default header

Theory

But (extremely obscure) game X did it earlier!

Moderator: JC Denton

But (extremely obscure) game X did it earlier!

Unread postby icycalm » 19 Sep 2014 14:01

https://forums.uberent.com/threads/uber ... st-1003702

cdrkf wrote:As for 'inventing strategic zoom'... I'm sorry but TA:Spring pre-dates supreme commander by several years and included a full zoom capability from the get go. The only enhancement made to Sup:Com was that units changed to strategic icons when zoomed out (something later added into the Spring engine). If anything Chris simply took an idea the TA community had already been playing with :p A bit like area commands in PA: These have been in Spring for years.


I wrote:Oh, thanks for that bit of info, I wasn't aware of it (because I don't really follow what modders do).

Still, I am skeptical whether the implementation of strategic zoom in Spring is on the same level, and to the same degree of usefulness, as it is in SupCom. Many times someone says that "X game pioneered this or that feature!", and then someone always comes along and says that the feature was done y or z years before in another, usually very obscure game. But when you actually track down that game and try it the feature turns out to exist in such a rudimentary form as to be almost completely unrecognizable. So for example, yes, there were RTTs before Herzog Zwei and RTSes before Dune II, but there is a reason we only remember those two now, and that reason isn't forgetfulness. So I'll try Spring for myself and see to what extent its designers have a claim on having introduced strategic zoom to RTSes before SupCom.


thepilot wrote:You will have to get back in time then, they improved the strategic zoom as soon as supcom one was showed.

It's was nowhere near it before.


I wrote:Time machine primed for action then!


Note that the second guy proved that my suspicion was true in this case too.
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Return to Theory