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万字长文,以魔兽争霸为例谈即时策略游戏

发布时间:2015-06-16 10:14:05 Tags:,,

作者:Michel Mony

在前言中我想说明的是,我发现我们所遵循的许多事都是基于猜想和主观推测。但不管怎样我还是相信存在足够的真理值得我们去编写。

本文的主要目的是推广关于早前游戏的临界分析并决定该如何面对它们才能对现代游戏开发起到帮助作用。并试图去识别未被复制的有趣的设计决策或者作为一些更广泛使用的原点这样的存在。在更好地理解事情的发展后,我们便能够更轻松地明确值得探究的关键元素。

介绍

Retrogaming“是收集早前个人计算机,主机和街机电子游戏”的活动。这样的活动在过去十年里受到了人们的欢迎,甚至有一些现代游戏是基于这种态势进行开发的。我们经常能够看到一系列游戏回归到最初的形态,或执行一些有趣的改变而与早前的游戏联系在一起。

几年前当与一家大型发行商一起开发一款AAA级游戏时,我是走在这类型试验的前线。最终《Insodoing》这款游戏呈现出了短暂的2D游戏玩法以作为对于其起源的尊重。

现代观察者会惊讶于10至20年前游戏开发所受到的技术限制,但也是这些限制推动着那时候的开发者更具有创造性。

在那时,我们现在所知道的一些类型还未出现,如MOBA,RTS,4X等等。有些带有远见的人粗略勾勒出了自己想要传达的游戏体验,游戏类型也是由此诞生的。

现代玩家和初级设计师对于这些先驱的常见误解便是,他们认为那只是一些缺乏深度的简单体验。根据我的经验,这并不正确,通常情况下,我甚至经常被这些先驱们所击败。

让我举个例子来说吧,早前游戏《Spacewar!》(游戏邦注:官方发行于1962年,但是早在1953年就开始开发了)便是一款非常复杂的街机游戏。首先这是一款实时多人游戏,拥有两艘互相对抗的舰船,它们会使用推进器去避免碰撞,与重力斗争,并尝试着击败敌人。它引进了关于发射导弹和激光并消灭敌人的所有基本概念。它还带有生命值,防护物点数以及更复杂的控制等等概念。

SpaceWar!(from gamedev)

SpaceWar!(from gamedev)

但是比起关于《Spacewar!》的一些随机元素,对于复古游戏我们还有更多可分析的内容。我们似乎已经忘了那些早前的内容,特别是在它们面临着存在危机且未能重新复苏的情况下。而很多时候我们可以从早前的设置中找到答案。

今天我想要讨论其中的一种游戏类型,即RTS(即时策略游戏)。

环境

有很多游戏成就了现代的RTS,但在今天得到最多认可的现代RTS的跳板应该是《沙丘2》。这也引出了《沙丘1》是关于什么的问题,但这其实是一款冒险游戏。

《沙丘2》是1992年至1998年年间Westwood Studios(现在已经不在了)与暴雪娱乐公司对抗时所诞生的众多游戏中的第一款。

在某种程度上,今天许多所谓的RTS都是受到《沙丘2》的推动。因为这个市场的竞争非常激烈(需求也非常高),所以开发者不得不压缩制作成本,从而导致功能呈现大大受限。

考虑到市场份额的历史和激烈的竞争,对于像《星际争霸2》(2010年)这样受欢迎的游戏与20年前的游戏具有明显的区别这点让人很困惑。RTS之战深受这场战争的毒害:即追求更出色的视觉效果的战争。很长一段时间我们都未曾看到RTS场景的变化。虽然有些游戏的执行更为突出,但是大多数游戏还是基于同样的模式。

多亏了这场“战争”,RTS成为今天大多数游戏开发的主要依靠,但是更有效的观察应该是理解整个过程中我们得到了什么或失去了什么,以及如何将其运用于今天的开发中。

这也是为何我们会说《沙丘2》创造了RTS游戏类型。这不只是因为它呈现了RTS的核心,而且它还提供了一个完整的体验和很棒的范围。从很多方面看来这是需要我们分层理解的复杂体验。甚至连Westwood都需要对其进行分解才能识别出自己一开始所创造的内容。

在《沙丘》诞生期间出现了许多常量,但也存在一些与之相联系的概念。在某种程度上这不只是个MVP,在大多数程度上它具有很棒的表现。

收集资源

《沙丘2》通过呈现了资源基础并让玩家通过进行军事单位生产去收获这些资源而创造了RTS类型的核心。这一机制非常适合这类型游戏,对于《沙丘2》来说这更是必要的存在:“沙丘”这一品牌(小说,游戏,电影)是围绕着收获香料的理念进行创造。与大多数RTS游戏不同的是,收获这些珍贵的香料是优先考虑的内容,比一般战斗更重要。武装冲突只是收获香料比赛中的“调味品”。

尽管大多数RTS游戏继承了这一机制,但是它们却不能有效地将这一机制整合到环境中(游戏邦注:包括公然模仿《沙丘》的《Tiberian Sun》)。例如在《魔兽争霸:人类与兽人》中,玩家知道自己需要收获当地资源(木头和金子)去建立自己的哨站。对于第一个哨站,因为这是一个全新的落脚点所以它具有很大的意义,但随着冲突的发展,玩家最终创造了许多不同的哨站。尽管这很好理解,因为使用木材更有效能,但是玩家却因为不能获得货币而感到困惑,并且游戏也未进行说明。相反地在《沙丘2》中,所有的香料会在任务之间回到故乡,在每个任务期间会出现新的殖民地/采矿区,如果换成是在其它环境可能就会显得有点造作。

这便是《沙丘2》的突出之处。它不仅创造了有趣的资源获取机制,同时也将其变成是游戏的核心部分。在《沙丘2》中,资源获取是MVP的一部分而不是支持它的一种设计机制,这点非常重要。

例如早前游戏中的一种任务便是收集资源。玩家需要意识到创造军事单位只会耽误自己实现这一目标的能力。尽管有许多其它RTS游戏使用这一机制作为引导任务,但没有一款游戏像《沙丘2》这样突出,因为这款游戏从第一个过场动画便清楚地告诉玩家这是他们的主要目标。在之后的战斗中这将变成更加全局的冲突,玩家知道这点,所以为了获得资源,单单快速收获它还不够,他们还需要消灭其他人的家园。因此战斗被游戏诠释成一种经济决策。

许多游戏继承了这种资源系统。并且在很多情况下它也得到了进化,我们将在之后的文章进行进一步讨论。而在此,《沙丘2》突出了创造香草概念的唯一优势,这是作为一个以主题为核心的游戏的必要元素。

能量系统

成为这类型游戏主题的另一大机制便是能量理念。与我们在下一款游戏中将讨论的“食物”概念不同的是,《沙丘2》也使用了能量机制去限制快速的基地建造,引进了后勤概念并提供了战略劣势。

Windtrap(from gamedev)

Windtrap(from gamedev)

Windtrap被认为是“另一种构建”,但它的作用不止如此。它要求资源进行建造,这反过来也会降低玩家快速构建建筑的能力。这种投入方式可能会导致玩家最终投入建造单位而不再是建筑。

此外,这也呈现出了基地不再自给自足的感觉,并提供给玩家一些可替代的内容。他们需要决定自己是否想要冗余或者承担缺少能量的风险。

更重要的是它引进了基地劣势概念。即在游戏中敌人AI并不突出,但它清楚能量是关键。结果便是,如果Windtrap位于基地边缘,并且是毫无防备的,它们便会遭遇攻击并从经济上削弱玩家的能力。这时候,鉴于所涉及的经济损失,失去一些单位还是善可接受的。

因为Windtrap的能量生成会伴随着建筑的生命值发生变化,所以它们并不需要完全将其摧毁,只需要将基地置于其要求水平之下便可。

尽管玩家最终以少量代价修复了损伤,但这足以补偿失去的单位了(游戏邦注:修复成本+时间消耗是在能量水平之下)。

《C&C》便带有这一系统,直到今天也有不少RTS未做过多修改而使用了这一系统。尽管这一的执行不是最“有趣和吸引人的”机制,但它却呈现出了管理基地后勤的潜能。

雇佣兵

《沙丘2》便是从这里开始区别于之后的大多数游戏。尽管游戏拥有直接的单位获取系统(所有单位都有其自身的成本和所需时间),它同时还使用了一个“股票市场”雇佣兵系统去补充它,在这里单位可用性和价格都是会出现变动的,交付ETA则是个常量。

这让玩家能够获取不固定数量的香料(基于全局需求)进行快速加固。因为对于所有单位来说ETA是固定的,所以这让玩家能够在同样的交付中使用1个以上的单位,如此玩家有可能派遣4至5辆坦克。在这里最大的劣势是玩家事先不知道它们的成本,尽管在“非常激烈的”战斗中,他们也有可能购买大量的Quads或Trikes(这是一些最脆弱的单位)。

这一系统是很棒的战略补充,它能够提供给玩家备用资源以迅速补充军队,且无需创造复杂的基础设施。它也带来了许多未知的风险。价格会出现变动,单位可用性也是如此。

更重要的是这些雇佣兵是独特的,他们让每个玩家能够偶尔使用一些限制性的单位,这也给了他们存在的特别理由。

因为交付时间是确定的,这能够加速“高技术”单位或经济单位的制作。例如创造一个收割机是一项漫长且繁琐的任务,会阻碍到玩家建造坦克。如果Starport存在收割机,你便可以快速运输它们从而留出更多时间去创造更多军事单位。

此外玩家还可以通过在制作中心创造默认的单位而储存“升级”,从而利用这些雇佣兵去补充自己的军力。

能够通过Starport创造单位的玩家只能确保他们的敌人不能使用这些单位。如果一些攻城坦克被出售,玩家便能够选择购买所有的这些坦克去阻碍敌人变强的可能性,并确保他们能够毫无阻碍地持续发动攻击。

这是很少得到利用的一种机制,但它最终却成为了之后一些RTS游戏中的主要功能。例如在《Ground Control》中,获取单位的唯一方法便是向航母发出命令并等待交付。结果便是所有单位拥有固定的ETA,并且单位制作只能由资源所决定。尽管价格并不会基于需求发生改变,并且是由玩家独享,但是雇佣兵子系统背后的核心原则仍然是这一方法的主要影响力量。

地形

《沙丘2》大量使用了地形。与大多数RTS不同的是,它非常强调地形对于选择的影响:

一方面,不能到处建造基地。它们需要建在“多岩石”地区(游戏邦注:最理想的情况是建在混凝土之上)。这大大限制了可能性并让关卡设计师能够控制基地建造。有些关卡因为玩家被局限于有限的空间中(如建筑物内部)而显得更加复杂。这里所存在的挑战便是以少谋多,这也是确保玩家理解有效的基地建造概念的一种有效方式。

此外,还存在不同类型的沙子。单位将对不同地形做出不同反应。有些单位在“较硬的”沙子中比在普通的沙子上滚动得更快,而其它沙子也有可能不受任何影响。当发动攻击时你最好能够同步你的军队,如果不能正确判断地形,你的军队便不能对敌人的基地做出有效反应从而可能快速被击退。

地势较高的地方也有可能引出策略深度。因为大多数步兵都可能被车辆碾压,所以他们很少会提供可靠的攻击力,除非他们是唯一能够前往更高处的单位,如此他们便能够躲开坦克的进攻。再加上大多数步兵能够抵御较大子弹的攻击(除了来自攻城坦克的进攻),所以玩家可以将骑兵设置在较高处以预防坦克和空中武装。需要注意的是,如果没有任何高地,步兵也就没什么用了。

尽管各种RTS游戏都使用了高地概念,但它们通常是作为调节器去赋予单位在高地上的优势(更精准的射击,可见性或防止敌方的反击)。在《星际争霸》中,低处的单位与高处单位相比较可以发现前者拥有较弱的精准度,而在《星际争霸:自由之翼》中,他们甚至不能朝高处射击,除非他们能够在地图上找到那部分。在《战锤40000》中,地形调整器还被应用于地图的一些特定部分去提高或降低单位遭遇敌人攻击后的存活能力。

大多数RTS在执行有趣的地形功能或减缓单位速度的地形方面都做的不是很好。

不对称

《沙丘2》引进了一些派别不对称性。尽管大多单位都是一样的,但也出现了一些调整以及每个派别具有两个独特的单位。

Atreidis是唯一带有攻击性空中支援的机构,如此敌人将需要重新思考他们的防御措施(使用更多火箭炮塔和骑兵,并减少坦克的使用)。他们同时还拥有一艘Sonar坦克,能够造成范围攻击效果,这在对抗敌人集中攻击的时候特别有效,但同时也有可能引来友军的误射炮火。

Ordos拥有能够让敌人军队感到混乱的坦克,并能够暂时控制他们的心智。它同时也能够派遣一个名为Saboteur的潜行单位对地方结构造成巨大的伤害。

Harkonnen拥有破坏型坦克,也就是坦克的强壮且非常昂贵的一个版本。它同时也能够发射原子导弹而重击对方。

尽管许多武装力量都是一样的,但是这些不对称性却真正改变了我们基于敌人的基地接近他们的方式。就像玩Ordos vs. Atreidis与玩Ordos vs.Harkonnen是完全不同的。

之后的游戏也使用了这一概念,虽然最初是基于一些好看的样式,但最终也出现了像《星际争霸1》那样出名的设计,即每个派别都是完全不同的。这不过是《沙丘2》所带来的其中一个潜在的概念(最终取得了大成功!)。

