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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17707 Posts
![[image loading]](https://i.imgur.com/5RL5zDo.png) On December 10 2023 02:43 Nirli wrote: Imagine them launching the Kickstarter after all these events. Whew. _Spartak_ on suicide watch. Hey, at least they are trying! Check out all the great games Rob Pardo's Bonfire Studios has produced in the last 8 years. Here.. I'll list them: | ||
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Antithesis
Germany1256 Posts
The game looks incredibly generic, vanilla, and derivative. I do not see any innovative and truly captivating new ideas, units, or mechanisms. If I were to tell a friend about this game, I could not say more than, "Well, it's a sort of hybrid of W3 and SC2, both in outline and in design." Many units of StormGate are minor variations of their counterparts in W3 and SC2. And I also do not see any remarkable features in the UI which would render it a substantial improvement over SC2. To me it seems as if there has never been a clear and original vision behind StormGate except to make it "the next big RTS". Even the theme of the game – space marines in the woods – seems like an uninspired combination of SC2 and W3. I hope Frost Giant will prove me wrong. | ||
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pebble444
Italy2503 Posts
And WoW was the distant parent. I guess broodwar would be here the angry great grandpa complaining about back in my day kinda thing. It’ s a game alright, graphics tactics and rts all right. End of the day they are delivering what they have promised, an rts, modern, with new things? It just does not feel like playing a game but more like doing “pleasant” chores | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17707 Posts
On December 10 2023 04:17 Antithesis wrote: To me it seems as if there has never been a clear and original vision behind StormGate except to make it "the next big RTS". Even the theme of the game – space marines in the woods – seems like an uninspired combination of SC2 and W3. I hope Frost Giant will prove me wrong. This theme occurred with the game development project Morten ran before entering Blizzard. C&C Generals 2 was all over the map. Eventually, it was just cancelled. Morten then joined Blizzard in more of a middle management role. We could be seeing the Peter Principle in action guys. | ||
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teapot_
39 Posts
We could be seeing the Peter Principle in action guys. I don't think it's necessary to put all of the game behind one single person. A game is a creative piece of work and we can't expect any lone creator to deliver only masterpieces, let alone a team of ppl. That's even worse when it comes to multiplayer games where the dynamics are more out of control of the dev team. It's like asking someone to create the next "viral video" in the good old days. Sure, there are ways to influence that, and I think they've been mostly successful on that front. The kickstarter proves that they've managed to create some hype around the game and it's no small feat in itself. On the technical side, the streams have shown some technical issues, but that got better. The overall quality basics are there too. It's clear that the team can deliver good work. If anything, that shows the CEO in a great light so far. Now, whether it's going to be a 'good' game is still unclear. For one, I'm pretty excited to see many new mechanics (even if they are not totally groundbreaking) and I'd love to experiment with the game to try new builds and strats -- in short,have fun. I have no clue if it's going to be successful as an 'e-sport', though. It's way too early to tell imo. | ||
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Zealgoon
China188 Posts
One thing that I found very worrisome is the development speed of this game. It's supposed to enter open beta summer 2023, but 2023 is almost over and the game doesn't look anywhere close to being ready. I heard one of the streamers saying it's now aiming to enter early access july 2024 but I'm skeptical about even that, especially if they're trying to add a 4th race. As much as I'm annoyed at Stormgate's glacial development, I think the worst FG could do is to rush out an incomplete release. I mean the current beta is still little more than a glorified tech demo. And it wouldn't matter if they called it an early access or open beta or whatever fancy word they chose, if on public launch the game was still missing entire tech trees FG would get roasted, and the game would die. On another topic, I agree that Stormgate looks incredibly bland and uninspired but I think that's not nearly as much an issue as people make it out to be. Dota 2 and Leagues are some of the most successful esports and look like absolute garbage. WC3 was also unbelievably bland and hideous but still got a lot of endorsement, including on TL. Lack of visual clarity is a real problem however and I hope FG can address it. | ||
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End1ess
Canada77 Posts
