yeah, and if my grandma had wheels she should be a lawnmower, stormgate fucked up for 2 reasons, they "set out to make the next big RTS" which naturally people are going to compare a semi finished indie game to their favorite matured optimized finished AAA RTS game with years of development behind it, and releasing campaign so soon, they werent ready and they said it, they need money thats why they added microtransactions and thats why they also released that pathetic excuse of a campaign, its clear that nothing is finished and that everything is work in progress and i expect it to be that way for the next year at least. the sounds are messed up, the pathing sucks balls, the graphics are mediocre at best but getting better with each update, if you wanna bash it go at it but dont look for an excuse. i dont know who totalbiscuit is but i dont agree with his/her opinion in the slightest, if they need money to finish the game they are forced to sell shit or run another crowdfunding, if you wanna judge it fine but dont just sit there and pretend that its a finished game and judge it as such because they added microtransactions to be able to finish the game and not roll over and bankrupt. such a moronic take.
@@garryarganis5801 Total Biscuits quote means that it should be TREATED as a release, if they have all of those expensive micro-transactions to capitalize on their game, they are selling the game, ergo, people have the right to treat the game as a purchase, not as an "early access", stormgate had worst kind of early access possible, trying to make money out of an unifinished mess when they claimed they would top sc2.
I think it's worth noting how universal the attitude to the characters is. You've identified a lack of worldbuilding, and starting with a few missions when the portal opens would do much better at setting the scene. But notice how after several missions with the main character, everyone's response is "yeah, but remember her father? What if we could play as Cutscene Dad instead?". A guy who's barely got any writing is more appealing than the character the game wants you to focus on. Even if her role is to just be the corrupt hand that holds Not-Frostmourne, that was done better in Warcraft 3. Arthas starts out as quite likable, we have quite a few missions where he's endearing before anything questionable happens. Maybe Stormgate doesn't have time, so they start their Not-Arthas in a compromised state. That doesn't seem to have worked, she has failed to charm the audience. It's easy to go for the "gamers just don't understand game development angle", but I don't think it quite covers this. Granted, some people will be confused by the constant "beta testing", when a game is already finished and too close to release for any bug fixes. I'd say the real problem is not that gamers expected a polished final product, but that everyone can see the trajectory. When you see what direction the game is heading, it's fair to assume it'll continue on that course. And if you wanted it to be different, there's not much point sticking around. Take the art style, for example. I assume they decided this would lead to a Wider Audience, that the cartoony look is a business decision and part of their core strategy. They always knew some people wouldn't like it, and they're banking on the idea that more people will find this look appealing. It's not that the polish is lacking, it's a disagreement that runs to the heart of the visuals. Expecting the dev team to overhaul the art style into something I like, that would be incredibly unreasonable. But given that it would take so much effort to change the art, I don't ever expect to love the look, no matter how much polish they give it. The same goes for the characters and campaign. When there's already voice acting for the main character, it's not reasonable to expect a change. Better sound balancing, that would be fine, but not a whole new recording session where the voice actors retread old ground. You might get some tweaks and new takes of a few important barks. But one does not simply commit a script and a voice actor to placeholder dialogue. This is the writing that the devs thought it was worth the time and money to record: for those who aren't impressed, that's unlikely to change in future. Especially because writing is something you can work on for years, regardless of what state the rest of the game is in.
The art style was definitely the first major fail in my opinion. After insane hype they created with their aggressive marketing they needed to show something that looks immediately attractive. Instead they come out with some screenshots that look like utter garbage. Way to destroy their own hype. It was all downhill from there. If FG didn't create very high expectations themselves people might've reacted less harshly. But since they presented themselves as biggest dicks in RTS development scene and then came out with something completely underwhelming they shouldn't be surprised that people assume they are bunch of full of shit scammers. I was suspicious early on because for the longest time we got nothing but lots of pretty talks where developers were saying all the right things and it all sounded too good.
I don't like people always saying "oh people are expecting a full game, so that's why the opinion is so low" which is basically saying people are too incompetent to form their own opinion. There are plenty of games in similar states that elicit "ok it's unfinished but I can see where this is going responses" and "xyz is cool". See deadlock for example being in alpha. "The general reception has been better". This is blatantly false. In fact when it was made free to play the rating went even lower. It's just an excuse to not deal with the fact that the game, the vision and the current presentation is just bad. Simple as that. There is plenty of stuff FG studio did that is outright scammy/scummy. They sat down in an expensive location and brainstormed for 12 months before even starting to work, only to come up with probably the safest and least creative RTS possible? If you play it "safe" why do that? Kickstarter promises have been changed. Some of the maps in campaign are literally copypasted from starcraft.
The problem with Stormgate or rather its PR, is that everything is an angle or an excuse or a promise. Compare that with TQ2’s PR: Here’s the trailer; this is gameplay, systems and graphics. Straightforward but not to a fault.
It’s funny how everything about this game is stolen from either Warcraft or StarCraft. Right down to their company name Frost Giant being a ripoff of Blizzard. Everything in Stormgate other RTS games already do better. It’s not even like it has visuals to make it stand out as StarCraft 2 released in 2010 looks better both artistically and in graphic fidelity. Just a failure of a game in every way.
The problem isn’t that people judge an EA game as a full release but we see that the core gameplay doesn’t look good enough. For example deadlock is pretty rough around the edges too but the core gameplay is really good so people don’t make a big deal about bugs and unpolished visual assets. IMO this game has the similar issue like Concord where a new game is a worse version of the already existed game.
Pls focus next on Zerospace, Tempest Rising (i realise wayward is involved in the development of TR) & Immortal Gates of Pyre once they're released next year!
It'll be a shame if the studio closes its doors within a year, since the 1v1 mode is quite fun, and includes some smart quality of life improvements over Starcraft 2
How did no one at any point stop development of the game and say "this looks like crap." Who is this generic, cheap-plastic toy art style supposed to appeal to? You can look at the box art of StarCraft without ever having to play it and know what's happening. There are marines, there's a tank, here is a insecty horde race. Whenever I see a screenshot of SG I have no idea what I'm looking at.
Who was supposed to stop and say that? Higher ups were likely convinced they had the best ideas ever and regular devs would be shown the door if they voiced heretical opinions...
@@mgs85 If you listen to the developer Thor who now has a podcast, and Twitch stream, he was a former Blizzard tester, who was paid about $10/hour. He recounts many stories about how Blizzard made it sound like a great privilege to playtest the games, and leveraged that cheap workforce to carry on testing for their best titles. So it is very possible to do playtesting without a big budget .
Nothing wrong with that it’s good business. Plenty of gamers who will play test things for free or pay for early access so why waste money paying for it as a company?
Hope you do a follow up with Brandon on this soon or maybe wait until after the big October update so he can give his thoughts on the trajectory of the development so far. My guess is that he'd be very pleased with the visual updates.
As a long time fan of WC3 and Sc1, Sc2 i was very hyped for Stormgate, i have been following it since they announced, before they even had a name for the game. However after seeing the first art i was very dissapointed, still i wanted to try and give it a shot and so i did when they first allowed players to get in, tried playing vanguard, it was probably the worst experience ive had in RTS, bad graphics, bad keys, no directions on how to play, childish looking units with trash names like BoB and countless many things that completely turned me off this game, i cannot see comebacking to it ever again, on the other side the first time i played Battle Aces i got immediately hooked up on it and i cant wait for its second beta to play again, it has clear vision on what it wants to be and its fun. Even though i am not the biggets fan of BA's graphics aswell, the gameplay itself is much more satisfying, the game feels much more polished and is UNIQUE, i played only two days BA and i still remember Air gunship's quotes saying "Okay okay okay", sound is such an important aspect to a RTS and i feel like BA has nailed that part unlike SG.
