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On September 06 2025 07:45 CicadaSC wrote:The more I think about it, the more I feel stormgate missed a big opportunity. Instead of just trying to copy StarCraft with a lower budget I wish they leaned more into custom game modes (but as official modes) look at how autochess blossomed into the massively popular TFT in league of legends. SC2 has popular mods as well like auto chess. Anyone remember Squadron Tower defense? This is basically that. That's all it is. But with more polish. It gets 1000+ concurrents regularly. https://steamcharts.com/app/469600Anyone remember direct strike? Lots of people still play this in SC2 and WC3. Mechabellum took that and made it an official game and it is pretty successful as well. Even Mike Morhaime's company got production rights. https://steamcharts.com/app/669330These games were successful because they didn't try to improve upon a 100m dollar model. They improved 1 man projects. They took mods and did them better. I don't think it's too late. I don't know if stormgate will be able to capture the 1v1 audiences from SC2, WC3, AOE, but I think if they officially developed these custom games and innovated, it could have a real shot at picking up an audience. And I know these will probably exist eventually through the Map Editor as a mod, but I don't want another mod. A mod will always follow a subsidiary playerbase to the base game. I want official dev support. Make an official Direct Strike or TD and don't just leave it up to a community mod.
If you're a fan of old mods then you might be interested in battleships custom map for WC3 now being developed as a standalone game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2790090/Sirocco/
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On September 06 2025 23:11 Manit0u wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2025 07:45 CicadaSC wrote:The more I think about it, the more I feel stormgate missed a big opportunity. Instead of just trying to copy StarCraft with a lower budget I wish they leaned more into custom game modes (but as official modes) look at how autochess blossomed into the massively popular TFT in league of legends. SC2 has popular mods as well like auto chess. Anyone remember Squadron Tower defense? This is basically that. That's all it is. But with more polish. It gets 1000+ concurrents regularly. https://steamcharts.com/app/469600Anyone remember direct strike? Lots of people still play this in SC2 and WC3. Mechabellum took that and made it an official game and it is pretty successful as well. Even Mike Morhaime's company got production rights. https://steamcharts.com/app/669330These games were successful because they didn't try to improve upon a 100m dollar model. They improved 1 man projects. They took mods and did them better. I don't think it's too late. I don't know if stormgate will be able to capture the 1v1 audiences from SC2, WC3, AOE, but I think if they officially developed these custom games and innovated, it could have a real shot at picking up an audience. And I know these will probably exist eventually through the Map Editor as a mod, but I don't want another mod. A mod will always follow a subsidiary playerbase to the base game. I want official dev support. Make an official Direct Strike or TD and don't just leave it up to a community mod. If you're a fan of old mods then you might be interested in battleships custom map for WC3 now being developed as a standalone game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2790090/Sirocco/
Eh, the servers have been shut down for 2 weeks now according to their own statement. The game is literally unplayable rn.
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On September 07 2025 01:07 Miragee wrote:Show nested quote +On September 06 2025 23:11 Manit0u wrote:On September 06 2025 07:45 CicadaSC wrote:The more I think about it, the more I feel stormgate missed a big opportunity. Instead of just trying to copy StarCraft with a lower budget I wish they leaned more into custom game modes (but as official modes) look at how autochess blossomed into the massively popular TFT in league of legends. SC2 has popular mods as well like auto chess. Anyone remember Squadron Tower defense? This is basically that. That's all it is. But with more polish. It gets 1000+ concurrents regularly. https://steamcharts.com/app/469600Anyone remember direct strike? Lots of people still play this in SC2 and WC3. Mechabellum took that and made it an official game and it is pretty successful as well. Even Mike Morhaime's company got production rights. https://steamcharts.com/app/669330These games were successful because they didn't try to improve upon a 100m dollar model. They improved 1 man projects. They took mods and did them better. I don't think it's too late. I don't know if stormgate will be able to capture the 1v1 audiences from SC2, WC3, AOE, but I think if they officially developed these custom games and innovated, it could have a real shot at picking up an audience. And I know these will probably exist eventually through the Map Editor as a mod, but I don't want another mod. A mod will always follow a subsidiary playerbase to the base game. I want official dev support. Make an official Direct Strike or TD and don't just leave it up to a community mod. If you're a fan of old mods then you might be interested in battleships custom map for WC3 now being developed as a standalone game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2790090/Sirocco/ Eh, the servers have been shut down for 2 weeks now according to their own statement. The game is literally unplayable rn.
Oh, sad 
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Direct Strike was very fun in both SC2 and WC3. I really hope Frost Giant sees the potential in this and doesn't just let it be a mod forever. Make it its own thing, with official dev support. Like how League adopted Auto Chess from Dota into an official game mode of TFT.
