FIRST LOOK At StormGate's Campaign
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- Опубликовано: 10 сен 2024
- Your feelings on the campaign are valid and worthy of discussion, however I do ask that this community hold itself above the average online discourse and try to provide honest, fair feedback instead of mindless hating or praise.
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Hey guys, your feelings on the campaign are valid and worthy of discussion, however I do ask that this community hold itself above the average online discourse and try to provide honest, fair feedback instead of mindless hating or praise.
(Also I tried to balance the audio in post, but I could only do so much, sorry!)
You are one of my favorite (if not the favorite) streamer, because of comments like this. It makes you something better than a fun and good streamer, it makes you a good human being.
Quick note, in the 3rd mission there was a timer when you set up the first base till the enemy attack waves, which expired when you set up the second, so just unfortunate timing between that and the second base tutorial
I really like the game, no clue what the steam reviews are on about.
Okay... Then out of respect for your wish I will simply abstain from commenting because, after seeing this, I can't do much beside mindless hating...
Hey Grant, it might be cool if you made a video at some point highlighting the cool or helpful ideas your community comes up with. If you need an upload for a day and just want to make a quick few minute video maybe just pick a topic and highlight some comments and give your thoughts. Love the videos!
Can't wait for Amara to become corrupted by that mystical blade and turn into a demon champion so the human and celestial factions have to put aside their differences and work together to stop her.
I hope they'd avoid making the same cliche Blizzard had with their stories countless times and subvert expectations. No, not in a bad way like The Last Jedi did, but in a good way.
What I'd be willing to be money on is they might turn her into a Demon for the Demon campaign then have her go through some sort of redemption ritual and turn her into a Celestial for the Celestial campaign
@@Evan-mt7bc Like Kerrigan eyyyy
Only for some prophecy they pulled out of thin air to say actually she's destined to save the universe against an evil god even worse than her, and actually you can't dislike or blame her for anything she did because it was that god's fault the whole time.
Yeah, maybe she'll lead a new faction of like zombie cyborgs or something. Probably with a base in Antarctica.
"Huh, those characters sure look like from Overwatch".
Somebody dives a pack of mobs solo and dies.
"Yup, definitely Overwatch".
yup
I was thinking that the first guy was the default Fortnite character.
My first thought was "I've seen that door on an overwatch map."
I immediately though the art style looked like Overwatch. Kind of disappointing to be honest.
@@LeafMaltieze well considering this was made by Ex-Blizzard devs soooo
"Looks like you could use a hand"
Jumps in, dies lol
I laughed so hard at that
>Loses you the mission
Alright let's do this, BLOCKAAAAAAAAAADE JENKINNNNSSSSS!!
To be fair he was playing at the highest difficulty and waffled around without attacking the enemy. If you just attack move he's fine.
@@TheRealXartaX No
tracer shadowsong, garen reinhardt, and blu sniper walked into an orc encampent
In Hellgate London xD
Gabriel Angelos, Avitus and Cyrus stepped into the wrong portal...
@@khankhomrad8855wtf, nothing to do has 40k in this
@@khankhomrad8855 If Cryus alone walked into stormgate the story would end lol.
@@khankhomrad8855 and got demo-packed the moment they come out....
There's something so incredibly funny about a bunch of Blizzard devs leaving the company to make their own game, and the game they came up with is "What if we took every major Blizzard IP and smashed them into 1 game."
I'm looking forward to Stormgate, but I seriously doubt I'll ever be able to see this as anything other than the Diet Blizzard RTS game.
Exactly. You can't teach an old dog new tricks
@@laszlomiskei9138 This is wrong both litterly and as a metaphor.
I think this what they want it to be
But worse in every single way!
Honestly it looks so uninspired :C and game overall had no appeal to me so far...
If this woman gets turned into a demon as part of her revenge quest I'm throwing my keyboard out of the window
I mean, for what it's worth, I wouldn't hate if someone tried the kerrigan idea again, but this time well.
@@JediLordRevan Could also be Sylvanas Windrunner, Banshee Queen.
Kerrigan 2.0, watch the devs turning her into a universe saving McGuffin.
Isn't that more Arthas than Kerrigan?
How about we _don't_ try that plot beat again and say we did, that good with anyone else?
14:11 *"Mind telling us what are you doing?"*
Barclay : *"Sir, doing my best"*
Failing the first mission because of uncontrollable AI hero is truly one of the RTS moment of all time xD
really, peak early RTS campaign design choice
We can give Storm Gate one thing.... and that's a truly unforgettable moment...
MOBA moment 🤣
First thing to do in RTS
Pain in the ahh
Guy thinks he's Fenix. He's got the spin down, but not the health points.
The biggest thing that stuck out to me was how strangely the game treats Barclay and Ryker. They're the only other members of the "squad" and they have these big heroic "I'm here to help!" moments in the first mission, and then on the other missions they just... leave. What is their purpose? It seems like they're a front-line fighter and a sniper, so why are they spending all their time in the ship, where those skills are not being used? I could understand not giving you any hero units on macro missions, but establishing three and then only using one feels odd.
They also never refer to them by their full names, alternating between one name or another. This is so weird.
It seems like there was initial design of "One main hero unit + 2 demiheroes", but something changed along the way and was scrapped. Mission 2 opens so awkwardly with these 2 walking back to the dropship.
Mission 2 of Alliance campaign in WC3 did it right - Uther was AI controlled base defender, for new players to acclimate and not worry about defenses that much. If they more or less stripped first 2 mission straight up from that campaign, they could have snatched this narrative feature of AI helping defending your base too
You know, this is a terrible thought, but the early access pass unlocks access to heroes. The only human one unlocked is Amara. I really hope the hero unlocked (which is being treated as co-op heroes but it doesn't state that anywhere that I see) isn't being applied to the campaign as well with a "buy the heroes" approach...
I guess we'll have to see in a few weeks when the preview period is over. I hope it isn't that.
Actually I'm pretty sure all of the campaigns are designed for up to 3 player co-op play, or at least I remember reading that somewhere? So if you have 2 buddies then they probably play as the other 2 characters.
I wonder if the devs intentionally didn't want to start the tutorial with 3 heroes with different abilities. Unfortunately it makes it kind of awkward in the mission when your melee character just A-moves. I wonder if it would have been a better idea to have him be in a different part of the map switching off control like you do in SC2 Ghost of a Chance with Nova sneaking vs your infantry fighting, just to contrast the abilities.
XCOM Chimera Squad only had code names for characters but they all turned out to be quite unique and had sets of awesome abilities that you unlocked over time.
There are several Zenith Stones in the surrounding area. Reclaiming them would be risky, but their firepower could be a huge asset.
Stones.
@@TheMostSlyFox agreed. stones
Artanis, Zenith Stones.
@@amirh6712 The Stones.
Zenith Stone.
GRANT! THEY LIED TO YOU!
The dogs aren't dogs, they're Predators! You don't need to protect them! UNLEASH THE PREDATORS!
If these dogs are predators, then how do you call their puppies? Child predators?
@@user-cf4rg5vr2d*bad to the bone riff*
@@user-cf4rg5vr2d that's just pitbulls
"the gun that can't hit anything"
I think we have the first entry for the meme campaign already
Guns don't hit most of the time. Bullets do.
@@saitoren4061 So your solution is what, that the character should have held a bullet and launched guns off of it, all of which miss the target? I thought so.
@@saitoren4061 Tediore: "throw me!"
@@TheUberjammer ever seen the Glocket?
meme unit: a range unit (preferably one that shoots bullets) that deals zero dmg since I don't think there is hit chance.
I know that were supposed to be focused on gameplay. But I can’t help but think on the writing and dialogue. A lot of it feels so lifeless. Especially among Amara and her crew. I kept hoping for some signals of familiarity among them but it never really comes. Other than that awkward business about knowing her father.
I can’t help but compare to, for example, the meeting of Kerrigan and Jim in SC2 or even the conversations with Arthas by Jaina, Uthor, and even Muradin to a lesser extent. There’s an implied history there that makes the characters feel closer to real.
This dialogue had none of it.
SC2 has the liberty of the first game, but i know for a lot of people sc2 was the first entry of the series for them..
And that chemistry was definitely good, even if they hadnt played SC. Dialogue was super bland here though.
@@randomthings8732 True, but that's also why I brought up Arthas and co. There was no other game to draw on for their character interactions.
If we're just talking about chemistry, honestly, the entire "You pig." "What? I didn't say anything yet!" exchange added more personality and depth to the characters in like 4 sentences than anything that I saw in the hour of these three missions.
@@89Dienekes OH I FORGOT ABOUT THAT!
