Big Huge Games: Rise of Nations

[Alex]

Ok, now I'm worried.

This is from the official Microsoft site about RoN (you can check it on the Miscellaneous page here at 'Poly):

Designed with the casual audience in mind, gamers will be able to move through the game timeline quickly and have a satisfying game experience without playing for hours.

"Casual audience"? "Move through the game quickly"? I know that RTSs are not known for its strategic depth, but this is not promising at all... On the RoN section at the BHG site, someone talks about "streamlined gameplay" or something like that. Seems like hardcore strat gamers will be disappointed once again. Yeah, I know, RoN is RTS, one cannot expect strategic depth from an RTS blah blah blah... But I was confident that BR could bring new life and intelligence to this genre. I cannot judge the game, of course, and I'll have to wait and see, but...

... this "casual audience" thing is a big huge letdown to me.

[nato]

Well my reaction was based on the near identical screens compared to AOK. In case you have not seen AOK, they look ... well, identical.

It looks like they added a "Chase Villagers" order (just guessing by the new button picture). That will be a nice feature, but hardly innovative.

I really think AOK hurt the genre by solidifying the Rock-Paper-Scissors thing too much. Somehow in Starcraft those relations were not so boring and straightforward. The tutorial in Empire Earth beated you over the head with it, and now the units in Rise of Nations tell you the relation every time they are selected ... enough already! I know the average RTS player is only like 12, but I think even the slower members of the audiance got it!

If your game boils down so simply to Rock-Paper-Scissors, thats not a good sign.

Anyway, the young age and inevitable dominance of rushing leads to the "casual audiance" and "move through the game quickly" part, I think.

To my experience all RTS eventually reach the point where only a rush with the earliest unit is feasible. So if you play, cut straight to the point! Ignore the tech tree and just rush with the earliest unit!

Ok I'm ranting, sorry, I'll stop.

[Carver]

Personally, I hate RTS. It's too rushed, there's little strategy - tactics yes but strategy no. RTS games are not mentally challenging, they're just a way to amuse yourself "without playing for hours", like Donkey Kong.

However, I will be buying this game. I think there is real promise in the way BR and the posse tried to take TBS aspects and put them in real time. The research (concentrating in military, commerce or science), the diplomacy (alliances more like NATO and less like a CIV3 MPP). They realize that CIV3 in real time could also be called a heart attack for $39.99 so they had to simplify. Alot of things, like the smart peasants, are automated. If this is what they mean by streamlined gameplay then good.

[ACooper]

Not another RTS that is a clone on AoK! Sux!

[woody]

Well, I wasn't ever impressed with Brian's originality. Look at Civ2: hardly any new concepts over Civ1. Just more micro-management!

I can understand him wanting to get away from Sid, but I think his new company will flop. He's a coder, not a thinker.

If you don't have any new ideas, there's not much point setting up a company. Unless you can build things better/faster/cheaper.

[Velociryx]

The graphics look good, but based on our limited information, it's too early for me to say one way or the other whether I'll like it....still, it does have a kinna "been there, done that" look and feel to it....dunno....

-=Vel=-

[Jac de Molay]

With BR behind it, it will succeed nonetheless. I sincerely hope it is the TBS/RTS hybrid I've been longing for for years.

Dave

[Hrnac]

Oh goody, another RTS game. Just what the industry needs.

If BR wants to add TBS elements to RoN, he had better grab a copy of Kohan and see how its really done. That game comes close to actually having TBS elements.

This game looks to be nothing more than another hack job on the AoK engine. It might please the RTS audience, but that is not saying too much. I wonder if Microsoft forced the AoK developers to give BR the code for AoK. If they are going to clone AoK at least change the color of the interface.

I think I will pull a Yin and declare this game to be horrible before it's even finished. Better yet, I will say that all who will declare RoN to be good or fun are just "too easily pleased".

-Hrnac

[Antonin]

What? ANOTHER pump-out-units-to-conquer-the-world RTS click fest? I think I'll keep my $50.

[MBD]

This game does look alot like AoK or Empire Earth. But if it's so similar to those games, I'm also wondering why it won't be coming out until 2003, and they've got like 30+ people of their staff. I know play-balancing takes a while, but a whole year?

[RickBlaine]

I read this article on Gamespot yesterday as was hardly excited about the game, which in both description and screen shots looks a whole lot more like Empire Earth redux than anything resembling Civ or SMAC. Brian Reynolds reiterated that this was a game a casual player could sit down with and play for an hour--hardly seems likely to have Civlike complexity. I've enjoyed playing RTS games at times (including EE), but I prefer games like Civ, and really do not think that the RTS genre can support a game as complex as Civ--it is just too much for the player to do in real time. (Except in a game like EU, which although billed as a real time game, has little, if anything, in common with what gamers have in mind when they use the term RTS.)

[thinkingamer]

Originally posted by DetroitDave
With BR behind it, it will succeed nonetheless. I sincerely hope it is the TBS/RTS hybrid I've been longing for for years.

Dave

try Kohan: the immortal sovereings; Nation will have a hard time making a RTS a more TBS than this one.

[Jack_www]

I hope that it is not a aok clone, but most likely will be. Every rts game microsoft publishes is a aok clone, I am assumming microsoft is going to publish this game.

I am sure not going to buy this game untill I can play a demo first, I dont want to waste $40 to $50 on aok clone.

[Brian Reynolds]

Hi Guys!

A couple of comments from things in the thread--

Our combat system is not just a rock/paper/scissors game, though we do include this concept of units having strengths and weaknesses relative to each other (it's actually one of the things that works against the "rush" tactic--which tactic we also allow you to control with game settings). At least equally strong in our game is the value of attacking from the flank and the value of holding the high ground.

So for example a line of pikes will protect your muskets from a cavalry charge, but if the cav gets in your rear watch out.

Brian

p.s. You're right, we don't plan to start our company with an AOE clone :-)

[Jack_www]

Originally posted by Brian Reynolds
Hi Guys!

A couple of comments from things in the thread--

Our combat system is not just a rock/paper/scissors game, though we do include this concept of units having strengths and weaknesses relative to each other (it's actually one of the things that works against the "rush" tactic--which tactic we also allow you to control with game settings). At least equally strong in our game is the value of attacking from the flank and the value of holding the high ground.

So for example a line of pikes will protect your muskets from a cavalry charge, but if the cav gets in your rear watch out.

Brian

p.s. You're right, we don't plan to start our company with an AOE clone :-)

That is very good to hear. I dont know why microsoft though put so many games out that are clones of AOE, all they do is change the unit pics and names and release it. Dont get it. Anyways enough about AOE. I am glad that rushing will be limited in the game. In too many rts all I see people do is rush, rush, rush, and rush all day long. Get old fast and you cant really enjoy the game. With multiplayer games will be able to controll how fast ages go by, so if you want a game to last a while you can slow it down, but if you want a quick game you can speed it up?