Stormgate - sci-fi/fantasy RTS from ex-Blizzard devs

[Jaedar]

the story is meh on its own and plain bad put in relation to starcraft before and after

SC has never had strong writing. The lead writer, Chris Metzen, has no experience writing outside of his work on the craft franchises, and most of that is just other writers expanding his pitches into actual stories. It shows, because everything he writes feels like it wouldn't be out of place on wattpad or a kid's first attempt at making a D&D campaign. I wrote a non-exhaustive list of plot holes, editing errors, bad decisions, etc in another post. According to World of Warcraft Diary, he constantly forgot what he wrote in his huge notebooks and had to make things up on the fly. Which explains so much. The one novel he apparently wrote was Of Blood and Honor, which is very weak and is easily his best work.

So, I agree with you that blizzard has only ever at best managed to keep from retconning for at most a single game, typically even the expansion will blatantly contradict something in the base game.

But it's usually not quite as blatant as sc2 WoL, which completely undoes Jimmies character progression for sc1 and then the next campaign in sc2 basically entirely unmakes most of what happened in WoL. These are not background details of the world, or minor characters being swapped around a bit, this is front and center plot, and character development of main characters.

 

[ArchAngel]

the story is meh on its own and plain bad put in relation to starcraft before and after

SC has never had strong writing. The lead writer, Chris Metzen, has no experience writing outside of his work on the craft franchises, and most of that is just other writers expanding his pitches into actual stories. It shows, because everything he writes feels like it wouldn't be out of place on wattpad or a kid's first attempt at making a D&D campaign. I wrote a non-exhaustive list of plot holes, editing errors, bad decisions, etc in another post. According to World of Warcraft Diary, he constantly forgot what he wrote in his huge notebooks and had to make things up on the fly. Which explains so much. The one novel he apparently wrote was Of Blood and Honor, which is very weak and is easily his best work.

So, I agree with you that blizzard has only ever at best managed to keep from retconning for at most a single game, typically even the expansion will blatantly contradict something in the base game.

But it's usually not quite as blatant as sc2 WoL, which completely undoes Jimmies character progression for sc1 and then the next campaign in sc2 basically entirely unmakes most of what happened in WoL. These are not background details of the world, or minor characters being swapped around a bit, this is front and center plot, and character development of main characters.

They basically sacrificed plot for gameplay benefits because they wanted Kerrigan to be able to level up for Zerg campaign expansion. As for WoL I can even accept that because he did kind of love her. I know men often like to say "buddies over chicks" but always choose chicks in the end.

 

[Olinser]

Starcraft 2 was bigger than Starcraft 1 and it was designed with esports in mind.

Starcraft 2 was designed with everything in mind, because they had infinite money.

I'm not even kidding that much. WoL has probably the best RTS SP campaign ever made (at least from a gameplay perspective, the story is meh on its own and plain bad put in relation to starcraft before and after). WoL also had extensive sp challenges in the form of achievements, and lots of various 'mp preparation' sp challenges like various "can you micro dis shit perfectly for 3 minutes for a gold star?". And probably also more things I'm forgetting. Not to mention a very exhaustive editor.

And with LoV they made the coop mode, which is also good and non-competetive mp (and afaik this mode end up being the moneymaker, to the point that it killed future single player dlc).

I feel there's some deep insight into the RTS community to be had from the fact that the coop mode end up being the big thing, despite all the effort made to push people into the regular mp.

It wasn't just the non-competitive mode that killed single player DLC.

It was the morons spending an excessive amount of time and money on a dumb gimmick campaign starring their pet Waifu that the community never particularly liked in the first place, and literally tried to charge you $5 PER MISSION for it ($15 for a pack of 3 missions). And instead of giving you the quality of Wings of Liberty and actual good RTS gameplay, they gave you a series of dumb gimmick missions with random idiotic flash crap like 'LUL NOW WE'RE RIDING A BIKE', and 'LUL NOW PLAY STEALTH MISSION!!!!'. There were only a couple good missions in the entire DLC campaign.