Sarah mind reading jim like that was an amazing character moment. And it was so small too.. SC1 dialogue was golden. Now if you pair dialogue with modeling, sound design, mechanics, the story n politics, you suddenly have the best version of SC and SC2. Which.. I think is what we hoped stormgate was gonna be. Not super promising so far, though.
100% if this is how your friends talk to you i don't think you have any friends
@@89Dienekes I would also add that those 4 sentences didn't just give the characters personality, but also provided a nice bit of world-building by organically introducing ghosts' psionic abilities.
I really wish they didn't go with the "introduce us to parent character in the same cutscene where he dies" route with Amara's dad, I'd have rather started with a broader introduction to the setting as a whole beyond 'science experiment introduced demons to the world'. How did the beginning of this invasion go? Is this localized to one continent of the planet or is it fully global? A firmer grasp on the stakes from the get-go would be appreciated. After that we can focus more on Amara and tease out her personal connection to the conflict.
Maybe even go a step further and do the first two tutorial missions as amaras dad or something. With some good dialogue to characterize him. Let him talk about his daughter a bit. Then after the second mission the big cut scene happens.
Although if they wanna stick with the story of the first mission then having a no build mission as mission three might be a wierd idea so you then might have to change story a bit. Although I'm not a designer.
pretty obvious that hes not actually dead and is probably going to show up later as a brainwashed demon or something for amara to have to try to turn back from the dark side. too much emphasis put on him in the first two cutscenes for him to actually be dead and unimportant to the story.
@@Hephera Never underestimate a competent writer's ability to misuse a perfectly good character or a character's death. It's easier than you'd think!
@@donbionicleare these competent writers in the room with us right now?
@@Hephera "Your mongrel tongue something something" That mongrel is gonna be the dad
Lol, Grant says this is the same as the first WC3 mission...5 secs later... My little Timmy got kidnapped by some gnolls, could you find him please? :D
Literally thought the same thing. "How long until we get the little timmy quest?"
I can understand trying to save someone's child. But going out of the way to rescue some medieval peasant's chicken in a supposedly sci-fi game?
@@Anomen77 I was surprised it was called livestock, isn't a chicken poultry? :D
@@kurtonela They're both. Livestock are the domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting in order to provide labour and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. So Horses, cows, chickens, sheeps, etc. are all livestocks.
@@Anomen77 As long as people want REAL omelets we will need to keep REAL chickens. And people will always want REAL omelets. No genre issues for me. Storytelling issues, though...
Something I love about starcraft cinematics that I think is important to include here is the sound a character makes when they move. Tychus is heavy and brutish, and so is his armor and you can hear the weight completely. At 1:10:33 Demon Popeye punches his hand and it makes a standard headbutt sound, which sounds too gentle for what (I think) I'm supposed to see this character as. I'm getting the vibe of a warlord whose undoing will be arrogance exposed by the first enemy that is actually a match for his power. I think instead of a gesture I would expect a professor to make at the end of a critical thought, make it more temperamental. If the character isn't supposed to be hot-headed, make his violence more sophisticated, like in the Brood War UED into cinematic where Stukov and DuGalle simply abandon the infantray as they enjoy their comfort.
I'm also thinking about why I didn't really feel attached to any character. It's a hard situation to introduce characters, this is a crew that has been working together for a while, they don't have to introduce themselves to each other so as a player we don't get to overhear that exposition. What I think I want is character moments that show me them in their prime rather than when they are confused or contemplating. For example, when we see Amara's hot dad in a cool laboratory in a cool base, but then we see him get annoyed at his daughter, yell at scientists to do things, and then do nothing with his gun. A leader I'm supposed to respect as much as Amara does in the next scene shouldn't be paralyzed by inaction in a stressful situation. When we hear that the alarm AI recommends evacuation, a worried father would tell his daughter to go on without him while he tries to buy time, when the demon Keese flys out a leader who cares about their team pulls a shocked scientist to safety, and when equipment needs to be deactivated why wouldn't he roll up his sleeves and do what he can while we see the situation worse around him? Have the saboteur Michio Kaku lookin' guy shoot the console to stop him, and only then have the dad pull the gun on the guy when he knows that it wasn't panic that caused the inaction.
Let's hope someone at Frost Giant read this comment. This is a very valid point. Sound effects are super important in cinematics
Overall i dont think this is what you want to showcase if you're Stormgate: Tracer the Warden fighting alongside Footmen and Riflemen against Cho'gall to seize Frostmourne. The first two missions put a very bad taste in my mouth.
First mission feels to me like a worse-paced version of Warcraft III's first mission. I wish they'd give you additional units/abilities earlier on in the mission.
The other two seem fine, though, and I like the progression of Mission 3 in particular.
Animations remind me a lot of Warcraft III, for better or worse.
I'd honestly compare it more to Warcraft III's PROLOGUE mission, which it stacks a little bit better against. Needs polish regardless though.
honestly feels like they should have saved the distress call till later and your just on patrol maybe toss a line out that they were jammed but no it just kinda slap dashes in or maybe just make sure the abilities open up in small escalating segments and give you control of the new guys so you don't get the perception your side are all stupid
It does have a very strong 'first mission of the scourge of lordaeron, but worse designed' vibe. The map is a lot more linear, the sidequests are worse, and the heroes are a downgrade from even a level 1 WC3 hero in terms of interactivity.
They even had the WC3 Wolf howling at the beginning of the first mission 😅.
@@Msatthew No it doesn't. The Prologue missions are simple and easy while explaining it out to you the basics of RTS controls and how to play Warcraft via dialogue. These first three missions barely teach anything via text, let alone audio, and the difficulty is rough.
Here we see Tracer, Soldier 76 and Reinhardt go on a field trip in Strahnbrad, rescuing little Timmy the chicken and getting four peasants to grab their pistols and fight the horde. I sure hope Reinhardt don't somehow fall under the spell of flamemourn
Yeah, the OP looks like the guy can't hit anything. Not sure if that's the intent or it's meant to show that pistols don't work against them. If the latter, they should at least stutter/flinch. Though... he could just be an admin instead of an actual fighter so....
I understand why a bunch of fantasy characters would drink from a magical well to heal their wounds. But standing next to an unknown object with 'powerful energy' seems like something no one would willingly do. As far as they know, they all just got space cancer.
Yeah honestly I feel like that just feels off. Could have even been a moment to show off the survivors trying to use demon stuff for their own end or maybe show the powers or tech of their side, saying "oh wow magic energy source" just feels like it's in the worst of either world.
This was absolutely my least favorite part. Seriously.
Dang, everyone knows that's the worst kind of cancer.... thoughts and prayers for those brave soldiers.
"Space cancer" is an oxymoron, cancer is your own cells going out of control, so it's never an alien thing.
Mission 1 having multiple uncontrollable allies with suicidal ai that grants a game over on their death is certainly an.... inspired design move. Gives me early 2000 rts vibes, although not in a good way.
Yeah, it's weird how they improve and innovate on certain points, and on other go back to design from 20-30 years ago
Old habits die hard I guess
I think they already fixed it, when i played he actually did what he was supposed to. And survived without much effort, and is was also playing on hard
Red alert is a special kind of jank having the first mission of the allied campaign having Einstein as a hard failure point who can easily get sniped by an allied boat missing a shot.
Then the last mission requires you to take action as soon as possible or you lose at the 3 second mark, and if you take the wrong actions you will then lose at the 10 second mark, definitely salty from my playthrough I completed last week
@@flarys6732 at what points did they improve or innovate?
The objective of this campaign is super unique: you have to collect 5 pieces of an ancient artifact, guarded by progressively stronger forces...
and in the finale you will combine those 5 pieces into one Xel... - i mean alien artifact to purge the corruption ;)
As a beginner 3d artist one thing that I noticed is that there is too much going on with the units. when they are clumped up it's really hard to tell them apart due to the VFX combined with units color and shape language being sort of weak results in it being very hard to tell both number and type of units used. There are many things Starcraft 2 did better in that department that this game could learn from:
1. Camera is too close, ironically units being smaller/seen from further away makes them easier for human brain to recognize. It's like looking for 4 leaved clover, it's easier to spot it from far away despite seeing more of them at once.
2. Color coating units, use of non team colors really helps to make unit types differ from each other especially when they have similar body type.
Examples:
Marine - mostly team + dark grey, and noticeable tint of bright orange.
Marauder - Mostly black with a little bit of team, significantly bigger than a marine the way it moves helps it stand out. Marine is holding a gun in both hands making his movement little stiff. meanwhile marauder has his hands free so the swing then back and forth a little bit.
Ghost - Mostly light grey some black and team color glow near the head region. Despite moving similarly to a marine that white and glow really stands out. Thats mega important since thay are some of the most dangerous units.
