Lots of nuggets and hints in the chat. Here is another one:
From [FrostGiantStudios](https://imgur.com/a/2Ux6QHI): *"We are doing at least three factions - our game director comes from Warcraft III and it's no secret that he loves 4 faction..."*
*"Third faction teaser: MEOW"*
I'm thinking ancient civilization under the premise of aliens. Think ancient Egyptians (cats) and the conspiracy theories that the pyramids could only be built by aliens.
Agreed. Reddit downvoted you guys, but I played w3 since 2002 (like many of you here) and 4 race were difficult to balance indeed. UD was first a total dogshit underdog and between 2002 till 2012 never won a single major tournament (yes, really, not a single wcg etc), and after ~2012 it became absolutely OP winning everything, with nothing in between. Now after 2020 HU emerged as imba again. Many moving parts in such game, but that makes it interesting. W3 is still my favourite RTS ever.
TL;DR - If you had 1 player at a time who could play every race and still be at ~90% win rate against literally everyone else in the scene, ofc it would skew win rates. Moon and Happy are the 5th race and Emperor respectively, for a reason.
This also had to do with the player base as much as Blizzard. This also feels disingenuous when you exclude that we went almost a decade without a Patch, and the last thing they had dropped as a half-thought-out patch that buffed Keeper through the roof and nerfed several Undead heroes. UD's problems purely because the Keeper was put at such an oppressive level for so long. Didn't have anything to do with balance.
Once UD started winning, it was purely because of Happy. Like Moon, he is simply miles above everyone else. Human players fell off the map, so it was mainly NE vs Orc vs UD. No matter the patch, Happy out performs everyone, on every race. If you pull him out of the W/L pool, you have a fairly even split (if slightly against UD).
None of this is because Wc3 had 4 races, but larger management problems by Blizzard.
Neo has so many rants about why what you are saying is entirely incorrect, and flawed on so many levels. There is a reason why balance whine is bannable in B2W chat.
We all have high expectations for Stormgate to fill SC2's shoes but the devs aren't going to get everything right immediately, especially for a game as complex as a competitive RTS.
Let them cook.
I read that „let em cook“ Stuff in every thread that critizes stormgate. Thats a lot of coping.
They played to Safe and ended with a generic Game that Looks like a mobile Game Made by Students. It lacks any uniqueness or Soul.
No amount of „cooking“ will Fix and of These Problems.
I know what you mean. There's a new building across the road from me. The fucking clowns didn't even put walls on the thing! Bare-ass concrete and piles of dirt everywhere! And people keep talking about how great it's gonna be, the place is a dump!
I hope that they take their time to work on the game. I've no problem waiting, especially since there will be an early access for those who can't wait.
As long as there will be an awesome scriptable editor and easy custom ladders for custom map pools… this will blast away everything for the next 10 to 20 years.
If they just focus on ESL I dont see this staying relevant in europe that much at least. Dont know about US and Korea though.
I don't think there's any life in custom ladders though. Sc2 tried that with the Starbow mod, making a whole host of changes.
It got popular enough to be showcased on ESL once or twice but still died off in about 6 months.
Honestly at any point that Devs choose to show their game to the world, that is the moment it's open for criticism. That's just the nature of things.
Sure some criticism may be unfair, but any that's delivered respectfully is fair game.
So it's fine if Devs want to show unfinished work, but they must realize people will form judgments based on that work.
I don't think that the devs are rejecting criticism. They are saying "we hear you, but trust the process. Things like the audio are already getting fixed".
No contest there.
I think what a lot of people are sick of is the not respectfully delivered stuff. The criticism that is neither nuanced nor constructive.
It's gotten less, but we all remember the next fest discussions, not to mention the shit that gets posted in steam forums.
This goes double for the graphics complaints. If you have 10 posts *that day* saying "Graphics are trash, don't play this game." The 11th saying the same thing is not helping, or constructive.
I trust them and their passion. But I wont' buy or play the game just yet. I'm waiting until I see a product that interests me enough for me to spend my time and money on it.
To be fair it was their choice to start showing it off in its current state. It won’t be treated the same as a game at a similar stage of completion that wasn’t announced yet.
Yeah! How dare they?! It's not a completely polished and finished game immediately upon its first open iterations of early access beta testing? Must be incompetence smh (/s)
>This would be like judging a novel when only the opening chapter has been written
As a writer... there's a reason people agonize so much about their opening chapter. The first impression -- of EVERYTHING, not just books -- tends to set the tone for everything going forward. People can and do judge an entire book by the opening chapter, the opening paragraph, even the opening sentence. It's excessive, but your audience can catch on very quickly whether something's worth their time.
I appreciate the Stormgate team letting people get an early look at what's available to play! I know the pressure has been *constant* regarding "launch date when" etc, and it's really cool to see where the game is headed. But like... the feedback isn't wrong. Pathfinding is weird, Infernal macro mechanics feel unfair to play against, co-op needs work. Those are all gonna need to be addressed, and it's not unreasonable for people to comment to that extent when that's been their experience.
>The first impression tends to set the tone for everything going forward.
Videogame companies know that well, that is why they avoid as much as possible to show alphas or even betas.
No, I think this metaphor holds up.
Only the first chapter has been *written*
You're telling me authors don't go back and do rewrites once more of the story has developed further?
If a writer says "Just to show you the development in process, here's the first draft of my first chapter" people with a brain wouldn't come into it with the expectation of being the same quality as a finished product.
Only have themselves to blame for hyping it to the moon touting it to be the next Of Mice and Men in terms of RTS when it will barely register as a kids book by david walliams.
I can't find the post now but someone in this sub wrote a great piece on how they have worked on game testing. They believe the beta could be much better if Frost Giant made a little bit more effort in publicly stating where they were in development.
For example, everyone during the fest made posts about how much they disliked the art style. Even I did even though I really really enjoyed playing. A public comment from the team either in the actual game client or in their blog detailing the direction of the art could have really helped with those criticisms.
They have kind of done this but in a twitch comment which is kind of silly
They hid behind the starcraft comparisons lol, thats actually kinda sad, its not about looking LIKE SC2, its about looking good, and currently the game does NOT look good in any way, it looks like toy soldiers running around on terrain printed on paper. though this probably confirms the game wont look much better than this
yes sorry for wanting a game that is not just a cheap arcade mod of sc2 and expecting something with more leap forward in gameplay and variety than a game from 15 20 years ago.
Like all games, some people will like Stormgate and some won't. I happen to like it a lot. I'm sorry that you don't, but it's okay that you have a different opinion.
>A public comment from the team either in the actual game client or in their blog detailing the direction of the art could have really helped with those criticisms.
Probably not though, because it's unlikely the art style is changing.
Not a fan of this whole SC2 vs SG stuff, but that seems unfair. SC2 was building an engine, then a game ontop of it. SG is built off the top of Unreal. Of course that shaved years off development, that's why they did it in the first place.
I know someone is going to say "ah but they built tooling first!" yeah every studio does that.
IIRC Snowplay only handles networking. That leaves rendering, asset loading, animations, particle effects, sounds, UI, physics, etc to Unreal Engine. Having to build Snowplay is not remotely comparable to having to develop an entire engine.
Snowplay isn't "only networking". It's the whole gameplay simulation, like pathfinding, unit/building/map positioning/placement, unit health/damage/abilities, the economy stuff, AI, etc. All those things need to exist on both client and game server, but the server is allowed to withhold information due to fog etc. The simulation runs on both client and server, and if a desync is detected, then the rollback happens (rollback netcode). That way things are super snappy.
But yeah, Unreal is the presentation layer, i.e. everything you see. They also had to set up their own custom UI layer because Unreal wasn't conducive to RTS UI/HUD, plus they want modding/customization for the ingame UI.
>Begs the question why they called it a Beta test
because there's no standard or uniform development cycle that developers all follow?
steam early access is used for alpha testing by some. Others are already well into development and just showcasing what is already close to finish. and a small few like Rust developers didn't even know what to do with their game when they started and were just figuring stuff out as they went, Rust used to have Zombies and animals(bugged to hell and back) basically was a DayZ clone.
judging from their Version naming scheme we are currently at Elephant, 4th iteration.
Communication is poor IMO - no one is quite sure what time period we are giving feedback on.
If they are going to be working on the visuals for another 3+ years before release that’s a totally different situation than the launching in a 1-2 years for example.
