Suggestion: bring RTS back to its roots

[stephanovich]

Jeremy Feasel.

[Reno]

Although I completely agree the RTS genre shouldn't stay static, it appears to me that's exactly what they're doing with Generals 2, which is why I'm not completely mad for it. If you look at the Generals 2 page...

http://www.commandandconquer.com/en/...d/cncgenerals2

"Take control of three unique factions, competing for resources, building up your base of operation, and leading massive batteries of tanks, soldiers, and aircraft into battle."

Sounds like the same game we've been playing for over a decade. In terms of gameplay, that is. Doesn't sound to me like apt.pupil as anything to worry about, though I can't say the same for the rest of us.

[Lauren]

You completely misunderstood me.

First, WC & SC - They do have different game mechanics, simillar, albeit different, while both RA and Tiberum series have the exact same gameplay, just different setting. This also comes to the fanbase - Excluding Blizzard fans, WC and SC have, as far as I know, different fanbases. C&C, on the other hand, has one and the same. That's two reasons to consider WC and SC different franchises and game series.

The mechanics of SC and WC are more similar to each other than TW to TD, and the leap to RA3 is again something completely different. C&C changed over the years quite a bit. Especially with the introduction of special abilities. And you did ignore Golans main point, you argued with bad sales and based that on stagnant gameplay while in fact the real reasons are the ones Golan named. There was no missing the point, you just don't seem to want that.
Up to the release of Kane's Wrath no one wanted a second Generals but an improved TD/TW. Why? Because they had a very good gameplay but seriously lacked in polish and balance, things that got never fixed. Generals only catered to MP people, which is fine, but alienated most of the older fanbase. Combine that with the fact that an established IP that more or less has a story is much harder to get new customers. New customers are discouraged when there might be stuff they should know about previews games that they never played. People were excited about RA3 but the points Golan mentioned were just upsetting, also the new harvest mechanics and stuff, it's not what they expected and wanted. People wanted a more polished and refined version of what they had.
One of the things I believe that made the situation worse are the ports. For TW at least they tried to keep the XBox and PC versions equal, meaning they always had to wait and pay for and extra round QA of MS. This resulted in a few big patches, but these patches did so much that they fixed one issue but created two new issues. And the obvious use of Exel when nerfing/buffing something instead of really testing the changes that resulted in stuff nerfed to be completely unusable afterwards in 50% of the cases. Best example is the gradual economy nerf to it's ridiculous levels it has in KW now. Complete paper armor for Harvesters just doesn't work right for all levels of play if they are priced about double of MBTs. Paper armor on Harvesters works in SC and WC because you are forced to get many of them anyway so you can loose a few while still being able to recover. These missteps that never got fixed are the problem why people stop playing the game and never return to the franchise.