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On August 16 2016 23:47 RoKetha wrote:
Cyclone looks way too volatile with that design: the unit now deals 42 DPS, 84 vs armored, and gains 14 DPS per upgrade or -14 per point of armor. That's so extreme that a single upgrade is going to completely decide games. A 33% damage swing for one upgrade is significantly more extreme than even the basic units (lings/marines).
I am personally NOT looking forward to two banelings no longer killing banelings in ZvZ (they will now survive with 1 HP). That's going to make being the defender in ling/bane an absolute nightmare, and it's already very stressful and a losing game.
That's what the balance map is for. If data proves that the unit's damage or health is too powerful, then it can be scaled back in later iterations.
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On August 17 2016 00:17 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
Relic is a really good company and has done a great job with CoH and CoH2. The declining popularity of the CoH franchise is a reflection of a shift in consumer tastes. It is not because Relic sucks.
Ensemble doesn't suck either. The demand for their product declined. The staying power of Halo Wars was amazing and Ensemble did a great job on the game.
i like playing RTS games so i continue.. but i'm not blind to the over all trends. As technology improves consumers are given more choices and certain games get pushed out of the market as a result. the RTS genre is one such victim of improving technology. The MOBA with team wide voice communication was not technically possible in 1995. Now it is.
The money men are not stupid. They see the trends. As a result, RTS games are not getting funded. In 1999 RTS games were popping up every where because the money men felt it was a wise investment. This is no longer the case. Games like AoA and GG have miniscule budgets.
Voice communication plays a very small role in Dota 2 pubs. I haven't played LoL for multiple years, but from what I've seen recently (my little brother plays it) it's the same.
Skype/TS is used more often, but even then I'd argue it affects 10-15% of my games.
And it's not just my games, most high ranked streamers don't really use their mic often nor do others in their games.
Again 4x/hybrids are selling very well, Stellaris and TWW both sold like crazy and Stellaris honestly was/is pretty unfinished and the TWW's 4x-elements are pretty mediocre.
Honestly GG suffers from bad design decisions more than bad graphics or too few units. They simply didn't put enough time into the planning phase. Ofc that is a money issue to some extent, but more than anything else it's a management issue.
I'm not saying Blizz nor Ensemble suck(ed). I really liked most things Ensemble tried in AoE3 and I have played it for ~80 hours or so, despite not liking the scenario. Loved aoe1 and 2. Didn't play Halo wars, sounds like it was a good game as well.
Blizz introduced esports to me and sc2 was pretty dope compared to the alternatives. Wc2 is one of my first games ever played and I fell in love with the background story. Diablo 2 will always be one of my favorites. Wc3 was great too.
I do think that both, AoE3 and sc2 could have been a lot better in hindsight though.
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On August 17 2016 00:07 hiroshOne wrote:
I love the fact that Blizzard gives so much love to sc2 and has courage to bring so big changes. But as Zerg I have some issues with that. For example- Ravagers will now have armoured mark just as roaches. I just can't imagine how Zerg would defend new cyclone/new tank push when the changes will go live...As both wreck armoured units so freaking hard now.I mean Hydra maybe, but even if its light it still will die from 2 shots of tanks...I know that mech has some problems but i don't think that those design changes are balanced. Hope they will tweak some of it later.
In my opinion, the matchup this will affect the worst is ZvZ, which is already decided by Lurkers in the midgame and Brood Lords in the late game.
Ravagers are already a pretty weak counter to the Lurker, taking four Corrosive Bile volleys to kill a single Lurker, and having stupidly low amounts of health in which to mitigate Lurker attacks.
If Ravagers are now Armored, then Lurkers are going to make mincemeat of them.
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On August 17 2016 00:00 ROOTFayth wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2016 23:46 Ansibled wrote:On August 16 2016 23:44 ROOTFayth wrote:
I think big design changes after every blizzcon would probably do wonders for SC2 I think it depends a lot on the state of the game, I don't want there to be change for the sake of it. by state of the game you mean how popular it is? because at this point I don't think balance matters too much in terms of either bringing in new players or bringing back old players
If you check RankedFTW's player population statistics, you'll see that LotV lost SC2 over half its active players, and has made it the most unpopular version of the game by far.