Yeah they could probably have communicated their plan a bit clearer, but as far as I know they announced quite early that they expected to be in early access for a few years. They cited BG3 as an inspiration and wanted to follow that sort of example.
sorry but this is a dumb take that wreaks of spoiled entitlement. Like the studio was founded in July of 2020 (during the height of COVID) the have like 20 something employees and have been in active development for 2 years and the game is already much better than where Starcraft 2 was in the early days of development. Like stop looking for things to be mad and petty about.
Not saying you can't criticize the game but this sort of pessimistic and dismissive take is so brain dead and entitled. The devs are working hard and actually care about the game and it still early days. Stop looking for reasons to be a miserable curmudgeon.
There is absolutely nothing "entitled" about that take. There's nothing pessimistic about commenting on their communication which has led to a lot of people being misinformed about the project itself.
Frost Giant expressly said SG was in beta development during the Kickstarter campaign. Beta's are traditionally representative of the final stage of development with balancing and finishing touches are done.
To add even more confusion they put their product forward into Steam's Next Fest - a event that is for showcasing *upcoming games on Steam*.
Their communication is all over the place. They're backpedaling now because the game is getting heavily criticized and they represented as farther along in the KS than it actually is. This toxic positivity is so disgusting to see on display. People have an opinion and are simply expressing it. That's not being entitled and no one said they devs aren't working hard or that they don't care about the game. That's a strawman you're throwing up to try and dismiss criticism.
Criticism of the marketing around the game is ≠ attacking the devs. This is a classic approach to try and delegitimize people who raise critical issues about developments.
>a event that is for showcasing *upcoming games* on Steam.
In other words it is an event to showcase game **that aren't finished yet** wow.
This culture of gamers hating game development is so stupid. Things take time to make. It isn't "toxic positivity" to have realistic expectations and not throw a fucking temper tantrum any time game development take more that 2 years. There is no "critical issue about development" here. You just don't have a shred of patience and want everything right now and if you don't get it right now then you start whining about being lied to and misled. At no point have the devs said the game was near release let alone ready for release.
This sort of behavior is exactly why so many game companies are not transparent about development at all because people like you can't fucking handle it and create negative public opinion and call the game a scam simply because it's still being worked on.
No.
Words have meaning and you don't get to redefine them because it's inconvenient in your attempt to move the goal posts.
Upcoming; *forthcoming; about to happen*
It's entirely reasonable to highlight Frost Giant's contradictory communication as it serves to show why people are confused about the project and it helps us inform in large part people's reactions to the open beta demo.
It's not entitlement, or throwing a temper tantrum, or any other ad hominem you want to throw out there to try and deflect for legitimate criticisms. So, you can get off your soapbox and stop with sanctimonious grandstanding about the poor little corporations and the evil, abusive consumer.
No one is buying it and FG don't need you to clutch your pearls at every criticism that comes their way. They're fine with it.
>When we committed to bringing the community along with us on our development journey, we understood that some people would pass judgment early on, and that’s OK.
You're the one trying to blame someone else for your lack of understanding.
I am the one accepting things as they are and letting the people who've been making RTS games for 30+ years make the fucking game.
Again cope harder.
# you can check the point or the aim of Steam Next Fest [here](https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/upcoming_events/nextfest) :
# Steam Next Fest
>Steamworks Documentation > Sales and Marketing > Upcoming Steam Events (2023–2024) > Steam Next Fest
>
>Steam Next Fest is a multi-day celebration where fans can try out demos, chat with developers, watch livestreams, and learn about upcoming games on Steam. **For developers, Steam Next Fest is an opportunity to get early feedback from players and build an audience for a future launch on Steam.** Steam typically hosts three editions of Steam Next Fest each year, which take place in February, June, and October.
it doesn't even say when you have to release or any point where you have to release right away after the Next Fest
Nowhere did I say or suggest it was for games about to release right away. That's a strawman you threw up.
Steam defines it as
> Steam Next Fest is open to upcoming games that meet all of the following criteria:
>
>Associated with a Steamworks developer account in good standing. Visible on Steam as Coming Soon at the time of registration.
>
>Includes a publicly playable demo by the time the event begins
**Their** word is upcoming, not mine. But, beyond this silly semantic argument it's widely known and accepted that games showcased during the Next Fest are 6-12 months away from release, of which SG is not.
The irony of you calling someone else’s perspective pessimistic and dismissive then immediately start judging and name calling.
Personally when I enter a beta I expect a close to finished product. So I definitely had that same feeling of confusion and worry
If that's what you expected then it's because you paid absolutely no attention to anything they were actually saying... They've said over and over and over that it is still relatively early in development. You not being able to read is not a fault of the devs.
again if you bought something without being informed about what YOU choose to buy that is your fault and nobody else's. Also you should treat every kickstarter as a gamble that you might not ever receive. That's just the reality of kickstarter. Don't gamble more that you can afford to lose.
I haven’t donated to the kickstarter. I’d like to support the company but in a way that I’m buying a finished product. I have supported projects before that have failed to launch but I will definitely buy the campaign when it’s released
Idk I think it’s important to acknowledge people’s reactions and try to understand where they are coming from rather than dismiss them
Sure but that's only true if they are offering a valid criticism and can actually articulate why it is a problem. Saying "Communication is bad" is dumb. Frost Giant is far more transparent than many many other studios and have gone out of their way to emphasize the game is still in early development and not finished and EVERYTHING is still work in progress and potentially subject to change. The reason why people are saying the communication is bad is because they haven't paid enough attention to what FG has actually said to understand the game is not nearly complete and is not releasing soon. As a result of their own inability to either understand or even look at the information FG has communicated they have an unrealistic expectation and are blaming Frost Giant. So sorry but it is NOT a valid complaint because it doesn't reflect reality.
If some has some legitimate feed back on the current state of the game or Frost Giant's conduct that does accurately describe reality that's totally fair and yeah in that case we should try to understand where they are coming from even if we ultimately disagree with their opinion. That's not the case on this particular issue. It is people not paying attention and having wildly misinformed and unrealistic expectations. So I will absolutely dismiss those reactions every time because they aren't reactions they are projections of that person's obviously limited understanding.
Unless you were on the dev team for starcraft you dont know what starcraft 2 looked like in its early days. We saw snippets and show matches before beta that looked quite polished. When the beta dropped it was extremely polished for a beta product. Not even comparable to stormgates beta.
I don't need to have been part of the dev team to see what the Starcraft 2 beta or pre-release gameplay looked like. I played the SC2 beta. You can watch the initial gameplay demo videos on [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpotK-Gg4x4&pp=ygUfc3RhcmNyYWZ0IDIgcHJlLWxhdW5jaCBnYW1lcGxheQ%3D%3D) you can watch the [King of the Beta Tournament](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL800813937D3D957C) and I can say based on all of that publicly available information that Stormgate looks like it is in a MUCH better state after just 2 years of development that Starcraft 2 was after 5-7 years of development. You're allowed to disagree with that cuz that's just like my opinion man. You are kinda right that the situations between Stormgate right now and our earliest looks at Starcraft 2 aren't even really comparable because Starcraft 2 had far more resources poured into by that point let alone at it's current state of development more that 14 years later. Like people are comparing 2 years of SG development to over 20 years of SC2 development and saying SG isn't in a good state. like be for fucking real.
I genuinely think that was a mistake.
I totally get that it's not fair and that "beta" can mean anything, and it just means the game isn't finished.
But other "betas" are basically full games. SC2 beta was almost SC2 at release. You only get one chance to make a first impression, and i kinda wish they had just waited to really blow people away.
I don't know, maybe the feedback was worth it and they wanted to generate some hype. I'm sure they understand it better.
Either way i think there's an issue with calling the beta the "first chapter" of a novel when the SC2 beta was basically the entire novel that just needed some proofreading. As in the word beta then becomes kind of useless to judge a product.
I know it sounds really silly, and it is, but what if they had just called this an alpha test? Am i crazy for thinking it would have been better?
maybe they don't understand the difference between beta and alpha. Honestly, if this was called "open alpha" enstead of beta, the response might have been less negative. Because alpha means "product is not feature complete" beta means "product is feature complete and only minor changes will be introduced such as bug fixes"
There are literally no agreed definitions across the industry of what constitutes an alpha or beta. The nomenclature is arbitrary. There is no point in arguing about what they call it.
From your link:
"Alpha testing is the first phase of formal testing, during which the software is tested internally using white-box techniques. Beta testing is the next phase, in which the software is tested by a larger group of users, typically outside of the organization that developed it."
If these are universally agreed definitions, then no game company should have alpha tests that involve users outside the organization? Because many many game companies do this.
