Hello RTS fans! We're very pleased to announce today the formation of a new game studio based in Orange County, California: Frost Giant Studios! Founded by Blizzard veterans, Frost Giant's mission is to create the next great PC Real-Time Strategy game and bring it to a broad audience.
By applying what we've learned over the last decade, both as developers and as community members, we hope to boldly advance the RTS genre.
We're dedicated to lowering the barrier to entry into RTS without taking away what fans of the genre love most. We’re planning to support and enhance the RTS experience for fans of every player segment—campaign, co-operative, competitive—and embrace user-generated content creators. We know RTS has been critical to the legacy of esports, and we're committed to carrying that legacy into the future.
Over the next year, we are going to be building a game prototype and experimenting with gameplay. But we need your help! Join us on our development journey, and lend us your insights, perspectives, and knowledge!
Please visit our website, frostgiant.com, for more information, and subscribe to our newsletter to get up-to-date info on the status of our project and how you can participate in the dev process
I'm already very curious to know why Frost Giant isn't a studio under Dreamhaven's umbrella. This seems like exactly the type of project that Morhaime would be interested in supporting. Given that all these guys know each other well, surely they have had conversations in the last year about their new projects and have apparently decided not to partner up. I wonder why.
The frostgiant website's certificate is being flagged as a security risk at this time. Their web server may be configured improperly or their certificate has expired. Either way not a good look for anyone visiting their site for the 1st time like myself. Hopefully they get it resolved in due time so i can check it out
I'm getting older and these new RTS are coming up. I might not have the same reflexes as I have right now when these games get released so I'm a bit sad but a lot happy because the interest in RTS is still huge
Absolutely awesome news. I hope you guys will get feedback from the Starcraft 1 progamers and/or veterans and see what made that game so great and build upon that. Looking forward to the progress.
I know decisions are probably already made on the direction, but I just want to say that despite this being a SC forum (and I love SC too, obviously), I hope there is a bit of thought into the potential of using heroes like WC3. I think it adds such a really interesting dynamic and makes games have a unique variety with a combination of heroes with the tavern. The rise of MOBA games in the past 10 years have shown that a lot of people enjoy heroes in RTS style games.
Heroes but faster paced economies, and I do realize the slower-pace of micro/movement is a large part of balancing heroes in WC3, but there has to be a way to increase the supply cap and economy. I would love a spiritual successfor to WC4, but I know the SC guys wouldnt like that haha.
IMO a perfect RTS would be a balance of BW and WC3. I was really hopeful that SC2 would accomplish that, after seeing things like Blink stalkers. The pathing being so efficient though made the WC3 and BW style surrounding very difficult, and the speed of the economy growth in SC2 was a bit too much. I don't have the solution, but recently replaying WC3 again I realize that BW and WC3 were the summits of RTS, not SC2.
Just my opinions, and like I said, I'll be interested in any modern blizzard-style RTS - I can't wait to hear more news!
the studio is on a mission to bring real-time strategy (RTS) games to a broader audience by lowering the barrier to entry, enhancing co-operative gameplay, expanding the legacy of competitive esports, and empowering user-generated content.
Sounds eerily similar to something I've heard before..
Best of luck Frost Giant, may your eSports business venture be fruitful
This warms my RTS loving heart. Even if these guys don't produce the next Starcraft 1 or 2 or Warcraft 3 I'll be happy playing a quality RTS. Awesome news.
I wonder if this will put pressure on Blizzard to deliver with Starcraft/Warcraft franchises in the future. While MOBAS and FPS are dominating the esports scene, Blizz is still king of RTS - mostly because there really is no alternative (not saying there isn´t alot of great RTS games, but they are very different from Blizzard games)
If Frost Giant (and Dreamhaven) both develops a "Competitive RTS", it could force Blizzard to invest alot more in RTS. So this could might be a win-win. Or Blizzard could ignore everything and loose the last genre where they are still king (if only by default).
Very interesting news. Excited to see what the future will bring.
So far, I am hopeful, albeit a bit skeptical regarding this project. Obviously they have some of the best experience in the business as well as a pretty good pitch if they were able to land nearly $5 million in seed capital.
On the other hand, I hope the development gameplan clearly defines the scope, role and limitations around community feedback. Otherwise, I can see this easily ending up being a rudderless project that spends years chasing its own tail.
I really hope the creative director is empowered to thoughtfully veto community input and wall off major design decisions in favor of fulfilling their own cohesive vision. RTS as a genre tends to elicit very passionately irrational input from players and it would be a shame to see that dynamic derail or bog down the development process.
