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The Future of Real-Time Strategy
http://rtsconcept.wordpress.com

So go check it out!

[EDIT: The TA Bugfix all-in-one pack (BFTAx) can still be downloaded here. The current Hamachi pass to play online is: casadelphilosophy. Enjoy!]

Units (part II)

Finally I get around to part two! I’ve had a number of thoughts lately, perhaps inspired by the recent announcement about a possible 2010 release of Supreme Commander 2, to do with RTS games – more specifically; units, command management / control, and user interface. I’ll continue my rant about units in this post but try to tie in the other aspects as I go along.

Upon reflection, what most strikes me and sort of disappoints me about units in Supcom, as opposed to say, TA, is how ‘light’ and unsubstantial they feel. They appear to slide about the terrain as if skating across ice (yes, especially the hover units but not only those) and don’t bump into one another in the manner you’d expect giant metal tanks and robots to do – it’s all soft and bouncy and well… it just doesn’t feel right.

Units (part I)

Traditionally, RTS units are non de-constructible. What I mean is that the actual units themselves, in almost all RTS games I’ve played, live a short ‘0 / 1′ alive/dead existence, with a certain amount of damage points (shown as health-bars) to represent damage in a fairly abstract way. Most RTS games display diminishing health/damage of a given unit with some kind of cute preset animation. For example, in Total Annihilation the units billow an ever greater amount of smoke. Upon actual death they possess a variety of explosion animations to represent their demise, such as breaking apart or full blown explosions with flying debris!

In Supreme Commander we see pretty much the same system but with fancier deaths or damage animations. The experimental units in particular go out with a real bang. I’m going to propose a more modern and importantly, more fun system in terms of actual gameplay mechanics. It is also, I think, a more realistic way of doing things and fits in with my RTS concept.

The Single-Resource Model

Those of you brave enough to browse my scrappy notes may have noticed that I was brainstorming a resource system for my futuristic RTS concept. I am still adamant that the more logical option, despite being a HUGE fan of T.A and Supreme Commander, is the single, not dual (energy/metal) resource system. The main reason for this is that it fits in with my ideas for linking the expansion of ones empire very directly to resource income in order to promote (but not insist upon) continuing growth.

This single resource which could be regarded as ‘energy’ or ‘finances’ etc, then links into two main areas of the game; research and production. Research is centered around the classical turn-based Space Empires-esq ‘tech tree’ system. Production is of course, anything to do with the actual building, maintenance, repair or reclamation of items within ones empire.

As much as I love T.A, I want to get away from its reliance on good eco-management skills and make RTS even more action packed and strategy/movement centered. The building of energy-metal converters and so on is a fine concept but it does detract slightly from the core notion of warfare and expansion of empire.

Changes

I’ve changed the name and direction of this blog to something more appropriate. The T.A-Bugfix community has once again gone into inactivity/hibernation, although games are occasionally being played so newcomers are still welcome to get in touch for a game and grab the files (top right!).

I’ll be focusing on one of my mental hobbies – thinking about the application of true strategy in video game design, particularly RTS games but not exclusively. At some point soon I *WILL* update the concept page with something readable!!!

Scanning the blogosphere

“The Tangled Concept of Balance” – A superb article over at Gaming’s Alembic about balance, fairness, strategy and style with regards to RTS games. Excerpt:

The first concept generally associated with game balance is what I’m going to call fairness: an equal chance of victory given to all parties. A fair game is one in which no player begins at an inherent advantage or disadvantage, except due to intrinsic qualities of the particular players. Thus, a more experienced or skilled player may be more likely to win than a novice player, but there is no inherent advantage or disadvantage to being assigned a particular player slot (for example, we would say chess is fair if there were no inherent advantage in playing white or black).

Fairness, as I’m [defining] it, allows that players may make choices which are more or less advantageous to themselves, and that the game’s outcome may be affected by random events that favor one player or another. However, before the game starts, there is nothing about the game that will help you to predict the eventual winner…

Highly detailed and well written post if you ask me. Read more…

Also check out “Opportunity Cost” over at the cool Design.Wrong blog. Very interesting delve into how costs affect gameplay and quote “the traditional 3 early game strategies (expand, rush, defend)“.

Interesting Post

Posted back in Dec ‘07 this is an interesting post about a real time strategy game concept by the author of the blog “The World Is A Neat Place, Usually”, entitled “Some More RTS Game Concepts…“. So go check it out!

Galaxy’s End

Found this very interesting RTS game in development – ‘Galaxy’s End’ by Tiki Games. It’s designed ground up for the PSP and currently it looks like they are “seeking a publisher”. From the website:

Galaxy’s End, an original science-fiction RTS designed from the ground-up for handhelds and consoles, is the first game being developed by Tiki Games. Compelling 3D visuals complement a streamlined and intuitive control system that allows players to learn the game within a matter of minutes. Galaxy’s End has also received Stage 1 Approval from SCEA. We presently have work-in-progress screenshots and a gameplay movie taken from the Sony PSP version of Galaxy’s End.

Portable Gaming Revolution also published a 3-part article entitled “The Struggles of Tiki Games”:
part 1 | part 2 | part 3

Gamasutra Article

An article from Jan ‘08 by Nathan Toronto over at Gamasutra entitled “The Future Of The Real-Time Strategy Game” made some interesting criticisms about traditional RTS games, particularly micro/macro-management and the difference between tactics and strategy.

Blabbing away…

I was chatting to a friend today after a game of TA, about some ideas concerning the future of RTS games (check out my messy notes if you haven’t already.) Anyway I actually started to openly blab on about some more ideas I have had recently and what I perceive to be flaws in current games like Starcraft, C&C, Supreme Commander and even TA.

I waffled on about balancing, UI concepts, features, multiplayer etc and came up with an interesting brainstorm which follows on from some of the multiplayer concepts proposed in my notes. I thought I’d just paste part of the chat log on this blog because I haven’t updated it recently.

So, go read the horribly edited Skype chat transcript here. If you dare!