Spring RTS Engine

As far as planetary Annihilation is concerned, I actually prefer it to not have any campaign than a lousy cheesy one (like adding jokes into the movie Schindler's List - it would just ruin the movie somewhat).

But I do feel, though, that it is almost mandatory to have some kind of learning system. Starcrap 2's challenges system works really well into bringing a player into competitive playing.

Also, it is quite important to have a "sandbox" for people to confortably play around at ease and at its own speed, doing crazy experiments and what not. Preferably one where you get the opportunity to pound the heck out of the computer's huge bases. Sounds a lot like a campaign, though it neededn't be a campaign.

PauloMorfeo wrote:As far as planetary Annihilation is concerned, I actually prefer it to not have any campaign than a lousy cheesy one (like adding jokes into the movie Schindler's List - it would just ruin the movie somewhat).

But I do feel, though, that it is almost mandatory to have some kind of learning system. Starcrap 2's challenges system works really well into bringing a player into competitive playing.

Also, it is quite important to have a "sandbox" for people to confortably play around at ease and at its own speed, doing crazy experiments and what not. Preferably one where you get the opportunity to pound the heck out of the computer's huge bases. Sounds a lot like a campaign, though it neededn't be a campaign.

well i would prefer no campaign than a hastly made shity one, not that i would buy PA for the campaign to begin with.

Now about introducing players to the game, just add a tutorial skirmish based matchup against an AI, and some ligth voice acting and its done.

Btw what i meant by a bit of comedy its having those little moments of hapiness in the middle of all the sadness and destruction, its those moments that you can atach yourself to a character, and love a story as well. I dislike a full blown drama movie or story for that matter, there has to have a bit more than that, at least for me.

if there are videos of it- it must be finnished. The old wrong assumption strikes once again.

PicassoCT wrote:if there are videos of it- it must be finnished. The old wrong assumption strikes once again.

Journey war is finished?

Campaign?
Really?
Someone thinks the PA setup is good for a campaign?
The point of campaigns is to usually deliver a personal story with characters people can enjoy and sympathize with.

What possible campaign that would not be completely ridiculous can they possibly come up with.
Were the Supcom 1 and Supcom 2 campaigns not retarded enough?

To introduce people to the game concepts and different units they should make tons of small scenarios with achievements and unit unlocking.
You play "minigames" where you are asked to use specific units or specific strategies in creative and fun ways as they teach you the game concepts.
Some can even be comical.
This is all that is necessary.
A fun way to ease people into a game that is potentially different than what they are used to or has some novel or hard to notice mechanics.

Campaigns may seem silly but people want them. That's why Section 8 Prejudice has a more developed campaign than Section 8 despite still being all about multiplayer, game buyers just want an SP campaign.

That is not a good analogy since you are comparing RTS and FPS.
FPS is more personal by it's very nature.
Having scenarios or minigames for an RTS like PA would be IMO much better than some attempt at portraying future societies and technology, while having individual relatable characters in a universe about battling robots.

A scenario line would be just like a campaign only without the problems of having to deliver a story that makes sense.
You can still have tons of single player content just not bound to the idea of having a "campaign" with a story line.

There is nothing particular about the RTS genre that makes it unsuitable for campaigns - see Warcraft and Starcraft franchises.

the camera makes it difficult though.. to tell storys..

gajop wrote:There is nothing particular about the RTS genre that makes it unsuitable for campaigns - see Warcraft and Starcraft franchises.

There's way more to it here than that, of course. While I personally thought the Warcraft/Starcraft campaigns had awful stories with really no artistic value, the only reason they worked mechanically is because the game mechanics are set up closer to an RPG than a maco-rts. (And even then it only barely worked compared to more cinematic gaming experiences.)

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It'd be basically impossible to get a good story or any sort of linear campaign into Planetary Annihilation without it being completely separate from the gameplay itself. It'd basically be like listening to an audio book while playing chess with a little video in between each game.

This is why you don't have linear campaigns or stories in anything like Total War, and when you do get it, like in the case of SupCom, its essentially a tacked on useless bit of undeveloped lore to accompany some rigged scenarios. You're simply not going to get the weight of a story you'd see in something like Bioshock/Halflife/etc.

And, in terms of people wanting it, that's because people want individual things without knowing how they connect. You can't just throw everything you like in general into a game and say "IT HAS IT ALL!" Food is the obvious extreme example of this.

The game is so incredibly obviously not built for a linear story. I don't see how this is even something people are considering.

