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On January 22 2015 06:43 Skilledblob wrote:Show nested quote +On January 22 2015 05:34 hariooo wrote: I didn't say anything about esports. Why would a substantial number of people pay $50 for a game with no pedigree? If you just wanted a single player campaign with light multiplayer there are already plenty of RTS's which can fill that space.
F2P in an RTS is easy (not to implement but as a concept you should be able to wrap your head around). Do you think RTS's are that different from MOBAs that they can't share aspects of a business model in terms of cosmetics and other items? it's called the games industry that's what people do all the time.
And companies in the games industry fold all the time.
On January 22 2015 06:43 Skilledblob wrote: RTS are a niche market and will never be able to sustain a F2P model that does not promote pay2win elements.
Not being clever enough to come up with a workable business model doesn't mean it's impossible lol. I'm sure people had the same thoughts regarding mobas in the past.
Fact is by gating an unknown behind $50 means that the player base is simply going to be small. And that hurts a game where you want to match players of similar skill. Look at Supreme Commander or AoE 2. Both had history behind them and are considered relatively successful but they're still tiny, tiny games. Not to mention they didn't cost $50.
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Sweden33719 Posts
50$? Are they insane? -_-
They have no established brand and no real hype, I'd have tried it at 20 probably, at 30 maybe. At 50? LOL.
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Dead on arrival unless they reconsider the price point and put it down to $20.
In a market saturated in f2p MOBAS and a cheaper SC2 (newly released battle chest), how on earth do they expect to make a reasonable amount of sales?
I only just heard about this, and as much as I love the C&C series and as hardcore an RTS player as I am, there's not a chance I'm buying this at that price, and I feel as though I should be part of the target audience!
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On January 22 2015 06:54 hariooo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 22 2015 06:43 Skilledblob wrote:On January 22 2015 05:34 hariooo wrote: I didn't say anything about esports. Why would a substantial number of people pay $50 for a game with no pedigree? If you just wanted a single player campaign with light multiplayer there are already plenty of RTS's which can fill that space.
F2P in an RTS is easy (not to implement but as a concept you should be able to wrap your head around). Do you think RTS's are that different from MOBAs that they can't share aspects of a business model in terms of cosmetics and other items? it's called the games industry that's what people do all the time. And companies in the games industry fold all the time. Show nested quote +On January 22 2015 06:43 Skilledblob wrote: RTS are a niche market and will never be able to sustain a F2P model that does not promote pay2win elements. Not being clever enough to come up with a workable business model doesn't mean it's impossible lol. I'm sure people had the same thoughts regarding mobas in the past. Fact is by gating an unknown behind $50 means that the player base is simply going to be small. And that hurts a game where you want to match players of similar skill. Look at Supreme Commander or AoE 2. Both had history behind them and are considered relatively successful but they're still tiny, tiny games. Not to mention they didn't cost $50. AoE2 when it came out back in 1999 did cost exactly that: €50, just like AoE1 before it and AoM/AoE3 after it.
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On January 22 2015 18:01 Liquid`Jinro wrote: 50$? Are they insane? -_-
They have no established brand and no real hype, I'd have tried it at 20 probably, at 30 maybe. At 50? LOL. g2a has it for 33$ https://www.g2a.com/grey-goo-steam-cd-key-preorder-global.html
Never used g2a myself though, so not sure how legit they are.
On January 22 2015 18:41 deth wrote: Dead on arrival unless they reconsider the price point and put it down to $20.
In a market saturated in f2p MOBAS and a cheaper SC2 (newly released battle chest), how on earth do they expect to make a reasonable amount of sales?
I only just heard about this, and as much as I love the C&C series and as hardcore an RTS player as I am, there's not a chance I'm buying this at that price, and I feel as though I should be part of the target audience! Ye the game will be small most likely.
Anyway, this game really has nothing to do with cnc other than a few old westwood members. Sc2 probably has more cnc devs tbh... since a bunch of eala guys also went over to blizzard after kw/ra3.
