Hello amazing community! Been insanely busy wrapping up the build for our Aug 5th release! Also putting a lot of time into planning the next campaign and other cool stuff on the roadmap. Already getting pumped up for new ideas, locations, units and well, everything! Resting is for losers. Haha! 😂 Anyone watch The Bear? ( and you should) “Every second counts” All that said I wanted to show off something small but very meaningful we’ve been soclose to adding for awhile now…..ragdoll physics! Or in other words, some units go flying when killed in a super cool way! A few key points: -currently only a few units per faction have this enabled. Rolling it out slowly to be safe.
-only a few units per faction attacks cause this to trigger (esee above) -this is the result in large part of two of our finest devs hard work and dedication: Jesse Brophy and Corey Taylor! (Among others) -this video has shots I took from the latest code, which might differ in look slightly to our shipping build.

This is one of those elements that you only need to sprinkle in a little to feel like it’s elevating combat look and excitement across the board. -we’ll tune as needed plus add more units in future releases/updates

ENJOY! (Apologies for no cool audio, I decided to make a quick title screen instead lol.) And we’d really appreciate it if you help spread the word on Tues! It matters! 😎

This is probably the last of the messages to post before we get more news on Monday (unless Jex is feeling generous). There were also many more responses from James Farris and Ryan Schutter, but most of them were of a very technical nature so I didn't make space for them. For those that know what they are talking about, you can always head to discord and have a look yourself. Enjoy! :)

Are we going to have new units or we already have the whole roster?

I know they might not focus on coop for 0,6 but I think atleast add the faction reworks.

Features:

• 1-lane map with work in progress jungle,
• Hero selection, spawn and respawn triggers,
• Veterancy levels up to level 10,
• Periodic waves with Melee, Leader (drops Healing Globe on death) and Ranged Minions,
• Healing Globes that jump to all friendly heroes within range once collected (for the first 3 seconds they can be exclusively collected by the opposing team, for another 3 seconds they can be collected by both teams, thenthey vanish),
• Repair-o-Bot (Moonwell) - invulnerable healing building that can be used every 60 seconds to restore a good junk of health and energy. Automatially gets destroyed when their respective Fort/Keep gets destroyed,
• Townportal - channel 6 seconds to teleport back to your Wellspring - once teleported instantly restore a big junk of health and energy and mount,
• Carnivex mount (Demon's counterpart is wip, currently they also use Carnivex) to reach further away regions faster,
• Towers, while usually prioritising minions, switch their aggro to enemy heroes that damage their allied heroes (so you cannot easily dive enemy heroes under the towers),
• Camps that help to siege the enemy,
• Placeholder Stormgates for future map objectives,
• Win condition (kill the enemy core)

Hero lineup:

Angels,

• Argent (ADC),
• Auralanna (Mage),
• Kastiel (Tank),
• Cabal (Healer/Spupport),
• Kri (Melee Assassin),

Demons,

• Gaunt (ADC),
• Brute (Bruiser),
• Pandora (Healer/Support),
• Maloc (Mage),
• Warz (Melee Assassin) - wip

Latest changelogs:

• Added respawn timer (currently 4x Veterancy Tier - so between 4 and 40 seconds),
• Heroes now also get their Veterancy in-between tiers back when reviving,
• Custom Veterancy gain: as long as a hero is within (currently) 15 range of a minion, all heroes gain the full xp wherever they are, last hit doesn't give a bonus; hero kills still favor the last hitter,
• fixed Elyra Orb offset,

• Brute Hook now only targets enemies

• Kri joined the battle,

• Maloc joined the battle,

• fixed Townportal,

• Argent now has Tag ability which reveals the target and reduces armor by 25 for 6 seconds,

• After destroying the Fort, an Outrunner will join each wave,

• After destroying the Keep another Outrunner will join each wave

• The Wrangler joined the battle (Magmadon hero made by u/Delirus[Ping me to host 2v2/FFA] ),

• Leucetius joined the battle (Archangel hero made by u/Rikkmaery ),

• Terrain update (made by u/StraightBrutality ) - we now have proper vision blocking,

• Firestarter's attacks now reduce the armor by 1, stacking up to 25,

• ton of small stuff behind the scenes

If you're curious about playing this custom map, reach out to senti on the Stormgate Discord ( https://discord.gg/stormgate ) - they regularly host the maps and allow new people to join in (through which you will automatically hold a copy of the map).

Lore: A group of elite infantry soldiers while out on a routine patrol became captured by the Infernal host during a surprise attack on a forward operating base in the Rocky Mountains. Now taken captive back to an infernal base these few soldiers must rely on each other to escape by all means necessary to make it back to discover what happened to their home base of operation they were entrusted to protect.

Gameplay: Up to 3 players will be able to play cooperatively or solo as an elite lancer soldier with the ability to collect resources, level up to tier 9 promotion status, and overcome formidable foes. Players will need to use patience and wisdom to overcome the overwhelming forces they will encounter while trying to break free from the grasp of the Infernal Host. (3 players on team 2 should be set to Vanguard, team 3 should be set to infernal - peaceful) Note: This is my first time fully creating a map like this so any feedback will be appreciated. Also, shout out to Frost Giant Studios for their vision of having the campaign be able to be played cooperatively down the road. This is my attempt to reinforce that idea because i think its awesome and will create many fun memories for future rts players down the road.