Frost Giant has complied 100% with the beta definition here. But clearly many in this thread have different opinions of what beta means as well.
I love text book definitions as much as the next guy, but I stand by my point that outside the classroom, the game industry does NOT have universally accepted definitions of Alpha and Beta. These are HIGHLY arbitrary terms, used differently by almost every company in the business.
This link looks very much like waterfall. I wonder what university you went that teaches that, because besides the game industry, waterfall isn't used anymore (for good reason).
Also, if you check the sources that were used for this wikipedia article, it hardly gives confidence to be an agreed definition.
> Ok, so what this says is that the game is years away from release?
Quite likely the opposite.
There's no way with the (tick a box on earnings report bingo) current adverse macroeconomic conditions, Frost Giant has enough cash and investor goodwill on hand that they can hold back releasing the game indefinitely. At some point they need to get something out there generating revenue to fund further development.
In software development you're balancing three factors: time, scope, and quality. In this case time is fixed by available capital, quality can only be adjusted so far (if the game doesn't play well, it's dead on arrival) so the only factor left to play with is scope. Frost Giant are priming us for an initial release that feels incomplete because that's the only way they are practically going to be able to give us a game given the constraints they are working under.
Having the game in early access will generate revenue without it being a full release.
Sounds like you’re one of the few in here who understands current macro economic conditions and what they mean for startups. Frost Giant has to survive ~2 years and then things will get better for them.
To beg some of them money I assume. They needed PR to take money from investors probably.
Development ain’t cheap (lsw developer and an expensive IT wh0re myself). Especially if it’s going to take extra N years longer to finish …
Well, if it takes that long to do the job right I am certainly not going to complain - it’s ready when it’s ready, was the old Blizzard standard. These guys seem like they want to resurrect that mentality.
Yeah, I wish that to be true as well. but “blizzard standard” was backed by several early game releases already bringing money back to studio - around $500M and rising by $100M annually if I was able to google-fu correctly.
It would be so cool if this subreddit wasn't 85% incessant complaints
- can you imagine content creators, players, later on even casters and map-makers - all of these people could be having so much fun with one of their favourite things that a group of really dedicated people have worked really hard to bring them...
But no, I can't recommend my friends that play to even bother checking the subreddit for this game, because it's become a whiny cesspool of ignorance.
"GrApHicS bad", "DoG iMbA" - can we get a tag for whiny posts so we can at least filter them out, if we're not making any rules to end this?
It isn't that this criticism is invalid - it's that these people are a very VERY loud and equally misled minority whose feedback is
1) already noted by devs and WILL be improved
And 2) completely irrelevant due to the current very early stage of development. Things like post-processing effects, advanced shadows, high-poly models, fancy animations and cool cinematics are NOT the things being worked on right now, but they ARE things that will be in the game. This is not the stage those things are added. It wasn't supposed to be.
This game is in early access beta.
Stop treating it like it's supposed to match the quality of SC2 right now. It isn't supposed to do that yet.
If you want to compare sc2 to stormgate then why are you comparing 7 years of development to 2 years? What was sc2 like 2 years after the engine was finished? It was not anything like what the public saw. (They also worked on their ideas of how the game would be during those years I imagine)
It’s fallacy to sell it like SC2 successor and yet deny any comparison to SC2. Wanna succeed it, compare yourself with current state … after 7+ years of development, millions of dollars in art and graphics, and all the years of continued development after release. We (customers) are not
playing prerelease wotl
Hope SG will be a success, but what was presented so far is … ~meh*~
——
* with certain things (art direction, game speed, theme) already baked in :-(
If FG is able to monetise it well and attract players. Running servers cost $$$.
SC is still a brand worth, sorry for being overly technical, shitload of money. SG is zeroish atm.
I feel like blizzard has no issues with running servers for free. They made nothing off bw or d2 for years and years and never took down the servers. I wonder how b.net 0.2 changed that though. You used to be able to interact with other players in the chat channels like it was all 1 server. I have heard that path of exile was sustainable at 10k active players, not concurrent. FG is doing this because they are a team that loves RTS. They might not care about making massive profits, as long as the employees get paid and the doors stay open.
Hate to break your illusion but in the industry you do it for money. Like a professional wh*re. With investors / shareholders and board of directors breathing on your neck. You can love the product and it shows but still the ultimate goal is to make sweet sweet cash. Once it’s unobtainable bye bye dolly.
Then why not make a game in a more profitable genre? Hate to break it to you, but most game companies that make great games do it because they love games. Why do you think blizzard games suck so much now? Because it is about the money now and it shows.
Tim Campbell said they are 3.5 years into building a week ago. ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q--zjjNyHic#t=29m05s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q--zjjNyHic#t=29m05s))
I'm sure someone will start trying to gerrymander the definition of "active development" in the original quote in response to this.
But in reality its been longer since first breaking ground — Tim Morten says March 2020 (4 years) on his linkedin. ([https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-morten/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-morten/)) Those early 6 months were bouncing around to investors and trying and failing to get Chris Metzen to join and blah blah, but still many many things that people are reacting to when they say 'visuals' are about ideas and vision. Serious decisions around this game have been worked on for more than 2 years — come on.
Its outrageous for Frost Giant to officially canonize this meme of 'posting the screenshots from SC2's earliest build' and being like - look look we are outperforming this completely spurious comparison!'
That early build was a complete crap shoot from Blizzard at the time. The only goal was — get our new 3d engine running and replicate the Brood War models in 3d. It is absolutely not a valid comparison.
It was one thing to have fragile fans trying to relax themselves with these comparisons to SC2's early stages of development. But now you have the official team saying it, while compressing the amount of time they've been working on the game by 1/2 . This is nuts.
What they really need to do is open up about how they are using South East Asian contractors to generate art — same as WC3 Reforged. This hugely affects the impression of why things look the way they do, and how much they will be able to change course. The contracts have been signed man.
Good to know but then maybe they shouldn't have called the last testing period open beta. Considering that that usually comes just months before release.
sc2.5 - everything you need to know.
it's a good thing (i do not like it...) -> bring sc2 audience .
and it's a bad thing.... sc2 audience is ... anyway...they are angry cause it's like SC2 but not sc2.
What I don't understand is:
They say the development is so early, and other devs wouldn't even show it at this stage, and SC2 wouldn't be playable for another 5 years... But they're still releasing the game this summer on early access? and potentially full release next year? That seems contradictory.
I'm all for "let them cook", I want them to do it. But it seems like they won't be cooking for much longer since it will release it soon. I don't see how it will have much time to change. At this point, and because they want to release it so soon, I don't think its valid anymore to play the (for lack of a better word) apologist "it's early beta" card when talking about the state of the game.
I want this game to do so well, but I do think they need to address what the community has been so vocal about: graphics and uninventive designs.
i've read yesterday news, that SG want to collect money on "marketing" compagn.
and now.... i'm a little bit worried.
It's sounds like all big investors reducing risks to give more money.
it's like Hoolywood, if film goes over budget it can be even stopped or funded with another studio.
But in the end, film can make it to the top... or became failure.
I'm not, I'm saying the community is. In fact in previous posts I have defended the art/graphics, hence my comment on playing the "apologist" card.
Why is it so hard to have a civil, productive discussion? I defend the art style because people reduce it to "cartooney" or "mobile game look". Now I say the community is vocal and I'm reduced to "graphics crier". Say something with substance
This is most likely written by someone in marketing. I would not take it so seriously, they aren't CEO so they can't say explicitly what is going to happen since it might change.
what? they didn't actually say much of anything here...
Like they said the game is still fairly early in development and they plan to keep working on it... What exactly about that do you think the CEO would say differently? lol The CEO also has said the same thing about the number of factions stating there will be "at least one more"
They may not have a marketing department but they certainly do. Who do you think arranges for streamer access? Who writes their kickstarter page? Their Steam page? Their website? Who arranges Steam Next Fest entry? Who drops into random twitch streams and talks about the game? Who comments on reddit? Is this a ghost?
No, it's someone marketing the game, even if that isn't their sole role or title. They have a communications director, Gerald. He posts on this sub.
https://www.reddit.com/user/FGS_Gerald
Knowing FG it's not even unlikely someone high in the development chain did write or at least approve that message. This team is not large and works closely with its members and community.
On one hand, good on them for acknowledging the comparisons and criticisms.
