I played through SupCom2 once. Was it a bad game? No, but it was bland and far too limited in scope compared to its predecessors. I have never felt the urge to revisit it.

I still play Forged Alliance to this day. I have been through the campaign quite literally dozens of times. Creating crazy scenarios for myself in skirmish never gets old. It is a true classic.

Muscular Beaver wrote on Nov 23, 2016, 22:40:

swaaye wrote on Nov 23, 2016, 13:15:
There are ways to make the Forged Alliance AI run just fine with even 1500 units at its disposal. Sorian AI for one, but also be sure to disable land and naval expansion bases. Those kill game performance. Each expansion base is an entire new AI that persists even if you wipe out its units.

I have been playing this game since release and still do. And no, it doesnt help much at all. The thing that really helped most is just getting a faster CPU. But it will still slow down sooner or later to a crawl with lots of AI on huge maps.

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swaaye wrote on Nov 23, 2016, 13:15:
I don't really understand why so many people link it to SupCom. It must be the visuals. It's not much like SupCom.

Supcom was heading in the right direction despite its flaws and slow pace. Basically they didn't really have a team either 1) good enough or 2) enough time to make sure the different factions were truly different from each other ala starcraft. So there was a lot of cut and paste. That and some of the units were just bland. But many of the concepts were sound but the execution left something to be desired.

Basically where the game was headed was amazing, but they just didn't have the time to really flesh it out. AKA supcom 1 was released prematurely it needed another 3-5 years in development to fix it's main problems.

Remember how much stuff was broken on Supcom 1's released, the GPG net multiplayer lobby was just bad and the game required day 1 patches because of a bunch of bone headed shit like unreal build times for experimentals. It's a sign of a rushed release all around and largely it was because THQ's internal financial problems, too many teams without enough funding so Supcom doesn't get as much funding as something like Saints row because of their projected sales.

Darks wrote on Nov 23, 2016, 10:06:
Im curious suppa, where are you getting your information? Because I have completely different info on what went down.

Dude it's obvious, why did chris team need to be picked up by wargaming when chris was always about being independent, there was news article today about him founding his own studio (again). You could tell chris had real problems during the "Wildman" kickstarter, you could read the anxiety he had about the future in his video's. Sorry to tell ya. But the way chris may play it back to himself and the way things actually happened can be at odds with one another. He's got to be either 1) bullshitting or 2) lacking self awareness of why he keeps putting out games and making the same bad decisions during development.

Science is discovering the brain is poor at reality see here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmi0DLzBdQ

So however chris spins it, Chris has a track record of getting involved in projects that either fail or "miss the mark".

Just look at his history of games:

-Dungeon siege 1 (OK)
-DS2 (Miss, worse compared to the first game)

-Supcom 1/FA (Great but had serious problems, a day 1 patch because experimentals took too long to build).
-Supcom 2 (miss)

-Demigod (great game, with broken multiplayer). Basically demigod could have been a success if they didn't prematurely release a broken game.

The man has a track record of being on unfinished games and his mainline games are all over the map, the decisions he made for supcom 2 were just awful for a PC RTS sequel because they needed to dumb it down for consoles.

Basically the people involved behind supcom, you can tell there was tension on the team chris lead. The game felt like it had a bunch of really good ideas being held back my some of the team members.

It really feels like many RTS devs have forgotten things need to be fun and we've been getting reskins of old RTS games with new gimmicks (strategic zoom, etc).

Either way RTS became so top heavy and less fun then hero arena, that MOBA's and DOTA became it's own genre, sit on that for a bit. A mod for an RTS became more popular then RTS when RTS used to be the mainline game.

This comment was edited on Nov 23, 2016, 18:38.

There are ways to make the Forged Alliance AI run just fine with even 1500 units at its disposal. Sorian AI for one, but also be sure to disable land and naval expansion bases. Those kill game performance. Each expansion base is an entire new AI that persists even if you wipe out its units.

I'm bummed about this. I remember a rumor that he was working on a Total Annihilation successor. Oh well. Chris Taylor is like the only guy that gets this grand scale RTS concept. I hope he comes back for another round.

Ashes is a good attempt but too bare and too much like SoaSE. I don't really understand why so many people link it to SupCom. It must be the visuals. It's not much like SupCom.

This comment was edited on Nov 23, 2016, 13:26.

Darks wrote on Nov 23, 2016, 10:06:

Suppa7 wrote on Nov 23, 2016, 08:54:

Darks wrote on Nov 23, 2016, 08:29:
SupCom 2 was not disastrous. Maybe to you, but there are many out there who really like the game.

It was a financial disaster for Square enix, and overall a bad sequel, it had lower average score then supcom. So the consensus is supcom 2 is worse then the first and its expansion.

Supcom 2 is not a bad game, but it is a bad supreme commander sequel. Supcom 2 comes off like it should have been its own game or a spin off, but a mainline sequel.

Right after supcom 2 chris taylors development team collapsed and was picked up by wargaming, aka square enix didn't want chris taylor to do supcom 3. That right there tells you a lot about how well supcom 2 did.

Im curious suppa, where are you getting your information? Because I have completely different info on what went down. You see, Chris happens to be a very good friend of mine. And your details are far from being correct. There were a lot of other things happening that caused SupCom 3 to not happen, it was not because they didn't want to do. That's all I'm going to say about it because its not my place to speak for Chris.

