Hi Dark, Yes, the missions and campaigns in mainstream strategy games like Warcraft really adds a lot to the over all game play that we simply don't have in audio strategy games yet.
One, there is specific objectives you have to carry out or complete which ties into the game's storyline. For me that is far more interesting than just blowing up everything and killing everyone who happens to be an enemy just because they happen to exist. There is no story, no plot, no point behind the kill them before they kill you type strategy game we see available for the VI market. Second, is the storyline itself. In SoundRTS and Time of Conflict there really isn't any storyline to speak of. There is no plot that explains why these two rival armies are fighting, what they hope to gain by wiping each other out, and what their goals are other than world domination which is too generic for my tastes. With a mission there is a definite storyline with end goals or objectives that need to be completed by your army. Maybe a dark mage has found a magic crystal that allows him to raise an army of zombies so he can seak revenge on his homeland for exiling him. In a mission like that you would have to raise an army to defend the homeland and kill the dark mage before he can seak his revenge. I personally could get into a game with a definite storyline like that because I know exactly what my objectives are, why I am fighting, and am more attached to the quest. Its not enough to kill the dark mages army of zombies, but I have to send an army to his tower and destroy the mage himself. In fact, given that the dark mage is a quest objective I might have to do some specific tasks of my own like training a few white mages to fight him because knights, footmen, archers, crossbowmen, or any other normal soldier probably couldn't defeat him in battle. That's the big difference I see with our strategy games. Time of Conflict, SoundRTS, etc have similar game play elements as Warcraft, Battle Front, etc but are lacking the story and mission aspects that I think are necessary for getting into the game. In fact, that's one of the things I'm working on in Final Conflict II. I realised after I wrote the game that as far as the plot goes it is pretty lame and unrealistic. The Klingons, Cardassians, and Romulans don't exactly like each other much less trust each other to form an alliance to wipe out the Federation. The Borg, of course, are the ultimate loners and don't like anyone else. So the story doesn't really work from a cannon perspective. However, even if the story did work there is really no mission or objective to the game. You can park your ships by a starbase and blow the enemies away as they come in, or you can swarm them and blow them up in their home space. Either way there aren't any specific objectives or goals other than blow up as many enemies as you can. Kind of dull from a story point of view. A more interesting version of the game would be mission based with specific objectives and several different subplots to choose from. For example, let's say the Duras sisters managed to get their hands on a cloaking device like the one General Chang used in Star Trek VI, and were able to fire while cloaked. They might initiate a conflict with the Federation by attacking and destroying patrol ships thus Starfleet would dispatch a small fleet to investigate. Once there the Federation fleet would have to seak out and destroy the cloaked Klingon birds of prey. That's just one of several possible mission objectives that could be added to the game without totally altering the style of game play. Although, I think instead of turn-based STFC II will be real time based. Cheers! On 12/22/11, dark <[email protected]> wrote: > Agreed Tom. > > I've watched a fair few games of warcraft, and it's always been the missions > and landing structure that interested me in the game, like working up to > destroying the dark portal if you play the alliance. This is why i was > hoping castaways was going to go further, sinse the missions there are > fantastic, though that being said, castaways isn't just a military stratogy > game and the basic building elements are fun. > I'm hoping once David greenwood has the time of conflict version with all > the customizations out, single player missions and campeigns will be written > there, sinse as you said, the Ai in that game is already great, it just > needs a few more factors and a mission mode. > > I'll freely admit though, stratogy for stratogy's sake against a human > player is less my thing than something which follows more of a setting and > story, one reason why i've never got into any of the empire building mmorps > online. > > Beware the grue! > > Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. 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