Wednesday, June 11, 2003
Two related posts in quick succession, hrm...
This has a lot to do with clones, as well as one of my first blog rants about giving new, yet inferior games, all the credit for changing the genre.
Yes, I do beleive I just called Warcraft III inferior.
While Dark Age of Camelot was interesting at points, I don't beleive that I could ever play Everquest. What I know, however, is that I will probably try and play Lords of Everquest. It seems to be a very good ripoff of Warlords: Battlecry and I would play it in a heartbeat if they had dropped the whole EQ relations...but like some other brands (Total Annhiliation) they are trying to make more money off the name. In this case especially, it makes sense.
And yet, with the massive copying of (IMFO) OBVIOUS features that should be in ALL games in the RTS genre these days, they leave out an integral feature: customizability. Is that a word? Lets pretend it is.
See, they have 15 heroes to choose from. Sure, thats a great selection. But how many heroes would we have to choose from if they let US pick the class, race, gender and faction? I don't want to play some EQ sterotype that some guy decided would be cool - I want to play MY stereotype that I think is cool! Maybe the sequel will have this futurisitic, hyper advanced feature. But Warlords had it. They also had levels up to 50 (not 30 like LoEQ) . They both have inventory customization and Retinues and common unit advancement.
Why wouldn't the developers add that character creation in? Look at EQ! ITS ALL THERE ALREADY. All they need to do is mindlessly plug information into the new engine.
What about other areas of the game?
"According to Parker, as many as 200 units (100 per side in a two-player war) will be battling onscreen at any one time. While I never saw that many as we progressed through our game, each of the three players I was playing with did develop some enormous armies of 30 or so fully 3D polygonal units each."
Well, the previewer sounded impressed, but 30 units is an average sized army in a common game of War3, and that's the number of elite units I have guarding my hero in Battlecry, let alone the fact that in Battlecry I had never found the unit limit and I'm very certain that I had over 450 units battling 3 computers, each with at least 100 of theirs. I will try and find the screenshot, but I SWEAR that over 25 thousand units died that game. Sure, they were sprites, but then what about TA? Those were all fully 3D and definately numbered above 30.
But if you are going to say "you could have more on screen with sprites than 3D" then why even bother going to 3D? Why not use all that excessive horsepower on simpler graphics and thus have a bigger and better game at the cost of being trendy 3D? Look at Battlecry again. They didn't force their artists to go insane by drawing each frame of animation for the 100+ buildings and units, they made them all in a 3D program such as 3DSMAX, animated them and then took captures of each frame they wanted for the animation. They then turned those stills into plain sprites and suddenly you have a game with sprites thats looks as much like 3D without being 3D.
"I also observed the so-called 'smart formation' AI in action and was quite impressed. Grouped units will naturally organize themselves into sensible formation with "tank" units (warrior types) in front protecting the physically vulnerable spell casters and healers in the rear. Even better, the player's Lord won't melee attack without specific orders, but will instead sensibly cast spells and work to support troops. This should help reduce the micromanagement load that's all too often a problem for this genre."
Once again, an old feature that impressed him. I remember this feature the first time I played the Command and Conquer demo which came on a single floppy disk from a PC gamer magazine. The artillery followed behind the tanks which followed behind jeeps which followed behind infantry. In TA, the Commander could be set to use his various weaponry, or even repair units instead of attacking. This should be an obvious, easy to implement feature that should be very custom to each player. There should be a default toggle and there should be various settings that you can set in order for your units to do exactly what you want. Ofcourse, why the fuck you are playing an RTS if you don't want to manage stuff, confuses me. Go play a turn based game, whiner.
"That heartened me, tweaking and polishing is what will keep this game from being just another WarCraft III clone."
Um...actually no. Polish will make it MORE like War3 because it will be a GOOD game, as opposed to shit. My second point on this quote should be obvious: Don't call it a War3 clone when War3 is actually a clone of another game.
So, let us review this preview: The previewer has told us nothing new that we couldn't have gone to the Lords of EQ site to read for ourselves, besides the fact that this game got him off his ass and out of the office for the day. He mentioned a storyline, but only in vague detail; yet another pre-god-please-kill-me-quel game. He mentioned the major features of the game, none of which are new to the media regarding this game, let alone features that have not been implemented in numerous games since 1995. He was impressed by all these features. I was impressed by the 4 player multi. Ground breaking. He makes an incorrect comment regarding it being less like War3 if its polished, and then gives us a hint on the release date.