The last time this happened with a Blizzard game was WoW's really disappointing expansion pack, Warlords of Draenor.
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On August 17 2016 01:07 Blackfeather wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2016 00:17 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
Relic is a really good company and has done a great job with CoH and CoH2. The declining popularity of the CoH franchise is a reflection of a shift in consumer tastes. It is not because Relic sucks.
Ensemble doesn't suck either. The demand for their product declined. The staying power of Halo Wars was amazing and Ensemble did a great job on the game.
i like playing RTS games so i continue.. but i'm not blind to the over all trends. As technology improves consumers are given more choices and certain games get pushed out of the market as a result. the RTS genre is one such victim of improving technology. The MOBA with team wide voice communication was not technically possible in 1995. Now it is.
The money men are not stupid. They see the trends. As a result, RTS games are not getting funded. In 1999 RTS games were popping up every where because the money men felt it was a wise investment. This is no longer the case. Games like AoA and GG have miniscule budgets. Voice communication plays a very small role in Dota 2 pubs. I haven't played LoL for multiple years, but from what I've seen recently (my little brother plays it) it's the same. Skype/TS is used more often, but even then I'd argue it affects 10-15% of my games. And it's not just my games, most high ranked streamers don't really use their mic often nor do others in their games. Again 4x/hybrids are selling very well, Stellaris and TWW both sold like crazy and Stellaris honestly was/is pretty unfinished and the TWW's 4x-elements are pretty mediocre. Honestly GG suffers from bad design decisions more than bad graphics or too few units. They simply didn't put enough time into the planning phase. Ofc that is a money issue to some extent, but more than anything else it's a management issue. I'm not saying Blizz nor Ensemble suck(ed). I really liked most things Ensemble tried in AoE3 and I have played it for ~80 hours or so, despite not liking the scenario. Loved aoe1 and 2. Didn't play Halo wars, sounds like it was a good game as well. Blizz introduced esports to me and sc2 was pretty dope compared to the alternatives. Wc2 is one of my first games ever played and I fell in love with the background story. Diablo 2 will always be one of my favorites. Wc3 was great too. I do think that both, AoE3 and sc2 could have been a lot better in hindsight though.
throughout the late 90s a plethora of totally shit RTS games came out and teh genre continued to grow by leaps and bounds.
new technology cuts both ways.
in 1989 a game like SC1 was not feasible for a PC worth less than $20,000. When SC1 became feasible for the average consumer the buzz of watching 100s are units kill each other on screen simultaneously was addictive and the energy and electricity could not be matched by other games.
The novelty of all those units killing each other led to huge growth in the genre and lots of so-so games succeeding.
Well , now its boring. We've been watching hundreds of units kill each other on screen for decades. Its no longer awe inspiring as it was in 1998 to see so much action on the screen.
New advances in CPU power and lower memory costs made the RTS genre possible and people gobbled it up while at the same time rejecting other older games that didn't require such high powered computers.
Now, RTS is on the wrong side of the tech advancements.
People immersed in the genre they love.. be it dot-eating-maze-games, RTS games, text adventure games... these people all think their genres failed because the games got worse. These people can not see the forest through the trees.
Dot-eating-maze games got better... the genre failed. Text adventure games got better. the genre failed. Game companies don't get worse at making games. They get better at making games. If companies got worse at making games we'd still be playing Pong because all the Atari 2600 games would've been worse than Pong.
The biggest problem the RTS genre has right now is a lack of funding. No one wants to invest in the genre. I can't say that i blame them.
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On August 17 2016 01:10 Clbull wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2016 00:07 hiroshOne wrote:
I love the fact that Blizzard gives so much love to sc2 and has courage to bring so big changes. But as Zerg I have some issues with that. For example- Ravagers will now have armoured mark just as roaches. I just can't imagine how Zerg would defend new cyclone/new tank push when the changes will go live...As both wreck armoured units so freaking hard now.I mean Hydra maybe, but even if its light it still will die from 2 shots of tanks...I know that mech has some problems but i don't think that those design changes are balanced. Hope they will tweak some of it later. In my opinion, the matchup this will affect the worst is ZvZ, which is already decided by Lurkers in the midgame and Brood Lords in the late game. Ravagers are already a pretty weak counter to the Lurker, taking four Corrosive Bile volleys to kill a single Lurker, and having stupidly low amounts of health in which to mitigate Lurker attacks. If Ravagers are now Armored, then Lurkers are going to make mincemeat of them. isn't bile range equal to lurked range? You can shift que move command away and you shouldn't get hit.