Hey Nakamura, thank you for your fantastic AoM cast. Had a super relaxing weekend watching you livestream the Wololo tournament. That being said I would have liked for SG to be the next big thing. Cant have enough RTS games after all. But I think whatever momentum it may have had is unfortunately long gone.
A good rts needs a procedural map generator. And there is no reason to have no buildable walls instead of indestructable fixed walls around almost every base called cliffs.
I'm a game designer working on a Strategy game - I loved playing Celestials as well. I think you guys nailed a lot of points. 40:31 From a visual standpoint, the lighting in SC2 is a lot more "contrasted" - the colors are more vibrant and the lights are lighter and darks are darker. That alone can do wonders for differentiating things. Stormgate, however, looks a little "washed out" in comparison. The units in Stormgate also have skinny legs instead of stubby ones, some even are not as "bulky" in the middle, and have their edges stand out more. I'm probably explaining it badly because I'm on break at work. So here's a case example, look at the Siege Tank and Viking in SC2 and compare it to the Atlas and Vulcan in Stormgate. Stormgate's unit's shapes, proportions and colors are not as exaggerated and unique from one another as SC2's. As from a gameplay perspective, I think they can do a lot more with map objects and terrain in general. I think the "creep camps" feel pretty bare bones. (UpATree did a short analysis on it and gave some feedback about it in his video from yesterday) It was one of the things I didn't really enjoy in StarCraft 2 - not a lot of interesting map interactions. The neutral structures, rich resource fields and the tall grass, rocks and terrain blockers were all a good start, but I feel like in 2024 we can do a lot more interesting things. Even War3 did some interesting things I haven't seen since.
You explained the visual issues well! Putting those together, it's hard to feel attachment and to consider the art style iconic. As for maps, the formula in Stormgate is essentially mixing together SC2 and WC3, making neither fan base happy, and not much is added to the gameplay that feels fresh as a result. We've played this stuff like this before, so it needs to be either a better execution, or have some fresher elements!
The most entertaining SC2 games I've ever seen were in the tournaments that TB ran with the wacky custom maps. I think the fact that SC2 relies heavily on its map design to give defenders advantage through choke points and elevation and not faction design, like WC3 did, coupled with the extremely competitive tournament scene resulted in very samey, contrived maps.
22:17 (cough. Grey Goo the Goo faction) :) but the point still stands. The Celestials with their structure is outside the norm. But the Goo with it rolling over high ground mountains did it better. Grey Goo btw used the same high/low ground rules SC2 did. This game doesn't. As soon as the high ground unit fires, the low ground unit can see them and fire back. I hate that from a defenders advantage, strategic positioning element that's completely wiped away. I don't use the word hate often. I'm using it here.
I get the Grey Goo comparison - I used to commentate that game actually :) - and while Morph Cores are a bit like Proteans, there's still at least a matter of scale since the Goo don't really have buildings as such. The Celestials are fairly uncommon for a 'mobile' faction in that they actually do place down permanent infrastructure, and their "key building" mechanic that serves as an exit point for all factory buildings is similarly unique. We could talk about Zhon, the Hierarchy (probably a fairly close analog in some respects), or a couple of other hypermobile factions, but I still maintain that the Celestials do enough differently to make it worth mentioning :)
Frost Giant did nothing right. The balance sucks, the art sucks, the story sucks, the gameplay modes are unfinished. No one cares about the characters or the setting. This thing is an unmitigated, 40 million dollar failure and it's going to keep sucking up all the air in the shrinking RTS room the longer it stays on life support. The quicker Stormgate goes away, the better it will be for the genre. Zero Space just looks better and is better at this stage.
Think all this is a bit surface. Problem is the fundamentals aren't there yet. They can add all the content they want, but it doesn't matter if the core game's not that great. Infact, it makes it far hearder to fix the more you shovel on. Was optimistic when the alpha/beta first started and it was just Vanguard with placeholder assets, but then they just shoved in more stuff and never improved the core then suddenly released it. I'm not gonna put any money until they show they even have a solid sense of direction.
Sorry for the rant As someone that isnt the biggest starcraft fan outside of the story and coop, this game just looks like a worse starcraft in every way. The game needs a total overhaul, not just the usual content updates. And even then, there's nothing that this game is doing to try and surpass Starcraft. Not that it necessarily needs to, a very similar game with a fresh coat of paint, active developers and close to feature parity would do really well since SC2 is all but abandoned. Problem is, the coat of paint on this game looks terrible, none of the factions appeal to me visually, Vanguard units are probably the ugliest RTS units i've ever seen. Not sure what the modern obsession is with the skinny mech style of units it looks terrible. Infernals are the only ones that look passable. Its like groundhog day for RTS fans, take your pick, Dawn of War 3, Halo Wars 2, Company of Heroes 3, Age of Empires 4. A new big budget hyped RTS game comes out lacking or neglecting basic features and QoL, makes baffling decisions and releases too early. Then it underperforms and people wonder why RTS isnt doing as well as it could be. Fact is SC2 still blows all RTS games out of the water in terms of content, even now.
I want this game to succeed because in one interview Designer Dave gave recently the success of RTS games that are being developed right now SG among them is a make or break thing for us as RTS fans because the big boys like Microsoft is watching, if this game and other like it succeed there will be a incentive to make more AAA RTS games like maybe War4 Sc3, AoM2 etc. I don't have discord so I'm gonna say it here if the devs of SG are watching and reading. Make a good setting with interesting factions, that is KEY. I was excited when I saw the Infernals as a faction but I don't see any good looking scary demons like u see in Doom for instance. Go back to the drawing board and rethink the look of the factions as much as possible in this stage of development. That for much of the people up untill now has been a breaking point for not playing because the faction don't look interesting.
Honestly, you should not be selling microtransactions if your game is not yet feature complete. People have paid for campaign missions, you need to deliver on that promise before you start selling extra heroes. I already think its a pretty bad idea to release the campaign like this to begin with, it doesn't leave enough time for people to fall in love with your world when they have to start and stop every few months.. On top of the missions not being very interesting. From a consumer POV, it feels like the campaign, which should be the main attraction to build an audience, is being treated as secondary to the competitive aspect of the game. Noone is going to care about your esport if people can't fall in love with your universe.
Good point. But I don't find that to be a problem of them copying old Blizzard story. The problem is their implementation of it. The most cookie cutter uninspired missions, clunky UI and doll like looking characters etc. If they'd implemented just 1 Mission instead of 6 in this alpha, but concentrated their effort on just one instead of 6 then I'm pretty sure it would have been received much better...
Well clearly they didn't gave a shit about single player at all the whole game is tailor built for sc2 grandmaster burn outs. Not a sound business strategy to target mainly this demographic it turns out
I do also enjoy playing games form way back then with highly outdated graphics, but in the year 2024 i do want an RTS that is good and can surpass Starcraft 2 Graphics. I want to look at that game its not some tile sets or bad lightning this game looks blend. I want my RTS Crisis because we basically never had one
As an concept artist this game fantasy is just flat out bad..Space marines vs Dimons Rail gun vs Axes and Swords ..it doesnt make sense and mechanical robot angels omg...😂😂 Doom is only game that pull Space marine vs demons to be cool ..
I disagree with this mostly in that Warhammer has literally made 30 years of lore. Much of it dealing with Chaos and its various Daemons. It has been included in video games like the original Dawn of War and was actually rather fun there. Albeit the Daemons are very different. And Dawn of War is also very different.
