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

[ArchAngel]

The scbw hd patch sprites look good too, they don't need low res to look cool.

I love how SC Remaster looks. Looks much nicer than SCII. Too bad it still controls like garbage.

You have not played a proper RTS unless you spent a good amount of time trying to get a group of dragoons through a tight passage

 

[RaggleFraggle]

The scbw hd patch sprites look good too, they don't need low res to look cool.

No, I mean the 1998 3D renders used for the art assets are very primitive compared to what we have now

 

[luj1]

Artosis basically noticed the same things as Grubby

- units aren't readable on the battlefield
- sound design is poor ("every unit in brood war sounded unique and you can tell immediately what is shooting or hitting what")
- banal empty maps with no details
- bad unit collision
- overall game feels very wonky and alpha-ish, isn't even feature complete but they call it 'beta' anyway

Where I don't agree with him is that he believes this can be fixed easily

yeah dead gaem

 

[ArchAngel]

So they decided to focus into MP and cannot even get that part right lol

 

[Eisen]

It's stormgatover

 

[Grokalibre]

stormgay

 

[luj1]

So they decided to focus into MP and cannot even get that part right lol

something like that

do you think starcraft was designed with SP first in mind?

 

[Marat]

do you think starcraft was designed with SP first in mind?

It was, actually. Its success in Korea came as a huge shock.

 

[luj1]

Well this is why it had success

If it's fun in SP, it's gonna be (even more fun?) in MP

 

[Alienman]

Only like 10% play MP.

 

[Lyric Suite]

So they decided to focus into MP and cannot even get that part right lol

something like that

do you think starcraft was designed with SP first in mind?

Yes but no. Yes because they didn't think multiplayer was going to be so huge (allegedly), though they were prepared for it being big. No because the game was designed to work in multiplayer out of the gate.

Blizzard's success was partially the result of them being on top of things when multiplayer was starting to actually become a thing. They designed Battle.net for Diablo 1 and were fully prepared to support online gaming for Starcraft from day one. Even before Diablo you had Warcraft 2 which was highly popular in LAN and right after Starcraft they released the Battle.net edition of that game.

Starcraft was always meant to work in multiplayer and was designed accordingly. It's cope to believe otherwise.

If Stormgate is turning out to be shit it is not because they chose to focus on the multiplayert first. It's because the devs are talentless hacks. "Ex-Blizzard" doesn't mean anything given that Blizzard has been shit for almost 15 years now.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Is this Harry Dean Stanton's grandson?

 

[ciox]

do you think starcraft was designed with SP first in mind?

It was, actually. Its success in Korea came as a huge shock.

And yet, Starcraft had multiplayer features like observer slots and voice chat during beta, and battle reports were made for multiplayer matches.

https://tcrf.net/Proto:StarCraft_(PC)/StarCraft_beta_12.24.97_D
https://classic.battle.net/scc/br/

That said everyone knows that most players are all about singleplayer and UMS maps.

 

[ArchAngel]

do you think starcraft was designed with SP first in mind?

It was, actually. Its success in Korea came as a huge shock.

And yet, Starcraft had multiplayer features like observer slots and voice chat during beta, and battle reports were made for multiplayer matches.

https://tcrf.net/Proto:StarCraft_(PC)/StarCraft_beta_12.24.97_D
https://classic.battle.net/scc/br/

That said everyone knows that most players are all about singleplayer and UMS maps.

Sure they had good MP features, they still didn't expect it to become an E-sport and be so popular in one country to fill stadiums.

 

[ciox]

do you think starcraft was designed with SP first in mind?

It was, actually. Its success in Korea came as a huge shock.

And yet, Starcraft had multiplayer features like observer slots and voice chat during beta, and battle reports were made for multiplayer matches.

https://tcrf.net/Proto:StarCraft_(PC)/StarCraft_beta_12.24.97_D
https://classic.battle.net/scc/br/

That said everyone knows that most players are all about singleplayer and UMS maps.

Sure they had good MP features, they still didn't expect it to become an E-sport and be so popular in one country to fill stadiums.

Features and support, since it also received very frequent balance patches, just for the multiplayer component, up until the focus of the company started to move on to developing Warcraft 3.

 

[duke nukem]

So they decided to focus into MP and cannot even get that part right lol

something like that

do you think starcraft was designed with SP first in mind?

Yes but no. Yes because they didn't think multiplayer was going to be so huge (allegedly), though they were prepared for it being big. No because the game was designed to work in multiplayer out of the gate.

Blizzard's success was partially the result of them being on top of things when multiplayer was starting to actually become a thing. They designed Battle.net for Diablo 1 and were fully prepared to support online gaming for Starcraft from day one. Even before Diablo you had Warcraft 2 which was highly popular in LAN and right after Starcraft they released the Battle.net edition of that game.

Starcraft was always meant to work in multiplayer and was designed accordingly. It's cope to believe otherwise.

If Stormgate is turning out to be shit it is not because they chose to focus on the multiplayert first. It's because the devs are talentless hacks. "Ex-Blizzard" doesn't mean anything given that Blizzard has been shit for almost 15 years now.

Well, i dont think they are talentless hacks because mechanically stormgate is amazing. And has better tic rate on servers compared to other rts games.
Of course writers and game designers could be talentless. But so far i think its not the case.

Also they improved pathfinding on units. This includes unit push collision priority.

Maybe its too good now. Now that movement feels like sc2 melee units like zerglings. Makes surrounds too easy. But that unit push priority thing is a amazing thing, because it prevents shit like ultralisks in sc2 getting blocked by other units, meaning despite amazing stats, they dont do anything in the battle except wasting resources and causing you to lose the game.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Of course writers and game designers could be talentless. But so far i think its not the case.