You can do a timing attack since lurkers take long to tech to, or you can switch to air.
Imo banelings are going to be more problematic in zvz then ravager being armored. You'll be forced to make more banes to defend against his banes, because now the regeneration kicks in and they are 3 shot instead of 2.
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Maybe they will do something about all the hackers?
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On August 17 2016 01:29 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2016 01:07 Blackfeather wrote:On August 17 2016 00:17 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
Relic is a really good company and has done a great job with CoH and CoH2. The declining popularity of the CoH franchise is a reflection of a shift in consumer tastes. It is not because Relic sucks.
Ensemble doesn't suck either. The demand for their product declined. The staying power of Halo Wars was amazing and Ensemble did a great job on the game.
i like playing RTS games so i continue.. but i'm not blind to the over all trends. As technology improves consumers are given more choices and certain games get pushed out of the market as a result. the RTS genre is one such victim of improving technology. The MOBA with team wide voice communication was not technically possible in 1995. Now it is.
The money men are not stupid. They see the trends. As a result, RTS games are not getting funded. In 1999 RTS games were popping up every where because the money men felt it was a wise investment. This is no longer the case. Games like AoA and GG have miniscule budgets. Voice communication plays a very small role in Dota 2 pubs. I haven't played LoL for multiple years, but from what I've seen recently (my little brother plays it) it's the same. Skype/TS is used more often, but even then I'd argue it affects 10-15% of my games. And it's not just my games, most high ranked streamers don't really use their mic often nor do others in their games. Again 4x/hybrids are selling very well, Stellaris and TWW both sold like crazy and Stellaris honestly was/is pretty unfinished and the TWW's 4x-elements are pretty mediocre. Honestly GG suffers from bad design decisions more than bad graphics or too few units. They simply didn't put enough time into the planning phase. Ofc that is a money issue to some extent, but more than anything else it's a management issue. I'm not saying Blizz nor Ensemble suck(ed). I really liked most things Ensemble tried in AoE3 and I have played it for ~80 hours or so, despite not liking the scenario. Loved aoe1 and 2. Didn't play Halo wars, sounds like it was a good game as well. Blizz introduced esports to me and sc2 was pretty dope compared to the alternatives. Wc2 is one of my first games ever played and I fell in love with the background story. Diablo 2 will always be one of my favorites. Wc3 was great too. I do think that both, AoE3 and sc2 could have been a lot better in hindsight though. throughout the late 90s a plethora of totally shit RTS games came out and teh genre continued to grow by leaps and bounds. new technology cuts both ways. in 1989 a game like SC1 was not feasible for a PC worth less than $20,000. When SC1 became feasible for the average consumer the buzz of watching 100s are units kill each other on screen simultaneously was addictive and the energy and electricity could not be matched by other games. The novelty of all those units killing each other led to huge growth in the genre and lots of so-so games succeeding. Well , now its boring. We've been watching hundreds of units kill each other on screen for decades. Its no longer awe inspiring as it was in 1998 to see so much action on the screen. New advances in CPU power and lower memory costs made the RTS genre possible and people gobbled it up while at the same time rejecting other older games that didn't require such high powered computers. Now, RTS is on the wrong side of the tech advancements. People immersed in the genre they love.. be it dot-eating-maze-games, RTS games, text adventure games... these people all think their genres failed because the games got worse. These people can not see the forest through the trees. Dot-eating-maze games got better... the genre failed. Text adventure games got better. the genre failed. Game companies don't get worse at making games. They get better at making games. If companies got worse at making games we'd still be playing Pong because all the Atari 2600 games would've been worse than Pong. The biggest problem the RTS genre has right now is a lack of funding. No one wants to invest in the genre. I can't say that i blame them.
