Stormgate - sci-fi/fantasy RTS from ex-Blizzard devs - now on Early Access

[Lyric Suite]

So it's dead, Jim already?

 

[Lyric Suite]

It looks so...mediocre, like a chinese mobile clone. It is exactly the same story as Back 4 Blood. Ex-devs with "We'll make it right because now nobody restricts us!" and end up with such a bland soulless slop that you wonder if there were any contribution from their side at all tothe source game.

Oh, there likely were. Look at Stacraft 2, or Diablo 3 etc.

 

[Johannes]

Earlier in development ppl were hyping that it's gonna be YUGE ESPORTS like sc2 in its heyday, as the selling point, but at this point it's p safe to say that that isn't gonna happen.

Pretty sure, yes.
Although I'd say the MP PvP & Co-Op is probably the best part of the game and also the most likely to actually, mechanically please the MP crowd.
Plus the map editor might become good enough for the custom map / game mode lovers.
But all of those still need to deal with the art style, of course.

It should be good for 1v1 players, at least near the launch when the game is fresh and has a lot of players. But for a big competitive, spectator scene, you'd need a lot more hype all around to entice people to tune in to this instead of a starcraft or an aoe game.

Maybe there's still some chance if they hold some really successful tournaments after launch where the games just are really exciting, but the poor art and negative reviews surely aren't helping.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I’m surprised anyone is making excuses for the campaign story. It’s not just uncreative and derivative, it’s just plain bad on its own merits.

The demons have armies, but the story expects us to believe one woman with a chakram can single-handedly save the Earth?

 

[ArchAngel]

I’m surprised anyone is making excuses for the campaign story. It’s not just uncreative and derivative, it’s just plain bad on its own merits.

The demons have armies, but the story expects us to believe one woman with a chakram can single-handedly save the Earth?

Aliens also had armies but that didn't stop Will Smith from saving us all

 

[Johannes]

Perhaps they should look for 2 crystals from other star systems (wherever xenu and yakub placed them), one for black people and one for white people, and hold a ritual atop the great pyramid to purge the demons from earth?

 

[motherfucker]

It should be good for 1v1 players

As somebody who played SC2 MP a lot, no it's not. It's for RTS what D4 is for ARPGs - vain attempt at mass appeal by pandering to people who don't like or understand the genre.

 

[Tyranicon]

I thought the whole point of this was an experiment to see if an e-sport focused RTS could actually make it in modern year.

I don't know why they made the kickstarter promise to add a campaign when it seems that they're neither interested in it or have any writers above the age of 14. Yeah, yeah, more money, more backers, but it seems like they already had plenty of money.

 

[ArchAngel]

I thought the whole point of this was an experiment to see if an e-sport focused RTS could actually make it in modern year.

I don't know why they made the kickstarter promise to add a campaign when it seems that they're neither interested in it or have any writers above the age of 14. Yeah, yeah, more money, more backers, but it seems like they already had plenty of money.

Maybe that is the problem. Maybe they put only pennies into developing SP so it is like it is.

 

[motherfucker]

I thought the whole point of this was an experiment to see if an e-sport focused RTS could actually make it in modern year.

It would if it was made by people who knew what they were doing who set out to do an actual RTS, not some quirky "reimagining" like stormgate, zerospace, or that crap David Kim is making. Everyone seems to think that RTS is dead, but the truth is that fans either stayed on SC2, switched to AoE2, dota or whatever, or abandoned the genre entirely. The RTS crowd is still there. Only they aren't coming back, because why would they? All the devs are concerning themselves with cutting corners, relying on gimmicks and attracting a wider audience instead of making a solid game that appeals to actual RTS fans.
Take the namesake of this thread. They want casual audience so the campaign is a big focus, only it's the most uninspired crap imaginable. They imagine it could be an esport, yet 1v1 is a slower, dumbed-down SC2 - the original is still kicking, why would anyone play this over the real thing? The game is F2P because, again, wide audience, yet there's no coherent plans on monetization. What's the point of it being f2p in the first place, thirdworlders are too low IQ to figure out an RTS anyway. They had to crowdfund the game on like 5 different platforms, presumably failing to get actual investors to put in money - if actual business people have no faith in this, why should I? There isn't even much drama around this game, seemingly this thing is such a dumpsterfire it goes all the way around and becomes not even fun to laugh at. Like, seriously, it's so uninspired there isn't even anything distinctive to make fun of.
Oh, and these motherfuckers called WoL their "prior product". No, I'm not kidding.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I thought the whole point of this was an experiment to see if an e-sport focused RTS could actually make it in modern year.

Maybe it can or maybe it can't. The argument is irrelevant if your game is total shit, e-sport or not.

 

[Lyric Suite]

The RTS crowd is still there. Only they aren't coming back, because why would they? All the devs are concerning themselves with cutting corners, relying on gimmicks and attracting a wider audience instead of making a solid game that appeals to actual RTS fans.

