Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread - Page 156

On August 12 2024 12:25 Husyelt wrote:

wait they got 40 million in funding? thats insane for a fundraiser. im all for paying artists and programmers what they deserve but there was some serious errors here in judgment or direction. I'm fairly confident I could make an entire RTS for a 1-2 million bucks with just a couple other Devs if we just focused on PvP and saved the story for down the line.

Just start with 2 races, prototype that shit out while an artist or two work on the visual style. after you have a working prototype go full in with the rest of the money on art and very basic multiplayer functionality. Unreal Engine 5 is literally free to use until you make your first million in revenue. Make the basic game $20 with PvP ladder and custom only, and then an expansion pack with a new race and maybe a simple story for another $20.

On August 12 2024 19:29 sophisticated wrote:


Yeah, I mostly agree, though I've never done gamedev before. Some googling suggest that they've got around 40-50 people working on this thing. Cofounder Tim Morten said in a venturebeat interview from summer 2023 that "we're closing in on 50 full-time and another 20 contractors. It's roughly the same size as the Starcraft II team when I was on it."
Seems insanse to me as well (what you could do with 40mil$!), though I guess that does involve running the entire company and all the marketing/community-management stuff too. From what I've read in some interview, they are trying to compete with AAA, which is certainly a decision one can make...

On August 12 2024 19:29 sophisticated wrote:


Yeah, I mostly agree, though I've never done gamedev before. Some googling suggest that they've got around 40-50 people working on this thing. Cofounder Tim Morten said in a venturebeat interview from summer 2023 that "we're closing in on 50 full-time and another 20 contractors. It's roughly the same size as the Starcraft II team when I was on it."
Seems insanse to me as well (what you could do with 40mil$!), though I guess that does involve running the entire company and all the marketing/community-management stuff too. From what I've read in some interview, they are trying to compete with AAA, which is certainly a decision one can make...

On August 13 2024 03:31 gTank wrote:
The point is, everyone knows about steppes of war and can even draw it out of memory because the maps feel cool and special in sc2, in SG the maps are kinda meh.

On August 13 2024 03:17 Agh wrote:


$40 mil can vanish in a flash. 20% of that can be gone in a year just from salaries.

Pay to play is death unless you're somebody like blizzard and can keep getting away with it (still flabbergasted that there are people that bought d4).

I think hard forcing the campaign when the basic game fundamentals have so much work to be done is a mistake. Going to run into the issue where some unit or mechanic is obsolete and there will be a severe disconnect going from that to multi-player.

I don't care about art and aesthetic whatsoever but I think for the most part every game post sc2 has looked absolutely awful. Dota2,d4,aoe4,reforged,etc all look like some toddler water color painting to me. Battle Aces is the only one to have distinct visuals where you can easily identify everything at a glance.

There's just so much wrong with the game's state and design for being an actually competitive title that it puts me off, even if it is fun for a handful of games.
Maps really need an overhaul. We're in the steppes of war/metalocalypse era and with the tug of war being all over the place.

On August 13 2024 06:14 MegaBuster wrote:
does anyone have an email contact to remind Frost Giant that they are releasing a game tomorrow?

On August 13 2024 06:14 MegaBuster wrote:
does anyone have an email contact to remind Frost Giant that they are releasing a game tomorrow?

On August 13 2024 06:52 Waxangel wrote:
Another offline showmatch at the Esports World Cup

https://twitter.com/PlayStormgate/status/1823106019569893388

On August 13 2024 04:36 WombaT wrote:
I guess maps are quite hard. Unlike most other genres so much of how the game plays is developed by a hive mind figuring things out, and no designer or playtest team, no matter how large is going to be able to predict what the players will figure out in terms of optimal play.

Warcraft 3 had a handful of stinkers, and oddly for a game who spawned an even bigger game through a vibrant custom map scene, it largely just stuck with Blizzard maps forever. Even maps that were clearly built as team game maps but ended up as tournament 1v1 maps.

Stinkers aside one thing I really do appreciate from WC3 is that the maps are actually different, and ask different questions, even if balance isn’t always optimal. SC2 it’s the opposite where they’re pretty balanced but once ‘the formula’ was figured out I could return now after a giant hiatus and maps are still gonna play much the same.

I’ve said it forever, I think the logical next step is a slight change in approach. I see SG doing this as well just as SC2 does. Abandon trying to make every map be good for every matchup, and conforming to a particular style to force certain types of games.

Have a solid core of XvX battlefields, absolutely. But it’s a shackle that prevents building really interesting, different maps around interactions that only certain factions share.

You can both improve variety, without sacrificing balance as certain maps would only be rolled in certain matchups.

Obviously it’s very early days so we’re gonna see that reflected in the maps, but I do hope that kinda approach is adopted in one way or another.

On August 13 2024 10:07 Hibikidaye wrote:
Can't say I've ever seen this many invitationals and showmatches for a game that isn't even out yet.