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ZeroSpace Megathread - Page 5
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Like Stealing Soap
2 Posts
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I wasbanned fromthis
113 Posts
Technically it's in good standing, and aesthetically interesting. Diversity appears plentiful with room to grow apart over time from the influences its drawn from. Criticism: Heroes in the pvp matchup is not my thing. Unless there was parity for players that chose not to build heroes, I don't see my self playing pvp. This was my experience with WC3; I ended up playing through the campaign, and skipping pvp and played dota/(angel) arena customs instead. The pvp experience with heroes has never interested me, even in the sc2 campaign. Though as a WC3 viewer the pvp hero choices/ micro/ meta was kind of captivating. I've have grown a hero-less taste for RTS over 30years, and gravitate towards a SC1 style rather than a hero incorporated matchup. Other than that it would be presumptuous to criticize anything further until a Beta wraps up. Good luck going forward. | ||
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_Spartak_
Turkey376 Posts
On January 04 2024 16:19 kAra wrote: any way to sign up for alpha/beta for this or how did you get into it? The only way to get in is to back them on Backerkit: https://zerospace.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders | ||
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Harris1st
Germany6655 Posts
On January 04 2024 04:43 Waxangel wrote: Looks like they're ready to do a big streaming phase in the coming weeks, including a $10,000 tournament with Wardi. Definitely something to check out to see if this is a 'real' competitor in the RTS space. Is that somewhere on YT? Didn't find anything and can't watch twitch here | ||
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VelRa_G
Canada304 Posts
Is that somewhere on YT? Didn't find anything and can't watch twitch here There are some casted matches going up on Youtube if you search for recent Zerospace stuff. Right now the battle is just for reaching Top 16 on the ladder, devs excluded, so no formal tournament yet. | ||
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blunderfulguy
United States1415 Posts
The very first thing being discussed is art, specifically a new ground effect and a discussion about if it's possible to add a glowing effect to a unit's eyes when they use a certain ability. The artist gives a response that makes it seem like a difficult or time-consuming thing to do, which felt odd to me. Having never made glow effects or light emissions on a 3D model, I was able to find several very clear and simple 1- to 10-minute tutorials about adding glowing objects and creating emissive layers (Unreal Engine, Substance Painter, even StarCraft 2 and the custom texture swap testmap from back in the day that also lets you test specular, emissive, and normal layers). If the model already has eyes, most of the big name modeling programs and game engines let you create an emissive layer and apply it directly to the eye geometry if they are individual objects (primitive modeling, i.e. spheres set into the model's head) or manually stretch the layer/mask over the eye areas if they are not separate (digital sculpting, i.e. adding and subtracting virtual clay from the model's head). Then, just use a shader to make it glow/bloom (there seem to be many shaders already in the game) and animate the shader/opacity with the rest of the attack animation or separate animation. You can even add other textures or noise or animations over the emission layer to give sparkling, liquid, or hazy effects, or add a pupil or dilation or glow-in-the-dark effect for eyes. An even simpler effect might even be to just add a light source or glowing particle over each eye that can be turned on/up with the attack animation. If the artist(s) can model and animate all the rest of the units and effects in the game, it doesn't make sense to me that glowing eye effects would be anything but trivial and take a few minutes (maybe hours, maybe) to make for that unit. The next topic is CatZ asking who removed a special effect from a unit and why it was removed. In less than 9 minutes into the dev talk, it looks like the game is lacking any substantial overall direction, and has no art director. Why is CatZ, the "lead versus designer," in charge of making mockups for special effects? Why is any gameplay designer doing any amount of art directing? Shouldn't the art director be taking input from the designers and making concepts themselves or giving that work to another artist who can spend a day or two making special effects and emissive layers for various units and testing their animations (or giving it back to the art director for approval before handing it off to an animator to work on the emission animations)? Why is the art director seemingly absent from the art meeting about special effects and attack animations? Does the game even have an art director? The Kickstarter page doesn't mention anyone except the ex-Blizz artist that curated a piece of AI art for their promo poster, so I guess not. Why is there such a big emphasis on the art if the game is supposedly in "alpha" anyway? Shouldn't the designers be using gray cubes and blobs or placeholder units at this point while the artists are polishing their concepts and making a bunch of temporary models while things are still being changed all the time? (Seemingly because it isn't in alpha at all but nobody understands what an alpha is anymore outside of marketing jargon so shrug.) Aside from all of these yellow and red flags, I strongly feel like these meetings don't need to be streamed, or rather shouldn't be. Nobody outside the team (or maybe the highest-tier Kickstarter backers) needs to see