What you say is true to a certain extent I guess. I mean I play Starcraft competitively, but I like my SupCom games big and epic. If I wanted to play SupCom competitively, I'd just play Starcraft. There is no reason why both types of players can't coexist. In fact, I welcome any balance changes that are supported by the more competitive players, even though I don't player SupCom that way.

Supcom 2 is great, this is NOT a hate post

however I see two things wrong with supcom 2.
1. The scale of units and maps, to small for supcom, this includes unit range to size ratio, right now it looks like the tanks are VERY inaccurate
2. Flow economy please!

I can't really speak for SC2's gameplay, but in FA, there were two different problems preventing an epic-scale game at the competitive level: on small maps, a high-pressure game didn't allow enough excess mass to tech significantly, while large maps became a contest of econ multiplication, skipping over 90% of the tech tree.

These outcomes were simply a natural result of playing the game as efficiently as possible, and thus unavoidable in competitive play. I'm sure plenty of high-level players would have loved to see more variety and strategy in the competitive game, but most attempts to get fresh with the formula would result in defeat. So you have these huge chunks of the game that become increasingly unusable as the competition becomes more intense.

Contrast this with StarCraft, where pretty much any general strategy/tech path that works in a casual game is also viable in a competitive game, just applied with greater speed, precision and micromanagement.

My point is, the game's overall arc / tech path has to be designed with competitive balance in mind, and casual play will follow. Otherwise you risk a severe narrowing of options as skill level rises and the 'best' way to play becomes the only way to play.

There is only one game so far that I can say I truly enjoyed in its vanilla state: Age of Empires 3 with its 2 expansions.

But if modding was not important to sales why was SupCom 2 advertised in interviews with CT to be capable of modding? Sure, marketing SupCom 2 to different audiences will pick up a new fan base, but pre-release, the SupCom 2 fan base was the fan base of FA and TA, both of which have heavily mod-oriented communities. If CT said pre-release that SupCom 2 would not have mod support, then that would be like him putting a gun to his head. Therefore, GPG did rely on the effect that modding had on the existent fan base. Both TA and FA are niche communities, so to say that most people who play these games would not use mods is, I think, really downplaying it.

TA is the largest modding community for any game. Put together, there are something like 6000 custom units in existence. Look at the TA community now. It's still alive and well because of its support for modding. TA is successful because of that. People like a game that they can customize to their liking.

As for distinguishing two groups of gamers, what's wrong with producing a game capable of catering to both groups? That can only increase your sales. If people like to play the game SimCity-style, then let them. But, unfortunately, it's an SE decision, which is limited by the capabilities of other platforms to accommodate different gameplay styles. If Xbox was capable of supporting an FA/TA onslaught, then GPG could do very well in sales by simply shipping the game with 2 game modes and letting the player choose.

TA had no mod support. You can mod it like you can mod SupCom 2; by hacking game files. I don't see why you keep bringing this up, when it proves the opposite of your point - that a game can have a mod community without mod support, and that mod support does not make or break a game.


Because if the 'sim city' style is anything like FA's, it detracts from any kind of competitive play. Yet nowhere in my last post did I say that the game should not have huge scale and big units and the ability to support big bases; most of those things could (and should) be balanced into competitive play, and those that can't will likely still emerge in casual play. As long as the 'crazy' and 'epic' things aren't more efficient than the balanced core gameplay, you can add all sorts of wacky **** to a game for casual play without throwing off its competitive balance; just make sure the game is fun and full-featured when played on a competitive level before you do that.

Well in regards to Starcraft, I pretty much only play Zerg, and I can say that there are just a few optimal strategies at any one time. The beauty is that the meta game is constantly changing, as people learn how to counter one strategy effectively, you have to find a new one. Yeah I guess there are pretty much always "new" things that you can do. But it's still pretty hard to get away from 'Muta/Ling/Bling' vs Terran and 'Roach/Hydra' vs Protoss heh.

Anyways, back on topic... I'm actually quite interested to see where this problem stems from in FA... Is it that units become redundant so it's always best to just bee-line straight for T3 (on larger maps)?

It's both the redundancy any the economic scaling. You can't really separate one from the other, since they can't exist apart. If you make redundant units without massive econ scaling, well, that makes no sense. If you scale econ up without more expensive, redundant units, you get.. many thousands of units.

Note that I don't really consider experimentals, when properly balanced, to be redundant. Big units are fun, and they're part of what sets SupCom apart from most, if not all other RTSes. You can have a big assault experimental that might thrash a bunch of basic tanks or lay waste to a base that it manages to penetrate, as long as it has a vulnerability to something reasonable, like mobile artillery, gunships, whatever. It also probably shouldn't cost 300+ times as much as a basic T1 tank, or gain massive amounts of veterancy from killing those tanks, or you're bound to screw up the balancing somewhere there.

By mod support I don't mean an icon in the main menu saying "Mod Manager". I mean that the game is capable of being modded.

