Why Do Traditional Rts In The New Millennia Suck?

[manored]

I liked crysis, the big scenario with lots of things inside plus the different armors and weapons let you play differently pretty much ever time, except in the real linear parts such as the end of the game or the alien caves. Its one of the first FPSs I have played where knocking in the front door isnt a good idea, but its not an absolute suicide either that forces you to go to a pre-arranged back door :) I liked the enemies too, guys wearing super-armors and aliens are good to break the monotony from shooting standart humans with increasingly strong guns :)

[ZellSF]

It's not only about rts. All of new games sucks. I just like Valve and Blizzard, because they try to improve the game experience, making something new, not just using existing stuff and putting amazing graphics on the concept

Haha? What? Blizzard and Valve fanboys always amaze me, both combined it gets even better.

Blizzard basically makes only sequels and expansions and nothing else nowadays, they ARE just using exisiting stuff and putting better graphics on the concept, and they're certainly not making anything new.

Valve is reusing tons of content for each Half-Life 2 episode yet spend forever developing them and there's no major new gameplay elements introduced ever.

These are NOT the companies you want to use as examples of PC gaming progressing.

[Bartosh]

I'm going with Pxtl. More RTS-s made. There were more crappy RTS-s in the 'Golden Days' than today, and there were more decent RTS-s than today simply because there were up to 10 produced a year back when.

dosn't explain why the 3d sequels of those games are crap.

[manored]

Because games and movies sequels follow a logical sequence of quality:

Regular > Awesome > Crap > Regular > Awesome > etc...

[Zpock]

It could also be that the possible ways to make a good and fresh new RTS are simply drying up. It's always like this, the first few guys are breaking new exciting ground and no matter what their followers will be walking in their footsteps and shadows.

[Bartosh]

Because games and movies sequels follow a logical sequence of quality:

Regular > Awesome > Crap > Regular > Awesome > etc...

I suppose that├óÔé¼Ôäós why I have slight hope for star craft 2. But ever since Westwood got eaten by EA ,witch immediately fired everybody, Blizzard lost their healthy competition.
For a long time it was.
Dune-War craft
C&C ├óÔé¼ÔÇ£War craft 2
Diablo - Nox
Tiberium sun -Star craft
Red alert 2-War craft 3

Now they have EA├óÔé¼Ôäós command & conqure3 ├óÔé¼┬ª.How Hard is it to beat C&C 3?

(this is what starcraft was going to look like until they found out about C&C 2├óÔé¼Ôäós new engine)
http://media.arstechnica.com/journals/t ... craftb.jpg

[Cremuss]

Diablo II was a completly amazing game and still has a lot of gamers.
And I remember Half Life 1...
Half life 2 was great too, but I agree episode 1 and 2 are pretty bad. And Team forteress 2 seems to be good.
Yeah, I'm still thinking that Blizzard and Valve has done a good job, even if I don't like WoW.
But as Bartosh said, their is no more competition and that's why I'm little scared about the futur, diablo III etc...

[Gota]

what about thq etc...anyway all amrkets are doomed to be eventually monopolized as much as possible ...so we have atriopol or a duopol...stagnation.

[Snipawolf]

really?

I think a few decent games have been released.

Maybe you're just ignorant or really picky or something...

[Bartosh]

No your right, a few decent games have been released. Just none that stack up with the greats, like I said it├óÔé¼Ôäós not nostalgia, I play the new games for a while, have some fun. Then go back to the same Old. And it├óÔé¼Ôäós not just me. All my friends that are big into strategy games are the same way.

I agree with Pxtl that it├óÔé¼Ôäós not because games were built better back then. It├óÔé¼Ôäós just more were built back then. And now with the insane cost of making a game, the industry has slowed to a crawl and really limited creativity and new bold ideas.
(Spores procedural generation was suppose to be a god send in that regards, and revolutionize how games are made. After seeing it, doubt that├óÔé¼Ôäós going to happen)

Combine that with the competition steadily being eaten by monopoly├óÔé¼Ôäós. And the time that it takes to make cutting edge graphics. And the processor speed that it take to run cutting edge graphics. (gta3 oblivion ext. have suffered because of this.)

