Now that would be fun. Striders walking around blowing the crap out of buildings while enemies scramble into buildings.

In most RTS games units just line up and get shot at. In real life(today) armies don't fight like that, except in Napoleon's day. Rebels just wouldn't line up and get shot at by the Combine, vice versa for the Combine. It would be really innovative to have the AI fight on their own and think on their own. Urban combat is usually done in small, relatively independent teams. So the AI would determine on its own how and where to position itself at. Actions like running from building to building should be decided by the independant teams of AI that you give a general command to, like secure this area, or capture this city. If a guy gets shot at, he doesn't stand there, he runs for cover. This would be an impossible mountain of micromanagement to do by hand(mouse if you will) for any human, so the AI would have to be smart. Sometimes the AI needs to think like a real person. The AI shouldn't always depend on the player to make decisions. Major decisons, yes. Minor, self-preservation decisions, no.

Buildings getting shelled, rockets flying, shotguns blasting. Yea, that would be fun. Let's not forget about the headcrabs now  ...

...sounds like you only played to the second-to-last mission then, rather than to the actual end.

Yeah, what das88 said... Blizzard makes "good enough" graphics. They'll never make a game with bleeding-edge graphics because it isn't required if the gameplay is brilliant, and it maximizes their customer base. They've made a fortune off the World of Warcraft MMO with that formula.

I remember the first time I saw the WoW world. My first reaction was "Hmmm.... pretty low poly count, looks like a cartoon." My second reaction was "Wow... look how smooth the frame rate is!!" Third reaction was "Wow... look how frikkin' HUGE this game world is!!" That's what you can do, if you don't shoot for bleeding edge, and keep the graphics stylized instead of ultra-realistic.

Those guys know what they're doing, and they now have a ton of cash to fund future projects. I'd be amazed if Starcraft 2 isn't a good product.

Starcraft has an excellent story. Human race was defeated. Yes, and? Why not? This ugly race is not at all better than any other. If I remember my very first GC II game, terrans were my first race, I have ever exterminated.

I believe it was the first campaign that was the human campaign, which is what i played. I had no interest in suddenly being the bad guy while i had just spent all that effort beating them!



There is a big difference between a hard one victory and a 'whitewash', that is what makes the Starcraft story crapful.

Also i found the Earth Mimbari war in Babylon5 crapful for the same reason. The fact that Mimbari ships are invunerable to Terran weapons except when their great leader is on board is most idiotic!! And why couldn't Terrans learn from the Japaneese of WW2 and use suicide nuke runs to destroy Mimbari ships?? again, prooving it is a stupid story.

chapter 2 was the zerg, and chapter 3 was the Protoss, IIRC. the Protoss ended up teaming up with the remnants of the Terrans that stayed allied with Raynor and killing the Overmind.

i do understand your sentiments about the sudden change in the story's perspective. i remember it being a jarring experience for me as well.

i'd say if nothing else, if you still have the disks it'd be worth checking out the Zerg and Protoss chapters just to catch the story, even if you do it by cheating.

That's not so unusual in strategy game scripted campaigns, although Blizzard might have been one of the first to do it. In a game where the different factions aren't just re-skinned versions the same army for everyone, it's useful to learn a faction's advantages and disadvantages from the inside... not just playing them as an opponent. That's why Blizzard (and other game devs) rotate you through the factions. It's also because they want to encourage a diverse multiplayer community, with enough players using all the factions, and not just the first one they start you with in the campaign.

I agree it is sometimes a bit jarring to be thrown into the enemy's role, after identifying with one side for a series of missions. But at least there's a logical reason for it.

Perhaps logical, but at the end of the day, games are for having fun as a priority over doing what is logical. When you play a campaign, the idea is to try to beat the bad guys not spend your time floundering around in a pointless mission as the good guys which cannot be wone just so you can experience the workings of the bad guys afterwards, to me that does not make for fun gameplay at all.

Not all stories have a happy ending, this does not make them bad stories.

Hardcore gamers like micromanagement, but for most people (including me), micromangement is gay. I'd really like to see valve work on a Half Life RTS, with smart units. They simply make awesome games.


One more thing, why does blizzard think that bad graphics make better games, than say, a game with great gameplay and great graphics. It doesn't make sense.

Do any of you play Half-Life?

Economics 101:

If you make a game that can run smoothly on 100% of the PC's out there, then you make twice as much money as a more graphics-intensive game that can only run on 50% of the PC's in the market. It's about the money, and market penetration.

