EPTO HAI SC2.
IMO Unless they fix sc2 drastically, the only reason it has a chance of not dying out will be from the brood war community clinging on to it.
[Q] How did other RTS games fail? - Page 7
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-orb-
United States5770 Posts
O HAI SC2. IMO Unless they fix sc2 drastically, the only reason it has a chance of not dying out will be from the brood war community clinging on to it. | ||
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GeneralStan
United States4789 Posts
On January 03 2009 22:24 Shikyo wrote: Just out of curiosity, has anyone ever played NetStorm? I thought that the concept was quite fun and unique, although I haven't played it in a while. It was made around the same time as Starcraft. Apparently it still has a community around. http://www.netstormhq.com/download.php?list.10 Download of the full version of the game if you want to try it What a cool game! | ||
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SWPIGWANG
Canada482 Posts
but competitive games are even better because you can actually choose between casual and hardcore play-styles, and not have to be shoehorned into casual-only like so many other games do. It's for this reason why I can't fathom why gamers today are on this "anti-hardcore" crusade. There are competitive and complex games that is literally IMPOSSIBLE for a casual player to play. The worst pool of them would fall under things like flight simulations that result your plane exploding because you messed up your fuel-air mixture or a mistake in propeller pitch. (or why modern flight sims all have n00b mode) Complex strategy games, from games like Civ4 or Combat Mission series or Heart of Iron or Victoria all require so much time investment to get through the interface that only the devoted and focused and get through the first game counts as well. In addition, casual gaming requires an environment where people can do what they want without being punished. The player must not, say, have his CC explode (which is what happens in flight sims) on him because he messed around. The casual gamer wants to do whatever he wants to do (zomg mass BC stack) and win a reasonable of time despite of it by whatever reason. BGH is actually great for casual gamers because of its effect of removing competitive players from it, so sides can play 20min no rush into mass carrier/whatever games. The Starcraft community has self segregated but that is not always automatic or even possible, just look at RTS that does not support automatic map downloads (resulting in everyone playing the same maps) while not having a good matchmaking service, which result in the few hardcore folks killing casual play in record time. (while being bored themselves since they rarely find a challenge, unless they are griefer/win farmers) -------- There is finally, a kind of game there the casuals play in the same style as the competitive people. (just with less skill) This happens when competitive play matches up with what players want to do (perhaps because that is the only thing possible within the game/genre). I don't think Q3 have a seriously split community of competitive and casuals with different rules to the game, only one divided on skill alone. (but I'm not too familar with them though) | ||
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mrgerry
United States1508 Posts
On January 07 2009 10:06 -orb- wrote: Other RTS's fail because they cater to noobs. Noobs generally get bored of games within a couple of months, so the RTS dies. That's why you give noobs MMORPG  Other RTS's fail because today's standards of what an RTS needs are not convenient for a very high learning curve. People (not all just a generalization) who never played SC and have only played the most recent RTS's don't have a very open mind to the intricacies of Brood War. They are uninformed to the point of referring to Starcraft as a "click-fest". I don't quite understand why companies have to cater to certain audiences. "Noobs" find their own means of having fun when a game doesn't fit their needs. This and the fact that we have companies like EA and Relic being the only other competitors to Blizzard and playing on p2p servers and games that are ruined with expansions and no support just isn't my ideal. GL SC2 you have many more eyes watching your development than SC1. | ||
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InRaged
1047 Posts
That's an example of the game that hasn't got what it really deserves solely because of hideous marketing. Now recalling that Activision was game's publisher and they merged with Blizzard, how great would be if the right guys resurrected it and made the sequel. Ah, dreams, dreams... | ||
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synapse
China13814 Posts
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Ramsing
Canada233 Posts
Then there's the odd game -usually sequels- that you know was so heavily influenced by a small portion of the community from the previous game that the new game caters to them and only them so you end up getting a pretty crappy game. (Empire Earth 3 comes to mind) | ||