沙虫

沙虫可能是最重要但也经常被低估的游戏功能。

沙虫通常是沉寂于地图上直到被玩家发现为止。这是一种随机的自然之力,它会捕捉任何自己觉得是食物的东西。通常情况下它会吃一些最大,最强壮同时也是能看到的最近距离的东西。而这便是收割机(经济单位)或大型坦克般的存在。

尽管它被当成是随机的(它的AI带有一些随机性),但它其实是一种平衡工具。尽管它主要是用于支持主题,但从游戏玩法的角度来看它其实扮演着两种重要的角色:

1.平衡:尽管AI是随机的,但是触发器却不是。无论玩家先发现哪个都会触发它。最有可能的是玩家发现表现“更好的”那个。玩家可能基于两种方式发现这些沙虫:

–玩家发动攻击并偶然发现沙虫

或者

–玩家在寻找基地附近以外的资源。

不管是什么情况,这都意味着玩家做得很好:处于进攻状态或寻找更多资源意味着你比敌人做得更好,否则你将只是应对着他们的攻击,或者他们已经守护着新资源场所并找到了沙虫。

因为做得更好的玩家更有可能失去第一个单位,这便会导致占有优势的玩家失去动力,而将这两种类型玩家置于一切皆有可能的情况下:从而使游戏变得更有趣。

2.威胁:它提供了一种威胁感。环境是危险的,你不能只是分散单位去获得更好的视图和覆盖面。你想要提高防御并将军队集中在一个稳定的区域。当你发现沙虫时,你会希望你的军队处于安全地带,你希望能够保护你的收割机并密切注视着它。如果你足够狡猾,你甚至会引诱沙虫到敌人的基地中。

沙虫不只是一个随机的NPC。尽管《魔兽争霸3》重新使用了这一核心概念,但它主要是作为减缓进程并提升英雄能力的方法。它并未利用最初沙虫所具有的深度。在今天,我甚至未能察觉到与之前沙虫扮演同样角色的任何概念,即以中立对手的形式确保对抗变成一种势均力敌的状态从而让玩家始终保持警惕。

战略地图

在战略之间,玩家获得地图提示,即他们需要选择下一个作战区。这不只是一种表面姿态,同时也具有很大的影响。在大多数情况下,敌人都是一样的,但是关卡设计却具有很大的不同。

这具有很多重玩价值,这也是真正的决策制定。如果你在特定地图上表现不怎样,你便可以选择尝试其它地图并在那获得成功。

这同时也会让你觉得还有其他军官与自己一起战斗。不管何时当你完成一个任务,你的团队并不会只霸占一个区域,而是会霸占二至三个区域,但你同时也会失去一些领土。看到地图因为你的行动而发生变化是件有趣的事。

某些时候,在之后的关卡中,你甚至能够做出一个关键的决定:你是否想要与这个机构对抗还是其它机构?如果你觉得你可能顶得住原子弹头,你便能够选择前者。不管怎样你最终都将与对立的机构和Emperor战斗。

这一机制需要花费许多时间进行重整,但它在《Dark Crusade》的战斗系统中却表现不错。设计师们可能会惊讶地发现它们花了14年时间重新接触这一机制并完善它,但最终却只看到《沙丘2》单凭这一功能就能呈现出的潜能。

《战争迷雾》

对于《战争迷雾》我们没什么可说的,除了它是源自《沙丘2》以外。对于一款带有较高重玩性和风险管理的战略游戏来说非常重要的隐藏信息概念出现在首次安装中。在游戏早前阶段探索具有价值性。尝试侦查敌人基地并搞清楚之后会出现什么是每个优秀玩家的计划的一大组成部分。

Fog of War(from gamedev)

Fog of War(from gamedev)

尽管探索地图很重要,但是当玩家不再关注于地图的时候再次壮大的shroud的概念将不再出现。随着多人玩家元素的出现,玩家对于shroud的需求也将不断提升,并最终取代对于地形走向的需求。就像在《星际争霸2》中,当所有玩家对所有梯形图非常熟悉时,竞争将到达家最高点。有人可能会说shroud在几乎所有方面都将凌驾于《战争迷雾》之上,但这一概念其实只是对于《沙丘2》中隐藏信息概念的执行的回应罢了。

结论

总之,《沙丘2》是这类型游戏的强大先驱。它的许多理念被重复使用,有些甚至被当成主要元素存在着。

虽然收集资源的方法可能已经过时了(很多游戏做得更好),但这却是最切合主题的。

它的许多核心机制(雇佣兵,能量,地形以及沙虫)仍然是现在游戏有趣的灵感来源,并且为现代设计注入了活力。

我们需要牢记的是,《沙丘2》是自上而下设计的结果,这是通过已有的媒体(如书籍/电影)创造游戏并利用其知识而呈现具有创造性且影响力的游戏玩法的稀有案例。

另一方面,《沙丘2》遭受到了有限时间的约束,特别是在UX方面。许多创造性未能在开发期间进行呈现,像多个单位选择,拖曳选择单位,快速右击行动等等简单的概念也未添加进去。然而一些简单的完善也让这款游戏能够在保持完整的同时执行简单的UX调整。

考虑到其师祖般的角色,我们很难在RTS讨论范围内将《沙丘2》与其祖先在进行比较。希望我们的下次讨论能够对这些概念的进化进行更深入的分析。

《魔兽争霸:人类与兽人》

《魔兽争霸》是一款非常优秀的游戏,获得了许多积极的评论并引出了人们对于过去的回忆。从本质上来看,它与《沙丘2》略有不同。它的突出之处在于通过执行而非功能简化了类型。在许多方面,它的突出之处也是促使RTS成为主流游戏的主要原因。

多人游戏

《魔兽争霸》的主要创造性在于多人游戏概念。在暴雪最初关于RTS的想法中,这是一种突出竞争性的游戏。迫于当时的技术限制,它只能想办法呈现一种基于调制解调器的多人游戏系统。这甚至能在不同平台上(PC vs MAC)交叉进行多人游戏。

因为这是首次涉足RTS多人游戏体验,所以他们缺少足够的支持。也不存在特定的游戏玩法功能。

为了为多人游戏创造空间,暴雪还定义了单人游戏体验与多人游戏体验之间的核心区别。

单人游戏

–拥有吸引人的故事线(比《沙丘2》具有更多描述和上下文设定)。

–拥有各种威胁和遭遇,(人类vs人类的比赛,非玩家角色,如蝎子,食人魔等等)。

–拥有各种目标(重建一座城镇,在特定时间内复苏,有限的兵力等等)。

多人游戏

Warcraft_Orcs_v_Humans(from gamedev)

Warcraft_Orcs_v_Humans(from gamedev)

–这是拥有同等获胜机会的双方之间的肉搏战。

–在玩家试图打败对手并假设所面对的是势均力敌的对手方面添加乐趣。

显然,多人游戏仍然需要走很长的一段路才有可能接近平衡。《魔兽争霸:人类与兽人》之中的多人游戏比赛通常都是片面的,即更理解游戏机制的玩家总是能够占上风。这里不存在“联盟”系统或任何规则。

尽管《魔兽争霸:人类与兽人》可能是第一款真正涉足多人RTS领域的游戏,但是其游戏模式是因为之后的内容才真正开始发光的,特别是《魔兽争霸2:黑潮》,《星际争霸》和《星际争霸2:自由之翼》。

经济

《魔兽争霸》中的资源出现了很大的变化。它们进化成两种不同的来源:树(森林)和金子(矿藏)。然而经济中的最大变化还是复杂的经济单位的出现:农民(雇农)。

农民是“复杂的”,因为他们会提供给玩家有意义的决策选择(以及选择的成本)。他们既能够创造架构(使用资源)也能够收获资源(获取资源)。他们会积极/消极地影响资源流。选择指定一个农民去创建一个架构拥有多种含义:

这能将农民从任务中移除:这是一种选择成本,即等同于玩家接受了不间断的劳作不再获得资源的结果。因为在特定期间单位是固定的,所以如此的作用将会很明显。

这是基于架构成本消耗资源。这是另一种选择成本,即这些资源将不能再被用于其它地方了。

这提供给玩家一种全新的架构(当建造完成后)。基于不同架构,它能够从经济上或军事上带给玩家帮助,但通常情况下它总是需要进一步的投资。一般情况下建造会提供进一步的选择成本(如创造一个步兵?需要多少成本?)。

这些单位的复杂性及其相对低效的收集率(与《沙丘2》相比较)将确保玩家的军队拥有大部分“平民”(农民/雇农),这反过来也呈现出了较高的脆弱性。

与基本经济单位是全副武装的《沙丘2》不同的是,在这里农民是非常脆弱且无处不在的(经常需要分散开来)。损失一个农民不像收割机损失那样具有威胁性,这是更常见的情况。《沙丘2》的收割机是由大枪所护送,而农民却不能单独护送,,在这里我们需要将农民当成“补给线”,这在下面会进一步讨论。

在《魔兽争霸:人类与兽人》中,资源是实体一样的存在,如此也为游戏添加了战略深度。例如树同样也是作为碰撞对象,这意味着玩家需要在获得木头的时候格外谨慎。在获得适当兵力的时候打开它们的侧面可能会引出烦人的遭遇战。

因此木头是作为自然保护屏障,它将随着基地的壮大而变少,但它也仍然需要适当的管理以避免一些明显的陷阱。

同样地,在敌人基地周围收获木头也揭示了一个可以进攻的“薄弱点”,所以我们可以派遣农民在敌人基地附近砍伐木材以提供更多进攻机会。

另一方面,矿藏是非常集中的。它们代表的是地图上一个下载的目标,即需要不惜代价将其控制住。随着自然中的矿藏变得越加稀少,获得遥远的矿藏就变成了主要目标:不管是什么矿藏,只要你的敌人找到了,也就等于你失去了这部分资源。此外,矿藏需要农民去收获并且不受任何“代理”的干预带回家。这会创造出更长的补给线并需要你花费更多精力去防止敌人的进攻。一般情况下,矿藏越远,我们便越难守护,玩家的伤亡情况也会越惨重。

一些游戏系列有效使用了复杂的资源。例如《帝国时代》便将“树”作为最大的资源空间。金子系统同样也得到了完善,就像在《星际争霸》中集中的资源需要玩家进行专门的投资(游戏邦注:为了更好地控制,精炼厂需要建在Vespene Geysers)。

后勤:道路

《魔兽争霸:人类与兽人》中最容易被遗忘同时也未出现在任何续集中的一个机制便是“道路”。这是强制要求你建造建筑并扩展基地。在某种程度上,它们扮演着与能量相同的角色,但却不具有脆弱性。玩家需要为此花钱去建造道路。这强调了保持基地金币的需求性(考虑到成功应该使用尽量少的道路)。

在《沙丘2》中,道路就像混凝土板的孩子。混凝土板最初是用于确保建筑保持稳定,但最终它却成为廉价建造代理基地的方式(未使用MCV)。

不幸的是,道路根本无法与混凝土板相比较,从游戏玩法来看也未能添加什么好处。它能做的只是提供一种社区感和强大的传说:玩家正在建造营地,不只是在这里和那里进行建造。尽管这一执行相对简陋,但是在之后的游戏却仍能看到它的身影。

roads and building(from gamedev)

roads and building(from gamedev)

许多更专注于城市建造的RTS游戏便更有效地使用了道路,即在评估了UX之后。为了通过每3次点击创建更多道路而拥有拖曳能力能够有效降低道路建造所伴随的消极性,并为沿着道路行走的单位添加速度推进器以给它一个游戏目标。

这也是为何《魔兽争霸:人类与兽人》会添加这一机制的原因,尽管它的执行不是很完美,但它却保留了RTS中利用率最低的机制。大多数使用了这一机制的游戏都与罗马传说具有直接联系(游戏包注:道路对他们的战斗非常关键),我也始终对后勤未能在现代RTS中扮演更重要的角色感到困惑。据说它最初的潜能是受到糟糕的UX执行以及缺少切实目的的影响:建造道路是一种烦恼,并且不能提供除外观以外的更多优势。

食物

虽然《沙丘2》限制了建筑建造,但是《魔兽争霸:人类与兽人》却决定着重于单位。《沙丘2》通过一条不准确的文本信息去明确整款游戏最大的单位数量,而这也等于将所有游戏内部单位整合到零和游戏中:如果你想要创造更多单位的话便要消灭它们。

这一过时的处理游戏内部单位能力的方式存在了很长时间。例如基于回合制的策略游戏《VGA Planets》最初便使用了同样的方法:游戏中最多单位是500个,不管是什么。一旦到达了这个最高值,游戏便会基于不同方式去处理它(例如在《VGA Planets》中,它便使用了受到你所破坏的单位数量影响的点数系统去决定谁将在位置被掏空时创造单位)。《沙丘2》则较为简单:不管何时当单位遭到破坏,任何当前“已经准备好部署”的单位都将填满那个位置,但是会使用哪种算法则是随机的。

《魔兽争霸》通过执行了“派别”上限而解决了这一设计问题。假设任何游戏所拥有的最高数量单位是100个,那么这些单位将被分成两种派别(半兽人50个,人类50个)。在《魔兽争霸:人类与半兽人》中,每次建造“农场”都能提供给玩家一些食物单位(如果我记得没错的话应该是4个),这意味着你能够从每个农场中获得4个单位。同样的,你的军队不能超过你所拥有的农场数量的4倍,或者大于你最终拥有的派别数(一般是游戏单位的一半)。你可以从技术上创造比你的实际上限更多的农场,但是为了防止其它农场遭遇摧毁,这些额外的农场只能作为冗余部分。

