Beyond All Reason (open source with FOSS engine), Stormgate (proprietary but made by ex-SC2 devs) are separate attempts at what I would call innovating the RTS genre.
AoE2 DE by Microsoft is tried, true and super popular still but many aspects are still from the original game 20 years ago. AoE 4 seems to kind of be the attempt at improving the formula, seems okay.
The Starcraft 2 engine is amazing but now under Microsoft ownership, I was hopeful initially but it looks as though it will continue to be left to rot. If only they could give it a Halo makeover using the same engine that would be awesome.
As someone who loved sc2 and had high hopes for Stormgate, it’s pretty hot garbage in its current state. Micro-transaction central before it’s even in a close to finished state.
Micro-transaction central before it’s even in a close to finished state.
10 Euro for 3 missions isn’t even a micro-transaction. If one mission was 1 Euro, we’d ad least get full campaign for regular price but that shit’s just a lazy ripoff.
How is Stormgate innovating? Genuine question–I’ve been avoiding it largely because it looks so much like StarCraft (and Pottinger even calls it out specifically in the article as something not innovative).
Hey you bring up a good point. I consider it innovative because they are trying to develop a non-Microsoft owned IP story/lore behind the Stormgate characters, even if in terms of game mechanics they are trying to achieve “Starcraft 2 with a new coat of paint and business model”.
If they pull off what they are promising, it could be interesting, but it doesn’t look like that will happen.
At best it did a good job with the quick macro system. It’s a good way to allow players to have better macro without hurting the skill ceiling for pros.
I don’t know what you mean, do you mean the advanced layer on holding space? Sc2 also has that for building, and it makes the game significantly more ergonomic, the new ui makes it a lot more clear too.
i had a few people who have never played rts play it and nobody had a problem with that.
It’s been a while since I played but from what I remember build/train/upgrade command each had a second page you had to tab to, so some things took 3 buttons instead of 2. This felt really awkward instead of having dedicated basic/advanced buttons.
it’s a hold space for advanced, too, so it’s at most two buttons at the same time, plus you can see both pages, so it massively improves ergonomics and doesn’t really matter in terms of intuitiveness.
i’ve played with 3 people who have never played an rts and they had no problems with this, and they reported having a great time, and two that are diamond sc2 players who also didn’t have a problem with it.
there is a setting for accessibility to make it a toggle instead of a hold that might’ve been enabled for you, I can see how it would be a problem then, but that’s off by default and only really for the disabled.
I thought everything just went to the 4x formula and/or the micro/hero focused route. I actually wish there were more simplistic Warcraft 1/2 or C&C type games to come out, but I’ll admit I haven’t paid much attention to the genre for awhile, pretty much since StarCraft 2.
I actually wish there were more simplistic Warcraft 1/2 or C&C type games to come out
So do I. There are a few but these are indie projects and in turn their scope is smaller than even those 1990s games. I guess the closest thing is Five Nations which is currently on sale on Steam for under 10 Euro. It’s like a slice of Starcraft 1 where they have taken only the missions with just flying units. At that price point I cannot complain but I’d also like a full price scifi RTS. Not a fan of AoE4 simply because of its “realistic” backdrop. I’m rooting for Tempest Rising after Stormgate was a severe let down.
Why are we getting remasters for games that already look great on PS5? There are plenty of games that could actually use the touch up, and don’t run natively on current-gen at all.
It feels like Sony is sitting on a goddamn gold mine.
This is why RTS shouldn’t focus on the PvP portion of the game. A good campaign and arcade is what Blizzard did and it worked. The greatest thing Blizzard ever ever did was to add in the custom map creator which was fully featured.
They’re working on that, too. It went from preproduction to full development about 2 years ago. It is likely to be released next year, according to some sources that were also completely accurate about the Oblivion remake rumors.
Devs or more specifically the parasitic executives who want nothing that a money machine look no further than Factorio as a shining example of how to innovate a gaming experience and genre. It is as easy or difficult and as simple or complicated as the player wants it to be and it’s not because difficultly settings. Your playstyle is the difficulty setting and it feels like there is ALWAYS something new to do, or a wildly different ways to do the same things. Also, their mod support and integration is unparalleled as far as any other game that comes to mind. No micro transactions, no ads, just an excellent game and experience. Sure, Factorio isn’t for everyone but the way it has been build, supported and all of those other elements that make it what it is beyond the core factory building sim ARE FOR EVERYONE. These aspects can be applied to other RTS games in general and can make it feel like a brand new experience while still being exactly what draws players into a specific RTS game.
