about 2 years ago - Frost Giant Studios - Direct link

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14s tim and i have been
16s talking about building an rts for many
19s years this is something that
21s it's a game that needs to be made
23s this is an audience that needs and
25s deserves another big next step
28s and it's something that we have been
29s wanting to make for so long we just
31s decided that this is a plunge we had to
32s take this was something that we had to
34s do and
35s uh and there was no other choice for us
38s it's been a year and a half journey for
39s me so far between raising the financing
42s building the team
43s and just getting
45s the operational aspects of the company
46s stood up at the same time we've had to
50s build an engine
51s establish a vision for the gameplay and
54s also develop a whole new universe we
62s the genre of rts and starcraft 2 in
64s particular has had so much loyalty and
67s so much stability in its core fan base
69s that it is
70s inspiring to think about how long rts
74s has been on the market and how
76s rarely big impactful rts games get made
79s for this audience i understand the
82s thought process
84s at major publishers around real-time
86s strategy by nature of having reached the
89s scale that they have there's an
91s expectation that they're going to focus
93s on
94s the most predictable successes that they
96s can
97s their public companies their
98s shareholders expect that from them and
100s it's smart from a business perspective
103s for us being so passionate about this
105s genre
106s the question we ask ourselves is not
110s is this the way that we can maximize
112s return on investment the question we ask
115s ourselves is can we make something great
117s that we believe players will love and
119s that we will be proud of at the end of
121s the day
122s and that's the freedom that comes from
125s being at a smaller company we're just
127s lucky to be in a position where we can
129s focus on what we're really passionate
130s about our goal is rooted
133s in the personal level it's rooted in
134s what we love this is rooted in what we
136s feel we're not reading off of some
138s spreadsheet and saying the best calculus
140s for us to reach success to reach the
142s most revenue is by going into this
144s category and doing this sort of
145s microtransaction and boom let's somehow
147s make a game that kind of sort of
149s supports that we knew there were two
151s possible approaches we could take one
153s approach was completely throw out
155s everything that's come before with rts
158s and try to reimagine the genre as
161s something new
162s the other approach is to take everything
165s that's come before and try to make
168s improvements based on the feedback that
170s we've gotten working on those things
173s and we very much took that approach one
175s of the things i love most about rts is
177s that
178s you can play them in so many different
180s ways and none of the ways is
183s the right way the one mode to rule them
186s all right
187s rts's have a huge rich history and
189s competitive play
191s but they're also really well known for
193s incredibly strong stories told through
195s campaigns
196s you can look at a game like starcraft
197s and you can see um such an incredibly
200s strong cooperative mode there a lot of
202s players they find pvp really
204s intimidating but with the co-op
205s experience where you're just kind of
206s beating up on an ai player you know
209s that's that's very approachable and not
211s only that
212s your your friend who is maybe more
214s experienced can bring you in on board
216s you um and kind of showed you the ropes
218s we really believe that games have moved
222s from being solitary experiences to being
225s social experiences there's been
227s tremendous evolution whether you look at
229s moba or battle royale or even
232s experiences like roblox that are
234s inherently social
236s that bring people together in a game
238s world or through a game experience
240s rts has
242s offered some multiplayer modes before
244s and and we added two player co-op with
246s legacy the void to starcraft 2.
