On April 13 2024 04:58 Waxangel wrote: Good to see there's still pretty massive changes being made between iterations. Not sure how I feel about Tier 1 core casters as a general concept tho
If you go back a few pages people were talking for a while about making the game play like a moba, and now they're straight up starting players with a spellcaster.
I think it would be a good advancement on SC2 tbh, you get action on the map and something to do straight away, without doing the LoTV move of 12 worker starts.
The only scary thing is the sc2 Queen syndrome, but fortunately the game is in such an early state it shouldn't go down that route of making said spellcaster a band aid counter to everything.
If the sc2 team could go back they'd probably change some fundamental things so they wouldn't have had to.
There's some interesting stuff there with the 'weak' heroes you get at the start in ZeroSpace. Watching people play, they do indeed give people interesting early interactions beyond Reaper dancing and random Shade tricks (someone who's played more can tell me if ZeroSpace heroes are actually OP or horribly ineffectual). I don't think these concepts are inherently good or bad, but I just feel sorta uncomfortable with them as a BW purist at heart
They are launching in early access with 6 campaign missions, vanguard only.
These are 'early versions' to be worked on in public up until the 1.0 launch and that will be considered the first chapter of the vanguard campaign, and the only story work they have a guarantee to finish.
The rest of the Vanguard missions have a little * on the kickstarter which say post-early access so they need to make enough money to get there.
SC2: Wings of liberty had 29 missions with playable bits of the Protoss and luxurious Hyperion rpg chit chats. WC3:Reign of chaos had 37 missions across all 4 races. SC1 had 30 missions across 3 races, BW had 28 missions across 3 races.
Everybody who paid at least 25$ at the kickstarter (25k people) gets this first chapter (6 missions) of the campaign content.
This is the main product they are getting out, the 6 missions. People who will walk the earth for some time further with no incriminations of financial crime.
I'm guessing in addition to this they'll have a couple hundred dollars of overpriced skins for sale and co-op commanders (kickstarters get some of these too), but my napkin math says that its financially impossible for them to stay open.
Is everyone on their wishlist going to buy a campaign pack? 400k wishlisters * 25$ campaign =10 mil, below their yearly burn which should go up this year Is a quarter of the wishlist going to buy every possible thing they sell? 100k wishlisters * (25$ campaign + $50 dollar faction skin + $30 for 3 co-op commanders = 11mil~, still below
These are net negative positions from costs still, they have crazy outcomes to clear!
(Okay in these fantasies they'd probably be chuffed and be out there getting some more funding and I'd imagine they'd pump out more skins to harpoon all the hypothetical whales but man none of this could even possibly happen, these are best possible case numbers and an order of magnitude above even really fortunate scenarios.)
If they got another 25000 customers at kickstarter rates, which sounds good for most companies who just ran a 'successful kickstarter', then THEY ARE STILL BONED. I envy the calmness really. I guess most people aren't putting the financial filings next to their 'roadmap' the roadmap which instead of being stated clearly (as promised) is broken across a bunch of posting and buried in words.
I can't believe the costs vs how slow this campaign stuff is going to come out. Can't believe it. There's very real scenarios where you literally never find out what a demon is, why its coming to earth, what some of the characters names are in the art that's been released. Noodle scratching stuff.
I am going to start robo-calling them with bids on snowplay technology. And complaints about the hag.
They never guaranteed Snowplay Tech would make the cut. They've always stated it is in an experimental phase.
Also, Snowplay only provides the illusion of smoothness. If you are running at 250ms Ping the tech is not going to correctly project into the future when, how and where you will cast spells. It won't project your micro moves in the heat of intense combat.
On April 13 2024 11:54 JimmyJRaynor wrote: They never guaranteed Snowplay Tech would make the cut. They've always stated it is in an experimental phase.
The amount of misinformation you spread is as crazy as the valuation that Frost Giant tries to take money from their fans at.
The whole game is built on Snowplay as an "gameplay engine" on top of unreal. You are talking about the rollback netcode, which was on during the last beta and also does not seem very experimental anymore. And if you expected it to mitigate a quarter second of latency, ...
Today's blog post and video were great, that said, it seems like they hired a former bored ape yacht club nft guy for marketing this week.
Well at least it seems they've made successful PR again for a change. The reception of this latest update looks pretty positive.
