Ashes of the Singularity vs. Nostalgia

from AshesoftheSingularity Forums

This is a rant.

 

Founders ONLY (NDA activated):

Nothing pains me more than to see some of my favorite games of all time be criticized.  In my memory, they were perfect. They were wonderful. They could do no wrong.  But as a game developer, I don’t have that luxury.  I have to look at games as how they function today.  I can’t say “That game was amazing…for the time.”  The Amiga was amazing for the time. But I’m not about to recommend it to a new computer buyer.

Nevertheless, it’s really hard to compete against nostalgia.

One of the reasons I am personally happy to see a new Master of Orion game being made is that finally GalCiv III won’t have to compete against the memory of MOO 2 (no one brings up MOO 3).  The people who advocate these games never actually play them anymore.  When I see someone recommend someone play a particular game whether that be SupCom or MOO 2 one can notice from their profile that the person making the recommendation doesn’t actually take their own advice.  Think about it.  Would you really expect someone who isn’t already familiar with Master of Orion 2 to go and play that? You think they’d be okay with a 320x200 with 256 color game in 2016?  That resolution is smaller than the icon for a modern game.  That does not mean that the modern game is better.  But it does mean that the beloved classic is not a practical recommendation target for a new user.

As someone who has put more hours into Total Annihilation than any other game as much as I love it, I’d never recommend it.  By today’s standards, it just doesn’t hold up.  It was amazing – for the time. Just like my Amiga. Just like OS/2. 

For the past half-year of working on Ashes of the Singularity, a game that is routinely considered the natural successor to Supreme Commander we hear people say that it doesn’t have this or that feature of SupCom: FA (they never mention SupCom 2 for some reason…). They say that new RTS players should just go play SupCom.  But they don’t really mean it.  If they did, they’d be playing SupCom.  But they don’t.  And anyone loading up SupCom: FA for the first time off of Steam would know why.  Getting a 7 year old game to work right on a modern PC can be a pain.  And many usability advances we take for granted today (tooltips!) are missing.

GalCiv III vs. GalCiv II

I run into this daily with Galactic Civilizations III.  I was the designer of GalCiv II (and I).  It was my baby.  But I routinely see people in Steam reviews comment that people should just get GalCiv II instead.  There’s no way they’re serious about that.  GalCiv II was amazing – 9 years ago.  But it’s a clunky experience today.  Again, no tooltips, no high DPI UI support, awkward usability everywhere.  People who recommend GalCiv II over GalCiv III never happen to go and take their own advice.  Which game to buy? No question: GalCiv III.  It’s not even a close call.

Games are compared to their contemporaries

It doesn’t matter how much I or you love say Master of Orion 2.  I played Master of Orion 2 in the delivery room for my first born.  I know when MOO 2 came out (November 1996) because its release is tied to the day my son was born. Smile  But seriously, the average gamer is not going to futz around trying to get an ancient game to run on their computer.  I have a 4K monitor.  Running a 320x200 early Windows 95 era game on it is insane.

Similarly, getting SupCom to work on it is a pain.   I’m technical enough and patient enough to get to its settings and deal with its ancient 1024x768 defaults.  I’m willing to do that because, unlike most so-called SupCom fans, I actually do play the game and when I do, I lower my desktop resolution to 1920x1080 to play it.  But does anyone seriously think the average new RTS player is going to do that?

If you want the RTS genre to remain in a semi-dead state, by all means, continue to recommend games almost certain to turn off new players.

Who is your target audience?

So much in game design has changed in just the 5 years alone.  We take a lot more care about our defaults.  I cringe when I look at GalCiv II’s defaults or how the base Sins of a Solar Empire was set up.  Similarly, Supreme Commander: FA’s defaults are awful by today’s standards.

What is the default map? It’s Four-Corners.  Go ahead, make the argument that this is a good map for a first-time skirimsher to try out.

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Default start

When someone recommends say SupCom over Ashes, one assumes that person is not already familiar with Supreme Commander.  People forget what SupCom: FA, out of the box is like.

 

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Don’t tell me that you can tell one unit from another.  Like all games, it requires familiarity.

 

 

Visuals

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No one cares what a given game looks like mods. There are Sins of a Solar Empire mods that make Sins look like Star Trek.  When someone recommends SupCom: FA over Ashes this is what they are recommending. And this is with me having set the graphics on highest. What are the unit? Where are the units? 

I’m not trying to poop on one of my favorite games. I’m trying to point out that those who would recommend a 7 year old game are not doing anyone any favors.

