Stormgate

Stormgate Dev Tracker




15 Jun

Post

Hi everyone!

Quite an exciting week we’ve had, right?

We recently revealed an early look at pre-alpha gameplay from Stormgate, our upcoming real-time strategy game, and a spiritual successor to the Warcraft and StarCraft real-time strategy games. You can watch our gameplay footage on our YouTube channel to get caught up. We are humbled by the incredible reception to our reveal.

We’re gathering members of the Frost Giant Studios team to drop in here tomorrow, Friday, June 16, to answer your questions.

The AMA will begin at 10AM PT / 1PM ET / 7PM CE...

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Comment

Originally posted by Healthy-Shirt-9440

Is the video sped up? Game seems faster than it was on showcase footage

The PC Gaming Show was recorded at 30fps. These gameplay clips are 60fps.

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Originally posted by Slarg232

Lowko doesn't like B.O.B. the Builder.

Lowko is wrong.

B.O.B. is my spirit Builder.


14 Jun

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Originally posted by TubbyKC

Maybe you shouldn't show off your game if you're not ready for it to be seen? Studios normally avoid showing pre-alpha footage for this very reason.

We are very happy with the response so far. We promised to bring the community along with us as we developed the game and wanted to share this early look so that we can begin collecting feedback and share our progress.

I’m just reminding folks who aren’t following us too closely that we are in the early stages and to adjust their expectations accordingly. Still lots more to come in terms of new reveals, improvements, and polish, and we are grateful for the support of this community.

(Criticism is OK and welcome—please keep it civil.)

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Originally posted by UncleSlim

Thanks for doing the AMA! (Do we submit the questions here or do we have to wait until the thread is posted? I'll post here anyway..)

My question is about gameplay speed in relation to esports and the experience of the spectator. If you look at a lot of the top Esports out there, the gameplay is almost always typically fast. Examples are CS:GO, Dota 2, League of Legends. I think Starcraft 2 has the highest milestones of any RTS in terms of viewership, for many different reasons, but partly because the action is so fast-paced and it's way more exciting to watch pros that feel like they're dancing on knife's edge at lightning speed. I am worried that I will love playing Stormgate, but not really enjoy watching it if it's on the slower side.

So my question is: Do you feel like faster game speed is a critical component to a palatable spectator sport?

A follow up question: Can you comment on the relationship between game speed vs damage? I think a lot of users on...

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The thread goes up tomorrow! Please post questions there.

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Thank you for including Stormgate! We can’t wait to show you more of the details, as well as a look at how the game evolves as development continues!

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Originally posted by Danon5

Love what you guys are doing and the progress so far, but I don't really like the "pre-alpha" response that so many people have left under feedback. Critiques like this are just demonstrating people's investment in the game and its development. Yes, it is pre-alpha, but these pre-alpha clips clearly have a lot of art direction and design theory behind them. Don't discourage people from posting their critiques just because it's pre-alpha!

Most of us have faith in how capable you guys are, but we leave responses like this so you can gauge what things the community finds important and what things they do not.

We 100% appreciate constructive feedback! Just clarifying for the folks out there (and there are many!) who see this as a finished or near-finished game.


13 Jun

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Originally posted by Dave13Flame

As interesting as they look, they gotta reduce that initial delay on firing, else these units will constantly derp out whenever the enemy micros back an inch. They'll literally be unable to fire back at them.

The firebats in Wings of Liberty campaign have the same problem, where they barely ever get to fire, because units behind it kill their targets and the initial delay means by the time they start shooting at their new target, it's dead too, and then so on it goes forever.

Remember, you can use the jump jets to reposition, which preserves the gatling gun's level of spin.

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Originally posted by Hamza9575

Is this a joke ? I am serious. Ue5 is well known for its stutters related to very bad cpu optimization, background loading stutters and shader compilation stutter. You need an engine rewrite to fix that, something so high effort you dont need ue5 in the first place as you can write your own. So is your game going to ship in a absolutely broken state with non stop stutters everywhere ?

