Grant Reacts: StarCraft 2 Alpha Gameplay - Terran
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 18 дек 2024
- I stream Friday-Saturday-Sunday: / giantgrantgames
Want to be alerted when I go live? Opt-in for alerts in the GiantGrantGames Discord: / discord
You can play custom campaigns with the mod manager here!: / discord
This is my second channel for VoDs and Memes: My main channel can be found here: / giantgrantgames
![Grant Plays: The StarCraft Micro Challenge Missions [First 3]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/GCCVtc3MT1o/mqdefault.jpg)
I'd love to see the Zerg and the Protoss as well! Seeing all of the unused designs is absolutely fascinating.
Those are for when the other two stormgate races release ;P
@@Veetrill_UKR I'd like to see Grant go through em anyway. He's knowledgeable about the history of the series and how the units have changed and the inner workings of the units and his commentary adds a lot that I'd have missed
Agreed.
I would also be interested in Grant‘s opinion
The only other demonstration that's really up to this quality is an even older demonstration with Terrans & Protoss fighting where they were more showing off what the engine was capable of, a lot of which ended up not making it into the final game anyway. The only thing that made it through was the "physics" where debris can slide down slopes.
Besides that they showed things like projectiles being time-stopped and falling to the ground and some battlecruisers getting stretched by a Mothership vortex (that one also technically made it but much toned down).
They also showed an old version of the pheonix where it had the ability to shoot out a bunch of projectiles at nearby enemies before being stunned for a few seconds and the old version of the colossus which had a directed beam rather than the line sweep it has now.
And the first showing of the nydus worm and baneling.
All the other "showcases" are somewhat candid alpha previews with no commentary.
I want to see a campaign mod that uses alpha features.
Could incorporate the "alpha" features of the expansion packs as well.
Mothership needs to be expensive af bc it can nuke the entire map afaik
Wings of Liberty: Alpha mod
Man I remember the Motherships field that could slow projectiles. It looked so awesome in the alpha footage.
I wanna see a pvp map with _only_ bases in the corners, then bases between the corners once the corners mine out enough. Like mineral patches pop up or are unlocked or whatever, but only once the two attached corner bases total less than a certain amount. It has its surplus of problems, but it would be fun for premades :D
Mothership bossfights could have used alpha version of wormhole (AKA insta-killing all flying units in the area with some neat physics)
Ability to salvage entire base actually explains voice line in brifing "Supernova" mission, where Raynor tells "we'll need to salvage everything we can't take with us". This line was always strange, and now i get it...
Regarding mousing over to the viking change button.
It makes more sense to mouse over, as it draws the viewers eye so they can see the ability selection.
My exact thought. He was showcasing the unit and abilities, mousing over to the icon is more clear in intention and cause of transformation than just pressing hotkey.
Specially 10 years ago when the idea of a competitive, fast paced RTS was much less popular.
@@khankhomrad8855and it probably made better games because of it
The Nova Co-op guide video also uses mouse for her abilities.
Another thing about this reveal is that they not only talked about the mechanics but also the fantasy of it. They named the units, explained what their attacks and abilities are, and overall painted this idea of what the faction is supposed to be in the viewer's mind. Like that isn't a big ship doing ground AoE, this is a Battlecruiser unleashing its Plasma Torpedoes on the enemy because shelling units is like half of the Terran race identity.
We Earthlings are Guns and Roses- Terran though?
_Guns and Guns._
There will be no race identity in StormGate, FGS simply lacks the artistic vision. It's all generic and bland.
- Adûnâi
@@angamaitesangahyando685 fgs?
The thing I found disappointing about the storm gate reveal is they really didn't tell us anything about the units or showcase much of it. We looked at a basic infantry and those cool heavy gunner looking guys. We also kinda saw the whole "using the tree line" feature. But that was it. The commentary from TLO and the Dev just talked about some pretty basic RTS strategies, not much specifically about stormgate. I was hoping to learn more about the units and races we might see.
the units look really boring too, only the mech has an interesting/memorable style to it. the infantry just look like generic infantry, the dogs look like dogs, the turret is a turret, the siege tank looks terrible imo
committing a crime worse than being bad, stormgate units are just boring. the humvee from cnc95 has more personality than the units on display in that trailer.
Ya, there wasn't anything that really got my brain spinning. It was all "This is what a RTS does." instead of "This is what _our_ RTS does.". There were some bits that experienced RTS players can dig into (like unit spacing, travel time and indicators for AoE, etc.) but nothing to spark inspiration or hype in an average RTS idiot like myself.