It's not just the art style. It is also the disconnect between the story being told in the campaign and the art style. The infernals are super goofy looking and sound funny, which would be great in a game with a more comedic tone. Unfortunately, the story they are telling is so grimdark that 40k would be telling FG to stay in their lane. The art style needs to match the tone. And right now, it really doesn't.
@@Law-gnome tbh 40k can still be pretty goofy. The Orks are portrayed pretty comically despite being horrible genocidal monsters, and in Fantasy, the Skaven being completely irredeemable in their spite and cowardice is played for laughs as much as it's played for grimdark. The issue with Stormgate is just that the artstyle looks cartoony and there's a lack of bite in the actual story/lore.
The "before" Amara is dirt ugly. The "after" is...fine, but for them to have to show progress like it's some kind of announcement is bad. As for camera angles, why is it that Kerrigan in the Heart of the Swarm campaign looked pretty fantastic no matter angle she was looked at, and Stormgate's main characters look worse? When you are saying things like "I want to get invested", notice that none of this happened back in the day with Brood War. That aircraft carrier thing looks like a worse Carrier with seemingly a single interceptor that fires out, which looks like it just comes out in a straight path, which looks unexciting. Where's the fancy strafing and return?
Aside from: we are exblizz veterans claims which already set expectations high 17:50 is for me most important aspect of fantasy RTS. I am average skilled player who likes to be invested in decent stories and characters. I dont quite see why competetive 1v1 is relatively well received, when its just worst version of terrain zerg protoss. Btw if You are guy from Tempest Rising, nice job, game seems to be interesting.
I cant believe you offered 45 minutes to a game like Stormgate. Game is very bad and developers are arrogant saying they are the best and overhyping. All this "the next-gen, the future of RTS, the best RTS devs" makes people want to hate them. Disrespectul to other RTS which are better with much less budget. This game doesnt deserve any coverage.
I understand you, the coverage interest is in the search of the next SC2 or W3 and Frost Giant presented themselves as kind of the new Blizzard (like their company name suggests) who was going to deliver what all those fans are asking for. They are under under under under under under under under delivering.I would rather spend one hour of my life playing a 2 developper game like Godsworn than to spend another hour in Stormgate. I think I have spent two or three, trying to like it when it was supposed to be "the thing" but it was far too much. As soon as I heard the dumb name of the game, then saw the art style, then the complete absence of interesting, units, mechanics or lore, the childish soul-less direction, I was out.
I'm diamond 1 and bored... Celestial Mirror match is first person to get 4 scythes out wins, or spam argents, its dull as hell... There is a clear rock paper scissors in all matches too, its like they didn't listen to any of the Beta feedback... Infernals have too many advantages which snowball early game, and if you miss a scan and vanguard go mass hedgehog, you cant easily get back in the game. Its a mess for this stage in development., and it feels clunky... SC2 (I was GM) is sharp even 12+ years on...
Steam refund system allow to refund whole games. Even more, steam purchases has like 1 month of hold. They could have easely refund warz by contacting valve, but they decided to promice one "dont sue us" hero. One, when there should be at least one free hero per faction and no mtx paywals before release. Value proposition for $60 is like lower then purchasing mtg boosters.
Absolutely! The amount of hand waving that away likes its some impossible task that hasn't been done hundreds of times in the past by other companies is crazy. I'm sure it has nothing to do with wanting to make money. cmon guys don't be naive.
@@TheRyanshamowski Funniest thing is, how much they make money on this MTX? Are such reputation hit on the public launch worth... Up to 200k? But I doubt that even half of the backers (~18k backers are $60+) purchased Warz, I think numbers could be closer to 1k. That is up to $10k without fee and regional pricing.
Yeah they made a good game, its a bit floaty and weird to control, but overall its a decent rts. Its just not better than sc2, and that was everyones hope, so its an unmitigated disaster to the RTS community. Absolute failure of a product. You tried to best the king?!?! Because of a lack of vision and trying to appeal to "everyone" they never really appealed to themselves or anyone specifically so no one has gotten what they want. It's just average meh everywhere. They need to commit to what they want to make, and hope other people enjoy it. Stop trying to appeal to the masses who may not even play stormgate.
They though when they take SC2 or Craft Games as a foundation and improve the 1-2 big disadvantages of SC2 and add some smaller improvements it will be enough to create a successful rts. The problem is that the foundation of Craft Games is overrated. Besides the standard stuff like good sound, graphic, controls, comfort features, pathing etc... ... what was cool about SC? --> Story, universe, 3 totally different factions ... what was cool about WC? --> Story, universe, 4 totally different factions and the many funmaps So the gameplay of SC2 and WC3 1v1 match making etc. was always cool for a little group of good players. SC2 is played by causals just in the CooP, singleplayer and funmaps. So for the majority of players the 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 or 4v4 multiplayer were never interesting. But they want the majority of players and that are the casual players. In Age Games more causal players play 2v2, 3v3, 4v4 match making, because it is more fun and there are almost no modded funmaps. Why its more fun? Because the diversity is much bigger because of several mechanics that are not existing in Craft games like: - more complex resource system (more different resources and more different ways to get them) - different win conditions, - walls (flexible map manipulation. Destructible rocks and trees are not flexible) + too many cliffs reduce the ways how a map can be played, - map variety through (procedural generated maps, not always cliffs, water maps (island maps, team island maps), nomad maps etc. - more factions with more different win strategies and mechanics Why funmaps are so important? --> Because of the bigger diversity. The funmaps brought the players to the Craft games, because the Craft-Games standard competetive multiplayer experience can't! Why SC2 CooP mode was successful? --> Because of the bigger diversity. More Challenges / More different Units / More different Heroes / More different Abilities etc. Stormgate needs besides all the other stuff like story, bugs, performance, factions and unit design etc. more diversity through procedural generated maps, more complex economy and more map manipulation tools like walls to close and open paths flexible on the whole map. Because of the same reason they need at least one resource that can be build flexible on the map and not only on fixed locations. The Craft resource system is boring. The Craft map design (structure wise) is very limited and boring. (Always cliffs around almost each base and sometimes 1 or 2 entries.) If the unit design, lore and atmosphere of SC and WC wouldn't be good there would be almost nothing left to like. People don't like SC or WC for the big variation of maps (structure wise) or the resource system or the ways how they can manipulate the maps that leads to diverse experiences on the same map. To give your one example why all of this is true. Imagine there will be a map where is everything filled with trees in Stormgate, except of a few ways to the opponent and some resources and a little space around your base. This map many people will like because you can build your own paths through the trees and every match will feel more different as the current maps because the paths, created by the players, will be different. The same is true for walls instead of using indestructable cliffs. They added trees because destructable cliffs are more interesting than indestructable cliffs. They not really recognized that this is the real reason why they added this. What they though were "Would be cool to open up paths to resources and or the opponent during one match." That is the reason they have seen to add destructable trees. But they haven’t thought far enough what the real reason is behind it. The real reason is they want the map can change during a match so maps feel more different and the experience is more unique and more different things can happen in matches and even on the same map. So to build walls will be a much better solution for this than trees and cliffs. Because players can wall paths where they want and can not only be destroyed like trees to open up paths, but also be build to close paths so the situation on the map can be changed even more and even more often. Because the same trees can just be cutted ones. So to think a Craft-like game or how Frost Giant call it a Blizzard like rts will be the next big rts will fail. It will never be the next big rts that is played by 100.000 and more players in the competetive multiplayer, because it never wasn't. The funmaps, the story (singleplayer) and the atmosphere through sound and graphic design were the factors of the success. And all is missing in Stormgate too, so it is no suprise that nobody likes this game. Almost no causal player play SC1, SC2 or WC3 competetive. And especially not in 2v2, 3v3 or 4v4 games for fun. Even in C&C Generals they do that more often for fun.
