Campaign ideas

If I recall correctly, over 50% of RTS players are mainly in it for the single player. My impression going over various forums is that there are tons of people who would pledge if PA had SP. Out of all possible stretch goals, the one that would draw the biggest funding boost is probably a campaign mode. While the focus is on MP, as it should be, we have good reason to start thinking about a campaign.

The main question is how to make a quality campaign on the cheap?

First, limit the graphics investment. That means no cinematics obviously. Second, keep it simple. Missions should mainly be skirmishes with story triggers at predetermined points, like a typical Starcraft mission. You can probably make such maps pretty fast, so that ought to keep the cost low.

Now to the meaty part: What should the campaign be about?

Like I said in the 'How many races?' thread, I think the best inspiration for the game story would be Transformers. It's a lot like TA except with actual characters and a plot. You have two robot factions, one good and one evil, fighting an eternal war. Each side has a number of striking personalities that could inspire some excellent Jim Raynor-style main characters/hero units. In a nutshell, one side's commander based on Optimus Prime and the other based on Megatron.

As well as strong characters, the plot ought to have twists and turns, betrayals and hopefully some of that good old sci-fi sense of wonder. Just a string of battles between bland machine armies would be disappointing. You need to be able to root for, and relate to the characters. The plot needs to grab you. No need for a branching campaign, better focus on polishing a linear story.

I think it would be a good idea to have humans involved at some level beyond backstory. One reason is that it, well, humanizes the story. It greatly heightens immersion when you can relate to some of the characters on grounds of being the same species.

The other, related, reason, of course, is that it's so much more fun to annihilate planets when you know you're deliberately wiping out millions of thinking, feeling human beings! With families!

The easiest way to put humans in the game would be to have two factions, one human and one robot. But that's clearly way outside the scope of the current project. Hopefully we can mod it in later.

So here's my suggestion: The human race is not actually wiped out. They have merely regressed to the Stone Age. One robot faction wants to protect them, the other to destroy them. They look at the robots as gods, so there's a lot of touching and cool post-apoc/sci-fi moments whenever the human tribes interact with the robots - and the backstory of the game could be revealed in play, through the myths of the human tribes. I think this idea can carry the campaign. It's catchy, unique and simple. It contains a lot of narrative depth in a very cheap package. All you need is a 'human villager' unit and a few 'human village' buildings. Why are the humans important at all? Maybe because of some kind of Transformers-style techno-mysticism. Say the ancestors of the current humans engineered their genes to carry the blueprint for some ultratech device that will determine the fate of the universe. Of course, this could all be revealed in play, even the very existence of humans - the first missions could have one of the robot factions stumble upon human survivors in a previously unexplored sector. A bit like how the nature of the Zerg is discovered over the course of Starcraft's Terran campaign.

Another idea: Instead of playing as first one side and then the other side, you alternate sides every mission, or every two or three missions, so you get variety as well as a real sense of the ebb and flow of the war. A bit like scene cuts in a film, or the multiple protagonist effect in Call of Duty and Heavy Rain.

So that's my 2 cents. Let's see yours people, I'm sure you've pondered this question over the years. How to make a low budget, next gen RTS campaign? Even if Uber don't use a single idea from this thread, it's still fun to speculate!

EDIT: I said I didn't want a branching campaign. Now that I think about it, it would be really awesome if you could influence the course of the storyline at certain moments. Like, the evil leader tells you to drop an asteroid on the human world, but you choose to annihilate his base instead, leading to a victory for the good side. You'd only need to make a few more maps for a very big payoff. Has there ever been a good RTS with a campaign like that?

While you might be right, that plans for a campaign, may increase the amount of people that will contribute, I am not at all sure that the extra income would weigh up to the costs to create a more elaborate campaign in any way.

