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.
Improving execution doesn't just mean polish and polish doesn't just mean tweaking the look of a unit slightly. Sometimes it means completely overhauling the look of a unit. SC2 visuals also changed a lot after it was announced. A lot of units got complete redesigns. It doesn't mean they changed the game from being stylized. That's what "artstyle" means in the context of that quote. They said the game will remain stylized and there is nothing wrong with that. It didn't mean they wouldn't do big changes to some units or factions as they are doing right now.
what about the humans who spent money on this game? He is an agent of a massive megacorp and his goal is to bring in 100s of millions of dollars from millions of "humans".
" there was no call for the team to review the game from our leadership". A slippery, ill-defined statement. They can just define some high up guy who told employees to put reviews on steam as "not part of our leadership". Then, technically this statement is true.
FG and their agents actions speak louder than the community manager's words.
One thing I'd like to repeat though. Tim Morten is an incredibly effective excuse maker. Any one who has worked in software engineering knows that effective excuse making is a critical skill. That long video where he hadn't shaved in 3 days, his hair was slightly disheveled, slight hunched over, little pot belly. That was a virtuoso performance by Tim. I recommend all software engineers watch that video carefully. If Tim Morten looked like Gavin Newsom no one would believe a single excuse coming out of his mouth. Look for Governor Newsom to mess up his hair and only shave every 3rd day. He might even hunch over a bit. LOL.
Tim Morten's extremely effective excuse making gives FG a life line. As the leader ... that's Morten's job. And he pulled it off.
Imagine what would have happened had the money guys at the top of Blizzard dismissed the excuses by the team who made the "Orcs in Space" version of Starcraft. We'd be living in a different world.
On January 15 2025 15:47 JimmyJRaynor wrote: https://imgur.com/a/9zN9IWJ what is with this constant appeal to humanity?
"he's human". so is everyone who gave FG money.
what about the humans who spent money on this game? He is an agent of a massive megacorp and his goal is to bring in 100s of millions of dollars from millions of "humans".
" there was no call for the team to review the game from our leadership". A slippery, ill-defined statement. They can just define some high up guy who told employees to put reviews on steam as "not part of our leadership". Then, technically this statement is true.
FG and their agents actions speak louder than the community manager's words.
One thing I'd like to repeat though. Tim Morten is an incredibly effective excuse maker. Any one who has worked in software engineering knows that effective excuse making is a critical skill. That long video where he hadn't shaved in 3 days, his hair was slightly disheveled, slight hunched over, little pot belly. That was a virtuoso performance by Tim. I recommend all software engineers watch that video carefully. If Tim Morten looked like Gavin Newsom no one would believe a single excuse coming out of his mouth. Look for Governor Newsom to mess up his hair and only shave every 3rd day. He might even hunch over a bit. LOL.
Tim Morten's extremely effective excuse making gives FG a life line. As the leader ... that's Morten's job. And he pulled it off.
Imagine what would have happened had the money guys at the top of Blizzard dismissed the excuses by the team who made the "Orcs in Space" version of Starcraft. We'd be living in a different world.
They've tried to hide behind a "few well-intentioned team members" first. https://imgur.com/a/rUOEj4r Gerald mentioned Tim only after we caught him with proof. They always try to slide until someone catches them.
true, however, we might be going from the "Orcs In Space" build to the true spiritual successor to Starcraft. We'll just have to wait and see.
i don't really mind very much that they BS. most adults are liars. i know several very flawed people who are brilliant software engineers. Obviously, I'd prefer if they didn't BS... but... whatever.
Regarding the MMR resets. It was discussed and proven more than a decade ago. MMR resets are pointless. The only outcome you get is a short-term player interest boost at the cost of matchmaking imbalance and new players suffering. So in the long term you don't get any new players but lose some.
No confirmation that MMR is being reset, just the ladder (like SC2 and all games that have "seasons"). I checked the Discord and lots of people asked if MMR is being reset, but no response yet.
If it attracts people to play again (I doubt it will have a major impact), seems like it's worth it for them anyway?
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.
On January 15 2025 02:23 ChillFlame wrote: The same thing with this review scandal.
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).
Toxic positivity to a greater extreme than i've ever seen and i do believe it caused irreperable harm. There was a lot more going on though, so even without it i think the game would have struggled. The devs created that environment seemingly intentionally and made a lot of other mistakes, but the feedback environment sat underneath all of that and prevented any of those other real issues from being properly understood and addressed until it was too late
On January 17 2025 01:58 SoleSteeler wrote: No confirmation that MMR is being reset, just the ladder (like SC2 and all games that have "seasons"). I checked the Discord and lots of people asked if MMR is being reset, but no response yet.
If it attracts people to play again (I doubt it will have a major impact), seems like it's worth it for them anyway?
The ladder reset is alright. Let's see what happens next.
Having just caught up to date on the newest scandal, I really don't think it's anything to fuss about. I would bet that every dev leaves their own games and the games of their friends good reviews on steam.
It IS wrong for employees to leave leave reviews and not declare that they work as/for a dev. And it's stupid for devs like Frost Giant to do it knowing there a team of people on reddit monitoring and tracking their every move in order to post hate on the game as much as possible.
But that being said, who really cares? If they were creating a mass of fake accounts or buying bots to review their game, that would be scandalous. But anyone has the right to review anything.
Steam agreements require disclosure with penalties of bans and in severe cases delisting games for noncompliance, so that elevates it beyond a simple dick move
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.
