very interesting read, even though I dont agree on all points.

to answer a question in his 7th point. games like starcraft and homeworld did in fact become immensly better (at least for me) via the introduction of a compelling story. the point is, learning more about the races gets you more involved with what is going on. when you know who they are, why they are doing what they are doing and what they possible consequences of failure are. and, as stupid as it may sound, doing a proper game story without (good) characters is like doing a movie without a hero. it becomes a documentary film. not necessarily bad, but more informing than entertaining, which may not be why you are playing the game in the first place.

the second big motive for a campaign, at least in my view, is that it allows you to do exactly what sorensen mentioned in the first point: change the rules, change the starting situation or the objective, which gives a little different experience than the free play. I'd love to see a sins mission or map or scenario where you are forced into defence by overwhelming forces or where you would be required to locate and exploit a mystical artifcat, rush to an ally's defence, before he gets overrun, and more. all that with a believable story line and yeah, its great.

tbh, a traditional sequential campaign need not be necessary. there are a ton of options how it could be done. you might for example view this from some future point of view and play a series of scenarios which could show important engagements in the war. you could modify the way the tech tree works a bit to show that the unit loadout we can reach at lvl 8 now was only the state at the end of the war. so, some stuff would be unavailable in earlier missions, others could be in, but in a less efficient way, representing older, non-optimized placeholder solutions until better substitutes like proper heavy cruiser and such became available.

to return to the start. an interesting read, sorens comments, but as you could see, I don't agree on all of it.

More of a nitpick than anything really but World in Conflict 'did' have a single-player skirmish available.  It was just one of those awkward "set up a LAN game with nobody else involved" sorts like Warhammer: Mark of Chaos.

Not exactly intuitive but it was an option.

Anyway, I'm of the mind that scripted campaigns tend to do more harm than good for people who want to learn the game for the long-term as they tend to do a ridiculous amount of rule-bending, making you think that units are capable of things that they're not in a standard skirmish.  I enjoy a good story but I wish more campaigns would stick to the actual rules while telling that story rather than being a complete giveaway to people who don't actually want to learn how to play.  It's no skin off of my back, though.

it's like a girl who lets you make out with her.  then you get all hot and excited and she changes her mind.  then you are left to pleasure yourself with y our hand

If you get all hot and excited over a computer game...you might have "issues".

That might also describe a kick-ass game where 98% of the players seem to prefer to play it in single player.  You want to play it online but since there aren't enough pepople online you're left to pleasure yourself, which is far less satisfying.

Hmm... disagree on several points

1)too much scripting.  The question is not how much, but how good.  Scripts and surprises can be fun and interesting. An AI that is gimped game after game is just opening the door for criticism of weak AI and a rude awakening when they try the same thing with the AI unfettered.  Scripting and AI limitations are often there to keep the AI from flattening you, while giving the AI immense starting resources ensures you do not use the same early rush tactic every time.  The proper balance is difficult, and scripting is DANGEROUS, but not an automatic disaster.

2)too much stuff.  *ROFL* ya right.  Also sitting on my desktop is JA2 1.13 on tons of guns.      In my opinion, more units makes more work for the game designers, balancing it all, but more units does not weaken the end product.  Too many games, a sheer efficiency analysis means there are 12 units, and people use between 2 and 6 of them EVER on any serious fight.  This leads to a lot of the criticisms that an RTS does not require thought.  The customizable 'hero' unit reduces the number of regular units needed to give the game unusual options.  Taking Starcraft as an example, if each of the "magic number 12" units could be built in regular, 'heavy', or either offensive or defensive (based on unit), but it was EASY TO RECOGNIZE oh, that's a heavy hydralisk, it would add to the number of viable strategies, making the game heavier on actual tactics, and lighter on mad micromanaging and clicking, which, IMHO, makes a game richer.

3)limited play variety. agreed.  Many games used to have 'estimated play time' or such on the box (no longer do).  This was, basically, how many hours it would take to get through all of the non multiplayer content on average.  As graphical and engine expectations have gone up, single player play time has gone down.  I think it is unfortunate, but not unexpected given we expect more interface at less (after inflation) cost than those days.  This is why you see sometimes an FPS will release a campaign game and a seperate multiplayer tournament game.  tournament players are paying for an engine.  Campaign players are paying for the campaign.  Developing both costs more than we're willing to pay for a single  boxed title.