Nothing about their story reveals has been remotely interesting to me. The demons are just zergs in a demon suit. Their wiki page outright says they’re trying to save the universe from an even bigger villain. It’s so fucking stupid.

I don’t want to fight the main villain, I want to play the main villain. And I want the main villain to be something that isn’t completely fucking stupid like kerry or amon. Overmind’s “perfection thru omnivoracity” motive was chef’s kiss and we need those types of villains to come back. Heck, something like the protoss conclave enforcing galactic peace thru superior firepower would be great sympathetic villains if they lasted more than five minutes.

Starcraft’s writing was terrible, but it at least had some interesting ideas. Modern RTS doesn’t even have good ideas. They’re just aping what was popular last decade without any self-awareness.

Astropulse doesn’t inspire hope either. The main villainess is just kerry again, but with rotting holes in her flesh.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Stormgate's story shit i've seen so far makes Starcraft 2 seem almost legit, which is fucking nuts.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Stormgate's story shit i've seen so far makes Starcraft 2 seem almost legit, which is fucking nuts.

Forgive me if I find that hard to believe.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Stormgate's story shit i've seen so far makes Starcraft 2 seem almost legit, which is fucking nuts.

Forgive me if I find that hard to believe.

See for yourself:

 

[Multidirectional]

If your interest is single player only I don't think there's any reason to follow this. It is obvious you cannot expect good story or atmosphere from it.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

Stormgate's story shit i've seen so far makes Starcraft 2 seem almost legit, which is fucking nuts.

Forgive me if I find that hard to believe.

See for yourself:

Very 2011. I like it.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Stormgate's story shit i've seen so far makes Starcraft 2 seem almost legit, which is fucking nuts.

Forgive me if I find that hard to believe.

See for yourself:

Very 2011. I like it.

2011 sucked then, because that thing is almost physically painful at how generic it is. Also, the pilot of the mech HAD to be a woman, 'cause they couldn't have a man come to the rescue, not in current year.

Lastly, am i the only one who finds Marvel fights in gaming cinematics to be completely retarded? This shit bothered me even has far back as Warcraft 3.

One of the absolute worst cinematics from SC2 for me was this:



Watching Zeratul flip around like a ninja while Kerrigan delivered animu lines made my brain melt.

Game cinematics should be... cinematic. They need to set the tone and tell us what's in the game. If action is shown it should be kept at a minimum, sticking mostly to action that rapresents what a unit is at a conceptual level, reflecting what it does in the game.

The Heart of Swarm intro for instance does it a little better, even if it's still not super great:

 

[RaggleFraggle]

2011 sucked then, because that thing is almost physically painful at how generic it is.

There’s a difference between generic and complete fucking nonsense that falls apart upon cursory examination.

Blizzard’s writing is unbelievably bad. I cannot stress that enough. Like, the composition of every single individual scenes is blatantly nonsensical.

In Warcraft 3, the opening cinematic is Medivh barging in on a council meeting to rave like a loon. When they treat him like a loon as normal people would do, he acts offended and leaves. This makes him look like an idiot and an asshole. He could have shown them a powerpoint presentation explaining the legion and scourge plans, but instead he raves like a loon and then leaves. All the millions of dead villagers are on his hands.

Arthas did nothing wrong and Uther is an asshole without integrity who would rather let villagers die than place his prince under house arrest. The plot was so painfully railroaded that there was really nothing they could’ve done.

Why is Frostmourne guarded by revenants that warn Arthas it is evil and why does the plaque say it is evil, if in reality Nerzhul put it there for Arthas to find? Why go to all the effort to make it look like it was sealed away and guarded by good guys? Nerzhul never displays that sort of theatrical style before or after this.

In starcraft 1, kerry publicly murders the protoss president in the middle of a global televised meeting and suffers no consequences. They just let her leave rather than immediately killing or imprisoning her like sane people would do. Not only that, but she murdered him to keep him from revealing that… she was manipulating them! So she prevented them from learning she was their enemy by doing the exact thing that an enemy would do? Logic!

In starcraft 2, Raynor breaks into Valery’s ship, kills two innocent guards doing their jobs, then accepts Valery’s sudden offer of alliance. What? He just murdered two innocent dudes doing their jobs! Raynor and Valery are unlikable assholes who treat human lives as canon fodder. These are our heroes?

Ray later murders his best friend to rescue a genocidal psychopath who slaughtered billions of innocent people for fun. His friend has no logical reason to keep her alive, every reason to hate her, and has a nonsensical magical bomb inside him that will go off if he doesn’t kill her. There is so much fractal stupid here that my brain hurts.

Stormgate may be shallow style without substance, but it’s still far and above any of Blizzard’s past work.

If your interest is single player only I don't think there's any reason to follow this. It is obvious you cannot expect good story or atmosphere from it.

Yeah. Why is modern storytelling so bad? It wasn’t great to begin with for RTS games, since video game writing has never been a priority, but how has it gotten actively unbearable for the majority of RTS? Stories are painfully predictable, cliched, and attempts to write characters result in universally unlikable idiotic assholes with inconsistent motives.

The only RTS story written in the last decade that doesn’t make me want to strangle the writer is Godsworn. It’s a breath of fresh air and we need RTS writers to learn from that.

 

[Lyric Suite]

It's because those stories are written by people who only played RTS games and never saw a movie or read a book before.

It's only the explanation. Early games generally were able to get by just by relying on cinematic cliches, which worked well, because those cliches were pretty good:



If your only cultural influence is other vydia or brainless slop like Marvel movies, you are not gonna be able to come up with anything besides even more worthless slop.