Will missing Skirmish mode affect TA Spring´s popularity?

[smoth]

I don't think that the lack of skirmish will effect springs popularity...


That being said.... some people want a competitive game.. so they play online.

Someone like me plays TA to zone out and kill stuff for hours. I love building armies and waltzing them at the comp. I love getting a friend and slamming an enemy ai. I don't need a challenge it is a game, it is fun and relaxing that is all I want.

As far as those of you who found the ai too easy... that really depends on play style. Some people have a knack for unit evaluation quickly building "the best" possible combination for their play style forsaking anything that wouldn't insure complete victory. That isn't me.... I like too have a cool looking and sounding army. Here is an example: I will sometimes use morties, Dominators and hellraiser tanks(custom unit) because I like watching them. I want loooong drawn out battles with sound and fury. I don't want 20 minutes and a victory. For example my TA:FF games last over 8 hours. I love to chill, eat some dinner, blow stuff up and watch tv at the same time. Against the standard ai I do that.

I play alot of table top wargames. I seldom win. When I do it requires carefull analysis and construction of a highly planned army. To be frank that is too much effort. I just paint good looking armies and I may loose but I have the best looking troops. I also have a better time or shoould I say more relaxed time. All that seriousness is too much for me. I have computer science for that.

As far as online play.. I don't do any of that anymore. I am tired of all the politics of it all. All the kids screaming "owned" and "GG." It is just annoying also all of the cheater non-cheater garbage also makes me sick. I almost miss the HPB V.S. LPB arguements. Something about the new generation of gamers just anoys me. Too much leet speak, too many acronyms, too many people using sploits. I am just sick of all of it. So I will not be online looking for a good time.

[PauloMorfeo]

... processor ... The current one seems to have been over clocked at some point, and is acting weird, by running far hotter than it's supposed to. New one is scheduled to arrive ...

Isn't that like «Hey! I drived my car too fast and it is now too hot than it's suposed to. I think i'll just buy a new car.»?

[Triaxx2]

Would be, except I wasn't the one that drove it to fast. It runs upwards of one hundred-seventy degrees Farenheit. And shuts off as it hits two hundred.

[zwzsg]

I understand Smoth point of view. Playing TA online often simply isn't fun, against people using tactics tailored to the second to ensure a fast win. Only againt the AI you can have long drawn game where you build stuff not to win but to enjoy blowing them up.

And no, you cannot easily learn a game if it's only multi. You need a more peaceful mode where you can save and load game, where you can try stuff, explore the buildtree, without the pressure of an online game.

That said, I remember the SY saying they won't be skirmish. And if we somehow manage to convince them to add just a simple way of playing against a dumb computer just so we can test units, people will complains that's the AI is not challenging, and will ask for better AI, and it's a slopy slope, that may explain why they prefer not to include any AI at all than just a half working AI.

[[K.B.] Napalm Cobra]

Maybe we could have it where when we press a button it switches control to the other side? So we build build bulid, switch, build build build, switch, etc etc.

[Torrasque]

Yeah, in OTA you can with a cheat take the controle of an adversaire.
Make that you can switch the controle, so you can test every unit you want versus every other unit you want.
You can even see what your ennemi is seeing. (usefull to see the effect of redar jamming, underwater units etc...)

[Gurkha]

Most TA players I know (among my real-life friends, that is, not online) prefer to play cooperative against the AI. Personally I enjoy some real competition, but its true that playing against real people makes you more nervous, it's "go, go, go" from the first second; and it can often be frustrating since people tend to find the loopholes in the game and exploit them. Losing three times to the same cheap trick is not much fun.

Seconded. In my experience of only RTS's 75% of a community, minimum, are out to win rather than have a good time (ok, you have a good time if you win, normally, but they don't try to derive any other pleasure from it) and that ruins the other persons fun - 50% of people have to lose each game so people abuse anything in sight to make sure that it isn't them, removing and pleasure that their oponent might have got from the game.
Take war3 for instance, if your an orc and your against a night elf, you can bet your bottom $100 bill that the chimeras will be coming out? why? because chimeras are completely imbalanced against orc anmd they know it will give them a free win.

I tend to find that strategy is lacking online, it's all about being the fastest to build units and keeping the pressure on for ages (preferably with cheese, a good example is AOE where you keep the enemy down with towers outside his base [abusive, obviously, they're balanced as defensive dtowers] and then just pushing units in) before opening up with something really imbalanced, that's simply a facet of it being a game and not a real battle. I tend to find that it's either hyper-micro (war3) or build loadsa really powerful units and throw them at the enemy (AOE).
What do these games normally come down too? who uses the most imbalanced units and who's memorised the hotkeys the best - neither of which is strategic and winning by which is not a deserved victory, but that doesn't stop people doing it because they got that 'victory screen buzz' - that could be reduced by having some other means of the game ending and then just looking at the score screen.

The other thing, which someone has already mentioned, the attitude of other players (beyond "i'll abuse anything I want to ruin the game and you can't do anything about it"), the internet is anonymous (mostly) and that means that people behave like absolute cads. It ruins every other online game, and will no doubt to it against to spring. All the shouting of "n00b" when you get beaten - yeah, I lost, someone had to, there's no reason to insult me over it (actually, I rather liked it in AOE when people called me a rookie, I'd reply "yes, yes I am, that's why I'm playing in the rookie room"). "GG" also when you lose - you abused everything under the sun, there's nothing good about that.

So, for those reasons I wouldn't like to be limited to only playing online, though I suppose this is redundant as there is an AI in progress, I'd just like to ask the SY's to help the people making it as much as they can.

-Gurkha

[AF]

Alantai gives ghurka an entire regiment of cookie monsters to do his bidding.

[Sean Mirrsen]

It's possible to give your units to your enemy, and if it weren't for stability issues, you'd have pics of a very picturesque siege now.