these team meetings and weekly design documents/tasks, and the team doesn't need random people watching over their shoulder while trying to work. If they want to give people a peek into the development process, they should put out a video or Kickstarter post summarizing what they've been discussing and working on the past month (look at other Kickstarters for board games, big tabletop games, little open source tech projects, etc. if you need examples). Another alternative would be to prepare a presentation for a livestream with the goal to show off some new things, ask viewers for input or to vote on polls for flexible things, or just have someone collect questions to discuss at the end of the stream. Who even approved of making these meetings public? Was the whole team asked about it beforehand? It feels so unneccessary. Leaving the dev talk on for a few more minutes while typing this out didn't help things. When talking about special effects covering the ground, someone points out "if you're covering the whole battlefield in DPS zoning, you can't avoid it anyway, so [having an effect on the ground] doesn't really matter." Then says "you gotta make that gameplay balanced in the sense that there are still places you can go..." It feels like this person is hand-waving a complex issue and putting it on the shoulders of one person when every RTS I've ever seen has had these probelms countless times with countless effects and designs that need several iterations and community playtests to solve. The game being called an alpha or close to a beta but having so many (apparently) final models and textures also seems to be causing issues with community communication, specifically with playtesters and viewers complaining about bugs/glitches when something just doesn't have an animation yet (buildings under construction appearing complete before their progress bar is full discussed in the dev talk, some other random comments about stuff on other Reddit posts and videos of other people playing the game) or is basically a proof-of-concept unit and they weren't paying attention to the UI or watching at their replay before messaging the devs about an unfinished asset. On the other hand, why not just use big conspicious labels in place of animations until the assets are all closer to being finished like so many other alpha/beta tests? And a bit later in the video "can we change flowers to mushrooms?" Or, regarding a hero unit, "they are two commandos, so I'm not sure how they would look in-game... probably just an oversized commando, or something like that ... if you have an idea for a commando hero, then maybe [we could] bring them in" coming from, again, the "lead versus designer." There needs to be an art director managing this stuff. And a game director managing the needs of the single-player side and the versus side. It seems like there is literally no design/development being done or barely considered for the single-player campaign or co-op modes, which seemed like what the majority of the Kickstarter was for (and is what the majority of players will play if those modes ever exist). Not to mention how units have colorful textures but no team colors. Another priority that seems backwards. I was wary about the game because of its awful AI poster image (and the genuinely gross comments from people praising it in the Steam discussions) and character portraits (even the Xol hero is obviously AI generated with maybe a little amateurish photoshopping over the top), units that look like StarCraft 2 marine and ultralisk ripoffs, maps that look like they were ripped from the SC2 world editor, the generic look of so many other units and outfits, the sluggish and floaty game feel, not having lower system/graphics requirements, selling signed posters of AI art on the Kickstarter, the previous games from the dev team(s) being so small in scope and lacking polish... After seeing some Kickstarter and Steam updates, then this dev talk and a casted game, it really looks like a mess that's only serving to attempt to clone StarCraft 2 with hero units and complicated factions. The rollercoaster looked pretty cool until I got up close and saw the running paint lines and loose bolts. Seeing a new post in a few months to a year with a lot of progress (and a new splash image made by an actual artist, or even a hobbyist who isn't as lazy or shameless as the one using their Blizz cred to sell regurgitated AI art) might get me to pay attention to this. Or if they just decided to rearrange and slow down development to better fit the team they have. If it's really an indie game with as small of a team as it seems, why rush with tournaments and polishing at this stage? They clearly need time to figure things out at every level from the top to the middle and very bottom so we don't look back on the game years from now and ask "oh yeah, what the hell happened?" My biggest disappointment with the project is that none of the big names on the team doing their dream jobs get me excited because their work/potential is so strongly overshadowed by so many issues. | ||
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teapot_
39 Posts
But sarcasm aside, yeah I agree it's slightly odd to stream this - they'll run it how they want and can; that's a good thing. It hasn't raised enough money so far to pay the bills if I understand correctly, so let them be passion-driven to glory or death. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada16253 Posts