The TA campaign but with spherical maps... I seriously don't see how the shape of the map destroys any sense of a linear/non-linear campaign. Populous 3 managed it, heck homeworld maps didnt even have terrain and that didnt stop them having a linear campaign

The Health Administration warns: Moon Drops can cause Planetary Gum Disease, leading to Crust Deformation, Earthquakes and Open Core Syndrom. If you want to avoid these, brush your planet with some terraforming after every Moon Drop you eat till defeat.

AF wrote:,,, heck homeworld maps didnt even have terrain and that didnt stop them having a linear campaign

I absolutely loved the Homeworld campaign. It had a good story and was briliantly executed!!! Indeed a good example of how an RTS can have a good campaign. In fact, I'd say that Homeworld (at least for me) was more about the campaign than it was about RTS playing.

Never finished it, though. Never could pass the mission where some ships show up with a wide field that change the alliegence of your own ships.

PauloMorfeo wrote:

AF wrote:,,, heck homeworld maps didnt even have terrain and that didnt stop them having a linear campaign

I absolutely loved the Homeworld campaign. It had a good story and was briliantly executed!!! Indeed a good example of how an RTS can have a good campaign. In fact, I'd say that Homeworld (at least for me) was more about the campaign than it was about RTS playing.

Never finished it, though. Never could pass the mission where some ships show up with a wide field that change the alliegence of your own ships.

quoted for truth...

and that mission was awesome, you can steal all those ships ^^ which made the following missions a lot easier.
Cataclysm was even better imo, the only rts with an enemy which was actually scary.
Homeworld2 sadly didn´t followed up in quality to its predecessors.

But I agree, that PA don´t really need a singleplayer campaign. A good AI for skirmishes is more important.

AF wrote:The TA campaign but with spherical maps... I seriously don't see how the shape of the map destroys any sense of a linear/non-linear campaign. Populous 3 managed it, heck homeworld maps didnt even have terrain and that didnt stop them having a linear campaign

The shapes of the maps aren't the issue. Its an artistic nightmare. You have no humans, and all of the robots are essentially void of any real personality. Empathy is completely destroyed. On top of that, the game is incredibly macro intensive over micro intensive, meaning that you'll have no connection to any of the units save for maybe the commander, if you go the SupCom route (which had an awful awful storyline.)

As far as the TA campaign is concerned, this isn't 1997 anymore. Just look at this convenient wiki summary (after some pretty loose background lore):

"...two campaigns focus on...the Commanders. The story of either the Core or the Arm starts with an effort to defend the protagonist's homeworld and initiate a turning point in the overall war. The player then fights a series of battles...as transported to through Galactic Gates... As the player progresses, more units become available ...either through the course of background story or upon completion of a mission centered around the unit in question...[map descriptions]...Both campaigns include 25 missions, the final mission ending the war with a final strike on the enemy's homeworld — either the Arm's bucolic Empyrrean or the Core's artificial Jupiter Brain world of Core Prime."

In summary, you play as two factions and you either beat the other one or don't. You can't get away with that basic of a story anymore. I mean, its basically not even a story. Its just a string of otherwise normal skirmish maps with a big fat "you did it" at the end.

Before 2004, when games with real stories were relatively few, we had people saying things like this: "Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important." ~ John Carmack

And, no offense to the good people on this site, but, from what I've read, a lot of people here tend to be sort of drifting in that era. Which is perfectly fine, by the way. To each his own. But, you're by far the minority. If you're going to put a story into a game, you're now expected to actually put a real legitimate story into your game. The TA style won't cut it. Take a look at CoD (a franchise I despise but bear with me) they've gotten enormous flack for having Michael Bay esque stories. But, compared to the stories of the era I was just talking a bout, even the CoD stories are eons ahead in terms of complexity and artistic value.

And, as much as you could argue that PA is a game for the people of that old era, there's not enough of you to justify adding it in to slightly appease you, take up resources that they obviously don't have the staff for (you can't just take any random artist and say HURRR MAKE ME A STORY) and then put off the majority of their silent and critic consumers. Its a bad idea from the standpoint of production, marketing, art, and gameplay. Just like adding chocolate milk to your tortilla soup is a bad idea. Sure, both things are great on their own, but you would never combine the two.

Mr. Bob wrote:HURRR MAKE ME A STORY

scifi wrote: well i would prefer no campaign than a hastly made shity one, not that i would buy PA for the campaign to begin with.

Now about introducing players to the game, just add a tutorial skirmish based matchup against an AI, and some ligth voice acting and its done.