The unit design is imo also a let down considering WETA is involved... I mean they are the absolute best. And a lot of the units silhouettes are really similar... that's imo a big problem for a rts game. I'm sure you'll get used to it after playing for a while, but units should be instant recognizable.
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i give them probs for not costing 60 dollars and having a permanent discount that drops them to 50 dollar. But its on steam ... so there will be steam sales at some point. No reason to start low. It'll probably be a grab the ones that pay 50 dollars and then be on a steam sale. The campaign seems to be a decent one with some cg work. So I will look into it. But will have to wait for a steam sale since I put a bit of my bank into p2w stuff >.>
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The funny thing is that Grey Goo seems to do the absolute opposite of what I would expect for the future of the RTS genre (if it is too survive). I see it containing the following elements:
(1) Very simple controls/low learning barrier (2) Macro is put into the background/removed (3) Skill-cap comes from lots of fun micro-interactions (4) A F2P business model which works for the RTS genre (5) Focus on social experience,
I just can't see Grey Goo being anyhting else than a very little game. Giving that development costs probably isn't that low (?), I don't know why investors would put money behind this.
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It has 1, 2, and 3.
And its 50$ cost is probably because between each mission they put in movie level CGI made by weta. They focused more on SP experience with Observer and Replay functions only being developed now after lots of people asked for it.
By the time the game is ready for serious competitive MP, it will probably be on Steam sale anyways :D
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On January 22 2015 20:33 -Archangel- wrote: It has 1, 2, and 3.
And its 50$ cost is probably because between each mission they put in movie level CGI made by weta. They focused more on SP experience with Observer and Replay functions only being developed now after lots of people asked for it.
By the time the game is ready for serious competitive MP, it will probably be on Steam sale anyways :D
Eh, they keep saying over and over how the game isn't about micro, and instead about "tactics". Given how difficult it is to actually create interesting micro-interactions even when your trying (look at Sc2 - it contains some really bad micro interactions, some meh interactions and very few awesome interactions), I don't believe this game has any real depht in terms of the unit control.
They focused more on SP experience with Observer and Replay functions only being developed now after lots of people asked for it.
Yeh, I just don't know what the target audience for a SP RTS game that doesn't come from an AAA-company is. I don't expect it to be very high, and on the other hand I think development costs for this type of game aren't very low either.
Regarding learning barrier, I think Sc2 is a mess in many ways. For instance, how control group works in Sc2 feels like something that should have been reworked in a modern RTS. Then we look at how extremely important timings are in Sc2 and if you don't have the right refined build, you will get fucked as a new player, which means you need to watch youtube videos and learning build-orders before you can actually play the game.
Any type of new RTS that hopes to target a larger audience should really look at these areas. Project Atlas (the game Day9 is working on) is in fact doing all these things, which gives me hope for the future of the RTS genre.
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On January 22 2015 21:03 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On January 22 2015 20:33 -Archangel- wrote: It has 1, 2, and 3.
And its 50$ cost is probably because between each mission they put in movie level CGI made by weta. They focused more on SP experience with Observer and Replay functions only being developed now after lots of people asked for it.
By the time the game is ready for serious competitive MP, it will probably be on Steam sale anyways :D Eh, they keep saying over and over how the game isn't about micro, and instead about "tactics". Given how difficult it is to actually create interesting micro-interactions even when your trying (look at Sc2 - it contains some really bad micro interactions, some meh interactions and very few awesome interactions), I don't believe this game has any real depht in terms of the unit control. That's not necessarily true.
The best kind of micro has always been the at first sight simple stuff. In fact ability micro is often times far from impressive...
The best micro in sc2 is still a simple, yet really hard, marine split against banelings -mkp style.
So with that in mind the force firing ground artillery could be interesting. The running over stuff with goo (or w/e it's called) and avoiding it could be interesting. The only downside of this all is that the units seem to move so slow... which is a downer for basic micro imo.
