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On February 01 2020 01:02 deacon.frost wrote:Show nested quote +On February 01 2020 00:21 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On January 31 2020 19:49 Grumbels wrote:On January 31 2020 16:06 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
Just because a game loses popularity doesn't mean its a bad game. The entire RTS genre is sinking. This is similar to the dot eating maze game genre sinking in popularity when at one point it was the #1 genre in the entire world.
As video game genres age people play them less. Technology improves giving consumers new choices that were previously not possible. The consumer moves on to the next new and shiny thing that has new game mechanics and features that were not possible only a few years earlier. Ms Pacman was a far better game than Pacman. Yet it generated less then 1/4 of the money Pacman did and Ms Pacman died fast and it died ugly. The entire genre was going down. The consumer had moved on.
Ms Pacman is 1 of dozens if not hundreds of examples. of good games that died before worse games died in the same genre ... because the entire genre was tanking.
You discuss how ZombieGrub can't see the forest through the trees. That is a fair theory to float out there. Maybe she can't. However, maybe you can't see the forest through the trees either.
I'd say SC2 is in a similar position that Ms. Pacman was in when it was released. SC2 was released just as RTS was starting to decline. Similarly, Ms Pacman hit the arcades just as the Dot Eating Maze Game genre was starting to die. It didn't matter that MsPacman was a far better game than Pacman. The consumer was moving away from the entire genre. I think I've read posts of you saying that the RTS genre is sinking ever since 2012. So why does interest in SC2 and BW go up and down, why do people buy the remastered editions? Why do all recent RTS games suck? You can't just repeat this point over and over again, that in this day and age the RTS genre is too old fashioned. There is still war, isn't there? People want to play war games. you have a ton of strategy games that sell for a decent amount. Complex ones too, in general games have been getting more complex and difficult in many ways. More likely than that RTS is just dead is that nobody dares to compete with Blizzard. It remains a valid point. So its worth repeating. As far as BW and SC2 still selling copies goes... Pacman Championship Edition still sells as well. Hell Pacman Championship Edition was developed 20+ years after Ms. Pacman came out. This doesn't mean the Dot Eating Maze Game genre is the dominant video game genre in the world though. I think its important to realize the level of success Starcraft and the RTS genre enjoyed. As cool as the Starcraft franchise is.. it still has not hit $1 billion in revenue. So even at its peak.... Starcraft was never really some amazing mainstream hit. Sometimes you should use sources for your claims, because SC2 is one of the best selling games. EVER. Total War is a great selling series, the last launched game overtook Twitch for a while, sold 1m of copies in a week. The genre is not as dead as you claim it to be. If you mean RTS e-sport - that's a completely different topic IMO and shouldn't be listed as "RTS are falling down", Zombie in the upper posts is writing the same thing but she writes e-sport here and there so it's clear she doesn't mean the genre itself  RTS genre was never the pinacle of games IMO. That was FPS, but since I come from FPS background it may be my social bubble Anyway, I think I should stop to defend RTS genre in this thread as I am getting OT.
As of 2017 ATVI has 8 Billion dollar franchises. Starcraft is not one of them.
https://investor.activision.com/static-files/bbfd4b49-bf78-40bd-aefe-3467f211844b
They are Crash Bandicoot, Skylanders, Overwatch, Call of Duty, Diablo, World Of Warcraft, Candy Crush and Guitar Hero.
The first 2 billion dollar franchises were Space Invaders and Pacman and they achieved this in 1981. So billion dollar video game franchises have been around for 40 years. Its not like a billion dollar seller is some new phenomenon.
The Starcraft franchise has been around 20+ years and it has yet to hit 1 billion in total revenue. Therefore, SC2 is not one of the best selling games EVER.
When any franchise becomes a billion seller the publisher always screams this great news everywhere because they want investors to buy stock which increases the value of the stock. The increase in the value of the stock is usually tied to executive compensation.
I love the RTS genre, however, in the interests of objectivity I must go by the #s and not by how I feel. Otherwise , I'd put myself in a place where I can't see the forest through the trees.
Taken from an historical perspective over the 45 year video game industry the RTS genre is a niche market. Hell its a niche within ATVI itself never mind the entire video game industry.
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I did a post on this years ago when LOTV came out, and everything I stated then is true now. I don't like the 6 worker start though, I would suggest something in the middle like 12. Of course changing worker starting numbers changes the entire economy of the game and will effect each race differently. For example terrans build workers the slowest so by having a slower increasing worker count at a lower worker starting count your economy might fall behind the other 2 races as the % you are down is larger. You may also need to tone down the scouting capability of each race if you slow the game down, as in LOTV most ways of scouting were buffed due to the sped up game.
In short, I think its a massive redesign that I doubt blizzard will do, they seem to be stepping down support of every game not up (in terms of developers), I hope I'm wrong because I would love to see a change done here.
