Spring RTS Engine

This game is great!

that is all.

What parts are most great?

using my blob of grey goo to do what nanos should always do.

seriously.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYJpAPnjqGE

Ok so that things is a manualfire building basher.
And there they were talking about how "much less micro"

it reminds me a lot of earth 2160, just with one faction less and no selfmade units. Not that its not interesting but atm i just don´t feel like paying about 30€ for it. Especially since Homeworld remastered costs nearly the same.

Out of curiosity, is the Goo just an advancement of concepts like the aliens in EE or Earth2160 ? or is there more to it?

Anarchid wrote:Ok so that things is a manualfire building basher.
And there they were talking about how "much less micro"

Well, anything it touches gets ate. I don't know if you saw that. So far it is pretty interesting as far as the game goes, I could see how they mean that. the game more or less has 6ish units and for the most part you can just tell them go here as a blob. I dunno, it felt less stressful to play than say starcraft 1/2. I don't want to say the gameplay is simplified but polished is a good word. Don't get me wrong, I occasionally see my guys doing derpy things(like charging wholesale to their death due to no move and shoot) but the game just has a very easy feel to it.

Each faction plays fairly differently.

LordMuffe wrote:it reminds me a lot of earth 2160, just with one faction less and no selfmade units. Not that its not interesting but atm i just don´t feel like paying about 30€ for it.

you can always get it when it goes on sale later. The story is pretty good though and I am enjoying it.

LordMuffe wrote:Especially since Homeworld remastered costs nearly the same.

Homeworld is homeworld.

LordMuffe wrote:Out of curiosity, is the Goo just an advancement of concepts like the aliens in EE or Earth2160 ? or is there more to it?

I am not sure. There are similarities but it isn't like an a->b-> progression sort of thing. I never played earth2160, it always struck me as cumbersome.

smoth wrote: you can always get it when it goes on sale later. The story is pretty good though and I am enjoying it.

Will probably do that, excactly because of the singleplayer campaign. I have heard a lot of positiv opinions about that. I is just not enough for me to get it for the full price (steam wants 46€ for it atm... thats madness).

In one of the videos the developers are describing the multiplayer model as the game running on the server and the players acting as thin clients, that's interesting since it's being deployed by default.

I'm actually disappointed; in my head I expected the grey goo faction to be way more grey-goo like.

They are pretty goo-like when looked at within the confines of a standard RTS. Their economy is decentralized and completely local. They can split for exponential growth.

Google_Frog wrote:within the confines of a standard RTS

Yeah, the vibe I get from the gameplay videos is that it's kind of a poor-mans Starcraft with some "conservative innovation". The effects and artwork are all nice and well-made, but not particularly characteristic or distinctive. Some reviews said the story was enjoyable, but still kind of a conglomeration of standard sci-fi tropes. There is a bit of interesting gooey-ness to the goo, but it's still well within familiar RTS conventions.

Kind of like the devs made spaghetti with the premade store-bought sauce but added some red pepper flakes on top, because hey, they can bring some creativity, but let's not get crazy or anything in case some people end up not liking too much of a spicy or different spaghetti taste.

people tend to forget that for creativity alone you get nothing, and for well executed creativity (with all the additional workload of a excellent conservative game + some dice rolls on spice) you have a 90 % chance of getting a fist to the face from the customer.

So if i had a family- to hell with risk. Stand up from your comp, turn around to your gf, explain to her, that you gambled away money at your job and lost it, and might never get that one again.

HER FACE IS THE WORLDS OPINION ON CREATIVITY!

luckywaldo7 wrote:Yeah, the vibe I get from the gameplay videos is that it's kind of a poor-mans Starcraft

Starcraft IMO was less polished.

luckywaldo7 wrote:The effects and artwork are all nice and well-made, but not particularly characteristic or distinctive.

I can see this but still better than anything supcom had. Inbefore tech limitations, even at the time the game came out, the effects were rubbish.

luckywaldo7 wrote:Some reviews said the story was enjoyable, but still kind of a conglomeration of standard sci-fi tropes. There is a bit of interesting gooey-ness to the goo, but it's still well within familiar RTS conventions.

the same can be said of ANYTHING. Sperg-like people have spent inordinate amounts of time trying to reduce everything into a trope. It is like eating a banana split but critiquing individual ingredients instead of actually enjoying what the combination of flavors is.

luckywaldo7 wrote:Kind of like the devs made spaghetti with the premade store-bought sauce but added some red pepper flakes on top, because hey, they can bring some creativity

Nope, this isn't like COD or Madden

luckywaldo7 wrote:but let's not get crazy or anything in case some people end up not liking too much of a spicy or different spaghetti taste.

That can be said of starcraft, supcom, where do you want me to stop. Don't even get me started on planetary annihilation.

smoth wrote:Starcraft IMO was less polished.

I disagree. Starcraft 2 doesn't have great gameplay imho (barely advanced from 15 years ago), but the one thing that Blizzard knows how to do is polish.

smoth wrote:I can see this but still better than anything supcom had. Inbefore tech limitations, even at the time the game came out, the effects were rubbish.

Yeah, I agree, I was never impressed with supcom's effects and these are easily some steps above. It might be something odd to notice, but I thought the lightly animated foliage was a really nice touch.

smoth wrote:the same can be said of ANYTHING. Sperg-like people have spent inordinate amounts of time trying to reduce everything into a trope. It is like eating a banana split but critiquing individual ingredients instead of actually enjoying what the combination of flavors is.

