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On August 04 2024 23:26 PuRpOs3 wrote:
somebody feel like they kind of ruined starcraft 3 or it seems even more distant for the game to come out.
Starcraft 3 is a dream. It isn't coming. Modern Blizzard especially Blizzard that is now owned by Microsoft's share holders aren't going to spend that kind of money on an RTS game.
Starcraft 2 was astronomically expensive. The only reason it got made was because of how much the guys at the top of old Blizzard loved Starcraft 1. It was a passion project for them.
There's no one in the current Blizzard organization with enough pull with the investors with enough love for the Starcraft property to get that kind of funding again.
If they ever do make a Starcraft 3, it will be a completely different kind of game.
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On August 04 2024 20:25 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 02 2024 23:49 NonY wrote: The decision to release the campaign in such rough shape is baffling. Campaigns aren't like multiplayer; they aren't something that most people will play over and over again. You only get to experience a story for the first time once. The first impression is THE impression. Saying that they'll make it look better in the future is nice, but as is I think there's very little incentive to pay for it unless you're a diehard supporter of the game. Experiencing it now will lessen the experience of playing the improved finished product. That is of course assuming that the campaign ever actually becomes good enough to be worth the money. Imo it’s weird how people think that because they paid money, it’s magically a finished game. Any game I’m really interested in and have high expectations for, I would never ever touch alpha/beta/EA. I definitely wouldn’t pay money for it. Sometimes I don’t even touch release day but instead wait for the first major post-release patch. And I might even choose not to play it at all if the reviews are bad. I’m playing the competitive 1v1 mode of SG knowing how flawed it is but enjoying the good parts, and also because it’s a continuous experience and not a one time playthrough. That’s my one exception to not playing unfinished games — I don’t mind getting involved in the competitive multiplayer as it develops. Playing EA means it is an admittedly unfinished and flawed product and your experience is going to be significantly worse than someone who waits for 1.0 or 1.1. There are placeholders, things not implemented, things that need to be iterated upon a few times, etc etc. It makes sense to give constructive feedback as part of the development process. What I don’t understand is people taking the angle of “I paid money and I’m upset this is clearly unfinished and flawed.” People with high standards have no business participating in EA. The problem with this kind of optimism is that this game isn't going to have a competitive multiplayer scene if it dies because it has no appeal to a broader playing audience that will actually pay the bills. If I thought I actually had a chance of being a real competitive player in Stormgate, I would be willing to look past its faults too because I would be more focused on getting ahead of the metagame and establishing my skill level, pretty much exactly what I did in SC2's beta. But I know that's not what I'm gonna do. Stormgate is something I'm only interested in playing casually with my friends, I have no aspirations of being competitive in this game, I'm too old for that stuff now. I'm only one player, but this should be the concern of Frostgiant right now. How do they keep the players like me around because they are going to need players like me to play this game and buy stuff in it if they ever want to be able to fund an actual competitive scene around this game. You can't create an esports scene out of nothing, it takes money to do it. And this game needs both a lot of popularity and a lot of funding in order for esports to be more than a pipe dream for it.
Blizzard and others have misunderstood. First, you make a good game with a big playerbase, then you make it an e-sports. SC2 managed to do both, but remember they put a LOT of resources into the campaign and general marketing too.
After Overwatch League, I doubt anyone will pour a lot of money into the deep hole which is e-sports ever again. The investment will simply not pay off.
