What I love about TA/TA:S -> Made into SupCom topic!

Molloy · Post by **Molloy** » 08 Aug 2006, 22:39

The thing about Supreme Commander is it could be very slow. Maybe it won't be as nicely balanced as Spring/OTA in that gameplay scales nicely to different types and sizes of maps. It's all speculation though.. I remember everybody going on about how they were giving up TA when TA:K was coming out.. then when Tiberium Sun was coming out.. eventually they just stopped anticipating new games. :)

Gari · Post by **Gari** » 09 Aug 2006, 01:02

Snipawolf wrote:And the word Queue looks weird....

From what I know, it's a french word :)

Felix the Cat · Post by **Felix the Cat** » 09 Aug 2006, 01:04

So I just read Everything We Know About SupCom.

I'm very disappointed.

90% of the stuff on the list is in Spring already; heck, a lot of it was in TA.

For example, let's examine this wonderful gem of a "feature":
"We will very likely create a next-generation style economy that allows players to collect wreckage, sometimes just for the raw resources....or to repair and re-build back into a fully-functional unit or structure."

Oh, boy! I'm loving that "next-generation style economy" that was in TA in 1997!

Also, does this sentence worry anyone?

"Searching for resources is important for say the first 10 minutes or so, but after that it shifts pretty quickly to a strategy game. It's not a game about grabbing resources... it's about reconnaissance, planning, and anticipating your opponent... in other words, it's about strategy.."

I've written at length elsewhere about how terribly crappy of an idea this is. If you're not worried about grabbing resources than what the heck is the point of attacking? For an example of a situation in which the game is not about grabbing resources, see SpeedMetal.

Min3mat · Post by **Min3mat** » 09 Aug 2006, 01:17

well thats ALL wrong completely completely wrong felix.
it MAY be good OR bad. hell i dunno I have played the game yet <,<

a better comparison would be a large map with interesting terrain and strategic points of advantage with little resources in clumps spread out (said this in one of the captions on a pic, showing a small resource base) which are easy to exploit meaning you spend most of your time attacking defending scouting and all that strategy whilst a base commander rebuilds anything you lose and you secretly tech up or w/e. I think that if he pulls it off it will be very very impressive

Nemo · Post by **Nemo** » 09 Aug 2006, 01:22

Yeah, after watching the video that min3mat posted in Off Topic - the interview with Chris Taylor, I'm not all that impressed. In fact, I'm a little worried that our CT is a speedmetaler at heart - notice how he spends a lot of time in that interview talking about how much he loves the tier 4 units, and how the best part of the game for him is deploying them and impressing the crap out of the opponent.

Agreed with felix - a lot of the hyped up features of SupCom are really not that amazing, and are already present in Spring in some form.

Anyways, it'll probably still be a great game, but I'm a little less over the top excited about it than I was when I first heard that he was making another game.

Felix the Cat · Post by **Felix the Cat** » 09 Aug 2006, 01:44

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that SupCom will be a bad game. I certainly hope it isn't!

I'm just saying that I doubt that it will be as innovative, as cutting-edge, and as great as all the hype makes it out to be.

I really get tired of all of the SupCom discussion. You should see how badly I got flamed by a couple of people on the TS formus for daring to suggest that SupCom might be anything other than a masterwork of genius from Our Lord and Savior, ChrisT.

I'd love to have intelligent discussion about it, but it's difficult when it must be accepted as DOGMA that SUPCOM WILL BE TEH GRAETEST GAME EVAR!!!1

People get especially pissed when I point out some things that Spring has that SupCom doesn't i.e. dynamic water.

BlackLiger · Post by **BlackLiger** » 09 Aug 2006, 03:21

I play 3 RTS games at the moment (4 if you count C&C generals, and thats more for the modern, yet totally unrealistic armies, but I don't play that all that much really...)

OTA
Spring
Dawn of War

OTA: DO I need to give a reason?
Spring: O'rly?
Dawn of war: SPACE MARINES! ATTACK! Also, this game includes the repeat feature. Right click on a build icon and it will keep building that unit till you reach your limit/run out of resources, then it will wait till you have the resources avalible....

Muzic · Post by **Muzic** » 09 Aug 2006, 07:16

TAS really screwed me up in the right click and left clicking area in other RTS. And also pressing right click on a map on another RTS = moving those units there. And i like there extensive Queue system and how resources are spent. Not all RTS' could probably work with the resource thing, but the Queue is needed. AOE2 pretty much suffers that, alot.

CompWiz · Post by **CompWiz** » 09 Aug 2006, 07:35

by the time supcom is relsesed spring will hare more features then it does...

or does spring already have more?

Felix the Cat · Post by **Felix the Cat** » 09 Aug 2006, 07:52

CompWiz wrote:by the time supcom is relsesed spring will hare more features then it does...

or does spring already have more?

Spring has a lot of things that SupCom doesn't have: dynamic water, that funky new seismic radar, probably other things as well.

SupCom has a lot of things that Spring doesn't have: "data-driven architecture", units crushing other units, probably other things as well.

