Starcraft Vs. SupCom

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 2:57 am

Why would anyone ever play starcraft when TA has beaten it to the punch and likely done it far better AGAIN with Supreme Commander?

And I think its no coincidence supreme commander abbreviates to SC, its a spit in blizzard's eye for sucking so much.

Draco_Argentum · Post by **Draco_Argentum** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 9:36 am

SC is horrible multiplayer because the games take too long. Even my TA fanatic friends don't like SupCom and we were playing TA with Uberhack in 2002-2003

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 1:12 pm

SC is horrible multiplayer because the games take too long.

Er what?

OK so I mostly play it lans with a small circle of friends but...

A game on a small map can easily be over at about 15 minutes. And will be very unlikely to last beyond 30.

A medium map with four players generally takes us about 30 to 60 minutes and is usually over at 40 to 45.

At the limits of hard core playing it seems you can scrape an experimental or a nuke out at around 25 to 27 minutes, even with other production and some skirmishes on the way, and in medium or larger maps that just becomes easier.

If absolutely no one can manage to use their endless waves of exploding robots to destroy their enemies then at about 1 hour to 1 hour and five minutes someone should get out a major game winner like rapid fire artillery, the Aeon endless resource factory, or just piles of nukes or big nasty units capable of ending any stalemate.

If players CAN fight each other to a standstill in endless skirmishes that destroy such vast swathes of ALL their economies to somehow avoid or seriously delay the various discrete points in the game where someone gets a damn good chance at the win by getting there about 2 minutes before the others and draw the game out any longer... Well that's pretty damn cool.

But really, is a game that is unlikely to run over 1 hour really that long? Or do you just have some masochistic need to play only on the extra stupidly large maps that it takes nearly forever even to fly an air unit over. Because I'm pretty sure the stupidly large maps are intended specifically for stupidly large games...

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 5:29 pm

Draco_Argentum wrote:SC is horrible multiplayer because the games take too long. Even my TA fanatic friends don't like SupCom and we were playing TA with Uberhack in 2002-2003

I've watched a friend play it occasionally and from what I saw I've found that it's not that good.
Graphics took too much to render, making the game slow as fuck in big battles.
Too much complexity.
And, of course, took a damned long time to beat any map or finish a 1v1. Don't even care to estimate how long a 4v4 would go in the game... or is that not even possible?

StarCraft used animated sprites rather than 3D models, which is near-universally easy to load and even mapfuls of carnage don't slow the multiplayer sessions at all (unless some dickwad has a 56k modem, which, yes, some Americans still used on Battlenet), but that will change with SC2.
My biggest concern with the new game is the capacity for this 4 year old eMachines shit to handle it.
Anyone have a comparison between SupCom and SC2 specs as far as rendering requirements?

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 8:19 pm

Koreans buy the most copies.

They pay to watch other people play the game. They pay people to play the game.

So... TA has a long row to hoe before it has the impact of StarCraft.

-Crissa

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 10:47 pm

First of all I sure as heck do NOT appreciate any game released four years behind current hardware. I want games that actually use the available technology well, if you can't render Supreme Commander, or even Star Craft 2 that's your problem NOT a problem with the games.

And a game four years behind on hardware also tends to be four, or more, years behind on game play and that is both unforgivable, and absolutely typical of Blizzard products.

As for Korean popularity. That sort of popularity doesn't make something a GOOD game, just a popular one. I mean some of the best computer games ever are really rather unknown, Battlezone 2, Sacrifice, Samurai, heck even the greatest game ever, X-COM, is relatively unknown and unplayed compared to that standard.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 1:31 am

Seoul shoul be renamed StarCraftopolis.
But yes, I know. And while I claim to be a good player I ain't "gosu".
... a state of SC-devoted geekitude that includes a tendency to bunker or zergling rush within the first few minutes of every session and only works against other Koreans performing the same narrowminded stunt.