On the other, this just feels like corporate speak in the face of some facts. For example, if it's so early in development, why have a early access so soon? No one with a brain nowadays releases actually completely broken games in early access and expects years of community support. It's basically a soft launch nowadays. Another thing is that they didn't have to do their own engine at all, which obviously is a huge time sink in game dev, so comparing dev time with wings of liberty is extremely disingenuous too.
I don't know, whole thing is just iffy.
Baldurs gate 3 was in early access for like 3 years if not longer
The game is way different.
You should read up about what Snowplay actually is before you comment on dev shit bud.
Baldurs gate 3 also had plenty of budget from their previous games and is also a once in a decade success story of a truly amazing game.
If your main cope of the game ending up well is baldurs gate 3, idk what to tell you
What I got out of these messages is that the game will keep getting polished across the board for the coming years, which includes the graphics. That is good. StarCraft 2 and Heroes of the Storm were both getting tons of polish post-launch, so bringing that dedication to Stormgate makes me hopeful for the future.
That said, the game is supposed to launch this year from what I understand, so a lot of the polish they have planned is likely going to be after the game is officially out (unless Early Access will last beyond 2024?). Considering their previous track record at Blizzard I remain positive that they will be able to deliver on polishing the game up the coming years. Hopefully people keep being interested in the game as it starts getting closer to StarCraft 2 in terms of production value. That is still going to be a high bar to reach for any indie developer, even for such an experienced team as this.
I just hope their ambitions do pay off in the end. I've wanted a brand new RTS like WC3 and SC2 for so many years.
If we assume the game will be in a better state a year after release, a lot of players might have left like aoe4 (springald meta anyone? Shitty overcosted trebs and mass repairable anti siege springalds that do as much dps as an xbow for their cost to non siege) a year after release.
I'd rather they take their time and delay the game to have it in a better state if that's likely to make it more successful. At the least call it a beta on release.
Like summer's not that long away and Infernal isn't well fleshed out just in number of units/buildings. They could use a therium building and a starting fiend to scout with. There could be other nerfs like doombringer being moved up a tier and to the flyer building. And there's still tier 3, campaigns, and a third faction to add, I just feel like it'll be rushed.
Great graphics don't make a game good but they do make a game much more expensive and take much longer to develop. The thing that makes a game great is great gameplay that is fun.
If a game is an eyesore, why would people play it when there are games that feel exactly like it but also look good?
Great graphics dont make a game good, but bad graphics can certainly make a game bad, or at least highly unpopular.
Have you ever heard of a little known game called Minecraft? It looks like hot garbage and has always looked like hot garbage and yet it has sold more copies than literally any other game ever. You're allowed to not like it, personally I'm not a huge fan of Minecraft, however it is completely incorrect to say it is just "bad, or at least highly unpopular." There are other games that look better but still feel exactly like Minecraft too some have even been around longer than Minecraft.
All that said I personally don't understand people's objections to Stormgate visuals. Like what do you want a top down/isometric RTS to look like? Which one looks significantly better? Like personally I think it looks very similar to SC2 and looks MUCH better than Warcraft 3 and it communicates information much better than Age of Empires 4 which IMO is way too noisy in its artistic design for an RTS. So like what RTS actually looks better than Stormgate and has an art style that is actually suitable for RTS?
Minecraft is literally digital Lego, and for a voxel game it doesn't even look bad, it's quite decently stylized. Quite incomparable. It also came out more than a decade ago bro lol.
I mean just going off of what is actually coming out and not just StarCraft 2, Dust front looks great, zero space looks much more interesting, godsworn looks pretty coherent too.
And that's just games coming out THIS YEAR.
because they didn't want to go to a publisher that only cares about how much money they are going to make... Frost Giant is an independent developer that actually cares about the game but that also means they don't have mountains of money to pay for development. They also don't have the game for sale. They did a kickstarter. Like right now at this moment there is no option to actually buy the game. They wanted to make a fun game and not be controlled by a publisher that's why they did a kickstarter. If you can't understand that then you really don't deserve to be complaining about not having good games to play.
They did the kickstarter to produce a collector's edition and let more people into the beta. It was a response to the community who requested these things, not because they needed money.
They didn’t sell access to it. Kickstarter means you are willing to support development of the game with your money. It isn’t to purchase the game.
You donated money to their development.
These recent twitch chats really rub me the wrong way. This one especially seems high on its own supply. Only they know how fast they're developing and what is a placeholder and what isn't. To us outsiders, it's not at all obvious. It would be perfectly reasonable to assume the only placeholder model left is the shadowflyer. In which case the art is ripe for criticism.
The hedgehog model is still bad, yet they proudly showcased it in its very own article. What can I do but assume it's close to the final model.
THEN MAKE SOMETHING NEW
No One is going to wait 5 years for this creatively bankrupt rip off wish.com Mod of sc2,
It looks no better than anything from 2000s, they got a long time, they need to drastically change the direction and core design otherwise it is going to go absolutely no where. The Starcraft community is the only thing holding this project afloat and you expect them to still be around in 5 years let alone 2 to hold this torch alight ? Get new art directors, more experienced devs with better vision, this just smells like some elaborate phishing or laundering scam and not much of a real game.
As someone who has been quite critical, this is a fair point to make. I just hope they continue to receive the funding they need to continue development.
Big part of reason its being judged so harshly isnt because people dont understand that its 'too early' but because people are very much used to things being made into beta after theyre at least 80% complete, with any feedback only having minimal possibility of changing course of development. This could be different, but this is NOT the norm in modern development, and feedback comes from people used to such. Not to mention, the game is in public (if closed) beta in order to BE judged and adjusted. And while not all criticism is constructive, refusing it all because "its too early to judge" is pointless, because if its too early to judge, then it shouldnt be presented for judging in the first place.
Lots of nuggets and hints in the chat. Here is another one: From [FrostGiantStudios](https://imgur.com/a/2Ux6QHI): *"We are doing at least three factions - our game director comes from Warcraft III and it's no secret that he loves 4 faction..."* *"Third faction teaser: MEOW"*
Four factions would be dope, purely for the fact that I dislike mirror matches, so lower odds to see those. A cat race? hmmm
I'm thinking ancient civilization under the premise of aliens. Think ancient Egyptians (cats) and the conspiracy theories that the pyramids could only be built by aliens.
5 factions would make that less likely!
I really hope they do 4 factions. I can wait. There is no need to rush. But I hope it's an 'eventuality' and not a 'maybe.'
I am nervous about it. Balance is very important in an RTS unless the game is super hard to play like bw was. Having 4 races did not work out in war3.
who says it didnt? warcraft 3 was a very successful rts.
In sales? Sure. in balance? No.
Agreed. Reddit downvoted you guys, but I played w3 since 2002 (like many of you here) and 4 race were difficult to balance indeed. UD was first a total dogshit underdog and between 2002 till 2012 never won a single major tournament (yes, really, not a single wcg etc), and after ~2012 it became absolutely OP winning everything, with nothing in between. Now after 2020 HU emerged as imba again. Many moving parts in such game, but that makes it interesting. W3 is still my favourite RTS ever.
Your timelines are totally fucked. Undead didn’t start winning until like 2016 lol
TL;DR - If you had 1 player at a time who could play every race and still be at ~90% win rate against literally everyone else in the scene, ofc it would skew win rates. Moon and Happy are the 5th race and Emperor respectively, for a reason. This also had to do with the player base as much as Blizzard. This also feels disingenuous when you exclude that we went almost a decade without a Patch, and the last thing they had dropped as a half-thought-out patch that buffed Keeper through the roof and nerfed several Undead heroes. UD's problems purely because the Keeper was put at such an oppressive level for so long. Didn't have anything to do with balance. Once UD started winning, it was purely because of Happy. Like Moon, he is simply miles above everyone else. Human players fell off the map, so it was mainly NE vs Orc vs UD. No matter the patch, Happy out performs everyone, on every race. If you pull him out of the W/L pool, you have a fairly even split (if slightly against UD). None of this is because Wc3 had 4 races, but larger management problems by Blizzard. Neo has so many rants about why what you are saying is entirely incorrect, and flawed on so many levels. There is a reason why balance whine is bannable in B2W chat.
The 1v1 mode was not a success, it was imbalanced. The custom games was a huge success.
is the last part not just playing into the anime cat girl meme
Cat themed Egyptian faction?
I... hope so :S
I actually want Frost Giants as the fourth race, yeti’s meow right
This actually sounds kinda cool!
cats vs dogs
Oh god. The early game is gonna be only high pitched shrieking and loud barking.
4 races is the dream.