On December 10 2023 06:23 teapot_ wrote: I don't think it's necessary to put all of the game behind one single person. A game is a creative piece of work and we can't expect any lone creator to deliver only masterpieces, let alone a team of ppl. That's even worse when it comes to multiplayer games where the dynamics are more out of control of the dev team. It's like asking someone to create the next "viral video" in the good old days. If not all, it's most of it. Which way the ship turns it's up to the captain. Looking at Tim Morten he never create anything original. This exactly how this game is turning out, piggyback off SC2 and WC3. Morten can make great game as what he can do with SC2 and C&C2 but leak of outside the box. It can still success but not the next big game. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9447 Posts
On December 10 2023 04:17 Antithesis wrote: The game looks incredibly generic, vanilla, and derivative. I do not see any innovative and truly captivating new ideas, units, or mechanisms. If I were to tell a friend about this game, I could not say more than, "Well, it's a sort of hybrid of W3 and SC2, both in outline and in design." Many units of StormGate are minor variations of their counterparts in W3 and SC2. And I also do not see any remarkable features in the UI which would render it a substantial improvement over SC2. . I've been going with the same comparison but feedback I got was "but Heroes were part of Wc3. Why remove them if it's a mix between Wc3 and Sc2?" For me the best part of Sc2 (relative to other RTS) is the responsiveness, unit movement speed and multitasking. Frostgiant seems to have significantly less of this. The graphics and visuals are not the best - but at it can and likely will be improved. What I worry about though is that they in their attempt to make the game easier to play they also took away the parts of the gameplay that makes the game exciting. I would be more excited if they tried to do a Wc3/hero-centric RTS with a modern responsive engine - that might atleast be somewhat innovative. | ||
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Swisslink
2956 Posts
On December 10 2023 02:43 Nirli wrote: Imagine them launching the Kickstarter after all these events. Whew. _Spartak_ on suicide watch. I don't really know what you mean. The kickstarter project got boosted a lot after the events started. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland27228 Posts
On December 10 2023 14:19 AxiomB wrote: Like I said, BW does not look amazing, but its game play is spot on, Stormgate's gameplay (right now at least) does not have the well thought out in depth layering like BW or SC2 has. Also SC2 looks incredible and important aspects of it affect gameplay (unit size, unit attack animation, Aoe size, FF size etc...). RTS more than most genres only gets all that depth with thorough exploration, it’s difficult to assess this far out. IMO anyway, plus it’s difficult to get a feel having not played it. Visuals and sound though do feel a bit bland, at least now. Again though I guess you start making associations a lot easier if you play a few games versus watching mostly pro players who play rather quickly. From what I’ve seen anyway. Distinctiveness for me trumps graphical fidelity by a large distance, it’s absolutely crucial, otherwise engagements end up lookin like multiple blobs of ‘stuff’ going at it. Blizz have always been great at that, both graphically but also in sound design, which IMO is an overlooked area of why BW is so good. Units have a real feel to them and really all feel very different from what one another. From the music, the voices and the user responses, down to effects. The pounding of siege tank fire, the crack of a scarab hit, the ‘zoomp’ of that dreaded DT’s blade, or the frenzied beeping of a Dragoon exploding into a shell of blue goo. I can have BW playing in the background and still vaguely know what’s going on just from various noises, which IMO isn’t something you can say about most RTS titles I do think there comes a point where setting the bar at BW, which was real lightning in a bottle, but also was a new experience for a much younger me, is a little high! I’m still cautiously optimistic that they can hit my expectations, which is something that’s not a StarCraft/WC3 killer, but something that scratches that itch for folks burnt out from decades of those games and is ‘good enough’ to do that. But I do think negative feedback in this domain is on the mark too, hopefully given how early things have been shown will give time for the requisite tweaks. Hell I don’t even mind many of the models and even some more variation in sizing would be a step in the right direction even before any actual design changes | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17707 Posts
On December 10 2023 06:23 teapot_ wrote: I don't think it's necessary to put all of the game behind one single person. A game is a creative piece of work and we can't expect any lone creator to deliver only masterpieces, let alone a team of ppl. The specific observation I am making is an issue that is under the purview of the top leader. Namely, the over all defining vision of the game. In this case, Tim Morten was a top leader for C&C Gens 2 and he is now the #1 guy at Frost Giant. C&C Gens2 was "all over the place" during its 4 years of development. Many in this forum observe Stormgate as "all over the place with no defining vision". From a positive viewpoint: Stormgate is in a better spot than C&C:Gens2 ever was. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9447 Posts