On January 15 2025 02:23 ChillFlame wrote: The same thing with this review scandal.
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).
Toxic positivity to a greater extreme than i've ever seen and i do believe it caused irreperable harm. There was a lot more going on though, so even without it i think the game would have struggled. The devs created that environment seemingly intentionally and made a lot of other mistakes, but the feedback environment sat underneath all of that and prevented any of those other real issues from being properly understood and addressed until it was too late
See I kinda disagree, the idea of "toxic positivity" seems to have come from reddit, from people who I would presume were kicked out of the discord for being too negative or unfriendly.
Because browsing the discord, it's full of criticism. Especially in the section dedicated to endless feedback threads, even mods post in them. The art style, hotkeys, mechanics, the god awful cutscenes, the lack of social features, everything has been mentioned 1000 times. Frost Giant just didn't listen.
The difference is that on the discord, people don't throw hate/negativity/conspiracies towards the devs or the company, just criticism and feedback about the game itself. "Good faith" discussions if you would. People that believe in the game. Whereas on the reddit, some people absolutely want the game to fail and call the devs scammers. I'm not sure why, if I didn't like a game that much I would simply avoid it. But there are people who made trackers to keep them updated on how low the playercount was so they could post about it? It's an obsession for some
Steam agreements require disclosure with penalties of bans and in severe cases delisting games for noncompliance, so that elevates it beyond a simple dick move
Of course, I agree that should be the case. It's wrong, but I don't think a handful of reviews is enough to make a scandal about. I would be surprised if any dev didn't leave themselves a good review or ask their friends/family to do so.
The stupid part is that the Frost Giant devs know they will be under 10x the scrutiny of a game with a positive public opinion or community. Why they would write undisclosed reviews is bizarre
On January 18 2025 03:19 Fango wrote: Having just caught up to date on the newest scandal, I really don't think it's anything to fuss about. I would bet that every dev leaves their own games and the games of their friends good reviews on steam.
It IS wrong for employees to leave leave reviews and not declare that they work as/for a dev. And it's stupid for devs like Frost Giant to do it knowing there a team of people on reddit monitoring and tracking their every move in order to post hate on the game as much as possible.
But that being said, who really cares? If they were creating a mass of fake accounts or buying bots to review their game, that would be scandalous. But anyone has the right to review anything.
The problem is the message it sends. It gives the idea that the company doesn't recognise that they deserve their review score, that they don't recognise the mistakes they have made and that rather then fixing their game and earning a better review they want to fake it.
And coming from the CEO instead of a random rogue employee means its a systemic issue.
Steam agreements require disclosure with penalties of bans and in severe cases delisting games for noncompliance, so that elevates it beyond a simple dick move
Of course, I agree that should be the case. It's wrong, but I don't think a handful of reviews is enough to make a scandal about. I would be surprised if any dev didn't leave themselves a good review or ask their friends/family to do so.
The stupid part is that the Frost Giant devs know they will be under 10x the scrutiny of a game with a positive public opinion or community. Why they would write undisclosed reviews is bizarre
Pretty much. Like I don’t really care or think it’s some horrendous breach of ethics,
I mean yeah it is a breach but one of those ‘yeah not ideal but shrug, it’s hardly rare.’ I mean if a friend of mine is opening some business I’ll drop em a 5/5 or equivalent even if I’m never setting foot in the place. Hey it’s bullshit, but if it’ll help em out, no worries.
I think the wider problem is that you have this issue arising after a series of incidents I would consider more meritorious of outrage. Things that really damaged trust in FG from segments of the community.
This is basically a nothingburger in a vacuum, or if it were FG’s sole misjudgement. But it comes amidst a history of misjudgments, many considerably worse than this IMO so it ends up reinforcing negative perceptions.
Misjudgement is being kind phrasing wise tbf. There’s the odd fuckup, then there’s a multitude of them that follow the exact same pattern that absolutely look like very deliberate deception.
Invest in our Kickstarter for bonuses and some extra servers, the game’s fully funded to release. Oh you thought we meant a finished retail release we meant early access being front and centre there.
On January 18 2025 03:19 Fango wrote: Having just caught up to date on the newest scandal, I really don't think it's anything to fuss about. I would bet that every dev leaves their own games and the games of their friends good reviews on steam.
Denying 'leadership' instructed employees to leave reviews was a bad move. It just legitimizes the claim. They shoulda just ignored it.
"Did you do it?" "Do what? Oh that... Oh ....is that what some paranoid people think happened...lol" is the correct response.
The dramatic "he's human brother" denial sounded dumb.
It is pretty hilarious to watch the fur fly.
I am super impressed by Tim Morten. That guy knows how to raise money.
On January 18 2025 03:19 Fango wrote: Having just caught up to date on the newest scandal, I really don't think it's anything to fuss about. I would bet that every dev leaves their own games and the games of their friends good reviews on steam.
Denying 'leadership' instructed employees to leave reviews was a bad move. It just legitimizes the claim. They shoulda just ignored it.
"Did you do it?" "Do what? Oh that... Oh ....is that what some paranoid people think happened...lol" is the correct response.
The dramatic "he's human brother" denial sounded dumb.
It is pretty hilarious to watch the fur fly.
I am super impressed by Tim Morten. That guy knows how to raise money.
But rather crucially seemingly isn’t great on how to spend it, impressive stuff indeed.
EPT
