A little message to Mr. Reynolds...

[Capt Dizle]

From UGO Preview:

Graphically, Rise of Nations looks amazing and watching two armies battle is a visual treat. Plumes of smoke rise from cannons as they fire and infantry spray bullets from side to side."

I justed wanted to let you know, Brian, that the gamers out here don't care about any of this. We want gameplay. How it looks and sounds is beside the point.

I looked at the screenies and saw what appears to be a building with a health bar and flames coming out of it. You do realize if you can't come up with something more mature than this that you will be boiled in oil. We don't want no more damn dumb kid games.

jt

[Capt Dizle]

I mean, are you going to give us another dose of the utter stupidity of a bunch of archers shooting arrows at a barn?

[Capt Dizle]

UGO again

Generals are even more influential, acting as single units that can change the tide of battle as they can create decoys, which are defensive units that exactly duplicate another troop type, but with none of the offensive power and twice the ability to absorb damage. For someone not paying attention, we can imagine these units making someone very nervous. Generals can also order an ambush, which renders the army temporarily invisible as if stealthily attacking or can call for a forced march in order to move the element faster. They are governed by their Craft rating, which acts almost as mana does for a wizard, when the ability is in use, the Craft level goes down, and when it's not, it climbs back up.

Brian, we are not having any of this nonsense. If you need help with concepts please PM me.

[Capt Dizle]

An interesting idea with infantry is that they can morph into other infantry types like flamethrowers for short-range attacks, machine gunners for heavier assaults, paratroopers so units can drop into other friendly territory, etc.

morph? There is no morphing in serious games?

[chronocrator]

Originally posted by jimmytrick
I justed wanted to let you know, Brian, that the gamers out here don't care about any of this. We want gameplay. How it looks and sounds is beside the point.

I looked at the screenies and saw what appears to be a building with a health bar and flames coming out of it. You do realize if you can't come up with something more mature than this that you will be boiled in oil. We don't want no more damn dumb kid games.

Well, why do good graphics make a bad game? If Civ2 had Civ3 graphics would that make it a worse game?
BTW this game needs to appeal to more than a few Civ gamers, if Brian wants to reach AoE or EE players he needs some good graphics otherwise Big Huge won't last very long.

And a health bar makes a game a dumb kid game?

Obviously there is not much to discuss here...

[Capt Dizle]

A health bar on a building is certainly a damn dumb concept.

One of the reasons that pc games are such crap these days is that 90% of the resources go into sound and graphics and only 10% into gameplay. If you are the kind of gamer that disagrees with this then, I agree we have nothing to discuss.

[WarpStorm]

What is a better way to show the level of damage to the building than a "health bar"? Color coding them would be fugly (this is what the military actually uses, I know from experience), percent damage number too. There is a reason most games show damage this way these days. It is easy too understand and it's not too ugly.

[Capt Dizle]

I don't really mind the health bar, its the whole concept of attacking buildings that bothers me. Again, I have limited experience with RTS games and am only considering this one because of the great work Brian did on Civ2 and SMAC.

I remember in warcraft and starcraft you would attack buildingswith swords and bows, this is so lame.

I would think that more elegant ways of destroying or capturing buildings can be found. As long as we are not going to see a group of spearmen hacking away at a farm or mine like it was an elephant I can live with a health bar.

You should be able to set fire to a building and leave it to burn. Special units would have to put it out and still others repair it. Use explosives or bombardment. Capture by simply occuping and holding (put it under armed guard). Convert it to your use by retooling (another special ability unit needed).

I should be able to discern the condition of a building by its appearance. This is where graphics can contribute to gameplay. I don't want a health bar. I have never seen a health bar hovering over a building in real life. Detailed information about the status of a building should be available by right clicking on it, if it is under your control or if you have suitable units nearby. The pace of the game should be slow enough for you to have time to do these things.

Pacing should be controled by a dial so that the gamer can customize as he likes, including pause.

Do we really want another clickfest with such simple mechanics as we have seen in the past?

