Why the RTS genre fade out?

[Anonymous No.4609498]

I remember back in the day when i used to play games like Age of Empires, Empire Earth, Rise of Nation, Warcraft what happened to all of them? is there some sort of cursed i didn´t know about?

[Anonymous No.4609503]

warcraft and starcraft are still extremely active aoe didnt age as well

[Anonymous No.4609521]

>>4609503
i really want a Warcraft IV, and starcraft can go to hell

[Anonymous No.4609542]

>>4609498
RTS and turn based strategies are still very popular, just not as popular as other genres. It's always been like this. The only thing different is that there are significantly more people playing videogames now. And since the majority are children, fast paced and easy to pick up games are being pushed out more.

>>4609521
Pretty sure wc4 was confirmed as a wc3 remaster. Tbh I won't give a shit unless they release it on Mac and Linux.

[Anonymous No.4609603]

>>4609498
the mods took over the genre

[Anonymous No.4609604]

Aoeii is still very popular after the HD release, coh2 was very popular but has dwindled

[Anonymous No.4609842]

>>4609503
>aged

[Anonymous No.4609865]

>>4609498
RTS games can't compete with modern AAA budgets and sales. As popular as RTS games were back then they rarely sold more than a million copies. If anything they're more popular now, but can't be made as a big budget game since their sales are too low in comparison. You need like 10 million in sales or a fuckload of microtransactions to compete with the big releases these days. RTS games suck for microtransactions

Also another huge factor is RTS games were the only games to play of a specific genre back then. Everyone I knew who loved Age of Empires back in the day immediately switched over to Mount and Blade when they got the chance, they wanted a medieval game with tons of dudes with swords and horses running around. Or any science fiction game, or modern military game, or anything in general where you wanted huge battles. RTS games were the only ones that could do that since any first or third person game at the time would have strict technological limits, and today the technology caught up. Just look at the time period when RTS releases stopped being a big deal, mostly in the mid to late 2000s. The technology finally caught up to the point where you can have big battles with games like battlefield and battlefront.

[Anonymous No.4609871]

>>4609865
>As popular as RTS games were back then they rarely sold more than a million copies

Total Annihilation seems to have been quite huge.

[Anonymous No.4609901]

>>4609498
They're too niche for a AAA studio to invest in and hard for an indie studio to build compared to their usual platformers. The sort of mid-sized studios that would normally build this sort of thing have been struggling for decades.

[Anonymous No.4609938]

>>4609871
Yeah according to http://www.gamershell.com/news_2378.html it sold 1.5 million copies in its lifetime. Which was great for its time but would suck for today. By comparison supreme commander sold 1 million copies in two years http://www.eurogamer.de/articles/space-siege-interview?page=2

Wikipedia sources suck but its all I got

[Anonymous No.4609950]

>>4609498
EA forced Westwood to make a couple of shitty games then killed them, unwittingly killing (or at least paralyzing) the genre. Because they were gone, Blizzard didn't really want to continue it and so the two big heavy weights in the genre were gone.

[Anonymous No.4609956]

>>4609503
aoe II has decent activity as well actually

[Anonymous No.4609998]

>>4609871
It was but most RTSes never came close as far as sales.

[Anonymous No.4610136]

>>4609498
People who don't play games for the game mechanics, but rather mainly for other aspects, such as visuals or plot, have taken over the industry. Since devs realized they outnumber fans of game mechanics, they started to cater to them.
As a result, when you build games with people like that in mind, the mechanics become an excuse for the rest of the game. Thus, the game must be homogenized, simple and easy in order to not alienate those that don't really care for how they play.
RTS is a genre that doesn't lend itself well to being consolized and dumbed down and still being appealing to those players, thus they "died". The same happened to other demanding PC genres like Arena FPS (Quake III, UT) and space combat games (Freespace 2), as well as arcade genres, such as shoot 'em ups (Raiden).
Consider the following: the Touhou franchise. Those games are essentially dumbed down arcade shooters, a gateway series to get some weebs into the genre. Yet these games are considered "impossible" or "masochistic" by the average modern player.

[Anonymous No.4610357]

>>4609950
I agree somewhat. C&C was central to the RTS genre. It dying accelerated RTS's decline.

[Anonymous No.4610380]

>>4609503
>aoe didnt age as well
you fucking kidding me??? conquerors is easily one of the best games ever, is always fun to play you know.

[Anonymous No.4610438]

Also another reason RTS games suck these days are because the devs are retarded with their single player campaign design. I was replaying AOE2, SC, and War3 recently and the missions are huge on "self expression through gameplay". They give you the objective at the beginning and you get to go nuts with however you want to finish the missions. Want to turtle for 2 hours and finish the enemy off with a giant army? Perfectly viable. Slowly creep in with a steady siege and super prolonged battle? Also fine. Rush super fast and kill all their workers while teching up as fast as you can while their army is occupied with your raiders? Also a good thing you can do. Every single highest selling game of all time is big on letting the player do what they want within reason.

I then went on to SC2 and my god does it suck. Every single fucking mission is timed with a gigantic emphasis on rushing. The game engine is so "smooth" it becomes too easy to max out your army and run them down a narrow area so the missions MUST be rush oriented or it becomes too trivial. At the same time if the enemy forces are allowed to get too big you automatically lose because the AI can do the same thing. You can't slowly leapfrog with a few tanks early because they get rushed down too fast. Subtle map geometry can't be abused anymore. Everything feels so damn small and close together. With an old game you frequently had to face off against a gigantic enemy army/base(s) and you had to carefully figure out how exactly you wanted to do things without having it all blow up in your face. But with a modern RTS game its all "Start building as many units as you can right fucking now because you WILL lose in 2 minutes once this scripted event happens." That kind of gameplay fucking sucks and all it does is ensure everyone plays the game in the exact same way. If you like that sort of gameplay fine, if you don't like it then you get sick of it.

[Anonymous No.4610623]

its too complicated for mainstream "gamers"

and the cost of making an rts would be too high to even hope of breaking even

[Anonymous No.4610872]

People got bored of playing the same game over and over again. EU4 is better than any RTS of the 90s.

[Anonymous No.4610878]

>>4609503

SC > AOE2 singleplayer
AOE2 >>>>>>>>> SC multiplayer

[Anonymous No.4610880]

>>4610872
>People got bored of playing the same game over and over again.
Wrong, people eat the same shit over and over again (see yearly sports franchises, CoD, etc.). These games just don't appeal to the masses that don't care about playing for complex game mechanics and just want to see cool stuff happen with no effort.

[Anonymous No.4610893]

>>4609498
the same thing that happened to all genres of video games, there is just less verity made.