On December 11 2023 03:26 JimmyJRaynor wrote: The specific observation I am making is an issue that is under the purview of the top leader. Namely, the over all defining vision of the game. In this case, Tim Morten was a top leader for C&C Gens 2 and he is now the #1 guy at Frost Giant. C&C Gens2 was "all over the place" during its 4 years of development. Many in this forum observe Stormgate as "all over the place with no defining vision". From a positive viewpoint: Stormgate is in a better spot than C&C:Gens2 ever was. By vision for the game, how specific do you think that is? I was under the impression that he wasn't really responsible for micro interactions for instance or exactly how the game is played out. But more like "we make F2P game, contains campaign, co-op etc". On another note, sometimes I do miss myself a bit of Dustin Browder. Now, I don't think Dustin Browder was a great game-designer, and it was clear he didn't get competitive RTS design at all when he joined blizzard. However, he was creative and wanted to take chances and try out stuff - we could see that with HOTS as well. | ||
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AxiomB
69 Posts
On December 10 2023 20:39 WombaT wrote: From the other thread: RTS more than most genres only gets all that depth with thorough exploration, it’s difficult to assess this far out. IMO anyway, plus it’s difficult to get a feel having not played it. Visuals and sound though do feel a bit bland, at least now. Again though I guess you start making associations a lot easier if you play a few games versus watching mostly pro players who play rather quickly. From what I’ve seen anyway. Distinctiveness for me trumps graphical fidelity by a large distance, it’s absolutely crucial, otherwise engagements end up lookin like multiple blobs of ‘stuff’ going at it. Blizz have always been great at that, both graphically but also in sound design, which IMO is an overlooked area of why BW is so good. Units have a real feel to them and really all feel very different from what one another. Very well put Wombat <3 From the music, the voices and the user responses, down to effects. The pounding of siege tank fire, the crack of a scarab hit, the ‘zoomp’ of that dreaded DT’s blade, or the frenzied beeping of a Dragoon exploding into a shell of blue goo. I can have BW playing in the background and still vaguely know what’s going on just from various noises, which IMO isn’t something you can say about most RTS titles I do think there comes a point where setting the bar at BW, which was real lightning in a bottle, but also was a new experience for a much younger me, is a little high! I’m still cautiously optimistic that they can hit my expectations, which is something that’s not a StarCraft/WC3 killer, but something that scratches that itch for folks burnt out from decades of those games and is ‘good enough’ to do that. But I do think negative feedback in this domain is on the mark too, hopefully given how early things have been shown will give time for the requisite tweaks. Hell I don’t even mind many of the models and even some more variation in sizing would be a step in the right direction even before any actual design changes Very well put Wombat! <3 | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17707 Posts
On December 11 2023 04:06 Hider wrote: By vision for the game, how specific do you think that is? check out the Antithesis post to which i replied. that is the scale i'm referencing. C&C Gens2 had the same issue at the same scale. On December 11 2023 04:06 Hider wrote: On another note, sometimes I do miss myself a bit of Dustin Browder. Now, I don't think Dustin Browder was a great game-designer, and it was clear he didn't get competitive RTS design at all when he joined blizzard. However, he was creative and wanted to take chances and try out stuff - we could see that with HOTS as well. Browder was the designer of RA2 and SC2. Two of the best RTS games of all time. IMO, Browder is a damn genius. We were very lucky to have him designing SC2. Regarding competitive RTS design: I don't know if David Kim is genius level... its hard to say.. but he is at minimum really damn good. For SC1:Brood War and WC3, that was Rob Pardo. In my view he was the best game designer on planet earth for at least a decade. The Frost Giant team has an extremely difficult task ahead of them. Creating a worthy successor to C&C, SC, and WC will be tough. | ||
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Hider
Denmark9447 Posts