4)Black box mechanics.  Agreed wholeheartedly.  I find very little as frustrating as the most information I have being "oh, it shoots very pretty balls of goo at the enemy".  Well thanks.  Do they kill, or do they just give the person a free chemical peel for their face?  I don't think there was a single game, EVER that disappointed me more than MOO3.  After 2 great games that put all the details up front, Master of Orion 3, the BIGGEST obstacles to victory were a)wrestling control over things the designers thought you were too dumb to want to control from the computer and b)figuring out what everything actually DID in raw benefit analysis sense.  In any good strategy game, you should be able to find out as much about every piece of the mechanics as you want to know easily.  It was easy in MOO(1 and 2), easy in ... every hex based strategy game ever pretty much, and easy info to get in almost every old school strat game that made it big.  The new assumption is that if we have the numbers, we will grind it down and take advantage of every little edge.  I say GOOD!!! If units become unused (or even full sides), rebalancing is needed, not by hiding the truth, but by adjusting things so that it's a fair fight, not just something that looks like one.

5)locked code/data and 6)anti-piracy paranoia.  The two sides of the same coin.  Released code and/or good modding tools means mods.  mods mean continued interest.  Now, you CAN develop these entirely on your own and make money from expansions (example:guild wars), BUT ... if you're not going to mod it, make sure everyone else can ... or the game will die.  As for piracy, The first version of Sins I played was pirate.  I have a legit copy, as does the person who had the pirate copy.  If not for that copy, I doubt either of us would have played, liked, and bought it.  Piracy becomes a menace only when people start figuring "well this pirate copy works fine, why pay for a legit copy?".  This can get WORSE if you have restrictive copy protection and DRM schemes (such as the one on spore which has gained so much media attention).  There should not BE piracy, there SHOULD be a 7 day refund period like there is in Australia, and demos should be more than a teaser and let the player figure out whether they like the mechanics enough to buy it.  This is not, as they say, a perfect world.  I do not pirate software myself, and encourage those that I know that do to do so in the spirit that was originally intended, which is a way to get a look at things and try them before you fork out, not a free ride at the expense of the rest of us.

7)putting story in the wrong places.  I agree with the sentiment, but not the conclusions.  Starcraft and Warcraft(all of them) all had storylines that added to the game.  MOO(1 and 2) had events and game elements that highlighted the backstory and made it imporant in game terms.  All of this enriched the games in question.  Never played Rise of Legends, but I would rather have too much (easily skippable or easily switched off) backstory than not enough.  Contrary to this article, more backstory (if skippable) does NOTHING to diminish a game and a shortage of backstory can suck the life out of the FEEL of a faction.  I doubt terrans would feel as unique as they do if there was not both plotline and game mechanics backing up that plotline to make them feel like a ragtag group of planetary defense grunts and not YASM (yet another space marines).  We play a game because it has a good feel and is a good challenge.  Backstory and statistical transparency go together to make games we love to play and win.

Very good points, especially with the piracy section. I've never used a pirate copy of a game, but I do think demos need to give players a better feel of the game mechanics than they do. Luckily I mainly use demos to see how well the game will run on my system (so screw you gears of war and your not having a computer demo that I can find!) and so I already have an interest in the game I'm looking at. What I have done that I guess could be related to piracy is borrowing a game from a friend and playing through it. Though I normally beat the game, if I liked it I will go out and buy it. I definitly don't want to cheat the developers who have worked hard on making the game.

I am a firm believer in campaigns since I am a story loving player.  I like to emmerse myself in the fantasy worlds games create and strategy games are no different in my book. There are many strategy games that do not need campaigns, the ones I have played have been turn-based civilization builders such as Civilizations and GalCiv2. They didn't need campaigns (though GalCiv had one I have yet to play it) mainly because of the interaction you had with other nations. They contacted you and they had some script of what they wanted to say and you felt like you were actually negotiating with the other Empires around you. I definitly didn't get that feeling from Sins as the narrations the other races gave you were simple one liners. "Do this for us and you will be rewarded." or somthing to that effect, the point is, very little emmersion. I don't feel like I am actually negotiating with other Empires, at the same time I understand that there are significant differences between an RTS and a TBS. I want to play the Rise of Nations: Total War (That is probably not even close to what it is called). I don't think there is a campaign, but from what I've seen it doesn't need one (cross between TBS and RTS where you fight for control of the entire Earth colonial style).

Anyway, I don't have anything to say about mods since I don't mod or use mods. Well my post was probably pointless, but I'm exhausted and can't think straight so this was my jumbled thoughts manifesting themselves in post form.