Whatever happened to the RTS genre? (video)

[Great Deceiver]

Competitive RTS games died because of the Internet, optimized build orders and optimal meta play are figured out in a short while and all that remains is someone's dexterity to pull it off faster than the other person. Replicating optimal strategies gets boring, much the same as replicating optimal net decks in card games.

Casual RTS players - the kind that like to sit in their base and accumulate vast defensive power before striking out at all - get utterly crushed and generally only play a couple of matches online.

I believe there's still room for single player-focused RTS games and there are a lot of licenses that could be revived for that purpose, if only they didn't sit in the limbo of massive publishers who won't let them go after killing them with horrible games - i.e. Lord of the Rings (I'll never forget how EA sent Armies of Exigo to die against the infinitely inferior Battle for Middle Earth, which had an infinite marketing budget), Dune, etc.

As for the Dota/RTS debate - back when I was a WC3 ladder addict I scoffed at Dota and thought there was no point, now I realize Dota scratches a different itch and has its own sets of challenges and rewards. They're not really comparable beyond the very superficial unit control mechanics. I believe the appeal of Dota and Dota-like games is how unpredictable matches are due to the many random elements (not least of all your teammates and your enemies).

 

[Blaine]

Who gives a shit what happened to it? If you have Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance and Age of Empires II, you never need to buy another RTS again. I know there's a third genre titan I'm not remembering at the moment.

The first RTS I ever played was Dune II, on my roommate's laptop in military boarding school. I had no idea what genre it belonged to at the time or the sheer level of incline I was experiencing, but boy, did I sink some serious hours into that bad boy.

Personally, I'd say that I'm a semi-casual. I'm not a turtler or map-painter by any means (and I've never really understood people who stay in that mode of play forever), but I tend to prefer single-player or play with other novices. I have very little interest in accumulating 500+ hours of intensive "competitive study," becoming an expert, and playing other experts. For me, figuring shit out is a big part of the enjoyment of RTS, and not high-level optimization.

When it comes to 4X (SMAC and MoO2), grand strategy (Victoria II), city builders (Zeus+Poseidon and SimCity 2000), and RTS (SupCom and AoEII), I generally play them for 100+ hours at a stretch until I know the game in and out, then put them down for years and come back to them again.

I booted up Age of Empires II again yesterday and so I'm on yet another "new games are shit, these 2-3 have never been equaled" crusade.

 

[Multidirectional]

For a noob like me RTS genre is just fine at the moment, have nothing to bitch about. Maybe I would if I was campaign fag, but there are only couple of RTS games that I've ever enjoyed campaign in and that's Starcraft 1, Age of Mythology and Starcraft II WoL. In most of these games I do a little skirmish to get the basics and then go straight to playing against people which is always inifinitely more entertaining than turtling up against bots. Exception being premade skirmishes in Stronghold Crusader, I like slowly going through those. Played AOE III competetively for couple years then switched to Starcraft II a couple months ago which I find a much superior game. Loving that Silver/Gold league gameplay and don't give a fuck about my APM or any metas. Don't even care if don't get to higher leagues, it's just a joy to occasionally sit down and play 2-3 fast matches. Can't believe I used turtle up for over an hour against bots just a couple years ago, it's seems like such a boring way to play now. Trying to build up eco while continuously harassing the opponent is so much more fun.

If you have Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance

Would like to try getting into that game but it runs like utter crap for me anytime my army gets larger. I'm talking major freezing. Maybe one day with newer CPU it won't do that anymore.

 

[ArchAngel]

ATM when I get a RTS itch I start my SC2 and play a few of the Coop commanders matches or a skirmish or two vs Very Hard Computer.
Nothing new has made me really want to play it. I am waiting for that C&C Generals RTS that will be as fun but also supported by its devs/publishers.

 

[Space Satan]

90% of players on other hand want like some other poster said take their time and be more goal oriented. It is about strategy, resource management not about how fast you can masturbate.

So with developers trying to chase multiplayer market they decided to care for 10% of RTS players who are loud rather than rest of normal ones who just want good RTS with great SP campaign.

Can you present from where you got this statistics? About 90-10 ratio?

And the genre died. It died in era where everyone has internet and connecting to other and playing together is milion times easier than before. Which is why your point is bullshit.