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On August 05 2024 01:48 Slydie wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2024 20:25 Vindicare605 wrote:On August 02 2024 23:49 NonY wrote: The decision to release the campaign in such rough shape is baffling. Campaigns aren't like multiplayer; they aren't something that most people will play over and over again. You only get to experience a story for the first time once. The first impression is THE impression. Saying that they'll make it look better in the future is nice, but as is I think there's very little incentive to pay for it unless you're a diehard supporter of the game. Experiencing it now will lessen the experience of playing the improved finished product. That is of course assuming that the campaign ever actually becomes good enough to be worth the money. Imo it’s weird how people think that because they paid money, it’s magically a finished game. Any game I’m really interested in and have high expectations for, I would never ever touch alpha/beta/EA. I definitely wouldn’t pay money for it. Sometimes I don’t even touch release day but instead wait for the first major post-release patch. And I might even choose not to play it at all if the reviews are bad. I’m playing the competitive 1v1 mode of SG knowing how flawed it is but enjoying the good parts, and also because it’s a continuous experience and not a one time playthrough. That’s my one exception to not playing unfinished games — I don’t mind getting involved in the competitive multiplayer as it develops. Playing EA means it is an admittedly unfinished and flawed product and your experience is going to be significantly worse than someone who waits for 1.0 or 1.1. There are placeholders, things not implemented, things that need to be iterated upon a few times, etc etc. It makes sense to give constructive feedback as part of the development process. What I don’t understand is people taking the angle of “I paid money and I’m upset this is clearly unfinished and flawed.” People with high standards have no business participating in EA. The problem with this kind of optimism is that this game isn't going to have a competitive multiplayer scene if it dies because it has no appeal to a broader playing audience that will actually pay the bills. If I thought I actually had a chance of being a real competitive player in Stormgate, I would be willing to look past its faults too because I would be more focused on getting ahead of the metagame and establishing my skill level, pretty much exactly what I did in SC2's beta. But I know that's not what I'm gonna do. Stormgate is something I'm only interested in playing casually with my friends, I have no aspirations of being competitive in this game, I'm too old for that stuff now. I'm only one player, but this should be the concern of Frostgiant right now. How do they keep the players like me around because they are going to need players like me to play this game and buy stuff in it if they ever want to be able to fund an actual competitive scene around this game. You can't create an esports scene out of nothing, it takes money to do it. And this game needs both a lot of popularity and a lot of funding in order for esports to be more than a pipe dream for it. Blizzard and others have misunderstood. First, you make a good game with a big playerbase, then you make it an e-sports. SC2 managed to do both, but remember they put a LOT of resources into the campaign and general marketing too. After Overwatch League, I doubt anyone will pour a lot of money into the deep hole which is e-sports ever again. The investment will simply not pay off.
That isn't how Dota 2 did it. There's more than one way to skin a cat.
E: I think we can probably find middle ground in agreeing that you need a good game for eSports to be a thing. If your game doesn't attract people who want to play it, it's doomed regardless of whether you sponsor an eSports scene or not.
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On August 05 2024 04:41 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2024 01:48 Slydie wrote:On August 04 2024 20:25 Vindicare605 wrote:On August 02 2024 23:49 NonY wrote: The decision to release the campaign in such rough shape is baffling. Campaigns aren't like multiplayer; they aren't something that most people will play over and over again. You only get to experience a story for the first time once. The first impression is THE impression. Saying that they'll make it look better in the future is nice, but as is I think there's very little incentive to pay for it unless you're a diehard supporter of the game. Experiencing it now will lessen the experience of playing the improved finished product. That is of course assuming that the campaign ever actually becomes good enough to be worth the money. Imo it’s weird how people think that because they paid money, it’s magically a finished game. Any game I’m really interested in and have high expectations for, I would never ever touch alpha/beta/EA. I definitely wouldn’t pay money for it. Sometimes I don’t even touch release day but instead wait for the first major post-release patch. And I might even choose not to play it at all if the reviews are bad. I’m playing the competitive 1v1 mode of SG knowing how flawed it is but enjoying the good parts, and also because it’s a continuous experience and not a one time playthrough. That’s my one exception to not playing unfinished games — I don’t mind getting involved in the competitive multiplayer as it develops. Playing EA means it is an admittedly unfinished and flawed product and your experience is going to be significantly worse than someone who waits for 1.0 or 1.1. There are placeholders, things not implemented, things that need to be iterated upon a few times, etc etc. It makes sense to give constructive feedback as part of the development process. What I don’t understand is people taking the angle of “I paid money and I’m upset this is clearly unfinished and flawed.” People with high standards have no business participating in EA. The problem with this kind of optimism is that this game isn't going to have a competitive multiplayer scene if it dies because it has no appeal to a broader playing audience that will actually pay the bills. If I thought I actually had a chance of being a real competitive player in Stormgate, I would be willing to look past its faults too because I would be more focused on getting ahead of the metagame and establishing my skill level, pretty much exactly what I did in SC2's beta. But I know that's not what I'm gonna do. Stormgate is something I'm only interested in playing casually with my friends, I have no aspirations of being competitive in this game, I'm too old for that stuff now. I'm only one player, but this should be the concern of Frostgiant right now. How do they keep the players like me around because they are going to need players like me to play this game and buy stuff in it if they ever want to be able to fund an actual competitive scene around this game. You can't create an esports scene out of nothing, it takes money to do it. And this game needs both a lot of popularity and a lot of funding in order for esports to be more than a pipe dream for it. Blizzard and others have misunderstood. First, you make a good game with a big playerbase, then you make it an e-sports. SC2 managed to do both, but remember they put a LOT of resources into the campaign and general marketing too. After Overwatch League, I doubt anyone will pour a lot of money into the deep hole which is e-sports ever again. The investment will simply not pay off. That isn't how Dota 2 did it. There's more than one way to skin a cat.