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Canada1112 Posts
On September 06 2025 07:45 CicadaSC wrote:
The more I think about it, the more I feel stormgate missed a big opportunity. Instead of just trying to copy StarCraft with a lower budget I wish they leaned more into custom game modes (but as official modes) look at how autochess blossomed into the massively popular TFT in league of legends. SC2 has popular mods as well like auto chess.
They didn't miss the opportunity. They were aiming to launch with a fully-featured map editor as one of the "four pillars" of the game. They just didn't make it, so they shipped a half-assed terrain editor that you can sort of make do other things by manually editing JSON files. But then once you make them, there's no way to play them with other people.
I don't think it's too late.
It's absolutely too late. It's been two weeks since Tim Morten said he'd be making an announcement "in the coming weeks" if the company was even going to keep going or not. In the mean time, the lone sound engineer and both art directors have left the company, according to LinkedIn.
I don't know if stormgate will be able to capture the 1v1 audiences from SC2, WC3, AOE, but I think if they officially developed these custom games and innovated, it could have a real shot at picking up an audience. And I know these will probably exist eventually through the Map Editor as a mod, but I don't want another mod. A mod will always follow a subsidiary playerbase to the base game. I want official dev support. Make an official Direct Strike or TD and don't just leave it up to a community mod.
But they can't pay anybody any more.
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It's absolutely too late. It's been two weeks since Tim Morten said he'd be making an announcement "in the coming weeks" if the company was even going to keep going or not. In the mean time, the lone sound engineer and both art directors have left the company, according to LinkedIn.
There's one thing that bothers me.
SG is online only. Even single player modes. They don't have resources to even make a makeshift local server or something.
The game will go down soon, along with its servers.
Yet, they still charge money for MTX.
I haven't seen many people, except me and some other folks on Steam, who voice their opinion regarding the immorality of such practices.
RTS fans like us know about the state of the game, but the regular players don't. You can just buy $100 worth of MTX, and the servers will just go down next month. You wouldn't be able to play even the campaign.
Has it become an industry standard, or people just don't see this as a major problem?
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On September 07 2025 12:45 ChillFlame wrote:
There's one thing that bothers me.
SG is online only. Even single player modes. They don't have resources to even make a makeshift local server or something.
The game will go down soon, along with its servers.
Yet, they still charge money for MTX.
I haven't seen many people, except me and some other folks on Steam, who voice their opinion regarding the immorality of such practices.
RTS fans like us know about the state of the game, but the regular players don't. You can just buy $100 worth of MTX, and the servers will just go down next month. You wouldn't be able to play even the campaign.
Has it become an industry standard, or people just don't see this as a major problem?
The entire steam model where you're basically purchasing a license to rent an online game, and not an actual game, or anything physical or guaranteed, with limited or zero offline components, is extremely consumer unfriendly compared to the old model. The idea that someone would support this model, and actually spend substantial money on steam, is utterly baffling to me. This is an era when console cartridges should be reigning supreme, long enough for PC game publishers to spend a little more time and money to release their product their own way, LAN included. Steam sucks cock. Only buy games that support LAN.
But also, like, where can't you find immorality? Everyone's an asshole. The ship is going down and people are looting the shit out everything, and there are people who aren't looting but then think by god if I'm leaving here empty handed, so they start taking shit. Then there's like 1 person who is helping a woman find her son.
It's on you not to complain about it, but vote with your money and your attention. It is the mentality of a young person to be lost in the sauce and to start victimizing themselves. If you have real dick, you chart a new path and all the problems behind you are very trivial indeed.
edit: Ok that last part was autistic but still, it's true. Like I had to learn my lesson, and it took a long time. Complaining about the bad things other people are doing is a waste of time. Just do it better yourself, or opt out imo.
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On September 07 2025 12:45 ChillFlame wrote:Show nested quote +It's absolutely too late. It's been two weeks since Tim Morten said he'd be making an announcement "in the coming weeks" if the company was even going to keep going or not. In the mean time, the lone sound engineer and both art directors have left the company, according to LinkedIn. There's one thing that bothers me. SG is online only. Even single player modes. They don't have resources to even make a makeshift local server or something. The game will go down soon, along with its servers. Yet, they still charge money for MTX. I haven't seen many people, except me and some other folks on Steam, who voice their opinion regarding the immorality of such practices. RTS fans like us know about the state of the game, but the regular players don't. You can just buy $100 worth of MTX, and the servers will just go down next month. You wouldn't be able to play even the campaign. Has it become an industry standard, or people just don't see this as a major problem?
It is indeed a major problem and I completely agree with Roger on his Steam take. I never buy on Steam if I have another option for that exact reason. If possible, I would rather purchase the game through gog or the developer directly, where you just own the game. This post motivated me to post a "warning review" on Steam.
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On September 07 2025 16:06 RogerChillingworth wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2025 12:45 ChillFlame wrote:
There's one thing that bothers me.