They are not coming back because why would they play vastly inferior versions of the same shit?

"Starcraft but worse" doesn't seem like an hot proposition to make to people.

 

[flyingjohn]

People laughing at people who scammed idiots and earned millions is ironic.There was never any plan in actually making something decent.Pocket the majority of money and give some Asian outsourcing gig the job to make something barely playable.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I thought the whole point of this was an experiment to see if an e-sport focused RTS could actually make it in modern year.

I don't know why they made the kickstarter promise to add a campaign when it seems that they're neither interested in it or have any writers above the age of 14. Yeah, yeah, more money, more backers, but it seems like they already had plenty of money.

The irony here is that the campaign story didn’t even need to be good to get players, it just needed to not be stupid.

Like, the most interesting scene in the entire 9 missions is the scene that introduces the big bad evil guy of the arc. It’s not particularly good, but it teases demon lord politics that sounds way more interesting than the current plot.

I don’t understand how writers keep screwing up when Game of Thrones is right there. Everyone knows by now that warring houses is a great template for stories.

 

[Camel]

People laughing at people who scammed idiots and earned millions is ironic.There was never any plan in actually making something decent.Pocket the majority of money and give some Asian outsourcing gig the job to make something barely playable.

Stormgate was the most funded RTS game of all time on Kickstarter ($2.38M), so it looks like they scammed RTS fans in the genre in crisis and $34.7M from investors like Riot Games, BITKRAFT, & Kakao Games.
Their campaign is a ripoff of the Human/Lordaeron WC3 campaign with the Arthas fall. Metzen should sue FG for plagiarism.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Metzen should sue FG for plagiarism.

They hired him to write it. Check the credits

 

[Camel]

They hired him to write it. Check the credits

He’s a voice actor too kek.

 

[Tyranicon]

After doing a little bit of research I found that Chris Metzen seems to have left Stormgate after he got a job as Blizzard's Warcraft Executive Creative Director. The other named writer on Stormgate is Micky Neilson, another former longtime Blizzard employee.

I refuse to believe that two men over the age of 40 wrote this.

There's a character named Warz.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I refuse to believe that two men over the age of 40 wrote this.

Doesn’t change the fact that it’s true.

Writing is a skill like any other. Improving it requires practice, study, and receiving criticism. Clearly, neither of these men have ever practiced, studied, or gotten criticism in all the years they’ve been writing.

What’s hard to believe is that they got this far despite having no appreciable writing skill. Just this week I’ve chatted with people who think any of their previous writing is good.

 

[Lyric Suite]

There's people who think SC2 is a narrative masterpiece. Blizzard drones are a special breed of NPC cons00mers.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

There's people who think SC2 is a narrative masterpiece. Blizzard drones are a special breed of NPC cons00mers.

I don’t think the writing in SC1 or WC3 is as great as people remember either. I think their success then is due to players being impressionable kids at the time, good presentation, and technical constraints of the time.

(If you don’t believe me, then take the same scripts and replace the cast with new characters you don’t have nostalgic attachment to. Is the story still effective after recasting?)

 

[Lyric Suite]

We do not believe here in the Codex that SC1 and Warcraft III had great narratives. They were... adequate, with some good production values and mostly little competition since RTS plotlines were weak as a geneal thing.

But SC2 really takes the cake.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I’ve never needed my RTS stories to be particularly strong. What has always peeved me about the Blizz school of storytelling is that they treat the factions as an afterthought. I think RTS factions are at least as important as the houses in Game of Thrones, or the factions in 40k. Not giving them culture and importance and such is a mistake imo.

The WC2 manual went into some detail about the member states of each bloc. It didn’t do very much because there wasn’t much of a story, but they existed.

The SC1 manual had some lore about terran colonies, squadrons, zerg broods, protoss tribes, etc. that lent themselves to further expansion. The games did absolutely nothing with this material.

The WC3 manual didn’t even bother to explore the possible internal politics and member states of each side. The plot was about epic heroes.

SC2 didn’t even have a manual, much less politics.

SG seems to be continuing this tradition of dumbing things down. The campaign gives no sense of scale or stakes, so I have no idea whether it’s about a grand war or a gang war in the boondocks.

 

[ghardy]

I don’t think the writing in SC1 or WC3 is as great as people remember either.

I've finished the Terran campaign of SC1 and a few missions of the Zerg one. Indeed, the story is okay; the storytelling hints at something bigger. I'd say the game works despite it.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I don’t think the writing in SC1 or WC3 is as great as people remember either.

I've finished the Terran campaign of SC1 and a few missions of the Zerg one. Indeed, the story is okay; the storytelling hints at something bigger. I'd say the game works despite it.

If I was making an RTS nowadays, then I would put effort into the politics and organizations. It works wonders for 40k, after all.