They can do what they want. It helps pay for Blizzard Software's development, and that's fine by me.
I am a tad pissed about the tendency for Koreans to clog American Battlenet servers and yet avoid finishing (or even rarer, accept at all) 1v1 matches with us non-Koreans.
Their offensive bunker was destroyed? 1-2 marines killed by a sunken colony? They quit.
6 zerglings killed by your drones/SCVs/probes? They quit.
1-2 zealots defeated? They quit.

The good ones (jjang, whatever) must be playing in Korean-only servers.
I really wouldn't know.
Maybe I've only met the California variety online (but oddly all the East coast Koreans I've met don't even play StarCraft! too buisy making artwork. go figure.)

PhoneLobster wrote:First of all I sure as heck do NOT appreciate any game released four years behind current hardware. I want games that actually use the available technology well, if you can't render Supreme Commander, or even Star Craft 2 that's your problem NOT a problem with the games.

And a game four years behind on hardware also tends to be four, or more, years behind on game play and that is both unforgivable, and absolutely typical of Blizzard products.

Blizzard's success speaks for itself.
And when enough people can't render the Best Games Out There it becomes an issue of accessability. StarCraft works fine on very basic computers, which makes it readily available to a wider audience, which means more people play, etc, etc.

WoW is a product of that development strategy. It ain't the best graphics, but it works.
For instance, I can't run Second Life on this PC. All that renders are blocky, crude blobs. Maybe some hair. And then it crashes.
In short, this PC does not allow me to access the experience of Second Life.
WoW, on the other hand, I can run. So any online gamer with this same shitty hardware would then naturally be excluded to the latter even while Second Life has better graphics.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 2:16 am

The requirement that you have a computer that is about 2 years old (and that's a fairly ungenerous estimate for supcom and most games that actually don't look like stone age shit, as Blizzards stuff uniformly happens to) is not a stringent requirement.

A four year old computer is a computer nearing the end of its functional life span ANYWAY. Your power source is probably half burnt out, your processor, memory and hard disk running at far from their optimal levels and any moment the whole thing is likely to suffer from some critical failure that means you will be lucky to see a boot screen.

If you demand that NEW games be made to run on THAT then you are a fucking idiot and I hate you for the damage you are doing to the art form.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 2:20 am

Funny. I have a laptop I got Christmas in 2002. I have computers made ten years ago.

If you keep up the parts, they work fine. Power Supplies shouldn't ever fail, unless they've been made wrong - it's not an hours thing. Only thing which has an hours operation life on a computer is the batteries and moving parts - fans, drives, magnetic media.

All the components and circuit boards can last indefinitely.

-Crissa

(Although you're right on the technical curve; every 18 months, speeds double, capacity doubles, new abilities come out. But an RTS needs to be able to run the same speed no matter how many units are on the screen - so it can't push the curve too much compared to other games.)

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 2:57 am

If you keep up the parts, they work fine. Power Supplies shouldn't ever fail, unless they've been made wrong -

I worked with and repaired a lot of computers in my old job, and outside of it.

I don't think I've opened ANY computer power source of over 3 years in age that hasn't had SOME component in it singed or burnt or (surprisingly often) even buckled out like it exploded. And THE most common failure points, by far, I have encountered in computers of 3-4 years in age has always been the power source.

And if you are replacing parts in your computer, its not actually a million year old computer, its a computer made up of a various parts of lesser age than that.

Apart from that almost every (strike that, EVERY) component in a computer made in the last 6+ years has moving parts, fans, magnetic media or combinations of those things...

Anyway, 2 years is a damn good standard for target compatibility for a game release, its not too ridiculous an entry requirement and it means you've still got another good 2 years or so playing the game on the same machine afterward purchase.

You can have your 6+ year old lap top and use it to run your 6+ year old software, and that's fine, I'd personally not use it for anything important due to the potential added difficulty of repair or recovery but whatever.

But if you actually want to pretend that the fact that you can't run some new game on it is a valid criticism of the game...

I mean fuck, Assassin's creed must totally suck, I can't play it on my Amiga...

