Stormgate is a fresh RTS game set in an all-new science fantasy universe, it's hit Early Access today free to play but you may need a little tweak on Linux to run it. Developed by a whole bunch of Ex-Blizzard staffers including people who worked on StarCraft II, Warcraft III as well as C&C: Generals 2 and Wasteland 3, the team certainly knows their stuff.
Quite exciting to see another big RTS enter the market, as someone who absolutely adores these types of games and what I've played of it has been quite promising. Still plenty of rough edges, but that's expected for an unfinished game.
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The good news is that with Proton 9.0-2, it does work pretty well on Linux (testing done on Kubuntu 24.04). However, there's an issue where you may get stuck on the loading screen when it's checking for Ping. You can overcome this issue with one single terminal command, which as always with suggestions — use at your own risk:
sudo sysctl -w net.ipv4.ping_group_range="0 1000"
This allows your user to send and receive ICMP echo packets.
After that, no issues getting into the game. Performance is pretty reasonable too, again making allowances since it's not finished. Running it on my AMD Ryzen 5800x and Radeon 6800 XT at 2560x1440 the "Ultra" preset has been giving me a mostly smooth 60FPS+ and largely well over that.
I played a lot of StarCraft and StarCraft II years ago, and playing Stormgate was quite peculiar because it really does feel like StarCraft, although StarCraft with a lower budget. Even some of the unit voice lines sound like an alternate version of some units in StarCraft. This Ex-Blizzard team are certainly doing their best to be StarCraftButNot.
The free to play release does still need you to end up paying eventually though, since it only includes 1v1 ranked matched, 3 player co-op missions (and all heroes in co-op up to level 5) and custom games. If you want all the heroes and the actual campaign, you do need to pay up. For everything it's £50.99 according to Steam in the "Ultimate Early Access Pack".
Find Stormgate on Steam.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Once beloved genre and now I just don't care. The only RTS that I would like to play is Supreme Commander (Forged Alliance Forever - the community project makes it playable under Linux and in multiplayer). Also I should commend Beyond All Reason for the great achievement of being fun and spectacular, especially being open source - it's usually hard to pull that effectively. I loved old Blizzard games, but for me the genre seems dead now. It was stagnant for years and I don't see anything interesting in that. I just can't even collect myself to care.
I am strangely attracted to Total Annihilation style games now, even if I suck at them. But that was true usually even with the Blizzard games of old. It's interesting that in the 2000s there was more branches of RTS subgenres with different approaches and experiments. Earth 2150 had modular units, terraforming and underground tunneling. Command and Conquer series had its unique UI and production logic (at least before the Generals). Total Annihilation had it's streaming economy and multiple tiers of units. Age of Empires had ... ages.
And I'm not going to bring up Shiny's (genious) Sacrifice or Bullfrog's Dungeon Keeper, because they are in their own league and respective subgenre.
So, my question is this: was there something of interest, even if flawed in the last 10 years that an old internet dweller can feast his eyes or imagination on?
Last edited by vox on 15 August 2024 at 9:25 am UTC
I am strangely attracted to Total Annihilation style games now, even if I suck at them. But that was true usually even with the Blizzard games of old. It's interesting that in the 2000s there was more branches of RTS subgenres with different approaches and experiments. Earth 2150 had modular units, terraforming and underground tunneling. Command and Conquer series had its unique UI and production logic (at least before the Generals). Total Annihilation had it's streaming economy and multiple tiers of units. Age of Empires had ... ages.
And I'm not going to bring up Shiny's (genious) Sacrifice or Bullfrog's Dungeon Keeper, because they are in their own league and respective subgenre.
So, my question is this: was there something of interest, even if flawed in the last 10 years that an old internet dweller can feast his eyes or imagination on?
Last edited by vox on 15 August 2024 at 9:25 am UTC
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ElectricPrism Aug 15
Quoting: eldakingQuoting: ElectricPrismAlso, I know with the rise of WarCraft 3 and DOTA 1 and DOTA 2 the focus on "Heroes" is now a thing, I just wish it wasn't. RTS was just fine when heroes we're 300% the size of units with obnoxious roles and mega powers. It's fine when done with taste but I haven't really seen it cooked right. SC2 was okayish.
Yeah "heroes" in strategy games really rub me the wrong way. It is an RPG-ization of the genre, moving away from "you control an army" to "you control this main character, plus some minions". It is particularly common in fantasy-themed games, precisely because they get thematic inspiration by the D&D-style fantasy where "party of heroes goes adventuring" is a powerful trope. If I'm to have leaders to the army, I'd rather have a general that isn't a powerful warrior but gives command bonuses.
There are some benefits to hero units in game design, dipping into the strengths of other genres: it is convenient for making narratives more personal, leveling up is a good progression mechanic, it creates a lot more unit distinction (with a built-in diegetic explanation), powerful unique units give a sense of power and accomplishment, it helps keep the scale in check to make the game easier to control, and the mechanics are part of basic game literacy. But the thematic connection makes it clear that a large part is "make it more like an RPG, RPGs are good!". With Warcraft 3, it was very obviously meant to mix the genres, with the Rexxar campaign standing out. Blizzard always felt like they just didn't want to make RTS games, it was more like an obligation, and they constantly tried to turn their RTS franchises into something else (Lord of the Clans, SC Ghost, and finally succeeded with WoW and never looked back).
