What is power without control?

[themac]

Isn´t it funny?!

[Lord Apocalypse]

If the game had wrecks that would make for a nasty graveyard

[Rman Virgil]

Isn´t it funny?!

Yea, funny like slippin' on a banana peel and splittin' your britches.

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In answer to your topic question, "What is power without control?" One word captures the gist.

Obscurity.*

As in the game itself. As in 14 years. As in the main, why that is.


(*The state of being unknown and unimportant.)

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[Lord Apocalypse]

Not everything obscure is unimportant though

[Rman Virgil]

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Not everything obscure is unimportant though

True. And there are many striking examples of that throughout history.

Like the Italian Renaissance and it's dependence on the re-emergence of anchient classical Greek culture which had been lost to obscurity for over a millenia but from there on foward would re-assert its importance in the development of modern Western civilization.

Another would be Gregor Mendel's work with pea pods emerging from obscurity to assert its value to the science of genetics.

But you must emerge from obscurity to assert any inherent importance or, let us say, singular value(s) with currency.

~ And how does all that relate specifically to WZ?

~ Why does WZ reside in obscurity?

~ How can WZ best emerge from obscurity?

~ What are WZ's singular RTS values and what are the main obstacles to their widespread appreciation?

~ What area(s) of focus can garner the biggest bang for the buck investment in turning around obscurity (and by that process harvesting all the positives of greater attention, keener interest and active support for the game) and thus re-assert those original values with living currency?


Another PoV would be that WZ was, is and will always be a niche taste in RTS and thus by nature relegated to obscurity.


My point, in either case, is that crap command control of combat groups in rolling out offenses is WZ's central Achilles Heel, core frustration, and main reason for it never achieving the status of classic for all it's special game play attributes that set it apart with a unique identity in the RTS genre. That crap command control in turn dictates a very narrow and predictable scope of possible warfare maneuver tacs that make in theater engagement a one dimensional choice.

Even in an RTS where a great deal of complex decision-making, and follow through, is front-loaded in the non-combat domain of GPMs, the grand pay-off in gameplay experience is still the quality, variety and depth of winning combat possibilities. All WZ's front-loaded, non-combat, complexity cannot for long mask this central, in theater, deficiency.

So, you can go ahead and improve everything else that warrants advancement but as long as combat control remains crap, the game will continue to reside in obscurity and the full measure of its importance unrealized. This is my opinion and I'm well aware it sounds simplistic, but there it is. At least it fleshes out the ascerbic and terse comment of my first post here.
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[iap]

So it all come down to Pathfinding and Commander Assigning?
I was thinking about this a long time ago.

[NoQ]

Does anybody know how exactly does this work in sc2? They managed to make their unit-through-army movement very fluent, with only a tiny feeling of unrealism, as far as i remember. Is the algorithm they make use of known?

[Rman Virgil]

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So it all come down to Pathfinding and Commander Assigning?
I was thinking about this a long time ago.

I believe so. Pumpkin knew this. They tried to deal with it. They ran out of time. Evidence is in the source. Plus we have the exact words of one of the devs on this matter.

The preasure from Eidos to release WZ with many things unfinished was great. You should look at the the Skirmish A.I. for the Retail Release v.1.0 as just one very obvious example. Horrible. An absolute disaster. Took 4 patches to get it decent and yet another patch to revamp the entire Ski UI and set-up a totally new handicapping schema (the design of which came directly from the community).

Does anybody know how exactly does this work in sc2? They managed to make their unit-through-army movement very fluent, with only a tiny feeling of unrealism, as far as i remember. Is the algorithm they make use of known?

True. A valuable model and proof of concept efficacy.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmes ... _id=132171

http://www.quora.com/Algorithms/How-doe ... rithm-work

http://www.gamedev.net/topic/563819-wha ... ding-tech/

http://codeka.com/blogs/index.php/2010/ ... tarcraft-2

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A few last thoughts that I think correlate......

I would also contend that were these issues addressed that the impact on how WZ MP is played would be profound and for the better.

So profound that the whole topic of rebalance would be far less critical.

Perhaps it would also make viable in competitive MP an RTS equivalent of the Queens Gambit.... as well most of the basic 33 strats of warfare instead of the current pathetic sum. Not to mention opening up combat engagement to true 21st Century Coordinated Multi-Vector Velocity Warfare with readily shifted Centers of Gravity - endlessly facinating stuff because it's way more prone to engender heroic experience than the rote mentation of a bookkeeper or accountant by not being so overwhelmingly weighted or biased in favor of those front-loaded, pre-combat, GPMs. This being the domain of meta design game balance werein the identity of a true RTS is preserved even with this tasking focus shift.
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