Also using transformers will be out of the question, due to Intellectual Property.

about the lore, what I know:

"The age of humanity is long past.
The endless of conflict continues to march into the vast darkness of space.
Battles rage across the cold void,
annihilating planets, moons and asteroids.
Cosmic obliteration for a purpose long forgotten.
Technology has been captured assimilated, refined and transformed
into brutally efficient self-replicating mechanisms of war."

In other words, there is no "good" or "evil" anymore...

The team is probably able to string a set of standard skirmish maps together as a campaign. But I don't know if that would be worth it, as much focus as possible on the game play itself is best for the game in my opinion.

ehh..

If you mean single-player as in single-player skirmish... then sure, I can be on board with that. I really (sorry Uber/GPG/Cavedog) barely played through the TA campaigns.. I mean, I appreciate that they were there, but I had way more fun in skirmish mode.

I'm not against having a good [enough] story premise, but for me, the premise of TA was plenty good: a) The CORE advancing humanity to the next stage of evolution, uploading consciousness from flesh to machine, and the ARM representing a bunch of fanatical luddites, or b) The ARM representing the last vestige of humanity while the authoritarian and oppressive CORE try to crush dissent.

... and yeah, other than that, but, no offense, I don't think Transformers is either A-grade storytelling, or belongs in a TA sequel (spiritual or otherwise)

Regarding an actual campaign... if they have one as a stretch goal, great -- though, again, I've never been a fan of campaigns -- and I'd rather they put time/money into a second faction rather than that..

... that said, I think it would be great if the modding API(s) allowed for custom campaigns, but I'd rather see the kickstarter cash used for more core gameplay improvements, or a secondary faction rather than towards a campaign that I will likely never play (or at least never enjoy as much as these other things). I never saw the campaign/story in TA or SupCom to be their strong points... but... that's my opinion.

... and I also think TA/SupCom (perhaps, especially TA) are fundamentally different games from the 'story-driven' RTSes like C&C, StarCraft, and WarCraft.

I have no problem seeing a campaign being developed after the game releases. In the long run it's multiplayer that counts anyway (for me).

About the lore. They could easily(?) just upload like a lore page on the website during the development progress, so people can dive into the history that they are gonna be a part of later!

The lore sounds quite similar to the TA lore about robots fighting for milleniums. And I really believe there is a lot of history to be made up! It could be a good way to keep the fans interested and active within the community!

Well, lets see, in light of the endless Robot war...

I wouldnt go into a grandscale campaign, i think. You could them make cheap to, but the campaign could focus on a sidearm of the Galaxie. Humanity is long gone and the Robot fights war agains each other. I would assume they could have reached some limited artifical intelegence ability, but they cant alter there basecode. So they are locked in a state of endless war because its there primary order.

Somewhere in a small corner of the Galaxy, during a Excavation from one of the Robotfactions, a long forgotten Mainframe from a old faction is dig up. You are that mainframe or part of it. After undigging and activating you accidently, you take control over the Mashines that are at the side, because your direct present allows you to take over there Command Protocols. Its only a small Garison that does only have basic military powers and the needed tech to send things into the Orbit.

So you take Control and learn that maybe "OMG thousends of years" has been go over. But as a old Mainframe from one of the forgotten Human Factions you still got the Primary Order to destroy the others, and so you beginn your campaign to conquer this sector and regain your strength, as you aquire more and more technology in the missions agains enemy Robots and intigrate them into your own Technological Database.

As a sidenote, you could stumble from time to time over remains of the Human Colonys, long forgotten and desolated. Assuming they had some means of FTL Travel, i would assume that some kind of biological weapon (as example) has wiped them out and you learn on your way here and there the circumstances about the old war and the last days of the Humans. You could be actuall a mainframe that has still fresh "Memorys" in a sort of speaking about the Human race, couse your deactivation occured in the final siege of the Planet where you was found. This could also explain why the robot diggin team with a small military attechment was there, because of the possibility to find another old forgotten tech to give them a edge in the war, on this old Human Faction Capitol Planet.
And all they found is you, well... even for a Robot **** happens.

