Supreme Commander comes out 02/20

[Hoax]

Somehow this game goes through beta and is now gold with me almost not hearing about it.

http://www.supremecommander.com/  Its a stupid flash site but it does have some unit pics up and the usual fluff-that-wont-matter-once-your-playing fallderall.  I'm excited, I have heard  that it is really good.  I wish I didn't suck so much at rts honestly but I will still pick this up because TA was fucking love.


(post 2100 yay me, ding-grats etc.  I'm dangerously close to hitting 3post/day again.....)

[Viin]

(post 2100 yay me, ding-grats etc.  I'm dangerously close to hitting 3post/day again.....)

I'm not sure a high post count is a good thing. But congrats anyways! ;)

Edit: the game looks nice, reminds me of Ground Control a bit. But, I suck at RTS's too. I much prefer tactical than strategy games anyways.. now if someone could make a multiplayer game where you commanded a single unit with a single "strategic commander" to command you and your team mates - that would kick ass. Anyone? Bueller?

[Yoru]

Oh sweet, just in time for my birthday. :D

I can't wait for this, even though it's going to make my rig implode. I loved TA back in the day, and I saw a rolling demo of this at AGC. Looked quite nice, although I have no idea how much hardware they were throwing at it.

That said, the part that really makes me happy? The fact that the battlefield is appropriately scaled so that you can have tactical nuclear weapons modeled properly. :D

[Strazos]

And Yoru sure does love him some nukes.

*pew pew*

Anyway, yeah...looks interesting, especially the part of the video showcasing a combined-arms land assault, with formations and actual battle lines.

Tanks rolling through the countryside, as fighters and bombers zoom past overhead to plink the front of the enemy's line....Nice.

[Quinton]

I can't wait for this, even though it's going to make my rig implode. I loved TA back in the day, and I saw a rolling demo of this at AGC. Looked quite nice, although I have no idea how much hardware they were throwing at it.

TA was fantastic.  I haven't played a RTS much in almost 5 years now... hope this delivers.

-Q

[Hoax]

I'm not going to read the forums, I'm not going to read the forums, I'm not...

Anyway if they can have a boneyards-style matching system with a galactic war style campaign like TA did I'll be set for quite awhile.  Fuck MMO's its going to take another decade at best before they stop pissing on my dreams.

[Flood]

It shall kick mighty ass.  I also suck at RTS's (especially online) but I really enjoy the current gen RTS's.  I play a lot of Dawn of War/Dark Crusade to get the taste of MMO out of my mouth.

I have the large (293mb) version of the E3 trailer for Supreme Commander, and if watching it doesn't get you pumped up well.       Sorry I don't have access to any place to host something that large for you guys.  You can probably Google and find it.

[Quinton]

Just watched the 800xwhatever trailer.  I am now totally psyched -- it looks spectacular.  I'm hoping in addition to *looking* like TA+++ it also has similar UI improvements.   I haven't really played RTSes since 2000 or so when I stopped working for a company that had a bunch of StarCraft fans in the engineering team

I'm in agreement with Hoax.  This is far more exciting than any of the MMO stuff I've seen recently.
I hope the online play is decent.  I've only ever played RTSes on local networks in the past, but don't have housemates or coworkers to game with these days so I'm at the mercy of Internet play, I suppose.

Has anyone seen any decent reviews of this or more in depth information about the interface and gameplay?

-Q

[Yegolev]

There's an interview in a CGW issue last fall with Chris Whatshisname.  Sounds awesome, pretty sure you have not heard about it because it's a DX10-seller and is on the MS bandwagon.

[Yoru]

There's an interview in a CGW issue last fall with Chris Whatshisname.  Sounds awesome, pretty sure you have not heard about it because it's a DX10-seller and is on the MS bandwagon.

Wait, what. It's DX10 only?

[Yegolev]

I don't think it's only, I just think it's going to be one of those that puts it to good use and makes it desirable, and it's going to be in a MS marketing push instead of just laying out there like BioShock.  It's appearance in the MS Pimp Rag lends itself to my pet theory, but who knows, I'm wrong a lot.  I think I have my tinfoil hat on.

[geldonyetich]

I loved Total Annihilation, even moreso than Starcraft.  So Supreme Commander, a 'spiritual successor', definitely has my attention.  I'll at least want to try out the demo.  A pity I missed the Fileplanet beta.

[Wolf]

I don't want to spoil your party, but I tried the beta (about 2ish months ago). It ran like shit (have a pretty decent rig) and played like shit, too. It had potential, maybe they managed to get it into shape for launch. I wouldn't be betting on it though, the game was in a pretty dreadful state back than.

[Trippy]

How long ago was that?

[Wolf]

Hmmm I don't really remember. I'm guessing somewhere between the beginning and the middle of December is when I tried it. Maybe end of November, beginning of December.

[Trippy]

I can't comment on the gameplay but I would be suprised if it didn't run well since they've been doing a good job on the performance end of things with the Dungeon Siege series. On the other hand he went way over the top on TA:Kingdoms in terms of what the typical gaming rig could handle at that time so maybe he did the same with Supreme Commander.

[Yegolev]

It will probably run smoothly on a DX10 card, like the GF8800.  I'm only joking a little about that.  Too bad about that Vista thing that's cocking-up DX10.

[Yoru]

[Yegolev]

At a Games For Windows event in San Francisco related to next week's Windows Vista launch, Microsoft exec Rich Wickham has been discussing the company's attitude to PC gaming, DirectX 10, and Vista.
...
Other major titles being showcased, though not yet necessarily on DirectX 10, included Hellgate London and Supreme Commander.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=12510

[geldonyetich]

Oh man.  On some level I'm doing that every time I hear, "bad thing X happened to game-I-was-looking-forward-to Y"

Question for Wolf: Do you have a dual-core system? 