3v3 is next gen? That's the weirdest claim ive heard all week. Stormgate is a lot worse than SC2, so for them the first mission should be to at least match the 2015 level of Blizzard.
Plenty of Early Access games immediately showed off a solid vision of the game like - Hades, BG3, etc. They were rough but the vision was already clear from the start. Your already playing a game with a solid foundation, the Developer is now just 'simply' building the rest of it. It's a beta test you pay for, right. SG's early access showed me the opposite - the vision isn't clear, and the foundation is weak. They don't have the visual style on lock, the control and sound is barely tuned correctly, the races don't have a clear identity as to how they play, what they do, it feels homogenous etc. the pace feels off, and even the camera placement feels wrong to me (too high IMO). Creep camps itself, as a game mechanic, feels out of place in ladder when I don't actually have a hero. Even the creeps don't have flavor... like... slimes? really? It all feels like it's still in alpha and had no business already being in 'beta'. I'm not writing them off yet, I just decided I'll check back in after a year or so. Needs more cooking. Like a lot.
so in the end stormgate it should be a starcraft with dev more interested in their community . at the same time is hard to stay behind to thesame level of blizzard story telling and visuals, amara look hideous , so now you know why visual are.. meh. Sounds are a bit shallows as well . their are not even at the level of age 3 they are just missing, at the same time it's a early access and starcraft 2 have 14 years on their shoulders . everyone knows that the ingridients are the , they just need to cook it better.
Bro I counted 13 umms and uhhs from 1:30 to 2:30. I honestly can't even concentrate on what you are saying because every time you say uhhhh or ummmm it detracts from the conversation.
No Stormgate will not be a hit... its to cartoonish. Tempest raising or Sanctuary: Shattred sun.. have better oppertunity. Maybe even Heroes: The old era
I’m disappointed with the campaign and I knew it was early access and rough. I knew from reviews it was bad, went into it knowing that and was still disappointed. The campaign as-is should have never been released to the public, it is that bad. The art is worse than WC3, WC3 had mouth flaps at least along with head bobs. The campaign literally play like a college game dev senior project, calling it a professional product or even AA quality is very disingenuous. The discussion here is also being far too kind to Frost Giant because Frost Giant originally pushed back against universal critiques saying it’s our art style and we aren’t changing it. They’ve only changed their tune now that they’ve lost most of the playerbase. Someone said you can take the developer out of Blizzard, but can’t take the Blizzard out of the developer. You see very common Blizzard developer mistakes in Stormgate. A lack of QA, a complete rejection of feedback until 90% of the playerbase is gone, generally poor and delayed communication, a lack of flexibility to adjust to their customer needs, an absurd inflation of price for their products.
Too many problems with this game. It was sold as the next big RTS since SC2 and almost everything it takes from warcraft or starcraft is done better 10 or 20 years ago. Somehow with 40 million budget it ends up a trash, unfinished product and you covered most of the problems. EA is a cover for how oversold and overhyped the game was.
You release the game with microtransactions and are pushing tournaments, it's not surprising how people are judging your product when you treat it like a final release.
I don't get all this hate about SG. For me personally the game is enjoyable to play at least 1v1, and looks good enough, it's not extremely beatiful yes but not ugly either. I'd rather to play SG than AoM honestly
The hate is really based on this unfinished state of the game, and lack of goodwill by fans who now expect the world after all the hype. It doesn't help that the company is specifically targeting SC2 players as their audience, who will inevitably have to compare Stormgate to SC2.
I mean it wanted to be both Warcraft 3 and Starcraft 2. But both games exist. It doesnt do anything unique at this stage. And what it, unless by some miracle the 3v3 mode is just wonderously good, I think the games already dead in early access
@@KaiserMattTygore927 Then why do you play a Starcraft style RTS, out of curiosity. There's loads of RTS out there, despite what people seem to believe. There's actually many good ones, even if a lot of them are old.
Don't care about the vid. Dropping in to say I am tired of journalism as a whole using "question titles" for videos and articles. Stop **asking** when you should be **saying** or **telling**. Also - no, it won't.
In a years time people will be saying it’s a decent strategy game, in 2 years they will be saying it’s a really good rts, in 3 years it will be a great rts, it’s early days why the impatience and unrealistic expectations?
I don't know, but Frost Giant themselves have a lot of lessons to learn too. From marketing, hype, communication to focus. Like one of the speakers said, they need to do a part that's truly exciting. Ok, it can also be "just" very good. Without that, and with the very numerous problems (some of them very difficult to correct, even on early stage) then people will lose hope, and in their case that also means no funding, so the game might not be able even to do a No Man's Sky rebirth. At least they showing that they're taking at least some feedback. They also need to focus on showing that more, it will make the community more involved
@@grottoguru6473 maybe but they do early access releases to get community feedback and hopefully improve it etc, it’s not meant to be looked at as in any way a finished polished product at this point. It’s not finished maybe it’s only 60% finished.
Total biscuits quote was if you launch an early access game with microtransactions it should be treated as a release
yeah, and if my grandma had wheels she should be a lawnmower, stormgate fucked up for 2 reasons, they "set out to make the next big RTS" which naturally people are going to compare a semi finished indie game to their favorite matured optimized finished AAA RTS game with years of development behind it, and releasing campaign so soon, they werent ready and they said it, they need money thats why they added microtransactions and thats why they also released that pathetic excuse of a campaign, its clear that nothing is finished and that everything is work in progress and i expect it to be that way for the next year at least.
the sounds are messed up, the pathing sucks balls, the graphics are mediocre at best but getting better with each update, if you wanna bash it go at it but dont look for an excuse. i dont know who totalbiscuit is but i dont agree with his/her opinion in the slightest, if they need money to finish the game they are forced to sell shit or run another crowdfunding, if you wanna judge it fine but dont just sit there and pretend that its a finished game and judge it as such because they added microtransactions to be able to finish the game and not roll over and bankrupt. such a moronic take.
@@garryarganis5801 Total Biscuits quote means that it should be TREATED as a release, if they have all of those expensive micro-transactions to capitalize on their game, they are selling the game, ergo, people have the right to treat the game as a purchase, not as an "early access", stormgate had worst kind of early access possible, trying to make money out of an unifinished mess when they claimed they would top sc2.
I think it's worth noting how universal the attitude to the characters is. You've identified a lack of worldbuilding, and starting with a few missions when the portal opens would do much better at setting the scene. But notice how after several missions with the main character, everyone's response is "yeah, but remember her father? What if we could play as Cutscene Dad instead?". A guy who's barely got any writing is more appealing than the character the game wants you to focus on. Even if her role is to just be the corrupt hand that holds Not-Frostmourne, that was done better in Warcraft 3. Arthas starts out as quite likable, we have quite a few missions where he's endearing before anything questionable happens. Maybe Stormgate doesn't have time, so they start their Not-Arthas in a compromised state. That doesn't seem to have worked, she has failed to charm the audience.
It's easy to go for the "gamers just don't understand game development angle", but I don't think it quite covers this. Granted, some people will be confused by the constant "beta testing", when a game is already finished and too close to release for any bug fixes. I'd say the real problem is not that gamers expected a polished final product, but that everyone can see the trajectory. When you see what direction the game is heading, it's fair to assume it'll continue on that course. And if you wanted it to be different, there's not much point sticking around.