Your argument that the audience for the RTS genre no longer exists in large numbers would make sense it if wasn't for the fact that subgenres of the RTS genres are selling well. Total war games are selling well, despite some utterly mediocratic games. MOBAS are just awash with people. They are all RTS's just not the starcraft/C&C style RTS. Why hasn't C&C and SC2 style games been selling well recently? Well, it truly is because of some very awful levels of game design choices.
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So apparently the test map is live in NA. I'm not able to log on to play, anyone out there streaming? I'd like to watch Siege Tanks in action
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the old "every single game maker sucks" thing. these same game makers seem to be able to make oodles of cash every where else.
somehow every studio that made very profritable RTS games from 1994 to 2001 all of a sudden became garbage. umm ya. they went from smart to dumb as they gained more experience in this new emerging genre. umm ya. because as you know.. .as you gain experience in a specific field you get worse. reductio ad absurdum.
Avilo is the best for that. Whoever the game designer is for whatever game it is he is playing. That guy is a total idiot destroying the game.
Total War? Selling well by what standard? Creative Assembly is not growing in size. Their investment in RTS is not increasing.
A MOBA and a 1v1 RTS game are a totally different experience. Donkey Kong, Mario Brothers and Super Mario Brothers ran off the same engine. Mario Brothers and Super Mario Brothers are not the same genre. In fact, Gallery platformers like DOnkey Kong effectively died once technology improved and Super Mario Brothers and SOnic were possible.
Again, its improving technology that ended games like Donkey Kong's and the Gallery Platformers ( donkey kong junior, space panic, lode runner) reign at the top. Not because the latest gallery platformers were bad.
As negative as my posts have been... its about macroscopic level stuff i don't care about. SC2 has been great fun for 6 years... 2v2 team games have been awesome.. and i look forward to Blizzcon 2016 , the GSL, and WCS. Blizzard and DK are doing a great job.
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On August 17 2016 01:29 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2016 01:07 Blackfeather wrote:On August 17 2016 00:17 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
Relic is a really good company and has done a great job with CoH and CoH2. The declining popularity of the CoH franchise is a reflection of a shift in consumer tastes. It is not because Relic sucks.
Ensemble doesn't suck either. The demand for their product declined. The staying power of Halo Wars was amazing and Ensemble did a great job on the game.
i like playing RTS games so i continue.. but i'm not blind to the over all trends. As technology improves consumers are given more choices and certain games get pushed out of the market as a result. the RTS genre is one such victim of improving technology. The MOBA with team wide voice communication was not technically possible in 1995. Now it is.
The money men are not stupid. They see the trends. As a result, RTS games are not getting funded. In 1999 RTS games were popping up every where because the money men felt it was a wise investment. This is no longer the case. Games like AoA and GG have miniscule budgets. Voice communication plays a very small role in Dota 2 pubs. I haven't played LoL for multiple years, but from what I've seen recently (my little brother plays it) it's the same. Skype/TS is used more often, but even then I'd argue it affects 10-15% of my games. And it's not just my games, most high ranked streamers don't really use their mic often nor do others in their games. Again 4x/hybrids are selling very well, Stellaris and TWW both sold like crazy and Stellaris honestly was/is pretty unfinished and the TWW's 4x-elements are pretty mediocre. Honestly GG suffers from bad design decisions more than bad graphics or too few units. They simply didn't put enough time into the planning phase. Ofc that is a money issue to some extent, but more than anything else it's a management issue. I'm not saying Blizz nor Ensemble suck(ed). I really liked most things Ensemble tried in AoE3 and I have played it for ~80 hours or so, despite not liking the scenario. Loved aoe1 and 2. Didn't play Halo wars, sounds like it was a good game as well. Blizz introduced esports to me and sc2 was pretty dope compared to the alternatives. Wc2 is one of my first games ever played and I fell in love with the background story. Diablo 2 will always be one of my favorites. Wc3 was great too. I do think that both, AoE3 and sc2 could have been a lot better in hindsight though. throughout the late 90s a plethora of totally shit RTS games came out and teh genre continued to grow by leaps and bounds. new technology cuts both ways. in 1989 a game like SC1 was not feasible for a PC worth less than $20,000. When SC1 became feasible for the average consumer the buzz of watching 100s are units kill each other on screen simultaneously was addictive and the energy and electricity could not be matched by other games. The novelty of all those units killing each other led to huge growth in the genre and lots of so-so games succeeding. Well , now its boring. We've been watching hundreds of units kill each other on screen for decades. Its no longer awe inspiring as it was in 1998 to see so much action on the screen. New advances in CPU power and lower memory costs made the RTS genre possible and people gobbled it up while at the same time rejecting other older games that didn't require such high powered computers. Now, RTS is on the wrong side of the tech advancements. People immersed in the genre they love.. be it dot-eating-maze-games, RTS games, text adventure games... these people all think their genres failed because the games got worse. These people can not see the forest through the trees. Dot-eating-maze games got better... the genre failed. Text adventure games got better. the genre failed. Game companies don't get worse at making games. They get better at making games. If companies got worse at making games we'd still be playing Pong because all the Atari 2600 games would've been worse than Pong. The biggest problem the RTS genre has right now is a lack of funding. No one wants to invest in the genre. I can't say that i blame them.
