Spring RTS Engine

Otherside wrote:4 words/reasons why people consider SC better than TA . . . Simpler (in some ways)

AHHAHAHAH OH WOW.

SC miserably fails at proportions. It's like midget wrestling.

Starcraft was backed by a bigger publisher, had a better single player campaign, and had a much better user to user connectivity protocol back when TA and starcraft were in direct competition. That's why many many more players stuck with starcraft than TA. If my internet connection sucked, or didn't exist, starcraft was still a damn lot of fun for a long time. If my internet connection was basic, chances are I could at least access starcraft online, where TA was a huge frigging hassle to fine games for.

Starcraft also had huge amount better a custom mission generator, which helped propel it into popularity for the casual gamer.

These days, it's the same phenomenon we're seeing with BA. Because Starcraft is the RTS with the most serious competitive following, everyone plays it without really questioning it. Basically, it's big, because it's big.

That being said, I think it's a huge mistake most commercial RTS, and even RTS mods are making, just assuming that it's impossible building a game with the competitive quality starcraft has, and thus totally forgoing the market.

TA had a more interesting engine, but starcraft has a much better content and gameplay + uber map editing.

How about a $Prize for the winner of the first TA-League?

PicassoCT wrote:How about a $Prize for the winner of the first TA-League?

.....

PicassoCT wrote:How about a $Prize for the winner of the first TA-League?

There's about 50 starcraft players in korea who live off the money they make playing starcraft professionally, quite well.

War Zone was that game where you chose your chassis and then you chose what gun was gonna go on it, right?

Warzone was the one with the 'lego' tanks. Movement type, chassis, weapon/other.
Had a tech tree, in game alliances, tech trading, and the other standard stuff. Base defenses were cheap and durable, but weapons were hard-hitting later in game like in TA. Lots of different kinds of radar/detection systems etc, but no jammers or cloaking. Aircraft only good for hit & run or short engagements.
Custom squads whose AI performance depended on the unit's skills and abilities. Give them an order and they'll take care of themselves usually without much more help needed. Loved the 'retreat at medium damage' when on defense. Your defenders could roll back automatically to patch up and be back to the front in no time.

Was optimized for very general strategic orders and supply systems. Some good logistics with repair stations, auto retreat/repair, limited aircraft ammo...

My only gripe was the smaller size of the maps, and the factory cap and research building cap at 5.

SC vs TA:

TA Engine>Starcraft Engine. Still better than many things being produced today. SC engine is incredibly simple. Fits on DS nicely.

TA strategy>Starcraft Strategy. What it was made for. Operation Overlord scale stuff.

TA Tactics<Starcraft Tactics. TA is too big by design.

TA fun/time<Starcraft fun/time. Like Counter-Strike. An action filled mini-crack fest that can only take minutes. TA was made for epic hours that not many people have.

TA funding<SC funding. And media coverage generally follows that. About 1 in every 100 people I know has even hear of TA before I spread the word to them.

TA certainly has a more complicated and much larger scale engine. With Starcraft, Blizzard just made such a clean, streamlined, and incredibly balanced game. The races are completely different from each other, and yet so well balanced that even the best players prefer them evenly. At least 90% of SC units are seen in pro level games and fill some fairly unique role, while, let's face it, a much smaller percentage of TA units actually see action, and many of those that do are chosen arbitrarily over some other unit that fills almost exactly the same niche.

It's really a matter of preference, and I cant see how anyone could say that one is better than the other in every way, or that they are essentially the same.