Mind you I'm not going to preserve Supreme Commander from ALL criticism, its a wonderful game with great support and almost everything good about TA with some small additional bells and whistles, but it IS more resource intensive on systems than is justifiable, as evidenced if by nothing else than by a small fan made application which can eliminate noticeable performance problems by fixing poor multi threading, especially in the otherwise much improved Forged Alliance version.

Between that and the fact that game play and interface is only MODERATELY revolutionary I feel it is a partial let down from that particular developer who usually manages to produce beautiful VERY revolutionary games that DON'T actually strain system resources.

But I am pretty damn confident that there is no way in hell that star craft two will be even remotely as fun to play, beautifully balanced, or as pretty. It MIGHT have lower system requirements, but then I think that's rather optimistic of Blizzards fans and implies that their low system requirements are the result of a charitable and deliberate decision rather than incompetent over blown development times and just plain poor use of technology. I wouldn't be too surprised to see a "requires Windows Vista" appear on it's box.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 4:22 am

Um... Wow, what a wasteful view of the world.

What was invented in the last six years which utterly changes how you use your computer? What super-duper thing can't it do now? Video games are just one thing.

And dude, not repairing and maintaining your stuff? Lame.

Also, I can still go to the manufacturer and they'll replace/repair any part for a flat fee... And some parts like fans and drives are standard across all computers, and can be just bought new. And my computer? Can be found on the open market for $450 (oddly, the larger version could be found at $300).

-Crissa

PS, all Blizzard PC games have run on the Mac. So they probably won't be Vista-only.

Count Arioch the 28th · Fri Apr 18, 2008 4:42 am

I'm not worried about "Vista-only" labels on products. Us Linux users see that as a challenge, not an absolute.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 5:43 am

Count_Arioch_the_28th wrote:I'm not worried about "Vista-only" labels on products. Us Linux users see that as a challenge, not an absolute.

Now, that's the attitude to have. Yarr.

SphereOfFeetMan · Post by **SphereOfFeetMan** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 6:16 am

A quick check on wikipedia states that Starcraft 2 will be on: Windows Xp, Vista, and Mac OS X.

Gamespot stated the following about Supreme Commander:

Gamespot Review wrote:The downside is that Supreme Commander can bring the most modern PCs to their knees. Since the game is keeping track and simulating hundreds of units over such a large area, it doesn't take much before the frame rate will start to stutter. On our test machine with a dual core CPU and 2GB of RAM, we experienced slight pauses on the humongous 81k-by-81k map. On smaller maps with a larger set of AI opponents, the action slowed to a virtual crawl as the system strained to keep up with the action. It's doubtful that a PC has been built yet that can run Supreme Commander's largest map with a full set of AI opponents at high graphics detail. Thankfully, you can adjust the graphical settings quickly and without having to restart the game, so if the battle starts to chug, you can simply go to the options menu and lower the visual detail to smooth out the frame rate.

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/sup ... iew&page=2

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 6:53 am

Um... Wow, what a wasteful view of the world.

And dude, not repairing and maintaining your stuff? Lame.

It's not a wasteful world view, its recognition of the fact that these fragile components are not designed to last that long, and that personally repairing them is impossible. Your supposed "old" computer you describe is a collection of REPLACED parts, not repaired, let alone "maintained" ones.

It is utterly sensible and reasonable within a regime of unavoidable part replacement to UPGRADE rather than simply replace with the same component.

And this...

And some parts like fans and drives are standard across all computers

Is a statement that is itself not entirely true, and somewhat of a diversion from the fact that many, if not all, other basic components are not just sub optimal but outright incompatible with their equivalents within a mere few years of their age.

So replacing and upgrading parts means that from time to time you are going to have to replace a number of other components, for instance replacing any one of, memory, processor, mother board, or graphics card with a component with about a 3 year age difference will pretty much necessitate that you change them all.

If you avoid needlessly and wastefully staggering your component replacements (or "maintenance" as you call it) you can simply time it such that you replace the lot at once.

What was invented in the last six years which utterly changes how you use your computer?

The sad fact of the matter is that six years is around about the extreme limit of "backward compatibility".

