Tasteless Has Some FEELINGS About The STORMGATE Alpha Gameplay 

i have to admit it looks like Warcraft 3 and Starcraft 2 had a really ugly baby. I really hope this is gonna be good. I just want it to be good.

Nothing will beat the aesthetic and soundscape of SC and Brood War.

I think what makes the maps feel "Warcraft III"-like to me is how cramped they seem. The main bases in particular seem like there really isn't much room and the pathways feel narrower too.

Maybe it's the AoE trauma, but it feels really odd to see such rich treelines and no units chopping for wood.

I personally hope they focus on a good single-player, possibly coop, at least in the beginning. My reasoning is that, in retrospective, sc and wc attracted players through their story and single-player first, and these players stayed due to the multi-player, ladder and custom maps. A good single-player and co-op must not be overlooked, and in my opinion esports should not be the reason this game exists, because the industry has been trying to make "esports titles" for over a decade and we all know how many of them succeeded. Of course, make the multiplayer as good as possible, but don't try to force it into an esport, if that makes sense. I feel there's a fine line to tread here

The units look weirdly out of place in this terrain.

A lot of things worry me about this game, but what worries me most is the universe and art style. Both of those are literally what made Blizzard games successful. And, to be blunt, I see nothing here. But we'll see.

I know its pre alpha and we have a long way to go but im not sure i like it right now. It feels more like warcraft 3 and i like more sc2. Feels slow, small armies and casual. friendly. I hope it gets better.

thanks for reviewing! I miss so much without you pointing it all out :)

that's the John Wick robot it dashes and stuns so he can close range headshot people with his gatling gun. Makes absolutely no sense at all.

The command card UI is what jumps out for me already. Very clear, solid hierarchy by row, all important build order information grouped into one place, and hopefully those QWERT tabs will take pressure off from manual control groups to manage army, production and upgrades.

WC3 and SC2 DNA is felt here, not sure for better or for worse.

On that suggestion of swappable units before the game: I really don't like that. I would rather players have a full pallet of options to react to what their opponent is doing in game.

I am happy that Tasteless called his mom's employment out, Director of Business Operations that she is.

It doesn't seem nearly as distinct visually as warcraft or starcraft were. It's only prelapha though.

Why do I feel like that it’s a StarCraft Knockoff 😂

16:00 SC2 barracks under a plane. Took me some to realize :)

Hopefully they add options for heavier sounding guns, I think what I missed most from sc1 was the sound design. Deep booms of siege tanks, the sound of marine's guns, even the horrible whine of the missile turrets.

Looks really interesting so far. Partially navigable trees that can be smashed by big mechs and potentially others is really cool - I wonder if they have plans for more pseudo-obstacles on terrain, I dunno maybe hillsides smaller units can scale down or something. Also I wonder if they have plans for doing more urban tilesets and obstacles - I’m just thinking it would be cool having those mechs using buildings for cover, maybe as an upgrade for them. Pretty cool though, everything I’m seeing.

The most interesting non-stormgate comment I've heard from the devs is that they sided with the single worker mining side of the pre LOV debate. So I see them keeping lower workers to start

the lack of innovation and imagination of new style gameplay or units is really sad. :/

well that was definitely no blizzard cinematic lol. reminds me of killer instinct gold.. circa 1996

wow, warcraft 3 remastered

what i like the most about the developers is that they're very interested in feedback and opinions and actually already changed some things based on that. but yes, the game is gonna look way different when it launches. nothing is final here, can't be said often enough. just keep that in mind :)

If you squint your eyes just enough, you can see warcraft3 with sc2 skin mod from this video

Warcraft 3 with club penguin graphics.

coming to this after seeing NEO's (B2W) review and ups and down videos , its interesting to see the different perspectives between a wc3 guy like Neo and a Starcraft guy like Tasteless , both are very valid arguments.

Given that some units can traverse trees, I wonder how that will work if there's an engagement inside of the forest. They may just fight, but if you've ever played Total War Games you'll know that it's really annoying when you cant see your units cos of the trees. There's going to be a lot of tricky little tactics to do with those trees regarding LOS etc. Imagine how annoying it's gonna be if someone has a range advantage on you and they can just keep strafing back to the trees.