Come on dont go that route, we all know what PA is, its a game made to fill that void of a lack of a competitive RTS that has fun and replayable gameplay, that doesnt revolve only on predefined builds and settings like starcraft II does.

Why people stick with spring, we have 0 lore here, 0 esports, small playerbase, maybe its because spring provides some form of gameplay that no other game provides outhere on the market.

But surely you cant deny lore in games make people love them for ages to come, and as a game designer if you are thinking about having a good story to tell you dont design your units as souless robots with no character. If PA was going to have that, you would see them market it from the start.

Again we all know this, people just like to talk about the "what if scenarios" theres no problem with that. And tbh for a true TA2 what i like to call a triple A RTS you would have to have a great story line that would captivate and allow the developers to work that IP on future games.

Take blizzard for example, warcraft-> great lore.

What i think PA is, its just a flagship game for the company developers, its their first endevour as a group, and they are more concerned on making a game that lasts like 1, 2 even 3 years then move on to something else.

Thats my take on the issue.

scifi wrote:well i would prefer no campaign than a hastly made shity one...

The basic point I'm trying to make is that it'd be so incredibly difficult to actually make a good linear campaign with a story that it might as well be impossible. Additionally, they aren't structured for it as a company. So, yes, I agree with you, I'm just asserting that a hastily made shitty one is the only one they could manage.

scifi wrote:..not that i would buy PA for the campaign to begin with.

Exactly. And no one else would. Maybe a few would, but they don't represent enough people to make an impact on sales or longevity.

scifi wrote:Come on dont go that route, we all know what PA is, its a game made to fill that void of a lack of a competitive RTS that has fun and replayable gameplay, that doesnt revolve only on predefined builds and settings like starcraft II does.

Its not a route I'm taking, its just what the industry has taken. Stories are simply held to a much much higher standard than they have been in the past.

scifi wrote:Why people stick with spring, we have 0 lore here, 0 esports, small playerbase, maybe its because spring provides some form of gameplay that no other game provides outhere on the market.

You may be overestimating Spring's playerbase in relation to how much money PA is shooting to make to maintain viability. Small playerbase and "people stick with spring" are unfortunately contradictory in this context. Its unrealistic to expect them to make the game that people who happened to really like TA and still play spring and actively dislike most other developments in the RTS genre when that playerbase isn't exactly very large. (Pretty tiny.) But, if they can appeal to that group while gaining new players by not doing silly things to drive them away (like SupCom did with its generally childish storyline that really contributed nothing to the series and basically killed it) then they'll do that.

scifi wrote:But surely you cant deny lore in games make people love them for ages to come, and as a game designer if you are thinking about having a good story to tell you dont design your units as souless robots with no character. If PA was going to have that, you would see them market it from the start.

Lore in and of itself is great, I'm by no means denying that. So is cheese. I generally don't like cheese in my cereal, though.

Lore and linear storytelling aren't the same thing. Lore is just the body of information surrounding the world in general. A linear storyline in a linear campaign isn't simple lore. Its a series of events that either means something or connects with you somehow. It isn't a simple regurgitation of information.

Also, PA is already going that route. The whole art style is a pretty big testament.

scifi wrote:Again we all know this, people just like to talk about the "what if scenarios" theres no problem with that. And tbh for a true TA2 what i like to call a triple A RTS you would have to have a great story line that would captivate and allow the developers to work that IP on future games.

Story doesn't automatically equal success. Total War, for instance. Basically no story. You could argue that actual history serves as its lore, but that's not a story. That's lore. We're talking about story. Specifically, story in a linear campaign.

Take blizzard for example, warcraft-> great lore.

Assuming that it is, in fact, great lore (I personally find it terribly nonsensical and generally impossible to connect with) as I said earlier, it only works for warcraft (specifically warcraft 3) because it wasn't macro intensive. It was so micro intensive that it was basically an RPG. PA is on the opposite end of that spectrum. It'd be incredibly difficult (essentially impossible) to even approach that level of storytelling with this gameplay-scale and setting.

What i think PA is, its just a flagship game for the company developers, its their first endevour as a group, and they are more concerned on making a game that lasts like 1, 2 even 3 years then move on to something else.

Longevity doesn't necessarily boil down to story. Lore can help, and lore would do fine in PA, but that's not something that makes a linear campaign with a story viable. You'd probably kill a lot of your longevity efforts if you put in a story.

