I am actually a beta tester for Warcraft III and I was a little worried about how I would get used to a 3D RTS. Let me assure you that I was pleasently surprised at how good the game looked, and how the 3D feel of the game in no way took away from the experience of playing it. Warcraft III is almost like a cross between 2D and 3D in my eyes. It is still 2D in that you play it primarily from above and the 3D of the terrain and characters isn''t really different at all then the previous games. The 3D portion is that you are allowed to zoom in to character and really get right into the action if you want.

The game looks great and plays great and I am quite glad they took this step to 3D without ruining it and making it hard to control your units.

My 2 cents.

Cray

ZIPHNOR:

About Shogun (the only game I didn''t put on my ''can get rid of all these games'' stack):

Did you find it hard to maneuvre the camera around on the field? To position armies in the right direction, at the right spot?
To keep an eye on combat, while having to manually direct all your troops?

I think this is one of the banes of 3D. Sure, it gives you a somewhat clearer view of what''s going on at the spot you''re looking at, but it makes moving around on the map a lot trickier and it also means you lose some vision in the bigger picture.

Can it be done right? Can 3D give you all the benefits it can while at the same time managing to stay away from the problems it causes?

I''d love to play a 3D game one day where I don''t get frustrated by the controls...

"Did you find it hard to maneuvre the camera around on the field? To position armies in the right direction, at the right spot? To keep an eye on combat, while having to manually direct all your troops?"

Yes, that was exactly the problem i kept having. And the angle of the view also made it hard to click on the right stuff at the right time.

"Can it be done right?"
Actually i doubt it can be done right, as long as are looking at a 2d display and only have 2d controls
But if shogun had allowed a topdown view, it would have been almost perfect, ie having the ground and buildings in 3d are a good idea, allows for cool effects, but the little human sprites should stay 2d.
Of course when we can play the games at 1600x1200+resolutions and the small units can have as many poly''s as the models in FPS, it wont be a problem. I always think the viewing angle will be a problem though.

I think the best control system for a 3D camera would be the basic FPS system: the mouse rotates around the X and Y axes and a keypress (or button click) moves you in the direction you''re facing. No need for 6 different keys for it: just hold down one key and you move the camera instead of the cursor.

[ MSVC Fixes | STL | SDL | Game AI | Sockets | C++ Faq Lite | Boost ]

I thought I''d give my two cents in this discussion. I strongly believe that RTS games can be 3D - there are a few games that actually use the 3D and not only have it for the eye candy and better sales. My personal opinion is that Warcraft III is 3D only to attract new gamers to the series. Staying completely 2D would give it a little outdated look.
Someone mentioned Ground Control above – it is a great example of a RTS game really using the actual 3D in the gameplay. Compare Ground Control with other “3D RTS” such as Battle Realms, Dark Reign II, Force Commander and you’ll notice the difference.
One of the first things I noticed when comparing it with others was that Ground Control’s controls are not that different from what you expect in FPS games. The camera works with the player – not against as soo many 3D RTS games do.

Grimjack

::aggression is the result of fear::

I think ill have to download a demo of Ground Control, so i can give my opinion on it.

As computers and games become increasingly more advanced, the push for 3D becomes even greater. Even those games that function perfectly in 2D may well move towards 2D.

Why?

Because 3D can do everything that 2D can, but better. It takes less resources to animate a 3D model then it does to animate 2D sprites. Also, you''re able to recreate many 2D effects in 3D (such as cel shading) while making images appear smoother and more detailed (with zoom, rotation, scaling, all coming for free).

Things like costumes are inherently easy in 3D: where you only have to create an extra costume; the animation is handelled automatically by virtue of been linked to the 3D model.

In 2D, you''d have to recreate and link up the animations seperately, then you''d have to make sure the clipping is appropiate et al. If all this was hand drawn, it would be even more difficult.

Even tho the overheads for creating a 3D engine is higher, in terms of saving on the artistic resources and the added visual quality it gives, you''ll be better off using 3D in time to come. Hell, you can easily license a 3D engine, if you can''t waste the time and resources on creating a propriety 3D engine.

Zaptruder

Blizzard Announced StarCraft ][
I''m pretty shure it will be 3D.
I just bought Red Alert 2 & Yuri''s Revenge, from
the Command & Conquer Series by Westwood, and beying
a gamme programmer, I started thinking "when will they put
this game in 3d"?

I love C&C, but I don''t know if it would be as enjoyable in 3D...

[Hugo Ferreira][Positronic Dreams][]
"Research is what I''m doing when I don''t know what I''m doing."
- Wernher Von Braun (1912-1977)

quote: Original post by craymail

The game looks great and plays great and I am quite glad they took this step to 3D without ruining it and making it hard to control your units.

I''m also a tester and really like the graphics. When compared to a similar game that uses 2D units - Strifeshadow - Warcraft 3 is really much better. The animations are smoother than you can get with sprites and the textures are really great for the kind of style they were trying to go for. The only thing I''m annoyed with is you can''t rotate the camera.
So to all you 3D naysayers I say "BAH!"

An interesting topic.

I think the problem with a lot of RTS games that use 3d engines is that the 3d camera is just a gimick really, it serves no useful function and adds little (if anything) to the actual gameplay. Infact as has already been mentioned the 3d camera can actually detract from the experience , by making it more difficult to find your way around the map . I''ve just been playing "Red Alert 2" and "Emperor Battle For Dune", both by westwood studios ( as I''m sure you are all aware) and I found RA2 to be far the more enjoyable game of the two.

I think developers would do well to stick to using 2d in their RTS games unless the 3d is going to actually serve a useful purpose. The only way I can see of making 3d worthwhile in an RTS game is if you shift the whole thing into the first person perspective. This is notoriously difficult to accomplish with any degree of success, infact I can only think of 2 games that have ever managed to do this satisfactorily, and they are "Battlezone" by activision and it''s imaginatively named sequal "Battlezone 2" . Having said that , the Battlezone games were not all that popular which would seem to suggest that this isn''t really what the gaming public want.

In the final analysis 3d in RTS games can work well if handled properly, but it''s probably not worth all the bother of trying because it''s not what people want anyway.

People are strange.