On January 18 2024 08:46 blunderfulguy wrote: And a game director managing the needs of the single-player side and the versus side. It seems like there is literally no design/development being done or barely considered for the single-player campaign or co-op modes, which seemed like what the majority of the Kickstarter was for (and is what the majority of players will play if those modes ever exist). possibly misleading consumers via Kickstarter messaging? You could be correct, however, a more thorough investigation is required to make a determination on the issue you bring up here. Time will tell if consumers were mislead during the Kickstarter campaign. This time next year, we'll know what's up. I don't get how people are always so charged up about instantly donating to Kickstarter the nanosecond it is offered. I am waiting until the last day of Stormgate's Kickstarter to decide whether or not to donate. My decision will be 10,000X more informed than the people who donated to Stormgate on day one. If I donate Frost Giant will have access to my money just as fast as anyone donating on day one of the campaign. | ||
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Ideas
United States8037 Posts
I think they need to get rid of the mercenaries or the heroes to streamline things a bit but i have a big feeling those are in there for “Games as service” purposes so that they can keep adding in more of each. | ||
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jjjhgztugfsd
2 Posts
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blunderfulguy
United States1415 Posts
On January 19 2024 04:16 Ideas wrote: Just watched artosis’ breakdown video and while I wish the game beat of luck it seems too complicated to find an audience. 4 factions, multiple heroes, multiple upgrades for every unit, a big ability tree, AND multiple mercenary factions that mix and match with the factions every match? Just seems like too much, even for rts fans. Also seems impossible to balance. I think they need to get rid of the mercenaries or the heroes to streamline things a bit but i have a big feeling those are in there for “Games as service” purposes so that they can keep adding in more of each. I watched another match to look a little closer with a different perspective but I couldn't really convince myself to walk back on many opinions, and formed more criticisms about the faction and talents systems that just seemed messy before. It's the kind of messy that makes me wonder if the designers really playtested the game before making the decision to go in that direction, or if they just did it for the sake of having as many combinations as possible to show off a big number for marketing or monetization like you say. Even if they did playtest and think about them a lot and don't plan on exploiting it all for microtransactions, it feels like way too much to have to choose two factions then talents or global abilities before the game starts, and then choosing a hero and tech path while figuring out what every single unit ability is and managing a big army (or even trying to watch big armies of multiple units all around the map). It looks like a design/balance nightmare for two or even three people (seemingly CatZ and Scarlett with Maguro for co-op and map design according to the Kickstarter blurbs) because, mathematically, it is a balancing nightmare. Adding pick and ban systems before the game starts or having soft pick/ban systems during the game (i.e. Warcraft 3 tavern or Dota items) can only do so much. I thought the global abilities/talents system was an out-of-game account progression system but it's actually an in-game progression system on top of the army comp and tech tree decisions. Most players, once they figure out what's going on with the factions or the tech trees or the talent trees, will probably plan out all of their progression before the game starts and let hard counters and cheese builds happen. Or they'll have fun doing all kinds of crazy things for a while then leaving to play the next flashy game of the month or their old comfort game. I feel like it needs to be broken up and simplified somehow, like the commander abilities in Company of Heroes (pick a tree, one simple choice every few minutes that either gives you a global ability or a new unit, only five or six things per tree iirc), or giving each faction or mercenary group its own super simple progression path with only one or two actual choices, or merging it with the tech tree to be one complicated system instead of two separate complicated systems. Or just removed for now, and changed and developed for a while into something unique for co-op or single-player, then possibly brought back later. Like, maybe just make some of this stuff dead simple, straightforward, with much fewer choices in- or out-of-game, and slowly add mechanics/systems and choices over a year or three while focusing on core gameplay priorities. But it seems like SC2 pros are starting to use all the systems and are going to start playing in tournaments soon, so maybe they feel stuck in this messy design situation (if they're even thinking about it anymore). I agree with a lot of the "it looks complicated but not deep" opinions, and disagree with the comments praising its innovations, strategic/tactical or otherwise. Personally, I also don't like this style of "lots of choices to make, lots of possible combinations" direction with strategy games. Even though a lot of stuff looks like MOBA stuff slapped onto SC2, it feels so different from Dota 2 (a game I actually really like) and so much messier even though I've only been watching 1v1 games. The same goes for the visuals. It doesn't look like each "major" faction has a cohesive aesthetic (the blue and gray boxy humans also have some tan and purple curvy units), and every player has one major faction and one minor faction. Looking at SC2, there was a big emphasis on making sure you could tell which upgrades every unit had just by looking at them which helps all players figure out what's going on with their opponents, but every unit in this game has so many possible upgrades that I can't imagine it being feasible unless the team/budget is way bigger than it seems. Although LoL and Dota 2 don't do this (afaik), each hero in those games only does a few things (or one thing you care about), there are only five big units per side with a lot of overlapping attributes within each hero type/class/role, and most other units/creeps don't have any special abilities and their passive attributes like armor types are clearly visually communicated and aren't really important at most levels of play. I'd be curious to see how gold to diamond league matches play out, I guess for scientific purposes, not because I think it'd be fun to watch two people suffer through. I also don't actually want to play it myself yet at all despite thinking "okay, that's kinda cool" or "that could have been a great visual direction to go with" a few times. | ||