Finally, while I 100% understand the theory behind following audience trends, I'm not convinced that a fortnite-meets-fall guys rts is going to really make a lasting mark. So my biggest wish is that their game or universe or whatever they are creating gets its own soul.
RTS is a genre with a lot of depth, closer to an RPG than a FPS or racing game. It should have the capacity to be cute, but it also needs the capacity to be dark, to be poignant, to be irreverent, to be touching and to be a whole range of other things that makes a great game worth coming back to again and again. If manic pixie lootbox games are what is being represented as a model for audience tastes, I could easily see this falling into the deep fissure between two very different audiences that ultimately want two very different things, no matter how much you try to "onramp" them into each other.
This is all just food for thought. I am already signed up for the newsletter and will definitely have my hat in the ring to be a game tester and all that and I'm looking forward to playing whatever it is this studio puts out!
Amazing news, I am super hyped. I don't care about time, I don't intend to die anytime soon and even as I near 40 I will want to play RTS, I don't care I am shit at them. Just having a new triple S RTS being developed makes me very happy because starcraft 2 is frankly looking to be on the decline.
Game developers haven't really got this yet, but you can't release the next big hit if you just keep copying the recent big hits.
I see a lot of posters and community figures discussing how this game should work (or how they want it to work) micro/macro balance, economic system and how fast paced the combat will be.
To me the thing I am curious about, which will decide if I like this game or not is how it feels to play. I am sure that even features of RTS that I dislike can become great if designed right. An economic system, while obvioustly interesting will likely say nothing about if you will like the game or not. The question is how the economies are balanced and how the game feels to play, its macro cycles and flow in different matchups.
One huge factor about how an RTS feels to play is where the game puts its strategic decisions, sc2 are a lot about build orders, scouting and the units that hard counter eachother. Is that the direction this will go, or will be more similar units with more soft counters, that will make it harder to make units actually feel different and unique but it takes away the rock-paper-scissors which is not an enjoyable feel. In sc2 scouting is easy but also very important, for example I found it hilarious that proxies have become so huge, recently even walling in early as terran. 'This shows how starcraft 2 revolves heavily around scouting, if you dont scout you can just die therefore in sc2 they made scouting easy. What strategy rose to prominence after years of mapping out the game, ways to deny scouting. The second popular thing, natural deniers, ebays or pylons to block expansions. Relatively cheap investments that removes or limits the opponents options, so even if they scout and now what they want to do they might be unable to greed or hit the kind of timing they would want.
A long rant perhaps but its so fasncinating to me, real time strategy game, a game about decisions and what frost giant needs to do is figure out where do they put the decisionmaking that makes it into a strategy game while keeping micro/macro as smooth mechanics and dont ever rely on hardcounters.
As a final comment I hope they manage to make the game about small skirmishers without turning into a harass fiesta like Blizz did with starcraft 2.
Tasteless‘ comment on this situation kinda worried me in regard to Blizzard in recent years. Apparently the developers at Blizzard wanted to create new RTS games, but Activision refused to greenlight them? If that is actually the case (and I trust Tasteless here) this is a really bad prospect for the future of StarCraft and WarCraft, imo. And it left me confused, because StarCraft sold millions of copies. What the fuck do they even want? Most developers would probably be happy to have such a succesful game in their portfolio.
Anyway, this news is great. StarCraft II might have had its flaws and some of them might not have been adressed properly, but overall it is still the most popular RTS in recent years for a reason. I‘d love to see what they come up with and I hope the competitive aspect won‘t be ignored. RTS for me has always been about the complexity. And while there are good games that have been simplified to make it more enjoyable for newcomers, I really hope we have completely distinct races, we have a proper resource system and we have a proper base building system in place. I
I've tried multiple RTS over the last 10 years but always come back to SC2 since it's still the best. I'm still hoping Sc2 continues on, but damn a new RTS designed by the people involved in SC2 would be amazing. Still hoping to see great things from Dreamhaven but looking forward to what these guys can do.
I do like their statement on their site: "Strategically expand the audience. First appeal to the core audience, then also provide a great experience to strategy gamers at large. Establish a strong main before taking the natural. "
On October 21 2020 11:30 BLinD-RawR wrote: pretty interesting to see Frost Giant on TL.
It makes sense. Monk is on the team after all
On October 21 2020 21:14 Swisslink wrote: Tasteless‘ comment on this situation kinda worried me in regard to Blizzard in recent years. Apparently the developers at Blizzard wanted to create new RTS games, but Activision refused to greenlight them? If that is actually the case (and I trust Tasteless here) this is a really bad prospect for the future of StarCraft and WarCraft, imo. And it left me confused, because StarCraft sold millions of copies. What the fuck do they even want? Most developers would probably be happy to have such a succesful game in their portfolio.