That means SupCom3 would have been a true SupCom again and they learned from the SupCom2 disaster? Did he also learn from the disastrous SupCom1 AI issue that kills even the fastest PC today?

Suppa7 wrote on Nov 23, 2016, 08:54:

Darks wrote on Nov 23, 2016, 08:29:
SupCom 2 was not disastrous. Maybe to you, but there are many out there who really like the game.

It was a financial disaster for Square enix, and overall a bad sequel, it had lower average score then supcom. So the consensus is supcom 2 is worse then the first and its expansion.

Supcom 2 is not a bad game, but it is a bad supreme commander sequel. Supcom 2 comes off like it should have been its own game or a spin off, but a mainline sequel.

Right after supcom 2 chris taylors development team collapsed and was picked up by wargaming, aka square enix didn't want chris taylor to do supcom 3. That right there tells you a lot about how well supcom 2 did.

Im curious suppa, where are you getting your information? Because I have completely different info on what went down. You see, Chris happens to be a very good friend of mine. And your details are far from being correct. There were a lot of other things happening that caused SupCom 3 to not happen, it was not because they didn't want to do. That's all I'm going to say about it because its not my place to speak for Chris.

I hope Chris comes back with something cool. Barring his failed kickstarter, he made some pretty awesome games.

Darks wrote on Nov 23, 2016, 08:29:
SupCom 2 was not disastrous. Maybe to you, but there are many out there who really like the game.

It was a financial disaster for Square enix, and overall a bad sequel, it had lower average score then supcom. So the consensus is supcom 2 is worse then the first and its expansion.

Supcom 2 is not a bad game, but it is a bad supreme commander sequel. Supcom 2 comes off like it should have been its own game or a spin off, but a mainline sequel.

Right after supcom 2 chris taylors development team collapsed and was picked up by wargaming, aka square enix didn't want chris taylor to do supcom 3. That right there tells you a lot about how well supcom 2 did.

I think he meant in comparison to SupCom1 it was a disappointment. SupCom2 isn't too bad but imo doesn't even come close to SpuCom1. It was scaled way back so consoles can run it too, as well as people can play it with controllers.
Unfortunately it wasn't a very good or successful game on the console either.
I don't think strategy is a genre that would do well on consoles, but who am I to tell. I am sure those that make RTS games for consoles did their research before they develop games for the platform.

Suppa7 wrote on Nov 23, 2016, 05:12:
Chris taylor is a tragic figure he seems to get stuck with shitty events. First THQ went under and basically ruined supcom (aka underfunded it) then he goes on to make the disastrous supcom 2 which didn't do well. Then he desperately tries to make a MOBA via "wildman" kickstarter and it fails, then Wargaming comes in to hire his team, then he leaves wargaming.

That's got to be shitty all around for someone who tried their best to remain and independent developer.

SupCom 2 was not disastrous. Maybe to you, but there are many out there who really like the game.

Chris taylor is a tragic figure he seems to get stuck with shitty events. First THQ went under and basically ruined supcom (aka underfunded it) then he goes on to make the disastrous supcom 2 which didn't do well. Then he desperately tries to make a MOBA via "wildman" kickstarter and it fails, then Wargaming comes in to hire his team, then he leaves wargaming.

That's got to be shitty all around for someone who tried their best to remain and independent developer.

Kajetan wrote on Nov 23, 2016, 04:44:

Numinar wrote on Nov 22, 2016, 21:29:
... and nothing beat the slightly different but also awesome Forged Alliance. Nobody else has really come close.

I agree. Stardocks Ashes of Singularity copies faithfully the whole gameplay formula, but did not get it "right". Something is missing from this game and i cant quite put my finger on it.

It has no walkers or wheeled vehicles for one. It is far more "Sins of Solar Empire" on a 2d map than Supcom. Which is ok as they never said it would be otherwise. No walkers, tracked or wheeled vehicles. No awesome WW2 style battleships, or amphibious legged destroyers, or giant spiders, or gloriously animated artillery. I never feel that attached to the maps or their geometry, because nothing really interacts with it. Even Supcom struggled in the switch to 3d to make elevation and terrain factor in quite the same way as TA.

Planetary Annihilation tries to channel some of TA, but the scope hurts my head too much. It's hard enough managing units on a 64k square map with borders to enclose the possibility space, managing them through a mini solar system is beyond me.

Numinar wrote on Nov 22, 2016, 21:29:
... and nothing beat the slightly different but also awesome Forged Alliance. Nobody else has really come close.

I agree. Stardocks Ashes of Singularity copies faithfully the whole gameplay formula, but did not get it "right". Something is missing from this game and i cant quite put my finger on it.

Pretty much loved all his games. Great pedigree.

Was hoping Chris would bring the Wargaming money hat down on some new TA-style RTS. I think a WW1 variant of TA would be amazing, all my best TA games turned into insane hours-long stalemates full of daring attempts at breakthroughs. Nothing really beats TA, and nothing beat the slightly different but also awesome Forged Alliance. Nobody else has really come close. Hope he has a nice rest and comes back with some insanely stupid idea involving more units and scale than anyone thinks is possible and makes it with a UI that somehow works like he has before.