Total Annihilation 2 is alive - Page 2

Total Annihilation 2 is alive

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luckywaldo7
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by luckywaldo7 »

Forboding Angel wrote:LOTV should actually lower the beginner curve by a LOT, which may end up invalidating your last sentence.

With LOTV, blizzard has essentially lopped off the first 4 minutes of gameplay. That much is HUGE, and that was one of the most crucial and newb destroying times of the game (choices matter a LOT in those first 4 minutes).

Even the pro players are hugely supportive of the worker count changes.
The worker changes are awesome, but I don't think it will help casual players. The hardest hurdle to the game for newbs is acquiring the muscle memory for "macro" (starcraft definition).
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PicassoCT
Journeywar Developer & Mapper
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by PicassoCT »

I think some here still dont understand one thing.
Companys are not happy on things like minecraft or mods.
Not when that means loss of controll over there portfolio, loss over the ability to shut down and force customers to rebuy.
Games like Diablo 2 are a nightmare to some companys. Without shop. Without stop. Endless procedural fun. Such workings eat into the industry as a whole.
Im sure minecraft killed several conventional games companys.
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smoth
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by smoth »

DIablo 2's LOD expansion was a huge seller. They can still make money in the future by adding content that way. They just discovered that idiots would happily pay many times the cost of an expansion in micro transactions because people don't realized that it all adds up.
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SinbadEV
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by SinbadEV »

There's this weird demographic called "whales"... you see... there are "normal" people who pay nothing ever for freemium type stuff... rich kids who pay maybe up to $20 before getting wise... there are the "collectors" who pay a decent amount to complete their collections but do so over time and "generally" within reason... and then there are the "whales" who spend hundreds or thousands of dollars because they have the perfect combination of addictive personality disorders and available funds/credit... many games are built around getting the "normal" people to get their friends to play because their friends (or friends of their friends) might be whales... I'm sorry... rambling here... there's some good videos on the subject going around... heck there's a good episode of South Park on the subject.
gajop
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by gajop »

It's ethically wrong to have your business rely on/produce whales. Your games should bring enjoyment and not be equivalent to a narcotic.
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Forboding Angel
Evolution RTS Developer
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by Forboding Angel »

luckywaldo7 wrote:
Forboding Angel wrote:LOTV should actually lower the beginner curve by a LOT, which may end up invalidating your last sentence.

With LOTV, blizzard has essentially lopped off the first 4 minutes of gameplay. That much is HUGE, and that was one of the most crucial and newb destroying times of the game (choices matter a LOT in those first 4 minutes).

Even the pro players are hugely supportive of the worker count changes.
The worker changes are awesome, but I don't think it will help casual players. The hardest hurdle to the game for newbs is acquiring the muscle memory for "macro" (starcraft definition).
I disagree. The large worker count lowers the chances that newbies will be outright cheesed with no way to answer as was the previous case. Now, each player starts the early game on even footing.

You could argue that spring games already do this in a way, by having stored up minerals to spend, factory plop a la zk, and innate income.

In fact, this is an area that I wish i could automate in evo, to the point where early mexes (say up to 5 or 7 within initial build radius (7 mex is a normal evo start count... all your workers drain 4 and mexes only bring in 0.5 each)) would be automagically whiffed into existence.
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smoth
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by smoth »

sinbad whales are people who pay stupid amounts of money for say, the gold skin on their gun. You classifications over-simplify the F2P market.

Gajop, yes it is unethical but it is profitable to rip kids off so the companies like to hide behind some bullshit like "well the kids have a choice etc" but it also the same bullshit behind many other frenzies that they work people into for sales to buy shit they never needed(black friday). I hate every bit of it but when morons showed the industry that they would HAPPILY pay subscription fees from MMOS the industry found a new cow to milk!

HOWEVER, that being said, companies with the most money are obviously going to be the most successful, so these huge companies like EA and Activision are huge because of their unethical practices. They spend years buying good companies and liquidating thier teams just to keep specific game IPs under their control. I HATE IT!
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PauloMorfeo
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by PauloMorfeo »

Forboding Angel wrote:...
You could argue that spring games already do this in a way, by having stored up minerals to spend, factory plop a la zk, and innate income.
...
You're forgetting one of the most important characteristics - the commander. It is a starting durable and strong fighting unit. You can't just completely destroy an opponent with a very weak but early rush like you can in many RTSs (ex: 2 zealots arriving at your worker line before you have any defensive capabilities).

I tried experimenting with a mod where you would start with a central building that worked like a commander. It would be an Astral Gate and after X time it would spawn the commander. At the time it was not possible to spawn nor transform one unit into another.