I am quite excited about SG just a worried little bit. What I liked the most about W3 and SC2 was the visuals - it is always easy to distinguish units. As a person with light red-green colorblindness, I had sometimes issues with certain games. I have never adjusted from W3:DotA to Dota 2 - I could just not properly understand what's happening in the game. I feel SG does not seem that clear as well and it kinda looks like dota 2 :/

That seige tank focus fire at the beginning looks just like the catapult attack ground mechanic that experts employed in aoe 1 to preempt enemy movement and clear forests for backdoor attacks

I know it's an alpha but I would have liked to see something new, different, innovative. This just looks like Terran v1.5 in the forest. E.g.: a new concept, a new mechanic, something fresh.

I'm both very excited for this and completely expecting it to be just terrible at launch. I sure hope they're not afraid to make sweeping changes and we won't have to deal with whatever the Stormgate equivalent of the early WoL SCV/Marine rushes is for a year or two.

I think either the ao2 formula or the wc3 formula works better than what they are going for here. Ressource gathering seems very streamlined and a bit uninspired. It leaves little room for giga casuals to build big cities and boom before building armies. On the other hand, the lack of hero units in micro intensive unit dilutes the focus of battles. I think the sc2 version of rts is the one that appeals to the narrowest of audience. On top of that the graphics make it look a bit like a mobile game which really goes against the high skilled players it seemed to be geared towards

I'm so excited. I think it looks very promising.

Unless they are mining bread, I laughed way to hard at that.

I can’t stand how this looks visually. Granted I care much more about the mechanics, and I have faith they will get that right. Even if right now it looks a bit.. well underwhelming action wise. I hope the difficulty differentiater won’t be just how well you micro and control but also macro and speed.

Got a lot reacts on my algorithm, but this is the one I been waiting for

I do not want to see units designed like disruptors

I had to go search the full video to watch it properly... thank you

I have low expectations for this...

I wanted something closer to SC2 than WC3... feel a bit dissapointed, but will still try it out.

this is super exciting. Love to see these devs are still making great games.

One thing I love about blizzard RTS is that small details can inform you of how the entire game will play. So for example, in WC3, the primary resource (gold) can only be harvested from a single node (gold mine), while the secondary resource (lumber) is spread out, and can be harvested by as many workers as you like. While in Starcraft, the primary resource (minerals) is spread out, and the secondary (gas) is in single nodes. From this small detail you can tell that Starcraft expects you to amass large numbers of units, and allows you to occupy a small portion of the map until you're ready to strike. Whereas if you play that way in Warcraft, you would be hamstrung by the limited gold income, since the game expects you to roam around with your units to take objectives and build up your tertiary resource (experience). These games are really thoughtfully designed, so I'm excited to see how Stormgate sets itself apart.

I hope this succeeds. Right now it just looks like a Warcraft III mod.

The logic type of infantry that you put in a sci-fi setting; Guts tryhard cosplayers.

Super excited for this.

Looking forward to see how the graphics will get better

That projectile siege tank looks like a terrible unit lol.

Tencent already has its claws into Frost Giant.

the colors indeed look really nice, feels like supreme commander meets warcraft

Looks like a StarCraft 2 clone so far, I hope I'm wrong

Not sure how I feel about the extreme shadows and lighting, but seems like that might be a map thing? It definitely draws attention away from the units on screen and makes it harder to discern things at a glance

Nice use of marvel 2 ost. I recommend tekken 4 ost for the video too. Great content tasteless!

i'm so excited for this game

Feels a lot more like Warcraft 3 from its overall look and feel. Sure its Scifi as well. Graphic style is also very much like League of Legends, intentionally or not.

This is pre-alpha, so the mechanics have been laid out, but with high probability some of the units/buildings/skills will not even make it to the final version. We should be assessing the engine more than any particular units. Also, comparing the completeness of this to SCII alpha, I think it is amazing and full of potential.

TASTELESS, are we at the height of the era of monetizatioin, the plateau, or on a hill that will keep going up?