 

The point

Thankfully, most people like Ashes of the Singularity.  But overwhelmingly, those who give it negative reviews are recommending a game that they themselves don’t play.  That’s as obnoxious as it is unavoidable.

If people would prefer the RTS genre remain dormant, than by all means, recommend a game that no one is going to play. 

However, right now, in 2016 the options are:

  1. Grey Goo
  2. Acts of Aggression
  3. Homeworld: Deserts of K
  4. Ashes of the Singularity
  5. Planetary Annihilation

And of those games, which one do you think is the most likely to be continuously updated for the next several years?  Do you think SupCom: FA is going to get an update?  Do you think recommending someone giving money to the holding company that controls the bankrupt assets of THQ is going to be updating FA any time soon?

If someone hasn’t picked up SupCom or FAF at this point they never will (let alone well made freeware/open source SupCom like games).  So do me a favor: If you’re not going to recommend Ashes, then recommend a viable alternative. Something that at least might get updated.

 

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With Ashes of the Singularity we’re having to walk a tight rope.  We want to make a game that will reintroduce gamers to real-time strategy games.  You have to start somewhere.  If you honestly believe that a new gamer would be better off trying to tweak a 7 year old game to work on their modern PC then I think you should seriously reconsider the quality of your recommendations.

 

Rent done.

70,222 views 28 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

Agreed, re: nostalgia and rose-tinted glasses

I'm glad you're making Ashes and trying to push RTS forward and doing your part to re-invigorate it.

Minor quibble: Your list of 2016 RTS options though is lacking the top 2: Starcraft 2 and Company of Heroes 2 - these are the only 2 RTS games that can be said to have a large and active community of players.

I don't think it's a coincidence that they are also very MP focused, but that's my bias showing maybe. Certainly, I'll be looking forward to when Ashes has things like replays and observer mode - simple things like that make content like shoutcasts, streaming, tournaments, strategy discussions, etc. so much easier/better and give the game more exposure, in turn bringing in more players.

 

Reply #2 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

I should have remembered them.  That's a good point.

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Reply #3 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Most of the criticisms I see of Ashes and GalCiv III with regard to prior titles is that those prior titles have key features that are missing from the more modern games. I bought SupCom:FA on a steam sale a few months back, but I haven't played it for the very reasons you said (I did play it way back when). I wanted to experience its full zoom-out, which isn't present in Ashes. When you zoom out to max you get a very good idea of terrain features and can strategize in context, such as determining which regions are going to be key and how to approach and defend them. Ashes is not a bad game because it doesn't have full zoom-out, but I think it could be a better strategy game if it did. I don't even need (or want) icons, just a way to understand the layout of maps so I can plan appropriately.

So in a way I understand how players can suggest older titles. They are very partial to specific gameplay and UI features, and perhaps find Ashes to be inferior if it doesn't have them, at least in part. I decided to write this reply just to implore you to examine all of your design decisions with a critical eye and be absolutely sure those decisions meet your vision for the game. It would be unfortunate for design decisions to be set in stone based upon current technical difficulties which may be workable with some future time and effort. It would be far more unfortunate for some design decisions to be based upon an anti-"other game" sentiment. I'm assuming you guys haven't done that, but I mention it just in case.

Keep up the good work!

Reply #4 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Nostalgia is very powerful, and for people who were there at the time it still makes the game playable. For example myself and some family members will still load up TA for a bash every once and a while, or Supcom, Doom, Quake etc. We can still enjoy them despite their age. But for many of them, I agree you could not introduce them to someone who has never played them, they would just see poor textures, basic FX, antiquated interface etc. etc.

For a supposed rant I thought you were quite restrained haha. I am just a player but even I get frustrated at some of the criticism leveled at the game on Steam, players (and sometimes not even that) are somehow under the misapprehension that the subtitle of the game is SupCom 3. I would love a SupCom 3 but if it is not in the title you have to be open minded to a new game experience.

As Eviator says though, people get very fixated, often understandbly, on one particular feature of an RTS they like and hope it will be in the new RTS. It is impossible to please all these people but they will certainly make their voice heard :).

Though I think it is an aside, I also wouldn't mind strategic zoom without the icons, also for the reason of getting a better feel of the map. I do know if you do that though some people will complain about the lack if icons ha. As I said, whatever you do and however you implement it, you won't please all.

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Reply #5 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

There has been so many good suggestions on how to implement it without icons i cant believe its not in the game yet. Any RTS featuring large scale battles should have this feature in from day one. It boggles the mind that they don't want it.

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Reply #6 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Same comment as tatsujb.

Even if from a visual perspective Supcom / FA is less attractive than AOTS, the strategic zoom became an evidence to me when starting to play supcom.

