I don't think that is irrelevant.
An eventually new Quake game will make sure sales with all those happy fans. Also, making custom tools always improve the life span of the game without the developers wasting more money or time.
Quake 4 was by and large a dissapointment. Nowhere near as popular. You don't see any more Unreal Tournament games, even though they tried. They IP couldn't survive the market trends.
Again, Valve can take thpse liberties not because they made a good competitive game, but because Steam is bringing them money where they can take such liberties (Notice how CS  was released with Steam and was in fact, free for all HL2 purchases). In Blizzard's case, it was World of Warcraft. In none of those two big self published examples, has competitiveness influenced their release schedule. They DO put a huge emphasis on competitiveness, but it is not the sole reason why they succeed.
Again, IpKaifung said it: Most huge competitive games also cater to casual audiences, and they have very low hardware requirements that allow broad audiences to play and enjoy the product.
Both worlds can be catered to. It is, however, much easier to cater to the casual genre, as they are much more forgiving. Games are rarely created purely around e-sports.
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It's great that these issues are being resolved.
A little fun fact: The reason why many animations in games, especially FPS games, seem quicker and snappier, is exactly because of this: Animations that are too long leave less time for player input. Next time you play a game, watch how fast they reload guns, jump, crouch, etc. They are snappy 
As far as network lag: CoH2 doesn't have the global numbers to support that. To the point where places like North America and Europe might perhaps benefit, but people in other areas might actually have a bad chance of getting a game (and a laggy one).
It's not even a coding issue, or a broadband issue. If you want perfect games between Europe and Asia, you are going to have to bend the rules of physics, or at last reach warp speed
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When you get the Tiger Ace, you will not get any resources for 10 minutes. The unit is basically two Tigers rolled into one. It is very, very powerful.
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Well, the bottom bridge can be blown and there's on short way t the center short of kissing the ice.... |
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I love it. It was a bit of a monotonous game considering it was all strafing runs and focus on fuel but thats CoH2 for you.
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? could you elaborate
If you leave your sniper unprotected now, once vehicles hit the field; they are dead too. You need to provide AT in any case.
Unless my understanding of the CoH2 mechanics is failing me: Infantry have armor values as well. Enemy small arms fire must first check to see if it hit (accuracy) then check to see if that hit penetrates, then apply damage. All infantry have 80hp, snipers have 40hp.
In CoH 1, if I recall correctly, no such layer exists. Sure, there are different "armors" but these never negate a shot. They instead provide reduced damage (such as PGrens vs Bars or Heroic armor vs Snipers).
That's why Im saying that we shouldn't rely on CoH2 snipers alone. It might not yield the same results. I didn't play Modern Combat a lot, but I recall the US sniper had to be cloaked in cover, afterwards he could move about. Not sure how it worked out competitively.
As far as survivability, yes, snipers need to take more care once vehicles roll in regardless BUT, right now they can cloak anywhere and everywhere. I could easily hide my sniper in the map, and dare an enemy player to find it with his M8. The low detection radius gives me a big advantage to any vehicle save a jeep/bike.
Passive cloak is not necessarily a bad idea, though, but maybe there's other things that can be attempted before its implemented.
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Minecraft is a casual game. It is not designed to be competitive, whatsoever. In that sense, it is a casual game. Casual =/= Simple.
Games like CoD, BF4 and FIFA are not necessarily casual either. They have somewhat somewhat strong competitive environments, albeit they are not as popular as the hardcore SC and CS, because they are mainly tailored for the everyday fps player.
ANY game can technically be competitive: Thats how speedruns began, and while they are not the same type of competition as say, Street Fighter IV or Starcraft 2, it goes to show that a game designed for casual play (Yoshi's Story/Mario 64) can be turned into a competitive environment.
Competitive games do NOT always have long lifespans. FIFA enjoys competitiveness at the local level (I've seen FIFA tournaments at bars in Mexico) and yet releases yearly.
In fact, it has little to do with lifespan: Starcraft, Warcraft, Counter Strike, Dota 2, League of Legends, Quake, etc. share one thing... all of those titles are self-published.
Competitive scenes can increase the lifepan of a game, yes. Fighting games are a good example, people still play the good oldies, but eventually become irrelevant to the developer. Sure, money can trickle in, but it won't sustain the business.People still play Quake competitively: it ain't increasing Quake sales to compete with new AAA games. |
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Greeb: casual games are not necessarily aimed at the short term. That's just the mainstream perception.
Angry Birds is as casual as they come, and it is every IP's wish. Candy Crush, Peggle, Plants vs Zombies, Snake, etc. All casual and very succesful games through the span of several years. You don't need to be at the top of gross profits to be a VERY successful business (Minecraft is an example).
Truth is there are many, many things that make up a good game. You don't need to be a competitive game to last through the years, but like Inverse stated, it seems to be the RTS's tendency.
The strategy genre (in general) doesn't need to be competitive to be successful (Civ V), but in all honesty, in the case of CoH, it is what kept Gamereplays alive and it was members of the competitive community that started CoH2.org. It is only logical that those players would want CoH2 to be competitive.
Is it bad if CoH2 remains tailored to casuals? No, it isn't, if people keep enjoying it. However, you can't expect the competitive community to stick around, either. |
I wouldnt be too optimistic about the input lag change.
Relic wrote "Fixed input lag" in a patch months ago, which didnt change anything for a lot of people.
That is NOT what they said. They wrote that they fixed a 1 frame delay in input. That is not the same. This tie around, they aren't saying the same either: They are saying "reduced input lag".
Mud and snow are not bad, but they really need some excellent work by level designers to truly shine, especially if the effects are so big. In vCoH, water and roads were generally undesirable environmental factors, but they were subtle (yet important).
Heavy snow/Mud should not show up in more than one or two areas of a map, MAX.
P.S.: I know the eastern front was covered in mud, and I know there was heavy snow everywhere. There was also starvation, but we are not about to implement that, are we? There are degrees of abstraction here. |
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IpKai summe dit all well in the article he did.
Relic needs to make a competitive game, but the community also needs to help. It's a vicious cycle though: Relic will throw money at SNF because people watch it (1k viewers last time? Thats good), but that doesn't mean it's whats going to bring them money. If DLC returns are better than Competitive match returns for the game and thecompany, then why should they focus on the competitive scene?
Competitive players are not necessarily the hardcore fanbase of the game... A competitive player is sometimes even more nitpicky and will transition quickly if the state of the game is not to his liking. A casual gamer will keep buying DLC's, and will buy the next RTS if the marketing campaign was enticing enough (yours or the other company's).
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