Less Blue and Red colors in games. See it all the time in SC2 high level matches

I bet it's just like SC2 where it's just select forests/areas you can path through but not every forest.

I think my biggest worry about this game is that it'll be good but the internet will decide it's "too cartoony" or "not innovative enough" or "too much like XYZ game from another genre entirely," as they're already doing. And then the game will fail, Frost Giant will probably go under, and Stormgate'll never get the support it needs to live more than a year or two. I'd very much prefer that didn't happen, but the more I see how people react to every single Stormgate reveal, the more I see the nerdrage momentum building.

24:31 team leagues help out, and people helping each other in a team especially given the 3v3 gamemode

"Unless they're mining bread." Don't sleep on the bread mines! Who has time to bake?

Looks good, so far. What I like most is that its not a bunch of cluttered stuff and I can tell units apart. What was disappointing in RTS Dawn of war 3 for example is that units are like a bunched mass and you cant tell stuff apart. Hope this game does well!

Thanks for video! :)

Super exciting!

the MvC2 music in the background. nice

Every time I see this guy I expect him to hit me with that galaxy wink.

I'm very skeptical of skins in RTS, especially if they show outward to other players, because they might confuse which buildings and units are what. Personally, I think the visual design look a little dull, but I understand it's modern and appeals to the mainstream. In addition, what's very important for success is design should be minimalistic, so that players with high end computers can turn up graphical fidelity, while those who don't can turn it down and play on any computer. That's what's key today - availability. What about unit class variety? F.ex. small units can move through trees but not rocks, medium units can break rocks but not trees, and big units can bash through trees but not rocks, or both. You have to progress in order to break/blow resources out of a giant rock or out of the ground, in order to settle a base there and mine them. Could make for creative maps. Just an idea

This looks so good can't wait to play

I really hope frost giant can pull this off and we have a real successor to brood war. As sad as it is BW will die one day and something less “hotkey all your builds together and deathball army” would be nice. Also I would like to see upgrades that change the functionality of units instead of just altering their dps.

This game looks amazing can't wait to try it out

This is literally if WC3 and SC2 had a baby.

Farmville Battle Royal. This game should go straight to mobile lol

I like sc1 and sc2. But I always found the stuff in age of empires using the environment with forests etc so cool with how the maps are different and how much u can change the map compared to starcrafts static maps where they all the same

Had no idea this was in the works. First impressions are this is a re-skinned StarCraft II with sluggish movement and somewhat cartoonish visuals. Sincerely hope to be proven wrong; will give it a shot when released, if Blizzard doesn’t sue for copyright infringement first.

I remember back when I first played Night Elf in reign of chaos I was so excited to try doing guerilla tactics with their shadowmeld ability. Turned out you absolutely couldnt, but I would love to see if stormgate can make that a reality.

imagine you go down in history as the most prolific stormgate caster, who dabbled in starcraft

As someone just getting into RTS I just want a game with a higher playerbase than what we have now. I cant find anyone at the beginner level Im basically forcing myself to beat hardest computer before i go to ranked AOE4 and WC3 and SC2

If anyone wants to see some aoe4 fun. "Outback octogen" is a fun tournament. First one I seen and it was pretty cool and fun. Some crazy games.

It's less innovation than I hoped tbh. This is mostly copied stuff from existing RTS. Which doesn't mean it wont be better supported than SC2 etc. Hope they can turn it up a notch.

I just want it to be fun. if its fun, i'll play lots of it.

Hopefully they notice the defensive turret shots come from the center of the building instead of the barrels

This looks like a game that will be very enjoyable for people who like playing multiplayer. Me personally - between 'all over the place' setting and all the micro-intensive mechanics I have a feeling I won't enjoy it being only interested in singleplayer.

The shadows are pretty cool.

This looks promising!

I get they want to bring the dogs in game is friend best man in dark times and good helper which is rare in the game.

Using the environment more is a good idea. If this video represents broad strokes then this is promising, but it does not appear to have the action and micro potential of SC2 yet. I hope that they use at least 3 distinct factions with asymmetric balance so that it is not just a matter of armies butting heads, which it does seem like they are moving in that direction. I like the colors, but overall it is too cartoony looking, which I think might appeal to some newer players of RTS, but might not give it the staying power a great RTS needs to reach it's full potential.

