The Future of TA, in a Nutshell

Well, folks, we've all seen it coming. Within a couple of months, Total Annihilation: Kingdoms may be ready for release. The question for the week: where does that leave good ol' Total Annihilation? Never let it be said that I consider myself an oracle or a prophet -- I know as well as anyone that any future prediction, especially where the gaming industry is concerned, is almost always complete conjecture. But I do think it's a question worth the time to discuss. These are the various points TA has in its favor over the coming months.

Boneyards

With the open release of the Boneyards beta, Cavedog has put itself in the same group with Blizzard, Interplay, Sierra and all the other companies offering individual gaming services. TA has seen quite a bit of activity these past few weeks -- many clans and old veterans are swarming in from all the online services. If you haven't already signed up, and you wish to do so, visit the Boneyards Web site and get going!

Now, like any matter of opinion, some people are going to like it and some aren't. There are a fair number of people who poked their noses in at Boneyards once, played one game, and left for the familiar confines of their "home" service. From what I've seen, though, the Boneyards metagame, Galactic Wars, has already caught a fair bit of attention (and several new Web sites). I think we can safely say that based on the success of TA alone, Boneyards has already made its niche and will be here to stay for a while. Boneyards has done a great job of breathing new life into an old game.

Third-Party Developers

To continue on new stuff for TA, check out the proliferation of third-party TA material out there (addressed in my previous column). With all these new toys to play with, the TA veteran need never get truly bored with all of TA's possibilities. There's always a new idea, a new unit, a new map out there somewhere. I'll grant that very many of those units get repetitive; you can only playtest so many Arm Krogoth clones and Core Flash counters before you just get ready to delete every third-party unit you ever saw. But there are good ones out there -- Keep your eyes open for them! Some developers are building units these days that everyone dubbed "impossible" only a month or two ago.

Many have stated the suggestion that all TA unit developers will immediately migrate over to Total Annihilation: Kingdoms as soon as it is released. I disagree, for one key reason: after TA's release, it took several months for third-party programmers and code crackers to open up a HPI file and dig around inside. It took a month or two after that for the now-famous JoeD to release his user-friendly utilities, allowing users to open TA data files without much fuss.

My prediction for TA:K is that there won't be a similar third-party code break for at least a few months. With all the upgrades going on in Kingdoms, I personally think it would be folly to use the same data file format and structure for the new release. That means that those TA unit developers will have a new game to play -- and potentially a highly addicting one at that.

But new and addicting games have happened before, and yet the TA third-party unit development rolls on. Until a data hack for TA:K is publicly released, I imagine that at least some TA unit groups will keep building their units. For some, building units is fun -- it's a hobby, maybe a job (wouldn't that be fun, to truly play games and build toys for a living?), and those artisans won't want to stop plying their trade simply because a new game has hit the market.

The Gaming Market

Between TA, Starcraft, Dark Reign and many others, it was made clear to the gaming world that sci-fi RTS is a successful and lucrative market. Likewise, Warcraft/Warcraft 2, Age of Empires, Myth/Myth2 and friends built a niche of tactical games based on fantasy universes.

There are a great many RTS freaks who take any strategy game on the market and learn it at face value, but I daresay those are either evenly matched, if not overmatched, by another market sector. And that is the group made up of people who grew up on Tolkien, and are die-hard role-playing veterans to boot. These fantasy connoisseurs wouldn't be caught dead with a laser weapon in their game of choice. Give me swords, armor, honor and magic any day, but leave the tanks, robots and cruise missiles to someone else.

On the other hand, we have the younger generation, growing up in the Space Age, with computers in every home and a breathtaking selection of good science fiction literature to choose from. Some of these new players might be repelled by the idea of mystical forces and gruesome hand-to-hand combat. But these same people would give their fortunes to sit down behind the controls of an M1 Abrams. For those players, TA will continue to hold its popularity simply due to the genre. Of course, I generalize grossly; there are no truly clear-cut lines between fantasy and sci-fi fanatics.

Cavedog's Perspective

Obviously, Cavedog never meant for the TA community to die with the release of Kingdoms. And the evidence of this is Boneyards, the latest and greatest thing Cavedog did for TA. With Boneyards, it's obvious that Cavedog wants TA alive and kicking straight up to, and beyond, the release of its successor.

Cavedog might have gone a different route, allowing TA to quietly enter the gaming Hall of Fame. They might have used TA merely as a test bed for Boneyards, using it as a prototype for the online support of Kingdoms.

But what have we here? Galactic Wars is thriving -- the YardDogs have gone out of their way to keep things interesting and moving forward. Nearly every week, the Boneyards team has a new server or client build ready for release, each with new bug fixes, new features to be tested and many other player-requested perks and tweaks. Supreme Commander Paradox was heard stating that every GW map will be hand-made (That can't be a small venture, even with the best of tools. If you doubt me, take a look at the map, count the planets, and read the planet recon text on every world). I recently saw a YardDog trading messages with a character straight out of the storyline, posing as "Lord_Glynholm" and putting on a little theatrical show for the sake of the players. It's obvious to me that Boneyards for TA has Cavedog's full support.

The Bottom Line

So, now that I've gone on and on in my long-winded way, let me sum it all up. TA has new third-party toys, maps and conversions popping up weekly, if not daily. We have a brand spankin' new online service to play on, including a fantastic wide-scale and never-ending metagame, with its own new strategies and demands on the gamer.

There will always be TA diehards, no matter what new releases come around to top it (Again, if you doubt me, visit the Warcraft 2 server on Kali to witness a game with unbelievable longevity). And to top it all off, if each of these weren't enough, Cavedog Entertainment is standing strong behind its first release. And that company has never been known to disappoint its loyal fans. :-)

I think it is safe to say that TA has at least another six months left to its already admirable lifespan. Maybe more. Maybe it will be around forever. Maybe in six years, I'll stop by the then-ancient TA Boneyards and witness the epic struggle between Arm and Core being played out into eternity.

-- Flynn

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