That's why it failed. Not because people didn't want single player, but because they simply didn't give the players who wanted campaign DLC what they wanted. Meanwhile the co-op mode gave them solid RTS gameplay, extremely varied builds with the commanders, and the ability to adjust the difficulty at the top level with the mutators. Everything that was missing from the single player DLC.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

But it's usually not quite as blatant as sc2 WoL,

I would say that's subjective. I'm deeply passionate about worldbuilding and characterization, and I would tell you that SC1 has just as many problems per capita. It's a mess without any kind of coherent creative vision. Of course SC2 would be a total disaster storywise, there was nowhere else for it to go. Even if Raynor had killed QoB in the climax like most returning players apparently wanted, the writing would still be a mess.

These are not background details of the world, or minor characters being swapped around a bit, this is front and center plot, and character development of main characters.

So basically all the stuff you personally don't care about, like the few dozen points I listed about Blizz repeatedly bulldozing all their worldbuilding, is "background details" and "minor characters." As I said, subjective. I don't give a flying fuck about the main characters because I find them boring and generic as fuck and the universe revolving around their personal vendettas is just a complete waste of this whole IP. Blizz had an IP that could've rivaled 40k in scope and they turned it into a shitty soap opera.

Shit like this is why I have only morbid interest in Stormgate. I fully expect it's going to have a shitty story about personal vendettas and romance that completely overshadow everything else, because that's how Blizz has always rolled.

 

[Olinser]

But it's usually not quite as blatant as sc2 WoL,

I would say that's subjective. I'm deeply passionate about worldbuilding and characterization, and I would tell you that SC1 has just as many problems per capita. It's a mess without any kind of coherent creative vision. Of course SC2 would be a total disaster storywise, there was nowhere else for it to go. Even if Raynor had killed QoB in the climax like most returning players apparently wanted, the writing would still be a mess.

These are not background details of the world, or minor characters being swapped around a bit, this is front and center plot, and character development of main characters.

So basically all the stuff you personally don't care about, like the few dozen points I listed about Blizz repeatedly bulldozing all their worldbuilding, is "background details" and "minor characters." As I said, subjective. I don't give a flying fuck about the main characters because I find them boring and generic as fuck and the universe revolving around their personal vendettas is just a complete waste of this whole IP. Blizz had an IP that could've rivaled 40k in scope and they turned it into a shitty soap opera.

Shit like this is why I have only morbid interest in Stormgate. I fully expect it's going to have a shitty story about personal vendettas and romance that completely overshadow everything else, because that's how Blizz has always rolled.

You mean you DON'T want poorly written ham fisted romance in your sci-fi strategy game?

 

[Jaedar]

That's why it failed. Not because people didn't want single player, but because they simply didn't give the players who wanted campaign DLC what they wanted

Eh, not really. I think they stated that the nova covert ops stuff made a decent amount of money, it's just that coop REALLY took off, so everyone got reassigned to develop new coop.
I agree with you that the nova dlc is horribly overpriced (5 dollars per mission as opposed to 40 dollars for 30 missions of the base campaigns), but if coop had failed they probably would have made more dlc campaigns.

So basically all the stuff you personally don't care about, like the few dozen points I listed about Blizz repeatedly bulldozing all their worldbuilding, is "background details" and "minor characters." As I said, subjective.

It's fine if you care more about esoteric stuff only found in the manual as opposed to what is actually going on in the story and events of the game. But claiming that stuff is more important to get right than what's actually going on in the game is delusional.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

But claiming that stuff is more important to get right than what's actually going on in the game is delusional

What’s in the game is awful. That’s what I’m saying. They had all sorts of cool stuff they could have done using the setup in the manual and they wasted it. Instead of an interesting conflict between three races with distinct values, we got a disjointed mess about soap opera antics between the human characters (around which the entire fucking galaxy somehow revolves) and some aliens crudely tacked on in the background.

 

[underground nymph]

This thread: AoE2 has great multiplayer and is skills sensitive.
Me: watching an AoE2 multiplayer match where a dude makes a recon of his surroundings with a sheep.

