RTS News: Supreme Commander Interview

[Llyranor]

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/inter...y.php?id=132861

 

"Supreme Commander is a next-generation RTS game which takes command and control over a theatre of war to the next level. It gives players unprecedented control over land, sea and air in ways that they've never experienced both in scale, the number of units, the size of the units and the size of the maps that they can play on."

 

"The game is a simulation, not a rock, paper, scissors style game. It has a gritty realism on the battlefield where common sense actually works, where you don't get surprised by any arbitrary game rules. We're pushing the boundaries in so many ways - the scope and scale, the size of the units, the size of the maps, the ways in which you can coordinate attacks and set waypoints and adjust them on the fly. You can build a structure, then before it's complete issue build orders to it, so when you come back to it you can see tanks rolling out of your factories without having to micro-manage them. This is stuff we wanted that just makes the game experience more intuitive and fun."

 

"it's a simulation which means artillery shoots further on hills, so any time you've got tanks engaging, the ones on higher ground are going to shoot further and you're going to take a big piece of the enemy's arse before they get a chance to return fire. Hold down tactics work where the profile of the tanks is greatly reduced because of its position on the hill, you get both a targeting and a range advantage. All of the flanking tactics work exactly the way they would - they work naturally. If you read tactics in a book you could employ them in the game."

 

"The goal with the full strategic view is to give players a true picture of the whole battlefield. Before you had the mini-map and it was painful because you really didn't have the resolution or detail. Not only do we have the ability to zoom out and see the full theatre of war but you can issue commands. It's remarkable at how useful and powerful it is. This game gives players, for the first time ever, a complete idea of the entire picture so that they can make really informed and effective decisions about how to deploy, where to set up a base, or build a radar tower, or spot defensive holes - things like that."

 

"To make it easy, all of the usual RTS mechanics will work, like selecting every unit of the same kind. We haven't implemented it yet but triple clicking will give you access to every unit of that kind in the entire world, so I can rally every bomber I've got of that kind to that point with three clicks. The drag selection mechanism works whether you're zoomed in or out, so you can zoom to strategic level and drag select over an entire region of the world to select those units. You can shift click to order commands, you can change those commands on the fly - you get all your feedback system like ETA and time on top, which is basically a military term which means when that unit is going to be at that location. I can then pick another unit and give it a path coming around from the side and use that to make sure that they arrive at the same time."

________

 

For those who haven't heard or read up on SupCom, consider this narrative:

 

"Imagine, if you will, a tank. It's a full-on beast: wide base, massive treads, two enormous cannons, independently rotating turret, surface details including antennas and whirling radar dishes, you name it. As it rumbles powerfully along the 3D landscape it leaves twin tread marks in the sand. Smaller vehicles will skitter around it, powersliding across the terrain, but the tank is a rock: it moves with weight and power. Next, imagine taking your mousewheel and spinning it, slowly moving the camera out. Your tank is not alone; dozens more are continually spewing from a factory, rolling out to join the first. Most real-time strategy games stop there, but not Supreme Commander. As you keep panning out, a shoreline becomes visible, and just offshore sits a battleship.

 

The battleship is enormous. Compared to the tank, the side of the hull is a wall of steel. The huge ship doesn't fit on a single screen, no, you have to keep zooming out to take it all in. The deck of this monstrosity is surrounded by independently-rotating anti-aircraft guns, each one bigger than the tank. Mighty columns of steel rotating on gigantic turrets signify the battleship's main bombardment guns: the screen shakes when they fire, and they can hurl giant shells as big as a car for miles inland. Compared to the battleship, the tank is a tiny little bundle of pixels. But wait... you can keep scrolling.

 

As you pan back, you see that the battleship is not alone. It's surrounded by a flotilla of cruisers and destroyers, surrounding aircraft carriers in formation and leaving rippling white wakes in the blue sea. Subs drift menacingly along the outskirts of the fleet, only their conning towers breaking the surface of the ocean. At this scale, the curving shore of the main landmass is visible, and the tanks are so small that they are now represented by icons. No more than dots, really. But this mass of arms on the coast is just a tiny part of the action happening around the globe. As you keep panning out, even your enormous fleets become little more than symbols on the map, representing your enormous ground, naval, and air forces. At this level you can give commands to your fleets, your army, your air force: "fly here, attack here, coordinate to invade this landmass simultaneously..." War is fought on a massive scale. You're not just futzing with little squads of men or tanks: You are the Supreme Commander."

 

... Look at the size of this map.

http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/65...30113026642.jpg

 

I'll be glad to post more info/resources about the game if you guys want.

Edited January 21, 2006 by Llyranor

[Calax]

drooooooool Cough cough droool

[Nick_i_am]

<3<3<3<3<3

[Musopticon?]

[Nick_i_am]

I am a Total Annihilation fanboy, so this is obviously exciting news to me, but ignoring that, this could really help bring a new face to 'RTSs' which have stagnated probably worse than any other genere (that are actually selling).

 

All this time, a good 10 years, and TA is STILL my favorate RTS, with the only other game matching it being Dawn of War. This isn't fanboyism, it's simply that no other RTS since has done as many things right.

[kumquatq3]

I'm guessing we don't see this till 07 tho

 

 

and could someone get Starcraft 2 going sometime before I die?

[Llyranor]

And another interview

http://www.totalvideogames.com/articles/Su..._0_0_0_0_20.htm

[Gabrielle]

WoW.

[Deraldin]

All this time, a good 10 years, and TA is STILL my favorate RTS, with the only other game matching it being Dawn of War. This isn't fanboyism, it's simply that no other RTS since has done as many things right.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

No, it's simply your opinion. Mine happens to be that it totally failed to grab my attention for more than an hour. Granted I only got the game as a gift for christmas just over a year ago now, however coming off a Red Alert binge it was just missing that vital something to keep me interested. Hopefully Supreme Commander will have that something because it really does look like a good game.