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SWPIGWANG
Canada482 Posts
Not only that, the beta's tend to be far too short to get out any of the kinks in the game itself so that when it hits store shelves the game is buggy and totally imbalanced. Of course this can be fixed if the developers are willing to listen to the community If it were only this easy. *points all the "Protoss are broken" folks in the Strategy forum* A community of n00bs would make a game that is only balanced for n00bs and thats that. Somethings its anything but self evident whether/how the game is broken and whats the best way to fix it, especially if you stuck with things like forums that does not filter skills and anyone with an biased opinion can throw his two cents.. | ||
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Tiamat
United States498 Posts
a) Units become worthless as the game progresses. I always hated the "Tier" system. I mean one of the things I hated about War2 and War3 is that once you get to the late game, you would never have a reason to build a footman ever again. Just build knights. SC gave every unit a use throughout the entire game. Tier systems are stupid and dont work for a fun game. b) Battle Net, other RTSs have horrible multiplayer systems. Battle net single handedly helped SC become the RTS. Boneyards, Relic, Gamespy, they all suck balls. c) Unit response, I want my units to move and do what I want them to. Some RTS have such horrible pathfinding that its unbelievable. | ||
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ManWithCheese
Canada246 Posts
On January 07 2009 15:01 Tiamat wrote: Random thoughts for reasons why other RTS fail... a) Units become worthless as the game progresses. I always hated the "Tier" system. I mean one of the things I hated about War2 and War3 is that once you get to the late game, you would never have a reason to build a footman ever again. Just build knights. SC gave every unit a use throughout the entire game. Tier systems are stupid and dont work for a fun game. b) Battle Net, other RTSs have horrible multiplayer systems. Battle net single handedly helped SC become the RTS. Boneyards, Relic, Gamespy, they all suck balls. c) Unit response, I want my units to move and do what I want them to. Some RTS have such horrible pathfinding that its unbelievable. You're just being biased otherwise you'd see scouts, valkyries, dark archons, queens, ghosts, firebats, and devourers used more and/or longer then 1 minute in 1 matchup. Note: Some of the units listed may be a great unit for a specific role but for the most part they are vastly underused because of various reasons and/or have a very short window to be used in. | ||
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SerpentFlame
415 Posts
1) Too many units occupy the same niche and there's a lack of diversity among units. Why build Heavy tanks when you could build Mammoth tanks? Why build light tanks or missile trucks when you could get Heavy Tanks? (CnC). A lot of units were mostly flashy but didn't really bring anything fresh into the game. Warcraft three slightly falls into this as well, in that a lot of units in Castle-tech completely outclass in every way the corresponding tier two or tier one unit. The difference that was made in Starcraft is that (most) units are specialized and diverse so that they find their place in a niche that isn't a iron hardcounter to any specific strategy, but a malleable softcounter to an opponent's observed unit combination. Each race is also given a different dynamic, which changes the pace of the gameplay immensely. 2) Reaction and scouting isn't that important: if you see your opponent going seeker rush, there's nothing you can really do except continue with the strategy that you started with; a seeker rush. Starcraft strategies on the other hand are so numerously diverse (yet still not as to be just too much for a gamer) and importantly, there is no "winning" strategy such as the OU Seeker Rush. Really, a lot of more unorthodox strategies (such as Reverse Stove sairgoon, bluegoon v T, bachanic or ghosts v P, or Dragoon Templar v Z, etc.) are semi-viable and at least make for an interesting game dynamic, whereas in a lot of RTS's its all about massing a lot of one type of tank and then winning. 3) Weak-paced micromanagement; almost all units don't move too quickly and micromanaging them doesn't lead to much benefit. 4) No depth in economy. Macromanagement and expanding in Starcraft is tremendously important, but the same can't be said of most RTS games that have less-harassable bases or less benefits to economic expansion, overall dumbing down the gameplay in other RTS's. | ||
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Choros
Australia530 Posts
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Velr
Switzerland10886 Posts