Modding TA and SupCom 2 -> GPG is migrating everything into the engine. Apart for performance reasons, I personally don't care about the method of modding, whether it is through scripts via a mod manager, hacking game files, or linking at the compilation level. Even though TA had to be hacked, it was doable. Yes, SupCom 2 can be hacked in a similar way. But are you going to play it in Steam's offline mode for the rest of your life? Because once Steam decides to update the game, the mod is broken (and possibility overwritten). Are you going to keep 20 copies of SupCom 2 whenever you want to play a particular mod, then 20 copies of K&C, etc.?

From what I see, GPG is not looking to keep their games around for a very long time. Keep SupCom 2 hot until K&C. Keep K&C hot until the next release. And so on. This is what SE has been doing for years. They rarely come back to past titles. More often than not it's just pump and dump. I believe that K&C will be the deal breaker between GPG and SE, with GPG possibly being bought out by SE. It would not make sense for SE to insist that everything be migrated into the engine if they were not planning to buy out GPG. If GPG can't make SE any money, at least eliminate it as competition and take their engine that is capable of producing games for Xbox. Everything else from that point on will be made in-house. This is one way how large corporations take out independent entrepreneurs.

Also, SupCom 2 was specifically advertised for the casual gamer, not for competitive play. By marketing games to multiple platforms, GPG is making it that more difficult to develop games for competitive play since the gameplay is limited by the least-performing of the platforms. No game can be taken seriously for competitive play if it's development is non-pc based limited. SupCom 2 is the bridge between this divide, which will in all likelihood grow larger.

By the way madface, people do keep 20 installs of TA on their computers, one for each mod.

Also, KnC does not have any known publisher, so don't say that SE will have any influence on KnC. All this with KnC being a "deal breaker between GPG and SE" is unfounded speculation at this point because KnC has no known publisher.

I don't remember SupCom2 ever being advertised for its moddability. CT mentioned that the game can be modded and mod support may come in the future, but just because he mentioned it doesn't mean that the game is advertised as such.

I am not going to respond to everything here, because Mithy has already pointed out how fallible your pendactic arguments are. Do we want more support? Yes. Are we going to get it as fast as we want it. No. Is that the same for the most successful software companies on the planet? Yes.

Has GPG given us a strong explanation why they are moving things into the engine? Yes, they are improving performance. Are a lot of those things in the engine modifiable from outside the engine. In SupCom2 they are.

Am I worried SE is going to steal GPG's engine? No, I am worried they are not going to make a Final Fantasy tactical game with GPG as their lead designers. SE and GPG come together and there is no Final Fantasy strategy game ever planned: tragedy.

But each of those mods are just a few megs in size and you don't have to worry about some automatic updates screwing up your installation. On the other hand, SupCom 2 is several gigs in size and if you don't want Steam screwing up your installation you have to navigate through it as if paranoid.



"Known" is the keyword. GPG would not be developing a game if it didn't have a publisher. It's most likely SE. It makes sense from a business perspective. I can't see a third publisher wanting to pick up GPG if it sees it bounce from THQ, then to SE, and then becoming a free agent. If SE didn't want to keep GPG (because it didn't make it money), then as a potential investor why would I take a risk?



Uhhh... I thought doing interviews is exactly for marketing purposes...

You don't need GPG to tell you that moving things into the engine will improve performance. Well, I don't know about you but I didn't need anybody to tell me that.

That aside, an engine that utilizes multi-core cpus, 64-bit instructions, the ability to offload cpu instructions to the gpu, but that keeps its gamedata as lua scripts will be more efficient than pure c++ compiled to utilize a single core, 32-bit instructions, and meant to run on a netbook.



Let Final Fantasy be. GPG, stay the **** away from Final Fantasy, they don't need your help.

If you mean making money and animation, yes I agree.


If you mean making a strategic gaming experience, I think SE would have everything to gain.

An FF:RTS budget would probably be SC2:Blizzard size.

On the other hand, I think Chris is less interested in making someone else's game, so I don't think you have anything to worry about.

When you start seeing modders hacking in FF models you can start getting worried.

Maybe hate/fear of SE is your #1 top reason for hating SC2:GPG?

As far as i understood, GPG has planned to self publish K&C, which does not mean they are not looking for investors ....

I support any project by modders and I would be more than happy to see an FF mod, and would most likely play it. I just don't think it's a good idea for the company itself to release an RTS-based FF game.



My criticisms may be a bit harsh towards GPG, but that's only because I want them to learn from what I think are mistakes on their part. I think GPG's partnership with SE is detrimental to GPG.



If that is the case, then I applaud GPG. Let them be their own bosses. GPG: if you screw this one up, then I'm taking it up a notch to evilface

Ok, I'm getting tired of this argument.

Technical development goals like this are not currently realistic for ANY developer or product that could be considered as being under the umbrella of 'gaming'. You're greatly underestimating the difficultly of multi-threading a fast, realtime game where anything can affect anything else at any given moment and data volatility is a huge concern.