Anyway, this news is great. StarCraft II might have had its flaws and some of them might not have been adressed properly, but overall it is still the most popular RTS in recent years for a reason. I‘d love to see what they come up with and I hope the competitive aspect won‘t be ignored. RTS for me has always been about the complexity. And while there are good games that have been simplified to make it more enjoyable for newcomers, I really hope we have completely distinct races, we have a proper resource system and we have a proper base building system in place. I
Activision's focus has always been on maximizing revenue via long-term installments, since those proven streams have made them into an effective and consistent publisher. I believe it's not outside the realm of possibility that they reviewed Starcraft 2's revenue model and determined that it appealed to a niche audience (no console users, limited casual appeal) that only became increasingly niche with each expansion pack (since not everyone will adopt). Couple that with the Galaxy Editor being more complex than StarEdit or WorldEdit (high barrier for entry) resulting in a hindered custom game scene, and it doesn't sound like a new RTS would have been as profitable as other ventures. Co-op helped open the game up to casual players a little bit more, but the fact that they're not continuing development on that mode must mean it's a minor or neutral undertaking. Just guessing here as a project manager myself.
Cautiously optimistic about this news. A lot of name-dropping happening here, but that's about it afaik.
Five-mil can buy a little quality or a lot of shit, and it can't possibly be enough to make the next trip-A RTS. Hopefully the funding well doesn't dry up. Best of luck to the developers in this ambitious endeavour.
[QUOTE]On October 21 2020 15:02 SmoKim wrote: I wonder if this will put pressure on Blizzard to deliver with Starcraft/Warcraft franchises in the future. While MOBAS and FPS are dominating the esports scene, Blizz is still king of RTS - mostly because there really is no alternative (not saying there isn´t alot of great RTS games, but they are very different from Blizzard games)
I agree that Blizzard is still the King but in all honesty the job was done by their former employees and executives. What remains of blizzard organization is just a bunch of greedy people that do not give a shit about players experience. They tend to lean torwards the most profitable business model and that's obviously not RTS.
Also look at what they are doing in WoW, the content is shit, there are now transmogs in micro transactions on top of subscriptions etc..
This is my advice for the studio: make the RTS good to watch from the ground up, while also making it free to play/accessible to the masses.
Sc2 success was because it was made from the beginning to be an espectator esports. And it succeeded. Compared to league of legends the ammmount of people who watches sc2 esports was an order of magnitude biggest in comparison to the playerbase.
I don't remember the exact numbers but it was something like 3% of lol players watches esports vs 40% for StarCraft players. I would need to look at the stats again. This was in 2012.
The problem was that league just simply had a massive playerbase.
If you can make a game that's great to watch, that also appeals to the masses. That's the winning formula. Easier said than done of course.
On October 22 2020 02:05 [Phantom] wrote: This is my advice for the studio: make the RTS good to watch from the ground up, while also making it free to play/accessible to the masses.
Sc2 success was because it was made from the beginning to be an espectator esports. And it succeeded. Compared to league of legends the ammmount of people who watches sc2 esports was an order of magnitude biggest in comparison to the playerbase.
I don't remember the exact numbers but it was something like 3% of lol players watches esports vs 40% for StarCraft players. I would need to look at the stats again. This was in 2012.
The problem was that league just simply had a massive playerbase.
If you can make a game that's great to watch, that also appeals to the masses. That's the winning formula. Easier said than done of course.
SC2 succeeded because it was "SC" and because it came out when neither LoL nor Dota2 was in position to massively drain viewerbase. I'm not convinved that esports orientation was really that big of a factor, and I suspect it kind of inhibited growth of playerbase.
Each massively popular esport title has it's own path.
I have serious doubts whether sc2-like RTS game can really contend with games like LoL or Dota2 or CS:GO in popularity without reinventing the genre. Maybe s.t. like WC3 but team-based.
My dream for the new project: that a priority engineering team design goal is an architecture that will make map hacks and cheats impossible. If it's an engineering priority from the get-go then it's more likely to succeed.
I am assuming that they are focusing on a lot of the SC2 community this means their RTS will be Starcraft-like and not say Company of Heroes, War3 (Hero Units), AoE, Supreme Commander. Looks like core people who worked on LotV and after it launched. Hope it doesn't turn out like FireForge studio.
Riot Games and others have lots of VC money into other studios. Bonfire Studios, Ron Pardo's studio with many ex-Blizzard staff, was party funded by Riot. We haven't heard from them for awhile other than they were focused on online multiplayer game using the Unity engine.
