#relic rts

[dragonturtle2]

It was actually on the original Gametrailers.com that I first watched all the trailers and gameplay previews for all the DoW1 releases. (I first discovered it at a friend’s house). I still remember how much I loved the Dark Crusade preview that introduced me to Kroot and Necrons. All that’s left of Gametrailers is a post-mortem YouTube channel, that IGN set up if I recall). I went here it’s to complete the circle.

[mvfm-25]

" Space... Strategy... Survival! "

PC Zone Magazine n133 - October, 2003.

[lodgeofthecat]

Tonite I'm facing off against Baatirraps in Dawn of War!

Its a battle of the RTS Noobs you don't wanna miss https://www.twitch.tv/schoolofthecat

[proib2]

[Deep within the abyss of the earth, relics of a vanished age persist]

[An age where starfaring gods walked among men and great ships carried the people to and from the heavens]

[The House of Man has long since forgotten that age and those few who do remember safeguard what little remains of that mythic epoch….]

Art by @littleroundpumpkin

(I commissioned art from Littleroundpumpkin of Atlas and Theodore with a little reference to the Homeworld rts games because I absolutely love them).

[trve-grimdark]

Yes, GW brought back Saturnine armor. Yes, it used to be in the game as something different. Yes, they rez shit from the past. Because the creative minds of the company are gone and they have nothing new to offer people. Give 'em another 5 years and they will bring back the RT era hover boards and say they were a relic from that time The Khan used to air surf instead of jet-bike that no one ever wrote about. Or the Angry Face dreadnaughts and say its a design from the Men of Iron wars. Obiwan Sherlock Cluseau will come back and have a backstory that he's been in the warp all this time beating Tzeentch at Dejarik-chess or some bullshit.

[crimsonxe]

I'm absolutely going to be rewatching v9 cause of it being now on the RT site and me wanting to put whatever extra numbers to it there as I can; but had to skip first to the bonus episode cause ofc I did.

Spoilers below the cut

Love Eddy saying that some of the footage will show up in v10, like ofc I don't know when this was recorded but it reinforces that they're still fighting to keep the show going

Love that the bonus goes across multiple pov's not just one or two

Anyone having doubts on if CFVY would show up, can now rest easy cause they definitely do along with at least Sun & Neptune

Neon confirmed alive o.o

I wish I could pop into the universe to tell Nora her scars are badass >.< I hate the idea of her seeing them as a disfigurement and hope that Ren is pushing her that direction too.

So even Oz has no clue about the Ever After and likely that the Brothers aren't actual the true deities of the overall omniverse. Not to mention getting the impression that he's about as knowing about what the Relics do as everyone else is. Which shoots down many b.s. notions of what he could do to stop Salem. I'd even have doubts on him knowing how the Vaults work.

So the issues between Atlas and Vacuo definitely would be in place (likely including faunus), but on top of that Ozcar fighting the merge.

Ren respecting Jaune and looking up to him even is definitely nice given the backdrop of his words back in v8. Not to mention them doing more showing of his semblance.

Weirdly like the awkwardness between Renora, because of the realness of what they're navigating and that it was something that the writers plan to explore.

Mercury and Tyrian stirring up shit w/ Tyrian being batshit insane as per usual and Mercury being clearly out of his comfort zone

Confirmation that all of SSSN are planned to be in Vacuo, which means there could be Nolan/Scarlet scenes

Seriously Port and Oobleck are like unofficial husbands at this point, wherever one is the other is usually around too xD

My OTP for Willow is Klein, ngl I could support Qrow and her too (especially since ages would be fine), but that look when Klein arrives in the shuttle really sends me back to Willow/Klein xD

God the ["What? How?" -Ruby looking at the flying armada "You sent a message and the world answered." -Qrow] will always hit me in the feels and get watery eyes. Part of that being Jason's performance and only he could do that with his more emotional voicing for Qrow.

