Why don't you play real-time strategy games?

[Krom]

Here is an interesting thread at reddit about RTS genre:

Back in 'the day' as it were, which is to say the mid-to-late 90s and early 2000s, RTS games were, like, THE AAA games. Warcraft 2 and StarCraft were big deals upon their release and even Supreme Commander and C&C Generals made waves in gaming communities.
Today, the only truly major RTS is StarCraft 2 and even it is being overshadowed by FPS, MOBAs, MMORPGs and more. Conventional wisdom, as it were, suggests that RTS games are 'worse' than they used to be in a variety of ways, though I'm not sure I follow or agree with those arguments.
I don't think its necessary a bad thing that RTS is a niche genre that caters to a certain type of gamer, but I thought it'd be interesting to put the question to a broad gaming audience.
Back in the 'glory days' of RTS - did you play and love Red Alert 1&2? Warcraft? SupCom? Generals? What keeps you from picking up RTS games these days (there are still plenty out there)? What would possibly entice you to play another one? Would it be mechanics? Story?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments ... s_what_if/

[sado1]

I never played RTS games and KaM is an exception. I think that what drawn me to it was the building part being fun enough by itself. Other RTS games were too hard to play for me. In KaM, you get addicted to building, then later to fighting. You can suck at this game and it's still fun while PT lasts. That's why PT is great and bad at once: it takes so long, but it makes you have fun no matter what.

[LadyPauline]

All these games like warcraft, Kam starcraft have economic part inside. I remember one game which was pure strategic game, no buildings no resources, only gold to rebuy lost troops after the mission. And i met this game years ago because i played with my friends RPG game named Warhammer. I think this name is known even here. And over 2000 year, maybe even before, there was a game named Warhammer Dark Omen, pure strategy, only fighting, so friggin hard to beat (for me). In every mission enemy have higher numbers. Fighting system very nice, like...charge from behind give us big bonus and enemy morale go down, and then they flee in fear. Also Warhammer story line is included, very climatic storys talked before every battle, lorebooks in menu. Awesome stuff. Is someone want nice strategy then i recomend
Climat, music, races, undead blight, magic. All in one!

I started play RTS when i saw this game. It was my first, then KaM. After all these years i totaly forgot about this title...shame on me.
For me Very important is climat which consume us totaly. Kam have very nice Medieval 'brutal' story in campaign, which i very like also.

[thibmo]

I play a lot of game genre's, from GW2, to BF4 to KaM, etc.
I think the challenge for the RTS genre is that the player needs a ton of patience and be honest, for RTS games you do require good tactical skills.
Most "modern"/"new age" gamers quite easily give up on both of those fronts.
Since the most common type of gameplay is fast-paced FPS with a ton of respawns or hack&slash.

If I look at games that are played as a pure-strategy type then I to tend to point towards ArmA 2/3, KaM(KMR) and the Settlers(Full series).
I say ArmA because when I play it I play it with a gaming community in which we create our own scenario's(With a Zeus mod) that we play like a military special force platoon.

I know for sure that a lot of players can and will enjoy games like KaM, KMR, KP and the Settlers, yet what scares them off is the previously stated.
They think that they might get bored after, let's say, an hour of battle, which is mainly not true, as there might be an enemy army pushing your way right at that moment.
Maybe there should be some more stuff like the more popular games have, a group of websites aimed towards publishing the games, either cheap or for free.
Now that I wrote it, perhaps I will start doing so.
I could put them in the rotation of the TS3 server advertisements and on a few websites and eventually make a special website aimed towards this. ( Although for that I'd require image-artists )

Maybe it's a good idea? I don't know, what do you guys/girls think?

[Jeronimo]

And over 2000 year, maybe even before, there was a game named Warhammer Dark Omen, pure strategy, only fighting, so friggin hard to beat (for me). In every mission enemy have higher numbers. Fighting system very nice, like...charge from behind give us big bonus and enemy morale go down, and then they flee in fear. Also Warhammer story line is included, very climatic storys talked before every battle, lorebooks in menu. Awesome stuff. Is someone want nice strategy then i recomend Climat, music, races, undead blight, magic. All in one!

