Total Annihilation Options

[Jinx]

Does anyone else remember the old classic fondly?

First and pretty much only game that's got me into online gaming.

[Antipode]

People still play it at Zone.com, and at various other community hosted game servers. Even though the numbers have really gone down, you can still easily find a game. It's the best RTS game in my opinon, at least in its multiplayer action. It's singleplayer sucks though because of weak AI and lousy campaigns. I almost returned the game after just playing the single player game. Wheewww...lucky me I didn't. It's a great game. Supposedly Phantagram was developing Total Annihilation 2, and it was in its planning/development stage, but then the company got bought out recently, so who knows what I might happen [8]

[Jinx]

I know it's still possible to play, but I just got bored of it after a while, hence remembering it fondly.

I also agree that it was a multiplayer classic, but it's got to the stage now where the potential for developing strategy has completely stagnated; I used to be one of the best players in England (I think I was even the best at one stage []), then I played again after a few months break, and even allowing for the fact that I was rusty, it was ridiculous how badly I was doing, because everyone had memorised the perfect starting strategies on all the decent maps so if you so much as breathed out of time you were gonna get overrun by the enemy.

Still, I go back to it every now and again for a muckabout. We can have a game sometime if you like (what's your name on Zone btw)?

[Antipode]

I know exactly what you mean. People nowadays just get Samsons and Missile Towers, which is no fun. You should try downloading the Uberhack MOD at www.tauniverse.com. You can find a link if you access their Uberhack section of their Discussion Forum. It is the best mod out there for Total Annihilation in my opinion because it makes all the units somewhat useful even if people still concentrate on a few units. For instance, Samsons can no longer fire at ground units, which forces players to go for other units (Flashes are weaker now). Level 2 units are actually worth building. It also adds few new units. I would love to play with you, but I lost my CDs, so until I can get a hold of Total Annihilation somehow, I can't play [xx(]. I will tell you in the future if I ever get a hold of it []

[Wally_008]

I played heaps of Uberhack MP there for a while....at least by my standards [].

[HG_Gaiseric]

TA is a fantastic game. I've been playing it almost since it was out and I still do today. The graphics are great, and the realism is among the best I've seen in any RTS (barring the storyline of course). When guns fire, they actually belch smoke, ships do not swivel like most other RTSes and the aircraft animations are unbelievably good, with planes doing barrel rolls to dodge projectiles.

There is a very lively TA community out there, with literally thousands of units, mods and patches. Pity Cavedog Entertainment is no longer in existence and can no longer continue to push out new units, but some of the custom-made units are brilliant and fit into the game perfectly. With an official patch that raises the unit limit to 500 from a puny 250, this game is definitely worth getting.

[Jinx]

Heh, Antipode, there's not much about pre-summmer 2002 TA that I don't know [8D].

It wasn't even the AA unit abuse that got me down (which had actually become a lot less bad when I last played; the Flash was coming back in a big way), so much as the absolute need to know exactly how to start off on a map vs even the totally mediocre players, who'd all watched demos of people like Rock and Blackflag doing the same thing.

I tried UH, but didn't think that much of it in the end, because at last check it made the defences so powerful that the only viable strategy with two reasonably skilled players of comparable ability was to porc up (ie. build lotsa defence) and go for the super weapons ASAP. I didn't think much of the method of evolution either, which involved BSR occasionally chucking in random pointless tweaks, relatively weak players getting their way because they'd been around longest, and everything constantly being remodelled around the the new flaws that inevitably came up as a result. I kept meaning to try out XTA and Warmonger which sounded like better mods, but just didn't get around to it in the end.

As for getting hold of TA, I'm sure it's possible to d/l off the net somewhere. I couldn't say where offhand, but I'm fairly certain I remember hearing of other people do so.

I'm still curious to know what people's TA nicknames are? Decent odds that I might know of you if you've been playing for a while...

[Wally_008]

I was JoeB the WALL back then, a totally mediocre player who messed around with UH & XTA after getting bored with OTA. So chances are that you probably never played me, or even heard of me (unless you happened to visit tauniverse.com or annihilated.com). Were you Sasha, or did you use a different nick?

[Jinx]

Nope, I was Jinx or Jinksy alternately most of the time (I didn't smurf, but I sometimes used Penance when the other two were taken on some services, and had various different clan tags. Went through PCS, ACE, NoX, Elite and back to ACE again []), and I do actually remember you (think you were on my ICQ list for a while - you might even still be, since I so rarely tidy it up)! Small world, eh?

The other thing I got annoyed with in UH was the insistance of most players on playing comm=continues which I find really pointless[:I].

[Wally_008]

Oh yes, I remember you, you're the guy with 3 names on his icq account...Jinx/Penance/Alice <-- you really do have a thing for girl's names, don't you [].

I also don't wipe my icq stuff too often - I even have the chat log of our one & only discussion, hehe.