《魔兽争霸》意识到了《沙丘2》的设计中的一个缺陷(同时也是那时候许多游戏所带有的缺陷):因为基地建设受到局限,但是单位建设却没有,这可能导致大量的堆积。因为《魔兽争霸》坚持竞争性游戏,所以它们不会允许这种情况的发生,农场也是主张防御的一种方式:假设两个派别总是拥有同等数量的农场,带有更快增援部队的派别在战斗中占上风,也就是成为防卫者。这能够保证,即使早前的侵略者数量再多也不能在游戏早期将敌方彻底消灭(这与《星际争霸》中的“4pool”是不同的)。

同时,因为所有单位都会消耗一个“食物”,游戏将推动玩家去创造他们自己的技术树并获得“最佳单位”以尽快填满这些位置。如果你正与一些侵入者(半兽人骑士)战争时,步兵数量登顶将不是一种乐观的情况。

然而食物系统将导致基地快速发展。尽管受到道路建设的限制,基地还是能够无限制地自由扩展。

在与能量相比较时,食物同样也非常抽象。这“只是一个数字”,同时也是一种静态资源。它能够独立存在,但却不能提供足够的深度。

在很多情况下食物并非最佳解决方法,但它却是最简单的。它能够处理最初的《沙丘》所面临的一些设计缺陷,即不能有效处理单位容量,并阻止因为太过高效而出现的早前策略太过集中的情况。

这里关于功能的旁白是“几乎是”:农场最初是作为单位开发的更复杂方法的一部分,即随着时间的发展农场将创造出农民,并在兵营里培训他们将其变成军事单位或经济单位。在他所谓的“设计妙招”中,概念被简化成这一抽象的概念。有人肯定会好奇如果执行的是最初的系统的话会出现什么情况。

《星际争霸》,《魔兽争霸》和《战锤》系列都广泛使用了“食物系统”。它代表的是一种实现增长限制与调节军队规模的抽象方式。尽管多少可以称为今天的主流元素,但是我们需要注意的是它也是简化现有设计的一种方式。它似乎已经成为了RTS游戏类型的特性,尽管这一状态还有待验证。

不对称性

《魔兽争霸:人类和半兽人》的不对称设计就像镜中迷雾一般的存在。所有半兽人单位看起来都不同于他们所相对的人类,但是从机制上来看他们却是扮演着同样的角色。尽管有些单位略有出入,但是从根本上看来他们也是一样的。

唯一的机制区别是以咒语的形式表现出来,尽管如此,它们都是一样的(只是看起来不同罢了)。例如:

双方都能施展小型召唤咒语,即召唤非常相似的生物(蜘蛛的破坏性通常都是随机的)

双方都能够施展咒语去破坏1X1区域(如毒雾vs火雨)

书房都能够施展大型召唤咒语,即召唤强大的暴徒(在混战中恶魔是非常强大的,而Water Elemental是远程的招式)

真正不同的咒语是:

半兽人可以(暂时)起死回生而添加一些骷髅到自己的军队中从而在附近出现新鲜尸体的时候提高破坏性。

半兽人可以牺牲单位一半的生命使他们暂时变成天下无敌。

人类可以使用“治愈”功能而最大化“生存单位”的使用并在战斗中起到推动作用。

人类可以使用“隐形”能力在单位不能发动攻击时将其隐藏起来。

考虑到所有的这些内容,半兽人和人类比《沙丘2》中的不同派别更相似,但是因为他们的外观是不同的,所以很容易成为这种计策的牺牲者。暴雪之所以会这么设置是因为确保派别身份与传说和外观相一致同样重要。这是他们在之后几年里设计《星际争霸》系列时始终坚持的理念。

单位升级

《沙丘2》拥有一个升级系统让玩家能够在技术树中进一步打开单位,但它却并未真正利用这一系统。而《魔兽争霸:人类和半兽人》却添加了能够直接影响单位的升级系统。它们让建筑只能用于从整体上完善单位(基于《沙丘2》中的IX机构建造)。

因为升级能够完善单位的防御和攻击能力,所以这些升级能够帮助玩家轻松地走向胜利,但如果理解错误的话也会轻易被打败。

它们往游戏中添加了一个经济层面,即明确何时创造更强大的单位vs创造全新单位是必要的。因为根据目标单位数量能够衡量升级价值,所以在评估升级成本的时候可以最小化/最大化这一策略,并且有许多玩家开始认为这是非常先进的策略基础。

随机地图生成器

源自《文明》系列的“小规模战斗”模式拥有随机地图生成器能够创造出无限的重玩价值。

随着时间的发展,这一随机地图生成器的价值将因为不能生成“平衡的”场景而受限。所以之后的升级中将使用经过严格的关卡设计的“递进式地图”。

UX

作为游戏首席程序员兼制作人的Patrick Wyatt认为自己最自豪的功能就是《魔兽争霸:人类和半兽人》中的多个单位选择。他创造了之前的RTS从未出现过的功能。《沙丘2》很难控制,所以需要进行分组。尽管最初的功能开发不受任何限制,但是有些设计限制最终导致多种选择只影响到4种单位,因此导致这一功能不是那么有用,虽然如此它也是很棒的。这一功能的主要成就便是成为了RTS的主题之一。

他同时也创造了成为另外一个主题的控制组(使用控制+数字键),让玩家能够指挥特定单位群组在游戏中提高他们的控制能力。

就像Patrick所解释的那样,玩家的注意力是RTS的稀少资源,这些添加内容能够减少玩家的负担让他们更好地融入游戏中。有人可能会说,除了多人游戏,《魔兽争霸:人类和半兽人》的伟大遗产在于它完全专注于用户体验,这真的是很棒的决定。

流线型化

《魔兽争霸:半兽人和人类》开启了其它RTS游戏将进一步完善的一个过程,也就是所谓的“流线型化”。

流线型化的优点在于它能够让内容变得更好使用与理解,它能够降低准入障碍并最小化玩家在玩游戏时需要掌握的知识。大多数情况下,这是一种多快好省的有效方式。

而流线型化的缺点则在于它有时候会破坏深度。这通常出现在功能未能得到有效执行时。基于升级内容,设计师将着眼于什么是可行的什么是不可行的,并且不会多加思考不可行的原因并将其删掉。尽管这能够提高每个升级内容的质量,但同时也有可能扼杀掉能够真正完善游戏的一些理念。

《魔兽争霸:人类和半兽人》删除了《沙丘2》所呈现的雇佣兵单位理念。

它删除了沙虫。

它删除了能量(尽管这是Westwood不会轻易放弃的系统)。

它放弃了许多地形元素。

它简化了派别不对称性。

它简化了战役地图。

它呈现出了小地图(不需要特定的建造)。

它将每个派别单位从13减少到7至8。

它将建筑数量从18减少到8。

许多这些决定能够减少一些不必要的复杂性并创造出更棒的“深度”管理,但也有些决定导致一些本来能够进一步扩展的机制的损失。其中有些内容,如对于不对称性的需求在几年后又重新获得了成功(如《星际争霸》中)。

评估

我希望《魔兽争霸:人类和半兽人》能够为RTS类型的发展带去帮助。它的贡献是双重的:一方面,它将推动RTS类型去发展多人游戏场景,并永远地将RTS与PvP竞争维系在一起,执行用户界面工具去支持这一体验。另一方面,它线性化了最初的RTS设计,专注于核心游戏玩法的特定元素去降低这类型的准入障碍,使其使用变得更加民主化。它也有可能具体化一些核心游戏机制(有时候会遮盖了一些全新的理念)。

《魔兽争霸:人类与兽人》并不是独创性实践,这应该是一种执行案例。考虑到创造PvP所伴随的风险,开发者选择使用更简单的设计去创造新次元:具有竞争性的游戏玩法。

在很多情况下,这种线性体验其实是为了创造作为一种游戏类型的RTS。如果让游戏探索许多全新的功能,玩家可能会因此错过核心机制。但是《魔兽争霸:人类与半兽人》却有能力让Westwood和暴雪(或其它公司)能够为谁可以创造出最棒的这类型游戏而继续争斗。

第二纪元

存在许多方法能够给RTS历史进行分类。为了本文,我们将以“第二纪元”进行假设,即指代《魔兽争霸:人类与半兽人》之后几个月发行的游戏。这些游戏都是基于对多人游戏互动(即首次出现于《魔兽争霸》中)的足够观察而进行开发的,并且也更加理解多人游戏元素对于RTS类型的影响。

在很多方面,将RTS类型的焦点从传统的单人玩家体验转移到具有竞争性的电子竞技将始于玩家有机会与其他人一起游戏以及游戏开发者对于这种体验的反应。这为开发者定义了全新的视角和目标,并且也是大多数决策所依赖的根本参数。

我们已经知道《沙丘2》是推动这类型发展的强大先驱。而《魔兽争霸:人类与兽人》则是基于对《沙丘2》的测试以及将这一游戏的可能性扩展到多人游戏领域的尝试,并且事先也不清楚这一过程具有多少尚未被开发的潜能。

基于多人游戏体验进行创造并改变生产焦点是有意义的:一方面,似乎我们不能再往RTS的致胜准则中添加或改变某些内容,多人游戏已经向我们证明能够作为一种零售盒功能而获得属于自己的销售份额。

这并不是一种缺少灵感的表现,但却是使RTS具体化的一种真正机遇。开发者并不想在RTS机制的运行方面发挥创造性,因为他们需要投入更多精力将多人游戏带到下一步骤中:将其变成一种体育运动(或象棋2.0般的存在)。

《魔兽争霸2》

《魔兽争霸2》是非常有趣的RTS游戏。与之前的所有游戏不同的是,这款游戏是基于开发者花一年时间去观察玩家与最初多人RTS游戏互动的结果。暴雪的赌注得到了回报:这场竞争给RTS创造了一个全新的维度。他们意识到了多人游戏对RTS领域的巨大影响并通过发行一款代表RTS历史的决定性时刻的游戏而有效地利用了这一优势。

值得一提的是,《命令与征服》的发行时间较早,并且因为其多人游戏元素与故事线执行得到许多赞扬。为了证明我认为推进《魔兽争霸2》的选择是正确了,我将引用以下内容:

“据说,在1995年末发行时,《命令与征服》立马就获得了巨大的成功。它成为了电子游戏历史中最赚钱的一个游戏系列,它的名字也成为了RTS的代名词。然而这款游戏并非初创。来自同一个开发商的《沙丘2》是最早塑造出RTS游戏类型,而《命令与征服》在很多方面与之具有相同点。《命令与征服》之所以能够引起如此巨大的轰动是因为它完善了《沙丘2》的游戏理念,添加了一些关键的创新理念,从而为之后所有这类型游戏设定了一个标准。游戏中不同军队间的各种游戏风格便是现在许多RTS游戏的进步表现。此外,《命令与征服》的一些缺陷也清楚呈现出那些需要改进的领域。”

速度

当人们为多人游戏做好准备时,我们很快便发现《魔兽争霸:人类与半兽人》将花费人们太长时间。于是暴雪便注意到可以通过加快游戏速度而提升这类型游戏的玩家数量(让更多玩家可以加入游戏并完成更多游戏内容)。

最终他们用许多方法提升了游戏速度,而最主要的方法便是通过单位移动(这既能够影响经济也能够影响战斗)。

他们所期望的结果是能让游戏变得更短并保证人们能够更频繁地玩游戏,但这一新“速度”同样也带来了一些副作用。

因为游戏变得更快,玩家对于输入的精通就变得更加重要。游戏将慢慢偏离策略游戏(如《魔兽争霸:人类与半兽人)并进入让人畏惧的APM(每分钟操作数)领域。这里所存在的问题并不是UX(如《沙丘2》,因为游戏能够有效地提供《魔兽争霸:人类与半兽人》所呈现的的工具(多重选择,命令快捷键,控制群组),但是效果非常相似:每个玩家都会觉得有太多需要做的事并且还需要在特定时间明确最有意义的微观管理行动。

提升速度的另外一个副作用便是伴随而来的战略意义。因为单位创造仍然需要花费许多时间,但是随着单位的移动速度加快,这意味着创造单位vs在地图上移动单位的时间比例将提升。事实上,这也大大降低了防卫者的优势:单位将花费同样的创造时间,但在将这些单位变成增援部队前却不需要花费太多时间,从而导致防卫者在守护自己的基地时不能因为拥有“更多单位数”而获利。

随着防卫者的优势被削弱,盾牌也变得不那么有用,游戏将变成是关于在地图上突出一方的军力并尽早去控制它(双方都可以在敌人出现前察觉到他们的入侵并控制资源)。

这些关于速度的重大改变(尽管可能表现得不多)将成为未来游戏的重要元素以及“暴雪风格RTS”的基础之一。所有在《魔兽争霸2》之后诞生的暴雪RTS(《星际争霸1》,《星际争霸2》,《魔兽争霸3》)都将伴随着一些其它竞争性RTS元素。

流线型化

在《魔兽争霸2》中,时间是流线型化的。而行动是更加快速,且比起策略更加强调玩家执行。它将玩家呈现在一种匆忙的状态中并让他们带着紧张感走向胜利。

单位更具有扩展性,并且单位上限也得到了提高,将焦点转向了军事生存的恒流中。经济升级同样也减少了玩家对于农民的需求,并进一步专注于军事生产中。为了适应这种改变,多重选择工具应该扩展到9个单位去完善操作性,而单击行动(右击)也将实现快速命令。

这款游戏删除了道路理念和建筑布局限制。并整合了守望塔(防御性建筑),所以玩家能够监视地图上的任何特定位置。这在必要情况下也有助于玩家发动进攻。

为了支持“自由建造”,游戏允许玩家建造市政厅以及一些允许资源收集的代理建筑,基于较低价格降低或消除对于补给线的需求。结果便是集中军力变得更加普遍。

尽管大多数改变都很简单,但它们却改变了游戏属性:《魔兽争霸:人类与兽人》是关于尝试着保护农民砍伐遥远的森林或获得遥远的金子的较长补给线,而现在的游戏则更专注于经济或军事上的扩展。它告诉玩家这是现在玩游戏的新方式,并且它也与之前的游戏具有明显的差异性。

Shroud继续发展

然而在《魔兽争霸2》中还有一些创造性的存在。最重要的便是Shroud。到目前为止,大多数使用“战争迷雾”的游戏都未能给人留下深刻印象。地图被黑暗所笼罩,但一旦单位揭开了地图上的一部分,它将永远是可见的。

最初的战争迷雾更多是关于发现“地形”,而不是监视敌人的移动。

而Shroud,或者说是战争迷雾2.0进一步发展,即在没有一个单位瞄准地图的某些部分时。地形仍旧保留着(是静态的),但是敌人军队和建筑的相关信息趋于模糊:单位不再呈现出来,建筑也只能揭示特定领域最后的已知状态(这忽视了之后可能出现的任何改变)。

这对于多人游戏来说是一种理想的内含物,因为它将推动玩家去扩展自己的军力去获取所需要的信息。他们有可能选择监视敌人去了解对方将做什么,从而获得更好的条件。这是一种非常棒的系统,一直延续到《星际争霸2:自由之翼》出现前。

多余的资源?

