With FG it felt all the time like they were targetting specifally me as the target audience for the game, but then they release something that feels completely off the mark, not even close.
That's exactly where I'm at.
I had every reason to be excited for this title. I'm exactly the player that Frostgiant should have wanted to play their game. And this game is a total miss.
I'm genuinely disappointed. This isn't just another game that I can say "oh well, might as well move on to something else." This was supposed to be my new RTS. I was looking forward to dumping thousands of hours into this game, to being active in its community and to watching its esports scene grow and develop.
And now I want nothing to do with it.
If people are more passionate about voicing their displeasure with the game then that's why. It's because they actually expected something from it. Frostgiant has no one to blame for that but themselves.
Funny thing is as a Broodwar guy this is exactly how I felt with SC2. I then went back to BW after a year or so lol.
Sc2 was in hindsight a horrible game at the time. It definitely made some improvements over BW in terms of graphics and responsiveness but played out very poorly. Today I think the game quality is immensely better.
Nah, in hindsight SC2 was incredible. Campaign was amazing with its various difficulty levels. 2v2 and other team games were great. Cinematics were incredible. The story that made Chris Metzen tear up was great with a super cool ending. And 95% of C&C and AoE 1v1 competitive playersthought 1v1 was really good.
GameReplays.org downsized dramatically once the SC2 beta began. 1v1 play in RA3 , C&C3, and CoH could not compete. The weekly ConquerCup became the CraftCup and revenues skyrocketed for many months. 6 months after the game came out a weekly CraftCup with a $100 prize pool had 1100 participants. The CraftCup almost always had 500+ people.
WoL did not sell all its copies on Day 1. Most got a good look at the game before buying it.
The Retail Box and CE also blew C&C and AoE out of the water.
ATVI did lots of great things promoting the game. I will never forget my July 26, 2010 all nighter at a great PC Bang. Everyone had a blast.
I was only thinking of multiplayer.
The way 1v1 meta played out was atrocious - far worse gameplay than BW: I understand every BW veteran that stayed with that game at the time.
I enjoyed at the time but it was more about the novelty and figuring things out.
Nah, WoL multiplayer worked great for years. Some laser focused on just BW might not have a taste for WoL brand of RTS. However. RTS generalists, RA3,C&C3, CoH,and DoW people loved it and moved over to it in droves. And I farmed that mofo for 20 months.
Considering that you're posting on this specific website, this is too much hindsight lionization of SC2's multiplay at launch.
Yes, launch StarCraft 2 was an excellent and very popular product in general, but when we're talking about just the competitive 1v1 mode, it wasn't quality that moved old-school RTS people there. It was simply the natural migration place of high-level Western players from various other RTS games who had been starved of any kind of pasture, let alone one as green as SC2.
2010's SC2 deserves a ton of credit for drawing in a fresh general audience and convincing them to play 1v1 RTS, but it did not win over the 'establishment.' People who had a realistic alternative—namely the Korean BW community—made it very clear this wasn't an obvious switch.
i.e. only korean BW community, which remained an anomy. there's way more old school RTS than BW, and at some point you have to wonder why most of them never transitioned to BW. It had "better" campaign, more custom games, social features etc. None of those really mattered.
Even before SC2, the core RTS played in SEA was not BW, it was WC3 TFT. When I started going to PC bang like early 2000, you don't even see BW in all PC bangs, it's red alert 2 /AoE 2/ Battle of middle earth/ total war/ wc3 etc.
I mean, this isn't even a disagreement? Pretty sure a lot of War3 players woulda stuck to the game if the opportunities were better. SC2 was just way more lucrative and interesting at the time—some War3 players grew to truly love it through the course of expansions and patches, but we've seen many of them return to their roots.
My entire point was that 2010 SC2 didn't become the most popular 1v1 RTS solely on its merits—a big factor was that it was the biggest and best supported RTS game in general.
SC2 had so much money pumped into it as one of the first major streaming games as streaming become more widely available. Every big brand wanted in because streaming was this next major big thing they were certain they could make money on and huge sponsorships went in with huge advertisement growing the events artificially. Even if the game wasn't good it was always going to get big and a lot of the players mentioned above moved to the game because that's where the money was.