Also just want to highlight this, with the black outline cause BB not being subtle at all:

[wearepaladin]

8, 9, and 20 for the RT ask game :)

8. What was their Triumph? Do they take pride in it? Thane never knew the exact circumstances of the Daemon's release on Titan. It could have been any number of reasons, a conspiracy of traitors, an ancient relic damaged and the evil within released, an unfortunate fellow psyker straying too close to the Empyrean and subsumed by its iridescent waters. Regardless, a greater predator of the Warp snapped free into realspace, and where both inquisitorial warriors and even Grey Knights failed to put it down, the Psyker Thane Solcar did. 9. What was their Darkest Hour? How does it affect them today? The slaying of the predator however was mired by the simple fact of what it was, or, at least, what it appeared to be. Observers of the event saw Thane encounter a duplicate of herself, clad in golden armor and emulating the countenance of The God Emperor. The combat itself a brutal display of swordplay and warp sorcery that culminated with Thane exposing her soul to the horrors of the Warp, channeling its strength through her soul and at once destroying the Predator and branding her soul as prey to the Ruinous Powers and their servants forevermore. Afterwards, she was both lauded for her bravery and suspected of treachery and corruption, and had she not been taken as heir of the Von Valancius holdings, she was as likely to have been removed by the Inquisition as slain by opportunistic beasts in the Warp. She herself doesn't regret it, and the whole event stands in her mind as a lesson that power cuts both ways, that she can never forget that having the kind of power she has, both as a psyker and as eventual Rogue Trader, is dangerous by default. 20. Do they have a talent or hobby that would surprise others? Thane's the kind of Iconoclast that relishes in using her power as a Rogue Trader to collect the little knick nacks of treasure and artifacts that rogue traders tend to accumulate, but her favorite are little games that people make with components unique to their planets, such as unique wood from alien trees, and tries to find interesting ones to play. Secretly, she does this to avoid accepting Regicide games with Heinrix who will discover how bad she is at them.

[sokumotanaka]

My prior rant on the 'relic of creation made me think about the thematic consistency (there is none) of this series and I'm reminded that Monty passed away early volume 3 production, yet RT swears up and down he left all these plans up to volume 10

And if that were true, wouldn't they read it, find the relic of creation, and spare the whole "shoving a soul into a scared teenage girl" plot. Don't get me wrong BTW I loved the tension and pain of the possibility of losing pyrrha by another means, but why couldn't they just..."blueprint " a healthy Amber? See this is what I mean by when you introduce things with flimsy rules like this!

That relic bust everything in that series and makes Atlas seem stupid for needing to make ONE robot with aura when they could of wished all robots had aura-every issues (sans racism) solved!

[quantomeno]

I was watching the Last Specter cutscenes (for that to be a Princess thing) and at the end Layton is like "one day I will solve that great puzzle meant only for me" and I'm thinking: what puzzle is he talking about?

It feels like intentional foreshadowing of something, but given Layton is the only one who solves any of the mysteries, it's hard to pick which one really feels appropriate to be called this.

And so I ask you all:

Reasonings below (with very minimal spoilers):

AL

Pros: it involves his family, and it is world-wide in its implications. It's definitely big. Also since the line in question is from LS, it makes sense it gets resolved in the conclusion to the prequel trilogy.

Cons: he's peaking a bit early, he kind of needs everyone to work together at the end and Bronev and Descole worked out a lot of the mystery too. It was more a team effort

LF

Pros: it's intimately tied to his past, it's got a really big ending with serious repercussions, it feels appropriately 'final'

Cons: the way the line is in context, it feels like the mystery should be a bit more sort of archaeology-focused. Like, this mystery was just pulling away the curtains from a crazy plot and not uncovering a secret of the world.

RT

Pros: Last mystery we know of. They talk it up a lot in the anime.

Cons: he doesn't solve it all by himself and needs Kat to finish it off. Also the ending had a moral about working with others so I think it goes against the 'meant only for me' bit.

NWOS

Pros: assuming it's the same mystery from the letter in LF, Luke says he doesn't think anyone else could solve it but he and Layton.

Cons: we know next to nothing about the mystery

Unknown future mystery

Pros: new trilogy? Leaves open door for a hypothetical perfect mystery

Cons: it's annoying we don't get to see it. It feels strange to end the series on a bit of an unresolved conclusion

Other games

CV and PB are too small-scale. LS can't be it because he said the line after solving that one. MM would fit pretty well, especially because it was set up by Randall as potentially turning the world of archaeology upside down, but it's dwarfed by AL's similar but grander mystery. ED is good, but has similar "AL but smaller" problems. PLvAA is technically a team effort and criticisms similar to those for LF apply here. The book mysteries are wild and confusing and no one really knows about them because they were only released in Japan so I think we can discount them, similarly the Deathly Mirror game.