自从《魔兽争霸:人类与兽人》以来,更多资源理念被应用到游戏中。《沙丘2》只拥有1种香料混合物。《魔兽争霸:人类与兽人》拥有2种,不过其实在开发过程中所设定的是3种(我猜第3种应该是岩石)。《魔兽争霸2》的开发团队选择使用第三种资源的理念继续前进,这将能够打开游戏的另一面。他们的选择是在游戏中后期呈现一种“高级”资源让玩家能够使用更高级的单位(海军)和单位升级(能够对非海军单位产生影响)。

warcraft-ii-tides-of-darkness-demo-version-dos-screenshot(from gamedev)

warcraft-ii-tides-of-darkness-demo-version-dos-screenshot(from gamedev)

与《帝国时代》不同的是,为了建立一支舰队,玩家需要在宣称所有权之前获得水的控制权,之后第一个控制海洋的玩家将能够拒绝敌人的访问并执行封锁任务。而唯一能够逃离这种封锁的方法便是利用空中单位。

考虑到石油并不能用于创造更强大单位,这算是一次较为棘手的移动,但更确切地说,打开一个完全不同的地层是可选择的项目。这能够渲染多余的石油。它的作用在于能够激发某种资源可以以某种形式的投资而得到利用的概念,这对于获得更高级的单位来说是有帮助的。尽管这就像是在描述一种不存在真正投资形式的废物一样,但是它对于建造建筑来说却是必要的。之后这一概念将被用于《星际争霸》(如Vespene Gas)等游戏中。

Z轴–空中单位

空中单位最初出现于《魔兽争霸2》中。他们能够交易大量资源去利用自由移动。这让玩家能够使用非常有效的侦查单位(Zeppelins)以及全地形侵袭单位(龙,鹰怪)。

空中单位同样也能够帮助平衡海军单位所存在的经济问题(如果你一开始不能控制海洋的话),同时他们也可以帮助玩家避开以下地形碰撞以及始料未及的角度。这将大大降低地面单位的价值(游戏邦注:尽管在1比1对抗赛中他们仍然是最强的)并提升混合武装策略的价值。

从那时以来空中单位便成为了许多RTS游戏的必要元素(特别是那些比起操作性更看重混合武装策略的游戏)。

地图编辑器

《魔兽争霸2》所伴随的的一个关键元素便是关卡编辑器:这是为游戏(可能是多人游戏)创造额外关卡的一个简单但却非常有效的方法,从而能让游戏持续更久。在暴雪风格的RTS中,关卡编辑器变成了事实(《星际争霸》,《魔兽争霸3》和《星际争霸2》都复制了它)并创造出了一些将出现在续集游戏/类型(《DOTA》/《英雄联盟》或MOBA类游戏便经常被说是源自《魔兽争霸3》的模式)中的受欢迎的地图。

《星际争霸》

《星际争霸》是我个人非常喜欢的一款游戏,所以我只能尽力保持中立的看法。从发行到今天,这始终是一款非常出色的游戏,它推动着暴雪的RTS系列的发展(《魔兽争霸》的最后一款游戏便是《魔兽争霸2》,暴雪似乎不想再推动这一系列)。

不对称性

《星际争霸》的显著贡献便是不对称性。与之前使用了一组相似单位或经济格言的RTS游戏不同的是,《星际争霸》打破了一些规则而呈现出了3个截然不同的派别(这对于之后的平衡来说简直就是一场噩梦,这也表明它需要经受各种补丁)。

这一变形深深侵入游戏设计中,即“建筑者”或“经济”单位将发生巨大的变化。

例如,Terran SCV(建筑者)是主流(在建造期间将留在建筑工地,之后会恢复其职责),而Protoss Probe则可以开始建造建筑并在Zerg’s Drone需要为了创造生活楼而做出牺牲的时候离开。

此外,每个派别都有其特有的安置限制(例如Terrans可以建在任何地方,Protoss需要设置强大的电力网)。

他们的单位容量同时也是由不同方式所决定。Terrans必须创造一个专门用于增加食物量的建筑,而Protoss将把这一能力与他们的Pylon结合在一起(以对付安置限制),Zerg则将分配其中一个单位(Overlord)去维护他们的军队。

最后,每个派别的单位在处理损害的方式也是不同的:

Terrans能够承受损害,而如果超过一定限制的话他们的结构便会开始坍塌。他们可以使用建筑单位修复损害,但只能是用于结构和交通工具,他们还拥有一个特定的医疗单位能够治愈有机单位的创伤。

Protoss拥有能够快速再生的盾牌(这在战争期间特别有帮助),但一旦他们的生命遭到威胁,他们便不能彻底治愈它。

Zerg是所有有机单位,拥有持久的再生率(尽管速度较慢),这让他们能够发动冲突并更有效地执行“击跑配合战术”。

他们不仅不会分享任何单位,并且他们的所有单位从根本上看来都是不同的:

基本的Terran单位是一种远程单位(海军),Protoss则具有一个强大的近战单位(Zealot),而Zergs采取的是数量战。

他们的技术树是完全不同的,每一“层”的体验也是不同的:

Terrans可以附加特定附件到建筑上(通讯卫星,机械工厂等)以打开特定的升级和单位。

Protoss非常依赖于建造内部从属关系(需要X去建造Y)。

Zergs必须将Hive升级到更高级别以打开更远的建筑。

总之,每个派别给人的感觉都是不同的,对于只经历过单一派别的玩家来说很难猜到敌人会呈现出什么。它非常强调游戏体验与战术规划,但这仍然是基于APM。

食物成本

尽管每个派别处理食物成本的方式不同,但系统本身其实发生了全面的变化。与之前游戏不同的是,在这里每个单位都拥有独自的食物成本。例如Zealot价值2个食物,而Marine只值1个,Zerglings则值0.5个。

尽管这可能只是一个较小的改变,它却大幅度地改变了游戏。早前游戏所存在的问题是它其实可以更好地节约资源并基于更高层单位去最大化食物数量(如《魔兽争霸2》中的兽人或骑士便比野猪兽或步兵出色)。

经过调整的食物数量创造了每个单位的价值,并鼓励玩家不要退缩:当玩家创造了一个等于200个食物的军队时,他便成为一个坚不可摧的敌人,并且不管那时候的他处于哪个层面。并且即使敌人能够基于非常强大的单位创造出150个食物也不意味着他们就有机会获胜。

这一系统的主要优势在于较低层的单位将在整个游戏比赛中保持相关性,而遭遇战不再是最佳单位的技术赛,而是石头剪刀布般的闪电战。玩家需要打开选择并保存能力将注意力转向如何更好地打败敌人。

例如攻城坦克便是对抗地面单位的一种有力威胁,并且可以大量使用以保证胜利,但是他们仍然需要海军的支持以避免敌人成群的进攻或来自空中单位的袭击。

分层逻辑

《星际争霸》拥有“分层逻辑”,即为了绕着技术树的任何轴前行而采取的逻辑步骤。其中的一个关键工具便是分层资源的整合:Vespene Geyser(Vespere Gas)。

与之前包含了像“木头”等次要资源的游戏不同的是,Vespene Geysers要求投入大量的资源和时间去打开(Refinery)并拥有更有限的收入能力。这些局限性带有许多分支,但从核心看来,它是容许分层逻辑概念的。

要求只创建矿产的单位将变成最容易获得的层面(第一层),而任何要求创建汽油或拥有有限的汽油成本的单位将成为更重要的投资(第二层)。

同样地,进一步的汽油投资也将把单位带到技术树的更高层面上。

这些层面是玩家可以依赖的平衡工具:他们知道在单位Y进入游戏的时候单位X是不会出现的,因为为了获得必要的汽油投资必须遵循这样的逻辑步骤。

此外,它能够确保玩家可以优化资源收集并制定策略去利用这些元素:比起新手,有所准备的玩家总是能够更有效地进入第二层,并经常能在适当的时间获得决定性优势。

知道“何时”创建一所炼油产以及需要创建多少所炼油产成为了精通分层逻辑的关键。每个派别复杂的技术树能够创造许多排列,而敏锐的观察者能够在创建炼油产的时候告诉玩家策略或者从矿产转向汽油的单位数。

尽管之前的游戏有时候会出现强制层(游戏邦注:例如在《魔兽争霸2》中升级市政厅),但是分层逻辑方法其实是更有组织性且能够创造出更多可能。伴随着一些真正的单位食物,这能够提高给玩家一些机会并让他们在是否进化或使用较低层战术方面自由做出选择。

Battle.net

与之前游戏不同的是,《星际争霸》是通过Battle.net(暴雪的一个在线游戏平台)而发行的。它允许使用梯子等多人游戏“亚策略”功能(记录每个玩家获胜/失败等等的分数)。

这同样也是组合8个玩家一起游戏且提供各种游戏模式的有效平台(包括一些定制的情节)。

现在的玩家可以不用等待而与7名来自网上的随机陌生人(或朋友)展开对峙。网上总是会有人在玩《星际争霸》,所以玩家不用再与朋友协调时间了。

这大大推动看玩家与陌生人对抗或游戏的机会。玩家将不用再专注于少量来自当地且能够与自己进行对抗的人了。从本质上来看,这将以惊人的速度创造出更多策略,然后转变那些所谓的“亚策略”(即因为特定策略在大部分人之间的流行而使其成为主导型策略)。

例如从游戏机制标准来看,在坡道附近创造供应站去限制访问并不是一种“有效的移动”,反而在一些玩家遵循了4,5或6个匆忙的战术后,它将变成一种无价值的方法。同样地,黑暗圣堂武士也是一种基于环境的单位,不过他们将变得更加强大去对抗来自神族玩家的射击。缺乏伴随着Battle.net的存在而出现的亚对策,所有的这些内容都会遭到质疑,但是在全局中心的背景下,玩家将更有可能面对同样的策略并计划打败它们而不是优化自己的“一般”策略。

平衡和执行

在《星际争霸》中有些不可否认的“新”内容。独特的品牌,不对称的设计和分层逻辑都证实了这点。但是《星际争霸》的亮点主要是来自其突出的平衡性。伴随着非对称设计出现了平衡单位的任务:在提供不同选择的同时该如何确保比赛的“平衡”呢?

以前从未有任何RTS如此强调补丁。通常情况下补丁的发行都是为了应对亚对策中的新型策略,并确保始终推进技能游戏。但是硬核发行本身就已经是件难事了。

玩家社区将帮助塑造这一平衡,并寻找各种方法去打破它(游戏背后的逆向工程计算)。最后,尽管《星际争霸》还不是很完美,但它却已经非常接近一款真正平衡的游戏,并且在平衡方面玩家拥有很大的权利,所以游戏将不能滥用任何主导优势:存在能够对抗一切的内容,你只需要获取足够的经验去找出它便可。

结果便是,《星际争霸》成为另一个关于执行的突出例子。我认为它之所以如此受欢迎主要是它比之前任何RTS更接近象棋(可以说是象棋的不对称版本)。

与大多数之前游戏不同的是,《星际争霸》是基于非常确定的方式去处理破坏,确保每个结果都是可知的,并将隐藏信息置于shroud中。这便大大缩小的投机性并强调了最小化/最大化的价值。

高潮

接下来几年将带给我们许多高质量的游戏和让人兴奋的游戏体验。

sc(from gamedev)

sc(from gamedev)

通常情况下我们很难真正区分《星际争霸1》和《星际争霸2》,《沙丘2000》和《Emperor Dune》,甚至是《帝国时代》以及之后的系列游戏。尽管这些游戏的品牌,视觉效果和感觉都是不同的,但是从机制上来看它们却都是相似的。

的确,《星际争霸2》引进了Xel’naga塔,删除了战争迷雾(只保留了shroud),但从整体上看它与之前的游戏并无区别。

的确,《Emperpr Dune》引进了全新的单位,使每个派别变得更加不对称,但从核心看来它仍然是《沙丘2》。

尽管作为这类型中最出色的游戏之一,《帝国时代2》并没有真正可以拿得出手的东西。它只是拥有更多资源,如Vespene Gas,能够影响玩家如何保护它们。

尽管游戏平衡将不断发展,但是RTS模式冰不会与惯例内容具有太多出入。可以说在某种程度上这类型游戏开始趋于过时。

相关拓展阅读:篇目1篇目2篇目3(本文由游戏邦编译,转载请注明来源,或咨询微信zhengjintiao)

Retro Mortis: RTS (Part 1) – It was found in a Desert…

By Michel Mony

Preface

(You may freely skip this Preface without risk)

Let me preface this by saying that I realize a lot of what is to follow will be built upon conjectures and subjective observations. Regardless, I believe there is sufficient truth or at least food for thought that it warrants being written (and read).