It was very much right place right time and the popular people from the communities at the time benefited hugely as they already had people to bring to their stream giving them a base to grow from. It does make you wonder if SC2 had never happened if Tastosis and the like would've ever been able to build the career they have now. Like if we released SC2 now when streaming is already huge and companies are a lot less likely to throw money around in esports if a lot of the people who've made a ton of money (even Team Liquid itself) as a result of the streaming boom around the start of SC2 would've ever got as big.
I had a tonne of fun in 2010 and 2011. If other people thought hte game was "atrocious" their best move is to play something else. I played BW from 2002 to 2009, and had a blast and then I got bored. So, in 2009, I picked up Red ALert 3. I had fun with that for a year. Then I moved on to SC2. I had a tonne of fun all along the way and so did the people with whom I played. My playing time was super limited from 2005 to 2010.. nonetheless what little playing time I had.. it was great. BW, RA3, and SC2 multiplayer from 2002 to 2011 were great for me and all the people with whom I played. In 2009, the ConquerCup was a buzz.
Anyhow, onto Stormgate, Here is a great analysis by 14 year Canadian SC2 veteran JuggernautJason. Being Canadian and living in the GTA... He should've branded himself as ArgonautJason Is that a cool logo or what?
Here is his fascinating in depth perspective on Stormgate.
TL;DR. -game lags severely 3 minutes in. -300 unit cap is deceptive because basic units are worth 2,3, or 4 supply. -animations are so flashy that it makes it hard to discern what is going on in battles. -game gobbles up CPU resources. -after 1 month Double "J" is done with Stormgate and he will move to AoE2 and/or AoE4.
My Conclusion I have no clue how they're going to get 3v3 working or really make "netcode rollback" work effectively in multiplayer games given the current limitations and issues with Stormgate. Snowplay ain't that great.
JJ complains a lot and constantly about SC2 while playing it for 14 years. He played 1 month of Stormgate and decided to stop playing. Actions speak louder than words. It is heartening to see JJ acknowledge this issue at the start of the vid. Kudos to him for that.
He expressed pretty much exactly all the points I was also having issues with. I also don't think I can continue playing at this point, I was exciting to come back after a few years of not playing any RTS basically, at least now I am pretty confident in returning to RTS in another fashion.
On August 24 2024 11:28 Vindicare605 wrote: [quote]
That's exactly where I'm at.
I had every reason to be excited for this title. I'm exactly the player that Frostgiant should have wanted to play their game. And this game is a total miss.
I'm genuinely disappointed. This isn't just another game that I can say "oh well, might as well move on to something else." This was supposed to be my new RTS. I was looking forward to dumping thousands of hours into this game, to being active in its community and to watching its esports scene grow and develop.
And now I want nothing to do with it.
If people are more passionate about voicing their displeasure with the game then that's why. It's because they actually expected something from it. Frostgiant has no one to blame for that but themselves.
Funny thing is as a Broodwar guy this is exactly how I felt with SC2. I then went back to BW after a year or so lol.
Sc2 was in hindsight a horrible game at the time. It definitely made some improvements over BW in terms of graphics and responsiveness but played out very poorly. Today I think the game quality is immensely better.
Nah, in hindsight SC2 was incredible. Campaign was amazing with its various difficulty levels. 2v2 and other team games were great. Cinematics were incredible. The story that made Chris Metzen tear up was great with a super cool ending. And 95% of C&C and AoE 1v1 competitive playersthought 1v1 was really good.
GameReplays.org downsized dramatically once the SC2 beta began. 1v1 play in RA3 , C&C3, and CoH could not compete. The weekly ConquerCup became the CraftCup and revenues skyrocketed for many months. 6 months after the game came out a weekly CraftCup with a $100 prize pool had 1100 participants. The CraftCup almost always had 500+ people.
WoL did not sell all its copies on Day 1. Most got a good look at the game before buying it.
The Retail Box and CE also blew C&C and AoE out of the water.
ATVI did lots of great things promoting the game. I will never forget my July 26, 2010 all nighter at a great PC Bang. Everyone had a blast.
I was only thinking of multiplayer.
The way 1v1 meta played out was atrocious - far worse gameplay than BW: I understand every BW veteran that stayed with that game at the time.
