RTS

[Dekkaz]

RTS, there's no denying it. The pinnacle of games for a very long time now overshadowed by MMORPG and FPS.
I still love rts but I am new to these forums and I have read the occasional post and most of you seemed very able in video game knowledge and I wanted to know..

Is RTS dying?

 

[BENZOOKA]

No. They're just different genres. People like different things. You can't compare a RTS to FPS or MMORPG.

 

[microhive]

It's not a dying genre. It's just not as a hot money machine as it used to be for developers.

 

[FallenRainbows]

Nawh,

Dawn of War II
Starcraft II
C&C

To name a couple of new ones, hell the old ones are going strong.

EDIT:

Well, Shogun 2 is coming out soon, but the genre is far from being properly saturated.

How did I forget total war???

*hit-self*

 

[kingcom]

Same as it always has, only a few franchises making RTS, Starcraft, Dawn of War replacing Command and Conquer. Thats about it. It hasn't been huge for a long while, its flattened out.

 

[Best of the 3]

No. RTS's are played by those that love to play RTS's. Take warcraft 3 for prime example, what's it been? 10 years? Their online comminuty is still buzzing and alive and well. Just because CoD / WoW (Which came from the RTS btw) have more numbers, doesn't mean that RTS's are going to kick the can.

 

[gigastar]

It's kind of like this;

The vast majority of people who want to play games usually dont have the focus needed to play RTS.

Therefore they play things they can understand like FPS, MMO or RPG.

RTS is far from dead, though its been anything but smooth goings recently.

Same as it always has, only a few franchises making RTS, Starcraft, Dawn of War replacing Command and Conquer. Thats about it. It hasn't been huge for a long while, its flattened out.

Command and Conquer is still around. Remember, EA dropped the 'Annual Sequel' policy so they could actually try to get out some quality stuff.

 

[Dekkaz]

good point, Starcraft 2 is a little bit nooby in my opinion. It's just that a fps or mmorpg now days that is terrible dribble but shows small potential is considered, an rts in this time must be at COH or AOE level for it to be even reasonably good.

 

[The Harkinator]

RTS's are certainly not dead. Very much alive. There are just less of them than the big budget FPS's and cant always match the huge hordes of MMO players. The genre is certainly not saturated and I can happily spend hours more on an RTS than any other game. According to Steam I have played over 200 hours on Empire Total War. I intend to play many more.

An RTS requires lots of attention from the player rather than the game stringing the player along with explosions and the 'Just one more level' philosophy. I meticulously (spelling?) planned my invasion of Austria (Stretching from Ukraine to Alsasce Lorraine, as high as Denmark and south as Croatia) it required 3 prelimanary campaigns against the Ottoman Empire, Italy and its surrounding city-states as well as eliminating France. Then with a six pronged attack (from France pushing to Munich, from Venice to secure The home territories, two naval invasions to secure north Germany and Lithuania then two southern ones from Greece to secure the southern territories and Poland) and a naval onslaught I defeated a massive empire in 7 turns, a better achievement than completing a CoD game on Veteran.

Rather than a mindless slog through an annoying 10 hour cycle of play, grenade, death, respawn. A 15 hour build up to a 5 hour show of strategic brilliance (If I do say so myself) was so much more rewarding than any FPS I have played.

 

[darth.pixie]

It's very much alive. I don't know why people mention Starcraft but not Warhammer. I liked the later infinitely more.

RTS doesn't get as much publicity but there are still games for strategy players.

MMORPG and FPS apply to a different kind of market that is more known and played by everyone. If I were to meet someone who just started paying an interest in games, I could bet that he would play a FPS or WoW. RTS's need discovering.

 

[SckizoBoy]

EDIT:

Well, Shogun 2 is coming out soon, but the genre is far from being properly saturated.

How did I forget total war???

*hit-self*

Here's where I get a little annoyed... how many times do I have to say this: the Total War series is not RTS! It's a hybrid TBS & RTT.

Therefore, I will take OP as meaning strategy games in general, since Civ (well, the one Civ game I played - Civ4) wasn't an RTS either (TBS, with one of the poxiest combat systems ever).

Anyway, there are loads of strat games out there, it's just we aren't swamped with them, and most are actually pretty good (all of the Total Wars, CA seem to have monopolised the hybrid gameplay, since no-one else has even remotely attempted to copy it, with the possible exception of DoWC/SS, though that is stretching it slightly). Besides, you can get a much more varied gaming experience out of them and a lot more gaming time. The first DoW (w/o expansions) was an exception, but enter DarkCrusade/SoulStorm and woohoo, hours of xenos bashing (or human bashing for a lot of it). Scope can vary a lot as well, since SupremeCommander was a bloody awesome experience (campaign was a bit iffy, but nevermind), especially as I kept bragging about having a dual-monitor config that was just too fun not to piss around with (watching a cannon shot from one end of the map to the other was thoroughly amusing).

Still, strat games require (for the most part) sooooooooooo much more thought and attention than most other genres.

Rome: Total Reality (a fan made patch? of R:TW) is probably the most awesome game ever made, and is a good history lesson at that.

 

[x EvilErmine x]

I may be totally wrong here but i think the RTS is still simmering away quite happily just under the surface. as the posters above have mentioned there have been a fair number of new RTS's out over the last few years.

The genera that seems to have died on its arse the most (well it seems this way to me at least) is the space flight sim. As exemplified by the fabulous Freespace and Freesapce 2, the Wing Commander games, Colony Wars, etc...
That's something I'm quietly gutted about, I loved those games.

Can anyone name a decent space flight sim that's come out in the last couple of years? I can't.

 

[Susurrus]

You're getting picky about which genre Total War is in? Really? Splitting an already small number of games into increasingly small genres, for what purpose?

 

[veloper]

RTS have always been few and far between compared to shooters.

Since SC2 sold over 4 million of copies, more will keep coming.