I was on another forum and i was told "just use the lord of the rings map builder, it can be customized any way you want" but doesn't this mean i need there permission or there get royalties? Or can sue me if I don't ask them? incarnum13

Which LOTR map builder are you referring to? Generally if a company includes the toolset with the game, you're free to use it as you like and distribute what you produce with it, as long as you don't try to sell what you produce.

I haven't really played any bad RTSs, mostly because I research pretty much every game I intend to buy to make sure I'll enjoy playing it (of course, occasionally I miss, but usually the game is enjoyable for the most part). However, I can tell you some things that would ruin the game for me:

- Imbalance: Different races/teams need to be balanced, otherwise there's no point in playing the weaker one (unless you really want a challenge), especially in multiplayer

- Poor AI: If you only play single player, an unintelligent AI will make the game boring, pure and simple. Games need at least a bit of challenge to hold your interest long term

- UI (user interface): For RTSs, UI is very important because there are often numerous units on screen at once, and they will often be pretty small. There simply must be a good method for finding, selecting, and controlling any number of units.

- Graphics: While not as important as the other things, graphics are still important for the same reason UI is - units are likely to be small, so you'll need to be able to tell what type of unit something is by looking at it. Clearly made models/sprites are thus pretty important.

It seems most of the game discussion here is about RPGs (which is cool - I'm a huge RPG fan), so this seems a bit out of place, but I just discovered this free game called Upshift Strikeracer on gpotato.com. It's kind of a Madmax roadwarrior type game but with short races instead of a long battle on a straight road. It has some decent potential, and they just opened up this thing called playspan in which you can sell your cars for real money. So you could potentially buy cars using the game points and then sell them - lol, make money from playing the game instead of paying to play. It's kind of off to a slow start (all the cars are selling for $1 right now), but who knows.

So, anyone else tried the game? BTW, I don't work for gpotato - I'm not trying to sell the game. I'd just like to see more people playing it cuz it's fun and there aren't many people playing it yet (though those who are seem kinda hard core). I've always liked games like these - anyone remember Autoduel or Interstate 76? Autoduel was awesome...

Oh, and lol, to keep this more in place with these threads, gpotato does have RPGs as well, though I have yet to try them. They're free like the rest of the games on the site (but you pay for premium items I think), but I have no idea how good they are.