Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread - Page 156
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gTank
Austria2536 Posts
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sophisticated
51 Posts
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 $20. Yeah, I mostly agree, though I've never done gamedev before. Some googling suggest that they've got around 40-50 people working on this thing. Cofounder Tim Morten said in a venturebeat interview from summer 2023 that "we're closing in on 50 full-time and another 20 contractors. It's roughly the same size as the Starcraft II team when I was on it." Seems insanse to me as well (what you could do with 40mil$!), 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... | ||
PurE)Rabbit-SF
United States538 Posts
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$!), though I guess that does involve running the entire company and all the marketing/community-management stuff too. From what I've read in some interview, they are trying to compete with AAA, which is certainly a decision one can make... Damn bro, that's awesome you were on the SC2 team. How was that experience? :D That's mad dream lived. | ||
WGT-Baal
France3282 Posts
On August 12 2024 22:31 PurE)Rabbit-SF wrote: Damn bro, that's awesome you were on the SC2 team. How was that experience? :D That's mad dream lived. I dont think you read that right, he was quoting Tim Morten as saying it | ||
TheDougler
Canada8296 Posts
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Agh
United States891 Posts
On August 12 2024 19:29 sophisticated wrote: Yeah, I mostly agree, though I've never done gamedev before. Some googling suggest that they've got around 40-50 people working on this thing. Cofounder Tim Morten said in a venturebeat interview from summer 2023 that "we're closing in on 50 full-time and another 20 contractors. It's roughly the same size as the Starcraft II team when I was on it." Seems insanse to me as well (what you could do with 40mil$!), 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... $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. | ||
gTank
Austria2536 Posts
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Acrofales
Spain17693 Posts
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. Well, steppes of war is a really awful example. Steppes of war is pretty much a main base ramp down and then a ramp up into your opponent's base. It was a really truly awful map and is remembered for that. If stormgate comes out of the box with better maps than steppes of war, that is a good thing! | ||
WombaT
Northern Ireland22895 Posts
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. 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. | ||
MegaBuster
167 Posts
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WombaT
Northern Ireland22895 Posts
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? Haha I must say I laughed, welcome back | ||
gingerfluffmuffnr2
102 Posts
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? You cant ninja edit an email, so they dont use it. | ||
Waxangel
United States32917 Posts
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CicadaSC
United States1160 Posts
On August 13 2024 06:52 Waxangel wrote: Another offline showmatch at the Esports World Cup https://twitter.com/PlayStormgate/status/1823106019569893388 This is hype, showmatch makes me more excited hopefully people play the races they actually main and not just cheese every game with celestials 😅. | ||
Hibikidaye
2 Posts
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Husyelt
United States756 Posts
On August 12 2024 15:44 WombaT wrote: Good luck suing somebody with no tangible assets bar a 20K+ post TL account, that’s gotta be worth something right?! I am really differentiating between Stormgate the game as it is now, and the Frostplay engine underpinning it. The game may never get there, but the engine is already pretty damn good, and if they license it at a reasonable price, perhaps the RTS games that come after may be the Great Leap Forward. It still pains me to this day that a whole generation of younger gamers are familiar with the Unreal Engine, but not the games it came from, and it looks like will be some time returning I have heard it does feel very responsive to play which really is the most important aspect. I just cant forgive the anti visual art style they went for. Dont you mean Snowplay as their complimentary engine (probably a custom plugin)? My lawyers told me I have no case btw, but they should have sent you a very angry and direct complaint by now | ||
Agh
United States891 Posts
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. I don't think the current flow chart is going to be contested without intervention. Most maps are functioning in a way similar to how Orc vs UD was several years ago (before and one of the many reasons ritual dagger was added). Basically being able to have an outright superior force with no way to contest, and once that is established you either win by killing them or reverse creeping... which here just translates to printing money and winning even harder. Of course this isn't strictly a maps issue as the game is still in its competitive infancy but there are a ton of visible fundamental flaws with certain ones. Creeping should always give you more income short term, but there should be some type of limitation or cascading diminishing returns to prevent the cases where you can instantly snowball a 1k resource advantage. I'm definitely for map variety, but now would be the time to be much more conservative approach to really dial in the limits of making the matchups feel fluid and fair. I'd like to see maybe at least double the size of current maps with much less vastly wide open portions. | ||
_Spartak_
Turkey346 Posts
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. You haven't seen SC2 beta then 😄 | ||
gTank
Austria2536 Posts
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. Wasnt the first Dota2 International at gamescom a closed beta only tournament? | ||
Harris1st
Germany6595 Posts
On August 13 2024 06:52 Waxangel wrote: Another offline showmatch at the Esports World Cup https://twitter.com/PlayStormgate/status/1823106019569893388 Wow thats nice! Also the BIGGEST FFFFING SC2 tournament EVAR (money wise ) is gonna start in less than 2 days HYPUUU | ||
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