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Jeremy Reimer
Canada1158 Posts
On April 01 2026 18:45 CicadaSC wrote: what about tim campbell? is he still with frost giant? I remember hearing months ago iirc he was like overseeing gobsmack community updates no? He's now the development advisor for Defcon Zero, a new indie RTS in development. | ||
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Jeremy Reimer
Canada1158 Posts
On April 01 2026 15:47 CicadaSC wrote: is there a chance this is an april fools joke? Check the date. Technically they announced it on March 31st. Multiple people have confirmed since then that it is not an April Fool's joke. And if it's not... why announce it on this date? And where is Tim Morten? Why hasn't he said anything if the servers are shutting down? They probably wanted to put off the announcement as long as possible. Hathora shutting down was announced to the public on March 4th. Tim Morten is probably too busy rock climbing to say anything. | ||
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ChillFlame
270 Posts
Not a software engineer myself, so I don't have any expertise, but it doesn't sound like a trivial task. | ||
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sophisticated
61 Posts
On April 01 2026 07:07 townhouse wrote: they stay in sync due to integer math being deterministic (so using fixed-point arithmetic instead of floating point), and careful coding. Nitpicky, but I'm quite sure that floating point operations, while being inherently imprecise and unable to accurately represent many values not in base-2 (e.g. most decimals humans will want to calculate with), are deterministic. Adding 0.1 and 0.2 together (or rather, a given floating point representation) does result in something like 0.3000000000001, but it will always do that. It won't suddenly return 0.299999999999 (on a given processor model/architecture; but that would get us into questions of consistency between platforms, not whether it's deterministic) | ||
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townhouse
United States39 Posts
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Jeremy Reimer
Canada1158 Posts
On April 02 2026 15:02 ChillFlame wrote: Wouldn't they need some skilled software engineers with understanding of UE5 and Snowplay to add P2P support? Not a software engineer myself, so I don't have any expertise, but it doesn't sound like a trivial task. Frost Giant only ever had one server engineer, Austin Hudelson. He was the one who posted this on March 31 in Discord: On March 31 2026 Austin Hudelson wrote: So im probably going to regret chiming in here... afaik the future is still uncertain for the live service... But yeah want to add the context that near term dev cycles are more focused on p2p support than figuring out another server provider yes, its all on the client... current vision I think would be custom games section allows you to invite/join/map-download using steam p2p Ive said too much already lol, Ill say its not unrealistic. The game servers are not doing any of the heavy lifting So, I'm not going to argue with a server engineer who formerly worked at Blizzard. But I don't think this is a trivial undertaking that you could bang out over a weekend with a single volunteer engineer. And I think that's why he said "afaik the future is still uncertain for the live service", and why the announcement said specifically "We hope to restore online play in a future patch, but this work will be dependent on Frost Giant finding a partner to support ongoing operations." These are the only two former Frost Giant employees to say anything related to the upcoming server shutdown, and they both seem to agree that doing this work is dependent on Tim Morten finding his magical "partner" to throw $5 million at him, an outcome that seems less and less likely as the months drag on. But even if I'm wrong and this can all be achieved with volunteer effort, the "vision" here seems to be simply throwing out things like matchmaking, leaderboards, and so forth, which are not provided by Steam P2P services. Instead, players would have to invite other Steam users to custom matches. I suppose that wouldn't be too different to the Stormgate experience today, where you have to go on Discord to ask people to log in so that you can actually find a match. At least it would preserve the online game experience indefinitely. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17543 Posts
August 5th 2025, March 31, 1998, historical dates remembered forever! It is a cryin' shame we won't have more of these moments. The 'search for Spock' style quest for investor cash has been the most awesome blind alley in the history of blind alleys. | ||
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crablogic
18 Posts