Spoiler

 

[luj1]

I don't really like playing competitive sc

There is no such thing as non-competitive RTS. An RTS is either competitive or it is not an RTS. RTS are inherently competitive games just like FPS...

have to disagree

Myth I-II, Impossible Creatures, Ground Control 2, Tiberian Sun, Perimeter weren't competetive much

but more of SP/storyfag games

Also many cult shooters like Undying, Carnivores I-II, Hexen, Powerslave

 

[luj1]

It looks like this developer "gets it", but considering so does Relic and seeing the abomination they delivered with DoW3, that is no guarantee for anything.

Still cant believe how they ruined this franchise with DoW2 (and DoW3 ofc)

DoW 1 was the last great RTS

 

[luj1]

Yeah, focusing on MP right off the bat feels like missing the forest for the trees.

None of the popular RTS of the past got popular because they focused on MP, they got popular because the designers focused on creating games with good gameplay.

you are right

this is really the best post in this thread

modern games suck cause the gameplay is bad, plain and simple

everyone is focused on online play, microtransactions, early access or some other shit, they forgot to make good games

 

[luj1]

Starcraft 2 was bigger than Starcraft 1

not really

Sc 2 is solid, but not exceptional

Sc 1 is an exceptional and immortal game

and it was designed with esports in mind.

thats why its worse than Sc 1

 

[luj1]

Stormgate will also offer all 3 things to its players.

I havent seen any gameplay but I dont like this game's aesthetic

its trying too hard to be Starcraft/Diablo instead of being original

even the woman in the trailer looks like Kerrigan from her days as a ghost

also the art is very poorly drawn and childish plus derrivative of Starcraft/Diablo

cringe

 

[ArchAngel]

Starcraft 2 was bigger than Starcraft 1

not really

Sc 2 is solid, but not exceptional

Sc 1 is an exceptional and immortal game

I was not talking about quality which is subjective. Fact is that it was more popular and played by more people if we look at the whole world.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

A twitter post revealed some lore about the infernals. Apparently many of their units are the demonized remnants of species they invaded. Same MO as Doom demons, the Burning Legion, or even scifi villains like Zerg or Borg.

It would be a very obvious storytelling choice to have the infernals demonize the heroine only for her to take them over and do a 180 on their previously established lore and motives, but that’s so obviously derivative of the QoB and Arthas plots that they’re probably not gonna do that. At least I hope not

 

[d1r]

Stormgate will also offer all 3 things to its players.

I havent seen any gameplay but I dont like this game's aesthetic

its trying too hard to be Starcraft/Diablo instead of being original

even the woman in the trailer looks like Kerrigan from her days as a ghost

also the art is very poorly drawn and childish plus derrivative of Starcraft/Diablo

cringe

This looks like absolute trash.

 

[Blutwurstritter]

Is this dead?

 

[ArchAngel]

It is possible, it has been so long with zero news.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

FGS got several million dollars in funding. Their investors would make a big stink about it if the project just died. This isn’t kickstarters. Investors are protected by contracts. If FGS breaks contract, then the investors can sue them for more than what they invested.

 

[ArchAngel]

 

[Axioms]

Starcraft 2 was bigger than Starcraft 1

not really

Sc 2 is solid, but not exceptional

Sc 1 is an exceptional and immortal game

I was not talking about quality which is subjective. Fact is that it was more popular and played by more people if we look at the whole world.

This argument is dumb. Games 10 years newer than mid 90s/early 2000s are obviously going to be played by war more people. This is like blathering that Trump had the second most votes on any president. Like yeah bro, because the population available was higher.

 

[Axioms]

Not only are many of his opinions bad but he sounds like a weird knock-off Adam Sandler, in a bad way.

 

[ArchAngel]

Not only are many of his opinions bad but he sounds like a weird knock-off Adam Sandler, in a bad way.

Well he is ex SC2 pro that is commenting on game made by ex blizzard devs. I value his opinion in this case more than most others.
And from what he said, this might be a bit slower Sc2 with less irritating UI. This might actually end up good.

 

[Venser]

 

[ArchAngel]

Hopefully that June 11th reveal will be juicy with some gameplay.