The primary objective of this article is to promote a critical analysis of old “dusty” games and determine the mindset in which they need to be approched in order to be relevant to modern development. It seeks to identify interesting design decisions that have not been replicated since or served as the origin to a more widespread usage. In better understanding how things have become, or the path not taken, it is easier to identify key elements that could be worth (re) visiting.

It is to be noted that, while this article is written in the mindset of establishing a series, it could end up being an orphan. I’d like for this article to stand on its own, but it would greatly benefit from others.

Introduction

Retrogaming, “is the playing or collecting of older personal computer, console, and arcade video games.” Such activity has gained in popularity over the last decade to the point where several modern games are developed leveraging this mindset. It is not uncommon to see a series reboot by going back to their roots, or implement interesting twists that link back to earlier titles.

I was at the front seat of one such experiment a few years back, when developing a AAA game with a major publisher. Insodoing, the game ended up showcasing short 2D gameplay segments as a reverence to its own origins.

Retrogaming is often taxed with being a phenomenon anchored in the player’s sense of nostalgia, arguing that these games have been idolised based on the memories of childhood that come with. While I agree there is truth to that, I believe this would be grossly underestimating the value of older games.

It is true that games developed 10-20 years ago were limited in scope by technical limitations that could be unconceivable to the modern observer, but such limitations also forced developers to be more creative.

Back then, several of the genres we now know (MOBA, RTS, 4X) simply did not exist. Some visionaries had a rough idea of what gaming experience they wanted to achieve, and it so happened that a game genre would be born from this.

The most common misconception I’ve seen modern players and junior designers exhibit about these precursors is the belief that they were barebone/simple experiences without much depth. From my experience, this could not be anywhere further from the truth, and oftentimes, I have come to realize that having a look at one of these “ancestors” humbles me.

As an example, one of the earliest games, Spacewar! (Released officially in 1962, but in development as early as 1953) was actually a very complex arcade game. For starters, it was a multiplayer real-time game where two ships would fight one another while using their thrusters to prevent collisions, fight against gravity, and attempt to out-maneuver their opponent. It introduced all basic concepts of firing missiles and lasers (projectiles) and damaging the opponent. It had a concept of health points, shield points, and rather complex controls.

But there’s more to an analysis of retrogames than merely tossing random facts about Spacewar! There is actionnable knowledge that has been forgotten, especially in decade-long genres that appear to have an existential crisis and are unable to reinvent themselves. Oftentimes, this answer lies in their early installments.

Today, I’d like to discuss one of these genres: the “RTS” (Real-Time Strategy Game).

Context

There were a number of games that led to the modern appelation of “RTS”, but most agree nowadays that the first stepping stone towards the modern RTS was “Dune 2″. This begs to question what Dune 1 was really about, but it was actually an adventure game (turns out there’s an origin to mismanaging brands earlier than the 21st century!).

Dune 2 would be the first title of many during the “conflict” that opposed Westwood Studios (Now defunct, formerly under EA leadership) and Blizzard Entertainment (now part of Activision Blizzard) between 1992 and 1998.

In a way, a lot of what RTS games are and are not today was forged by Dune 2, and the war that followed. Since the competition for this market was severe (and the demand quite high), production costs had to be minimized and feature creep restricted.

Given the history and ferocious competition for that market share, it is somewhat puzzling that a very popular game such as Starcraft II (2010) would hardly differ from a game made almost 20 years prior. The “RTS War” fell prey to the greater conflict: the war for the best visuals. And for the longest time, we haven’t seen much movement on the RTS scene. Some titles have had better execution than others, but most were cast from the same mold.

Though RTS is a mainstay of game development nowadays thanks to that “war”, a more educated observation is warranted to understand what was earned or lost along the way, and how it can be used today.

There’s a reason why Dune II coined the RTS genre. It was not only because it presented the core of what an RTS should be, but rather because it provided a complete experience and terrific scope. It was, in many ways, a complex experience that needed to be broken down to understand. It even took a while for Westwood itself to break it down to its essence (C&C) before realizing what they had created in the first place.

A number of constants were designed during Dune II, but there were also several concepts that were grafted to it. In a way, it was much more than a MVP, and for the most part, it worked brilliantly.

Resource Gathering

Dune II established the core of the RTS genre by laying resources on the ground and asking the player to harvest them to fuel military unit production. While this mechanic feels natural to the genre, in the case of Dune II, it is actually there out of necessity: the Dune brand (novels, series and movie) is based around the concept of harvesting spice. Unlike most RTS games, harvesting this precious spice is the primary focus, much moreso than actual combat. Armed conflict is only a byproduct of that race for the spice melange.

While most RTS titles have inherited this mechanic, they’ve all done a relatively poor job at putting this mechanic in context (including Tiberian Sun that blatantly mimicked Dune in that regard). For example, in Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, the player is taught that he needs to harvest from local resources (wood and gold) to erect their outpost. For the first outpost, it makes a lot of sense as this is a new settlement, but as the conflict proceeds, the player ends up building various outposts. While it is fairly understandable that it is more efficient to use lumbers where they are available (than say, bring them from another outpost a few leagues away), it is a bit puzzling that the player can’t bring along currency and is never explained. While in Dune 2, all spice is sent back to the motherland in-between mission, and a new colony/mining site is erected during each mission, this feels artificial in any other context.
Several offenders have simply imported the gameplay “as is” because it was proven to work, but never managed to make it stick with the theme (Command and Conquer, Warcraft, Starcraft, Age of Empires, Empire Earth, and the list goes on).

This is where Dune II excels. Not only has it created an interesting resource acquisition mechanic, but it has actually made it a core part of the game. In Dune II, resource acquisition IS part of the MVP and is not a design mechanic that supports it, and this is a big deal.

As an example, one of the early missions is to simply gather up resources. The player has to realize that creating military units only delays his ability to reach this objective. While many other RTS games have used this as an introductory mission, Dune II comes on top here because the game has made it clear from the very first cutscene that this was to be the primary objective. Only much later in the campaign does this turn into a more global conflict, and the player is told that, in order to secure the resource, it will not suffice to try and harvest it faster, but that elimination of other houses is necessary. Thus, the war is explained as an economic decision.

The legacy of this resource system can be found in various games (namely the C&C series). It has evolved in most cases however, as we’ll be able to cover in a future article. Here, Dune II has only the merit of creating the vanilla concept, as a theme-centric necessity.

Energy System

Another mechanic that became a staple of the genre (C&C and its derivatives mainly) is the concept of energy. Unlike the concept of “food” which we’ll discuss with our next game, the energy mechanic was used as early as Dune II to limit rapid base building, introduce a concept of logistics, and provide strategic weaknesses.

The Windtrap can be perceived as just “another building to build”, but it achieves a lot more than that. It requires resources to build, which in turn reduces the player’s ability to construct buildings quickly. This form of investment may lead the player to end up investing in units instead of buildings as a result.

Furthermore, it gives a sense that the base is not self-sufficient “as is” and gives the player something to keep watch over. They need to determine for themselves whether they want redundancy or can live with the risk of being short on energy (and the consequences of that can be quite drastic).

More importantly yet, it introduces the concept of base weakness. The enemy AI in this game is not great, but it understands that power is key. As a result, if a Windtrap is located on the edge of a base, and relatively undefended, they will risk a dedicated attack on it just to cripple the player economically. At this point, losing a few units is deemed an acceptable loss given the economic damage involved.

Since Windtraps’ energy generation scales with the building’s health, they don’t need to destroy it completely, just damage it enough to put the base below its requirement level.

Though the player can end up repairing the damage for a fraction of the cost, it’s often enough to compensate for losing units (cost of repairs + time spent under power level).

C&C carried this system along for a bit, and quite a few RTS have revisited it without much improvement to this day. While this implementation wasn’t the most “fun and engaging” mechanic, it showed the potential of having to manage base logistics.

Mercenaries

This is where Dune II starts to differ from most of the titles that followed. While the game had a straightforward unit acquisition system (all units have their own individual cost and time to train), it also boasted a “stock-market” mercenary system to supplement it where unit availability and price would vary, and ETA to delivery (shipping) would be a constant.

It allowed players to pay a variable amount of spice (depending on global demand) to field quick reinforcements in numbers. Because the ETA was fixed for all units (marginally lower than actually training units) and that it allowed to field more than one unit in the same delivery, it would be possible for a player to field 4-5 tanks in the time they’d normally produce only 1. The big downside was not knowing how much it would cost them ahead of time, though in “very heated” combat, one may resort to paying a hefty amount for Quads or Trikes (some of the weakest units).

This system was a great tactical addition as it provided players with resources to spare with a means to quickly replenish their armies without having to build very complex infrastructures. It did introduce however a bit of unknown (risk) without it being random (based on player demand). Prices would shift, unit availability would differ, etc.

Even more importantly, these mercenaries were unique in that they allowed every player access to some faction-restricted units on occasion, which gave them a unique reason to exist.

As the time to delivery was fixed, it also allowed to hasten production of “high tech” units or economic ones. Building a harvester, for example, was a long and tedious task that would prevent building tanks. If harvesters were available from the Starport however, they would quickly be shipped and free your production centers for more military units.

In addition, players could save up on “upgrades” by creating defaut units from their production centers, and supplementing their forces through these mercenaries (missile tanks for example, which were generally required in fewer numbers).

Furthermore, the player could build units from the Starport only to ensure that their enemy would not have access to those. For example, if several siege tanks were being sold, the player could choose to buy all of them to deny their opponent a chance to reinforce quickly, and ensure that their ongoing attack would not be met with surprise resistance.

This is a mechanic that has scarcely come into usage, but ended up appearing as a prominent feature in some RTS games much later. In Ground Control, for example, the only means to acquire units is to send out an order to your mothership and await delivery. As a result, all units have a fixed ETA, and unit production is determined only by resources (not actual infrastructure capabilities). While prices do not vary based on demand and remain exclusive to the player, the core principle behind the mecenaries sub-system is still a chief influence of this approach.

Landscaping

Dune II made extensive use of terrain. Unlike most RTS that would follow, it was critical to understand how terrain affected options:

On the one hand, bases could not be built anywhere. They needed to be built upon “rocky” foundations (and ideally, be built upon concrete). This greatly limited the possibilities and allowed the level designers to control base construction. Some levels were harder simply because the player was limited in the amount of space (thus, buildings) they were allowed. The challenge was to make more with less, which was a good means to ensure players understood key concepts of efficient base building.

Furthermore, there were different types of sand. Units would react differently to different terrain types. Some units would roll faster on “hard” sand than they would on regular sand, while others were unaffected. It was important to sync your forces when attacking, and misjudging terrain could result in forces reaching the enemy base out-of-line only to die very quickly.

The inclusion of higher ground also introduced strategic depth. Since most infantry could be rolled over by most vehicles, they would rarely provide reliable firepower, except that they were the only units that could go on higher ground, and then became immune to instant-kill from tanks.
That, coupled with the fact that most infantry would resist big bullets (aside from the anti-personel siege tank) allowed players to put troopers (rocket launchers) on higher ground to guard against tanks and air units, making them a potent addition to any army. It is to be noted that, without higher ground, infantry would’ve been close to useless.

Though the concept of high ground has been used in a variety of RTS games, it was usually mostly employed as a modifier to give advantage to units on the higher ground (better shot accuracy, visibility, or preventing counter-attack). In Starcraft (1), units on the lower ground had a negative accuracy modifier against units on the upper ground, whereas in Starcraft: Wings of Liberty, they simply could not shoot to higher ground unless they had vision to that part of the map (flying unit, or another ground unit in proximity of the target). In the Warhammer 40k franchise, there were terrain modifiers applied to specific chunks of the map that would increase or decrease a unit’s survivability to enemy fire (cover).

Most RTS have however done a relatively poor job at implementing interesting terrain features or modifiers beyond damaging terrain (C&C Tiberian Sun) or terrain that slows down units (C&C: Red Alert (ore fields)).

Asymetry

Dune II introduced some faction asymetry. While the bulk of the units were the same, a few “tweaks” were introduced (namely, a faster/weaker version of the trike for the Ordos, a tougher quad for the Harkonnen, stronger infantry for the Harkonnen, etc.) as well as two unique units per faction.

The Atreidis were the only house with offensive air support which forced their enemies to drastically re-think their defenses (more rocket turrets and troopers, less tanks). They also had a Sonar tank which did AoE damage which was particularly efficient vs enemy concentration of forces (such as infantry) but could also cause friendly fire.

The Ordos had a terrific tank that could confuse enemy troops and temporarily mind-control them. It could also field a stealth unit called the Saboteur to cause critical damage to structures (later re-used as the engineer in the C&C series).

The Harkonnen had a devastator tank which was simply a buffed and extremely costly version of the tanks. It also fielded atomic missiles which allowed it to strike without fear of retaliation.

Though the bulk of the forces were the same, these slight asymetries really changed the way one would approach an enemy depending on their house. Playing Ordos vs. Atreidis was nothing like playing Ordos vs. Harkonnen.

This was leveraged by later titles, originally only under a cosmetic form, but eventually led to the much acclaimed design of Starcraft 1, where each faction was entirely different. It is but one of the latent concepts brought forward in Dune II that eventually saw the light of day (with resounding success!).

