Thoughts on why Supreme Commander failed.

[shortylickens]

On the grand scale that is. On a small scale I am sure it recouped expenses and then some, because they made SC2 (which was a failure).


Its not that the game itself sucked ass. Even if it did suck thats not why it failed with the public.
It failed because online matchmaking and game setup is a huge hassle, and getting patches is a fucking pain in the ass.
If they made an autopatcher I havent seen it. And getting all the individual patches manually is a so ridiculously hard it makes me not wanna install the game again.
I need about 10 files installed one at a time to go from retail to 1.3260.

And Dawn of War is the same way. Probably a superior game, but due to annoying patches, no autopatch system, and miserable online game play, it never got the success it deserved.
Those guys should have either ripped off battle.net or made something new that was superior. But to make a new system that sucks ass when you already have a good example to copy is just pathetic.
Not that I am in love with Starcraft 2's requirement that you always have to be online but it does fix a lot of issues.

 

[Nebor]

Supreme Commander was just too slow paced and complicated to grab my attention. Even the resource model seemed unnecessarily complicated with resource flow\income instead of just raw "piles" of resources.

I liked Dawn of War though. Maybe it was the cartoonish graphics that sucked me in.

 

[Anteaus]

I agree that the patching scheme was horrid but the game itself wasn't a failure. It sold pretty well and is considered one of the best multiplayer RTS there is.

As for patching, you can download the patches by hand now so at least you don't have to use that ridiculous GPGNet crap or whatever it's called.

 

[ICXRa]

I haven't played SC in quite a while, but I did like it. If I recall correctly when you logged into GPG.net and went to launch a game if you didn't have the current version it would download and install it. Granted going from retail to current would be a pain in the ass because all these were incremental patches. I finally just found a thread over in their forums that linked all the patches and saved them all in my game files archive.

As far as being bad about patches I still think Company of Heroes has them all topped.

My .02

 

[shortylickens]

I agree that the patching scheme was horrid but the game itself wasn't a failure. It sold pretty well and is considered one of the best multiplayer RTS there is.

As for patching, you can download the patches by hand now so at least you don't have to use that ridiculous GPGNet crap or whatever it's called.

OK, I dont think you read anything I wrote.
I never said the game itself was bad. And my complaint was about the hassle of 10 stupid little individual manual patches instead of a unified update system.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Ehh ...
IMO SC failed because it was too fast paced and simple for the hardcore TA players, who wanted giant epic games witth thousands and thousands of units in battle, and too complicated and slow paced for the people who wanted smaller scale tactical games.

Also, the pathing sucked.
The AI sucked.
Seemed like modding community didn't get enough support IMO.
Not enough maps, there were no giant 2-4 player maps, all the really big maps were set up for 7+ players. Seemed like all the maps were square shaped, ideal game would be a map with a width to height ratio of like 3 or 4 to 1, to have giant base areas, and a huge battlefield between...

IMO, it failed because Total Annilation Core Contingency was a better game, and therefore, Supreme Commander was obselete before it even came out.

 

[Anteaus]

OK, I dont think you read anything I wrote.
I never said the game itself was bad. And my complaint was about the hassle of 10 stupid little individual manual patches instead of a unified update system.

Your title, "Thoughts on why Supreme Commander failed". I took that to mean SC was a failure as the title declared it so. I apologize.

 

[Fenixgoon]

i thought SC was quite boring.

 

[Gibsons]

I tried it out. Well, bought it actually. The way to beat the AI:

1. Find the enemy base (one or two scouts)
2. Make a big blob of units, doesn't seem to matter what
3. Send the blob at the enemy camp.
4. profit?

 

[PieIsAwesome]

I played the demo back when it first came out, and I didn't like it because it just seemed like "Supreme Spam" to me. Copy and pasting (or queuing ) a bunch of buildings, waiting for everything to finish building, or waiting for resources, then waiting while I amass a massive blob of random units with cool unit portraits, then taking that blob to the enemy base.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

It sucked. The only multiplayer games that existed were "No Rush" maps.

What the HELL is the point of an RTS without rushing.

All it involved was blobbing units and throwing them at the enemy.

 

[Gillbot]

It was a rushed "get more money" Total Annihilation clone and the hardcore TA fans balked. Those who may have gotten into it who weren't into TA were overwhelmed with the mass scale and slow pace.

 

[Bateluer]

I liked SC1, SC2 was crap. SC1 really needed better patching though, every game developer and publisher does NOT need their own content delivery system. Its just a waste. Just toss the patch file on a server with a capped U/L speed and make a torrent file. Let your own customers distribute the patch and create the mirrors for you, save you a ton in the short term.

 

[GoSharks]

As far as being bad about patches I still think Company of Heroes has them all topped.

Company of Heroes is absolutely horrible. When I re-installed it on my laptop a while back, it took me a full 24 hours to get the thing totally up to date. (granted I wasn't looking at it for all those 24 hours).

Finally figured out that I can just copy the entire directory from computer to computer and it will run, without installing, with no issues.

 

[digitaldurandal]

SC failed because the units had no character. Every race basically had the same thing except for the cloaking race. The strategy of the game was almost nonexistant - if you watch a high level replay of the game you can see what I am talking about. They would send one or two units in to rush (even though people are saying it was no rush) and try to tech to the t2 unit and blob those. That's pretty much it for the top ranked players in the world. Watch a CoH, SC2, WC3 replay of the highest ranked people and watch them impress. The game simply did not have a good skill ceiling and it was confusing as to when you should move your army or bunker down because time goes by so slowly when you are just trying to maximize resources.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

SC failed because the units had no character. Every race basically had the same thing except for the cloaking race. The strategy of the game was almost nonexistant - if you watch a high level replay of the game you can see what I am talking about. They would send one or two units in to rush (even though people are saying it was no rush) and try to tech to the t2 unit and blob those. That's pretty much it for the top ranked players in the world. Watch a CoH, SC2, WC3 replay of the highest ranked people and watch them impress. The game simply did not have a good skill ceiling and it was confusing as to when you should move your army or bunker down because time goes by so slowly when you are just trying to maximize resources.