100% this. The VO as opposed to reality show style cut away confessionals is much more immersive. If the Storm Gate reveal had been a bit more long form with switching PoVs and voice over talking through the units and options it could have been much more informative and a better hook for viewers.
Yeah. I was thinking why I didn't like the gameplay reveal of Stormgate. Coolness factor is indeed lacking compared to StarCraft.
Yeah I think they got confused between a teaser trailer and gameplay footage because it was kind of in between the both. Too much for just a tease but then not enough explanation or gameplay. So us the audience feel so underwhelmed because we saw too much without an explanation
29:24 Earlier on there was a "Complete: Arm Silo with Combat Drop" notification, so what I suspect is that the original design was something like, spend X money and supply to stock a drop pod, and then spending it spawns Y marines, and in this video there was a mismatch between 6-supply drop pods and the 8 marines that come out of each one.
While the Radar Tower model is not included in the game files both it and its transformation anim were recreated by the community and I'm actually using these in ReelCraft.
I still remember looking at the unit descriptions for the new SC2 units before the beta launched. As well as early Husky/HD Starcraft casts. I was there Gandalf, I was there 3000 years ago....
Remember the HDH invitational with TLO ransoming his way to 2nd place vs WhiteRa? Awesome times.
Same, checking out new units when the site updated was so much fun back then.
if only the actual game was as good I thought it could've been :/
Remeber Pylo?
@karsoban9150 Husky just came back too!
Anyone know what the first major tournament in SC2 was? Kinda wanna go back and watch it now
8:26 Being able to salvage everything would be a welcome change.
And on top of the sound design, the marine deaths are way bloodier too.
Maybe not everything, but the static defenses would be a good thing to salvage. Maybe the Engineering bay and Armory too, but I'd prefer to be able to lift them off
I think its just a balance issue, not a gameplay/hotkey issue. You could just salvage a bases defense after it mines out and relocate everything else , while the other races cannot.
Playing mengsk in coop ive had so much fun with salvaging my entire defense
About the bloodier death, it might be me but I found the viking death to be very extra as well, and I found myself looking back at a dead viking wondering if it was still alive because of how long it was moving.
They probably dialed it back because 300 supply of army dying this much in a fight would be a mess
I want to see turrets that can fly. Oh, and a siege turret.
The thing about this showcase is that its explicitly about showing off one unit at a time, this is why the unit is flippin’ awesome… and occasionally what counters it.
Its really a matter of showing off hard counters, because hard counters end with lots of things exploding. Lets face it, even though these were two units that existed in SC1, the line of Siege Tanks blowing the crap out of the army of Marines made for an image that justified the upgrade from Starcraft 1.
That’s what the Stormgate gameplay video didn’t really get. Its that sizzle, meat might taste great but no one will buy it without that sizzle.
I think "Terran Up The Night" really encapsulates this feeling
Bloody metal, siege tank shot-like drums, vocals in style of Dio - all of that works out to create this "hell yeah" expression on your face and imprints the "cool" aspect of Terran in your mind
"Don't want no Zeus, I want my Thoooooooooooooooooooooooooooor!"
18:50 Hovering units do take splash damage from spider mines, they just won't activate mines. I remembered putting mines near zerg expansions; drones don't trigger mines, but larvae do, and the splash damage can often kill drones near the mineral line anyway.
Fun Fact about Hover: this also exists in WC3, hovering units like the Lich and the Sorceres dont trigger Goblin Land Mines
Wait they don't? :o
The other thing is: This worked so effectively because we knew who the Terrans were. We knew their story (even if chunks of it did get ambiguously retconned over the years). They didn't have to explain the faction mechanics, and were able to presume a baseline knowledge of viewers for the most part. It also worked because they had a starting point to grow and evolve from. Terran was among the most showcased because a lot of the ideas evolved almost naturally out of continuing unfinished thoughts from SC1 terran.
Buildings can land and fly. What if units could land and fly? Viking.
People love the mobility of drop play. How else can we add mobility to the faction? Reaper and Diamondback.
People love the positional play of the siege tank. How else can we add positional play to the faction? Thor.
People love the informational play of Scanner Sweep. How else can we add informational play to the faction? Sensor tower.
Thanks, it seems most folks and Grant don't understand how comparing a sequel's Alpha footage is not a good comparison to a new IP's Prealpha footage.
Zerg and Protoss have a big chonk on land while Terran don't? _Thor._
Wraiths' garbage? _Banshees._ -hopeyoubroughtyoursunscreencowboy-
All ground defence costing supply? PFs.
People liked blocking ramps with Depots and lifing barraks to let Units through. How can we implement that? Depot submerge
Dropships and medics were often used in tandom. Medics.