He can play the game whiteout thinking much and he noticed that he can get better and better. In SC/BW everyone was a noob at the beginning, much more newb than DoW1 players were when the game started, SC/BW has *made* the competetive scene from scratch because there were enough noobs who loved the game. SC/BW was not cathered to anyone, it was just a game that was created to be fun. That sets SC/BW apart from many, many other RTS. | ||
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Lamentations
Australia211 Posts
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dmfg
United Kingdom591 Posts
On January 07 2009 16:53 SerpentFlame wrote: Thoughts for the failures of some RTS Games (actually I only played CnC so I'll just be discussing that) 1) Too many units occupy the same niche and there's a lack of diversity among units. Why build Heavy tanks when you could build Mammoth tanks? Why build light tanks or missile trucks when you could get Heavy Tanks? (CnC). A lot of units were mostly flashy but didn't really bring anything fresh into the game. Warcraft three slightly falls into this as well, in that a lot of units in Castle-tech completely outclass in every way the corresponding tier two or tier one unit. The difference that was made in Starcraft is that (most) units are specialized and diverse so that they find their place in a niche that isn't a iron hardcounter to any specific strategy, but a malleable softcounter to an opponent's observed unit combination. Each race is also given a different dynamic, which changes the pace of the gameplay immensely. 2) Reaction and scouting isn't that important: if you see your opponent going seeker rush, there's nothing you can really do except continue with the strategy that you started with; a seeker rush. Starcraft strategies on the other hand are so numerously diverse (yet still not as to be just too much for a gamer) and importantly, there is no "winning" strategy such as the OU Seeker Rush. Really, a lot of more unorthodox strategies (such as Reverse Stove sairgoon, bluegoon v T, bachanic or ghosts v P, or Dragoon Templar v Z, etc.) are semi-viable and at least make for an interesting game dynamic, whereas in a lot of RTS's its all about massing a lot of one type of tank and then winning. 3) Weak-paced micromanagement; almost all units don't move too quickly and micromanaging them doesn't lead to much benefit. 4) No depth in economy. Macromanagement and expanding in Starcraft is tremendously important, but the same can't be said of most RTS games that have less-harassable bases or less benefits to economic expansion, overall dumbing down the gameplay in other RTS's. Agree with this and would like to add a point to 3 - the AI is too good. When I have an army strong against different units types and a-move into the enemy, my units start firing as soon as they're in range, they change targets to make sure they're shooting at the enemy they're most effective against, they stay in a sensible formation. Just about the only useful micro you can do is target-firing and Bike harass, and even then you don't get much extra benefit from that micro compared to just a-move. EDIT: For the purposes of SC2, I'm not proposing "LOL MAKE AI AND PATHING SUCK". I'm saying I want an AI that does exactly what you tell it to do, goes where you tell it to go, attacks where you tell it to attack - not what it thinks you want to do, without explicitly telling it. | ||
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kimchiterran
Poland81 Posts
1. Huge fan base aka community ...(fan =/= player) around the game, not necessarily "hardcore" - in the end, everyone starts as a newbie, regardless previous RTS experience / talent. This is most important factor in creating successful e-sports platform, as it affects various aspects. The bigger fan base is, the easier to find the game in internet it is, the easier to build competitive scene (look at it statistically, let's say for every 1000 gamers, 100 will try it in some competitive way, 10 will become hardcore players), the more people will look for the sites, forums, broadcasts, offline events, thus the easier to attract the medias is, etc. etc. People are the key for e-sport the same way they are for any other sport. Until some hobby/game is known/popular enough, it simply cannot get to the rank of sport/e-sport. Also this is community to furtherly improve the game (using mod tools, for Starcraft that would be antihack tools and usage of map editor) and in the end - this is community to create the competitive scene and gather medias in various forms around (as mentioned above, so news, forums, radio, tv, tourneys, offline events). SC: excellent marketing and distribution channel all around the world (please note they localized the game into various languages to make it even more accessible - it's not like English is basic foreign language in all the countries), especially considering it was new brand for Blizzard (even if it gained a lot from being natural sequel for W2); of course they again (after well-known already Diablo and Warcraft 2) delivered very well polished product; also amazing mod community (vide point 4) W3: they knew the correct way, so just repeated successful model again, having full gain from their most popular franchise; even better mod community than in SC! Other games: they did not bring enough attention to build huge enough community. 