If you are just say, using a word processor. It's function hasn't changed much since then. But your six year old word processor just plain won't run on a modern machine, and a modern word processor won't run on your old machine, and then worst of all the new and old word processors will have significant difficulties with their file formats.

Still like I said, if you don't give a damn about that sort of thing, or can get around it with linux or something then whatever, you can enjoy your vintage word processing experience and that is great, but...

What super-duper thing can't it do now? Video games are just one thing.

Video games happen to be the one thing I am talking about. You are effectively trying to argue that your meticulously maintained vintage electric type writer not running a modern computer game is a valid criticism of that game. Worse you are implying that for a game to be good it HAS to run on your god damned commodore 64.

The simple fact of the matter is that progression of the art form does NOT occur at the hands of groups, like Blizzard, who exclusively design uncreative derivative crap which doesn't even push the boundaries of failing outdated technology, let alone the art form itself.

Heck if you were to make a study of the history of computer games I think you might just find that Blizzard is notable and innovative only in that they were the first and ultimately one of the best at exploiting the rather corrupt field of gaming magazines and similar hype for mass marketing.

They are the fucking McDonald's of the gaming industry.

And considering that WOW was announced in 2001 and released in 2004 the fact that you MAYBE can run it on your 2002 machine is hardly a defence of their game that has been announced 2007, MAY be released in 2008 and requires a computer from an unknown time period (I'd guess 2006) against a game that was announced in 2005, released 2007 and pretty much requires at least a 2006 machine...

Personally what will really sink Star Craft 2 for me will not be the tech specs, or even the possibly shite outdated graphics, it will be when I discover that the units still have fucking retarded menus of clickable refreshing powers that have to be manually activated. That sort of thing is and always has been dead to me and all other right thinking people. DEAD I SAY.

That and their resource model, if we are lucky it will look like it was stolen wholesale from Dawn of War (because lets face it, that's Blizzards MO), which was at least good in 2004(wow, it's that old?) though its play now seems a bit dated. But odds are it will be the same peasants in finite poorly balanced mines bullshit that they have been using since they failed to wrap their heads around Spice harvesting when they stole the basic concept from Dune 2.

If they amazingly manage to create an unlimited resource system based on rate similar to supreme commander, TA, and heck even to some degree Dune fucking 2, then I will be amazed, yet pleased. Because that's pretty much a must for a good RTS.

And if their unit cap is under 500 then those units had better be more fun than fucking cocaine.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 7:23 am

tl;dr

But this made me laugh: http://youtube.com/watch?v=J160JBPtgJk

Jjang clicking too damned fast. Gawd...

And now this one will bring the End Times sooner (this was on /co/ last night): http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZIYF9exhm-Q

Edit: no sense in making a new post, here's one more: http://youtube.com/watch?v=30ZXdSdKUkY

... OK... last one...

"FUREEZA??"
http://youtube.com/watch?v=4Tg9nQ4MmDo

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 8:10 am

Gamespot stated the following about Supreme Commander

The reality of the matter is just a touch different to what they say.

It is a game that places heavy strain on systems, and in my opinion more than it really justifies for the quality.

However after some experience with it I have discovered the following. The limiting factor is not so much number of units and map size as it is number of units under AI control, and whether you are using the multi threading fix.

For some reason the game has REALLY intensive AI (not that it is very smart, its better than most, but still dumb) and the multi processor threading, especially as of the otherwise improved expansion is a bit poor.

So for a start games with only human players are significantly faster. With a variety of systems including some fairly old ones at our LANs we found we could run games with only very minimal slow down on medium maps in late game.

When I got us using the multithreading fix we didn't even have that minor problem any more, and could even play on large maps. Single player I haven't had any significant slow downs vs AI since then either.

The extra large maps MAY be another matter, I haven't tried them with the multi threading fix. Mostly because the VERY large maps are so large that even if there was never any slow down it would still take forever simply because of the scale involved.

Anyway, the fact that a (tiny but massively significant) performance fix is required is pretty much the only criticism I can level at the game. Considering its creators usually have better standards than that as expressed by almost every other facet of that and all their other games. So I am very annoyed with them, but I still remain very confident that they have produced the best most ground breaking RTS for the next several years and the Blizzard buzzards won't be the ones to come up with the next one.

