RTS: a dying genre?

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by felix

They have a singleplayer. Now, what exactly do you define as a (good) singleplayer is another matter.

Something with a story, characters, something to make me care about the world. The Command and Conquer line and Warcraft 3, for example.

[FRS]

Originally Posted by Keroko

Unfortunately, I share synaesthetic's tastes in that I like my games to have a fun singleplayer as well, so those titles never managed to catch me.

Then sadly i dont know any game on the market that could satisfy your craving

[Skane]

First PC game I ever played was the original C&C. There was just something... fun about building up an army and leading it to victory. Since then, I went on to play tonnes of RTSes and other genres, but RTSes have always held a soft spot in me.

Almost everybody has played classics like C&C, Dune, Total Annihilation, Warcraft, Starcraft, etc... but I have also played eccentric ones like... Tribal Rage.

Back then, most of the fun was in finding out what the "unstoppable combination" was, and ruthlessly abusing it to curbstomp your way to victory. Nowaways, with less time to burn on experimentation, I have come to appreciative a more... cinematic approach to the genre.

Homeworld was probably the turning point for me. I mean sure... I did abuse salvage and assimilated a fleet of 128 Ion Frigates to form the cheesy sphere of ionic doom (the mission starts were also hilarious, because the ships form up in a straight line from the mothership, and with 128 Ion Frigates, that's a very, VERY long line).

What Homeworld showed me was that a game could be a compelling interactive story medium from a 3rd-person perspective. Unlike RPGs where YOU get to shape the protagonist, RTSes normally place you as the nameless, faceless, voiceless, "commander", because the story is not about you, but about them.

Homeworld's narrative was hauntingly beautiful, and made events epic not through explosions, but through plot. It was kinda like "ET Goes Home"... In Space... with Dreadnaughts. By the last mission, I actually cared about my units, and even losing a fighter caused distress.

That said, this only applies to Single-player.

Multiplayer is cutt-throat, and requires a cold calculative mind.

Starcraft II aside(since the trilogy is not complete yet), the best RTS I have played recently in terms of story has to be the Dawn of War series.

Spoiler for Dawn of War Retribution Ending:

Cheers.

[Pocari_Sweat]

Originally Posted by Skane

Starcraft II aside(since the trilogy is not complete yet), the best RTS I have played recently in terms of story has to be the Dawn of War series.

Agree. Too bad that though every expansion pack Relic decides to put out (be it Company of Heroes or Dawn of War I or II), it destroys game balance more and more. Only the vanilla versions of each CoH, DoW or DoWII is somewhat balanced

[Spartanz1170]

I wouldn't say it was dying but I would say it's entering a low point in terms of interest in the Genre

[RRW]

Originally Posted by Keroko

Something with a story, characters, something to make me care about the world. The Command and Conquer line and Warcraft 3, for example.

world in conflict?

[Keroko]

Not exactly a lot of base-building in World in Conflict to build my fortress-o-doom.

[Pocari_Sweat]

Originally Posted by RRW

world in conflict?

World in Conflict was pretty good, though I would classify it as a real-time-tactic (RTT) rather than a real-time-strategy (RTS). Multi-player was pretty fun too but servers became dead after a while which was why I stopped playing. Never tried out the Soviet assault expansion though.

I remember some abilities such as Heavy Artillery Bombardment being a bit overpowered for their price . And playing as infantry sucked balls, particularly if your team plays as the attacker first because building thats the attacker destroys stay destroyed when your team plays as the defender. No idea why they did that .

[TCman]

No way, RTS games aren't dying. Okay, the genre is neglected by major games publishers in times where console gaming has become so huge that it overshadows PC gaming that much, many traditional; do not forget that console games developers were PC games developers in the past. Also RTS games on consoles with gamepads just won't work as great as on the PC platform, they tried it in this generation with Red Alert 3, Halo Wars etc. on the Xbox 360, but they aren't gonna work. And the focus has been on the FPS games because the success of the COD games, especially when these games made and still makes big money for publishers.

I think the RTS games will survive, lets say, when WarCraft 4 is announced in the future, but first Blizzard need to finish StarCraft first, while Diablo 3 needs to be released too, right? And I think with the introduction of the Sony's move and MS' Kinect the RTS games can have a bigger chance of success on the consoles than using dual analog gamepads, although people in the industry could have release special controllers (for e.g. shortcut keys) for RTS games for the consoles. If they could do that for Guitar Hero, Rock Band, DJ Hero, Wii Fit and even Tony Hawk Skate Boarding games, then why not for RTS games. And Valve is releasing Defense of the Ancients 2 (no release date yet?), I could only think this is gonna be another big success after Left4Dead and Portal 2.

[RRW]

Originally Posted by acejem

World in Conflict was pretty good, though I would classify it as a real-time-tactic (RTT) rather than a real-time-strategy (RTS). Multi-player was pretty fun too but servers became dead after a while which was why I stopped playing. Never tried out the Soviet assault expansion though.

I remember some abilities such as Heavy Artillery Bombardment being a bit overpowered for their price . And playing as infantry sucked balls, particularly if your team plays as the attacker first because building thats the attacker destroys stay destroyed when your team plays as the defender. No idea why they did that .

infantry is my favorite division. put behind enemy line. cover on the wood. kill very single tank you meet XD. alternatively call artillery

@Keroko

i forgot about stronghold. ever try those? they more emphasis on base (or you should say it castle) building and economy compare to most RTS. turtle like you will love how big is you castle can be

just pick Stronghold Crusader one (not extreme). rest i suck IMO

[Skyfall]

Tsk tsk, one does not build a massive fortress in Stronghold. What needs to be built is a massive, impregnable .. *drumroll* ... wall!!

