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A Year of Rain - Warcraft 3-like RTS from Daedalic - game failed, development on hold

Infinitron

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https://ayearofrain.com





https://press.daedalic.com/daedalic...-real-time-strategy-genre-with-a-year-of-rain

Daedalic Entertainment Aims to Revive Classic Real-Time Strategy Genre with A Year Of Rain
Team RTS will go into Early Access for PC Later This Year

Thursday, March 14, 2019 — Hamburg, March 14th, 2019 – Daedalic Entertainment is delighted to announce their first internally developed multiplayer real time strategy game, A Year Of Rain. The game features heroes, an extensive story mode and heavily emphasizes team gameplay. The game will go into Early Access for PC later this year.

A Year Of Rain combines classic real-time strategy elements with a strong focus on hero units. Both the co-op campaigns and online and offline modes are being designed with a team of two in mind, whether you play with a human or AI player. The classic 2v2 skirmish mode is being developed for competitive matches from the very start. Meanwhile, “Against all Odds“ is an innovation in the genre where two lone heroes face two entire armies, who have full command of units and structures.

In this team RTS, you can choose one of three rival factions and get immersed in a gameplay mixture of base building, resource gathering, and unit training. Structures and units can be upgraded in order to enhance efficiency and power. With your carefully assembled army led by a legendary hero, you will be able to fight alongside the noble House Rupah, the Wild Outcasts or join the Restless Undead. A battle without mercy begins.

“A Year Of Rain is set to be one of the largest games we have developed to date and marks our first steps into the Esports arena. We are aware of the various complex challenges this genre entails. I am proud to be able to support our dev team with their dream project,” says Carsten Fichtelmann, CEO and Founder of Daedalic Entertainment.

Features:
  • Complex real-time strategy game
  • Extensive co-op and PvP modes
  • Unique heroes with individual abilities and skills
  • Three factions: House Rupah, Wild Outcasts and Restless Undead
  • Esports-ready at launch, featuring a league system, competitive seasons, leaderboards, observer mode, replays, and more.
  • Soundtrack by award-winning composer Neal Acree (known for StarCraft II, World of Warcraft and other titles)
A Year Of Rain will enter Early Access on PC in 2019 and feature one initial campaign and several multiplayer modes. The game will continuously be expanded on and supported post-launch, including various new features, content and more.

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MRY

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It's weird -- maybe it just has to do with my own age, but Warcraft III doesn't seem old enough that a game like this qualifies as a "spiritual successor" rather than a direct clone. It's not really what I'd think of as Daedelic's brand, either, though I know they're trying to find a new niche.

I mean, even the building names (Barracks, Keep) and art are basically the same -- I realize those are nondescript designs and names, but still...
 

GrainWetski

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It's weird -- maybe it just has to do with my own age, but Warcraft III doesn't seem old enough that a game like this qualifies as a "spiritual successor" rather than a direct clone. It's not really what I'd think of as Daedelic's brand, either, though I know they're trying to find a new niche.

I mean, even the building names (Barracks, Keep) and art are basically the same -- I realize those are nondescript designs and names, but still...
I hate to tell you, but WC3 is 17 years old.
 

MRY

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I know. Hence "maybe it just has to do with my age." :) Still, are there other games of comparable age that get "spiritual successors"? Also, I think it's a little different from single-player games insofar as WC3 remained a popular title (particular with mods) for years.
 

MRY

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I mean, other than moving the six inventory slots, this is just a slight graphical upgrade on Warcraft III.

ss_d8f7e96d403c4cb58bad4666a3ae0a22f036c2bc.1920x1080.jpg


warcraft-3-screenshot-human-progamer-paladin.jpg


0105_Autumn_Lordoron.jpg
 

thesheeep

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I mean, other than moving the six inventory slots, this is just a slight graphical upgrade on Warcraft III.
Sure, but I don't see what's wrong with that, if it is well done.

And 17 years is definitely old enough to be called spiritual successor instead of clone.
But honestly, even a graphically updated clone would be fine with me. That's how little else there is :lol:
 

MRY

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I mean, other than moving the six inventory slots, this is just a slight graphical upgrade on Warcraft III.
Sure, but I don't see what's wrong with that, if it is well done.

And 17 years is definitely old enough to be called spiritual successor instead of clone.
But honestly, even a graphically updated clone would be fine with me. That's how little else there is :lol:
Isn't Blizzard itself making such a graphical update?
 

Maggot

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I mean, other than moving the six inventory slots, this is just a slight graphical upgrade on Warcraft III.
Sure, but I don't see what's wrong with that, if it is well done.