Etc etc
but we never got explained what the new StormGate race does, we don't know their story, what their faction mechanics are ect.
This is a ridiculous argument because it showed off buildings flying and landing right off the bat. They explained the faction mechanics in this video pretty damn well. Stormgate didn't showcase any such faction mechanic.
9:27 "Now witness the power of this fully armed and operational battle station".
I'm always fascinated by the alpha designs because it was clearly the unit designers thinking "What's the coolest thing we can throw at the wall and make stick?" And then balancing after. It kind of feels like over time, across the expansions and now into Stormgate the overwhelming design leading is "Everything needs to be balanced, we need to highlight nuance in strategy not blatantly overpowered designs." Which probably will end up making a more interactive and deep strategy game but also just misses the punch that can attract a wide audience.
The future bronze leaguers of America don't want to learn about some units can move in a forest and some can't. They want to see a tank that can shoot 5 screens away and blow up everything in one shot.
As a future bronze leaguer, I support this message.
I’d love to see the other two races like this - definitely agree that this style feels a lot better to showcase what the faction is all about. The storm gate video felt like a strategy guide of like ‘mech is cool-looking but unviable vs bio’ whereas this StarCraft vid made me think ‘woah! What can I do with all these units? What’s my build gonna be?’
There is way more back and foward in this showcase, which is a really cool way of going over your roaster.
This is Alpha footage and not their first videos released for SC2. Stormgate is Prealpha and is your first video released for gameplay.
@@tristantully1592 Yes, but this is about the style of presentation. In that regard it doesnt make a huge difference whether its Alpha or Prealpha, Stormgate couldve done this style of presentation as well. Maybe less polished, but they chose a not very exciting (imo) way to show off their game.
@@mordador2702 Yup. All they showed in that video is "This is a Blizzard-type RTS. The end." The fact that they chose to showcase a PvP match(as opposed to, say, a faction reveal) in the first place probably means something, and generally it's unlikely to be anything good.
They did one for Protoss like this. Zerg just got a trailer iirc
Looking forward to seeing your reactions to the other 2 alpha races of starcraft 2. Thanks for your commentary as it always makes me smile and/or laugh.
"I wish an RTS came out like this!" It did, its called Supreme Commander, you build the giant Experimental tier units directly on the battlefield.
I get the feeling Grant doesn't like it, considering I'm pretty sure I haven't heard it mentioned once and all the comments about it go by seemingly unnoticed.
Yeah he played it on stream a couple years ago and was seemingly unimpressed. Then again chat was backseat driving a lot which he was very frustrated with in general that year.
8:45 im guessing this was too early to see it coming, but remember how INSANE 1 and 2 base all-ins terrans were doing back in early WoL? imagine being able to just hit the stim timing with like 3 extra marines or 111 with an extra medivac. On top of the mules, getting to salvage half your base was probably too much of an incentive to all-in every game.
13:09
“The Viking is armed with 2 powerful missiles”
*proceeds to fire like 6 missiles
25:19 I'd like to point out something that just occurred to me... The fact that the Diamondback was originally called the Cobra and it had railguns and was for anti-armor... Halo Wars released in 2009 and it ALSO has a vehicle called the Cobra and it too had railguns. Now, Halo Wars was revealed in 2006 while Starcraft 2 was announced in 2007 and the Terran gameplay video of the alpha was released in February of 2010, almost a whole year after Halo Wars. I wonder if Blizzard changed the Diamondback's name because someone at Blizzard saw that Halo Wars a similar unit and decided "yeah maybe we should change the name just to avoid any problems..."
I think this does show Stormgate's problem: the fact that it was made to look like a real game meant people weren't made aware of factional differences, and were focused on the gameplay and combat rather than the strategy and "cool factor" that could be garnered out of the factional differences.
yeah, it felt more like a trailer focused on people that enjoy esports/rts pvp
I absolutely adore the campaign and coop in SC2, and never enjoyed pvp (still have 100s of hours in SC2 though), and for me the trailer was a bit.. pointless I guess
didn't show anything I care about, except that the game is less and less likely to get its development cancelled
whether I'll even play the game, depends on the singleplayer and pve coop experience tbh, a good story/setting can carry most games
it feels like "Halo Wars First Look E3 2007". It has that feeling
Behold, my ultimate attack: THE CUTSCENE!
Terrans any time something is good against marines: "It's OP"
if man with gun cant beat it it has no place in the game
You know how the saying goes: "4 marines walk into a bar. There is no counter." So if something _does_ beat Marines, it's OP. :P
GGG reacts? Never thought I would see the day.
