I have seen the future.

Yes, but in the last decade, there have been *no* RTS games that have done *even half* of what TA did.

Holy shit, how hard is "adjustable unit AI parameters", "unlimited queueing of arbitrary commands", "unlimited number of units under control at a time", and "assign set orders to newly-created units"?

(Answer: Not too fucking hard, especially since TA did it TEN YEARS AGO. "Why has nobody done anything like it since" is the real question.)

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pyroofone.livejournal.com

And I JUST bought a brand new rig that can run it in spades :)

Let the waiting begin.

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It's already out in Europe, I believe.

And really, the question is more like "Why hasn't Chris done anything like this since?", since both games are his babies.

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How about "Why does Blizzard suck so fucking much?", since they produced at least 4 RTS games post-TA that learned nothing from it and seriously sucked in comparison?

(they gave me my sweet, sweet diablo loving, though.)

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As long as you're not arguing that Diablo is actually a *good* game.

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Diablo is a great game, for what it is: a grindy arcade game.

And there hasn't been a classic definition of how a Diablo-style interface should work, objectively better than every other one ever created, that's been ignored for a decade, either.

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wooo haha btw i still play TA.. haha the only problem i had with total annihilation is the fact that no one came up with a way to manage custom units/maps and things kinda sprawled out and got terribly disorganized

i also thing that if the boneyards stayed active TA would still be widly played to this day.

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I dunno, it's a hellaciously good graphical Roguelike, IMHO.

I don't play those for stories. I play them for goodies.

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Breath Of The Dying is *kind of* like a Shining Silvery Two-Handed Sword "Vanquisher", right?

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I still love TA. The only RTS game anywhere near as good as it, ever, was C&C Generals with the expansion pack changes - and Zero Hour tends to produce *fast* matches by necessity, since there's so many things that can hit literally anywhere on the map.

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Um, Starcraft, Warcraft III, and what?

Also, I think it's a bit unfair to say that Starcraft "seriously sucked in comparison". Lord knows I liked it and played the hell out of it.

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One of Warcraft 2's expansions, Starcraft, Brood War, Warcraft III.

And Starcraft was a neat game, but it *did* seriously suck in comparison to TA, especially in the department of the interface. There was all kinds of pointless micromanagement where you needed to wait for something to finish before giving it new commands instead of being able to queue them, where building a number of things required you to pay *in advance* for an extremely limited queue, and where the AI was really, really dumb.

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Ah.

I've never seen an expansion pack change the underlying mechanics of a game, so I ignored those.

The queue and the interface were a problem in SC, I agree, though you are overstating it (you could queue 8 at a time, IIRC, and had to wait for one to finish to queue up the 8th again).

However, TA's AI sucked monkey balls. As did SC's. As did AoE's. I'll go on the record as saying that I personally have never seen any single instance of "AI" in a game worthy of the name, in any genre beyond chess -- and for that, you have to go to Deep Blue to get an excellent AI.

Complaining about AI in a game is like complaining about the weather. Everyone does it, and yet you still get pissed on from on high.

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I've never seen an expansion pack change the underlying mechanics of a game, so I ignored those.

I have, especially in minor areas like number of selectable units.

(you could queue 8 at a time, IIRC, and had to wait for one to finish to queue up the 8th again).

Depends on the side and the building and the unit, and you had to pay for all the units you queued in advance - meaning you couldn't have them automatically build as soon as resources were available.

Complaining about AI in a game is like complaining about the weather.

I'm talking about the unit-specific things, like "come in out of the rain" and "don't shoot food" and "maybe you should not just stand there like a lump when a unit you can't personally see is attacking you", combined with "chasing a faster unit all the way back to the enemy base, on your own, while constantly ignoring the user's orders to turn back because as soon as he gives you that order your programming says 'hey, look, and enemy' and overrides the user's orders to make you chase down that unit, is bad, mmkay."

Regardless of how imperfect it was, TA's options like "how far should this unit roam from it's set location" and "what should it prioritise it's fire on" and even a proper "Guard X thing using your abilities intelligently" command are things that really haven't been duplicated since.

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http://spring.clan-sy.com/

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after TA i kinda fell out of place wiht most computergames.. nothing in the RTS realm made it worth it and well the FPS' are all basically the same, with newer technology and better frame rates.. and maybe a minor change in story line

the next big game im waiting for besides supreme commander is spore.. it looks like an interesting concept.. i wonder how it would pan out once you get to the pint your dealing wqith civilizations instead of just singular creatures

as far as supreme comander. i think its going to take a whole lot of balancing and going over to make it a good game.. but i think chris might be rushed to release before hes ready to considering all the publicity the game has been getting lately

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interesting haha im reading more into this but its nifty what people can do wiht alittle time and effort.. even if it doesnt end up flying my hat is off to them.

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They already have a playable game btw, they're just working on expanding and improving it.

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sterroneous.livejournal.com

Nasty people. I'm going to need a fresh gaming laptop to be able to run it dual-screen at a useful framerate.

I wonder how many displays it can actually cope with... :)

With luck it will distract us from the Games Workshop Dawn of War love-fest my friends and I have been trapped in for the last year. The Emperor may very well protect, but I'd like my life back if he's done with it.

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playable game doesnt necessarily mean its gonan fly.. i mean props for them for making an effort but to make a game really worth it and to have any sort of fan base (the real reason RTS' work) they are going to need lots of marketing and advertizing.. i wish that it was one of those games you could get a wicked single player campaign running and that would be the end of it.. but for a RTS to really hold and make a difference it needs a large fan base kinda like TA. i could go into the theory behind game development and why indie / annonmous group work a la wikki hardly ever works out but i wont.. any real game suceeds from lots and lots of advertizement or an otherwise equally supported project.

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This is a free game, made by volunteers. Why do they need to worry about it "flying"?

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bacause an rts is mainly multiplayer, how do you have fun with out lots of people to play against.. specially when your done playing all your friends and all of you know eachothers moves and strageties..

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There are I think enough people that play this game to do that.

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