Take the art style, for example. I assume they decided this would lead to a Wider Audience, that the cartoony look is a business decision and part of their core strategy. They always knew some people wouldn't like it, and they're banking on the idea that more people will find this look appealing. It's not that the polish is lacking, it's a disagreement that runs to the heart of the visuals. Expecting the dev team to overhaul the art style into something I like, that would be incredibly unreasonable. But given that it would take so much effort to change the art, I don't ever expect to love the look, no matter how much polish they give it.
The same goes for the characters and campaign. When there's already voice acting for the main character, it's not reasonable to expect a change. Better sound balancing, that would be fine, but not a whole new recording session where the voice actors retread old ground. You might get some tweaks and new takes of a few important barks. But one does not simply commit a script and a voice actor to placeholder dialogue. This is the writing that the devs thought it was worth the time and money to record: for those who aren't impressed, that's unlikely to change in future. Especially because writing is something you can work on for years, regardless of what state the rest of the game is in.
They need to make her a lesbian whose sexual awakening began as a teenager.
The art style was definitely the first major fail in my opinion. After insane hype they created with their aggressive marketing they needed to show something that looks immediately attractive. Instead they come out with some screenshots that look like utter garbage. Way to destroy their own hype. It was all downhill from there. If FG didn't create very high expectations themselves people might've reacted less harshly. But since they presented themselves as biggest dicks in RTS development scene and then came out with something completely underwhelming they shouldn't be surprised that people assume they are bunch of full of shit scammers. I was suspicious early on because for the longest time we got nothing but lots of pretty talks where developers were saying all the right things and it all sounded too good.
I don't like people always saying "oh people are expecting a full game, so that's why the opinion is so low" which is basically saying people are too incompetent to form their own opinion. There are plenty of games in similar states that elicit "ok it's unfinished but I can see where this is going responses" and "xyz is cool". See deadlock for example being in alpha. "The general reception has been better". This is blatantly false. In fact when it was made free to play the rating went even lower. It's just an excuse to not deal with the fact that the game, the vision and the current presentation is just bad. Simple as that.
There is plenty of stuff FG studio did that is outright scammy/scummy. They sat down in an expensive location and brainstormed for 12 months before even starting to work, only to come up with probably the safest and least creative RTS possible? If you play it "safe" why do that? Kickstarter promises have been changed. Some of the maps in campaign are literally copypasted from starcraft.
The problem with Stormgate or rather its PR, is that everything is an angle or an excuse or a promise.
Compare that with TQ2’s PR: Here’s the trailer; this is gameplay, systems and graphics. Straightforward but not to a fault.
It’s funny how everything about this game is stolen from either Warcraft or StarCraft. Right down to their company name Frost Giant being a ripoff of Blizzard. Everything in Stormgate other RTS games already do better. It’s not even like it has visuals to make it stand out as StarCraft 2 released in 2010 looks better both artistically and in graphic fidelity. Just a failure of a game in every way.
This sounds like someone talking about a train wreck , about an umitigated disaster.
No. Podcast over.
The problem isn’t that people judge an EA game as a full release but we see that the core gameplay doesn’t look good enough. For example deadlock is pretty rough around the edges too but the core gameplay is really good so people don’t make a big deal about bugs and unpolished visual assets.
IMO this game has the similar issue like Concord where a new game is a worse version of the already existed game.
Pls focus next on Zerospace, Tempest Rising (i realise wayward is involved in the development of TR) & Immortal Gates of Pyre once they're released next year!
It'll be a shame if the studio closes its doors within a year, since the 1v1 mode is quite fun, and includes some smart quality of life improvements over Starcraft 2
How did no one at any point stop development of the game and say "this looks like crap." Who is this generic, cheap-plastic toy art style supposed to appeal to? You can look at the box art of StarCraft without ever having to play it and know what's happening. There are marines, there's a tank, here is a insecty horde race. Whenever I see a screenshot of SG I have no idea what I'm looking at.
Who was supposed to stop and say that? Higher ups were likely convinced they had the best ideas ever and regular devs would be shown the door if they voiced heretical opinions...
The problem is that developers are now using Early Access as a way to GET PAID for quality control instead of PAYING people to do it.
reminds me of tip culture being leveraged by the corporations
That’s not a problem for smaller studios that can’t afford internal QA or lengthy beta testing.
@@mgs85 If you listen to the developer Thor who now has a podcast, and Twitch stream, he was a former Blizzard tester, who was paid about $10/hour. He recounts many stories about how Blizzard made it sound like a great privilege to playtest the games, and leveraged that cheap workforce to carry on testing for their best titles. So it is very possible to do playtesting without a big budget .
Man that kinda explains things
Nothing wrong with that it’s good business. Plenty of gamers who will play test things for free or pay for early access so why waste money paying for it as a company?
Hope you do a follow up with Brandon on this soon or maybe wait until after the big October update so he can give his thoughts on the trajectory of the development so far. My guess is that he'd be very pleased with the visual updates.
As a long time fan of WC3 and Sc1, Sc2 i was very hyped for Stormgate, i have been following it since they announced, before they even had a name for the game. However after seeing the first art i was very dissapointed, still i wanted to try and give it a shot and so i did when they first allowed players to get in, tried playing vanguard, it was probably the worst experience ive had in RTS, bad graphics, bad keys, no directions on how to play, childish looking units with trash names like BoB and countless many things that completely turned me off this game, i cannot see comebacking to it ever again, on the other side the first time i played Battle Aces i got immediately hooked up on it and i cant wait for its second beta to play again, it has clear vision on what it wants to be and its fun. Even though i am not the biggets fan of BA's graphics aswell, the gameplay itself is much more satisfying, the game feels much more polished and is UNIQUE, i played only two days BA and i still remember Air gunship's quotes saying "Okay okay okay", sound is such an important aspect to a RTS and i feel like BA has nailed that part unlike SG.
IMO SC2 actually looks much better graphically than this one.
Wait till tomorrow the new footage of the upcoming patch is huge improvements
@@haakonglindtvad5489 lol
This is the convo about SG I was waiting for. Fan of both of you.
We appreciate it!
Replacing awful model with a mostly awful model, changing the lighting configuration. Sounds like rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic to me.
Hey Nakamura, thank you for your fantastic AoM cast. Had a super relaxing weekend watching you livestream the Wololo tournament. That being said I would have liked for SG to be the next big thing. Cant have enough RTS games after all. But I think whatever momentum it may have had is unfortunately long gone.
Thank you for the kind words.
You're right, recapturing the hype will be difficult. It often is impossible as far as these things go.
A good rts needs a procedural map generator.
And there is no reason to have no buildable walls instead of indestructable fixed walls around almost every base called cliffs.
I'm a game designer working on a Strategy game - I loved playing Celestials as well.
I think you guys nailed a lot of points.
40:31 From a visual standpoint, the lighting in SC2 is a lot more "contrasted" - the colors are more vibrant and the lights are lighter and darks are darker. That alone can do wonders for differentiating things. Stormgate, however, looks a little "washed out" in comparison. The units in Stormgate also have skinny legs instead of stubby ones, some even are not as "bulky" in the middle, and have their edges stand out more. I'm probably explaining it badly because I'm on break at work. So here's a case example, look at the Siege Tank and Viking in SC2 and compare it to the Atlas and Vulcan in Stormgate. Stormgate's unit's shapes, proportions and colors are not as exaggerated and unique from one another as SC2's.
