The RTS genre used to be popular. In the 90s and early 2000s we had titles like Command & Conquer, Total Annihilation, StarCraft, Supreme Commander, Act of War, Company of Heroes. What led to the downfall of this genre? Can this genre be revived? Would you want to see this genre revived?
The genre isn't exactly "dead". Go on Steam and type in "RTS" in the search and you'll get close to 20 pages of results.
The entire Total War Series(amazing mods for Medieval Kingdoms, namely Stainless Steel) , Europa Universalis, Crusader Kingdoms, Galactic Civilisations, Civilisation series, Dawn of War series, the incoming Battle Fleet Gothic fleet battles, Mordenheim, sins of a Solar Empire.
If you want to stretch the definition. The Banner Sage is awesome, XCOM both enemy unknown and Within with the Long War mod it's soooo punishingly good, Prodigy a table top/turn based game.
I blame lack of innovation, or potentionally lack of possible innovation.
The game formula for RTS, especially if you want the game to be balanced, isn't really that flexible. And after a couple years of playing CnC, Dune, SC, Supreme Commander, etc., RTS genre fans pretty much seen it all. And I can't name any rts game from the top of my head that really tried to mix things up. R.U.S.E. comes the closest with the addition of ruses you could use to manipulate the battlefield, but that was really a barebones mechanic. Lack of gameplay variety is likewise a glaring issues. Aside from scripted campaigns, more or less every single match is about destroy the other guy. Sure, there's nuances on how you can go on about it, but it's essentionally just death match.
I'm also a bit biased on that account though, because EA kind-of ruined the CnC franchise and then flat-out axed it for no good reason (the new Generals was looking great and was, despite rough around the edges, very much a game the community liked, until EA simply canned it stating "it's not the game you guys want" (which btw was a flat-out lie, because I was in the alpha and the response was overwhelmingly positive and the actual developers came forth and stating it was corporate shenaigans that caused the cut, they literally one day went to work and found the studio closed!)).
Likewise RTS games are a niche-genre nowadays. With nearly every developer jumping through hoops to attract more players (and in imho too many cases doing that by reducing difficulty/challenge and skill gates (the latter mostly in multiplayer games)), players that are willing to spend countless hours experimenting with different build-orders, learning a dozen maps inside-out are in rare supply, hence not exactly the most profiting target audience.
RTS itself is very much kicking, CoH proved that and even SCII which is basically just a graphically reworked SC is obviously a monster in the RTS genre (which obviously likewise deters potential developers to try and get a market share seeing how they'd be going up against a longstanding franchise with a giant fanbase), but it simply isn't mainstream anymore. If a game isn't mainstream enough, publishers are hesitant to throw money at it, hence making it hard to try and make something big and new.
The entire Total War Series(amazing mods for Medieval Kingdoms, namely Stainless Steel) , Europa Universalis, Crusader Kingdoms, Galactic Civilisations, Civilisation series, Dawn of War series, the incoming Battle Fleet Gothic fleet battles, Mordenheim, sins of a Solar Empire.
If you want to stretch the definition. The Banner Sage is awesome, XCOM both enemy unknown and Within with the Long War mod it's soooo punishingly good, Prodigy a table top/turn based game.
Many of the games you named aren't RTS ... the only RTS I see are DoW, BFG and SoaSE.
And games like Banner Saga and XCom are by no means RTS, however thin you intend to stretch the definition.
We'll be getting two hopefully great RTS titles from Total War and Dawn of War (I think) in 2016.
While it isn't as prolific as FPSs, it's still alive as a genre. Though, some companies should get their stuff together and make Warcraft 4.
We'll be getting two hopefully great RTS titles from Total War and Dawn of War (I think) in 2016.
While it isn't as prolific as FPSs, it's still alive as a genre. Though, some companies should get their stuff together and make Warcraft 4.
But you have WC4. Just give them $15 bucks a month, plus $40, plus 3-4 weeks in leveling, plus another 2-3weeks in gearing up. Another week in finding a decent group. Oh **** they raid Wed, Fri, Sat. Welp gotta find another one, found it another week later. Got that Tue, Thur, Fri raidtimes now mane. Oh damn, what's this? "AllyPally" Wants to jump in a private vent channel with you? What!? DPS was too low??
/GKicked
Well.... Maybe Horde has a decent raiding guild.
WARCRAFT 4: WC4 is WoW (Mike Morhaime is laughing his ass off)
I want WC4, but they won't make that until SC2 is all but dead. So.. 5-10 years after LotV is released.
I don't think Blizz has any plans or real reason to make WC4. They've said in the past they're happy with continuing the WarCraft franchise and story through WoW. Which makes sense, though I'd still like a return to it's RTS roots.
Now if they could release a remaster of WC3 that'd be great. Just re-release it using the SC2 engine. Because I played through the campaign a few months back. Yeah, that about gave me eye cancer.