I remember seeing these videos in 2008 to 2009 when StarCraft 2 was in development. Ghosts had Drop-pods that deploy platoons of marines, Battlecruisers had the option to be upgraded with Yamato Cannon or Plasma Barrage, Phoenixes had the Overload ability that was devastating to enemy air forces like Mutalisks but it would disable the Protoss space fighter for a short time, Sensor Tower had the detection ability (if I recall) but could be upgraded into Radar Tower for monitoring enemy forces around your base. Also, Thors were built by SCVs during the Pre-Alpha and Reapers were trained in the Merc Haven. Bashee had male pilots in the portrait HUD instead of a female pilot on today (I recall it from the early gameplays before the release of Wings of Liberty).
Yeah, I'm interested to see the Protoss and the Zerg preview from the early version of StarCraft 2.
15:21 Talking about the demonstrator manually clicking the viking transform:
I believe this is a fairly intentional choice to show it on the command card and that it is something you do manually. I remember as a bab AoE2 player, Trebs were really hard for me to use because I didn't understand how to repack them was a button I had to press/an ability I had to use. It's a pretty common design choice among blizzard RTSes, sure, but a showcase like this is meant to draw/appeal to the adjacent crowd a bit, and that's something that like, Red Alert and AoE barely did.
It is so refreshing to watch Grant put into words the feelings I felt while watching the trailer for Stormgate. This is it, this trailer feels a bit magical, everything looks cool, feels good to use... The tanks feel OP, the Thor feels OP, the Banshi feels OP, the BC feels OP, everything feels OP. The attacks have a powerful impact, units have interesting behaviors... Stormgate felt much more akin to the digested balanced current MP version of SC2 than it did an alpha. And I personally don't find it interesting at all to have yet another highly competitive balanced MP, it is the very imbalance of SC1 and early SC2 that made the game so amazingly enjoyable to play and watch.
I like the "salvage everything and lift". And also the possibility to micro salvage buildings as they get attacked.
If the accidental salvage really is the reason it was scrapped, I think players are now good enough to handle the risk.
They could have also gone with the CnC approach of having a "sell" UI button instead of a building specific hotkey.
Just have a "Salvage" be a command for the SCV that damages Terran buildings, but recovers resources while doing so.
Grant: "Sorry guys the gameplay is only in 720p"
Me who always watches in 720p because my connection isn't good enough: "This is unbelievably tragic"
It is interesting to see the obvious cross inspirations between this pre-alpha, and 2007's Supreme Commander with the Thor and the Mothership being epic units just like SupCom's Experimental tier units which also was built by workers on the battlefield as opposed to exiting some kind of factory building.
Another which I thought of while watching the Viking is the likeness of it and Red Alert 3's Japan faction who has the VX and Tengu that builds as a ground unit and has a flying form, as well as the Skywing/Seawing which builds as a watercraft and can transform into a flying unit.
---
While the models are definitely lower quality here, I do really miss the more "brutal" art direction of these Terrans, which reminds me more of their original StarCraft design, as opposed to the very polished looking version of thr Terrans we got in the release of StarCraft II.
P.S I would definitely enjoy seeing your take on the other pre-alpha footages as well.
I'm especially mad about the scrapped plans for the zerg (which are much harder to find info on because the zerg got very few public showcases)
@@VeryPeeved The Queen was going to be a unique unit that got stronger as the hive grew with abilities to help defend the hive and support other zerg units as a kind of commander hero unit, creep was also going to be more of a defensive rather than offensive mechanic, being spread by hives & creep colonies rather than creep tumors and letting the queen deeptunnel between creeped terrain so she can quickly respond to threats. Infesters were also going to live up to their namesake more, infesting structures to disable them and spawning infested terrans from those infested structures (rather than having an unlimited supply of infested terrans just stored in their ass-sack).
@@VeryPeeved Most of SC2 zerg feels like someone drowned the original in toilet humour. More gross than scary.
@@VeryPeeved Yeah but still with buffs to units standing on it, making it more of a defensive tool than something you paint the whole damn map with.
@@VeryPeeved Less of a hacksaw and more of a bargain bin of C&C, SupCom, DoW and whatever else they took "cool ideas" from. Zerg were the last to be worked on so either they really were that bare-bones compared to the others or at least we never got to see the goofy OP stuff. I mean there are remnants of an actual controllable nydus worm unit "swimming" through the ground but that's still virtually nothing compared to the known development history of the Sentry.
@@Photoloss Yeah Terran & Protoss were being worked on more than Zerg, by time they would have focused on fleshing them out to the same degree as the other two factions the development of the game got functionally scrapped and started from scratch to conform to a "competitive friendly" format of faction design since esports was where they saw the money.