SG is online only. Even single player modes. They don't have resources to even make a makeshift local server or something.
The game will go down soon, along with its servers.
Yet, they still charge money for MTX.
I haven't seen many people, except me and some other folks on Steam, who voice their opinion regarding the immorality of such practices.
RTS fans like us know about the state of the game, but the regular players don't. You can just buy $100 worth of MTX, and the servers will just go down next month. You wouldn't be able to play even the campaign.
Has it become an industry standard, or people just don't see this as a major problem? The entire steam model where you're basically purchasing a license to rent an online game, and not an actual game, or anything physical or guaranteed, with limited or zero offline components, is extremely consumer unfriendly compared to the old model. The idea that someone would support this model, and actually spend substantial money on steam, is utterly baffling to me. This is an era when console cartridges should be reigning supreme, long enough for PC game publishers to spend a little more time and money to release their product their own way, LAN included. Steam sucks cock. Only buy games that support LAN. But also, like, where can't you find immorality? Everyone's an asshole. The ship is going down and people are looting the shit out everything, and there are people who aren't looting but then think by god if I'm leaving here empty handed, so they start taking shit. Then there's like 1 person who is helping a woman find her son. It's on you not to complain about it, but vote with your money and your attention. It is the mentality of a young person to be lost in the sauce and to start victimizing themselves. If you have real dick, you chart a new path and all the problems behind you are very trivial indeed. edit: Ok that last part was autistic but still, it's true. Like I had to learn my lesson, and it took a long time. Complaining about the bad things other people are doing is a waste of time. Just do it better yourself, or opt out imo.
TBH, Steam is just convenient and you can play your games offline there (you can even force Steam to go into offline mode if you want). In any case, if you don't like their practices you should just use GOG which sells you game installers without DRM (their own client just downloads those installers for you).
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Whatever. I don't care. I don't even play games anymore. I just hate steam. And discord. Nothing's special, it's just shat into the river. Like just point your ass at the river, lower your jeans and just spray-shot the shit in the general direction. That's basically steam.
I can still remember buying Warcraft 3 at fuckin..Electronics Boutique. Call me a boomer, that was peak. Just a steady decline into the shit river from there.
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Canada1112 Posts
On September 08 2025 00:05 RogerChillingworth wrote:
Whatever. I don't care. I don't even play games anymore. I just hate steam. And discord. Nothing's special, it's just shat into the river. Like just point your ass at the river, lower your jeans and just spray-shot the shit in the general direction. That's basically steam.
I can still remember buying Warcraft 3 at fuckin..Electronics Boutique. Call me a boomer, that was peak. Just a steady decline into the shit river from there.
Oh, I don't know. I've had all sorts of great experiences with Steam games in the last few years.
Blue Prince and Valheim are two standout examples.
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Really sad to see business mismanagement be the death of a project, and this will be used as evidence in planning meetings with other devs as to why RTS is not cost-effective.
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United Kingdom20326 Posts
Has it become an industry standard, or people just don't see this as a major problem?
I don't think that most people even realise that the technical side of the game is set up this way, and that it's likely that even singleplayer content will become inaccessible. More people will be upset when it actually happens.
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On September 08 2025 06:47 Phyanketto wrote:
Really sad to see business mismanagement be the death of a project, and this will be used as evidence in planning meetings with other devs as to why RTS is not cost-effective.
It's not that RTS is not cost-effective. You just need to be aware of what your team can accomplish in a given time and budget. If you waste time and resources on re-designing your game several times and implementing mtx before the core game is ready you just shoot yourself in the foot - and implementing mtx does take considerable resources since when you handle real money you must make that part of your software airtight, this means a lot of testing and fullproofing, which is time and money that could've been spent actually making the game instead.
If anything I hope it'll be a cautionary tale for the devs to get their priorities straight.
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On September 07 2025 21:03 Manit0u wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2025 16:06 RogerChillingworth wrote:On September 07 2025 12:45 ChillFlame wrote:
There's one thing that bothers me.
SG is online only. Even single player modes. They don't have resources to even make a makeshift local server or something.
The game will go down soon, along with its servers.
Yet, they still charge money for MTX.
I haven't seen many people, except me and some other folks on Steam, who voice their opinion regarding the immorality of such practices.
RTS fans like us know about the state of the game, but the regular players don't. You can just buy $100 worth of MTX, and the servers will just go down next month. You wouldn't be able to play even the campaign.
