Blizzard being a generally terrible developer aside, I don’t think you’re right about this.
RTS is not a very popular genre all things considered, and the ARTS/MOBA variants are dominated by DOTA and League of Legends.
You also can’t play RTS games on consoles.
A lot of fans of StarCraft still wish they saw StarCraft: Ghost see the light of day. Arguably the franchise is very much underdeveloped. The IP and story would work well for many game genres that haven’t been explored.
If StarCraft 3 comes out it would only be popular in South Korea and possibly not all that popular at all even there.
> If StarCraft 3 comes out it would only be popular in South Korea and possibly not all that popular at all even there.
Given that StarCraft 2 still hasn't fully displaced BroodWar, I shudder to think of the uphill battle a StarCraft 3 would face.
Really, in this era of live service games, it would make more sense to release a client refresh (multithreading + anniversary graphics) for SC2, and an expansion pack of new campaigns...
You realize people said the exact same stuff before SC2, right? Saying it's a dead genre, nobody is going to buy it so they won't make it, etc. And yet SC2 was extremely successful. I predict SC3 would be equally successful if Blizzard can do a good job making it (which is not certain these days).
Halo Wars sold 16.7% of Halo 3’s first week sales according to Wikipedia.
It was commercially successful but not in a mainstream mass audience kind of way.
Yes, it proved that RTS can be done on a controller (arguably, StarCraft 64 kind of sort of proved that, too), but if you’ve ever played StarCraft 2 I think you’d agree that particular style of RTS is really not possible without a keyboard and mouse. The game is almost entirely revolving around maximizing your actions per minute.
I also think the RTS genre is very much less popular today and then it was at that time.
> The game is almost entirely revolving around maximizing your actions per minute.
Maybe for top tier play, but apm wasn’t really needed for regular play.
Just to debunk this myth, it used to be possible to get to diamond with 80-100 apm (which is very easy to achieve), efficient builds, fundamental rush defense, and a-move.
Not sure about now, but it was doable for many years.
Halo Wars is also not much of an RTS. While it does have base building, the SP campaigns are full of RTT-like missions. It is actually a very fun game that stands way above compared to a more “by the numbers” implementation of, for example, Command & Conquer 3. Halo Wars found a much better balance and is a much more polished console experience.
Nailed it. People want patched versions of the same RTS. AoE4 came out a few years ago as an IMO fantastic RTS which smoothed over many of the idiosyncrasies of AoE2. From a multiplayer perspective, it was doomed from the start, for not being AoE2. I couldn't even convince my friends to play it with me. (Everyone is still playing AoE2, and expansions + patches are still regular)
BTW AoE4 is nowhere near doomed, i play AoE4 multiplayer regularly and hear this often. AoE4 has about half the number of daily players (12-15K) that AoE2 does, but it’s easily enough to play multiplayer. It also gets regular DLCs and updates and has had a stable playerbase for years now. Basically its less popular and many AoE2 players will never switch, but it’s an active game.
That is a quote from the lead developer of WoW about how everyone asking for classic wow thought they wanted it but wouldn't actually play it. Then blizzard made classic wow and it was a huge hit.
There is also a disconnect between "customers" and "players". I am under the impression that RTS games have proven harder to monetize in an ongoing manner, or at least harder relative to the effort required to build and maintain them. That doesn't mean there isn't a solution, and this is just one person's limited perspective... but it seems to be the case thus far.
What evidence do you have that this is the general sentiment among 'customers' rather than your own? Genuinely asking, I too would have preferred an RTS but my sense is the player base for RTS is much smaller than a shooter.
I've played quite a few hours of Blizzard games throughout the years and as much as I loved the starcraft universe RTS is just not approachable for me. So I can vouch as one person who is really excited to get a taste of the universe outside the RTS genre.
That said, whether the game itself will be good is still TBD.
In the very same conference they announced WoW Forever. So whatever it is, it's not necessarily systemic, because they seemed to have nailed that audience.
What’s wrong with doing different things with an IP?
Halo was originally conceived as an RTS, then turned out to be a successful FPS. Then they made a fairly successful RTS too.
Everything Blizzard does is met with such absurd hostility. Gamers pay $60 for 100+ hours of entertainment and still feel like they’re getting screwed at every turn.
Are they disconnected from its customers in current year?
They may be alienating the core audience that made them who they are, but I don't think they're disconnected from their customer base, which has changed. RTSes are not popular and they are not platform-agnostic like an FPS is.
From Blizzard's perspective, this "we" isn't worth the trouble in terms of sales figures. The audience for RTS has fragmented quite a bit into other niches and Blizzard wants to do huge releases with great ROI for their IP, not pay fan service to us.
People may not want to admit this, but RTS is a thing of the past. There haven't been a big, successful release of a brand new RTS for years. Most recent releases are remasters of games from decades ago. There is no money in another RTS, and Blizzard understands that.
