Uber needs to save Chris Taylor from World of Tanks

Well I was under the impression Chris Taylor was a businessman rather than a technical guy, still if Jon Mavor respects him then I guess I'm wrong

As for 'inventing strategic zoom'... I'm sorry but TA:Spring pre-dates supreme commander by several years and included a full zoom capability from the get go. The only enhancement made to Sup:Com was that units changed to strategic icons when zoomed out (something later added into the Spring engine). If anything Chris simply took an idea the TA community had already been playing with A bit like area commands in PA: These have been in Spring for years.

Oh, thanks for that bit of info, I wasn't aware of it (because I don't really follow what modders do).

Still, I am skeptical whether the implementation of strategic zoom in Spring is on the same level, and to the same degree of usefulness, as it is in SupCom. Many times someone says that "X game pioneered this or that feature!", and then someone always comes along and says that the feature was done y or z years before in another, usually very obscure game. But when you actually track down that game and try it the feature turns out to exist in such a rudimentary form as to be almost completely unrecognizable. So for example, yes, there were RTTs before Herzog Zwei and RTSes before Dune II, but there is a reason we only remember those two now, and that reason isn't forgetfulness. So I'll try Spring for myself and see to what extent its designers have a claim on having introduced strategic zoom to RTSes before SupCom.

You will have to get back in time then, they improved the strategic zoom as soon as supcom one was showed.
It's was nowhere near it before.

Time machine primed for action then!

I'll just quote myself from different topic:

PS: I'm really recommend to check this orchestral soundtrack. Sad SupCom didn't have one...

that can't work in an rts because we aren't classified in tiers, nor is their a buildup to your "avatar", nor does any RTS player want this gimmik in an RTS.

so if you loose rating and can't manage to get it back you no longer have access to a certain buff you paid for? yeah that's not going to cause issues with people wanting to get their money back at all... /s

you're illustrateting my point more and more : that there is no context in which F2P doesn't require some sort of compromise with gameplay.

you keep claiming you can do stuff that are just cosmetic, and I keep telling you that stuff doesn't sell half as well.

You're trying to bend a rule of the matrix of the world we live in that just cannot be bent : everything costs money and money circulates everywhere no matter what.

You cannot somehow create a system without the revenue it needs to prevail and have it be free to play.

money NEEDS to flow in somewhere else you get bankruptcy and have to close shop. And belive me that happens ALOT.

There is two Valve games that prove you're wrong.

I'm not suggesting this is a good model for RTS, just that F2P can be made to work. Your argument is basically "F2P is bad" as far as I can tell? I'm saying that there are F2P games out there that are fun and aren't ruined by having purchasable content in the game.

With respect to the tier system in Star Conflict- you can't loose anything you've obtained. The matchmaker validates in 2 stages:

1: Ship tier- it only allows ships within the same tier into a game.
2: Player rating- then it balances players based on skill.

Each ship has a number of 'synergy' levels, reaching a certain level of synergy on a ship unlocks the next ship in the tree which is purchasable for in game currency (that you accumulate through playing). You can pay money to either skip levelling up a ship, or buy extra credits both of which save time. Never the less when playing with a tech 2 ship, you will never be in battle against a tech 5, so you can have great games at any level in the tech tree. Certain levels are required for some game modes though so that's really the only limitation (pretty much everything is unlocked at Tech 3 which doesn't take much game time to reach).

The 'premium ships' are available as a DLC pack that gives you access to essentially some additional races. The core game has 3 factions, the DLC packs add in things like 'pirates' and such. The premium ships are equal in power to the main faction vessels, just with a different mix of capabilities. I guess it would be like adding a 2nd purchasable unique faction to PA that was carefully balanced against the standard faction- it becomes a 'nice to have' rather than a 'necessity' for play.

they were already mentioned and I already exposed why they don't. go ahead and give the thread a read.

nope. :/

there just is no possible application of it to RTS at least none for which I would stick around for.

Path of exile is a cool system.