And 17 years is definitely old enough to be called spiritual successor instead of clone.
But honestly, even a graphically updated clone would be fine with me. That's how little else there is :lol:
Isn't Blizzard itself making such a graphical update?
No they're outsourcing all the art to Malaysians instead of doing the remaster themselves.
 

Infinitron

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https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/03/14/a-year-of-rain-is-an-accessible-if-ambitious-upcoming-co-op-rts/

A Year Of Rain is an accessible if ambitious upcoming co-op RTS

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I was nervous, sitting down to play A Year Of Rain. I don’t have a lot of experience with real-time strategy games, and even though technical director Nick Prühs had explained some of the accessibility features, it still looked intimidating. Plus, as a co-op and a competitive game, it has twice the number of people available to embarrass myself in front of.

As I dug in, turtling in a corner where I assumed no one would notice me, three opposing horsemen showed up to attack one of my buildings. I sent some people to gently chase them off, but a developer watching over my shoulder suggested that I pursue them. Within minutes, my army of spearmen and clerics were a wave that crashed into their buildings and overwhelmed their units. Suffice to say I didn’t feel nervous after that. There may, in fact, have been gleeful giggling involved.

A Year Of Rain is a fantasy RTS. Fans of the genre won’t find formerly story-focused developers Daedalic Entertainment trying to reinvent the wheel, but they are throwing a few twists into the mix. The most obvious of these is that the game is entirely cooperative. Three game modes – a 2v2 clash, a story-focused campaign, and a pair-versus-an-army struggle called Against All Odds – all require you to play with a buddy. If you don’t have one available and don’t fancy matchmaking, the game can provide an AI helper, but there’s no way to play entirely alone.

Admittedly, this didn’t totally come across in my game. Though there were four players, I never communicated with my ally (in fact, I never figured out which of the other journalists in the room it was). I also only saw one opponent, and the game ended for all of us when I ran over them.

AYOR_Screenshot_02_CLEAN-1.png


It’s understandable that four new players just trying to get to grips with the game would not be a perfect simulation, though. And as Prühs tells it, there are some aspects that are impossible without direct cooperation. Boss fights, for example, need both people, and can be further complicated by the opposing team, who could use this advantage to launch a sneak attack, or even kill-steal the final hit on the boss, so it’ll always need to be a calculated offense. Beating a boss (at least in the current iteration, the game is still changing rapidly) grants a temporary buff to your army, pushing your team to move onto attacking your opponents quickly even if you’ve suffered losses, because the developers want to enforce quick, decisive games rather than “slow death.”

Players can currently use an in-game text chat, but Prühs says they’re working on a ping system to further facilitate this kind of cooperation. Mentoring will also be encouraged, since playing with someone of a different skill level will give bonus XP at the end of the game, allowing for quicker levelling towards hero portraits and the like. (How effective it’ll be at encouraging friendliness is, obviously, another question.)

Prühs also says that the game doesn’t stray too far from the studio’s narrative roots. “We definitely still want to tell stories,” he tells me. To do so, they’ve created a slate of hero characters who will be central to the campaign mode.
AOYR-spark-mage.jpg


I don’t get to see any of the story, but what I get from the setting feels a little different from the generic European medieval fantasy. The banner they roll out features an Asian woman, perched mid-air with one arm burning up and the other cradling a flaming staff. Opening the game reveals a light-skinned black woman reaching towards the camera on the menu screen. She’s a paladin, and I choose her as my hero, the lynchpin of my army who both deals significant damage and has her own powerful abilities like keeping my units healed up. When we kill the opposing hero, they’re only out of the fight for a short while, but it’s the perfect time to press the attack.

Prühs tells me that the paladin’s name is Killian, and that in the campaign, a pair will experience the narrative together, through situational dialogue between heroes and cutscenes, some of which may also vary between players depending on their position on the battlefield.

“From the very first moment we definitely wanted to just back off a little bit from what we like to call the ‘captain obvious’ fantasy,” he says, and explains that having a varied cast of heroes is in part a practicality. “Even if we didn’t want to – which we do! – but we would be forced to do it because the characters have to be pretty easily distinguishable…players have to be immediately aware of which characters are running around.”

This is also something of a departure for Daedalic, though. Their previous flagship series, Deponia, led John to a series of reviews that become increasingly exasperated with both the puzzles and the sexism, racism, and transphobia found within.

Without playing any of the campaign, it’s very difficult to say how effective this turnaround might be. On one hand, the last Deponia game came out three years ago, and speaking to Prühs feels genuine. He tells me that they wanted a female main character from “the first week or so,” and that Killian is currently being redesigned to wear slightly heavier armour, though she was never one of the “uncovered belly women who are almost naked yet still frontline [fighters].”

