On February 25 2024 02:38 JimmyJRaynor wrote: If the single player campaign is as good as SC1 and SC2 I'll definitely buy it. Those campaigns were 30 missions long with multiple difficulty levels.
Move over JFK, Ronald Reagan, Winston CHurchill.... this speech is way better...
Interestingly, in a world and game industry that takes itself way too seriously that confederate flag in the video would have to be removed. LOL.
The campaigns are great, throw WC3 in there too! even as a semi decent multiplayer player in SC2, unless you’re cheesing some missions brutal is actually hard enough to beat too, in a fun way.
Which is a rarity in any RTS game I’ve really played. I’ve never really played any outside of SC2 brutal where being a 150/200+ APM player who gets core RTS fundamentals doesn’t make the campaigns a cakewalk for a veteran.
100% disagree on the bolded, the whole point is Acturus is a latent tyrant who rose up on positing himself as a freedom fighter, and the iconography fits. People don’t have a particularly massive aversion to a symbol if it’s placed in a ‘this is obviously fucking bad’ context. Like nobody had an issue with the revival of the Wolfenstein series because there was Nazi iconography in it.
Honestly I think they botched Acturus’ character though. He turned into a cartoonish supervillain where in SC1 he had pretty reasonable motivations, that yeah saw him do some dickish things.
I mean SC2’s campaign’s strengths are in the missions themselves and presentation, not the story itself, which really isn’t great but the rest of it is good enough that it’s still up there as a high water mark for the genre to aspire too
Since the game's announcement in 2022, I've had 2 big concerns with Stormgate: a lack of identity and feature creep.
The first concern has grown as they've released more content. I enjoy how the game feels to play but it feels like I've seen everything already. The art style so far is very bland, the coop heroes' designs and kits feel very generic, the lore, to put it nicely, seems to draw a lot of inspiration from Warcraft and Diablo, the Vanguard feel like Terran with DVA mech suits, the Infernals feel like Zerg with a Diablo skin pack, and the villain they revealed is literally named Warz.
The second concern has grown worse now that their funding situation has been made public. The devs in charge of the project are used to making AAA titles full of AAA features made with AAA budgets. I think having 1v1, 3v3, coop, a campaign, and a map editor was a huge mistake. They bit off more than they could chew. I think the best move would have been to focus on 2-3 of these (I personally would have gone with 1v1, 3v3, and coop), deliver those game modes in my MVP, and, if the project is successful enough, dedicate additional resources to deliver the other features while supporting the game with a live service model.
I hope the art style improves and that the game is successful. I want the RTS genre to see a resurgence, but I don't feel confident this is the game to do it.
I agree with your perspective on the Starcraft storyline. In SC1 The Confederates are bad people so it makes sense they rally around a symbol of an immature and weak ideology.
Unfortunately, the Confederate Flag has gone the way of the Swastika. Here is a great use of the Swastika. As if the Swastika caused the death of 6 million jews. In 2024, the Swastika and the Confederate flag are both verboten in mainstream fiction. They used to be acceptable.
Discussing the Stormgate storyline more directly.... I'd like a campaign that has co-op missions the way it was in Red Alert 3. You could find a friend online to play with you or your could have an AI ally help you. It was really cool and a great community builder for players not yet accustomed to hard core 1v1 PvP games.
One issue I notice people having in Stormgate right now is finding games from 4AM to 7AM EST. There are only ~25 people in game and people are waiting a long while to find games. It'll be interesting to see if the 2nd round of $40 Beta Keys increases the player base substantially.
On February 25 2024 04:10 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Unfortunately, the Confederate Flag has gone the way of the Swastika. Here is a great use of the Swastika. As if the Swastika caused the death of 6 million jews. In 2024, the Swastika and the Confederate flag are both verboten in mainstream fiction. They used to be acceptable.
Is this true? Weren't there depictions of the Hakenkreuz in recent mainstream movies such as Oppenheimer and Indiana Jones 5? I don't want to deter the discussion into a political one, I just think this statement is incorrect.
