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On August 14 2024 14:53 Tal wrote:
I don't understand how the player number can be so low. Don't people at least want to try it out for free?
Or are people trying and then giving up instantly?
Having always criticized the generic art style seeing that this hasn't improved, at all (and probably never will at this point) the gameplay I've seen during the exhibition matches did not spark my interest. While I'm fairly certain it plays OK, it still doesn't seem like an upgrade to what's already available in a way more polished state.
Without following Frostgiant too closely since deleting my Twitter it's interesting to see how their endeavors to engage with the RTS community beyond their initial hype campaign seem to have all but dried up.
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On August 14 2024 15:24 MJG wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2024 14:53 Tal wrote:
I don't understand how the player number can be so low. Don't people at least want to try it out for free?
Or are people trying and then giving up instantly? I've watched some of my favourite streamers playing it, and it doesn't look as fun to me as SC2 does, so I don't need to waste my time trying it for myself. It wouldn't surprise me if a lot of other people are using the same logic.
Fair play. I mean it definitely isn't as fun as SC2, but it's something new to try.
On August 14 2024 15:30 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2024 14:53 Tal wrote:
I don't understand how the player number can be so low. Don't people at least want to try it out for free?
Or are people trying and then giving up instantly? Who do you expect will actually play it? Right now the potential target group is limited to current or former competitive RTS players. And a lot of those people - like myself, will look over some gameplay footage, and not be too excited. And because of the big time investment to learn a new game, not even bother. Combine it with the bad reviews and I don't know why numbers would be so much higher.
On August 14 2024 16:08 Cyro wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2024 14:53 Tal wrote:
I don't understand how the player number can be so low. Don't people at least want to try it out for free?
Or are people trying and then giving up instantly? Most people (around 90%) play campaign / co-op / custom primarily, or even exclusively. Those modes are not fun and working at the moment. Campaign is a wreck, Co-op has performance issues that require a top end PC and then often break the game and stop it from progressing. Custom doesn't exist. There's also very limited free content - in the campaign you get 3 missions, while in co-op you can only play Blockade past early levels. When you have to buy something, it costs about 2.5x more than SC2 did (on per-mission cost, and on a commander being £10 up from £4). It also doesn't help that you have to install a rootkit to launch the game (which is now advertised on the steam page) and that there are a lot of issues with the UI such as very limited hotkey customisation and drag scroll sensitivity being tied to the framerate. The content is not completely unfun but it's just buggy and WIP enough that it feels like they should be paying you to playtest it, not the other way around. Nobody wants to play a game where they have a gamebreaking issue and they have to alt f4 and relaunch the game every 45 minutes.
I agree with all of this. Overall, for this and all the other replies, my point is not that the game is a good enough state to sustain a playerbase, as even the best part, 1vs1, is not that satisfying. But more that I'm surprised people aren't even trying it before reaching that conclusion. I guess watching videos of people playing is indeed enough.
On August 14 2024 17:04 Creager wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2024 14:53 Tal wrote:
I don't understand how the player number can be so low. Don't people at least want to try it out for free?
Or are people trying and then giving up instantly? Having always criticized the generic art style seeing that this hasn't improved, at all (and probably never will at this point) the gameplay I've seen during the exhibition matches did not spark my interest. While I'm fairly certain it plays OK, it still doesn't seem like an upgrade to what's already available in a way more polished state. Without following Frostgiant too closely since deleting my Twitter it's interesting to see how their endeavors to engage with the RTS community beyond their initial hype campaign seem to have all but dried up.
Also very curious to their reaction to the player numbers. Do they have enough money to make it to 1.0? Are they going to get more investment or cut some of the team?
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If it's a good launch then they could have went for another fund raise. I am again shocked at how they planned the launch, the paid access to early access crushed their rating.
mixed is a pretty damn rough, that just mean most players wouldn't even bother trying it out.
Free isn't that cheap when there are cheap overwhelmingly positive games available like Titanfall 2
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Like I said a few pages back: Campaign, PvE Coop and 3v3 are the most sought after gamemodes these days and unfortunately they are lacking or are not ready at all.
Like Spartak said back then, yes 1v1 is probably easier to build manpower wise but it will not catch on like this.
But it's not all doom and gloom yet. A lot of games had an underwhelming EA start and came back strong with a few major updates as long as they have their priorities straight. In this case my top priority would be to make Coop bloody playable without the need of a supercomputer
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But it's not all doom and gloom yet. A lot of games had an underwhelming EA start and came back strong with a few major updates as long as they have their priorities straight. In this case my top priority would be to make Coop bloody playable without the need of a supercomputer
I think at this point they are screwed on monetisation. There was a huge gamble made to ship early and start using monetisation from the game to fund continued development, apparently because the cash reserves did not exist to develop the game further without that, not even for a few month delay. Calls for such a delay were loud and nearly unanimous, but disregarded for that reason.
