On RTS Games

[Egobrain]

That was the COOLEST sounding game Ive ever heard of.
It would be like MAG, only better... and FUN!
I would love to see what its like to merc then to run an army and try to bribe guys like me.

It would be hard to mix the damage/hit between rts and fps though. A merc with a snipe would expect his headshot to kill the lieutenant, but how would that correlate to the lieutenant being a good strong character in a mob of rts fighting?

Would contracting a merc make it easier to win fights against mobs? If they were allowed to easily kill key, important figures on the battlefield, that would ruin a commander's vat grown soldiers? Creating the idea of "is paying and arming a merc more or less worthwhile than using the same resources to make more troops?"

This concept has me so excited. Im sad I don't know how to program, or own a company that'll do that for me.

 

[RobThePrezodent]

I' probably not the first person to have mentioned this (and there's no way I'm reading through 140 comments to find out) but although the idea could work, I think FPS' and RTS' are fine the way there are; kept seperate. I wouldn't buy an FPS so I could play rts elements as well and I wouldn't buy an RTS..... but if I did then vice versa.

 

[thepj]

terry pratchet refrences ftw!

I honestly prefer the idea at the ned with the free agent style people and the rts commanders, sounds like a great way to ruin freind ships if you're playing with mates though. otherwise with some refining it could work. it'd probably have to be more of a MMO for the mercinary bit though, so it'd probably just end up as a fusion of starcraft and WoW. Plus it's be a total compete and utter flop of you didn't take quite a bit of care with it, but if you did it right it might work.

the main problem i can see is the acctual games, if there's no rts players the mercs have nothing real to do, so you could probably set up a bunch of servers that would allow the rts players to drop in and out as they pleased and let their bases function or be taken over by another player. The only trouble there is that it encourages turtlling so my solution would be that your base will micro manage and deffend itself if you put it into afk mode, but that resorce production will drop to very low levels while you're gone until you come back, add to this a maintainace feature, something where you pay a certain charge depending on the building level and type and if you can't pay it you get that building demolished or knocked down a level. make sure that the resorce colection level is enough to support a level 1 infantry making building, a base, and a couple of resource harvesters. then you give the ability for the rts comanders to drop out for short periods of time and come back in, or hand control of their base as-is to another player who requests it. also i'd give the rts commanders the ability to price the equipment they sell, add an element of competition and keep the tech prices dynamic sort of thing. but ah well this is all hypothetical

 

[LimeJester]

I would play that game. Unless it turned out to be Bladestorm+.

 

[Dave Brohman]

I too can't really get on board with RTS games. I find I tend to get a sort of tunnel-vision, focusing on carefully building and crafting one small area while the rest of it goes to hell. When I get told there's a battle going on it takes me forever to find it, and by the time I do I've already had my ass handed to me.

And is the prospect of being hung up beside a raisin scone really that frightening?

 

[G-Mang]

Natural Selection is exactly what was described: an RTS/FPS with a God's-view commander and FPS-playing individual troops on the ground. It was a great game that really deserved more attention than it got; granted, it was "just" a HL1 mod, but so was Counter Strike. I feel like so much of this article/discussion here acts like the RTS-FPS hybrid thing is a hypothetical just to ponder about, when NS--and some other games, from what I hear--have actually done it, and quite well. The article basically went "wouldn't it be neat if we could do X? Well, it's impossible, so we'll settle for this other idea, Y," even though X was successfully done years ago.

Admittedly, Natural-Selection probably does demand more teamwork than most FPS games, and it might be more than some gamers are willing to give (particularly those that are the cliche X-Box Live players), so maybe the game was better off as a niche title instead of a major release.

 

[paragon1]

That's an interesting idea that I've always wanted to see done. I've always thought that might be interesting to do that within a medieval fantasy setting. Basically, you'd have the RTS player running a kingdom or something (think Age of Empires, or maybe a Total War game), and have other people playing as adventurers ( you could even have D and D style classes, encouraging people to form groups). The RTS player posts quests and bounties and stuff. RTS players are trying to meet some kind of Civ style victory condition(s), while first/third person players want to level, get loot, etc. You could add in even more factors for quests. For example, have a bunch of kobolds harassing one of your cities, but you can't spare the troops to clean them out? Post a quest. You could create fetch quests by littering the world with baubles that provide a benefit to the side that gets them. Put in the family/general system from the Total War games, and you've got potential assassination/escort missions. There's a lot of possibilities there.

 

[Alandoril]

I for one force myself not to believe the hype. I don't see anything about SC2 that makes it any better or worse than any other AAA title out there. As for the reviewers only giving positive impressions, well don't get me started...