Reaper - Their model is hind of similar to that of a marine mostly consisting of team color and dark grey even then they manege to stand out beacause of their black heads(which ends up making them look like a black spot surrounded by their team color. Also they have very strong identity due to the constant flames bursting our of their jetpack, sound sound cues and the crazy speed at which they move. Then you hear that sound you instantly know that a jetpack dude has jumped on your ramp.
This even applies to campaign units with firebats being mostly muted orange and medic's white with noticeable bit of green canbined with their huge sheilds(much bigger than the ones marines have)
Meanwhile in Stormgate all units are mostly dark grey with decent bit of team color and all of them kind of move the same. Also shine on halberd dudes is really distracting.
Time for a bit of good stuff
Tho camerawork in cinematics is something to be appreciated. I really like the way it goes about the cuts and angles. When it comes to the animation itself:
Hair of the main girl could use a little bit of jiggle animation but only in the cutscenes so it does not feel like clay. In game it would be a little bit distracting.
Also at the end of the third mission then the huge army of demons charges they really should be destroying stuff on their way. it looks really jarring that they just stroll here. maybe put some people and building trying to defend it set their hp to 1/4th of the usual during the cutscene and make that army just utterly demolish them to make them actually look threatening
GL HF to the devs!
Ah also forgot to add demon telecommunication tech really should look different to that of a human. Maybe turn it into a green flaming eyeball or something climatic like that.
I've also been dabbling in 3D modeling for a few years, most 3D RTS tends to get its unit designs just... wrong and things become unreadable pretty quickly.
High quality comment.
I feel the need to point out the fact that Amaras shots bounce to a secondary target. Just like one of Tracers talent options in Heroes of the storm. Putting that out there.
Oh my god, it really is "Here is all of blizzard entertainment in one game"
First mission - Fun thing I noticed other games often do when you get an ally to join you but only after the fight. If they are meant to survive it, they will stop taking damage when below 1/6 of their max hp and sometimes even small healing on ownership change.
1:11:15 I think that this is a very well-said point. Stormgate is not doing a good job of convincing me that it has something that SC2 or WC3 don't (or other RTS games, but we all know what standard Frost Giant is going to be compared to). They have a sci-fi space soldiers aesthetic and a fantasy demons aesthetic both existing in the same game, but the audiovisual experience of these missions really didn't sell the clashing aesthetics to me. Early-access does buy them some wiggle room in the polish department, especially in the presentation department, but the first impression they gave was one that felt very plastic-y and lacking in weight. It's been mentioned in the comments here already: Mission 1 felt like a poorly paced version of WC3's human campaign mission, and it lacked the charm that Arthas and Uther brought to the table. Grant remarked within moments of getting control of the infiltrators in Mission 3: "Oh, it's an engineer. From Command & Conquer." I think that C&Cs engineers are a fun and creative unit, and I absolutely understand that there would be a desire to play with the concept in a new game, but it adds to the sense of unoriginality. I'm left wanting Stormgate to show off its own ideas, and if their most interesting units are too complicated to throw in tutorial missions, then I want them to sell me on their presentation, visuals, audio, dialog, and atmosphere. I want to a-move some marines and end the mission with a riotous band of disgruntled civilians firebombing a building or the whole atlantean army returning to help fight off krakens and scorpion men. I crave that spectacle. Stormgate is not giving it to me right now. That makes me sad.
Hey they do sell that the marines and demons clash together, and by that I mean that they look like they come from two different games.
Well said and thanks for basically voicing my thoughts, since I struggled to put them into words.
I do want to add one other point as well, and that is how the story seems to not really trust us to connect the dots. It puts itself very bluntly which can be seen in the cinematic before the first mission. A character that from the design and name we can assume is the child from the opening is sitting, holding a memento. They get a call for a mission, get up, put the memento in a cabinet, "Happy birthday dad." and the scene ends. If it played out like that, it would be IMO a strong scene.
However, Barricade waddles in and is like "Hey, you ready? Oh, your dad. He was a good man. We miss him.". Any subtlety is just thrown out the window and it gives the vibes of the storyteller not trusting us to understand the setup.
Reminds me of Homeworld 3 vs Homeworld 1 writing.
The art style was already not selling me, but man that first mission was somehow even more rough than I expected.
To add onto this, The game sadly feels uninspired so far for this human faction and the whole human high tech faction vs a more fantasy demon faction and the way that they both look, how Overwatch they look, how Warcraft the missions seem and the lack of punch, sudden difficulty spikes then sudden difficulty drops feel off.
Now we are also on an artifact hunt which is also familiar territory but it's a blade that's also seemed to talked to MC so yeah. It feels like they are rehashing old ground and mixing it together trying to do something with it vs making something entirely new and it doesn't exactly look like it feels the best.
I mean are they meaning to air this as a successor to warcraft in style because I can feel it a lot, especially with logo art. I kinda wish they would be a bit more unapologetic about it if that's the case.
@@Miko101 with how the heros moved, it felt like a moba.
*"Stormgate"*
Artanis : *"Gate indeed."*
Got Torchlight vibes but it's RTS.
The intro feels like FFXV, they could expand and make us really care about the Dad and the relationship with Amara, but they just time skipped it. What a missing opportunity.
Yeah, that is the problem with most modern stuff. It always has to be action, action, action.
Of course the trailer starts with a sirene blazing - what else could it be?
The problem is: We know nothing of the characters, we haven't seen them.
And that's why we don't care. And we are correct to not care.
Because why should we care about a character when the writers themselves obviously don't care either?
Invest 1 minute of the trailer, showing the two of them togethr as father and daughter. Then start with "oops, seems like something is going wroing" and end with "it's a disaster".
The first minute without action is not boring - it is the most important stuff because it is the foundation that we care what happens next.
Feels like we could have used the tutorial missions playing as dad, trying and failing to contain it but getting Amara out
The characters of the intro are introduced in their short story that was published a few months prior to launch, and it was quite well written. The intro scene takes place at the moment of the final entry in the short story.
@@Moingboy that is a genuinely awful idea. Never ever make your players leave the game to get to see the start of your story
@@Moingboy Yo.. What?
That's a bad idea (like the other guy said), like.. You're saying, to actually CARE about these characters, I have to PURPOSELY GO and LOOK for their story.. When i'm just there to ENJOY the campaign??
Man, what?
I'm in awe of the line reading at 8:42. The only thing that makes sense with their budget is that they specifically asked Amara's VA to deliver the line "Hell yeah proceed. Punch it." in the flattest, most unenthused way she could.
One thing that I've noticed with her lines so far (and I'm not even to the first mission yet!) is that it feels like they were written for a different character. If the plan is that Amara is driven and serious because of the traumatic demon-related loss of her Hot Dad, she probably shouldn't be saying "hell yeah" or "punch it".
(This feels super nitpicky, but one thing that Warcraft 3 and the two Starcrafts did really well was matching characters to voices. It might sound like this is a polish thing, but voice acting is pretty expensive and they'd have to get the VA to re-record every line that they wanted changed, so...)
...
On a brighter note, Blockade looked like a goofy marshmallow man when he first got introduced, and now I can't take him seriously at all. Don't change that devs, he's perfect.
Not nitpicky at all. Word choice and line delivery are important for establishing characterization. For example, Jim Raynor's folksy, down to Earth talk: "Howdy, boys. I'm Jim Raynor, Marshall of these parts." and then when he gets upset we see his passionate fervor: "Are you kidding me?! If we hadn't destroyed that, this whole place could've been infested!" "I guess you wouldn't be a Confederate if you weren't a complete pain in the (rear)".
Compare that to Arcturus Mengsk and his loftier, more noble delivery, "Good day, Magistrate. My name is Arcturus Mengsk, and I represent the Sons of Korhal. You're familiar with the Confederate propaganda surrounding my group, but your reputation suggests you'll see past it". And who could forget when the mask finally slips, "You'll regret that. You don't seem to understand my situation here. I will not be stopped; not by you, or the Confederates, or the Protoss, or anyone! I will rule this sector, or see it burnt to ashes around me!"
Both these characters are memorable because they were distinct in their specific word choice, line delivery and what we could glean of who they are because of it. Raynor is a simple, yet honest and passionate man, one who doesn't take dishonesty or manipulations lightly. Mengsk is the opposite: a high minded manipulator who uses flattery and subterfuge to get what he wants, and dreams of grand ambitions, but once he gets what he wants he will toss away anyone who he views as inconvenient. And Heaven help anyone who gets in his way.
As for the Stormgate characters, I got none of that. The line delivery ranges from fine to "Are you sure you don't want to do another take?" Nothing so far seems exceptional, and while it is early in the campaign, it doesn't set a good precedent. Hopefully it gets better, but it is important to put your best foot forward, in order to hook players early and make them care about the characters. Because so far, I don't.