Valve has infinite money to throw into whatever project they want, with a MASSIVE amount of brand recognition to promote anything they want to promote, on a platform that literally EVERY PC gamer uses.
Anything they do cannot easily be replicated by any other western game developer. I think Nintendo is probably the only company with the kind of clout that Valve has.
Blizzard of old could probably compete directly with Valve, and they were trying to which is why they made battle.net into its own brand of game launcher, but that's not who Blizzard is anymore either.
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purchased it months ago and bought laptop with ARM64 CPU which is not supported. I have Intel CPU laptop but it is too old and wanted to play it on my new one but it can't be done so asked for a refund and got it already from steam. it was a bad sign for me.
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The non-morph core mirrors were pretty entertaining. It was fun to see how much the meta shifted over 2 days of play.
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On August 04 2024 23:41 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2024 23:26 PuRpOs3 wrote:
somebody feel like they kind of ruined starcraft 3 or it seems even more distant for the game to come out. Starcraft 3 is a dream. It isn't coming. Modern Blizzard especially Blizzard that is now owned by Microsoft's share holders aren't going to spend that kind of money on an RTS game. Starcraft 2 was astronomically expensive. The only reason it got made was because of how much the guys at the top of old Blizzard loved Starcraft 1. It was a passion project for them. There's no one in the current Blizzard organization with enough pull with the investors with enough love for the Starcraft property to get that kind of funding again. If they ever do make a Starcraft 3, it will be a completely different kind of game.
It's expensive but it's not THAT expensive.
Even if the original $100 million development cost is real, pretty much all Sony triple A titles are costing between $100-200million.
After inflation it's more or less in line with them.
The question is if they need to spend that much to make starcraft 3, and what sort of return they hoping for.
SC2 taught them tonnes of stuff learning about eSports scene, streaming and that extended to overwatch.
The reason why I still think it's unlikely anytime soon, is the RTS market shrank so much, and blizzard already fairly dominate the market.
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On August 05 2024 11:00 KingzTig wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2024 23:41 Vindicare605 wrote:On August 04 2024 23:26 PuRpOs3 wrote:
somebody feel like they kind of ruined starcraft 3 or it seems even more distant for the game to come out. Starcraft 3 is a dream. It isn't coming. Modern Blizzard especially Blizzard that is now owned by Microsoft's share holders aren't going to spend that kind of money on an RTS game. Starcraft 2 was astronomically expensive. The only reason it got made was because of how much the guys at the top of old Blizzard loved Starcraft 1. It was a passion project for them. There's no one in the current Blizzard organization with enough pull with the investors with enough love for the Starcraft property to get that kind of funding again. If they ever do make a Starcraft 3, it will be a completely different kind of game. It's expensive but it's not THAT expensive. Even if the original $100 million development cost is real, pretty much all Sony triple A titles are costing between $100-200million. After inflation it's more or less in line with them. The question is if they need to spend that much to make starcraft 3, and what sort of return they hoping for. SC2 taught them tonnes of stuff learning about eSports scene, streaming and that extended to overwatch. The reason why I still think it's unlikely anytime soon, is the RTS market shrank so much, and blizzard already fairly dominate the market.
RTS isn't a profitable genre for one thing at least not as it exists right now. In the modern gaming space where live service games and microtransactions dominate everything, full scale RTS doesn't really work in that business model. Blizzard tried to adapt SC2 to that model but apparently was unsuccessful since they gave up on SC2 even after monetizing everything from announcer packs, to cosmetic skins, to border portraits.
I don't want to imagine a game that is more monetized than SC2 already is.
The other problem is that RTS is a PC exclusive genre. There's no big fancy console that Microsoft can sell with RTS. Sony's Triple AAA titles are all in one sense big gigantic advertisements for Playstation. So Sony makes their revenue in two different places off one of their titles which is why they can justify larger budgets for them.
Ultimately, if Microsoft is going to even think about giving SC3 a chance, then Stormgate has to succeed and be not just profitable but significantly so, because Frostgiant is attempting to prove that traditional RTS still has a chance to support a development studio all on its own. Which is why I am so disappointed with the game as it is right now because there really is so much riding on it.