Again, we spent a year building SnowPlay, the tech that layers onto UE5 to turn it into a powerhouse RTS engine. Talk is cheap, though, so we hope you’ll check it out and find out for yourself. It’s free, so no harm done if you decide to uninstall!

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Originally posted by Orizirguy

Really hope that they will include a coop commander experience simmilar to sc2. Loved that i could play with friends that are worse in skill but still, everyone could have a great time

Yes! We are doing 3P co-op vs AI instead of 2P.

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Originally posted by hrzaorhdu

If it's supposed to be a robot, it really did not look like one to me..

This game does take place hundreds of years in our future. I would guess that humanity would be able to make some pretty realistic looking robot dogs by then, assuming we survive the apocalyptic alien invasion.

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Originally posted by Sniec

Nah the reasons are very simple. Pick company of heroes for instance, what are the differences between 2 and 3? Graphics are the same, historical settings are the same, there were some changes in the campaign sure, but that's it. Why would I play coh3 if it's released badly? No reasons, I can go play coh2, still a great game. Same for aoe4, if it sucks, I can play aoe2, because it's still a great game and it offers very similar things.

Let's consider stormgate for instance, a game that prides itself for returning to the roots of RTSs in terms of gameplay, what's its offer? Just StarCraft in 2023, if it sucks I can play sc2, still a great game.

So I would say it's a mix between old games holding on really well and little space for new rts games to innovate on the genre. The main factor remains the gameplay and the technical polish, like unit responsiveness, pathfinding algorithms ect, and that's something you must do really well to succeed.

“What’s its offer?”

The things you point out as what’s most important—gameplay, responsiveness, path finding—an improvement in these specific areas is what we’re offering (just to start). James Anhalt, our chief architect is largely responsible for why SC2 feels so much better to play than anything else out there.

He spent the first year of Frost Giant’s existence building SnowPlay, our tech that turns UE5 into a best-in-class RTS engine. We are up to three times as responsive as SC2, as measured by tick rate. Our game is different because even at our pre-alpha state, it just feels great to play.

(See recent hands-on experiences from PC Gamer, VentureBeat, Grubby, TLO, Neuro, etc. for outside opinions, but you’ll be able to judge for yourself with no risk because we’re free to play.)

If you want to know more about SnowPlay, this interview dives deeper into the tech, but the summary is that we aim for Stormgate to be the most responsive and fun to ...

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12 Jun

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Ha! We're not upset about it. We love SC2 and consider the comparisons a compliment. We poured our hearts into that game and hope people play it forever. Our love for Blizzard RTS games and our desire to continue creating that style of RTS is why Frost Giant was formed.

We hope Stormgate similarly entertains people for years and years to come, and we're grateful to everyone who's along with us for the ride! We want you all to be included, which is why we're showing you where we're at, even at this early stage.

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Originally posted by iatrik

I was under the impression that the game would be in an open beta in 2023. But I realize that I’m wrong. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

No worries at all! Thank you for following what we're doing.

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Originally posted by curtydc

Will this game have a campaign like SCII? I couldn't care less about the PVP.

We are planning to regularly release new chapters of our ongoing, ever-evolving campaign. More information in the PC Gamer preview. https://www.pcgamer.com/stormgate-is-shaping-up-to-be-a-brilliant-blend-of-modern-and-classic-rts/

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Originally posted by iatrik

In general I agree. But the current footage does not really look like something that's going to be playable in 2023 (which they're aiming for).

More like late 2024, early 2025.

If they stay with 2023, then the hype around this game is going to implode I think.

We haven't announced a release date yet.

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Originally posted by DANCINGLINGS

Just for reference: This is what League of Legends looked in their closed beta. Also not a AAA studio, also years of years after they still kept visually improving the game and increasing responsiveness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXvCcy6qf2Q

To emphasize: Closed Beta is MUCH further in the development cycle than pre-Alpha.