Highest competitive multiplayer potential. The skill ceiling in RTS games is the highest of all games similar to it's kind (MOBAs, I'm looking at you), that serves probably also as the biggest downfall. Because of that, Starcraft 2 mutliplayer isn't as nearly as popular as it should, because the game demands so much skill to be able to compete. Sadly, Starcraft is the only AAA RTS franchise really alive. Probably RTS games weren't as popular in the US as they were in Europe and Asia, because they are too difficult for the 12YO Call of Duty crowd. Also, MOBAs provide with more immediate entertainment, so thats why the genre is dominating right now. (On a side note, SC2 Legacy of the Void shapes to be incredibly fast and cutthroat game where the action starts immediately due to economy changes)
Is the genre dying? I would say, yes it is. The less complicated nature of games today (need to appeal to a larger crowd), no high budget games outside of the Starcraft franchise in which the player base is rapidly shrinking and pros are retiring, pretty much spells the doom for RTS. Grey Goo was the last significant one outside Starcraft and it was an unbalanced mess, which the player base is no more than 100 people at best. Thats a shame, I would kill to get a Dune 4 game, and Red Alert 1 & 2 and Tiberian Sun were some of my favourite games ever. I also, as my avatar suggests, save a warm spot in my heart for Starcraft, especially the sequel.
What does the genre needs to keep kicking? There is a gem called Dawn of War. The game is massively unbalanced, but is a brutally fun and explosive game. THIS needs to be the direction of AAA RTS. Fun, responsive and explosive, easy to learn and hard to master. Shame that the game didn't get more recognision. Also, a good mod support is CRITICAL! Starcraft 2 suffers because of the lackluster arcade system, and its a shame because the editor is so powerful.
Here is some of 2014 best Starcraft 2 E-Sports moments. I wish we will have more like those.
As far as I am concerned, Kane's Wrath was the last C&C game made. We don't talk about what happened after that.
Beyond that it seems like a genre that the indie scene is going to be picking up. AAA developers outside of Blizzard don't seem terribly interested in it because RTS games don't sell insane amounts of copies like the latest Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto do.
Unfortunately Blizzard said there wont be another Warcraft RTS as long as WoW is still going, but we still got Starcraft 2.
Highest competitive multiplayer potential. The skill ceiling in RTS games is the highest of all games similar to it's kind (MOBAs, I'm looking at you)
...?
MOBAs don't play anything like an RTS aside from the camera view (for any MOBA that isn't Smite or Super Monday Night Combat) and click-based movement controls (again excepting Smite or SMNC). The only thing MOBAs really share with RTS is history, since the MOBA genre really kicked off with DotA, which began as a mod for Warcraft 3. You don't control an army of units, you don't gather resources or produce new units like in an RTS, and you don't create buildings to fortify a base like in any other RTS. MOBAs are action games, played through the isometric top-down camera angle of an RTS.
...?
MOBAs don't play anything like an RTS aside from the camera view (for any MOBA that isn't Smite or Super Monday Night Combat) and click-based movement controls (again excepting Smite or SMNC). The only thing MOBAs really share with RTS is history, since the MOBA genre really kicked off with DotA, which began as a mod for Warcraft 3. You don't control an army of units, you don't gather resources or produce new units like in an RTS, and you don't create buildings to fortify a base like in any other RTS. MOBAs are action games, played through the isometric top-down camera angle of an RTS.
The control scheme is basically the same (with the exception of Smite). If you can micro well in RTS, you can do so in MOBAs. The only skill that MOBA require that RTS doesn't is teamwork. MOBAs play with teams of 5, whereas RTS plays competitively 1v1.
As far as I am concerned, Kane's Wrath was the last C&C game made. We don't talk about what happened after that.
Red Alert 3 was pretty good from a gameplay perspective, albeit I wasn't exactly a fan of its campaign (neither was I a fan of RA2 for that matter, I preferred the more dark tone of RA). Uprusing was ... well, bad enough for me not to buy it as diehard CnC fan and that thing between RA3:U and the new Generals that got axed is what imho killed CnC. EA wanted to bring in more players and ended up alienating its core audience and when the thing sold like crap, EA threw a hissy-fit, saying stuff like "well, obviously ya'll don't like innovation, Wormmen and comical X-Wing Avatars, so f*ck ya'll" ... then tried to get back into the fan's good graces with Generals and when that was all up and looking like it would actually work, decided they wanted to make the game a F2P game without a campaign (which, unsurprisingly fell flat on the ass as CnC has always been famous for its single player, RTS people mostly played SC for the competitive MP), and then axed it and the entire CnC franchise with exception of that browser game ...
Hnnng, just thinking about this makes we want to Flametank rush the EA HQ and burn everything down to cinders ...