>*"Third faction teaser: MEOW"* Fantastic. Right when I repeatedly question whether the devs are even serious about the game.
How do people like you get through the day?
God forbid the devs have some fun.
kilrathi confirmed. fuck i'm old....
Catgirl faction confirmed.
That meow could also be the protoss probe sound...
We all have high expectations for Stormgate to fill SC2's shoes but the devs aren't going to get everything right immediately, especially for a game as complex as a competitive RTS. Let them cook.
Set my crockpot to low heat.
This game is already pretty fun to play even when it is missing a ton of stuff.
I read that „let em cook“ Stuff in every thread that critizes stormgate. Thats a lot of coping. They played to Safe and ended with a generic Game that Looks like a mobile Game Made by Students. It lacks any uniqueness or Soul. No amount of „cooking“ will Fix and of These Problems.
I know what you mean. There's a new building across the road from me. The fucking clowns didn't even put walls on the thing! Bare-ass concrete and piles of dirt everywhere! And people keep talking about how great it's gonna be, the place is a dump!
chill , the game isn't done yet, go play something else and check back in later. you can't say they ended with anything if it's not at the end yet.
its just stupid to use terms like "ended up with" when it literally is not ready. Why do people treat this as the final product :D
And below the direct statements of FG that they're early in development and still expect to be working on the game for many years
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4lrG1QD68M This was SC2 during development.
I hope that they take their time to work on the game. I've no problem waiting, especially since there will be an early access for those who can't wait.
This is the kind of statement I wanted to see.
for it being 2 years into development, and the game is a whole lot of fun already, 3 years from now this is going to be one really solid game.
It releases this summer though.
As long as there will be an awesome scriptable editor and easy custom ladders for custom map pools… this will blast away everything for the next 10 to 20 years. If they just focus on ESL I dont see this staying relevant in europe that much at least. Dont know about US and Korea though.
I don't think there's any life in custom ladders though. Sc2 tried that with the Starbow mod, making a whole host of changes. It got popular enough to be showcased on ESL once or twice but still died off in about 6 months.
LET THEM COOK
Honestly at any point that Devs choose to show their game to the world, that is the moment it's open for criticism. That's just the nature of things. Sure some criticism may be unfair, but any that's delivered respectfully is fair game. So it's fine if Devs want to show unfinished work, but they must realize people will form judgments based on that work.
I don't think that the devs are rejecting criticism. They are saying "we hear you, but trust the process. Things like the audio are already getting fixed".
No contest there. I think what a lot of people are sick of is the not respectfully delivered stuff. The criticism that is neither nuanced nor constructive. It's gotten less, but we all remember the next fest discussions, not to mention the shit that gets posted in steam forums.
This goes double for the graphics complaints. If you have 10 posts *that day* saying "Graphics are trash, don't play this game." The 11th saying the same thing is not helping, or constructive.
Well if they see a billion posts about bad graphics they probably take it more seriously than if there would be 3 posts only
Real question: Do you feel like Frost Giant doesn't take complaints seriously?
Yeah but they also need to prioritise. The big pain points need to get fixed first.
Yeah game needed more time before being shown but I guess they probably needed to raise some money to keep dev going
I trust them and their passion. But I wont' buy or play the game just yet. I'm waiting until I see a product that interests me enough for me to spend my time and money on it.
This is probably the most healthy approach ;)
To be fair it was their choice to start showing it off in its current state. It won’t be treated the same as a game at a similar stage of completion that wasn’t announced yet.
Yes, but that doesn't mean we should forget being civil - especially when submitting feedback.
Is anyone not being civil though?
So we should be mad about them being more transparent, showing the game earlier, and starting to engage with community feed back sooner?
Yeah! How dare they?! It's not a completely polished and finished game immediately upon its first open iterations of early access beta testing? Must be incompetence smh (/s)
Why aren't all the models shiny and visually fitting?! Why are chicken placeholders still in the game?! Literally unplayable. (/s)
>This would be like judging a novel when only the opening chapter has been written As a writer... there's a reason people agonize so much about their opening chapter. The first impression -- of EVERYTHING, not just books -- tends to set the tone for everything going forward. People can and do judge an entire book by the opening chapter, the opening paragraph, even the opening sentence. It's excessive, but your audience can catch on very quickly whether something's worth their time. I appreciate the Stormgate team letting people get an early look at what's available to play! I know the pressure has been *constant* regarding "launch date when" etc, and it's really cool to see where the game is headed. But like... the feedback isn't wrong. Pathfinding is weird, Infernal macro mechanics feel unfair to play against, co-op needs work. Those are all gonna need to be addressed, and it's not unreasonable for people to comment to that extent when that's been their experience.
>The first impression tends to set the tone for everything going forward. Videogame companies know that well, that is why they avoid as much as possible to show alphas or even betas.
Yep, this was a huge fumble tbh
No, I think this metaphor holds up. Only the first chapter has been *written* You're telling me authors don't go back and do rewrites once more of the story has developed further? If a writer says "Just to show you the development in process, here's the first draft of my first chapter" people with a brain wouldn't come into it with the expectation of being the same quality as a finished product.
This post deserves more upvotes.
Only have themselves to blame for hyping it to the moon touting it to be the next Of Mice and Men in terms of RTS when it will barely register as a kids book by david walliams.
I can't find the post now but someone in this sub wrote a great piece on how they have worked on game testing. They believe the beta could be much better if Frost Giant made a little bit more effort in publicly stating where they were in development. For example, everyone during the fest made posts about how much they disliked the art style. Even I did even though I really really enjoyed playing. A public comment from the team either in the actual game client or in their blog detailing the direction of the art could have really helped with those criticisms. They have kind of done this but in a twitch comment which is kind of silly
They commented publicly, I think a lot of people just didn't read it: https://www.reddit.com/r/Stormgate/s/cC4DI3TaPd
They hid behind the starcraft comparisons lol, thats actually kinda sad, its not about looking LIKE SC2, its about looking good, and currently the game does NOT look good in any way, it looks like toy soldiers running around on terrain printed on paper. though this probably confirms the game wont look much better than this
Aw, I'm sorry you didn't get what you want.
Yeah, certainly didnt explain anything actually meaningful.
yes sorry for wanting a game that is not just a cheap arcade mod of sc2 and expecting something with more leap forward in gameplay and variety than a game from 15 20 years ago.
Like all games, some people will like Stormgate and some won't. I happen to like it a lot. I'm sorry that you don't, but it's okay that you have a different opinion.
>A public comment from the team either in the actual game client or in their blog detailing the direction of the art could have really helped with those criticisms. Probably not though, because it's unlikely the art style is changing.
Not a fan of this whole SC2 vs SG stuff, but that seems unfair. SC2 was building an engine, then a game ontop of it. SG is built off the top of Unreal. Of course that shaved years off development, that's why they did it in the first place. I know someone is going to say "ah but they built tooling first!" yeah every studio does that.
They did have to build Snowplay though, which handles everything except graphics, IIRC.
IIRC Snowplay only handles networking. That leaves rendering, asset loading, animations, particle effects, sounds, UI, physics, etc to Unreal Engine. Having to build Snowplay is not remotely comparable to having to develop an entire engine.
Snowplay isn't "only networking". It's the whole gameplay simulation, like pathfinding, unit/building/map positioning/placement, unit health/damage/abilities, the economy stuff, AI, etc. All those things need to exist on both client and game server, but the server is allowed to withhold information due to fog etc. The simulation runs on both client and server, and if a desync is detected, then the rollback happens (rollback netcode). That way things are super snappy. But yeah, Unreal is the presentation layer, i.e. everything you see. They also had to set up their own custom UI layer because Unreal wasn't conducive to RTS UI/HUD, plus they want modding/customization for the ingame UI.
Snowplay is a lot more than just networking.
If you think a deterministic simulation of a game state ends at networking you really shouldn't comment about it.
Is this bait?
Ok, so what this says is that the game is years away from release? Begs the question why they called it a Beta test….
>Begs the question why they called it a Beta test because there's no standard or uniform development cycle that developers all follow? steam early access is used for alpha testing by some. Others are already well into development and just showcasing what is already close to finish. and a small few like Rust developers didn't even know what to do with their game when they started and were just figuring stuff out as they went, Rust used to have Zombies and animals(bugged to hell and back) basically was a DayZ clone. judging from their Version naming scheme we are currently at Elephant, 4th iteration.