It flopped and won't recover any time soon, so what happens now with the money almost gone and cash being burned >10x faster than it's coming in? If it was say a year of dev before income matches expenses, can they afford that? Not being able to was apparently what caused this problem in the first place.
Paying individual people $244k a year in that context is also not a good look.
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On August 14 2024 17:52 Harris1st wrote:
Like I said a few pages back: Campaign, PvE Coop and 3v3 are the most sought after gamemodes these days and unfortunately they are lacking or are not ready at all.
Like Spartak said back then, yes 1v1 is probably easier to build manpower wise but it will not catch on like this.
But it's not all doom and gloom yet. A lot of games had an underwhelming EA start and came back strong with a few major updates as long as they have their priorities straight. In this case my top priority would be to make Coop bloody playable without the need of a supercomputer
We know from experience that almost any disaster of a launch can be recovered.
But do they have the money to do it? They needed to release EA to raise more funds and it landing with a dull thud isn't going to help that much.
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On August 14 2024 18:00 Cyro wrote:Show nested quote +But it's not all doom and gloom yet. A lot of games had an underwhelming EA start and came back strong with a few major updates as long as they have their priorities straight. In this case my top priority would be to make Coop bloody playable without the need of a supercomputer I think at this point they are screwed on monetisation. There was a huge gamble made to ship early and start using monetisation from the game to fund continued development, apparently because the cash reserves did not exist to develop the game further without that, not even for a few month delay. Calls for such a delay were loud and nearly unanimous, but disregarded for that reason. It flopped and won't recover any time soon, so what happens now with the money almost gone and cash being burned >10x faster than it's coming in? If it was say a year of dev before income matches expenses, can they afford that? Not being able to was apparently what caused this problem in the first place. Paying individual people $244k a year in that context is also not a good look.
They may have tried to get a piece of EWC hype as well, dunno. For me personnaly, releasing a game mid summer seems pretty stupid to be honest. October - November is a much better time. But well, if they are cash starved, it can't be helped I guess
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On August 14 2024 18:35 Harris1st wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2024 18:00 Cyro wrote:But it's not all doom and gloom yet. A lot of games had an underwhelming EA start and came back strong with a few major updates as long as they have their priorities straight. In this case my top priority would be to make Coop bloody playable without the need of a supercomputer I think at this point they are screwed on monetisation. There was a huge gamble made to ship early and start using monetisation from the game to fund continued development, apparently because the cash reserves did not exist to develop the game further without that, not even for a few month delay. Calls for such a delay were loud and nearly unanimous, but disregarded for that reason. It flopped and won't recover any time soon, so what happens now with the money almost gone and cash being burned >10x faster than it's coming in? If it was say a year of dev before income matches expenses, can they afford that? Not being able to was apparently what caused this problem in the first place. Paying individual people $244k a year in that context is also not a good look. They may have tried to get a piece of EWC hype as well, dunno. For me personnaly, releasing a game mid summer seems pretty stupid to be honest. October - November is a much better time. But well, if they are cash starved, it can't be helped I guess
WOL was July :D
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Who could have predicted this? I've been believing spartak's sarcastic comments to reddit naysayers so this has come as quite the shock
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Feels good to be right from day 1.
I hate it when people talk big and fail miserably at delivering.
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On August 14 2024 17:52 Harris1st wrote:
Like I said a few pages back: Campaign, PvE Coop and 3v3 are the most sought after gamemodes these days and unfortunately they are lacking or are not ready at all.
Like Spartak said back then, yes 1v1 is probably easier to build manpower wise but it will not catch on like this.
100% correct, focussing on 1v1 which is too stressfull for prolly like ~ 70% + of the playerbase is a very interesting decision to say at least
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On August 14 2024 17:52 Harris1st wrote:
Like I said a few pages back: Campaign, PvE Coop and 3v3 are the most sought after gamemodes these days and unfortunately they are lacking or are not ready at all.
Like Spartak said back then, yes 1v1 is probably easier to build manpower wise but it will not catch on like this.