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On February 01 2020 02:29 GoSuNamhciR wrote:
I did a post on this years ago when LOTV came out, and everything I stated then is true now. I don't like the 6 worker start though, I would suggest something in the middle like 12. Of course changing worker starting numbers changes the entire economy of the game and will effect each race differently. For example terrans build workers the slowest so by having a slower increasing worker count at a lower worker starting count your economy might fall behind the other 2 races as the % you are down is larger. You may also need to tone down the scouting capability of each race if you slow the game down, as in LOTV most ways of scouting were buffed due to the sped up game.
In short, I think its a massive redesign that I doubt blizzard will do, they seem to be stepping down support of every game not up (in terms of developers), I hope I'm wrong because I would love to see a change done here.
You want to change the amount of starting workers to 12? Your post is funny.
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On January 31 2020 21:24 deacon.frost wrote:Considering Blizzard's SC2 isn't exactly a very innovative game maybe it's just an issue of Blizzard? We can talk about Total War and its success. The last release sold over 1m copies in a week. Doesn't look to me like the RTS is dying. Maybe, just maybe, people are not interested in the e-sport nonsense... In the end the biggest revolutions SC2 gave us over SC1 are: - multi building selections - auto-working workers - unlimited unit selection Oh. My. God. The RTS genre was changed, what a bold move. (I wanted to write nobody was expecting this but considering the BW players - they were probably not expecting this  ) Edit> in the case somebody wouldn't notice - the old AoE II had these things, not sure about MBS, but still, 2/3. And if my memory wasn't so bad I would say even AoE 1 had this, but that's like 15 years I played it. So there goes the "innovation"
Heart of the swarm did this in 2 days. Legacy did it in 1 day.
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On February 01 2020 02:29 GoSuNamhciR wrote:
I did a post on this years ago when LOTV came out, and everything I stated then is true now. I don't like the 6 worker start though, I would suggest something in the middle like 12. Of course changing worker starting numbers changes the entire economy of the game and will effect each race differently. For example terrans build workers the slowest so by having a slower increasing worker count at a lower worker starting count your economy might fall behind the other 2 races as the % you are down is larger. You may also need to tone down the scouting capability of each race if you slow the game down, as in LOTV most ways of scouting were buffed due to the sped up game.
In short, I think its a massive redesign that I doubt blizzard will do, they seem to be stepping down support of every game not up (in terms of developers), I hope I'm wrong because I would love to see a change done here.
On February 01 2020 02:32 Hunta15 wrote:
You want to change the amount of starting workers to 12? Your post is funny.
** Taunt spotted **
This isn t a huge redesign of the game, to me it s nearly a detail, i have done videos showing terrans build order with 9 workers and it s pretty oiled (take a look if you want : https://tl.net/forum/starcraft-2/554922-videos-with-9-workers)
Some sarcastics people (me ?) could say it only adress changes only if you succeed more oftenly all-in with 42 workers (exactly ?? ahaha) than with 70 workers.. And every impacted strategies depending on these 'specific build order' used in mid-game.
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Northern Ireland27298 Posts
I think one could make all sorts of arguments, they’re rather impossible to do in isolation, at least definitively anyway. Not sure myself but it’s been an interesting ride.
How much of the variety people refer to in Wings/HoTS to an extent things being figured out about the game?
How do the new units influence things too?
Wings I recall did have a more exciting divergent early game, although that could be frustrating too. But it was rather compositionally monotonous after that, especially in its earlier phases.
Then there’s how the eco changes affect the races differently, where the power spikes are etc, my brainnnn.
But yeah been interesting. I wonder what people’s broad strokes kind of ideal would look like, specifics aside.
I’d like more early game skirmishing, maybe a little more aggression friendly provided the ability to scout it out with a safe opener is there, and a more extended back-and-forth mid game with trading and fighting for territory. I guess like classic TvZ can be. The lategame definitely does feel like it arrives a bit quickly and some of the more problematic unit compositions dwell in that phase of the game.
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All balance patchs since 2017 were released in january...
this is the first time that Blizzard is late.
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Northern Ireland27298 Posts
Pretty interesting read, I wish more media outlets followed the model of publishing an article and then 3 responses to said article. Might help the news space!
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On January 31 2020 21:24 deacon.frost wrote:
We can talk about Total War and its success. The last release sold over 1m copies in a week. Doesn't look to me like the RTS is dying.
RTS is no where near as popular as it was from 1999 to 2006. Many major RTS studios have closed down and been replaced by nothing. C&C, SC, and Warcraft are the top 3 RTS franchises by far and they now bring in very little money and the player base is a fraction of what it was 10 years ago.