My thoughts on the intro cinematic: Perhaps show the bullets hitting the demon things, but either not doing anything, or only making it flinch a tiny bit, show just how outmatched he is.
or just have a few of them drop or explode the bullets should clearly hit and not leave the audience blaming his aim
@@marley7868 Also an option.
yeah dude not hitting anything feels like its falling into the trope of 'man incompetent, woman smart'
@@corberus3119 I think this is just sloppy work cause they decided to give suicidal ai on accident not even saying they won't do that just nah this case reads sloppy
Exactly what I thought, add some sparks pinging off of the demon's armor to show the futility of his efforts.
Starcraft itself was plenty derivative, with space marines and bug aliens being well-established tropes... but Starcraft created new characters, gameplay and stories which in the end gave it's own identity until eventually Starcraft defined the tropes.
100% Agreed.
StarCraft managed to mix all the fun 80's and 90's Sci Fi tropes (like Babylon 5, Stargate, Star Trek, Star wars, 40K, Aliens, Predator, etc.) into a stew that became its own thing.
Especially after the 1997 redesigns.. I don't think Stormgate is going to pull that off especially in the super-drawn out time decade long game dev process we have these days.
The setting for starcraft is good too. Like u could make other games with starcraft ip and would work well of don't want another rts. Which is probably what will happen.
One of the things I'd love to see in a potential rework is a bit of a redesign for those civilian volunteers in the first mission! The way they pulled out their pistols, took a shot, had their arms drop and the pistol vanish, and then had to pull out their pistol again for the next attack looked a little unpolished. I don't know it it's possible for them to just keep their pistols up between shots, hold them lower/to the side while moving, and put them away after a few seconds without combat, but I think that would be a small touch that improves how polished it feels
the characters look like they were made in heroforge
I'd been thinking the style looked really familiar, i think you nailed it
3:00 I don't get the sense that anyone is in danger, not even the guy being picked up and carried off. They aren't moving like they're scared.
Makeshift firearms are a thing.. All you need is a barrel, ammunition, and something that can ignite the powder. It's a bit more complicated then that of course but thats the basic mechanics
Good enough for a Japanese prime minister
doesn't get much simpler than a slamfire shotgun. Two pipes, a nail and a shell.
Depending on the ammunition you don't even need something to ignite the powder, just something to hit the target.
Major thing, as with most firearms, is getting the ammunition. Given its an RTS, not asking about ammunition is always a given, but, like, where did they get it? Did the captors let them keep there guns? At least let them have an animation where they loot a corpse of sommat.
I think Grant hit the nail on the head when he said he didn't know anything about the characters. If we only have 9 missions to get to know our cast, we really need to jump into the characterization early. So far we have...four? named characters, and we know next to nothing about any of them. I feel this is especially egregious with Amara; from the cinematic and the fact that she's been present for every mission, it feels like we're meant to be watching the story from her perspective. But after three missions following her around, we don't know any more than what we learned in the intro cinematic: her dad was killed by infernals and she hates them. They could really have filled some of the empty space in the first mission with commentary from her, to give us insight into how she views the world. I do also think they need to work on the dialogue. It feels like people saying lines, not having a conversation. That could be partly a problem with the voice acting, but honestly the lines themselves aren't doing much beyond conveying information about the mission. Some more focus on casual conversation between the characters would help flesh them all out for the player. I hope to see some more work done with the characters and story, because I do like the rest of the game so far.
One example of strong characterization to me, is the black male with the reinhardt hammer and armor, he seemed to really focus on doing the right thing and helping people seemed a very high priority to him almost all of his lines were about saving the prisoners, coincidentally he was the only character I started liking the only one with some character
that's because alot of the setting is being set up in the codex. You have some backstory on the characters and factions there in fact. I won't comment if it's good or bad since I feel like what's given for free isn't enough imho to judge the overall writing. I don't feel however they've done better/worse than most other non-sequel games campaign
people have covered most of the valid points here but personally, I'm kind of over using "data pads" or some such variant of the idea to convey information. It's such a weird mix of "oh no it's totally optional, just a little side thing teehee" and "yeah this is where we're going to squeeze in all the worldbuilding that would have felt unnatural for characters to just say. It will be a wall of text (: "
It's also just kind of dull, especially when you have to stop playing the mission to read them right then and there
THIS!
I personally think that this was really not the best decision. If you can't integrate worldbuilding, then... Don't? I mean, StarCraft somehow managed to be a pretty cohesive and believeable without any datapads and even without any of the supplemental material
Those datapads would be okay, imo, if they were a adiotape thinkg, as many of the mid 2000's early '10s games did
It's like notes in horror games, which is a trope I know i'm beyond sick of.
Tiberium Wars introduced the Intel Database, which I think is a much better way to do it
You get to read story in-game, and as you progress, you get different snippets of game's main story for free (and you can choose to finish objectives for additional ones)
@@VasiliyOgniovto be fair SC1 had both a game manual AND very good weapon/armour/unit/building descriptions in-game.
Im not a fan of the item tooltips not telling you exactly what the item does, like Bandage can have the lore tooltip but also add in a different color at the bottom "Consumable", "Heals X Amount of HP"
I also dont think you should call your workers B.O.B as that stands for Battery Operated Boyfriend
Marathon established a B.O.B. as "Born on Board" as in crew of a station or a ship not originating from a planet (Earth I suppose?)
@@IdealIdeas100 I thought of big omnic butler, because of all the other things they definitely did not steal from overwatch
Clearly it stands for B.O.B., ant/alien/robot/teenager protagonist of the 1993 EA game of the same name.
B.O.B used to also stand for 'Bend Over Boyfriend' :D
Beast of burden reference I thought
I dunno. For four years work, with pretty decent money, and a big, experienced team, it feels... very derivative, and quite rough around the edges (compared to the expectations they're setting). Either one of those is forgivable, a well done rehash with nothing original can still be a fun game, and an innovative game that's somewhat janky can be worth playing too. But this is looking like derivative jank at the moment. Which, um... I expect better from the kind of team and funding they've got.
Funding and experience is actually a downside with spin-off studios because they burn cash fast. I'm in big software development and it is shocking how little software you actually get for a million dollars. Experienced people are extremely expensive.
@@sabarjp Also they tend to no longer have the same passion as they once had
At the beginning I'm going to be a little reductive here: So we have Not Arthas (who is on a quest for vengeance to find and kill Not Malganis) with the mechanics of a Not Warden, designed to look like Not Tracer, tempted by Not Frostmourne on Mission 2, the first 2 missions are almost a beat-for-beat retread of Mission 1 and Mission 2 from Warcraft 3 human campaign (right down to the Not Blademaster being the objective for the end of the mission). It does make me very concerned about the story. I don't expect Amara to become the Lich King, but it's looking like they're potentially retreading the vengeance leads to a fall to darkness storyline, which is understandable (it's an easy way to keep some of the characters around while still having storyline development and showing off a new faction), but I think that would be too much of a retread of WC3's story.
Mission 3 looks a lot better though - the stealth section is a teaching tool for the value of the infiltrator, and the 2 bonus objectives and 3 different bases all being in different directions adds a lot of options for how you want to tackle the mission, and even for newer players teaches them to defend their base and to split their attention.
I like that they give you a choice on mission 1 - I think RTS needs a LOT more of that, where choices are what make no build missions interesting. On Piercing the Shroud in SC2 they tried it too but the problem is eventually there were "optimal" choices (or ones that didn't matter) rather than ones that influenced the narrative or played into or against your playstyle.
On a personal level I'm mildly annoyed that the first hero you play as is the modern equivalent of an agi DPS. That's already the most popular and overplayed type of hero in most games. Supports, healers, and casters REALLY don't get enough love in RTS. In the original WC3, the only heroes you have that fall in that role are Jaina (for two missions), Kel'thuzad (for two missions), Furion (for two missions), and Thrall, who barely counts as a caster because of how tanky he is. And I believe you start out with Far Sight so his power is kneecapped for the first few missions compared to what it could be.
To be honest Arthas wasn't the first to follow part of the route Amara is going through. Kerrigan was. She became Lich King of Starcraft whole 4 years before Arthas with her reigning supreme at the end. Just like Lich King did at the end of Frozen Throne. And then if you look at her full story (SC1 + SC2) and story of Illidan (WC3 + WoW Legion) they are like 70% same key points ;) If recycling is done well, it's not noticable.
@@Kevkoss Kerrigan was not Arthas. She was Jaina. Jaina was supposed to die before reaching Heartholme but that was scrapped for being Kerrigan ( she was supposed to be what Sylvanus later became - a banshee). But the story changed.