Yeah I didn't intent to say that Blizz got worse at what they are doing. Sc2 has a plethora of things where it's better than sc1, i.e. controls (which were terrible in BW by modern standards). I still like most of what they tried to do with LotV, I love that they cut the low worker start f.e. They just didn't go far enough for me, I agree that they can't keep producing the same games just a littlebit more polished.
I'm still surprised nobody after BfME seems to have played around with RPG-elements. Afaik BfME1 and Wc3 were a huge success.
I agree that funding is a huge issue.
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See, that's the problem. Mario brothers and Super mario brothers are the same genre. That's why your arguments fail. By excluding anything that doesn't fit your own narrowly defined definitions, you are able to say that XYZ person is a genius or whetever your motivations are.
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On August 17 2016 01:10 Clbull wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2016 00:07 hiroshOne wrote:
I love the fact that Blizzard gives so much love to sc2 and has courage to bring so big changes. But as Zerg I have some issues with that. For example- Ravagers will now have armoured mark just as roaches. I just can't imagine how Zerg would defend new cyclone/new tank push when the changes will go live...As both wreck armoured units so freaking hard now.I mean Hydra maybe, but even if its light it still will die from 2 shots of tanks...I know that mech has some problems but i don't think that those design changes are balanced. Hope they will tweak some of it later. In my opinion, the matchup this will affect the worst is ZvZ, which is already decided by Lurkers in the midgame and Brood Lords in the late game. Ravagers are already a pretty weak counter to the Lurker, taking four Corrosive Bile volleys to kill a single Lurker, and having stupidly low amounts of health in which to mitigate Lurker attacks. If Ravagers are now Armored, then Lurkers are going to make mincemeat of them.
I can say with confidence I never make broodlords or lurkers in my ZvZs and my games are fine.
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On August 17 2016 01:00 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2016 00:35 Sapphire.lux wrote:On August 17 2016 00:17 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
Relic is a really good company and has done a great job with CoH and CoH2. The declining popularity of the CoH franchise is a reflection of a shift in consumer tastes. It is not because Relic sucks.
Ensemble doesn't suck either. The demand for their product declined. The staying power of Halo Wars was amazing and Ensemble did a great job on the game.
i like playing RTS games so i continue.. but i'm not blind to the over all trends. As technology improves consumers are given more choices and certain games get pushed out of the market as a result. the RTS genre is one such victim of improving technology. The MOBA with team wide voice communication was not technically possible in 1995. Now it is.
The money men are not stupid. They see the trends. As a result, RTS games are not getting funded. In 1999 RTS games were popping up every where because the money men felt it was a wise investment. This is no longer the case. Games like AoA and GG have miniscule budgets. There will always be demand for competitive 1v1 games, be they RTS, fighting games or other. Maybe not as popular as team games, but still a great need. EDIT: and SC2, Civs and Total War sell very, very well. Civs? Civilization is not an RTS. define "very very well" ? SC2: LotV didn't even make $0.1 Billion. Neither did SC2:HotS. ATVI counts their revenues in Billions not millions. I'm very happy ATVI continues to fund SC2 despite its weak #s relative to every other Blizzard franchise except HotS.