>cus of normies and corporate cash and loot boxes and consoles and AAA graphics and million dollar advertising campaigns and EA activision and (((BUZZWORDS))) and sjws and any other boogie man /v/ likes to complain about

[Anonymous No.4610920]

>>4610623
>its too complicated for mainstream "gamers"
True to a certain extent, though there are certain genres of higher complexity of RTS, but the unsustainability of RTSes ties into the following point of:
>and the cost of making an rts would be too high to even hope of breaking even
Exactly. It's not exactly because of the development cost, but more to do with the fact that people don't buy RTSes in the millions. Publishers and devs go to where the money is, and there's not a lot of money to be made here in RTS Land.

[Anonymous No.4610928]

>>4610920
RIP niches (other than being made by usually questionable indie devs) in the modern gaming world.

[Anonymous No.4610953]

>>4609901
>>4610928
Since only indies are likely to make RTSes at this point, are there any good cheap aesthetics for them? Somehow super low-fi pixel art and RTS seem odd together to me.

[Anonymous No.4610957]

>>4610953
I think 3D technology has improved to the point that decent looking 3D graphics can be made within the budget and time constraints of indies. I still like the old 2D style, as many others will attest, but good-looking 2d art is difficult.

[Anonymous No.4610958]

>>4610953
Yeah, PC RTS games are associated with isometric pre-rendered games.

[Anonymous No.4610973]

>>4610958
meant to say graphics there instead of repeating "games", obviously

[Anonymous No.4610993]

>>4610872
except the best known RTS titles are all pretty distinct from each other. AoE II, Starcraft, and Warcraft III are especially unique games

[Anonymous No.4610998]

>>4610993
also Europa Universalis is more of a sim/sandbox than a game.

[Anonymous No.4611432]

>>4609498
Two reasons:
ONE: The big thing for RTS genre was competitive multiplayer, especially esports. Sadly this suffered from issue where player needed to micromanage hundreds of units per second to play at a competitve level, and suddenly Actions Per Minute speed was more important than actual strategy. I've seen some pro Starcraft players saying that they don't really enjoy playing at competitive level and games just stop being fun then.

Generally, MOBAs replaced RTS in the competititve scene as they feature a lot of the same type of strategizing, but without micromanagement.

TWO: Second problem is rise of consoles - currently consoles absolutely and completely dominate the market, and you will notice most other genres (adventure games like Walking Dead and RPGs like Skyrim and Witcher) underwent changes in control schemes to better work on gamepads.

Sadly, despite a TON of attempts (Battlezone 2, Starcraft 64, EndWar, Guilty Gear 2, Halo Wars, Pikmin) noone had a found control scheme for an RTS that works, is universal and is comfortable to play.

So consoles are still terrible for RTS games. And as such, if you're a big triple-A studio - you're not going to invest in a game that can only be released on one platform and isn't even an exclusive.

So basically, RTS were a niche genre that got replaced by MOBAs in their niche. I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard eventually released Warcraft 4... Which would be a MOBA with a story single-player campaign.

[Anonymous No.4611434]

>>4610998
>>4610872

Europa Universalis is a 'grand strategy'. Grand strategy is a peculiar genre because in these games it matters very little if they're real time or turn-based - I mean, Total War series made a switch between turn based and real time and gameplay changed very little.

[Anonymous No.4611439]

>>4609498

It might actually have peaked too hard. Where do you go from Red Alert 2, Starcraft and Total Annihilation? Most games that came afterwards just copied one of these formulas to varying degrees of success, there wasn't much innovation after this.

[Anonymous No.4611489]

>>4611432
I'd like to see a Diablo/Pikmin hybrid as a way to go in between a traditional RTS and a MOBA.

And I think this could work particularly well for Warcraft 4.

[Anonymous No.4611512]

>>4609950
>EA forced Westwood to make a couple of shitty games

Nope. Ea kept the boat afloat for quite a while Westwood kept shitting its bed trying to prove they weren't a one-trick pony.
They were the prime example of a one-trick pony.

>EA forced them to make a couple shitty games.
Yeah, sure. EA forced Westwood to not make a single RTS while under them (TS was half-done when they got bought out, they haven't made an RTS game after that) when they bought them off as the RTS studio in the first place.
Grow a brain, retard.

[Anonymous No.4611517]

>>4611439
>there wasn't much innovation after this

There was, but people were EXTREMELY prejudiced against it. Anything that wasn't a straight copy was bashed for not being a straight fucking copy. Go figure.

[Anonymous No.4611672]

What do you guys think of the Commandos series?

[Anonymous No.4611706]

>>4611432
You do list the actual reason here, and it has nothing to do with consoles. Though, yes, in the dark days of the 360 era, PC was looking grim. MOBAs killed the RTS genre.

[Anonymous No.4611707]

>>4611517

Well, to be fair, different doesn't mean good. If a genre has been perfected, and you don't want to copy the formula, then you are pretty much doomed, right? I'm not saying the RTS genre absolutely was perfected, I'm just saying that it might have been.

What RTS-formula is better than the one laid out in StarCraft, Red Alert 2 and Total Annihilation? I can't think of any.

[Anonymous No.4611712]

>>4611672

Not really strategy games, more like puzzle-games. I liked the first one, but the transition to 3d lost me completely, so I dropped out immediately after trying the second game.

[Anonymous No.4611716]

>>4611512

The general timeline for every studio EA takes over looks like this

>Great studio makes great games
>EA takes over
>Every subsequent release marks a drop in quality
>Studio shuts down

It's not for nothing that we default to blame EA.

[Anonymous No.4611717]

>>4611707
When I first played Medieval: Total War (the first one, the second one is amazing too), it was a revelation. Full, real time control over a massive army, with positioning and timing being key. The tactical depth was next level. I haven't really mentioned the series much because the games have been pretty bad since the excellent Napoleon, which was like 10 years ago. But that's still a hugely popular and excellent rts series past /vr/ times.

[Anonymous No.4611723]

>>4611717

Yes, it is a bit odd that almost no games have tried to copy the TW-formula, but those aren't really RTS-games, they're like some 4x/TBS/RTS-hybrid-monster.

And come on, Shogun2 was extremely good, in my opinion it is the best in the series.

[Anonymous No.4611731]

>>4611723

None of the Total War games have been 4x.

They switch between a simplistic grand strategy map to an RTT, realtime tactics.

>>4611707

You're forgetting Homeworld.

[Anonymous No.4611741]

>>4611731

Yes, but they aren't purely RTS either, and neither purely TBS, nor purely 4x. They have aspects of each.

[Anonymous No.4611746]

>>4611439
Achron was the most innovative RTS to be released this decade, unfortunately it was horribly unpolished. It needed a budget at least 5x the size it had.

