2012: bad year for RTS?

[Evie]

I think RTSes may be suffering from the fact that they were always sort of a hybrid genre, not quite tactical games, not quite strategy either, with some elements of both. (Individual troop-level unit control vs resource management and army building). And very, very, very much suffering from being jack of all trades, masters of none, and never making that much sense/being that realistic.

Pretty much, this has lead to RTS being outflanked on both sides - both tactics and strategy have genres that do them better (and more realistically) than RTS. And arguably a hybrid in the Total War style (even with TW's AI trouble) does BOTH strategy AND tactics better than a classic RTS.

All of this leading to a scenario where people want to exploit niches and have games that do what they do very well, rather than go with classic RTSes. Especially when, you know, going with a classic RTS means going up against Blizzard and SC2, which wouldn't sound like a winning proposal to a sane person.

All this just my, perhaps completely wrong, opinion.

 

[Maniacal]

Except that the typical Starcraft/Age of Empires type RTS games have been far more numerous and clearly their own type of RTS than any other specific type of RTS. The Total War series has no serious competition, real time grand strategy games are generally niche (Paradox's games are only recently rapidly expanding in popularity largely thanks to Steam).

I think that RTS games have a better chance of doing well despite Starcraft 2 (they did do well despite the first one) than all those WoW clones and mediocre MMORPGs have against WoW. Entirely different games with entirely different time requirements, I know, but that hasn't stopped people from continually making "WoW killers".

Also you can't make a decent RTS for the consoles because of the controllers, which I think is the real reason for the decline in production of them.

 

[Evie]

The console thing is certainly true.

I agree games of that genre have been far more numerous than all the other historically - but I'd argue that's because either the subgenres didn't exist yet, or because they were too obscure, or because the games in those subgenres weren't superior to RTS at their own niche - yet.

This is changing/has changed. More and more, there are game and genres emerging/becoming popular that do one aspect of RTSes better than RTSes. MOBA is a recent development. Fairly popular RT Grand Strategy is also a recent development. Tower Defense really came into its own fairly recently as well.

I don't expect any of these to replace RTS as "THE" strategy genre. Rather, I expect the division into sub-genres, and into games that do on eor two things well rather than trying to do everything.

There's a matter of perception on challenging Blizzard on RTSes vs MMOs, I think. MMOs were - although maybe SWTOR has hurt that perception - perceived as THE field to be in, the one super-expanding genre, where WOW couldn't possibly answer all the demand (wrong-headed: what people failed to grasp was the necessity to keep pumping new content into WOW-style games to keep people paying, and the cost they would incur creating new content for their games).

Classic RTSes, on the other hand - especially with the expansion into several distinct related genre - is, I suspect, perceived as a much narrower genre, with SC2's success being ascribed more to blizzard's fame, the game's own name recognition, and the game just being excellent, rather than a clue that there is a huge untapped RTS market. Plus, with MOBAs, RTGS and the like coming into their own popularity-wise, there's probably also a perceptino that you can do better off by hitting your own genre (or at least a genre that isn't clearly dominated by someone else yet) than by trying to take blizzard head-on.

 

[OrsonM]

Oh wait, forgot about Airmech!, a pretty amazing take on the original RTS, Herzog Zwei.

I played it a few days and I'm surprised how ahead of it's time it feels, particularly how it converges both a MOBA and a Tower Defense seamlessly.

Wish I had played Herzog Zwei back in the day, but I had a Snes, not a Sega.

 

[Double A]

Does Orcs Must Die! fit into this discussion the same way TW does?

In any case, my sincere apologies to Double A, please accept this Wario as a token of friendship.

Kay.

 

[Maniacal]

OMD isn't really an RTS.

 

[Double A]

It's tower defense. Sort of.

 

[coanda]

I think this says it all...
http://www.ign.com/wikis/best-of-2012/Best_Overall_Strategy_Game

No RTS games made their list of potential "best strategy games" of 2012. And no, I can't think of a game that was released that should be considered on a list like that (I might quibble over whether some of their choices are good ones, but that's a different issue).

 

[Maniacal]

The web address says it all, IGNorant.com is a worthless website. That category is Strategy game, not a specific type of RTS, anyway.

 

[OrsonM]

Well, the definition of real time strategy shouldn't just be games with an isometric view that have similar mechanics to Dune 2 (that's a little too narrow). The term entails any strategy game that is not turn based.