Its nice that Total War had a million copy seller. I don't think this means RTS is on the rise though. Is the Total War franchise an RTS any way? It is definitely an Action//Strategy type franchise. Action//Strategy titles will always have some kind of niche market... but I don't think they are rising in popularity.
Is there any RTS franchise that has hit a billion in revenue yet? I wouldn't say every Total War game strictly speaking qualifies as an RTS. Even still.... Total War is 20 years old ... has it hit a billion in revenue yet?
Getting back to my original point though. A game's decline in popularity doesn't necessarily mean its a bad game. The declining player base of LotV does not prove its a bad game.
Support for LotV has been incrementally declining for a few years now and its a 5 year old game.
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Northern Ireland27298 Posts
On February 02 2020 02:26 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On January 31 2020 21:24 deacon.frost wrote:
We can talk about Total War and its success. The last release sold over 1m copies in a week. Doesn't look to me like the RTS is dying. RTS is no where near as popular as it was from 1999 to 2006. Many major RTS studios have closed down and been replaced by nothing. C&C, SC, and Warcraft are the top 3 RTS franchises by far and they now bring in very little money and the player base is a fraction of what it was 10 years ago. Its nice that Total War had a million copy seller. I don't think this means RTS is on the rise though. Is the Total War franchise an RTS any way? It is definitely an Action//Strategy type franchise. Action//Strategy titles will always have some kind of niche market... but I don't think they are rising in popularity. Is there any RTS franchise that has hit a billion in revenue yet? I wouldn't say every Total War game strictly speaking qualifies as an RTS. Even still.... Total War is 20 years old ... has it hit a billion in revenue yet? Getting back to my original point though. A game's decline in popularity doesn't necessarily mean its a bad game. The declining player base of LotV does not prove its a bad game. Support for LotV has been incrementally declining for a few years now and its a 5 year old game.
Judging based on franchises seems a rather dubious way to judge the popularity of a game or the genre it resides in.
Blizzard could have put out a Starcraft 4, or a Warcraft 6 and then no doubt they enter that billion dollar club, or close to it.
Plus nowadays you can make more money off one whale than you can from 20 users buying a retail product. Is the game with one guy spending 1000 dollars on skins more vibrant than one with 20 users buying a game at 50 dollars?
I would accept that RTS absolutely is a niche genre these days, but plenty of games can still be hits.
The entire market is much bigger. Even the heavyweights of my youth like Unreal Tournament, Quake 3, Blizzard games. Those numbers aren’t crazy numbers. They’re pretty damn moderate by modern standards.
The problem isn’t that x is a niche, it’s that big developers don’t want to make money, they want to make all the money and have a Fortnite/League level game. And games of that type and monetisation do not suit RTS as a genre particularly well.
Also modern gamers don’t actually have classic RTS games to get into the genre. I’m sure there are good ones but I mean a real AAA polished game.
For sake of argument say EA actually put money into making a good CnC game. Let’s say Valve made a really good RTS game. Blizzard didn’t botch Reforged and announced a new RTS game.
There’s no room for it? It’s not a genre like point and click adventures that was superseded by technology (and even then Telltale did well for a while)
The Doom reboot showed an appetite for old-school esque FPS gameplay that was lapped up by new players sick of pseudo-military shooters.
It did extremely well. It was new for people not exposed to a more fast paced FPS, and it was a return to that style for those of us raised in it.
That’s just a different take on FPS. What would the appetite for a whole generation of gamers for an entire genre they hadn’t really experienced if it was done well?
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Great article, very well thought out and documented for how short it is, this is the kind of feedback and analysis Blizzard and game developers in general should follow and take into consideration.
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On February 02 2020 02:58 Wombat_NI wrote:Show nested quote +On February 02 2020 02:26 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On January 31 2020 21:24 deacon.frost wrote:
We can talk about Total War and its success. The last release sold over 1m copies in a week. Doesn't look to me like the RTS is dying. RTS is no where near as popular as it was from 1999 to 2006. Many major RTS studios have closed down and been replaced by nothing. C&C, SC, and Warcraft are the top 3 RTS franchises by far and they now bring in very little money and the player base is a fraction of what it was 10 years ago. Its nice that Total War had a million copy seller. I don't think this means RTS is on the rise though. Is the Total War franchise an RTS any way? It is definitely an Action//Strategy type franchise. Action//Strategy titles will always have some kind of niche market... but I don't think they are rising in popularity. Is there any RTS franchise that has hit a billion in revenue yet? I wouldn't say every Total War game strictly speaking qualifies as an RTS. Even still.... Total War is 20 years old ... has it hit a billion in revenue yet? Getting back to my original point though. A game's decline in popularity doesn't necessarily mean its a bad game. The declining player base of LotV does not prove its a bad game. Support for LotV has been incrementally declining for a few years now and its a 5 year old game. Judging based on franchises seems a rather dubious way to judge the popularity of a game or the genre it resides in.
my over all point was... when the genre declines ... it doesn't matter how great of a Pac-man type game you've made. It will never be any where near as popular as when the genre was hot. The consumer has already moved on.
