Anyone who has enjoyed Total Annihilation in the past, this will surely interest you. I don't want to ramble on about things that I honestly know little about. Instead, here's the stuff that I've read that sold me on this potentially upcoming game:
http://planetaryannihilation.comhttp://www.kickstarter.com/projects/659943965/planetary-annihilation-a-next-generation-rts
Below, I've written a letter I intend to send to Uber Entertainment. I insist that you have a read and comment if you agree.
To Uber Entertainment,
Planetary Annihilation already sounds like it's going to be a winner. That's why I backed you guys the instant I saw your page. I just wanted to make sure I got my opinion out there, as Supreme Commander was meant to be a spiritual successor, and although I have played it countless hours, I didn't ever feel it really hit the mark in comparison to Total Annihilation.. I don't want another one of them; a good game, but one that has so much potential for more. I'm sure you can understand.
One of the biggest reasons I felt SupCom didn't quite make it were the units. They weren't unique from one another; TotalA's units had so much more personality; from the Diplomat to the Zipper, F.A.R.K. and Necro, too. You can remember them by name, you know exactly what they're good for, and you can picture the good times you had when experimenting with each one.
I think a (somewhat bad) comparison would be modern shooter games: you're given a gun that you use for some time, and learn to deal with.. then, as you progress, you're given one that fires slower, but does more damage, which you may or may not prefer. There's guns that are less accurate, faster firing, more damaging, blah, blah, blah! You learn which one to use in whatever situation or map, and eventually, once you've finished the game (or 'teched up' to the max level), you end up with a favourite that you try to make work everywhere.
With TA's full 3D maps (not two or three levels joined by ramps, as per most modern RTS games), the uniqueness went beyond just the weapon; there were variants of units with not only different hit points or move speeds, but also traction over steep terrain and even the ability to move over or under water. Not to forget the weapons, though: missile tracking versus unguided rockets, lasers versus splash damage plasma, minimum targeting ranges, turret turn speeds and even some units that had multiple weapons. I was a huge fan of different coloured lasers referring to the different strength levels, but I was also young and amused by colourful things, as expected. Lets not forget that wheels, tracks, wings, hulls, amphibious hulls, displacement/hover, legs and more-legs helped keep things unique, too.
With TA's full 3D maps (not two or three levels joined by ramps, as per most modern RTS games), the uniqueness went beyond just the weapon; there were variants of units with not only different hit points or move speeds, but also traction over steep terrain and even the ability to move over or under water. Not to forget the weapons, though: missile tracking versus unguided rockets, lasers versus splash damage plasma, minimum targeting ranges, turret turn speeds and even some units that had multiple weapons. I was a huge fan of different coloured lasers referring to the different strength levels, but I was also young and amused by colourful things, as expected. Lets not forget that wheels, tracks, wings, hulls, amphibious hulls, displacement/hover, legs and more-legs helped keep things unique, too.
Don't get me entirely wrong, Supreme Commander is a decent RTS; it had a lot of strong points and even improvements over TotalA, especially with the controls and overlays (+showranges, anyone?). And it did have variations in units, they just happened to be very minor and mostly available on separate teams. As an example, one team would be known for hitting harder or having fasting moving effective units and so on. Not so much a bad thing, but in Cavedog's Total Annihilation, there were variations within the same army; you could attack at the front with Zeuses, Penetrators and Samsons while flanking with Mavericks and Fidos, which were weaker and faster units, but still could do considerable damage when not faced with proper defenses. That said, defenses in TotalA were worthy of being called defenses, and I'd love to see that again.
The unit variations really made the game unique for me, and you could always play your favourite team while changing up your strategy; there weren't just two or three build queues in TA like there were in SupCom, where not following one of the advantageous roll outs meant blatant death when up against a decent player, every time. With having so much variation, giving units obvious weaknesses is very important; a skilled microer could run rings around an army of rocket K-bots with just a handful of A.K.s. Or even Vamps versus Defender missile towers, as a better example! This might not be game making or breaking; I'm sure it would have been a very competitive and playable game without this level of variation, but it definitely was one of the reasons I kept, and still keep going back to TA to enjoy.
The unit variations really made the game unique for me, and you could always play your favourite team while changing up your strategy; there weren't just two or three build queues in TA like there were in SupCom, where not following one of the advantageous roll outs meant blatant death when up against a decent player, every time. With having so much variation, giving units obvious weaknesses is very important; a skilled microer could run rings around an army of rocket K-bots with just a handful of A.K.s. Or even Vamps versus Defender missile towers, as a better example! This might not be game making or breaking; I'm sure it would have been a very competitive and playable game without this level of variation, but it definitely was one of the reasons I kept, and still keep going back to TA to enjoy.
Thank you for your time.
--TheTopMostDog
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