I can only find LOTV 1 mil copies in one day so i'm sure you could at least add another 500k to that. Also keep in mind that the dev costs were relatively low since all the tech was already there, same for HOTS. Blizzard is not a charity and they know what they're doing much better then me or you; that they decided to make extra content for SC2, keep a design team to work on multiplayer and fund the esports sector is indicative enough that their RTS sector is important to the company.
There is another aspect that some people miss. Blizzard has not built it's name only through making quality products, but also by giving a lot of support for those products. An armchair businessman man would think that by doing that you eat in to the profits, as, after all, people have already given you the money so why make further investments in the product? But a quality businessman like the guys in charge of Blizzard know that in the long term this is highly profitable as it creates fans of the company, and not just individual products.
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On August 17 2016 01:49 Dangermousecatdog wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2016 01:29 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On August 17 2016 01:07 Blackfeather wrote:On August 17 2016 00:17 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
Relic is a really good company and has done a great job with CoH and CoH2. The declining popularity of the CoH franchise is a reflection of a shift in consumer tastes. It is not because Relic sucks.
Ensemble doesn't suck either. The demand for their product declined. The staying power of Halo Wars was amazing and Ensemble did a great job on the game.
i like playing RTS games so i continue.. but i'm not blind to the over all trends. As technology improves consumers are given more choices and certain games get pushed out of the market as a result. the RTS genre is one such victim of improving technology. The MOBA with team wide voice communication was not technically possible in 1995. Now it is.
The money men are not stupid. They see the trends. As a result, RTS games are not getting funded. In 1999 RTS games were popping up every where because the money men felt it was a wise investment. This is no longer the case. Games like AoA and GG have miniscule budgets. Voice communication plays a very small role in Dota 2 pubs. I haven't played LoL for multiple years, but from what I've seen recently (my little brother plays it) it's the same. Skype/TS is used more often, but even then I'd argue it affects 10-15% of my games. And it's not just my games, most high ranked streamers don't really use their mic often nor do others in their games. Again 4x/hybrids are selling very well, Stellaris and TWW both sold like crazy and Stellaris honestly was/is pretty unfinished and the TWW's 4x-elements are pretty mediocre. Honestly GG suffers from bad design decisions more than bad graphics or too few units. They simply didn't put enough time into the planning phase. Ofc that is a money issue to some extent, but more than anything else it's a management issue. I'm not saying Blizz nor Ensemble suck(ed). I really liked most things Ensemble tried in AoE3 and I have played it for ~80 hours or so, despite not liking the scenario. Loved aoe1 and 2. Didn't play Halo wars, sounds like it was a good game as well. Blizz introduced esports to me and sc2 was pretty dope compared to the alternatives. Wc2 is one of my first games ever played and I fell in love with the background story. Diablo 2 will always be one of my favorites. Wc3 was great too. I do think that both, AoE3 and sc2 could have been a lot better in hindsight though. throughout the late 90s a plethora of totally shit RTS games came out and teh genre continued to grow by leaps and bounds. new technology cuts both ways. in 1989 a game like SC1 was not feasible for a PC worth less than $20,000. When SC1 became feasible for the average consumer the buzz of watching 100s are units kill each other on screen simultaneously was addictive and the energy and electricity could not be matched by other games. The novelty of all those units killing each other led to huge growth in the genre and lots of so-so games succeeding. Well , now its boring. We've been watching hundreds of units kill each other on screen for decades. Its no longer awe inspiring as it was in 1998 to see so much action on the screen. New advances in CPU power and lower memory costs made the RTS genre possible and people gobbled it up while at the same time rejecting other older games that didn't require such high powered computers. Now, RTS is on the wrong side of the tech advancements. People immersed in the genre they love.. be it dot-eating-maze-games, RTS games, text adventure games... these people all think their genres failed because the games got worse. These people can not see the forest through the trees. Dot-eating-maze games got better... the genre failed. Text adventure games got better. the genre failed. Game companies don't get worse at making games. They get better at making games. If companies got worse at making games we'd still be playing Pong because all the Atari 2600 games would've been worse than Pong. The biggest problem the RTS genre has right now is a lack of funding. No one wants to invest in the genre. I can't say that i blame them. Your argument that the audience for the RTS genre no longer exists in large numbers would make sense it if wasn't for the fact that subgenres of the RTS genres are selling well. Total war games are selling well, despite some utterly mediocratic games. MOBAS are just awash with people. They are all RTS's just not the starcraft/C&C style RTS. Why hasn't C&C and SC2 style games been selling well recently? Well, it truly is because of some very awful levels of game design choices.
