[:1]Hi,
I saw the thread about the chat with CT and the questions people wanna ask him.
So there is a short interview from PCGamer with CT and he is answering some questions...
It is interesting, cause it gives us a hint about AOEO and the style of future GPG games...
http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/05/25/chris ... e-to-play/|||Turning RTS into RPG.
URK. Kill me now.|||Have you tried the AOEonline beta? The concept isnt as bad as you think.
Imagine having a Supcom2 style research tree (only way more deep) that stays with you between games. Plus theres item crafting to give unit specific upgrades. Its kind of like everyone has there own customised faction. In AOEonline you can always reset your tree (at an in game cost), but no choice seems to be totally wrong.
Another way to think about it is a way better way to do RTS campaigns.|||@BM - AoE:O is much more RTS than RPG.
I just hope the balance of future games remains that way.|||So long as I'm never in a situation where competitive game #1 was unwinnable because of an epic lootz disparity, I'm fine with this.|||CerusVI|||Kahooli|||If there will be even K&C and a SC3...it sounds like we won't get any new games (big games, cause most of the staff is working on AoEO) for years...
Free2Play is maybe nice for certain games, but to say it is the future...don't know.|||Cevat Yerli (creator of Crysis) said the same thing a year ago. I don't really mind this change, though I am a younger person and have not been ingrained with the old mindset of gaming. This is what I feel is the problem with "hardcore" gaming these days: too much "old guard" thinking and ancestor-worship. All I see these days in gaming forums is people crying for the past, for the days of yore.
I feel there is an important financial reason for this move: AAA games are becoming far too expensive for most companies to just release at once then patch a few times. Not all games are like StarCraft 2, WoW, or CoD that make up for their development and advertisement costs on the first day. Then the gamer population is growing and encompassing more demographic groups than before. Gaming is not the reserve of computer nerds that it once was. By splitting the content over a period of time and into specialized chunks, companies can make a game viable over longer periods of time and appeal to different audiences who might not be interested in having all of the content. If 80% of RTS players never play online, why bundle the MP part of the game with a normal purchase?|||The problem a lot of people have with F2P is what Neph mentioned. Unless you keep investing real money every time they patch the game and shift the metagame balance, or add in some new powerful hero or item, you can't compete. That's a great way to totally annihilate any kind of competitive scene whatsoever, as well as completely muddy the result of every game everyone plays (did he win because he's better than me, or because he spent $20 on the +5 Giant Throbbing Dong?).
Now, there are enough stupid people with enough money to burn where a low-budget game like LoL can do this a bit and still stay afloat, but the whole idea of running a near-AAA title on this business model at all, nevermind in a competitive genre like real-time strategy, is dodgy at best.
If the content is consistently well-balanced, and comes in affordable discreet chunks (and you're given the option to buy all content released to date for a reasonable discount), then this isn't so bad. But I've not heard of anyone pulling that off yet, and AOEO is definitely not it.|||I may be Old Guard, in fact; I probably am.
Part of the appeal of these old games is that you could pick them up at a moments notice and compete on even playing field with the entire community. I'm not a fan of this persistence effect that you get from killing more things, or getting a +5 Giant Throbbing Dong (lol).
I suppose a lot of people derive enjoyment from the getting better aspect of grinding. That's not for me: I derive enjoyment from competition against other people. There's really nothing wrong with either. Heck, striving to become better is a massive part of Asian culture. If an entire continent does it, then there's going to be some redeeming features.
See, if I have to stop playing for a while, say, for real-life commitments and come back after a massive balance change. I'm going to see that as a pain. It means I won't be able to compete on an even level until I put in a substantial length of time.
But don't get me wrong, I'm not categorically against massive changes in balance. If there's a problem that needs treating, then it should be treated. People reaching level cap. and getting bored is not a problem though.|||Well even with the old games, you couldn't pick up a game and then instantly be competitive. More experienced players would have more extensive knowledge of maps, weapons, and game mechanics. So the "getting better over time" aspect still exists, albeit in a different form. This has been exaggerated recently with the leveling-up mechanic, but at its core it is no different than the "leveling-up" of yore.|||That's all folks.
GPG has joined the game developer group that produces mindless, grinding, moneysucking and complete timewaster games for the facebook masses.
It is just that, instead of joining Zynga, GPG just allied with Microsoft to antagonise them.
So, rip GPG and also rip AOE. Double loss. Unfortunately, only one way to go now: Starcrap2.|||terau|||One thing I noticed:
Chris Taylor|||Mithy|||StarCraft does not have so much of a lockdown on competitive RTS play that another good, solid, well-balanced, evolving (and presumably very different) RTS couldn't develop its own thriving competitive scene. Even though no other game genre has one exclusively dominant competitive game, people blindly assume that this must be the case for RTSes when there's no evidence that it's true. The fact that SC is the only competitive game now proves nothing except that every other RTS has had pretty crappy competitive balance.
Again, I'll point to fighting games - of course the Street Fighter series has been the dominant competitive fighting game for decades, but there are countless others that have had a healthy cult following for just as long, and plenty more in the last decade (and in particular the last year) that have fully broken into the fighting game tournament scene, and now have equal or sometimes even higher tournament participation and stream viewership than SSF4. One of them is even a Mortal Kombat game, which is pretty funny if you know Mortal Kombat's 'competitive history' (or almost total lack thereof) - if you told someone in the fighting game community 3 years ago that there would be a $21k+ tournament for an MK game, they'd laugh in your face.
And yet, all it took was for someone other than Capcom to make a good game with wide appeal, instead of moping about how only Street Fighter can have a thriving competitive scene.
And of course competitive hype drives sales. We just had this discussion in another thread, and pretty much every game in any genre that develops a healthy tournament/e-sports scene sees success far beyond what it otherwise should have (StarCraft 1 being the prime example).|||Mithy|||Wikipedia|||I wonder if KNC was nothing more than a demo.
Something gpg put together to show Microsoft "Hey look what we can do!"
If they secured the deal then good for them. If not, they're part way through developing another game.
As for turning rts into rpg. I totally understand that this is where the Market is going. I just don't want to play like that.
I want my rts experience to be a little more pure and if I want to grind to level up, I will play an mmo.
I can't see how something thats trying to me an rts/rpg/Facebook game is going to be my thing, but I totally get that there are a bunch of people out there who will love it.|||Stin|||Nephylim|||I hope not! AoEO is a terrible, terrible template for ANY rts...|||KNC could easily go down the AOEO path, from what I gather; start with a few core factions in KNC, and pay for the extras.
The KNC concept seems fairly open to the addition of extra factions. Not that I am particularly pleased by this thought.|||Hmm... More factions = less balance... Unless its done really really well. I think I need to start a balance mod as soon as KnC launches lol
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