[Anonymous No.4611751]

>>4611741

No they don't have any aspects of 4x, you should go look up the differences between 4x and grand strategy.

This is sort of like if someone said SotN was part platformer, part RPG, part beat em up. It's not a beat em up at all, the fact that those games and platformers have a lot in common doesn't mean that SotN isn't a mix of just platformer and RPG.

[Anonymous No.4611754]

>>4611723
Didn't like how Shogun 2 took away from the real time part to add to the turn based part. I don't really play these games single player, so while the turn based section was massively improved, it still isn't as good as a dedicated turn based strategy game. Meanwhile the speed and duration of the real time sections was massively increased and decreased, respectively, leading to a much less satisfying experience.

[Anonymous No.4611756]

>>4611751

Okay, from wiki:

>Explore means players send scouts across a map to reveal surrounding territories.
>Expand means players claim new territory by creating new settlements, or sometimes by extending the influence of existing settlements.
>Exploit means players gather and use resources in areas they control, and improve the efficiency of that usage.
>Exterminate means attacking and eliminating rival players. Since in some games all territory is eventually claimed, eliminating a rival's presence may be the only way to achieve further expansion.

By that definition it has 3X's out of 4, which means that it has elements of 4X-games, like I said.

If you have a better definition, then by all means share it.

[Anonymous No.4611757]

I don't see why an RTS game needs a budget, like people are claiming.

I'm sure some indy dev would have a hard time getting stuff like quality voice acting or whatnot for their game, but otherwise it's pretty simple. I think indy devs today just make other games that are similar to RTS, like tower defense or moba.

Tower defense games are really low budget and only sell about as well as RTS, but are just as difficult to make correctly. I think this question of why no Starcraft-style RTSs are made today is more a case of the chosen direction the dev takes, not strictly market forces.

[Anonymous No.4611767]

>>4611746

Haven't played it, and not to be graphics whorey, but after googling it my curiosity hasn't exactly peaked. It looks really ugly in a bad way...

>>4611754

Ok, I only play the TW-games single-player.

[Anonymous No.4611774]

>>4611767
>It looks really ugly in a bad way...
"It needed a budget at least 5x the size it had."
muh reading comprehension

[Anonymous No.4611780]

>>4611439
>Where do you go from Red Alert 2, Starcraft and Total Annihilation?
http://www.uberent.com/pa/

[Anonymous No.4611781]

>>4611774

Oh sorry, forgot I was on /v/. Go suck on a huge black cock you faggot... oh wait, this IS /tg/ after all...

[Anonymous No.4611784]

>>4611756

4x games are more a case of maximizing resources and expanding to other territories when maximization of resources is no longer possible or returns are too far diminished. Grand strategy games are about continually maximizing what you have and expanding either if you choose to or if your maximizing your resources is less efficient than just taking the best territorial spots.

What is limiting your expansion in the Total War games is not economic problems or whatnot, which is what limits expansion in 4x. The only thing that limits your expansion is the fact that your armies cannot be literally everywhere at once. This means its a grand strategy game with military forces being the only means of expansion or maintaining control of newly taken territory.

[Anonymous No.4611787]

>>4609498

Westwood died and Blizzard turned to complete turd, that's what has happened.

[Anonymous No.4611789]

>>4611757
They sell less due to being more complex games in a time when people don't want that.

[Anonymous No.4611794]

>>4611781
Look, man, I already said in my initial post that the game was horribly unpolished. When somebody says 'unpolished' without mentioning specifics, that means all game areas. Visual, AI, designs, sounds etc.

[Anonymous No.4611795]

>>4611784

I don't know, I think the distinction is kind of flimsy. When playing civ5 one of my go-to tactics was to grab as much territory as possible and then continue to aggressively encroach on the enemy and deprive him of resources, it's almost exactly how I play Shogun2 as well. Granted, you CAN play civ5 differently, but you can play Shogun2 differently as well (though the options are more limited).

Shogun2 because it is the TW-game I've played the most.

[Anonymous No.4611796]

>>4611794

Yes, and I didn't say you were wrong or argue with you in any way, yet you answered in a cunty defensive way for some reason.

[Anonymous No.4611798]

>>4611767
>Ok, I only play the TW-games single-player.

Most people do, that's why they've gone the design route they have. Unfortunately it means that the newer ones just aren't really worth playing for me. Other games do single player better.

[Anonymous No.4611802]

>>4611795

I think this is more a case of whether or not playing the game "incorrectly" still works.

Not being aggressive in Shogun 2 is probably the wrong idea whereas it can be just fine in Civ5.

[Anonymous No.4611810]

>>4611796
Your response did not take into account my original post.
Your statement "It hasn't piqued my interest because it looks ugly" shows that you either did not read or did not understand my initial statement about being horribly unpolished.
Unless being "horribly unpolished" has somehow taken a completely different meaning.

[Anonymous No.4611814]

>>4611672
As the other anon said, they're not really strategy, but are amazing games. Spent many an hour with them.

>>4611712
Commandos 2 was still 2d. It was C3 that switched to a 3d engine but the view was still isometric and the gameplay remained mostly the same. For some reason, though, I enjoyed it way less than the previous games. Strike Force was the real 3d game in the franchise and was more of a spin off. It was good for what it was, I particularly like dropping enemies with a single bullet while in MoH and CoD high caliber rifles like the M1 looked like pea shooters for the amount of shots it took to kill enemies.

[Anonymous No.4611817]

>>4611810

Jesus fuck.

>Me: It might actually have peaked too hard. Where do you go from Red Alert 2, Starcraft and Total Annihilation? Most games that came afterwards just copied one of these formulas to varying degrees of success, there wasn't much innovation after this.

>You: Achron was the most innovative RTS to be released this decade, unfortunately it was horribly unpolished. It needed a budget at least 5x the size it had

What you did here was give an example of a game that innovated, but failed because it was unpolished

>Me: Haven't played it, and not to be graphics whorey, but after googling it my curiosity hasn't exactly peaked. It looks really ugly in a bad way...

What I did here was show interest in the game you mentioned, but then basically agreeing with you in that it looks bad

>You:"It needed a budget at least 5x the size it had." muh reading comprehension

For some reason you start to be cunty

[Anonymous No.4611819]

>>4611717
I agree that there was a drop in quality but recent games like Atilla were really good.

[Anonymous No.4611828]

>>4611814

I am sure that Commandos 2 was 3d, I've even found talk about rotating the camera efter a cursory googling. Surely they didn't implement 4 2d-angles of every map? Could they have been that meticulous?

[Anonymous No.4611830]

>>4611817
Well, chalk it up to an aznigger discussion board not allowing for nuance.
Though the criticism regarding visuals is the least warranted. All 3D-poly RTS looked like shit up until a few years ago.
The biggest issues with Achron were the braindead AI and shit controls.

