The new mellenium is uppon us, and we are expecting great things out of gaming industry in the year to come. I had a conversation with my partner in crime, Blackthorn, and we got to talking about the state of TA/TAK and what the next year holds in store for us.......
Following is a breif summary by Blackthorn of roughly how we feel, and what we'd like to see in the next year.
TA Kingdoms: The Rise, Stall and Fall of Darien
This is my final post of 1999, so I bid everyone well, and please
look deep into the following issues for the year 2000.
Cavedog Advertising for TAK 2.0 and the Expansion Pack -
Kingdoms has lost its following. How might Cavedog recover from
this problem? They should advertise in magazines again for 2 months.
In the advertisement, promote the 2.0 release and that it DOES run
250% faster! Promote the new units... Promote Crusades... Hint about
the expansion back due to come in a few months.
Then, on the 3rd month, run a 2 month ad in many magazines for the
expansion pack. It may cost some money, but the outcome is the profit.
If you do NOT promote TAK 2.0 again, then the sales for the expansion
pack will be over 50% lower than you expect. I see companies come and
go, advertising day in and day out... Maybe someone at CD will
understand my cause here. This will get more people back to Crusades
and buy TAK (which is cheaper now).
TAK Units, the good, the bad and the fears of RTS gaming -
After a recent chat with some well known TA/TAK veterans, it appears
TAK in all its glory has slowly turned from a Real Time Strategy
game into a Relaxed Tactical Simmer game. What does this mean?
Yes, CD is listening...we all said we wanted low end faster rush units
and behold...the CGM units span the gap. The thing I am talking about
is that CD removed radar jamming, removed mine laying, removed berthas,
removed complete underwater submergable units (for sneak attacks),
removed nukes and antinukes from Kingdoms, not to mention the lack of
a 2nd resouce. This alone is washing out TAK massively. We need more
strategy, CD! If you want unit ideas check over MercilessCreations Beastiary
for new ideas to fill all these gaps. Seriously, there needs to be more
units that offer more strategy. Why do all flying units have projectile
weapons? This is insane. Why can't you make any air units that have hand
to hand weapons? Why do most water units (Zhon Swampbeast as an example)
skate over the water? Too many units have the "Moses Effect" in TAK. What
happened to units swimming? Just some thoughts...
3rd party support (here we go again) for Kingdoms? -
The grand promise of 3rd party support still lingers overhead like a
looming vulture high in the clouds over Darian. CD was kind enough to
offer the BOS scripts (lacking headers so that didn't really help us)
for making 3rd party units. They offer us the map making utility called
"Cartographer" that has so many little nuices that it is subpar. They
*promised* grand support, but keep handing out crumbs instead of complete
pies. What does the community want? We want the ability to make 3rd party
tilesets. We also want the ability to make solo missions. We want the ability
to make new "races" for different units or maps. With Dark Reign 2 and Warcraft 3
looming in the near future with guaranteed 3rd party support, how will CD
handle the upcoming months?
The Iron Plague Expansion Pack, a cd full of goodness or just "something good" ? -
Will the expansion be BETTER than the TA's Core Contingency Expansion? Time will tell...
will it have over 75 units and many many new tilesets? It will ship with TAK 2.0
and Crusades but that will not take much space on the cd. Will it ship with
unit making tools or a new map making tool for 3rd party tilesets or solo missions?
Will it have alot of new goodies or just be a bit of goodness? The screenshots
look great but alas... will it support oversold promises of the 3rd party development
community?
Total Annihilation 2: The Dream -
It should be well known to Cavedog, that TA2 would sale VERY well and probably be in
a best interest to develop in full force. Rumors...skeptical lies about TA2. Is it
underwraps? Is it even on the table? If it is just starting development, we are looking
for no earlier release of it until 2001. With DarkReign 2 hanging in the shadows for
release in 3 months, will TA2 be history and everyone flock to DR2? If there is no TA2
ever to be published, then DR2 WILL feed the desires of TA2 devotees. Sad but true.
So where is TA2? We would rather be playing TA2 instead of DR2...but CD is leaving us
no choices here... sigh.
Cavedog acknowledgement of "FAN and 3rd party development" sites? -
They don't acknowledge the FAN and 3rd party sites like a majority of other developers do.
Sad but true. People are strange when they are strangers. What are we to expect when half
of the CD team, still (after 2 years) have not heard of Planet Annihilation, TA Universe,
TADD, MercilessCreations, TAMEC, etc etc... ??? This soapbox will go silent now.
Good and Evil, Amen and TA2 -
Cavedog started out as the RTS gaming forefront leader, now in hopes of tackling many
other gaming genres, they expanded. Coming in the near future is Good and Evil, a mysterious
RPG with humorous RTS abilities. Looks good, might have some great potential... But it is
shrouded in the dark cloud of "vaporware". Amen? Amen is Cavedog's FPS shooter that people
deem wonderous. With the release of Unreal Tournament and Quake3, for starters, the heat is
on and Amen is in a VERY crowded gene pool due to its' delays. So where do we stand now?
Who knows. It is good CD wants to expand to other game genres, but it is a double edged
sword. Maybe it is just me, but when you have a successful title such as the TA line was, it
would only be logical to design a sequel and not wander off into the forest. Call me strange
but I would have TA2 already in development, making it have all the good things about TA,
all the things TAK didn't have, using a better engine than TAK, and learn from all our mistakes
with TAK. Some game developers learn from their mistakes, some do not, some continue to excel
in growth, others fade out over time. Which road will CD take in 2000?
Now we do thank CD for all the good things they ARE doing. Darien Crusades is wicked, 180 new
maps is awesome. The new units are grand especially having 4 new ones at once. What is next?
Well everyone, have a safe and merciless New Year's holiday. See you next Century.
-