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On August 05 2024 13:59 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2024 11:00 KingzTig wrote:On August 04 2024 23:41 Vindicare605 wrote:On August 04 2024 23:26 PuRpOs3 wrote:
somebody feel like they kind of ruined starcraft 3 or it seems even more distant for the game to come out. Starcraft 3 is a dream. It isn't coming. Modern Blizzard especially Blizzard that is now owned by Microsoft's share holders aren't going to spend that kind of money on an RTS game. Starcraft 2 was astronomically expensive. The only reason it got made was because of how much the guys at the top of old Blizzard loved Starcraft 1. It was a passion project for them. There's no one in the current Blizzard organization with enough pull with the investors with enough love for the Starcraft property to get that kind of funding again. If they ever do make a Starcraft 3, it will be a completely different kind of game. It's expensive but it's not THAT expensive. Even if the original $100 million development cost is real, pretty much all Sony triple A titles are costing between $100-200million. After inflation it's more or less in line with them. The question is if they need to spend that much to make starcraft 3, and what sort of return they hoping for. SC2 taught them tonnes of stuff learning about eSports scene, streaming and that extended to overwatch. The reason why I still think it's unlikely anytime soon, is the RTS market shrank so much, and blizzard already fairly dominate the market. RTS isn't a profitable genre for one thing at least not as it exists right now. In the modern gaming space where live service games and microtransactions dominate everything, full scale RTS doesn't really work in that business model. Blizzard tried to adapt SC2 to that model but apparently was unsuccessful since they gave up on SC2 even after monetizing everything from announcer packs, to cosmetic skins, to border portraits. I don't want to imagine a game that is more monetized than SC2 already is. The other problem is that RTS is a PC exclusive genre. There's no big fancy console that Microsoft can sell with RTS. Sony's Triple AAA titles are all in one sense big gigantic advertisements for Playstation. So Sony makes their revenue in two different places off one of their titles which is why they can justify larger budgets for them. Ultimately, if Microsoft is going to even think about giving SC3 a chance, then Stormgate has to succeed and be not just profitable but significantly so, because Frostgiant is attempting to prove that traditional RTS still has a chance to support a development studio all on its own. Which is why I am so disappointed with the game as it is right now because there really is so much riding on it.
Microsoft are literally proving that RTS in current form is a profitable genre. They have successfully relaunched Aoe2 and soon Age of Mythology, and made a lot of money on Aoe4 and it's extremely profitable expansion. Stormgate's success is surely irrelevant to them when they are making good money using the traditional base game/expansion RTS model.
In the adjacent space we have the Total War series making absolute bank (and they will likely have a 40k variant coming soon), indie successes like Mechabellum, and a whole host of upcoming RTS games. It's a pretty good time for the genre!
Only recent failure I've seen was Homeworld 3 where they basically made the worst possible story for a game loved for its story campaign.
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On August 05 2024 15:15 Tal wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2024 13:59 Vindicare605 wrote:On August 05 2024 11:00 KingzTig wrote:On August 04 2024 23:41 Vindicare605 wrote:On August 04 2024 23:26 PuRpOs3 wrote:
somebody feel like they kind of ruined starcraft 3 or it seems even more distant for the game to come out. Starcraft 3 is a dream. It isn't coming. Modern Blizzard especially Blizzard that is now owned by Microsoft's share holders aren't going to spend that kind of money on an RTS game. Starcraft 2 was astronomically expensive. The only reason it got made was because of how much the guys at the top of old Blizzard loved Starcraft 1. It was a passion project for them. There's no one in the current Blizzard organization with enough pull with the investors with enough love for the Starcraft property to get that kind of funding again. If they ever do make a Starcraft 3, it will be a completely different kind of game. It's expensive but it's not THAT expensive. Even if the original $100 million development cost is real, pretty much all Sony triple A titles are costing between $100-200million. After inflation it's more or less in line with them. The question is if they need to spend that much to make starcraft 3, and what sort of return they hoping for. SC2 taught them tonnes of stuff learning about eSports scene, streaming and that extended to overwatch. The reason why I still think it's unlikely anytime soon, is the RTS market shrank so much, and blizzard already fairly dominate the market. RTS isn't a profitable genre for one thing at least not as it exists right now. In the modern gaming space where live service games and microtransactions dominate everything, full scale RTS doesn't really work in that business model. Blizzard tried to adapt SC2 to that model but apparently was unsuccessful since they gave up on SC2 even after monetizing everything from announcer packs, to cosmetic skins, to border portraits. I don't want to imagine a game that is more monetized than SC2 already is. The other problem is that RTS is a PC exclusive genre. There's no big fancy console that Microsoft can sell with RTS. Sony's Triple AAA titles are all in one sense big gigantic advertisements for Playstation. So Sony makes their revenue in two different places off one of their titles which is why they can justify larger budgets for them. Ultimately, if Microsoft is going to even think about giving SC3 a chance, then Stormgate has to succeed and be not just profitable but significantly so, because Frostgiant is attempting to prove that traditional RTS still has a chance to support a development studio all on its own. Which is why I am so disappointed with the game as it is right now because there really is so much riding on it. Microsoft are literally proving that RTS in current form is a profitable genre. They have successfully relaunched Aoe2 and soon Age of Mythology, and made a lot of money on Aoe4 and it's extremely profitable expansion. Stormgate's success is surely irrelevant to them when they are making good money using the traditional base game/expansion RTS model.