Did I mention the artwork for the game is really bad?
This has a lot to do with clones, as well as one of my first blog rants about giving new, yet inferior games, all the credit for changing the genre.
Yes, I do beleive I just called Warcraft III inferior.
While Dark Age of Camelot was interesting at points, I don't beleive that I could ever play Everquest. What I know, however, is that I will probably try and play Lords of Everquest. It seems to be a very good ripoff of Warlords: Battlecry and I would play it in a heartbeat if they had dropped the whole EQ relations...but like some other brands (Total Annhiliation) they are trying to make more money off the name. In this case especially, it makes sense.
And yet, with the massive copying of (IMFO) OBVIOUS features that should be in ALL games in the RTS genre these days, they leave out an integral feature: customizability. Is that a word? Lets pretend it is.
See, they have 15 heroes to choose from. Sure, thats a great selection. But how many heroes would we have to choose from if they let US pick the class, race, gender and faction? I don't want to play some EQ sterotype that some guy decided would be cool - I want to play MY stereotype that I think is cool! Maybe the sequel will have this futurisitic, hyper advanced feature. But Warlords had it. They also had levels up to 50 (not 30 like LoEQ) . They both have inventory customization and Retinues and common unit advancement.
Why wouldn't the developers add that character creation in? Look at EQ! ITS ALL THERE ALREADY. All they need to do is mindlessly plug information into the new engine.
What about other areas of the game?
"According to Parker, as many as 200 units (100 per side in a two-player war) will be battling onscreen at any one time. While I never saw that many as we progressed through our game, each of the three players I was playing with did develop some enormous armies of 30 or so fully 3D polygonal units each."
Well, the previewer sounded impressed, but 30 units is an average sized army in a common game of War3, and that's the number of elite units I have guarding my hero in Battlecry, let alone the fact that in Battlecry I had never found the unit limit and I'm very certain that I had over 450 units battling 3 computers, each with at least 100 of theirs. I will try and find the screenshot, but I SWEAR that over 25 thousand units died that game. Sure, they were sprites, but then what about TA? Those were all fully 3D and definately numbered above 30.
But if you are going to say "you could have more on screen with sprites than 3D" then why even bother going to 3D? Why not use all that excessive horsepower on simpler graphics and thus have a bigger and better game at the cost of being trendy 3D? Look at Battlecry again. They didn't force their artists to go insane by drawing each frame of animation for the 100+ buildings and units, they made them all in a 3D program such as 3DSMAX, animated them and then took captures of each frame they wanted for the animation. They then turned those stills into plain sprites and suddenly you have a game with sprites thats looks as much like 3D without being 3D.
"I also observed the so-called 'smart formation' AI in action and was quite impressed. Grouped units will naturally organize themselves into sensible formation with "tank" units (warrior types) in front protecting the physically vulnerable spell casters and healers in the rear. Even better, the player's Lord won't melee attack without specific orders, but will instead sensibly cast spells and work to support troops. This should help reduce the micromanagement load that's all too often a problem for this genre."
Once again, an old feature that impressed him. I remember this feature the first time I played the Command and Conquer demo which came on a single floppy disk from a PC gamer magazine. The artillery followed behind the tanks which followed behind jeeps which followed behind infantry. In TA, the Commander could be set to use his various weaponry, or even repair units instead of attacking. This should be an obvious, easy to implement feature that should be very custom to each player. There should be a default toggle and there should be various settings that you can set in order for your units to do exactly what you want. Ofcourse, why the fuck you are playing an RTS if you don't want to manage stuff, confuses me. Go play a turn based game, whiner.
"That heartened me, tweaking and polishing is what will keep this game from being just another WarCraft III clone."
Um...actually no. Polish will make it MORE like War3 because it will be a GOOD game, as opposed to shit. My second point on this quote should be obvious: Don't call it a War3 clone when War3 is actually a clone of another game.
So, let us review this preview: The previewer has told us nothing new that we couldn't have gone to the Lords of EQ site to read for ourselves, besides the fact that this game got him off his ass and out of the office for the day. He mentioned a storyline, but only in vague detail; yet another pre-god-please-kill-me-quel game. He mentioned the major features of the game, none of which are new to the media regarding this game, let alone features that have not been implemented in numerous games since 1995. He was impressed by all these features. I was impressed by the 4 player multi. Ground breaking. He makes an incorrect comment regarding it being less like War3 if its polished, and then gives us a hint on the release date.
Did I mention the artwork for the game is really bad?