I watched that video, oh god it was horrible. Chris Taylor sounds like a freaking Speedmetal nubbie. Listening to him describe that "Maven" made me think... wow... if someone posted an idea identical to that for a unit on the Spring forums he'd be parbroiled by the flames. Seriously... a huge mech that shoots rapid-fire nukes out of its cannon... I think I'll pass.

Not to mention the other things. Looks like he has a bias against resource management; everything he's said gives me the impression that he basically wants the player to be microing his combat units the entire time, instead of dividing his attention among the economy and the combat as he should have to do.

The "Base Commander" idea is pretty bad, as well. An AI that builds and manages your base for you? Please explain to me how this will not lead to immense elitism? Everyone will start out not having to manage the base, and thus most people will never learn how to do so. Some people (the smart ones) will disable the AI, because a human can do it better, and will be a lot better at the game. There will be an elite of like 100 players who know how to manage their bases and who will pwn everyone else. For further info I direct you to all of our past conversations on base-building-and-managing GroupAIs, since that's basically what this is.

All in all, I was mildly looking forward to SupCom as probably being a pleasant game, if not ground-breaking, before watching this video. Now I'm sad because a lot of people will (hopefully temporarily) stop playing Spring, and there will be less people to play with. With any luck, all of the Speedmetalesque SupCom features will draw away all of the Speedmetallers, though!

Iceciro · Post by **Iceciro** » 09 Aug 2006, 08:31

The only reason I'm looking forward to SupCom is that it should be (being a professional game) less buggy than Spring (I suffer the "you cant play Spring because it crashes randomly with no warning" problem right now).

But I think Spring will surpass SupCom because Spring is a labor of love, not a money-maker. And motivation matters.

Neddie · Post by **Neddie** » 09 Aug 2006, 09:29

Iceciro wrote:But I think Spring will surpass SupCom because Spring is a labor of love, not a money-maker. And motivation matters.

I agree with the sentiment of this comment.

Cyberwal · Post by **Cyberwal** » 09 Aug 2006, 15:37

While I agree that SupCom gets "a little bit" too much hype, I doubt it will be bad. Didn't chris taylor say that they planned the game as multiplayer from the very beginning? Shouldn't they notice any stupid things destroying the balance? I hope so.

And while I understand how Spring and SupCom are kinda competing against each other, as successors to TA, I don't see why one couldn't love and play both

Min3mat · Post by **Min3mat** » 09 Aug 2006, 15:56

well tbh with a 500 units a side and that big maps you will NEED big fat things to fill up the space.
besides i don't see how this game can be bad, its probably worth it simply to whop the AI and complete the campaign because the battles are going to be magnificent. If the MP isn't all that good, of course it blows, but i still think that supcom will be worthwhile
Hopefully he has learned from OTA though and will spend months after completing the game beta testing the balance and making sure there aren't useless units (especially the superweapons!) and that it plays like he wants it too.

Nemo · Post by **Nemo** » 09 Aug 2006, 21:29

http://www.shacknews.com/extras/2006/08 ... taylor_1.x

After reading that interview, I'm now much less concerned than I was <_<

He isn't showing any Speedmetaly traits in this interview, so I think he knows what's up.

Edit: as for unit counts, it said in that interview that it uses ''pools", so say you have a total pool of 2000 units. with two players, they each get 1000. With 4 players, they each get 500, ect.

Felix the Cat · Post by **Felix the Cat** » 09 Aug 2006, 21:48

Call me negativist, but I get the impression that if Chris were a TA player he'd make games titled "epic 64x64 map 20min nr".

Min3mat · Post by **Min3mat** » 09 Aug 2006, 23:27

and i get the impression that if you had a avatar it would be cute and fluffy. but you see i haven't seen your avatar so i don't make judgements...

Zoombie · Post by **Zoombie** » 09 Aug 2006, 23:34

I think the fact that the 'new features' in SupCom being already in TA more a statement of how little TA was noticed by the developers of other games. If it had, and they got it through their thick heads that TA has a LOT of really cool, innovative things (that are still innovative and cool, by the way) then this wouldn't be a 'new feature'. It would be a common accepted thing, like...say...right clicking to order and such.

I think most of these comments are to be for the nonTA playing RTS folks, who might think "Hey...reclaiming...cool...". I think SupCom is going to be impressive, if only cause its TA super sized, witch is how it looks. But we've already got TA in three dee (Spring, duh), so lets see how TA Super sized fits up. I think I'm going to like both games equally, because I think Spring is quickly becoming more a platform for a bunch of little games, not just one big game.

and I, like CT, have a soft spot for friggen huge death bots of DOOOM!
And nukes...lots and lots of nukes. Those nukes looked like fun? Don't we all love nukes. Nukes nukes nukes...

SwiftSpear · Post by **SwiftSpear** » 09 Aug 2006, 23:43

Felix the Cat wrote:Call me negativist, but I get the impression that if Chris were a TA player he'd make games titled "epic 64x64 map 20min nr".

I kind of got that impression myself. I think he's somewhat missed the boat in terms of integrating tactics and strategy from the way he talks.

Ishach · Post by **Ishach** » 09 Aug 2006, 23:55

EDIT: Im an idiot

Spring RTS Engine

What I love about TA/TA:S -> Made into SupCom topic!

Re: What I love about TA/TA:S