Building castles in Stronghold indeed was always fun, but in terms of efficiency and allowing you to protect your whole part of the map at once ... One Wall To Rule Them All!

[Bonta Kun]

We need a new Battlezone game, I loved the 1998 remake, it was immense fun!

Your happly making your base then you decided to check your map only to find a mass or units on it's way!
What you do, bolster your defense or jump in your tank and chrage out to meet them!

Ejecting from your tank at the last moment before it blew up!

Sniping the pilot of a enemy vehicle, then hijack it and take it for a spin!

There was a great mission where you had to stop enemy forces moving through a area.
You put up your defenses at different choke points but since you could only build so much you had to really think about it.
Then when the forces rolled through, you would have to jump into a tank or whatever and help out moving from point to point.
Stuff like that you just don't see now.

Loved the way this game worked, sure it wasn't perfect but was truly brilliant!

RTS/FPS is sorely underrated and Battlezone was one of the best.

With todays tech I'd love to see what they could do.

There was also that oddly odd game with robots, I think red and blue was it?
Can't mind the name, I remember playing that, was pretty good fun.

I don't see RTS dying but I've been worrying about my point and click adventure games for years now.
We still get some titles here and there but too far and few.
I'm glad we got the Monkey Island revival but still not enough.

[Firefly00]

Originally Posted by Bonta Kun

We need a new Battlezone game, I loved the 1998 remake, it was immense fun!

Hell Yes. It is a source of continuing disappointment that Activision seems to have forgotten all about it.

Sniping the pilot of a enemy vehicle, then hijack it and take it for a spin!

Jarmen Kell, eat your heart out. This is, by the way, actually required in one of the NSDF missions... and in the very next outing, this can get you free artillery if you're quick.

Another nice touch was loadout customizability. Especially in the arena setups, one would be foolish to assume that any given vehicle would have its stock arsenal for long...

[Jaden]

Ooh I've played a lot of RTS. It's certainly not a dying genre - I think the turn-based strategy genre is rather the one getting more obscure.

My favourite game was Age of Empires 2. The campaigns and the AI were strictly average stuff. But it was the first multiplayer game I've played and the game that I have the most hours played on. There was no matchmaking and only a portion of the playerbase enjoyed broadband connections at the time. I tower rushed every game and disconnected whenever losing a rated game. And it was the best thing ever.

I moved on to Warcraft 3 eventually. You couldn't really cheese in that game the way you could in AoE, so I had to actually start playing properly, and only then found out the full extent of how exhilerating RTS can be. I also played Myth 2, and Red Alert 1 and 2 quite a bit. These days it's just Starcraft 2.

I'm so stuck in my ways I could never get into the more innovative RTS. Dawn of War feels too straight forward and more of a spectacle war game than a strategy game. Homeworld is cool but the gameplay goes way over my head. Total War I never had a good enough computer for. Has anyone else even played Perimeter? That's the weirdest RTS I've ever played. I kind of liked it too, but it never had a community outside of Russia.

Age of Empires Online seems like an interesting experiment - free to play (with premium boons) MMORTS. As long as it retains the good skirmish gameplay of the series I might enjoy it.

[Pocari_Sweat]

Battlezone was awesome. One of my favourite games of all time actually. It's a very rare breed of hybrid FPS/RTS (RTT) indeed. Not sure if there's anything similar to that.

[Decagon]

Battlezone was great, but didn't they kill the series at the end of 2? Also, the RTS aspect of it wasn't that well integrated imo. In the end you'd end up doing everything yourself.

I also loved TA and Homeworld. TA was my first RTS and I loved it much more than Warcraft 2 or Starcraft. Homeworld was incredible with its modability too--loved the point defense mod and other tweaks that came out for 2, but the single player campaign was kind of bland.

[erneiz_hyde]

Originally Posted by Jaden

Ooh I've played a lot of RTS. It's certainly not a dying genre - I think the turn-based strategy genre is rather the one getting more obscure.

Huh, now that you mention it, I think this is true. The last one out I can remember is Civilization. But at least I have my RoTK. Oh, can Heroes of Might & Magic be included in this?

I'm so stuck in my ways I could never get into the more innovative RTS.

Innovative is good but it kills the genre when they decided to strip the resource managing element out of play (CnC4 is the extreme epitome of this). DoW was a decent RTS but DoWII's less of an RTS than its predecessor.

Warcraft 3 was the first time I ever heard of and employ micromanagement (though I'm by no means an expert). I think micro is the dividing line between players. Players with better micro ability will win. But that's in multi. I am more of an SP RTS player myself.

Tsk tsk, one does not build a massive fortress in Stronghold. What needs to be built is a massive, impregnable .. *drumroll* ... wall!!

Building castles in Stronghold indeed was always fun, but in terms of efficiency and allowing you to protect your whole part of the map at once ... One Wall To Rule Them All!

Stronghold Crusaders was a great game, though Stronghold 2 was crap.

[Drake]

I'm I the only one old enough to remember how awesome Sudden strike was...

I feel so old =<

[RRW]

Originally Posted by erneiz_hyde

Stronghold Crusaders was a great game, though Stronghold 2 was crap.

indeed, disappointed with the second one. hopefully third one will be good because they say it will closer to the original instead the second one

[Kafriel]

Huh, now that you mention it, I think this is true. The last one out I can remember is Civilization.

Last one I remember is Disciples III, wouldn't call it old though. Lots of fun too, although the game doesn't encourage using more than two leaders per tribe...insane costs
There's also Heroes of might and magic 6, to be released in September.