This is wonderful news but also sad as it will be years before we ever get to play it.
Still, glad to see some of the Blizz heroes of past looking to reforge games for gamers rather than Activision/EA's pure focus on money at the expense of the communities that have made them the companies they are.
On October 22 2020 02:05 [Phantom] wrote: This is my advice for the studio: make the RTS good to watch from the ground up, while also making it free to play/accessible to the masses.
Sc2 success was because it was made from the beginning to be an espectator esports. And it succeeded. Compared to league of legends the ammmount of people who watches sc2 esports was an order of magnitude biggest in comparison to the playerbase.
I don't remember the exact numbers but it was something like 3% of lol players watches esports vs 40% for StarCraft players. I would need to look at the stats again. This was in 2012.
The problem was that league just simply had a massive playerbase.
If you can make a game that's great to watch, that also appeals to the masses. That's the winning formula. Easier said than done of course.
SC2 succeeded because it was "SC" and because it came out when neither LoL nor Dota2 was in position to massively drain viewerbase. I'm not convinved that esports orientation was really that big of a factor, and I suspect it kind of inhibited growth of playerbase.
Each massively popular esport title has it's own path.
I have serious doubts whether sc2-like RTS game can really contend with games like LoL or Dota2 or CS:GO in popularity without reinventing the genre. Maybe s.t. like WC3 but team-based.
"SC2 succeeded because it was "SC" It that so? How do you know that?
Well I don't know if SC2 would have failed without being Starcraft, but I know for sure that a lot of sc2 hype was built on being an heir to sc:bw.
Except SC2 is not a good game. It's shitty from the spectator's perspective and the gameplay itself is not that great either. I've uninstalled it after playing like 5 missions and never looked back. Apart from some good cinematics the game simply didn't have anything to offer me as a SC fan (the fact that they removed some of my favorite and iconic units only to replace them with less interesting stuff didn't help either).
To me the real successor to SC:BW was Armies of Exigo, unfortunately EA did a shit job at marketing and it died before it had a chance to spread its wings. Some of you might even remember the fun we've had with it on those very forums doing our own tournaments and playing over Hamachi (since game servers were taken down soon after release).
Here are a few elements I would throw for strategic depth : Say there is some number of different buildings techs and units that you can make in the first 5 minutes of a game, make sure that just about any order doesn't lead to a later loss, and a lot of variation in the nuances as well (how many of each at which timing etc). This should ensure that many follow ups are possible and the strategies and games structure varied and unpredictable. Generally avoid stuff that can destroy something critical in the space of a few seconds (this is SC2's biggest flaw). It should be possible to play and win consistently against a faster player with about 150 apm [highly debatable i guess.. watching war3, the best play with high apm but the game's tempo and level of detail seem really good. I'd say it would be a good quality if you can beat with better decision making despite lower apm even at a high level, not so sure anymore though]. Depth of tactics complements depth of strategy, here again SC2 is not a model, lacking defender advantage, positioning and obstacling or maneuveuring complexity. Make sure that there are strong scouting options so that the game isn't too much about gambling and more about strategy. There is a lot of room for making a better RTS than any that currently exist due to limitations in strategic depth coming from balance (internal balance included, not just match up balance or winrate balance) and other things. Even in SC:BW which i think is the best alongside AoE2 and War3, playable map types, openings and follow ups can actually be quite limited! And scouting can be insufficient.
On October 22 2020 18:13 Dave4 wrote: This is wonderful news but also sad as it will be years before we ever get to play it.
Still, glad to see some of the Blizz heroes of past looking to reforge games for gamers rather than Activision/EA's pure focus on money at the expense of the communities that have made them the companies they are.
On Average, how much money do you have to spend in order to play a Blizzard or Activision game?
Around $50 for SC2 at the moment I believe. It wasn't so cheap at release though, most of their titles are full priced AAA games so are $60 at launch.
On October 22 2020 18:13 Dave4 wrote: This is wonderful news but also sad as it will be years before we ever get to play it.
Still, glad to see some of the Blizz heroes of past looking to reforge games for gamers rather than Activision/EA's pure focus on money at the expense of the communities that have made them the companies they are.
On Average, how much money do you have to spend in order to play a Blizzard or Activision game?
Around $50 for SC2 at the moment I believe. It wasn't so cheap at release though, most of their titles are full priced AAA games so are $60 at launch.
On October 22 2020 02:05 [Phantom] wrote: This is my advice for the studio: make the RTS good to watch from the ground up, while also making it free to play/accessible to the masses.