@@Kevkoss Okay, even if this wrong in some points..
But your last point is the most important. If recycling is done WELL, then that's good! But if it's not.. You get stormgate (so far).
@@Kevkossthe twist is Kerrigans transformation is sudden. Zerg are presented as an unfeeling, unstoppable force of nature that has no thought or real intent (half of Rebel Call is spent thinking they are just a Confederate bioweapon). The capturing someone and then transforming them into something tht isn't a living bomb is something the players don't expect.
In WC3 Arthas has a gradual fall. Not only are we told of his fate very early via Kelthuzad, but he also has an actual descent. They are vastly different.
@@ofgreyhairwaifu4089 I'm not saying it's 1:1 story, but main keypoints and principles are shared there. That's why I mentioned part about copying being done well. You borrow homework, but change enough to be distinct.
I definitely feel like it's a Blizzard game, despite it being Frost Giant. Yes, they are led by former Blizzard developers, but I was really hoping to see them take a few risks and make an interesting new story. Instead I am just afraid that Amara is going to listen to the talking sword about how to get revenge for her lost father, collect the other artifact pieces, and become the very thing she hates in the end. I just... didn't really feel anything original to this story so far. It is the first 3 missions. They could surprise us. I'm just very concerned at this time that it won't.
I think this is part of the reason that even Amara didn't really feel like a character that I even could get attached to.
Also: What was with the person at the end having to be put at gun-point to get her on the ship? I feel like with a literal army of demons about 30 seconds away, all it takes is to ask "would you rather stay here?" Your main character feels so quick to threaten violence even against seemingly innocent people...
MC is extremely unlikeable, that's for sure.
Could be a lot better, I'd say. Right now I wouldn't be willing to pay money for this game.
next gen RTS my ass
1:11:43 Blizzard stuff is cool whether you know what it's based on or not. This stuff just isn't in the same way. It feels like watching someone play with super shiny megablocks.
I do like how they have a consistent theme of humans working with the demons in a way not even Diablo pulled off: their deranged cultists just feel like enemies whereas here they're people trying to survive in a terrible situation. I also like how ruthless the "good guy" faction is, that's kind of refreshing.
So far, not terribly excited.
Man, that is...not good? Like, not at all? Those were the supposed big brains at blizzard? It feels they just sat on their laurels for 20 years.
"Yeah, in high school i was the king of the prom!"
Somehow it seems they didn't learn anything new. I hope they improve.
Its A/B or rather ex A/B Devs !! What the hell do you expected? They doing the same bullshit like at A/B workpkace !! Theyre yust useless idiots!!🙄
Yeah, I felt sus based off its artstyle initially, it looked generic, and too cartoonish compared to what they were going for, which was Overwatch's real clean but ever so slightly real look. The VAs are stilted, the animation is just bad, the characters feel wrong, and the gameplay style seems exceptionally boring. If Stormgate flops I won't be the least bit surprised
They even had the WC3 wolf howling at the beginning of the first mission 😅.
Hey hey hey, its an early access thingy after all
That’s the problem. Just because something is in Early Access doesn’t mean that things people complain about will actually get fixed.
Honestly, mission design needs some work to say the least. The basic concepts used for the first mission are literally behind the way that the same mission concept was done in Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos, over 20 years ago. Defense of Strahnbrad isn't some grand masterpiece either. It just has an open map to explore as you want, side quests that don't feel ridiculous, multiple enemy types and doesn't try to use your allies to kill you. That's not a lot to ask.
I don't think we should be completely negative about this or anything, but there's definitely things to improve upon, and Stormgate had set a lot of hefty expectations which makes it a bit jarring.
Mission 3 is okay but the first 2 are weird as fuck and confusing, even down to the timing of everything, mission 2 fundamentally doesn't flow well in addition to all of it's weird and bad choices
Automatic-like for the disclaimers, it is the honorable way of working, and makes me trust & respect Grant even more.
xeah unlike Ners Slayer and his Death of the Game SrarCraft 2, at which he never mentined during the vid, that he will give out beta keys for stoormgate, which ultimately led me to believe that that vid was more or less bought by Frostgiant
@@wolfsruhm lol, I recently got that in my youtube recs. I looked at the title and went "don't recommend channel" without second thought. The fact that he gave out keys fits perfectly.
@@student76543 I watched it and it was very poorly researched, he compared the twitch viewing numbers with Ao2 and Ao4 and was just wrong. Ignored the casual scene and (the thing that stopped me from believing anything he said) archon mode was a WOL thing. No? it was a LOTV thing either on release or very soon afterwards.
From what I heard the Titanfall community have similar complaints.
I think a few other things this game has issues with.
1) Amara feels like a boring lead to me. Stoic bad ass woman who has almost no personality and be interchanged with anyone. She doesn't have any personality to her. It feels so hollow.
2) Melee combat animations and units just look like they feel... off.
3) The sound design is very inconsistent and the dialogue lacks any personality or flavor.
Lets compare this to Starcraft 1)
1) We look at our early tutorial levels with Jim Raynor. We got a lot more personality out of him from the way he talks and acts very quickly. General Duke introduced in mission 3, is immediately given a quite some personality. Your first interaction with Kerrigan is FILLED with personality, even outside the opening mission dialogues. These all make the characters quickly endearing and recognizable.
2) Zergling shred, zealots seem to ooze oomph with their fast double strike. The death animations are quick and snazzy, giving the gameplay oomph.
3) This one is mostly sound levels needing to be pitched right, but also I think the dialogue choices are just too... On the nose? Think again in SC1 when you are supply blocked. "You must Construct additional pylons." "Spawn more overloads" "Additional supply depots, required." They all oozed the unique nature of the factions themselves. Stormgate is giving the information needed, but in a way that almost feels impersonal.
All in all, I think so far form what I've seen, the biggest problem of the game is just how impersonal it feels. Are we supposed to relate to these characters? Think about how Tychus was introduced at the start of Mission 2 in SC2. He instantly oozed personality and you could tell the relationship between him and Raynor within a few lines, without being given explicit details.
I can't tell the relationship Amara has with well... Anyone!!
The Paldrons keep getting bigger
1:03:35 Being called 'You idiots' by some demon guy is so funny to me. It's so juvenile that it makes me think this is a cartoon
It already looks like a cartoon, so...
@@gachibro8080 WC3 looks like a cartoon. This looks like plastic action figures.
Really not digging the world-building at all. Warcraft, Starcraft, C&C, heck Age of Empires all became so popular because they had a really cool world with kickass military aesthetic. This just feels very uninspired in comparison.
As someone said in Harstems comments, it's WC3 with a fortnite skin
@@tossedtripod6458 Yea its crazy how fortnite loooking everything looks, the art direction isn't the worst thing in the world but it certainly isn't unique or interesting.
@@tossedtripod6458 painfully accurate
All of those games had very strong overarching themes and everything about those games story, aesthetics and design supported that theme. Stormgate went straight for infinite demons spewing out of a portal but didn't to think about designing the rest of the world, especially the human faction, around such a drastic event.
It really feels like an AI came up with a design and script and characters based off of existing successful franchises, then they had artist base the design and story/dialogue of what the AI had wrote. Like its not as bad as AI slop but it just feels so so so uninspired and its hard for me to find anything to love about it, or hate, or just feel any type of way. just the most safe design possible
I'm over-all somewhat confused. There is some competency that is clearly shown, the opening cinematic shows amazing fidelity in many aspects (odd-looking demon guy aside), but I am just confused as to what the game is really trying to sell me on when it comes to what its actual identity is and the point of this early access.
And unlike most early access games that explode, it lacks a blooming niche to fill for desperate players to flock to.
What's the point of this early access is what I am left asking myself, why not continue development with an active dev-blog and some hype trailers to keep the fans engaged, with some polished level demos every now and then.
The level design is lacking, it feels stilted. The animations need lots, lots of work. The characters feel somewhat wooden and it struggles to flow too well. The actual story and everything surrounding it doesn't have much identity to stand on its own. And yeah, it's early access, that's kinda(?) fine. We could go into immense detail on all of it, but I do feel most of it has already been said in the video, it just doesn't feel remotely finished, this is an early alpha/beta-build more or less.
But why am I to buy in as of now, what's it trying to show me? Because right now, I just... got nothin'.
It'd be a lot easier if this was a free demo, but it really feels like they are charging people to playtest.
25 bucks for an odd starcraft clone that still seems years from being even close to finished while starcraft 2 is baseline free is just... well bizarre.
I understand if they are strapped for cash... but I fear if that's the case then this project is already rather doomed, because this is not gonna get people hyped. And if they do have the funding from their crowd funding... why are they selling it now? This is just not it.