I enjoyed at the time but it was more about the novelty and figuring things out.
Nah, WoL multiplayer worked great for years. Some laser focused on just BW might not have a taste for WoL brand of RTS. However. RTS generalists, RA3,C&C3, CoH,and DoW people loved it and moved over to it in droves. And I farmed that mofo for 20 months.
Considering that you're posting on this specific website, this is too much hindsight lionization of SC2's multiplay at launch.
Yes, launch StarCraft 2 was an excellent and very popular product in general, but when we're talking about just the competitive 1v1 mode, it wasn't quality that moved old-school RTS people there. It was simply the natural migration place of high-level Western players from various other RTS games who had been starved of any kind of pasture, let alone one as green as SC2.
2010's SC2 deserves a ton of credit for drawing in a fresh general audience and convincing them to play 1v1 RTS, but it did not win over the 'establishment.' People who had a realistic alternative—namely the Korean BW community—made it very clear this wasn't an obvious switch.
i.e. only korean BW community, which remained an anomy. there's way more old school RTS than BW, and at some point you have to wonder why most of them never transitioned to BW. It had "better" campaign, more custom games, social features etc. None of those really mattered.
Even before SC2, the core RTS played in SEA was not BW, it was WC3 TFT. When I started going to PC bang like early 2000, you don't even see BW in all PC bangs, it's red alert 2 /AoE 2/ Battle of middle earth/ total war/ wc3 etc.
I mean, this isn't even a disagreement? Pretty sure a lot of War3 players woulda stuck to the game if the opportunities were better. SC2 was just way more lucrative and interesting at the time—some War3 players grew to truly love it through the course of expansions and patches, but we've seen many of them return to their roots.
My entire point was that 2010 SC2 didn't become the most popular 1v1 RTS solely on its merits—a big factor was that it was the biggest and best supported RTS game in general.
SC2 had so much money pumped into it as one of the first major streaming games as streaming become more widely available. Every big brand wanted in because streaming was this next major big thing they were certain they could make money on and huge sponsorships went in with huge advertisement growing the events artificially. Even if the game wasn't good it was always going to get big and a lot of the players mentioned above moved to the game because that's where the money was.
It was very much right place right time and the popular people from the communities at the time benefited hugely as they already had people to bring to their stream giving them a base to grow from. It does make you wonder if SC2 had never happened if Tastosis and the like would've ever been able to build the career they have now. Like if we released SC2 now when streaming is already huge and companies are a lot less likely to throw money around in esports if a lot of the people who've made a ton of money (even Team Liquid itself) as a result of the streaming boom around the start of SC2 would've ever got as big.
I do definitely think there’s a right place, right time element to it for sure but, then again in ways same with BW in Korea albeit for different reasons.
We’ve seen enough attempts to try and do something broadly absolutely, absolutely die on their arse subsequently, enough examples of astroturfing to know what that looks like. SC2 was pulling numbers for quite some time that still hold up for most titles outside of the usual suspects to this day for it not to have some genuine hold.
I wonder if there’s a parallel universe where RTS today is overall in a healthier state with a slightly smaller SC2 that didn’t blaze such an obvious trail for successors in different genres to tread.
I built a new PC two years ago, not the greatest specs but decent enough.The game really chugs on it.I'll check back in a few months when they've optimised the game more.
It is really disappointing how awful the performance is and how little it is prioritised. It's dragging the game down for those who do play it and walling off a large percentage of players altogether because they can't run the game on hardware which is "fine" tier like a ryzen 3600 or 8700k. It needs major reworks to hit e.g. 3x the current performance level, incremental isn't good enough.
My Conclusion I have no clue how they're going to get 3v3 working or really make "netcode rollback" work effectively in multiplayer games given the current limitations and issues with Stormgate. Snowplay ain't that great.
this will be the most interesting part, how they wanna make a potential 900 supply vs 900 supply work, my feeling is the engine just cant handle it. so they will prolly make it some kind of different 3v3 with low supply and heroes and maybe objectives(?) without adressing the problems of the engine. in the end it will be some kind of funmap but not a classic 3v3 mode
My Conclusion I have no clue how they're going to get 3v3 working or really make "netcode rollback" work effectively in multiplayer games given the current limitations and issues with Stormgate. Snowplay ain't that great.
this will be the most interesting part, how they wanna make a potential 900 supply vs 900 supply work, my feeling is the engine just cant handle it. so they will prolly make it some kind of different 3v3 with low supply and heroes and maybe objectives(?) without adressing the problems of the engine. in the end it will be some kind of funmap but not a classic 3v3 mode
I don’t see how they can do that given how they’ve developed the game thus far. I mean this isn’t reading between the lines they’ve openly said they’re building the 1v1 mode and using that as the base for subsequent modes.
