Stormgate Faces The Reality of Early Access...

Ouch. Pulling off an early access release is hard in the best of times. For Stormgate, all the usual challenges are compounded on by the odd case of a $10 hero played by Simu Liu.
📝 We just published "How Do Executives Make Games Worse? A Case Study" on bellular.games
bellular.games... Sign up today to support our team, and get a tonne of exclusive content!
Sources:
steamcommunity...
www.pcgamer.co...
gameworldobser...
• Simu Liu on Playing Wa...
store.steampow...
steamcommunity...
steamcommunity...

[@BellularNews]

📝 We just published "How Do Executives Make Games Worse? A Case Study" on bellular.games bellular.games/how-do-executives-make-games-worse-a-case-study/ Sign up today to support our team, and get a tonne of exclusive content!

[@angamaitesangahyando685]

FGS are bereft of any holistic, artistic vision. They have paid lip service to the coop and campaign people, but they clearly only care about 1v1. And they don't even have the advertised 3v3 mode on (EA) launch! They're hopeless. - Adûnâi

[@jeusmarcomascarina4102]

No cooler models no play

[@potenviking]

Aren't you going to talk about them editing their FAQ - they sold a product and then corrected the wording of what they sold. We are talking about massive fraud.

[@cazperzero]

Could you do a deep dive into Homeworld 3?

[@erikdaigle9212]

​@@potenvikingcould anything be worse than Cyberpunk l?!

[@sceligator]

Remember everyone. As the immortal TotalBiscuit said. If an early access game has micro transactions, then it should be viewed as the full release.

[@natanoj16]

Agree

[@ragganmore6113]

I view even "early-access" games without mtx but a price tag as a full release. If your game is worth paying for, it better be ready to be played. I'm not giving you money to beta test your game. You want free alpha/beta/early access testing and feedback? Sure, but i won't pay to help you make your product.

[@Tory-JJ]

Yep!+

[@ondrez5114]

Amen.

[@Matteblvck89]

Agreed

[@Marksman3434]

Ugh… Really miss the days when developers just gave us a full product that we paid at full price from the get-go and that was it. The ones who do that nowadays seem like the minority

[@darrylnewman292]

It seems like whenever a game releases you have to wait 6 to 9 months before purchasing so they can fix all the bugs and problems😂

[@mrabtruse]

Go ask the recent Contra game it was a full complete game but everyone bitched about it for 40 dollars

[@Nick-cs4oc]

The costs of game dev are often geared towards the biggest players in the space. Server costs, salaries, investor payout, engine fees on and on. In order to exist in the space you need to take the money on the table or the second you actually threaten any of those big players, they’ll drown you in cost. They have the war chest and you do not

[@ingrudmessenger1193]

Ehh... i do share that in general, but i don't mind the general attempt announced for Stormgate at least. For a game aiming to be an esports it does make sense to be ftp somewhat and can be at least considered like a demo, and i think selling campaigns to make money can be a good approach if done properly. I buy a campaign worth the money which in my case would be all i play anyways, and if i want more of it some time later, i can get more! That's cool! That they sell different heroes for pvp already is kinda a red flag imho... but i didn't really dig into it if that's only for certain game modes or what.

[@winstonsmith9452]

IoI how else are companies going to miIk their fan base for literally every penny if they dont implement stingy greedy monetization? 😂 the problem is that these companies in the pursuit of pleasing investors now add horrendous monetization in their games which doesnt just 💀 the game, it 💀's the entire lP and as of recently its 💀ed multiple companies, so that greed of, "i want to make the investors happy right now" is literally a death sentence for a company long term, they dont understand that if they treat their fans right, those same fans will continue to buy into the lP for years to come, and they will possibly give other lPs a try under said companies umbrella/will refer said lP to their friends

[@Sora-Mi]

Here's some problems I have notice since playing, I play a bit of campaign but mostly co-op: 1) The game came out in early access with 3 different DLC packs, you can't even upgrade to it, it all had to be purchase separately (or supported them earlier in kickerstarter). The ultimate DLC is $60. 2) The campaign lack a basic save and reload system, you can't reorganize items without dropping them. 3) The co-op only had 3 different mission, with 2 different maps. Its not balance around if an ally leaves, it doesn't give you control of their units and base like starcraft 2 or just put in an AI so it'll do something. As far as I can tell, the enemy attack are still the same. The XP bar doesn't show how far you are from next level, and sometimes at the end of the game, it kicks you back to the starting screen so you won't even know if you got the xp from the co-op. Then there's already a hero for sale, $10.

[@SuperZura91]

So on short, it's a 60$ game (assuming you get everything from all 3 packs with the ultimate version) that will further charge people for in-game macro-transactions while the game is in early access. Yep, no red flag here. Normal industry practice.

[@GuessIIIwho]

Regarding 2), didn't they update that in last patch ? I recall that being a focus from devs. Maybe the road map I saw. The 3) will very obviously be fixed. No biggie, that's crystal clear

[@angamaitesangahyando685]

Don't forget no customisable hotkeys! I cannot believe it. Warcraft 3 had it in 2002. Pure scam. This has to be intentional. Like their abbreviation Frost Giant Studios being FGS, and their logo being a gaping... portal. Mega troll. - Adûnâi

[@GuessIIIwho]

@@angamaitesangahyando685 wasnt it through game files editing ?

[@chimaerejade5090]

For 1) Yeah this is very unpleasent. The developers said that ultimate-owners will get the next coop-hero for free instead of warz, because sells already happened. I don't know if those are technical problems, less priority or anything else. For 2) Agree too. Played the campagin complete and it lacks some work in terms of more scripted events for some suspense, partly bigger maps and technical QOL - like the save&load-system or item organization. For 3) There are 4 different maps at the moment. -Two convoy ones (but one with additional 2 bonus convois which are faster/invisible -One like the Dead Night from SC2, but not close to the quality -One where you have to destroy/"close" portals in a time frame The rest is correct. :/

[@ketrotenderfoot9007]

$217....for that much they should come to my house and hand me a signed copy of the game and a statue of a in game character

[@justanoman6497]

So I looked and anything over $60 isn't actually for the game itself. It's either for more copies or physical goods. In fact, $200 is a collector edition that does come with a statue and some other stuff, though signed copy need to be 350. (I assume it's 217 instead of 200 due to tax or whatever). That post was a bit misleading in this regard. It feels a lot more reasonable for the limit on game content knowing that the cap on that front is $60.

[@6Catz]

@@justanoman6497 cope

[@nullpha]

sounds like your fault.

[@madmantheepic7278]

@@justanoman6497 regardless its ridiculous, didnt they have like 50mil budget or something? Now they're asking for like 200 bucks from the players when their campaign is a WC3 knockoff, ontop of being not finished!

[@KaiserMattTygore927]

I wouldn't even pay 217 bucks for the perfect game to my tastes, that's wild.

[@hugoortega195]

that's why you should: Never Pre-order Never buy in Release Day No company is worth that level of trust, particularly a company made of former Blizzard devs, don't assume it was all corporate greed that affected every choice there.....

[@SteveSoper1979]

A fool and his money are sooner parted. People paying ahead of time for games when they don't have to I'll never get. SMH. Nah I'll just wait and see how the product is before I purchase it thank you very much.

[@hugoortega195]

@@SteveSoper1979 thank you, but something else that I keep seeing is this "victimization" of game devs, everyone wants to paint these people as innocent bystanders who get forced to do these things. I've worked in software dev and I hate to say they aren't victims, many of them agree with the exploitative choices and even worse, don't actually care about anything in the final product, to them it's just a job they can make a lot of money doing and they think they have ultimate job security because they are "built differently" AKA better and smarter than everyone else. Many of the scummy practices at game companies are embraced by the workers because they think it's the ultimate gatekeeping to remove the chaff from the wheat and make them "special".

[@angamaitesangahyando685]

I paid 80 EUR for ZeroSpace Kickstarter because I'm Ukrainian and was scared it would be my last purchase haha - Adûnâi

[@DustinDustin00]

Never buy anything with a "season pass" or a monthly access pass that gives you a chance to earn a special item if you play tons of hours -- that's a JOB. Just give me what I paid for, it's supposed to be a GAME.

[@EB-bl6cc]

"that's why you should: Never Pre-order Never buy in Release Day" Amen. Even in the most extreme scenario where it's a company you completely 100% trust and you know from playing the beta or whatever that the game will be amazing. You STILL shouldn't pre-order, because it sets a precedent and enables ALL companies to be able to do pre-ordering stuff in the future. Just never, ever, ever pre-order no matter what. It's simple.

