EPTStormgate/Frost Giant Megathread - Page 242
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SoleSteeler
Canada5425 Posts
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25314 Posts
On July 31 2025 07:26 Hider wrote: Going through Tim Mortens secret reddit account https://www.reddit.com/user/voidlegacy. Its just fantastic. I am surprised at how poor he is at hiding at. Tbh in his position I would probably do a similar thing but I would paranoid about anyone figuring out things. I think I would also make more comments around game-design. E.g. if people say this unit is dumb, I would try to explain the rationale for why it could lead to good games. One interesting comment from him. I guess this isn't really the 1.0 they imagined. So with that, I think it's fair to say Tim believes it's dead. Wait lmao, the user of that sub I probably argued with the most was actually Tim Morton? Are you fucking kidding me lol? Is that actually confirmed or just suspected? | ||
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Hider
Denmark9384 Posts
On July 31 2025 07:54 WombaT wrote: Wait lmao, the user of that sub I probably argued with the most was actually Tim Morton? Are you fucking kidding me lol? Is that actually confirmed or just suspected? I just saw it from here https://www.reddit.com/r/RealTimeStrategy/comments/1marpeh/stormgate_is_leaving_early_access_before_its/n5jwroz/ After going through a lot his posts it would surprirse me if it wasn't him. Either that or someone having had an almost identicial career while clearly being a fan of everything Tim Morten says and knowing what the opinions of future Tim Morten. I think most of what he wrote is correct. And he obviously has much better insight into the situation than 99% of randoms. However, he keeps repeating "Stormgate is more ambitious than other titles/Making Sc2 today would cost over 100M". As if that's a good thing. No if anything it shows how dumb it was to attempt this ambitious approach. I think I mentioned multiple times that what I think RTS game devs should do "Pick one area where you feel the genre is lacking and nail that. Don't try to satisfy everyone". Going back, he was fairly confident they could raise more money 10-12 months ago. Most likely he had hoped to use the early release numbers as evidence to investors. Once retention was poor - yeh not a whole lot more to do. I think he is incompetent because he should have realized how bad the game actually was at early release. Feels like he completely misjudged it. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9384 Posts
This faction plays pretty radically different. They talked about it in the video, so pretty sure it's okay to say that at this point. I feel like this faction is the innovation we've been looking for from a gameplay perspective. This overlaps with what I remembered Tim Morten saying previously. He wanted a unique race. Something that plays out differently. He has no understanding that what truly matters is whether the unit that you control are fun to use and actually by itself something that is too different tends to increase learning barrier and complexity. The goal can never be "unique" and "different" by itself. I also find it interesting he is so obsessed with some details; Blizzard RTS, Not simplified macro unlike Zerospace He clinches to these banalities. No mention at all on unit-micro except when he talks about how "responsive" the game is. As I guess some people may have realized by now, my biggest belief is that a competitive RTS will fail if micro isn't awesome. And sorry but all these RTS games will most likely fail - they look boring and still has a relatively high entrance barrier. Immortals Gates of Pyre and Zerospace has the advantage of a much lower burning rate and can iterate over a longer period.- but I am not optimistic. Stormgate isn't alone here. If anything I felt it was improving over the past year - but it's just too late. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25314 Posts
On July 31 2025 08:10 Hider wrote: I just saw it from here https://www.reddit.com/r/RealTimeStrategy/comments/1marpeh/stormgate_is_leaving_early_access_before_its/n5jwroz/ After going through a lot his posts it would surprirse me if it wasn't him. Either that or someone having had an almost identicial career while clearly being a fan of everything Tim Morten says and knowing what the opinions of future Tim Morten. I think most of what he wrote is correct. And he obviously has much better insight into the situation than 99% of randoms. However, he keeps repeating "Stormgate is more ambitious than other titles/Making Sc2 today would cost over 100M". As if that's a good thing. No if anything it shows how dumb it was to attempt this ambitious approach. I think I mentioned multiple times that what I think RTS game devs should do "Pick one area where you feel the genre is lacking and nail that. Don't try to satisfy everyone". Going back, he was fairly confident they could raise more money 10-12 months ago. Most likely he had hoped to use the early release numbers as evidence to investors. Once retention was poor - yeh not a whole lot more to do. I think he is incompetent because he should have realized how bad the game actually was at early release. Feels like he completely misjudged it. If it is him, the sad part is he