It diesd because nobody is going to balance or support their games, not because online play is not appealing. GameSpy died in 2014 and with it huge branch of online play just stopped funcioning. Look through C&C steam store - everywhere save for C&C4 is a notice about multiplayer not working due to gayspy being dead. And still sites like https://cnc-online.net/ maintain online play, even with much huge problms EA created to them by releasing half-assed code, which means trouble with new maps and stuff.

Second problem is 3D. Once game moves from 2D to 3D developers often make simple mistakes. They take longer animations, more cluttered landmasses, fucking around with camera that used to be something you didn't care about etc. pathfinding suddenly becomes a fucking problem. And the most important part about it. When games went for 3D they became smaller, less units, smaller maps, square shaped buildings and so on.

Bullshit. SC2, Red Alert 3, Supreme Commander, WC3, TW all were in 3D and were great. Yet sprites handled pathing horribly, Dark Reign, even Broodwar. RA2 were abysmal with terror drones getting stuck between buidings and moving back and forth.

I think only Earth 2150 tried to actually use 3D for something other than just eyecandy (you could terraform creating natural walls, dig tunnels under enemy base etc.)

...and Earth 2150 was the best example of 3d cashgrab. With dozers digging trenches, nderground map and other stuff being purely cosmetical, and vast majority of battles being solved without all this in a traditional way. Or with that 6 ubertanks that you got from some mission from the vault.

 

[sser]

I think the RTS genre is the healthiest it has been in a very long time.

 

[Dzupakazul]

What is an RTS?

EDIT: I meant to leave it as a classic Codexian shitpost, but I'm honestly still perplexed that you can Brofist-harvest in this thread by just posting a variant on "retarded masturbating monkeys ruined video games by making them all about smashing the keyboard" when the communities for any RTS game in existence discuss the "mental" part of the game as much as they do the "physical" part of it.

I'm teaching Brood War to low-level newbies over at a random Discord server and it's not that they don't smash the keyboard fast, looking at their replays and FPVods, they simply forget about certain things that are very, very easy to lose track of, screw up their positioning, unit composition, overall strategy, wrong analysis of the info on the map, wrong engagements.

I agree that there are a few basics that quickly get found out - but that's the case for every game, no matter how deep its mechanics are. I've only recently gotten into Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri - simply never had a prior occasion to play it - but I'm already recognizing truisms and basics that will contribute to 99% of victories, such as "spam a lot of cities", "raise forests in the early game", "beeline supply crawlers and +3 Nutrient/Mineral/Eco tech", etc. Yes, there are variables, but any game in existence will have superior and inferior approaches, and there will always be a standard. It doesn't help that many of the core concepts are directly lifted from Civilization 2 - which I have played on the Deity level.

When you're referring to "rote repetition of build orders" as being boring, you make it sound like the entirety of a high-speed RTS can be played just through going about the same motions over and over, through the course of the whole game, when in reality it's all down to a few "standard" concepts and then the game lives its own life the moment you've left early game. By the 6th minute mark of a Brood War game, you no longer have to follow a build order because it's already finished; your game can last anywhere from 15 to 50 minutes and you can be thrown a fuckton of variables like secret bases, specialist units, clutch tactics, surprise strikes, all-ins and what not.

I just really don't understand why would you make broad, near-demagogic statements about the RTS genre having committed suicide because of people getting better at them, but also can bemoan casualization of other genres. Does high-speed Quake gameplay ruin your memories of carefully traversing each level and humping walls for secrets? Should we bemoan the Shin Megami Tensei series for forcing you to figure out your character build and powers and potentially screwing you out of the ending you wanted because all of that autistic shit has nothing to do with the "role-playing" part of RPGs? Did people who figure out how to combo properly ruin Street Fighter?

Because if the "casual RTS player" can be described as such:

Casual RTS players - the kind that like to sit in their base and accumulate vast defensive power before striking out at all

Then doesn't that also make him a shitty "strategy" player if he can only play one thing and never adapt? Sitting in your base and playing defensively, most of the time, means artificially prolonging your lifespan while you're doomed from the start, because in the end, defense also has to be played smart - you need to deploy some preventive measures against siege, you need to scout to make sure the enemy isn't overtaking 90% of the map while you're turtling, you sometimes don't even start on a map that lets you turtle well at all! What do those people do when their single player mission objective says "destroy enemy base in 30 minutes?" Roll over and die? What about missions without base building? Missions where you are restricted to low tech units?

And, speaking of "single-player focused" RTS games, why bother making the distinction? RTS games generally have very competently made SP and MP modes; I'm not sure why are we pretending this isn't the case. Similarly to how any Civ game, SMAC and other games that are generally played in SP can be really terrific in MP.