A great deal of games (especially competitive games) do just fine without any sort of linear story. In fact, if we're looking at Uberent's history, MNC is a great example. Starcraft 2 hasn't survived because of its story. Its lore helped a bit, but the overwhelming reason for its success is its esport's scene. (And, no, I'm not saying PA should embrace esports over everything else. Or even at all.)

bob, but who says it has to be the same level of a FPS. Nothing wrong with an RPG, nothing Wrong with a first person hack and slash, hell I loved wc2/3 and I love borderlands. I found duke nukem 3d to be great and blood 2 to be great fun as far as a story. I liked bioshock but that is compairing apples to a forest. You are dealing with 1 character, working toward and ultimate end. That would not make a lot of sense with MP.

Q4 imo was better, don't agree? that is ok. I felt all the mutterings and details of the world around me combined with playing the shit out of q2 to be very fulfilling.

one of the BEST endings in RTS... metal fatigue.

We all have opinions and I don't understand why people here seem to be racing towards an end. All I can say, is that at least it isn't as bad as legacy of kain soul reaver which we had to wait YEARS for the next part.

I suppose it doesn't matter


is all we really need to see in the end.

smoth wrote:bob, but who says it has to be the same level of a FPS. Nothing wrong with an RPG, nothing Wrong with a first person hack and slash, hell I loved wc2/3 and I love borderlands. I found duke nukem 3d to be great and blood 2 to be great fun as far as a story. I liked bioshock but that is compairing apples to a forest. You are dealing with 1 character, working toward and ultimate end. That would not make a lot of sense with MP.

Certainly not saying it has to be on the same "level" as fps or that it has to be a story from the first perspective (not camera related but jut general story telling related.) Nothing wrong with an RPG either. There's nothing wrong with any genre, but certain games simply don't do well with linear stories. Especially in an era where John Carmack is wrong and stories do actually matter in games.

While stories don't have to be the same as FPS stories, they are being held to a standard much higher than they were in 1997. The story in TA wouldn't fly nowadays. And, even if it went under the radar and was ignored rather than bashed, it would just be a resource consuming task that wouldn't justify its conception. That's what I meant by the Bioshock comparison. I was just grabbing the sort of standard for modern storytelling in games. Regardless of genre, if you're going to tell a story, it better be worthwhile. Otherwise, your playerbase will suffer and your game won't sell. I'm just arguing that there's essentially no way to make such a story in a game like this. (Not because its an rts or because its on planets, though those elements do contribute. But, because it is specifically not designed well for it.)

smoth wrote:Q4 imo was better, don't agree? that is ok. I felt all the mutterings and details of the world around me combined with playing the shit out of q2 to be very fulfilling.

Again, there's nothing wrong with lore. But a linear story simply won't work with the aesthetic direction and gameplay scale and era that PA is within.

smoth wrote:We all have opinions and I don't understand why people here seem to be racing towards an end.

I come from a background on the internet (and in general) where everyone argues about everything. I enjoy it. I don't have any personal vendetta or anything against anyone I argue with, I just view arguing/debate as a competition the same way anyone views chess as competition.

The basic point I'm trying to make is that it'd be so incredibly difficult to actually make a good linear campaign with a story that it might as well be impossible. Additionally, they aren't structured for it as a company. So, yes, I agree with you, I'm just asserting that a hastily made shitty one is the only one they could manage.

Well ofc, not to mention the amount of work and voice acting youd have to put to actualy make something good.

Its not a route I'm taking, its just what the industry has taken. Stories are simply held to a much much higher standard than they have been in the past.

Never said the oposite, and im glad it is that way. What i meant was, i still feel theres that weird place for games to use stories/lore just to give it a simple vibe or a soul. It has to have something, even if its just the units themselves having cool command voices.

Even supcom had that, robots, aliens and their lovers, and earth puns, i mean its a cool concept, bad implementation, but the core its there.

Longevity doesn't necessarily boil down to story. Lore can help, and lore would do fine in PA, but that's not something that makes a linear campaign with a story viable. You'd probably kill a lot of your longevity efforts if you put in a story.

A great deal of games (especially competitive games) do just fine without any sort of

Yeah sure, gameplay first, but i mean "back in the day", when you bougth TA, what was the reason for that, mostly because there was a cool robot picture on top of it and the feel and look of the game went along with it.

Sure you can have a super competitive game, that just does competitive matches and battles between players, but come on there has to be something in there that isnt just pixels trowing pixels at each other.

i just feel the game by itself doesnt give me these "awesome" moments of playing a game.

And im totaly fine playing a competitve game like league or dota when both started they didnt had a single soul or vibe to it, but they do see the advantage of creating a personality behind each champion.

Command and conquer, red alert, dune, they all had that cool vibe to it even if shallow at best.