vampire_chibi

We've living in the post-golden age of RTS games, Command & Conquer, Age of Empires, StarCraft, and many more haven't seen their successors or even superiors yet and likely might never do.

Even StarCraft II is slowly losing it's Esports status as more and more players leave for Brood War's Esport scene, which somehow is still thriving.

I haven't played a "new" RTS game and can't remember one that i'd want to go back to in ages, heck i'm playing Age of Empires II HD on steam, with patches and even new expansions, i wonder why not more companies try to revive old iconic games like that, there's very much a market for it.

The last candidate for any sort of awe for me was Planetary Annihilation, but it lacks of personality, half its techtree was useless, and it's overall scale made it a very uninteresting, clunky, and personality-less experience.

Is it because 3D just doesn't work for RTS games? Warcraft III, Battle for Middle-earth II, prove otherwise. Why are players leaving Starcraft 2 for the first game? Why didn't Age of Empires 3 advance the series and captivate its player base?

A great example might be Red Alert 3, it took the series to places people didn't like, the cartoony artstyle wasn't well received but overall it failed to innovate and move the series forward. It was in a broad sense a 3D Red Alert 2, alot of the designs were the same from the previous game but its lack to pinpoint why the other games worked so well made it lack any sort of longevity.

I wouldn't give any credit to nostalgia, as i think most people -like myself- have played these games for years without any long breaks.

The things we usually associate with RTS games, like a setup period have spread to other games, MOBAs have a setup period now, Battle Royal games like Playerunknown's Battlegrounds do also have a setup period. When rounds are over, everything is reset and you have to setup again, just like RTS games.

I honestly don't mind that much not getting any new RTS games that i need to play. If only my old games aren't dying, Age of Empires 2 HD on Steam with new updates and high resolution support makes it easier to play that game on newer machines.

What about my Red Alert 2, that game hasn't had any support since its release, fan made patches and tools will only last so long.

One day, a new Windows update will come out and i won't be able to play my old games anymore, i'd have to emulate old software and at that point the hassle isn't worth it.

Will the RTS genre ever innovate again or is it all over and gone?

@nicksmi56: Isn't half of the Mass Effect codex actually VO?

@nicksmi56: How often do you come across something that is?

That's also part of the problem, not only that it isn't important but that it also doesn't contribute anything to your experience with the game.

If you could take a note out of the game, is the note even worth having in the game?

There's this general rule when writing a book that you shouldn't waste the readers time with information that's not going to matter or in other words, information that's useless.

Should game developers have a similar rule?
In the example of Skyrim you would come across notes and such but then also be able to find remnants of those people that wrote those notes, if not dead then maybe some loot.

Do something with the text and not just have it be filler, that's the key.

Humble Bundle hasn't really had anything worth buying for years, atleast for me. Besides there are other/better ways to support charity. If anything HB just made people that otherwise might not have supported charity to have an incentive to.

I still don't understand how IGN came back and well... didn't really change at all.
I'd agree that IGN never seemed like a credible source for video game critic, imagine if they got bought up by GameStop?

@humanity: The fantastic thing about the nemesis system was that any orc that killed you would become someone, how simple the system is behin the curtain really doesn't matter, no other game has done something to this scope. I'd grant you that many of the actually gameplay mechanics weren't great, the missions aren't very good, the sidequest are bad, but the combat and personalities of the orcs make up for alot of it.

@lazyimperial: Inflation is a bad argument for micro-transactions in full priced singleplayer games, if that was even remotely the reason why they did what they did, they would just have increased the price of the game to beyond the regular $60.

I'd argue against that not just from an inflation perspective but also the fact that many more people play games and many more games are sold now than ever before, publishers releasing these huge products are getting many times more than they would 10-20years ago.

I don't see why you're talking about the US bailout, it has nothing to do with this game.

"How people misconstrued it as nefarious cash grabbing is beyond me."
This was debunked in the previously mentioned Jim Sterling video and other sources online.

Yeah i don't see why so many didn't find the first game great or the nemesis system good, subjectiveness and all that.

Jim Sterling did a video on this and they didn't say that they were giving the money to the family in some states because they didn't care enough to fill a legal form, and not all the money was going to the family, that video is a pretty good watch to understand the situation further.

"they genuinely tried to support just because 4chan or whatever overreacted and has no concept of how international laws can work."

This is beyond ridiculous, and even further if what you said were true that they tried to "genuinely" honor the death of a coworker, then why apologize for what they did afterwards?

"Destiny has lootboxes just not paid"

There's the difference, once they're paid that's when it all changes.

"that give folks options to pay to shorten or sweeten the pot."

The problem is if the game is "optimized" to "make" people buy lootboxes to shorten the grind.

"It’s capitalism"

Actually, it's not, every system has trading, whether it's with paper money or cows and chickens.

And again, if the game is made in such a way to force me to pay even more to have fun, then it should be a f2p game, not a $60 full retail price. The whole issue is that they're asking for money TWICE for the same product.

I'll play the "fun" games that either are f2p with micro-transactions or are products i buy without micro-transactions.

@the_nubster: I think GTA5 did it right for a full priced game, the microtransactions can be ignored but because of them, the online part has gotten many major updates and is still being supported to this day, ofcourse GTA5 has billions behind it.

@nicksmi56: I didn't even know about a "4th ending", that sucks. Unfortunately if the bad PR doesn't change it, nothing will, most people don't know about all this(previously stated by someone in this thread) and will buy the game anyways. If this goes as a "success" in the publishers eyes, more will follow suit.