Anyway, tangential rant finished, but yeah I'm tired of hero units.
Lots of insights there -- great observation with SC Ghost attempting to depart the StarCraft franchise and from the RTS roots. It felt like they were chasing the current thing at the time which was the Space-Tech FPS Genre -- Halo (Memory is fuzzy but I thought I even recalled some kind of "warthog" like vehicle or gun turrets but don't quote me on that). The soundtrack for Ghost did eventually come out or leak and the sound design was more true to StarCraft and BroodWar than SC2 was -- which took more liberties and made Terran out to sound like redneck hicks that like country music -- which was offputting. And HoTS took even more liberties especially in the cinematic departed completely changing Kerrigan and minimizing her into a lesser character in an even bigger more "Grande" vision by whatever new hotshot writers "vision" for the universe. I always liken this to the new writers always trying to destroy the old writers legacy and vision instead of "extending it" and "enhancing it". Suddenly you got zeroing in on 1 thing "Xel`Naga" and throw in a bunch of space lasers and new stuff and the mystery that made the story interesting is now gone. [[ See Star Wars 4, 5 & 6 ]] vs [[ 1, 2, and 3 ]] -- (Eg: Oh the force, this invisible magic that binds the universe together -- that sounds cool -- 4, 5, 6 -- and then boom StarWars 1 is like "Oh It's just the number of medichlorian in your blood, so we can harvest anyone's blood and make a super jedi /facepalm)
I can definitely see the D&D "Hero" influences in RPG RTS crossover. BroodWar felt right. Heroe units were still humanoid sized maybe with a slight recolor or fancy decal -- Raynor was a Vultr that looked like every other Vultr, what made them unique was their unique capabilities. In newer games Heros seemed 200-300% the size of regular units -- and it's Ackward having a bunch of marines and then one giant one -- it's comical, and takes you out of the cinematic universe, and is an insult to the players intelligence to be able to distinguish the special unit from the regular units.
I know why they do it though -- suddenly you can sell action figures and make extra income (See Warhammer $50-$200 at a glance).
I'm very surprised we haven't seen a straight rippoff of BroodWar as Open Source by now. Yeah I know we have Wargus/Stargus which doesn't have a lot of activity, but considering the technological advancements of things like GoDot, Rust and Linux making it so far, for such a Legendary game and series to not have a successor is like Harvest Moon before Stardew Valley tapped that market.
And to see a game enter the market like this and then then sell Heroes, Campaign Levels, and bundle with Easy Anti-Cheat is just all kinds of Red-Flags.
A modern RTS should be DRM-Free, 8-16 players, a mode where two or more players can control 1 race to get all the functions done, complex enough base building (there is a optimal number of units just like chess has sufficient complexity but not endless scope), resource collection, competitive online play, custom maps, and rediculous hacks like "Lights On" "Lights Off" in SCBW and WarCraft 3 ((IIUC) where you could stack turrets, cannons, and do other "Fun" stuff -- because hey -- devs seem to forget that the entire point of games should be to maximize "Fun" and not take everything so seriously.
I can't even tell you how many times I've had to spin up a WINE bottle with StarCraft Remastered only to have the whole thing crash. The new graphics are nice but 90% of the time it doesn't work without manual intervention that takes 30m - 1h.
And unfortunately BroodWar isn't scaling on Sway in Wayland even with a manual virtual desktop resolution set.
It's a real shame that this classic which was the first games running in WINE isn't up to the task on Wayland presently. I hope to see that change soon.
/rant, thanks for the great conversion, lol
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Quoting: ElectricPrismthan SC2 was -- which took more liberties and made Terran out to sound like redneck hicks that like country music -- which was offputting.
Uhmmm... no? You need to know that for a long time across sci fi lovers the most loved franchise use to be Firefly. Now that show was a victim of the generalists TV industry in the USA and wasn't renew for a second season. But indeed it was a memorable show.
The SC2 devs saw connection between Raynor situation and the Firefly show (then who knows which one infleced the other, maybe Firefly took from sc1). Both took place in a world where humanity left Earth, both has a setting with 3 powerful central planets where there original colonizing ships landed (in SC that would be Tarsonis, Umoya and Moria), both had a struggle between these central powers and their own "backwater" colonies. There were psi gifted guys, tipically troubled girls. And ofc the main protagonists is guy from a forgotten and abused colony, he used to fight a freedom war against a tirannic power, ultimately lost, and then in the aftermath became a renegade making a life outside the law with a bunch of rebels across the fringe.
Now... I can clearly see that if the original idea was to make Hyperion like the Firefly that was totally lost. Hyperion is a former capital ship, Firefly a small cargo. But as for the overall setting, super advanced core worlds and fringe colonies where the life feels like the old wild west, I can see the connection and having the music recall the Firefly show was appreciated a lot at that time.
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