[Anonymous No.4612017]

>>4611757
Most tower defense games use fixed paths, they're not the style with mazes anymore. Those with mazes usually let units self-intersect.

The extra difficulty in an RTS compared to a platformer or whatever is mostly the pathfinding. Good robust pathfinding for lots of units is significantly harder than one-object pathfinding and most indie games cheat around having even that where they should.

And yes RTS pathfinding isn't that hard in the grand scheme of programming things. I've shit out full pathfinding solutions during game jams. But when I do that the rest of the indie devs look at me like I'm a freak of nature. A lot of indie devs can't program their way out of a paper bag, even ones making good games. (Seriously, the RIsk Of Rain devs literally can't program.)

[Anonymous No.4612038]

>>4609503

AoE Rise of Rome just got an HD version

[Anonymous No.4612261]

As the cost of game development went up, and more and more developers were directly acquired by publishers there would have been more pressure to make safe decisions only. Unfortunately making an RTS ever would be classed as poor decision when A) you'd miss out on any console sales and B) it's a smallish market to begin with.

[Anonymous No.4612464]

>>4609498
How do i get good at AoE 2?

[Anonymous No.4612490]

>>4612464
Lures your boars, predict your counters, practice booms and rushes, and keep pumping out villagers until you're half max population. If all else fails just go with Goths and Castle Drop their gold supply.

[Anonymous No.4612496]

>>4612490
Is it posible to go beyond max population? Is the limit 75?

[Anonymous No.4612515]

>>4612496
In the vanilla game I remember 75, plus whoever you convert, though the Conquerors might have upped it slightly. In the version they're on now with the two extra expansions most games are played with a cap of 200.

[Anonymous No.4612526]

>>4612515
Derp. I meant 3 extra ones.
Conquerors, Forgotten, We Wuz Kings, and Rise of the Rajas

[Anonymous No.4612529]

>>4612515
Thanks for all the advice anon

[Anonymous No.4613575]

Is there any other RTS like Rise of Nations and Empire Earth series, where you can go from Prehistory up to Modernity and beyond?

[Anonymous No.4613587]

>>4609498
widespread internet
seriosly
RTS were fun when you were limited to few people to play with and you all played like crap and it was okay
now you know that there are tons of people better than you and that kills all interest in RTS being popular

[Anonymous No.4613606]

>>4613587
Can't you use the same argument for every PvP genre?

[Anonymous No.4613610]

>>4613587
They are Billions is PvE only tho…

[Anonymous No.4613616]

>>4613606
it's easier to create huge gap with no chance of winning in RTS games I think, rest genres don't suffer as much.
I mean you can learn the build online and smash anyone who just plays RTS normally without care for competitive scene, even if your skills are matched.
In fighting games you have some sort of chance if you don't know some moves or combos, in racing games you have chance as long you don't crash for example. At least you feel like you have a chance, you don't have that chance in RTS.
>>4613610
what they have to do with anything? It's basically custom map from SC or WC3 turned into game, as tons of other games

[Anonymous No.4613634]

How hard would it be to combine Empire at War and Battlefront? I just want a Star Wars game that allows to to pilot a star destroyer like it's a pirate ship.

[Anonymous No.4613639]

>>4613634
There you go.

[Anonymous No.4613669]

>>4613634
But Empire at War already was RTS Battlefront, you even had to take Command Points to conquer planets.

[Anonymous No.4613674]

>>4612464
Never stop making villagers.

[Anonymous No.4613680]

>>4613674
But that just fills up my entire unit cap with non-combat units. How many slots should I reserve for an army?

[Anonymous No.4613684]

>>4613680
It depends on the age you are in, and on how is the enemy playing. Unless you are doing a feudal rush you shouldn't really bother at building many military units until late feudal or castle age.

[Anonymous No.4613696]

>>4609521
...why? Given how bad WC3 was, I can't imagine a WC4 would be good at all.

[Anonymous No.4613704]

>>4613684
I'm just playing against the CPU, but I'm usually in castle age before I even encounter another faction. Maybe I'm just playing entirely wrong. By that point I try to have a siege workshop and upgraded units, and then I build onagers accompanied by a load of the "free" food/wood-only units.

[Anonymous No.4613726]

>>4613704
Rushing straight to castle age is a fairly okay strat against players as well, but going with siege weapons blind is more or less suicidal when it's far more common for players to open up with knights. This because they're fast enough to effectively raid villagers, and aren't beaten by spearmen until they're massed up and upgraded.

[Anonymous No.4613729]

>>4613669
I mean like a Star Wars game where you can switch between FPS and RTS during a battle, i.e. switching between flying a starfighter and maneuvering a Star Destroyer. Sort of like pic related.

[Anonymous No.4613747]

>>4609498
People realized they were APM games, not strategy games. It had nothing to do with skills but with memory. Same as chess.

Build that unit, research that technology first, ignore the others, never pick inferno town because it sucks, etc.

It's impossible to make strategy computer game. It always comes down to fixed data that can't be changed.

[Anonymous No.4613756]

>>4613747
>It's impossible to make strategy computer game. It always comes down to fixed data that can't be changed.
It works if you eliminate the idea of a win-condition. Then it doesn't matter if every faction has baked-in advantages and disadvantages.

[Anonymous No.4613785]

>>4613747
I mean, There's been planty of times in Starcraft history when a new build order has turned the meta on its head. The issue is innovation will only get you so far against those that can execute whatever strategy better.

[Anonymous No.4613791]

>>4613785
>>4613747
The strategy of Starcraft isn't in the opening or unit compositions, it's in the positioning of your units on the map relative to expansions and your opponent's armies.

[Anonymous No.4613845]

>>4611828
That is actually EXACTLY what they did.

[Anonymous No.4613850]

>>4611672
>>4611712
First Commandos is a puzzle game, but rest are more of a regular tactical games, as AI is less rigid, more reactive and you have so many more options to solve problems (I always liked to arm everyone with rifles and shoot my way through things in 2).

[Anonymous No.4613856]

>>4611757
Voice acting, graphics and shit is NOT the problem.
The problem is BALANCING. You need all factions to be perfectly balanced for competitive multiplayer to be fun, and only a handful of developers could pull that off.
Balancing means spending hundreds of hours in playtesting, and then fine-tuning the underlying variables to improve it. That takes a lot of man-hours for both designers and playtesters - and time is money.

MOBAs require much less balancing as each 'faction' is a single unit so you don't have to worry so much about interactions and synergies between units; while Tower Defense require exactly NO balancing as there is no competitive gameplay in there at all, and you never have to account for different strategies of an opposing player since all possible enemy waves are pre-designed and accounted for. If a particular group of mobs is game-breaking and too hard to deal with - you just don't put it in the game. But a living player WILL use that broken combination, and exploit it mercilessly.