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On February 01 2020 16:41 Vision_ wrote:
All balance patchs since 2017 were released in january...
this is the first time that Blizzard is late.
That's probably because they're discussing what on earth is the problem and how to fix it. Because it's pretty evident there's a problem currently. Zerg greed is a problem and smacking down Zerg compositions is going to ultimately lead to an underpowered race, they have to find and address the root cause for Zerg snowballing too fast, too safely.
Then we have to look at mech in it's current state, why is it performing so well? Is it that the Thor buff made it too powerful or is it that other races lack counters, outside of Disruptors and Vipers/Swarm Hosts?
Finally the balance team has to think about Protoss; Protoss are not in a good spot right now and are more gimmicky than ever, partially because of buffs to other races and partially because of nerfs to Protoss itself. This one they seemingly have a huge issue with and I firmly believe that when it comes to Protoss, the balance team just don't know how to handle the race. I mean as evidence, they nerfed Observers out of "frustration" and then significantly nerfed Charge despite Charge nor Observers being a balance issue. I mean, realistically, over the last year we've seen constant Protoss nerfs, some of which were totally justified, some of which were not without Protoss leading the pack in win rates or utterly dominating tournaments...that's a huge red flag, right there.
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Northern Ireland27298 Posts
On February 02 2020 04:37 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On February 02 2020 02:58 Wombat_NI wrote:On February 02 2020 02:26 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On January 31 2020 21:24 deacon.frost wrote:
We can talk about Total War and its success. The last release sold over 1m copies in a week. Doesn't look to me like the RTS is dying. RTS is no where near as popular as it was from 1999 to 2006. Many major RTS studios have closed down and been replaced by nothing. C&C, SC, and Warcraft are the top 3 RTS franchises by far and they now bring in very little money and the player base is a fraction of what it was 10 years ago. Its nice that Total War had a million copy seller. I don't think this means RTS is on the rise though. Is the Total War franchise an RTS any way? It is definitely an Action//Strategy type franchise. Action//Strategy titles will always have some kind of niche market... but I don't think they are rising in popularity. Is there any RTS franchise that has hit a billion in revenue yet? I wouldn't say every Total War game strictly speaking qualifies as an RTS. Even still.... Total War is 20 years old ... has it hit a billion in revenue yet? Getting back to my original point though. A game's decline in popularity doesn't necessarily mean its a bad game. The declining player base of LotV does not prove its a bad game. Support for LotV has been incrementally declining for a few years now and its a 5 year old game. Judging based on franchises seems a rather dubious way to judge the popularity of a game or the genre it resides in. my over all point was... when the genre declines ... it doesn't matter how great of a Pac-man type game you've made. It will never be any where near as popular as when the genre was hot. The consumer has already moved on.
My point was you don’t have to.
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Northern Ireland27298 Posts
The gaming base is, I’m not sure what but absolute multiples of what it was when I was a youngster playing these games the first time round.
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On January 31 2020 21:24 deacon.frost wrote:Considering Blizzard's SC2 isn't exactly a very innovative game maybe it's just an issue of Blizzard? We can talk about Total War and its success. The last release sold over 1m copies in a week. Doesn't look to me like the RTS is dying. Maybe, just maybe, people are not interested in the e-sport nonsense... In the end the biggest revolutions SC2 gave us over SC1 are: - multi building selections - auto-working workers - unlimited unit selection Oh. My. God. The RTS genre was changed, what a bold move. (I wanted to write nobody was expecting this but considering the BW players - they were probably not expecting this ) Edit> in the case somebody wouldn't notice - the old AoE II had these things, not sure about MBS, but still, 2/3. And if my memory wasn't so bad I would say even AoE 1 had this, but that's like 15 years I played it. So there goes the "innovation"
yeah AoE2 has MBS as well^^
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They should not change the mineral and gas.It makes game faster.
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They should change the mineral and gas.It makes game more interesting.
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I m convinced about the design of economy model, which has been decided to promote viewers and Esport scene (with all consequences on the wealth of sc2). I didn t have really read terrancraft article but for sure, this article lacks of number analysis, for example, it would super easy to highlight the part of minerals along the game dedicated to :
- Workers (to know overall cost)
- Combat units (comparing to number of workers)
- Buildings and infrastructures, upgrades (comparing to workers + combat units)
This graph settings must be done with ordered percentage (of course) and describes the minerals spent along the game.
Describing repartition of income in pro games could help to adjust the economy models (cause you will be able to smooth the curve to a clever repartition, ie more proportional).
any volunteers ?
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EPT