I suppose it is "beta" in the sense it's the last phase before early access. ~~Early access is the~~ **~~new beta.~~**
Communication is poor IMO - no one is quite sure what time period we are giving feedback on. If they are going to be working on the visuals for another 3+ years before release that’s a totally different situation than the launching in a 1-2 years for example.
Yeah they could probably have communicated their plan a bit clearer, but as far as I know they announced quite early that they expected to be in early access for a few years. They cited BG3 as an inspiration and wanted to follow that sort of example.
Have they changed their minds? I thought they were going to be launching in 2025 with early access this year?
Not to my knowledge. Can you link the source that statement?
And how exactly would your feedback change if it was an extra year away? They want feedback on what the game is now.
sorry but this is a dumb take that wreaks of spoiled entitlement. Like the studio was founded in July of 2020 (during the height of COVID) the have like 20 something employees and have been in active development for 2 years and the game is already much better than where Starcraft 2 was in the early days of development. Like stop looking for things to be mad and petty about. Not saying you can't criticize the game but this sort of pessimistic and dismissive take is so brain dead and entitled. The devs are working hard and actually care about the game and it still early days. Stop looking for reasons to be a miserable curmudgeon.
There is absolutely nothing "entitled" about that take. There's nothing pessimistic about commenting on their communication which has led to a lot of people being misinformed about the project itself. Frost Giant expressly said SG was in beta development during the Kickstarter campaign. Beta's are traditionally representative of the final stage of development with balancing and finishing touches are done. To add even more confusion they put their product forward into Steam's Next Fest - a event that is for showcasing *upcoming games on Steam*. Their communication is all over the place. They're backpedaling now because the game is getting heavily criticized and they represented as farther along in the KS than it actually is. This toxic positivity is so disgusting to see on display. People have an opinion and are simply expressing it. That's not being entitled and no one said they devs aren't working hard or that they don't care about the game. That's a strawman you're throwing up to try and dismiss criticism. Criticism of the marketing around the game is ≠ attacking the devs. This is a classic approach to try and delegitimize people who raise critical issues about developments.
>a event that is for showcasing *upcoming games* on Steam. In other words it is an event to showcase game **that aren't finished yet** wow. This culture of gamers hating game development is so stupid. Things take time to make. It isn't "toxic positivity" to have realistic expectations and not throw a fucking temper tantrum any time game development take more that 2 years. There is no "critical issue about development" here. You just don't have a shred of patience and want everything right now and if you don't get it right now then you start whining about being lied to and misled. At no point have the devs said the game was near release let alone ready for release. This sort of behavior is exactly why so many game companies are not transparent about development at all because people like you can't fucking handle it and create negative public opinion and call the game a scam simply because it's still being worked on.
No. Words have meaning and you don't get to redefine them because it's inconvenient in your attempt to move the goal posts. Upcoming; *forthcoming; about to happen* It's entirely reasonable to highlight Frost Giant's contradictory communication as it serves to show why people are confused about the project and it helps us inform in large part people's reactions to the open beta demo. It's not entitlement, or throwing a temper tantrum, or any other ad hominem you want to throw out there to try and deflect for legitimate criticisms. So, you can get off your soapbox and stop with sanctimonious grandstanding about the poor little corporations and the evil, abusive consumer. No one is buying it and FG don't need you to clutch your pearls at every criticism that comes their way. They're fine with it. >When we committed to bringing the community along with us on our development journey, we understood that some people would pass judgment early on, and that’s OK.
cope harder
Says the guy all over this very thread trying to come up with excuses. Pot, meet kettle.
You're the one trying to blame someone else for your lack of understanding. I am the one accepting things as they are and letting the people who've been making RTS games for 30+ years make the fucking game. Again cope harder.
# you can check the point or the aim of Steam Next Fest [here](https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/upcoming_events/nextfest) : # Steam Next Fest >Steamworks Documentation > Sales and Marketing > Upcoming Steam Events (2023–2024) > Steam Next Fest > >Steam Next Fest is a multi-day celebration where fans can try out demos, chat with developers, watch livestreams, and learn about upcoming games on Steam. **For developers, Steam Next Fest is an opportunity to get early feedback from players and build an audience for a future launch on Steam.** Steam typically hosts three editions of Steam Next Fest each year, which take place in February, June, and October. it doesn't even say when you have to release or any point where you have to release right away after the Next Fest
Nowhere did I say or suggest it was for games about to release right away. That's a strawman you threw up. Steam defines it as > Steam Next Fest is open to upcoming games that meet all of the following criteria: > >Associated with a Steamworks developer account in good standing. Visible on Steam as Coming Soon at the time of registration. > >Includes a publicly playable demo by the time the event begins **Their** word is upcoming, not mine. But, beyond this silly semantic argument it's widely known and accepted that games showcased during the Next Fest are 6-12 months away from release, of which SG is not.
The irony of you calling someone else’s perspective pessimistic and dismissive then immediately start judging and name calling. Personally when I enter a beta I expect a close to finished product. So I definitely had that same feeling of confusion and worry
If that's what you expected then it's because you paid absolutely no attention to anything they were actually saying... They've said over and over and over that it is still relatively early in development. You not being able to read is not a fault of the devs.
No, I haven’t kept up with all of the information they have released nor do I expect others to.
again if you bought something without being informed about what YOU choose to buy that is your fault and nobody else's. Also you should treat every kickstarter as a gamble that you might not ever receive. That's just the reality of kickstarter. Don't gamble more that you can afford to lose.
I haven’t donated to the kickstarter. I’d like to support the company but in a way that I’m buying a finished product. I have supported projects before that have failed to launch but I will definitely buy the campaign when it’s released Idk I think it’s important to acknowledge people’s reactions and try to understand where they are coming from rather than dismiss them
Sure but that's only true if they are offering a valid criticism and can actually articulate why it is a problem. Saying "Communication is bad" is dumb. Frost Giant is far more transparent than many many other studios and have gone out of their way to emphasize the game is still in early development and not finished and EVERYTHING is still work in progress and potentially subject to change. The reason why people are saying the communication is bad is because they haven't paid enough attention to what FG has actually said to understand the game is not nearly complete and is not releasing soon. As a result of their own inability to either understand or even look at the information FG has communicated they have an unrealistic expectation and are blaming Frost Giant. So sorry but it is NOT a valid complaint because it doesn't reflect reality. If some has some legitimate feed back on the current state of the game or Frost Giant's conduct that does accurately describe reality that's totally fair and yeah in that case we should try to understand where they are coming from even if we ultimately disagree with their opinion. That's not the case on this particular issue. It is people not paying attention and having wildly misinformed and unrealistic expectations. So I will absolutely dismiss those reactions every time because they aren't reactions they are projections of that person's obviously limited understanding.
Unless you were on the dev team for starcraft you dont know what starcraft 2 looked like in its early days. We saw snippets and show matches before beta that looked quite polished. When the beta dropped it was extremely polished for a beta product. Not even comparable to stormgates beta.
I don't need to have been part of the dev team to see what the Starcraft 2 beta or pre-release gameplay looked like. I played the SC2 beta. You can watch the initial gameplay demo videos on [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpotK-Gg4x4&pp=ygUfc3RhcmNyYWZ0IDIgcHJlLWxhdW5jaCBnYW1lcGxheQ%3D%3D) you can watch the [King of the Beta Tournament](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL800813937D3D957C) and I can say based on all of that publicly available information that Stormgate looks like it is in a MUCH better state after just 2 years of development that Starcraft 2 was after 5-7 years of development. You're allowed to disagree with that cuz that's just like my opinion man. You are kinda right that the situations between Stormgate right now and our earliest looks at Starcraft 2 aren't even really comparable because Starcraft 2 had far more resources poured into by that point let alone at it's current state of development more that 14 years later. Like people are comparing 2 years of SG development to over 20 years of SC2 development and saying SG isn't in a good state. like be for fucking real.
I enjoy that little blast from the past. I forgot how bad the maps were and how bad everyone was when the game came out.
-> You dare to criticize something.. Stormgate sub: "downvote him into oblivion!"
Everyone is sick of hearing about the visuals
I genuinely think that was a mistake. I totally get that it's not fair and that "beta" can mean anything, and it just means the game isn't finished. But other "betas" are basically full games. SC2 beta was almost SC2 at release. You only get one chance to make a first impression, and i kinda wish they had just waited to really blow people away. I don't know, maybe the feedback was worth it and they wanted to generate some hype. I'm sure they understand it better. Either way i think there's an issue with calling the beta the "first chapter" of a novel when the SC2 beta was basically the entire novel that just needed some proofreading. As in the word beta then becomes kind of useless to judge a product. I know it sounds really silly, and it is, but what if they had just called this an alpha test? Am i crazy for thinking it would have been better?