As from a gameplay perspective, I think they can do a lot more with map objects and terrain in general. I think the "creep camps" feel pretty bare bones. (UpATree did a short analysis on it and gave some feedback about it in his video from yesterday) It was one of the things I didn't really enjoy in StarCraft 2 - not a lot of interesting map interactions. The neutral structures, rich resource fields and the tall grass, rocks and terrain blockers were all a good start, but I feel like in 2024 we can do a lot more interesting things. Even War3 did some interesting things I haven't seen since.
You explained the visual issues well! Putting those together, it's hard to feel attachment and to consider the art style iconic.
As for maps, the formula in Stormgate is essentially mixing together SC2 and WC3, making neither fan base happy, and not much is added to the gameplay that feels fresh as a result. We've played this stuff like this before, so it needs to be either a better execution, or have some fresher elements!
@@RTSMasterminds thanks, and when it comes to map elements - you couldn't have said it better!
The most entertaining SC2 games I've ever seen were in the tournaments that TB ran with the wacky custom maps. I think the fact that SC2 relies heavily on its map design to give defenders advantage through choke points and elevation and not faction design, like WC3 did, coupled with the extremely competitive tournament scene resulted in very samey, contrived maps.
Please review godsworn
We did! th-cam.com/video/7TPuKxFQl_g/w-d-xo.html
this was a really good podcast.
8:18 Yep, it's been 9 years! Crazy how time flies, eh?
22:17 (cough. Grey Goo the Goo faction) :) but the point still stands. The Celestials with their structure is outside the norm. But the Goo with it rolling over high ground mountains did it better. Grey Goo btw used the same high/low ground rules SC2 did. This game doesn't. As soon as the high ground unit fires, the low ground unit can see them and fire back. I hate that from a defenders advantage, strategic positioning element that's completely wiped away. I don't use the word hate often. I'm using it here.
I get the Grey Goo comparison - I used to commentate that game actually :) - and while Morph Cores are a bit like Proteans, there's still at least a matter of scale since the Goo don't really have buildings as such. The Celestials are fairly uncommon for a 'mobile' faction in that they actually do place down permanent infrastructure, and their "key building" mechanic that serves as an exit point for all factory buildings is similarly unique.
We could talk about Zhon, the Hierarchy (probably a fairly close analog in some respects), or a couple of other hypermobile factions, but I still maintain that the Celestials do enough differently to make it worth mentioning :)
Frost Giant did nothing right. The balance sucks, the art sucks, the story sucks, the gameplay modes are unfinished. No one cares about the characters or the setting. This thing is an unmitigated, 40 million dollar failure and it's going to keep sucking up all the air in the shrinking RTS room the longer it stays on life support. The quicker Stormgate goes away, the better it will be for the genre. Zero Space just looks better and is better at this stage.
There’s no way frost giant is still going a year from now
I feel like the game isnt struggling, it's already dead. Thank you both for the content!
Great video. Nice thoughts too.
Glad you enjoyed it!
@@RTSMastermindslol
Think all this is a bit surface. Problem is the fundamentals aren't there yet. They can add all the content they want, but it doesn't matter if the core game's not that great. Infact, it makes it far hearder to fix the more you shovel on. Was optimistic when the alpha/beta first started and it was just Vanguard with placeholder assets, but then they just shoved in more stuff and never improved the core then suddenly released it. I'm not gonna put any money until they show they even have a solid sense of direction.
Sorry for the rant
As someone that isnt the biggest starcraft fan outside of the story and coop, this game just looks like a worse starcraft in every way. The game needs a total overhaul, not just the usual content updates. And even then, there's nothing that this game is doing to try and surpass Starcraft.
Not that it necessarily needs to, a very similar game with a fresh coat of paint, active developers and close to feature parity would do really well since SC2 is all but abandoned.
Problem is, the coat of paint on this game looks terrible, none of the factions appeal to me visually, Vanguard units are probably the ugliest RTS units i've ever seen. Not sure what the modern obsession is with the skinny mech style of units it looks terrible. Infernals are the only ones that look passable.
Its like groundhog day for RTS fans, take your pick, Dawn of War 3, Halo Wars 2, Company of Heroes 3, Age of Empires 4. A new big budget hyped RTS game comes out lacking or neglecting basic features and QoL, makes baffling decisions and releases too early. Then it underperforms and people wonder why RTS isnt doing as well as it could be.
Fact is SC2 still blows all RTS games out of the water in terms of content, even now.
I want this game to succeed because in one interview Designer Dave gave recently the success of RTS games that are being developed right now SG among them is a make or break thing for us as RTS fans because the big boys like Microsoft is watching, if this game and other like it succeed there will be a incentive to make more AAA RTS games like maybe War4 Sc3, AoM2 etc. I don't have discord so I'm gonna say it here if the devs of SG are watching and reading. Make a good setting with interesting factions, that is KEY. I was excited when I saw the Infernals as a faction but I don't see any good looking scary demons like u see in Doom for instance. Go back to the drawing board and rethink the look of the factions as much as possible in this stage of development. That for much of the people up untill now has been a breaking point for not playing because the faction don't look interesting.
I love being apart of the early access and watch it progress for polish it’s a damn beta it even says PTR when you login to main screen
Honestly, you should not be selling microtransactions if your game is not yet feature complete. People have paid for campaign missions, you need to deliver on that promise before you start selling extra heroes. I already think its a pretty bad idea to release the campaign like this to begin with, it doesn't leave enough time for people to fall in love with your world when they have to start and stop every few months.. On top of the missions not being very interesting.
From a consumer POV, it feels like the campaign, which should be the main attraction to build an audience, is being treated as secondary to the competitive aspect of the game. Noone is going to care about your esport if people can't fall in love with your universe.
The celestials design for ranked is horrible. Sounds like a neat idea until you see it in practice.
With Battle Aces and Immortals still in tnr picture, I don't think it is possible for Stormgate to do that
Good point. But I don't find that to be a problem of them copying old Blizzard story. The problem is their implementation of it. The most cookie cutter uninspired missions, clunky UI and doll like looking characters etc. If they'd implemented just 1 Mission instead of 6 in this alpha, but concentrated their effort on just one instead of 6 then I'm pretty sure it would have been received much better...
Well clearly they didn't gave a shit about single player at all the whole game is tailor built for sc2 grandmaster burn outs. Not a sound business strategy to target mainly this demographic it turns out
I do also enjoy playing games form way back then with highly outdated graphics, but in the year 2024 i do want an RTS that is good and can surpass Starcraft 2 Graphics. I want to look at that game its not some tile sets or bad lightning this game looks blend. I want my RTS Crisis because we basically never had one
As an concept artist this game fantasy is just flat out bad..Space marines vs Dimons Rail gun vs Axes and Swords ..it doesnt make sense and mechanical robot angels omg...😂😂 Doom is only game that pull Space marine vs demons to be cool ..
I disagree with this mostly in that Warhammer has literally made 30 years of lore. Much of it dealing with Chaos and its various Daemons. It has been included in video games like the original Dawn of War and was actually rather fun there.
Albeit the Daemons are very different. And Dawn of War is also very different.
you're a hard worker naka, idk how you make all this content while working fulltime! Stormgate just not it. Soulless and boring
Thanks very much. Brandon here also works 2 full time jobs, so we do what we can with the limited time!
- Naka
nah man, Stormgate is basically dead, i have no idea how its gonna recover even up to 10x its current playerbase.