This explains why it suddenly became impossible to me to play STRS without ability to smoothly zoom out far away from action and without having the ability to smoothly and quickly get a clear picture of the battlefield.

I would not recommend old RTS again AOTS, but i would possibly recommend PA because of

1) Strategic zoom

2) Lots of units variety (from a design perspective). Sorry but i still can't get excited to play a game where there are only hooving units. I know Ashes occures in the future, but why only hooving units ? Being able to hoove means they can basically get rid off all terrain height variations.

Going back to TA, I may be wrong but with AOTS, it's not that obvious to me that height variations have significant impact on strategy. For sure Maps are beautifull, but appart from having to use long range unit to hit non accessible units or finding the good path to get to the location i'm targetting, i don't see how these beautifull maps have impact on the gameplay. In TA, taking advantage of terrain height variations was part of the strategy and TA did not have all the available horsepower modern machines have today.

It's not about Nostalgia of old good games. It's about recognizing that the visuals don't make a game by themselves and that specific features could be implemented without breaking the soul of a new RTS.

Again, not because i'm not 100% happy with AOTS means i'm going to bash it on forums and recommend players to go back to an old RTS which seemed to have it all.

I'm just in a position where if i could i would translate all the good stuff from FA and TA on AOTS :) Because yes, your graphical engine is really impressive.

 

 

 

 

 

Reply #7 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

SC and SC:FA were my top fav games...no one mentioned SupCom2 because it was a total horror and ranks among my biggest disappointments in sequentials.

 

I don't think they are saying "play this old game instead"...more they are comparing.  I have no problem comparing a game of today to many years ago.  It is not meant to be exact; more how it compares quality, depth, gameplay wise etc

 

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Reply #9 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

I just will not talk about FA because of my unconditional love for this unique game.

Just who plays SCFA since 2007 will be able to understand in several hours played with epic moments and so different strategies as the human personality, the game offers all that imagination can keep up, play only a few times FA dont make no one understand why we advise always FAForever ,only tat and andreB.

Speaking of Supreeme Commander 2 ,i keep play and really like, dont think there is currently even on FA, units so unique and beautiful as Sup2 experimentals.

The game is really weak on gameplay in relation to the FA, it does not have the same depth but the experimental units are really wonderful not to mention the pathfind which is very good.

Personally always there is no new releases of attractive games i go back to play old games.


I have played TRaider 2016 is the best of the past years and will return to play Tomb Raider 1 and advise.

I play NFS2016 it will be a bomb so i played NFS underground 2 and advise.

In RTS there are not many that bring a mechanism that grab us and hold for several years, I think nolonger Devs knows what an RTS gamer want but what matters is the sales result of that game.

I can understand that but lost to competitiveness.

 

I hope one this days some one understande RTS games and give us exacly what Oldschool rts games where once, but for that must be a company that have a solid resource money.

 

Just the fact ASHES will be full modding probably will make this game very good in next years ,personaly i will be very active there.

At this moment Ashes is become bether every new patch.

Reply #10 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

I feel ya.

I still play Total Annihilation and Master of Magic on occasion.

The purpose of my rant isn't that these games aren't great.  But rather, the people who publicly suggest that other people should go out and get those other games as if they are viable alternatives for people who aren't familiar with those games already. 

 

Reply #11 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

I will always going to recommend AOTS, its a really great game.

As everyone in here know, with Shift you can zoom all the way up, I don't know if the Dev's left that option available for us or its a bug that they cannot take out yet.

So you guys are asking for a full zoom without any kind of optimization or some king of streamline UI when you zoom out, well you already have that in the game.

So its not a big deal lol.

I will always remember my Old RTS games (Dune, C&C, TA) and yes I think about why this game does no have that, and this, bla bla bla.... all of us do that.

But in the end whatever, if we play a game is because we like it, and if we keep playing the game is because we love it! Everyone in here who start playing a new game is because he got tired of the one that they used to play.

Frogboy Trust me everyone who plays AOTS its because they like it a lot, its very normal to hear people wanting more and more from a game, everyone compare, they even compare girlfriends, wives, everything. lol

I am sure everyone want to hear something from every Developer out there, is (yes we hear you, yes we will add it in the Future, or/and yes we will think about it).

Saying no may get people disappointed about the game, or anything.

I just do hope something from you the Dev's, is to give us the best ground planet RTS game out there, (will wait the Space RTS Sins 2) keep Updating it, keep adding new things to it, keep optimizing, and I will be here supporting you guys for the Long run like many other players here. you guys will even get way more players in the near future and many will recommend it for sure.

