How can we reinvigorate the RTS market? news

Tuesday, January 7th, 2014

There has been a lot of speculation about why the RTS market is shrinking. It could be that the genre has over complicated itself. Research tree’s getting larger and larger, UI elements getting buried deeper under each new feature, could be contributing to the slowdown in interest in RTSs. In an effort to do something new, RTS designers keep adding more “stuff” on top of the already complicated game play of an RTS.

So how do you reinvigorate the RTS market? We believe it’s by changing the design and making it less complicated. Adding cooperative team play to an RTS would be a good way to strike up new spark to an RTS design. By multiplayer cooperative, we don’t just mean you are able to side with another faction or team on the map, we mean multiple players can join a single team and take over some of the RTS units in FPS mode. You have your RTS commander and accompanying units, while a number of live players are in control of some of them. Each team on the map can operate this way.

The RTS genre needs to be merged with something else to go from a demographic that maintains a smaller piece of the video game pie (and is shrinking), to combining it with one of the healthiest demographics, first person shooter’s.

First Person Shot:

Further, what if the resource mining and long research trees were shortened, redesigned, or, eliminated? How do you create faster set up times and intense game play without researching massive weapons and technology? MOS does this by allowing players to build and save their armies up front, reload their armies at will, and, instead of research; players enhance their units by finding “drops” during game play.

Drops temporarily enhance units during that match. Salvage, on the other hand, can be found during a match and used to permanently enhance a unit. Units augmented with salvage can be saved to the army file and used in future matches, forever increasing and changing the power of MOS armies.All of these things create an accessible game without needing long periods of time to finish a match.

First Person Shot:

MOS will open some of the AI components usually hidden to the RTS player. The way RTS units respond in the game are usually closed and units carry out their business as programmed by the developers. MOS has opened some of the parameters of behavior to the game player so that they can customize how their units will behave. This is a key component of the “strategy” part of MOS.

MOS is delivered so that strategy remains a big part of game play. It incorporates cooperative team play between other teams on the map, and, by allowing teammates to take control of units on their particular team. Once armies are developed and saved, they can be loaded and adjusted quickly in the Operation Editor (OpEd). Teammates can gather in the lobby of the match making server and decide who will be the “GENEI” (or RTS commander) for the game and who will pilot units in FPS mode. Once this has been determined the game can be launched by GENEI and combat can begin right away.

Operations Editor:

Temporary abilities and upgrades can be picked up during game play by both the GENEI and RTS pilots. These temporary upgrades and abilities can be added and deleted as you collect better ones during game play. Salvage can also be found in a match and added to units in the next match for permanent upgrades. This is the MOS alternative to long research trees, although, MOS does maintain research trees for base weapons and buildings.This design is intended to keep players focused on combat and unit management rather than resources and research management. The focus is on the action.

Operations Editor: