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When did C&C fail?

orcinator

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I know Act of War was an okay game, Act of Aggression looked pretty interesting but seemed rather shallow and unfinished after watching some real gameplay. I see there is a Reboot version on sale right now, something like a remaster? Anybody tried it out?

I played the original a bit and it was pretty bad. Balance that was all over the place and it tried to mix realistic and arcade features so you had tanks that could take quite the beating and helicopters that died to one rocket, also realistically sized infantry you couldn't tell apart and that was just the start of it. Don't know much about the remake but I doubt t fixed all that much given the poor reception.
 

Storyfag

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I do agree that the future of RTS is single player.
More specifically through some sort of procedurally generated campaigns.
Especially with the trend of engineering and logistics. Something like Factorio, From the Depths, Terratech and Tower Defense with an actual opponent you fight against.

If they could make a Earth 2150 like campaign with a broad overall goal that you are building towards through extracting resources over the world and building the right infrastructure and defense it could work.
A procedural Homeworld with some 4X mechanics can also work.

Judging by how procedurally generated stuff in RPGs tends to turn out, I wouldn't hold my breath.

Emperor: Battle for Dune had this pseudo-procedural system in which while the maps were pre-determined, you could fight over the same map multiple times, and enemy location as well as certain extras would change depending on the results of other missions. It... didn't feel highly rewarding.
 

thesheeep

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I do agree that the future of RTS is single player.
More specifically through some sort of procedurally generated campaigns.
Especially with the trend of engineering and logistics. Something like Factorio, From the Depths, Terratech and Tower Defense with an actual opponent you fight against.

If they could make a Earth 2150 like campaign with a broad overall goal that you are building towards through extracting resources over the world and building the right infrastructure and defense it could work.
A procedural Homeworld with some 4X mechanics can also work.

Judging by how procedurally generated stuff in RPGs tends to turn out, I wouldn't hold my breath.

Emperor: Battle for Dune had this pseudo-procedural system in which while the maps were pre-determined, you could fight over the same map multiple times, and enemy location as well as certain extras would change depending on the results of other missions. It... didn't feel highly rewarding.
That game is from the early 2000s, give me a break :lol:
It is on about the same level of "campaign quality" as DoW:Soulstorm or Dark Crusade.
The added player agency gives those a big bonus compared to the usually entirely linear and scripted campaigns of other RTS games, but when all you offer is some randomized skirmish 1vs1 or 1vs2, of course things will become stale super fast.
With knowledge about how to use procedural generation and an actual vision for the campaign, a really fun experience could be made - if only anyone truly attempted to.
 

80s Stallone

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Multiplayer focused RTS is the cancer that killed the genre, not the lack thereof.

The question was where C&C failed. They failed because everyone played StarCraft multiplayer. And Age of Empires 2. And at the same time Tiberian Sun came out 3D RTS got into spotlight (Machines, Earth 2150, Warzone,...). So the game seemed pretty obsolete when it came out.
 

Lyric Suite

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Playing most RTS games against AI feels like playing shooters against bots. I don't see how that's ever going to work, especially since the AI in most of those games is hot garbage:



Like with single player shooters, you need to make the scenarios more involved, more complex. Blizzard tried that and the results have been pretty good. Too bad they ruined it all with the abysmal writing but focusing more on gameplay and less on story telling might work.
 

thesheeep

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Like with single player shooters, you need to make the scenarios more involved, more complex. Blizzard tried that and the results have been pretty good. Too bad they ruined it all with the abysmal writing but focusing more on gameplay and less on story telling might work.
Pretty much that, yes. That's the problem most RTS campaigns have - the devs try to fill them with multiplayer content by making them nothing more than a MP match against a bot.

Sure, you can have a few "simple" skirmish battles against AI in single player, too, but it should only be one of various things to do.
 