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The best kind of micro has always been the at first sight simple stuff. In fact ability micro is often times far from impressive...
Yeh I fully agree here, but the simple micro comes from being able to move your units as a reaction to something. This can be something like one unit target firing one of your unit and in response you move that targetted unit away so it lives to fight another day. Alternatively, it can be splitting your units up, which we see in banelings vs Marines or even Psy Storm. Whether the micro is a result of an ability or a simple unit is less relevant, but it's not just something that is in the game unless you create it in the first place.
In order to create/reward this type of "simple" micro, units must be fast and responsive enough + have adequate HP and/or the projectiles of the enemy's attacks must be dodgeable.
From just looking at Grey Goo, movement speed seems to be insanely low with damage values actually being quite high, and I haven't heard of lots of dodgeable projectiles/abilites. Thus, this indicates that engagements in this game likely will be quite amovish.
You can too an extent circumvent this issue by adding more multitasking into the game by creating an economy that forces players to take bases all over the map --> More small engagements. Not sure whether Grey Goo does that though.
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On January 22 2015 21:03 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On January 22 2015 20:33 -Archangel- wrote: It has 1, 2, and 3.
And its 50$ cost is probably because between each mission they put in movie level CGI made by weta. They focused more on SP experience with Observer and Replay functions only being developed now after lots of people asked for it.
By the time the game is ready for serious competitive MP, it will probably be on Steam sale anyways :D Eh, they keep saying over and over how the game isn't about micro, and instead about "tactics". Given how difficult it is to actually create interesting micro-interactions even when your trying (look at Sc2 - it contains some really bad micro interactions, some meh interactions and very few awesome interactions), I don't believe this game has any real depht in terms of the unit control. Show nested quote +They focused more on SP experience with Observer and Replay functions only being developed now after lots of people asked for it. Yeh, I just don't know what the target audience for a SP RTS game that doesn't come from an AAA-company is. I don't expect it to be very high, and on the other hand I think development costs for this type of game aren't very low either. Regarding learning barrier, I think Sc2 is a mess in many ways. For instance, how control group works in Sc2 feels like something that should have been reworked in a modern RTS. Then we look at how extremely important timings are in Sc2 and if you don't have the right refined build, you will get fucked as a new player, which means you need to watch youtube videos and learning build-orders before you can actually play the game. Any type of new RTS that hopes to target a larger audience should really look at these areas. Project Atlas (the game Day9 is working on) is in fact doing all these things, which gives me hope for the future of the RTS genre. Well all 3 factions have AoE units, multiple ones. And they are devastating vs blobs of units, especially smaller ones. Splitting your blobs into smaller groups is as useful as splitting marines vs banelings or lings vs mines. So the basic micro exists.
Also there is nothing preventing you from multitasking and using that to your advantage. Resource collecting uses workers and they can be killed so harras is still good. Vs Goo it is almost required as attacking Mother Goo also destroys her gathered resources that can be used to create units.
Macro has been simplified so it is up to each player to find micro advantages for his units (you don't need to build workers manually; you can tell builds what to do even before they are finished; you can automate building units in factories; like C&C you don't need to precisely tell each factory what to produce but you click which unit you want and the correct factory starts making it but if you want to you can control each factory)
There is also stealth units and detection units so that interaction also exists. AoE units can also attack ground so you can attack into dark or vs invisible units or use them as Storm to predict your enemy movement.
Also each of 3 factions has about 15 unit upgrades which are not +x to damage like most in sc2 but more like giving additional abilities to units that change how they are used (like roach burrow move would be in sc2).
Human faction has teleport structure that is a better version of Nydus Canal and allows cool flanking or harass options.
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Well all 3 factions have AoE units, multiple ones. And they are devastating vs blobs of units, especially smaller ones. Splitting your blobs into smaller groups is as useful as splitting marines vs banelings or lings vs mines. So the basic micro exists.
