Uber needs to save Chris Taylor from World of Tanks

He's listed as designer of Supreme Commander 2 so as far as I'm concerned he helped kill Supreme Commander. Let me iterate: Instead of 64bit executable without unit cap we got a steamonly 32bit one with even stronger unit cap and smaller maps.
Come to think of it, Uber.. get your game on GOG.

Oh so you're of the free-to-play family?

He also developed TA, one of the best (arguably the best) RTS of all time.

I'm betting when released today, TA would get a score of 4,8 on IGN because it's not casual friendly

The game originally had a very delicate and muted aesthetic, borrowed from a piece of period art.
It's now filled with costumes and promotional items that are outright bizarre (alien blasters, robots, mutant bread) and have nothing in common with the mature artistic approach it had initially. If you don't mind that, then good for you. But not for me.

I didn't use to be, about after I played AirMech and Path of Exile, I became so. Some devs just seem able to pull this business model off well, so I am open to the idea that Chris Taylor and/or Uber might also be able to.

Also, TF2's art was crap in the beginning, and remains crap now. Grotesque would be a fitting word to describe it. It could only appeal to a generation that grew up on The Simpsons, South Park and Penny Arcade. If people want to see elegant comic artstyles they'll have to either go to Japan, or go many decades in the past to find anything decent as far as the West is concerned.

Don't you dare insult my machina!

Hehe, I like the machina, but it just.. it's just a teeny bit too realistic I think.

Well I think uber have the majority of the actual talent behind ta anyway. Chris is a figure head, not the guy that actually did the work. Maybe his influence would be beneficial, but then again he was in charge of sup com 2 so maybe not....

ok,just note that this model is not possible with RTS.

The reason for this is twofold:

1. RTS do not have a big enough public, this one in particular
   
2. in other games it doesn't matter as much that you win with your money. RTSes, however, bearing some semblences with chess, is a very rigorous serious game where rules are rules, very few would tolerate this.

Oh and don't go telling me that F2P can exist without P2W. As much as you're an expert in game philosophy I'm an expert as to why it is that F2P nessesarily means P2W one way or another. I have enough material to write a thesis on this.

F2P can definitely exist without P2W. Paying has to convey some sort of advantage to the customer however it doesn't have to be anything to do with 'winning'.

A good example is 'star conflict' a space 'mmo' (although it actually plays games in small ish teams) that has a lengthy tech tree that takes time to climb up. They split battles based on tech levels, so it's not like your flying a t1 ship against a t5 as they want to maintain balance (and it is quite well balanced). The game is very playable without paying anything, what they offer as incentives to spend money with them?

1: Time savers- it takes a while to level up the ships and climb the tech tree, and some of the game modes are only available at higher tiers (this is actually done for balance, as many technologies don't exist in the lower tech tiers, level 3 unlocks everything apart from the clan based 'sector conquest' mode which requires level 4. It's really easy to get to tech 3 as well so I don't think that is unreasonable).

2: Cosmetic upgrades- these are nice to have but don't change anything in terms of balance.

3: Premium ships- now this is where you'll probably go "ahha! told you" however they've been quite cunning with how they've done this. All ships in the game have to be levelled up to unlock the next ship in a particular tech tree (there are a number of different ship classes). The Premium ships are supplied fully levelled up (as they're separate from the tech tree) and tend to offer a 'mixed class' of ship- so normally you have a recon fighter (light + fast with enhanced sensors) or an 'Interceptor' fighter (kitted out with a load of weapon modifiers aimed at killing a single target as efficiently as possible but once used the interceptor is vulnerable until it all recharges). The premium ship offers an mixed role fighter that has access to *some* modules for both classes. The end result is a good multi role ship, but it's actually *worse* at either role than the dedicated ship. The point is that the premium ships aren't outright better, they just offer a different mix of capabilities (I defeat guys with premium ships all the time)- the game is all about catering to your play style.

I'm not saying that I think F2P really makes much sense for an RTS like PA, however I do maintain that F2P games can work at least from a players perspective- now I don't know what the financials are like for Star Conflict, still the devs have been working on it for ages and they're still releasing updates so I guess it must be paying them to do so.

Listen, for paying to confer to the customer some sort of advantage that advantage can only be of the aesthetic sort.

If the advantage has any influence on in-game events with unit deaths at all this is obvioulsy messing with the balance of the game, where more money = more balance offset.

I never said Uber couldn't do purely aethetic sales; that's what they're doing right now.

Simply that they PA couldn't survive off of them because RTSes never have publics of the sise of Dota-types or other big-buck titles.

You know if lol and planetside players are masochists (and they are) that's their deal.

What I said is that you can't expect that to go down ok with an RTS community:

Read my whole post- I agree with you re RTS games. My point was a more general thought on F2P games and that you *can* have paid for content that has *nothing* to do with P2W. Star Conflict does it beautifully- the premium content is *different* not *better*

No you read my whole post

you quoted an earyer version.

In anycase these:

do not have *nothing* to do with P2W

It's time to wake up to the truth, they do. As I exposed anything that somewhat alters the gameplay in a non aesthetic way is subject to having created balance offset.

"in an RTS"

are you just pointing out that TF somewhat got away with it because that game doesn't really need to justify itself by revenue since it belongs to steam and they have many other sources of revenue and also it's the only time in the world people got away with selling such a huge amount of thin air (hats).

...or are you saying that F2P could work for PA?
because none of this applies to PA.

No I'm saying the "formula" is silly.

Jon Mavor has said repeatedly that Chris Taylor is a genius. He wouldn't have said this if CT had never done any "actual work". Or do you think inventing strategic zoom etc. is not work?

Uber does not need Chris Taylor if we're all thinking about PA.
Uber just jumped on a very challenging project from a technical and gameplay perspective, all being about taking the traditional RTS genre to spherical maps. And i have strong respect for Uber, just because they did not just try to revamp TA, but instead attempted to innovate, from lots of perspectives. Frankly, wouldn't it have been easier for them to build some sort of Forged Alliance 2, using al the techs they've worked on by the past ? Instead they really put themselves in danger and that's what i appreciate most. I would never have backed their project if they just had proposed a reboot of Supcom/FA.
Of course I have lots of respect for Chris who is to me one of the best game designer in the industry. But I also have lots of respect for Uber funders who really put their nuts on the table when they decided to fund their own studio.

If they are implemented correctly (like in the example I gave you) they don't. You can pay money to unlock a ship in a higher tier if you want in that game, however having that high tier ship doesn't allow you to then play it against lower tier players. You buy it, and the game's matchmaker will put you with players with ships of the same level. Their system is actually very clever. Also as I stated in the context of Star Conflict the premium ships aren't more powerful than the standard ones.