Browder didn't understand understand the finer details of RTS game-design and balance and has stated as well in interviews. However, he has ideas and visions, and RTS todays need more of "wouldn't it be cool if we could do this". To the contrary Monk unquestionably understands a lot more about RTS balance and design - but a lot of topics such as "make action faster by speeding up early game" or small QoL improvements - in the grand scheme of things, they don't matter that much. You need the Dustin Browder mentality to shake things up, experiment with ambitious and creative ideas.. As an example - one area where I think all RTS game studios get stuck on the same old thinking is races. Game developers realize diversity is good so they try and solve this by adding diverse races. But an issue with diverse races is that it makes it very hard for other players to switch races due to learning cost and thus you miss out on some parts of the gameplay. I need a game-studio to experiment with an alternative approach where players players don't precommit to a race and instead is able to select from mutually exclusive units as the game progresses. I don't know exactly how it would work, but I think there is potential and the game would look a lot different from anything else. In contrast, it appears Immortals Gates of Pyre, Stormgate and Zerospace barely offer any innovations and all seems to fall into this watered down sc2-wc3 hybrid. If Dustin Browder was the team-lead the game very well might have had many flaws but it would have contained noticeable innovations in some areas. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland27228 Posts
On December 11 2023 09:16 Hider wrote: Browder thoughts Steppes of War was good map because small map creates more action.Sc2 WOL was in hindsight a very flawed multiplayer game. Browder didn't understand understand the finer details of RTS game-design and balance and has stated as well in interviews. However, he has ideas and visions, and RTS todays need more of "wouldn't it be cool if we could do this". To the contrary Monk unquestionably understands a lot more about RTS balance and design - but a lot of topics such as "make action faster by speeding up early game" or small QoL improvements - in the grand scheme of things, they don't matter that much. You need the Dustin Browder mentality to shake things up, experiment with ambitious and creative ideas.. As an example - one area where I think all RTS game studios get stuck on the same old thinking is races. Game developers realize diversity is good so they try and solve this by adding diverse races. But an issue with diverse races is that it makes it very hard for other players to switch races due to learning cost and thus you miss out on some parts of the gameplay. I need a game-studio to experiment with an alternative approach where players players don't precommit to a race and instead is able to select from mutually exclusive units as the game progresses. I don't know exactly how it would work, but I think there is potential and the game would look a lot different from anything else. In contrast, it appears Immortals Gates of Pyre, Stormgate and Zerospace barely offer any innovations and all seems to fall into this watered down sc2-wc3 hybrid. If Dustin Browder was the team-lead the game very well might have had many flaws but it would have contained noticeable innovations in some areas. I think there’s a problem in visibility/clarity, plus additional balance work required in implementing something like that. But hell I did enjoy the 3 different approaches to customising your armies each individual campaign did, I’d be interested to see some experimentation in this domain. You’d add an extra layer of customisation and play style, say pick a loadout that’s lightning quick skirmishing. Like having a high-precision glass cannon army with devastating firepower, or playing a defensive, attritional ‘mech’ style, well make a few tweaks. For a multiplayer-focused game I really think you have to do customisation in a commital way, and via units rather than upgrades. I think it would be a nightmare if you had singular units with completely different attributes. You need to be able to do the mental calculus of ‘should I engage here’ and you can’t really do that with ‘is that unit x the high DPS one and is unit y the tanky one or the speedy variant’ AIs can do that calculus in a single player experience, but that would just end up messy as fuck I think for humans to manage if customisation is done by upgrades or spells or whatever, or having multiple skins for different units. But you could pretty easily parse ‘oh this guy chose reavers eh?’ I’m spitballing a bit, I’m not even sure it’s something I’d want in Stormgate but I’d love to see someone try new mechanics. I think part of why people love skins so much is just that little bit of personality and identity you can add, but too much variance affects the visibility which is so crucial in playing an RTS. Perhaps customising your armies would scratch that kind of itch? | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17707 Posts
