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Please use the proper syntax for style markup; the result should be demand, not [i]demand[/i]. I’m not sure how you missed that when the markup instructions are right above the comment submit button. Perhaps you didn’t proofread carefully enough. Boy, being pedantic about minor grammatical or markup errors sure is fun and contributes to the discussion.

Now, onto your actual points:

In 10 years’ time, no-one will find it easy to remember that a given game was the first to showcase a given feature, and it won’t *feel* new to play at all.

Yeah, no one remembers Rainbow Six as one of the first mainstream FPS games to feature realistic weapon damage; or Half-Life as the game that advanced FPS narrative past “there are monsters in this level and you want to shoot them”; or Thief as the originator of the stealth FPS; or Company of Heroes as the game that popularized the importance of cover (i.e. not having your troops stand still in the open firing at a bunker like turrets). Since these games don’t have disproportionately large multiplayer followings they were clearly commercial and critical failures.

However, a perfectly polished game will *always* be perfectly polished (barring patches, &c…), and will be enjoyable for that reason in perpetuity.

Besides a small hardcore demographic (i.e. people still playing QWTF to this day) players will generally migrate to a sequel if it is sufficiently good compared to its parent because they want some kind of advancement or change to the game. The change could be something fundamental like gameplay mechanics, functional like the interface, or superficial like the graphics.

For this reason, Starcraft and Warcraft III are the two best RTSs yet made, and unpolished innovators like DoW2 ought and shall be forgotten quickly.

Please explain how DoW2 is unpolished. You certainly can’t argue that on the multiplayer side, considering how a major multiplayer rebalancing has been released recently based on player feedback. You’re taking popularity and longevity as an absolute indicator of merit. I think Warcraft 3 is a better game (that is, more fun) than Starcraft. Since Starcraft is more popular does that make me wrong?

In my mind, I associate a cheap-thrills, what’s-the-newest-pretty-thing-I-can-play audience with the console market in contrast with the longer attention-spanned audience found on the PC where 12-year-old games are the most popular/respected/admired (SC, Counterstrike, DotA’s getting there).

Wait, I thought console players were the ones who bought sequels that were essentially yearly graphics/roster/weapon upgrades and PC gamers were the refined connoisseurs of electronic entertainment that appreciated innovation and experimentation. I must be getting my baseless stereotypes mixed up; I’ve got to stop skipping the Two Minutes Hate.

If you consider yourself a true PC gamer, then I would suggest that you start to appreciate the option with a longer attention span (and thus, one might say, more developed intelligence): polish, over innovation.

Translation: If you don’t agree with me you are stupid, not a “true” PC gamer like the rest of us, and you probably are ugly too.

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“Criteria” is in the plural; either use “criterion” to indicate singular, or change “isn’t” to “aren’t” in line with its plural subject.

In my opinion, the best games are simply the most polished, end of story. Sure, innovation’s great and ought to be praised where present, but focussing only on innovation is very short-sighted. In 10 years’ time, no-one will find it easy to remember that a given game was the first to showcase a given feature, and it won’t *feel* new to play at all. However, a perfectly polished game will *always* be perfectly polished (barring patches, &c…), and will be enjoyable for that reason in perpetuity.

I therefore assert that one ought to hope for innovation, but [i]demand[/i] polish (even to the exclusion of the former). For this reason, Starcraft and Warcraft III are the two best RTSs yet made, and unpolished innovators like DoW2 ought and shall be forgotten quickly.

In my mind, I associate a cheap-thrills, what’s-the-newest-pretty-thing-I-can-play audience with the console market in contrast with the longer attention-spanned audience found on the PC where 12-year-old games are the most popular/respected/admired (SC, Counterstrike, DotA’s getting there).

If you consider yourself a true PC gamer, then I would suggest that you start to appreciate the option with a longer attention span (and thus, one might say, more developed intelligence): polish, over innovation.

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But you will need to play through the single player to get to that stage and from what I see it looks fun.

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Amen. Rise of Nations stands as one of only two RTS’s I’ve ever played that has really stood the test of time. I’m still playing it to this day, and I owned it when it was brand new.

The other one, incidentally, is the (slightly inferior to RoN but still very good) Dawn of War: DC (and occasionally SS, but I can’t really get behind that one as a classic).

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You wouldn’t see that happen in Rise of Nations (<3)

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I can’t imagine playing it for more than a few levels though, the weird micromanagement, static gameplay and repetitive responses all look like they’d get old fast.

Maybe the story will be interesting enough to make me play through the levels.

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Star Trek chess looks novel enough to tempt me, though. Even though I don’t play chess.

You know what I’m saying?

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More and more games are going towards a sort of “easy to learn hard to master” game style, where the difficulty curve allows for an “okay” player to do well enough, but to get from “okay” to “great” takes some good practice and technique. This goes for TF2, which is just about the simplest game to get into, and just about anyone can score an eventual point if they try hard enough, and similarly for DoW2 (but to a lesser extent, it is an RTS after all). Even if you suck at DoW2, you can still help your war effort somewhat. This isn’t a bad thing, it’s much more approachable. Compare TF2 to CS, or better yet, TFC. Both these games are predominantly run by a bunch of mega players that do things you can’t even imagine doing. The difficulty curve is insane.

I know that I, as your average low skill RTS player, was thrown off by the punishing nature of old RTSs, with their huge build order lists and base management and constant switching between base and frontline. It was, quite frankly, scary for me. DoW2 lets me focus solely on unit tactics and positioning, and I’m not too bad at it.

Same thing goes for grenades in TF2. I joined some TFC matches back in the days when TF2 wasn’t released yet, and all those grenade jumping maniacs scared the hell out of me. TF2′s streamlined nature makes for a much better gameplay.

For multiplayer games, streamlining is the way of the future. By making the gameplay as close to the core as possible while not making it too “raw” you can let in a lot of gameplay elements that would previously have been too much for the game to handle, and at the same time let the player focus on other things.

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