The mindset of the developers and their business plan

[DeHeerser]

Subject:
Westwood created a long-lasting success from a few thousand bucks. EA had millions to spend and still failed. How come?

Description:
The emphasis should not be on online ladder competition or expensive fancy cutscenes, but on the campaign. 75% of people who play RTS games never bother to compete online. Instead they want to build up their base, see it rise from scratch as they customize it with a turret here and a gate there, then explore the map, conquer the AI, beat the mission and see the story unfold. EA invested so much into high-ranking competition because they thought this would popularize their game. But they were wrong, because they failed to recognize the group they focused on (competitive players) is small, picks up a game quickly and lays it aside just as quickly. Whereas the large fanbase of C&C plays it because they love the feeling of being a Mastermind-Strategian, the story, gameplay and atmosphere. Online play was all about "keep the units rolling and overwhelm quickly!" whereas a traditional C&C player loves action but also loves to bide his time while weakening his enemy and waiting until the moment is there to strike.

EA thought the C&C player is a fluid rusher who pours out units right from the start, and once he sees his force is superior is already aching to begin the next match.

But that is not so; the C&C player is one who constructs his base with attention to details and carefully considers the placement of his structures. He doesn't want to immediately deliver a decisive blow but he wants to see the enemy crumbling beneath his attacks one step at a time.

Positive Effect:
The game will have a campaign with a lot of replay value, sub-missions, different possible approaches, a smart AI. After four days of intensive play, people will feel proud and think: "Wow this campaign was really fun! Now let's see what there's to do online". And if the developers spend another year creating an expansion (like Firestorm did), this will be relatively cheap for them (since they'll only need to add new missions, plus a few units and dialogues maybe) but people will be guaranteed to buy that expansion.

In the campaign of the Tiberian Sun your units might discover a lonely subterranean dwelling in some corner of the map. Upon contact, local militias declared their support and joined your force. Not that it really mattered much (the units were weak) but the playthrough was non-linear and the player felt attention was given to details. Perhaps they would send some extra civilian support a few missions later. Or you could send your spy on a sidetrack to find a hidden building to infiltrate, which in the next mission would reveal to you a part of the map. You could sense this was made by people who loved the imaginary world they created. In contrast, EA threw a bunch of millions around to create a campaign which felt unrefined and obligatory in many ways.

C&C 3 and 4 contained only few units and everything had to be functional: Infantry, Anti-vehicle infantry, Anti-infantry-vehicle, anti-air-vehicle, anti-vehicle-vehicle, anti-vehicle-air, anti-structure-air. That was it. Whereas Tiberium Sun and Firestorm contained more out-of-the-box units; Carryals, Cyborg-Reapers, Mobile Missile Hovercrafts, Mobile Stealth Generator, Subterranean APC, Devil's Tongue, Mobile EMP Cannon, Jumpjet Infantry, Limp Drone, Mobile Sensor Array, etc. Players want a great variety of units at their disposal that they can experiment with. A greater amount of units, even if some would not be used every match, would be more appreciated by them than let's say a large amount of skirmish maps or unlockable additional character info. Cover for this by giving them the tools so they can use their imagination and easily create some extra maps themselves.

Also, consider an extremely user-friendly map/mission editor. To create custom scenarios - this will make it more fun to play online, it will create more variation, and people will also be triggered to play online more often (because most want to play online but don't like the pressure of being immediately killed off by some expert). (Age of Mythology came with such an editor {much easier to use than for example that of Starcraft II} with which it is very simple to create your own minigames, a few thousand people still play it although microsoft disbanded the studio which created it. Age of Mythology was in that aspect a bigger success than AoEIII.) The map editors that were released for C&C3 were still way too difficult for users. Custom maps and scenarios is what you need if you want a thriving community in which there is also room for less competitive forms of play. The ladder-focusedness of most online RTS modes scares off the users. I know for a fact people would love to build a map with a big computer-controlled base and then work together with their friends to destroy that base.

EA thought they could rival the online success of Starcraft with C&C3 and 4. Echoing Dawn of War, they tried to make C&C into a game which abandoned economy and focused on micro.

But this was doomed to fail because this is not the mindset of the C&C player. What the C&C player wants is not a straightforward linear obvious approach (Rush or be superweaponed! Turtle or be rushed!) but freedom to establish his base as he sees fit and time to decide his strategic approach. C&C should hold a middle ground between Dawn of War (emphasis on micro) and Supreme Commander 1 (emphasis on large scale) in that respect. EA thought that because Starcraft 1 was such an online competitive success, they could use the C&C franchise and get its audience to get that going as well. They were wrong because in order to lure people online they changed the gameplay into something that didn't fit the frame of mind of the C&C player.