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ROOTCatZ
Peru1226 Posts
On January 19 2024 06:20 blunderfulguy wrote: I watched another match to look a little closer with a different perspective but I couldn't really convince myself to walk back on many opinions, and formed more criticisms about the faction and talents systems that just seemed messy before. It's the kind of messy that makes me wonder if the designers really playtested the game before making the decision to go in that direction, or if they just did it for the sake of having as many combinations as possible to show off a big number for marketing or monetization like you say. Even if they did playtest and think about them a lot and don't plan on exploiting it all for microtransactions, it feels like way too much to have to choose two factions then talents or global abilities before the game starts, and then choosing a hero and tech path while figuring out what every single unit ability is and managing a big army (or even trying to watch big armies of multiple units all around the map). It looks like a design/balance nightmare for two or even three people (seemingly CatZ and Scarlett with Maguro for co-op and map design according to the Kickstarter blurbs) because, mathematically, it is a balancing nightmare. Adding pick and ban systems before the game starts or having soft pick/ban systems during the game (i.e. Warcraft 3 tavern or Dota items) can only do so much. I thought the global abilities/talents system was an out-of-game account progression system but it's actually an in-game progression system on top of the army comp and tech tree decisions. Most players, once they figure out what's going on with the factions or the tech trees or the talent trees, will probably plan out all of their progression before the game starts and let hard counters and cheese builds happen. Or they'll have fun doing all kinds of crazy things for a while then leaving to play the next flashy game of the month or their old comfort game. I feel like it needs to be broken up and simplified somehow, like the commander abilities in Company of Heroes (pick a tree, one simple choice every few minutes that either gives you a global ability or a new unit, only five or six things per tree iirc), or giving each faction or mercenary group its own super simple progression path with only one or two actual choices, or merging it with the tech tree to be one complicated system instead of two separate complicated systems. Or just removed for now, and changed and developed for a while into something unique for co-op or single-player, then possibly brought back later. Like, maybe just make some of this stuff dead simple, straightforward, with much fewer choices in- or out-of-game, and slowly add mechanics/systems and choices over a year or three while focusing on core gameplay priorities. But it seems like SC2 pros are starting to use all the systems and are going to start playing in tournaments soon, so maybe they feel stuck in this messy design situation (if they're even thinking about it anymore). I agree with a lot of the "it looks complicated but not deep" opinions, and disagree with the comments praising its innovations, strategic/tactical or otherwise. Personally, I also don't like this style of "lots of choices to make, lots of possible combinations" direction with strategy games. Even though a lot of stuff looks like MOBA stuff slapped onto SC2, it feels so different from Dota 2 (a game I actually really like) and so much messier even though I've only been watching 1v1 games. The same goes for the visuals. It doesn't look like each "major" faction has a cohesive aesthetic (the blue and gray boxy humans also have some tan and purple curvy units), and every player has one major faction and one minor faction. Looking at SC2, there was a big emphasis on making sure you could tell which upgrades every unit had just by looking at them which helps all players figure out what's going on with their opponents, but every unit in this game has so many possible upgrades that I can't imagine it being feasible unless the team/budget is way bigger than it seems. Although LoL and Dota 2 don't do this (afaik), each hero in those games only does a few things (or one thing you care about), there are only five big units per side with a lot of overlapping attributes within each hero type/class/role, and most other units/creeps don't have any special abilities and their passive attributes like armor types are clearly visually communicated and aren't really important at most levels of play. I'd be curious to see how gold to diamond league matches play out, I guess for scientific purposes, not because I think it'd be fun to watch two people suffer through. I also don't actually want to play it myself yet at all despite thinking "okay, that's kinda cool" or "that could have been a great visual direction to go with" a few times. Both of your posts are loaded with what I think are somewhat myopic assumptions, I don't have a lot of time to address everything in detail, and I suspect this