Imagine a PA where you only can play for the commander skins.

(that's even less money for the developers, you guys don't get how the world works)

Now now, I do get how the world works, but as a F2P model, that one is one I like.

That or a pay upfront for game system with no game content dlc that isn't expansion sized.

Valve can be VERY generous because they have income from -every game on steam-. Even if you payed for NOTHING in TF2 or Dota, they're still getting you onto the steam platform and it's likely you'll end up using it to buy other games

Yeah I agree sometimes these links can be a bit tenuous. In relation to Spring, it has a full implementation now *although this has been improved*. I was a very early adopter of Spring (it came into existence around 2003) and the zoom capability then was somewhat less capable than now. Basically the original zoom in Spring allows you to go out to see the whole battlefield or zoom in close onto a unit like in sup com (using scroll wheel) *however* spring didn't have strategic icons until after they were added to SupCom. So I guess it depends on what you view as the 'linchpin' feature in SupCom strategic zoom? I guess the strategic icons are a big part of it.

That aside I really do recommend you try spring- some caveats, it basically has no proper front end / ui. The Spring lobby system is essentially an IRC channel. The game itself though has lots of clever UI work done (this is somewhat dependent on the mod you choose to play).

The main mods now played in Spring are:

- Zero K (probably the biggest)- which is a new strategy game with unique units made from scratch. Quite a few of the developers are on the forums (such as @GoogleFrog ). The basic lobby aside, Zero K is quite well polished with an enhanced interface in game.

- Evolution RTS- this was made a complete game bundled with the Spring engine and is available though steam. It's another new game with it's own tactics, it's pretty nice although focuses on smaller scale battles from what I've seen (not played much).

- Balanced Annihilation: This is a TA based mod with the original unit set + a few additions (not many). It's a faster paced game than original TA and I think is good fun as it gives you a wide selection of options. This is the mod I personally prefer as a TA fan.

- XTA: This is the oldest surviving mod that pre-dates the spring engine. This is almost vanilla TA with the higher unit health and slower pacing. It adds a number of units that weren't in TA. The commander is key in XTA as it is extremely powerful, coming from PA you'll probably find the pace of XTA rather slow and there are only a handful of die hard players that still play it (I do occasionally).

Things of note- Spring features area commands reclaim and repair- though it doesn't go as far as building things. You do also have line building commands (you need to hold shift whilst doing so).

A big one in spring is 'custom formations'- select a group of units, then right click and drag and the units will move along the shape (any shape) you've drawn. Unlike the tool in PA this doesn't try and organise your units based on type, however I personally think the simple implementation is quick and effective so I would love to see this added to PA (I think it should be a separate option that can be used in conjunction with Ubers version as they fulfil slightly different uses in game imo).

Spring also has deformable terrain, some very complex terrain heigh variation (some seriously crazy maps are possible) and you have the option to first person mode a unit by pressing 'c' (this isn't especially useful but it's a really fun feature none the less).

To be fair, TF2 started out a a traditionally purchased game, and later was made free. It was not designed from the ground up to be a F2P game, and as such should not be used as an example. A better one would be Path of Exile.

Not that I'm supportive of the F2P model. I think it is terrible, the vast majority of F2P games are riddled with microtransactions and the vast majority are online only which means when the dev eventually pulls the plug, that game is gone.

Some people need to quit their bitching about my "formula"-

Yes, because it was a legitimate mathematical formula that I sat there and number crunched until I figured out that the numbers matched up.

C'mon, the PA community isn't like this. Don't be pricks and post pictures of TF2.
Everyone already knows about TF(*******)2

This is really confusing me, what formula?

I made a joke saying Free to play = pay to win so smartasses brought up tf2 almost completely out of context

Whoa there, what you said didn't really sound like a joke, it's hard to see tone through text. He thought you literally did not know that there can be f2p games without being p2w, there are a couple f2p games that are not p2w other than tf2 as well.

Team fortress? you have to purchase the game, a.k.a not F2P.