But what I've seen is that they've put Tim Campbell making his most candid eyes in front of the camera to inspire trust (guess that's the main skill of the guy) all the while showing very little substance in the video (even though it's positive changes IMO), and wrote excuses and other ineptitudes in a blog post. It absolutely further lowered my hopes that they will pull a rabbit out of the hat in time.
As HAL9000 pointed out above, the missing roadmap is one of the (missing) elephant in the room.
Not to over summarize the above post about the lack of enthusiasm for competitive 1v1 below the seriousness of esports, but I noticed a very interesting thing added to SC2 in the Tim Morten era.
They added an ability for developers to hide their SC2 profiles, as in private them so you can't look at their games played.
I guess that's not interesting for most people who don't know any developer accounts, but uhhh its interesting because they added basically zero features to SC2 battle.net in that time but seemed to kind of care that people could see how much StarCraft 2 they played. Take it for what its worth.
I think in a lot of ways Co-op mode short-circuited 1v1 developer play time, because if you don't have a deep attachment to 1v1 but feel like oh gosh I have to play some StarCraft for my job then well now you can run co-op and feel okay about yourself.
But getting yourself to play and be enthused about 1v1 is a skill, and its an important one for developers. Developers are just forced to think about the game in a way that is probably at conflict with a pure competitive ability.
As you said people like GothamChess or StarCraft equivalents like uThermal, Harstem, and others are employing creative ideas to have original fun with 1v1 that is still competitive. And developers have to be like that too. Instead I think they just kind of drift away from the most intense part of the game because it can be embarrassing for them, it can painful to confront a loss of enthusiasm, this sort of thing.
Over time you get a bunch of StarCraft developers who don't like StarCraft as much as you'd think, and it shows in the ideation because (and I think the above poster saw this too) there's a very fertile space of things that are competitive but not Esports which get left behind and not thought about much. Could go into it more but every time I do the StarCraft team puts my shit in their game without paying me okay bye.
Anyways it is really important, the earliest form of competitive RTS is this kind of half competitive half fun mode, think the maps in WarCraft 2 online where you have really tiny spaces surrounded all by trees. This is as competitive as it can be - but its also clearly not sweaty serious deeply ladder anxiety inducing stuff. So is stuff like BGH. This space has been left behind.
edit: Just as an addendum to this the deep ignoring of the open wildfires in team games is close enough to this to mention. Its the biggest anti-credential for the DLC era team. And its hard to see them push 2v2 mode to StormCraft after giving no fucks to team game design issues for so long. (Some things can be fiddled with in an hour. Limit people to 5 Capital Ships. Stop letting people kill team mates buildings. Let teams build on their teammates creep etc etc blah blah.)
On April 13 2024 11:54 JimmyJRaynor wrote: They never guaranteed Snowplay Tech would make the cut. They've always stated it is in an experimental phase.
The amount of misinformation you spread is as crazy as the valuation that Frost Giant tries to take money from their fans at. The whole game is built on Snowplay as an "gameplay engine" on top of unreal.
Source? when have they stated Snowplay's netcode rollback is in the final product? you are speculating.
they have not clarified that Snowplay's netcode rollback is going to be in the final product. Their last statement about Snowplay's rollback netcode was that it was experimental and not guaranteed to be in the game. And, the interpolation or extrapolation that this Snowplay thing performs won't be able to foreshadow micro moves. So if you have latency you're fucked. Given the low population of the game no amount of voodoo math will give a low latency experience.
On April 13 2024 11:54 JimmyJRaynor wrote: They never guaranteed Snowplay Tech would make the cut. They've always stated it is in an experimental phase.
The amount of misinformation you spread is as crazy as the valuation that Frost Giant tries to take money from their fans at. The whole game is built on Snowplay as an "gameplay engine" on top of unreal.
Source? when have they stated Snowplay's netcode rollback is in the final product? you are speculating.
they have not clarified that Snowplay's netcode rollback is going to be in the final product. Their last statement about Snowplay's rollback netcode was that it was experimental and not guaranteed to be in the game. And, the interpolation or extrapolation that this Snowplay thing performs won't be able to foreshadow micro moves. So if you have latency you're fucked. Given the low population of the game no amount of voodoo math will give a low latency experience.
Rollback was implemented in the last build. SnowPlay is more than rollback though. It is the whole game simulation. Networking, pathfinding and all game logic are handled by SnowPlay. Unrel Engine doesn't work well for an RTS in those regards, so they built their own tech. "SnowPlay tech not making into the final product" would mean there is no game.