Sc2 success was because it was made from the beginning to be an espectator esports. And it succeeded. Compared to league of legends the ammmount of people who watches sc2 esports was an order of magnitude biggest in comparison to the playerbase.
I don't remember the exact numbers but it was something like 3% of lol players watches esports vs 40% for StarCraft players. I would need to look at the stats again. This was in 2012.
The problem was that league just simply had a massive playerbase.
If you can make a game that's great to watch, that also appeals to the masses. That's the winning formula. Easier said than done of course.
SC2 succeeded because it was "SC" and because it came out when neither LoL nor Dota2 was in position to massively drain viewerbase. I'm not convinved that esports orientation was really that big of a factor, and I suspect it kind of inhibited growth of playerbase.
Each massively popular esport title has it's own path.
I have serious doubts whether sc2-like RTS game can really contend with games like LoL or Dota2 or CS:GO in popularity without reinventing the genre. Maybe s.t. like WC3 but team-based.
I'm curious how you reach this conclusion and don't go the step further that mobas are the reinventing of the RTS genre that cut out the less desirable parts. Balance is a lot easier to manage when all the players have access to the same heroes. There is a fine art to asymmetrical advantages of different races in RTS, but this is typically covered by heroes having different timings, strengths, and weaknesses.
On October 23 2020 09:24 Manit0u wrote: I think SC2 will go F2P sometime next month. And yeah, I meant the campaign too (price of a full game if you will, not just a part of it).
To be fair, the WoL campaign is already F2P, and I think that is a tremendous value for being free and is a great introduction for new players. I don't think making the other campaigns F2P will help with player base growth or retention all that much to make up for the lost revenue. I think the current F2P system is already fairly generous with the amount of content and features it offers.
Yeah, I think RTS is doomed because the overall fun parts of the games are also stressful. We've seen all kinds of distillation of fun elements of the genre through mobas (Which then were even further distilled into moba-chess) or squad-based unit control games (footy frenzy), but I don't see a 'proper' basebuilding RTS getting much time in the sun unless it takes advantage of these distilled fun ideas and feeds those lessons into a more collaborative battleground, such as a FFA BGH derivative or something 'fun' that you -also- want your friends to play.
Basically, there's a lot to learn about what people enjoy from the RTS genre from the dearth of custom maps, and I think you need those 'custom maps' to lure people in to playing the 'actual game'.
On October 26 2020 02:12 StarStruck wrote: RTS competing with other games like F2P, MOBAS etc.
Those days are long over.
RTS had it's time in the sun. I find it highly unlikely another RTS will compete globally. Only market place I can see it ramping it up is China.
I think the idea is to shift the standards and have an appropriate business model and expectations. It's not going to be a huge stadium filling esport, but I think its going to have a niche appeal. Like, look at Total War fans, they're getting new games, CA isn't going to abandon the genre. We need a studio like that. Or I suppose the most analogous thing to RTS games is fighting games. I think for RTS to survive, developers and the community should look to fighting games since that's the closest thing to us.
On October 26 2020 02:12 StarStruck wrote: RTS competing with other games like F2P, MOBAS etc.
Those days are long over.
RTS had it's time in the sun. I find it highly unlikely another RTS will compete globally. Only market place I can see it ramping it up is China.
I think the idea is to shift the standards and have an appropriate business model and expectations. It's not going to be a huge stadium filling esport, but I think its going to have a niche appeal. Like, look at Total War fans, they're getting new games, CA isn't going to abandon the genre. We need a studio like that. Or I suppose the most analogous thing to RTS games is fighting games. I think for RTS to survive, developers and the community should look to fighting games since that's the closest thing to us.
What everyone should look up to has already been done. Unfortunately at the time it was introduced it was way ahead of the times and didn't get enough traction.
On October 26 2020 02:12 StarStruck wrote: RTS competing with other games like F2P, MOBAS etc.
Those days are long over.
RTS had it's time in the sun. I find it highly unlikely another RTS will compete globally. Only market place I can see it ramping it up is China.
I think the idea is to shift the standards and have an appropriate business model and expectations. It's not going to be a huge stadium filling esport, but I think its going to have a niche appeal. Like, look at Total War fans, they're getting new games, CA isn't going to abandon the genre. We need a studio like that. Or I suppose the most analogous thing to RTS games is fighting games. I think for RTS to survive, developers and the community should look to fighting games since that's the closest thing to us.
What everyone should look up to has already been done. Unfortunately at the time it was introduced it was way ahead of the times and didn't get enough traction.
We need a modern-day version of Savage.
