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Too Many Promises, Too Few Players?

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Too Many Promises, Too Few Players?

from Sins Forums
While I love RTS games and the Homeworld series, this game looks like another failure on the rise. I hope that the creators have an idea of how they plan to pull players into this game and keep them around. Complaints and doubt about the Lobby area are already coming out at all the gaming websites

I know it will take more than 'new maps, new units, and a great new system of strategy gameplay' to keep people around, look at how fast games like Supreme Commander lost its crowd! Every game I have played like this in the past has failed to keep players coming. They play for a few weeks and are never seen again and the game dies.

The graphics look incredible, which always creates problems; especially for online players! It also immediately drives away new players who start having trouble running the game whenever they want to play, especially online.

So what does the SoaSE system offer that can keep players active, happy, and will keep us from abandoning another RTS game?!
111,907 views 84 replies
Reply #51 from Sins Forums Top
Supreme Commander failed because of the massive amounts of micro needed for each and every game, as well as the time requirements. (I have the game and the expansion) The base building was a massive and monotonous undertaking, even with the "prebuilt" base option where you could save your base layout. You had to have one for practically each map, otherwise the terrain would mess you up.
End of quote


Very true, and some players could never grasp the controls, economy, and many never got a chance to understand how the "prebuild" options worked. The relationship between the units and the map/environment was not very 3D like it was supposed to be; which brings me to my next point...

I wonder how well the units interact and use the surrounding environment to their advantage. CoH does a great job here allowing units to directly use the surrounding buildings, roads, and environment to gain several different types of advantages and create lots of interesting traps/assaults/defences.
Reply #52 from Sins Forums Top
I almost forgot to throw out my question...

Do the units gain advantages/disadvantages by using the environment around them?

Example: A capitol ship(CP) powers down and hides behind a moon. Several smaller enemy ships attempt to attack a defensive structure on the other side of the moon. The CP powers up, the smaller enemy ships detect it but have time to take cover or flee before the CP can complete its power up process. The enemy player doesnt bother to move the smaller ships and the CP powers up and destroyes the enemy ships and saves the defensive structure by using the moon as a trap.
Curtains - Customize Windows with additional styles
Reply #53 from Sins Forums Top
Nope.
Reply #54 from Sins Forums Top
Sins runs remarkably well on low end systems. With low graphics settings and turned-off effects I can run sins with a decent framerate on a low-end PC and i have been playing Sins since beta 2, with 8 player maps , with myself PLUS 7 AIs , even up to 9.

- Celeron 1.6ghz M 420 - equivalent to a Core 1 single yonah core with only 1mb cache , not 2mb.
- 64mb Intergrated x200 radeon - equivalent to the heavily criticised X300 , except that the X200 has only half the rendering pipelines and its sharing memory
- 1024 ram
and this PC gets about 1500 marks on 3dmark03 lol. Was amazed at how well it runs sins.

In Supcom one of the biggest put-offs was performance. This wont happen in Sins , tho you will have to make sacrifices with the graphics options but its performance that matters when you know you have a cheap PC.
Reply #55 from Sins Forums Top
well, sort of since there is neutral territory which can do various modifications to standard combat, like preventing fighters from launching, increasing am generation, limiting abilites and more.

but obviously space is rather ... empty, so its hard to have the same degree of environment as in land based rts's.
Reply #56 from Sins Forums Top


Finally, for every endgame it was a experimental rush, which needed about 30 minutes per experimental if you were slow, and about 5-10 if you were good at managing your economy.


Um, lol

Experimental rush my rear end! Experimentals were *incredibly* balanced in that game, easily countered, devastating is properly used.
End of quote


Yes, and like I said, endgame was about a rush of a bunch of experimentals. You could not crack a base any other way, except with about 150-200 t3 units.
Reply #57 from Sins Forums Top

Yea agreed a replay function would be nice, rewind and speed controls also, maybe they have already thought of it...

Already in


End of quote


Good thing Blair didn't catch you saying that or he would have had to give you a serious noogie :LOL:
Reply #58 from Sins Forums Top

One thing that I think some people are forgetting about multiplayre in RTSs is the state their multiplayer systems were on actual release.

It is true that the lobby system in beta 4 was pretty bare bones. That's because the effort was going into making sure people could play the game reliably multiplayer. 

The final version will have a much better lobby system.

But those of you praising CoH and Supreme Commander I can only assume didn't purchase it prior to the first couple of issued patches. 

Reply #59 from Sins Forums Top

Homeworld was/is for me the defacto 3D strategy game. Homeworld Cataclysm was just about as good in some ways, and in other ways even better. Homeworld 2 should never have been made, period. Everything since hasn't held a candle to them (HW and HW Cat). Newer games that have come out are all too focused on the multiplayer aspect (ie. leaderboard bs like World in Conflict) or attracting the FPS crowd with action-action-action.