On April 13 2024 15:04 _Spartak_ wrote: Rollback was implemented in the last build. SnowPlay is more than rollback though. It is the whole game simulation. Networking, pathfinding and all game logic are handled by SnowPlay. Unrel Engine doesn't work well for an RTS in those regards, so they built their own tech. "SnowPlay tech not making into the final product" would mean there is no game.
Please read my comment. I said "Snowplay's Netcode Rollback". You did not read my comment. Frost Giant has not stated it will remain in the game. If you have a source that includes them saying it. great. add it to the thread.
On April 13 2024 11:54 JimmyJRaynor wrote: They never guaranteed Snowplay Tech would make the cut. They've always stated it is in an experimental phase.
... And if you expected it to mitigate a quarter second of latency, ...
the claim made by Netcode Rollback proponents is that even at 1/5 of a second of latency you'll notice only a slight amount of visual artifacting.
Let's get into the reasons why Rollback Netcode requires testing and why Frost Giant is being cautious about it.
In a fighting game you're only smoothing out the actions of 2 units. Taking away or adding animation frames based on volatile latency conditions...etc etc. So the game makers can take a look at a few dozen moves of each fighter and strategize how they'll smooth things out. It is a whole other world to pull it off in an RTS when you'll have to be surgically altering the moves of hundreds of units simultaneously. In a fighting game this will never tax teh CPU. In an RTS.. with all those units .. considerations for CPU requirements will have to be made.
This is probably why Frost Giant is being cautious about confirming rollback will be in the game. I suspect they'll wait until the 3rd faction testing is complete before stating for the record it'll be in the game.
On April 13 2024 11:54 JimmyJRaynor wrote: They never guaranteed Snowplay Tech would make the cut. They've always stated it is in an experimental phase.
The amount of misinformation you spread is as crazy as the valuation that Frost Giant tries to take money from their fans at. The whole game is built on Snowplay as an "gameplay engine" on top of unreal.
Source? when have they stated Snowplay's netcode rollback is in the final product? you are speculating.
they have not clarified that Snowplay's netcode rollback is going to be in the final product. Their last statement about Snowplay's rollback netcode was that it was experimental and not guaranteed to be in the game. And, the interpolation or extrapolation that this Snowplay thing performs won't be able to foreshadow micro moves. So if you have latency you're fucked. Given the low population of the game no amount of voodoo math will give a low latency experience.
Rollback was implemented in the last build. SnowPlay is more than rollback though. It is the whole game simulation. Networking, pathfinding and all game logic are handled by SnowPlay. Unrel Engine doesn't work well for an RTS in those regards, so they built their own tech. "SnowPlay tech not making into the final product" would mean there is no game.
and again. if you have a statement from Frost Giant that Snowplay's Rollback Netcode is in the game permanently post it up here. If not, the person claiming I am stating "misinformation" is the person giving misinformation.
Your initial post takked about SnowPlay tech in general and not rollback (you probably thought the two are one and the same), which prompted the "misinformation" comment.
On April 13 2024 15:47 _Spartak_ wrote: Your initial post takked about SnowPlay tech in general and not rollback (you probably thought the two are one and the same), which prompted the "misinformation" comment.
and you quoted me talking about Snowplay's netcode rollback several times. so if there is a question about terminology you request clarification ... or at least read my comment that you quoted. if you're not going to read my comments there isn't much point.
On April 13 2024 12:43 Leiocritus wrote: Mad props for the Stormgate team for first raising funds, and then actually creating a game.
However, there is one strange thing I keep noticing when developers try to make RTS games. Which also plagued Starcraft 2 and which may be related to why MOBAs became so popular and RTS declined.
Every new title seems to ignore the fact that RTS games are games of mass clicking. Every game, including SC2, viewed high mechanical requirements as something bad and something to be resolved with QoL and automation. Every dev seems to have this idea that an 1vs1 RTS game is about out-strategizing the opponent. Exactly like Nony said in that video. And it is a trap.
I get that especially now in 2024 you can't make a game where it is really hard to have mundane tasks as if today was 1998. But why can no game dev come up with a new way to make mass clicking fun? Why is every new RTS game made as if an RTS game is inherently 'not fun' and removing the old-fashioned hardcore elements is the only solution? Why can't anyone come up with anything new and innovative?
