Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread - Page 60

On December 10 2023 02:43 Nirli wrote:
Imagine them launching the Kickstarter after all these events.
Whew.
_Spartak_ on suicide watch.

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.

We could be seeing the Peter Principle in action guys.

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.

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.
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On December 10 2023 02:43 Nirli wrote:
Imagine them launching the Kickstarter after all these events.
Whew.
_Spartak_ on suicide watch.

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...).

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.

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.

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

On December 11 2023 04:06 Hider wrote:

By vision for the game, how specific do you think that is?

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.

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.

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".

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..

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.

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?