Given co-op, while having heroes hasn’t drastically deviated from how the 1v1 plays, I’d be shocked if the 3v3 mode does either. At least in terms of scale of armies, there’s still a bunch in terms of objectives and mechanics they could work with.
I’ve been increasingly thinking this is perhaps the big fuckup, and the real thing at the core of the seeming lack of vision and focus.
If you make a killer execution of an RTS that’s still PvP-focused, with a lot of depth, but that’s a team game you’re doing something that hasn’t really been nailed before. And if memory serves that was a big part of the initial pitch anyway.
I’ve had fun in team modes in various other RTS games, but they usually suck. Even if they’re decent, they’re rarely better than 1v1, but then I’m not playing with my crew. I like neither Counterstrike nor MOBAs, but I must say I do get that pang of regret when I see my gaming buddies (most with thousands of SC2 1v1 ladder games logged) all hopping on for a session. All of us would play the shit of a really good, competitive but team-focused RTS
That’s your niche right there. Plenty of RTS games have solid campaigns, many of which I buy and play through, indeed I’ve got too many in my Steam library to get through as it is!
I’m not saying going absolutely all-in solely on that mode, but make it the focus and design around that.
Instead what appears to have happened is they’ve built around 1v1, but not as some general base of mechanics, but as the focus of actual design. They’ve mostly focus-tested with elite tier RTS veterans after all.
If they do have some great ideas for this 3v3 mode well, I just don’t see how they can pivot to deliver them based on how co-op currently is and how the campaign launched.
1 celestial in the top 20 leaderboard who is not parting, 1 in top 25 if u sort it by mmr. fix this race. the race only wins early-mid, late game is atrocious jesus thank you.
My Conclusion I have no clue how they're going to get 3v3 working or really make "netcode rollback" work effectively in multiplayer games given the current limitations and issues with Stormgate. Snowplay ain't that great.
this will be the most interesting part, how they wanna make a potential 900 supply vs 900 supply work, my feeling is the engine just cant handle it. so they will prolly make it some kind of different 3v3 with low supply and heroes and maybe objectives(?) without adressing the problems of the engine. in the end it will be some kind of funmap but not a classic 3v3 mode
I expect something more like LoL with small army squads than SC2 3v3 given the performance issues and lack of movement on them
Snowplay does not perform very well. It appears Frost Giant should have made this game in the SC2 world builder. SC2 custom games can run on a potato; this widens the customer base.
Another big Frost Giant supporter who loves the team and believes in their cause has made a lengthy statement.
Attack animations reset to the beginning after every attack command. Ouch.
I think 3v3 is a hail-mary. They need to say/do something - they can't get players back by focussing on 1v1, campaign or co-op within the last few months of funding they have left.
They will probably change the gameplay quite a lot compared to 1v1 to spice things up. It might play closer to Wc3 but with only 1 hero.
If 3v3 gets any type of positive reviews/traction, they wil llikely use that to apply for further funding.
However, I don't have high hopes. So far they showed they don't have the required skillset to make a great game - and definitely not with such a tight deadline. If they had 2 years of funding - they might have a chance - but even then, I think they just don't get how to make games people enjoy playing.
My guess is that a few months after 3v3 has released they will file for bankruptcy.
Today I saw a video about how crickets are the future of food. Then it struck me, if crickets can be the future of food, so Stormgate can be the future of RTS! Everything is going according to the plan!
On August 27 2024 01:40 Hider wrote: I think 3v3 is a hail-mary. They need to say/do something - they can't get players back by focussing on 1v1, campaign or co-op within the last few months of funding they have left.
They will probably change the gameplay quite a lot compared to 1v1 to spice things up. It might play closer to Wc3 but with only 1 hero.