Dude look at AoE2 and compare it to Starcraft 2.
Do you notice anything that's different between those two games? Anything at all?
AoE2 is WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY Cheaper to develop new content for.
You are proving my point, for why we will not see another Starcraft RTS game. It is too expensive. If Microsoft can make money developing basically reskins of existing units and selling them as civilization packs for AoE2, why the hell would they spend millions of dollars developing a new Starcraft game with full movie quality cinematic cutscenes?
It makes no sense.
And further, does anyone even WANT that? Do we want a Starcraft game where every new patch cycle there's a new OP variant of Zerg or Terran that comes out that we have to buy if we want to remain competitive? How in the world would that even work in an asymmetrical game like Starcraft 2 when it's already an annoyance for AoE2 where every civilization is basically the same with minor stat differences?
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Northern Ireland22729 Posts
On August 05 2024 15:15 Tal wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2024 13:59 Vindicare605 wrote:On August 05 2024 11:00 KingzTig wrote:On August 04 2024 23:41 Vindicare605 wrote:On August 04 2024 23:26 PuRpOs3 wrote:
somebody feel like they kind of ruined starcraft 3 or it seems even more distant for the game to come out. Starcraft 3 is a dream. It isn't coming. Modern Blizzard especially Blizzard that is now owned by Microsoft's share holders aren't going to spend that kind of money on an RTS game. Starcraft 2 was astronomically expensive. The only reason it got made was because of how much the guys at the top of old Blizzard loved Starcraft 1. It was a passion project for them. There's no one in the current Blizzard organization with enough pull with the investors with enough love for the Starcraft property to get that kind of funding again. If they ever do make a Starcraft 3, it will be a completely different kind of game. It's expensive but it's not THAT expensive. Even if the original $100 million development cost is real, pretty much all Sony triple A titles are costing between $100-200million. After inflation it's more or less in line with them. The question is if they need to spend that much to make starcraft 3, and what sort of return they hoping for. SC2 taught them tonnes of stuff learning about eSports scene, streaming and that extended to overwatch. The reason why I still think it's unlikely anytime soon, is the RTS market shrank so much, and blizzard already fairly dominate the market. RTS isn't a profitable genre for one thing at least not as it exists right now. In the modern gaming space where live service games and microtransactions dominate everything, full scale RTS doesn't really work in that business model. Blizzard tried to adapt SC2 to that model but apparently was unsuccessful since they gave up on SC2 even after monetizing everything from announcer packs, to cosmetic skins, to border portraits. I don't want to imagine a game that is more monetized than SC2 already is. The other problem is that RTS is a PC exclusive genre. There's no big fancy console that Microsoft can sell with RTS. Sony's Triple AAA titles are all in one sense big gigantic advertisements for Playstation. So Sony makes their revenue in two different places off one of their titles which is why they can justify larger budgets for them. Ultimately, if Microsoft is going to even think about giving SC3 a chance, then Stormgate has to succeed and be not just profitable but significantly so, because Frostgiant is attempting to prove that traditional RTS still has a chance to support a development studio all on its own. Which is why I am so disappointed with the game as it is right now because there really is so much riding on it. Microsoft are literally proving that RTS in current form is a profitable genre. They have successfully relaunched Aoe2 and soon Age of Mythology, and made a lot of money on Aoe4 and it's extremely profitable expansion. Stormgate's success is surely irrelevant to them when they are making good money using the traditional base game/expansion RTS model. In the adjacent space we have the Total War series making absolute bank (and they will likely have a 40k variant coming soon), indie successes like Mechabellum, and a whole host of upcoming RTS games. It's a pretty good time for the genre! Only recent failure I've seen was Homeworld 3 where they basically made the worst possible story for a game loved for its story campaign.
It’s less can it be profitable, more can it be profitable enough in the era we’re in, where big publishers chase absolute megahits with a load of monetisation, or things they can reliably push out frequently from big IPs. And like Vindicare (and many others) have pointed out, RTS and that kind of monetisation really don’t mix very well.