If I had to pick an existing system to be redone, I would love to see the card system from AoE3 brought back. If you're unaware, it allows for major strategic decisions tied to xp, which you get for everything (building units/buildings, gathering resources, killing enemy units, and also strategic points that you can invest in to take advantage of). It was a fantastic system that allowed for very interesting strategies and another resource to manage.
On October 26 2020 02:12 StarStruck wrote: RTS competing with other games like F2P, MOBAS etc.
Those days are long over.
RTS had it's time in the sun. I find it highly unlikely another RTS will compete globally. Only market place I can see it ramping it up is China.
I think the idea is to shift the standards and have an appropriate business model and expectations. It's not going to be a huge stadium filling esport, but I think its going to have a niche appeal. Like, look at Total War fans, they're getting new games, CA isn't going to abandon the genre. We need a studio like that. Or I suppose the most analogous thing to RTS games is fighting games. I think for RTS to survive, developers and the community should look to fighting games since that's the closest thing to us.
What everyone should look up to has already been done. Unfortunately at the time it was introduced it was way ahead of the times and didn't get enough traction.
We need a modern-day version of Savage.
If I had to pick an existing system to be redone, I would love to see the card system from AoE3 brought back. If you're unaware, it allows for major strategic decisions tied to xp, which you get for everything (building units/buildings, gathering resources, killing enemy units, and also strategic points that you can invest in to take advantage of). It was a fantastic system that allowed for very interesting strategies and another resource to manage.
On October 26 2020 02:12 StarStruck wrote: RTS competing with other games like F2P, MOBAS etc.
Those days are long over.
RTS had it's time in the sun. I find it highly unlikely another RTS will compete globally. Only market place I can see it ramping it up is China.
I think the idea is to shift the standards and have an appropriate business model and expectations. It's not going to be a huge stadium filling esport, but I think its going to have a niche appeal. Like, look at Total War fans, they're getting new games, CA isn't going to abandon the genre. We need a studio like that. Or I suppose the most analogous thing to RTS games is fighting games. I think for RTS to survive, developers and the community should look to fighting games since that's the closest thing to us.
What everyone should look up to has already been done. Unfortunately at the time it was introduced it was way ahead of the times and didn't get enough traction.
We need a modern-day version of Savage.
If I had to pick an existing system to be redone, I would love to see the card system from AoE3 brought back. If you're unaware, it allows for major strategic decisions tied to xp, which you get for everything (building units/buildings, gathering resources, killing enemy units, and also strategic points that you can invest in to take advantage of). It was a fantastic system that allowed for very interesting strategies and another resource to manage.
Something like commander abilities in CoH?
Similar, but I feel like the power levels are completely different.
On October 26 2020 02:12 StarStruck wrote: RTS competing with other games like F2P, MOBAS etc.
Those days are long over.
RTS had it's time in the sun. I find it highly unlikely another RTS will compete globally. Only market place I can see it ramping it up is China.
I think the idea is to shift the standards and have an appropriate business model and expectations. It's not going to be a huge stadium filling esport, but I think its going to have a niche appeal. Like, look at Total War fans, they're getting new games, CA isn't going to abandon the genre. We need a studio like that. Or I suppose the most analogous thing to RTS games is fighting games. I think for RTS to survive, developers and the community should look to fighting games since that's the closest thing to us.
What everyone should look up to has already been done. Unfortunately at the time it was introduced it was way ahead of the times and didn't get enough traction.
We need a modern-day version of Savage.
If I had to pick an existing system to be redone, I would love to see the card system from AoE3 brought back. If you're unaware, it allows for major strategic decisions tied to xp, which you get for everything (building units/buildings, gathering resources, killing enemy units, and also strategic points that you can invest in to take advantage of). It was a fantastic system that allowed for very interesting strategies and another resource to manage.
The problem with that kind of system is that it takes away from the point have buildings in the first place: that it is possible to scout a tech or tech path and respond to that tech and tech path with all the resulting attempt to scout, hide or mislead your tech.
On October 22 2020 02:05 [Phantom] wrote: This is my advice for the studio: make the RTS good to watch from the ground up, while also making it free to play/accessible to the masses.
Sc2 success was because it was made from the beginning to be an espectator esports. And it succeeded. Compared to league of legends the ammmount of people who watches sc2 esports was an order of magnitude biggest in comparison to the playerbase.
I don't remember the exact numbers but it was something like 3% of lol players watches esports vs 40% for StarCraft players. I would need to look at the stats again. This was in 2012.
The problem was that league just simply had a massive playerbase.
If you can make a game that's great to watch, that also appeals to the masses. That's the winning formula. Easier said than done of course.
