EndWar. truly the future of RTS games?

[mintsauce]

I'm not that keen on RTS games to begin with, but I thought the Endwar demo was terrible. Great presentation, and the voice recognition was surprisingly well executed, but overall I found it horrible to play, simply because of how it locks onto one unit and doesn't allow you to move freely around the map.

I managed to do the first story mission, but when I tried a skirmish I found that I couldn't concentrate, couldn't control things the way I wanted, and ended up just turning it off after 15 minutes. With so much else to play at the moment I can't be bothered with overcoming that frustration.

 

[zirnitra]

Having played the Endwar beta (but not the demo actually) I can say that the voice control thing isn't really that great. Yeah, its cool, both in how it sounds and feels, but I (and my friend) found that it's actually harder to use voice control than just clicking. I think its because it's harder and more complex to figure out what you want to do, think of the correct wording for which units to do what, put it all together, and then say it. We both found ourselves being more on edge and concentrated in what we were doing, and it became a lot less comfortable than relaxing and mindlessly clicking on a unit and then on a point of the map. I often found myself wanting to simply click a damn button instead of forming the verbal orders.

I'm not saying it isn't/won't be fun, but there's still a place for conventional clicking in RTS games.

Isen't that the sort of whole point in it though? striving for realism rather than fun as is the Tom Clancy way.

 

[AntiAntagonist]

Played the demo. The voice command is a little confusing at first, but it's like learning the basics of a new language (ie: subject-object-verb, subject-verb-object, etc).

EndWar's commands are all subject-verb-object (basically). "Unit 5-Attack-Hostile 3" "Unit 6-Secure-Sierra"

The commands are really great for general orders. Since there is no mouse and keyboard the function works well for large tactics. Whereas when you have a certain unit selected you simply click "A" to send them to the reticule.

If I feel like digging in then I might micro by switching to a high camera (or camera on helicopters), then select and move units around till I have a good defense.

For people new to the game REMEMBER that the unit with the camera on it ISN'T always the unit selected.


My one gripe from the demo is that artillery's range sucks. In various vids the artillery would hit things half way across the map, but the demo's has a range of 1/4 to 1/8.

 

[Zemalac]

As long as it can understand me roaring "KILL THEM ALL" into the mike, I'll be fine.

 

[Jursa]

When amassing armies and telling them: build build build attack, that should be fun, however RTS is very often about special placement and careful movement. And will your squads easily tell the difference between a calm - "attack defenceless enemy" and a frantic "Get the hell out of there you morons". I really fail to see the point too, it should have a similar feeling as giving an rpg voice control: swing, swing, swing, swing, cast, swing, swing *deep breath* swing, loot, get on mount, run away. Multitasking will be hard as hell unless you talk with the speed of a hyperactive 5 year old on caffeine.

 

[Zrahni]

um...not to be a fanboy or anything, but Starcraft is the end-all be-all of RTS games.

So why are they making a part 2?

Cos the first Starcraft graphics suck compared to Command and Conquer 3.

 

[thecritic09]

When amassing armies and telling them: build build build attack, that should be fun, however RTS is very often about special placement and careful movement. And will your squads easily tell the difference between a calm - "attack defenceless enemy" and a frantic "Get the hell out of there you morons". I really fail to see the point too, it should have a similar feeling as giving an rpg voice control: swing, swing, swing, swing, cast, swing, swing *deep breath* swing, loot, get on mount, run away. Multitasking will be hard as hell unless you talk with the speed of a hyperactive 5 year old on caffeine.

Its really not that hard actually. You get used to the voice controls usually after your first skirmish, which I recommend to get used to the interface. After that, it all comes second nature, like Unit 3 Attack Hostile 3, or Deploy Unit Riflemen. Also, in order to get the smoothest play possible, use the voice calibrator in the game so it will get used to your voice, and react with it well.

 

[CmdrGoob]

Thinking about it, I'm pretty sure this is more of a gimmick than actually useful. Firing up my last Company of Heroes game in CoH replay analyser, I play at 40-50 commands per minute (CPM not APM) for almost the entire 20 minute game, with a spike of up to 90 commands per minute. Trying to say a command every 1.2 to 1.5 seconds for the whole game would be incredibly tiring on the voice if not impossible to maintain and spiking to a command every 0.67 seconds is definitely impossible, and I'm not even that great and CoH isn't even that micro intensive.

Not to mention the speed (latency wise) of saying, say, "Unit 2, retreat" is way, way slower than hitting 2T.