got lots of good feedback, some of it even from me! However, if it is him that account seemed to exist more to run defence on Frost Giant’s decisions and, basically that. I actually have no innate issue with a company interacting via sockpuppets, because I think you get more honest responses. Like if Tim actually popped in on a TimMorten account you’d get a lot more sucking up. I think one of Stormgate’s fundamental problems is simply a lack of the requisite skillsets. Tim Morten clearly has some talent, some of his Blizzard work I love, but he was never the project lead. He added to games, he didn’t build them. Most of Stormgate’s fuckups IMO are almost all down to project management, there’s clearly some talent there. If that talent was better directed versus a not insane, but good budget I mean it’s in a way better state. Most of their PR fuckups that also killed a goodwill that absolutely did exist early doors, again that’s upper management. Far as I can tell they pissed away a level of hype and financial investment that most other studios would kill for, and it’s really on them. Playing the two, I don’t think Zero Space will be the new SC2 either, but it’s to me the better game. It’s got more identity, the ideas it has have remained somewhat consistent and tweaks are iterative, I like the idea of the Galactic Conquest mode adding extra incentive to Co-Op. On a fraction of the budget. How long did genuinely customisable hotkeys take to come into Stormgate? It was ridiculous. Not ridiculous if the majority of your player base are casually focused, insane if the majority interested at that time are competitive RTS players. Myself I moved my SC2 and subsequently WC3 keys to something semi-similar to Stormgate’s quite a while ago. Except some of my rows were allocated to totally different functions. My spell casting row is basically flipped with the macro row. Which, muscle memory wise is genuinely worse than playing a game with standard hotkeys that are all over the place. I still play BW and AoE with relatively standard layouts with a few tweaks. Stormgate was particularly annoying to play because it effectively was my SC2 layout, but swapped. Anyway yes, argh. If they can pull it off, great. I’ve lost faith that they will, they’ve made too many bad decisions when they had the resources, and I think they’re making better ones now but they don’t have the resources. A shame but equally like I don’t really owe them anything. For me SC2 still exists, WC3 does and even remaining semi-decent in either is too much more me right now, never mind trying AoE4. And I think Zero Space looks pretty fucking decent | ||
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Agh
United States974 Posts
Before I even started asking around I assumed there was no way anyone actually heading this had any gameplay experience or knowledge with the game and how it's currently functioning. If only that was the problem it would probably be salvageable, but it's far worse. Even if they had plans to completely scrap a unit or do a rework, there was 0 reason to leave matchmaking and the testing grounds in an unplayable state for as long as they have. It doesn't matter if tooltips or gui is incorrect, ship hotfixes to address the most glaring of issues and outliers at a bare minimum. If they did that they game would probably be sitting at 1000+ active users instead of only reaching triple digits twice a month. Just sucks that they've completely wasted the entirety of this past year on meaningful gameplay iteration when it would take a single person a minimal amount of time once a week to gather all the information needed. | ||
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ETisME
12390 Posts
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21679 Posts
On July 31 2025 08:10 Hider wrote: That sc2 would have cost 100 mil doesn't matter because Blizzard has the money. And that ties into one of the big issues with stormgates development and why it deems to be getting a half baked 1.0. I just saw it from here https://www.reddit.com/r/RealTimeStrategy/comments/1marpeh/stormgate_is_leaving_early_access_before_its/n5jwroz/ After going through a lot his posts it would surprirse me if it wasn't him. Either that or someone having had an almost identicial career while clearly being a fan of everything Tim Morten says and knowing what the opinions of future Tim Morten. I think most of what he wrote is correct. And he obviously has much better insight into the situation than 99% of randoms. However, he keeps repeating "Stormgate is more ambitious than other titles/Making Sc2 today would cost over 100M". As if that's a good thing. No if anything it shows how dumb it was to attempt this ambitious approach. I think I mentioned multiple times that what I think RTS game devs should do "Pick one area where you feel the genre is lacking and nail that. Don't try to satisfy everyone". Going back, he was fairly confident they could raise more money 10-12 months ago. Most likely he had hoped to use the early release numbers as evidence to investors. Once retention was poor - yeh not a whole lot more to do. I think he is incompetent because he should have realized how bad the game actually was at early release. Feels like he completely misjudged it. They should be an indy studio, a dozen or 2 good designers/programmers making an innovative game. But they seem to still live in the AAA big studio mindset, and as a result they have burned through their cash way to fast. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9384 Posts