 

[thesheeep]

And, speaking of "single-player focused" RTS games, why bother making the distinction? RTS games generally have very competently made SP and MP modes; I'm not sure why are we pretending this isn't the case. Similarly to how any Civ game, SMAC and other games that are generally played in SP can be really terrific in MP.

What you consider "competently made" is probably barely worth a look to people mostly interested in multiplayer.
Those people want ladders, perfect matchmaking, good training possibilities - if it is competitive gameplay they seek.
Those more interested in cooperative play prefer persistent worlds with long-term goals - like TW:Warhammer, for example (even if that's not classical RTS but you get the idea). This variant is woefully underrepresented in games, almost all focus on competitive MP despite the interest being somewhat low and the few big ones already filling the niche pretty much completely.

Either way, both variants require a significant amount of determination and resources from the developer. The server infrastructure alone would require a dev team just for that.

On the other hand there are games like SpellForce 3 that can be played in multiplayer, but there isn't really much here. You can do skirmishes against each other, but there is no ranking, no ladder, no useful matchmaking. It is completely irrelevant to people looking for competitive play.
So very clearly, SpellForce 3 is a "single-player focused" RTS game. I would even argue the game would have been better if they had scratched multiplayer entirely and just focused more on SP.

 

[Dzupakazul]

And, speaking of "single-player focused" RTS games, why bother making the distinction? RTS games generally have very competently made SP and MP modes; I'm not sure why are we pretending this isn't the case. Similarly to how any Civ game, SMAC and other games that are generally played in SP can be really terrific in MP.

What you consider "competently made" is probably barely worth a look to people mostly interested in multiplayer.

A few examples off the top of my head:
- top Terran player Kogetbw is streaming a max difficulty playthrough of Warcraft 2: Beyond the Dark Portal, which is giving him pause because it's actually really fucking difficult;
- Warcraft 3 on Hard is a challenge even to people who are remotely experienced in RTSes;
- Starcraft 2 on Brutal has a variety of missions, 30~ per expansion pack, and they can be generally considered challenging to people who aren't already Diamond players or so; the co-op mode is also wildly popular even though the game is mostly associated with hardcore MP action;
- most RTSes with a map editor can be tailored to create compelling co-op and SP experiences, such as this one
- most popular RTSes still have plenty of campaigns that people are fond of; Dawn of War went through three expansion packs that offered a lot of campaigns on top of the MP content;

I would say that for many of those MP games, the SP content serves as a "gateway" to playing the game more - sure, you might not learn any advanced strategies from playing the campaigns, but you will learn how the units behave and, if you like the game enough, you might as well try to explore your opportunities in MP. We already know that the vast majority of people who actually did play SC, WC3 and what not still have been perfectly satisfied with just the campaigns and vs AI compstomps; I don't think I've seen a truly "multiplayer only" RTS game, ever, they're still bundled with campaigns for a reason, and those aren't just 'skeleton" missions, but finely crafted maps that are often very memorable. We haven't had an RTS game yet that basically treated its SP mode like Quake 3 Arena did.

I've seen a lot of sentiment for "bringing back" the focus on Single Player, but most of the games people are pining for and citing the "SP emphasis" in this thread have been appropriated by the multiplayer crowd anyway, because the MP *is* there and people deemed it worth playing.

 

[MRY]

I don't think I've seen a truly "multiplayer only" RTS game, ever, they're still bundled with campaigns for a reason, and those aren't just 'skeleton" missions, but finely crafted maps that are often very memorable. We haven't had an RTS game yet that basically treated its SP mode like Quake 3 Arena did.

My friend (who went on to be VP of Design at Riot) made Strifeshadow back in days of yore, and it was one of the first purely multiplayer RTS. I feel like there are lots out there that have either skirmish only vs. CPU or pure multiplayer, though at the moment none is coming to mind.

 

[DeepOcean]

Most people are terrible at multitasking, something you really need to learn to be good at RTS, most MOBAS keep the multitasking to a minimum, a MOBA game is all focused on the choice of heroes, abilities, items and meta-strategies that alot of people are more capable of and can easily read guides online fo r it, the average League of Legends player only need to learn a basic of micro skills that would far from be enough to be able to handle a RTS like Starcraft.