249s but there really hasn't been an rts
252s designed from the ground up with
254s facilitating social experiences in mind
257s and
257s for us um you know in the campaign it's
260s now possible to play cooperatively our
263s formerly two-player co-op mode in
265s starcraft 2 is now a three-player
268s open-ended co-op experience in stormgate
270s one of the things we're looking into for
272s three-player co-op is the idea of uh
274s soft roll differentiation we want
276s players to be able to
278s to able to fill the roles that they feel
280s very comfortable in we kind of already
282s have that in a way with starcraft 2
284s co-op where some commanders are better
286s at defending some better some commanders
288s are better at attacking but we want to
290s really emphasize that in storm gate we
292s want to say maybe an experienced player
294s can just build the army can take care of
296s the threats whereas a more newbie player
298s someone who's new to the game is able to
300s kind of just expand build their bases
302s defend their bases and support their
304s ally competitive pvp in stormgate will
307s consist of two distinct modes there's
309s going to be the 1v1 mode which is going
311s to appeal to the core rts audience the
314s core audience that really is into
316s esports and really into the journey to
318s mastery we're also going to have a
320s looser 3v3 pvp team battle mode in which
324s you can bring in friends
325s and have a lot of fun there story uh is
328s near and dear to my heart personally as
330s well as many people on the team and i
332s want to answer
334s the question about whether or not we're
335s going to support story whether or not
336s we're going to have a campaign mode or
338s what that's going to look like and i
340s want to say unequivocally yes that we
341s are absolutely going to deliver a
343s fantastic story we are delivering
346s campaigns that you can play single
347s player you can also play them co-op
350s which is a new addition to the genre i
352s think it's going to bring something new
353s to the table where you can experience
354s these stories not just by yourself which
358s is fantastic if that's how you want to
359s do it but you can also share them with a
361s friend and in my experiences cooperative
364s experiences
365s bring a lot of just additional value
367s additional enjoyment to the table and so
370s as a team co-op is something that we
372s believe in and finding a way to weave
374s that into the story is going to be
375s really important to stormgate
381s command i
382s may be onto something
392s so all kinds of terrible things are
394s happening on earth uh we've got
396s overpopulation we've got climate change
398s we have extreme weather
401s and all of these things have put
403s humanity in a very perilous position
407s so one of the things i'd like to talk
409s about if it's all right is a science
411s program that
413s humanity has initiated to try and
416s address these problems it's called sigma
420s and this ties into the storm gates
424s the name of the game
426s so the sigma program there are different
428s branches of the sigma program sigma-6 is
432s actually part of the program that
433s happens in the
435s arctic and what they're trying to do is
438s open up a portal to another dimension so
440s basically so humanity could escape if
443s they need to to get away
445s when the earth becomes uninhabitable so
449s they're actually able to do that they
451s open this portal it happens during a
453s solar storm in the arctic
456s uh but what they did is they opened a
458s doorway to basically the infernal home
460s world we all come from different
461s backgrounds as far as games we've worked
463s on at different studios and stuff like
465s that so we all come in with
466s kind of our own plan and then as we're
469s kind of working through things we come
470s up with a lot of different ideas as a
471s group
472s the ideas are better as a group i'm
474s finding uh like we go into a lot of
477s things we're designing and i'm like okay
478s i got a plan for what i want this to be
480s and then as the concept artists kind of
482s get their thoughts into it we all kind
484s of it's always pluses that and the
486s modelers get it and then they have ideas
488s that they want to add on to it and so
489s it's kind of a group
492s design in a way with the humans with the
494s very curvilinear designs and stuff like
495s that kind of the sleek feel but then
498s kind of
499s as we're
500s diving more into it we want kind of a
501s bit more beaten down kind of look and so
504s we're still kind of figuring a lot of
505s that out right now and so
507s we all just have what's neat is we're
508s all bringing our own influences in and
510s that's what's really nice about being at
511s a smaller studio is like everybody can
513s kind of get their own flavor into the
515s soup in a way so
516s so the mechs are part of the advanced
518s technology that we're going to see in
520s the game and we'll see all kinds of
522s things you know it's it's a little bit
523s of a mixture of things that we're very
526s familiar with that really haven't
527s changed very much and technology that
530s has moved forward and has progressed and
532s the mechs are part of that you know the
533s way we talk about is basically
535s mechs were originally built to help with
537s you know construction projects and
539s things like that
540s but obviously they're being used against
543s the infernals and it helps when you have
546s something that's just as big and
548s powerful as an infernal to go up against
551s it as we saw in the cinematic
554s we're trying to really think like
556s where technology will be
558s before the apocalypse really happens and
560s then kind of rediscovering that
562s technology in the process
564s we're just now kind of getting to like
566s what is
567s what is the world like that is not the
569s factions that are fighting it but the
570s people that are still living there
572s is it all beaten down and they're just
574s in little tents here and there are they
576s still rebuilding do they have buildings
578s that are still existing and so we're
580s trying to give this kind of
582s lived-in kind of vibe
