Campaign ideas

Campaign ideas: No campaign.

The supcom2 campaign was fun to get the achievements and stuff. I got everything out of it in ~10 hours or so, ignoring the "story" which was SO LAME. Then I played 1400+ hours of multiplayer. It's pretty clear what I value.

If the game must have a campaign, I suggest spending very little time on a series of escalating skirmishes with unit restrictions (as most RTS campaigns are - to "curve" new people in and teach them how certain units work), on randomly generated maps, and without any story or very little story at all.

I say this as someone who almost exclusively plays campaigns and single player in games.

This game deserves to be awesome in single play, just as much as it is in multi play. Just give us skirmish, let the modders make their things, and take, 6 months, a year, whatever after launch and give us an expansion with awesome as the campaign.

Well the "lost cause" is not very lost ( at least not for us ) if it follows the story of TA.
I don't want to spoil the lore but you can read about it on wikipedia under TA.

For it to follow the story of TA, the Core and Arm are kind of required...

Skirmish matches versus AI have already been confirmed.

I'm actually heavily dissapointed there won't be a campaign. I pledged rather quickly when I learned of this game, said "omg a TA remake", and it flooded me on preconceptions such that I just rushed to pledge. But if I had taken the time to review all the material at hand, and had learned this was going to be a multiplayer-focused game, I would not have pledged at all.

Skirmishes are nice, but I never saw them as very fun in the long term simply because its too easy to predict the AI after a few games and always beat them. A campaign of 40+ hours of gameplay can throw multiple strategies at you or change direction in the middle of a game. Campaigns also don't have replayability, but for most gamers its not the 1000th hour thats important, its the first one.

I've lost touch with every friend I ever played TA with, and from my perspective, the only viable multiplayer is with friends. Ladder play isn't fun for me; matching with a random schmuck online isn't fun for me. I never know if he's a total idiot or a basement-dweller that plays the game 20 hours a day.

Its dissapointing that I will have a game now that will only interest me for only three months max after its released, but at least I only pledged $20.

And a passing remark: whats with the trend of making multiplayer-only games lately? Steam is full of them. Its almost like many developers realized its much easier and quicker to just chop out a major portion of the game and sell its skeleton instead...

I agree in that I really, really dislike playing online (as in, without friends). In fact, I never do that. It just isn't fun. More like a pissing contest to see who's best and that's it. No real fun, no real... Enjoying the game, I guess.

Agreed. They could even allow you to generate a 'random galaxy'. I think that'd be pretty sweet.

There wouldn't need to be a story, these are machines after all. Storyline would essentially be 'Transmission: Destroy target. End Transmission' if there was one, so kinda pointless. Instead of a storyline, perhaps some overview of what the system is like. Eg: Planets, asteroids, base location, etc.

@theavatarofwar

It's because more people enjoy multiplayer, and that it's easier to make.

@nlspeed911

Solution: Skirmish against the AI with friends. In TA, I made my own 'fortress' map, where the 2 of us would try to hold against 8 cheating AI for as long as possible. Typically ended when our 40 or so anti-nukes couldn't keep up with their endless barrage, or some long range units got within range to hit important things. We didn't bother taking them out though, since it was far too easy. Made it a sort of campaign I suppose, we'd send out 'squads' to get as many kills as possible, then try to save the veterans in a retreat across the map. That, or build thousands of tech 1 units and just watch the fireworks.

While a campaign would be nice it's not the best thing they could add. If it was linear yes it would be fun but once you hit the end then what? You head to skirmish mode or even to multiplayer to get killed by players where the majority of the ones who are considered hard core don't even know how to enjoy the game anymore. So while I think extra support shouldbe added for singleplayer I don't think it should be used for a campaign unless it's added as a later stretch goal. With a bit of luck the mod tools they give us might make us able to string together our own campaigns.