But it's not all doom and gloom yet. A lot of games had an underwhelming EA start and came back strong with a few major updates as long as they have their priorities straight. In this case my top priority would be to make Coop bloody playable without the need of a supercomputer
here is the thing:
ppl that are supposed to buy this thing dont care at all how much manpower is needed for what type of content.
its the leads job to distribute the resources in a way that works and lets the game prosper.
there is a wide consens that campaign and coop bring in the most players and therefore money. while 1v1 is clearly less profitable its clearly a big passion for the team (and not bad from a marketing perspective) lets give them leeway there for giving a fair bit of effort that way. (although imho the "we are a real esport already" thing going on right now is not a good way to spend money, but w/e)
so you end up with not enough resources for both campaign and coop?
how about focus on coop?
coop surley takes less manpower than a proper campaign, id argue that its pretty close to 1v1 even, and there is considerable overlap between them. replayability is also higher for coop vs campaign.
you have a decent enough setting to establish some fun maps and commanders on which you can elaborate more in a future campaign character wise. maybe even build some exitment for it.
sure some ppl will be upset with the lack of campaign at start, but to be frank, the campaign as is right now is not well recived at all either. so there is not to much lost here.
that is just one possiblity, but i expect some seasoned devs that pay themself decent salary to pick a line that works (or gives them the best shot, since there are no guarantees in releasing a new game) and not blame situations they litterally have control over themself
if this project fails, they are to blame themself and noone else
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On August 14 2024 14:53 Tal wrote:
I don't understand how the player number can be so low. Don't people at least want to try it out for free?
Or are people trying and then giving up instantly?
Some people already tried the beta and hated it and won't be coming back ever,
Some people don't like having a rootkit installed
Most people hate the art style.
A lot of people who play RTS already play much better ones (sc2, bw, war3, aoe whatever your jazz is) so why go through a steep learning curve with questionable art and no multiplayer for no reason? It s not like a fps you go and shoot and are ready in 5mins.
Multiplayer is actually a great way most people experiment in a rts, even 1v1 oriented ones. You get to see more unit interactions faster while still having fun.
Take it like this, are your good early memories of your forst rts more banter and 3v3/4v4 with friends who were all noobs or getting rekt 100 games in a row by proxy stuff or 4 pool / 4 gate on ladder?
There is overlap between those groups.
There are almost no fun modes besides 1v1 that would attract people to play. Even with paying in coop it s not much.
The evolution since the beta is such that it is clear to everyone not much of the things people dislike will change, so no real hope there.
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On August 14 2024 18:42 moomin22 wrote:
Who could have predicted this? I've been believing spartak's sarcastic comments to reddit naysayers so this has come as quite the shock
Star Citizen trained us well, in the now 12 yr drama every dirty trick was used. White knights so white, Spartak and the rest of the gang dont even come close in magnitude.
e: Also if the game had any future, Artosis and Tasteless would be more involved. Damn, they knew at least 3 months ago how bad it is gonna be.
e2: Made a discord account for fun and joined SG Official. Damn, what an echo chamber. SG had no chance with that kind of feedback (or lack of)
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On August 14 2024 19:54 uummpaa wrote:so you end up with not enough resources for both campaign and coop?
how about focus on coop?
coop surley takes less manpower than a proper campaign, id argue that its pretty close to 1v1 even, and there is considerable overlap between them. replayability is also higher for coop vs campaign.
you have a decent enough setting to establish some fun maps and commanders on which you can elaborate more in a future campaign character wise. maybe even build some exitment for it.
I think the issue here is that the success of co-op in SC2 is directly built upon the success of the campaign. The majority of SC2 co-op missions are just campaign missions adapted to allow for two players. Many of the units and abilities that are in co-op are taken directly from the campaign. A lot of the work was already done for Blizzard, they just had to alter some things that they had already made. Additionally, the interest in the setting and characters that is created by the campaign is not something that should be underestimated. When Alarak was made introduced to co-op, were people excited because he was a well liked character from the campaign or because of all the new gameplay options? I think it's mostly the former. The degree to which StarCraft's success is due to its compelling single player campaign cannot be underestimated.
If you try to do that in reverse, you run into issues. Everything has to be made entirely from the ground up. FG doesn't have much preexisting material to work with. The reception to the setting and characters has been lukewarm at best, so players are less willing to spend money on commanders, which makes it harder for FG to get something back for the time and money invested in co-op.