What. I don't get the feeling you have any idea whats going in a SC game.

 

[digitaldurandal]

What. I don't get the feeling you have any idea whats going in a SC game.

No, I do I have played supreme commander and was quite good at it. Perhaps you do not know the most efficient strategies in the game. Go download some replays and watch them - I have no idea about the second one but go watch replays for the first one. Top ranked player = nothing special. The game is nearly completely macro.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

No, I do I have played supreme commander and was quite good at it. Perhaps you do not know the most efficient strategies in the game. Go download some replays and watch them - I have no idea about the second one but go watch replays for the first one. Top ranked player = nothing special. The game is nearly completely macro.

I meant Starcraft

Edit. Goddamnit "SC" I thought your post was directed at starcraft not SupCom.

 

[Ancalagon44]

SC failed because the units had no character. Every race basically had the same thing except for the cloaking race. The strategy of the game was almost nonexistant - if you watch a high level replay of the game you can see what I am talking about. They would send one or two units in to rush (even though people are saying it was no rush) and try to tech to the t2 unit and blob those. That's pretty much it for the top ranked players in the world. Watch a CoH, SC2, WC3 replay of the highest ranked people and watch them impress. The game simply did not have a good skill ceiling and it was confusing as to when you should move your army or bunker down because time goes by so slowly when you are just trying to maximize resources.

Uh.... how many replays did you watch exactly? Please go to forums.gaspowered.com and post this there, most likely you'll get abused.

All of the high level replays that I ever watched involved T1 spam and keeping the ACU on the frontlines while building up to T2 ASAP. Going T2 too early was a risk to your economy though.

SupCom1 failed because it was too much work to be enjoyable. It also had the very poor GPGNet system, with poor replay support and poor matchmaking. SupCom2 was much better, IMHO, because it made the game much more playable without sacrificing too much strategic depth. But it really should have been released in the state it was after the first DLC, with the extra maps and units. Plus a lot of balance and bug fixes. If they had released it in that polished state, it would have done much better.

 

[digitaldurandal]

Uh.... how many replays did you watch exactly? Please go to forums.gaspowered.com and post this there, most likely you'll get abused.

All of the high level replays that I ever watched involved T1 spam and keeping the ACU on the frontlines while building up to T2 ASAP. Going T2 too early was a risk to your economy though.

SupCom1 failed because it was too much work to be enjoyable. It also had the very poor GPGNet system, with poor replay support and poor matchmaking. SupCom2 was much better, IMHO, because it made the game much more playable without sacrificing too much strategic depth. But it really should have been released in the state it was after the first DLC, with the extra maps and units. Plus a lot of balance and bug fixes. If they had released it in that polished state, it would have done much better.

Please reread my post - you posted exactly what I did. T1 rush and scale quick to T2. Doesn't matter what race, what map etc all the same. Nothing special. I don't really care what people at the gaspowered forums have to say - hence why I did not post it there. I am responding to the OPs question with my opinion of the game.

You do not seem to realize that you have basically mirrored what I said except you seem to think that it takes some special skill for everyone to use the same exact strategy. Macro should not be the only thing in the game, every unit should have flavor, the only map where strategies are different are the island maps. On StarC, CoH, WC3 your strategies can be quite map dependent, race dependent, counter dependent. Supreme Commander lacks that completely at the highest level of play.

 

[QuantumPion]

I think the problem was the scale was too big. The maps were too large and stuff too far apart. It meant the whole time all you saw was the little radar indicators of your units moving around and shooting. All you do is rally point your little dots around the map until you blow your enemy up. And the units were all basically the same, there was no difference between them. Also the music sucked. The game had no personality at all compared to TA.

 

[shortylickens]

Also, I just realized that my quad core phenom black was more than powerful enough to handle a screen full of units, but a dual core i3 isnt even close to acceptable when you have 400 units or more.
Gonna have to move up to a quad core i7 sooner or later.

 

[skace]

Ehh ...
IMO SC failed because it was too fast paced and simple for the hardcore TA players, who wanted giant epic games witth thousands and thousands of units in battle, and too complicated and slow paced for the people who wanted smaller scale tactical games.

Also, the pathing sucked.
The AI sucked.
Seemed like modding community didn't get enough support IMO.
Not enough maps, there were no giant 2-4 player maps, all the really big maps were set up for 7+ players. Seemed like all the maps were square shaped, ideal game would be a map with a width to height ratio of like 3 or 4 to 1, to have giant base areas, and a huge battlefield between...

IMO, it failed because Total Annilation Core Contingency was a better game, and therefore, Supreme Commander was obselete before it even came out.

Certainly the most agreeable critique in this thread.

 

[lothar]

I agree that the patching scheme was horrid but the game itself wasn't a failure. It sold pretty well and is considered one of the best multiplayer RTS there is.

As for patching, you can download the patches by hand now so at least you don't have to use that ridiculous GPGNet crap or whatever it's called.

The fact that the game was released in March for $50-60 and can now be had for $5-$10 brand new is in itself considered a failure.

 

[Beev]

Supreme Commander failed (to me) because it wasn't spectacular in any way whatsoever. It was fun, but only briefly, and even then it wasn't fun enough.