I actually have no innate issue with a company interacting via sockpuppets, because I think you get more honest responses. Like if Tim actually popped in on a TimMorten account you’d get a lot more sucking up. Yes I actually think you get a lot more transparency here without pr. That sc2 would have cost 100 mil doesn't matter because Blizzard has the money. And that ties into one of the big issues with stormgates development and why it deems to be getting a half baked 1.0. Yes his logic makes no sense. If it costs 100 mill, then why on earth do you wanna do the same thing as them? Pick one thing and nail that. But I kept reading his posts until he came with his projections. His projections were like 30K players at launch early release.. He is simply delusional and has no idea about how the gameplay feels relative to how people make decisions on what to play. That's why he keeps using many of these banalities. His world is so simplistic "Sc2 was played by this many. We can do the same, make some improvements to it - we should get at least 25% of the playerbase." "People in Sc2 likes when matchups are very different and races are unique - we should make a race that is even more unique than in Sc2." | ||
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Hider
Denmark9384 Posts
On July 31 2025 15:28 ETisME wrote: It's clear why they failed. It's because their vision of things like longer TTK just didn't work out well, and they are basically salvaging whatever they can but ends up with a completely weird spot. The logic was "people say Sc2 is too fast and unforgiving". "But Wc3 is probably too slow". The sweet stop must be in the middle. I was always quite sceptical of that. Not that I thought it couldn't work but I felt like the high speed of Sc2 functioned as a band-aid fix to make the game feel good. With a lower speed you need to add a lot more micro interactions that feels satisfying and rewarding. And I don't think they accomplished. Casting a Psi storm on Marines and one-shotting them feels damn good. Casting an ability that ticks their damage to 30% less so. It's one of those cases where I understand their reasoning, but it's too simplistic. And they gradually realized these things - but way too late. | ||
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TaShadan
Germany1971 Posts
On July 31 2025 16:13 Hider wrote: The logic was "people say Sc2 is too fast and unforgiving". "But Wc3 is probably too slow". The sweet stop must be in the middle. I was always quite sceptical of that. Not that I thought it couldn't work but I felt like the high speed of Sc2 functioned as a band-aid fix to make the game feel good. With a lower speed you need to add a lot more micro interactions that feels satisfying and rewarding. And I don't think they accomplished. Casting a Psi storm on Marines and one-shotting them feels damn good. Casting an ability that ticks their damage to 30% less so. It's one of those cases where I understand their reasoning, but it's too simplistic. And they gradually realized these things - but way too late. The sweet spot already exists. Broodwar. AT least in terms of DPS, time to die (units and buildings), speed of units, build speeds etc. | ||
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Harris1st
Germany6929 Posts
On July 31 2025 15:57 Gorsameth wrote: That sc2 would have cost 100 mil doesn't matter because Blizzard has the money. And that ties into one of the big issues with stormgates development and why it deems to be getting a half baked 1.0. They should be an indy studio, a dozen or 2 good designers/programmers making an innovative game. But they seem to still live in the AAA big studio mindset, and as a result they have burned through their cash way to fast. Sorry for beeing a bit OT here but I recently read that ZeroSpace is now up to about 40 devs as well and their budget was assumed to be a lot lower than Forstgiant. Source (German) https://www.gamestar.de/artikel/zerospace-gameplay-starcraft-nachfolger,3436807.html | ||
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RogerChillingworth
2848 Posts
On July 31 2025 09:15 WombaT wrote: Playing the two, I don’t think Zero Space will be the new SC2 either.. .... Anyway yes, argh. If they can pull it off, great. I’ve lost faith that they will, they’ve made too many bad decisions... Nothing should have been ''the new SC2''. It's this kind of lack of creativity that makes all these modern efforts so tepid. We already got SC2, how about someone actually takes us somewhere rad. Stop trying to remake some bullshit like we're doing some really bad impression of Hollywood. Anyways, I ranted in a word doc and am pasting it here. But yeah, just never seemed like even Frost Giant cared much about their own game. It was like an opportunity for them, back in 2019, to fill the RTS void because Blizzard wasn't going to do it. Otherwise you'd see them coming out with shit all the time: Sigma this, Sigma that; look at the concepts Jesse Brophy drew at his favorite Elf Bar last week; filling out their YouTube with cool shit; top level people taking huge paycuts and living off oatmeal