[Jinx]

Like I said, small world!

Still wondering if Antipode and Gaiseric are recognisable names as well..?

BTW 500 unit schmivehundred unit - did you know about the patch to raise it to 5000?

[Ptarth]

"old classic"

That's almost sad.

Anyway, TA is alive although barely. The UH community is trying to start a comeback after some inactivity, spearheaded by none other than bijanki aka Big Hungry Joe aka ....

[whetimago]

Ta was a good game but I thought Dark Reign was better.

[Jinx]

Never really got to play DR.

[ZheShiWo]

Go shreders !

[MurphGuitar]

ZheShiWo...you know that quote of yours you said to zunnun that's in Archon's sig? The "...mumbo to a greater jumbo" one? I need to know what thread that was in. Do you remember the thread author or thread title or anything?

[Antipode]

I barely played under this name, so I doubt anyone would remember. Yeah, I will make sure to get it somehow so I can play it again.

Haha, I didn't know Wally was JoeB. I thought you are a pretty good player?

[Wally_008]

Jeez, can't you tell I'm being humble?!? []

[Jinx]

Pff, he's a UH n00b []

[Steel General]

Holy shit, it's Jinx!

I was once Warsmith. The last time I saw you was Susan's D3Press BBS. Then I found SPSW, through big hungry joe and Wes Janson. You almost certainly remember bhj, although I'm not sure what name he might have been using back then: for a while, on TA:U, he was Disgruntled Goat. That's about all I remember of his monicker history...

[Jinx]

Hey Warsmith []

I'm still hoping Susan will get that board up again... it was a nice testing ground. I actually have no idea how I found this site - it was bookmarked for ages before I ever got around to actually looking at it, but I'm guessing by the proportion of TA players here that it probably had something to do with one of them...

Is Wes a TA player as well then, or just someone you knew from elsehwhere?

[Steel General]

Wes: Yes: met him on TAU.

Once I found SPSW, I posted a link to it on Susan's site, hoping they'd all check this place out. In retrospect, that might not have been a nice thing to do to Susan...

[Jinx]

Heh, you've got some answering to do to some of the people on this forum, too []. Carpy and Thuloid would probably want a word with you if they saw this thread, at any rate...

[Steel General]

Carpy and Thuloid are both very understanding people. In fact, they're so understanding, they like to occasionally leap at the opportunity to not understand for a little while.

Of course, I'm talking out my flour: I haven't read a bit of what is going on there. Nevertheless, I maintain my faith that all three of you are good people.

You might be interested to know that my older brother, DaedelusNemo, recognizes the name of Jinx, even though, in those days, all his forumming was done over my shoulder:)

Ptarth: you say bhj is alive, well, and active on internet forums?!? And that, moreover, he is spearheading the return of TA? I shall report to his duty at once... in a little while[]

[Jinx]

quote:

---

I'm talking out my flour

---

Ahh, the seal of identity for any self-respecting TA fan!

[Senor Sassafras]

wtf! How come no one responded to my TBG TA post?

For god's sake, let's all play some UH sometime.

[Steel General]

*flashes secret handsigns*

[Jinx]

Can't play until summer, Sass. It's not installed atm, and HD space is too limited to install it for the sake of a week's holiday.

[Wes Janson]

Heheh...TA is the best RTS ever made. Gord, the music alone... I was a regular forummer at TAU for a while, JoeB remembers me, and the entire bijanki/DG/etc incidents... Ahh, Wowbagger. And that whole society with the secret bunker, and KFC, and Warchicken, and.. *sigh* Good times..good times..

[Jinx]

Wes, what name did you have at TAU?

[Wally_008]

You are joking, right?!?

[Jinx]

Nope... the same?

[Wes Janson]

Oh, ... I had a strange name there. It was two words, started with a 'W', ended with an 'N'...

[Jinx]

?

[Wes Janson]

Wes Janson *shakes head*

[Jinx]

Oh, I see. I thought you meant the second word started with N []

Any idea why there's such a high proportion of TAers here?

[Steel General]

Because the game attracts intellectuals? []

[Wally_008]

That would also explain why you'd never meet any Starcrafters around here!!!

[]

[Jinx]

Yeah, those answers occured to me too []

[Wes Janson]

Hey hey hey, I like UMS there always were a few dozen really intelligent people on Battle.net. They were the source for all the maps the rest of the dumbasses always played.

[WiccanWonder2000]

TA is the BEST!! I LOVE that game!! I have TA Kingdoms, AND TA Kingdoms Iron Plague. Its an absolute tradgedy that they didnt do a sequel. TA with better graphics would KICK BUTT.

[Wes Janson]

Yeah. It's called normal TA. Give it a shot some time.

Whoever made Kingdoms should've been brutally beaten and stuck in a hampster wheel to help make electricity for the Cavedog offices. Stupid idea...TA:K:IP was even dumber. *shakes head*