EPTStormgate/Frost Giant Megathread - Page 217
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17797 Posts
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_Spartak_
Turkey459 Posts
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ChillFlame
325 Posts
CEO making fake reviews by hand using a fake nickname is quite illustrative :D | ||
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ChillFlame
325 Posts
They denied criticism and were sure that players liked it (I knew exactly which players liked it :D) Now the game has ~70 concurrent players, mixed to negative reviews, and they're changing the art director and the art style. Wow, who could've guessed? That's why echo chambers and insane moderation are bad for the game. https://imgur.com/a/gihaCCX | ||
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SoleSteeler
Canada5472 Posts
On January 15 2025 00:03 ChillFlame wrote: I still have relic screenshots (last Summer) where Tim and Gerald were protecting the art style =) They denied criticism and were sure that players liked it (I knew exactly which players liked it :D) Now the game has ~70 concurrent players, mixed to negative reviews, and they're changing the art director and the art style. Wow, who could've guessed? That's why echo chambers and insane moderation are bad for the game. https://imgur.com/a/gihaCCX Doesn't it say that the look is "not finished evolving" and that they "expect the visual style to continue to refine and improve over time" and they are "definitely mindful of the varying opinions". Not sure that constitutes denying criticism. (Unless you're talking about some other screenshot?) Also, the "new" art style is still "stylized" (which I would say is "not realistic"). But I suppose it is "darker" and less cartoony overall. | ||
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_Spartak_
Turkey459 Posts
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ChillFlame
325 Posts
On January 15 2025 00:37 SoleSteeler wrote: Doesn't it say that the look is "not finished evolving" and that they "expect the visual style to continue to refine and improve over time" and they are "definitely mindful of the varying opinions". Not sure that constitutes denying criticism. (Unless you're talking about some other screenshot?) Also, the "new" art style is still "stylized" (which I would say is "not realistic"). But I suppose it is "darker" and less cartoony overall. "It's incorrect to say that very few people like this style and implementation" ~70 concurrent players. Almost every art style is stylized (except photo realism). We're talking not about stylization as a concept, we're talking about its direction and implementation. Low-budget Pixar or Fortnite art style has been criticized from the start. People were laughing at the first cinematic and character models. The devs chose not to listen. Or listen to a bunch of yes-men. The outcome is expected. I am sure the art style played a major role in the game's terrible position. They had a chance to change something back then, not much, but something. Now it's impossible. You can't change the artstyle ~4,5 years in development. You have to redo models, textures, animations, cinematics. It's not realistic. The fact they hire a new art director and remake models ~4,5 years in development confirms their mismanagement. New concept arts at this stage are just laughable. | ||
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ChillFlame
325 Posts
It's not an improvement, iteration, evolution, or any other PR word they chose to use. It's an art style change ~4,5 years in development. Let's acknowledge obvious things. | ||
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SoleSteeler
Canada5472 Posts
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ChillFlame
325 Posts
On January 15 2025 01:40 SoleSteeler wrote: Anyway, the style/art is improving and they realize that the previous approach was not well received. Not arguing against that. Yes, that's what I'm talking about. They didn't listen when everyone told them to do something (right from the first alpha to the last beta). They started to act only after everyone lost their interest. These people won't come back. It was crucial to make changes before the EA release. There's no second first impression. I would applaud them if they decided to change their art director during the alpha. The game had obvious flaws and we were eager to help. If every Discord member was doing this, we would have thousands of concurrent players at this moment. If you want your game to succeed, you have to support successful decisions and criticize obviously bad ones. The devs can't improve the game if they don't know its weak points. They didn't act in time because a lot of people supported their bad decisions halting the progress. | ||
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ChillFlame
325 Posts
Discord members should've demanded apologies, not flooded the chat with stickers and food pictures to silence the critique. They should've told the devs: "We respect you and we expect the same in return. Deceiving your player base isn't the way" By doing the opposite and defending dishonest actions they not only encouraged it in the future but also created tension between them and the actual player base, damaging SG's reputation even more (there are a lot of negative reviews because of that). | ||
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_Spartak_
Turkey459 Posts
On January 15 2025 01:35 ChillFlame wrote: No, it is not. Not in the sense that Tim Morten was talking about there. The game was stylized and that wasn't going to change. It still isn't.Changing this: https://imgur.com/a/tQhTZ6K to this: https://imgur.com/a/8a5Hagd is a clear art style change. It's not an improvement, iteration, evolution, or any other PR word they chose to use. It's an art style change ~4,5 years in development. Let's acknowledge obvious things. | ||
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ChillFlame
325 Posts
On January 15 2025 00:03 ChillFlame wrote: We're talking not about stylization as a concept, we're talking about its direction and implementation. Low-budget Pixar or Fortnite art style has been criticized from the start. | ||
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SoleSteeler
Canada5472 Posts