I think we’re seeing some great/promising games, but there’s nothing on SC2’s level on a sheer polish/budgetary scope, and it seems unlikely we’ll see it for a fair while.
I’m sure the cream of jazz still make some profit, but record labels would rather have one Taylor Swift than 10 jazz artists turning relatively modest profits, even if proportions the same.
I do 100% feel that if Microsoft had come in earlier, SC:R might have seen even more work, but especially Warcraft Reforged wouldn’t have been such a dumpster fire. They did certainly do a decent job with AoE’s! But Reforged is really an illustration of the very worst of short-term nickle and diming.
It’s not all bleak, the genre is in a hell of a better state than say, arena shooters, there are still good, interesting titles. Even if someone doesn’t like SC2 though, and there are legitimate reasons why, there’s really nothing to touch it for production ambition and polish in many a moon now. Not something I see changing anytime soon. There’s still plenty of good stuff out there, I’ll have fun! Just nothing on the foreseeable horizon one can think will come close to replicating SC2’s whole package.
Valve could maybe do it if they could be arsed actually making a game. There aren’t too many studios left with such heft who aren’t beholden to shareholder pressure to maximise profits in a short-term way.
I mean I’m sure there’s plenty of others who could also deliver in terms of talent, it’s being put into working on such a project I doubt we’ll see anytime soon.
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On August 05 2024 15:24 Vindicare605 wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2024 15:15 Tal wrote:On August 05 2024 13:59 Vindicare605 wrote:On August 05 2024 11:00 KingzTig wrote:On August 04 2024 23:41 Vindicare605 wrote:On August 04 2024 23:26 PuRpOs3 wrote:
somebody feel like they kind of ruined starcraft 3 or it seems even more distant for the game to come out. Starcraft 3 is a dream. It isn't coming. Modern Blizzard especially Blizzard that is now owned by Microsoft's share holders aren't going to spend that kind of money on an RTS game. Starcraft 2 was astronomically expensive. The only reason it got made was because of how much the guys at the top of old Blizzard loved Starcraft 1. It was a passion project for them. There's no one in the current Blizzard organization with enough pull with the investors with enough love for the Starcraft property to get that kind of funding again. If they ever do make a Starcraft 3, it will be a completely different kind of game. It's expensive but it's not THAT expensive. Even if the original $100 million development cost is real, pretty much all Sony triple A titles are costing between $100-200million. After inflation it's more or less in line with them. The question is if they need to spend that much to make starcraft 3, and what sort of return they hoping for. SC2 taught them tonnes of stuff learning about eSports scene, streaming and that extended to overwatch. The reason why I still think it's unlikely anytime soon, is the RTS market shrank so much, and blizzard already fairly dominate the market. RTS isn't a profitable genre for one thing at least not as it exists right now. In the modern gaming space where live service games and microtransactions dominate everything, full scale RTS doesn't really work in that business model. Blizzard tried to adapt SC2 to that model but apparently was unsuccessful since they gave up on SC2 even after monetizing everything from announcer packs, to cosmetic skins, to border portraits. I don't want to imagine a game that is more monetized than SC2 already is. The other problem is that RTS is a PC exclusive genre. There's no big fancy console that Microsoft can sell with RTS. Sony's Triple AAA titles are all in one sense big gigantic advertisements for Playstation. So Sony makes their revenue in two different places off one of their titles which is why they can justify larger budgets for them. Ultimately, if Microsoft is going to even think about giving SC3 a chance, then Stormgate has to succeed and be not just profitable but significantly so, because Frostgiant is attempting to prove that traditional RTS still has a chance to support a development studio all on its own. Which is why I am so disappointed with the game as it is right now because there really is so much riding on it. Microsoft are literally proving that RTS in current form is a profitable genre. They have successfully relaunched Aoe2 and soon Age of Mythology, and made a lot of money on Aoe4 and it's extremely profitable expansion. Stormgate's success is surely irrelevant to them when they are making good money using the traditional base game/expansion RTS model. Dude look at AoE2 and compare it to Starcraft 2. Do you notice anything that's different between those two games? Anything at all? AoE2 is WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY Cheaper to develop new content for. You are proving my point, for why we will not see another Starcraft RTS game. It is too expensive. If Microsoft can make money developing basically reskins of existing units and selling them as civilization packs for AoE2, why the hell would they spend millions of dollars developing a new Starcraft game with full movie quality cinematic cutscenes? It makes no sense. And further, does anyone even WANT that? Do we want a Starcraft game where every new patch cycle there's a new OP variant of Zerg or Terran that comes out that we have to buy if we want to remain competitive? How in the world would that even work in an asymmetrical game like Starcraft 2 when it's already an annoyance for AoE2 where every civilization is basically the same with minor stat differences?
