If you don’t specifically state what your definitions of accessible are than your point is mute and open to interpretation, but I guess to you CoH is just at the right level?
For most informal conversation I don't feel a need to strictly define what I'm saying. I rely on people to simply stick to what's
written as opposed to what they
read into it. If they aren't willing to do that, chances are I'm going to have a hard time communicating with them anyway.
What I was intending to say is that I think that SC2 is making compromises for the sake of drawing more players. I didn't make any qualitative commentary about the accessibility of CoH at all, and I'm not about to start to.
By what criteria is StarCraft more accessible than Company of Heroes? That in SC there is a more complex base building and resource gathering scheme, more micro and macro management, more units under your control and less intuitive unit counters and builds?
For one, it's being built to a low hardware spec. It's also sticking to an old tried and admittedly true formula. I'm not sure why you're so personally invested in the game and sore over such a vague statement to begin with though.
So now you are arguing terminology of sub-genres?
Much in the same way that you argued the semantics of 'overly accessible,' yes. I think it's significant difference in this case anyway. RTT's have been doing stuff for years that RTS games haven't really gotten into.
You made those elements sound new and novel, when they in no way are and have been (better) used in games for a long time. For your argument to make sense StarCraft would already have to be 'outdated' the day it was released. You also implied technical limitations of older hardware:
First and foremost, you seem fixated on what I 'made things seem like' and reading meaning into my writing that wasn't implicit or explicit. You're also making what's called a 'strawman argument,' as I never 'made these elements sound new and novel.' However, I did explicitly say that there are what 'I want.'
As an aside, real time collision and dynamic terrain are pretty new, and I'll eat my socks if you can show me an RTS or RTT game that featured both that was made before the year 1998.
Had you focused on something that is clearly exclusive to the 'pure' RTS genre, like the squad reinforcement system, than maybe you would have had a valid argument. Take the Total War series as an example and say the real-time component to it has always existed, and then another developer comes along and mixes it with an turn-based empire system. Would it be fair for them to take credit for the combat or should they take credit for mixing two genres?
This is a fair argument, though I think it's reading terribly deep into what little I did say. But, it's pretty reasonable, so I won't go on a tirade of rhetoric and try to flummox my way around it.
