By Jeff Atwood (Wumpus) on Friday, November 2, 2001 - 06:42 pm:
http://www.cgonline.com/previews/battlereal-01-p2.html
An excellent job of writing a preview that was scathing, yet fair-- in that the game technically is still not complete. Weren't we just arguing about this? My one concern would be publishing a preview so close to the actual ship date (about 7 days from now). Unless this ran a lot earlier in the print version.
Based on this preview, I would echo Tom's concerns about the micromanagement aspect of customizing units. There has to be a better way to accomplish this, and I don't buy Mr. Del Castillo's "dismissal" of these issues. Mechanics like this seem completely counter to good RTS design: you want to DE-emphasize things that take micromanagement, because they needlessly squander the one real resource you're always managing: time.
That, combined with the "once you're behind, you're screwed" aspect of the game in terms of the fixed production rate of peasants.. hmm. Seems like a rush game to me. The key to avoiding this particular issue is to have the defenders GAIN resources when they are attacked-- sort of the way you could harvest metal from dead unit carcasses in Total Annihilation, and the wreckage had a bonus effect of blocking passage to your base. Every failed attack makes your opponent stronger, instead of weaker.
Sigh. This is a shame. I remember reading several interviews with the designers where they said repeatedly that this game would be intentionally designed to bypass the flaws of RTS games past. So how is it, then, that they've fallen into the very traps they set out to avoid?
By Anonymous on Friday, November 2, 2001 - 09:00 pm:
Last line of the preview:
"But even if the beta is fully representative of the final product, Battle Realms still looks and plays like a lively and welcome variation on real-time strategy gaming."
Pretty scathing, I must admit.
By Jeff Atwood (Wumpus) on Friday, November 2, 2001 - 09:41 pm:
A RTS game that is both lively AND welcome? Well, damn, let me get my pre-order going on ebworld immediately!
I dunno, I felt it was even-handed while being rather critical-- which is exactly what I look for in a preview. Too many sites whip out the hyperbole/screenshot dog and pony show on this type of stuff.