 

[Atlus0016]

I have to say that I agree, I will not be getting Starcraft II wither. {Unless my wife decides to get it for me because the trailer has played over every single video I have watched on this site for the past few weeks. Yes, she has threaten to get it.}
A MMO war game is interesting. I would hate to see the development cost of such a thing, but something of that nature could rival World of Warcraft.

 

[MasterSplinter]

Isn't yahtzee a professional reviewer? He should at least give it a try before tossing it aside. I'm not saying he should be forced to play any given game, but when some game stirs up the gaming beehive like this it's kinda weird to just ignore it because it's not your cup of tea.

You could at least put a *subjectivism ahead* warning. Also RTS's are only mind bogglingly difficult when you go online, there is always the *build tons of units and attack* approach.

 

[MaVeN1337]

I hear ya Yahtzee, I don't give a shit about SC2 either.

 

[bobdevis]

Cool idea, Yahtzee.
I just think that for this to work the allegiance of the free agents must be unchangeable.

That way the free agents are at worst just useless to the general on their team (no friendly fire).

If you would allow the agents to swap sides, then playing as the general is going to be just too frustrating.

 

[Kavachi]

What you just said Yahtzee, sounded exactly like 2 games: Savage 2 and Majesty 2. Might want to look into them.

 

[Flauros]

You know, MAG for the ps3 does this. And it works. I command 64 people, i give them rewards, objectives, incentives. I call in air strikes, gas grenades fromt sky, shooting runs. Its great. It feels weird when im NOT playing MAG as an RTS. What, i just get these guns and grenades?.
...lol but im a pretty good sniper as wel.

 

[burninfidels]

If the past 150 comments haven't mentioned it enough times, I would like to remind that there are both FPS/RTS hybrids (wonderful Battlezone) and RTSes where you control other players from above (Savage 2, i think?).

 

[Mchappyburgr]

RTS for me...

I have been playing this genre (competitively) since I was around the age of 8 with the launch of Warcraft 2. Nothing has been more satisfying for me ever since. Yes, I dabbled in the world of MMO's. Yes I have raced the streets of various fake highways and alleys. Yes I have sniped and shotgunned every person who got smart enough to either enter my scopes or to try to assassinate me. Yes I have role played my fair share of turn based storylines that end the same way every time. Yes I have scrolled on two-dimensional platforms, collecting "x" items for extra lifes or power ups. Yes I have done tedious missions in a sandbox for hours on end to get my "rep" up. Yes i have boxed Mike Tyson and many other cookie-cutter versions of him.

But for the people who prefer puzzles with action rather than over it...
For the people who dine the fine wine of storylines...
For the people who play style comes out at max force in this genre...

Those are the people who make the RTS population.

'Cept for DotA freaks..

 

[GoldenCondor]

There's a Used Map Settings map on Star Craft Brood War that seemed to mix both Control and Freedom. It was Called Kings and Fighters, and the other one was called Overmind Defense. The point of both of them was to create units and give each player on your team control of certain units, so they can protect you while attacking the other team. It's actually a really simple game.

To be able to convert something like that into a "Strateshooter", the commander would have to be able to have enough resources to produce enough of a certain unit, which the team-mates pick, and go for the other team. The commander would say something like, "Friend1, pick the sniper and go to the top of the mountain and face east, Friend2, pick the Trooper and wait for Friend1 to fire the first shot, then attack everyone when they are focused on Friend1."

To be honest I think that's a pretty good idea but sadly no one's going to read this post

 

[brunt32]

Extra Punctuation: On RTS Games

YES, Yahtzee will be reviewing StarCraft 2.

Read Full Article

I fixed it for you as it looked like you wrote it wrong...

Oh wait! You didn't? What do you mean your not reviewing it? That's it, I've had enough of you ironic talk!

*sounds of a chainsaw with a swift scream*

That's it folks he won't be reviewing any game no more!

 

[poiuppx]

You know... I'd pay good money for a modern game that mixed FPS and RTS together. Maybe even play console-&-PC... the console guys are a limited number of special ops dudes with more health and weapon choices, the PC guy controls the RTS elements to give them boosts, build structures, and send in easy to kill but helpful support units to swarm positions. It'd basically be like fighting off a computer generated horde, but it'd be a player trying to nail you.

Normal FPS and RTS strategies wouldn't come into it as much, since there'd be more of a need for real tactics... after all, you're trying now to trick and conquer human opponents on the field of war, not just another guy who has access to the same limited pool of units and buildings, and on the FPS side, you can't count on normal tricks to beat the computer, since the real person can choose to negate you or focus on you, send waves, send one or two units to distract you, hide units then spring them on you...

...holy heck, this game could seriously kick ass! Anyone know Bobby Kotick's work number? I think I have a game proposal...