This guy is a game design genius... and what is he doing? writing books.  https://www.daglowslaws.com/don-daglow-bio.html On December 11 2023 09:16 Hider wrote: Browder thoughts Steppes of War was good map because small map creates more action.Sc2 WOL was in hindsight a very flawed multiplayer game. ... Browder didn't understand understand the finer details of RTS game-design and balance and has stated as well in interviews. However, he has ideas and visions, and RTS todays need more of "wouldn't it be cool if we could do this". let's see the interview? Steppes of War was a worthy experiment that failed. Its just a map. You rotate it out of the map pool. I think RA2 and SC2:WoL's multiplayer were excellent. And, I think Browder selected a good multiplayer team around him. Browder did so much and had so much responsibility that his mistakes were visible. The great thing about doing nothing is that you can do it perfectly.  Pardo put Browder in his spot and Pardo knows how to find and nurture great talent. On December 11 2023 09:16 Hider wrote: To the contrary Monk unquestionably understands a lot more about RTS balance and design - but a lot of topics such as "make action faster by speeding up early game" or small QoL improvements - in the grand scheme of things, they don't matter that much. You need the Dustin Browder mentality to shake things up, experiment with ambitious and creative ideas.. Monk has been really good. I'm interested to see what he can do in Stormgate. IMO, The last few years of SC2 multiplayer were brilliant. Whatever extent Monk was involved... damn it was really damn good. SC2:LotV became much more C&C "fast and fluid"... which was a great move. The microscopic moves in that direction were managed very very well. On December 11 2023 09:16 Hider wrote: But an issue with diverse races is that it makes it very hard for other players to switch races due to learning cost and thus you miss out on some parts of the gameplay. I need a game-studio to experiment with an alternative approach where players players don't precommit to a race and instead is able to select from mutually exclusive units as the game progresses. I don't know exactly how it would work, but I think there is potential and the game would look a lot different from anything else. C&C3: Kane's Wrath perhaps? | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland27228 Posts
On December 11 2023 10:06 JimmyJRaynor wrote: My biggest concern is that the absolute smartest game designers are not designing RTS games because it pays a fraction of what they can make in other genres. This guy is a game design genius... and what is he doing? writing books. https://www.daglowslaws.com/don-daglow-bio.html let's see the interview? Steppes of War was a worthy experiment that failed. Its just a map. You rotate it out of the map pool. I think RA2 and SC2:WoL's multiplayer were excellent. And, I think Browder selected a good multiplayer team around him. Browder did so much and had so much responsibility that his mistakes were visible. The great thing about doing nothing is that you can do it perfectly. Pardo put Browder in his spot and Pardo knows how to find and nurture great talent. Monk has been really good. I'm interested to see what he can do in Stormgate. IMO, The last few years of SC2 multiplayer were brilliant. Whatever extent Monk was involved... damn it was really damn good. SC2:LotV became much more C&C "fast and fluid"... which was a great move. The microscopic moves in that direction were managed very very well. C&C3: Kane's Wrath perhaps? Browder presided over a game that was still great IMO but not especially experimental or innovative, and what was a bit more experimental were the biggest factors in impeding development down the line. Warp hate caused no end of issues being implemented as it was, to take a big one. I think they delivered an excellent sequel but I wouldn’t say it was particularly bold or experimental really | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17707 Posts
For the first time, every competitive RTS game took place on teh game makers servers. This gives the game maker absolute 100% control over the games. This gave Blizzard a leg to stand on in its ongoing turf war with the korean esports promoters. Should ATVI have been in the turf war to at all? Whatever your answer... it was outside of Browder's job description. Lots got done. Almost the entire C&C community quit C&C and started playing SC2. It was a massive leap forward from both WC3 and Red Alert 3 of 2008. Even the most skeptical and loyal C&C-ers were saying " this is unbelievable ". I was a bit disliked in the C&C community for my loyalty to Starcraft. Two weeks after SC2 came out they all said to me "wow, ya, i get it now". my reply "red alert 3 is dead isn't it? it was dead in April boys." | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland27228 Posts
SC had pauses with voice acting filling in story gaps, WC3 stepped it again with going 3D and having directed in-engine cutscenes. SC2 stepped it up a notch in that area again. And you see that in many different areas. Innovative though? Idk what others think, Blizzard, at least historically for me were polishing and packaging what others tried to do, and doing it better than reinventing many wheels. WC3 in terms of game mechanics was their properly innovative RTS for my money, heroes, creeping, upkeep, all with the traditional Blizzard polish. It’s not even a criticism of SC2, I’d rather play an excellently made sequel that doesn’t deviate a crazy amount than something experimental but flawed and janky | ||
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