won't get through to you anyway, but just to touch on a couple of things, especially those pertaining to me as an individual: Why does a game designer have input on art? Is there an art director? Yes, we do have an art director - we have meetings and syncs with every department scheduled throughout the week. I take my feedback and feedback pertinent to my team and work with them to implement and execute on a shared vision. Marv, product owner / game director, whose vision we're all executing on, was also on this meeting, and is also in most other meetings with department heads. I have input on loads of areas, lead versus designer is just a title, this is a start-up and I am the type of person who thrives in making connections in many different areas - my role is actually very similar to what I did in my 4 years at Blizzard while I was a consultant in Irvine (though that was more limited in scope / time). Without going into detail, I can say that I had input and worked in -many- areas of the game (SC2), pertinent to this discussion, I did art/mock-ups for in-game UI and I even had a presentation on exactly that at a StarCraft 2 community summit - so there's even witnesses galore. Even at a large enterprise like Blizzard this isn't a foreign process - of course I also worked on design/balance but for some people who get immersed in projects it's much more useful to navigate and explore in many directions and get different vantage points - maybe this won't easily register with you if you prefer to operate with more of a 1 track mind. In reality, you need people with high level overviews of projects and situations to make sensible decisions that are pertinent to many different areas of any enterprise - maybe this isn't your experience in the workforce, but it very much is mine - I enjoy making connections and that means varying interests; areas of expertise follow suit. For example in sc2 I've been simultaneously a pro player, streamer, designer, team owner, influencer, commentator / analyst, content producer, coach, team captain, blizzard game consultant etc. and in the time that I focused on any of it, I succeeded at all of it. As a player / in game I also explored very many different areas vs iterating on 1 track like many prefer to do and excel at doing, there's simply room and value to be found in all sorts of approaches to problems and life, it's of course easy to think that 'your way' is the best way, but it's also when you make authoritative statements and assumptions that you close yourself from perspective and ultimately growth in any area. As far as art, to further address your "concern", I went to school for and have a degree in Media Arts and Animation as well as Graphic Design. I also played RTS for 25 years, and have probably played more ZeroSpace than just about anyone and I am the lead game designer - so idk that you can be much more qualified than I am to propose a direction on the legibility of an ability in-game. For instance, I can tell not just "that" I can't properly see or register an ability, I can also tell (and show) exactly why - where the Art director talented as they are has a different vantage point that is complimentary in other areas and can produce with their team an asset that satisfies my needs as a player / designer and fits our in-game aesthetic direction. Working together, we can produce a better product - I don't see anything wrong with that process, yet you seem to think that people are only capable of or should only have input in 1 type of task? I'm really curious what in your life experience / at work has you convinced in thinking this narrowly. To your other, from my vantage point, myopic assumption/criticism: "Why are they not addressing campaign?" Because this was one of our -versus design- meetings (??????????) You just got insights from the video into a tiny portion of what's going on internally in -one- meeting of -one- department and extrapolated all of these weird conclusions. We have 35+ developers and I work with most of them, It's a concerted effort making a game, not just delivering individual disjointed pieces to assemble a larger one. Marv (and many of our developers) have been in the industry and had successful ventures in game development for decades, enough to have excess millions of dollars to get us off the ground self-developing - so to flip your questions on you; why do you think you are better qualified to make harsh assessments on how we should or shouldn't operate, or what does or doesn't work? You made so many other wrong assumptions I really don't have the time or energy to touch upon, but as a general piece of advice, 'googling' a solution out of context or your depth of understanding in a specific situation to then think you're an expert on a subject is a trap I recommend you try to stop falling for. I can make a unit's eyes glow in 5 minutes, again I studied art, animation, modeling - that doesn't mean it's right for the game or situation, there are performance costs and other issues that go well over my head and (i'll now allow an assumption I think is fair) also yours after a google search. That's is why I asked someone with 25 years experience in engineering / programming who also has the widest overview of our systems and capacities and the way they're set-up. (NOT an artist as you assumed btw, but just add that to the tally of incorrect leaps you made) I apologize if my honesty in responding comes across harsh; I don't expect i'll convince you of anything and I am most definitely not interested in a back-and-forth with you today as I have other things to do and I don't expect everyone will like the game or it's direction, but by large, loads of people do and in general feedback has been overwhelmingly positive from almost everyone who's gotten their hands on the game, so I just wanted to clear things up for others reading to get a different perspective. Cheers / Bye. | ||