Sandworms

Possibly the single most significant yet often misunderstood feature of the game is the Sandworm.

The Sandworm generally lays dormant on the map until it is discovered by either player. It is a random force of nature that will hunt down whatever it considers food. Generally, it tends to eat whatever is the biggest, strongest yet nearest unit it can see. Oftentimes, this is a harvester (Economic unit) or a big big tank.

While it could be perceived as random (its AI actually has some randomness involved), it is actually a balancing tool. Despite the fact it was mainly added to support the theme and that it is an important aspect of the lore, it actually plays two important roles from a gameplay standpoint:

1 – Balancing: While the AI is random, the trigger is not. Whichever player discovers it first triggers it. The most likely player to discover it is – generally – the one that’s doing “better” (economically). There are two main ways this worm will get discovered:

- either a player mounts an offensive and stumbles across the worm by accident

or

- a player is looking for resources beyond the ones that were available close to their base.

In both cases, this means this player is doing well: being on the offensive, or looking for more resources means you’re doing better than your opponent, otherwise you’d be dealing with their attack, or they’d have already secured this new resource location and met with the Worm.

Since the player that’s doing better is more likely to end up losing the first unit, it can lead to a dominant player losing its momentum, putting both players back in a situation where everything is possible: it keeps it interesting.

2 – Threat: It gives a sense of threat. The environment is dangerous, and you can’t just scatter units around to get a better view and coverage. You want to pack tight defenses and mobilize your forces only on solid ground. When you do find a worm, you want your formations out of harm’s way, and you’ll want to protect your harvesters and keep a close watch on them. If you’re crafty, you might even attempt to lure the worm to your enemy’s base (I sure did!).

The Sandworm is much more than a random NPC. While the core concept was somewhat recycled in Warcraft 3, it was mostly used as a means to slow progression and level up your heroes. It didn’t quite capture the depth of the original sandworm. To this day, I am unaware of any concept that plays the same role the Sandworm did, as a form of neutral adversary that keeps the match closer to an even-force fight to keep the players on their toes.

Campaign Map

Between missions, the player was prompted with a map where they would need to choose the next theater of operations. It was more than a mere cosmetic gesture, it actually changed a lot. In most cases, the enemy would be the same (given the choice to strike at 3 different Ordos territories for example) but the level design would greatly differ.

This allowed for a lot of replayability, and actual decision-making. If you did poorly on a specific map, you could try another and get away with the victory there because it worked better with your mindset.

It also gave you an impression that there were other military officers working with you. Whenever you completed a mission, your team did not claim 1 but 2 or 3 territories instead, but you could also lose some. It was interesting to see the map progression differ depending on your actions.

On a few occasions, in later levels, you were even provided with a key decision: do you want to fight this house or the other? If you felt you had a better chance against atomic warheads than deviators, you could pick the former (House Harkonnen) at your convenience. Although ultimately, you’d end up fighting both opposing houses AND the Emperor.

This mechanic took a fair bit of time to resurface, but it was well executed in the campaign system introduced by Dark Crusade (an expansion of the Warhammer 40,000 RTS). It was successfully supplanted in 2006. It may be surprising that it took 14 years to revisit this mechanice and improve it, but it goes to show how much unexploited potential Dune II has generated with this feature alone.

There is not much to be said of the Fog of War except that it first originated in Dune 2. The concept of hidden information, critical to a good tactical game with high replayability and risk management, was present in this first installment. Exploration had value early in the game. To try and scout the enemy base and get an idea of what would be coming your way was a big part of every good player’s plan.

While exploring the map was critical, the concept of a shroud that regrows when the player does not have “eyes on” a part of the map was not present then. With the advent of multiplayer (which we’ll discuss later) the need for shroud that regrows became prominent, and ultimately supplanted the need for a lay of the land. In Starcraft II for example, competitions reached a climax where all players were familiar with all ladder maps to the point where the original Fog of War was merely a nuisance to inexperienced players alone. One could argue that the Shroud (that regrows) surpassed the Fog of War in almost every regards, but its concept was only brought forth as a response to Dune II’s implementation of the concept of hidden information.

Conclusion

All in all, Dune II was a very strong precursor of the genre. Many of its ideas were re-used, and the few that lay dormant still have a lot of potential.

Its approach to resource gathering is probably out-dated (a bunch of games did better) but it was the most on-theme.

Many of its core mechanics (Mercenaries, Energy, Landscaping and Worms) are still interesting sources of inspiration to introduce a bit of “crazy” in modern designs.

A key element to bear in mind is that Dune II was the result of top-down design, a rare case where building a game from an established media (books / movie) and leveraging from its lore resulted in creative and effective gameplay.

On the other hand, Dune II suffered from the limitations of its time, particularly in terms of UX. A number of innovations that were yet to come were simply not present at the time Dune II was made, and simple concepts such as multiple unit selection, dragging to select unit, and quick right-click action did not make it in. However a number of remakes have allowed to keep the game intact all the while implementing simple UX improvements. (I believe my favorite was Dune Legacy).

Given its Patriarch role, it is hard to compare Dune II with its own ancestors all the while staying within scope of a RTS discussion. Hopefully our next stop will allow me to bridge a more in-depth analysis of the evolution of these concepts.

Retro Mortis: RTS (Part 2) – Then a Blizzard came…

By Michel Mony

Greetings,

While not mandatory, it would be advisable to have read the first part of this article before proceeding.

Context

During my last article, I’ve entertained that Dune II was the original precursor of the RTS genre, and have argued that it had led to a “conflict” that opposed Westwood Studios (Now defunct, formerly under EA leadership) and Blizzard Entertainment (now part of Activision Blizzard) from 1992 to 1998.

The fierce competition during these years helped shape what would become of the modern RTS. I thought it only fitting to take a look at Blizzard’s response to Westood and see where things went from there.

Please note that without Patrick Wyatt’s invaluable recollection, this article would not have been made possible.

Warcraft: Orcs and Humans

Warcraft was a great game that received positive reviews and generated a lot of traction back in the days. When broken down to its essence however, it differs slightly from Dune II. It shines by its ability to condense and simplify the genre, through execution, not feature-creep. In many ways, what makes it great is also a big part of the reason why RTS became streamlined (for better and for worse)

Multiplayer

Warcraft’s primary innovation is the concept of multi-player. In Blizzard’s original vision of the RTS, it was a game that was meant to be played competitively. Limited by the technology of its time, it still managed to boast a modem-bound multiplayer system. It even allowed crossover multiplayer on different platforms (PC vs MAC).

Since this was the first foray into the RTS multiplayer experience, it was provided “as is” with limited support. There were no specific gameplay features attached (ladders would only come with future installments).

To make room for its multiplayer, Blizzard also helped define the core differences between the Single and Multi player experiences.

Single Player…

…has an engaging storyline (much more characterization and context than Dune II).

…has a variety of threats and encounters (mirror matches (human vs human), npcs (scorpions, ogres), etc.)

…has a variety of objectives (rebuild a town, survive for a given duration, limited forces (no base), etc.)

Multi Player…

…is a head-to-head match-up where both forces have an equal chance of winning.

…places the burden of “fun” on how players seek to defeat one another and assumes balanced opponents are facing off.

Obviously, multi-player would still need to come a long way before it became anywhere close to balanced. Multi-player match-ups in Warcraft: Orcs and Humans were generally one-sided where the player that better understood the game mechanics would quickly come on top. There were no “league” systems or any regulation of any kind.

Though Warcraft: Orcs and Humans was possibly the first serious foray in multiplayer RTS games, this game mode would be honed by future installments, especially Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, Starcraft and Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty. (Warcraft III being left out intentionally)

Economy

Resources changed a lot with Warcraft. From mere “spice laying on the ground” they’ve evolved into two distinct sources: Trees (Forest) and Gold (Mine). Yet, the biggest change in the economy is the introduction of the complex economic units: Peasants (Peons).

Peasants are “complex” because they provide the player with meaningful decision-making (and cost of option). They’re both able to build structures (using resources) and harvest resources (acquiring resources). They affect the resource flow positively AND negatively. Choosing to order a peasant to build a structure has several implications:

It removes the peasant from the task it was performing: this is a cost of option as the player is accepting that the ongoing labor will no longer result in resources being acquired. Since the unit is immobilized for a certain duration, the effect can be quite dire.

It consumes resources based on the structure cost. This is another cost of option as these resources cannot be used elsewhere from here on.

It provides the player with a new structure (when construction is completed). Depending on what that structure is, it can help the player economically or militarily, but generally will require further investments. The building generally provides further cost of option (building a footman? at what cost?).

The complexity of these units, and their relatively inefficient collection rate (compared to Dune 2) insured that players’ armies would now have a significant portion of “civilians” (peasants/peons), which in turn introduced a higher level of vulnerability but also some redundancy.

Unlike Dune II, where the base economic unit was armored, and focused, peasants are extremely frail and can be everywhere (and often need to be scattered). The loss of a peasant, though not as threatening as an harvester, was much more common. While the Dune II harvester could be escorted by big guns, the peasants cannot be escorted individually, instead, peasants need to be thought of as “supply lines” which we’ll discuss below.

The concept of complex economic units was upheld and refined through various Blizzard games but also many others going so far as to put a lot more emphasis on these units in games like Supreme Commander.

***

In Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, resources are a physical entity which adds tactical depth. For example, trees also act as collisions which means that players need to be particularly careful about where they get their wood. Opening their flank in the early game before proper forces are made can lead to unwanted encounters.

Wood thus acts as a natural protection barrier which thins out as one’s base grows, but it still requires proper management to avoid a few obvious pitfalls.

Likewise, proper harvesting of wood around an enemy base may reveal a particularly “weak spot” to invade from, so it is not uncommon to employ peasants to cut lumbers nearby the enemy base to provide more opportunities.

Mines, on the other hand, are extremely focused. They represent a narrow object on the map that needs to be controlled at all costs. Securing a distant mine becomes a critical objective as the mines are finite in nature: whatever gold your opponent gets you won’t be able to get.
Furthermore, mines require peasants to harvest and return home without any “proxy” base to gather from. This results in rather long supply lines that need to be defended from enemy incursions. As a general rule of thumb, the further the mine, the harder it is to defend that supply train, and the more casualties the player will register.

Several series have made good use of complex resources. For example, the Age of Empire series retained the “trees” aspect as most resources occupy physical space. The gold mine system was also refined in various ways, namely by Starcraft which added the concept that a focused resource should require a dedicated investment (refineries need to be built upon Vespene Geysers in order to be controlled).

Logistics: Roads

An often forgotten mechanic from Warcraft: Orcs and Humans that was not present in either sequels was the inclusion of “roads”. These were mandatory to construct buildings and expand the base. In a way, they played the same role as energy, minus its vulnerability. One would have to pay good money to have roads established. This emphasized the need to keep a closed base (use as few roads a possible given the cost).

In a way, roads are the children of the concrete slab in Dune II. The slabs were initially established to insure buildings would be sturdy, but ultimately, it was a means to build proxy bases cheaply (without the use of a MCV).

Unfortunately, the roads pale in comparison to the slabs, and did not add much in terms of gameplay. What it did however is provide a sense of community and strong lore: the players are building encampments, not just buildings here and there. Though the implementation was relatively poor, it was found to be lacking in later installments.

A number of RTS games with a bit more focus on city building have used the roads to great effect afterwards by merely assessing the UX aspect. Having the ability to drag in order to build more than one road every 3 clicks turned out to greatly diminish the negative frustrations associated with road building, and adding a speed boost on units that walked over roads gave it a gameplay purpose.

It is unclear why this was truly added to Warcraft: Orcs and Humans (perhaps playtesting revealed the dangers of “proxy barracks”?) but though its implementation suffered, it remains one of the most under-utilized mechanic in common RTS. Most games that have employed them had a direct link with Roman lore (roads were critical to their multiple campaigns) and I remain perplexed that logistics are not playing a more important role in modern RTS. That being said, its original potential was probably overshadowed by poor UX implementation and lack of tangible purpose: the roads were, essentially, a pain to build, and did not provide much advantage beyond cosmetics.

Food

While Dune II sported a flamboyant limit on building construction, Warcraft: Orcs and Humans decided to put emphasis on units. Dune II had a loose text message to determine that the max unit count for the entire game had been reached which basically pooled all in-game units into a zero-sum game: you would have to kill units if you were to build more of them.

This archaic form of handling unit capacity in games was around for a fair bit of time. For example, the turn-based strategy VGA Planets originally had the same approach: there is a maximum of 500 units in the game, no matter what. There comes a point where the max is reached, and the game handles it in a different way (in VGA Planets, it uses a system of points, which is mostly influenced by the amount of units you destroy, to determine who gets to build units when a “slot” frees up). Dune II was simplistic: whenever a unit would get destroyed, any unit currently “ready to deploy” could fill that slot, but the algorithm that determined which was arbitrary.

Warcraft fixed this design issue by implementing a “by faction” cap. Assuming the maximum amount of units any game could have was, say, 100, this was split across both factions (50 for orcs, 50 for humans). In Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, each “farm” building provides a few units of food (4 if I remember correctly) which means you can create 4 units for each farm. Likewise, your army can never be larger than 4 times the amount of farms you have, or larger than your ultimate faction capacity (half of the game’s units). You can, technically, construct more farms than your actual cap, but they will only serve as redundancy in case other farms get destroyed.

What Warcraft recognized is a flaw in Dune II’s (and many other games of its time) design: because base construction was limited, but not unit construction, it could lead to very aggressive build-ups. Since Warcraft insisted on competitive play, they couldn’t allow it, and farms were a means to favor the defender: Assuming both factions always have the same amount of farms, the faction with the fastest reinforcements will be the one closest to the fight, de facto: the defender. This ensured that no amount of early aggressiveness could fully annihilate an opponent in the early game (unlike the “4pool” in Starcraft for example).