On April 05 2026 09:25 JimmyJRaynor wrote: This is one of the greatest video game interviews ever...in the history of anything. Nolan Bushnell, Shigeru Miyamoto, Jerry Lawson move over. https://youtu.be/JW0qql8y5aM?si=j85NNzN9cUMAsO August 5th 2025, March 31, 1998, historical dates remembered forever! It is a cryin' shame we won't have more of these moments. The 'search for Spock' style quest for investor cash has been the most awesome blind alley in the history of blind alleys. Your tone is a little sarcastic but I think you're being serious, and I agree. This may have been Tim C's last day of actual work at Frost Giant. He had to sell a completely false narrative about the game and he did it perfectly. He should just show any future employer this video instead of a resume. Also, poor BeoMulf from this point on did more to promote StormGate than every paid FG employee put together. | ||
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iPlaY.NettleS
Australia4420 Posts
https://www.reddit.com/r/Stormgate/comments/1sewn49/game_director_and_president_tim_campbell_left_and/ ![[image loading]](https://i.redd.it/i5ug9md7xrtg1.jpeg) | ||
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ChillFlame
270 Posts
On April 08 2026 08:16 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: Saw this on Reddit apparently Tim Campbell left Frost Giant in January to go to CD Projekt red, also lecturing at University since same time. https://www.reddit.com/r/Stormgate/comments/1sewn49/game_director_and_president_tim_campbell_left_and/ Tim2 working in CDPR is a symptom of the company's downfall. After the stunt they pulled with CP77, it can't be more natural for them than to get more scam artists like Tim2. They are already at disfunctional corporate stage, so I don't think Tim2 would make it any worse. | ||
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Jeremy Reimer
Canada1158 Posts
But Tim Morten really wanted to keep maintaining the fiction for as long as possible. So much so that even his co-founder Tim C. had to pretend to still be working there until April, before he could finally backdate his resignation to something slightly more believable. Meanwhile, Tim M. is still out rock climbing or something, because he hasn't posted on LinkedIn for a whole month. | ||
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Gescom
Canada3511 Posts
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CicadaSC
United States1922 Posts
On April 08 2026 11:15 Jeremy Reimer wrote: Meanwhile, Tim M. is still out rock climbing or something, because he hasn't posted on LinkedIn for a whole month. Not sure if you heard but he and Frost Giant are making a 2nd game. There was an interview like a month ago where he revealed that so he's probably conceptualizing and coming up with an idea to present to investors atm. Maybe even developing a prototype with the engine he's already got made. | ||
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Jeremy Reimer
Canada1158 Posts
On April 09 2026 08:01 CicadaSC wrote: Not sure if you heard but he and Frost Giant are making a 2nd game. There was an interview like a month ago where he revealed that so he's probably conceptualizing and coming up with an idea to present to investors atm. Maybe even developing a prototype with the engine he's already got made. Tim has been talking about this mythical "second game" for months. Basically ever since the Stormgate launch failed last August. Every time he talks about it, he reveals that he hasn't actually received any investment money. The most recent time was a few weeks ago with that YouTube video, the one with the guy who had like 67 subscribers. Over on LinkedIn, he spent months begging for literally anyone who could give him $5 million to make a new RTS. How long is he going to be "looking" for investors? Surely he's exhausted all possibilities by now. There's also the $2 million elephant in the room. Anyone who funds the entity known as "Frost Giant" with a $5 million investment will immediately see $2 million of that vanish, due to the loan to Silicon Valley bank that has to be repaid in full by mid-2027. Why on earth would anyone give Tim Morten $5 million just so they can immediately lose 40% of their investment? | ||
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ChillFlame
270 Posts
But some people are like mythical creatures for me. Like elves, or Poles, or Gypsies. I know some people don't have the inner voice. Or ability to picture and rotate 3D objects in the head. It must be the same with the critical thinking. We've got enough info on Tim's career. Shitty PSP ports, shitty mech game, CnC 2, Stormgate. It's not hard to extrapolate the data we have to Tim's new game (or deduct). If you have a donkey that only produces shit every day for 10 years, you are safe to say it would not produce chocolate cake tomorrow. | ||
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kAra
Germany1425 Posts
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17543 Posts