On February 25 2024 04:10 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Unfortunately, the Confederate Flag has gone the way of the Swastika. Here is a great use of the Swastika. As if the Swastika caused the death of 6 million jews. In 2024, the Swastika and the Confederate flag are both verboten in mainstream fiction. They used to be acceptable.
Is this true? Weren't there depictions of the Hakenkreuz in recent mainstream movies such as Oppenheimer and Indiana Jones 5? I don't want to deter the discussion into a political one, I just think this statement is incorrect.
That is good news. I'm not up on the latest movies. For decades the Swastika disappeared. For example, it is nowhere to be found in Company of Heroes 1 and 2. To me, removing all these symbols is just a variation of Orwell's "Newspeak". If you want to continue discussing stuff that is banned and avoided in video games we can continue in the video game industry thread if you like. https://tl.net/forum/general/540389-the-games-industry-and-atvi
On February 25 2024 04:10 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Unfortunately, the Confederate Flag has gone the way of the Swastika. Here is a great use of the Swastika. As if the Swastika caused the death of 6 million jews. In 2024, the Swastika and the Confederate flag are both verboten in mainstream fiction. They used to be acceptable.
Is this true? Weren't there depictions of the Hakenkreuz in recent mainstream movies such as Oppenheimer and Indiana Jones 5? I don't want to deter the discussion into a political one, I just think this statement is incorrect.
At least 85% of ‘you couldn’t do x today’ sentiments are just provably incorrect. Provided context of course.
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is as offensive a mainstream show as there’s ever been, and is going strong still. Indeed many of us ‘snowflake’ youngsters (or not the latter, in my case) still enjoy the show because the whole point is that these characters are awful. Contextually it’s fine.
It’s the whole punching up/punching down thing. I mean yeah if you have media positively portraying the Confederacy, or Nazi or what have you then yes, you will probably encounter a truly brutal backlash.
On February 25 2024 04:10 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Unfortunately, the Confederate Flag has gone the way of the Swastika. Here is a great use of the Swastika. As if the Swastika caused the death of 6 million jews. In 2024, the Swastika and the Confederate flag are both verboten in mainstream fiction. They used to be acceptable.
Is this true? Weren't there depictions of the Hakenkreuz in recent mainstream movies such as Oppenheimer and Indiana Jones 5? I don't want to deter the discussion into a political one, I just think this statement is incorrect.
That is good news. I'm not up on the latest movies. For decades the Swastika disappeared. For example, it is nowhere to be found in Company of Heroes 1 and 2. To me, removing all these symbols is just a variation of Orwell's "Newspeak". If you want to continue discussing stuff that is banned and avoided in video games we can continue in the video game industry thread if you like. https://tl.net/forum/general/540389-the-games-industry-and-atvi
It’s a legally banned symbol in Germany, so either developers had to release parallel versions, or, I assume just not bother to include it and release a standardised version without. Baggage I might add that isn’t a factor with the Confederate flag. Although iirc there’s been at least some softening on this in recent years and the further in the past the Nazi spectre resides. I may be grossly wrong on this and about to be corrected by some German posters.
On February 25 2024 04:10 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Unfortunately, the Confederate Flag has gone the way of the Swastika. Here is a great use of the Swastika. As if the Swastika caused the death of 6 million jews. In 2024, the Swastika and the Confederate flag are both verboten in mainstream fiction. They used to be acceptable.
Is this true? Weren't there depictions of the Hakenkreuz in recent mainstream movies such as Oppenheimer and Indiana Jones 5? I don't want to deter the discussion into a political one, I just think this statement is incorrect.
That is good news. I'm not up on the latest movies. For decades the Swastika disappeared. For example, it is nowhere to be found in Company of Heroes 1 and 2. To me, removing all these symbols is just a variation of Orwell's "Newspeak". If you want to continue discussing stuff that is banned and avoided in video games we can continue in the video game industry thread if you like. https://tl.net/forum/general/540389-the-games-industry-and-atvi
It’s a legally banned symbol in Germany, so either developers had to release parallel versions, or, I assume just not bother to include it and release a standardised version without. Baggage I might add that isn’t a factor with the Confederate flag. Although iirc there’s been at least some softening on this in recent years and the further in the past the Nazi spectre resides. I may be grossly wrong on this and about to be corrected by some German posters.