Supreme Commander is being advertised as a game that specifically takes advantage of one.

[Megrim]

I don't want to spoil your party, but I tried the beta (about 2ish months ago). It ran like shit (have a pretty decent rig) and played like shit, too. It had potential, maybe they managed to get it into shape for launch. I wouldn't be betting on it though, the game was in a pretty dreadful state back than.

If you can (nda issues?), would you be so kind as to elaborate on this? I've been very, very quietly holding out for a good rts so i'd really like to know more.

[Yoru]

Demo is out today. Finding a decent download site, however, is a task I leave an exercise to the internet detectives.

[Hoax]

I recommend http://files.filefront.com/Supreme%20Commander%20Demo/;6698411;;/fileinfo.html from Bluesnews list.

[Murgos]

8 gigs HD space required.   For a demo.

[Yegolev]

I just deinstalled Vanguard, so I'm golden.

[Yoru]

8 gigs HD space required.   For a demo.

Wha...? The version I have only requires 2 gigs.

"Only".

Edit: Oh, the readme. I'm betting they just copied the game's system requirements.

[Murgos]

8 gigs HD space required.   For a demo.

Wha...? The version I have only requires 2 gigs.

"Only".

Edit: Oh, the readme. I'm betting they just copied the game's system requirements.

Yeah, naively I was going by what the readme said.  Silly Murgos, no one reads readmes.

[Trippy]

Demo available here:

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=9327.0

[Yoru]

Tried the demo today for a few hours. Very pretty although not having real tutorials in the demo (just a link to some webpages) wasn't a good move. Fortunately the gameplay is very very very VERY VERY VERY similar to Total Annihilation. Really, it's just TA with some balance changes, a cleanup of the unit list, and a significantly upgraded graphics engine/UI.

Going to have to see if it actually runs on my home PC though.

Edit: Works fine on my home PC, which is just barely better than the recommended specs, although I did dial down the Shiny before trying. (Shadows, antialiasing, a Jedi needs not these things.)

I tried one more game against the AI (skirmish) and did fine with a very simple techrush strategy. They claim 250 units in the interstitial screen, so I'm guessing quite a few are missing from the demo. Tried the first campaign mission. It wants to be Starcraft really really bad. Right down to the format of the briefing and the mid-game "new objective" banter.

No multiplayer in the demo, which is disappointing. Also disappointing are the very annoying "buy me!" interstitials, which consist of 2 pages (which are displayed for 5 seconds minimum, then go away with a keypress) that show up after EVERY game and on quitting. Same two pages as well. I think there's another campaign mission or two left in the demo, so I'll check that out tomorrow or something.

I enjoyed TA quite a bit, so I'll probably pick this up on or shortly after release, especially since we have some RTS nuts around the office. It could make for some fun after-hours action.

[Yegolev]

I agree that not including some sort of instruction was bad.  The tutorial pages did not load for me, but I only tried once.  Looks like it could be a lot of fun, or it might make me reinstall StarCraft.  It's a toss-up.

[Xerapis]

The mission briefings and mid-mission objectives definitely reminded me of Starcraft, but with better graphics.

Unfortunately, the rest of the game did NOT feel like Starcraft.

Mostly, I was bored.  My units felt very disposable.  And aircraft take too long to build.

Oh, and screens that say "buy me" and won't go away for 5 seconds....REALLY MAKE ME ANGRY.

I mean, I almost certainly wasn't going to buy it anway...but having to wait and press a key twice just to quit?  Not cool.

EDIT:  Demo with no tutorial mode? WTF were they thinking?  I love tutorials.  They tell me exactly how stupid you think the players are.  And sometimes, I learn things :S

[Yoru]

Unfortunately, the rest of the game did NOT feel like Starcraft.

Mostly, I was bored.  My units felt very disposable.  And aircraft take too long to build.

Your units ARE disposable. The Tech3 nuclear bomber takes a while, but the tech1/tech2 ones seemed to be pretty speedy for me. And the nuke bomber... uh, it drops a nuke that decimates a huge area. There's a reason it has a 40 minute base construction time.

Did you make spare engineers and assign them to assist your factories? Each additional builder adds its resource-allocation speed to the construction of whatever it's attached to. Add your commander and some tech3 builders for some fast, fast construction.

Like I said, it's just like TA.

[Xerapis]

I never played TA. ~shrug~

I couldn't figure how to upgrade my tech levels.

I didn't know about engineers helping factories.

Please refer to earlier comment about LACK OF TUTORIAL.

Oh, and I was bored.

I did like the partially correct military symbology on the units when you zoom all the way out, though.

[Trippy]

Whoever thought that displaying the "viewport" as a rectangle was a good idea needs to have his head examined. Anybody know if I can shuffle the interface elements around so I can actually see "up" and "down" equally as well as I can see "left" and "right"? Also, my unit assignment keys don't seem to be working (CTRL-1, etc.). Anybody else have that same problem?

[Yoru]

Whoever thought that displaying the "viewport" as a rectangle was a good idea needs to have his head examined. Anybody know if I can shuffle the interface elements around so I can actually see "up" and "down" equally as well as I can see "left" and "right"? Also, my unit assignment keys don't seem to be working (CTRL-1, etc.). Anybody else have that same problem?

CTRL+1 and so on were working fine for me last night. I had my swarms keyed all the way through 6.