I agree with the bold part. It was also the case with HOTS imo. Huge number of people were pissed of at the way the game was looking and they jumped ship. Fix the game and many will come back, there is no doubt about that.
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On August 17 2016 01:29 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2016 01:07 Blackfeather wrote:On August 17 2016 00:17 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
Relic is a really good company and has done a great job with CoH and CoH2. The declining popularity of the CoH franchise is a reflection of a shift in consumer tastes. It is not because Relic sucks.
Ensemble doesn't suck either. The demand for their product declined. The staying power of Halo Wars was amazing and Ensemble did a great job on the game.
i like playing RTS games so i continue.. but i'm not blind to the over all trends. As technology improves consumers are given more choices and certain games get pushed out of the market as a result. the RTS genre is one such victim of improving technology. The MOBA with team wide voice communication was not technically possible in 1995. Now it is.
The money men are not stupid. They see the trends. As a result, RTS games are not getting funded. In 1999 RTS games were popping up every where because the money men felt it was a wise investment. This is no longer the case. Games like AoA and GG have miniscule budgets. Voice communication plays a very small role in Dota 2 pubs. I haven't played LoL for multiple years, but from what I've seen recently (my little brother plays it) it's the same. Skype/TS is used more often, but even then I'd argue it affects 10-15% of my games. And it's not just my games, most high ranked streamers don't really use their mic often nor do others in their games. Again 4x/hybrids are selling very well, Stellaris and TWW both sold like crazy and Stellaris honestly was/is pretty unfinished and the TWW's 4x-elements are pretty mediocre. Honestly GG suffers from bad design decisions more than bad graphics or too few units. They simply didn't put enough time into the planning phase. Ofc that is a money issue to some extent, but more than anything else it's a management issue. I'm not saying Blizz nor Ensemble suck(ed). I really liked most things Ensemble tried in AoE3 and I have played it for ~80 hours or so, despite not liking the scenario. Loved aoe1 and 2. Didn't play Halo wars, sounds like it was a good game as well. Blizz introduced esports to me and sc2 was pretty dope compared to the alternatives. Wc2 is one of my first games ever played and I fell in love with the background story. Diablo 2 will always be one of my favorites. Wc3 was great too. I do think that both, AoE3 and sc2 could have been a lot better in hindsight though. throughout the late 90s a plethora of totally shit RTS games came out and teh genre continued to grow by leaps and bounds. new technology cuts both ways. in 1989 a game like SC1 was not feasible for a PC worth less than $20,000. When SC1 became feasible for the average consumer the buzz of watching 100s are units kill each other on screen simultaneously was addictive and the energy and electricity could not be matched by other games. The novelty of all those units killing each other led to huge growth in the genre and lots of so-so games succeeding. Well , now its boring. We've been watching hundreds of units kill each other on screen for decades. Its no longer awe inspiring as it was in 1998 to see so much action on the screen. New advances in CPU power and lower memory costs made the RTS genre possible and people gobbled it up while at the same time rejecting other older games that didn't require such high powered computers. Now, RTS is on the wrong side of the tech advancements. People immersed in the genre they love.. be it dot-eating-maze-games, RTS games, text adventure games... these people all think their genres failed because the games got worse. These people can not see the forest through the trees. Dot-eating-maze games got better... the genre failed. Text adventure games got better. the genre failed. Game companies don't get worse at making games. They get better at making games. If companies got worse at making games we'd still be playing Pong because all the Atari 2600 games would've been worse than Pong. The biggest problem the RTS genre has right now is a lack of funding. No one wants to invest in the genre. I can't say that i blame them.
This is simply not true, after all these years people still enjoy watching and playing both Broodwar and WarCraft3.