I guess my biggest gripes are that it seems like a lot of decisions I just don't understand. Apparently it will be free-to-play august 13th... that kinda... makes it worse.
Again, I am not trying to mindlessly hate, I can only judge on what I'm seeing. And what I am seeing has left me confused if nothing else. Just bad business decisions on every level, really.
Like it has potential, probably, but this is far, far too rough to release like this.
Mind you, I can see the good. Mission 2 has that spark! But it still feels too early, you only release once, very few games can recover from it.
It's damage control. They are desperately trying to squeeze money out of it while they can. The only thing we can hope is that the squeezed money goes towards actually making the game.
But it stands to ask: what were they doing when the money WAS there? Were the writers that couldn't produce something that isn't a copy of WC3 RoC plot making the engine before? Were they copypasting levels from other games? Did the concept artist do anything in those YEARS of development besides just opening their folders of Overwatch/Diablo 4 work?
Its the same story of every game ever -- when you run low on funds, you HAVE to release or cancel. The team they have is not cheap college-level ramen-eating folks that don't mind missing paychecks, they are experienced professionals with families to feed. I think they really needed better project management staff to run something of this scope.
@@sabarjp The result is not what you'd expect of professionals, and if they didn't know how to budget their game they really, really shouldn't have made it.
Hey, looks like Warfield survived being Kerriganed, and is now in this game!
Get another Lancer into the fight!
Maaan, Barricade has nothing on Warfield. Warfield is the man! Still cant believe he got done dirty in HOTS
I feel like this Champaign is really rushed for a early access and I think they should take more time to polish the details and animations before showing a early access. And finally I feel the story/characters could be changed to be more unique and not taken from Warcraft 3
They're out of time/money. That's why they needed to push the EA launch now. They need to sell roughly $1M per month to sustain themselves another year.
@allanshpeley4284 well then they're done for, as is, this game does not deserve to sell a million per month
You mentioned it being a StarCraft, Diablo and Overwatch mashup but for me, those hero mechanics (all the item collecting and stuff) and character-focused narrative basically scream WarCraft. Even the story so far seems to have elements of WC3's human campaign in it. It's basically Blizzard Entertainment: The Game!
YEah, it just looks like a sci fi mashed WC3
Really the WC3 reforged is closer
It feels like Overwatch vs Diablo, while the gameplay feels like Warcraft 3 with Starcraft unit numbers and lethality.
Stormgate + Concord really look like games you'd see people playing in movies
About the opening cinematic:
It's fine to hand-wave details and such, but two things that should never be hand-waved, especially in a first introduction, are identities and motivations.
At the very least, tell us who this outfit is that has this research base, and tell us about what they are trying to accomplish before everything goes to hell.
Not only does this help us care about the identities and motivations of people in your world, it reassures us that YOU care about those things, and that kind of reassurance never goes amiss. As it is, I was almost at the end of the first mission before I started caring about the story, or even feeling confidence that there was one.
PS: I'd also love an exterior establishing shot of the Warhawk base before we just start up with the inside stuff. Again, show us you care, and maybe briefly explain who the warhawks are. 2 or 3 sentences is not a wall of text, it's just a nice introduction.
"Hey sweetie, I gotta get back to work at the mysterious facility trying to open a portal to hell. I think something's gone wrong and we've opened a portal to hell. Not really sure how that happened."
I'm gonna be honest, I'm not sure the devs themselves knows.
You guys are giving this way more thought than Frost Giant did.
@@Argusthecat Well, that does sound like Doom, but also not good like Doom. Kind of like with this game and SC2.
This is so... generic. I feel no interest in this world. It does not draw me in. I don't want to know anything more about any of these characters, they are boring. This feels like Starfield in how uninteresting the setting is.
@@JasoTheRed48F2 also, writing is just...meh. I mean, why does the main character sit in her personal chamber with guns at the ready and full body armor? It's like Jim constantly wearing his power armor in Joey Rey's bar. Feels kinda lazy.
Personal opinion of course, so please disagree with me if you do. But I don’t think the problem is the world. Semi-future humans face off against invading demons is fine. Not original, mind you, but hell Doom is awesome. RTS Doom should be fine.
But the characters existing in this world are so empty. They don’t respond to anything beyond the most obvious and bare essential barks of a response. They have no opinions about their story or the state of the world that is unique and engaging to them.
They aren’t characters so much as mannequins.
Agree i really lovdd early wol and early sc1 because of the politics raynor vs cpnfederacy, then the brewing and escalating tensions between mengsk and raynor.
biggest vibe to me is that it feels like they didnt want to make this campaign, but they felt obligated. idk mission 2 was better but woah what a rocky start.
i watched 16 minutes and started scrolling comments because it already bored me
We were promised a "next gen RTS" - I was expecting StarCraft 2+... But it feels like Warcraft 3 Reforged with a sci-fi skin.
I'll be honest, this is... Rough, very, very rough. And considering how late in development it is, I have doubts this is salvageable.
that's the problem. It was arrogantly overhyped by it's creators.
@@lukas8708 Absolutely. The worst part is... I want this game to succeed, I want to be good, because RTS genre needs good titles around.
But me wanting something won't make it so.
One thing I am noticing is that units are not color-coded. In starcraft marines are BLUE, marauders are BLACK, medics are WHITE and firebats are RED. It makes it pretty easy to glance at a blob of infantry units and figure out what your composition is. Here, especially with lancers and riflemen, I think it could get a little confusing - their models look pretty similar at a passing glance.
On the topic of animations: I find that the way units rotate during gameplay is a bit jarring. It is too "instant", especially for bigger units like people eaters. Maybe they should lower the turning speed, or use animation curves to better control the turning.
It also seems that some transitions between different animations on the units are "instant" as well, but they would feel better and smoother with some blending.
This might be nitpicky, but I feel that this would greatly improve the feel of units (especially the turning).
I despise turn speed in these kinds of games Although having it does make it look better, in turns of feel it's way worse. Like comparing league of legends to Dota. It's not wrong to have it not having turn speed gives you more snappy feeling micro.
I've been saying this from the beginning. It's like how the horses move in AOE2 - 8 directions.
More realistic turns makes everything play clunky since there's a delay between your inputs and things happening. RTS figured this out long ago.
@@sabarjp you could make it so that turn speed is purely visual (ie units could fire and move in other directions than the one they're facing). Them firing at units in their back wouldn't be very noticeable if they turn fast enough for example.
Turn speed is something I don't really notice until it's not there anymore (I had to watch out for it specifically to notice it in SC2), and it does improve visuals and feel a lot.
Doing it this way also means micro would still feel responsive.
What's concerning to me is that the campaign is only 9 missions, but the story doesn't seem to advance much in each mission.
Star Craft 1 got away with having 10 missions per campaign because the story advanced so much in each mission. Star Craft 2 got away with the story taking small steps in each mission because there were so many of them in each campaign.
I think the game would benefit heavily from between-mission cutscenes that don't further the primary narrative much or at all, but instead show the characters interacting with each other. Seeing their personalities clash in a peaceful environment would probably help endear them to us more (unless they're as flat as cardboard, but nothing short of dumpstering the idea would help at that point).
I feel like this game so far falls right in the gutter between 'Ooo More [Star/War]Craft' and 'Ooo, Brand New and Shiny RTS Franchise'
It's not leaning hard enough into being Starcraft 3/Warcraft 4/StarWarcraftcraft,
OR
Leaning hard enough into distancing itself enough from Blizzard's franchises
(And as an aside, I think it'd be Hilarious if it went *all in* on making a legally distinct Starcraft/Warcraft 'sequel', since Warcraft & Starcraft were both born from Copyright Chicanery with Games Workshop.)
Yeah, right now they've got all the dials turned to 6. It needs at least something at an 11. Or at least an 8. Feels like trying to hard not to make anyone unhappy, rather than taking some risks to make something anyone is really excited by. I mean I guess it's working for them in collecting funding but I think it's going to lead to a mush of a game unless they pick a direction and commit.
Remember in 2003 when we got heroes in Age of Mythology that didn't cause a game over when they were killed, and you needed to bring units to their location, so if you lost them outside of your territory you'd need to a significant force to rescue them? Remember in 2006 where Battle for Middle Earth 2 let you retrain your heroes from your fortress if they died?
It's not inherently a poor design decision to have units that you have to keep alive, but ideally you don't have it be a unit that YOU don't have control of that jumps into a group of enemies that melt it in 5 seconds. You can't tell me that anyone playtested this at 14:10. Don't give me that "It's early access," crap. It's the FIRST MISSION!