As you fight your way closer and closer to the enemy main garrison, you encounter more and more high tech stuff you can take over , study it and produce it yourself. Eventually you will enter the Mainsystem of the Controlling Force in this part of the Arm of the Galaxy, to launch a final assault and get the controll over this region by destroying the regional controll-system that process the orders from there Capitol Planet somewhere else in the Galaxy (As example, by killing the whole Planet :>). And in the end, you could just be another new Faction, raises from the ashes to take part in the endless Robot wars after you have assimilated all the tech from the regional AI that controlls the Sector and fortifyd your positions. With some end Sentence like "And so continues the brutal battle between the stars, a never ending destruction and annihilation between factions that has long forgotten there real purpose" or so bla bla... as example.

The positiv aspects in a setting of this kind could be a cheap and easy to create campaign, that has its mainfocus on war and reward you with the new tech when you destroy the enemy base. (Dont know how complicated the scripts would be in that case, i only written sofar Campaigns for Battle of Wesnoth and without propper tools it can be a pain of the ***...but with repeatingly events like tech gain or a found information, i guess it is doable in a short amount of time without compromise the project. The biggest issue here would be making the maps, i guess. As long as you dont take video sequences and only some Pictures or Speech Storytelling mode.) The story of the mankind fragments you find could be told as a sidenote, depending of what you find on the planet.

It would also only concentrate on a part of the Galaxy, not a grandscale war. Like a Battlecampaign in Warhammer 40K. So there would be later still mutch place if the devs decide to put a campaign on top of it.

My 2 cents about a campaign. Its just a Brainstorm model.

I wouldn't mind a campaign like what we had in TA. Some well-narrated, scripted missions, varying from short in length to really long. It'd be nice to have a really gigantic battle as the final or one of the final campaign missions, which would be single player and would take hours and hours, where you'd end up having to save it and come back to it multiple times in order to finally win the campaign.

Somehow I don't think over 50% of Starcraft 2 players are in it for the singleplayer....

This 50% figure I see people throwing around seems really low to me...

Of the gamers I personally know, (and I know dozens), all of us have one or more RTS games on the shelf at home. Not even one of us plays RTS games online. Sure maybe a few of us may dabble with the occasional custom game online. Some of us may even enjoy the occasional co-op vs the AI. None of us play seriously online vs other players.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbpCLqryN-Q
I think this summarizes my view quite nicely. I learned quickly that I am never going to be this guy. I will always be one of those many other forgettable "other guys" who just play the game for a bit of fun.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2002/7/26/
Here is another example of why I (and I suspect many others) do not and likely never will play any RTS games online in any sort of ladder environment.

If I were to guess, I doubt even one in twenty gamers who own a RTS game, actually ever even tries to play RTS games online in any sort of ladder environment. The hard truth is that all the time and effort necessary to get good enough to compete in RTS games online ends up quickly making them not fun anymore. Too many of us have already had the "Burly Man" experience with RTS games at least once in their life and have learned their lesson. We don't play your games online. We just like the nice campaigns.

Which brings me naturally back to the original point. In my opinion, a campaign mode is a very important feature to have. And it really wouldn't even be that hard to do well. You already have one of the most important elements in my mind. You have the right narrator.

A good old fashioned voice over narration preceding the battle goes a long way to setting the proper mood. Add onto this a simple old camera pan over some relevant in-game graphics (planets, terrain, units, structures, battles, whatever...) and you have yourself a pretty effective cut scene. I wouldn't ask for or even want anything more.

Maybe, maybe not. Nobody outside Blizzard knows for sure. The statistics we do have, tell a different story. Check this out:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/11 ... ltiplayer/

Here's the key part:

No offense to hardcore online players (I consider myself one) but it would be a big mistake to assume that "the most actual outspoken strategy gamers" are representative of the RTS market as a whole. If this game wants to succeed as well as it deserves, it absolutely needs a polished campaign with an intriguing story. If Uber revealed SP as the first stretch goal they would surely get over $100k in the next 24 hours, and probably over $500k extra in total. That should be plenty for a kickass campaign, especially if they crowdsource some writing like the Wasteland 2 guys.