The idea was that the Astral Gate would be a stronghold making sure no early rush could destroy you, while still preventing you from Comm-Bombing the opponent and also not protecting your expansion (you'd still have to fight against raids targeted at your expansions). Also, the Astral Gate was not meant to be unbeatable - I envisioned awesome moments of suspense with an Astral Game under siege just about to be destroyed while the commander was just about to teleport in.
Forboding Angel wrote:... In fact, this is an area that I wish i could automate in evo, to the point where early mexes (say up to 5 or 7 within initial build radius (7 mex is a normal evo start count... all your workers drain 4 and mexes only bring in 0.5 each)) would be automagically whiffed into existence.
To kick-start the early game we start with some starting units and some resources (ex: 1000 metal and 1000 energy). We should also start with some buildtime in credit which would allow us to jump-start most/all of that dead time at the start of the game (ex: waiting for the 1st factory to be built). I have requested this to be implemented in the past. Now with Lua scripting it might be possible regardless?

Alternatively, instead of buildtime in credit, the mod could allow the first factory, first X mexxes and something else to be build for free either in buildtimee or buildtime and resources. Ex: triggers that change the costs of those buildings after they have been built?
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smoth
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by smoth »

been possible for some time, was next on my list of to dos before I decided to distance myself a bit from the content devs. Pretty much, you want to have alternate versions of a hand full of units and a timelimit for when they are available. Honestly, my biggest delay on it is I have no idea how to draw on the ground and as far as I know only forb and I wanted this feature :| for our games. I am interested in knocking it out but I would only do it IF I felt it would get used.
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Anarchid
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by Anarchid »

Alternatively, instead of buildtime in credit, the mod could allow the first factory, first X mexxes and something else to be build for free either in buildtimee or buildtime and resources. Ex: triggers that change the costs of those buildings after they have been built?
ZK's plop is basically this. You could extend it a little further with no issue.
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smoth
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by smoth »

very cool
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zwzsg
Kernel Panic Co-Developer
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by zwzsg »

PicassoCT wrote:Games like Diablo 2 are a nightmare to some companys. Without shop. Without stop. Endless procedural fun. Such workings eat into the industry as a whole.
I still see Diablo II case in the supermarket. That means that 14 years after release, it is still sold enough to warrant shelf space. I would say the return on investement is huge for Blizzard.
PicassoCT wrote:Im sure minecraft killed several conventional games companys.
Minecraft make Markus Persson a billionaire.

So, to the contrary, this show that long lasting games are incredibly profitable.
LordMuffe
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by LordMuffe »

wow, nice to see such a heated discussion about TA2 :)

...

personally, i wont believe it until its actually official.
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PauloMorfeo
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by PauloMorfeo »

LordMuffe wrote: ...
personally, i wont believe it until its actually official.
Most certainly why everyone here is discussing so passionately about TA2...
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zwzsg
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by zwzsg »

Forboding Angel wrote:In fact, this is an area that I wish i could automate in evo, to the point where early mexes (say up to 5 or 7 within initial build radius (7 mex is a normal evo start count... all your workers drain 4 and mexes only bring in 0.5 each)) would be automagically whiffed into existence.
In Kernel Panic, I have a gadget, preplaced.lua, which automatically build minifac on nearby datavent at the start of the game. And I have metal spot detection in the MetalToGeo.lua gadget. So, yeah, the code to autocreate mexxes on nearby spots is almost there.


Personally, instead of merely shortening the beginning of the game, I'd like to jump straight to the middle, with an already built, fairly large, functional base. Thought lighter on the factory-side and heavier on the turret-side. It would act as buffer, getting the newbs some time to play with most units instead of being endlessly crushed before they can even build something. It would also enforce unit variety, it would ensure that even underpowered & overpriced units would get used : if an unit is bad for its price, but is given for free, you'll still have to learn to make the most of it. Only problem is that it can be a bit overwhelming for newb to start with too many units.
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knorke
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by knorke »

zwzsg wrote:
PicassoCT wrote:Games like Diablo 2 are a nightmare to some companys. Without shop. Without stop. Endless procedural fun. Such workings eat into the industry as a whole.
I still see Diablo II case in the supermarket. That means that 14 years after release, it is still sold enough to warrant shelf space. I would say the return on investement is huge for Blizzard.
The popularity of Diablo II was the best advertisment for Diablo 3 that there could have been. D3 is one of the best selling PC games ever: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_III#Sales
Keeping support for D2 can be seen as investment for D3 and it paid off.

I doubt that "big" companies lose much sleep over mods or small games.
It is pretty rare that such games get enough sales to bother them. Or the mod boost sales of their main-game.
If it seems worthwhile they can always just buy the mod/game and make it theirs. Happend with Counterstrike, happend with Minecraft. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwE4mk2fbow (german)
Not sure if similiar happend to DOTA? At least the original free map-mod spawned a series of similiar commercial games.

