On September 23 2023 02:10 RogerChillingworth wrote: A global ladder queue would also mean a global social interface, no? In previous blizz games you could only interact with people on your server. Now everyone will be together. This would be the real advantage for me.
The completely separate servers always struck me as something Blizz kept doing because at one point it made a lot of sense to do.
The more social the game is, the more players there are floating around, the better IMO. Having the actual client be as much of a central hub as possible certainly appeals to me.
Provided there’s certain parameters one can choose as Nony laid out already.
Not sure if people have caught this yet but SC Historian did a nice interview with Cara LaForge. She touches on some pretty big stuff in the latter Stormgate section. Timecoded bit here:
It seems that Frost Giant is hoping the community supports the game in early access and helps to spread the word. Then over the next couple of years they intend to build out additional features—one presumably being the editor. I wonder when this early access will be. Maybe next Christmas (2024)?
Cara does use the past tense when she says "we wanted to have everything, we were trying to build a 100 million dollar game with 35 million", but I assume that means until they get additional funds. It's hard to know how things are going from the outside. Wouldn't mind getting in a bit early and giving some feedback tho...AAHHHEM. Sorry, a little congested today.
On September 25 2023 04:50 RogerChillingworth wrote: Cara does use the past tense when she says "we wanted to have everything, we were trying to build a 100 million dollar game with 35 million", but I assume that means until they get additional funds. It's hard to know how things are going from the outside. Wouldn't mind getting in a bit early and giving some feedback tho...AAHHHEM. Sorry, a little congested today.
Something I have expressed a couple of times is people reeling in their expectations and understanding this is an indie game. This is something both users and developers need to do when working on a project. They can't do it all and I don't want them to try to because they'll fail to deliver if they do. I hope they didn't waste too much time and resources trying to build everything all at once and realized the scope they could deliver very early on in development. I personally would prefer they initially focus on vs multiplayer, coop mode, and, if they have the resources, a campaign. A community map editor and playable community-made game modes should come after they've delivered a high-quality core experience. If the game is good, the community will stick around and they'll use those tools when they get released down the line. Focus on making a fun game people want to play for the long term first.
I make a lot of jokes about not being in the alpha but my computer's a 7 year-old toaster and probably couldn't even run the game.
But yeah I wouldn't be surprised if the editor is pushed a bit in priority. As they've said, they're using it to build the game so naturally it will come around for users a little later. Co-op fudges the math but I would still say the majority of players will end up being attracted to custom games. If there's an actual ecosystem for this stuff, it should be the oxygen that sustains players for years and one of the unique attractions of Stormgate over other RTS. So many RTS being made now after 13 years of nothing. Unless FG comes out at some point and says sorry folks, no editor, it's a bit of an ace up the sleeve.
That said, very excited about the other modes and the stuff they're currently working on so i'm more than happy to wait on additional features.
On September 25 2023 04:50 RogerChillingworth wrote: Cara does use the past tense when she says "we wanted to have everything, we were trying to build a 100 million dollar game with 35 million", but I assume that means until they get additional funds. It's hard to know how things are going from the outside. Wouldn't mind getting in a bit early and giving some feedback tho...AAHHHEM. Sorry, a little congested today.
Something I have expressed a couple of times is people reeling in their expectations and understanding this is an indie game. This is something both users and developers need to do when working on a project. They can't do it all and I don't want them to try to because they'll fail to deliver if they do. I hope they didn't waste too much time and resources trying to build everything all at once and realized the scope they could deliver very early on in development. I personally would prefer they initially focus on vs multiplayer, coop mode, and, if they have the resources, a campaign. A community map editor and playable community-made game modes should come after they've delivered a high-quality core experience. If the game is good, the community will stick around and they'll use those tools when they get released down the line. Focus on making a fun game people want to play for the long term first.
Generally I would agree but when your whole monetizing system is centered around campaign and coop, this is just not feasible. Also a lot of people are burned already with promises of "this part of content comes later". Most recent example is OW2
sign up on their website, pay close attention to the newsletter. They had this optional form you could fill out earlier which increased your chances of receiving an invite.
On September 25 2023 04:50 RogerChillingworth wrote: Cara does use the past tense when she says "we wanted to have everything, we were trying to build a 100 million dollar game with 35 million", but I assume that means until they get additional funds. It's hard to know how things are going from the outside. Wouldn't mind getting in a bit early and giving some feedback tho...AAHHHEM. Sorry, a little congested today.
Something I have expressed a couple of times is people reeling in their expectations and understanding this is an indie game. This is something both users and developers need to do when working on a project. They can't do it all and I don't want them to try to because they'll fail to deliver if they do. I hope they didn't waste too much time and resources trying to build everything all at once and realized the scope they could deliver very early on in development. I personally would prefer they initially focus on vs multiplayer, coop mode, and, if they have the resources, a campaign. A community map editor and playable community-made game modes should come after they've delivered a high-quality core experience. If the game is good, the community will stick around and they'll use those tools when they get released down the line. Focus on making a fun game people want to play for the long term first.