I started play RTS when i saw this game. It was my first, then KaM. After all these years i totaly forgot about this title...shame on me.

http://forum.dark-omen.org/tournaments-b32.0/
There was a serie of monthly Dark Omen tournaments from 2008 to 2012. The peak multiplayer activity was in 2009, after that there were gradually less participants, and most of the newcomers didn't have good tactical level.
Watch some of my uploaded battles : https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... t+jeronimo

----------------------
Respect Main topic: Why doesn't people play RTS games?
I love this question. It has made me think 1 hour about multiple factors.
If you analyze it deeply, it's like thinking in a long-term strategy "reality" (not "game").

What are the steps or mechanics that make a game become popular nowadays?
I think is very very hard to do it genuinely, because you can program an excellent videogame (system/balance/playability), BUT if you don't take advantage of your peak popularity... if you miss your best moment... you won't comeback (R.I.P. title).

Does anyone know the game Sacrifice? The game was a blast in year 2000, innovative, amazing, even won "game of the year", but failed commercially due a poor strategy in marketing (advertisement/publicity).

So, you must focus in "real market strategy", specially when you have the advantage of good critics.
Now that is NOT enough tough... Keep global interest of human players by organizing "money tournaments".

If your game becomes "competitively popular" (thousands of videos from addicted players on social networks/gaming platforms), it will bring commercial attention towards your game (clothes, CD, comic, etc)... and awake interest from usually careless/casual players (who give a damn the game genre, as long as it is "popular").

Nowadays it's preety naive to believe that "players will bring players" (in a small percentage yes, but never exponentially).
Massive media, $$$$ tournaments, commercial agreements, continuous game renovation (DLC's announcements).

You need an economical mind to see your game triumphing in the worldwide.
Invert money to get money and public approval in return. Expand like a virus and don't let your name stop replicating.

[thibmo]

And over 2000 year, maybe even before, there was a game named Warhammer Dark Omen, pure strategy, only fighting, so friggin hard to beat (for me). In every mission enemy have higher numbers. Fighting system very nice, like...charge from behind give us big bonus and enemy morale go down, and then they flee in fear. Also Warhammer story line is included, very climatic storys talked before every battle, lorebooks in menu. Awesome stuff. Is someone want nice strategy then i recomend Climat, music, races, undead blight, magic. All in one!

I started play RTS when i saw this game. It was my first, then KaM. After all these years i totaly forgot about this title...shame on me.

http://forum.dark-omen.org/tournaments-b32.0/
There was a serie of monthly Dark Omen tournaments from 2008 to 2012. The peak multiplayer activity was in 2009, after that there were gradually less participants, and most of the newcomers didn't have good tactical level.
Watch some of my uploaded battles : https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... t+jeronimo

----------------------
Respect Main topic: Why doesn't people play RTS games?
I love this question. It has made me think 1 hour about multiple factors.
If you analyze it deeply, it's like thinking in a long-term strategy "reality" (not "game").

What are the steps or mechanics that make a game become popular nowadays?
I think is very very hard to do it genuinely, because you can program an excellent videogame (system/balance/playability), BUT if you don't take advantage of your peak popularity... if you miss your best moment... you won't comeback (R.I.P. title).

Does anyone know the game Sacrifice? The game was a blast in year 2000, innovative, amazing, even won "game of the year", but failed commercially due a poor strategy in marketing (advertisement/publicity).

So, you must focus in "real market strategy", specially when you have the advantage of good critics.
Now that is NOT enough tough... Keep global interest of human players by organizing "money tournaments".

If your game becomes "competitively popular" (thousands of videos from addicted players on social networks/gaming platforms), it will bring commercial attention towards your game (clothes, CD, comic, etc)... and awake interest from usually careless/casual players (who give a damn the game genre, as long as it is "popular").

Nowadays it's preety naive to believe that "players will bring players" (in a small percentage yes, but never exponentially).
Massive media, $$$$ tournaments, commercial agreements, continuous game renovation (DLC's announcements).

You need an economical mind to see your game triumphing in the worldwide.
Invert money to get money and public approval in return. Expand like a virus and don't let your name stop replicating.