StarCarft2 was just poorly designed and only harvests money from the success of the prequel.
It is just plain suicide if you want to design something on top of a cult strategy game.
I believe that WarCraft 4 has poor chances because of that as well.
Not that it won't make money, it's just it will die after a few years and people will return to WarCraft 3.
This is basically what happened to many great movie sequels.
They just need to create some new universe, and not just leach and recycle on what has been great in the past.
Blizzard PM me I have a lot of awesome ideas, I will make your RTS great again lol.
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is the test map live on EU yet?
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On August 17 2016 02:05 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
Total War? Selling well by what standard? Creative Assembly is not growing in size. Their investment in RTS is not increasing.
Ok, now i see that you are either uninformed or are just willing to lie in order to stick to your position.
Rome2 had by far the biggest budget to all their games till then, and it also generated the biggest profits. The funny thing is, they did not deserve those profits as the game was utter shit at launch. Yet, why did it sell so well? Because people were super hyped for a new TW RTS. Talk about interest a? Their new Warhammer games are also an increase in budget and scope.
Quality RTS sells just fine, the same as any genre. MOBAS are not instant hits just because they are MOBAS, see the Blizzard one. FPS is full of CoD clones that nobody cares about.
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RTS is kinda different from a dot eating maze game. The latter genre is obviously limited, while the former has amazing diversity, spawned many new genres including the most popular ones today, and has like millions of testimonials of players saying how dedicated they are to this genre etc. I truly believe that RTS just needs a legitimately great game to revive it, because if SC2 was really so good and DB/DK are really so brilliant you wouldn't have half the playerbase constantly complaining about how much they hate the game. It won't have the relative success of BW, but if there was a new competitive RTS in the same subgenre as BW with popular appeal, a decent budget and a playerbase that has faith in the designers, I think it could have potential.
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On August 17 2016 02:47 Sapphire.lux wrote:
Ok, now i see that you are either uninformed or are just willing to lie in order to stick to your position.
Rome2 had by far the biggest budget to all their games till then, and it also generated the biggest profits. The funny thing is, they did not deserve those profits as the game was utter shit at launch. Yet, why did it sell so well? Because people were super hyped for a new TW RTS. Talk about interest a? Their new Warhammer games are also an increase in budget and scope.
CA's Headcount is down slightly
yes, Rome2 was best selling for the Total War franchise and now TW:Warhammer had "unprecedented" success. Its easy to improve on very low sales levels.
Rome2 was such a "sweeping success" that all SEGA could give CA was the "relatively unscathed" treatment. Headcount at CA went down slightly. Its "success" did not justify its budget. During this depressing announcement SEGA tried to put as positive as spin on things as they could , but they could not lie and claim CA was growing. Because it ain't.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-01-30-sega-to-offer-300-voluntary-retirement-as-part-of-focus-on-smartphone-and-pc-online-gaming
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/total-war-warhammer-breaks-franchise-sales-records/1100-6440270/
500,000 sold in its first few days ain't that great. If this were 1990 it would be i guess. its not time for ATVI to pull Sledgehammer, Treyarch and Infinity Ward off of CoD and put them on RTS games though.
IMO, the Rome2 project ran out of cash in the middle of the project.
none of this has resulted in any growth in CA.
On August 17 2016 02:47 Sapphire.lux wrote:
Quality RTS sells just fine, the same as any genre.
you can just shift the meaning of "quality" to suit however you want to frame the sales totals of any game title. So this doesn't mean much.
RTS studios are dropping like flies. What are popping up now are ultra low budget RTS games primarily funded by guys like Frank Klepecki (sp? C&C sound guy)
at this point people can keep shifting the goalposts as to what "good sales" are and what a "quality" game is. At the end of the day every studio is either maintaining headcounts or laying people off. The only AAA RTS is SC2 and Blizzard is giving it the old "we are not stepping on its toes for 10 years" blab because its not worth the investment.
No one is increasing their investment in the genre and many continue to pull back their investment.
Tim Morten is from Victory Games, Dustin Browder is from Westwood/EALA, Greg Black is from EALA. Blizzard is running out of places to raid for top notch employees.
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EPT