Also, I wouldn't call anything Blizzard ever did "bad graphics." The original Starcraft looks dated, sure, but it's an old game. WoW has somewhat simplified graphics, but it still works. They just hit 9 million subscribers. That's 9 million customers at $15 USD per month, plus sales of the original game box and expansions. Do the math. They're not doing ANYTHING wrong.

For that matter, Stardock seems to be pursuing a similar policy... make a game that's light on cutting-edge graphics, heavy on gameplay, that works on a wide variety of hardware. It's a winning formula, especially for a strategy game. If a company focuses too much on eye candy at the expense of gameplay, they can lose their loyal customers (cough... Total War series... cough).

Sure, look at the DL campaign, did it have a happy ending? No but it was still a fantastic campaign. That does not make the Starcraft campaign good, the Starcraft campaign forces you to turn on yourself. It is an intriguing concept, which may work for some people but not for me.

Well designed missions and a good storyline with well thought out characters does not make a good campaign??? Disliking the way the events of a story turn out does not make the story bad, it just means you dislike the way things turned out. Unless by your reasoning, the only factor determining whether a campaign is good or bad is if the player likes the way the story turns out regardless of mission design, universe-realism (consistency with the rules set by that universe), character development, or pacing.
In Starcraft you play from the side of a multitude of different factions. That is many of the Terran characters were "BAD GUYS" as you put it, just as many of the Protoss characters were "Good Guys".
All opinions are different though, you are entitled to yours as I am mine. I just think your lacking in the amount of reasons for your judgment on why the campaign is good or bad. That is only considering a single factor, rather then all the different factors that make up a campaign.

It may seem a little that way looking at my posts. I did actually attempt to keep an open mind when i played it, and i tried to get into the spirit of the idea but it just flopped, i genuinly hated the change of faction idea.

I didn't really like playing as the Drengin during the DA campaign

(bumping)

What part of "IMO" don't you understand? I do not enjoy RTS's that do not meet the criteria I mentioned. That includes every game in your list, including Supreme Commander. Sorry if it offends you that I don't like some games that you do like, but that's the way it is. Considering SC's other flaws, I'm going to guess you're an MP gamer, so it's really no wonder we disagree.

And yes, this also means I don't consider Company of Heroes a game worth playing either. Dawn of War: Dark Crusade is (to me) a vastly more entertaining game. Sales figures may show that a large number of RTS gamers disagree with me. That doesn't surprise me, and it also doesn't do anything to change my mind about what I find fun.

And for the record, I have nothing against games with good stories, I just think RTS's are a lousy story telling medium. Using cinematics as "rewards" for playing through missions just isn't a very satisfying mechanism for telling a story IMO. And yes, I'm sure lots of you disagree.

Played Starcraft, now sitting on my archive shelf
C&C(entire series) also same fate
Alpha Centauri actually lasted longer...shelved
Civ 1-4.. 2 is still on my PC rest shelved
Hell I still have entire Zork series on my old PC, along with 11th hr, 7th guest.
Remember Outpost by Sierra. Shelved but played the hell out of it even though it was a crappy game and bugged like no ohter.
I'm a fan of Myst, those puzzle games keeps 12% of my 2 working brain cells active.

I agree with several here, I'll trade superior graphics for superior gameplay anytime. Geez how many of us spent many useless hours playing PONG..

As also stated does appear many game makers are sacrificing gameplay and longevity for graphics and many other unnecessary things. Just my opinion though. Same with music nowadays, I really doubt very many songs in last 20years will have the same longevity as those made in 50's 60's and 70's (Beatles, Stones, Great example zeppelin reunion concert, 12000 tickets, millions of attempts to get 1 and they havent played in years, put out an album (not counting all these GH's and remasters) since Coda(pretty sure here).

I've stuck with GC for so long because of it's constant evolution and gameplay as opposed to graphics. Have no idea why I still play PONG...lol

One question: What is Dawn of War?

Actually, you're missing a lot of the story with that war. When the ship with the leader was on board in the attack that caused the war, their defenses were down. They didn't have up any ECM, shields, etc. Pretty much, they were coming in with defenses down and gunports open to show that they were friendly and to give the humans the respect due to warriors. Having gunports open like that is incredibly dangerous, since any targetting computer worth its processors will be able to destroy your guns in the first salvo, leaving your only options to be running away or dying.

After that, the issue is ECM. With the Mimbari ECM up, human targetting sensors couldn't lock onto their ships. In effect, the humans were firing blind. Their automated defenses could do nothing more than randomfire, which made them just as much a danger to their own ships as to the enemy. Plus, I'm willing to bet they couldn't bring the bigger weapons to bear, since I bet those would be slaved to the targetting computer. And without the bigger cannons, they were at even more of a disadvantage.