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blunderfulguy
United States1415 Posts
On January 19 2024 09:13 ROOTCatZ wrote: I don't have a lot of time to address everything in detail So why are you here wasting time commenting, then? Did somebody call you and ask? I don't need your immediate feedback, and even said I think it's better if the game gets an update post/video every month or so instead of these very weird windows into messy development life. Why does a game designer have input on art? Is there an art director? Yes, we do have an art director - we have meetings and syncs with every department scheduled throughout the week. I take my feedback and feedback pertinent to my team and work with them to implement and execute on a shared vision. Marv, product owner / game director, whose vision we're all executing on, was also on this meeting, and is also in most other meetings with department heads. I have input on loads of areas, lead versus designer is just a title, this is a start-up and I am the type of person who thrives in making connections in many different areas - my role is actually very similar to what I did in my 4 years at Blizzard while I was a consultant in Irvine (though that was more limited in scope / time). Without going into detail, I can say that I had input and worked in -many- areas of the game (SC2), pertinent to this discussion, I did art/mock-ups for in-game UI and I even had a presentation on exactly that at a StarCraft 2 community summit - so there's even witnesses galore. Cool story, bro. And the featured artist who also worked on SC2 shoved out some garbage AI art for the Kickstarter and Steam page. Their experience in the industry doesn't make their art or methods immune to criticism and, in my opinion, kind of makes certain criticisms or expectations more valid. Even at a large enterprise like Blizzard this isn't a foreign process - of course I also worked on design/balance but for some people who get immersed in projects it's much more useful to navigate and explore in many directions and get different vantage points - maybe this won't easily register with you if you prefer to operate with more of a 1 track mind. What part of me analyzing several different aspects of the game from multiple perspectives makes it seem like I operate with a 1 track mind or don't immerse myself in projects? In reality, you need people with high level overviews of projects and situations to make sensible decisions that are pertinent to many different areas of any enterprise Did you miss the parts where I said it looks like the game is lacking exactly that—directors, art directors, people following clear visions, themes, and directions with all the visual and gameplay designs—implying that it's important? For example in sc2 I've been simultaneously a pro player, streamer, designer, team owner, influencer, commentator / analyst, content producer, coach, team captain, blizzard game consultant etc. and in the time that I focused on any of it, I succeeded at all of it. As a player / in game I also explored very many different areas vs iterating on 1 track like many prefer to do and excel at doing, there's simply room and value to be found in all sorts of approaches to problems and life, it's of course easy to think that 'your way' is the best way, but it's also when you make authoritative statements and assumptions that you close yourself from perspective and ultimately growth in any area. So, me saying it feels like there are better ways to design/develop this game to better appeal to different types of people/players doesn't count as a different perspective so you should close yourself off from it? This comes across as really narcissistic, tbh, it sounds like a tirade from one of my hypocritical parents or the abusive relationship I recently had where they would bring up stuff like this as a way to try to talk over me or distract from the actual topic. Or maybe it's like a kid interrupting the conversation to talk about all the gold stars they've gotten this week, which, good for those kids, but you're not one of them so why do I care. It's bad communication even if it isn't that toxic or that naive. As far as art, to further address your "concern", I went to school for and have a degree in Media Arts and Animation as well as Graphic Design. Okay, good for you dude. To me and lots of other people, the game's UI still sucks and its art direction is inconsistent in some areas or comes across as a SC2 ripoff in others. Maybe keep working on developing the game instead of telling people your life story that isn't really relevant? I also played RTS for 25 years, and have probably played more ZeroSpace than just about anyone and I am the lead game designer - so idk that you can be much more qualified than I am to propose a direction on the legibility of an ability in-game. I would argue that you might also have the most narrow perspective on the game and getting alternate opinions from people outside yourself and your team is an important part of art and design and is especially important if not explicitly necessary for multiplayer game development. For instance, I can tell not just "that" I can't properly see or register an ability, I can also tell (and show) exactly why - where the Art director talented as they are has a different vantage point that is complimentary in other areas and can produce with their team an asset that satisfies my needs as a player / designer and fits our in-game aesthetic direction. Working together, we can produce a better product - I don't see anything wrong with that process, yet you seem to think that people are only capable of or should only have input in 1 type of task? I'm really curious what in your life experience / at work has you convinced