I don't think the races are going to be divided by terran, zerg, protoss. I think the Humans are starcraft in general. Some protoss mechanics might be scattered across the other 2 races, but we might see some protoss like units go into the humans. That's because they seem to be going with a Starcraft race and a Diablo race at the moment. We have no idea if the third race is going to be warcraft like or something completely different, but it could be fantasy like. I'm thinking elves, orcs, trolls, and ogre kind of feel all on 1 race. They will probably have some technology to compete with the other 2 if they go with a design like that. I don't think Starcraft identifiers are going to mean all that much though because the human race has both the terran key qualities and the zergs most key quality on the same race. I wonder if that means that the Diablo race might rely on free unit assaults like the swarm host and infestor. Since demons and summoning often go hand in hand. Like you can make unit comparisons with Starcraft and Warcraft, but general identifiers aren't that reliable. We also got Age of Empires Scouting in the game. So that is an entire unit type in the early game that did not exist until tier 2 in Warcraft 2. None of the other Blizzard RTS had a unit just for scouting like that game did. Though you could argue that some units in Starcraft are so useless in combat and fast that their entire purpose was to scout. Like Reapers, Hellions, Low numbers of Zerglings, Overlords, and Observers. Are kind of their race's scouts. Air units in general are pretty much free any information you want on your opponent. I do like it better when the scout role is on a unit though. It helps new players know that this unit is for scouting. They may not be useless in combat, but they may lose to things they should beat in certain situations because fighting is not their main role. It feels like it's just gonna be exactly the same as Starcraft scouting and the only thing that changed is they slapped a tag onto a few units to help noobs out.

They just combined a bunch of blizzard assets into a mobile looking game. Terrans, gold mines, trees, dva mechs, diablo dudes. Looks awful.

I'd recommend checking out Back 2 Warcraft's interview with Kevin Dong. It's insightful for a lot of stuff you're looking at here.

Whats the creep for if there is no hero unit?

Love the fact that a proper RTS is inbound. That said, I don't see any reason to play this with what exists in market. Would have loved to see a proper successor to WC3 but this feels like SC in C&C settings. Dunno, nothing screams innovation and is more what Blizz of old has done.

I think its a bit cartoonish, this might fail like AoE4... also so far there seems to be only that one faction; will have to see if they are interesting & diverse enough. Base building seems to be very minimal as well

I really hope with this game they do spend a fair bit of time making asymmetrical maps, atleast for like, the launch maps. I'm just really tired of playing on symmetrical maps. They just get so boring so fast. Like Hunters from bw, right? Even some 25 years later, people won't stop playing hunters and that map is super imbalanced. But that's what makes it great! It's just so replayable! And I would love for Stormgate to have a Hunters of its own that people are still playing 10, even 20 years later.

Tbh, it just looks like a combo of wc3 and sc2.

Looking like Stormgate is going to be like Starwars the Force Awakens of RTS. Like yeah you're playing the hits, this is an RTS we get it. Wish we saw something cool

Looks like WC3 maps with starcraft units

No idea how people are even comparing this to SC rather than WC: Small maps with "lanes". Low worker count. "gold mines", no worker maynarding. Oversized buildings. No real base management, you arent going to see 12 rax/gates here. Creeps. Slower unit/game speed combined with nonsense abilities eg. the silly single target stun/tank aoes babies can dodge. It's only saving grace is that it doesn't look like it has the clumping problem SC2 has. As tasteless has said, a good RTS should be able to tax the player enough so that they can't macro and micro effectively at the same time. Every new RTS seems to miss out on this balance. Is it so hard to ask for an RTS that promotes battle lines, flanking, relies on core units rather than silly abilities, has large armies and worker counts, spread out expansions. Broodwar 2 please.

So it takes 100 rounds from a machine gun to kill a chicken?!

definitely a lot off age of empires 2 vibes aswell, like with terrain destruction with abiities and just the happy look of the game, not as gloomy as traditional blizzard games, damn i look forward to playing this one