[howlingday]

Do you think Salem has hobbies if she does what kind of hobbies would she have? What would her inner circles hobbies be?

Let's see... Going for jokes and whatnot, let's see what kind of hobbies Salem and her inner circle probably has.

Salem is literally making Grimm all the time in her black pool. That said, I could see her also being really into cooking and might even watch cooking shows and cooking along with them. She then has her Grimm dispose of what's left of the meals when the inner circle is done eating.

Up next, we have Cinder, who is constantly plotting and scheming of way to become more powerful. It's kinda hard for me to say what she likes to do since most of what she does is all in the interest of serving the purpose of a later goal. That said, I'm having trouble thinking of anything since most of it would be more what she considers a waste of time... except gardening. She has her own personal garden that she plants seeds for and waters until they grow into beautiful flowers or food-stuffs for Salem to cook with. It may also better solidify her ties with Salem.

Tyrian is Salem's oldest and most faithful servant, serving as her tracker and hunter for the Maidens and the relics. Since murder isn't considering a viable hobby, part of me wants to say hunting, though I can't really see Tyrian as a hunting guy. Not with long range methods, anyways. Now fishing is a different story. I could see him dipping his tail into the water, using it was a hook until he yanks up the hapless fish. He also provides Salem with her cooking supplies. Am I just making up a Salem cooking AU? Who know.

Watts is Salem's tech guy, and he is very good at hacking and other computer-based things. Aside from that, I could also see him into other intellectually-driven pursuits. Not chess because chess is too important to the story of RWBY. No, I'm thinking more like crossword puzzles and sudokus. His morning paper is all he needs to have a good time. And if he screws up, he can just erase it because he's not an idiot who fills out the crossword in pen! YOU HAVE PENCILS! USE THEM! ...Wait, what were we talking about?

Hazel. Oh, Hazel, how sad it was to see you go after coming so far. Judging by his size, you'd think he'd be big into weight-lifting and some kind of martial-arts routine, but I think he instead picks up where his sister probably left off with her hobby. I'm thinking things like books or movies or maybe even like tiny horse figurines. Stuff you wouldn't normally associate with an eight-foot-tall brickhouse with an immunity to pain and an unquenchable desire for hate.

Let's see, who else is in Salem's Inner Circle? Looking at the Wiki, it's... Oh no. Ohoho my god... Evernight Castle? No, that's not what it's called, is it? Oh, it is! Oh my god, and it's located in "The Land of Darkness". Yeah, no, Hazel is definitely an MLP fan and he joined the villains to avenge his dead sister. Just... Oh my god... This cannot be real! Ugh... Anyway, who else is there?

Wait, who the hell is Vermillion Raddock? Oh, RWBY: Grimm Campaign. Yeah, one of these days I'll actually see it or hopefully play it, but good golly, will it be a while. Did they ever sell Grimm Campaign merchandise, or was it just a podcast that we had to be members of RT to watch? Oh well, questions for later.

Let's see... Tock... Unnamed female warrior... Oh, Mercury! I guess Emerald isn't a member, either, huh? Or even a member at all? Anyway...

Mercury is probably the easiest to figure out for me. Judging by how he's into sniffing boots and recording genocide, I'm gonna guess he's a blogger of some kind as a hobby. He's not in it for the money, just for the reactions he can get out of people. But then again, I may have a bias against the guy who recorded people being murdered with a smile on his face. Seriously, fuck this guy!

But I could be wrong on all accounts for these characters. What do you guys think?

[miloscat]

[Review] Halo Wars (PC)

An RTS you play with a controller??

Ensemble Studios had created the massively successful Age of Empires series of historical real-time strategy games. Even back in 2001, Microsoft was greedy for acquisitions and absorbed the company. Within eight years they would be decommissioned and disbanded (sad but all too common), immediately after Microsoft encouraged them to reskin an upcoming sci-fi RTS created specifically for consoles into a Halo game so it would sell better. Bungie wasn't happy about their IP being tossed around like this but who cares, get used to it mate. Halo Wars ended up quite good in the end, getting a later port to Xbone and PC by Behaviour Interactive, and even spawning a sequel (which unlike the first one isn't on Steam and I'd rather not set foot into the MS ecosystem more than I have to).