2. Proper pre- and post- launch development. Which means - polished product delivered on Launch Day as well as supporting the game after its launch as long as it requires some fixes. That also means excellent gameplay in delivered game - part of development is to arrange focus / playability tests and polish the game until it's playable and with scalable difficulty level. This is where both Blizzard main mottos are working "miracles": "It will be done when it's done" and "Easy to learn, hard to master". It ensures us that about game quality (=gameplay) from the first touch to long-time experience (while trying to master it). Excellent gameplay for RTS means: - game's being playable from the first glance... - ...as well offering a lot playing appeal while mastering it - intuitive interface - simple but with advanced strategy-tree (vide point 5) and I mean various gameplay possibilities here on any level, not just pro-strats tree - fast paced (does not neccessarily means it should be crazy fast, just not too slow or gameplay is much lower), with adjustable speed Excellent development means: - polished product delivered (heavily tested game, functionality & gameplay & localisation & balance wise) - further support after release (same as above in form of patches and/or expansions) - no hardcore hardware requirements for the game in release day, it should be playable on average computer (at least with lowered settings) and still to deliver best feel possible; so as much scalable engine as it can only be SC: excellent gameplay, great engine (btw Blizzard had huge balls to leave existing engine and to create new one from the scratches, see SC beta screens if you don't know what I mean), amazing expansion, almost perfect patching (almost all bugs fixed, new features added, balance improved) W3: same as above, even if they not exactly managed the balance issues for this game (but with 4 races and new mechanics - it is much harder than in SC imho), the gameplay is amazing Other Games: always something missing, brilliant ideas with poor execution or poor ideas with brilliant execution, bad or no support after release, game released too early (not polished enough), focusing on the technicals (in most of cases - graphics), but not enough focus on the gameplay (or simply bad developer from the very beginning, which means no good development plan for the gameplay, just ideas for story, look - just imagine boardgame with amazing cogs, wonderful art on the board, but the rules suck - the game is not playable at all, correct? the problem with development today is that most of the projects have no good "rules" behind or they are not able to execute their ideas properly - usually the first thing) 3. Easy accessible, user-friendly multiplayer mode (via Internet). It is self-explanatory I believe, but many people underestimate true value of well made multiplayer mode. If we had no B.Net, SC never would be so popular and competitive scene would never rise that fast. SC: Battle net with intuitive irc-kind-of channels - you can easily enter the b.net in 5-10 seconds from running the game , passing one login window only (in-game registration is fast as hell too); then it's even easier to find all open games and/or filter them out eventually OR just arrange the game in the channel; extremely easy hosting of the games as well (just select the map and type of match, enter the password eventually). W3: Same as above + matchmaking (wonderful thing, even if not exactly the best for competitive play in current form). Other Games: too many settings while hosting the game, unfriendly user interface, hard to join the game you are looking for, external clients / external registrations needed to start it, unstable server (various connection issues). 4. Moddable engine, broadcast support and replays. This is so much underestimated as well. Just try to imagine there is no staredit (aka map editor), that it is not possible to make observer tools, replay analyzing tools or to host private b.net servers. We need the tools and moddable engine to have successful e-sports platform, period! And now for broadcast support - at first glance you can think there is no such a thing in SC - but this is not true! You can make UMS maps for observers or start the game with additional Terran players to lift up their buildings. Sounds so amateur, but please imagine there is no such an option! Now in SC2, first time we will see the real features to support broadcasting - not just additional options for observers, but also (I'm pretty sure) some cool stuff to make it possible and watch the game by many people. Last but not least, replays - I added them here, because this feature did amazingly good as a form of broadcasting tool - both for replay commented online and simply for spreading them in simpliest battlereport form ever. Of course, this feature is absolutely crucial for reducing the learning curve and I can't really imagine mainstream e-sports RTS without this