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StarCraft-Inspired RTS From Former Blizzard Devs Losing Online Multiplayer Because Server Partner Was Bought By AI Company - Aftermath (Nathan Grayson) (aftermath.site)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/gaming@lemmy.zip
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[–] 2 points 7 months ago* (5 children)

I mean if someone wants to make a Starcraft inspired mod in Beyond All Reason, ALL of the equipment is already there, the lobby system, voting mechanisms, replay system etc...

I think the reason nobody has is Starcraft is so much more limited of an RTS design it feels weird to start from a Total Annihilation inspired rts game engine and take a whole bunch away (shift clicking, build cues, actually 3d trajectories of cannons, complex unit interactions rather than simplistic rock-paper-scissors relationships, actually flying aircraft, organic terrain variation instead of simplistic stepped levels...the list goes on and on)

Still, the Spring/Recoil engine is sitting there. Starting from scratch just to start from scratch seems VERY inefficient to me.

At the very least why not start as a Spring Engine/Recoil Engine mod, nail the gameplay and balance and then strike out on your own?

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (4 children)

    I think the reason nobody has is Starcraft is so much more limited of an RTS design it feels weird to start from a Total Annihilation inspired rts game engine and take a whole bunch away (shift clicking, build cues, actually 3d trajectories of cannons, complex unit interactions rather than simplistic rock-paper-scissors relationships, actually flying aircraft, organic terrain variation instead of simplistic stepped levels…the list goes on and on)

    Exactly. Those "limitations" (I would use a less biased word, BTW) make it a different game. Not necessarily worse or even more simplistic, but definitely different, kinda like how Chess and Go are different even though they're broadly in a similar genre.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago* (3 children)

    My point is the Recoil and Spring Engine already exist and could easily have features removed and simplified with modding to create a Starcraft-like or Warcraft-like.

    Or... what about going with 0 A.D.'s engine?

    I just don't think it is a wise business decision to attempt to create an RTS as a new game studio and expect you can build the engine from scratch. Not in this day and age, the golden age of game development is gone, you can't casually take risks like that anymore.

    What you end up with is a failed game on a really pretty game engine that is starting to become promising but now since the gameplay hasn't gotten enough attention from the small overworked team nobody keeps playing the game and all the work that went into building the game engine and boilerplate is wasted and forgotten.

    I think it is a FAR better idea to nail the gameplay on an already made RTS engine.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (2 children)

    I mean, if the game engine is the issue you're worried about, people had already been working on Free Software WarCraft/StarCraft clones almost a decade before the Spring Engine existed. https://stratagus.com/stargus.html

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago* (1 child)

    Yeah my point is why do people keep insisting st failing at reinventing the wheel as an indie company here?

    There are plenty of wheels that already exist that would serve as a much more focused starting point for a new game company.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago

    Beats me; I wasn't trying to talk about that. I was just pointing out that StarCraft and TA (and therefore their Free Software successors), despite both being RTSs, are different enough from each other that it doesn't necessarily make sense to try to share a codebase between them.

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