Those are good arguments indeed.
But money tournaments is not something the dev should do.
That is something for organisations like ESL.

The whole RTS genre isn't comparable to, let's say, World of Tanks where the player can spend money on new tanks or equipment of a premium account to gain more EXP per battle.
That simply doesn't fit in the RTS genre, where you must use your skill and mind to even stand a chance against other players ( And not spam them with premium "it will never bounce" ammunition that you can buy for gold, which they can buy with real money ).

I think for RTS the main requirement would be is to have a solid multiplayer and extremely good combat mechanics in the engine, combine that with something to keep track of their skill and build a solid fan-base.
Organize tournaments monthly and small events weekly to keep it interesting ( as a starter ) and to get more popularity, because the game is interesting and offers replay-ability due to the events and tournaments.
The events and tournaments are subjects that make multi-million companies like ESL wet their pants in joy, as it is what they use to lure new people into joining their organisation, and pay the 12 euro annual subscription, and even make their own world-wide tournaments.

This is how games like GuildWars 2 and World of Tanks really grew to huge games with an amazingly huge fan-base.

[Ben]

For me, the biggest reason that people don't play RTS is the learning curve. People don't want to go through the effort to learn how to play. I'm the worst when it comes to learning new games. As lazy as it gets, really. The same with my friends when I try to teach them. They won't learn chess, KaM, AoE, etc. because it's too much work.
Just look at the popular "strategy" games these days. Clash of Clans? What the heck is this crap. The simplicity is depressing, but I understand it because I, too, hate learning new games

Also note that RTS games are more fun once you get well suited to them. RPGs are usually the most fun right away, while you are still exploring them. So an RPG will attract new players much better than an RTS will. Maybe this exact reasoning is why some strategy games, like AoE, continue to be popular even well after a decade-and-a-half of being released.

[SimCity]

You can play chess, Ben? Let's have a game then.
Cheers.

[dicsoupcan]

i played a lot of rts games in the past, and basically many rts games do not offer any new in their formulas. it is al about finding the best unit you can get, rush towards it and spam utill the enemy dies. that is rts in a nutshell. but yeah it's just my opinion.

[Soldado con espada]

My reason not to play RTS games like before: time.
And my stupid brain: "I cannot dedicate the entire day to it, so let's do NOTHING for two hours instead of trying the game".

Yes, I have a problem xD.

[Esthlos]

For me, the biggest reason that people don't play RTS is the learning curve. People don't want to go through the effort to learn how to play. I'm the worst when it comes to learning new games. As lazy as it gets, really. The same with my friends when I try to teach them. They won't learn chess, KaM, AoE, etc. because it's too much work.
Just look at the popular "strategy" games these days. Clash of Clans? What the heck is this crap. The simplicity is depressing, but I understand it because I, too, hate learning new games

Also note that RTS games are more fun once you get well suited to them. RPGs are usually the most fun right away, while you are still exploring them. So an RPG will attract new players much better than an RTS will. Maybe this exact reasoning is why some strategy games, like AoE, continue to be popular even well after a decade-and-a-half of being released.

I would love to be able to disagree, I really would, but this describes my own experience with my friends so closely that it's... rather depressing, actually.

[Stocky]

It's just pure buisness, easier the game is to learn more players will play it as it was said. But I see one interesting point and that is when you learn it and actually invest time into that you will probably get addicted very quickly and part of the reason why is because there is no perfect game. You can always get better and this is the reason for me to play even after all these years and releases from the very first games of remake.

Only other RTS game I still play is chess and It's vey similar to kam (small mistake can lose you game)

[Ben]

Only other RTS game I still play is chess

Woah woah woah hold on now. Chess is most certainly no RTS!

[Stocky]

Only other RTS game I still play is chess

Woah woah woah hold on now. Chess is most certainly no RTS!

When you play bullet, it almost is

[Ben]

Only other RTS game I still play is chess

Woah woah woah hold on now. Chess is most certainly no RTS!

When you play bullet, it almost is

Hmmm, alright I'll give you "almost" but still not quite actual RTS