Also, since all units consumed exactly one “food”, players were encouraged to build their tech tree and get the “best units” to fill these slots as quickly as possible. Having a fully capped army of footmen was not desirable when facing off against several raiders (orc knights).

The food system, however, left base growth rampant. Though limited by the construction of roads, a base could freely expand limitlessly.

Food was also very abstract when compared to energy. It was “just a number” and a very static resource. It worked well in its own right, but did not provide much depth.

In many ways, food was not necessarily the best solution, but it was certainly the simplest. It allowed to handle several of the design flaws of the original Dune which simply had no means to handle unit capacity properly, and prevented early rush tactics from being too efficient.

A quick aside here on the feature that “almost was” (as was recently revealed through Patrick Wyatt’s blog): farms were originally meant to be part of a drastically more complex approach to unit development which would’ve resulted in peasants being “spawned” from farms over time, and then trained at the barracks into military units or used as is as economic units. In what he calls a “design coup”, the concept was drastically simplified into this abstract concept. One can’t help but wonder what might have happened should the original system had been implemented.

This barebone “Food System” has been used extensively by the Warcraft and Starcraft franchises, but also in other games such as the Warhammer series. It represents a very abstract means to achieve growth limitation and regulate army sizes. Though somewhat mainstream nowadays, it is important to note that it was found accidentally as a means to simplify an existing design that was deemed too complex at the time. It feels it has become the defacto common denominator of the RTS genre, though that may be a questionable status.

Asymmetry

Warcraft: Orcs and Humans’ assymetrical design is much more smoke and mirrors than gameplay. All orc units look drastically different than their human counterparts, but they serve mechanically the same roles. Though some units vary slightly (archers have a slightly longer range but lower damage output than spearmen, and magic units have a slightly varying range) they are fundamentally the same.

The only real mechanical differences comes in the form of spells, and despite this, most are actually the same (they only look different). For example:

Both sides have a spell that allows them to reveal portions of the map (Dark Vision vs Far Fight)

Both sides have a minor summon spells which summons creatures that are fairly similar (the spiders’ damage is a bit more random)

Both of them have a spell that can deal damage to a 1X1 area (over time dmg of 10) (Poison Cloud vs Rain of Fire)

Both of them have a major summon spell which summons a powerful mob (The Demon is strong in melee and random, whereas the Water Elemental is ranged and has flat dmg)

The only spells that trully differ are these:

The Orcs can raise the dead (temporarily) to add a few skeletons to their army and increase their damage output when there are fresh corpses nearby

The Orcs can sacrifice half the life of a unit to make them temporarily invincible (tanks).

The Humans can use “healing” which is particularly helpful economically as it allows to maximize the use of “surviving units” and give an extra boost to forwards in the fray.

The Humans can use “invisibility” which allows them to hide units so long as they don’t attack and allow them deep into enemy lines.

All things considered, orcs and humans play much more alike than the different factions in Dune II, but because they are aesthetically different, it is easy to fall prey to this ruse and choose sides. What Blizzard brought forth with this installment is that it was equally important to support faction identity with pieces of lore and cosmetic overhaul. This is a thought they would build upon when designing their highly-acclaimed Starcraft a few years later.

Unit Upgrades

Dune II had a system for upgrades which allowed players to unlock further units in the tech tree, but it never really capitalized on this system. Warcraft: Orcs and Humans built upon it by adding upgrades that would affect units directly. They went so far as to having buildings that would only be used to improve units as a whole (loosely based on the House of IX building in Dune II).

From upgrades that would improve units’ defenses and attacks up to outright new spells unlocked for spellcasters, these upgrades could easily lead to victory and defeat when misunderstood.

They added an economic layer to the game where knowing when to make units more powerful vs creating a new unit was necessary. Because an upgrade’s value could be measured by the amount of units it would be applied to, it was possible to min/max this strategy when weighting the upgrade’s cost, and a number of players started to understand that it was fertile grounds for very advanced strategies.

Random Map Generator

Borrowing from the Civilization series, the “Skirmish” mode had a random map generator which could potentially result in unlimited replayability.

As time would prove however, the value of this random map generator was limited in that it did not necessarily generate “fair and balanced” scenarios. Later installments would use “ladder maps” instead which had undergone serious level design efforts.

UX

Patrick Wyatt himself, lead programmer and producer of the game, would say that the feature he’s ever been the most proud of was the multi-unit selection created for Warcraft: Orcs and Humans. He could very well be coined with the invention of that feature altogether, which no RTS has shunned ever since. Dune II was simply cumbersome to control, and it called for grouping. Though initially the feature was developed without limitations, some design constraints eventually led to multi-selection affecting only 4 units, thus making the feature much less useful, but nonetheless stellar. Suffice to say this one achievement was to become a staple of the genre.

Yet he also created the control groups (using control + numbered key) which would also become yet another staple, allowing players to command specific groups of units to improve the player’s grip on the game.

As Patrick puts it, the player’s attention is the rarest resource in a RTS, and these additions came a long way to minimize the burden put on their shoulders and allowed them to better interface with the game. One could argue that, aside from multiplayer, Warcraft: Orcs and Humans’ greatest legacy was its sheer focus on User Experience, which given the case, was no small feat.

Streamlining

Warcraft: Orcs and Humans started a process that several other RTS would refine which I like to call “streamlining”.

The good about streamlining is that it makes things easier to use and understand, it lowers the barrier to entry and minimizes the amount of fore-knowledge one has to have in order to learn and play the game. In most cases, this is desirable as it effectively allows to do more with less.

The con with streamlining is that it sometimes eliminate depth. This often occurs when features were not implemented properly. With new installments, designers look at what worked and what didn’t work and they axe features that didn’t work without stopping at “why” they did not work. While this undeniably improves the quality of each subsequent installment it can also kill under-developed ideas that might have truly improved the game significantly.

Warcraft: Orcs and Humans removed the concept of mercenary units which was present in Dune II’s starport (and would later be re-discovered by Ground Control).

It removed the sandworm.

It removed energy (though that’s one system Westwood would not let rot).

It gave up on a lot of the subtleties of landscaping.

It simplified (and almost removed) faction assymetry.

It greatly simplified the campaign map.

It made the minimap visible de-facto (without the need of a specific building).

It reduced the amount of units per faction from 13 to 7-8.

It reduced the amount of buildings from 18 to 8.

Many of these decisions were for the best as it reduced unecessary complexity and resulted in a better management of “depth”, but a few inevitably resulted in the loss of mechanics that could’ve been expanded instead. (I’ve put an asterisk next to the ones I humbly believe would’ve been worth revisiting). Some of these, such as the need for more assymetry, resurfaced years later with resouding success (Starcraft, for example).

Assessment

I postulate that Warcraft: Orcs and Humans was instrumental to the evolution of the RTS genre. Its legacy is twofold:
On the one hand, it brought the RTS genre to the then rising multiplayer scene, forever associating RTS with PvP competition, and implementing the user interface tools to support that experience (multi-selection, control groups).
On the other hand, it streamlined the original RTS design, focusing on very specific elements of the core gameplay to lower the barrier of entry to the genre, democratizing its use. However, it may have inadvertantly crystallized the core gameplay mechanics for titles to come along the way (sometimes relegating fresh ideas to the oubliette as a result)

Warcraft: Orcs and Humans is not an exercise of originality, it’s an example of execution. Given the risk associated with making this game PvP, the developers chose to stick with simpler designs to create a new dimension: competitive gameplay.

In many ways, this streamlined experience is also largely responsible for establishing the RTS as a genre. Had the game explored many new features, people might have missed how “alike” the core mechanics were and never made any subsequent installments, but Warcraft: Orcs and Humans insured that Westood, Blizzard (and others) would duke it out to figure out who could come up with the best game in this vein.

Retro Mortis: RTS (Part 3) – Forged in Steel…

By Michel Mony

Greetings,

Disclaimer: When I started Part 3, I was hoping to tie the knot with RTS right here, but I already knew there would be too much to add and that a Part 4 would be required. Instead of cutting corners, I’ve decided to stick with the highlights and leave “everything else” for future parts. Sorry if you thought you’d be done with me by now!

Second Age

There are many ways to classify RTS history. For the sake of this article, we’ll assume that by “second age”, we refer to games that were released several months after Warcraft: Orcs and Humans. These were developed with sufficient observation of the multiplayer interactions that were first showcased in Warcraft, and come with a (perhaps naive) understanding of how multiplayer has affected the RTS as a genre.

In many ways, changing the focus of the RTS genre from that of a conventional single player experience to a competitive e-sport started when players had a chance to play games against one another, and how game developers reflected upon this experience. It shaped and defined new visions and new objectives for the developers, and was the underlying metric against which most decisions to come would be matched.

We’ve already observed that Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty was quite a strong precursor that spawned an entire genre, and it was so meaty there was little a single player game could hope to further achieve. Warcraft: Orcs and Humans was built as both a testament to Dune II (revered by all of the development team if Patrick Wyatt is to be believed) and as an attempt to stretch the possibilites of this game to the multiplayer scene, without fore-knowledge of just how much untapped potential there was along that thread.

Building upon the Multiplayer experience and shifting production focus made sense: On the one hand, there didn’t seem to be that much that could be added/changed to the then-winning formula of the RTS, and multiplayer had already proved it could garner its own share of the sales pot as a retail box feature.

It wasn’t a lack of inspiration, but an actual opportunity that helped crystallize the RTS as it was. Developers did not seek to be inventive in how the RTS mechanics worked because there was simply too much work to be done to fully bring multiplayer to the next step: making it a sport (or Chess 2.0).

Warcraft II

Warcraft II is a very interesting installment of the RTS genre. Unlike all previous games, it was built with about 1 year of experience observing players interacting with the first multiplayer RTS. Blizzard’s bet clearly paid off by then: competition had brought a whole new dimension to the RTS genre. They were probably the ones with the best insight into how multiplayer had modified the RTS scene and quickly capitalized on their advantage by launching a title that was clearly a defining moment in the RTS history.

It is worth to mention that Command & Conquer was released earlier and received much praise for its multiplayer support, and storyline implementation (actual movies showcasing then-Westwood employees). To justify my choice of moving forward with Warcraft II, I’ll only quote this:

” By all accounts, Command & Conquer (C&C) was an immediate and unmitigated success when it was released in late 1995. It spawned one of the most lucrative series in videogame history, and its title has become synonymous with real-time strategy (RTS). Yet, the basis of the game was not original. Dune II, from the same developer, had previously established the RTS genre, and C&C was almost identical in many respects. What made C&C such a sensation was its refinement of Dune II’s gameplay ideas with the addition of several key innovations, which set the standard for all games of the genre to come. Internet play and varied styles of play between the different armies in the game were some of the important advances that are now fundamental to RTS. Furthermore, C&C’s flaws clearly showed some areas in which improvement was possible.”

Pacing

With people setting up for multiplayer sessions, it soon became apparent that Warcraft: Orcs and Humans took too much time off people’s phone lines. Blizzard felt they had a chance to increase popularity of the genre by making the game faster (allowing more players to play, and more games to actually be completed).

As a result, they’ve made the game faster in many ways, most notably through unit movement (which had both an effect on economy and combat).

The expected outcome was to make games shorter and insure people could play more often, but there were also a few byproducts that were introduced by this new “pacing”:

Because the game was faster, player mastery over the input became critical once more. The game slowly shifted away from a tactical game (such as Warcraft: Orcs and Humans) and entered the realm of the dreaded APM (Actions per minute). Here, the problem was not necessarily UX (such as in Dune II), as the game effectively provided tools developed during Warcraft: Orcs and Humans (multi-selection, command hotkeys, control groups), but the effect was similar: an average player would feel there was too much to do and would need to prioritize the most meaningful micro-management-intensive actions at any given time.

Another byproduct of the increased pacing were the strategic implications that came along. Since units still took a fair bit of time to be created, but units moved faster, it meant that the ratio of time to create a unit vs moving it somewhere on the map increased. In essence, it diminished the defender’s advantage significantly: units would take the same time to be created, but it wouldn’t take as long as before to bring these units as reinforcements, insuring the defender wouldn’t benefit as much from having a “higher unit count” when defending his base.

As the defender’s advantage was diminished, turtling became much less potent, and the game really became about projecting one’s force across the map and control it as early as possible (both to see enemy incursions before they occured, and to control resources).

These considerable changes to pacing, though they may not appear to be much, are one of the key elements that would stick in future installments and one of the last cornerstones of a “Blizzard-style RTS”. All future Blizzard RTS followed in Warcraft II’s wake (Starcraft I & II, Warcraft III) along with several other competitive RTS.

Streamlined

In Warcraft 2, time is streamlined. Actions are meant to be fast-paced, putting more emphasis on player execution than strategy. It puts the player under rush and leads the player with the most nerves to victory.

Units are more expandable, and the unit cap has been raised, shifting focus to constant streams of military production.
Economic upgrades also reduce the need for peasants by a bit, further focusing on military production.
To accommodate this slight shift, the multi-selection tool is extended to 9 units to improve maneuverability, and single-click actions (right clicking) allows for quick orders.

The concept of Roads is removed from the game altogether, removing building placement restrictions. With the inclusion of watch-towers, which are defensive buildings, it is now possible to guard any specific position on the map with extra support. Even offensively when needed.

To support “free-building”, it is now possible to erect town halls and some proxy-buildings that allow resource gathering, reducing/annihilating the need for supply lines at a very cheap price. Concentration of forces becomes more prevalent as a result.