[Capt Dizle]

Instead of having a bunch of special ability units perhaps you should have a unit workshop where you could assign multiple special abilities to units.

Like SMAC. But no morphing.

[Kataphraktoi]

i have a rifleman.i want a machine gunner. i tell my rifleman to ''morph'' into a machine gunner. he goes to the armoury,gets a machine gun out,basic training and bam he is a machine gunner.

my understanding of how this works anyway...although they might not show the rifleman going wherever to pick up equipment,instead just substracting recources and a little time to finish.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by jimmytrick
UGO again


Brian, we are not having any of this nonsense. If you need help with concepts please PM me.

roflmao-Brian PM'ing you! haha. good one.
I agree with some of your points, though. I would rather have gameplay than graphics. But I would rather have graphics than a text based game. I don't see why there can't be both these days.

but, you've seen how many people have b*tched about no wonder movies in civ3. unfortunately that's what people expect these days. A lot of fluff.

[Kataphraktoi]

A health bar on a building is certainly a damn dumb concept

i guess you would prefer not having any way of telling how badly damaged your buildings are?

[XarXo]

Originally posted by jimmytrick
I looked at the screenies and saw what appears to be a building with a health bar and flames coming out of it. You do realize if you can't come up with something more mature than this that you will be boiled in oil. We don't want no more damn dumb kid games.

FINALLY!! One has CLAIMED that CASTLES CAN'T BE DESTROYED WITH A BUNCH OF CAVALRIERS WITH SWORDS!! IS PROBABLY THAT IN THIS GAME WE CAN HAVE A RESISTANCE INDEX?? YES?? PLEASE!!!!!

[Peter Triggs]

I guess those graphics are reflecting this:

But the attacker is not without advantages; you can "take over" an enemy city by attacking it to reduce it to zero health. Then, as long as you have more military units present then the defender, the city -- and all the economic and cultural buildings around it -- becomes yours. Because of these changes, borders tend to shift realistically across the map during gameplay, and battles tend to rage around key economic cities that are often blasted but rarely destroyed.

I think that's from the Gamespy review. I recall reading another review that said that this makes for much more interesting battles: there's a time lag within which the opposition can retake the city quite easily if you're not careful.

[s_qwert63]

i agree with the idea of attacking buildings is just plain dumb...
i really hate it when a few guys with swords start razing down my town centres in AOE. why not make buildings vulnerable to assault units like cannons, trebuchets etc. and not guys with swords.
Imagine how dumb it would look if you would see a guy IRL trying to smash a huge castle with a sword.
or a dude with an AK47 shooting at Fort Brag.

[Switch]

Originally posted by XarXo
FINALLY!! One has CLAIMED that CASTLES CAN'T BE DESTROYED WITH A BUNCH OF CAVALRIERS WITH SWORDS!! IS PROBABLY THAT IN THIS GAME WE CAN HAVE A RESISTANCE INDEX?? YES?? PLEASE!!!!!

I think castles should be a LOT harder to produce AND destroy than in AOE. According to some people I know who live in Germany, practically no castles were ever destroyed. If they're dead now, it's because of erosion. Castles were INCREDIBLY difficult to destroy and were VERY well defended. And I don't ever remember hearing about villages that had 4 castles, let alone 4 like in some AoK games I've played.
This all depends, of course, if BR intends on including castles.

Also, most building should be resistant to everything but Siege weapons, and wooden ones also susceptible to anything that is on fire (torchers, fire arrows, etc).

[Straybow]

Castles evolved considerably over time. Early castles were not sophisticated. They often were assaulted by footsoldiers with simple seige weapons constructed on site, and in Europe these tactics were often successful. The key factor was manpower, and since feudalism kept forces small, alliances of nobles were required to muster the strength to assault.

In the NME isolated castles were not the norm, but rather large fortified cities with massive curtain walls. These could only be breached by concerted effort: sapping, heavy catapults, mobile seige towers, etc. But since armies were state controlled rather than raised by feudal lords this power could be brought to bear more easily than in Europe. Seiges required more time, sometimes a year or longer, but were often successful.

