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Developing An RTS For The 360
Gamasutra is running an interesting piece entitled The Battle for Console Earth. Louis Castle of EA describes the process of making an RTS title for the Xbox 360 console. From the article: "Castle's approach to the Xbox 360 version of The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-Earth II was to approach the RTS genre as if it were never on the personal computer. Let's go back to the beginning. Let's look at these strategy games, as if they were new. How would we approach it now? Let's pretend that there never was a mouse, and all we had were consoles. How would we bring this about?"
They should just release starcraft onto the 360...they did it with N64....starcraft is fun....hey...wtf...ahhh f*king zerglings............
The reason RTS is successful on the PC is because of the functionality gained by having a keyboard & mouse. Porting RTS to a much simpler control design will yeild either a different game or a different gaming experience.
Using current controllers for RTS is like proposing to type a book using a cell phone's text messaging feature; yes you can type on it, but why the hell would you want to?
Let's pretend that there never was a mouse, and all we had were consoles.
My god! Imagine the the amount of deskspace you'd need then!
E.
Never rub another man's rhubarb - The Joker
I want to see an RTS for the Nintendo DS. It has a near perfect interface for one already. A joystick just isn't fast and precise enough to command an entire army and deal with multiple tasks at once(like fighting a war on two fronts). The stylus can mimic a mouse very well, all you would really be missing are hotkeys.
Let's go back to the beginning. Let's look at these strategy games, as if they were new. How would we approach it now? Let's pretend that there never was a mouse, and all we had were consoles. How would we bring this about?
Like Herzog Zwei, maybe? Oh, for the times when game journalists had a memory that went back before the current generation of consoles...
Rob
"No mouse, keyboard or desk"...
That's like saying lets pretend the user is mentally challenged and only has one arm.
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I don't quite understand how a mouse existing or not existing effects the design of a console RTS, unless you're considering implementing PnP mouse for the 360 in the coding? You're designing it for a controller, so exactly how would a mouse factor into any of this? Same with the genre of RTS in general. If you're imagining the genre never existed, then you're essentially just *recreating* the genre in ignorance? I love how they say "What made Lord of the Rings a great series of films was just as much about the actual human actors, the sense of heroism, as much as it was a spectacle of graphics and fantasy and all, and it all came from the literature". Like the books never existed, I suppose.
'nuff said.
I'll second that. Herzog Zwei was the first thing that popped into my mind when reading the summary. Someone else has already mentioned StarCraft 64 as well.
It's a pretty sad state when the current game houses have so little historical perspective on their own industry that they have to keep reinventing things -- and then, even better, call it 'innovation.'
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I remember playing Dune II, widely considered the first true RTS, on my Sega Genesis. The control would have been better with a mouse, but it worked.
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First paragraph:
Louis Castle is the Vice President of Creative Development at EA Los Angeles, where he provides creative input on a number of popular franchises, including Medal of Honor, GoldenEye: Rogue Agent, Lord of the Rings, and Command & Conquer, the series he helped create over a decade ago at Las Vegas-based Westwood Studios, which he co-founded in 1985.
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
Although originally an Amiga game, the SNES release of Canon Fodder worked really well, and was bloody good fun. Of course, it did have the option of a mouse for input, which didn't hurt at all. SNES mouse, wooo!
Fun link that makes this thread even more entertaining: http://www.above-the-garage.com/rblts/vie16b.htm
Like Herzog Zwei, maybe?
Was there ever a sequel to that?
Put your keyboard and mouse on a TV dinner tray. Would that work?
I thought of both Dune 2 and StarCraft 64, but it seemed to me that the author was referring to games specifically made for the console, and Herzog Zwei is the only one that fits that bill. Dune 2 was excellently ported, though, and there was another fine port of an RTS on the Genesis; Tyrants, better known as Mega lo Mania on the PC.
Rob
There is no need to imagine, since someone else already did. Go look up the old PC game "BattleZone" and its sequel. Especially the sequel shows how its done: the commander doesn't say "attack enemy base", he says "follow me" and charges the base himself.
Of course a more cowardly/wise commander may sneak near the base and mark targets for ballistic bombard, or simply order his troops around from the command bunker. But a real man will lead the charge himself ;).
And the whole thing doesn't need mouse for anything but aiming. A hierarchical menu behind the function keys is used to command units. Newer consoles have easily enough buttons for this to work.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Don't forget Goblin Commander. While you're correct in bringing up Herzog Zwei, Goblin Commander is the only RTS I can think of that was built specifically for current-gen systems, thus using a controller much closer to the 360's than the Genesis controller of Herzog Zwei. I'm thinking GC would give a closer idea of what to expect from this.
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