I think Servo (www.servogame.com) lends itself more that way. With Ashes, it's a tougher thing of the scale. But we shall see.

Please don't. This looks like a large scale RTS that I've been waiting for. I want something where strategic and tactical genius triumphs over twitch reflexes.

Totaly agreed. As for now, eSports orientation ruined too many RTS games. In fact, vain attempts to feed off Starcraft table brought an entire genre to near-collapse stage in any reasonable sense, including sales. If anyone will ever write the Ten Commandments to RTS Developer, the first one should be "Thou shalt not build Starcraft". Also, there's an organized and very aggressive mob who will repeatedly attempt to convince devs and guys here around that eSports and click-per-second gameplay is the only way to go for any RTS. That's not the first time they're trying to bend multiplayer rules to their advantage by enforcing twitch-oriented gameplay - they did it with almost every single RTS game released in last 15 years, and almost always successfully. If developers will ever listen to their propaganda, this game will end the same way as Planetary Annihilation did - with immense resources wasted on micron-precise unit balancing, bad sales, bad reviews and mentioned mob (~ 50 ppl) as a whole population of multiplayer servers, who will anyway move on after picking the next game for raiding. By the way, some of the people who actively participated in Planetary Annihillation's downfall are already here.

I see that makes sense. I think FA worked great as a competitive RTS, it obviously wasn't as big as Starcraft, but aiming to be that big is bound to fail anyway.

Quoting GeneralGonzo,

reply 2

Wow, Frogboy, nice to see you again.

Last time I remember you was in the discussion forums from Demigod. That was a real cool game, unfortunately the support in form of new arenas, demigods etc.

was tuned down quite soon after release

But great game it was....

 

Yea, Demigod was a missed opportunity imo.  Ashes, unlike Demigod, is a Stardock game (As in, we own it). So no worries there.

It doesn't seem like a game that would lend itself to e-sports - but MP could be extremely fun - not unlike SupCom and Sins. They're ideal games to get your feet wet with online MP RTS because they are slower paced and not twitch/APM skill-based and are easier for 4x or turn based players to relate to.

Sounds nice in theory, but people often have short attention spans. If you could get e-sports to be interested in several hour long campaigns then that would be great.

Quoting Wintercross,

reply 15

If you could get e-sports to be interested in several hour long campaigns then that would be great.

This is not even conceptually possible. E-sports game by design must have positive feedback linkage, i.e. it should be full of game-changing action, first and foremost on the small scale. It is required to be dramatic in order to keep attention, since people outside the game process have no need to take any decisions and aren't obliged to have deep game knowledge to understand general situation, but can and will get into small details - and those details alone should be entertaining in successful e-sports title. As a result, any such game is interesting to watch but not accessible to the people who don't have any talent and willing to invest years into training, who are, needless to say, constitute a vast majority. Such situation is not unique to e-sports - they share similarity with classic sports in this. For long campaign-like conquests, the opposite design paradigm is the best - strong negative feedback that prevents game situation from dramatic change and makes it irresponsive to any small execution errors, thus focusing on rewarding players for general planning only.

FA is almost an e-sport if you count FAF. well.... short of a couple thousand players and followers but it's like aaaaaaaaaaallmost there.

well i can understand how watching somebody beat an ai has no pull. Against an ai there's no measuring stick. You don't know whether what he did is impressive or rather boring (hint it really isn't impressive to beat an ai. Untill a real singularity happens all "ai" are just "programed computer opponent that can be somewhat adaptive but always inferior to a human".). So by default, you assume that, yeah, it isn't.

Now on the other hand PvP will always be interesting because there's a measuring stick: ...."WOW! This guys beat this guy?!?" - "Yeah but THEN, he was beaten by THIS guy".

and I honestly think it would please the e-sport public to discover some longer lasting matches. some more in-depth strategy. Something they can actually relate to and understand. 

Starcraft pro-level right now for the uninitiated and sometimes as well for the regulars at a more rookie level is some voodoo black magic, that even the commentators don't understand and can't keep up with. The only ones that truly understand what's going on are the two players.

And I think it could really come as a breath of fresh air to the public that it doesn't have to be that way.