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I loved the old Blizzard RTSs as a kid. I think it was SC2: Heart of the Swarm when I got a bunch of coworkers to get the game and we played together quite a bit over a month. But it reached a point where I could take them all 4v1 (we only did that once though, I didn't want to scare them off or be a gloating asshole) and win without really breaking a sweat. I learned my build orders and my keyboard shortcuts.
I could not for the life of me break out of bronze in multiplayer.
A couple years later one of my best friends was talking shit about whooping me in SC1, and I destroyed him. But that game gave me some ideas.
I think people really enjoy the base building aspect, like all of my friends treated building bases on some level as being like Sim City.
And back in the SC1 days, battle.net was rife with "No Rush" games where you build yourself up for whatever agreed upon time limit and then go at it. Games would often be labeled as NR15 or NR20, for example.
I think one possible resolution for increasing the popularity of RTS is to take a hybrid real time approach. You can build and do things in real time, but under the hood battles and the economy operate in discrete chunks of at least several seconds. You can do something similar to Sim City where every minute or two or whatever, you get all your resources to spend, and can then spend the rest of the time focusing elsewhere.
You can make a Base Building RTS where No Rush rules are baked into the game.
There is room for RTS games to be chill and more relaxed, as opposed to the game long manic feeling that you can never do anything fast enough, and that I think is the avenue to giving RTSs some mainstream limelight.
I think one possible resolution for increasing the popularity of RTS is to take a hybrid real time approach. You can build and do things in real time, but under the hood battles and the economy operate in discrete chunks of at least several seconds.
Come to think of it, I saw two approaches that were similar to this before:
- In Frozen Synapse, you plan your turn, eventually commit it, then it plays out at the same time as the enemy planned turn. You can even move enemy units while planning to simulate possible movements and attacks they might make.
- In the fourth Battle Isle game, Battle Isle The Andosia War, you did your strategic turns with your units, then in real-time as everyone else did those turns, built your production base and produced units. So the longer you take for your strategic turn, the more time everyone else gets to work on their economy.
@Carighan @anewdaydawns Another fundamental aspect is that RTS is PC centric genre, and therefore made with a mouse and keyboard only mindset, ignoring the consoles fan base, as such, If we want it to become more popular, then we should ask ourselves what kind of RTS can be designed with a controller in mind, and therefore work on home consoles, find a balance of being appealing to them without straying too far from the core design principles of this genre
I thought Frozen Synapse's ability to let you simulate your opponent's moves was super cool - surprised I didn't end up seeing it in more strategy games (obviously not so much applicable to the normal real-time stuff though!).
I think people really enjoy the base building aspect, like all of my friends treated building bases on some level as being like Sim City.
Actually true
When I first tried out StarCraft as a kid, I didn't even care about all that battle thing; I just liked seeing buildings go upLove this idea. But being as shit as I am, I think I'll just lose 1 minute after no rush ends.
Do you know if anyone ever plays those defence games? I remember playing a bunch of really fun custom scenario games multiplayer.
You nailed it for me. I didn't know I was feeling this, but I was feeling this. I mostly enjoy the base building.
Well and I also enjoy the old graphics of games of that time.