Plsase someone make a mod where we can play WOL/HOTS/LOTV Campaign with pre alpha /beta units😊❤
The melee carrier was a bit wonky
Yeah someone should make it Happen looks like fun
This video reminds me, I've always thought it would be really cool if in real scale, you would build the thors with scvs like in the alpha version. It just seems so silly building a giant thor from a building that is smaller than it
The thor stuff reminds me of experimental units in Supreme Commander. Giant, building size Behemoths build on the field instead of in factories, easily decimating dozens of regular units.
Han and Horner should have a “salvage everything” option for flavour imo
I think another factor is that StarCraft 2 had it's predecessor that had already established some context behind a lot of things. For Stormgate there isn't that basis of knowledge yet so they have to show those things, like thin forests and creeps but otherwise didn't show much, just talked about generic RTS strategy.
28:38 oh, ain't that the "SIMULTANIOUS DEVASTATING DEFENSIVE DEEP STRIKES"?
24:00 you queue thors to lock enemies into a permanent cutscene
10:36 Oh, the reason why those other battlecruiser upgrades didn't make it into the game, besides campaign, was because people just selected the Yamato cannon and only the Yamato cannon. So why have two other upgrades that would never see use?
This video demonstrates quite effectively why you should pick the torpedoes sometimes. But having all of them viable in different niches with such impressive cost-effectiveness would have made BCs ridiculously OP.
@@Photoloss That was tried in public beta, everyone still picked the Yamato cannon.
13 years later and I still love these preview videos. I've watched them occasionally over the years because they're so interesting to go back to and think about. Also, I don't believe the Radar Tower model exists in the game today. I could be wrong for that, but I know a lot of these early models for things that went unused never made it to the release files. It's too bad; particularly in this golden age of campaign mods it would be great to have the assets for things like the morphing Battlecruiser weapons!
BCs do have the pre-alpha(?) model with the Yamato Cannon variant as well as a(n untextured) separate Plasma Torpedoes model in release files
Thor used the Odin model lol, I was interested to see how things retained their formations and spacing relative to each other as they moved
For the Viking landing: the button had to be pressed in such a manner to avoid some people thinking that Vikings, lacking areal targets, would land automatically.
Doubt it. They were clicking every ability.
@@shadowpriest2574 Well, ya - they needed to show that every ability does stuff when button pressed. No dev wants the audience to just assume something happens automatically when it is a special unit function that needs to be activated.
@@duskironhoof7119 But why would they assume that?
@@shadowpriest2574 Misconstructions happen a lot.
I've watched these so many times before, but I won't complain about seeing them again with commentary! ^v^ They're fun! And yeah, I think the reason why these feel more exciting is because you're presented with more interesting questions than the Storm Gate stuff did. So far Stormgate is just kinda asking "Do you want to play an RTS? Do you like terrain impacting gameplay?" (My answer is... maybe???) These SC2 alpha trailers ask you "So, what's your already favourite unit? What strategy are you gonna try first?" (My answers are the battlecruiser because I love the idea of customizable warships and hit-and-run harass with Reapers and Diam-err, cobras, and that's not even my usual SC2 strategy preference!)
Asking the right implied questions is important to make hype for this kind of thing. ^v^
"If you are dedicated GGG fan, you might recognize this footage" GRANT, I'M DEDICATED SC2 FAN, I USED TO DREAM ABOUT THIS FOOTAGE AT THE TIME, I REWATCHED IT DOZENS OF TIMES, I USED TO CALCULATE HOW MANY VIKINGS NEED HOW MANY SHOTS TO TAKE DOWN A BATTLECRUSIER FROM THIS VIDEO - JUST BECAUSE I BELIEVED THIS WILL HELP ME PREPARE TO WIN ON THE RELEASE. Don't cite the deep magic to me, I was there when it was recorded!
There's also the most important Terran unit reveal from these trailers: The TERRA-TRON!
12:55 one important thing to notice is that while i was looking in the starcraft 2 editor there's an actual model of the "plasma ray battle cruiser" in the models section, and its still there unused along side the other unused battlecruiser models, correct me if i'm wrong.
There is also this weird Pegasus BC which is based on an alpha(?) BC
The plasma rays for BCs is a separate model and it's untextured
@@The-jy3yq What do you mean with "Pegasus"? I can't find anything with that name in the asset list. The really goofy one is the "BattlecruiserHurricane".
More, please! GGG reaction videos are some of my favorite content you put out.