Keep the great work on AOTS and your other Projects, you guys do love making games and we do love playing them, that's our entertainment and our hobbies.

 

Reply #12 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 11

I feel ya.

I still play Total Annihilation and Master of Magic on occasion.

The purpose of my rant isn't that these games aren't great.  But rather, the people who publicly suggest that other people should go out and get those other games as if they are viable alternatives for people who aren't familiar with those games already. 

 

Well, you are correct, but just look at Act of aggression (i personaly love that game), but how the community just says "Go get C&C generals" instead. It will happen a lot, regarthless of the RTS people play.

The best thing a developer can do in my opinion is to avoid the trap of saying certain marketing statements, Eugen Systems falled into the trap of mentioning generals multiple times, and people naturaly expected that kind of gameplay and all the features associated with that game, including a good campaign.

Planetary annihilation kinda fell a bit into that trap? but, i believe there was too much crossover and comparison discussion between supreme commander, but i still find PA enjoyable as a game and unique to this day, but there were a lot of people demanding features and even epic units, which resulted in an expantion.

But all those features the community demanded didnt result on a long term playerbase increase.

I think people fail to realise that you can play more than 1 game, i can play supreme commander and have a good time, i can also play ashes of the singularity as well.

I admit i played TA and mods made in that engine for like over 5k hours maybe even more, ive lost count really, but id like to think i never actually encouraged anyone to go play TA these days xD, its a fine good game, but there are new and better games you can play.

Samething also happens between Starcraft 1 and 2 where there will always be this balance whine of "Brood war tanks were much more powerfull", or "Storm should be more powerfull like in broodwar", "Cracklings in broodwar were so awesome ", e.t.c. e.t.c...

 

Reply #13 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Quoting ASADDF, reply 12

with Shift you can zoom all the way up

This does not work for me. It would be nice if it did, but it doesn't.

Reply #14 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Quoting tatsujb, reply 16

yeah me neither. also 9 times/10 the middle mouse button pan is locked to rotate only and cant lower or highten the view angle this is a very resilient bug since the beginning.

Perhaps I have misunderstood what you have written but from what I understand that is working as intended. Holding Shift + middle mouse button allows for full panning and tilting. Just middle mouse button you just get the panning.

Reply #15 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Quoting Ticktoc, reply 18

Perhaps I have misunderstood what you have written but from what I understand that is working as intended. Holding Shift + middle mouse button allows for full panning and tilting. Just middle mouse button you just get the panning.

So is ASADDF suggesting that seeing the full map using the tilting functionality is an adequate replacement for being able to zoom out to a top-level view? Because "zoom all the way up" is not an accurate description of what I'm able to do with shift and the middle mouse button/scroll wheel.

Reply #16 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Quoting eviator, reply 21


Quoting Ticktoc,
reply 18


Perhaps I have misunderstood what you have written but from what I understand that is working as intended. Holding Shift + middle mouse button allows for full panning and tilting. Just middle mouse button you just get the panning. 


So is ASADDF suggesting that seeing the full map using the tilting functionality is an adequate replacement for being able to zoom out to a top-level view? Because "zoom all the way up" is not an accurate description of what I'm able to do with shift and the middle mouse button/scroll wheel.

 

? My message was a response to Tatsu. As for what ASADDF is saying I think it is a bug tbh. Sometimes if I spin the zoom out wheel a bit then I seem to be able to pop through an invisible barrier and am then able to zoom out much further.

Reply #17 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Quoting eviator, reply 21

So is ASADDF suggesting that seeing the full map using the tilting functionality is an adequate replacement for being able to zoom out to a top-level view? Because "zoom all the way up" is not an accurate description of what I'm able to do with shift and the middle mouse button/scroll wheel.

I know its not an adequate replacement at all, I don't even use it, you guys were asking for a zoom with nothing in it, I'm just just saying that you can do it right now using Shift + middle mouse button.

Reply #18 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Okay I misunderstood. Thanks for the clarification.

Reply #19 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

While I agree 100% in the visuals department as well as the general user experience department that SupCom/TA are severely outdated (I still play them weekly though :P)

They did get some things sooo right that should be brought forward (not talking about Strat Zoom dead horse yada yada)

Personally I love the overall interface forSupCom when it comes to giving orders, setting patrols, placing buildings, moving said placed buildings, moving patrol points, easily seeing at a glace what everything is doing by pressing shift, TEMPLATES (I love me my templates :P), ferrying, giving build orders to buildings and setting their patrol points/move points etc the second they start being built, being able to drag lines of buildings in a row, easily see how many resources units are using on mouseover to figure out what is draining the econ so fast (this has some room for improvement with an econ popup/menu that shows you all of your units currently producing/spending and letting you see exactly how much they are impacting econ so you can click on their icons and jump to the ones that are draining a ton of resources) , etc.  