for a year to get their dream project through. I don't know, not like any one thing would blow the roof off the thing but wouldn't you do everything if it were your dream project? I would. I'd work for free, take out huge loans, slide-tackle a grandma for whatever's bangin around in her purse. But if it's a business? What the hell, shit happens. Instead, it's like if you're not in their discord, or even if you are, this game might as well not even exist. It already feels canceled. You get Cicada wavin the pom poms on here, and then one or two people on reddit being like “i'm gonna give it one last shot”—otherwise nothin. I guess their initial attempt didn't land and so they made a second attempt, which I guess by some accounts was better but not strong enough. But then I pop into a Beo stream and the game looks worse than it did a year ago, and I feel no encouragement to try any modes inside the game. Nothing and no one is asking me to, or seems to want me to. The top layer of the game certainly isn't. Just look at some of these screenshots. Like what? ![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/ADo5CYx.jpeg) Not trying to bully anyone, because who knows if everyone is trying their hardest but can't quite get there. But if it really is the final push, it certainly doesn't feel like it. I do agree with the idea that if you make something awesome and share it with only a handful of people, it should end up taking off because the thing is good enough for everyone to share it with 1-2 more people. But Frost Giant never had this approach. It never felt like it was about making the most exquisite game possible a la Zelda, Halo, Final Fantasy—it was more about making a Star Wars: The Force Awakens that would be easy on the palette and usher in a few strays. I think this was always a bad call but the greater point I'm trying to make is that their marketing approach does not match their design philosophy of reaching more people with RTS. It feels like they should be making the existence of Stormgate known everywhere. Otherwise, make a gnarly game for the people who have been playing and following RTS for decades, then you don't need marketing. I love Dustin Browder, and his new game looks really fun, especially for younger people, but I feel like StarCraft 2 ruined RTS by tricking your standard dev and your standard gamer into thinking it's the holy grail. It isn't, and never was. WoL was a magical time, and a very good 1v1 game, but outside of some really exquisite concept design, it was a bit of a step back for Blizz-style RTS. I feel like this Stormgate thing is like JFK and the grassy knoll, or Area 51, or some shit. I'd love a documentary that exposed everything that actually happened from day 1. Maybe it's as simple as 2019 was a long time ago and if the team could start their RTS journey now, we'd see a completely different game, i.e. the time it takes to implement an idea does not account for how quickly things change in this day and age—including people's wants, desires, interests, and trends. But I still find it so weird how it all went down. I guess I was just so hyped for an independent take on Blizz RTS and thought that everything would work out. Like obviously Frost Giant isn't the end all be all, there will be other attempts at high budget RTS in the future I'm sure—at least some hybrid of the genres—but to me it's on par with how high I felt during the Warcraft III: Reforged rising action and how low I felt when we realized the game we were getting. I really don't know why I keep coming back here. Part of it's because I'm making RTS-style art myself, and so my brain is always clicking in that direction. And I watch ASL and Starcraft 1 proleague and everything. But man I think it's just such a missed opportunity. And I would want the devs to know that it's OK, I don't think they're evil or awful, or should quit game dev. But maybe it's because some of us have such a strong vision for what could work for RTS that it feels much more painful when the people who do get the money don't make -the- thing. The moral of the story is two fold: 1. lower you expectations A LOT and 2. Make your vision come true yourself, don't think anyone is going to come anywhere close to it. I said this before but it keeps reiterating itself in my brain. | ||
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CicadaSC
United States1711 Posts
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RogerChillingworth
2848 Posts
Poll: Will Cicada get eaten by sharks? Yes (0) Yes (0) 0 total votes Your vote: Will Cicada get eaten by sharks? | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25314 Posts
SC2 had the added bonus that it was Blizzard at its zenith, I know plenty of folks who were casual or non-RTS fans who got hooked because it was the new Blizzard game. Not a reputation Blizzard has these days. Maybe if, idk Valve went and did one you’d have that same pull, and Valve also seem to only really work on things when they think they’ve a killer idea. Not ‘we want to fill x market niche, what’s the game look like’. The game itself doesn’t have to be like SC2, perhaps indeed to be the new big game, it can’t be My second greatest wish in gaming is for a new Unreal Tournament or Quake style game to take off, but I’ve seen there many times that clones without new innovations just get diminishing returns Hell, the new game doesn’t need to be near as big as peak WoL, perhaps that was a time and place thing as much as anything else. If it was good enough for most of the buddies I made via SC to move from being inactive, or spread across different games, I’d take that. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25314 Posts