I feel the exact same way as you, I've been obsessed with these gameplay trailers for the three races because they sold us on such a fun game. I dont really play Starcraft 2 anymore, but a big part of me still wishes we got to play the game when it was like this. I also really like how vibrant it looks, the old models for the marines and the thor I feel are more interesting than the ones we got in the final product. We have skins now, but they never added any of the alpha skins as options, and I think thats a missed oppurtunity.
Hovering units also accelerated and deccelerated like flying units too! Hence the vulture patrol micro. They kept their acceleration on patrol for some reason but not on attack move.
One thing to come out of this video, had me thinking about "future" cool designs, like wouldn't it be great if the Thor cast an artillery shadow, I.e any shots at the marines behind the Thor would hit the Thor instead.
I think laying out the toys in the playpen like this gives a lot for the viewer to fill in the blanks and create their own versions.
Stormgate showed us a slowed down game without any Cool units getting explained ( other than drop ship that was great ). But that might also have gone wrong if they had tried one of these without the backstory of a previous game.
30:10 Fun fact about that iteration of the star port!
At that point of development the Star Port could upgrade to become a Star Base, in the same manner that the Sensor Tower could upgrade to the Radar Tower.
The star base was a permanently flying star port that could still build units even on the move and had an energy-dependent ability to replenish the energy of friendly units.
I don't know if any footage of that transformation existed anywhere on the internet.
I think you might wanna suggest Stormgate guys to use this style of video, for their up coming showcases. Also yeah bring the other Pre-release SC videos on.
Grant you big foolish man, your commentary is what we're here for! Waffle on as much as you like.
To answer your question at 29:15, the reason why the supply fluctuated like that was because of the Marines that were loaded into the Ghost Academy de-spawned when the drop pods were called down. That's why it fell to 61. And it rose to 83 after the marines landed. Only to fall by 1 as a Marine was killed.
You can see at 26:40 on the side bar that 3 Ghost Academies had finished "Arm Silo with Drop Pod" and the mini-map flashed. So they did pay for those marines earlier. We just never saw it.
AS for why this ability was removed, I assume it has to do with the rebalancing of the marines. They went from Cannon Fodder to actually being good. So imagine how powerful a Ghost Rush would be if you could sneak into the enemy Base and hide a bunch of ghosts and then drop a huge ton of marines around. Bypassing enemy Base Defenses.
Thank you for the reaction, your analysis of the difference in philosophy behind the pre-alpha release footage was exactly what I was hoping for.
Feeling heard right now because I commented asking for a comparison video lol
I agree with Grant, it feels super Nostalgic to watch these Alpha demos. There are some things that did improve with more dev work but some of this stuff I really did enjoy watching like the customizable battle cruisers.
The ability to salvaging the static structures really played into the nomadic idea of the Terrans, something we don’t see that often in the current meta.
It helps make each faction feel unique… even if that uniqueness is super imbalanced.
Starcraft alpha footage displayed starcraft concepts and assets. Would modern Blizzard do this? not really.
Stormgate alpha: Look guys, look how much we care about hardcore PvP, despite it being a much smaller sector of the market!
Damage on unit cards was shown like in SC1, in different parts, not whole unit becomes yellow-red )
Fun fact, the ugly starport at 30:03 is actually a scrapped upgrade for the Starport (called a Starbase). It would basically become a permanently flying startport that also recharged mana for nearby units. It might (?) have also been an attacking unit iirc. I followed SC2's development religiously back in 07-10 and Blizzard was really trying everything with the tech tree - firebats were made at the factory, zerg queens were super units, and nobody was sure how many templars made an archon.
Starcraft 2 set out immediately to show what the game is so that new and familiar players can see that it was being somewhat faithful to the original's design. I think a new rts like Stormgate could've benefited from a similar approach of just showing us a broad view of the tech trees and just what the different factions are all about. At this point, it still feels like a vague promise of "trust us bro, we're ex blizzard devs - it's gonna be kinda like SC/WC3". It may still be a fine game, just more of a marketing issue.
10:50 China and the US had mechanics like that in Generals that were very fun. Specializing your already superheavy tanks was super cool, and putting predator drones on random scout vehicles was hilarious.
The 1 other thing Grant didn't mention at his 21:20 convo about broodwar building bases all over the map is the phasing out of 3 and 4 player maps in 1v1. They are very common in Brood War and were used in WoL but basically stopped being made by the time of HOTS. They're kinda controversial because there's a lot of RNG that can go into them. It was particularly frustrating when the enemy base ended up being the last of the 3 locations you checked, and by that point, the wall was up. It also gave cheesers an advantage because it could by them time to get their rush going before they got scouted
I find that interesting coming from AOE2. Where not knowing were your opponent started is normal. I only played WoL and remember those kinds of maps, and they felt normal to me. I was a bit disappointed coming back watching matches that they changed it. But with how the game is geared, it might be for the best.