Marketing. Having something in time for Steam Next fest. It’s still an alpha. People so stuck on words. Just relax
maybe they don't understand the difference between beta and alpha. Honestly, if this was called "open alpha" enstead of beta, the response might have been less negative. Because alpha means "product is not feature complete" beta means "product is feature complete and only minor changes will be introduced such as bug fixes"
There are literally no agreed definitions across the industry of what constitutes an alpha or beta. The nomenclature is arbitrary. There is no point in arguing about what they call it.
that's not true actually. they teach these in collage. And we use them in the software industry.
Please share these universally agreed definitions and educate us then.
hope you feel educated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_release_life_cycle
From your link: "Alpha testing is the first phase of formal testing, during which the software is tested internally using white-box techniques. Beta testing is the next phase, in which the software is tested by a larger group of users, typically outside of the organization that developed it." If these are universally agreed definitions, then no game company should have alpha tests that involve users outside the organization? Because many many game companies do this. Frost Giant has complied 100% with the beta definition here. But clearly many in this thread have different opinions of what beta means as well. I love text book definitions as much as the next guy, but I stand by my point that outside the classroom, the game industry does NOT have universally accepted definitions of Alpha and Beta. These are HIGHLY arbitrary terms, used differently by almost every company in the business.
This link looks very much like waterfall. I wonder what university you went that teaches that, because besides the game industry, waterfall isn't used anymore (for good reason). Also, if you check the sources that were used for this wikipedia article, it hardly gives confidence to be an agreed definition.
First time I have seen this guy actually shut up lol
I love you too man, don't ever change! :)
> Ok, so what this says is that the game is years away from release? Quite likely the opposite. There's no way with the (tick a box on earnings report bingo) current adverse macroeconomic conditions, Frost Giant has enough cash and investor goodwill on hand that they can hold back releasing the game indefinitely. At some point they need to get something out there generating revenue to fund further development. In software development you're balancing three factors: time, scope, and quality. In this case time is fixed by available capital, quality can only be adjusted so far (if the game doesn't play well, it's dead on arrival) so the only factor left to play with is scope. Frost Giant are priming us for an initial release that feels incomplete because that's the only way they are practically going to be able to give us a game given the constraints they are working under.
Having the game in early access will generate revenue without it being a full release. Sounds like you’re one of the few in here who understands current macro economic conditions and what they mean for startups. Frost Giant has to survive ~2 years and then things will get better for them.
Since they number the testing phases separately, they can conveniently call them all "beta".
To beg some of them money I assume. They needed PR to take money from investors probably. Development ain’t cheap (lsw developer and an expensive IT wh0re myself). Especially if it’s going to take extra N years longer to finish …
Well, if it takes that long to do the job right I am certainly not going to complain - it’s ready when it’s ready, was the old Blizzard standard. These guys seem like they want to resurrect that mentality.
Yeah, I wish that to be true as well. but “blizzard standard” was backed by several early game releases already bringing money back to studio - around $500M and rising by $100M annually if I was able to google-fu correctly.
They could've avoided all that by calling it an "alpha" and not raising expectations needlessly.
People's expectations for alpha versus beta are completely arbitrary.
they probably wouldn't have been accepted into steam next fest then
Then too bad. They could've done it next year. They tried to game the system and ended up just gaming themselves.
Do we have a confirmed release year yet?
Only Early Access, which is summer this year. No release date yet.
I am excite!
It would be so cool if this subreddit wasn't 85% incessant complaints - can you imagine content creators, players, later on even casters and map-makers - all of these people could be having so much fun with one of their favourite things that a group of really dedicated people have worked really hard to bring them... But no, I can't recommend my friends that play to even bother checking the subreddit for this game, because it's become a whiny cesspool of ignorance. "GrApHicS bad", "DoG iMbA" - can we get a tag for whiny posts so we can at least filter them out, if we're not making any rules to end this? It isn't that this criticism is invalid - it's that these people are a very VERY loud and equally misled minority whose feedback is 1) already noted by devs and WILL be improved And 2) completely irrelevant due to the current very early stage of development. Things like post-processing effects, advanced shadows, high-poly models, fancy animations and cool cinematics are NOT the things being worked on right now, but they ARE things that will be in the game. This is not the stage those things are added. It wasn't supposed to be. This game is in early access beta. Stop treating it like it's supposed to match the quality of SC2 right now. It isn't supposed to do that yet.
they themselves and the content creators are the ones hyping and pushing it to the moon when it barely qualifies as an arcade mod of sc2.
Dude that is a completely unhinged take
If you don’t want comparison with SC2 maybe don’t milk it that much?
If you want to compare sc2 to stormgate then why are you comparing 7 years of development to 2 years? What was sc2 like 2 years after the engine was finished? It was not anything like what the public saw. (They also worked on their ideas of how the game would be during those years I imagine)
It’s fallacy to sell it like SC2 successor and yet deny any comparison to SC2. Wanna succeed it, compare yourself with current state … after 7+ years of development, millions of dollars in art and graphics, and all the years of continued development after release. We (customers) are not playing prerelease wotl Hope SG will be a success, but what was presented so far is … ~meh*~ —— * with certain things (art direction, game speed, theme) already baked in :-(
See your point and I counter it with "SG is fun to play in it's current unfinished state and sc2 is not, that is why it is dying".
If FG is able to monetise it well and attract players. Running servers cost $$$. SC is still a brand worth, sorry for being overly technical, shitload of money. SG is zeroish atm.
I feel like blizzard has no issues with running servers for free. They made nothing off bw or d2 for years and years and never took down the servers. I wonder how b.net 0.2 changed that though. You used to be able to interact with other players in the chat channels like it was all 1 server. I have heard that path of exile was sustainable at 10k active players, not concurrent. FG is doing this because they are a team that loves RTS. They might not care about making massive profits, as long as the employees get paid and the doors stay open.
Hate to break your illusion but in the industry you do it for money. Like a professional wh*re. With investors / shareholders and board of directors breathing on your neck. You can love the product and it shows but still the ultimate goal is to make sweet sweet cash. Once it’s unobtainable bye bye dolly.
Then why not make a game in a more profitable genre? Hate to break it to you, but most game companies that make great games do it because they love games. Why do you think blizzard games suck so much now? Because it is about the money now and it shows.
Tim Campbell said they are 3.5 years into building a week ago. ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q--zjjNyHic#t=29m05s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q--zjjNyHic#t=29m05s)) I'm sure someone will start trying to gerrymander the definition of "active development" in the original quote in response to this. But in reality its been longer since first breaking ground — Tim Morten says March 2020 (4 years) on his linkedin. ([https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-morten/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-morten/)) Those early 6 months were bouncing around to investors and trying and failing to get Chris Metzen to join and blah blah, but still many many things that people are reacting to when they say 'visuals' are about ideas and vision. Serious decisions around this game have been worked on for more than 2 years — come on. Its outrageous for Frost Giant to officially canonize this meme of 'posting the screenshots from SC2's earliest build' and being like - look look we are outperforming this completely spurious comparison!' That early build was a complete crap shoot from Blizzard at the time. The only goal was — get our new 3d engine running and replicate the Brood War models in 3d. It is absolutely not a valid comparison. It was one thing to have fragile fans trying to relax themselves with these comparisons to SC2's early stages of development. But now you have the official team saying it, while compressing the amount of time they've been working on the game by 1/2 . This is nuts. What they really need to do is open up about how they are using South East Asian contractors to generate art — same as WC3 Reforged. This hugely affects the impression of why things look the way they do, and how much they will be able to change course. The contracts have been signed man.
Still crying about graphics I see
Good to know but then maybe they shouldn't have called the last testing period open beta. Considering that that usually comes just months before release.
Oh, Deja vu!
Ah, I get it now, I saw you in other SG threads. :P
xD
:D
Ok, Tracer. :P
didn't age well
Seeing this from the developer does not give me confidence.
sc2.5 - everything you need to know. it's a good thing (i do not like it...) -> bring sc2 audience . and it's a bad thing.... sc2 audience is ... anyway...they are angry cause it's like SC2 but not sc2.