Marine splitting only exist becasue the movement speed when stimmed is sufficiently high relative to the punishment of not splitting. In order to incentivize and reward micro you have to refine and tweak stats properly to create scenarios where micro actually will exist in an actual micro (and not just be a theoretical concept). Again, given how slow the units move in Grey Goo + developers talking about how they don't want the game to be focussed on micro, it just seems unlikely to me that there actually are a lot of great interactions. At least, I haven't seen any video clips to proof otherwise.
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AoE attacks are all slow attacks (artillery or Elite units) or come from Air units which can be seen coming before they unload their bomb. If you are aware enemy has those units and fast enough, you can minimize your losses significantly.
Also some units can shoot while moving while others cannot. That also allows for micro.
Micro is not the level of Sc2 where people only won by blinking with Stalkers but it does play an important role in battles.
Just because no units move as fast as lings or Helions it does not mean there is no micro.
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Also some units can shoot while moving while others cannot. That also allows for micro.
For the shoot-while-moving interaction to be interesting you should have to go into dangerzone (where the enemy can attack you), and then quickly get out again once you notice that the enemy attacks you. This requires careful determination of movement speed relative to enemy unit movement speed, range, attack values and HP.
My point here is that regardless of the scenario, to create great microinteraction you have to - as a developer - spend a lot of time refining the stats of all the units. It's alot more difficult to create interactions that actually work well in practice than interactions that work in theory.
When I look at Riot, they seem to have a 100% focus on creating champions that interact well with other champions. When a new champion is released there is a video highlighting all of the new "micro"-tricks you can do with this new hero. There is a bit of that with Sc2, but I see no videos or no developers highlighting the micro potential with Grey Goo.
But even if we assume that the developers are interested in creating microinteractions with high skillcap/depht, how can you do that if you just have 30 APM? In MOBA's the interesting interactions comes when high precision and reactions are rewarded, but all of the awesome interactions in RTS are defined by almost rewarding infinitive APM. Think about splitting, multitasking and dropship pick up micro. You just can't properly test if those things work as intended if your a developer with 30 APM.
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One of these shoot while moving is a basic Goo unit - Drover. They are extremely short range but have short range AoE attack. Since it is move while shooting you want to try to swallow your enemy units with them which requires micro for best effect. At the same time enemy wants to prevent you from doing that which also required micro.
So we have interesting micro similar to Ling vs Marine with basic units already.
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Will also be interesting to see how quick and accurate the units actually react in this game, since it's server-client instead of p2p.
Especially if 1 guy is close to the server and the other guy is half way round the world... will he simply lag and the other guy have a smooth game? Etc.
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On January 22 2015 21:45 Technique wrote: Will also be interesting to see how quick and accurate the units actually react in this game, since it's server-client instead of p2p.
Especially if 1 guy is close to the server and the other guy is half way round the world... will he simply lag and the other guy have a smooth game? Etc. They said this is a good thing as they don't want everyone to suffer because one guy has bad internet.
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On January 22 2015 21:48 -Archangel- wrote:Show nested quote +On January 22 2015 21:45 Technique wrote: Will also be interesting to see how quick and accurate the units actually react in this game, since it's server-client instead of p2p.
Especially if 1 guy is close to the server and the other guy is half way round the world... will he simply lag and the other guy have a smooth game? Etc. They said this is a good thing as they don't want everyone to suffer because one guy has bad internet. Yes that is the good part.
But my example is not about bad internet, it's about the distance between the server and the player.
There is a reason blizzard games have regions... and blizzard games are not even full server-client.
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On January 22 2015 21:45 -Archangel- wrote: One of these shoot while moving is a basic Goo unit - Drover. They are extremely short range but have short range AoE attack. Since it is move while shooting you want to try to swallow your enemy units with them which requires micro for best effect. At the same time enemy wants to prevent you from doing that which also required micro.
So we have interesting micro similar to Ling vs Marine with basic units already.
I will believe when I see it in action (with two competent players).
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