, i'm no expert.
however, its amazing how many really old RTS's are still going strong and providing 100s of hours of great entertainment and generating exactly $0 for its creators.
as a cross example, i'm part of a group that still plays EA NHL '94 hockey.
do you know how much "good will" and "extra sales" it produces for EA?
none, every one hates what EA has turned the series into and hates EA.
an non-stop parade of annualized titles with "glitch goals".
we all just keep on playing NHL '94.
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this thread seems to ignore that moba came out of rts.
kind of funny imo
omg i loved nhl 94, that game really was in a league of its own.
I still have it and still ahve a few peopel that i dust it off to play it with ... along with speedball2
Im sorry but if you think sc2 has strategic depth then you need to get out and play some other games.
Even if maybe it could have it doesnt because a the end of the day mechanics overshadows anything strategic.
You do not have time in game to think strategically, you have ot use instant decision making that has been honed through previous games. That isn't strategy that is intuition and tactics. Day 9 got it right when he said the strategy in sc2 happens out of game.
There are many many strategy games around, sc2 really isn't one of them.
If it was to be a strategy game then players would need a fixed income, you would need FAR more branching and possible decisions in builds. Strategy games have depth when you have time to evaluate properly and devise new strategies at every decision
sure it has strategies, but so does noughts and crosses.
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On May 15 2014 03:57 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On May 15 2014 03:50 Sapphire.lux wrote:On May 15 2014 03:33 JimmyJRaynor wrote:RA3 is losing multiplayer support on June 30th when GameSpy shuts down. no ladders, no rankings, no end of month official ladder wars. that said, i'm still in love with Gina Carano. The most beautiful woman in the world entered an MMA the ring with an RTS game on her shirt! + Show Spoiler +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujeXXrtQclY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnPLPbIAT2k May 2008, that is 6 years ago guys. great times. but, they are over. you'll never see EA put this kind of marketing behind an RTS game ever, ever again. Seeing how the latest C&C games turned up it's no big loss. The bar for competitive RTS is super high so it's difficult to tackle. The same is true for other genres, like MOBAs for instance. C&C Generals 2 was canceled because it wasn't good enough, so they had to cut their loses. in the last 11 years Blizzard has pumped out a giant fuck-tonne of content of all sorts. and only 1 RTS game and 1 expansion. No LotV reference on the Blizz.com main site and not 1 word about RTS in the previous investor call where ATVI brought in record revenues nad profits for a Q1. Morhaime knows which side his bread is buttered on.
Content for one game, WOW. The most profitable piece of media ever. Along with this they worked for 7 years on a platform and RTS specific engine for SC2 and a now a MOBA.
LOTV is in development, don't worry about it. It's possible Dustin is not the main man behind it anymore, and this is a good thing IMO. The expansion hasn't officially been announced, that's why it's not on the site. Wait for Blizzcon.
I haven't watched the investor call, but i assume it talked about games released or about to be released in the current year, 2014. This is indication LOTV is a 2015 title at the earliest, and it's normal considering we had one expansion less then a year ago.
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On May 15 2014 00:07 Ai.Cola wrote:
RTS are 1v1 games, stuff like MOBAs are teamgames.
Also the stuff the OP describes sounds basically almost exactly like warcraft 3.
While the game was succesful and basically marked the birth of all MOBAs it was since shown that it is better to go into one dorection, either make a MOBA or make an RTS, but not mix the two.
I think RTS games will still be made and have their place, but when it comes to esports MOBAs will definitly remain number one.
PS: of course you can still play rts games as team games, but they are not developed like that.
Maybe another future thing would be team focused RTS games.
Also I think the fact that OP complains about killing minions and lack of strategy shows that he hasn't really played MOBAs
RTS mostly 1v1? Umm no in my experience. I still play AoE2-3 and Battle for Middle Earth 2 sometimes and I can say that nothing have changed since their release. There were/is always more players for 2v2-4v4 than 1v1. I have big RTS history but sc2 was my first game where I played active 1v1 I have like 500 games in aoe3 but max 5 maps of 1v1. Same for Battle for Middle Earth.
I have also played quite much Star Wars Empire at War + expansion and only 1v1 that I played was that FANTASIC 1v1 galactic campaing.
In short, I have played shit ton of rts multiplayer but sc2 was first that made me to play 1v1. It might be reason why I dont play sc2 anymore so much. I suffer from BIG BIG ladder fear (1v1) I mostly play ffa and arcade.
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On May 15 2014 03:43 frajen86 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 14 2014 05:01 urboss wrote:
While I'm sure that the SC2 e-sport scene will continue to stay strong for years to come, the future also depends on the development of new titles. I posted in here earlier initially here, and another long one here about presentation instead of gameplay but I am wondering now... urboss, are you interested in designing something? Because you can actually try out a lot of these ideas in the SC2 editor. For all you know, the "future of RTS" is some kind of SC2 mod that gets popular with younger generations. I really think there is a difference between: #1 SC2 single player campaign #2 SC2 free to play/arcade/mods #3 SC2 melee - casuals/team games #4 SC2 melee - 1v1 competitive/"esports" My 2 cents... most people who play SC2 are probably doing #1-#3 and honestly they probably don't give a shit whether Reaper opening is viable in all matchups or whether Blink is OP. I mean, I know it's important to a lot of us but for the casuals (the larger audience), no... As far as financials go, we have no idea how many copies of HotS have been sold since release (other than 1.1 million in the first 48 hours). I don't make games for a living but my guess is that if LotV is profitable based on people buying it for #1-#3 alone, then new AAA RTS games will continue to be developed, even if it's just by Blizzard.