Learning to multitask armies both on a micro and macro level, that is a mechanical skill with a learning curve, requires time and you will be crushed until you are comfortable enough with it while a League of Legends player can pick up how things work way quicker. It is quite ironic that single player TB strategy games are actually doing better than most RTS ones these days and the reason is that multitasking and micromanaging becomes alot easier on a TB game.

The fall in popularity of the RTS is that developers failed to understand the multiplayer focused RTS boat had sailed for MOBAs because the accessibility gap and that won't change.

Grey Goo is an example of that, it is a by the numbers RTS game that still focuses on the traditional Starcraft formula, if you have a map, and you place three armies on it and the focus is to play with those factions on multiplayer... well... I have bad news for you. The only way to make money this way is to make games ultra cheap that is what Petroglyph is going after the failure of Grey Goo.

RTS these days need something that or break them from the traditional formula or just go on a route where the MOBAS have a hard time. Something like Normandy 44 and its claim of authenticity on second world war warfare will attract alot of WW 2 buffs or a game like They Are Billions where the focus isn't exactly to defeat another faction controlled by another human but to survive against the game, those games will make money and grant decent revenue streams for their developers but the big bucks is on multiplayer and multiplayer is the MOBA zone.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Yeah, the death of RTS is a glaring example of total disconnect between the fanbase and developers. The multiplayer angle was a gigantic mistake from the start, we didn't play Starcraft because it was fun, we played it because in those days you played any multiplayer you could get into your hands. The truth is that it was complete shit even when it was the biggest competitive game in the world, a strategy shouldn't become a battle of who clicks faster for fucks sake.

I think general RTS community just wants great SP campaigns and also they don't want to play clone games of the same shit they've allready beaten 500 times over. It's just a matter of finding a right twist on the genre. Supreme Commander had epic scale, R.U.S.E. had deception features, Banished had brutal difficulty, CoH had squad tactics, the list does on and on. Stop aping Starcraft already, find a cool idea that actually makes your game interesting and the sales will come.

 

[DeepOcean]

Blizzard made the best copy of Starcraft, called, Starcraft 2, the game failed even on South Korea, this should be the tip for RTS developers to have new ideas.

 

[Dzupakazul]

Blizzard made the best copy of Starcraft, called, Starcraft 2

we didn't play Starcraft because it was fun, we played it because in those days you played any multiplayer you could get in your hands. The truth is that it was complete shit even when it was the biggest competitive game in the world, a strategy shouldn't become a battle of who clicks faster for fucks sake.
(...) Supreme Commander (...) CoH (...) R.U.S.E. (...) Banished

I guarantee any of the games you just listed will still favor the guy who "clicks faster" heavily once you start playing competitively. And exactly how any of this is true if the only thing that the AI in Starcraft does remotely well is perfect control? It will relentlessly cast perfect spells to engulf your entire army and produce out of all its factories very optimally, but it also gets utterly destroyed by any semblance of strategy. It will blindly charge Lurkers like an utter idiot. If you dismantle every single game to "the one with best reaction speed wins", then let's just quit video games altogether and declare Nightmare Xaero bot to be the best gamer in the world.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Blizzard made the best copy of Starcraft, called, Starcraft 2

we didn't play Starcraft because it was fun, we played it because in those days you played any multiplayer you could get in your hands. The truth is that it was complete shit even when it was the biggest competitive game in the world, a strategy shouldn't become a battle of who clicks faster for fucks sake.
(...) Supreme Commander (...) CoH (...) R.U.S.E. (...) Banished

I guarantee any of the games you just listed will still favor the guy who "clicks faster" heavily once you start playing competitively. And exactly how any of this is true if the only thing that the AI in Starcraft does remotely well is perfect control? It will relentlessly cast perfect spells to engulf your entire army and produce out of all its factories very optimally, but it also gets utterly destroyed by any semblance of strategy. It will blindly charge Lurkers like an utter idiot. If you dismantle every single game to "the one with best reaction speed wins", then let's just quit video games altogether and declare Nightmare Xaero bot to be the best gamer in the world.

Dude, no one has a problem if a video game requires some degree of speed. Starcraft wasn't an aberration because you needed to be fast, it was an aberration because it was speed reliant to an absurd degree, despite being a strategy game. Strategy doesn't have to be about who can come up with a perfect plan in 3 months, it's can be about who can come up with a decent plan in 5 minutes. What it shouldn't be about, is who can bumrush the other guy the fastest. And that's overwhelmingly what SC multiplayer was about. Bumrushing people and trying to bumrush faster than the other guy.