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On August 14 2024 21:31 Biedrik wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2024 19:54 uummpaa wrote:so you end up with not enough resources for both campaign and coop?
how about focus on coop?
coop surley takes less manpower than a proper campaign, id argue that its pretty close to 1v1 even, and there is considerable overlap between them. replayability is also higher for coop vs campaign.
you have a decent enough setting to establish some fun maps and commanders on which you can elaborate more in a future campaign character wise. maybe even build some exitment for it. I think the issue here is that the success of co-op in SC2 is directly built upon the success of the campaign. The majority of SC2 co-op missions are just campaign missions adapted to allow for two players. Many of the units and abilities that are in co-op are taken directly from the campaign. A lot of the work was already done for Blizzard, they just had to alter some things that they had already made. Additionally, the interest in the setting and characters that is created by the campaign is not something that should be underestimated. When Alarak was made introduced to co-op, were people excited because he was a well liked character from the campaign or because of all the new gameplay options? I think it's mostly the former. The degree to which StarCraft's success is due to its compelling single player campaign cannot be underestimated. If you try to do that in reverse, you run into issues. Everything has to be made entirely from the ground up. FG doesn't have much preexisting material to work with. The reception to the setting and characters has been lukewarm at best, so players are less willing to spend money on commanders, which makes it harder for FG to get something back for the time and money invested in co-op.
point taken, i made clear that thats just one way to deal with the money issues they seem to have.
one can easily argue for doing campaign first and coop later, but i frankly dont see how the little preview campaign with little DLC packages containing extra missions with quite large pauses in between builds any hype for characters.
and to point out again sure coop without campaign will have less of an impact, but if they really thought (and planned with) a lvl of sucess even close to WOL or Sc2 coop launch they are even worse devs than its looking right now anyway
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On August 14 2024 21:40 uummpaa wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2024 21:31 Biedrik wrote:On August 14 2024 19:54 uummpaa wrote:so you end up with not enough resources for both campaign and coop?
how about focus on coop?
coop surley takes less manpower than a proper campaign, id argue that its pretty close to 1v1 even, and there is considerable overlap between them. replayability is also higher for coop vs campaign.
you have a decent enough setting to establish some fun maps and commanders on which you can elaborate more in a future campaign character wise. maybe even build some exitment for it. I think the issue here is that the success of co-op in SC2 is directly built upon the success of the campaign. The majority of SC2 co-op missions are just campaign missions adapted to allow for two players. Many of the units and abilities that are in co-op are taken directly from the campaign. A lot of the work was already done for Blizzard, they just had to alter some things that they had already made. Additionally, the interest in the setting and characters that is created by the campaign is not something that should be underestimated. When Alarak was made introduced to co-op, were people excited because he was a well liked character from the campaign or because of all the new gameplay options? I think it's mostly the former. The degree to which StarCraft's success is due to its compelling single player campaign cannot be underestimated. If you try to do that in reverse, you run into issues. Everything has to be made entirely from the ground up. FG doesn't have much preexisting material to work with. The reception to the setting and characters has been lukewarm at best, so players are less willing to spend money on commanders, which makes it harder for FG to get something back for the time and money invested in co-op. point taken, i made clear that thats just one way to deal with the money issues they seem to have. one can easily argue for doing campaign first and coop later, but i frankly dont see how the little preview campaign with little DLC packages containing extra missions with quite large pauses in between builds any hype for characters. and to point out again sure coop without campaign will have less of an impact, but if they really thought (and planned with) a lvl of sucess even close to WOL or Sc2 coop launch they are even worse devs than its looking right now anyway
I think that even the few campaign missions we have might have created some hype. Overwatch managed to get people really excited for the characters just through good art direction and a slow drip feed of cinematics (TF2 did something similar years earlier). Great presentation got people invested through a fairly small amount of content. Everything about the presentation of the Stormgate campaign is...bad. The art direction sucks. What little we see of the characters sucks. The voice acting sucks. The story sucks. Even the marketing material is baffling. When your game is being accused of being worse StarCraft, I have no idea why you'd announce your not-protoss faction by mentioning that they have a light side and dark side. All it does is attract further accusations of making a cheap StarCraft knockoff.
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Sucks that people dont seem to enjoy it. Ive had quite a bit of fun but doesnt seem like it has much of a future. Shame, because i genuinely would love nothing more than seeing SC2 die.
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e2: Made a discord account for fun and joined SG Official. Damn, what an echo chamber. SG had no chance with that kind of feedback (or lack of)
That has been one of the biggest problems IMO. They created the world's biggest echo chamber where it was impossible to give feedback in anything other than a public forum, where a tiny vocal minority of the community would then harass you for the next week for having posted it with an opinion that didn't match theirs. Moderators didn't police the harassment and ridicule of people giving genuine and good feedback for the game, they joined in.
Garbage in, garbage out.
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EPT