No, I'm not planning to design anything, I'm just asking this out of general interest and to get a discussion going.
The topic is just something that - probably like many others in here - I feel strongly about (having played Dune 2 back in the days on floppy disks).
I'm not into modding myself, but maybe someone can take some suggestions from this thread to get something started.
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On May 15 2014 04:01 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
imo, the most active multiplayer community for a Non-Blizz game is RA2. i could be wrong, i'm no expert.
however, its amazing how many really old RTS's are still going strong and providing 100s of hours of great entertainment and generating exactly $0 for its creators.
as a cross example, i'm part of a group that still plays EA NHL '94 hockey.
do you know how much "good will" and "extra sales" it produces for EA?
none, every one hates what EA has turned the series into and hates EA.
an non-stop parade of annualized titles with "glitch goals".
we all just keep on playing NHL '94.
You can always donate if your heart feels uneasy about the poor deal EA made.
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On May 15 2014 04:08 MrTortoise wrote:
this thread seems to ignore that moba came out of rts.
kind of funny imo
omg i loved nhl 94, that game really was in a league of its own.
I still have it and still ahve a few peopel that i dust it off to play it with ... along with speedball2
and now... MOBA's have taken over because they make a lot more money.
www.NHL94online.com
join the party!
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On May 15 2014 03:43 frajen86 wrote:
no one has found a way to monetize competitive multiplayer because the audience just won't pay for it. they'll pirate it for free.
Hahaha get a load of this guy, Valve sold over 10 million dollars of the TI4 compendiums in less than 3 days. Valve found a way to monetize competitive multiplayer, its called dotaTV and its a huge success. Mimicking their market model wouldn't be difficult at all for Blizzard, alls you need is cosmetics, in-game spectating, and fantasy leagues built into the engine.
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On May 15 2014 04:23 Desum wrote:Show nested quote +On May 15 2014 03:43 frajen86 wrote:
no one has found a way to monetize competitive multiplayer because the audience just won't pay for it. they'll pirate it for free. Hahaha get a load of this guy, Valve sold over 10 million dollars of the TI4 compendiums in less than 3 days. Valve found a way to monetize competitive multiplayer, its called dotaTV and its a huge success. Mimicking their market model wouldn't be difficult at all for Blizzard, alls you need is cosmetics, in-game spectating, and fantasy leagues built into the engine.
for a MOBA not an RTS.
if ifs and buts were candies and nuts we'd all have a merry xmas.
its been over for a while now guy.
On May 15 2014 04:15 Sapphire.lux wrote:Show nested quote +On May 15 2014 03:57 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On May 15 2014 03:50 Sapphire.lux wrote:On May 15 2014 03:33 JimmyJRaynor wrote:RA3 is losing multiplayer support on June 30th when GameSpy shuts down. no ladders, no rankings, no end of month official ladder wars. that said, i'm still in love with Gina Carano. The most beautiful woman in the world entered an MMA the ring with an RTS game on her shirt! + Show Spoiler +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujeXXrtQclY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnPLPbIAT2k May 2008, that is 6 years ago guys. great times. but, they are over. you'll never see EA put this kind of marketing behind an RTS game ever, ever again. Seeing how the latest C&C games turned up it's no big loss. The bar for competitive RTS is super high so it's difficult to tackle. The same is true for other genres, like MOBAs for instance. C&C Generals 2 was canceled because it wasn't good enough, so they had to cut their loses. in the last 11 years Blizzard has pumped out a giant fuck-tonne of content of all sorts. and only 1 RTS game and 1 expansion. No LotV reference on the Blizz.com main site and not 1 word about RTS in the previous investor call where ATVI brought in record revenues nad profits for a Q1. Morhaime knows which side his bread is buttered on. Content for one game, WOW. The most profitable piece of media ever. Along with this they worked for 7 years on a platform and RTS specific engine for SC2 and a now a MOBA. LOTV is in development, don't worry about it. It's possible Dustin is not the main man behind it anymore, and this is a good thing IMO. The expansion hasn't officially been announced, that's why it's not on the site. Wait for Blizzcon. I haven't watched the investor call, but i assume it talked about games released or about to be released in the current year, 2014. This is indication LOTV is a 2015 title at the earliest, and it's normal considering we had one expansion less then a year ago.
Dustin is the game design lead for SC2, and he is going where the money is.
the expansion is taking so long its leading guys like u to make idle speculation.
from 1994 to 2003 examine the percentage of all of Blizzard's work devoted to RTS.
then,
compare that to the percentage of Blizzard's effort that went into RTS from 2004 to 2014.
Blizzard has moved on... and so has EA and Microsoft.
Blizzard's new RTS content has slowed to a trickle. EA and MS couldn't even make an RTS game if they wanted to. the rts studios are shut down.
back in the hey-day of the RTS genre Blizzard was constantly pumping out new RTS content.
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It's funny to see how closely RTS games are coupled to the rise and fall of Microsoft Windows.
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WC4 would do well I guess.
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On May 15 2014 04:37 urboss wrote:
It's funny to see how closely RTS games are coupled to the rise and fall of Microsoft Windows.
Couldn't that be said for any "PC game"?
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Blizzard won't start working on LotV until Heroes of the Storm is released. priorities boys.. priorities.
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On May 15 2014 04:42 Mistakes wrote:Show nested quote +On May 15 2014 04:37 urboss wrote:
It's funny to see how closely RTS games are coupled to the rise and fall of Microsoft Windows. Couldn't that be said for any "PC game"?
Yeah it's more a parallel than a coupling.
You could say that Windows missed the mobile market while RTS missed the ftp/teamplayer market more or less at the same time.
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