[@lo53n]

I hate how they market the studio as "people behind Starcraft2/Warcraft 3", every time I see marketing like that, I cringe internally, because I get reminded of Back 4 Blood or Petroglyph Games out of recent ones. You look into their company page, and you see only leads, producers or game directors. Those positions have one thing common - its extremely easy to take credit of the developers work. I dont think the games would be the same without them, but lets be real - don't think they have put a lot of menial work behind the games. And now with their new studio, who knows how good programmers are. Its like having ship with 10 captains who have experience, but sailors are of questionable skills. They eventually will get there, but the voyage will be really rocky. Starcraft 2 wasnt built only by execs and leads, and had backing of big company and already existing robust and well working engine. Doing all the work from grounds up is daunting task, and then you have burden of promising the next best thing after SC2 done by former SC2 developers. They have set bar high, and people were expecting that.

[@kurosumomo]

When they say "ex blizzard employees" I just think of "maybe those guys were the ones stealing the breast milk and bailed"

[@Figgy20000]

It should be marketed as "People who couldn't make it at blizzard" instead

[@tbird81]

"By the people who made The Witcher..."

[@coreyrachar9694]

insightful.

[@blitzkrieg8776]

The art style is something I personally can't get behind. With Zero Space I can, also helps they are focusing on singleplayer and coop more than Stormgate.

[@Ralentis4788]

Zero Space is a bit underwhelming stylistically but you do get the feeling they are trying to craft an atmosphere, Stormgate feels it was put together by engineers with no interest in the artistic component of their project, delegating it as an afterthought to a team of interns untill it was too late. I can understand the argument of weak designs "growing on you" if the game is good, in fact I experienced that with Dirty bomb a while ago, but the quality has to reach a level where it's not actively discouraging people =[

[@hilkmeister1382]

​@@Ralentis4788 The only thing that looked artisticly bad to me was the UI. Beyond that it looked good (from a art direction POV). Each of the factions has its own design that makes it look unique.

[@napioor]

@@hilkmeister1382 it looks like every kids game made recently. All Fortnite clones

[@Keilink]

​@@napioor Yeah Fortnite definatly created that artstyle and didn't pump it off Warcraft, League of Legends and the like :'D

[@Keilink]

I don't know, I remained neutral to its look... If anything the plant looking faction's super weird to look at and feels almost out of place. That said, they definatly have a way stronger visual team when it comes to cinematic and story telling. You also got my attention with Co-op, I had no idea this was in their plans :o

[@adrenalinekick]

The sad thing is even though Stormgate is F2P, you can get so much more value out of Starcraft 2 and it ALSO is Free2Play.

[@Leonhart_93]

SC2 is free now, it wasn't for many years. They monetized the base game and two expansions before that. That's disingenuous, especially considering Blizzard completely abandoned it many years ago when the money dried up.

[@Frodonsake24]

Yes you can. You can also get value from many other game. What's your point ? That's part of making a new video game.

[@Eudaimonia239]

Sc2 is a ded game officially and has no support, stormgate is messy atm but making that comparison is stupid.

[@Nightstalker314]

People that spend 200+ bucks on a game have already given you more than most players ever will.

[@amcc8188]

You say that. But it's not true. Whales exist and will give 50/month in lots and lots of cases if they feel its worth their time. My limit is ~$15/mo because thats how much i spent on WOW back in the day. But wealthy adults each have their own limit.

[@Tory-JJ]

1 whale giving you 2k is now worth tons of those players. Whales is what these companies want.

[@todalio9238]

Paradox is like that, and implementing, after years ..... here is a "subscribe" feature is disgusting. Implemented same feature as streaming. 15-20 a months, yet .... Eu 4 or CK 2 without sub are both way above 200$. Also Civs since 6 game. Civ 5 was acceptable, Civ 6, go to jail.

[@mtg9587]

@@todalio9238 I think people really overestimate the margins Paradox has on those games. They give support to these games for years and years and the price we pay is all those DLCs. The alternative is that they drop the base game, you pay for it but instead of $30 it's $60 and then drop support. Paradox is doing well but it isn't crushing the market here.

[@SekiberiusWelkesh]

@@amcc8188 Whales are not "most people."

[@PhantomHarlock78]

Stormgate devs ignored all the feedback about the art direction and unit visibility. Before the game was show, months ago, every Starcraft player was happy to see a new RTS. But what we got in the place was one of most unispired RTS ever made.

[@user-kw9cv7gf1q]

,💯

[@RealEmar]

For real when i saw armies in this game i instantly realized that art clarity in this game is atrocious. Units have too much detail, clump up too much and are too close to the camera. In SC2 units are smaller, have more distance between each other and stand out thanks to the use of non team dependent colors. One can unstantly tell a clump of ~20 marines with 5 marauders inside of it and estimate it's power. Meanwhile in Stormgate yeah you can tell that is inflantry supported by 3 mechs but that kinds of inflantry are used not so much as they all blend with each other.

[@andrewgreeb916]

We got better rts titles out now than stormgate, when they figure out their life I will give it another go.

[@TheSuperappelflap]

@@RealEmar sc2 is pretty bad at clumping already, you need to play the game for thousands of hours to be able to count units accurately.

[@angamaitesangahyando685]

I called Stormgate's artstyle the tier 3 Undead melee unit in June 2022, and got permabanned. The game is going to shut down in half a year if that, just you watch. - Adûnâi

[@trolltollz1317]

Way too much cope. "Veteran" devs needing help to not screw up before the game is out. Not a lot of confidence given

[@ShiroKage009]

I didn't work in game development, but I worked in a startup with tons of investor money and tons of super veterans of itd industry. You would be surprised how many processes and SOPs and structures that a mature comoany has to allow the delivery of a good product. Those veterans didn't have them, and they kept screwing up. It took them many years to get the company to a place where things work consistently. Frodt Giant is probably undergoing something similar. DLC for an Early Access is inexcusable though.

[@VioletElite4]

I commented on another video mentioning RTS games and basically said that RTS games are trying to focus too much on the competitive esports aspect of things. Starcraft and Stacraft 2 did have a great run when it came to playing the game competitively in a pvp setting, but me and a lot of other people got into RTS games due to the story, lore, and really just the ability to control units and bases along with custom games, skirmishes and mods. Growing up, I loved the LOTR Battle for Middle Earth games, it was literally taking those big epic battles from those movies and letting you take control of the battlefield, like playing the battle of Minas Tirath for example, and being able to defend Gondor or even playing the evil campaign and being able to control those orc units, and even summon the Balrog from the films adnd just create chaos. The experience alone of controlling those big movie battles, like the ones in Star Wars through Empire At War is the real novelty pf the RTS genre that I really miss...

[@allhailderpfestor4839]

I want Battle for Middle Earth so badly. I played pirated versions back as a kid in Korea and enjoyed hell out of it (because there was no legitimate copy sold in Korea back then). By the time I moved to US and became adult gamer, It became practically extinct. If some1 makes remake/or new version of Battle for Middle Earth on good quality he would take my whole wallet.

[@TheSuperappelflap]

@@allhailderpfestor4839 unfortunately LOTR license holders only license shit games nowadays, they wont do a good RTS that would make them money

[@riotguards]

@@allhailderpfestor4839 There are some modders making HD model mods for the game, been awhile since i checked up on them though.

[@Warlock8ZERO]

Aww this! Brings back amazing memories of Wc3s epic campaign and LOTR Battle for Middle Earth just awesome theme, was so sad when the servers hit the fan and became unplayable. If Wc3 was updated faithfully so it ran as smooth as something like Dota2, I would still be playing the crap out of it.

[@MonsieurDeVeteran]

@VioletElite4 this... sooo Much THIIIS! You hit the nail on the head, and I'm sad not more people are talking about this... We even have BLIZZARD SC2 EMPLOYEES ON CAMERA saying what you said... that, going by their internal numbers, only like 10-15ish% of all the people that bought SC2 went into Ranked ladder... most played the campaign, then either went vs AI solo or with friends / randoms, or CO-OP commanders, or just pure old fun custom games, where you can have anything from new campaigns to new game modes all together... But NOOO, let's make ANOTHER e-sports title, an RTS one at that, in 2024... like, really? And if I saw correctly, 40 million USD went into this project? WHERE?!?!?!

[@21Komtur]

Stormgate feels sterile not even close to WC3 or SC and SC2

[@Ultrox007]

it feels like a novice conversion mod for SC2 that swaps zerg to WC3 undead and protoss to C&C's GDI.

[@potenviking]

There is nothing new in the game. No actual innovation, no actual interesting things, cool ideas, whatever.

[@GPT-X938]

Feels bland for sure

[@GEE_BLACCK]

Better go for Gates of Pyre then

[@anteep4900]

yeah just gonna be honest as a massive fan of SC, WC3 and SC2, Stormgate is just shit

[@Equ1n0x88]

I was lucky enough to be selected for the beta. Ever since I first played it, all the way to now, I had the same feeling: this is a game which, if it had launched one year after sc2, it would have been considered a lesser clone and forgotten. The fact they it came out 15 years later with little innovation, is sad

[@magnusarpg]

Same here. I was in the original beta tests as well and was incredibly disappointed. The AoE games are fantastic, and with Age of Mythology just a few weeks away, I think Stormgate is DOA.