SC2 succeeded because it was "SC" and because it came out when neither LoL nor Dota2 was in position to massively drain viewerbase. I'm not convinved that esports orientation was really that big of a factor, and I suspect it kind of inhibited growth of playerbase.
Each massively popular esport title has it's own path.
I have serious doubts whether sc2-like RTS game can really contend with games like LoL or Dota2 or CS:GO in popularity without reinventing the genre. Maybe s.t. like WC3 but team-based.
I'm curious how you reach this conclusion and don't go the step further that mobas are the reinventing of the RTS genre that cut out the less desirable parts. Balance is a lot easier to manage when all the players have access to the same heroes. There is a fine art to asymmetrical advantages of different races in RTS, but this is typically covered by heroes having different timings, strengths, and weaknesses.
I can see MOBAs as reinvention of RTS but that's reinvention beyond recognition (almost). The RTSes as they currently exist are not really as popular to watch. Perhaps it's due to the amount of how many things are happening across the map.
I also see auto battlers as a successor to an RTS. I think that was part of the appeal of the rise of the auto battler genre in the last 2 years, was that it gave a nice venue for people to make awesome armies and have em clash it out without having to worry about apm/resources and the like.
I can see MOBAs as a different sort of RTS, but auto battlers are not a type of RTS, as inherent in RTS real time and the ability to micro. Autochess is a turn based game, not real time; they are two different type of games.
On November 02 2020 21:30 Dangermousecatdog wrote: I can see MOBAs as a different sort of RTS, but auto battlers are not a type of RTS, as inherent in RTS real time and the ability to micro. Autochess is a turn based game, not real time; they are two different type of games.
That's true.....but for casuals, who aren't going to micro much, or even goes far as to say they hate micro, I think its as real time as it typically gets for them. They're not really interested in multitasking but building up armies and watching them clash in glorious combat. It looks just as real-time as it would to them playing age of empires/starcraft and just a moving, if that makes sense.
Well, you can always make a game that's a) easy for the casuals b) has enough depth for the pros c) is great for spectators
You don't need to look further than Dawn of War 2 for that as it has all the required attributes. Squad based combat and commander units with RPG elements are easier to handle than individual units. There's no base building so that's out of the way. It looks amazing and has enough intricacies and depth for hardcore players to enjoy.
I have absolutely no idea why in DoW3 they've decided to abandon the winning formula (and it flopped hard which surprised no one except the publisher). They ended up having a newer game that looks worse than the previous iteration in the graphics department and is mechanically harder to execute while at the same time having much less depth to it. I have no idea who their intended audience was.
Was Dawn of War 2 even successful as a game? I've always felt that Company of Heroes had the better squad based RTS, but maybe just bias on my part. Never picked up Dawn of War 3, but I guess there's a DoW3 and not a CoH3 so I'm probably just wrong here.
On November 03 2020 22:36 Blitzkrieg0 wrote: Was Dawn of War 2 even successful as a game? I've always felt that Company of Heroes had the better squad based RTS, but maybe just bias on my part. Never picked up Dawn of War 3, but I guess there's a DoW3 and not a CoH3 so I'm probably just wrong here.
DoW2 was pretty successful. DoW3 was one of the very few games where I asked for a refund.
It's a pity that THQ/Relic aren't really there for it any more but the community has been doing great with unofficial patches like Elite Mod which is being developed by top competitive players and they're still holding some events.
The main difference between CoH and DoW2 is that DoW is less spammy as you typically have fewer units. This also means that units have much more impact and preserving them is of utmost importance. You also get more interesting units because of the setting so you get your jump infantry, teleporting units, invisible units etc.
Like I mentioned previously, it's easier for the newbies because of smaller scale in general. Great for spectators since you get more flashy abilities and less stuff on the field making it easier to follow. At the same time it's really good for advanced players as you have to use the few resources you have to get the best out of them (and it's harder than it seems).
On November 03 2020 22:12 Manit0u wrote: Well, you can always make a game that's a) easy for the casuals b) has enough depth for the pros c) is great for spectators
You don't need to look further than Dawn of War 2 for that as it has all the required attributes. Squad based combat and commander units with RPG elements are easier to handle than individual units. There's no base building so that's out of the way. It looks amazing and has enough intricacies and depth for hardcore players to enjoy.
I have absolutely no idea why in DoW3 they've decided to abandon the winning formula (and it flopped hard which surprised no one except the publisher). They ended up having a newer game that looks worse than the previous iteration in the graphics department and is mechanically harder to execute while at the same time having much less depth to it. I have no idea who their intended audience was.