Although most of these changes appear simple, they change the game’s nature: Where Warcraft: Orcs and Humans was all about trying to protect long supply lines of peasants cutting distant forests or fetching gold from remote gold mines, the game now starts to look more like “expansions” (small bases) with economical or military focus. It teaches the player that this is the way to play the game now, and it looks nothing like the previous game.

Fog of War 2.0: The “Shroud” regrows…

Yet, there are a few innovations in Warcraft II. One of the most important is the Shroud. Up to this point, most games dealing with “fog of war” only gave the impression of the unknown. The map was covered in darkness, but as soon as a unit revealed a portion of the map, it would remain visible forever.

The original fog of war was more about discovering the “landscape” and much less so keeping tabs on enemy movement.

The Shroud, or fog of war 2.0, actually regrows when there are no units with line of sight to a portion of the map. The landscape itself remains, as this is fairly static, but the knowledge of enemy troops and buildings becomes vague: units are no longer shown, and buildings only reveal the last known status of a given area (disregarding any changes that may have been operated later).

This is an ideal inclusion for a multiplayer game as it forces players to spread their forces to have the information they need. They are likely to spy on their enemies to know what’s coming their way, and it makes it that much better. It is such a good system in fact that it will remain largely unchanged until Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty (but more on that later).

One too many resources? – The Black Gold Case

Since the dawn of time… well not really, but since Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, the idea of more resources had been considered. Dune II had only 1: spice melange. Warcraft: Orcs and Humans had 2, but actually had 3 during development (the third one being rocks I believe).
The development team behind Warcraft II chose to move forward with the idea of a third resource, one that would unlock another facet of the game. Their choice was to have an “advanced” resource only available in the mid to late-game that would provide access to more advanced units (naval) and unit upgrades (some of which affect non-naval units).

Unlike Age of Empires, in order to erect a fleet, a player would need to have control over water before being able to claim their right to it, and tentatively, the first player to dominate the seas could deny access to his opponent and perform interdiction missions to raid its borders. The only means to escape this would be to utilize air units.

This was a tricky move given that oil was not necessarily employed to build more powerful units, but rather, to unlock a different layer of the terrain which was, in several maps, optional. This rendered oil somewhat superfluous. Its legacy however, is that it inspired the concept of a resource that would only become available with some form of investment, and would be helpful for more advance units. Though this can arguably said of lumbers (used to build archers) there was no real form of investment, and it was already necessary for building construction. This concept would later become used in other games such as Starcraft (Vespene Gas).

The Z Axis! – Air units

Air units really made their debut in Warcraft II. They allowed to trade high amounts of resources to take advantage of free-movement. This allowed both access to very efficient scouting units (Zeppelins) and all-terrain capable strike units (dragons, gryphons).

The air units also helped counter-balance the naval units’ economic issue (can’t build some if you can’t control the sea first), but they also allowed to bypass terrain collisions and strike from unexpected angles, fast, and relatively unscathed when desired. This greatly diminished the value of ground units (though they were still stronger on average in 1v1 encounters) and improved the value of mixed arms tactics.

Air units have since been included in many RTS games (specifically those that value mixed arms tactics over maneuverability).

Map Editor

One of the key elements bundled along with Warcraft II was the Level Editor: a simple yet very efficient means to create additionnal levels for the game (playable in multiplayer) which would make the game last much longer. In a Blizzard-style RTS, the level-editor became de-facto (Starctaft, Warcraft III and Starcraft II replicated this) often leading to very popular maps that would evolve into spinoff games/genres (DOTA/LOL or the MOBA genre is often said to be born from a Warcraft III mod).

Starcraft

Starcraft is a personal favorite, so I’ll do my best and try to remain grounded. It was a great, acclaimed game when it was released, and to this day, it spawned the only Blizzard RTS series that is still active (Warcraft’s last installment was Warcraft III, and Blizzard has demonstrated no interest in pursuing the series, finding its RPG elements much more interesting to exploit).

Asymmetry

Starcraft’s obvious legacy is pure assymetry. Unlike previous installments of the RTS genre that used a set of similar units or at least economic precepts, Starcraft breaks several rules to bring alive 3 radically different factions (which must’ve been a nightmare to try and balance, as would attest all of the patches it has endured).

This metamorphosis is so deeply encroached in the design that even the “builder” or “economic” units vary greatly.

For example, while the Terran SCV (builder) is fairly mainstream (stays at construction site for the duration of the construction, and then resumes its duties), the Protoss Probe can start the construction of buildings and immediately leave while the Zerg’s Drone actually needs to be sacrificed in the process to generate a living building.

Furthermore, each faction has placement limitations that are unique to them (Terrans can build anywhere, Protoss need to setup a power network of Pylons, and Zergs must extend their creep).

Their Unit capacity is also determined by different means. The Terrans must build a structure that is specifically used to improve their food count, whereas the Protoss have bundled this ability together with their Pylon (already used for placement limitations) and the Zerg have simply tasked one of their units (the Overlord) with production the necessary sustainment for their army.

Lastly, units from each faction differ also in how they handle damage:

The Terrans take damage, and beyond a certain threshold, their structures will start to burn. They can repair damage with their builder unit but only for structures and vehicles, and they have a dedicated medic unit to heal wounds of their organic units.

The Protoss have shields which regenerate very quickly (particularly useful between encounters), but once their life is damaged, they can’t heal it back to full.

The Zergs are all Organic units and have a persistent (although slow) regeneration rate which allows them to run interference and perform hit-and-run tactics more efficiently.

Not only do they not share any unit, but all of their units are functionally different:

The basic Terran unit is actually a ranged unit (the Marine) whereas the Protoss field a formidable melee unit (the Zealot) and yet the Zergs resort to quantity (2 Zerglings in the same egg).

Their tech-tree is altogether different, and “Tiers” are experienced through different means:

The Terrans can attach specific add-ons to their buildings (comsat, machine shop, etc.) to unlock specific upgrades and units.

The Protoss rely strongly upon building inter-dependancy (need X to build Y).

The Zergs must upgrade their Hive to higher levels in order to unlock further buildings.

Overall, each faction feels nothing alike, and it is very hard for a player that has experience with a single faction to know what to expect from his opponents. It emphasizes play experience and planning over tactics but is still largely thrumped by APM…

Food Cost

A small case can be made about “food cost”. Though each faction deals with it differently, the system itself actually changed across the board. Unlike previous installments, each unit has a unique food cost. A Zealot, for example, is worth 2 food, whereas a Marine is worth only 1, and Zerglings are worth 0.5.

Though this may appear as a small change, it changes the game by a wide margin. The problem with earlier titles is that it was actually preferable to save on resources and max the food count with higher tier units (just ogres or knights in Warcraft II, for example, was strictly better than just grunts or footmen).

An adjusted food count changes that by making each unit worth exactly what it should be, and this encourages players not to hold back: when a player fields a 200 food count army he is a formidable opponent, regardless of what tier they are in. And just because his opponent can field 150 food with strictly superior units doesn’t mean he has any chance to win the encounter.

The main advantage of this system is that lower-tier units remain relevant throughout the game match, and the encounter feels less like a tech-race to the best unit and more like a game of blitz rock-paper-scissor. Players need to open up their options and retain an ability to shift production focus at a moment’s notice to better counter their enemies.

Siege tanks, for example, are a formidable threat against ground units and can be fielded in numbers to secure a win, but they still need the support of marines to prevent zergling swarms from rushing in, or air units from dispatching them.

No unit thrumps it all.

Tiered Logic

Starcraft has a “Tiered Logic” where there are logical steps to take in order to progress along any axis of the tech tree. One of its key tools is the inclusion of a tiered resource: The Vespene Geyser (Vespere Gas).

Unlike previous installements that included secondary resources such as “Wood”, the Vespene Geysers require a hefty investment in resource and time to unlock (Refinery) and have a much more limited income (maxed output with 3 worker units) capacity. The ramifications of these limitations are numerous, but at its core, it permits (and dictates) the concept of a Tiered Logic.

Units that require only minerals to build (and are built from buildings that require only minerals) then obviously become the most readily available (tier 1) and any unit that requires a single building investent of Gas or has a limited Gas cost itself becomes a slightly more important investment (tier 2).

Likewise, further investments of Gas (either through multiple buildings, or higher gas cost) relegate units to further tiers along the tree.

These tiers are a balancing tool that players can learn to rely on: they know, for a fact, that unit X cannot appear before Y units of time into the game, simply because of the logical steps that need to be taken towards getting the necessary gas investment to get there.

Furthermore, it ensures that player can strategize and optimize their resource collection to take advantage of this: a well-prepared player can shift to tier 2 units much more efficiently than a rookie, and can oftentimes claim a decisive advantage for doing so at the right time.

Knowing “when” to build a refinery, and how many to build becomes key to mastering that tiered logic. The elaborate tech tree of each faction creates a large number of permutations and an acute observer may be able to tell a player’s strategy just by the timing of refineries being built, or the amount of units shifting from minerals to gas.

While previous installments sometimes had forced tiers (upgrading the townhall in Warcraft II for example) the tiered logic approach is much more organic and opens up more possibilities. Coupled with actual unit food, this gives players several opportunities and freedom of choice on whether to evolve at all or use of the lower-tier tactics (bio-ball for example).

Battle.net

Starcraft, unlike its predecessors, was released through Battle.net, Blizzard’s online gaming platform. It allowed several multiplayer “metagame” features such as ladders (which would keep scores of win/losses/draws for individual players).

It was also a very efficient platform to match-up 8 players together and provided a number of game modes (including custom scenario).

From simply joining up with a friend through dialup, players could now jump into the fray and faceoff with up to 7 random strangers (or friends) from the internet without having to wait. There was always someone online to play against and playing Starcraft no longer required tuning one’s agenda with friends’.

This contributed to the then rising phenomenon of playing against or with strangers. This also confronted more players to the “online norm” as far as playing skill was concerned, instead of focusing on small pockets of players that would play locally against one another. In essence, this contributed to strategies emerging at an alarming rate, then shifting what many would refer to as the “metagame” (strategies that tend to be dominant solely because certain strategies are in vogue amongst the large populace).

For example, building a supply depot close by a ramp to limit access was not necessarily considered a “good move” by gameplay mechanics’ standards, but after a lot of players followed the 4, 5 or 6 pool rush tactics, it became an invaluable means of breaking early zerging rushes. Likewise, dark templars are a very circumstancial unit, but they became much more potent against volley of protoss players that would play “4 Gate Goon”. Devoid of the metagame that came along with Battle.net’s existence, all of these are doubtful approaches, but in the context of a globalized gaming hub, players were much more likely to face similar strategies reccurently and devise plans to defeat them rather than optimize their “general” strategy.

Balance & Execution

There’s an undeniable portion of “new” in Stacraft. The unique brand, assymetrical design and tiered logic prove this. But Starcraft shines mostly by its brilliant balance.
Coming along assymetrical design came the arduous task of unit balancing: How could matches be kept “balanced” all the while offering drastically different options?

Never before had an RTS put so much emphasis on its Patches. Frequently, patches would be released to counter emerging strategies in the metagame, and insure that skillful play was always encouraged. But the core release itself was already quite a piece of work.

The player community helped shape this balance, always seeking ways to break it (reverse-engineering the exact calculations behind the game). In the end, though Starcraft remains imperfect, it is very close to an evenly matched game, and player input has so much power on that balance that it is almost impossible to abuse dominant strategies: there’s a counter to everything, you just need to have sufficient experience to know what it is.

As a result, Starcraft is another shining example of execution. I would even argue that its popularity stemmed from the mere fact it was closer to chess than any other RTS before its time (although, arguably, an asymmetric version of chess such as Tafl).

Unlike most predecessors, Starcraft handles damage in a very deterministic way, making each outcome known, and limiting hidden information to the fog of war / shroud. This minimizes the amount of gambling and emphasizes the value of min/maxing.

One needs only venture at TeamLiquid to notice how much thought has been put towards trying to find the best counter to everything. Determining when to get these precious weapon upgrades, for example, can be quantified almost easily!

Culmination

The following years would bring us many quality games, and exciting experiences.

For the most part, however, it is hard to determine what trully distinguishes Starcraft I from Starcraft II, Dune 2000 from Emperor Dune, or even Ages of Empire from most of the aforementionned games. Though the branding, visual quality and feel of these games would feel drastically different, they would remain mechanically the same.

It is true that Stacraft 2 introduced Xel’naga towers, removed fog of war (in multiplayer only: keeping only the “shroud” as most pro players knew the maps by heart anyway) but overall, it is still the same game.

It is true that Emperor Dune introduced new units, making each faction more asymmetrical, but it was still Dune 2(000) at its core.

Even Age of Empires II did not bring much to the table despite being one of the most well-executed games in the genre. It had more resources, which, much like Vespene Gas, affected how players would go about securing them.

Though game balancing kept evolving, the mold of what an RTS was supposed to be appeared to be crystallized in such a way that very few risked venturing away from the conventions. To a degree, the genre became stale.

The Second Age of RTS is still present to this day. Successful titles such as Starcraft II are nothing more than well-executed “second age” RTS games, but they do it well. As their tech tree would allow, they’ve chosen to remain at a lower “tier” but came up with fierce strategies to dominate, and are alive to this day simply because they keep getting better.

An acute observer might rightfully point out that I’m – intentionally – leaving several poignant examples aside. Up to this point, I’ve assumed that all development studios have focused exclusively on the “race for multiplayer”, never attempting to introduce different core mechanics to the game.

This couldn’t be further from the truth, but it helped me separate these games that do fit the mold from the “others”, which I’ll discuss in Part 4. If you’re into that sort of thing… stay tuned!


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