[@Trazynn]

Yeah I miss the creativity. I get it, it is early release. But SC2 had so much wild new things that nobody considered even possible until then.

[@iamtlessd]

Considering you have absolutely no clue about what it takes to develop such a game, I'm not surprised you are sad. Starcraft 2 is 7 years of development from one of the biggest company in the industry. Blizzard. And it took 5 more years with 2 expansions to reach its final polished state. That's 12 years of work for you, with millions and millions invested. (also, back then dollar had more value) Stormgate is 3.5 years of development with limited funds and developers. Comparing an indie game to a monster from the industry. Very smart from you. Revelant opinion.

[@theus3272]

@@iamtlessd Why does it matter how long it took to make or how much money was poured into it? If the game competes in the space as Starcraft 2 then the comparison to SC2 when it launched is valid. This is like when some developers cautioned that we shouldn't compare future RPGs to Baldur's Gate because of the time and talent behind it.

[@iamtlessd]

@@theus3272which confirms you have absolutely no clue about game development and how to run a game studio.

[@EB-bl6cc]

The whole "we found that people who play the game longer tend to give better reviews" being some profound statement about the game was kinda ridiculous. You will find that that is true about literally every single game on steam. If you played it longer, clearly you liked it more so you were more likely to give a positive review. If you only played it for an hour or two and bounced off, you're way more likely to leave a bad review. So obvious a 5 year-old could work it out.

[@allanshpeley4284]

In the words of someone on reddit: "Our market research shows that people who liked our ice cream ate the whole portion, while people who didn't like it threw it away. Conclusion: If you eat the whole portion, you'll like it!"

[@dude123nice6]

Yeah, that whole session where they said that sounds like damage control that had no intention of addressing any of the game issues whatsoever.

[@EastyyBlogspot]

Early access in many many cases they have a one chance to make a first impression and so often people get burned out on game so when it comes to the 1.0 release there is no fan fair or second wind unless the quality has been their all through out. I really really wish the game was just a pay upfront rather than a f2p game though

[@cathulionetharn5139]

" unless the quality has been their all through out" See Baldurs Gate 3

[@Popchip99]

@@cathulionetharn5139 you gotta remember barely anyone outside of the crpg community even knew it existed until the full release came out

[@KiazaKadaj]

I’m not sure if i agree. 1.0 releases typically see a surge in player counts. As someone who’s been playing Early access games since before Rust and DayZ, ive seen a lot of bad games become good and decent/good games stagnate and ruin itself. Early access is a risk, if your product isn’t what players want or if feedback isn’t taken for fixes and changes then it’ll absolutely hinder the 1.0 release, especially review wise but if you use EA wisely and listen to player/tester feedback, stick to your vision and deliver a good product you will usually see a successful 1.0. Larian learned from DoS2s EA mistakes and changed course for BG3 and overall it worked out much better.

[@cathulionetharn5139]

@@Popchip99 no, there was a short while just as early access released when it was played Then it exploded on full release

[@TheSuperappelflap]

fan fair? fanfare* it means a procession, a march, a triumph. also, there is a reason games are early access. if you want a finished product, wait for the release, and then check reviews.

[@noddy1973]

I assume the "people that worked on SC2" gloating were just interns at the end

[@XerrolAvengerII]

you don't have to assume, you could literally look it up for yourself

[@premiumfruits3528]

Wait, so you mean to tell me when some ex SC2 devs high off the smell of their own farts decide to remake SC2 but with a different skin and all the unit attributes and abilities swapped around and sprinkle some light WC3 mechanics on top all while focusing on esports above everything else, it doesn't turn out well? That's crazy, who could have seen that coming?

[@Romanian901]

i am a founder. i don't have more playtime because i wanted to play coop and the campaign. its undercooked and overly monetized. all blizzard games before activision blizzard had at least 30 missions. we got 3 in a prologue and 3 in chapter 1 (which costs $10) otherwise

[@troyen3869]

Sounds like they modeled it after the Nova campaign, which iirc was $7.50 for each pack of three missions (which was also considered pricey on release). The Nova missions though were heavily scripted compared to your standard campaign mission. Dunno if the Stormgate ones have the same level of detail.

[@Kappi__]

the Argument is so crazy "the longer you play the more likely you give a good Review" i mean yea ofc if i dont like a game i wont be playing it for long. but the Developers spin this like the negative reviews didnt give the game a fair chance

[@badassmofo3081]

The writing of the campaign was also abysmal and the missions were not so fun. Thag one mission were you only play the MC in that temple or whatever comes to mind

[@erfarkrasnobay]

Issue is not that this game is not Starcraft 2 quality. This game is not Warcraft 3 quality. Warcraft is the game builded on technologies of late 90s, that have countable polugons by naked eye and deliver 36 campaign missions. While Stormgate as AAA price for indie game, scam backers like me, use Unreal Engine but have not openable mouth for models (that warcraft 3 has 20 years ago), take same time as WC3 development but promice to deliver NINE missions for $60. Of witch half of missions is kinda rehash of WC3/SC2 missions. And this if I close my eyes to not providing gameplay satisfaction of spectacle action.

[@markobucevic8991]

For comparison red alert 3 had a todays budget of 7.5 million dollars and around 3.5 years of developmeny

[@ZverseZ]

​@markobucevic8991 Godsworn was made by 2 devs and palworld had 6.7 mil in funding There's really no excuse for lack of quality

[@mrcookies409]

It took 10 years to get from warcraft 1 to world of warcraft. It's been 14 years since sc2 and we are supposed to get excited by this?

[@seksaouiabderraouf2531]

@@markobucevic8991 pretty sure red alert 3 had less development time than that.

[@khankhomrad8855]

​@@markobucevic8991 And you just know that a considerable part of their budget went into all the Celebs for the Cutscenes. It is amazing how much they accomplish in RA3 with the odds stacked against them. Shame the game failed.

[@ingamingpc1634]

The funny part is I asked about this at their Keystone event and they completely ignored me with a bunch of dumb ass blizzard fans telling me that I'm wrong and that they have the right to monetize their products well it's coming back to bite them in the ass

[@smithynoir9980]

They do have that right. Just as all of us have the right to call out their greed, recognize that the issue is the devs too and to refuse to play or even actively harm the games reputation. They get what they deserve. The best bit? If the game continues, it's no skin off our back. If it fails, those fanboys will be kicking and screaming that they don't get their game.

[@Figgy20000]

In their Dev Q&A instead of saying they will improve the artwork of the game despite the ground tiles looking like cardboard and all the units generic mobile heroes, they are defending it saying it's an artistic choice they made. THEY ARE DEFENDING IT. This game is DOA 100%

[@mdb45424]

@@Figgy20000 its very costly to change tile sets.

[@Figgy20000]

@@mdb45424 They had a $40m+ plus budget I'm sure they could have hired some art student fresh out of college to do better than this, especially since it was the primary criticism since the beginning. Devs don't care they taking the money and running

[@firstLast-jw7bm]

@@mdb45424 more costly than $40MM down the drain?

[@grishan-b]

Maybe they should be spending their money on the game and not on big time hollywood actors. I assume Simu Liu got paid a fair wage (where a fair wage takes into account the fact that his inclusion is included in the game's marketing, which is something he also needs to be paid for), which means he got a notable chunk out of that $35 mil. Maybe just a million? Maybe just $100k? Doesn't matter, it's a sizable chunk. I like Simu Liu, but... maybe if you're an indie, you don't need people like him. It's possible that $35 mil is running out and they need another round of funding, which is why they're releasing mtx during EA. Who knows... either way it doesn't look like competent leadership.

[@khankhomrad8855]

Nah, the biggest money drain in the company are the two top Executives who have been paying themselves a fortune on the back that they are competent and know what they are doing. Their salaries alone account for 1/4 of their total monthly expenses. This is a story as old as time, really.

[@grishan-b]

@@khankhomrad8855 if that's the case, I'm sorry but the execs need to leave.

[@norberthiz9318]

@@khankhomrad8855 thats not true, you misunderstood the data, the two Tims get 250k per year each and the monthly expense of the company is 1 million(yes that fucking much). So its far less then 1/4, but still ridicilously high for a startup company that does not have a product yet

[@aloe7794]

Doesn't say much, because Red Alert 3 had a shitton of Hollywood actors, and they actually managed to succeed SG team needs to switch their priorities first if anything

[@grishan-b]

@@aloe7794 Red Alert 3 was produced by EA. The third entry in an established, massively successful series, and the 10th I believe game in a massively successful franchise. It sold more than 1 million copies just on Steam, more on Origin and even more on discs. In 2008, Steam had only been really out for 4 years, disks were still a thing. EA also has a union contract, which makes their access to A-listers way easier. SG is an indie studio launching an original franchise. Not a fair comparison.