The Hakenkreuz is indeed legally banned in Germany, however there are exceptions, including education, research, documanteries and art. So yes, it's not forbidden to depict the Hakenkreuz in movies or games in Germany. Inglorious Basterds would be another prominent example, although a bit older than the other two movies. In games, developers very hesitant to use it because of a single, questionable court decision from 1998, even though there shouldn't be any problem legally or socially in games, either. This might change in the future because in academics, the aforementioned court decision is generally seen as questionable and outdated.
Chris Metzen at least devised the setting of Stormgate so it's possible the main campaign story beats could be good depending on how much he was actually involved.
On February 25 2024 00:12 _Spartak_ wrote: Stormgate has over 500k wishlists on Steam. It has risen a lot in wishlist ranks after Steam Next Fest. It was 2nd most played demo on Steam Next Fest and showed good player retention (meaning people enjoyed playing the game for the most part). If you think "not many people are interested" in it, you are living in a bubble.
a total of 60,000 unique players, almost half of it were kickstarter backers. I think it's good but not THAT good.
A lot of Kickstarter backers haven't played yet actually. The number of players rose up like 5 times compared to what it was when Steam Next Fest began (Kickstarter backers were already in for a few days by then) and then dropped back when it ended, so Kickstarter backers weren't half of the playerbase. Most people don't want to play a game at this stage of development, even when they backed it on Kickstarter.
I think you should read the context before making a throwaway account to make a comment. I was responding to someone saying half of the 60k unique accounts that played the game during this last test phase are from Kickstarter. Kickstarter had 28k backers so that would mean all of the KS backers played the game, which is obviously not the cae.
I doubt that a significant fraction of backers did not bother to try the game. The big drop after steam fest might just be because a lot of backers actually stopped playing the game before the steam fest ended (grinding the ladder at this stage of the game is understandably for a particular audience). Or do you have another source for numbers than the ladder stats on SG central?
Slightly unrelated, but do you have a connection to FG, Spartak?
On February 26 2024 07:49 teapot_ wrote: I doubt that a significant fraction of backers did not bother to try the game. The big drop after steam fest might just be because a lot of backers actually stopped playing the game before the steam fest ended (grinding the ladder at this stage of the game is understandably for a particular audience). Or do you have another source for numbers than the ladder stats on SG central?
Slightly unrelated, but do you have a connection to FG, Spartak?
Kickstarter backers had access before Steam Next Fest began. The player numbers weren't anywhere close to the Steam Next Fest numbers. One of the Frost Giant devs also said in a twitch chat comment that most Kickstarter backers haven't played the game yet iirc. A lot of people backed the game but are still waiting until it is more finished to start playing.
On February 26 2024 07:49 teapot_ wrote: I doubt that a significant fraction of backers did not bother to try the game. The big drop after steam fest might just be because a lot of backers actually stopped playing the game before the steam fest ended (grinding the ladder at this stage of the game is understandably for a particular audience). Or do you have another source for numbers than the ladder stats on SG central?
Slightly unrelated, but do you have a connection to FG, Spartak?
Kickstarter backers had access before Steam Next Fest began. The player numbers weren't anywhere close to the Steam Next Fest numbers. One of the Frost Giant devs also said in a twitch chat comment that most Kickstarter backers haven't played the game yet iirc. A lot of people backed the game but are still waiting until it is more finished to start playing.
Youve been already exposed as a Strawman. You know you are in deep shit when Kickstarter are supposed to be your savior
Ignore this nonsense Spartak, coming from TL’s most-banned person who doesn’t seem to get the memo.
Plenty of people are skeptical at this time, equally some folks genuinely hope and believe in this project.
Both are valid and it’s unfair on you to have your integrity questioned in this manner.
EPT