To use some of the other examples from my post. AoE4 spent a lot of money on presentation with extremely high quality historical campaign videos, and world class sound design which is probably the best the genre has ever seen. It's civilisations are more unique than Aoe2 and there are a lot of them.
The Total War Warhammer games have far more units, models, and assets in general than Starcraft, across a ludicrous number of factions.
These are both comparable triple A games which made a lot of money. They have less polish I guess.
On August 05 2024 15:44 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2024 15:15 Tal wrote:On August 05 2024 13:59 Vindicare605 wrote:On August 05 2024 11:00 KingzTig wrote:On August 04 2024 23:41 Vindicare605 wrote:On August 04 2024 23:26 PuRpOs3 wrote:
somebody feel like they kind of ruined starcraft 3 or it seems even more distant for the game to come out. Starcraft 3 is a dream. It isn't coming. Modern Blizzard especially Blizzard that is now owned by Microsoft's share holders aren't going to spend that kind of money on an RTS game. Starcraft 2 was astronomically expensive. The only reason it got made was because of how much the guys at the top of old Blizzard loved Starcraft 1. It was a passion project for them. There's no one in the current Blizzard organization with enough pull with the investors with enough love for the Starcraft property to get that kind of funding again. If they ever do make a Starcraft 3, it will be a completely different kind of game. It's expensive but it's not THAT expensive. Even if the original $100 million development cost is real, pretty much all Sony triple A titles are costing between $100-200million. After inflation it's more or less in line with them. The question is if they need to spend that much to make starcraft 3, and what sort of return they hoping for. SC2 taught them tonnes of stuff learning about eSports scene, streaming and that extended to overwatch. The reason why I still think it's unlikely anytime soon, is the RTS market shrank so much, and blizzard already fairly dominate the market. RTS isn't a profitable genre for one thing at least not as it exists right now. In the modern gaming space where live service games and microtransactions dominate everything, full scale RTS doesn't really work in that business model. Blizzard tried to adapt SC2 to that model but apparently was unsuccessful since they gave up on SC2 even after monetizing everything from announcer packs, to cosmetic skins, to border portraits. I don't want to imagine a game that is more monetized than SC2 already is. The other problem is that RTS is a PC exclusive genre. There's no big fancy console that Microsoft can sell with RTS. Sony's Triple AAA titles are all in one sense big gigantic advertisements for Playstation. So Sony makes their revenue in two different places off one of their titles which is why they can justify larger budgets for them. Ultimately, if Microsoft is going to even think about giving SC3 a chance, then Stormgate has to succeed and be not just profitable but significantly so, because Frostgiant is attempting to prove that traditional RTS still has a chance to support a development studio all on its own. Which is why I am so disappointed with the game as it is right now because there really is so much riding on it. Microsoft are literally proving that RTS in current form is a profitable genre. They have successfully relaunched Aoe2 and soon Age of Mythology, and made a lot of money on Aoe4 and it's extremely profitable expansion. Stormgate's success is surely irrelevant to them when they are making good money using the traditional base game/expansion RTS model. In the adjacent space we have the Total War series making absolute bank (and they will likely have a 40k variant coming soon), indie successes like Mechabellum, and a whole host of upcoming RTS games. It's a pretty good time for the genre! Only recent failure I've seen was Homeworld 3 where they basically made the worst possible story for a game loved for its story campaign. It’s less can it be profitable, more can it be profitable enough in the era we’re in, where big publishers chase absolute megahits with a load of monetisation, or things they can reliably push out frequently from big IPs. And like Vindicare (and many others) have pointed out, RTS and that kind of monetisation really don’t mix very well. I think we’re seeing some great/promising games, but there’s nothing on SC2’s level on a sheer polish/budgetary scope, and it seems unlikely we’ll see it for a fair while. I’m sure the cream of jazz still make some profit, but record labels would rather have one Taylor Swift than 10 jazz artists turning relatively modest profits, even if proportions the same.
I think comparing to jazz is a bit extreme haha. Aoe4 and the recent Total War Warhammer games sold millions of copies.
That said, in terms of ambition no one has got to quite StarCraft 2's level of sheer polish and responsiveness, or captured the zeitgeist in quite the same way.