[@tektek1100]

as a long time Broodwar player, Stormgate did something I would have never thought to be possible, it erased my hatred of SC2. Compared to Stormgate, SC2 is actually a fun game to play.

[@KaiserMattTygore927]

Brood War vet here too. Man, that's what i'm saying. I still hate the SC2 campaigns, but that SC:Evo mod for SC2 really got me back into SC2, Stormgate just looks like a weird total conversion mod for WoL.

[@LittleRadicalThinker]

SC and SC2, I bought the game mainly for epic the campaign.

[@Figgy20000]

Stormgate really gives me appreciation for just how good Broodwar and Starcraft 2 really are. 15 years after launch I still have an itch to play Starcraft 2 every so often, there is just no other RTS on it's level.

[@lolgamer821]

I was never really into SC, more of a C&C guy and for me this game lacks soul. Like you can wake me up at 3 am and I will still able to quote majority of the red alert 2 and 3 units voicelines, while I literally only remember one from this game.

[@hilkmeister1382]

​@KaiserMattTygore927 I am just curious why you dislike the SC2 campaigns. I can understand HoS, but WoL is a good campaign and probably the best RTS campaign of those I have played.

[@joevader10]

It is definitely undercooked. The gameplay itself is not so bad, but when playing the campaign you can really see the visuals falling apart. I do wish there was a bit more uniqueness to the races as well, instead of just reskinning/tweaking tzp.

[@TheSuperappelflap]

the "protoss" race has unique mechanics, its gonna be even harder to balance than protoss in sc2

[@timparks9833]

It does have “not so bad” gameplay, but “not so bad” is definitely not the “first next gen RTS” they promised. This would have been “not so bad” in 2004 and not at all innovative.

[@leedolian4482]

It's.....early.....access

[@natanoj16]

​@@leedolian4482 yes... so there shouldnt be any Micro transactions. If there are microtransactions, then it is a released game.

[@timparks9833]

@@leedolian4482Early access from a game that had over 1000% funding with no interest to be paid back, then had an indiegogo, then had investors. They have so much more money than they said they needed to make a game. If they can’t make this game look and feel even slightly polished, then they are either greedy, or terrible at their jobs. Seeing as how the two owners are paying themselves 3 million dollars over the course of the game’s development, before the game is even finished, then it’s the greed, which is even worst than just being incompetent. They’ve chosen getting rich quick off their backers instead of doing a competent job. Then when you look at them putting tons of money into selling a game that’s not even 5% done but marketing it as a complete game, selling microtransactions before release, not including microtransactions to its backers, and selling missions for $5 a piece, making the cost of this game upon completion for just the playable content well over $400, then it’s 100% confirmed that it’s just greed. Don’t defend these con artists. They screwed over all their backers so they could get rich quick. If Blizzard did this, the entire internet would be furious. But not even Blizzard has ever been this greedy, which is really saying something. Don’t defend these guys.

[@oloseldarion7117]

We have StarCraft 2 at home. SC2 at home:

[@ingrimmschboindil1302]

- A reskin Starcraft 2 and for sure not a Starcraft 3. - Early access you have to pay for - A hero you have to pay in early access! - There response to the criticism is such a red flag, even if its free i dont want to try it out!

[@TheMrDewil]

It feels like a proof of concept with a lot of greed attached.

[@veseliniliev3361]

EA you don't have to pay for. You even wrote that it is free... and if you don't want to try it so you can be some kind of a moral pivot to yourself, well.. it's your choice.

[@georgegorvaniagerge7077]

@@veseliniliev3361 the problem is this game got so much donations only to feel as if people where lied i also dont really want to bother trying it because it looks terrible but i will only to see if there really is a future

[@Warlock8ZERO]

@@veseliniliev3361 What game are you looking at? It's even still on their Steam page: "IMPORTANT: The Early Access Pack grants you access to Stormgate during the July 30-August 12 Preview period. It also unlocks level progression for any included Heroes.". The monetization is just awful, and them not realizing that before the backlash, that backers who paid £200+ should get full access is obviously a no-go, even LOL lets you unlock characters for free after a short amount of playtime, Dota2 is fully F2P, what's their excuse other than to please stakeholders, not consumers.

[@smithynoir9980]

@@veseliniliev3361 Correct. And not playing it is a choice more and more people are choosing. Enough of us make that decision in response to their greed and oh, what do you know, even 'people' (read: consumers) that have no issue with greed and microtransactions that want to play won't be able to. And that will be a good thing. We'll keep encouraging people not to play it, keep leaving accurately poor reviews and highlighting the issues with it.

[@zer0_cool]

Wait I didn't know they already had 35 million in funding, where the hell did that money go? The game looks like a kickstarter campaign game with a 2ish million budget. This is my pure speculation but I feel like, as ex=Blizzard devs, they just burned a lot of cash on nothing because that was how triple A companies work.

[@khankhomrad8855]

Bellular got outdated info. They got 40M in funding, have a burn rate of 1M (250K is just the salary for 2 Execs btw) and from the total 40M only have 6M left. Anyone can access this information because a while back they tried to get more investment which means they had to disclouse their finances. It is honestly astounding how easy it is to burn money away like that.

[@allanshpeley4284]

$41M in total. $35M from investors and an additional $6M from the RTS community via Kickstarter, Indiegogo and StartEngine (yes they even sold diluted, unmonetizable shares in their studio). Also the founders are each pulling $250k/year.

[@timparks9833]

@@khankhomrad8855Execs should not pay themselves a 1/4 million dollar salary in a startup company. They should have to struggle until they make it, like every other startup company does. This was a cash grab by these con artists.

[@Figgy20000]

@@timparks9833 EXACTLY. They don't give a single flying fuck if this game succeeds because they will be living off their salary for 5 more years even if it flops. Gives zero incentive to actually make a product worth playing, they put just enough work on it to not be sued for fraud by their investors. Which is why the game looks like shit and has half the content of SC2 at launch

[@tbird81]

Yeah, they're basically just paying themselves "ceo salaries", and will do the bare minimum.

[@sdgamer1860]

I actually have to ask the question if these guys even had Starcraft and Warcraft 3 Reign of Chaos Devs at all. Just because you were once apart of Blizzard doesn't mean you were apart of those development teams

[@StrategicJordan]

iv been asking that.

[@delta4phoenix4]

And even in development teams, what were they working on?

[@nickoslekkas3336]

yeah tim campbell and tim mortem were both actually part of the development team of w3 and sc2, campbell was a campaign designer for w3 and mortem was product director for sc2

[@FearTheCaboose1337]

@@nickoslekkas3336 so, no. They weren't developers. Just management.

[@sdgamer1860]

@@nickoslekkas3336 From what i heard Stormgate has a terrible campaign so far which shows that Cambell doesn't know what he is doing which is rather sad when you look at Warcraft 3's campaign and in terms of Mortem............ YIKES. Mortem should know what graphics to use instantly and yet they went the Fortnite route with graphics EDIT: I looked up the description for the positions and i take it no code is involved with those positions

[@dulio12385]

In what world does anyone think that Simu Liu is actually a marketing draw. Much less anchoring a DLC on him.

[@BadAtGaming3484]

Yeah I don't get it, oh well f em

[@seksaouiabderraouf2531]

who is Simu Liu?

[@Giant-Enemy-Crab]

Exactly, so clearly an absolutely marketing-brained move. Makes no sense to anyone except the marketing employee who dreamt it up. No one else cares. Sheds some light on where the budget went for sure; they're operating like they're AAAA still, with all the insane resource wastage that entails

[@timparks9833]

I don’t even know who he is, but I dislike him a little for being associated with AcitivisionFrostGiant.

[@RRRRRRRRR33]

The Shang Shi dude?

[@majormajorasic]

Simu Liu, "famous actor" more like waste of fucking money lmao

[@MonsieurDeVeteran]

whacha meaaan, he played in that thing, you know, the thing... the Marvel thing... big thing, made money, he famous bro, whacha mean?!?!?!? and he played SC2 brooo, like, geeeeez common famous person + SC2 = arent you in luuuv? ... /s :D

[@norberthiz9318]

maybe they could have used that money to come up with a better name then "warz" lmao

[@matisowaty4346]

Amateur key jangling move. Hollywood and everyone even remotely associated with it should avoided at all cost these days. I wonder what would FG do if Simu Liu got in to some legal trouble like Jonathan Majors did recently

[@tbird81]

At least Cyberpunk got Keanu Reeves.

