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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.'"
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
[citation needed]
The original C&C was huge though not just for gameplay, but because it was one of the first games to use full-screen video, you could play as the baddies or goodies (each with their own very distinct units), had an awesome soundtrack, and to this day had the best setup program ever!
Oh, and for the NOD missions you could choose your ending.
They don't make them like they used to!
throw new NoSignatureException();
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...
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
Herzog Zwei came before Dune II.
One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say. - Will Duran
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.
+0 Meh
I just thought this was a good time to remind people that for the 12th aniversary, Westwood started giving away C&C I gold edition free. I can't find the download on their website any more, but gamespot has it mirrored.
One of the benefits of PC gaming is that, assuming you keep your mitts on all your bits, you can whip out old games and replay them years later. I did a full replay of CH:R about 10 years ago, and did a partial replay 2 years ago. I'm actually working my way though mechcomander 1/expansion/2 right now... great games. Always loved the whole idea of battlefield salvage as your primary resource, not to mention the fun in mixing-matching-and customizing mechs.
Also - you're right that its a shame about the real time. To this date the ONLY turn based AAA battletech title ever released was the Crescent Hawks Inception - a fantastic RPG/tactical wargame hybrid - one that I replay much more often than its sequel.