MOBA games in comparision also have that speed aspect to them. You have to optimize your farm, optimize your movement, optimize your builds, practice your combos. But they are about so much more than that, on the spot decision making and macro level strategic thinking that RTS just doesn't offer.

 

[Dzupakazul]

Dude, no one has a problem if a video game requires some degree of speed. Starcraft wasn't an aberration because you needed to be fast, it was an aberration because it was speed reliant to an absurd degree, despite being a strategy game. Strategy doesn't have to be about who can come up with a perfect plan in 3 months, it's can be about who can come up with a decent plan in 5 minutes. What it shouldn't be about, is who can bumrush the other guy the fastest. And that's overwhelmingly what SC multiplayer was about. Bumrushing people and trying to bumrush faster than the other guy.

What if I told you that the most popular and consistent builds (because bumrushing is actually incredibly risky) in every single matchup of Starcraft, barring, perhaps, Zerg vs Zerg due to its unique nature, favors consistent, macro-based play where you play defensively until you achieve late-game tech, with minor bits of pressure here and there that aren't usually meant to destroy your opponent outright, but to put a stop to any greedy tactics they might have and to make your own game safer to conduct? When Bisu and Jaedong, top tier Protoss and Zerg, respectively, played a Brood War showmatch to promote Starcraft: Remastered at the latest Blizzcon, Jaedong was actually tilted so hard over his last two losses that he decided to bank his entire game on a risky, all-in build, and then lost the game the moment his Protoss opponent fielded a sufficient defense, because the amount of cash that was sunk into an all-in attack put Jaedong into an economic disadvantage that would have lost him the game almost guaranteedly 10 minutes later.

But they are about so much more than that, on the spot decision making

I've played enough MOBA games to know the nuances like choosing when to push, where to gank, which lane to choose to support, what items to build, etc. etc. are very important and vital, and they contribute vastly to where you belong on the big Elo meatgrinder. But let's not pretend that there isn't a fuckton of it in RTS games. CoH1, I find, is very good about this stuff because the game has a fuckton of counters and variables, and every unit is extremely important, because any and all losses you take are costly to replenish due to how the game works. If the enemy goes fast artillery or opts to skip Tier 2 in favor of a quicker Tier 3, you *have* to respond accordingly. What MOBA excels at isn't necessarily those things, but the amount of information you have to absorb to be competitive - there's a fuckton of heroes in Dota 2 or LoL and also a ton of items you have to use that are all variables you have to take into account.

and macro level strategic thinking that RTS just doesn't offer.

Where is my opponent's army? Are they currently en route somewhere? Can I surprise them by engaging on them when they're passing by a spot where their flank will be particularly vulnerable? Can I have an advantageous engagement with my spellcasters? Does their army composition necessitate that I need to make some quick and serious adaptations and changes to my upgrades or my own unit composition? Do I need to employ a particular spell to succeed? Conversely, do I see any of their spellcasters or crucial units that I need to snipe in order to increase my chance of success in an engagement? Is their army more mobile than mine? If not, can I use my superior mobility to strike in such a way that they can't reinforce the spot in time? Do I have map control? Can I get away with creating and fortifying a new mineral base to gather more resources? What happens if the base is discovered? Can I make a gamble that my opponent won't find this base? My opponent has suspiciously few buildings in his main base, is he attempting something fishy? I denied scouting to my opponent, can I use this to pressure him or bank my early-mid game into an all-in attack? My early pressure brought [X] results, how do I leverage them to get back into the regular mid-late game?

This is what's going through your mind when you're fighting an opponent who is roughly your speed, because you can no lnoger simply rely on mass and brute force to win. This is how the players I already brought up in this thread defeated mechanically superior players.

 

[Space Satan]

RTS is also at disadvantage because you cannot walk away and drink some tea. Turn Based sure, take your time. MOBAs and CS matches are quite fast, RTS match - no, you cannot take break in a middle of, often very long, matches.

 

[thesheeep]

RTS is also at disadvantage because you cannot walk away and drink some tea. Turn Based sure, take your time. MOBAs and CS matches are quite fast, RTS match - no, you cannot take break in a middle of, often very long, matches.

Well... that depends on the game at hand and the skill of the participants.
SC2 matches can be over extremely quickly. As can AoE3 matches.
At the same time, both can last pretty damn long if the players are of similar skill.

I've never player SupCom in multiplayer, but I could imagine it could take hours, potentially.