[@AC-ut3nk]

GGG said it once if you don't have something that the community can make themselves for fun or anything that make the player feel attracted to, The game will die. Especially for RTS game. People could argue that Starcraft 2 also got micro-transaction but they did it in a smart way for example "Mecha zerg" this isn't just a skin but it is also link to the story after what happen to Stetmann "Announcer voice pack" You can chose you favourite caster and "Nova Covert ops campaign" is also making people want to learn more about this mysterious girl (To be honest people like her because she is hot but that was a nice marketing) Then we have Co-op where you can chose your own commander and level them up with your friends but you have to pay for each one of them. Why is it working? Because people already got attracted to the character and story that's why we want more. Everyone who played Starcraft 1 or broodwar know who Artanis, Raynor, Kerrigan , Zeratul, Stukov is (The reason why people attracted to them because we know them from the previous game) but for Stormgate? It's feel like back4blood all over again.

[@Nidhoggrr]

So the game was already fully funded and they just decided " Hey we could just skim a couple Million off our fans and then throw dlc at them.... No one would notice right?"

[@norberthiz9318]

They claimed "fully funded till release", then as they started to run out of money and realised they don't have nearly enough money for the full realese, they shifted "fully funded till release" to the release of early access. Thats why they ask 40$ for 3 short(and really bad) campaign missions and 3 half baked coop comanders

[@tbird81]

Yep, and the fanboys obliged. This looks like as much of a scam as CP2077.

[@Dharengo]

I mean... Backers knew the game was already fully funded. Like, there's a lot of reasonable arguments you can make. About like the monetization shit. But giving people the option to willingly support the project, while being perfectly aware that the game is going to be made either way, is not a bad thing.

[@tbird81]

@@Dharengo It's taking from the poor (idiots) and giving to the rich (immoral). Fair enough if they choose to con VCs with too much money, but ripping off lonely desperate NEET RTS players is pretty low. Although there's a saying about fools and their money.

[@Dharengo]

@@tbird81 .....Taking? The poor? Con? Do you even know what any of these words mean?

[@Aaron-zl5gq]

Yet another example of spiritual successor and ex devs failing to meet the hype. It has absolutely disgusting micro transactions, the whole point is to get away from blizzards crap and they put the same garbage into the game, and I am sorry 10$ for a hero is disgusting and that actor isn’t popular or big sorry he isn’t with 10$. Story is crap , graphics are weak and it’s WAY to zoomed in and gameplay is way to slow , this is exactly why I have little faith in ex devs trying to bring back a franchise not only do they take people’s money but they fail to actually address the issues on why the franchise died in the first place .

[@erfarkrasnobay]

there issue is not MTX existance, but overpricing, undervalue and scamy practices. like making $60 for 9 missions and 3 heroes without including free heroes for factions or making early-early-access MTX for backers.

[@smithynoir9980]

Yep. If there is anything to learn here is that the downfall and over-monetization of Blizzard wasn't entirely corporate. Many of the decisions absolutely came from the dev team themselves that wanted everyone to feel sorry for them that their game was failing due to corporate decisions that turns out weren't even corporate decisions. Can take the Dev from Blizz, can't take the Blizz out of the Dev.

[@smithynoir9980]

@@erfarkrasnobay The issue is the existence of MTX. The presence of in-game stores compromises the games design on a foundational level. That thing you can buy in the shop? Yeah, that was originally a reward for completing a particularly hard challenge. That new army roster you can buy? That was previously unlocked by completing all secondary objectives. MTX is the issue, greed is the cause.

[@acev3521]

At this point spiritual successor and especially ex devs are just a straight up red flag for me.

[@razorback9999able]

Which got me thinking: Is there a future of RTS as a whole? I hope there is, despite the accessibility issues many gamers had.

[@VladLad]

I dont think I ever heard the devs talk about their vision for the game. Its just "what if we combined warcraft and starcraft 2" what I do remember their vision being is how they will partition the game to maximize revenue "its free to play, you just pay for the parts of the game you want" thats their vision, maximizing revenue. also ugh, cell shaded grahics, personal preference but the fortnite graphics cinematics gave me a stroke. Its up to you now Grant! Lets hope zerospace is better. I trust their vision alot more as its aiming to improve upon the amazing variability wings of libertycampaign gave you, go anywhere, side with whoever. get new research, struggle with a mission? go to a different planet, get better upgrades, come back. If I wanted an amazing pvp experience, Id just play starcraft2, its NOT a dead game. If I wanted an amazing coop experience, starcraft 2 again, I still have not maxed out the prestiges on the coop heroes. Campaign? Well the early access proved that they suck there aswell. They arent trying to improve upon anything.

[@josephchristensen1756]

Gates of Pyre also has decent vision.

[@TheElitedeath]

Well sc2 is dead in the sense that there are no developers actively working on it anymore. Last time I played it there was an intern who would occasionally do a small balance update, but that's about it. I would've been totally fine if StormGate was just SC2 but with active development and new content every once in awhile, but it seems they can't even handle that.

[@korana6308]

@@TheElitedeath Honestly I still watch Ruff gameplay it seems kinda fun and extremely interesting, but to me it feels like the golden days of it is over. He is playing in Grandmaster league, and that gameplay of what I see, feels like Diamond to me of what it used to be a Diamond. I feel like the general level of game has fallen down because the pros had moved on perhaps? ( I used to be a GM/ high master with Toss and Terran in both WoL and HotS).

[@aidantesdahl4283]

As someone who paid for the big version, here are my thoughts: Release: They should have released this as a paid beta. Hyping this up like a full release was a huge mistake that may kill all the momentum they had. There are still stand-in assets in a few places, and the cutscenes look like they are only half finished. It certainly isn't done, and is salvageable, but they should have waited longer. Approachability: RTSs now struggle to pull new people in. As someone who has spent 4 years unsuccessfully trying to get any of my friends to try Starcraft 2, I can attest that RTSs of that complexity and competitiveness are great, but there isn't any more casual gateway into that. The way everything is set for Stormgate, I think it can fit nicely into that more casual slot and expand the audience. With that said, that inherently comes at the expense of the high complexity, faster game speed, and faster TTK of SC2. It can either be approachable or highly competitive, not easily both, so I'm fine with the direction they seem to have chosen. Art: Dear God, it's rough, but not unsalvageable. What they have can work, with lots more battle scarring, shaders, and heavy shadows. The setting is post Doom-esque demonic invasion of Earth, they need to treat it as a grim setting and make it look like it. They fixed Warz after the backlash against their teaser cutscene, but still didn't fix the cutscene with the new model. There's one cutscene in what campaign they have out centered on the Host leader, and it DOES sell them as terrifying. But so far, only the one. They also need characters and machines to look like they weigh a ton. I'm a 40k fan, I like stupid, bulky armor, but it NEEDS to FEEL like characters are wearing tanks. SC2 did it, so it clearly can be done. Co-op: $10 is too much for 1 character, especially when preorders and backers didn't even get him free. Enough said. TLDR: The game has great potential, provided the devs are patient and don't kill all their own hype with an early, unfinished release by hyping it up as a near-finished version. Wait a minute...

[@hilkmeister1382]

Well there is always the next RTS. I know ZeroSpace comes out next year and there is that C&C spiritual successor that looked quite good too.

[@boynextdoor1951]

@@hilkmeister1382 Everytime I hear spiritual successor I think of shit

[@hilkmeister1382]

@@boynextdoor1951 Bioshock and Dark Souls are shit?

[@boynextdoor1951]

@@hilkmeister1382 In regards to present day rts games. I forgot to mention.

[@hilkmeister1382]

@@boynextdoor1951 To my knowledge, Stormgate is the only RTS to release that is considered a spiritual successor. If you are saying that games like ZeroSpace, DORF, or Tempest Rising are bad w/o any of them releasing anything other than trailers then your point makes even less sense.

[@zazzblammywazazz2020]

Simu Liu is so perfectly on brand for this low effort mess.

[@Bolteus]

I was incredibly interested, having loved RTS virtually my whole life, but having played the beta... and seeing almost no significant change in direction, I'm just out tbh. Couldn't care less about the setting & characters, which is a big deal to me as I love C&C, WC & SC, and the faction design is completely uninspired. They're trying to compete with LoL on the art front and SC2 on the gameplay... it's a two front war to make der Fuhrer blush.

[@khankhomrad8855]

Have you tried out Sins of a Solar Empire? As a life time fan of AoE/WC I gave it a try early this year and found it to be a very cool fake on the genre.

[@KaiserMattTygore927]

lmao

[@aeromorte]

I had massive hopes for them. Now I have 0 hopes.

[@acev3521]

I never understood the hype riot art style without the personality and you can’t see shit it was pretty obvious it was gonna flop.