Space Satan

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C&C failure in trying to get into competitive online play is the best example of EA approach to business and management.
They heared about their competitor's success with online gaming and decide to make a competitor to Starcraft. But at the same time they have zero understanding why and how Starcraft became so popular. And they decide to solve it by their usual approach - imitate it with a showoff of big money.
Batte Caster for Tiberium Wars have been announced as a huge platform, with tournaments, rewards, sponsors, close integration with the community.
In reality, tournaments were drained of participants as EA lacked any understanding of lasting support, because in their world game of have initial sales period and then one or two patches to fix major bugs. Battle Caster turned out to be a cumbersome fut shiny crap, sponsors withdrew shortly after realizing what EA dragged them into, integration with the community meant that anyone who described any exploits were banned from the forums.
 

Vaarna_Aarne

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I'd still say the biggest single factor was that either the RTS market collapsed or it simply never was big enough in the first place to sustain rising production budgets. EA trying one of their get-rich-quick schemes in that environment was just another nail (well, several nails I'd argue, since after Tiberium Wars and Red Alert 3 they got REALLY stupid) to that coffin.
 
Unwanted

Micormic

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Liked them all until generals.


Even renegade was sort of neat, especially multiplayer when it wasnt lagging to shit.



Generals was average at best, CnC 3 was slightly better but worse then all the older ones. Never interested in playing RA3 and beyond.



Prolly. Tiberian sun/ Red alert 1 tied for first place > Tiberian Dawn > Red alert 2 > cnc 3 > renegade > generals



The expansions were always good aswell imo except some pointless ones like sole survivor.



There was also dune 2000 which was kind of a crappier Tiberian sun before it came out, wasn't that impressed with it though
 

Zarniwoop

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Red Alert 2: Yakety Sax is basically the end.

Gameplay was fun but the over-the-top forced goofyness ruined it. Like Bethesda/Obsidian with Old World Blues.
 

Agesilaus

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Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex USB, 2014 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I thought this was going to be about Choice & Consequence, and I was all excited to come in and tell you that C&C never failed and that you should die in a fire.

But yeah, C&C died because 1. RTS games aren't very good, and 2. there wasn't enough room for both C&C and Warcraft/StarCraft, THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE
 

adrix89

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2. there wasn't enough room for both C&C and Warcraft/StarCraft, THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE
They are nothing alike. Starcraft is the worse game. It's just that with EA management it didn't stand a chance, any talent that knew what they were doing had long evaporated.
Playing most RTS games against AI feels like playing shooters against bots. I don't see how that's ever going to work, especially since the AI in most of those games is hot garbage:



Like with single player shooters, you need to make the scenarios more involved, more complex. Blizzard tried that and the results have been pretty good. Too bad they ruined it all with the abysmal writing but focusing more on gameplay and less on story telling might work.

The trick is to make Player and AI asymmetric(similar to AI War). Less multiplayer skirmish matches and more like a series of templated encounters and challenges with increasing difficulty and complexity. Similar to a RPG.
With enough procedural generation and engineering mechanics like From the Depths and Factorio you can make something resembling a campaign.
 

vota DC

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I thought this was going to be about Choice & Consequence, and I was all excited to come in and tell you that C&C never failed and that you should die in a fire.

But yeah, C&C died because 1. RTS games aren't very good, and 2. there wasn't enough room for both C&C and Warcraft/StarCraft, THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE

Could be true if there is Warcraft/Starcraft with a new title every couple of years. Last Wacraft was in 2003 and there are only Starcraft 1 and Starcraft 3d remake wannabe 2.
 
Unwanted

Micormic

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I thought this was going to be about Choice & Consequence, and I was all excited to come in and tell you that C&C never failed and that you should die in a fire.

But yeah, C&C died because 1. RTS games aren't very good, and 2. there wasn't enough room for both C&C and Warcraft/StarCraft, THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE



you're probably just bad at rts games
 

Jvegi

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Mass Effect based a huge chunk of its marketing on the supposedly higly impactful C&C. So did Telltale around the same time. People bought the lie, but did not want more, since it wasn't really there.
I guess that's one of the reasons, at least in the mainstream titles.
 