Aside from that you just have a weird setup for the situation. Amara's squadmates drop her off and let her wander around alone, shoot a couple goons, and walk past Barclay (Blockade?) who is just standing on top of a hill randomly, and drops a bad one liner. "Looks like you could use a hand." No she doesn't. There is ONE guy, and Amara has him completely handled. It's only after Barclay jumps to his death that you even get vision of the group of enemies that she'd need help. The line doesn't make sense to us when we hear it, and I personally think it's a weak delivery of the line regardless.
Then there is the mechanics of that fight. He jumps in with no input. It would be cooler if you got to use his jump yourself and control him from the start. Instead we see him jump to crush a gate, spin, and die. It's lame. I think having that group of enemies force you to retreat, and having Barclay jump directly into the fray while being competent (by maybe killing the enemies) That would have that one liner make sense while making me believe that this character has a IQ that is higher than room temperature.
I have more to say, but I'm only 20 minutes into this video, and I'm so unimpressed by this game. I'm trying to not be too harsh because I haven't seen much gameplay, and have played zero of it. I'm just having a hard time getting past the art style, while that's paired with gameplay that looks so boring. (Amara's dad looks like a valorant/fortnite character, and Amara looks like a Corpse Bride character that was stuffed into fortnite.)
This honestly feels and looks like W3 custom campaing instead of its own game. Very much "Warcraft in Space" and there's no Artanis to argue otherwise.
My main concern that the art style and the pacing of the missions are not in-line with the tone of the intro cinematic. Demons have invaded earth 20 years ago, as we see most of the infrastructure is destroyed, humanity should look like a broken in spirit and who are not broken needs to fight ruthlessly and in the first mission we are saving chickens?? The story needs to have a darker tone, models a more grim look. (Also please change the briefing screens, we are seeing holograms and AIs everywhere and we have a Fallout style screen?)
More like they decided to use the Terminal section of a mission screen from Starcraft II and extend it to the entire story's cutscene.
At 39:56 the BOB straight up quotes an scv voice line. There's getting away with cheeky references to your inspiration, and then there is outright plagiarism. If you are a new franchise that wants to establish a unique identity, reminding players that they could be playing the competion instead is a real bad move. Bobs shouldnt feel like scvs. They should feel like quirky robots with their own unique identities that make me appreciate Stormgate as a new entry. At least hide that line behind spam clicking the unit or something.
"Upgrade Complete" sounded the same as WC3 orc upgrade as well
I'm pretty sure it said "in the rear, with the beer" as opposed to "in the rear, with the gear"... Totally different... it's a whole single consonant off.
But seriously, it's too close for comfort still. As an easter egg such as, as you suggested, when spam clicking the unit, it would be a nice reference. As it is, it is all too familiar.
Surprised he didn't go "BoB good to go sir."
I get the point you’re trying to make but referencing your own work is not plaigarism.
In the real with the gear is a movie reference. So it was not original on the scv either. Do yeah they can use it nothing plaigarising abt it. U can check it in ablehawks dialogue video.
The big problem that I keep running into here is I don’t get any vibes from the different races. Infernals are trying to be both an endless horde and also big mean brutes that slaughter armies by themselves. I can’t tell if the humans are scrappy and down to earth, or super high tech smarts, or straight up superheros.
I really hope they get everything together and turn storm gate into something really cool.
This is something I was thinking too. None of the infernals units seemed like anything unique or special to the faction. Just varying models of basic melee dudes paired with varying models of basic ranged dudes. The only difference between human and infernal factions seem to be projectile speeds.
To be fair, these being early missions they likely don't want to stack the odds against you by introducing super late-game tech stuff. But even comparing this to starcrafts most basic units (Zealot, Marine, Zergling), it feels kinda bland.
@Arzanthemehgamer there needs to be some stand out units imo that ppl talk about to make it interesting. Feels like game lacks identity atm.
Was really excited about this when it was first announced, but now that it's actually here, I just don't see myself getting into it, honestly. The art style is deeply generic, combat feels boring and weightless, the storyline and dialogue feel completely uninspired, and the whole thing just has a mobile game vibe to it. For a studio that had $40 million dollars to spend, and kept positioning themselves as the "spiritual successor of blizzard", this just isn't it.
Yeah the weight is the most important thing
Yes, "mobile game" hits the nail on it's head honestly. That's what it looks like.
Mobile game nails the feeling
i think it easy to forget that a lot of sc2 was really uninspired and basic especially towards the end of its dev cycle with lotv
Yeah - I played the last demo for it and was deeply... whelmed. Not the worst RTS I've ever played or anything, but it felt utterly soulless. It looks and plays worse than Starcraft 2, a 14 year old game. It seemed to have worse pathing, delay, and punch to attacks/abilities. The writing is... about on par with HotS, which is truly impressive, and not in a good way.
It has a few interesting ideas, but I haven't seen a single thing that makes me want to play it. I'm at the point of hoping Grant just doesn't do anything with it so I can still enjoy the channel lol.
"looks like you could use a hand!"
*dies*
Honestly, I just finished watching two cutscenes and I already want to state few things.
- Personally, I don't like putting human face on demonic creatures or even aliens in general, but here I especially did not liked the final demon whose face looks more human then our protagonist from cutscene later.
I saw this and had to take a few seconds to process it before clicking
Well. This certainly looks better than the last time a team of former Blizzard employees developed a game about a sci-fi magitek enviroment invaded by a demon gate.
Maybe in terms of gameplay (I never played Hellgate), but in terms of setting and aesthetics this looks much worse.
@@pakkazull8370 I'm not fond of the Overwatch style character desing but at least characters have more than two faces and the ambient is way better. In HGL you had exactly three scenarios and they repeated ad infinitum. And yes, the weapons are a bit World of Warcraft and completely disproportionated but HGL had generic militar guns with weird random plates and antenae.
Oh, and believe me. You don't want to know how bad HGL gameplay could be. Like, "three minutes to kill a random zombie" bad.
I feel they are both problematic for different reasons. HGL was bad because it was a buggy mess, and the mission writing was really uninspired (the lack of unique areas and doodads certainly didn't help). Stormgate is a lot more competently made, but its aesthetics and art style clash horribly with the setting and story.
@@emilchan5379 Yeah, I think Stormgate is pretty flawed but at least it looks playable and doesn't hurt my eyes even if the design is bland. And it's a game that in development so maybe we can have some hope for it to improve.
HGL was just a mess in every sense.
@@emilchan5379 whats HGL?
Zenith. Gates.
Agreed. Gates.
Zenith gates. Ahead.
Artanis, zenith gates
Gates
Gates.
.... I really wonder if we'll ever get a good modern RTS campaign
Nope
:(
Maybe with Age of Mythology Retold
Hopefully grant will do good with his. He'll hopefully see all this, and think: "Huh.. Okay, don't do THAT"
To be honest I kinda like that even the first mission has some chellange to it on hard.
One huge thing tho is I would love if item descriptions were in italic or something, so you could make out the gameplay info vs fluff info at a glance.
I agree, but there were also things that just seemed like poor design.
Hard can be fun. The first mission isn't hard. It just occasionally hands you a game over screen by making your uncontrollable allies commit die.
The impression I got from this bit of gameplay is the devs are focusing on multiplayer and adding in the campaign because they feel they have to. Character designs are reused and/or bland, mission design appears to be reused based on what Grant said (I never played wc3 so I can't confirm this). When I try to imagine what the devs were going for with all the rough bits ironed out, the creative parts still all seem bland and uninspired. I'm hoping it's just formulaic because it's the tutorial, or maybe the truly creative portions are taking longer, but I'm doubtful.
I played both the open beta earlier with stormgate and battle aces. I have to say I found battle aces much more enjoyable because it doesnt need to focus on a campaign, I agree that this game feels like it cant make up its mind. I think people forget a lot of serious competitive sc2 players might not have played the campaign, but the campaign set the stage for the units and design of the multiplayer. So even if you have not played the campaign it makes sense that there is a story behind the units and factions, whereas stormgate multiplayer (imo) needs to have that foundation as opposed to battle aces, which is just focused on arcade style combat
I feel like this could do with a prologue. Kinda just jumped straight into a plot that we know nothing about. I think a bit of setup would go a long way to decent character building.
Felt a bit rushed yea. To much happening at the start kinda like we skipped something
I think the dogs are a good idea BUT I think they should make the model more obviously robotic, kind of like Jimmy Neutron's dog.
Not only would it help with the players feeling bad but also from a story side I think it might have neat dialogue uses. Maybe a small band of survivors is using their dogs to scout and a little girl is playing with one and the parents tell her that before the war they used to be real. It could also add a little bit of darkness to the world as food became so scare that having pets just wasn't possible for most people.
Excited to see what they come up with!