I don't think Blizz has any plans or real reason to make WC4. They've said in the past they're happy with continuing the WarCraft franchise and story through WoW. Which makes sense, though I'd still like a return to it's RTS roots.
Considering how terribly Warcraft's story has transitioned through the various stages of WoW (by its themepark MMO nature), I don't really buy that.
It's all about money and for a corporation, WoW is the best fix. Warcraft as an RTS was fairly niche.
Considering how terribly Warcraft's story has transitioned through the various stages of WoW (by its themepark MMO nature), I don't really buy that.
What? TBC, WoTLK, and WoD have some of the best story telling and moments in the Warcraft universe.
It's all about money and for a corporation, WoW is the best fix. Warcraft as an RTS was fairly niche.
Yeah that's why I said it makes sense for WarCraft to stay as an MMO...
Highest competitive multiplayer potential.
Who cares? I'm looking for what I want to play, not a bunch of South Korean "professional" players.
Total War is fun when you're not having every piece of the game sold to you as DLC by those SEGA bastards.
The control scheme is basically the same (with the exception of Smite). If you can micro well in RTS, you can do so in MOBAs. The only skill that MOBA require that RTS doesn't is teamwork. MOBAs play with teams of 5, whereas RTS plays competitively 1v1.
The control scheme is not "basically the same". I can't think of a single RTS that uses the standard QWER controls of a MOBA. MOBAs consists ONLY of micro, because micro is the only overarching element in a MOBA. You control 1 single unit. There's no macro involved.
What? TBC, WoTLK, and WoD have some of the best story telling and moments in the Warcraft universe.
Yeah that's why I said it makes sense for WarCraft to stay as an MMO...
If you ask me, it would be Wrath, Warlords, Mists, TBC, Cataclysm, then vanilla, in terms of story telling quality. The storytelling in Wrath is one of the best things about the expansion (not surprising, seeing how it's essentially a sequel to Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne).
If you ask me, it would be Wrath, Warlords, Mists, TBC, Cataclysm, then vanilla, in terms of story telling quality. The storytelling in Wrath is one of the best things about the expansion (not surprising, seeing how it's essentially a sequel to Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne).
We need to forget that pandas are a thing. Mists needs to die.
Guest_StreetMagic_*
I didn't know it was dead. Not like TBS, which I'm far more of a fan of. There aren't many RTS's I lost myself in. Total War, Homeworld, and Bungie's Myth if you can count that.
Red Alert 3 was pretty good from a gameplay perspective, albeit I wasn't exactly a fan of its campaign (neither was I a fan of RA2 for that matter, I preferred the more dark tone of RA). Uprusing was ... well, bad enough for me not to buy it as diehard CnC fan and that thing between RA3:U and the new Generals that got axed is what imho killed CnC. EA wanted to bring in more players and ended up alienating its core audience and when the thing sold like crap, EA threw a hissy-fit, saying stuff like "well, obviously ya'll don't like innovation, Wormmen and comical X-Wing Avatars, so f*ck ya'll" ... then tried to get back into the fan's good graces with Generals and when that was all up and looking like it would actually work, decided they wanted to make the game a F2P game without a campaign (which, unsurprisingly fell flat on the ass as CnC has always been famous for its single player, RTS people mostly played SC for the competitive MP), and then axed it and the entire CnC franchise with exception of that browser game ...
Hnnng, just thinking about this makes we want to Flametank rush the EA HQ and burn everything down to cinders ...
Red Alert 3 admittedly suffered for me personally because RA2 was one of my favourite, so it was hard to follow that for me. It wasn't nearly as bad as everything else that followed, at least.
It's a shame about Generals 2 since as you mentioned before, it was actually looking to be really good. They really need to reboot the franchise in a competent way.
Red Alert 3 admittedly suffered for me personally because RA2 was one of my favourite, so it was hard to follow that for me. It wasn't nearly as bad as everything else that followed, at least.
It's a shame about Generals 2 since as you mentioned before, it was actually looking to be really good. They really need to reboot the franchise in a competent way.
What I played in the Alpha was pretty good. GLA rushes were a bit OP but such stuff is obviously subject to rebalancing as it goes. And with the game having been on the Frostbite engine, it also looked exceptionally good. The effects were crunchy, if an explosion went off, it looked and felt the part. The tanks jiggling around like in RA3 wasn't really that great though, jiggly tank bumbums wasn't my thing, but again, that's something that could be easily tweaked during alpha stage by the animators.
Plus, with BioWare having been at the helm of it, I even hoped we'd get a good campaign (until they said there won't be a campaign, they quickly backpedaled and added "at launch, we meant no campaign at launch", but still ... a CnC game without a campaign? U seriouz???).
And then suddenly, the end, only topped by EA having the audacity to lay responsibility at the community's feet. Yup, in case anyone didn't notice yet, I'm still angry about this. CnC was my first gaming love and EA killed it!
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