On May 30 2024 03:16 _Spartak_ wrote: This is the original statement and it hasn't been changed.
Yeah, I worded that incorrectly. What I meant was, they said nothing about spending the money on development when they launched the kickstarter (i.e. original statement). The FAQ came a bit later and they changed their original statement to what it is in the FAQ. Later on, they said they are also going to use the money for advertisments, which was stated neither in the kickstarter campaign nor in the FAQ.
Basically all the stretch goals were about developing new / additional content? So ofc if those goals are met they develop content ie use the money for development...
Of all the things, this one really isn't worthy to get hung up on IMO
On June 03 2024 20:36 _Spartak_ wrote: ... They can still do it by being more efficient than a AAA company (shouldn't be hard) and also by relying on an early access period. It is harder to do it that way of course but I am personally happy they went with that route. I don't want a small scope RTS. I want a spiritual successor to Blizzard RTS and I don't want to wait until I am 50 to get it.
i honestly get that wish, i kinda share it as well. but it says nothing either about the viabilty of FGs approach or the viabiltiy of making RTS games in this day and age
Seems to be some confusion with 'scope and ambition' and marketing promises.
They are shipping 6 campaign missions in their first year. They have 2 co-op missions, 2 co-op heroes.
If you heard a Starcraft-like RTS was going to launch with 6 missions would you say its ambitious? Consider two scenarios.
- (1) RTS Company makes 6 campaign missions. - (2) RTS Company kind of sort of implies they want to have a full campaign for each faction while never committing to anything, but makes 6 campaign missions.
(2) Absolutely lives on implications through their purposeful citation of Blizzard RTS, these implications include: - they want to create campaign missions sized similar as StarCraft 2/WarCraft 3/Brood War — which range heavily from the most lush, extravagant missions to melee style missions with some cutscenes. - they want to make campaigns that are sized similarly to StarCraft 2/WarCraft3/BW — already horribly vague from what the scope of what this could imply, but also generally implies 10-20 missions for each faction - they want to make a full campaign with each faction, and hey we might actually make a 4th faction so its more like WarCraft 3! (teased all the time). So now you are at 30 - 80 campaign missions.
They have never shown any campaign stuff, nor ever clarified what exactly they are going for. Thereby they enjoy the highest degree of generosity about these assumptions from some people. So why would you ever clarify and go from the generosity of people's imagination to the cold reality of what can be executed?
Would you ever say (1) is ambitious?
They are fractionally executing StarCraft 2. The promise is (if we make another 10 million per year and/or secure more gobs of investment then after another 4 years) we will be a StarCraft 2 scoped RTS. Right now they are an extremely small scope RTS.
There's no difference between (1) and (2), they are making 6 campaign missions, its not ambitious.
Plus I don't think the budget for sc2 was ever public, the 100million figure was misquoted again and again.
They can still do it by being more efficient than a AAA company (shouldn't be hard) and also by relying on an early access period. It is harder to do it that way of course but I am personally happy they went with that route. I don't want a small scope RTS. I want a spiritual successor to Blizzard RTS and I don't want to wait until I am 50 to get it.[/QUOTE]
I think the problem I also have with Stormgate is that it's not even a good spiritual successor. Why are wall-offs still are required or why are the micro interactions so bland? Why do so many big battles contain players mostly a-moving and then starting at the battle as movement based micro isn't rewarded. Where is the real ineresting and fun unit-interactions and design.
How come I can watch Sc2 competitive games and feel excited and inspired while Stormgate games drags me to sleep.
I can't comment on how you feel but I personally don't agree with that. I find micro interactions and battles in Stormgate very fun. Wall-offs aren't "required" (especially not at the level of SC2) but I like it that good basebuilding and sim citying is still rewarded. I don't see what that has to do with Stormgate not being a spiritual successor. That's something that has always been important in previous Blizzard RTSes. If anything, it is arguably something a spiritual successor should have.
On June 04 2024 02:17 _Spartak_ wrote: I can't comment on how you feel but I personally don't agree with that. I find micro interactions and battles in Stormgate very fun.
Link me to an example of a micro interaction at a high level game you found awesome and somewhat innovative.
