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

Harthwain

Magister
Joined
Dec 13, 2019
Messages
5,270
Starcraft II released in 2010, Warcraft 3 was released in 2003. The gulf in computer hardware was massive, so rendering large numbers of units became feasible. It would be no problem to do a widescale RTS nowadays, if somebody would make one.
Warrior Kings was in 2002. It is more likely Warcraft 3 went with limited number of selectable units, because that's how Starcraft 1 operated and it was easier to swap direct control within a group for the purpose of using spells.
 

Venser

Magister
Joined
Aug 8, 2015
Messages
1,842
Location
dm6
It's in early access now. Got the ultimate founders pack from supporting them on Kickstarter but I already kinda lost interest to play.

 

-M-

Learned
Joined
Jul 2, 2022
Messages
260
Watched a handful of campaign missions. Quite frankly this thing is a mess. Missions are dull and uninspired. Characters are vapid and uninteresting. Voice acting is mostly bad, with the main character being especially flat.

This seems like another Back 4 Blood situation where the 'ex-devs' of Blizzard/Valve are merely rancid curdles trying to fool you into thinking that they're the cream of the crop.
 

Tyranicon

A Memory of Eternity
Developer
Joined
Oct 7, 2019
Messages
7,461
Steam users are trashing it in the reviews

1722375425756.png


People seem to be talking about optimization and the artstyle. Apparently the campaign is so bad it's becoming a meme on reddit? Pinging RaggleFraggle

:shredder:
 

Camel

Scholar
Joined
Sep 10, 2021
Messages
2,489
Usually I don't care about graphics and I love a ton of old games but the graphics look ugly as hell and the game feels janky. Production quality of SC2 and WoL campaign is still unmatched.
 

thesheeep

Arcane
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I think the current Steam score and reviews are the perfect example for why devs should never, ever release a game into early access before the game is not at least in mid-beta state.

People seem to have grown so inane that they really cannot grasp the concept of a VERY incomplete and in-development game.
I'd say at least half of the negative reviews are really just "this game is too incomplete" - which, yeah... surprising for an early access title, I guess.

Not that the valid points raised aren't concerning, but, man... what a self-inflicted, unnecessary disaster launch :lol:
 

Tyranicon

A Memory of Eternity
Developer
Joined
Oct 7, 2019
Messages
7,461
The fact that this sees the light of day tells you everything you should know. Horrible art style + just ugly in general. Didn't this thing get 35+ million USD in funding or something? Fucking lol.

1722446803617.png


If you want to torture yourself. I made it only about 4 minutes before I dipped.

 

RaggleFraggle

Ask me about VTM
Joined
Mar 23, 2022
Messages
1,377
The fact that this sees the light of day tells you everything you should know. Horrible art style + just ugly in general. Didn't this thing get 35+ million USD in funding or something? Fucking lol.

View attachment 52958

If you want to torture yourself. I made it only about 4 minutes before I dipped.


They ripped off the Frostmourne arc in Warcraft 3 and extended it into an entire campaign? I shouldn't be surprised when they hired Chris Metzen as their consultant.

What worked two decades ago isn't gonna work now. Zeitgeists change, audiences grow up... men in their thirties aren't gonna be impressed by this first draft of a first time fantasy novel written by a first time writer like they would be when they were boys in their teens at highest.
 

Alienman

Retro-Fascist
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The fact that this sees the light of day tells you everything you should know. Horrible art style + just ugly in general. Didn't this thing get 35+ million USD in funding or something? Fucking lol.

View attachment 52958

If you want to torture yourself. I made it only about 4 minutes before I dipped.



Lol, those arms on the devil character at 11:04.
 

thesheeep

Arcane
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Joined
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Messages
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So, uh.... I played the first two missions and I think I'm already good for a review :lol:

EA issues:
All of these are kind of to be expected in an early access game. But the sheer amount of these issues shows how much longer this game should have been in the oven before going into early access.
You got bugs, performance issues, UI woes, audio woes*, animation woes, unfinished parts everywhere, unpausable & unsaveable (!!!!) campaign
*The audio part is really amazingly bad. Crazy mixing, all over the place, videos blew my ears off, in mission I can barely hear a thing.

Non-EA issues:
Now this is the real bummer, I don't see how they can fix any of this.
First of all, the art style is an atrocity. It was clear from the material they released so far that this game wouldn't be much of a looker, but oh boy it is so much worse to actually see that unfold in front of you.
The environments are fine, but everything else.. ohhhhhh, boy.
They obviously tried to go for an SC2 style, but failed quite spectacularly - almost everything that is not environment in this game somehow ends up like a toy. A toy with Doom 3 shaders on it and mixed with that 3D Clone Wars look.
The worst looking ones, by far, have to be the humans. They are bug-eyed, all of them. And all of their proportions are off, like completely. It's like some weird ass parody of the human body.
The main character gets extremely close to Gollum with her eyes (and I mean the epic video game fail, not the movie). In a "so awful it's funny" way. And not just in-game - she looks like that in the pre-rendered cutscenes, too :lol:

There is a pretty wild story-art dissonance going on.
They are clearly trying to tell a serious story, but... everything looks either extremely weird, awkward or downright cute (those demon eye things, could hug them, want a plushie). Who thought this combo could ever possibly work?