And like I said, to dismiss out of hand any game your 4+ year old computer can't run is... stupid.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 6:42 pm

They're robust components that are often installed to run beyond capacity - which is why you find ones burned out.

The components are fine, it's the use and computer manufacturer that's at fault for misrepresenting the capacity.

PhoneLobster wrote:And like I said, to dismiss out of hand any game your 4+ year old computer can't run is... stupid.

Who did that?

On that point, there were new games for Gameboy Advance and PlayStation 2 out last year...

-Crissa

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 3:20 am

Nice call on the thread renaming. Was about to suggest that, too...

And to discredit the validity of PL's insult to older "unworthy" games I've been playing FF3 this week after fetching the Windows-version 1.51 of ZSNES, and it RAWKS, thank you very much.
It's old, it's cool, it's still worth playing.
Fuck, the graphics are shit, but it's no reason to give it up. (I'd rather play Broodwars but since the CD is in little 1cm fragments that's a bit difficult to do; maybe some mail-in exchange program with Blizzard? hard to buy Broodwars by itself without the guides and the original game. I just want Broodwars.)
Left off in FF3 5 years ago with 12 hours play time and no higher than 19th level. Kept finding other stuff to do....
My party was somewhere in the Imperial town where Locke and 2 others must sneak by the randomly circling soldiers or get kicked out.
Renders a little too fast with the Sprint Boots on so the emu must run on 1/2 game speed for that sneaking scene.
It's very fun.
And old.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 3:38 am

I am deeply saddened by the loss of the ignore function in the move.

And to discredit the validity of PL's insult to older "unworthy" games

So did you really not read my posts as your retarded short hand so proudly claims or is it that you just CAN'T.

I got no problems with old games, check my list of classics on the video games thread and there is even one old enough to have an EGA/CGA/VGA graphics option on start up.

What would be stupid is pretending that releasing a NEW game now that is in fact just FF3 technology and game play is somehow a good thing.

Who did that?

Among other references...

My biggest concern with the new game is the capacity for this 4 year old eMachines shit to handle it.

Backed by your arguments that it is wasteful not to be running that 4+ year old machine.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 7:49 am

Crissa wrote: On that point, there were new games for Gameboy Advance and PlayStation 2 out last year...

That's because no-one likes the PS3 (though I hear it's been starting to get good games lately), and I imagine the GBA ones were Pokemon Fire Red/Leaf Green, remakes of Red and Green so that they can trade/upload to Diamond/Sapphire on the DS with the GBA slot?

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 8:23 am

The PS3 has only been out a year and is still way future-tech. Heck, it has a Blu-ray player in it, a serious multi-core processor, and you'd be lucky if amy Windows game used multi cores, let alone well, let lone some new-tech processor.

Anyhow, I haven't even liked any of the games for the XBox 360, either, aside from the titles that would've run on other platforms but Microsoft paid them not to release elsewhere... Which is annoying.

Why do you release FF3 again?

Why do people still read Shakespeare?

-Crissa

Draco_Argentum · Post by **Draco_Argentum** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 9:15 am

PhoneLobster wrote:What would be stupid is pretending that releasing a NEW game now that is in fact just FF3 technology and game play is somehow a good thing.

Unfortunately this is what new games are in general with the exception of updated graphics. New tech is great, if its used to do something original. When all you get is better graphics its just making me buy more hardware to play a game that could've been done in the Unreal engine.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 9:28 am

Pardons.... FF6 is the official title and fixed title for the PS remake (with intro movie! gawd).
FF3 was the title for the first American release.

SunTzuWarmaster · Post by **SunTzuWarmaster** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 12:51 pm

Just for the record, the Cell processor kicks ass. However, it takes a serious freaking learning curve to do it right/well/at all. The game developers are just now starting to get a hold of all of the in-processor threading.

BTW, if you are interested, grab a copy of Linux (Fedora 6) and the IBM SDK and you can start writing your very own SPU programs.