As the first-ever Halo spinoff, Halo Wars plays it safe by setting itself as a prequel, 20 years before the events of Combat Evolved. Prequelitis sets in pretty quick as they bring in the Prophet of Regret, and introduce a different Arbiter even though it felt like an ancient ceremonial station in Halo 2; halfway into the campaign you also arrive on a world infested by the parasitic Flood, undercutting their impact in the trilogy proper. I get including iconic elements like these, and the game would be lesser without them, plus they paper over the lore by stranding the characters and their ship without FTL travel at the end… it's just funny when a prequel has to bend over backwards to not trip over continuity.

Anyway, the main characters are the crew of a particular ship sent back to the site of first contact with the alien Covenant. You've got the gruff but competent captain, the sassy AI, the tediously standoffish sergeant, and the quirky scientist. They're all thinly drawn but lovingly rendered in the CG cutscenes by Blur Studios, who have worked on the Sonic movies and various other games (say what you will about Sonic 06, Dark Souls 2, and The Force Unleashed 2, those pre-rendered FMVs look damn good). The Covenant are hunting down Forerunner relics as usual and our little band chases them across space to a human colony and then to a hollow world bristling with both ancient technology and infectious zombies. Can the indomitable human spirit stop the genocidal plans of the Covenant? What do you think??

I was hoping for a Covenant campaign and they are a fully fleshed out faction available in skirmishes and multiplayer—complete with their own hero units—but the story mode is only told from the human perspective. Across the 15 scenarios the objectives and setpieces are impressively varied, and there's also plenty of tailored loadouts and level-specific units to keep things feeling fresh. Ensemble obviously had to expand on the universe of Bungie's games to fill out a roster of recruitable unit types, although to be fair the game universe already has a lot of cool variety packed into it for an FPS, so their additions are mainly filling niches for vehicles. The Flood and Sentinels also have a few new faces (so to speak), despite not being full playable factions, including various Flood "structures" to blast away at in the campaign. The additions feel faithful and well implemented, even if we never see most of them again after this.

As a console RTS, there are some shortcuts to make the usually complex control scheme suitable for a controller (I used the gamepad controls on Steam Deck and it worked quite well). The d-pad jumps between alerts, bases, and unit groups, menus are radial, population caps are small, unit selection draws a circle from your cursor (control groups don't exist if you're not on keyboard, so the "blob" strategy is the order of the day, which it must be said isn't always suitable for all scenarios). Base construction is streamlined and modular, similar to Command & Conquer, although it must be done on designated locations. You can zip around the map pretty well but I still struggled with balancing micro and macro management, which was disastrous for high-pressure scenarios like the early "civilian escape ships" level. Apart from these I had a breezy enough time on Normal difficulty, without feeling too overpowered.

I couldn't help but see close similarities to Starcraft's Terran/Protoss/Zerg trinity in the UNSC/Covenant/Flood, especially when placed in an RTS context (not to mention the story role of the Xel'naga/Forerunners). This doesn't really matter but I wanted to point it out anyway. There's nothing new under the sun. So yeah, Halo Wars is cool, I liked the Spartan units who can't die and can uniquely hijack enemy vehicles, I liked that unit tech upgrades were all unique and felt impactful, giving new abilities rather than just boosting stats, I liked how playable this was without a mouse (it really is possible to do this well, surprisingly!), I liked how it told an authentic-feeling Halo story. It's just a shame that Ensemble had to become one in a long line of Microsoft-acquisition cautionary tales in the process.

[askrobouteguilliman40k]

So I remember a while back when RT first came out, you wondered why the warrent of trade was so big, and I said it might be because it might have been written and signed by the Emperor himself. And as it turns out, it was. Sister Argenta during one of her companion missions even says it's so. She wants to pray to the warrent because it is basically a holy relic, because it was signed by "His" hand, with "His" blood. So it makes sense why it's so big, because it was written and signed by a very big man.