Has it become an industry standard, or people just don't see this as a major problem? The entire steam model where you're basically purchasing a license to rent an online game, and not an actual game, or anything physical or guaranteed, with limited or zero offline components, is extremely consumer unfriendly compared to the old model. The idea that someone would support this model, and actually spend substantial money on steam, is utterly baffling to me. This is an era when console cartridges should be reigning supreme, long enough for PC game publishers to spend a little more time and money to release their product their own way, LAN included. Steam sucks cock. Only buy games that support LAN. But also, like, where can't you find immorality? Everyone's an asshole. The ship is going down and people are looting the shit out everything, and there are people who aren't looting but then think by god if I'm leaving here empty handed, so they start taking shit. Then there's like 1 person who is helping a woman find her son. It's on you not to complain about it, but vote with your money and your attention. It is the mentality of a young person to be lost in the sauce and to start victimizing themselves. If you have real dick, you chart a new path and all the problems behind you are very trivial indeed. edit: Ok that last part was autistic but still, it's true. Like I had to learn my lesson, and it took a long time. Complaining about the bad things other people are doing is a waste of time. Just do it better yourself, or opt out imo. TBH, Steam is just convenient and you can play your games offline there (you can even force Steam to go into offline mode if you want). In any case, if you don't like their practices you should just use GOG which sells you game installers without DRM (their own client just downloads those installers for you).
Not just that, you can even share games with family accounts.
I am big on gog but there's just some massive advantage going to steam instead.
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It is so interesting reading the first 10 pages of this thread and seeing peoples initial reaction to Stormgate. some people foresaw issues even back then that still exist to this day.
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On June 10 2022 22:09 AmericanUmlaut wrote:
I really want to be out of my mind excited about this, because Frost Giant is saying they want to make the sort of game that I really want to play. But I keep thinking about the months and years I spent super excited about Artillery and Guardians of Atlas. There, too, we had years of people saying all the right things, and none other than our very own "frisbees not baseballs" Day[9] leading the design. And then the beta came along and it was so bad that the studio immediately shut down.
I'm not predicting the same fate for Frost Giant, I'm just saying that I've learned to be skeptical when people, even people I have a lot of confidence in, say they're developing a great new RTS and it's amazing and fun but it's just not quite ready for them to actually show us anything yet.
feelsbad. it happened again.
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On September 08 2025 06:47 Phyanketto wrote:
Really sad to see business mismanagement be the death of a project, and this will be used as evidence in planning meetings with other devs as to why RTS is not cost-effective.
Lightming in a bottle is't captured through business management. It's passion projects that are made out of pure necessity/creative flow.
Business ruins everything ultimately. Look at the enshittification of the internet for example.
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Canada1112 Posts
On September 08 2025 18:17 CicadaSC wrote:Show nested quote +On June 10 2022 22:09 AmericanUmlaut wrote:
I really want to be out of my mind excited about this, because Frost Giant is saying they want to make the sort of game that I really want to play. But I keep thinking about the months and years I spent super excited about Artillery and Guardians of Atlas. There, too, we had years of people saying all the right things, and none other than our very own "frisbees not baseballs" Day[9] leading the design. And then the beta came along and it was so bad that the studio immediately shut down.
I'm not predicting the same fate for Frost Giant, I'm just saying that I've learned to be skeptical when people, even people I have a lot of confidence in, say they're developing a great new RTS and it's amazing and fun but it's just not quite ready for them to actually show us anything yet. feelsbad. it happened again.
There's a bit of a "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, and then as farce" going on here.
After Guardians of Atlas failed, one of the developers posted an explanation of what happened:
... the unavoidable conclusion was that we could not get to a decent player base through marketing spend
i mean i'm not even saying we needed high growth like, remember when the alpha launched we had something like 500-1000 people online the first several days if that number had so much as stayed where it was, it might have been a different ballgame
but 4 weeks later we were nowhere near 500-1000...
For the Early Access launch, Stormgate reached almost 5,000 maximum CCU, but within four weeks it had dropped to 50-100 players.
For the full Steam launch, Stormgate reached under 1,000 maximum CCU, and within four weeks it was back to 50-100 players again.
The Guardians of Atlas developers recognized immediately that it wasn't sustainable, and they cut their losses. But after not one but two failed launches, Tim Morten is still posting on LinkedIn that he's "continuing to have partnership conversations", as if there was still a world in which these numbers could work.
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On September 08 2025 18:17 CicadaSC wrote:Show nested quote +On June 10 2022 22:09 AmericanUmlaut wrote:
I really want to be out of my mind excited about this, because Frost Giant is saying they want to make the sort of game that I really want to play. But I keep thinking about the months and years I spent super excited about Artillery and Guardians of Atlas. There, too, we had years of people saying all the right things, and none other than our very own "frisbees not baseballs" Day[9] leading the design. And then the beta came along and it was so bad that the studio immediately shut down.
I'm not predicting the same fate for Frost Giant, I'm just saying that I've learned to be skeptical when people, even people I have a lot of confidence in, say they're developing a great new RTS and it's amazing and fun but it's just not quite ready for them to actually show us anything yet. feelsbad. it happened again.
Yep. :-(
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EPT