[Anonymous No.4613865]

>>4613856
>You need all factions to be perfectly balanced for competitive multiplayer to be fun, and only a handful of developers could pull that off.

Warcraft 2 and 3, all 3 Red Alerts, Every AoE under the sun, Dawn of War,... all of those games are not only broken, but some of them are horribly broken in terms of balance.
People still love them.

WC2 it's go Ogre or go home.
Red Alert 2 is all Rhino, all the time.
Red Alert 1 is the same with medium tanks.
Zero Hour is Air General central.
AoE1 is all about Carthage.
AoK was all about Goths.
AoM is all about the Athenians, ISIS before the expansion.
Dawn of War during every expansion boiled down to 2 viable factions.
Et cetera.

Brood War made people more inclined to complain about it but it's still just as possible to succeed with a broken game as it was with a balanced one.

[Anonymous No.4613878]

>>4611432
Admittedly, while it failed, GG Overture is such a fucking cool experiment that I can't help but like it despite its failings.

[Anonymous No.4613883]

>>4613865
What the fucking dick are you shitting about? Both factions in Warcraft 2 are almost identical you bloody idiot.

God, you're one of these idiots who once you get defeated by a tactic you immediately go online and whine "X is broken please nerf"?

[Anonymous No.4613884]

>>4613865
>Athenians

[Anonymous No.4613886]

>>4613883
You're not on /v/. No need to make such horrible bait.

>>4613884
Oh, my fuck up. Atlanteans.

[Anonymous No.4613887]

>>4613865
Playing AoE1 right now but what makes Carthaginian OP?

[Anonymous No.4613894]

>>4613887
Carthage is one of the shittiest. Along with China.

Sorry, it's been a while. I'll freely admit AoE1 is not my strong suit. The game has been very actively played by the Vietnamese to this day, however, and it proved just as lopsided as many other of my examples.

[Anonymous No.4613907]

>>4613894
I was gonna say cause their bonuses seem weak and they're missing a lot of techs/units, and I believe they were buffed in the DE too for what it's worth.

[Anonymous No.4613916]

>>4613907
Is it Aoe:DE any good? Should I buy this on Windows Store and should I just wait for the Steam version?

[Anonymous No.4613918]

If you like AoE1 then it's great. Pathfinding is still shit somehow but otherwise it's just an improved version of the game with some QoL changes and even a classic mode if you don't like the new graphics/audio.

[Anonymous No.4613919]

>>4613918
>>4613916

[Anonymous No.4614384]

>>4613883
He's right though; one of the handful of differences is that ogres have the extremely useful bloodlust and paladins have heal.

Because the factions are so near-identical, there's no room for some other factor to make up for it.

[Anonymous No.4614412]

>>4613856
There are self-balancing ways to design a game. Board game designer Donald X Vaccarino basically made his career on it. In Dominion, a random pool of cards might contain broken combos, but you share the same pool so it's fine. In Gauntlet Of Fools, you choose from a pool of potentially-overpowered heroes, but you bid on them by making them worse. You could simply copy Dominion and give both players the same randomly selected pool of units, and that'd be balanced and varied.

Even without going that far, I think some of the design decisions that started coming into vogue in the early 2000s made these games much harder to balance, specifically the trend towards rock paper scissors balance with swingy unit counters. In Brood War the units aren't actually that varied once you normalize for cost; almost all of the units fit on the same power per cost vs mobility spectrum and a lot of the counters are iffy at best.

[Anonymous No.4614423]

>>4613747
>People realized they were APM games, not strategy games. It had nothing to do with skills but with memory. Same as chess.
That's a mischaracterization of chess. There's memorization involved in openings obviously but most games go "off book" pretty quick. Positional evaluation and deep reading are just as important as memory.

[Anonymous No.4614462]

>>4609498
isn't it because gaming largely shifted to consoles, and also the playerbases for RTS got cannibalized by things like DotA?

[Anonymous No.4614526]

>>4614384
This, 9 ogres with bloodlust with BTFO 9 paladins healing, even with good micro on the human player's part.

[Anonymous No.4614614]

>>4611517
Warcraft 3 was pretty weird and it was successful

[Anonymous No.4614768]

Medieval RTS suck outside of total war and stronghold and playing them makes you dumber.

[Anonymous No.4614839]

>>4614768
>total war
>rts
I see you played a lot of those

[Anonymous No.4615024]

>>4614839
Yes because the battles are turn based you fucking idiot

[Anonymous No.4615039]

>>4615024
so you are saying you played every medieval RTS this much?
wow, quite an achievement

[Anonymous No.4615684]

>>4614768
Do you even Knights and Merchants?

[Anonymous No.4616424]

>>4609498
Netstorm needs a comeback

[Anonymous No.4616447]

>>4616424
forrrrrr THE WIND!

[Anonymous No.4616564]

>>4616424
Netstorm is great, too bad it finally died for good. They kept it alive for so long for it to end like that.

[Anonymous No.4616643]

>>4609498
If I told you you'd call me an Anti-semite.

[Anonymous No.4616648]

>>4609503
this is probaly bait, but AOE2 is the best RTS ever made and has more depth than SC ever will so get fucked

[Anonymous No.4616664]

>>4616648
>1 faction with 20 different versions is deeper than 3 factions

[Anonymous No.4616673]

Because they were less about strategy and more about memorizing

[Anonymous No.4616713]

>>4611439
company of heroes 2 is one of the better modern RTS's available, though it focuses on map control / CTF with limited small groups instead of overwhelming your opponent with unit spam

[Anonymous No.4616720]

>>4616643
This unironically

[Anonymous No.4616910]

>>4616664
This is a stupid way to judge depth. Go is deeper than Chess.

(Brood War is still better than AOE2.)

[Anonymous No.4617150]

>>4613575
Not that I know of. Only other RTS with a somewhat long timespan I can think of is Empire:Dawn of a New World that goes from Middle Ages to WWII.

[Anonymous No.4617179]

casuals can't into rts

how do you play warcraft on your smart toy? Ads are the content now

[Anonymous No.4617202]

>>4609498
Because ultimately the genre became not about strategy and planning and pvp multiplayer where all the best players and winners only won through superfast mouseclicking and memorising/spamming build orders. That demographic was later usurped by genres such as mobas which were more simple for the people who had earlier gotten off on playing starcraft and the likes

[Anonymous No.4617242]

>>4617202
>ultimately the genre became not about strategy

Ultimately became would imply something has changed when it has not.
All of those games were made as "super fast" games in mind from the first Warcraft up until the very last RTS to have come out in the /vr/ range.