See. I asked this cuz I just read an official Black Library book at the time where the Warrant of Trade was a book, a relatively normal sized book with Big E's signature being a tiny blood dot.

[penny-the-pissed-poltergeist]

RWBY Volume 4 episode 8: A much needed talk rewatch thoughts. RWDE/Critical opinions ahead, you have been warned!

.I really don't think they needed to make this scene like this, just have like, one line showing they know everything we know and have any other lines be focused on showing the perspectives of RNJR.

.I should be saying more probably, but these exposition scenes are boring as sin, Jaune being the only character who remembered to have opinions is not helping.

."Not many people are super religious these days" That's.. not really a segue at all actually.

.Qrow explains the brother gods backstories here but I'm not going to god the depth on them because my thoughts are mostly on stuff we learn about them later and I'd rather talk about that when we get to it.

.Kinda interesting how Grimm predate humans, were they just going around eating every kinda animal and pulling plants out of the ground or something?

.So we have creation and destruction covered, and the "god of choice" is probably the tree/blacksmith. So how likely is a god of choice reveal in the future?

."But what does that have to do with us" He just told you a warped version of the secrets of the universe Ren.

.When Qrow talks about the relics, one of symbols used to represent them is warping and casting of dark lightning. That might mean something in the future... or not, who knows with this show.

.Yeah Oz, you should totally put child soldiers to guard artifacts they don't know exist.

.And now back to Blake

."That boy you brought home loves to run his mouth" Oh she's definitely fucking that barely legal teenager... You know this joke wouldn't be nearly as popular if the genders were flipped.

.The animation really takes a dip in the Ghira & Blake talk.

.Ow Blake hates herself

.Ugh people say Ghira isn't 100% supposed to be in the right about the WF and violence but they literally have a main character say it so IDK. Ghira does say some actually kinda wise words here but I've heard those words in lot of other places too so whatever.

.I forgot about Sun being the worlds least funny man this volume. Also what kinda bitchass door falls out of the frame by one guy leaning on it? Can't the Belladona's afford not shitty doors?

.Oh they think Lionheart has any amount of his shit together, does he know? Also they kinda did plan out that attack overnight, or at least big parts of it.

.Aw Qrow trusts Ozpin so much, sure hope nothing shatters that into a million pieces later. :)

.Aw Oz trusts the headmasters so much, sure hope none of them become antagonists later. :)

."My semblance isn't like most" how the fuck do you define "most" when talking about powers that are always unique to the user?

.So do passive semblances drain aura constantly or what? Do semblances need aura? They've never been clear on that.

."I guess you could call me a bad luck charm" AH HE SAID IT, HE SAID IT! Wait did Ruby already know about this or what?

.Jaune stop being an ass. Jaune is the kind of person who'd get mad at a disabled person for mildly inconveniencing him, because bad luck is kinda a super natural disability when you think about it.

.Raven is a fucking weirdo, and Qrow is not ready to talk about that shit.

.Abuse, laugh. "It was an animation error" RT just said that to save face and you know it! And no, Blake's VA saying it's fine because "Blake was going through a lot" just proves Blakes VA sucks as person. (Anyone who's heard her weird comments on Billie Eilish already knows that but still)

.Blake you literally went "Who says I'm done fighting" in like, the last episode you were in. I know she's in a bad headspace, but that doesn't make it any more fun to watch.

.Wait, ilia has camo... Why didn't she use it here?

.I like RNJR's team colored sleeping bags. Also Jaune why are you sleeping in your armor?

.Qrow just being so nonchalant about possibly deadly poison lol. Also I think his blood is turning purple because there can't have been that much poison from one graze right?

I've realized that these posts kinda just end... Should I start doing ratings at the end or something? Let me know.