Not to mention consoles and more casual games dominating the market.

Right now The future of new original strategy games.(hell games in general) doesn├óÔé¼Ôäót look to bright.

[smoth]

samwise still works for blizzard last I heard. That guy is where I learned to draw. His black and while illustrations in the WCI manual were and still are some of my favorite line work and use of dramatic shadowing.

[Bartosh]

actually, same stuff i learned off of. I love his work.

[smoth]

Brilliant stuff I don't know what I would say if I ever met the guy.

[Muzic]

nothing compared to the lack of space combat sims.

[Pxtl]

Lack of space combat sims shouldn't be a surprise to anybody. I think the only reason they caught on in the first place is that they were the only 3D games that didn't look like complete ass back in the low-poly days.

Think about it - what genres are left on the PC? RTS, MMO, 4X, and FPS. Notice the commonality? The mouse. Vehicular games on the PC were always hamstrung by the damned gameport - flakey joysticks that died after 4 months that had to be calibrated before every game session were frustrating as hell, but nobody had found a better way until Quake and Warcraft 2 came along and gave us something better to do.

Meanwhile, sims of all flavours don't catch on on the console, since sims are pedantic hyper-realistic concepts that fixate on accuracy (even to a fictional setting) over fun. I mean, even air combat games on the consoles are relegated to ghettos - it wasn't till Crimson Skies that we saw an air combat game actually catch some mainstream attention.

The fact is that most space combat games aren't fun. They are fast without having any sensation of speed. Without any positional sensation, you can't lead the target, which means either auto-leading weaponry (which doesn't leave the pilot much to do) or giving the pilot a little reticle to point at (which does even less). Game after game is trying to re-create the sensations from Star Wars and we end up chasing each other around and around in circles pounding blaster-bolts into each other's asses over and over again.

That's just not fun. I-War showed us that there was another way, but inertial games just haven't been able to shake the nerdy, dull, annoying image of their forefathers, and inertial games tend to be even more frustratingly pedantic than normal space sims.

The few new space sims that come out are ambitious attempts to out-do games like Elite and Hyperspeed. Trading RPGs like Vendetta and EVE are cool... but they're similarly inaccessible to a casual gamer who wants to play a game, not sink weeks into running trade-routes.

Want to get modern, impatient, casual gamers into a space sim? Design it like an FPS - tight, clearly designed levels with navigateable terrain to provide a sense of location and speed, deathmatch or team-oriented action, and mouse-based controls. A game with 8 hours of single player gameplay and a decent collection of multiplayer maps. Not another "go to waypoint X and 3 fighters in a yawning empty vacuum"

[smoth]

wasn't there an mmo space sim, IIRC it was very pretty and supposedly so involved that most people let it become their lives.

[Bartosh]

Want to get modern, impatient, casual gamers into a space sim? Design it like an FPS "

or you could save time and just make another FPS

[Pxtl]

wasn't there an mmo space sim, IIRC it was very pretty and supposedly so involved that most people let it become their lives.

That's EVE. EVE is unique among MMOs in that there is no instancing - all players are in one giant persistant universe.

[Muzic]

X3 Reunion
Beyond the RedLine
Freespace 1/2

those are all awesome space combat sims with the first being more open to just flat out combat.

[Neddie]

Nostalgia, simple as that. Games didn't get worse, your memories of old games got better.

I love how Pxtl lists SupCom, a pretty mediocre game that only sold because there hasn't been a commercial TA-like RTS in ages, as AAAA while ignoring Company of Heroes, Dawn of War and World in Conflict, all GOTY candidates or even receipents.

BTW, the Wii version of Pro Evo Soccer probaably counts as RTS too.

I wouldn't say it is only nostalgia, but it is true, some brilliant newer titles have been ignored entirely.