Second, why does every game dev seem to think that a 1vs1 game is inherently competitive and hardcore? I get that there is a 1vs1 versus single player campaign or USM/custom game distinction. But every time a game dev focuses on making the 1vs1 game mode work, they get labeled as 'catering to esports'. Why is a 1vs1 game an 'esport'? You can only have an esport is you have a big gamer base ie your game is really popular. But why is respecting the 1vs1 game mode and the tactical and strategical dynamics for that in your game design 'catering to esports'? There is also a lore/single player vs competitive 1vs1 play dichotomy. But every time an argument is made for building a deliberate solid 1vs1 RTS game, it gets accused to 'catering to the esports niche'. I don't get that. I used to think that maybe 1vs1 games were just never going to be popular, because people want to play team games for either the social aspect, or to blame their team members. But the huge resurgance of chess, which is only 1vs1 and even more brutal than RTS, proved this completely wrong. Zoomers and even the generation younger than them are playing a ton of chess online. So the 1vs1 argument is not a deal-breaker. If you make a good 1vs1 game, people will player it.
Then the supposed low skill floor of MOBAs vs the high skill ceiling of MOBAs. I think this is total bullshit. LoL and DotA have a ton of heroes, all with their own spells, and a dozen of items. The skill floor is high. If you play your first 10 games ever, you have no idea what your opponent's hero's are or what their spells do. You either are clueless for many games, or you have to deliberately memorize maybe even 100 hundred spells/heroes.
But if you were going to play say 3vs3 Hunters in SC BW, then most games people will build mostly zerglings, zealots, or marines. When I first placed WC2 or Starcraft in 1996 or 1998 and I was a kid who spoke only basic English, no way we thought RTS had a high skill ceiling. You can literally just start a game and immedaitely play. if you can use a computer, you can use a mouse. And you can play RTS. I get that for someone who never used a mouse in their lives ever, playing a video game isn't so straightforward. Which we underestimate. But literally every kid can play a basic RTS game in minutes. I don't get why people say there is a high skill ceiling. There is this expectation that everyone playing an RTS game somehow has to approach progamer play. But that's utterly absurd and I don't get why this expectation is there in RTS, but not say in chess. Or even things like baseball/football/basketball.
In chess, GothamChess' most watched video are his Low Elo chess videos. And in Starcraft, we had this Belgian caster GethSC. I get that the RTS crowd is elitist. But there's no reason why a fun new RTS game cannot be played at a very low level, casually, in 1vs1. Game devs just need to figure out how to make RTS aka 'mass clicking' fun for a Zoomer audience.
And then, why do all game devs ignore the lessons of SC BW? Everything in SC BW was decided by lore. Resource collection, tech tree, upgrades, maps. It is 100% lore/thematic based. Not gameplay based. By some flukes as well as the map editor, 1vs1 RTS matured. And this resulted in a very rich and deep game. Both tactically, strategically and mechanically.
WHY DOES LITERALLY EVERY GAME DEV COMPLETELY IGNORE THIS?
Take the most basic thing. The resource system. Dune had a spice collecting truck literally because of the book Dune. 100% lore based. No gameplay consideration at all. Then in Command&Conquer, they changed it to tiberium. But still the same gameplay mechanic. How resources are gathered is a keystone to your entire game. But it was 100% determined by lore. If you were to make a board game, then that is an insane thing to do. This is literally the key of game design.
Then for Warcraft, it was 100% lore based to have a gold mine and a forest that you could chop down. ZERO THOUGHT was put into what type of gameplay this would give. That's fine. It was 1994 or whatever and these were literally the first RTS games ever.
Then for Starcraft game out aka 'Warcraft in Space'. It was originally literally the same game engine. So the devs just decided to interchange the wood and gold as the base resources. It was gold in Warcraft and Warcraft 2. But in Starcraft, it would be wood. And they wouldn't call it wood, but it was mineral patches. And the gold mine became vespene gas and turned into the static gold mine.
Through a fluke, it turned out that worker AI being really bad created a very good gameplay mechanic. Where you either build units now, or build more workers to get more resources later. Just this fluke gave rise to rich gameplay and diverse strategies.
So now we have these new game devs that want to make new RTS games. Starcraft came out almost 30 years ago. Half the dev team wasn't even born back then. And they completely ignore all of that. They just create a random new lore-based resource system. You'd think that with 30 years of RTS history and competitive play, a smart game designer could conceive of a resource system specifically designed to create an RTS game with rich gameplay. But somehow they can't even progress a single step beyond literally 1994 thinking. To me this is just shocking. Game devs can write millions of codes to create fancy game engines and graphics. But for the decisions that give rise to the fundamental core principals of their game, they seem to not even give that any thought at all.