Part of the issue is that AAA still hasn’t learned how to manage and produce passion projects, which most great games are. They keep wanting to use what’s working elsewhere with no regard for what makes sense in their own game.
Yeah really. They should be more like campuses funding a hundred small teams each trying to make something they’re individually passionate about. Hell, even give them the IPs to play with and see what they come up with.
I’m confused, isn’t this already available on PC and PS5? Why does it need to be remastered? I thought remastering a game meant making it work on a new platform.
A “remaster” is traditionally more focused on a rerelease with improved graphic fidelity - details, resolution, possibly lower-effort improvements to models and geometry, but basically the same game, slightly modernised with better modern compatibility.
A “remake” would be a complete overhaul of the modelling, QoL improvements, or reimagining some systems potentially including game engine. Eg, the FF7 remake.
I wish Valve had some sort of monetary incentive to fix this. If this happened to the cash cow that is Counter Strike this would have been fixed already. It’s sad to see this going on especially with the resurgence TF2 has been having lately.
And yet they really don’t do anything about it, I have yet to see evidence that they engage in the cat and mouse game. A lot of cheaters have full inventories of skins and have been cheating for many years at this point with the same cheats
If you don’t think Valve is banning anyone from their games then I invite you to take a trip to the VAC steam forums and see all the posts from people proclaiming their innocence and complaining about their ban. Always a good time.
I didn’t say they weren’t banning people, I said they aren’t really playing the cat and mouse game. VAC is a known system and it doesn’t actually affect cheating in any meaningful way since the game is free, steam accounts are easy to create, and time between VAC waves is extremely long.
Go play a few matches of CS2 on competitive without buying the premier and tell me that they’re doing anything at all that is effective. It’s gotten so bad that playing on non-premier games I will get a cheater in the lobby about 75% of the time. And premier isn’t immune but it’s about 20% of the time.
Most of what needs to be done is that their servers need to clean up and stop sending so much data to the client and also the servers need anti-cheat. There’s been some suggestions of this by people getting banned for moving their mouse to fast repeatedly, but that’s about all they’ve done of note.
If you think that the company who has almost entirely abandoned TF2 and left it to rot to cheaters is doing much with CS, I think that’d be a bad assumption.
People are being harassed and doxed by a group of people that have turned one of their most popular games into a fucking cesspool. They need to either throw in the towel and drop support for TF2 or wage war on these losers.
Hire a dedicated team, involve the police, I don’t fucking know. The current state of TF2 is an absolute disgrace, it’s fucking pathetic.
Up until they release the intellectual property into the public domain, alongside the source code and hosting tools.
Corporations are not to be trusted to maintain and preserve our culture. They have enthusiasticly proven again and again they are irresponsible and cannot handle this task.
That's precisely the problem; they continue to support the game, in the state that it's in. Honestly, an appropriate move would be for them to officially discontinue support for the game altogether (even if that means not having a new IP to replace it with). This means turning off their official servers, and removing the ability to buy/sell inventory items on the Steam Marketplace.
Right now, Valve allows people to sell items for real money (which they take a cut from) in a game that is overrun by bots. They need to either fix the bot problem, or stop taking people's money.
The fact that they’re letting this shit happen to one of their own communities is extremely disappointing. They should take it personally that some a group of people are using their game as a tool to harass people, but they don’t give a fuck.
I have lost so much respect for Valve over their handling of TF2. I’ve gone from a fanboy to a hater.
Happens with any industry that gets big, I think. More profits=more suits/vampires coming in and replacing artists/scientists or whoever is more qualified to make key decisions.
This won't stop unless infinite wealth hoarding is tackled by governments, if ever.
You’re not wrong. I still remember the day I picked up a newspaper and saw the headline “video games earn more than movies for the first time ever,” and I immediately knew where the industry was headed. In retrospect, I was 100% correct.
Happened even with Boeing. I think it should be illegal for anyone with an MBA to be CEO or CTO of any company. They can be CFO if they want to, but not any role with actual decision power over products.
That kinda reminds of something. Earlier this summer I had to go out of town and stay in a hotel for work. The hotel lobby had this decorative box with lights in it, but it also had these fake river stones or whatever to look like pieces of colored glass. But they all had the same shape, which was unique enough that at first glance every piece looked totally different.
They lost me when they released Fallout 76 prematurely and refused to honor my refund request. I’m glad I bought it direct rather than through Steam, I charged that shit back and swore them off right then.
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