Its not the graphics.... its the art style. It looks childish asf. Makes me feel like im playing with toys. I hate it
It's not just the art style. It is also the disconnect between the story being told in the campaign and the art style. The infernals are super goofy looking and sound funny, which would be great in a game with a more comedic tone. Unfortunately, the story they are telling is so grimdark that 40k would be telling FG to stay in their lane. The art style needs to match the tone. And right now, it really doesn't.
@@Law-gnome tbh 40k can still be pretty goofy. The Orks are portrayed pretty comically despite being horrible genocidal monsters, and in Fantasy, the Skaven being completely irredeemable in their spite and cowardice is played for laughs as much as it's played for grimdark. The issue with Stormgate is just that the artstyle looks cartoony and there's a lack of bite in the actual story/lore.
How can it become a next gen RTS when it doesnt even reach the bar set by previous gen RTS released 14 years ago?
They can't make a game that doesn't lag everyone out or have proper pathing. If that is "next-gen" then woke is "progress".
they should have spent much less budget and think through what they actually wanted to make
Game looks and sound atrocious, relly really bad. It's not even a game a this point, it's a tech demo, and very bad at that
The "before" Amara is dirt ugly. The "after" is...fine, but for them to have to show progress like it's some kind of announcement is bad.
As for camera angles, why is it that Kerrigan in the Heart of the Swarm campaign looked pretty fantastic no matter angle she was looked at, and Stormgate's main characters look worse?
When you are saying things like "I want to get invested", notice that none of this happened back in the day with Brood War.
That aircraft carrier thing looks like a worse Carrier with seemingly a single interceptor that fires out, which looks like it just comes out in a straight path, which looks unexciting. Where's the fancy strafing and return?
Aside from: we are exblizz veterans claims which already set expectations high 17:50 is for me most important aspect of fantasy RTS. I am average skilled player who likes to be invested in decent stories and characters. I dont quite see why competetive 1v1 is relatively well received, when its just worst version of terrain zerg protoss. Btw if You are guy from Tempest Rising, nice job, game seems to be interesting.
I will never forgive Wayward calling Twitter X. How dare he!
Ex-Twitter
@@RTSMasterminds touche!
@@RTSMasterminds Well played
at least executives had couple years of chilling with blizzard salaries
Stormgate already failed. It is crazy bad from all perspectives.
Brandon doing a lot of beating around the bush here, the first 20 minutes of this video are painful.
I cant believe you offered 45 minutes to a game like Stormgate. Game is very bad and developers are arrogant saying they are the best and overhyping. All this "the next-gen, the future of RTS, the best RTS devs" makes people want to hate them. Disrespectul to other RTS which are better with much less budget. This game doesnt deserve any coverage.
I understand you, the coverage interest is in the search of the next SC2 or W3 and Frost Giant presented themselves as kind of the new Blizzard (like their company name suggests) who was going to deliver what all those fans are asking for. They are under under under under under under under under delivering.I would rather spend one hour of my life playing a 2 developper game like Godsworn than to spend another hour in Stormgate. I think I have spent two or three, trying to like it when it was supposed to be "the thing" but it was far too much. As soon as I heard the dumb name of the game, then saw the art style, then the complete absence of interesting, units, mechanics or lore, the childish soul-less direction, I was out.
Couldn’t have said it better
its justified because people love to hate this game (including me)
Where are the gay employees of Frost Giant?
Answer: No.
I'm diamond 1 and bored... Celestial Mirror match is first person to get 4 scythes out wins, or spam argents, its dull as hell... There is a clear rock paper scissors in all matches too, its like they didn't listen to any of the Beta feedback... Infernals have too many advantages which snowball early game, and if you miss a scan and vanguard go mass hedgehog, you cant easily get back in the game. Its a mess for this stage in development., and it feels clunky... SC2 (I was GM) is sharp even 12+ years on...
Steam refund system allow to refund whole games. Even more, steam purchases has like 1 month of hold. They could have easely refund warz by contacting valve, but they decided to promice one "dont sue us" hero. One, when there should be at least one free hero per faction and no mtx paywals before release. Value proposition for $60 is like lower then purchasing mtg boosters.
Absolutely! The amount of hand waving that away likes its some impossible task that hasn't been done hundreds of times in the past by other companies is crazy. I'm sure it has nothing to do with wanting to make money. cmon guys don't be naive.
@@TheRyanshamowski Funniest thing is, how much they make money on this MTX? Are such reputation hit on the public launch worth... Up to 200k? But I doubt that even half of the backers (~18k backers are $60+) purchased Warz, I think numbers could be closer to 1k. That is up to $10k without fee and regional pricing.
They just need another $40M guys 🤭
Yeah they made a good game, its a bit floaty and weird to control, but overall its a decent rts. Its just not better than sc2, and that was everyones hope, so its an unmitigated disaster to the RTS community. Absolute failure of a product. You tried to best the king?!?!
Because of a lack of vision and trying to appeal to "everyone" they never really appealed to themselves or anyone specifically so no one has gotten what they want. It's just average meh everywhere. They need to commit to what they want to make, and hope other people enjoy it. Stop trying to appeal to the masses who may not even play stormgate.
i think they missed the mark.. i guess its supposed to still be in beta, but feels like a dud release to me
They though when they take SC2 or Craft Games as a foundation and improve the 1-2 big disadvantages of SC2 and add some smaller improvements it will be enough to create a successful rts. The problem is that the foundation of Craft Games is overrated.
Besides the standard stuff like good sound, graphic, controls, comfort features, pathing etc...
... what was cool about SC? --> Story, universe, 3 totally different factions
... what was cool about WC? --> Story, universe, 4 totally different factions and the many funmaps
So the gameplay of SC2 and WC3 1v1 match making etc. was always cool for a little group of good players. SC2 is played by causals just in the CooP, singleplayer and funmaps. So for the majority of players the 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 or 4v4 multiplayer were never interesting. But they want the majority of players and that are the casual players. In Age Games more causal players play 2v2, 3v3, 4v4 match making, because it is more fun and there are almost no modded funmaps.
Why its more fun?
Because the diversity is much bigger because of several mechanics that are not existing in Craft games like:
- more complex resource system (more different resources and more different ways to get them)
- different win conditions,
- walls (flexible map manipulation. Destructible rocks and trees are not flexible) + too many cliffs reduce the ways how a map can be played,
- map variety through (procedural generated maps, not always cliffs, water maps (island maps, team island maps), nomad maps etc.
- more factions with more different win strategies and mechanics
Why funmaps are so important? --> Because of the bigger diversity.
The funmaps brought the players to the Craft games, because the Craft-Games standard competetive multiplayer experience can't!
Why SC2 CooP mode was successful? --> Because of the bigger diversity.
More Challenges / More different Units / More different Heroes / More different Abilities etc.
Stormgate needs besides all the other stuff like story, bugs, performance, factions and unit design etc. more diversity through procedural generated maps, more complex economy and more map manipulation tools like walls to close and open paths flexible on the whole map. Because of the same reason they need at least one resource that can be build flexible on the map and not only on fixed locations.
The Craft resource system is boring.
The Craft map design (structure wise) is very limited and boring. (Always cliffs around almost each base and sometimes 1 or 2 entries.)
If the unit design, lore and atmosphere of SC and WC wouldn't be good there would be almost nothing left to like. People don't like SC or WC for the big variation of maps (structure wise) or the resource system or the ways how they can manipulate the maps that leads to diverse experiences on the same map.