584s um and i'm hoping not to tell like a
585s story artistically that's just like
588s everyone's just waiting to die like i
590s want
591s it to feel like humanity is prospering
593s um in in groups and in clusters that the
596s human faction is trying to keep
597s protected and and grow but then also
599s learn from like what humanity has done
601s in the past being able to harness mother
604s nature in a way that's sustainable and
606s it's not just like
607s uh continuing to keep and keep taking
609s and stuff like that so we're looking at
610s like what would they do for wind energy
612s or sun energy or other
614s other ways that we just haven't thought
616s of with a like uh
618s biology and algae growth for like food
621s and stuff like that and it's it's a lot
623s of thinking about things and talking
625s about it that we then inspire us
627s artistically then go and try to build
628s that in the designs of the world and
630s stuff so infernals have been here before
634s you'll notice that they look demonic
637s they're not demons in the
640s judeo-christian sense of demons what we
643s on earth know is demons
646s they're an otherworldly race that
648s basically goes from one planet to
650s another and they take resources
654s uh they take some of the best fighters
656s on that planet and they basically turn
658s them into warriors to join the infernal
662s army the infernal army is all about
664s numbers all about you know brutality and
667s and mass
669s numbers and and savage tactics
672s to take over their their enemies which
675s they've used the the worlds that they're
677s invading
679s we're honestly still exploring what the
681s infernal look is i i love the idea and
684s we've talked about this a lot of
686s what if the the what we know as a demon
689s now is basically cave paintings and
692s everything handed down and and so it's
694s not just the
696s the
696s the demon we know that's red with horns
698s but somebody saw
700s a millennia ago a demon and then that is
703s what got evolved through like the
704s passage of time and then
706s word of mouth over time that's what it
707s became that we know of
710s you know we haven't really gotten into
712s the characters yet we saw a couple of
714s characters you know we saw the the
716s archaeologist in the announcement
718s cinematic we saw the mech we heard the
720s voice of the person who's piloting the
723s mech but we have some really amazing
725s characters that we've been
726s spending a long time to flesh out and to
730s give really amazing arcs they're very
732s complex characters and i think when
735s people start to learn about those
737s characters journeys and how that's going
739s to fit into some really amazing game
741s play i think people are going to be very
743s excited we do these uh weekly narrative
745s meetings where mickey and tim kind of
747s explore like
749s what the
750s what the story is and the whole
752s background everything like that and it
753s is so much
755s bigger than i had in my head like i was
757s very simplified for me when we started
759s like oh it's going to be this and there
761s is this millennia of history that they
763s have figured out and everything like
764s that and kind of artistically being able
766s to eventually get to all that and
768s explore it as a team is really exciting
770s to me so stormgate we're designing
774s to really be a game that continues to
776s evolve and move forward every single
779s year
780s that you're playing it um on the story
782s side you will be able to unveil
784s new twists and new turns and new
787s characters for players to interact with
789s every single year as we're going forward
791s and that's going to take form in uh in
794s episodic content we will be releasing
796s additional campaigns on a regular
798s cadence as we move forward
800s and so there will always be the steady
802s flow of new stories new interactions new
804s awesome missions to be playing uh for
807s people who love that but even beyond
809s story in all aspects stormgate is a game
813s that is designed to be ever evolving we
816s will be
817s um
817s releasing new content on a regular
820s cadence we will be introducing new
822s characters that can be played in the
823s form of heroes on the team side and on
826s the co-op side um we'll be introducing
829s new maps and constantly churning the the
831s map pool on the competitive side
833s introducing balance changes this is a
835s torch that we're carrying forward well
836s into the future and we're we're building
838s this game to have legs so that it's
839s something that players can know and love
841s for many years with starcraft 2
844s we've learned a lot of lessons over the
845s years i've spent a lot of time at
847s blizzcons and things like that standing
849s behind players who are
851s you know playing the game for the first
852s time and watching them play
854s and seeing sort of the struggles that
856s they have how do we get those people
857s into the game how do we make it a little
859s bit easier for them to kind of get into
861s the groove get into the fun of of
862s playing the game as quickly as possible
864s part of what we're trying to do is just
867s look for the areas that are
869s creating friction that are intimidating
872s uh and polish those not take away the
875s depth not take away the high skill
878s aspect of the game not make this baby's
880s first rts or a dumbed down real-time
883s strategy game
884s but at the same time try to put
887s ourselves back into the mindset of what
889s it's like to be a new player coming in
891s and what were the things that we found
894s intimidating or challenging
896s and improve those anecdotally as a dev
898s when i was on starcraft 2 um i heard a
901s lot of stories from like people just on
902s the street like meeting like you for
904s example um and i asked them oh do you
906s know about starcraft they're like yeah i
908s hear i've heard about starcraft do you
909s play starcraft yes i've played starcraft
911s how did you get into starcraft and they
913s answered back oh my my friend got me
915s into starcraft and this has been a very
917s common occurrence over the past like