PauloMorfeo wrote:... - the commander. It is a starting durable and strong fighting unit. You can't just completely destroy an opponent with a very weak but early rush like you can in many RTSs (ex: 2 zealots arriving at your worker line before you have any defensive capabilities).
But sometimes it works.
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PauloMorfeo
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by PauloMorfeo »

zwzsg wrote:... jump straight to the middle, with an already built, fairly large, functional base. Thought lighter on the factory-side and heavier on the turret-side. It would act as buffer, getting the newbs some time to play with most units instead of being endlessly crushed before they can even build something. It would also enforce unit variety, it would ensure that even underpowered & overpriced units would get used : if an unit is bad for its price, but is given for free, you'll still have to learn to make the most of it. Only problem is that it can be a bit overwhelming for newb to start with too many units.
I think that option has some problems:

#1 - As you've said, it is overwhelming to start with lots of stuff instead of building it over time. I remember feeling that problem a lot during most RTS' campaigns - when I was parachuted into a new mission I was overwhelmed by all the existing stuff. Starcrap 2 is commendable in that regard (at least the zerg campaign?) - the missions always start with a pretty minimal base.

#2 - Forces players into paths. For example, in Delta Siege Dry team games, it is common for the front-line players to follow very different build-lines than the back players. In the old oTA days, when playing the awesome map Gods of War, we always had 3 viable possibilities: build sea, air or land factory. If the game does too much for you at the start, it will end up forcing you into one single path.

#3 - It could be a nightmare to implement. As a simple example, suppose the mod always starts you with a vehicles factory. Useless in a water map. Maps on Spring vary wildly and so do the starting position options. I find it hard to imagine any kind of implementable logic that accomodates well handling a decent variation of maps.

That's why I've always favoured the option of having some free buildtime so that we can quickly build stuff but still what we choose.
zwzsg wrote:... underpowered & overpriced units would get used : if an unit is bad for its price, but is given for free, you'll still have to learn to make the most of it. ...
It could be an interesting mod to remove from the player's control all resources and production and just give the players control over the fighting units. The players would have to do the best they could with the units they would be given.

This is a bit along the lines of striping a full RTS game into just a sub-set of it, like DOTA did, like it's been discussed here:
http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=32737
zwzsg wrote:...
Personally, instead of merely shortening the beginning of the game, I'd like to jump straight to the middle, ...
I have to agree with you on this. But on the other hand, I also have to disagree with you (and myself), because it seems to me that the desire to jump into the mid-game is due to the fact that the games are not engaging enough in the early game - that is: action/engagement builds up overtime and is pretty low during the beggining (especially while we're watching that first stupid factory slowly build).

Maybe what need to be done is to provide players with forms of engagement during the early game. A decent form of engagement in the early game is fighting for metal carcasses scattered around the map. Another is scouting. Another is raiding to kill the opponent's builders trying to expand. But I still feel more should be done in terms of keeping the players engaged in the early game (as well as shortening the very-very-early game).
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PauloMorfeo
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by PauloMorfeo »

knorke wrote:... The popularity of Diablo II was the best advertisment for Diablo 3 that there could have been. D3 is one of the best selling PC games ever: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_III#Sales
...
I think this might actually be in agreement with what you meant:
"D3 is one of the best selling PC games ever" ?
No! D2 is the one of the best selling PC games ever - it sold millions of copies of itself and it sold millions of copies of D3. Diablo 3 itself was pretty underwhelming.

If I hadn't found in time that it was always-online I too would have bought D3 upon release before realising it is an extremely disapointing game (I tried the demo when it got released many months later).
LordMuffe
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by LordMuffe »

zwzsg wrote: Personally, instead of merely shortening the beginning of the game, I'd like to jump straight to the middle, with an already built, fairly large, functional base.
besides the base point, games like that already exist, world in conflict f.e., and its not improving it much for newbies.

if i recall right, Warzone2100 had the option of starting with a base with fabs, defenses and a basic economy. And besides the economy part that didn´t help newbies much. grasping the idea of what to do beside the eco part isn´t that hard in most rts games: build fabs, build units... repeat till end.
PauloMorfeo wrote: Most certainly why everyone here is discussing so passionately about TA2...
yeah, you are right :)
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PicassoCT
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Re: Total Annihilation 2 is alive

Post by PicassoCT »

Personally, instead of merely shortening the beginning of the game, I'd like to jump straight to the middle, with an already built, fairly large, functional base.
Inspired by smoths landing zone mechanism.. what if you get for conquering a neutral building - a ticket for a outsider to join late-game who drops with a limited team to fight for you as long as the units last and then get out again. Sorry.. i know this is nuts.. but that way you can have them both..
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