To give your one example why all of this is true. Imagine there will be a map where is everything filled with trees in Stormgate, except of a few ways to the opponent and some resources and a little space around your base. This map many people will like because you can build your own paths through the trees and every match will feel more different as the current maps because the paths, created by the players, will be different. The same is true for walls instead of using indestructable cliffs.
They added trees because destructable cliffs are more interesting than indestructable cliffs. They not really recognized that this is the real reason why they added this. What they though were "Would be cool to open up paths to resources and or the opponent during one match." That is the reason they have seen to add destructable trees. But they haven’t thought far enough what the real reason is behind it. The real reason is they want the map can change during a match so maps feel more different and the experience is more unique and more different things can happen in matches and even on the same map. So to build walls will be a much better solution for this than trees and cliffs. Because players can wall paths where they want and can not only be destroyed like trees to open up paths, but also be build to close paths so the situation on the map can be changed even more and even more often. Because the same trees can just be cutted ones.
So to think a Craft-like game or how Frost Giant call it a Blizzard like rts will be the next big rts will fail. It will never be the next big rts that is played by 100.000 and more players in the competetive multiplayer, because it never wasn't. The funmaps, the story (singleplayer) and the atmosphere through sound and graphic design were the factors of the success. And all is missing in Stormgate too, so it is no suprise that nobody likes this game.
Almost no causal player play SC1, SC2 or WC3 competetive. And especially not in 2v2, 3v3 or 4v4 games for fun. Even in C&C Generals they do that more often for fun.
3v3 is next gen? That's the weirdest claim ive heard all week. Stormgate is a lot worse than SC2, so for them the first mission should be to at least match the 2015 level of Blizzard.
Plenty of Early Access games immediately showed off a solid vision of the game like - Hades, BG3, etc. They were rough but the vision was already clear from the start. Your already playing a game with a solid foundation, the Developer is now just 'simply' building the rest of it. It's a beta test you pay for, right.
SG's early access showed me the opposite - the vision isn't clear, and the foundation is weak. They don't have the visual style on lock, the control and sound is barely tuned correctly, the races don't have a clear identity as to how they play, what they do, it feels homogenous etc. the pace feels off, and even the camera placement feels wrong to me (too high IMO). Creep camps itself, as a game mechanic, feels out of place in ladder when I don't actually have a hero. Even the creeps don't have flavor... like... slimes? really? It all feels like it's still in alpha and had no business already being in 'beta'.
I'm not writing them off yet, I just decided I'll check back in after a year or so. Needs more cooking. Like a lot.
so in the end stormgate it should be a starcraft with dev more interested in their community . at the same time is hard to stay behind to thesame level of blizzard story telling and visuals, amara look hideous , so now you know why visual are.. meh.
Sounds are a bit shallows as well . their are not even at the level of age 3 they are just missing, at the same time it's a early access and starcraft 2 have 14 years on their shoulders . everyone knows that the ingridients are the , they just need to cook it better.
Investors should be pulling their money from this trainwreck because no one has time for an early access to a headless chicken of a game.
Bro I counted 13 umms and uhhs from 1:30 to 2:30. I honestly can't even concentrate on what you are saying because every time you say uhhhh or ummmm it detracts from the conversation.
There is no way that you're a real person
I’m at 8 minutes in and this guy is doing it like crazy and I can’t unhear it now 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
wayward needs to speak in complete sentences. Goodluck.
No Stormgate will not be a hit... its to cartoonish.
Tempest raising or Sanctuary: Shattred sun.. have better oppertunity.
Maybe even Heroes: The old era
I’m disappointed with the campaign and I knew it was early access and rough. I knew from reviews it was bad, went into it knowing that and was still disappointed. The campaign as-is should have never been released to the public, it is that bad.
The art is worse than WC3, WC3 had mouth flaps at least along with head bobs. The campaign literally play like a college game dev senior project, calling it a professional product or even AA quality is very disingenuous. The discussion here is also being far too kind to Frost Giant because Frost Giant originally pushed back against universal critiques saying it’s our art style and we aren’t changing it. They’ve only changed their tune now that they’ve lost most of the playerbase. Someone said you can take the developer out of Blizzard, but can’t take the Blizzard out of the developer. You see very common Blizzard developer mistakes in Stormgate. A lack of QA, a complete rejection of feedback until 90% of the playerbase is gone, generally poor and delayed communication, a lack of flexibility to adjust to their customer needs, an absurd inflation of price for their products.
Too many problems with this game. It was sold as the next big RTS since SC2 and almost everything it takes from warcraft or starcraft is done better 10 or 20 years ago. Somehow with 40 million budget it ends up a trash, unfinished product and you covered most of the problems. EA is a cover for how oversold and overhyped the game was.
You release the game with microtransactions and are pushing tournaments, it's not surprising how people are judging your product when you treat it like a final release.
That is extremely fair to point out. Thanks for your comment.
Early access with micro transaction is the most stupid thing in gaming so i dont understand why people are even supporting these greedy devs.
I don't get all this hate about SG. For me personally the game is enjoyable to play at least 1v1, and looks good enough, it's not extremely beatiful yes but not ugly either. I'd rather to play SG than AoM honestly
The hate is really based on this unfinished state of the game, and lack of goodwill by fans who now expect the world after all the hype. It doesn't help that the company is specifically targeting SC2 players as their audience, who will inevitably have to compare Stormgate to SC2.
I mean it wanted to be both Warcraft 3 and Starcraft 2. But both games exist. It doesnt do anything unique at this stage. And what it, unless by some miracle the 3v3 mode is just wonderously good, I think the games already dead in early access
Not everyone likes 1v1 hyper-competitive stuff.
That's not why I play RTS.
@@KaiserMattTygore927 Then why do you play a Starcraft style RTS, out of curiosity. There's loads of RTS out there, despite what people seem to believe. There's actually many good ones, even if a lot of them are old.
Stormgate is dead
It's bad. It's bad in every aspect.
Maybe it's just me but the game style looks aweful the presentation is bad
Botched
Don't care about the vid. Dropping in to say I am tired of journalism as a whole using "question titles" for videos and articles. Stop **asking** when you should be **saying** or **telling**.
Also - no, it won't.
Journalism? It’s a podcast, you dope.
@@mgs85 No matter what format it's the same tactic
Wow you guys really struggle with the talking part.
Lack of homosexual representation in this game is a huge red flag for me. Is Warz gay? Which Celestials are homosexual?
Are you serious ?
@@Winnetou17 this is a critical issue. i am very concerned. this is very worrying.
my dog is gay
@@krioni86sa well the SCOUTs were just nerfed. that is disturbing and dangerous. what message does this send to other gay people?
It's trash all the devs need to quit and apply as Walmart greeters. What a failure of a game
In a years time people will be saying it’s a decent strategy game, in 2 years they will be saying it’s a really good rts, in 3 years it will be a great rts, it’s early days why the impatience and unrealistic expectations?
Do they have enough money to last 3 years? I hope so.
I don't know, but Frost Giant themselves have a lot of lessons to learn too. From marketing, hype, communication to focus. Like one of the speakers said, they need to do a part that's truly exciting. Ok, it can also be "just" very good.
Without that, and with the very numerous problems (some of them very difficult to correct, even on early stage) then people will lose hope, and in their case that also means no funding, so the game might not be able even to do a No Man's Sky rebirth.
At least they showing that they're taking at least some feedback. They also need to focus on showing that more, it will make the community more involved
I think you've gotten too used to companies releasing unfinished games.
@@grottoguru6473 maybe but they do early access releases to get community feedback and hopefully improve it etc, it’s not meant to be looked at as in any way a finished polished product at this point. It’s not finished maybe it’s only 60% finished.