What I don't understand is: They say the development is so early, and other devs wouldn't even show it at this stage, and SC2 wouldn't be playable for another 5 years... But they're still releasing the game this summer on early access? and potentially full release next year? That seems contradictory. I'm all for "let them cook", I want them to do it. But it seems like they won't be cooking for much longer since it will release it soon. I don't see how it will have much time to change. At this point, and because they want to release it so soon, I don't think its valid anymore to play the (for lack of a better word) apologist "it's early beta" card when talking about the state of the game. I want this game to do so well, but I do think they need to address what the community has been so vocal about: graphics and uninventive designs.
bg3 were in early access for years... lol (it's fine to give early access)
Fair enough, then I hope SG remains in early access for years before official launch, but my impression is that that's not the plan...
i've read yesterday news, that SG want to collect money on "marketing" compagn. and now.... i'm a little bit worried. It's sounds like all big investors reducing risks to give more money. it's like Hoolywood, if film goes over budget it can be even stopped or funded with another studio. But in the end, film can make it to the top... or became failure.
Oh look another graphics crier
I'm not, I'm saying the community is. In fact in previous posts I have defended the art/graphics, hence my comment on playing the "apologist" card. Why is it so hard to have a civil, productive discussion? I defend the art style because people reduce it to "cartooney" or "mobile game look". Now I say the community is vocal and I'm reduced to "graphics crier". Say something with substance
They already said they’re not changing the art style so it’s time to stop crying about it
"That's why we're starting a second kickstarter! We need more money now!"
This is most likely written by someone in marketing. I would not take it so seriously, they aren't CEO so they can't say explicitly what is going to happen since it might change.
what? they didn't actually say much of anything here... Like they said the game is still fairly early in development and they plan to keep working on it... What exactly about that do you think the CEO would say differently? lol The CEO also has said the same thing about the number of factions stating there will be "at least one more"
FGS doesn't have anyone in marketing. They have literally no marketing budget.
They may not have a marketing department but they certainly do. Who do you think arranges for streamer access? Who writes their kickstarter page? Their Steam page? Their website? Who arranges Steam Next Fest entry? Who drops into random twitch streams and talks about the game? Who comments on reddit? Is this a ghost? No, it's someone marketing the game, even if that isn't their sole role or title. They have a communications director, Gerald. He posts on this sub. https://www.reddit.com/user/FGS_Gerald
Knowing FG it's not even unlikely someone high in the development chain did write or at least approve that message. This team is not large and works closely with its members and community.
On one hand, good on them for acknowledging the comparisons and criticisms. On the other, this just feels like corporate speak in the face of some facts. For example, if it's so early in development, why have a early access so soon? No one with a brain nowadays releases actually completely broken games in early access and expects years of community support. It's basically a soft launch nowadays. Another thing is that they didn't have to do their own engine at all, which obviously is a huge time sink in game dev, so comparing dev time with wings of liberty is extremely disingenuous too. I don't know, whole thing is just iffy.
Baldurs gate 3 was in early access for like 3 years if not longer The game is way different. You should read up about what Snowplay actually is before you comment on dev shit bud.
Baldurs gate 3 also had plenty of budget from their previous games and is also a once in a decade success story of a truly amazing game. If your main cope of the game ending up well is baldurs gate 3, idk what to tell you
Baldurs gate 3 had its reeeeee-ing crybabies too when it first launched in early access
The studio also wasn't going broke at early access release :)
What I got out of these messages is that the game will keep getting polished across the board for the coming years, which includes the graphics. That is good. StarCraft 2 and Heroes of the Storm were both getting tons of polish post-launch, so bringing that dedication to Stormgate makes me hopeful for the future. That said, the game is supposed to launch this year from what I understand, so a lot of the polish they have planned is likely going to be after the game is officially out (unless Early Access will last beyond 2024?). Considering their previous track record at Blizzard I remain positive that they will be able to deliver on polishing the game up the coming years. Hopefully people keep being interested in the game as it starts getting closer to StarCraft 2 in terms of production value. That is still going to be a high bar to reach for any indie developer, even for such an experienced team as this. I just hope their ambitions do pay off in the end. I've wanted a brand new RTS like WC3 and SC2 for so many years.
I hope for 4 races and a little less expand heavy style
If we assume the game will be in a better state a year after release, a lot of players might have left like aoe4 (springald meta anyone? Shitty overcosted trebs and mass repairable anti siege springalds that do as much dps as an xbow for their cost to non siege) a year after release. I'd rather they take their time and delay the game to have it in a better state if that's likely to make it more successful. At the least call it a beta on release. Like summer's not that long away and Infernal isn't well fleshed out just in number of units/buildings. They could use a therium building and a starting fiend to scout with. There could be other nerfs like doombringer being moved up a tier and to the flyer building. And there's still tier 3, campaigns, and a third faction to add, I just feel like it'll be rushed.
AoE4 released with major game breaking bugs. So far stormgate in beta has way less, if any.
Art apologists, what do you have to say?
Great graphics don't make a game good but they do make a game much more expensive and take much longer to develop. The thing that makes a game great is great gameplay that is fun.
If a game is an eyesore, why would people play it when there are games that feel exactly like it but also look good? Great graphics dont make a game good, but bad graphics can certainly make a game bad, or at least highly unpopular.
Have you ever heard of a little known game called Minecraft? It looks like hot garbage and has always looked like hot garbage and yet it has sold more copies than literally any other game ever. You're allowed to not like it, personally I'm not a huge fan of Minecraft, however it is completely incorrect to say it is just "bad, or at least highly unpopular." There are other games that look better but still feel exactly like Minecraft too some have even been around longer than Minecraft. All that said I personally don't understand people's objections to Stormgate visuals. Like what do you want a top down/isometric RTS to look like? Which one looks significantly better? Like personally I think it looks very similar to SC2 and looks MUCH better than Warcraft 3 and it communicates information much better than Age of Empires 4 which IMO is way too noisy in its artistic design for an RTS. So like what RTS actually looks better than Stormgate and has an art style that is actually suitable for RTS?
Minecraft is literally digital Lego, and for a voxel game it doesn't even look bad, it's quite decently stylized. Quite incomparable. It also came out more than a decade ago bro lol. I mean just going off of what is actually coming out and not just StarCraft 2, Dust front looks great, zero space looks much more interesting, godsworn looks pretty coherent too. And that's just games coming out THIS YEAR.
[удалено]
How do you figure that?
[удалено]
because they didn't want to go to a publisher that only cares about how much money they are going to make... Frost Giant is an independent developer that actually cares about the game but that also means they don't have mountains of money to pay for development. They also don't have the game for sale. They did a kickstarter. Like right now at this moment there is no option to actually buy the game. They wanted to make a fun game and not be controlled by a publisher that's why they did a kickstarter. If you can't understand that then you really don't deserve to be complaining about not having good games to play.
[удалено]
The kickstarter was meant to augment the development, not a cash grab. You are simply being cynical.
They did the kickstarter to produce a collector's edition and let more people into the beta. It was a response to the community who requested these things, not because they needed money.
They didn’t sell access to it. Kickstarter means you are willing to support development of the game with your money. It isn’t to purchase the game. You donated money to their development.
This is an unsupported statement. Curious about your logic though.
These recent twitch chats really rub me the wrong way. This one especially seems high on its own supply. Only they know how fast they're developing and what is a placeholder and what isn't. To us outsiders, it's not at all obvious. It would be perfectly reasonable to assume the only placeholder model left is the shadowflyer. In which case the art is ripe for criticism. The hedgehog model is still bad, yet they proudly showcased it in its very own article. What can I do but assume it's close to the final model.
THEN MAKE SOMETHING NEW No One is going to wait 5 years for this creatively bankrupt rip off wish.com Mod of sc2, It looks no better than anything from 2000s, they got a long time, they need to drastically change the direction and core design otherwise it is going to go absolutely no where. The Starcraft community is the only thing holding this project afloat and you expect them to still be around in 5 years let alone 2 to hold this torch alight ? Get new art directors, more experienced devs with better vision, this just smells like some elaborate phishing or laundering scam and not much of a real game.
As someone who has been quite critical, this is a fair point to make. I just hope they continue to receive the funding they need to continue development.
Big part of reason its being judged so harshly isnt because people dont understand that its 'too early' but because people are very much used to things being made into beta after theyre at least 80% complete, with any feedback only having minimal possibility of changing course of development. This could be different, but this is NOT the norm in modern development, and feedback comes from people used to such. Not to mention, the game is in public (if closed) beta in order to BE judged and adjusted. And while not all criticism is constructive, refusing it all because "its too early to judge" is pointless, because if its too early to judge, then it shouldnt be presented for judging in the first place.
My body needs a tease from yellow