[@razorback9999able]

What about the RTS genre? You still had hope left for it, right?

[@leedolian4482]

Then stop following and giving this downer comments. It's a game, never was supposed to be a messiah

[@acev3521]

@@leedolian4482 Ah yes expecting a game to be good definitely the same as the second coming of Christ no hyperbole at all.

[@leedolian4482]

@@acev3521 massive hopes

[@inkromancer_studios]

I didn't realize the game was lacking an offline skirmish mode. If you don't have a way to play offline against bots in an RTS your game is definitely DOA. Coop vs AI is all well and good, but there needs to be an option to play on your own. The best strategy games are the ones you can choose to play without anybody else.

[@iraniansuperhacker4382]

Nothing is offline in the game. Even if you are playing campaign if you lose connection you are dropped back into the menu to log into the game. It doesnt even go to an offline home screen type of thing

[@gregwillson7952]

You can do custom games with AI players. They're pretty feeble though

[@qwertymesa]

I was always skeptical with the game, it just didn't look finished or fully professionally done, the units all look generic as hell, art style is overdone to hell and back etc etc.

[@michaelbird9148]

Yeah, the game is outside my interest for sure - basically a WC3/SC2 mashup in style, factions, etc. I think the haphazard style and overdone graphics of it enhances the amateur feel.

[@Nick-cs4oc]

It’s literally not done.. The style is incredibly in line with blizzard style , even less stylized than WoW imo. Which is what they’re looking to take the place of. In the end it’s only going to survive so long as Blizzard allows it. The second Warcraft 4 is announced it’s cooked

[@noddy1973]

​@@Nick-cs4ocjust because something "isnt done" doesnt mean its not taking an absolute shit direction

[@Mark-sd4hv]

The units look nice up close, but zoomed out looking at a bunch they fall apart. You can't tell what anything is, and they look bad. It seems like they designed them up close and paid no attention to how they looked in actual gameplay

[@KingsNJenssons]

Well tbf let's be honest for a second starcraft 2 had 7 years to be developed and they had a base of warcraft 3 engine to work with, stormgate is being made on unreal 5 an engine that is not made for RTS games so they've had to develop around that then they've only had two years so far that's honestly not bad for that development timeline

[@foreseerx]

On top of all this, we also got moderation in the official server that is actively working to suppress criticism, arguing with trolls, calling people "haters" etc.. Sad sight and a terrible PR strategy, they could've at least tried to predispose the negative people towards them but instead they're fighting fire with fire, further driving the reviews down. Good study in what not to do when developing a videogame.

[@hilkmeister1382]

Between this and the Helldivers 2 moderators I am surprised they still allow discord mods to talk to people. Have yet to see a discord mod do anything other than create a PR shitshow

[@mrcookies409]

At least the antagonistic pr is indeed very blizzard like!

[@mnmmnmm]

@@hilkmeister1382 isn't the heldivers 2 discord server an unofficial fan server?

[@bagalas87]

Lesson: dont pay for and dont play with games that have microtransaction.

[@dragonfalcon8474]

They have "a deeply held conviction" to milk gamers with more predatory microtransactions? Another do-not-play-ever game for me. Hope those who paid and invest in it get maximum value out of it though.

[@tbird81]

Exactly. I have contempt for anyone who puts money into these things as it just encourages more of these scams.

[@TheMrDewil]

I don't care about the game. I saw Grant playing it, found writing severely lacking, and most of all, I hate cartoonish art style. Compared to this, I would even consider Tiberium Twilight as superior, if that game existed in the first place.

[@Dianbler]

Would you imagine if Tiberium Twilight existed? Agreed. The game seems very lackluster. I'd rather keep playing StarCraft 2. Let us hope that project Grant is working on is actually good. I think we can trust his campaign direction, but the miracle is good writing is ever scarse.

[@justanoman6497]

Ah, yet another reminder of how much I hate EA. RIP Westwood.

[@KaiserMattTygore927]

The hell is Tiberium Twilight? There were only 3 mains series C&C games. But aside from that alternate universe game that doesn't exist, i'm with you entirely on Stormgate, it looks terrible, that first mission was literally just Human 01 from WarCraft 3. what a clown show.

[@MetaL556]

@@KaiserMattTygore927 Apparently Warcraft 3's campaign designer only knows how to make Warcraft 3 campaign. Back 4 Blood all over again it seems.

[@TheMrDewil]

@@Dianbler I guess that's why you don't go into EA with RTS, that shit's stupid. Well, so far, everything that Grant has worked on turned out OK, so I don't really have any concerns that this time will be any different. I don't get why people are so quick to switch from SC2 to that thing. SC2 have decent campaigns, arcade, co-op, there's tons of stuff on CCM discord, and there's also an Archipelago. Stormgate doesn't have any of that, and won't have in foreseeable future. To think about it, Frost Giants don't even have a game to begin with. Just some proof of concept tech demo, ambitions too big for their own good and the nerve to ask for money with nothing to show for it. Early Access should've died a long time ago, because what it does now is, it allows developers to drag on development the same way governments and health institutions drag on lives of terminally ill cancer patients.

[@balanceofjudgment9995]

Since the Pre-Order was so successful, we made Pre-Order 2: The Sequal, if the public support continues as per our calculations, we will consider making Pre-Order 3: The Prequal. It is our belief that true fans will own the Pre-Order Trilogy before the game's full launch next year.

[@Xamufam]

Im waiting for Tempest Rising a C&C tiberium wars successor

[@nunyabiznes7446]

"The longer someone plays our game, the more likely they are to leave a positive review!" The more someone likes your game the less likely they are to stop playing? That's crazy bro

[@vytah]

0:07 that quote is also applicable when discussing PirateSoftware's stance on Stop Killing Games.

[@riveteye93]

His stance is fine, stop bandwagoning

[@krjal3038]

​@riveteye93 his stance including insults and (apparently) intentionally misunderstanding or just not reading the FAQ on the stopkillinggames website isn't fine. Stop saying it is fine.

[@Turamwdd]

​@@riveteye93His stance is the same as any executive at EA or Blizzard would have. His stance is fine but let's stop hammering those executives while giving Thor a pass. Don't pick and choose which suits you support and which you condemn based upon whether you like the person.

[@MillenniumEarl014]

​@@riveteye93Nah, strawman upon strawman arguments isn't fine lol. You sound like you just agree with him without knowing shit

[@Jinkypigs]

​@@krjal3038LOL. Insult? Did you even watch the clip and listen to what was said. You can disagree and I do not agrees totally with his stance and he seems to have a slight misinterpretation. But insult? LOL.. WHAT A STUPID TAKE

[@KingKrouch]

"You can take the developer out of Blizzard, but you can't take the Blizzard out of the developer" I swear, i was gonna comment that as a joke in response to the Stormgate and PirateSoftware stuff, but you beat me to the punch lmao.

[@ogun6464]

Setting aside the Blizzard angle, and the live service angle, never pre-order anything

[@Jkend199]

So... I am someone who loves RTS, I have since the days of Dune 2 and Command and Conquer... The deal is simple... I like the campaign. I want a good story, I want to play the commander of an army heroically fighting a desperate battle to decide the fate of my faction. Command and Conquer was over the top hammy campy and that made it awesome... It was ridiculous, but it knew it was ridiculous and played into that to make it awesome and memorable. Starcraft played things much more straight, I still remember Megnsk's betrayal, Raynor's heroics and Fenix/Tassadar's noble sacrifice. You know what they had in common... The campaigns were well thought out with stories that really drew the player in and gave them a narrative reason to press forward and see what happens next. They were also fun to play with interesting missions that managed to be challenging without being frustrating and units that were varied in function and design. RTS is hard... lots of units, lots of AI, lots of pathing, lots of balancing, lots of everything... It's probably why they are so rare... I don't care if the units look relatively generic if you can make them feel awesome. Many of the "Hero" units in Star Craft were re colors of standard units, what made them special was the narrative, the story. Story really matters, the campaign really matters, to a lot of people... A lot of RTS players DO NOT PLAY THE MULTIPLAYER AT ALL. For me if the campaign is poorly written, if I don't care about the characters or what happens to them, or if the missions themselves lack variety that's it... I'm done. Problem is that in addition to that I also need units that look neat are well balanced and serve a purpose. Ya get it all right or none of it matters... RTS is really hard to do well which is probably they I can count the good ones on 1 hand.

[@andrewgreeb916]

Like I can admire some of the stuff they are trying to do, but they are rather behind "Beyond All Reason" in terms of RTS innovations, and Stormgate is not even close to done and it shows, sure neither is BAR, but it is much more playable.

[@WarrioJ]

Beyond All Reason is a 3 developer operation available for free that have built a better core game than Stormgate has come up with. Stormgate is built by people as a job, not as a passion and that's fine, but it'll always be a product and nothing more.

