Nvidia 3D vision

Only consoled have been tested, there has never been a competitive tablet game with a mouse+keyboard equivalent. That will change with windows 8 pedalling touch screens in everything.

A top down unit control interface has a lot of areas where a touch screen could provide obvious benefit. Infact, it may be that a well designed control setup that used the keyboard solely for hotkeys and the touch screen for everything else may result in the best of both worlds.

on the highest abstraction level you have two options for 3D:
a) a useful realization (e.g. the user get's additional information (or at least easier access to it))
b) a special effect (e.g. a bit of 3D immersion without additional advantage)

For a) you need data which is actually multidimensional and can profit from a 3D representation. Most RTS games (even with a 3D engine) are more multi layer 2D than real 3D (the 3D ground view most of the time just for show, useful interaction is more on a higher strategic level). The ground level view is similar to what first person games make of 3D - in these cases as with 3D movies it is more of effect (b) than additional help.
The biggest problem with useful 3D is less the 3D visualization than the interaction with the new dimension which requires some definite changes to the UI.

In the end what it comes down to:
the 3D interface always was/is optional in games => it shouldn't be more useful than a 2D UI <invokes a balance discussion>
What is left is a special effect, which already was mentioned, can be forced on driver level onto the game.

Keyboard+multitouch screen, why not, that could make an interesting combo.
Some of the actions would have to be associated to particular gestures on the touch screen that could not be done with a mouse.

Thanks for that.
It is one of the best analysis, I have read so far.
The conclusion is particularly interesting and it could lead to lots of discussion.

As you said if a game makes 3d too useful, people playing in 2d will be penalized.
A way to change that could be to give things(like additional information) to 2d players to compensate for what they miss. But that would require a lot of balancing as you suggested.
You can not really force people to only use 3d either. Even on the Nintendo 3ds where you know that all the owners of the console have the hardware to play in stereo 3d, there is still the option to switch to 2d.

How many screens will PA support? Will a person playing with only 1 screen be "penalized" when you can play with 4?
Will a low end user be "penalized"? He might only get 10 frames per second while high end users get 20-30 frames per second when there are alot of things happening simultaneously.
If there are any 3d UI elements that simply makes the player be a better player please tell me about it and explain them.
Personally, I only see subtle advantages like that it might be easier to see hills and bullet trajectories.
Saying that 3d might give an advantage and therefore exclude UI elements specifically for 3d is not a good argument in my opinion.

After re-reading my post, I thought about the same things : better computer, multiple screens, support for racing wheels in race games, support for joystick in flight sims, ... all of these benefit the player using them.
I was expecting someone will reply like you did .
Even with possible balance "problems", I would really like to have more 3d support/optimizations in games.
Actually, if good utilisation of stereo 3d can lead to really improved gameplay and even advantages people using it, this could make people stop saying that 3d is useless in games.

I have been thinking about what could be the advantages in PA. Beyond what you already said (hills and bullets), I think that when the screen is really crowded with units and special effects, stereo 3d might help to discern the different elements has it could "separate" the different layers (ground units, flying units, flying projectiles, ...). Nothing that could give too much advantage compared to 2d.

I do not know if real support/optimization will be implemented. But at least I hope that UI, cursor and other graphical things like shadows, light effects, ... will not be broken when seen in stereo 3d if we have to force it in the drivers.

bah. I do not want to see 3D vision for thousands of moving object.
I think that 3D vision is not for RTS games.

Anything that can improve immersiveness should be considered. It was mentioned earlier that many RTS's are multi-layered 2d efforts, but it doesn't look like this one will be. The z-distance to each object is already available so tweaking the mouse pointer and interface elements to allow 3D would be worth bearing in mind from the early stages.

3D for PA would be a great benefit.
PA is the first RTS thats really qualified for 3d, because of the Planets.


The work that must been done foe this isn´t a lot:

Mainly the coursor and the Unit-Icons (almost all 2d elements).
(instead a 2D overlay bound to the Position of an 3D oobject on a 2D screen,
2D Symols bound to 3D Objects in 3D space)

Same by the shadows. A lot of engines render the Shadow as "2D overlay" and not directly to the texture.

The zoom is the last that would be nessesery for a great 3D.
(not just getting a larger distance through zooming out,
but also korrect the Parallaxe so that the "ground" stay´s just behind the monitor)


all this is not really additional work, just doing some things in an differrent way.
this could not been done by forcing it in the graphics Driver. (thats the Problem of all other RTSs)


sorry for my bad english

I think PA needs 3D support, and if its only for the chrono cam. If the cursor was hovering at about plane-level above the ground that would look so awesome. Maybe not the normal one, but a 3D cursor definitely would.
This is coming from someone with no 3D equipment at all.

Yes I'd like to see this too I must say. Some of my most memorable gaming experiences have been with 3d, if done well it's great. I agree that FPS's are better suited, but that doesn't mean it isn't fun to see those little planes and tanks as real 3d objects. Love it.

What's the point of 3D in an RTS...?

I want one of these: http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/09/oculus-vr-crystal-cove/

Positional tracking makes it just perfect for RTS games. Then we still need 4k+ resolution and a bunch of other things.