Since even I am doing better with the mouse and keyboard than would be possible with voice commands alone, so I really don't think voice commands will ever replace the mouse and keyboard. Maybe they can enhance your control, say voice controlled macro while microing with mouse and keyboard would be nice, but as a primary source of control I don't think it's going to be that good and even combining mouse and keyboard with voice control isn't a huge improvement on mouse and keyboard alone.

It might be better than a gamepad for playing an RTS, but that's not a particularly high bar.

 

[Reaperman Wompa]

If they get the voice controls perfect then maybe, but there's always people who will prefer voice control-less games.

 

[k3v1n]

Endwar is a tactical fps with the camera strapped to a helicopter instead of a soldier. And you can't even tell your units to stand somewhere when there isn't something they can either attack or capture over there. It sucks just as much as any other console rts attempt and unlike the general population, i don't turn a 1.5/10 into a 9.5/10 the moment somebody tacks on an arbirary new control system that adds absolutely nothing.

well I found it quite fun and no, end war has NOTHING to do with an FPS just..no, and yeah it might be dammed useless but it makes it easier for the console RTSes and it's also quite fun...feel free to ***** at me..but I will probably not listen yo you^^(mainly because you said that an innovative RTS is just like a tactical fps)

 

[Amnestic]

-BUT it still recognizes voice commands which is ****ing cool.

Except it doesn't. On the demo, "Unit 1" consistently came out as "Unit 9" for me. Similarly "Unit 6" as "Unit 7" and "Unit 2" as "Unit 12". For something as important as unit selection, that's really not okay. It also refused to accept the way I pronounce the word "Whiskey" giving me repeated "Command not understood!" when I was ordering my troops to aforementioned point.

It's a cool idea, the execution I got from the demo left much to be desired however.

 

[Simalacrum]

i played the demo (PS3 version), and it worked reasonably well, although keyboard and mouse would have been better. i got a big feeling that it would be much better with a headset, unfortunately mines out of charge and i can't find the charger :'(

 

[squid5580]

My big problem was I couldn't see the letters on the minimap so I ended up telling them to attack random places.

 

[Jumplion]

I played the demo and I like it to say the least.

I spoke clearly and efficeintly and it understood what I was trying to say. However, my units sometimes didn't react to my commands even if I said it multiple times, but nonetheless it was a pretty cool game to play around with. Voice command would help me in RTSs since I suck at them.

Plus, it makes you feel like a badass.

 

[todd10k]

Voice control in an RTS is not new. Go lookup a game called "Alliance: Future combat".

Welcome to 2007?

 

[Gestapo Hunter]

I remember a game for the PS2 called lifeline that also had voice command gameplay needless to say it suck bad.

 

[runtheplacered]

um...not to be a fanboy or anything, but Starcraft is the end-all be-all of RTS games.

There's some forward thinking for ya.

 

[runtheplacered]

Voice control in an RTS is not new. Go lookup a game called "Alliance: Future combat".

Welcome to 2007?

Nobody (at least, I don't think) claimed it was new. But that game was a pretty big failure, so it didn't really do a whole lot to "alter the future of gaming". This EndWar game is so far proving to implement this feature well for (arguably) the first time, at least, that's what the OP is arguing.

 

[zirnitra]

I've been playing the demo skirmish level for a few hours and it is a good game. the voice command isen't needed at all but I can see it improving the game in areas but I doubt many people will use it constantly.

two downsides, the supposedly funny repetitive things squads say as you click on them really need to be ditched, some of it's actually quite racist against the Europeans

and the fact that you can't have nukes, you have (depending on your nation) ether a vacuum bomb, a 'kinetic strike' or for the Europeans and incredibly underpowered in comparison death ray style energy beam fired from space. none of which do a huge lot of damage, it'll kill everything in like a 100m area but there's no great visible trail of destruction and support helicopters still come and collect casualty's from there shortly after even though they should all be fried. nothing I'd consider a 'WMD' as advertised.

 

[nikomas1]

My one gripe from the demo is that artillery's range sucks. In various vids the artillery would hit things half way across the map, but the demo's has a range of 1/4 to 1/8.

And let me tell you why lol, when I Played the beta the artillery was overpowered and over ranged to the degree that you could win solely by just spamming artillery. The unit limits weren't in effect and on the raid maps were the attacker were supposed to destroy targets the attacker could just setup a firebase near the start location and blast the objectives to smithereens, I could still beat the spammers (Superior tactics FTW) but most just became pissed about it.