The movement/attack/patrol lines and connecting dots were simplistic yet stand out and are extremely easy to see/grab/drag.  When you press shift they just POP out at you because they are right at the edge of being obnoxiously large while not crossing that line.  I think the fact that they are primarily 2d helps as well (the 3d stack of circles I am just not a fan of personally, it makes it hard to grab points)

For TA, really nowadays all I think needs to be brought forward into AOTS is some basic hotkeys like ctrl-z for select all similiar units to those selected (THIS ONE I MISS IN EVERY OTHER RTS!), the hotkey for selecting all units on screen, all units in general,ctrl - c for commander (maybe we could use this to cycle through dreadnoughts in order to upgrade them without clicking the units?)  etc (I don't think i missed these in the keybindings as I looked specifically.)  

The one other thing I just remembered from TA is the dynamic soundtrack that tries to let you know if shit is getting real somewhere and the sometimes annoying but useful oh shit you're being attacked buzzer  (or the units/buildings under attack from starcraft).

Another game I really enjoyed the interface of is StarCraft 2, the Grid system was so perfect as it allowed me to easily primarily use the keyboard without memorizing a ton of hotkeys and not use the mouse except for move/attack/place building commands. Having a way to see the units selected in a big display similiar to Starcraft (really most RTS games in general) as an option would be much appreciated.  I know that we have the empire tree, but the icons are absolutely tiny and don't really give me the at a glance info I want.  Starcraft got this so right with the changing color shades based on unit health, and the additional info on mouseover.  

 

 

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Reply #20 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

I wrote a long post debunking everything you said, but i considered it pointless to continue bickering, ive played PA from the start, i know how that game and its community went downhill, no point in bringing it further, plus i had a question mark in there, but who cares.

Also i was top 4, Uber ranking on that game for about a month when the game had elodea and clopse playing activly, ive had my taste of the top level play of that game.

Point was dont overpromise and do not talk about things your going to take years to implement, otherwise your just set for disaster.

I know they(the AOTS devs) havent done it yet, which is a good thing, but just imagine if they promised wrecks in a month after release or a third faction, or 4 times the map size, better to be vague than concrete im afraid.

RTS communities these days are a bunch of people with pitchforks wanting to raise fires everywhere.

And sometimes i even participate in the fire itself

Reply #21 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Quoting Andre_B, reply 26

I wrote a long post debunking everything you said, but i considered it pointless to continue bickering, ive played PA from the start, i know how that game and its community went downhill, no point in bringing it further, plus i had a question mark in there, but who cares.

Also i was top 4, Uber ranking on that game for about a month when the game had elodea and clopse playing activly, ive had my taste of the top level play of that game.

Point was dont overpromise and do not talk about things your going to take years to implement, otherwise your just set for disaster.

I know they(the AOTS devs) havent done it yet, which is a good thing, but just imagine if they promised wrecks in a month after release or a third faction, or 4 times the map size, better to be vague than concrete im afraid.

RTS communities these days are a bunch of people with pitchforks wanting to raise fires everywhere.

And sometimes i even participate in the fire itself

This is true and unavoidable.

The StarCraft forums are very hostile to Blizzard for example.

Our biggest advantage is that we are self-funded.  So we'll be working on Ashes for years with a full team (just like we do with GalCiv III).  

Our short list on post-release features are:

  1. Multiplayer observers
  2. Set difficulty levels for scenarios
  3. Easy modding support (drop stuff in the mod folder and it "just works")
  4. Actual tech tree for each race
  5. AI vs. AI mode with AI modding
  6. Replays
  7. Steamworks integration to share maps, scenarios, AI personalities
  8. General UI improvements
  9. Multiplayer Scenario support

How long those will take  to get in remains to be seen.  I expect some to get in this Spring and others to not get in until Fall.

 

Reply #22 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 27

Our short list on post-release features are:

Multiplayer observers
Set difficulty levels for scenarios
Easy modding support (drop stuff in the mod folder and it "just works")
Actual tech tree for each race
AI vs. AI mode with AI modding
Replays
Steamworks integration to share maps, scenarios, AI personalities
General UI improvements
Multiplayer Scenario support

Thx for the info and please don't forget to think about a way to add some security to the Players made maps and mods, like adding a password for the each map. Many community and mod users do not want their map to be stolen or something like that, because you will have hundreds user made maps by the first week after releasing the map editor.