The review thing was incredibly dumb... I can't believe they still try stuff like this, or don't consider all the angles and what they should/shouldn't do (they can review their own game, but add disclaimers). I would say "they can't catch a break", but that's not true - they just need to stop doing dumb things like that, it's their own fault. As I mentioned a few days back, I thought their AMA/art director stuff went well for them in December and brought some momentum (dare I say even some hype) back. If they planted questions, whatever - another dumb move that could have been an "additional Q/A" release after the AMA, but not a big deal (to me). For me, the past 2 months or so I've only been playing 1-2 games a week, usually just the "weekly mutator" to give a co-op hero a big boost of XP. I bought the highest tier Kickstarter that didn't include anything non-game related, which was the first 2 (or 3?) campaign packs, 3 co-op heroes (+ Kastiel after release when everyone got upset about Warz being available day 1), and minor things like the fog of war/pet. I think it was $60 USD. I finally leveled all those heroes to 15 (of course now it's 20...) but haven't bought Warz or Ryker. I haven't paid any money to them since the Kickstarter. I haven't touched 1v1 since maybe October. (SC2 has been fun again for me.) I watch some of the tournaments but the meta is growing a little stale; as well it's the same few players over and over (no offense to them). Prize pools are understandably small so there's not often a lot of hype. Although the recent venom trap meta for infernal has been somewhat interesting. I'm also interested and seek out series where Van beats Cel (since it's rare). Anyway I'm sure there's a good number of people like me, interested in the game, paid for some tier of Kickstarter, waiting for some of these promised major shakeups in 1v1, revamped campaign, 3v3, new/better art etc. (what's coming up for co-op?? Nothing major?). But for now, I'm only one of those 70 concurrent players for 20 minutes once a week.  I'm honestly still very curious to see where this game ends up going, if anywhere. I do want another decently popular competitive RTS. Overall, the negativity on reddit (and here) really turns me off of the community though. (Not saying it's not warranted in some cases, just gets really tiring and repetitive). | ||
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castleeMg
Canada790 Posts
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iamperfection
United States9648 Posts
Everything about stormgate was supposed be the next step in RTS but it feels like to me everything has taken a step back if anything. | ||
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Archeon
3272 Posts
And while I don't think the SG artstyle was great I also don't think that art was the main issue at least in coop and campaign which is what I mainly played. Imo they were greedy and there wasn't a lot of content, which is a terrible combination. | ||
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CicadaSC
United States1986 Posts
On January 15 2025 01:01 _Spartak_ wrote: Yeah, they are not changing the overall art style. It will still be stylized. SC2 was stylized, so was WC3 and so was SC1, WC2 and WC1. The problem with SG art was always about execution and not the overall art style. strong disagree. i think they dont need better execution (polish) I think the entire style needs to be changed. Some of the concept arts teased lately have piqued my interest they are entire redesigns or reimagination of the units not polish/execution. Do that with everything. and I also think the gameplay needs a redesign not tweaks and polish either. Make it play at a faster pace like SC2 to start. (if you want to capture the SC2 audience) or throw out everything and go radically different, but not what it is now. | ||
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Beelzebub1
1005 Posts
Holy shit, this game was just...not it I think, is it too similar to SC2 or WC? | ||
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ChillFlame
325 Posts
I made a big ass feedback post to FG with examples and screenshots. I'll make it short (relative to the original post). 1. It's generally unappealing. 2. It lacks faction identity and coherence. 3. It doesn't work. 1. Creatures' proportions are wrong, faces are uncanny, and vehicles were designed by a person who had never seen a crawler tractor or a truck crane in their life. Vehicle design is just stupid. Chassis are wrong, guns are wrong, armor is wrong. Look at the hedgehog for a minute. It's a nightmare. 1.1 They haven't put enough thought into it 1.2 They haven't implemented it well enough (model quality is bad). 2. There's no faction coherence at all. Each faction is a set of models without a central theme. 2.1 Imps, brutes, weavers, and dragons are from the same faction. Imps and brutes are goofy, weavers are scary, and a dragon is just a WC3 frost wyrm for some reason. Zerg had a strong bio theme with different mutations and adaptations. They look like they could all come from the same larvae. 2.2 Lancers, dogs, atlases, helipads. Terrans don't have dogs and oversized office knives guys because it would be stupid. They had a space-suit infantry (all of them), transforming multi-purpose vehicles (everything except cyclone), and a fleet with a strong identity. 2.3 4-handed zealots, cat drones, worm things, female high templars, triangle things. (I don't know celestial unit names). Celestials should be deleted and redone from scratch. They don't have anything in common. Protoss had infantry with a distinct style, complimentary battlesuits, and a fleet. Their observer drone looks like it was produced at the same robotics facility as immortal. 3. Art style has no importance in SG. I'd say they didn't think about the art style at all. They just made models. WC3 has extremely cartoony graphics. Right? But does WC3 have a cartoony art style? Why these models are so similar to 2d pictures (to the smallest details), but are done in different styles? https://imgur.com/a/va2cS3N https://imgur.com/a/M7Dafsi Models are cartoony. Proportions are cartoony, Colors are bright. 2D art is more like power fantasy. Pala has abs bigger than his head, lol. The colors are dimmed down. Look at this. . It's not cartoony at all. It's a power fantasy grimdark. Why is that? Because Blizzard was smart. They made the game cartoony because it's more readable, and the game will look better due to the low polygon count and other technical difficulties of the early 00s. They made 2D art and cinematics power fantasy because it is how it should look in the players' heads. When you see Thrall, you imagine Thrall from the cinematic. The same with SC2. We have high-quality models on our ship during the campaign for this reason. Imagination-enhanced 3d models. Brilliant. To make this work they had to make high-quality models and connect them to the rest of the artwork via the close resemblance. It's a fucking monumental work. On the other hand, SG has this: Do I have to imagine THIS? people just laugh at this. | ||
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