Negative Effect:
Players who want to buy this game and enter serious online ladder competition to get to the top ladder would have less resouces on their thing. (Since most of the team's resources would be on developing a great variety of units and a campaign containing many sub-missions and alternative approaches).

To be honest, I think the far majority of C&C players like to compete against others but they by nature want to take their time and not be under massive pressure from the very first minute. So they would play casual games more often than ranked ladder games.

[GeneralSGJist]

Agreed with all of it,
Balance is easy in a single unit single function system, but we also like multifunction units, but then balance becomes more difficult.

We shall see what VG can come up with.

[RA3-Hogo]

You have that 100% spot on, C&C has always been about the campaign and building bases over time then finally over throwing the enemy with your massive army.
You are also correct about most players never going online, games like C&C & Supreme Commander are all mostly played by people wanting to do single player this has been shown throughout the years of results being released of how many people have accessed the game and never registered online.

I fully SUPPORT this.

[isko]

I'm with you ...

[WimeSTone]

Agree, we don't need another Starcraft. C&C got to remain C&C. I'm not against multiplayer, it should be like you're playing campaign, with deatails and etc DeHeerser said. This type of playing needs some time for player to prepare, so developers could implement a simple, but effective solution - add "peace" timer. Until it reaches zero, players can't attack each other, can't use any special powers that cause damage to players (not civilians, etc.) or do anything that can harm opponents. Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends, I need to apologize for stealing this idea, but I think it solves ultra-early-rush problem, gives player time to think in C&C way.

[justluke3]

I Agree multiplayer is fun to experiment with if youve completed the campaign and want to see how good you are against others online but for me i tend to stick to single player campaign. it will be nice to get another cnc game that mainly focuses on campaign story line and how to make it re-playable such as side missions and unlockable altanate story lines. hopfully VG are reading and taking notes of your post. DeHeerser

[CrazyGDIfan123`]

typical misconception by people who dont understand rts... again, sigh

where exactly do you get the notion that cnc is about sitting in your base turtling with units for hours and then bashing the ai?
technically ANY rts can be that way you know... all it takes is a dumb ai/opponent that allows that style of play to be viable.

you could play starcraft and enjoy 'carefully' placing down your buildings and turrets in your nice-looking base while massing an army for hours, as long as the opponent doesnt take any counter action.
when infact, its not the way its played online, nor is it the way people generally describe starcraft gameplay.


you also fail to see the distinction between 'competitive' online play and 'pro' gamers who play for ladder+rank+cash.
pros are competitive gamers by default, but competitive players are not necessasrily pro; aka they dont have to necessarily care for rank etc.
all they care for is a... competitive online experience.

why care for competitive online experience?
because thats the TRUE face of the game.
its what pushes the gameplay mechanics to its maximum potential.
its where every component: 'real', 'time', 'strategy' comes into full effect. (why? because your objective at all points in the game is to gain an advantage over the opponent and eventually win)
its how you learn to play, optimise and improvise within the framework of -actual- rules set by the game... not YOUR own rules.

you can have a chess game where both players practically mess around trying to create nonsensical piece formations when they may actually have no real 'benefit' in terms of achieving victory.
fact is thats NOT -real- chess... its an artificial game for the sake of having fun with your own rules.

thats precisely the game youre describing here... its not -real- cnc.
EVERY cnc game to date, when played online, is the exact opposite of your description.
and btw "keep the units rolling and overwhelm quickly" is a completely inaccurate description of online play... theres FAR FAR more going on when the opponents are equally skilled.


sure, im all for having a good campaign etc, but i hope you realise when it comes to the actual 'RTS' aspect of the game.... online competitive play is where its at.... not bashing an incompetent AI at the campaign/skirmish or vs a newbie player who has no idea of how the game works 'optimally'.

[Golan2781]

MP and SP shouldn't be seen as opposites, but rather two sides of the same coin. A good game will have both sides polished.

[Plasticz]

MP and SP shouldn't be seen as opposites, but rather two sides of the same coin. A good game will have both sides polished.

Yep. I for one am not really interested in multiplayer. However I realize that there are some out there who play RTS almost exclusively for its multiplayer.

If they can find a balance between fantastic Campaign, and fantastic Multiplayer, then I think they'll be okay.