[@guilhermedecarvalhofernand1629]

BAR is such a good game considering its made by such a small team

[@wwld9823]

don't worry guys we are ex-blizzard devs* . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . *that were fired

[@dmitriyrasskazov8858]

Is there any ex-blizz dev that succeded? I remember that shit as far back as hellgate:london release and it always a wet disappointment.

[@W1337M]

Good one

[@lasselen9448]

I had a bad feeling when I learned this was going to be "free" to play. More often than not, "free to play" means you get a big demo but then you have to get a mortgage if you want the full game. Sure, a free to play game can work with fair monetisation, but all the ones I can think of (that started as free to play) were fully PvP where at least 80% of the worth came from other players with little developer investment. I can't see how fair microtransactions can pay for a PvE game, even if only partially PvE. If they'd gone with "PvP is free to play, but you need to buy the game once and done to get the campaign", maybe it would have been better? In any case, that's just one issue, but it's the issue that makes it difficult to fix the other ones because they'll need money for that. As for the art style... I don't like it, but it's a matter of taste. Using in-game models for close-ups was a poor choice, but the other choice within their budget probably was to not have as many cutscenes (not saying which is better, again it's a matter of taste). There is, however, no excuse to not have a map editor on launch. If you're trying to be a live game, you want players to do most of your job for you. That means giving them the tools as soon as possible. A map editor is the bare minimum, then modding tools, and finally a campaign editor.

[@MrJustCallMeJames]

What on earth do you mean that you should not except lifetime package when buying a FOUNDERS edition? That is literally what a founders edition means. It's only in gaming when this kind of anti consumer exceptions can exist. Unbelievable.

[@Infernal07]

For me personally, the only way to "save RTS" is for Blizzard to rent their SC2 IP to some worthy developer with the only purpose in mind of >keeping the SC2 IP relevant and valuable< Meaning Blizzard should charge those devs low enough amounts of money for them to be able to : - not be understaffed for their task, like the SC2 team has been for the last many years - pump some of the SC2's profits back into a pro circuit. I also love how fun and engaging the gameplay of Battle Aces is, and I cant wait for it to come out in the next test phase, and then the 1.0 launch. But Battle Aces for me is different enough from all other RTS games, that it deserves it's own genre name.

[@korana6308]

Yep. Actually sensible idea. Give an IP to someone who cares. And they will save it. It doesn't have to be changed much too. literally a few tweaks can make the game extremely fun.

[@simplysmiley4670]

I'm not gonna lie the sight of the pricetag on this early acces already pushed me off. Especially when there's already the DLCs that reek of mobile game nonsense, with an artstyle you would find in some crappy mobile game... With what's there as a preview of the game, you know, to give you an impression of it, just feeling bland and dragging on, I guess it's the tutorial to doing anything in an RTS in general but ehhhh. Not great for first impresion for fans of the genre. All of this just has red flags all over.

[@Vyleea]

Stormgate is dead on arrival. I don't think the people in charge of the game had confidence in their product and tried to extract money for themself while they can. Still far too many gullible RTS fans out there looking for the next big thing.

[@Scintilus]

Age of Mythology Retold will give us some hope.

[@Dharengo]

I can't be _that_ pessimistic. The way I see it, they have no choice but to make improvements. Otherwise there will be no game.

[@roxstar5088]

Having a shop with a $10 commander stinged a little. The fact the first dev update after Early Access has half the post talking about a new cosmetic skin is trully worrying me. Finish the game, fix bugs and implement feedback before starting to focus on cosmetic monetizations. It shows clearly where their focus lies.

[@bartasbxx]

Game look so damn derivative. Starcraft x Warcraft. "Let's make a StarCraft type of RTS with three factions but lets make the factions more like WarCraft with Demons and Angel looking mechs" So original man...

[@snuffeldjuret]

it really looks like they made not-zerg and not-protoss only for the sake of it not being those two. It feels very inauthentic.

[@korana6308]

They clearly took WC3 as core designed and rehashed it with WC2 unit design a little plus a few mechanics out of it. That melee soldier with a sword is WC3 swordsman, the one with a gun is a sniper. So it's a footman/swordsman + sniper gameplay. Plus the dog. Kinda generic and uninspired. The dog adds a little variety to the old concept I guess, rest of it is kinda the same.

[@TheTiodan]

Stormgate is just worse than SC2 in every way. I cant even list one thing about it thats close to on par.

[@Dharengo]

I like what they did with the factions and the maps. And the UI. Being able to build buildings and units with hotkeys is nice. I mean I think criticisms are fair, I just don't want to be all negative.

[@korana6308]

Same but I feel like that angel flying unit that drops down is kinda fun. Think like an upgraded Viking upgraded to tier 3 unit which Battle Cruiser is in rn. It kinda feels cool and interesting. I wish they would get that in SC2? perhaps make people chose between that and the BC before the game starts. That would spice things up and make it interesting. Also that workers return back to mining that is a good idea to enable it automatically for people in Platinum and below. And disable it for people in Diamond and above, would be great.

[@Millaren]

I was a Kickstarter backer for this project and contributed $250 for the collector's edition. When I received early access to the build, I was disappointed to see a day-one DLC being pushed. It feels as though my $250 contribution is being devalued, and now I'm facing additional charges despite having supported the project from the beginning. As a backer, I believed in this project and contributed to help the developers get it off the ground. To now be met with what feels like an exploitation of early supporters is quite disheartening. I wanted to share my concerns, as this experience has left me feeling undervalued as a supporter.

[@MikeSerrene]

they took an investment there is your issue, investors dont care that their mission was to do what blizzard wouldnt do, investors want money

[@samgoff5289]

Well yea obviously, why would anyone invest money into something unless they expect to make money?

[@MikeSerrene]

@@samgoff5289 as soon as they took the money it was game over, if you ask for investments you dont go with a big random company, you say you invest in us cause you wanna see the product and want a copy of the product and after that you are happy that it all happened, otherwise investors are the ones that control the ip not you, you know the reason all ip's crash and burn and suck, the investors dont care what game you want they just want all the money even if it means making the game mobile trash. the real question is why are investors not investing into things they want themselves and want to see, and instead of money being the fulfilment its the product thats the fulfilment. gaming investments should not be moneydriven investments, go to amazon or other places for that. artistic sector is no place for money growth investments. if your investing in the millions then you already have enough

[@theorcosaurus]

I was kinda interested in Stormgate but after all the stuff they pulled, hard pass. Not a fan of F2P games anyways.

[@triplebog]

I don't think budget is a good excuse for the boring uninspired character designs and narrative. It's not like the art is poorly made, indie games with 1% of the budget, and random home brew DND campaigns with zero budget regularly cook up more engaging settings.

[@stevencurtis7157]

For $217, if I'm not getting lifetime updates, I'm demanding a refund. Which is why I don't play F2P gutter games.

[@Ruslannar]

I would also bring the example of Dawn of war. It just had 3 huge expansions, they didn't make a new game just to add a few changes and a new army, they kept the game that people enjoyed and just gave them more fun and it's still one of my favourite strategy games of all time

[@thoriummammet5945]

in fairness i think most people *wanted* Heroes of the Storm to be a alternative to League. But Blizzard has repeatedly proven they do not have the mindset required to let long-term success happen. it's almost like it's barely the same company anymore!

[@Dharengo]

I had a lot of with HotS during the time that I played it. At least until I got tired of the toxic community that plagues all mobas.

[@thoriummammet5945]

@@Dharengo Sounds about right, damn shame.

[@BouncingTribbles]

I'm confused why people are complaining? The pledge listed all the different kinds of microtransactions that the game would have and the rewards they would get. They got 3 champions, why would they expect more? /S I'm so tired of being nickle and dimed by worse and worse games. The games I play are all pretty old at this point.

[@noddy1973]

Get used to it and start appreciating what you already have

[@XerrolAvengerII]

a free pvp game that's $10 per character for a casual coop mode isn't nickel and diming.

[@sheepfly]

​@@XerrolAvengerIIkeep simping 😂

[@alex-dh8zy]

@@XerrolAvengerIIthink about how much investment they have to make into a character, a 10$ single unit. when both wc3 and sc 2 are 30$

[@gowzahr]

While yes, it was clearly communicated what people where buying when they bought into Storm Gate, there's still the issue of, "If it was ready to go at launch, why didn't they include it in the pre-order packs." Had they waited and turned on the micro transaction store at the end of early access, then it would feel less like content that was intentionally withheld from early access so that it could be sold later.

