It occured to me while browsing through the avilable games over the recent years that action games are continully at the forefront in terms of graphics, physics and player control. Over the past 5 to 10 years these games have continued to get better and better. Then you compare this to RTS and RPGs and for the most part these games are unchanged. There have been a few exceptions but those are few and far between. The question is why? What make these genere so diffrent that they have resulted in so little improvement over the years? ----------------------------------------------------- Writer, Programer, Cook, I''m a Jack of all Trades Current Design project Chaos Factor Design Document

If it''s not broken then don''t fix it.

Do you mean that RTS games aren''t evolving in technology, or in story, gameplay, etc.?

Warcraft III has incredible graphics...


negcx

evolution doesn''t happen over night. Look at RTS and RPG games from 15 years ago, and compare them to the ones today. Evolution is taking place.
Now with games like fable on the market, hell i''d even go as far to say true crimes as well, Its obviuos that RPG games are reaching a point where they are going to be a completely different game then what we''ve been seeing so far.
And don''t even try telling me command and conquer generals hasn''t evolved from its predacessors either. Cause you know that game is looking bad ass.
I have seen just as much improvement in these genres as any others. Granted there are some companies that insist on using some rather dinosaur methods of play mechanics *cough square cough*, the games are still improving on their previous versions all the time.
If you are still intent on your point, please clarify what you mean when you say RTS and RPG games have remained unchanged for 10 years.

Over the past couple of years a lot of RTS games are beginning to look the same (mainly the microsoft games ones). eg: Age of empires, rise of nations, galactic battlegrounds...

While they may look the same, every iteration of these games refines the gameplay just a bit more. Adding a new thing here, changing a thing there.

Sometimes it''s easy to see and sometimes it''s not, but it is happening.

RPG''s, well, they seem to be influencing every other genre out there. Look at games like Deus Ex, a FPS/RPG; I am sure there are other examples.

Actualy, IMHO, what we will be seeing in the next 10-20 years is an increadiable SPECIALIZATION of the varous genres. Origanaly there were so few games, and they stuck to a few obvious paths. But lately, companies are finding more and more money in cliche markets then trying to fight for their piece in a larger one. As such, we will see FPS''s bending towards RPGS''s, Stratagy-Puzzle games, and a wealth of interesting new ideas/genres. Pretty soon, techonolgy wise, games will have few paths to evolve in (graphics will eventualy hit true holigraphic 3d, and AI will eventualy become as good as humans (in some cases, this is not ALWAYS desired). Sound is already just about as good as it will get (hardware will get better, but sound will remain practicaly the same), and game design will have evolved to cover almost every genre under the sun. Smaller companies will crowd into their own cliche market, and bigger corporations will shrink, but continue to maintain highmarks in their appropriate market.

Just my 2c

RPGs and RTSes are maybe still genres that sell even if they''re the same old same old. Selling seems to be the only thing that matters to many game houses.. But FPS game *have* to be innovative, as mediocre games sell close to none -- Gamers have already had enough of blasting countless aliens without AI, plot, scripted events or physics.

That''s because StarCraft is the perfect RTS. There''s no reason to continue.

quote:

---

Original post by negcx
Do you mean that RTS games aren''t evolving in technology, or in story, gameplay, etc.?

Warcraft III has incredible graphics...

---

I''m not picking on negcx here (so please forgive the use of your quote). Yet I feel that this sentiment is part of the problem.

What is the problem? Well, that''s a tough question to answer but here''s my take on it.

We''ve grown accustom to innovations in graphics hardware and with that we''ve demanded that the games that we play (and spend our hard earned cash on) take advantage of that hardware. Game developers have happily surpassed our desires and sometimes our expectations. That''s not really a problem, because I enjoy the beautiful and spectacular graphics just as much as the next guy. The problem is that beautiful graphics alone do not make the game that much more of a wonderful experience.

My view is that developers spend so much time with the graphics engine (and soon the sound engine – because of the innovations in sound cards and 5.1 speaker systems) that they use the same tried and true formulas for the game itself.

I''ve been working on an RTS that I consider to be a change. I''ve been coding it using a very simple top down 2d graphics engine (in fact, it''s using the Windows GDI) so my focus has been on game-play. Once I have the game mechanics nailed down I do plan to convert the graphics to something nicer. But for now, my goal has been to make the game fun to play. Most people start coding a killer graphics engine and once they complete it do not know what to do with that engine. Ever notice how many terrain engine demos there are on the net? I''ve decided to invert the process and make a game and then to make it pretty.

So, to summarize the original posters question: "Why have RPGs and RTSs remained unchanged?" I think that they have changed and they have not. The developers of this genre of games have utilized new graphics technologies (that''s how they have changed) and they have continued to use the tried and true formula''s that have made these types of games so successful (that''s how they''ve remained unchanged).


Dave Dak Lozar Loeser
The WM_NULL message performs no operation. An application sends the WM_NULL message if it wants to post a message that the recipient window will ignore. - MSDN