"Innovative" is irrelevant to me. Also, getting excited when watching high-level play is also less of a concern for me than the game being fun to play yourself. This match is a good example of what I like about Stormgate:
From 9:30 minute onwards there is constant back and forth with little to no downtime and battles lasting for minutes at a time with both players doing little adjustments constantly to gain an edge. I find these types of battles much more interesting than SC2's "blink and you lose" battles, which are mostly about pre-battle positioning than in-battle adjustments. At least that's how it feels to me when playing and as I said, that's far more important to me than what pros feel when they are playing or how it feels like to watch.
Summer Games Fest and PC Gaming show couldn't come sooner so we finally have some new, non NDA stuff to talk about regarding Stormgate and David Kim's Unnamed project
On June 04 2024 04:57 _Spartak_ wrote: "Innovative" is irrelevant to me. Also, getting excited when watching high-level play is also less of a concern for me than the game being fun to play yourself. This match is a good example of what I like about Stormgate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySANJG_BRFA From 9:30 minute onwards there is constant back and forth with little to no downtime and battles lasting for minutes at a time with both players doing little adjustments constantly to gain an edge. I find these types of battles much more interesting than SC2's "blink and you lose" battles, which are mostly about pre-battle positioning than in-battle adjustments. At least that's how it feels to me when playing and as I said, that's far more important to me than what pros feel when they are playing or how it feels like to watch.
The gameplay is:
- marines run forward and nip on the edges of the demon deathball, they are trying to reduce the quality of units in the demon deathball so they are attacking the dinosaurs and Azmodans and walker-things from The Mist - demon player's Azmodans attack the Vanguard deathball with their massive range so the Vanguard player is compelled to withdraw if they are not taking high quality units efficiently enough - if the Vanguard really messes up their minutes long stutter-step then dinosaurs stomp on everything - sometimes the demon workers are used as a goblin sapper type flank - a dragon may show up but is not that useful - at some point the medics show up and allow the amount of deathball footsies to be indefinite - the demon might collect enough Azmodans to make the footsies really unpalatable for the Terran, then they slowly win - if the demon loses too many dinosaurs then the Vanguard finally stops sharking around and a-moves for a win
It feels like that moving around giant deathballs with the pathing as it is, just by-nature expose the edges of each player's deathball and give opportunities for their opponent to attack the edges. That doesn't feel intentional, it just feels like things are squirting out the sides of the pathing simulation as they run agar.io blobs of bulky units back and forth.
Its kind of like if each player just made 5000 units, eventually the units would be attacking each other as they ran out of space.
There's a classic Brood War UMS map called Evolves set on a 64x64 map which depends on the lack of space to initiate combat. Its like people pushing others around in a packed Tokyo subway car. I'm imagining the game designers as the Japanese subway workers who are shoving the players into a cramped car so that they interact with one another.
I hope the summer game fest trailer shows tier 3 units, some campaign mission sneak peaks, and maybe plans for esport competition. Didn't they say they wanted to host their own circuit in cadence with campaign releases? I'm interested in how that's shaping up to look.
Imagine how fucking incredible it would feel after watching Serral win a yearly final you'd know another 6 campaign missions were about to drop. (2 hours of gameplay)
On June 04 2024 04:57 _Spartak_ wrote: "Innovative" is irrelevant to me. Also, getting excited when watching high-level play is also less of a concern for me than the game being fun to play yourself. This match is a good example of what I like about Stormgate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySANJG_BRFA From 9:30 minute onwards there is constant back and forth with little to no downtime and battles lasting for minutes at a time with both players doing little adjustments constantly to gain an edge. I find these types of battles much more interesting than SC2's "blink and you lose" battles, which are mostly about pre-battle positioning than in-battle adjustments. At least that's how it feels to me when playing and as I said, that's far more important to me than what pros feel when they are playing or how it feels like to watch.
It's like watching bristleback against skeleton king. When everyone gets hyped with earthquaker and Phantom lancer for the play potential
I don't understand that analogy as I don't speak MOBA but like I said, I don't really care how it feels to "watch" (though I enjoyed watching that match as well). I care how it feels to play and I enjoy playing these types of battles more than SC2 battles.