[DeHeerser]

typical misconception by people who dont understand rts... again, sigh
where exactly do you get the notion that cnc is about sitting in your base turtling with units for hours and then bashing the ai?

you also fail to see the distinction between 'competitive' online play and 'pro' gamers who play for ladder+rank+cash.

you can have a chess game where both players practically mess around trying to create nonsensical piece formations when they may actually have no real 'benefit' in terms of achieving victory.
fact is thats NOT -real- chess... its an artificial game for the sake of having fun with your own rules.

This argument falls flat on its face, for several reasons.
- The author gives his own definition of RTS. Pretends this is the universal definition of it, and from that position attacks the original post. Arrogantly posing as if I had not understood what RTS is. You are trying to make a charicature of an argument that rests upon truth, so you come up with lame statements such as "you just want to play chess with an incompetent AI". All of this is pure rhetoric, one sees for example that I pointed out the AI should be smart and strong.

- There is a difference between what this writer poses as RTS: Dawn of War style and the RTS that is C&C. And I pointed out that C&C holds the middle ground between Dawn of War and Supreme Commander. I've spent thousands of hours playing RTS games competitively online. And you think that I wrote this post just because I want to hide myself in a corner of the map while beating a stupid AI?

- No substantive argument at all. You talk about nonsensical chess formations that bring no benefit to victory. Your trick is postulating an entity in your argument, declared by yourself to be nonsensical and non-contributing, and then pretend as if I wrote such a thing. Which I obviously never would. You are making up your own rules about what RTS is. The point of RTS is that moves which do not contribute to victory are punished, not rewarded. This is the very basic premise you fail to grasp. One wins in an RTS game if you use whatever you have more optimally than your opponent does. Therefore it would be more of a strategic game if there would be more options.

These are the mistakes which C&C3 and Dawn of War made (which I played online I don't know about him). In C&C3 there was so much emphasis on churning out Nod tanks. The gameplay was too linear and too straightforward. Like I said, this is for people who want to overwhelm quickly and once they see their force is superior their thoughts are already with the next match. This is not the mindset of the C&C player.

This symptom became obvious in Dawn of War where everyone rushed towards the middle of the map to claim those resource spots. One side would win, they would reinforce those spots with turrets. The other side would fall back and somehow try to out-boom the other side. Then each would try to get the top-tier Terminator marine unit faster than the other side. I played AoEIII at a fairly high competitive level. At some point everyone started out raiding with mercenary units and long-term investments, such as Banks, became pretty much useless.

These developments actually made the game LESS strategic and not more. Any moron could see what to do now. Likewise in Age of Mythology a noob can download a recorded game of a Kronos rush and quickly get 1800+ with this. If a game takes longer and has more options, the player will need to make more decisions. Decisions make a game strategical. Because you can just memorize the first 10 minutes of gameplay, but after that there's more variation. I've literally seen it happen countless times that 1800++ players come out with a crushing attack because they have memorized every move, but after the first 10 minutes they don't know what to do anymore and fail miserably. This was also a shortcoming of C&C3: "Rush or be superweaponed! Turtle or be rushed!" A superior strategist is he who knows how to deal with variaty of circumstances and immediately see the right move.

You didn't actually bring forward a point, you just bashed a charicature of my otherwise truthful ideas. But I have an intuition of what you want and I will say that it has no decisions. What you want would limit the variety of possible circumstances. It leads to:
1 Quickly go forward and take a specific vital spot on the map because if you do not you will get into a position from which you cannot recover.
2 Quickly tech towards a specific unit and build that unit because it is so much more cost-efficient than the others.

The only way to prevent this is by making bases and base-formation important in the game, and having a large amount of units with different functions. For example the subterranean units, mobile stealth generators and repair vehicles. In C&C Tiberian Sun it was rewarded to make a few hovercrafts, cirlce around the enemy base and attack the powerplants from the water. In C&C 3 you would lose 99% out of times if you tried to do that, because the enemy would have those resources available to overpower you in the front and to beat out your tank surge with his.

Someone else (Wimestone) suggested that there should be a "peace-timer". However I disgree with this. In an RTS game you always try to win, always try to make the most optimal move at every second, and the peace-timer would just postpone the moment at which those moves see their execution and results. So instead I would say that early-game/low-tech units should definitely play a role, such as Nod-Bikes, Attack-Buggies, Wolverines and whatnot. They would be useable to weaken the enemy and to gain useful intel, but they shouldn't be strong enough to cripple someone's base right from the start.