Generally I would agree but when your whole monetizing system is centered around campaign and coop, this is just not feasible. Also a lot of people are burned already with promises of "this part of content comes later". Most recent example is OW2
Unit skins, building skins, voice packs, UI skins, coop commanders, campaign missions, etc. That's plenty of monetization. Skins themselves have shown to be a ridiculously lucrative way to monetize video games. Also, I don't see how also burning money on a community map maker, eSports scene support, and user-created game modes will make them any money when those features are free to use. They are an indie studio and they need to develop like one. You can't throw every feature in and expect things to work because they don't have 100s of millions of dollars backing their project no matter what. I honestly think it was a mistake for them to announce as many things as they did in the first place. They have set themselves up for failure by potentially overpromising features they might not be able to deliver on their budget and team size. If they can pull it off and deliver all of these features at a high level on release then it'll be an amazing game but that interview shows they already understand they've overextended themselves and have to dial it back in some less essential areas.
sign up on their website, pay close attention to the newsletter. They had this optional form you could fill out earlier which increased your chances of receiving an invite.
Monetization with skins, voice packs, and so on only works for games with huge player numbers. The problem is that they market 1v1 as the main aspect of the game, but only make money with co-op and single-player. Either they have so much investor money that they don't need anymore, or they will be forced to focus on the parts that actually make money.
After seeing the trailer, I think that story-telling probably isn't a core strength of the Frost Giant team. Maybe they should build an amazing co-op game with that new engine first. Once that is successful, they can introduce a solo ladder with independent balancing, e-sports, and so on.
On September 26 2023 23:34 Hildegard wrote: Monetization with skins, voice packs, and so on only works for games with huge player numbers.
Path of Exile didn't have a huge playerbase when they started and I would say they still don't. It can work
tbf poe is much much bigger than sc2. sc2 is TINY. I just googled it and its played by 50 million users. 20 million active players in the last 30 days. https://activeplayer.io/path-of-exile/
On September 26 2023 23:34 Hildegard wrote: Monetization with skins, voice packs, and so on only works for games with huge player numbers.
Path of Exile didn't have a huge playerbase when they started and I would say they still don't. It can work
tbf poe is much much bigger than sc2. sc2 is TINY. I just googled it and its played by 50 million users. 20 million active players in the last 30 days. https://activeplayer.io/path-of-exile/
You want to look at GGG prior to the release of Torchlight 2 and Diablo 3 and what they did to build up to that 50 million user player base of today as a roadmap to follow. They have the humble beginnings.
The claim that path of exile isn't huge only makes sense compared to more popular genres though. Clearly one of the largest arpgs on the market and have been for a long time.
On September 26 2023 23:34 Hildegard wrote: Monetization with skins, voice packs, and so on only works for games with huge player numbers.
Path of Exile didn't have a huge playerbase when they started and I would say they still don't. It can work
tbf poe is much much bigger than sc2. sc2 is TINY. I just googled it and its played by 50 million users. 20 million active players in the last 30 days. https://activeplayer.io/path-of-exile/
You want to look at GGG prior to the release of Torchlight 2 and Diablo 3 and what they did to build up to that 50 million user player base of today as a roadmap to follow. They have the humble beginnings.
I'm well aware they have humble beginnings, but the post i was replying to said they are still small, so I posted current player numbers. Why are you just knitpicking something i'm clearly not even addressing?
On September 26 2023 23:34 Hildegard wrote: Monetization with skins, voice packs, and so on only works for games with huge player numbers.
Path of Exile didn't have a huge playerbase when they started and I would say they still don't. It can work
tbf poe is much much bigger than sc2. sc2 is TINY. I just googled it and its played by 50 million users. 20 million active players in the last 30 days. https://activeplayer.io/path-of-exile/
You want to look at GGG prior to the release of Torchlight 2 and Diablo 3 and what they did to build up to that 50 million user player base of today as a roadmap to follow. They have the humble beginnings.
I'm well aware they have humble beginnings, but the post i was replying to said they are still small, so I posted current player numbers. Why are you just knitpicking something i'm clearly not even addressing?
Consider it useful information to anyone else who isn't familiar with GGG instead of a personal attack.
Path of Exile started small but had continuous organic growth, a lot from frustrated Diablo players that migrated en masse. If they hadn't had that growth, it wouldn't have worked.
The RTS scene is awesome but relatively small. It has three established games (BW, SC2, and AoE) and new competitors like ZeroSpace. Stormgate will have to be amazing to financially succeed with cosmetics. Let's hope for the best.
On September 27 2023 06:39 Hildegard wrote: Path of Exile started small but had continuous organic growth, a lot from frustrated Diablo players that migrated en masse. If they hadn't had that growth, it wouldn't have worked.
The RTS scene is awesome but relatively small. It has three established games (BW, SC2, and AoE) and new competitors like ZeroSpace. Stormgate will have to be amazing to financially succeed with cosmetics. Let's hope for the best.
Honestly the competitive pvp RTS scene seems like the dangerous market to shoot for. Even the successful ones had massive campaigns as the starting point - going straight for the 'hardcore' market feels like a mistake; I can't think of a single RTS I've been excited for the pvp over the campaign.
Case in point, series like Red Alert, Homeworld, Wc3, the other Age games being exempted from your list of RTS and being titles my 'casual gamer' friends have played extensively. I don't mean to be pedantic and shitty, but I do think any studio designing an RTS should be marketing it towards my casual gamer brothers and not me. Brood War succeeded first because of its casual gamer base, even though it's lived this long through the passions of the hardcore.
EPT