function. SC: amazing map editor, added replays function, basic broadcasting capabilities W3: best RTS map editor made ever, even better replays, thanks-to-modders amazing broadcast capabilities (aka Waaagh TV) Other Games: silly or no tools at all, no replays function, not even basic broadcast capabilities 5. Advanced strategy-tree, balance and execution. Still having in mind that simplicity is a key (so game is easy to understand), RTS game should offer various openings, so there is huge strategy-decisions-tree around. Let's think about chess - it has thousands and millions of possible game variations, yet each single move is easy to understand (which makes it harder when you try to master the game of course). Now RTS should have this sort of tree with a lot of possibilities in each segment of the game (early, mid, late, end). There are two issues worth mentioning - balance and execution. Balance should comply the possible execution, so you can't abuse the strategy tree with execution (and I don't mean you should be not able to use your execution advantage over your opponent - of course you should, I mean it should not reduce the strategy-tree after having both players able to do perfect/near to perfect control). And honestly, good RTS does not must artificially increase execution requirements to create interesting strategy tree. As long as gameplay (vide point 2) is appealing and game has a lot of variations to play - it's OK. Balance between strategy and execution can't ruin the game, but of course if it becomes too arcade / too strategical - it could reduce/change eventual target group, affect further fan base shape. SC: amazing diversity between 3 well balanced races, very rich strategy-tree for all of them and very dependable on the maps W3: nice diversity (even if so much poorer compared to SC) between the races, still very nice strategy-tree Other Games: similar races, similar units, too many units, poor-strategy tree and/or bad balance Now you can compare SC and W3 as most successful RTS e-sports platforms so far and you can see, that even if one of these is better at one of points, it could lose at other. Blizzard tried something different and got something different, but in both cases they tried to achieve these 5 main goals, not skipping even single one. From this point of view, we can see already that they learned and they are using their experience to deliver even better e-sports platform (aka SC2). Other Games always leaked one of these, thus never achieved as much as Blizzard titles. But who knows, one day different developer can surprise us (let's hope, monopoly is never good). Just my humble opinion, of course ^^. Cheers, kimchiterran aka Raven | ||
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freelander
Hungary4707 Posts
On January 07 2009 22:03 Lamentations wrote: The WC or AoE clones are really annoying, especially when they try to implement 'creative' and 'unique' gameplay mechanics like going underground in armies of exigo but turns out it just ruins the flow of the game. lol you are so funny it's like the destructable obstacles on a map.. you don't have to include underground on a map if you create one you know. the most played exigo map didn't have underground, and not exigo featured underground first.. metal fatigue had 3 playing levels actually. and the other thing: it was a good feature | ||
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dmfg
United Kingdom591 Posts
On January 09 2009 01:53 freelander wrote: lol you are so funny it's like the destructable obstacles on a map.. you don't have to include underground on a map if you create one you know. the most played exigo map didn't have underground, and not exigo featured underground first.. metal fatigue had 3 playing levels actually. and the other thing: it was a good feature I've never played Exigo but why does this underground thing make me think of burrowed infestors being able to move freely in SC2..? | ||
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Hundredth
United Kingdom142 Posts
A lot of RTS games do fail because of the lack of online support, I played FA and the community slowly diminished because the lack of patch, I've never played CoH, CnC3 (only SC + Populous + SupCom really) but looking at forums this appears to be the same. Funnily enough a lot of FA players went to SC ;p | ||
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Piy
Scotland3152 Posts
Dawn of War: failed because the races were really imba. Oh, any game with more than 5 races fails because theres to many match-ups to learn to play them to a high level. 3 is really ideal. The majority of modern RTS games are built for single player - the ones that get 87% reviews in games magazines and noone can remember a year later. EDIT: BBUUUUUUUUTTTTT. Any game could have been Starcraft. Any RTS with relatively ok balance and a decent amount of variation could become that big. The community is really what made Starcraft a great game, and the fact that it was played into the ground by Koreans. | ||
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