Then to my last point. Creeps and map control. I think a major area that the original Starcraft did not exploit was map control. A driver of RTS gameplay can be map control. There have been several RTS games where you get resources based on which sectors of the map you control. This forces the player out onto the map and drives conflict from minute 1. I think this is a good gameplay principle, which all Blizzard RTS games basically completely lacked. Except maybe for WC3 with creeps. I do have a huge problem with creeps, though. They drive action, yes. But you basically play a minigame vs an AI. I think this is very bad game design. You want players to play each other. Not neutral AI creeps.
Personally, I am baffled by RTS in 2024. All game devs completely ignore all lessons of the past. But at the same time they try to make Starcraft clones, without understanding how RTS gameplay works. And the result if games that are copies of Starcraft, but are more automated and stripped down.
At the same time, we have Youtube guru's claiming that the problem is that RTS is too focused on esports. But what they really mean is the 1vs1 game mode. Even though other 1vs1 games do quite well, chess the prime example. And then there's another video by a guy who claims RTS game has to be a sandbox engine. So just some platform for creating UMS maps. I think mods are cool and all. But to me UMS back in 1998 were mostly a bunch of crap maps. And very often game mod content is inferior to Triple A game dev content. So I don't really get that. And not even a video game. And they mention Roblox or whatever that is as the prime example. To me this is all really puzzling. Especially when then the same criticism is that the SC2 map editor is so advanced, it is too hard to use it.
My conclusion is that RTS is dead. If everyone and their dogs has convinced themselves that aiming is bad and no fun at all, then FPS games would instantly die and never come back. This is what happened with RTS. Our brains are bad at multitasking, so maybe this can be partially explained. But any dev that puts out an RTS on the foundation that in reality mass clicking is not fun anymore in 2024, but their game solves that. But the game offers literally nothing new, then your game is going to fail. Especially if you also refuse to try to understand how 1vs1 RTS worked in SC BW.
I agree UMS scene is gone, indies replaced 99% of the need.
But RTS shouldn't be about mass clicking.
You mentioned aiming and FPS, it does matter what kind of aiming mechanics. That's why ARMA has its niche sim shooting market, while games like overwatch or left4dead had a much wider audience.
fun for noob 1v1 is extremely hard to do, fighter genre is having the exact same problem. Too much baggage from older games, and hard to innovate.
There used to be a lot of RTS players who just like to do NR5-20, turtle up and make for an ultra powerful army to fight it out. I wouldn't be surprised the city builders or tower defence like they are billions won them over.
Imo Hider is the most correct in that we need more fancy combos and engagements, it's good to draw in new players even just to watch.
The "time to kill" thing SG keep talking about is really an overblown imo, nukes, storm and lurkers (esp bw) still are the OMG moments simply how they can turn things around. I am all for more OP overtuned units and come back potential.
On April 13 2024 15:47 _Spartak_ wrote: Your initial post takked about SnowPlay tech in general and not rollback (you probably thought the two are one and the same), which prompted the "misinformation" comment.
and you quoted me talking about Snowplay's netcode rollback several times. so if there is a question about terminology you request clarification ... or at least read my comment that you quoted. if you're not going to read my comments there isn't much point.
I responded to both points. SnowPlay in general being more than just about rollback and rollback being in the game already. They talked about it being "experimental" a while back but they now have it in-game and they are promoting it as one of the key features in both Kickstarter and Start Engine campaigns, so it is a safe bet that it will not be removed.
On April 13 2024 15:47 _Spartak_ wrote: Your initial post takked about SnowPlay tech in general and not rollback (you probably thought the two are one and the same), which prompted the "misinformation" comment.
and you quoted me talking about Snowplay's netcode rollback several times. so if there is a question about terminology you request clarification ... or at least read my comment that you quoted. if you're not going to read my comments there isn't much point.
Aight you're banned from this thread for a week. You know you could have just said "I misspoke, I meant to say 'rollback' originally, but my point still stands about it not being guaranteed in the final product" or "I misunderstood, I conflated two different things" and still continued to make your arguments, but your inability to acknowledge being wrong about anything—including something incredibly trivial in this case—is getting seriously annoying. Come back when you can discuss things in a way that isn't super annoying. No need to reply to this, or you'll get an actual TL.net ban!
EPT