[eregar]

💌‼️

andy!! you are so fun and so personable and such a pleasant person to be around. i adore the care that you put into crafting your characters and how unashamedly, openly creative you are with your discussion of them. it feels like a relic from a lost age of the internet that i miss so much and it inspires me to be more open, more playful, more unashamed in my own creativity online. it's no wonder that you're a (if not the) beating heart for the rt fandom.

you're also, if you don't mind me saying, phenomenally beautiful. i see your photos and think, oh must be a model image from one of the aesthetic blogs i follow, but then i see that it's you! unreal.

your writing as well is so lyrical, so sharp, so mature. there isn't a single word wasted and yet, you're able to set the scene and carry a reader through in a way that feels effortless. i'm so excited for knight pilot au (if you ever decide to share) and anything else that you decide to post <3

[itsclydebitches]

Since the Ever After was mentioned tell me how annoyed are you by the fact that the story never explains how the hell those two kids end up in the EA when it took RWBYJN falling into a void created by a relic to reach there? Also the blacksmith claims the door is open for the brothers and their creation and yet there seems to be no easy way for the brothers creation to even find the damn thing. So many frustrating questions left unanswered because RT are hacks.

RWBY continually strives to be a story that's had three times the work put into it. To my mind, there are two ways to explain (structurally) how Alyx and Lewis fell.

1. You make the differences between the fairy tale and the truth of Team RWBY's journey a focal point of the Volume. So we learn not only how the fiction differs significantly from reality (Alyx's simplified heroism vs. mistakes with the Cat, for example) but also details like how she really fell, preferably in a way that ties back into the larger world building. So, for example, instead of the fairy tale's metaphorically generic, 'There once was a girl who fell through the sky' they learn that this literally means, 'The Relics weren't always secure in the vaults and the misuse of one landed the siblings in magical trouble.' Put in the work to explain the original fairy tale to the audience, how it differs from what really happened, and reveal more of Ozpin's motivations for building the vaults all in one go. 2. You keep things vague but still satisfying from a world building perspective. Personally, I'd be much more willing to accept a hand wave-y, 'They got to the Ever After somehow' if Remnant was full of 'somehow's that, later in the series, were all collectively attributed to the residual magic/magical objects hanging around. Basically, make it a part of the, 'Most of these fairy tales are real' reveal but... better. Drop multiple references to people who have mysteriously disappeared throughout the series. Sometimes they return and they're deemed insane, speaking of impossible worlds with impossible things. Build religions around it that Oobleck discusses during class. Ruby speaks to older characters (like Maria) thanking them for the cool story they told and they very seriously inform her that it was a warning. That was all true, you foolish girl. Haha sure, grandma. You build up for the audience that something is clearly going on, you eventually reveal to the skeptical characters that all these 'impossible' things are real (a better version of the birbs/magic vs. semblances conversation), and then when Alyx's story comes along we have a framework for how that might have happened. Not the specifics, but an understanding that Weird Magic Shit is a staple of living in Remnant, reality hopping included.

But we got none of that work. As mentioned previously, I'm kind of in awe of how Volume 9 reached for the stars without even bothering to build a ladder to the roof yet. Alyx's story, magic, the Gods, Jaune's status as the knight, how Ascension works... there are just so many Big Ideas relying on previous ideas that were either shoddily introduced, or are arriving for the first time years too late. The foundation of our house is cracked through and straight up missing sections.

[arcann]

Tbh I don't want Noahn to sound like they got isekai'd bc I do get the ick with the god emperor cult but that shouldn't get in the way of the character especially not since they went all the way to fucking terra when they were a child (5 to 10 i haven't decided) to get sanctioned. They do believe he is a god but after getting relentlessly mocked by their... <.< >.>... mentor they think being so far away means his gaze doesn't hold as much power as how they felt in terra and during their entire life they have as much chance to attract his attention as she is about any other god, which is close to zero ergo he won't ever bother punishing or blessing them (more than he did making their hair permanently white and giving them horrible nightmares but to Noahn it was the consequences of being so close to him, like being radiated)

Now his cult is another problem.

Hainne got kind of adopted/hired by a malatek after running away from home and they think in the realspace the ones that have the most advantages are the adeptus mechanicus ergo they're the ones who are actually being blessed by their gods and commune with their relics. They've never seen how the emperor works by keeping the warp away from a ship since they stayed in the Calixis sector all their life pre-rt but they've seen how the mechanicus operate and that feels more real and logical than a man who has never met them protecting them. Post-rt it still feels like the ones keeping the geller field up is still the mechanicus and well. Nomos. so yeah. Layperson who is a follower of the Omnissiah.