in thinking this narrowly. This transition and paragraph isn't very coherent to me. Where did I say you shouldn't work together? I literally called out someone in the dev talk for not seeming very collaborative on a topic that I feel demands a high degree of sustained cooperative iteration. To your other, from my vantage point, myopic assumption/criticism: "Why are they not addressing campaign?" Because this was one of our -versus design- meetings (??????????) You just got insights from the video into a tiny portion of what's going on internally in -one- meeting of -one- department and extrapolated all of these weird conclusions. We have 35+ developers and I work with most of them, It's a concerted effort making a game, not just delivering individual disjointed pieces to assemble a larger one. Way to blow my thoughts out of proportion. And using your word of the day again, and the question mark spam, nice. Since you couldn't tell, I wasn't literally only talking about the dev talk in all of my comments. Looking at other updates, there didn't seem to be anything significant related to single-player modes, and the dev talk made it seem like nobody was working on the campaign right now because everything from glitchy units to special effects and making new hero models was being discussed predominantly with regards to versus mode or alluded to as if the other modes don't exist, which I felt was weird. If the single-player and co-op modes actually are being worked on or the Kickstarter backers actually decided together that they want the team to focus on versus mode first, that's great, maybe talk about that or make an update focused on that next week or month or however often the team thinks is best. If none of my criticisms apply to any other dev meeting you've ever had with this team, then why are you trying so hard to prove them wrong instead of ignoring it and confidently moving on? To me, that's a big red flag that you might not be confident in your approach or in your team, or you are stressed from overwork, or both, or something else is going on. Teams of hundreds of developers with multi-million dollar budgets have put out terrible games plenty of times, as have teams of very few people with no money, and in this case the game sometimes looks and feels like a bunch of disjointed pieces assembled together. But thanks for giving me a slightly better idea about how many people are working on this project. Marv (and many of our developers) have been in the industry and had successful ventures in game development for decades, enough to have excess millions of dollars to get us off the ground self-developing Good for you, so happy for your combined success. Maybe you can use all that money on lessons for taking criticism better or hiring a community or PR manager. Or maybe Marv can talk about the game or whatever some time to give you a break. why do you think you are better qualified to make harsh assessments on how we should or shouldn't operate, or what does or doesn't work? Big assumption there. It was some afternoon thoughts from someone who calls themselves "blunderful" on internet video game forums, I'm at least that self-aware most times. Literally never said I was better qualified to make harsh assessments, I just made some observations and communicated my feelings about those obersations. And again, there is actually an argument to be made that you could be too invested or have too specific of a perspective to evaluate everything very well all the time. But if you don't think my ideas are worthy for your consideration, you can choose to not follow them or not listen to them in the first place. It's a forum post (or social media post, or whatever the case may be for other criticisms you might encounter in the future), not a legally binding contract. You made so many other wrong assumptions I really don't have the time or energy to touch upon, but as a general piece of advice, 'googling' a solution out of context or your depth of understanding in a specific situation to then think you're an expert on a subject is a trap I recommend you try to stop falling for. I can make a unit's eyes glow in 5 minutes, again I studied art, animation, modeling - that doesn't mean it's right for the game or situation, there are performance costs and other issues that go well over my head and (i'll now allow an assumption I think is fair) also yours after a google search. That's is why I asked someone with 25 years experience in engineering / programming who also has the widest overview of our systems and capacities and the way they're set-up. (NOT an artist as you assumed btw, but just add that to the tally of incorrect leaps you made) Again, I never said I was expert. But I do know enough about 3D modeling, texturing, shaders, and animation as a hobbyist that it felt weird for anyone to hem and haw over making glowing eyes given the amount of fairly well-polished assets in the game (a testament to the work done so far that you seem to have completely missed), so I did some research which made it look like my gut feeling was correct. I literally watched multiple people teach others how to do emissive layers in multiple engines and the comparatively janky SC2 world editor in a few minutes, reminding me of how I did it a decade ago when it was much more complicated to learn compared to now, so I pointed it out. Now, you're criticizing me for that while also saying you could make a unit's eyes glow in 5 minutes? So I was right that it is very easy and not at all time consuming to do and, thus, not worth hemming and hawing about? If it might not be right for the game or situation then why did you tell someone to do it? Do you think it was a bad decision? I must be missing where that part of the paragraph came from. And did you really miss the parts where I said there are some cool