On June 04 2024 04:57 _Spartak_ wrote: "Innovative" is irrelevant to me. Also, getting excited when watching high-level play is also less of a concern for me than the game being fun to play yourself. This match is a good example of what I like about Stormgate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySANJG_BRFA From 9:30 minute onwards there is constant back and forth with little to no downtime and battles lasting for minutes at a time with both players doing little adjustments constantly to gain an edge. I find these types of battles much more interesting than SC2's "blink and you lose" battles, which are mostly about pre-battle positioning than in-battle adjustments. At least that's how it feels to me when playing and as I said, that's far more important to me than what pros feel when they are playing or how it feels like to watch.
This will take time to get used to. Battle drags forever lol. Looks cool and fluid though
On June 04 2024 04:57 _Spartak_ wrote: "Innovative" is irrelevant to me. Also, getting excited when watching high-level play is also less of a concern for me than the game being fun to play yourself. This match is a good example of what I like about Stormgate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySANJG_BRFA From 9:30 minute onwards there is constant back and forth with little to no downtime and battles lasting for minutes at a time with both players doing little adjustments constantly to gain an edge. I find these types of battles much more interesting than SC2's "blink and you lose" battles, which are mostly about pre-battle positioning than in-battle adjustments. At least that's how it feels to me when playing and as I said, that's far more important to me than what pros feel when they are playing or how it feels like to watch.
It's like watching bristleback against skeleton king. When everyone gets hyped with earthquaker and Phantom lancer for the play potential
Do we have any idea what kind of games Mike Morhaime's studio (Dreamhaven) is making? They just announced first playtests of their gameS in the upcoming months and I can't stop wondering what is in store. It would be funny if they brought their own RTS as well. Looking at Dreamhaven's website, the art looks 100x better and more tasteful than anything shown by FG so far (subjective, I know). I have a feeling (hope?) that DH games might really be something fresh and innovative. They seem to have the luxury to experiment and innovate and the art they have shown so far is very intriguing. But wait, this is a thread about SG, I will shut up now.
On June 04 2024 04:57 _Spartak_ wrote: "Innovative" is irrelevant to me. Also, getting excited when watching high-level play is also less of a concern for me than the game being fun to play yourself. This match is a good example of what I like about Stormgate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySANJG_BRFA From 9:30 minute onwards there is constant back and forth with little to no downtime and battles lasting for minutes at a time with both players doing little adjustments constantly to gain an edge. I find these types of battles much more interesting than SC2's "blink and you lose" battles, which are mostly about pre-battle positioning than in-battle adjustments. At least that's how it feels to me when playing and as I said, that's far more important to me than what pros feel when they are playing or how it feels like to watch.
Thanks for the link. I do think Stormgate probably plays out better in these "medium" sized armies where movement at least seems rewarded for both sides.
That said, there was no innovation here. This was mostly basic kiting slowed down. Without any doubt, this tyhpe of micro is indeed a fundamental part of an RTS and getting this right is important - but it isn't enough. I don't think there is a large playerbase that gets inspired and motivated to invest time to learn this game after this 2 minute clip. It's fair if you like it and if that's all you need but I think you represent a minority here.
Sc2 did at least attempt to add new type of micro comapred to Sc1, e.g. splitting, more efficient stutter steps, hellions, forcefields etc. (although not everything worked out well) .. Since Sc2 release we should have learned so much about competitive RTS gameplay and how to generate micro interactions. But I can't see a single new microinteraction that Stormgate has creaed that actually works well. What have the game-designers been doing for the past few years? There is so much room for innovation. MOBA's have hundreds of heroes with many different abilities - there should be some concept/ideas to learn there that potentially could be applied in some setting to an RTS.
Yes we can't copy-paste abilities directly from a MOBA into an RTS - but figure out some way to get cool and fun stuff incorporated into an RTS. (And make abilities easier to use - in Sc2 multiple different spellcasters add way too much complexity as it requires multiple control groups or complex tabbing.)
It's frustrating for me because I can think of many cool ideas that I believe has the potential to take RTS micro to another level. Instead, the companies that get 30M+ in funding and pay their owners big bucks don't seem to have any ideas or any inspiration beside slowed down Sc2.
EPT