If you don't believe me, read some books and articles -- this has been well analyzed and discussed.
Sorry but you are the one disconnected from the reality of today's gaming market.
Honestly as someone who grew up playing SC, WC3 etc... it gets kinda old. If you have played one, you have played them all. I totally welcome an FPS in the Starcraft world and something fresh from Blizzard.
Let's not kid ourselves that it would be a good RTS. Starcraft 2 + expansions is a very poor game compared to brood war. If you haven't watch the ASL it's definitely worth a gander:
I'm still amazed that Blizzard dropped the ball on recreating the same environment that enables dynamic play, instead it's always a formation of rock paper scissors with very little nuance in between.
Starcraft2's problem was that it was 3 separate games with incredible patches that completely changed everything.
The balance team had no idea of the game they wanted StarCraft 2 to be. By the time it all settled down the community went back to SC:BW.
I'm positive there was some combination of SC2 patches that was amazing, if only the patch/balance team stuck with it. I don't know which set of patches that was though.
----------
I have ranted before about deathballs. Beginners want deathballs but advanced players want something deeper than a deathballs.
For all of their faults, SC:BW and AoE2 are anti-deathball. SC:BW is somewhat "accidentally" anti-deathball because of map bumping and poor patching.
AoE2 has incredible siege and defensive emplacements (castles and bombard cannons and siege onagers) that counter deathballs, above and beyond SC2 anti-deathball options.
The AoE2 deathballs unit, the Crossbowman (line) needs like 30+ units before it really starts to feel oppressive, and universally everyone has rams and mangonels to kinda deal with them (or Skirmishers).
I haven't touched it in ages. But I always felt that it SC2 was more successful in taking out APM and "Deathball" mechanics. I remember a lot of cheese options and nuances. I guess there is just a big spread between balancing the pro players and the bronze league fuckers like myself. I have more nostalgia for SC:BW but only played online thanks to SC2 matchmaking. I think making an RTS that ticks all the boxes is incredibly difficult.
> But I always felt that it SC2 was more successful in taking out APM and "Deathball" mechanics
On "Deathballs", no. SC2 always allowed the player to select all military. SC2 always had smoother patching and better programmed "flocking" behavior.
In SC:BW, it's an APM feat to simply control 12 Dragoons/Goliaths/Siege Tanks across a bridge. Meanwhile, a hundred SC2 Stalkers can easily chain-blink across the same terrain no issues.
In SC:BW, the bad patching and bumping is part of the balance. In SC2, all units moved too smoothly and too easily, as such deathballs are always easier to setup.
SC2 allowed players to easily control Deathballs, so then they tried to balance that by making splash attacks more powerful.
In contrast, it's literally impossible to control a deathballs in SC:BW, because you can only ever select 12 units. Literally impossible to control more units (and even then, those 12 units were extremely wonky around bridges or other terrain features).
In SC:BW, the deathballs debate is innately moot. No human can control a deathballs anyway so it's not even a debate. Like controlling 48 zerglings is a feat reserved for top pros.
Further, because control of 48 zerglings is so hard, pros who COULD do it use the 4x groups of Zerglings on increasingly divergent points of the map (harassing multiple bases), rather than concentrating their efforts in one area. Might as well "tax the opponents APM" by attacking multiple locations if you have such good unit control or APM.
Sometimes SC2 was anti APM. Other times, SC2 adds chronoboost / MULEs for no other reason than to eat up APM and provide an outlet for physical clicking and increase APM.
As it ends up, SC2 is randomly anti-APM and pro-APM, depending on the patch, depending on the year.
By swinging back and forth trying to cater to both camps, all that was accomplished was confusion and ultimately a loss of trust between players and the balance team. In many regards, the community swinging back to SC:BW or AOE2 is because we don't like patches that change the game so dramatically.
AOE2 seems to have hit the correct balance point, major changes that the community desires (ex: Longswords being viable after 25 years of constant buffing) but never so major that it fundamentally alters the game the community likes.
Or ex: being brave enough to throw out all sea units / Naval Battles and basically start over from scratch. (Kind of a big change but one the community actually enjoyed).
-------
SC2 patches were more random feeling and more knee jerk.
I'll have to look into AoE2, never knew it was that in-depth. I only played it as a child, also played BW as a child and that stuck as I still play it periodically since remastered came out.
Since you seem to be tapped into the AOE2 scene, any tournaments you'd recommend checking out?
If you plan to make the jump from SC:BW to AoE2.... Some tips.
* Four resources. Stone runs out first and is the key for Castles, a 4000 to 6000 HP building that deals 11x4 damage. Strategically speaking, the castle locations DEFINE the middle game (aka the Castle Age) and still have huge influence for Imperial Age.