I like my strategy "Hearts of Iron" style with a side of "Total War" hehe :) Strategy needs to be gritty and rough, deep (story) and rife with decisions that have long-reaching poignant consequences, not the shallow "throw-all-of-your-units-at-the-bad-guy-and-watch-him-burn" action-movie sequences that have infected all of the newest games.

If I want pure adrenaline action I'll play some Operation Flashpoint, ArmA, COD4, or TF2! Hell maybe some Speedball 2 - Tournament for good measure. :)

Ever since HW I've been waiting. :) Since this website got off the ground with only one page.....I've been waiting! So now its down to a month or so, and I am stoked!


That is what I'm after. Sins, I know you'll deliver! :)


Reply #60 from Sins Forums Top
Homeworld 2 should never have been made, period
End of quote


Harsh! , hw2 was a great game. It just lacked support because of crap marketing which meant that sierra went bust on this project and moved onto other more profitable things.
Reply #61 from Sins Forums Top
^^^ HW2 was also Forced out well before it was ready, a real case of cutting you're losses, which is shame on Sierra really.
Reply #62 from Sins Forums Top

Finally, for every endgame it was a experimental rush, which needed about 30 minutes per experimental if you were slow, and about 5-10 if you were good at managing your economy.


Um, lol

Experimental rush my rear end! Experimentals were *incredibly* balanced in that game, easily countered, devastating is properly used.
End of quote


lol balanced u say,
i have both SC and FA, even tough FA's UI was redone they left alone the thing that was rly bugging me, 2 much micro, 2 much imbaness

and dont forget the crappy, invincible soulripper (ever tried atacking with it close to map border?)

and yet again they failed 2 fix the mass extractor problem, just put it on and of whenever u need or dont need, and u'll save up enough 2 make a small army, wich if u micro it wil be enough 2 kil 50% of an experimental



i've got beta 4 and i've heard people talking about lobby's... where people meet n stuff, any idea's since waiting in the standard lobby, or selfmade lobby = sorta useless

about the game popularity, people wil come eventualy, tough i dont see alot of interest so far. when asked about SoaSE nobody knows what ure talking about

hope this game wil get lil bit more populair... at least more then Supcom, u almost gotta fight for a normal match, and even if your in ther are way 2 many bugs there..

hope this game won't have 2 many :P (seen 1 serious so far) "fighters going through sun"

Shadow_of_Light
Reply #63 from Sins Forums Top
The fighters going thru the sun is not an actuul bug. The icon represents the fighter squadron and is at an average individual fighters position. The icon goes through teh sun because some of the fighters go to one side of the sun and some to the other.
Reply #64 from Sins Forums Top
Shadow, please feel free to learn how to write in a clear, concise manner. While some fragments, such as

and dont forget the crappy, invincible soulripper (ever tried atacking with it close to map border?)
End of quote


are decipherable -- and no, I never ran into that issue, ouch! -- others like

and yet again they failed 2 fix the mass extractor problem, just put it on and of whenever u need or dont need, and u'll save up enough 2 make a small army, wich if u micro it wil be enough 2 kil 50% of an experimental
End of quote


were not.
Reply #65 from Sins Forums Top
WTF, Supcom experimentals aren't that strong, you just suck at the game.
Soulripper? counter with 16 T3 fighters.
Sipderbot/colossus? counter with bombers or gunships.

Experimental 'rushes' are useless against a well defended base. Sure, it'll plow through fixed defences, but against some skilled maneuvering and proper counters, they're useless.

The real gamebreakers when fighting experienced players are the T3 artil. They break every stalemate and you only have to hold back the enemy and wait for victory.

Personally, I prefer Sins for the requirement to actually think about what you're doing, over (for example) C&C3 or in a lesser way supcom, where you just pour as many tanks as possible on your enemy. Supcom has the benefit of not always having to put all your troops in a single army, which adds some strategy.
Reply #66 from Sins Forums Top

WTF, Supcom experimentals aren't that strong, you just suck at the game.
Soulripper? counter with 16 T3 fighters.
Sipderbot/colossus? counter with bombers or gunships.

Experimental 'rushes' are useless against a well defended base. Sure, it'll plow through fixed defences, but against some skilled maneuvering and proper counters, they're useless.

The real gamebreakers when fighting experienced players are the T3 artil. They break every stalemate and you only have to hold back the enemy and wait for victory.