Oh and also this might just be a RUclips thing but I think the sound design for fights could use some tuning. I think the most underappreciated part of starcraft is the sound of combat. Siege tanks sound like they are powerful death machines. The zerg attacks feel like a swarm and the protoss feel alien. As the game develops I would like to hear the combat more to make the game as immersive as possible.
I have to say, I cannot understand how some people seem to have a problem with combat dogs being hurt, but unarmed civilians are fair game (and it's not just in games, either...).
I get that Grant just feels especially bad about hurting (virtual) dogs, we all have our quirks and can't really control how we feel about certain things, but actually opposing having dogs as a unit in games based on that seems a bit ridiculous. And is somewhat worrying.
@@randomguy6822I didn't even make them when played lol. Its just cos ppl see them as pets so its weird for some ppl
@@danieln6700 It's still bizarre to me that people aren't OK with killing units that remind them of their pets, but ones that are like their neighbours and family are fine. There is definitely something wrong here...
@@randomguy6822 I think it plays into the human psyche. Humans are the only realistic threat to other humans and because we are territorial animals we have evolved to be OK with harming another Human if we deem it necessary, such as in war or self-defense. Additionally, we see differences in other people much more easily than we do with other animals. This includes political affiliations or even just specific personal details like face shape.
Because of this, all dogs fall into a similar category of low-threat, cute animals that we love. Now this can change if the dog either looks like a threat or looks ugly to you. And with their styled version of the scout that’s just not the case. That’s why people generally don’t have a problem killing wolves in games because wolves are deadly animals that can hurt you.
TLDR: if you want people to kill something and not feel bad about it you need to make people see it as a threat to their safety in some way.
Heck, give the script to the guy who made Marauders, that guy might at least make it funny.
What's marauders?
@@danieln6700 a StarCraft 2 custom campaign. It's silly, with neat gameplay that varies from mission to mission. Google 'Jayborino Marauders' if you want to see a playthrough.
@@danieln6700 The Terran Anti-Armor unit in Starcraft II. The big guys wearing big black armor that shoot grenades
@amaneyugihanako-kunofthesi8849 oh yea for some reason I was thought was something else and not the sc2 unit. I always hated them slowing me down lol
As a suggestion to improve the feeling of connection with the characters, I would personally recomend the addition of out of mission lore and discussions. The reason that I like Raynor in Wings of Liberty is because we got to see his background and story right from the get-go and got to see how he dealt with struggles and so on. I feel like an 'in ship' section after the first mission and those following could be used to really add to the characters and make you want them to succeed.
I'll say right now, that character art style is sure not going to appeal to my age bracket. It feels like toys. Like I should be embarrassed to be playing with them. If they're trying to get Fortnite aged kids into RTS, that's fine, but the current RTS demographic leans WAY OLDER which is why people are still playing games like Age of Empires 2. (STILL 15k players today when the re-release even came out in 2019.) I feel like Age of Mythology Retold is going to do way better just on the art style and current RTS demographics.
You have a good idea! This game should be MORE toy-like! I mean it's definitely too late in the development process to change that, but they should lean more on the vibe, that you are playing with toys. G.I.Joes, plushies, dolls... And demons could be painted origami's. Could save some budget on the animations if models were SUPPOSED to move stiff and a bit awkward.
Main problem I see with StormGate is the big team with big budget. Unlike a small indie team, these people are professionals that want and need to get paid, so they are burning through cash fast. It forces them on a faster timeline toward monetizing (releasing, then co-op). We see a lot of really small teams making RTS that seem pretty good, that's because they are largely start-up passion projects made by people getting paid nothing for years. We will see which RTS survives.
This is why I'm betting on ZeroSpace. they're exactly what you described: A much smaller team with a much smaller budget that is starting their game as a passion project. Not to mention, Grant is one of its members!
Man this season of Overwatch is hella weird dudes
Did the BOB say "In the rear with the gear"???
Yes
No, it was "In the rear with the beer".
Stormgate has somehow managed to go from a hopeful title of what could be a good RTS to the perfect showcase of why you shouldn't trust devs because they have a nice title or previous history. And also a perfect way to convince every potential player to ignore this game.
I had many thoughts put out on this, but you voiced about most of them, so ill give it a nutshell review:
Its very much obvious its in Early Access. And I hope they make the best out of that state.
It's the intro 3 missions of one race in early access, there's only so much to gather from it. However, what has been shown is nothing overly special yet. It's an amalgam of ideas from already existing games, layered on top of a very substandard art, as well as uneven production values in voice acting, sound design, and possibly even story writing. The good news is all of this can be fleshed out and improved from early access to release, provided enough time exists to fix it all. Perhaps it was over-expectations, but this isn't the "starcraft successor" it wants to be right now. It feels like I've played this all before, heard this all before, and done it all before, 10 - 20 years ago. There's nothing new introduced here so far, but again, 3 introductory missions.
Not to be too negative, I do want to note positive things too. The units looked very responsive to commands and micro. It appears that the engine was made very well, and the quality of life with builders is a welcome addition. The buildings are distinct in shape and design that with little effort, you can differentiate between barracks, supply depots, town halls, and whatever else. Units, not so much, but humans are humans. Outside of AI units being a little weird in mission 1, the difficulty seemed on point.
If the game ships with a robust custom map creator, and the developers are open to community involvement, there is a lot of potential with such a robust looking engine, even if the original developers fail to meet future expectations. I'm also a make or break person on Co-Op VS AI existing, but that's personal taste.
One very minor thing I will say is that I hope the font size is adjustable without having to mess with the resolution because that is a lot of writing in quite small font, especially on the data pads, and that will cause accessibility issues especially on larger monitors.
not only that, but we have pretty old videogamer nowadays (ralking about 1st and 2nd generation gamers, aka between 40 and 70 years) and they WILL hacve problems reading those without fontadjustments or litterally xrawling into their monitors
Not gonna lie, when Amara did the tracer blink…well you all had the same reaction… Hope it gets better and original and SOON.
I'm genuinely in shock over how much that first mission is just
warcraft 3 human 1....
I was about 30 minutes in when I realized why it was bothering me.
They look like action figures. Like they come in a pack of 5 at Walmart.
I liked Amara's slightly buggy eyes, gave me the immediate impression that she might be more vengeful than heroic. Like she wasn't actually grieving, but quietly seething.
Super bland, super generic, dissapointing.. but the ending cinematic was pretty dope, wish the rest of story was like that... I am still confused about the game
why the hell does this game look a 100 times worse then wol. Like its actually embarassing, if you put this and wol infront of someone who has not seen either before, every single one would say that wol is the 2024 game, I'm 100% sure of this
They said CoH3 has mobile game graphics, this? This definitely has mobile game graphics
Exactly.
In the cutscene dude sees his fellow soldier being captured and carried away by a demon. Doesn't even try to shoot at the demon. Just looks at it like he's tripping balls on shrooms and isn't sure if things he sees are real or not. If "bargain bin military personnel" was a thing he certainly would be one of those.
Don't worry Grant, those dogs are actually robots as implied by their piercing red eyes.
Man, sure feels like Warcraft 3. We have price Arthas, Uther and Frostmourne.
The b.o.b. said an scv line
and the lancers quote the marines
All I want to say is they need a serious overhaul for the first mission. The intro cinematic is.. okay. Third mission is probably the best of the 3 and the outro is fine. But the lackluster beginning just spoils the whole experience. First mission should be a little more involved/unique and the intro needs a little more work to actually sell the setting, as is, its too.. cliche almost. Too similar to other things, it needs a twist. in 2024 its going to be really hard to sell a generic sci-fi, fantasy-esk rts. Big evil spawns out of a portal, civilization goes to ruin. It either needs a change of concept or to be polished and executed to the point where the generic-ness is outweighed by pure look and feel.
first impression - I was really into that cutscene until I saw the demon. Weird to have a dark tone of science gone wrong, betrayal, and a girl losing her father alongside a transformer looking demon toy who is suppose to be a big bad presumably?
mission 1 - I get being stylized, and they don't have blizzard money (although you wouldn't know based on some of the voice talent they hired), but I think there's a reason why SC2 didn't zoom in when people were talking in-gameplay. They look like action figures with rigid animations and no life. Hope the animations get a lot of work
mission 2 - building grid is really nice and I really like the ease of building / queuing your workers. Melee default units is a good way to avoid sc2 marine comparisons but it really makes this feel like Warcraft 3.5 Sci-Fi edition. Hope it can stand on it's own as the campaign continues
at the end, them not even reaching for the blade really made it unclear if they took it or not. I'll just chalk that up to early access though I guess
mission 3 - seems fine. No real strong opinions either way but looks good
@@GaryFromLibertymission 3 was decent tbh.