Typically a game revolves around the focused effort to complete the goal. The problem is, this is often literally true. Once you reach the goal, you get the old "Game Over" logo right in your face, although in truthfulness you get a full screen beautifully rendered 3d animated sequence for you trouble... the result is the same. You just ran out of game.

There is validity in having this sort of conclusion to a piece of entertainment, certainly it would be bad having to stay forever on a theater chair, and certainly real time strategy can be played this way too, often with very satisfying results. But sometimes we want more, we want depth, we don't want to stick to the known formula.

In essence... "Game Over" is starting to suck.

It seems players are getting sophisticated, and even if they aren't this author sure is!

I want open games, I want a scalable dynamic environment, a persistent world capable of running dozens of players in parallel with hundreds of units moving to positions at command ready to do what master Tzu scribbled. Strategy and immediate action are fun, but long term engagements with all the alliances and trickery it can bring, can truly be something unique.

Persistence would mean that an empire would not dissolve into a fadeout on an exit click. The war could go on. Players could be allowed to enter at any time. Due to the resource sharing between allies, battles could take days instead of hours. Empires instead of factions.

Certainly, that, there are problems with this scheme, and I'm not even talking technical, I'm talking game play wise, we all know the problems online games have today, with all the camping and massive score kills going around. RTS is not without faults.

With all these world specifications interactivity is something that needs to be addressed properly, in many games this is reduced to the usual point and click until the big bang "tank rush" phenomenon happens, this is due to the generalization of raw power as the ultimate and in some cases, only way to win. This in part is an expected evil, a natural consequence of placing so many people on a non restricted set of rules with a common goal; They will find a way.