Gold is basically the same as Vespine Gas. Gold is +technology or +advanced units. The middle game is determined by your gold unit choice (usually either Knights or XBows, but some players choose mass Monks, Siege or other compositions). The end game is basically when Gold runs out and players are forced to play with so called Trash units (aka wood and food only).
Wood and Food are basically the equivalent of minerals, except Food is made from wood. (You first cut down a tree then make a farm and then finally food comes out). In many ways, it's best to think of food as processed wood, highly available on most maps but slower to gather than Gold/wood.
* Gold units set your main army, Trash units (aka: units that only cost food+wood) TEND to set up the counter to your opponent and are more of a reaction (or prediction). Remember, gold tends to be easier to gather than food in the middle game. Only in the late game does gold run out.
* As such, start the game thinking of Wood == minerals, Gold == Gas except Gold runs out. And you'll actually be pretty good for the feelings of which units are useful for what.
* Food == processed Wood is probably easy enough for you to figure out by feel. I don't expect issues for StarCraft players trying to understand food.
* Stone needs special consideration because nothing in SC:BW or SC2 feels like an AoE2 castle. My overall recommendation is to pretend stones make castles and nothing else important (Towers can be useful but beginner players should focus on thinking about the castle). Play with the Castle first, get some experience and then work backwards to understanding stone.
* Counters are far stronger and swingy in AoE2 than SC:BW or SC2. Let's take a Feudal Age engagement for example: 1 spearman ties with 3 scouts in an engagement... So we are talking about 10 Spearmen trading with 30 scouts in combat kind of counters.
Another counter: Monks counter Knights. Knights are like Battlecruisers if Battlecruisers were the 2nd fastest unit in the game and appeared in the middle of the tech tree (Castle age) ready to go with very few necessary upgrades.... Like seriously Knights are good. Fast, high damage, high armor but costs a ton.
The counter unit... Monks.... their ability is to convert enemy units to your side. So uhhhhhh, hard counter. Monks appear at the same time as Knights (Castle Age) except Monks need a few more upgrades to really be useful.
Depends on the unit: XBows vs Elite Skirmisher or Mangonels is closer to StarCraft levels of counterplay. XBows can win vs equivalent Mangonel with elite level micro / mistakes from the opponent, but most agree that with "equal micro" Mangonels/Onagers/Skirmishers should usually beat XBows.
Speaking of which: AoE2 micro is defined by arrow dodging, Mangonel shot placement (manually predicting the future location of your opponent and aiming there), and finally quick walls / villager shenanigans.
This means that scouting has a degree of importance. In general, you should scout on chickens maps, and you should mix up scouting vs luring on deer maps. Chickens cannot be lured, so scouting is your only option. Deer can be lured, meaning micro-ing your Scout to push a deer into your base and capture an early source of food. Luring is necessary for some builds (ie: rushes which need more food than other builds).
It also means that "SimCity" is based on map layout. Arabia (most common map generator) sometimes spawns "closed" (long woodlines that act as walls), which sometimes makes walling cheaper/easier.
Or sometimes Arabia spawns "open", or fat tree lines spaced far apart. In these, large "base walls" are impossible and people tend to favor "small walls" (maybe a few to protect farms, and like 8 tiles of walls max to protect gold). Top tier pros prefer "quick walls", only walling after the opponent's attack arrives. This is very difficult / micro/APM-intensive, so feel free to just small-wall by default and/or large base wall if the map generates something useful.
If you "large wall", integrate necessary buildings (ex: blacksmith, market, barracks) into your walls. Full scale buildings tend to have ~2000 HP or so, while palisade walls only have 250 or so HP. In fact, most players use "house walls" (the AoE2 equivalent to Supply Depos), because you need tons of houses ANYWAY, and because Houses have 900 HP, its usually better to defend with houses.
Can you explain why this is your personal hell? I don't see it as any different than sports like tennis or games like chess. Some things can have extremely long lifespans with dedicate player bases, what's the problem that video games have adapted for this too?
Or is it more about unwilling to try newer things? As someone who plays video games I can agree with this, I always felt odd about the modern "forever" games like fortnight or dota or lol. At some point you want to move onto newer things, I understand that feeling.
If you mean career wise, that I understand but these types of things happen for niche interests. How would you prevent personalities from developing in decade long cultural events? I suppose that's the problem with niche hobbies, new blood is exciting but uncommon while sometimes you want people to move on and let others get their moment in the sun.
I guess they’re wanting to go after the void Bungie left with Destiny?
I can’t tell if this is too late a move though or if there will be a void and a desire still by the time this releases.
Is there any other studio working on releasing a similar game already since it was obvious Destinys life was short lived for a while with Bungies focus on Marathon?
It’s funny because that’s word for word what blizzard said after years of people asking for WoW Classic. Which ultimately they ended up making and is very successful. Sometimes people know what they want.