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Cyberarmy

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I used so many :negative: in this thread already :/

I was a sucker for RTS as soon as I played Dune 2 back then. And after I played any RTS I can find, no matter the quality. Back then it was a heaven for me. Settlers, Warcraft (its like Warhammer !), C&C, Fragile Alliance, Z, Dark Colony, KKND, Earth 2140, Dark Reign, Starcraft, Age of Empires, Shadow of the Horned Rat(real Warhammer this time!!!), Kohan, Homworld, Total Annihilation, Myth, Warlords Battlecry, Majesty, Ground Control and motherfucking SACRFÄ°CE.
And probably many I forgot to mention.
Dune 2, C&C and Red Alert are special for me, mostly because of being first. First RTS I played, first with many unit selection and first with friggin nukes and cutscenes.

Then struck the 2000s, shitty early 3d graphics, console domination and multiplayer focus. There are some RTSs here and there but hardly with any effect :( Adventures, turn based games and RPGs are kinda alive with some indies and shity AAA titles but RTSs are near extinction. Innovation and style of older games died a horrible death.
 

Lyric Suite

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Online play ruined the genre. Every RTS that came out had to include multiplayer and only the biggest RTS makers could even hope to stand up to Blizzard and even those didn't entirely succeed. Dawn of War was a good answer to Starcraft but it never really took off as you'd have expected. If Relic or Westwood couldn't do it, what hope did the little guys have?
 

Dzupakazul

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Dawn of War was a good answer to Starcraft but it never really took off as you'd have expected.
Really fires up my tiberium reserves, that one.
A game with four separate expansion pack campaigns and a total of 9 factions that caters primarily to people interested in 40k lore and aesthetic was meant to be a multiplayer competitor to a franchise built entirely around high-speed gameplay and competitive balance.
Frankly online play only made the genre actually relevant with years because I can hardly believe that LARPing being a king in your own castle or beating up bad AI over and over would not get old otherwise; how many single-player only RTSes do people actually remember? Black Moon Chronicles?
Not to mention that online play gave RTSes a fuckton of exposure and some really good golden days regardless of whether you were a C&C, RA, CoH, DoW, AoE, WC or SC fan. If anything, the destruction of GameSpy Arcade and mishandling of the big franchises by their owners was a bigger hit to RTS proliferation than anything else.
It's like implying chess would be better as a solitaire game and that competition ruined it because now we have computers that utterly outplay humans and Carlsen's training regime makes him a cyborg.
 

thesheeep

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If Relic or Westwood couldn't do it, what hope did the little guys have?
There are some RTSs here and there but hardly with any effect :( Adventures, turn based games and RPGs are kinda alive with some indies and shity AAA titles but RTSs are near extinction. Innovation and style of older games died a horrible death.
I feel that the problem comes from the genre itself. I bet quite a few indies would like to make an RTS.
But those games are quite possibly the hardest to make.

You can't just take any engine, as RTS games have to be well optimized or they will suck. There is one RTS engine out there, but... did you take a look at it? It seems very limited to a very specific kind of RTS, and I don't think it comes with a good editor, etc.
While there are ready-made solutions for pathfinding in turn-based games or games with few actors at once, there is absolutely nothing ready-made for pathfinding that could handle dozens or even hundreds of units moving in a somewhat intelligent fashion, avoiding obstacles, finding alternate routes, etc. Proper pathfinding, as someone who dug into it myself, is IMO the biggest problem. Because it HAS to be really well-done or the game will suck.
Then you've got the AI which really shouldn't be bad and it has to be quite complex, too.
Add to that all the assets that you need. Nobody will play an RTS game with just one or two races. Doesn't matter if 2D or 3D, you need A LOT. And that costs a lot of money to make.