I think gsl does or did it at some point. I remember a trap rogue game on a 4 player map where rogue 12 pooled and trap scouted it last. Which is literally an insta win for zerg since you can't stop a 12pool reactively.
Sormgate devs also talked about 4 player maps and they said they were thinking about showing were your opponent spawned so things like that trap rogue game can't happen, but still having 4 player maps.
This is so nostalgic. I remember being around 10 and trying everything i could to see videos of my new favourite PC game at the time and it blowing my mind
Well, i have made small mod in sc2 called "SC2 Alternative patch" where i tried to recreate scrapped abilities from alpha and beta and tried to incorporate them into current patch with some tweaks. Features beta battlecruiser with defensive matrix and missile pod morphs (original blizzard model retrieved from my old beta client with folks from m3addon).
I think this was more effective because it looks more like it was aimed at 14 year olds than Stormgate. People want to have transformer planes, and march around in giant mechs and mince large swathes of fleshy opponents with giant flying ships. This had so much of that coolness factor, but balanced it with actual game mechanics. Stormgate had all the mechanics, but not a lot that someone completely outside of the genre would look at and think “I want to do that”.
The Thor gives major SupCom vibes being built on the battlefield and would have been really cool.
Yes, I would love to see you go over the other factions! I find this kind of analysis of not just the game, but also the marketing strategy, if you will, fascinating.
Oh man this nostalgia. I remember being glued to the monitor when this was announced and previews were shown! Epic time!
Without having watched the entire video I will say that a major difference between Stormgate and SC 2 alpha is that with SC 2 we already knew the races so it is more a show case of the differences between SC1 and SC2.
Whereas with Stormgate it felt more like they are trying to give a much more quick look into how a match of the game would be like.
Except Stormgate didn't really show any basic faction identity stuff either. Unless that faction's identity literally is "we are boring and do _nothing_ special". Without identity, finalised balance or innovative gimmicks a "quick look into a match" is just a generic snoozefest.
Ok, if we make a mod for this, we NEED the mandatory cutscene for Thor bombardment
I'm like "oh how cool the Cobra has attacks that actually look like they might be railguns!" and then Grant immediately says he finds the nonsense glowy projectile of the Diamondback cooler
See, now this is great "pre-alpha" footage. Even if we know that all the art, units, balance, etc. is not final and subject to change, we can already see a bunch of basic principles that will likely make it to the final game: Units seem to be designed with major strengths and weaknesses, it is strategically important to bring the right counter to your enemy. Many units have individually activated abilities that you will be using in combat, which rewards micro. And the Terran faction is really focusing on the whole adaptability/reconfigurability aspect, with the addon system, transforming vehicles, selective upgrades, and so on.
Even if we put aside all the "pre-alpha, early footage, subject to change" things, this still tells me more about the game, and makes me a lot more excited for it, than "I'm going to defeat my enemy by building units and microing them".
19:00 In addition to being immune to spider mines, the hovering trait (which I think was effectively also possessed by all air units) is what determined whether a unit needed to build up momentum to reach its full speed, which did a lot to affect how different things can be microed - probably the most notable of these were shuttles, carriers, drop ships, and vultures. Still weirdly irrelevant for the magnetic mines, but oh well.
What I'm mostly noticing here is the pathfinding, everyone stays in formation for short distances but lose formation when moving somewhere far away.
19:00 also hover units would accelerate like flying units and their high speed could be maintained for quick hit n run micro, though it was only usable on vulture, wraiths and mutas (micro to keep the speed i mean, maybe shuttles included)
the thor cobra dynamic was lifted from the old school red alert games, where a bunch of light tanks regularly bullied the superheavy mammoth tank into exploding.
17:12 “I like how it is just marine killing simulator”
To be fair that is basically just Starcraft as a whole
Hi grant! the salvage part did actually make it into the campaign... as dialogs! in the supernova mission, you are told to salvage everything you cannot fly to the next emplacement, however there is no salvage button :) (at least, in the french version)
I really enjoyed this video, and I'd love to see you do another for each of the Zerg and the Protoss. I feel like the length was ideal - after all, your insight is the real draw of the video, more than the trailer that can be watched on its own elsewhere if that's what's wanted - but rather than shooting for a specific length, I think the best approach is to just let it be what it's going to be.
Makes me wonder, was there any alpha or later builds of sc1?
I remember the warcraft in space screen shot but was there any video footage of it?