On July 31 2025 21:02 RogerChillingworth wrote: Poll: Will Cicada get eaten by sharks? Yes (0) Yes (0) 0 total votes Your vote: Will Cicada get eaten by sharks? What if they’re eaten by a single shark, does that count? | ||
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RogerChillingworth
2848 Posts
On July 31 2025 21:07 WombaT wrote: to clarify when I say ‘the new SC2’ I’m purely talking in bigness yeah i knew you meant that but i hate the constant comparisons to sc2, as if anyone making a new RTS should give a shit. It's also retarded to try to create bigness. Just make the best game possible. And if you don't know how, or think Billy Crystal Monsters Inc monsters with wings are going to get people hard, then stop right now. And if you proceed, then let it be known that you're trying to con morons who don't know anything about RTS or what makes it good. WoL wasn't just time and place. Anything can come out of nowhere and smash. Look at Slay the Spire. Even I played that game and I don't play anything. It just has to be good and fun while tapping into that little something extra. It absolutely can't be grandma's diarrhea. Anyways fuck it. Steve Jobs was right. People don't know what's good until it smashes them over the head. Until then they'll accept anything, or think the last mediocre thing was gospel. | ||
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ETisME
12390 Posts
And it's perfectly fine to have a different TTK, but it needs to have all the other bits and pieces to work well with it SC2 is extremely well designed around fast pacing, clump/declump, and smooth patching, low TTK and rebuild time etc SG to me, never nailed it quite right for both playing and viewing | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25314 Posts
On July 31 2025 21:30 RogerChillingworth wrote: yeah i knew you meant that but i hate the constant comparisons to sc2, as if anyone making a new RTS should give a shit. It's also retarded to try to create bigness. Just make the best game possible. And if you don't know how, or think Billy Crystal Monsters Inc monsters with wings are going to get people hard, then stop right now. And if you proceed, then let it be known that you're trying to con morons who don't know anything about RTS or what makes it good. WoL wasn't just time and place. Anything can come out of nowhere and smash. Look at Slay the Spire. Even I played that game and I don't play anything. It just has to be good and fun while tapping into that little something extra. It absolutely can't be grandma's diarrhea. Anyways fuck it. Steve Jobs was right. People don't know what's good until it smashes them over the head. Until then they'll accept anything, or think the last mediocre thing was gospel. Actually loled at Billy Crystal Monsters. But, as I’ve argued before, often to downvotes, I would quite like that. Give me a crazy and whacky RTS! I haven’t played many. Gimme monsters throwing their own heads at their enemies and having to grow it back for the next attack. Factional consistency? How about the human faction have zero. In a post-apocalyptic world, humanity has shattered into innumerable warring factions, uniting only to face common foes. Mad Max style barbarians from the wasteland charge into battle alongside the mechs of the Benign TechnocracyTM. Maybe you’ve got mutants, irradiated in the Atomic Wars. Maybe some of those mutants developed psychic powers and were shunned, and eventually fled to create a society of Space Wizards. Maybe you’ve got ninjas, who knows? And who are those foes? Aliens and demons. How did they get there and what are their motives? They’re just there and they wanna kill you, it doesn’t have to be especially deep. Maybe the human campaign sees you having to Non-serious thru crazy could absolutely work IMO. Some may (rightly) hate some of my ideas haha, but in my defence, I didn’t hire an archaeologist. Leading to my central point, Stormgate’s problem for me is not its tone, it’s that its tone is all over the place. Its writing is quite serious and melodramatic, but with sprinklings of cutesy stuff. Go crazy or serious, it’s fucking hard to do both and succeed, and if you do it’s often in the realm of camp. Metal Gear Solid and the wider Warhammer 40K universe are genuinely the only two franchises that I can think of that pull this off. I think as a developer you have that vision, an idea of audience and just shoot for a great game absolutely. You can absolutely create a game with no target audience, and the fail is on you. But you can’t aim to be huge, it’s often lightning in a bottle. I imagine Blizzard would have been content if WoW was a fraction as popular and lucrative, As a kid with limited money I mostly played the big games that I’d heard about, or my friends were playing. Going back and playing other games that I missed and weren’t as big, there’s plenty that are absolutely just as good, if not better | ||
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