Tropes are tropes are tropes. I keep finding good unique sci-fi out there, so I refuse to believe that all the ideas are used up and need to be recycled.

smoth wrote:That can be said of starcraft, supcom, where do you want me to stop. Don't even get me started on planetary annihilation.

Whoa, I fully disagree for the original starcraft and supcom. Starcraft (1998) set the standard for what it mean to have 'faction differentiation' and 'every unit is important', and supcom (2007) took RTS to an entirely new scale with its strategic icon view. I fully agree that both of them had sequels that were anything but impressive though. And it's been quite a few years since either of those games.

And PA took RTS into the goddamn solar system. I still remember my first experience with spring (having no experience with supcom), and zooming out from a flash tank to the entirety of Altored Divide. It was a breathtaking moment in spring, and I've only ever had that feeling replicated that feeling zooming all the way out in PA.

Two games, I don't care if they made terrible games, but don't tell me they didn't innovate, where Achron and Planetary Annihilation. I'm disappointed that each rather failed as a game altogether, but it was not because they played it safe within 'standard RTS conventions'.

luckywaldo7 wrote:

smoth wrote:Starcraft IMO was less polished.

I disagree. Starcraft 2 doesn't have great gameplay imho (barely advanced from 15 years ago), but the one thing that Blizzard knows how to do is polish.

Nope they didn't. Early on in singleplayer I found myself asking why the medics were moving to the front of the line. Also the level of detail was inconsistent between terrain elements(features in spring) and the unit models. Resulting in some really ugly pixelation from over scaled assets. Maybe prior I would have agreed but stacraft 2 was not one of their most artistically consistent titles. This coming from someone who used to call blizzard the "gold standard." In before butthurt fanboi, that wasn't it, it was because they did drop the ball in ways that really upset me. Maybe the gameplay was good for MP but I honestly just wanted to see consistent art which is by no means arbitrary. Samwise was the artist who had the most influence on me growing up and was once quoted as asking an employee if that was the best ROCK they could make. Such an attention to consistent detail is important to me and was key when I was working on GRTS. Which if you had seen 1.28 you would have known. Either way, I felt their art was largely unpolished and started to reek of "well we just needed to get this level out." Which was a terrible shame to me because it was another sign of the times. Not to say I am not massively impressed with thier level editor and to be honest I need to play more of grey goo(no time) to hunt out inconsistencies but honestly, I feel blizzard is a company and many of their developers who were there in the past and spun gold have since moved on or stopped caring.

I don't think the grey goo team "played safe" I think they stuck to what the genre is and executed a game we needed to see for years now. Every RTS game has tried to change the game with some new gimmick. Supcom was a truer RTS game. Starcraft 2 did the same starcraft 1 did only adding a few gimicks. PA added the space minigame to a LACKLUSTER rts game design. Halo Generals brought rts gameplay to the console, Dow 2 brought in some GREAT tactical RTS gameplay but arguably COH was the origin of that. Wargame: airland battle brought a realistic modern RTS to the pc. It goes on and on but where are our warcraft2s? Warcraft 3 ruined it with the hero mechanic which eventually evolved into moba(or devolved depending on opnions). Dune? The recent one felt more like Age of Dune. Command and conquer 4.. LOL.. I guess red alert 3 was OK but it didn't feel fun it felt clunky as crap. Universe at war could have been good but again, the flow of the game didn't work out. This game is like UAW done right. I really like the flow. You need to try it, the flow of the game is not something that your reviews are going to help you experience. The worlds are some of the most beautiful and alive feeling along with the relaxing feel. Starcraft 2 failed to capture that. Sure when you get into an actual match, it can be stressful but when you are just plonking around, I can see myself just relaxed and building my armies.

I dunno, give it a try sometime, I think watching gameplay videos and reading reviews basing your opinion off of them is NOT the way to judge a game.

I don't think the grey goo team "played safe" I think they stuck to what the genre is and executed a game we needed to see for years now.

I think they just had conflicting goals so what you have is the summation of those goals... surprisingly near where your standard RTS design space exists.

E.g.
- Wow we wanna do revolutionary stuff less micro
- Acuelly, is also traditional baes building traditional classical traditional retro gib muny

Dow 2 brought in some GREAT tactical RTS gameplay

DoW2 was grind and monster whacking. Dunno how that's 'great'. Dunno how DoW2 is even an RTS.
DoW1 was fun.

the problem is, that real innovation - often takes to long to find out if its any good.
Even in spring, assuming you have a real novell concept- it would take a month or two to make a placeholders only game..

The roundtrip time to "it works" is too long.

Actually, now that i rethink it.
Risk all comes from enviroments where risk is relative risk-free.
Universitys.
Open Source communitys.
Modding communitys.
Kickstarters from guys with nothing to loose.
Allthough every single PR-Department on the planet will claim elsewise - companys hate innovation. Innovation subverts static power structures, its by its nature destroying.
So to look for innnovation in grey goo - prompts one question- why would you do that?
You allready know you wont find it there.

I love this game, play it!

One of the best RTS`s out there atm.

This game imo is better than all the C&C`s before it iam having a blast!

The factions are unique, more unique than you think theres a lot of strategy involved in picking the tech.
To the ones that say this game has no micro clearly you havent played this game! there are no abilities but this game is micro itensive.

Plus you say this game doesnt inovate that much, well i think i can stick with this kind of innovation and let games like Planetary annihilation never come to life again.

Spherical maps are a innovation indeed, but in my honest opinion id rather have a good solid game before i have Maps in weird shapes.

Tradicional Base building? well i think if anything the factions deviate a lot! And i played games like Earth 2140 2150 which had different factions starts.

most of the detractors in the thread still have not played it Scifi.