Why Do Traditional Rts In The New Millennia Suck?

[Bartosh]

Dune (1992)
WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness (1995)
Red Alert (1996)
Total Annihilation: The Core Contingency (1997)
StarCraft: Brood War (1998)
Age of Empires II: Age of Kings (1999)
Homeworld (1999)
--------------------
gets steadily worse from here on out. some ok ones, but none that match the above. (excluding Spring of course)

first I blame the insane cost of making games nowadays average game in 2006-2007 cost about $4 million to make. allowing less freedom of creativity.

Second i blame First Person Shooters, they have taken over the market and made everybody twitchy instant gratification gamers who don't want "Real time "-strategies they want "cranked up to max speed hall ass"-strategies.

[Pxtl]

Simple: consoles pwnt the PC. Consoles have, up until very recently, been standardized on low-res graphics and no pointing devices. The only consoles with built-in pointing devices are low-res (Wii and DS). With PC games being a fringe market, the only way a game will get real TLC is as a once-a-decade AAAA title like Supcom or Warcraft 3, and those games have to be super-safe guaranteed sellers.

In short, there are no more good RTS games because the market is nearly gone, so it's only worth it if you're going to make it a guaranteed blockbuster.

[ZellSF]

I somehow think Dark Reign deserves a mention in that list, though I have no clue what that list is actually about. As for why RTS games are starting to be shit, developers keep copying StarCraft and failing while not giving a shit about singleplayer.

[Bartosh]

Its funny but in my opinion I would say warcraft 3 was one of the worst rts I've ever played. Leveling up the Heros kinda replaced the arm building. (one torren level five wiped out my hole army) and it punished you for trying to build an army with the retarded upkeep, every so often i forget how much i hate it, try it again because i really like the art stile and story but immediately put it away again.
Maybe its just because im not into rpgs, but it ruined one of my favorite series., if it was an entire different game instead of a sequel, id be impartial to it. But Everybody else loves it. so who am I to fight the world.

i missed Dark Reign (1997) sry..

[Pxtl]

Thinking it over, the basic premise is wrong. RTS games are no better, as a percentage, than they were before. Did you play WarWind (1 and 2)? The many tacky Westwood clones of Dune 2? Warcraft 1?

RTS games suffer from Sturgeons Law (90% of everything is crap) like anything else, and they had a boom in the '90s. It's only logical that there would be more good RTS games in the '90s, since there were so damned many RTS games in the '90s.

The RTS genre is half-dead, so there will only be a handful of AAA rts games.

[Bartosh]

sad but true. it seams the case with all games with depth
but still

[rattle]

I somehow think Dark Reign deserves a mention in that list

One of the best RTS games ever, not only for the modability, awesome map editor and mission builder tools.

[KDR_11k]

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.

[Bartosh]

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.

Really?

I├óÔé¼Ôäóm still playing those damn games. Hopeing a newer better ones coming

Company of Heroes-I├óÔé¼Ôäóm so fucking sick of killing Nazis, I├óÔé¼Ôäóve probably killed more Nazis than there were Nazis plus the game is basically a ww2 version of--
-- Dawn of War- a game based on the old ass table top war game, that admittedly is fun to watch, but is vary lacking in strategy

World in conflict-- not a traditional strategy game, you don't gather resources or build bases- its in the same category as ground control, and various others. good for what it is, but not the same.

[Pxtl]

I was just using SupCom as an example. Yes, there are good modern RTS games, and I suspect that DoW will have a fan-base for a long time. Personally, I didn't like it - I thought all the squad-upgrading was insanely tedious, but I can see the appeal.

[KDR_11k]

I├óÔé¼Ôäóm so fucking sick of killing Nazis, I├óÔé¼Ôäóve probably killed more Nazis than there were Nazis plus the game is basically a ww2 version of--
-- Dawn of War-

I'd wager there are more RTSes where the evil guys are Russians than Nazis, the WW2 craze mostly affected FPSes.

And seriously, Dune 2 is supposed to be better than modern games? Really?

[Pxtl]

KDR, you mean you didn't like playing tower defense until the map was depleted of Spice, then carefully putting missile launchers into the sweet spot where they slightly outrange the enemy missile turrets, level after level, forever and ever, until those fscking nukes completely destroy your whole game plan and you give up on the last map?

[Bartosh]

I├óÔé¼Ôäóm so fucking sick of killing Nazis, I├óÔé¼Ôäóve probably killed more Nazis than there were Nazis plus the game is basically a ww2 version of--
-- Dawn of War-

I'd wager there are more RTSes where the evil guys are Russians than Nazis, the WW2 craze mostly affected FPSes.

And seriously, Dune 2 is supposed to be better than modern games? Really?

Nazi death count is every game I've ever played. Aside from red alert the Russia vs US is kinda new. but its impossible to kill more Russians than exists, theres still Russians and there breading faster than i can kill them

Dune II was the One which defined the genre. may not have aged well, but deserves respect.

[manored]

My teories:

A) People are getting dumber... possible?

B) Now that graphics have became so life-like eyecandy has became more profitable.

C) Its, like KDR said, a bit of nostalgia.

[rattle]

Dune 2 is full of micromanagement :P

[Bartosh]

The term nostalgia describes a longing for the past, often in idealized form.

Im not longing for the past. I play aoe 2, TA and starcraft with my friends about every week.
some times we play something new, but we ultimately get bored of it and go back to the others. hell in C&C3 5 min into the game my friends turret was shooting mine. we laughed are asses off then took out the game.

[smoth]

Dawn of war
Company of heroes
Universe at War
Battle Realms

Those are ones that caught my interest and I played them. Mostly for the past few years I have mostly played fps or rpgs which was pretty much the time from 2000-2005(because I had a really old machine that couldn't play cool stuff like shogun total war) prior to starting gundam for TA shortly after getting a new machine.

[El Idiot]

Homeworld. There's a real RTS.

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.

Company of Heroes I was really looking forward to. Then I found Sherman's pwning Panzers. I've gone back to Close Combat.

[Cremuss]

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. When you read news about crysis before his (it's an example like an other) deadline, it was just talking about the so amazing bloom effect with 155500684 polygons characters with huge physics engine and destroyable trees. But when you see the gameplay, it's a fucking boring game with stupid enemies
It's exactly the same thing with cinema. When I'm looking at all of these hollywood super-production, I'm getting crazy. It's all about graphics effects ! No innovation, no new concept, there are just following established rules instead of breaking them.
That's why I'm just playing at Quake3, Spring, Diablo II, Fallout II, Freespace, Little big adventure and watching south corean movies

[Bartosh]

My favorite funny/inaccurate thing in CoH is building a shit-ton of AT guns and telling them to attack move. They kick ass, and it hilarious watching them come charging in carrying those thing like wheel barrels, and all this machine gun fire and what not isn't doing crap to them.