Writing is not that expensive.

Building, testing and bug fixing is a time consuming process and time consuming means expensive.

Something that would be nice is challenges like the Krogoth encounter. I want them to include a challenge so hard that it is all but impossible, krogoth encounter +10. But once again such things are a nicety.

It depends, to make campaigns like SC2 with many video cutscenes, speech and about 50 trigger alone in a single map..... yes that is very time consuming testing.

But if you got a good system that can handle basic script commands and you make maps in a campaign that has just basic scripts that are kicked in and not that mutch events over the whole map (like demonstrate the new unit how it flamethrows zerglings...) you can make a cheap and not so time intensiv campaign. The Sad thing is, many ppl who choose option B, cheap campaigns, dont compensate the cheap for a better story. Couse storytelling isnt rlly expensiv. And in a way that every player can understand and follow the story. What i mostly see and that misses many cheap campaign storys, is a prolog that explains who your mainchar is, where he come from and a simple background telling like "He is from Earth, gradudatet here and there, fight in War A and B."

Moste cheap campaigns just throw you in with a guy that everybody knows perfectly except the player and never tell the player on the path of the story more details about your avatar. Thats quit frustrating.

KKND 1 as example was from storytelling okay, it revelaed details and i would even like the campaign without the video cutscenes. (and without them it would have been deffinitly one of the cheapest part in money terms, from the game.)

And as a worse example Achron... nice RTS idear, liked it in Multi, nice Gameplay...but you wasnt able to follow the campaign quit right, many logical errors and they just introduce all the time new people until you lost the track of all the guys.

At the end i must agree about Planetary Annihilation, from all ppl i talked to, every second one asked me if it would have a singleplay campaign. And many ppl still dont know that PA exists. I find every day 2 or 3 in my Friendslist that has still no clue but the singleplay question is always a part of it when i tell them about PA. In the end we all like storytelling. Many ppl begann playin games when a good Story made the game, not a good graphic. So i wouldnt dismiss the 50% statement. Its realistic. Multiplay yes, but with a singleplay campaign, i say you would see another BIG boost in the Funding.

Wasteland 2 is all about singleplay and storymode. And what did they get? more then 25.000 backers and a very nice sum in the end. It is of course no direct compare, but it shows there are many players out there that likes to play a game because of the Story. And you can combine Story and Strategy in a RTS, if you rlly want it. Not all of the Wasteland 2 backers played Wasteland 1. Thats a extremly old game and it lived from a Storyworld in a Sandbox mode.

The reason why i bought SC2 as example... well... i simply liked the story. Didnt even play a single game in Ranked or Unranked Multiplay, only some custom mods.

I like ferigad's idea that the robots can't alter their aggressive basecode. Or maybe they can change, but the way to do that is a McGuffin in itself. Maybe the 'good' faction is the one that has learned the secret of how to reprogram itself, and now realizes that the old aggressive ways will inevitably exhaust all the matter in the universe. As a theme this would add depth to the campaign since you can deal with topics like the nature of war. Religion too, as the intelligent robots might only know the instruction in the form of a religious imperative. You have to fight because the Creator said so, and if you don't, you go to robot hell! :lol:

Another idea: In place of cinematics betwen missions, you could have concept art. That's how Fallout did it, with fantastic drawn art pieces as loading screens. Imagine this vista: A lush green planet, tribal humans in the foreground, awestruck by the mile high robot towering above the distant mountains, so tall it reaches above the clouds.

Some members have mentioned the need to ease more players into MP. Well, if you switch things up a bit from a typical RTS fare, the SP campaign could work as a tutorial for MP just as in Call of Duty. It doesn't have to teach the intricacies of every build but it could introduce players to basic ideas like counters - 'the enemy is massing X, mass Y to defeat him!'