IGN for whatever reason skipped all RTS releases this year. If I would have to pick 5 RTS games to place on a real strategy games best of the year list, then it would probably be:

-Airmech
-Wargame: European Escalation
-Dota 2
-Natural Selection 2
-Orcs Must Die 2

The biggest disappointments this year would likely be:

-Gettysburg Armored Warfare
-Oil Rush
-Unstoppable Gorg
-Starvoid

If anything it was a modest year for RTS, both Airmech and Natural Selection 2 stop it from being a terrible year. Next year there will be a bunch of big publisher RTS releases to fill the void.

 

[Double A]

IGN's opinion on gaming affects me in the same way Michael Atkinson does.

 

[GoodGame]

The console thing is certainly true.

I agree games of that genre have been far more numerous than all the other historically - but I'd argue that's because either the subgenres didn't exist yet, or because they were too obscure, or because the games in those subgenres weren't superior to RTS at their own niche - yet.

This is changing/has changed. More and more, there are game and genres emerging/becoming popular that do one aspect of RTSes better than RTSes. MOBA is a recent development. Fairly popular RT Grand Strategy is also a recent development. Tower Defense really came into its own fairly recently as well.

Just to give perspective, to the time, RTSes are only about 20 years old themselves, and MOBA/TD pretty much dates to about 2004 (Warcraft 3). Arguably some RTSes were heavily "tower defense" in that setting up vast static defenses was important to winning.

 

[Hawawaa]

Sins Rebellion (good stuff)... and that's all I can think of for this year.

Next year though Planetary Annihilation so 2013 will be a good year.

 

[OrsonM]

Just to give perspective, to the time, RTSes are only about 20 years old themselves, and MOBA/TD pretty much dates to about 2004 (Warcraft 3). Arguably some RTSes were heavily "tower defense" in that setting up vast static defenses was important to winning.

MOBA's sort of had an start with Herzog Zweig, back in 1989 (its pushing it, but some of the dynamics were there), but as you say the real thing wouldn't come out up until DOTA made an appearance. Tower Defense though, I'm gonna have to call that a foul, the genre is much older than that. I was even playing would-be TD's back in the late 90s with the real maps coming out around the early 2000s, but preceding Warcraft 3.

In any case, it is true that both genres are much older than what people give them credit for, taking in consideration as well how young the RTS genre is.

 

[da dick]

RTSs have been dead to me ever since dawn of war became an RPG, and blizzard focused more on milking WoW forever and ever...

 

[Evie]

While MOBA/TD appeared - as mods - in 2004, that's not the same as making actual games of those types.

The actual games of those types appear to have really started surfacing in a notable way over the last five years. Which is about a quarter of the time that classic RTSes have been around.

Five years ago is also when Steam really started taking off, which allowed a number of formerly obscure developpers (like Paradox) to become more noticeable.

 

[OrsonM]

While MOBA/TD appeared - as mods - in 2004, that's not the same as making actual games of those types.

The actual games of those types appear to have really started surfacing in a notable way over the last five years. Which is about a quarter of the time that classic RTSes have been around.

Five years ago is also when Steam really started taking off, which allowed a number of formerly obscure developpers (like Paradox) to become more noticeable.

Trueish on the MOBAs, while this is indeed true, you also have to take into consideration that a lot of the DOTAs and TD mods were really polished mods at that. Did people got WC3 just for DOTA around those years?, who knows, probably not. But this techno song sensation seems to prove a different reality in certain parts of the world.

Where is the Civilization song, or the Xcom song??, the Cain rap doesn't count!

 

[Double A]

RTSs have been dead to me ever since dawn of war became an RPG, and blizzard focused more on milking WoW forever and ever...

Retribution's non-TLS multiplayer is an RTS. The campaign is a RPG and RTS hybrid thing. It has Eliphas. And space pirate Orks.

 

[Samez]

Did anyone play Wargame: European Escalation?
I hope it's a bit like world in conflict....
If it will be on steam Christmas sale I might give it a try.

 

[GoodGame]

Did anyone play Wargame: European Escalation?
I hope it's a bit like world in conflict....
If it will be on steam Christmas sale I might give it a try.

Yourtube is your friend:
Link to video.

It's probably not quite WiC in setting and units, but it's own thing. Looks like it has a bit more simulator feel to it than WiC, which was pretty simplistic.