I grew up playing Total Annihilation in the 90s because my cousin worked for Cavedog and got us a CD for free. It is still one of my favorite games to this day.
So many great memories with that game, countless hours playing with my brothers, getting up early to pay before school, asking my parents for extra chores to earn more computer time.
Games aren't the same anymore.
I still have the game and expansion packs.
Joined some 8v8 for noobs and some were very friendly but they also wanted to kick me for not knowing the game. After all they let me stay but I stuck to pve or vs bots with friends now
Also, one particularly aggravating part of the community is that it’s considered courtesy to surrender once the front line is broken instead of playing the game out and letting the back eco players try and recover it.
The drafting for picking map spots is done in order of seniority, and the good players take all the low stress spots which leaves the newer players to take the more difficult spots. This feeds into a loop where the senior players get aggro at the new players for letting the front break down, but simultaneously they won’t take it themselves even though it’s the more important position.
I stopped playing because I felt like I had a lot of negative interactions in every 2nd or 3rd game. The front player blames the back player, the back player blames the front player, everyone flames the weakest player.
BAR in contrast is a bit of a PvP clickfest, which I don't enjoy. I wonder if there's a game mode or another Spring mod that would give me a more authentic feel? Single-player or perhaps PvE.
It's still actively developed and very free to play.
Here's a cast of 40 vs 40 players by a former Star Craft 2 pro player: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1a5dkjUq3o
For a more relaxed experience, I’d recommend trying less established meta maps. Lobbies marked “rotato” rotate maps after every game and are usually among the chillest. Players tend to be less rigid about roles and expected builds there, which generally leads to more positive interactions.
Which is a fork of the Spring RTS engine: https://springrts.com/
[ eye rolling emoji ]
Lots of players mean more chances to get a toxic guy who doesn't recognise their own faults and blames others.
I actually just don't really agree about the assertion on player slots. If anything, the better players get the more likely they are to play a front slot, because they have an outside influence on the chances of their team winning.
What do you not actually like about the site? I'm not a big fan of the trope of "hero" image slideshows taking up the whole screen, but if it's justified anywhere, it seems justified here where they're trying to make a game look cool, and the cards seem reasonably informative and not just vacuous. Yes, it is a "polished" design, and I wouldn't be surprised if they started with a template. What should they do; bad design to show amateurism? Would that be more or less slop?
Front has zero opportunity or resources available to build any kind of economy, and once the T2 units start coming through from the other side they feel very expendable. As the front player you build the same 1 or 2 units every single game and never really get to strategise.
What also enraged me is that the back players would have the nerve to make the front player “pay” for their T2 constructor units after working so hard to keep everyone alive, despite everyone knowing the front player has zero resources at any given time because it’s all going into units that are being meat grinded.
I'd even dare to say it's beyond all reason.
In magic the gathering I had dozens of decks trying different things. He had a single deck that he kept tweaking to within the millimetre of perfection.
In overwatch, I would play different characters to experience different parts of the game and try different strategies. He played single character for years, with 10 times the hours in that char than I had in all of them combined.
Heck even in real life, he was a Java developer for decades whereas I was a type of fleeting sysadmin specifically so I could play with different toys in the stack :).
Now, this is a bit side Venn diagram, he'd never be rude on an online game (he does have offline opinions on the meta :). But it let me understand people who have fun in a very different way than I do :). He doesn't see boredom in playing same way over and over (and over and over), I think he sees it as professional athlete being focused and honing their specific craft.
All these groups of people sometimes play in the same lobbies, and what the players "gain" from the session can be very different depending on the person. There is no "right or wrong" way to play video games, or the right/wrong motivation for it, it's just different.
Somehow Starcraft 2 emerged from the other side of esports mostly unscathed, despite being arguably the most significant progenitor of the entire genre.
I think they might destroy the streaming/online communities, but I wouldn't say it destroys the game itself. I play BAR, but never with random strangers, the game works fine, but I also don't participate in any "video game" communities or watch/play with streamers, so what you're saying sounds very foreign to me, and is more about the communities than the games themselves.
Looking forward to a break where I can get into BAR, I've been utterly nerdsniped. Uthermal's VODs are good stuff [1].
I played Zero-K several years ago and it didn’t stick in my mind as much but maybe worth revisiting it - thanks!
Reading about it seems to suggest that it’s even deeper in terms of strategy and tactics so I will probably struggle even more. :(
Or in multiplayer you can arrange a co-operative game with humans against AI opponents, which often has substantially less flaming involved, especially when playing a "survive against an onslaught of enemies" scenario.
Also the account system of course allows for muting, avoiding-being-paired-with, or fully blocking players. For more egregious behavior a player can be reported to moderators and temporarily / permanently suspended if they break the community code-of-conduct.
This is such a dissociative experience (what I enjoy vs what everyone wants to provide) I wonder if there is a market opportunity somewhere here for professional sports. Just a cam feed focused on on a single player and their contribution to the game. A second person cast rather than the normal third person view.
The thing the GPL requires is that I also provide it for free. Now, why would anyone buy a free thing? To support the devs. To encourage this sort of business model. To get a build that's known to be working and supported and not have to deal with the hassle of compiling things themselves.
(In theory!)
I only play public matches with random strangers and this is the feeling.
Obviously this wouldn't apply if I had a small community of not-strangers to play with consistently, which you do have but oddly describe as not having a community.
[0] https://liquipedia.net/starcraft2/Winter_(American_player)
Not sure why we should encourage using open source as a vehicle to market and get free work building your fundamentals. Just to reap the profits yourself later.
Basically, the paid content will boil down to a single-player campaign.
The funds help us finish and release the game which still needs a lot of focused effort which is not something you can reliably sustained without commissioning some of that work.
The post below explains it in detail.
https://www.beyondallreason.info/news/beyond-all-reason-and-...
All units and projectiles are simulated in real-time. The game offers fully simulated projectile ballistics, explosion physics and terrain deformation.
Enjoy an immersive RTS experience, whether you are commanding individual units, or armies of thousands. Take control as you engage in an epic struggle for domination!


The shape of every battlefield in-game imposes which strategies work and which units are effective. No two maps will play the same. Radar cannot penetrate mountains and nuclear warfare will physically alter the terrain.
Utilize over 10 different unit classes, including all-terrain Experimental units, to work your way to victory.
Your power lies in the careful balance of exponentially growing your resource income and the production of devastating war machines.
You decide if you want to disarm your enemies with a few precise early strikes or to build a thousand bombers and obliterate them.
Immerse yourself in a violent world where tactical and strategical supremacy are needed in your fight towards victory.


Each and every unit in the game has a role to fill. Mix-and-match units to create infinite possible tactics. Experiment with your own combinations and show off the new strategies you develop in battle.