[@Kevkoss]

I think one of the main issues with Stormgate was paid Early Access to Early Access and Early Access to Early Access for content creators. It created atmosphere that it was already proper Early Access and that today was supposed to be full release. I realised that today's release is public Early Access and that there's no 1.0 release date yet only like 3-4 days ago. And I know I wasn't the only one. I didn't really check Steam's page and all other communication channels were hyping it like it was supposed to be full release. This miscommunication from Frost Giant caused people to be worried about state of audio and visuals and made any posts from devs that "they;ll fix and improve" dishonest.

[@Pico141]

skill issue tbh

[@Dharengo]

I am not saying this is people's fault for being uninformed, but... How come I was aware this was early access? I used my pre-launch early access key to play a few games then decided the game had potential. I might play it off and on but for the most part I'll wait for full release. The monetization definitely could use some work though.

[@Trygorn]

This is exactly what i feel about it. When Stormgate was announced and they mentioned coop for it i told my friend "i dont care if they just remake SC2 since it'll just be SC2 coop but with support again". I've never cared for pvp and my main enjoyment of the campaigns was doing fun and wacky stuff with the special upgrades and units you can unlock, story was typically secondary as i dont expect to get a Homeworld level story so aslong as its not complete garbage ill get by with mabye a bit of grumbling here and there about stuff that felt dumb or silly. Coop was basically fun campaign stuff plus extra with my friend which is why we loved it so much. I must say it feels kinda odd to not have atleast 1 basic commander for each faction thats free like SC2 did and instead only have 1 overall but ill wait and see where things go TLDR i was interested in Stormgate cuz of SC2 coop so even if it ends up as a copy of SC2 coop ill happily play it since it'll get updates

[@IHeart16Bit]

It's a very lifeless and generic feeling game on top of the crappy MTX. They can speak about lowering the bar of entry etc but when your game looks worse than the predecessor you're trying to ape something went wrong. Unit design is bland, mechanically and visually, map design is bare and "eSports" focused, as is all of the balance, and the campaign is as incredibly meh as it gets. Awesome designs and campaigns in addition to the accessable gameplay changes are what draws in the casual audience. NOT poorly imitating your predecessors and making the game a F2P MTX hellhole.

[@firesoldier343]

Going off of other RTS games that had that kind of "eSports" focus from the start, it seems like that is what eventually kills the game, all this focus on balance that it becomes bland and harder for the average player to stick around for.

[@korana6308]

@@firesoldier343 Balancing the game is not actually a bad thing. Too much innovation is what kills the game. Like take WoL for example, I actually enjoyed it alot, they could have continued just polishing it but no... they felt like they had to add more units for some reason? Why? Like widow mines. It changed the gameplay completely. etc etc etc. sometimes less is better. And now they even removed the core gameplay with siege tanks not being effective anymore with ravens easily breaking and disabling them... I don't think it was a great choice to be honest... but I mean you could still work around it, given a great team you could balance it out and make it fun...

[@dannyd4339]

Pandering to the competitive scene was the biggest issue to begin with. They tried so hard to be meta that they forgot to be fun.

[@dimitriuss]

Art aside, for me, the meat and potatoes of the macro, fights, micro ect, just feel worse than every blizzard rts. Starcraft 1 feels better than this game does. Every fight feels like a chineese ripoff of a sc2 protoss ball vs anothet sc3 protoss ball, without any of the nuances of the spells and abilties. Just plain and awful

[@Lexen_Rapier]

This is what they did with warhammer total war - they made it so all 3 games tied in together so you didn't have to just drop the 1 and 2 content.

[@triplebog]

It's dishonest to title this video "Stormgate faces the reality of early access" it should be titled "Stormgate faces the reality of releasing a bad product. Early Access isn't an excuse for a bad product base that flounders on every level. The biggest failure of this game was how unbelievably boring and uninspired the world was. I'm a sucker for sci Fi and science fantasy, at no point did any of the narrative, characters, and setting details even remotely pique my interest. It felt so focus-group-y

[@captainthunderbolt7541]

As someone who doesn't really play Blizzard games, the character designs here all look like authentic Blizzard character designs to me.

[@giovanniivan]

0 interest in RTS without Campaign. Didn't even bother to try try it and still waiting on Age of mythology retold in month and rocking AoE 2 Definitive currently multiplayer now.

[@TheGreatDanish]

the fact that stormgate shot themselves in the foot rather than get capped by how shitty rts players are to new RTS games shocks me.

[@iyziejane]

The people who made your favorite game from decades ago are now in their 40s and 50s, chances are much higher that they are looking to cash in and retire, not to go back and re-capture the sweat and grind they had as young adults. Every game startup I can think of that was led by famous greys from yesteryear has bombed.

[@LucasCunhaRocha]

I disagree with the "the copy of the thing you will make is gonna look generic", Heroes of Newerth was a copy of Dota, made by a small indie dev and still was so full of character and originality. Things look generic because people are just doing a lazy job of making good design.

[@rorylol]

The style is too cartoony and everything looks like it’s made of plastic. The fact that the dev’s are greedy piggies is just the rotten cherry on top of the shit sundae.

[@TrampyPulsar]

Game has no soul, its a shell void of what made blizzard RTS games so compelling to play.

[@cubandarknez]

The vertical slice delivered as the early access / pre-release version is just subpar, and the pace of improvement since some product has been in the hands of users has also been subpar. I would imagine that is why most people are "meh" on it. I don't really care, plenty of other RTS projects I care more about so no reason to spend mental bandwidth on this one that's not doing so well.

[@Dharengo]

I've.. Legit not heard of any RTS projects aside from this one. Can you suggest any?

[@cubandarknez]

@@Dharengo AoM:Retold coming out soon if you are into that more casual RTS and mythology setting. ZeroSpace and Immortal: Gates of Pyre are another set of RTS in development. ZS and IGP to public tests from time to time. IGP had one a few weekends ago that went really well and showed a lot of progress.

[@yGKeKe]

That first statement about the loudest criticism not being about the game itself is entirely false. It's crazy that you went through a list of criticisms and somehow missed all of the criticism about the gameplay itself and the total lack of essential RTS features.

[@Jonchua1]

I was rooting for them until we saw the greed. Honestly, they don't deserve to succeed. Let them fail.

[@marlomitchell2761]

pro tip, stop buying unreleased, unfinished games full stop. That way u can never be disappointed. Buy a known quantity, easy.

[@ronuss]

Honestly haven't been impressed by stormgate, its art style is a huge turn off for me, and the faction design has nothing i can really get behind. ftp also just means ur not getting a finished product, and im just tired of ftp model. Next door we have Tempest rising which will just be a old school buy and play game with all content added at release, and they just keep dropping free to try demos for everyone to try out that just get better and better. This to me is just a much better model of release.

[@Imperyon]

This game would have been so awesome if it was based on the Doom series, and basically portrayed a war between Hell, Humanity and Maykr.

[@amaneyugihanako-kunofthesi8849]

As much as that idea is interesting, I didn't like the lore direction that the New Doom was going through, especially with the twist around Davoth and The Father. Still, that concept is interesting, and we can also add in the Night Sentinels as a "Fourth Faction", many of them did survive the demons and joined the Slayer in invading Immora after all

[@VoicesofSlumber]

immortal gates of pyre looks great Zerospace looks great Stormgate looks trash Which had the bank?

[@allanshpeley4284]

Stormgate :(

[@LamyCND]

I don't think there is much difference between the looks but I can say the difference in play is massive. Stormgate is the only one that feels responsive which is the reason PvP players enjoy the game.

[@fishnutter5219]

Any RTS that so much as mentions eSports aspirations before it even has a playerbase should be avoided like the plague. It's never ended well. Took me a while to realise that... C&C 4, Grey Goo, Planetary Annihilation, Tryst...

[@Arkaido]

The regional pricing is definitely Blizzard like at least lol. I went to check it out as I loved the red alert, starcraft, tiberium sun and age of empires era of gaming but man........they definitely learnt financing from Blizzard if nothing else smh

[@akasunanosasori6385]

For 35mil i can think of multiple indi devs that coyld do better without using the title “blizzard dev”. This is kind of shameful in all honesty, what the fuck happened to that cash?

[@ThisisCitrus]

Stormgate just feels like "We have SC2 at home", it's a bad clone of SC2, shamelessly so. Building and units are just copied from SC2.

[@jadoyon]

I will pay for a campaign, but I will never pay for a microtransaction.

[@Snow_Weaver]

What kept me playing starcraft for so long wasnt the 1v1 ranked games but the community made games like, Cat and Mouse, Cannon Defense, Thing, Dodge Michael Jackson, Special Forces Elite etc etc.

[@Haxses.]

10:21 This feels like the wrong direction of causality. Sure there's a correlation between playtime and review score, but I suspect that's mostly because because people who like the game play more, not because the more people play the more they like the game.

[@Yoshi278]

But man I really dislike the art direction. Just looks like typical moba/UE slop when directly compared to SC2.