things about the game and some of the art? I guess they were footnotes and easy to gloss over, so whatever. Well, to make it more clear, here you go: it looks like a StarCraft 2 ripoff in so many ways from the elevated terrain and ramps to the high-quality doodads and floor textures as well as several unit models that I'm surprised these assets weren't ripped from an unreleased update for StarCraft 2 or Heroes of the Storm by Blizzard, which is a big compliment to all the environment and 3D character artists who, unlike the 2D character portrait artist's AI art curating, should feel genuinely proud of their work so far. I apologize if my honesty in responding comes across harsh; I don't expect i'll convince you of anything and I am most definitely not interested in a back-and-forth with you today as I have other things to do and I don't expect everyone will like the game or it's direction, but by large, loads of people do and in general feedback has been overwhelmingly positive from almost everyone who's gotten their hands on the game, so I just wanted to clear things up for others reading to get a different perspective. Ah, I see, you were just being honest to me and just wanted to "clear things up for others", ohhh, that changes everything! I went back and edited some of my responses after reading this again. This whole post comes across as extraordinarily desperate and is tremendously unprofessional, not like an experienced or confident or open-minded team leader. I almost typed "or a communicative one" but it's in fact very communicative, just about all the wrong things in my opinion. (Everyone not liking everything is a given, you don't magically get brownie points for pointing that out, c'mon.) Why make this whole rant if you don't actually care about my criticisms and also don't have the time? Or ,why not respond to someone else's comments? Why type so many lines talking about yourself and your past instead of the 35+ other people and the work they're doing on the game, or focus on what you're doing in the present or near future? The more I read from this the more it comes across as a con artist trying to distract people and hide something. I didn't even say the game looks like complete shit like plenty of other comments I've seen all over the place, and actually took the time to look at it and think about it on a deeper level instead of hand waiving aside its entire existence. If you're working hard on the game and cooperating with a team of people who are also working hard, there shouldn't be any reason to make this post. It makes me wonder if you felt the need to interrupt the thread to prevent someone else from replying to my post and agreeing or making more critcisms. I've written "criticism" so many times it doesn't look correct anymore, leading me to edit then unedit it, leading it to look even more incorrect to me, leading me to googling how it's spelled but it still looks incorre- Cheers / Bye. Oh my gosh, I'm honored. I genuinely haven't gotten a seemingly, arguably toxic-looking cheers/bye in so long! lol I honestly love that, that's amazing. I love this forum. It's hard to believe I'm still visiting it after... 12 (?) years, no, that can't be right... CatZ, take a deep breath (not one of those huffy short breaths, an actual deep breath or two) and go work on your game, dude. Maybe take a break from social media or ask for an extra day off work to decompress (and, just a suggestion, don't spend your day off doom scrolling on forums, or copy-pasting replies excusing low-tier AI art on social media, a little bit of social media and replying is fine but it can seriously effect your mental health even then). Maybe also make a mental note to not shoot yourself and your game or your team in the foot with posts like this in the future. I, for one, am honestly going to be extremely suspicious about its development and your involvement with it compared to some other universe in which you didn't make this post and I'm happily forgetting about the game or my criticisms and getting subconsciously primed for excitement when a big update comes into my field of view later on. Oh but I forgot you really don't care about my presumably unexperienced opinion. Well, nevermind all that, then. Okay, not cheers, that's just me consciously shit-posting one time, my bad my bad, I couldn't help it. I'll try to do better next time, sorry, nobody needs that when they're stressed. | ||
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blunderfulguy
United States1415 Posts
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TelecoM
United States10628 Posts
Congrats on this so far CatZ, this looks like it is going to turn out to be really great! | ||
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CicadaSC
United States1190 Posts
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shindiginit
21 Posts
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CicadaSC
United States1190 Posts
On January 21 2024 06:31 shindiginit wrote: Not a fan of heros in RTS unfortunately. Probably will just stick with StarCraft. 2 Could try stormgate if ZeroSpace isn't your jam. The 1v1 won't have heroes. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada16253 Posts
On January 19 2024 11:57 blunderfulguy wrote: don't spend your day off doom scrolling on forums, or copy-pasting replies excusing low-tier AI art on social media, a little bit of social media and replying is fine but it can seriously effect your mental health even then). I suggest the ZeroSPace people turn the mysterious, inegmatic, unknowable "Art Director" into a plot point. They can create a plot thread along the lines of "Who Is John Galt?". Instead it will be "Who Is The Art Director?" | ||
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Noggin503
Germany1 Post
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