What changed is that people stopped liking fast games. Just like Quake and UT fell out of favor because people wanted less "13-year old reaction time requiring, but brainedead shooters" and instead asked for slower, more methodic and tactical games. Which is why all the shooters nowadays have all the characters walking like someone carrying a sofa in comparison to the old FPS games.

[Anonymous No.4617357]

Why are there cheevos for 2,3,4 length runs? Does that mean after beating the 2nd island you can opt to go to the final boss island?

[Anonymous No.4617549]

>>4617242
>"13-year old reaction time requiring, but brainedead shooters" and instead asked for slower, more methodic and tactical games.

Counterstrike and CoD play very differently to Quake and UT, but they still hinge on reaction times, and there's nothing more 'methodic' or 'tactical' about them.

The primary difference between them and the arena shooters that came before them is the newbie/console favoring low move speed and hitscan weapons, and (equally newbie-favoring) the absense of powerups in the level make map knowledge and map control less of a factor.

These games beat out the arena shooter in part because of consoles, but mostly because they are simply easier for new players to get to grips with.

In UT and Quake, new players don't even know how to *move* properly, let alone land hits on fast-moving targets with relatively slow moving projectiles.

[Anonymous No.4617742]

>>4617549
>and there's nothing more 'methodic' or 'tactical' about them.

There is. CoD, BF and all of their ilk are first to hit is the first to win kind of games. If someone gets the drop on you, you are dead. And vice versa.
Landing a single shot in an old shooter initiates the engagement and you will still get your ass handled to you if you're simply not up to the level of play.
In the modern shooter, the fight is decided before it is engaged.

It's a tiny thing but it has a massive impact in the end. It's what people asked for, really. Your interpretation just leaves you with some Rainbow Six wannabe which no one would play or enjoy anyway except for a small handful, a niche.

[Anonymous No.4617775]

>>4609498
starcraft/broodwar wise, even back in the day most people were playing custom maps after getting their asses kicked and realizing they weren't willing to deal with enough frustration to get good. so yeah, now you have mobas.

[Anonymous No.4617804]

>>4609498
5vs5 >>>>>>> 1vs1

[Anonymous No.4617828]

>>4616664
Some elements of aoe2 are deeper than sc. First, maps. They always feature some random element and resources aren't always at the same place. Then you have maps with water and those without which changes gameplay drastically and the faction of choice.
Second, walls. They're a cheap anti-rush element.
Third, resources. You have 4. You just don't fart peasants and click on crystals or gas. You have to actually manage the ammount of peons you need gathering the kind of resources you want and then manage resource gathering buldings to optimize the distance your workers need to walk. Even stupid shit like hunting boars need proper micromanagement to not waste time.
Fourth, formations. You can switch formations on the go, they aren't just for flavour. Changing the formation of your army is the difference between an onager owning your army and being alive.

[Anonymous No.4619442]

>>4609865
>Everyone I knew who loved Age of Empires back in the day immediately switched over to Mount and Blade when they got the chance, they wanted a medieval game with tons of dudes with swords and horses running around. Or any science fiction game, or modern military game, or anything in general where you wanted huge battles. RTS games were the only ones that could do that since any first or third person game at the time would have strict technological limits, and today the technology caught up. Just look at the time period when RTS releases stopped being a big deal, mostly in the mid to late 2000s. The technology finally caught up to the point where you can have big battles with games like battlefield and battlefront.

This is the most retarded shit I have ever read.

Real time strategy games were never a fucking compromise, you dumb fuck.

[Anonymous No.4619859]

>>4610878
Never could win an online game eh?

[Anonymous No.4619862]

>>4616648
Except everyone has to use the same opening strats.

[Anonymous No.4619872]

Just jumping in here with a hot new opinion:

RTS could make a comeback if someone made a game in which a team of players manages a single faction. So you'd have a commander issuing general orders, managing resources and doing most of the macro stuff, while other players manage the micro with focus on tactical engagements and unit-level combat. So you'd get the best of both worlds, and you could greatly expand both aspects of macro and micro, since the players doing each thing would ONLY be doing that.

[Anonymous No.4619912]

Been flying over the thread, here's my conclusion.
I think it's basically two reasons:

1st: number of RTS players hasn't grown much since the 90's. The kind of person who plays RTS would have had a computer back in the 90s, or to put it the other way around, the people that have embraced pc gaming after the 90s and made it as huge as it is today are not the kind of people that play RTS.
Does that mean RTS have no market? No. They have the same sized market as back then. However, that's tiny compared to the yuge market in "normie"-tier pc vidya. So there's less incentive to make new RTS compared to more mainstream genres. Which brings me to

2nd: You'd have to top the best generation of RTS, which was the last wave of 2D isometric games. AOE2, RA2, so on. Even their 3D follow-ups didn't measure up, and the 2D ones, not the later games, are the most popular for multiplayer nowadays. If you don't improve over that bench mark, you won't reach the level of having a reasonably big multiplayer community.

>>4619872
FUND IT

[Anonymous No.4619915]

>>4611512
>Westwood didn't make an RTS game after TS
What?
>TS Firestorm
>Red Alert 2, arguably their best game
>Emperor: Battle for Dune
>Yuri's Revenge
EA had Westwood Employees on payroll making RTS games until Generals came out when literally the last man left
WW hit a stumbling block branching out with things like Renegade and E&B around the time of the takeover but being a one trick pony is fine and they were doing perfectly well with that trick
Ironically E&B was even very critically well-received, regardless of poor sales which were as much EA's fault as the publisher at that point anyway
The studio didn't deserve to get liquidated so unfairly.

Atrocities like C&C4 and similar general trampling of the Westwood legacy long after they'd been purged from development were what finally hammered the C&C nail into RTS' coffin.

[Anonymous No.4620051]

>>4619862
although age of empires lacks variation in openings the dynamics that happen mid-game are pretty great. and adaptive tactics are far more fun than executing canned strategies. brood war is still better though, in both respects.

[Anonymous No.4620157]

>>4619872
I've long dreamed of that.

There are board games that have something similar, such as this North Africa campaign game which is notoriously complex + takes ages to get into.

[Anonymous No.4620160]

>>4619915
>>4611512
>>4609950
What does everyone hate about Renegade? I thought it was fantastic. Way ahead of its time.

[Anonymous No.4620228]

>>4611439
I agree overall, but Company of Heroes is a top-tier game (especially with the Blitzkrieg mod). Even so, I guess Z was doing that style of capture-and-hold gameplay back in the '90s.
>>4613696
This. WarCraft III was a yuge disappointment in retrospect.
>>4616424
I remember seeing this one years ago, and it looked interesting.
>>4614768
You're retarded.
>>4620160
Have you played Renegade X? It's pretty good.