And finally, you have multiplayer. Integrating multiplayer about doubles the work required on any game.

I feel that the best hope we've got is that devs finally let go of multiplayer and then maybe, just maybe, we can get a proper indie RTS. I have no hope whatsoever that large devs will ever try anything without multiplayer, and that means multiplayer will either be the focus to begin with, dooming the game to fail due to having to compete against SC2 or it will be added despite being pointless, taking resources away from the main game (see Spellforce 3, a good game, but could've been better if they spent no resources on a multiplayer nobody was ever going to play).
 
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Dzupakazul

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dooming the game to fail against SC2
My main issue with this sort of thought is that SC2 also happens to have a pretty damn good single-player mode (mechanics-wise; I have reservations about the story myself) and that the bulk of its playerbase does play the campaigns and plays the co-op vs AI mode. The playerbase is huge, it's just not nearly as noticed because Starcraft isn't FOTM and doesn't have numbers on Steam or anything like that. You're likely to fail against... not just SC2 - even games that maintain a healthy niche of players like AoE2 Remastered, AoM or CoH2 have good campaigns and good MP modes even if they're not featured by FOTM streamers. Even 4X games, traditionally associated with single-player gameplay, generally benefitted from having an MP mode. Although you do make some good points regardless, specifically about pathfinding and assets.
 

Space Satan

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What replayablility single-player RTS will have? I played skirmish A LOT back when I had no modem or internet or local network established in any way. And it was starting to be boring fast. Compstomps could do for a while but people always learned required tricks and beating Ais was a matter of time.
Dawn of War was a good answer to Starcraft but it never really took off as you'd have expected
...because Relic was even worse in regards of support than EA. It took them 1.5 MONTHS to fix situation when bonesingers, a fucking BUILDER, cut space marine squads with blades like riggons. Big Mek invulnerable sinchkills? 2 Months. Khorne Berserkers, being more powerful with pistols than in meelee - 6(SIX) months. Defiler all-eliminating autocannon? 3 months because players screamed as tournament drawn near. They had no idea about balancing an RTS or how RTS worked at all.
 

Beastro

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Tiberian felt like the start of the end even when it came out and was remarkably average.

But I think the completely non-canon or anything Generals series is some of the best pure RTS games there are so what do I know.

It didn't help that the game was ugly with a lot of muddy colours all blending together that was quite the departure from the first.

Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad had they had a intermediary game in between to see the world dying. The drastic change was too much for me both game wise and in the story.

They coulda had the story be around people realizing what it was doing to the planet and nations attempting to counter it resulting in Nod becoming something of a "protagonist" in trying to protect and encourage its spread (saying to third world countries it was first worlders trying to prevent them from gaining a real leg up given how well it spreads in hotter climates).

how many single-player only RTSes do people actually remember? Black Moon Chronicles?

Warzone 2100!
 
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Cyberarmy

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What replayablility single-player RTS will have? I played skirmish A LOT back when I had no modem or internet or local network established in any way. And it was starting to be boring fast. Compstomps could do for a while but people always learned required tricks and beating Ais was a matter of time.

Sacrifice, Generals Zero Hour and Emperor Dune was kinda had OK replayability. You can mix campaigns in Sacrifice which led to hilarious and broken army/spell compositions.
Zero Hour simply had a good number of generals for skirmish gameplay.
Emperor had that minor factions that you can ally. You can ally with 2 of them same time, leading some cool armies even in single player.
Starcraft and Warcraft 3 become modding heaven/hell which was kinda start of downfall too. Who could've known...
 

Space Satan

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I had Emperor and can say that skirmish was meh even by other RTS standarts. Tleilaxu units were more annoying than useful, guild units were expensive and weak, sardaukars and fremen were flavor only as infantry could be kille den masse easily there and only Ix were useful as it could spawn duplicator tanks.
 

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