I also remember the screenshots of the scrapped ship, how air units were to fly around and attacking like the carrier attacks and special effects like firebat making trees catch on fire if they were too close to a tree
2:12 Start 10:27 Battlecruiser
13:07 Viking 15:40 Tank
16:03 Banshee 17:43 Turret
18:03 Reaper 19:22 Fortress
22:32 Thor 24:36 Diamondback
26:38 Ghost
30:22 Summary
I am looking forward to see Protoss vs Zerg Alpha gameplay.
Regarding the upgrades: in SC1, most spellcasters started out with just 1 spell unlocked while the Ghost, HT and Arbiter started out with 0. Many units also had upgrades for move speed, attack range and sight range. Compare to Legacy of the Void where only the Ghost, Infestor and High Templar each have 1 of their 3 spells locked behind research, and all other spells are available from the start. Aside from energy upgrades, most unit upgrades are unique to the unit and form a core part of their identity. You can see how this made SC2 both easier to learn and faster to play.
Honestly listening to your opinions on the alpha stuff is super entertaining, and if nothing else I want you to make the other 2 videos on the off chance the Stormgate devs seem them and take notes!
Really amazing and fun video i hope you will do some more of these reactions to old Zerg and Protos showcases.
From my very casual perspective this was such a good showcase, it focused on so many thing i would enjoy playing it casually.
The cool big units with their fun abilities, like calling those droppods or being able to transform Vikings with just the press of one button. (i feel its really good that they showed them clicking the ability button, it lets the viewer know what is happening instead of just pressing hotkeys and things just happen out of nowhere)
They showed what makes that faction unique and potentially fun.
Back in the day i had never interacted with starcraft before i saw this for the first time and it immediately got me interested, this showcase just worked no matter if you knew anything about starcraft or not.
The Stormgate showcase really pales in comparison to this one.
From my casual perspective i felt the stormgate showcase was not talking to me, no cool mechanics i could get interested in, no flashy untis, no fun abilities shown anywhere with which i can summon or blow things up.
That last one really is the most important to me as a casual strategy fan, i need something i can focus on instead of just trying to micro well and abilities are so important for me as that.
Instead the thing that the showcase highlighted to me is there is a high skill ceiling for micro with those dropship plays or dodging artillery and that focusing on your micro is very important.
It really felt to me like the game is not aiming for casual players at all.
Ontop of all that i have no idea what the faction they showed is all about actually.
I remember watching these right before starcraft 2 came out, man the nostalgia.
Terrans salvaging everything and being able to entirely relocate everything is a great idea.
I would love to see your reactions to the other two factions introductions! this was hilarious and got me excited for the release of starcraft 2! and I know this is over a decade old and it still got me excited!
I forgot how much I liked how some of the units/buildings looked during these Alpha gameplay videos.
Yeah, photon cannons too. And then there's the bunker XD
You hit on a really interesting point there with the differences in presentation styles: When watching the Stormgate gameplay I didn't feel inspired to try these things for myself because I was watching two pros discuss their strategies - and I (as a campaign/skirmish player) immediately switched to my passive "watching a tournament" mode which was okay but didn't want me to actually play the game. I was judging it based on watchability rather than playability.
I still remember watching these SC alpha build videos 10 years ago. These are such time capsules!~
I really loved all the videos that led up to the release of SC2, and this video was the one that hooked me the most. It shows a lot of trying to adhere to SC1, which instilled confidence that they were taking care of what did work. The art assets that get called "awful" here I think more closely parallel the SC1 assets (which might as well be called awful, as good as it was). The marines doing so little is also very SC1. Toggling supply depots is still so revolutionary for StarCraft, coming from a SC1 background. All the new stuff in this is just so cool.
Big Difference that I feel like shouldn't be forgotten is that this is a sequel for an already well known franchise behind an established company.
The really important thing is that this is essentially a upgrade for the already existing SC1, you can even see the buildings and units looking more like SC1 than what it is now, while Stormgate is a game made from the ground up while SC2 had the luxury of an already existimg game.
If it weren't for the over 20 years period between SC1 and Stormgate I feel like that would be a more fair comparison, while also we shouldn't forget that yes Stormgate also has a luxury of having all these past games and looking them objectively of what works and what not.
The fun thing is that the Diamondback is still called "Kobra" in the german version of Sc2.
Thanks Grant for showing this blast from the past
Please watch the other 2 races introductions! I've been itching to rewatch these and the commentary is a really nice bonus.
Damn, hope this StarCraft 2 game will be cool, maybe you can do some challenge runs in its campaign if it will have one or something, I dunno
2000s StarCraft developers:
"Jokes on you, man with gun is the best unit."
Man we used to watch and analyze this video over and over back in the days in SC2 Armory (a forum where we waited for SC2)