Personally, I am far more outraged at people taking forever to do their turns in turn based games (like MTGO or Faeria). Seriously, that easily gets me into "smash the monitor" mood...

 

[Darth Roxor]

MOBA games are about so much more than that, on the spot decision making and macro level strategic thinking that RTS just doesn't offer.

holy fucking shit nigga

 

[ArchAngel]

Blizzard made the best copy of Starcraft, called, Starcraft 2

we didn't play Starcraft because it was fun, we played it because in those days you played any multiplayer you could get in your hands. The truth is that it was complete shit even when it was the biggest competitive game in the world, a strategy shouldn't become a battle of who clicks faster for fucks sake.
(...) Supreme Commander (...) CoH (...) R.U.S.E. (...) Banished

I guarantee any of the games you just listed will still favor the guy who "clicks faster" heavily once you start playing competitively. And exactly how any of this is true if the only thing that the AI in Starcraft does remotely well is perfect control? It will relentlessly cast perfect spells to engulf your entire army and produce out of all its factories very optimally, but it also gets utterly destroyed by any semblance of strategy. It will blindly charge Lurkers like an utter idiot. If you dismantle every single game to "the one with best reaction speed wins", then let's just quit video games altogether and declare Nightmare Xaero bot to be the best gamer in the world.

Dude, no one has a problem if a video game requires some degree of speed. Starcraft wasn't an aberration because you needed to be fast, it was an aberration because it was speed reliant to an absurd degree, despite being a strategy game. Strategy doesn't have to be about who can come up with a perfect plan in 3 months, it's can be about who can come up with a decent plan in 5 minutes. What it shouldn't be about, is who can bumrush the other guy the fastest. And that's overwhelmingly what SC multiplayer was about. Bumrushing people and trying to bumrush faster than the other guy.

MOBA games in comparision also have that speed aspect to them. You have to optimize your farm, optimize your movement, optimize your builds, practice your combos. But they are about so much more than that, on the spot decision making and macro level strategic thinking that RTS just doesn't offer.

I don't know what you are smoking but I want some of that. This is like going to a Beth board and reading some moron saying how Skyrim is so much more tactical and strategic than Baldur's Gate because you need to pause at right time to use your instant healing potions.

If you didn't add that second part about MOBAs, there might be here a point to talk about but as it is you are just another clueless retard that thinks MOBAs take some special skill to play.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

you are just another clueless retard that things

Clueless retard that things

retard that things

things

 

[Kitchen Utensil]

"RTS games shouldn't be about APM."

Yes they should. That's the beauty of a game like SC:BW: You'll never reach perfection. For a competitive game to offer longevity, it must support a wide skill-range, ie. have a high skill ceiling, which in RTS games can potentially be unreachable, because you can only execute so many actions per unit of time. You can compensate for lack of good strategy by superior execution to a degree and vice versa.
If you want to play a game where execution/mechanical skill doesn't matter at all, play something turn-based, like chess for example, but not a real time strategy game. There's nothing worse than a RTS game where half the time you don't have anything to do because there simply is nothing to do and the match is then often decided not by better play but some gimmicky shit or rng. That's fucking boring and doesn't deserve to be called "competitive".

 

[Jagged Appliance]

RTS is also at disadvantage because you cannot walk away and drink some tea. Turn Based sure, take your time. MOBAs and CS matches are quite fast, RTS match - no, you cannot take break in a middle of, often very long, matches.

Well... that depends on the game at hand and the skill of the participants.
SC2 matches can be over extremely quickly. As can AoE3 matches.
At the same time, both can last pretty damn long if the players are of similar skill.

I've never player SupCom in multiplayer, but I could imagine it could take hours, potentially.

Personally, I am far more outraged at people taking forever to do their turns in turn based games (like MTGO or Faeria). Seriously, that easily gets me into "smash the monitor" mood...

Supcom multiplayer matches are similar to other rts games in length, most 1v1s won't go over 20 mins, teamgames don't often get to an hour.

 

[ArchAngel]

you are just another clueless retard that things

Clueless retard that things

retard that things

things

Look at this retard people. He got no arguments so he focuses on spelling errors. LOL.
Are you in kindergarden or something?

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

you are just another clueless retard that things

Clueless retard that things

retard that things

things

Look at this retard people. He got no arguments so he focuses on spelling errors. LOL.
Are you in kindergarden or something?

Why do you thing that? Is it because even a 3 year old from kindergarten can spell better than you?