Beyond All Reason (Free Total Annihilation Inspired RTS) (opens in new tab)

Great game, technically impressive, but the community can be quite mean and toxic. I played for around a year after having played other TA Spring RTS for a few years prior, and if you don’t follow the exact meta of the month (whatever that might be) in terms of build order and things, people can get really aggro and your team can vote to kick you and take your units.

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.

This is amazing to see TA on HN.

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 play before school, asking my parents for extra chores to earn more computer time.

Games aren't the same anymore.

I still have the original game and expansion packs. Highly recommend playing it.

If you are into playing with others, you might find a more stable community with FAF.

https://www.faforever.com/

The game is very mature and well thought RTS. The user experience and performance is beyond anything on the market now. It beats all well known AAA studios attempts at it by far.

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

BAR is amazing but there's a hurdle for new players.

If you download it, don't join the first lobby you see.

My advice is to watch some videos on youtube, play some games solo, then look for new player lobbies or create your own and set restrictions on it.

It only takes one player on the enemy team who regularly plays the game and you'll get stream rolled.

Or you'll join a game of regular players, can't hold your lane and everyone will get frustrated when their base is blown up from your lane not holding.

As someone who loved Supreme Commander, I really wanted to like BAR, but I found it felt like death by a thousand cuts. I last played more than a year ago, so things might be different, but the QoL felt really lacking.

Just from playing a bit in skirmish, this game seems really tryhard and that's not really what I want from my RTS games

This looks really slick and also very detailed. Is it free as in beer or free as in freedom?

Looks like supreme commander.

The game itself notwithstanding, is this website marketingslop? I don't think it's AI but it's definitely not written by the developers.

No MacOS support (cry emoji)

looks like supreme commander

Long thread but I highly recommend this game. It scratched the itch I had for TA. Well, for everything but that amazing soundtrack. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxAdOQtAFEs&list=RDBxAdOQtAF...

The entitlement in this thread is insane. Especially ironic coming from the Industry that invented crunch, the blackboard interview, social media. Routinely arguing for mass layoffs and complaining about "complexity" from allowing more than 3 people to contribute to a file.

Of course the people who play games want to gatekeep you guys, stop talking about empathy and disruption and learn some basic self-awareness.

>All development updates, tech support, finding friends and all player and developer communication takes place on Discord.

[ eye rolling emoji ]

One thing people might find interesting about bar is how popular spectating matches is. It's not uncommon for the top 16 player lobbies to have twice that many players in game spectating and commenting on plays. It's currently a small community so it has a recurring cast of characters and people know each other across months or years of playing together.

You have the Divas and the workhorses, the air or sea specialists, and the goofballs and communists