Examining the Beginnings of the RTS Genre

Edge Magazine is running a story about the development of the real-time strategy genre. They credit Dune II: the Building of a Dynasty with establishing the basic concepts that led to more popular titles like Command & Conquer and the original Warcraft. "[Westwood Studios co-founder Brett] Sperry describes Dune II's core challenge as 'combining combat, exploration and production at a particular pace and rhythm to make it all exciting and almost out of control. That was a key part of what made it so addictive.' Indeed, the experience was quite unlike more staid turnbased strategies, where success or failure rolled in slowly rather than rushing over sand dunes at the speed of an action game. 'You had to think and respond fairly quickly, and in realtime, or else your base and forces would all be overrun. And as we developed the game further, it became clearer how the pacing and battle scenario design were all a delicate balance.'"

Comments

The first RTS I saw was on Atari 800 in like 1983

[greggman]

There was an RTS on the Atari 800

(yes, REALTIME not turn based)

http://www.atarimania.com/zoom_frame.php?TYPE_IMG=D7&ID=1143&MENU=8&NUM_IMAGE=1

Dune II Spice vs C&C Tiberium...

[aapold]

I had played Dune II on the Amiga, I think the biggest difference between that and later games is you had to click over on the actions buttons ("attack", "move", etc) instead of it being context-based on what you clicked on next (e.g., enemy = attack, ground = move to).

But in terms of influence the second I played C&C I felt that their whole concept of the Tiberium resource was taken directly from the Spice in Dune II. It almost even looked similar...

Herzog Twei

[Zwets]

Herzog Zwei came before Dune II.

Re:civilisation

[Purity Of Essence]

Basically you build up a city and army and sent your army across to attack the opponents city. Which is exactly what a RTS is.

No offense, I'm not singling you out, but that is exactly the kind of attitude that has made the RTS genre utterly stagnant for so many years. A game like Pikmin makes most other RTSes look creatively bankrupt. There is so much room for innovation in the genre, but nobody seems to have the vision or intestinal fortitude to break the mold and move forward in new and interesting ways. Most RTSes feel like Dune 2.5 next to Pikmin. Shigeru Miyamoto looked at everything that all RTSes have in common and determined that those were the features that needed the most change in order to create a truly new game experience. I wish more developers would adopt that sort of design mindset, a philosophy which in retrospect seems incredibly obvious. Yet year after year, across all genres, we only see tiny incremental refinements of preexisting games because most mainstream developers refuse to embrace risk.

Re:civilisation

[bigstrat2003]

Yet year after year, across all genres, we only see tiny incremental refinements of preexisting games because most mainstream developers refuse to embrace risk.

And because gamers don't want something different. We want the same game (roughly), not a "truly new game experience".

Re:Um, duh?

[mujadaddy]

"Micromanaging units" is playing the game.

I remember when the first C&C came out... you could drag out a box to select multiple units!!! It was revolutionary.

Unfortunately, it wasn't as fun as Dune II...