[Anonymous No.4621741]

does /vr/ ever play aoe2 now? I used to play with /v/ way back when but it's been ages

[Anonymous No.4622456]

>>4610136
Touhou is masochistic. It's not merely an arcade shooter (enjoyed by every pleb in the 70s/80s) but a "bullet hell" genre game.

[Anonymous No.4622945]

>>4619872
Natural Selection tried an RTS commander that commanded FPS players and it was lame. Maybe your version works though.

I don't know about reviving the RTS genre for regular players, but having a team setup is probably good for the esports side. Team sports are bigger than 1v1 sports in the west. Basketball is a bigger deal than tennis. (This seems to be spreading, too.)

[Anonymous No.4623021]

>>4622945
Wimbledon is more important than NBA.

[Anonymous No.4623241]

>>4623021
The world cup is more important than either.

[Anonymous No.4624057]

>>4619915
>Red Alert 2, arguably their best game

Red Alert 2 was made by a different company, not Westwood. Ditto for Yuri, obviously.
It was made by EALA, the people behind BFME, Generals or RA3.

>Emperor: Battle for Dune
Also not made by Westwood. This time, the game was subcontracted to a company called Intelligent Games.


Feel free to go back to /v/ or reddit or whatever "Look at me, I can pretend to be retarded and get away with it!" shithole you crawled out of.

>I-I'm not pretending! You're t-the one p-pretending, cucko-soyo-shillo-...
https://cnc-comm.com/westwood-studios
https://cncnz.com/features/developer-history/

So no. Westwood did not create a single RTS game under EA, minus Firestorm. Firestorm being a mere expansion pack, anyway.

[Anonymous No.4624514]

>>4609498
You can't sell exclusive shit to this kinda genre without imbalancing it horribly.
The inability to monetise it was it's death.

This is also the reason why MMOs are still made. A lot of them play like it was made from the early half of the last decade, yet they are still made. The prospect of monthly income is very mouth watering for some.

Also compare what Paradox is doing with their Grand Strategies and their endless DLCs.

[Anonymous No.4624801]

>>4613696
I never liked the hero-centric gameplay of WC3, it just added even more micromanagement to an already burdened game

[Anonymous No.4626002]

>>4624801
WC3 had a clear vision, though.
Like most 2000s RTS games, it saw the genre was dinosaur era dogshit when it came to actual game design.

Hence why they made changes like creeps to remove the lull and give something to fight over between the start of the game and 20 minutes later when you can actually take an engagement and decide the game.
Also added the upkeep to tell even the dumbest shits around that sitting in their base all game and building up an army is going to get them nowhere and is just annoying for the opponent.


Same as DoW (removes resource gatherers and instead forces you to fight for points on the map), AoM (can't build any TCs without captuning building sites), Generals (massive increase in the importance of garrisons and oil derricks), AoE3 (neutral treasures and trading posts), RoN (territory control through new cities),...

[Anonymous No.4626210]

>>4626002
I think the biggest problem it solved was in the campaign - previously they'd put named characters in missions and add "so-and-so must survive" to the mission objectives, resulting in the hero sitting on their thumbs hiding in base all game. WC3 added a standard respawn building, actual special hero abilities, and gameplay focused around named characters.

The actual multiplayer was iffy - turning your army into a resource-gathering tool means not using it to interact with your opponent. If they just wanted to get people out of their bases, C&C solved that from day one with its harvester mechanics.

[Anonymous No.4626576]

Is this RTS?

[Anonymous No.4626612]

>>4609498
Blizzard and ASSFAGGOTS killed the RTS genre.

Blizzard kills every genre they find success in. The espergs move in, suck all the air out of the room and they create to sensation that no other game in the genre matters. Be warned, it could even happen to FPS.

[Anonymous No.4627860]

>>4626612
It can't happen in FPSs, normies like Call of Duty too much.

[Anonymous No.4627861]

>>4611439
Relic made several RTSs with innovative gameplay: Homeworld and Dawn of War.

[Anonymous No.4628114]

>>4627861
Homeworld was different alright.
Homeworld devs left, however. Their replacements (DoW team) simply took the squads of Kohan and merged them with the territories of Z. That's all there is to DoW.
CoH was really the innovative one with the cover mechanics orientation.

[Anonymous No.4629478]

>>4628114
Kohan was a great game.

[Anonymous No.4629503]

>>4611432
I would have agreed with you but we have
Freedom fighters for xbox gamecube and ps2
Brothers in arms
And the kingdom under fire series.


Rts died becuase stupid faggots cant seem to apply the rts model to anything other than a fucking war game.

I have a few ideas but ni coding or development skills.

[Anonymous No.4629594]

>>4626612

[Anonymous No.4631039]

>>4619872
That kinda already existed, but it is obscure

Starcraft Brood War 'Team melee' mode was/is like this. Starcraft 2 did something alike with 'Archon Mode'
Age of Empires 2, two players can go on the same colour and control the same units, shit is wicked I admit

[Anonymous No.4631473]

>>4611767

Achron has an engine that ACTUALLY IMPLEMENTS TIME TRAVEL. Its graphics suck yes, but that's hardly the point of it. It's an amazing achievement.

(But yeah, like the other person was saying, it only worked well as a proof of concept, not as a full, finished, playable game.)

[Anonymous No.4631947]

>>4631039
It was a failry standard feature for a time.
Got dropped because no one really used it.

[Anonymous No.4632193]

>>4631947
Was it? I remember it only in a few games

[Anonymous No.4633238]

>>4609498
play openra it is a great RTS
www.openra.net

[Anonymous No.4634787]

>>4631947
I used it a lot. It's an excellent feature. Good way to balance out the playing field at LAN parties if player skill isn't equal, or you have an odd man out.

[Anonymous No.4634927]

>>4632193
AoE had it from the first game at least until AoM.
It was big enough for Blizzard to take note and implement it into BW and WC3 in at least some form.

The issue is that most games don't really have enough going on to warrant two people managing it at the same time. So it's one guy playing and the other being bored. Let alone with 3 or more people.

Hence why you see it later restricted to unit and resource sharing. There's always as many races to manage as there are players, hence everyone gets their share of doing something "fun" all the time.

[Anonymous No.4634952]

>>4634927
Give or take it's usually player one that builds the base and manages the economy while player two scouts and takes care of army micro, with either occasionally making other requests of the other. So like providing they're remotely on the same sort of wavelength it's the best way for normie casuals to match up against gooks.

[Anonymous No.4634973]

>>4634952
It's about as efficient or functional like the good old "I steer, you shoot" sibling co-op.

[Anonymous No.4635213]

>>4634973
If "I steer, you shoot" was a completely viable strategy for actual military hardware it can work for siblings as well.

