SupCom 2 Speculation

I have high hopes for Supreme Commander 2, and as entertaining as the original was, it lacked the lasting appeal of its spiritual predecessor, TA. Luke already went over the problems with SupCom thoroughly and I must say he’s absolutely correct on all counts.  Before starting in about what SupCom 2 might be like, I would like to add that possibly the biggest failing of the original was it wanted to be playable by casual strategy gamers. It could be said it failed, but it tried. 

I understand that there are more casual strategy gamers than the “hardcore” RTS nuts, and to some extent it is necessary to cater to them to sell enough games to make it worth making. However TA was not a casual game, and it was the depth of play that turned its players from casual RTS gamers into hardcore players. 

Sure, you lose a lot at first, but consider the extremes. Is a game better where the strong and the weak player have equal opportunity to win, or where the stronger player will win 100% of the time? I am of the opinion that the more skilled player should win to the degree of their skill – with the situation where one player will simply crush the other in every case is possible but rare (i.e. Starcraft pro vs player new to the genre). So as much effort as possible should be spent in making the game fun and interesting to play again and again, even at the expense of complexity and being difficult to learn. For those of you who play Dwarf Fortress, you know what I mean when I say more depth is better, even at the expense of graphics, and even if that depth will make you lose time and again. Indeed, in Dwarf Fortress you eventually lose every single game, but it’s still fun to play.

Top 5 Things GPG Must NOT Screw Up in Supreme Commander 2!

I’m rarely critical of Supcom/FA and Chris Taylor’s work. So I figured it’s time to put my ugly cynical hat on…

Here are the items I believe are essential; seriously I mean absolutely critical, that Gas Powered Games do not screw-up upon release of the highly anticipated Supreme Commander 2, around March 2010…

Great new interview with Chris Taylor

Now for something a little different than purely real-time strategy discussion. 😉 Chris Taylor expounds upon a variety of topics including the games industry’s creative development process, weathering an economic storm, publishing & distribution and, of course; the future of the RTS genre.

http://venturebeat.com/2009/05/29/interview-with-game-developer-chris-taylor-a-survivor-of-wars-both-real-and-imagined/

Supreme Commander 2!!!

It’s just been announced. I shit thee not. Looks like a 2010 release.

http://www.custompc.co.uk/news/605175/supreme-commander-2-announced-by-square-enix.html

http://www.supcomuniverse.com/forum/showthread.php?p=56162#post56162

Perhaps Chris (“RTS God”) Taylor has been stopping in looking at my world-famous RTS Concept? *Ahem*. OK maybe not. This is good news though. I can’t wait.

Ideas?

The Supreme Commander

I know this article has been floating around the Supcom/TA community for some time but I had to link to this interview with Chris Taylor, for two tantalizing reasons.

We’ll return to the SC universe again, but we’ll just have to see when that day is. Maybe when everybody has 64-bit processors…

and…

I’d like to develop something casual, but a little more sophisticated, not just a one-play session type game, but one that persists online, something where you get a score you can track over time like an MMO.