Well that they cant alter there Baseparamter for there Mission would make sense. Hardcoded like the 3 Robot Rules of Assimov. If the Robots would be able to change there baseorder, to attack all hostile forces, there wouldnt be a endless war, would it?

Because, this robots, according to the background, are able to analyse, adapt and refine found technology for there purpose. They are also able to make decisions witch planet to colonize and witch not. Even the Von Neumanns in Sword of the Stars 1 had enough intellegence to seek out more and more high tech to get the advantage over everybody else, and they are more like a Virtuel Agent and not a real AI.

So they would need at least a basic understanding of themself. But i doubt they would have anything like emotions. Why should they care that they fight a enemy and cant change there own destiny? And the God thing and rewrite there basecode is a little bit to mutch in direction of Stargate Atlantis and Battlestar Galactica, the new seasons. No offense!

But the second idear sounds good, even compatible with my campaign idear about gettin more and more stuff from mission to mission and learn how to use it until the final "i throw asteroids on the enemy HQ" mission. :>

You could but to put it in would give the game at _least_ 30% more backers, because in its current state its only intressting for Multiplayer ppl. And belive it or not, not the whole world is made out of Multiplayer geeks.

I thought that 50% number felt low to me. It's also an unsupported number without any reference to back it up. Thanks to lophiaspis we now have a new number. A better number.

23%

That's 23% of gamers that logged into the multiplayer system ever in their entire lives. Keep in mind, some of those people may have only played it once, or a very few times until they had this unpleasant life experience with burly men.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2002/7/26/

It's anybodies guess how many of that 23% ended up going on to become regular multiplayer RTS gamers. What we can say for certain, is that 77% of them, never even tried it once.

While I doubt it throws much significant difference in there, I imagine there is probably a correlation between buying online and attempting multiplayer.

I (pre-)purchased Demigod and I never even PLAYED it.
I think a lot of people out there are like me with regard to Demigod, which was a pretty unfinished game to be honest.

But here's something neat we witnessed with SupCom2:
- only 5% of people got the multiplayer achievement (the first one)
- but only 10% of the player got the singleplayer achievement (play mission 1)

... so they don't play multiplayer, but they don't play single player either?

My money's on Skirmish. A lot of people totally dig skirmish and are intimidated by online play. People like to play by their own rules, at their own pace, out of their own accord - skirmish does that for them; campaigns don't.

Professionally, I've kept a close eye on non-hardcore-gamers and how they react to seeing other people "in their game", and the mere presence, be it cooperative or competitive, of another human entity in the game seems aggravating to a lot of people.

And as it also turns out, there's a lot of ennui among gamers because there are so many games out there. Games are competing for player's attention.

I thought thats why god invented the difficult option for your own rythmn, even in a Campaign. :>

I agree to the most what Thygrr sayed, but from what i see and experienced the last 13 years, player seek also for the story that will snatch them and pull them into a world that feels like a own world and that plays out as an epic for themself.

But yeah, its not easy to find the right mix in days of directX, high-end render engines and a sweet player base that likes awesome nice graphics. But neither can become great, if its only graphic or only story these days.

Campaign, yes. If its possible to make one cheap without to compromise the game itself. No if there is really no other option. But a Campaign should be a prioraty in the stretchgoals.

This may be true, but good writing is hard to come by in video games.

And I'd rather have little to no writing over bad writing.

In other words, I'd rather the story/premise be as simplistic as Total Annihilation over something that tries to be more complicated and tries to make me relate to characters... that I don't care about :|

Also, just because 23% of players play ONLINE, that doesn't mean that the people who play offline play campaign mode. I played Skirmish mode on TA almost exclusively, and when I wasn't playing it, I played casually with friends online.

I think I tried the campaign at some point, but it wasn't as much fun as Skirmish.