I've played through two mission and am already fairly certain they'll pull the Arthas storyline with Amara, or something very similar.
The writing as far as I saw it seems... like it would be okay for a fan game, or a small indie title, but this? Oof.
And of course hard to get into any of it with all the other issues.

The voice acting ranges from "alright" to "awful". Could be partly due to the horrible mixing, or maybe the recordings aren't final (EA as well, in a sense). But if they are final - ouch.

The price for the campaigns, especially considering the quality of the art and writing, is just silly. And you'll be asked to shell out more for subsequent campaigns. No way this is going to work out the way they think.

The good:
The base gameplay actually makes a good impression. Unfinished, sure, but I could see that game playing really quite well, and it looks like people are enjoying it in co-op (unfinished, of course, but still).
If they provide a good editor, I could see custom gaming going places and you won't even have to give any money to Blizzard for it.
The menu is surprisingly well thought-out and there are already quite a lot of QoL features - more early access titles should take note here.

Either way. I don't see how this could become the big new RTS some had hoped.
Even with all the EA issues fixed, the rest isn't even remotely on a SC2 level, and that already wasn't quite as captivating as SC1 or WC3.

I'm gonna shelve this for now - I'll attempt the campaign again once released (after all, I already paid for it).
I have no clue where the 40 million went.
 
Last edited:

Tyranicon

A Memory of Eternity
Developer
Joined
Oct 7, 2019
Messages
7,461
1722541158299.png


Uh, what's going on with the monetization of this game? It's free to play, is it gacha mechanics?

Also, the audacity of the naming conventions in this lol.
 

Space Satan

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
May 13, 2013
Messages
6,371
Location
Space Hell
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.
 

Drichi

Novice
Joined
Apr 20, 2022
Messages
9
I remember the day blizzard announced SC2 and made a preview of the units. all of them were charismatic and looked amazing, even for an alpha.
On stormgate all the units feel uncharismatic.
It's a game i really really really want to like, i want to play "use map settings" again, since i've been doing since the Warcraft 3 days... I dont know why, but i'm unable to like it...
 

Camel

Scholar
Joined
Sep 10, 2021
Messages
2,489
From StarCraft II & Warcraft III developers, a new RTS. Hyper-responsive gameplay, a powerful editor, co-op, campaign, 1v1, and more.
As advertised on Kickstarter.
IRL Tim Morten (production director on StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void) and Tim Campbell (lead campaign designer, Warcraft III). LotV is considered the worst SC2 campaign and Stormgate looks like WC3 with SC races.
 

thesheeep

Arcane
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Uh, what's going on with the monetization of this game? It's free to play, is it gacha mechanics?
Free to play, but pay for the campaigns and then also pay for some heroes, etc. I guess?
Very much comparable to SC2 in monetization - except when compared to the value you get, VASTLY more expensive than SC2.

It's not the worst payment model for a game like that, but would obviously need slashing of all prices in half, at least.
 
Joined
Mar 18, 2009
Messages
7,548
Player vs player modes are without doubt their main focus and will be best the game has to offer. Those are free and the half-assed single player crap that they aren't even that interested in making is supposed to make them money? So their survival basically depends on there being enough idiots who pay for worse content while people like me don't pay a cent and stick to 1v1 and maybe team competitive modes.
 

ArchAngel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 16, 2015
Messages
20,947
Uh, what's going on with the monetization of this game? It's free to play, is it gacha mechanics?
Free to play, but pay for the campaigns and then also pay for some heroes, etc. I guess?
Very much comparable to SC2 in monetization - except when compared to the value you get, VASTLY more expensive than SC2.

It's not the worst payment model for a game like that, but would obviously need slashing of all prices in half, at least.
I still from time to time start up SC2 to play a few Co-op games. Nothing in this game so far looks like I should switch to it instead.
 

Johannes

Arcane
Joined
Nov 20, 2010
Messages
10,666
Location
casting coach
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.
 

thesheeep

Arcane
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Messages
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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.

Those are free and the half-assed single player crap that they aren't even that interested in making is supposed to make them money? So their survival basically depends on there being enough idiots who pay for worse content while people like me don't pay a cent and stick to 1v1 and maybe team competitive modes.
Co-Op is not entirely free, I think. Some co-op missions + heroes I think have to be bought, but I might mix things up here.

But yeah... I don't think a lot of people who even managed to go through the first campaign(s) will be "motivated" to pay for the rest.

I wouldn't completely write the game off, but I see no chance of it to become as big as some hoped it would become.
 
Joined
Mar 18, 2009
Messages
7,548
Co-Op is not entirely free, I think. Some co-op missions + heroes I think have to be bought, but I might mix things up here.

But yeah... I don't think a lot of people who even managed to go through the first campaign(s) will be "motivated" to pay for the rest.

I wouldn't completely write the game off, but I see no chance of it to become as big as some hoped it would become.

I was talking about competitive modes being free, not co-op. That is clearly aimed at single player people, just like SCII co-op is.

I had decent amount of fun with 1v1 in previous build, where they didn't even have tier 3 units yet nor a third race. The fact I already had fun with that build makes me think I'll probably end up enjoying full version enough. But I don't see single player people getting any value out of this.
 

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