If 3v3 gets any type of positive reviews/traction, they wil llikely use that to apply for further funding.
However, I don't have high hopes. So far they showed they don't have the required skillset to make a great game - and definitely not with such a tight deadline. If they had 2 years of funding - they might have a chance - but even then, I think they just don't get how to make games people enjoy playing.
My guess is that a few months after 3v3 has released they will file for bankruptcy.
+1. Interesting insights and projections. I almost 100% agree with every detail in this post.
On August 27 2024 01:40 Hider wrote: I think 3v3 is a hail-mary. They need to say/do something - they can't get players back by focussing on 1v1, campaign or co-op within the last few months of funding they have left.
They will probably change the gameplay quite a lot compared to 1v1 to spice things up. It might play closer to Wc3 but with only 1 hero.
If 3v3 gets any type of positive reviews/traction, they wil llikely use that to apply for further funding.
However, I don't have high hopes. So far they showed they don't have the required skillset to make a great game - and definitely not with such a tight deadline. If they had 2 years of funding - they might have a chance - but even then, I think they just don't get how to make games people enjoy playing.
My guess is that a few months after 3v3 has released they will file for bankruptcy.
Can’t really disagree there, see my last few posts.
They’re in a rough spot especially because the one mode that people do seem to enjoy to some degree in 1v1 is the mode they can’t make money off.
People are pointing at a lack of polish and janky performance, art style and graphics are a big complaint too.
That’s really not their problem. IMO anyway.
Back in the day where you had to wait for albums to drop, and artists weren’t releasing like a few early songs on Spotify or w/e, one may go scour YouTube and watch some concerts of a tour and see if they were playing stuff off the new record.
It may have been recorded with a 2008 smartphone, by a cameraman with Parkinson’s and the audio was barely discernible from white noise, but occasionally you’d be able to work it out. You had that feeling of ‘man, I really wanna hear what this sounds like if it wasn’t recorded in almost the least listenable way possible’
There just isn’t, at present, that kind of hook.
Even arguably the worst project-managed game of all time, Star Citizen has the hook. Is it janky? Yes. Have nation states risen and fallen in the time it’s took to not even release? Also yes.
But, what bits work, when they work. There’s no other game that does what it does. I’ve only watched some gameplay, I haven’t backed or played it, but seeing a group of guys all running around, some crewing a ship together, some elsewhere, coordinating some elaborate space heist plan, in a high-fidelity simulation style game. That’s cool! If someone threw a bunch of money at me, I could have a few top-tier PC gaming rigs with all the bells and whistles, I know me, kiddo and partner could have a fun time doing something like that.
Even just the space flight element alone, it scratches a certain itch. Kid me really enjoyed the Star Wars games like X-Wing and Tie Fighter that weren’t arcadey and had a lot of flight-sim style systems and complexity.
That’s how it’s pulled in what, 700 million of funding, despite it being a clusterfuck or a development. People will be inordinately patient.
Stormgate au present, doesn’t have that. Most EA games that do well have something that you can’t get elsewhere, and thus are forgiven a level of jank.
Battle Aces has a hook. A hook many may not like, but it has a hook. If I have a day off, I may fancy dusting off the cobwebs, checking a few builds out and hitting the SC2 ladder. If I’ve got an hour free before work, wanna play a few games and micro like fuck, well I can pretty much guarantee squeezing 5 games of BA in.
It does what it does, well. For the short beta period it kinda filled the gaming niche that tricky platformers usually do. I’ve only got an hour or w/e, hey I’ll grind a 20/30 second stage of Super Meat Boy and try to improve my time.
It’s not an RTS one has to ‘main’, or hunt down guides on bloody Discord servers to dip in and have a good time in.
It s a hill made of sand, but that's not important right now
But yes it s a rts: dune: spice wars Personally i find it hella clunky to look at, but i haven't played. Too busy blowing up rockets and other things in ksp (modded, obviously) or channeling my inner farmer in medieval dynasty
It s a hill made of sand, but that's not important right now
But yes it s a rts: dune: spice wars Personally i find it hella clunky to look at, but i haven't played. Too busy blowing up rockets and other things in ksp (modded, obviously) or channeling my inner farmer in medieval dynasty
EPT
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/UjPPDDX.png)