918s five or so years of my life how do
920s people
921s come to the game and uh we think a lot
923s of people come in because their friends
925s are pulling them in or they're
926s recommending them so what can we do to
928s enhance the onboarding experience when
930s you're playing with your friend who's
931s trying to bring you in is there is there
933s things that we can do there rather than
935s have their friend wait while they try a
937s tutorial being able to learn how to play
939s the game with your friend at the same
942s time that they're playing a mission
945s perhaps giving you pointers
947s is powerful um what are some of the
948s things about actually playing the game
951s that are a huge barrier to teaching the
953s player how to play what are some of the
954s things about playing the game that make
956s it um something that people
958s might feel is too overwhelming to
960s continue to play once they learn like
961s how can we make it so that people feel
963s really comfortable getting into that
965s groove of having the the fun and
966s engaging with the strategy inside the
968s game we know that players also struggle
971s even once they've they've learned the
972s basics because there's so many different
975s micromanagement tasks that are required
977s to even just play the game at even a
979s basic level that we really want
981s to kind of smooth and improve
984s as we can over time control groups are
985s something that are critically important
987s to rts games not just starcraft 2 but
989s pretty much every rts game
991s in existence relies upon control groups
994s in one way or another control groups
996s allow you to sort of
997s group a set of units and then press a
1000s single hotkey to select those units and
1001s then issue them orders and things like
1003s that but that's actually a really
1004s difficult thing to teach players one of
1006s the things that we're looking at in
1008s stormgate is to have these control
1010s groups be automated so as soon as a unit
1013s comes out of a barracks or a factory or
1015s something like that
1016s it will automatically be added to a
1018s control group and that makes it really
1020s easy for us to to teach new players this
1022s this whole approach of hitting all of
1024s these different things to make sure that
1026s we have a social experience when people
1027s get into the game we we have team modes
1029s so that the game feels uh has some
1032s amount of viralities that people want to
1033s bring in their friends to play because
1034s there's something to play with their
1035s friends um and so that once their
1037s friends come in the game feels easier to
1040s onboard through tutorialization or um
1042s special maps that might make it easier
1044s to learn to play alongside your friend
1046s or uh some of these ui tools that we've
1048s talked about like automated control
1049s groups that um make it easier to to kind
1052s of get into the the meat of playing the
1054s game and having fun uh and putting off
1057s some of the mechanical barrier maybe to
1058s a little bit later in in your career as
1060s a player i have been developing this
1062s type of game for many many years and i
1064s am
1065s constantly blown away by the quality
1068s and the variety and just the innovation
1070s of
1071s the types of maps and mods that the
1073s community comes up with when we release
1075s tools to them user generated content is
1077s an incredibly important part of of rts
1079s games uh especially you know coming from
1082s blizzard rts game background uh warcraft
1085s 3 was maybe the greatest mod platform
1087s that ever existed and in entire genres
1090s spawned from there some of the most
1090s successful games of all time dota you
1092s know league of legends these things came
1094s from warcraft 3 essentially um when you
1097s open up a new map in our editor just
1099s like warcraft 3 or starcraft 2 you're
1101s going to see terrain so the first thing
1104s you see is a bunch of of dirt and you're
1106s going to be able to immediately start
1108s raising cliffs and and placing trees and
1111s you know putting units down on it you
1112s need to be able to get in there and
1114s you're going to be able to see that
1115s terrain right away so that you can start
1116s to feel comfortable in the context of
1118s what you're doing we need an
1119s approachable interface we need a lobby
1122s system where people can clearly see the
1123s other things people are playing so that
1125s that uh momentum can happen for games
1128s where you see people playing you hop in
1130s that game gains some popularities the
1131s word starts to spread and we also know
1134s that it needs to be super easy for
1135s people to create and share maps very
1137s quickly so they can get their friends in
1139s because that's a really encouraging
1140s thing as a developer for most rts games
1143s uh when you want to
1145s launch the editor to make a map you
1146s actually have to go
1148s you don't do it within the game itself
1149s you actually have to go into windows
1151s find the folder for the game and there
1152s will be a separate application that you
1154s launch to to create a game by putting it
1156s directly in the game even at the top
1158s level so you have
1160s campaign co-op create something that's
1162s something that we really want to achieve
1164s because it'll get so many more people to
1166s try out these tools and it also puts a
1168s lot of impetus on us in order to make
1170s sure that the tools are a really uh
1172s first class experience as well
1174s stormgate is absolutely free to play the
1176s decision to go free to play
1179s is rooted entirely in our desire to tear
1183s down barriers
1184s to the rts genre we want players to come
1187s in and experience the genre that we love
1190s we want to bring not just current fans
1192s of rds we want to bring people who maybe
1194s remember playing an rts many years ago
1196s but who lapsed and we want to bring them
1197s back we want to bring in new players and
1199s so
1200s lowering that price point barrier to
1202s free to play is rooted in
1204s making our community healthier and
1206s bringing more players in here
1208s but then allowing people to buy more