The Crusaders learned alot from NME fortress designs, so late Medieval castles became nearly invulnerable to simple assaults from feudal powers. The city of Albi was the home of "heretics" called Albigenses. The Dauphin (or somebody) gathered vassals and allies from most of France in order to assault the great walls. Lords who left their lands to participate were promised papal sanction against any who might try to seize their property in their absense.

One of the things I have not liked about Civ and successors/immitators is the requirement of separate seige engine units. If the Civ has the technology any army can construct small engines on demand, and large engines given time. In TBS game turns are easily long enough to make that factor immaterial. RTS units would just require a certain time to build their seige weapons.

[ravagon]

I don't really understand all of this hoohaa about attacking buildings. Buildings were attacked/razed/burned by guys stomping around with swords and axes. They didn't actually use their swords and axes for these tasks of course but after just hearing about how its the gameplay that actually matters I find it hard to believe that people would actually complain about an infantryman seeming to hack away at a building with a sword rather than sheathing it and using a burning torch instead. Thats just another example of unnecessary flashy graphics surely ...
Same thing with discarding a simple damage meter in the form of a health bar ... why?
Replacing this with more "flashy graphics" such that a player is able to discern the damage level by looking at the special effects is just what "strategy gamers" don't want - or so it seems from some of the above statements ...

[simwiz2]

I think buildings should be destroyed by fire which is caused by a unit's attack, rather than the unit's attack itself. A building's vulnerability to fire should be based on how much wood compared to stone (or iron in later ages i guess) is used to buuld it. So a 0 wood 650 stone castle would be invulnerable to fire, and would be INDESTRUCTIBLE to a bunch of guys with swords/torches. A 100 wood 0 stone lumber camp could be easily destroyed by swords/torches. Of course villagers should be able to put out fires (possibly more effective if near a well - another specialized building?) and repair any damage. And fire should be able to spread. And bombardment units should be able to start buildings on fire.

[One_Dead_Villy]

well the way they do it in cossacks is pretty good...
troops can only capture buildings...and only explosive and fire troops can attack buildings. they should use that method.

also in RON they have a capture city ability so i am sure its not all just able swords hacking on buildings...

i also agree with ravagon and simwiz...and also there is nothing wrong with making the game visually appealing.

Also they should make fortresses upgrable to better one still they get those near invulnerable castles, but it would just cost a lot of resoruces and time to upgrade to that.

[Kataphraktoi]

anything that hurts gameplay will be blindfolded and shot-Greg Street

the way they do it in cossacks is NOT good.you can simply run a few cheap units through the enemys town(sich cossacks work good) and cause villagers and buildings to join you(and you can quickly delete them to prevent your enemy from getting them back.)

wich is NOT FUN...

and i think using non-artillery units to kill buildings is fine.would you rather have your computer slowed down with all the graphics for making it look right(troops putting away swords,grabing tochers etc) or would you rather have them wack away at stone walls.....

[Alexander's Horse]

I agree with Jimmy - when are game makers going to learn that we want resources put into gameplay not eye candy.

[tniem]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
I agree with Jimmy - when are game makers going to learn that we want resources put into gameplay not eye candy.

My guess is they will sell more copies if the game looks better than AoM than if it is more strategic and more deep than AoM. Of course, I want a deeper more strategic game, but graphics always has to be a concern to the company for sales. In the end, good graphics does not have to be at the expense of good game play and that is what I am hoping with this one.

[FrostyBoy]

AH, sometimes resources requires eyecandy

[FrostyBoy]

A better way to say it: Eyecandy takes resources.

[Jac de Molay]

especially for us graphically challenged folk

[Sarxis]

All I have to say to Mr. Reynolds and his troupe is:

1). Be a fan of RTS games
2). Learn from the mistakes of your predecessors


RTS isn't a new genre, and there are plenty of resources in the fan-base, as well as other RTS games, that the BHG developers can glean from.