This 'targeting netbooks' thing that someone else brought up that now keeps getting bandied about is a total red herring. It is not a real reason that companies don't multi-thread current games. Consoles are a probably factor (and will be less so when the next generation has a minimum of 2-4 cores), but it's mostly the sheer difficulty, increase in development time, and the immensely different approach to code architecture that it requires from the ground up. Keep in mind that most if not all current generation game engines are based heavily on existing code from past generations of games. Even the newest, cutting-edge, tech-focused engines like CryTek don't multithread the main game process, and only offload physics, audio, and render, just like every other game does. Because it's an insane task to accomplish.

Am I implying that it's impossible? Of course not. But it's not even remotely worth the returns right now, as evidenced by the fact that even huge publisher-owned developers with massive budgets aren't in a hurry to multi-thread their games.

When the ratio of CPU core scaling:raw CPU speed reaches a certain point, and consoles all have 4+ core CPUs, then game developers will have no choice but to tackle the problem. But I'm going to go ahead and take a guess that GPG won't be on the forefront of this transition, because they don't have the budgets and financial security that it will require. This is just reality.

TL;DR: it's too expensive.

I would like to add that consoles should promote multi-core development since the XBox 360 has 6 logical cores and the PS3 has 7. However, this is not to say that multi-core programming is easier. There have been hypotheses on the 2K forums that the unusually large number of crashes with Civ5 on high-end machines (while lower-end machines work fine) is due to problems with multi-threading and concurrency. So if you mess up the threading, major problems can occur.

Also, I remember that 32-bit OSes still have a slightly larger userbase over 64-bit OSes where Windows is concerned, so developing for 64-bit will either lock out a large segment of the playerbase (if developing for 64-bit exclusively) or involve a massive increase in development costs and/or the likelihood that bugs will show up. I remember that Crysis had a 64-bit executable, and it was buggy. But that's just what I heard; I don't have the game myself, so I wouldn't know for sure.

Therefore, madface has unrealistic expectations for technology use in gaming. And in any case, GPG won't be the ones capable of using that technology since it is so expensive.

And, as X-Cubed mentioned, really problematic. It amplifies tiny mistakes in your code and makes debugging much more difficult. It ain't the promised land that madface is making it out to be.

@Mithy

Then GPG should hire better programmers.

Or, GPG solicits for financial support by saying: hey, anybody want to sponsor the next revolution in gaming? Support us and we'll create the best engine in the market which will revolutionize gaming and shoot us to number 1. GPG sits on the sidelines for a few years, makes something that will blow everything out of the water, force the market to update to newer technology (after all, it's the gaming market that's pushing the edge for tech advances), and while other companies struggle to catch up GPG cranks out several games in the meantime - GAMES THAT WILL ACTUALLY GET BETTER AS TIME AND TECHNOLOGY PROGRESSES.

I don't buy this crap that a company has to cater to a single-core market or some console system. The console system way of gaming is going to die. It is much much more affordable to upgrade a PC system for gaming than to keep buying some hyped-up media centre year after year. GPG needs to pick one particular marketplace and just dominate it.

At the very least, GPG could still make a lot of money if instead of making the next game, they just made an engine and licensed it out until they can make a game of their own with the engine.

There is no way that in this day in age a gamer can't afford or doesn't have even a low-end multi-core system with even a mid-range graphics card. If you can afford to buy a console media centre, then you can afford to have a high-end gaming PC. And if you're a gamer with a single-core cpu today, then you suck.

I want the future, not the past. I am a consumer and I'm telling GPG what I want! I want a game that's a system killer, but that I can at least enjoy a LOT even if it's only for an hour. I haven't stopped playing FA just because it's a system killer.

Another example of multi-threading gone wrong: SupCom FA. Remember Core Maximizer? MadBoris, the creator, warned that CM could cause the simulation (simspeed) to slow down earlier than usual. The cause? Threading peculiarities that I heard were caused by measures taken to retain compatibility with an old series of AMD CPUs. Because of that threading quirk, the interactions of the threads would cause earlier simspeed slowdown when the thread distribution mechanisms of CM were used.

Now if madface were to say, "Screw those old processors and backwards compatibility, just go for the new technology," I would say, "Keep dreaming about it." You want to give GPG a $5 million donation to fund that new stuff and keep backward compatibility? Because if you do, we'd all appreciate it.

Also, remember madface that despite what your overinflated ego lets you think, you are not the only person GPG has to listen to. GPG must cater to the majority, not the minority. If they have the spare funds, let them fulfill your requests, but in the meantime, forget it.

Also, good programmers cost a lot. GPG doesn't have a publisher to dole out cash to them for KnC.

We put a man on the moon for **** sakes...

Problems with 64-bit or multi-threading is not a technology limitation, but rather idiot programmers. And why would it be so expensive? No one is inventing new technology. It's already there. Wow, you have to create a new engine, which wouldn't be from scratch. Let's stick with outdated technology because we're lazy.

Screw those old processors and backwards compatibility, just go for the new technology.

That's just what they want you to believe.

Right, I forgot the whole thing was filmed in a studio.