[Anonymous No.4635289]

>>4634973
This. It's fun having to split armies and see which pairs can function together best.

[Anonymous No.4635574]

>>4609498
RTS is difficult so modern casuals cant really get into it

[Anonymous No.4636646]

>>4609503
FPBP

[Anonymous No.4636681]

rts games just feel stressful and chore like

[Anonymous No.4636689]

>>4635574
Casual is a design style, not a difficulty setting. Do you even game, faggot?

[Anonymous No.4636910]

>>4624057
Are you high? Red Alert 2 was Westwood's Swan Song. If only I could get campaign working on my comp with cutscenes (cncnet has the multi covered).

[Anonymous No.4636926]

>>4635574
Fighting games are also. In fact, they are even more difficult to start with.
A simple rush will net you hundreds of victories against unprepared players.
There is no such technique in fighting games. Even a button-masher will wipe the floor with you unless you really get the basics down properly.

And yet, fighting games are doing just fine with the more brand-recognition based ones easily outselling SC2, the best selling RTS game ever made.

[Anonymous No.4636927]

>>4636910
Sources are right there, you imbecile.
Westwood had fuck all to do with Red Alert 2 outside of it using their engine and lending over Frank Klepacki to do the BGM.

[Anonymous No.4637075]

>>4636910
EA got Virgin's Irvine based development studio with the purchase of Westwood (Las Vegas). They renamed the Virgin studio Westwood Pacific, who then made Red Alert 2.

Tiberian Sun was the last RTS the actual Westwood Studios (Las Vegas), after which they moved to develop Renegade while the Virgin studio worked on Red Alert 2.

It's all common knowledge.

[Anonymous No.4637390]

>>4636926
This is false. Button mashers beat other people who don't know how to play, such as a rush will stomp people who don't know how to play. A good rush will fuck over good players, as well good rushdown.

[Anonymous No.4637393]

>>4637390
>Button mashers beat other people who don't know how to play

Everyone who doesn't know how to play resorts to button mashing is the thing.
Button mashing is the "slowly building up your base and army" default of the fighting game world.

[Anonymous No.4637407]

>>4637393
I know people who can't play button mash. My point is it only fucks up other people who can't play.

[Anonymous No.4637416]

>>4622456
wrong and he's right, touhou may look hard to you but take it from a long time stg player for the most part they are far easier than arcade with exception to a couple lunatic modes, more bullets does not mean harder game at all.

[Anonymous No.4637506]

>>4609521
WC3 was a trash RTS, and Warcraft deserved everything that WoW has done to it.

[Anonymous No.4637507]

Girls give in the ass in your city! On our website --> girlsx.ga

[Anonymous No.4637510]

>all these people talking about great RTS design and no one is talking about Kohan
The genre died because people kept making good RTSs that no one bought.

[Anonymous No.4637549]

>Play RTS
>S isn't Stop
>H isn't Hold position

[Anonymous No.4637578]

>>4609498
Literally because RTS entire gimmick is gathering resources, build orders, actions per minute and maximizing efficiency and there are other genres that scratch those itches just as well or better. Not to mention that some of the most popular RTS games all had strong story driven elements and were praised for their campaigns, which is just not as easy to replicate.

[Anonymous No.4637930]

What do you think of warzone2100? It's open source, with a giant tech tree and customizable units
Relatively fast paced, had great fun in lan games with friends

[Anonymous No.4638240]

>>4637510
Kohan is bae

[Anonymous No.4638308]

there are 7.3k people playing AOEII right now and its almost 4am in America

[Anonymous No.4638372]

>>4638308
You know the primary markets for RTS games are Germany, Russia, rest of Europe, US, Asia. In a descending order, of course.

[Anonymous No.4638380]

>>4638372
Even Korea?

[Anonymous No.4638384]

>>4638380
Korea is not an RTS market.
Their PC bangs all ran pirate copies of Brood War (they're PC bangs, you're on /vr/ so you know what those places are). And once you exclude Brood War, there's no RTS to have sold any big number of copies aside from SC2 (lukewarm at best, Koreans didn't play the game for like half of its lifetime) and SC:R (which has like... 40k sales over there).

CS1.6 is extremely popular in Russia, but Russia did not make Valve into millionaires buying millions of Half Life copies to play it.
Same with DotA-WC3 and China+Russia.
Korea is in the same ballpark. They're well known for playing the shit out of the game, not buying it.

[Anonymous No.4639183]

>>4609498
>what happened to all of them?
Before you all tell me to go step on a lego, SC is one of my favorite games of all time, and I love WC and AoE as well.

RTS as a genre has fundamental problems.

1. Repetition
Building the same base over and over and over is dull. In other genres I enjoy building cozy bases, but in an RTS I know that whatever I build will be gone in +/- 20 minutes because the level/match/chapter/whatever will be over.

2. Sun Tzu vs. Rambo
The S in RTS makes it seem like these games are meant for the sort of person who wants to be like Sun Tzu. Maneuvers, spoiling attacks, envelopments, fighting retreats, and consolidations. The actual mechanics however seem to pander to the Rambo crowd. Show up to a fight outmanned and outgunned; but win anyway because you can click things really fast. But most of the Rambo crowd isn't interested in playing an RTS because they have a different genre that is much better at fulfilling their desires (first/third person shooters). Furthermore; the Sun Tzu crowd will find their needs from turn-based-tactics/strategy games much better than RTS.

3. Reliance on story, in an era where nobody knows how to write.
>"I killed him. My pride killed him."
I still get shivers when I think about that cinematic. I can quote much of the dialogue from SC+BW from memory, despite not having played it in years. I can only remember 4 lines of dialogue from SCII+HotS (I haven't bothered playing the other expansion).

[Anonymous No.4639192]

>>4609498
because you keep whining and not playing the rts that are coming out, because they "don't cater to your ho so superior tastes".

[Anonymous No.4639204]

>>4639183
>Wants to be like Sun Tzu.
>All fancy shit all the time.

You know the "Rambo crowd" is the one sticking to Sun Tzu's principles, right?
People who want the game to make them feel smart are doing dumb shit all the time. People who don't are the smart ones around.

[Anonymous No.4639237]

>>4639204
>People who want the game to make them feel smart are doing dumb shit all the time. People who don't are the smart ones around.
I can only speak for myself, but I don't play games to make myself feel smart (or dumb).

[Anonymous No.4639254]

>>4639183
>Show up to a fight outmanned and outgunned; but win anyway because you can click things really fast

What are some examples of a situation where a player with inferior units and inferior numbers wins because he's clicking faster?

[Anonymous No.4639258]

>>4639254
>clicking faster?
I mean better micro.

[Anonymous No.4639298]

>>4619915
>2004
>2003
>2004
>2004
>2004

WTF happened that year?