Personally, I prefer Sins for the requirement to actually think about what you're doing, over (for example) C&C3 or in a lesser way supcom, where you just pour as many tanks as possible on your enemy. Supcom has the benefit of not always having to put all your troops in a single army, which adds some strategy.
End of quote


You obviously never played a good player before, where they support the experimentals on the way there. And if you let someone build T3 artillery within range of your base you deserve to lose.
Reply #67 from Sins Forums Top
uhm, on 10km, nearly EVERYWHERE is withing T3 artil range.


I realise you need to take the experimental's escort as well, but of course, that escort takes up time and money as well, which you can spend on your army to take the escort.

In a simple mass/time equation, experimentals aren't worth it, especially the walking ones, because T3 bombers are just to strong. A slow moving experimental needs way to much air cover to be effective. And of course, any other army can run circles around the incoming experimentals and attack the enemy base. A third tactic which sees use is simply using mobile artillery to take them down, though that takes more time and coordination.

I will say that experimentals become far more usefull in large ocean maps, where they are much easier to escort (mostly because of sucky torpedo bombers.)
Reply #68 from Sins Forums Top
meh , you take this argument over to the supcom boards and they will tell you your both wrong.
Reply #69 from Sins Forums Top
You guys have to be careful when referring to SupComm since Forged Alliance and the original game are very different.

One thing for certain is that all versions of SupComm (both vanilla and FA) generally
require a lot of thinking. There are just soooo many things you can do at any point in time in a game. I feel quite confident in saying that SupComm provides the largest number of options than any RTS to date.

To many, this means the person who is able to micro, or has a higher number of actions per minute, has an bigger advantage than the person that isn't able to perform as many actions but makes higher quality decisions. The debate over which provides a larger advantage has raged on for ages and isn't unique to SupComm. I am sure Sins won't be immune to this discussion either.
Reply #70 from Sins Forums Top

meh , you take this argument over to the supcom boards and they will tell you your both wrong.
End of quote


QFT
Reply #71 from Sins Forums Top


Homeworld was/is for me the defacto 3D strategy game. Homeworld Cataclysm was just about as good in some ways, and in other ways even better. Homeworld 2 should never have been made, period. Everything since hasn't held a candle to them (HW and HW Cat). Newer games that have come out are all too focused on the multiplayer aspect (ie. leaderboard bs like World in Conflict) or attracting the FPS crowd with action-action-action.

I like my strategy "Hearts of Iron" style with a side of "Total War" hehe Strategy needs to be gritty and rough, deep (story) and rife with decisions that have long-reaching poignant consequences, not the shallow "throw-all-of-your-units-at-the-bad-guy-and-watch-him-burn" action-movie sequences that have infected all of the newest games.

If I want pure adrenaline action I'll play some Operation Flashpoint, ArmA, COD4, or TF2! Hell maybe some Speedball 2 - Tournament for good measure.

Ever since HW I've been waiting. Since this website got off the ground with only one page.....I've been waiting! So now its down to a month or so, and I am stoked!


That is what I'm after. Sins, I know you'll deliver!



End of quote




Is this THE MONK from WiC or some random the monk i haven't met as yet :LOL:

In case of "the monk" then greetings to you sir :)


Reply #72 from Sins Forums Top

uhm, on 10km, nearly EVERYWHERE is withing T3 artil range.


I realise you need to take the experimental's escort as well, but of course, that escort takes up time and money as well, which you can spend on your army to take the escort.

In a simple mass/time equation, experimentals aren't worth it, especially the walking ones, because T3 bombers are just to strong. A slow moving experimental needs way to much air cover to be effective. And of course, any other army can run circles around the incoming experimentals and attack the enemy base. A third tactic which sees use is simply using mobile artillery to take them down, though that takes more time and coordination.

I will say that experimentals become far more usefull in large ocean maps, where they are much easier to escort (mostly because of sucky torpedo bombers.)
End of quote


Maybe thats the reason for such the massive difference in opinion.... I normally played on the massive maps with lots of ocean/water in it to hide my fatboys in the water >.>

My fav was one of the original 8 player maps, the one with 4 on one side of a ocean and 4 on the other, with just a little sliver of land connecting them. To be honest I never played anything smaller than 4 player maps.
Reply #73 from Sins Forums Top
I prefer 40x40 or better because then I can get a concealed base within range of the enemies base without them noticing even if they have T3 omnis. in any case the only thing that can really stall experimentals on small maps are other experimentals (the fatboy and its ubercheap range come to mind).
Reply #74 from Sins Forums Top
SC, FA, CoH, Starcraft, Homeworld, Homeworld: Cata all combined = The Perfect RTS

:CONGRAT:
Reply #75 from Sins Forums Top
boo! remove starcraft! boo!