1211s content
1212s of the types that they want so this is
1214s something that is entirely opt-in you
1216s can play all these different modes
1218s without paying for content there but if
1220s you want more of different types of
1221s content then you can vote with your
1223s dollars and you can support us to
1226s continue making that type of content for
1228s you we are absolutely
1230s not paid a win
1231s i don't need to say no nfts again but
1234s there is no nfts
1236s and loot boxes for example we get asked
1237s loot boxes all the time does free to
1239s play mean that you're doing some sort of
1241s coercive loot box
1243s uh monetization scheme and no that's not
1246s what we're doing i can put that that
1247s concern to ease a free to play is about
1250s bringing more players into rts so that
1252s we can all have fun playing this game
1254s together
1255s we
1256s learned a lot taking starcraft 2 free to
1258s play in 2017 the thing that we saw when
1260s we did that was that the player base
1263s substantially increased
1266s and
1267s as a developer of course we want more
1269s people to experience what we build but
1271s even for the health of the player
1272s community that bigger player base is
1275s critical i mean it's like part of our
1276s core mission with stormgate to bring rts
1279s to more players so it just makes sense
1281s uh for us to be free to play but it's
1284s important for us to
1286s approach that in a way that avoids the
1289s potential pitfalls of that business
1291s model we want to make sure that we're
1292s thinking about esports for from the
1294s player perspective
1296s in a lot of games esports is seen as
1297s this high pinnacle of just the most
1299s elite players in the world are engaging
1301s with this and then everyone else is
1302s relegated to watching we don't see it
1304s that way we see it as just another way
1306s of engaging with
1307s the best that you personally can do and
1309s pushing yourself to new limits so when
1310s we're thinking about esports and ways
1312s that players can engage we want to look
1314s at it in all the different aspects and
1315s find things that really speak to
1317s different skill levels of players and
1318s different types of engaging with the
1320s game stormgate's integrated esports
1322s system is really trying to make it so
1324s that getting involved with your first
1325s competition is super simple and super
1328s approachable once you've gotten involved
1330s and gotten that taste of competition
1331s we're looking to surface as much
1332s information as we can to help players
1334s understand
1336s what did they do well in a game when did
1337s they maybe misstep and
1339s miss a proper strategy or proper
1341s execution so that they can then figure
1343s out okay if i want to practice and get
1344s better here's the way to do it and maybe
1347s that's going to involve surfacing some
1349s content from creators that are really
1351s getting involved in the community as
1352s well we want to make sure there's these
1353s touch points that bring the players
1355s enthusiasm and desire to go deeper into
1358s the rest of the community and build
1360s something that feels really strong for
1362s everyone involved so if you're coming in
1364s for the path to pro and you just want to
1365s have a good casual experience with your
1367s friends that's something that we want to
1368s reward and make available to you however
1370s if you want to grow in your experience
1372s and try to actually push yourself to
1373s your your personal limits maybe try to
1375s go professional we want to make sure
1377s that you're getting really high quality
1379s competition against other players of
1380s similar skill so that you're getting
1382s awesome practice and you're able to push
1384s yourself
1385s and continue to grow and that will go
1387s through a very predictable and a very uh
1389s approachable path to pro experience
1391s getting you up to the point that you're
1393s on broadcast and developing fans and
1396s able to speak to
1397s the people that are loving the
1398s strategies that you're creating and the
1399s skill that you're able to show the rest
1401s of the world and the rest of the
1402s community we can build this
1405s approachable circuit that finds the best
1407s players teaches them what they need to
1409s do to level up their game and then
1411s displays these really cool narratives
1412s that we're going to be building year
1414s rounds to
1415s show high quality entertainment to the
1417s viewers this starts from tournaments
1419s that we're going to be running ourselves
1420s but it also integrates third party
1423s competitions that we'll be supporting in
1425s many different ways so that anywhere in
1427s the world that someone's playing from
1428s they're going to be able to show their
1429s skill and show themselves being better
1431s than their competitors and getting onto
1433s that main stage we feel a burden to try
1436s to live up to the expectations that
1438s players have and we have our work cut
1440s out for us on that front the best way
1442s that the community and players who are
1444s interested in stormgate can help us is
1446s by providing feedback and that's
1448s possible to do by participating in the
1451s subreddit which is slash our stormgate
1455s and also looking for opportunities to
1458s both participate in the beta uh and to
1461s participate in other feedback sessions
1462s that we hold between now and the launch
1465s of the product the rts community is is
1467s the best that's why we're here that's
1469s why this company was founded that's why
1470s this game is being made and why all of
1472s this incredible team have come together
1474s to make this it's because of you it's
1476s because of this community uh and so i i
1479s just want to encourage you and say thank
1481s you uh and i i can't wait to to see
1485s where this adventure goes and hope that
1487s we live up to everything that you're
1489s wanting to see here you you the
1490s community are our
1492s north star and why we're building this
1494s so uh thank you for all the support and
1497s let's go and make a great game together
1521s oh