On the other hand, even with the best intentions getting inclusivity right can be difficult. And little things, like the three posters I see for 2013’s Goodbye Deponia, which prominently feature the female protagonist falling towards the camera wearing only her underwear, make me wonder to what extent the studio is dedicated to turning this new leaf.

AYOR_Screenshot_03_CLEAN.jpg


Still, if this cast does succeed in bringing new players to the genre, à la Overwatch or Apex Legends, they’ll find something accessible. A suggested progression checklist will ease the unfamiliar into understanding what might be best to build when you reach certain resource thresholds, for example. It’s simple, but goes a long way to flattening the often intimidating strategy-game learning curve. Prühs also explains that they’ve pared down any “annoying” elements, like Starcraft’s infamous demand for additional pylons.

How this simplification might impact Daedalic’s nebulous esports ambitions for the game is unclear, and Prühs can’t tell me exactly how they’ll fund ongoing support for the game, either. “We are still contemplating different models and I can’t say much more because actually I don’t know much more,” he says, though he details some of the options they are considering once the game launches into early access this year. They include selling additional story campaigns; cosmetics like titles, portraits, and hero skins; and extra maps. They’re cautious, though, especially with the latter. “If people are already into early access then it doesn’t feel right to charge them additional money because the early access label already says additional things will come in the future, then charging them again for these new things feels kind of bad,” he muses.

That’s a lot of unknowns that need solving if A Year Of Rain has any hope of becoming the hottest new games-as-service co-operative multiplayer esport bonanza. And yet, being taught how to build my small-village-worth of clerics was straightforward without being patronising, and then turning on that poor scouting party of three horses and letting momentum do the rest was intensely satisfying. I find myself hopeful that Daedalic can make something of this, both in terms of wanting it to become a good version of the foundations they’ve already laid, and thinking it could be possible.
 
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Hellraiser

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Are "journalists" even capable of writing articles without dedicating at least a few paragraphs to inclusivity and sexism anymore, no matter how far away from the topic at hand they are?

At this point I am guessing they are brain damaged from their college journalism courses and cannot write anything without a political angle regardless if they write about games, cooking or the weather. Either that or they want to get journo cool credits within their own field.

Or they are ordered to shove it in somewhere and evaluated based on it by the higher ups.
 

JarlFrank

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Are "journalists" even capable of writing articles without dedicating at least a few paragraphs to inclusivity and sexism anymore, no matter how far away from the topic at hand they are?

At this point I am guessing they are brain damaged from their college journalism courses and cannot write anything without a political angle regardless if they write about games, cooking or the weather.

I've done some English Studies courses at university, and yes, they pretty much train you to see and talk about SJW issues everywhere, even when the issues don't really exist and are purely imaginary.
 

Lyric Suite

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I know. Hence "maybe it just has to do with my age." :).

It's probably because the genre hasn't moved an inch since then.

Especially single player wise. Only Starcraft 2 did something new and i gotta say the campaign is actually pretty damn good, more than anyone would want to give it credit for. Brutal is actually hard, missions are varied and interesting, achievements actually work as extra mission objectives and it's the first time i ever played a game where i actually liked they were there, and they even have this semi non-linear thing going on which i found interesting. What kills it is the absolutely shockingly bland and cliche writing. Which is funny because the original was also cliched but at least it didn't feel like it was written by a committee of lawyers.
 
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Kane

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Read Warcraft like RTS, got hopes up.

Read 'co-op RTS' - wtf?!
Read daedalus entertainment - this explains it

Tagging this as yet another nothing-burger without a ladder or any kind of competitive play.
 

fizzelopeguss

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I know. Hence "maybe it just has to do with my age." :).

It's probably because the genre hasn't moved an inch since then.

Especially single player wise. Only Starcraft 2 did something new and i gotta say the campaign is actually pretty damn good, more than anyone would want to give it credit for. Brutal is actually hard, missions are varied and interesting, achievements actually work as extra mission objectives and it's the first time i ever played a game where i actually liked they were there, and they even have this semi non-linear thing going on which i found interesting. What kills it is the absolutely shockingly bland and cliche writing. Which is funny because the original was also cliched but at least it didn't feel like it was written by a committee of lawyers.


Starcraft 2 was outstanding. It got so much shit when it was released but as time goes on (approaching 10 years now for wings of liberty) I think people will realise the RTS genre will never again get a campaign of that scope. The production values also were absurdly high, I don't think I've seen anything like it.

But as you said, the insipid story arc effectively killed any sequel chance for the franchise as there's nothing further to explore. I will miss the big stompy marines running around with confederate flags.
 

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