My general point is that RTS games are still big and profitable enough for publishers like Microsoft and Sega to keep investing in them, and for more to be in development now than have been for a long time. I absolutely think we'll see a StarCraft 3 at some stage. Perhaps they'll spend less money on cinematics, but it's a valuable IP which they could make good money from. There's also still a lot of room for innovation in the genre - and to briefly come back on topic, that's what I've been most disappointed by Stormgate with - despite claiming to be next-gen they are barely trying anything new at all.
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The interesting part of SC3 and Stormgate is not the profit the game makes, but the demographic of the viewers. SC:BW and SC:2 are two games that have more viewers than players. Additionally, the viewers are from all over the world and have a much higher than average amount of people that use math in their education and work. Or in simpler words the next big esport RTS has a unique position to advertise to an international, above average intelligent and relatively respectful community. Bill Gates's foundation would fit very well as an advertisement partner for example.
Also compare the cost of content creation for TV shows or non-electronic sports to 1v1 esports. I think that RTS games are the most entertaining computer games to watch.
Apart from that - the tournament was fun and the game looks like the early WoL beta. It took SC:2 years to develop the depth we enjoy today. Before the tournament I was pessimistic about the entertainment value of Stormgate, now much less so. If either Stormgate or SC:2 (or SC:3) have an active scene and international tournaments I'll have my entertainment. For comparison - after enjoying watching Heroes of the Storm neither Dota2 nor LoL would work for me. However, Stormgate worked for me right away after about twenty years of watching Starcraft.
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I just watched the top recommended games from stormgate tournament and it still doesn't click with me.
The pacing just feels so off and the lethality is so inconsistent. One minute you have brute doing no damage and then you have exploding imps blowing everything up.
The part I like is the destructible trees which make map a lot more dynamic.
But then the creep mechanics is just barely impactful imo.
It's weird because I have around 80 games in my library, probably 20 are RTS, and I haven't felt this way about any of them.
I saw people commenting how it's like starcraft 2 alpha but we have great RTS players getting into games like zerospace, battle aces, aoe4, gate of pyre and they all have decent gameplay and starting build, and you can see the game mechanics clicking together.
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Not sure about sc3, tbh i d rather have more games in that universe thab a sc3 anytime soon. I am.still salty about ghost being cancelled but those types of ventures would really appeal to me. Now this may be a niche position, no idea.
I also really enjoyed the wol campaign and all the rpg style progression and story telling (we will not talk about lotv) in that vein of not being directly rts.
But the lore is quite rich you could maybe get some fun things. Playing a splinter cell style dt/ghost, anything to do with the ships/vehicles, having maybe a mass effect style game, an alien vs predator but with zergs and zealots and the lost human marine etc you get the idea
On SG itself i found the games meh. Still have a profound dislike of the graphics but putting that aside still the game itself didn't appeal to me
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On August 05 2024 19:06 Hildegard wrote:
Additionally, the viewers are from all over the world and have a much higher than average amount of people that use math in their education and work. Or in simpler words the next big esport RTS has a unique position to advertise to an international, above average intelligent and relatively respectful community. Bill Gates's foundation would fit very well as an advertisement partner for example.
lol
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On August 05 2024 20:53 WGT-Baal wrote:
Not sure about sc3, tbh i d rather have more games in that universe thab a sc3 anytime soon. I am.still salty about ghost being cancelled but those types of ventures would really appeal to me. Now this may be a niche position, no idea.
I also really enjoyed the wol campaign and all the rpg style progression and story telling (we will not talk about lotv) in that vein of not being directly rts.
But the lore is quite rich you could maybe get some fun things. Playing a splinter cell style dt/ghost, anything to do with the ships/vehicles, having maybe a mass effect style game, an alien vs predator but with zergs and zealots and the lost human marine etc you get the idea
On SG itself i found the games meh. Still have a profound dislike of the graphics but putting that aside still the game itself didn't appeal to me
Oh I'm sure we'll get another Starcraft game at some point. Probably a cheap spin off that Blizzard can make serious profit margins on.
What we won't get again is a game like Starcraft 2. One that has the kind of elaborate single player campaign to go along with fully supported tightly balanced multiplayer. One of those things will be missing from the next title.
Either it will be a live service, highly monetized game that focuses on single player mode like the Total War series or it will be a new RTS that doesn't have any of the expensive single player components or has them in a more minimized capacity.
We aren't going to get another Starcraft 2.
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I feel Stormgate/ Frostgiant has all the right ideas but is doing it all wrong somehow.
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On August 05 2024 23:03 Harris1st wrote:
I feel Stormgate/ Frostgiant has all the right ideas but is doing it all wrong somehow.
They have no ideas and that's the core problem.
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EPT