This surprises me. When I bought DoW2 back when it was released and played/watched some of it, I quickly concluded that it was absolute garbage. I never bought any of the expansions or DoW3 after that. Even years later when I tuned into an event it was utterly boring to watch. How popular was it during its peak and how long did it last?
On November 03 2020 22:12 Manit0u wrote: Well, you can always make a game that's a) easy for the casuals b) has enough depth for the pros c) is great for spectators
You don't need to look further than Dawn of War 2 for that as it has all the required attributes. Squad based combat and commander units with RPG elements are easier to handle than individual units. There's no base building so that's out of the way. It looks amazing and has enough intricacies and depth for hardcore players to enjoy.
I have absolutely no idea why in DoW3 they've decided to abandon the winning formula (and it flopped hard which surprised no one except the publisher). They ended up having a newer game that looks worse than the previous iteration in the graphics department and is mechanically harder to execute while at the same time having much less depth to it. I have no idea who their intended audience was.
This surprises me. When I bought DoW2 back when it was released and played/watched some of it, I quickly concluded that it was absolute garbage. I never bought any of the expansions or DoW3 after that. Even years later when I tuned into an event it was utterly boring to watch. How popular was it during its peak and how long did it last?
It was fairly popular all things considered. It's hard to judge it against the giants since it has always been rather niche series but as far as I know it is pretty highly praised and well received. Especially the expansions since Relic made the mistake of going double-DRM with initial DoW2 release (steam + xbox). It slowed down the patching (since all the patches had to be vetted by Microsoft and it was long and tedious process so they waited until more changes accumulated to do it in one batch rather than small incremental updates) and was annoying as hell. Expansions remedied it (and can be played standalone) and Retribution is pretty great. I play it from time to time to this day and have around 500 hours put into it which is quite a lot considering my rather casual approach to games.
Please just make sure it's predominantly a macro RTS (with only some micro incentives) and please balance for the top 1% of the playerbase, not bronze leaguers.
I played quite a lot of DoW (even tho I only joined the party with DC), but I never got into DoW2. It just seemed completely unacceptable that the game got rid of base building and I somehow never got interested in it (mainly due to most of my friends that I played DoW with really hating it during beta). Didnt know that it actually developed into a game with an active community or anything like that.
On November 03 2020 22:12 Manit0u wrote: Well, you can always make a game that's a) easy for the casuals b) has enough depth for the pros c) is great for spectators
You don't need to look further than Dawn of War 2 for that as it has all the required attributes. Squad based combat and commander units with RPG elements are easier to handle than individual units. There's no base building so that's out of the way. It looks amazing and has enough intricacies and depth for hardcore players to enjoy.
I have absolutely no idea why in DoW3 they've decided to abandon the winning formula (and it flopped hard which surprised no one except the publisher). They ended up having a newer game that looks worse than the previous iteration in the graphics department and is mechanically harder to execute while at the same time having much less depth to it. I have no idea who their intended audience was.
This surprises me. When I bought DoW2 back when it was released and played/watched some of it, I quickly concluded that it was absolute garbage. I never bought any of the expansions or DoW3 after that. Even years later when I tuned into an event it was utterly boring to watch. How popular was it during its peak and how long did it last?
It was fairly popular all things considered. It's hard to judge it against the giants since it has always been rather niche series but as far as I know it is pretty highly praised and well received. Especially the expansions since Relic made the mistake of going double-DRM with initial DoW2 release (steam + xbox). It slowed down the patching (since all the patches had to be vetted by Microsoft and it was long and tedious process so they waited until more changes accumulated to do it in one batch rather than small incremental updates) and was annoying as hell. Expansions remedied it (and can be played standalone) and Retribution is pretty great. I play it from time to time to this day and have around 500 hours put into it which is quite a lot considering my rather casual approach to games.
Also looks like competitive DoW2 is played with a third party mod for balance because the developers abandoned it. Very hard entry for players sadly.
Well, the publisher went bankrupt and the devs moved to doing different things so community took balancing into their own hands. I'm not saying to get into it now, I'm saying it used to be quite popular (we have to remember that this game is pretty old after all) and still has dedicated players who keep patching and re-balancing the game to keep it fresh.
On November 05 2020 00:47 Latham wrote: Please just make sure it's predominantly a macro RTS (with only some micro incentives) and please balance for the top 1% of the playerbase, not bronze leaguers.
Haha I want it to go in the exact opposite direction xD Lots of micro and skillshots. Base building no more than a Protoss kinda level. With Terran I get always supply capped cause I only send one SCV to build 6 depots ^^' Terran macro is definitely the hardest (for me).
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