On April 09 2026 12:35 ChillFlame wrote: It might sound disrespectful (I don't intend it to be). But some people are like mythical creatures for me. Like elves, or Poles, or Gypsies. I know some people don't have the inner voice. Or ability to picture and rotate 3D objects in the head. It must be the same with the critical thinking. We've got enough info on Tim's career. Shitty PSP ports, shitty mech game, CnC 2, Stormgate. It's not hard to extrapolate the data we have to Tim's new game (or deduct). If you have a donkey that only produces shit every day for 10 years, you are safe to say it would not produce chocolate cake tomorrow. Tim was a big part of the C&C Live Service game. Every combatant move, position and every projectile would be played out on the server and the clients would merely render the end result. Any one with a small amount of network experience with an authoritative server model knows this can't work. This didn't stop Tim from milking a Titanic ship doomed to slowly sink for 4 years. I prefer the Hindenburg imagery on the cover of Led Zeppelin's first album. Morten is incredible at making excuses. His whole look and presentation are pure genius. I have a guy similar to him at my shop ; when I completely fuck something into the ground I send him in as my first line of defense. Excuse making and blame shifting are key parts of any custom software shop. | ||
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Jeremy Reimer
Canada1158 Posts
On April 09 2026 12:35 ChillFlame wrote: It might sound disrespectful (I don't intend it to be). But some people are like mythical creatures for me. Like elves, or Poles, or Gypsies. I know some people don't have the inner voice. Or ability to picture and rotate 3D objects in the head. It must be the same with the critical thinking. We've got enough info on Tim's career. Shitty PSP ports, shitty mech game, CnC 2, Stormgate. It's not hard to extrapolate the data we have to Tim's new game (or deduct). If you have a donkey that only produces shit every day for 10 years, you are safe to say it would not produce chocolate cake tomorrow. This is a really good video that goes over Tim Morten's long and "illustrious" career: Clearly he's a bad manager, bad at estimating, bad at designing, and he never got any better at any of those things. The only time he really shone was when it came time to raise money for Frost Giant... during a unique period in history where venture capital firms were throwing money at gaming startups. | ||
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Jeremy Reimer
Canada1158 Posts
On April 10, 2026, Tim Morten said on LinkedIn: It's been a minute since I posted an update, so for those following along, here are some tidbits: - I gave birth to another healthy 3mm kidney stone; it was every bit as fun as the last one -- they grow up so fast! - You may have already seen the coverage, but with Stormgate's game server partner exiting the space (purchased by an AI company), online play will be interrupted at the end of April; single player modes will continue to work, and various paths forward for online are being explored - Frost Giant's future path as a whole remains uncertain; partnership conversations continue, and I hope to have better clarity soon - If you aren't paying attention to what's happening with AI-driven development inside giants like Meta right now, you should be: software development is fundamentally changing - Between geopolitics and potential AI impact on jobs, recession risk feels elevated: reduced disposable income would hurt games, I hope the economy continues to show resilience - I'll make a separate post next week, but I'm so hyped for my friends at Night Street Games who will be releasing Last Flag next Tuesday!!! Nothing new on any front, partnership "conversations" are continuing to continue eternally. The bit about AI at Facebook is missing a crucial piece of information unveiled by people like Ed Zitron. Facebook employees are now incentivized to burn as many AI coding tokens as possible right now (there is even an internal leaderboard!) regardless of any actual value derived from doing so. Predictably, people are writing infinite loops to query Claude over and over just so they can sit on top of the leaderboard, often to the tunes of millions of dollars per month. Why would Facebook management burn money so recklessly? Because if they do this, it causes idiots like Tim Morten to think that AI is really changing the world in an incredible way. Then the executives at companies like Facebook who claim to be developing their own AI will reap the rewards of a surging stock price. Of course nothing bad could come from overinflating a bubble out of sheer greed and counting on the general public's stupidity to feed it forever. No. That's never happened in history before. | ||
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iPlaY.NettleS
Australia4420 Posts
He's right that people have less money to spend on games but honestly there are too many games coming out anyway. Hopefully it doesn't just devolve into mass producing games with AI for as cheap as possible creating even more of a glut of stuff that isn't worth playing. | ||
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