I'm willing to bet that humans actually did destroy several Mimbari ships during that war. However, they had to do it using risky and often suicidal tactics. Tactics that they couldn't afford, since they'd need every ship they could get ahold of to last as long as possible. Also, I'm willing to bet they didn't know the exact size of the Mimbari military, thus making it impossible for suicide runs to be a viable strategy. What good it is to suicide bomb if all you do is end up opening the front door for the military?

Basically, humanity was outgunned, outnumbered, and forced to play defensive. No matter how you look at it, they were in a situation that was a tactical nightmare.



It's a video game adaption of Warhammer 40k (which, in turn, is arguably the source of StarCraft).

Mimbari ships had regenerative living hull plating, no shielding. No one seemed to be using missiles throughout the whole series. Gun ports being open is often somthing done during wartime as well, but somehow the Mimbari managed ok.



OMG, what do you think humans have been using to target enemies for the thousands of years throughout history before targeting computers were even invented? I will give you a hint, they call them 'eyes'. Sorry, my sarcasm is aimed squarely at the show, not you.



Very logical, but you will be astounded to know, that only 1 Mimbari ship was destroyed. Mr 'star killer' thought of somthing new and unconventional - using nukes to kill a spaceship - remarkable idea eh? (massive sarcasm allert)

though the visuals in the show made it look like ships were getting up close and personal in B5, the distances of real ("real") space combat could be very great; targetting by using eyes alone would be vastly more difficult than we've ever experienced historically. my sense is that targetting computers, among other things, are helping to compensate for the massive distances between ships (and thus delays between the weapon being fired and it potentially hitting something).

Yep, and not just the weapon delay. Predictive targeting over lightspeed delay distances is the real problem. With a ship that's actively maneuvering for evasion and not just following a straight trajectory, you have no "realtime" info on its position when the distances stretch out to light minutes or light hours. All you can see is where it was a few minutes (or hours) ago. You'd have to make a wild guess at its current position, then project to the position at the time you want your weapon to arrive. It would be a battle of ship AI vs. ship AI, trying to outguess each other.

That style of warfare would favor either smart seeker missiles that could do a final targeting adjustment, or else big area-effect weapons like nukes or huge clouds of chaff thrown in a ship's potential path. Precision-aimed beam weapons would be the least effective tactic.

Oh well, space combat has never been presented realistically outside of sci-fi novels. Star Trek established the convention that ships have to be ridiculously close to each other, so everything fits on a TV screen. Huge ships, in a knife fight... nothing like real space combat. We've been stuck with these silly space combat ideas ever since. For realistic ideas about space combat over huge distances, read Niven, Alastair Reynolds, and other hard sci-fi authors. I guess that's not exciting enough for TV or the movies. Or else the producers feel the average audience can't wrap their heads around the concept of lightspeed delay. (grumble)

(edit) Of course GalCiv2 is guilty of the same thing. Gotta have that knife fight to fit everything on one screen.

Two things: one, we don't have such a thing yet, so it's hard to say that.
Two (and I suppose more, as this is getting long now that I'm typing it), When it comes to space weaponry, the size of missiles and mass drivers would be constrictive. Beam weapons could (with theoretical reactors) theoretically produce a larger bang for much less mass, allowing the ship to keep more for movement. Plus, beams travel at lightspeed and missiles don't. Plus, shooting a beam doesn't result in (nearly as much) reaction force displacement of the ship as shooting a missile or mass driver. I'd say it's similarly possible that "real" ship combat may well turn out to be a close-range affair, primarily with beam weapons, resorting to old fashioned naval broadsiding tactics. Eventually reactors and engines would become efficient enough that maneuvering engines could come into play on a close scale. These engines wouldn't be for going fast, they'd be for allowing a ship to shoot an enemy without allowing the enemy to shoot back. Think, similar engines to the rockets we use on the space shuttle now, just likely in a more efficient format. Cruise engines would obviously be for travel only.

Especially the collision scene!

As far as the Babylon5 Mimbari war goes, i see no reason why the Terrans couldn't have built waves of fighters equiped with Nukes for suicide runs. That tactic would have decimated the Mimbari fleet and i see no reason in the show, why they couldn't have done it.

Getting close enough to impact on the surface of a Mimbari ship would be the challenge, but a Mimbari ship and its fighter escort can only intercept so many Terran suicide fighters before they get overwhealmed... The Terrans had huge populations and massive manufacturing capacity, The Mimbari only had 1 planet, The Terrans could easily have wone the war despite the technological dissadvantage.