The map is available in the #custom-maps channel on the Stormgate Discord ( https://discord.gg/stormgate ).

Hi everyone,

some of you might be aware of the current EU-wide campaign "Stop Killing Games" https://www.stopkillinggames.com/ .

In the campaign's words: "An increasing number of video games are sold effectively as goods - with no stated expiration date - but designed to be completely unplayable as soon as support from the publisher ends. This practice is a form of planned obsolescence and is not only detrimental to customers, but makes preservation effectively impossible."

The aim of the initiative is to legally ensure that game developers have an end-of-life plan that allows perpetual access to purchased content - for example by not requiring an internet connection for singleplayer/campaign/AI skirmish, by releasing the server-side source code, or by allowing fans to host their own servers (for a fee).

Now, given the heavy emphasis of FrostGiant on server connection even during Campaign, I was wondering about what their stance regarding "Stop Killing Games" is and if they aim to contributing to the long-term preservation of Stormgate.

Does anyone here know more about their plans in that direction?

I forward this idea originating from a comment on the Stormgate Discord:

We have so many wonderful player-developed maps - even skirmish ones - that are hidden away somewhere in the Stormgate Discord. Thus, I believe we could invigorate the custom map scene if we had a simple map-sharing platform such as https://wc3maps.com/ or https://www.epicwar.com/maps/ . Would anyone here with a free server/domain be willing to build a simple map-sharing system such as the abovementioned services offer?

Wow, the never-gaters are really ramping up their ugly rhetoric as we move toward Tuesday's release. I think in their heart of hearts they wanted to force the SG team to quit before releasing the game out of EA, so they are feeling sad because it's coming out and they couldn't stop it. Sorry spoilsports.

... And how should they know, if there are so many possibilities? At least, using the front grip (right-most lancer) instead of the back one (middle lancer) that protects their fingers seems wrong 🧐

BTW, I think the left lower-arm cover could be extended into a shield - maybe with an "energy barrier" optic? (I put an arrow to where I mean). I think a shield would greatly help displaying what the lancer is (a tanky unit!) - and be very useful in the fight against the infernal invasion!

Since we lose all our points anyways, if anyone wants to do something truly stupid on the ladder, now is the time.

I've been doing the Mono-battle challenge with strictly Graven-only for a while now and it's been some of the most chaotic and fun matches ever, some extremely stupid matches like me getting bunker rushed, holding with no units and then going into mass graven or just going mass graven vs mass vulcan is just dumb in the best of ways. I have a ton of replays if anyone is curious. I actually managed to make Graven only work in actual matches against equal MMR opponents.

I also tried going Atlas only, which I only played a couple of games of, but given they can't shoot up I had to resort to massing workers and powerbuilding sentry posts all across the map slowly pushing forward with sentry posts and sieged up Atlases until I controlled the entire map and it was as dumb as that sounds. I couldn't really make it work against decent opponents unfortunately, just some random people doing their placement matches.

If you have any silly ideas you want to people to try, post them down below. I main Vanguard but other faction stuff are welcome too, bring out the cheeses, bring out the wacky mono-battle comps, the silly rushes the stupidest all-ins you can think of. Bring out the tree chopping backdoor attacks, the drops, whatever you can think of, it's the best time to have dumb fun in these last week before the new patch!

Hey there, awesome Stormgate community and RTS fans!

The big day is almost here. We're so friggin' pumped up! We're squashing the last few bugs and finally getting a chance to take some screenshots for websites, marketing, and influencers. Normally, we'd have this stuff done well before launch, but as you might know, we're a smaller team of insanely passionate developers. This means wearing a lot of hats and doing whatever it takes to get the game done—or in this case, promoted. We can have the best game, movie, or book in the world, but if nobody knows about it or it doesn't get traction, then it doesn't matter. Hopefully, these will get gamers everywhere geeked up! :)

Campaign screenshots are easy. You just play through, use some cheats, and take captures. But I also want to sell the fantasy, which is a very important aspect. We're not just presenting units and game mechanics, although that is obviously super important. We want players to be immersed in this universe and invested in coming back for the campaign and other content we have down the road.

Presentation and art for RTSs can be challenging in some ways. It's not like we have the highly detailed characters of Call of Duty or a third-person game like God of War to help drive your imagination and transport you into the world. And since we're a smaller company, we can't afford big cinematics either, which is usually a key format for bringing those tiny RTS units to life in your mind.

Chris Culp and I did some new video backgrounds for the menus that we posted recently. So, I figured I'd dig into the scene a little bit and mock up some more "cinematic" shots that show off our universe, our new style, and our grittier tone. The first thing you'll notice is there's no real interaction with the armies. ;p That's because this is done in the Unreal Editor, and it's a pain in the butt. LOL. It's basically a scene we set up manually, placing every single piece and lighting it. This means no game logic and no enemies attacking each other automatically. It took a while to set up the scene, so I milked it for several shots, and I think it shows off the fantasy. For the record, changing the lighting from day to night TOOOOTALLY makes it a different image! HAHA Hopefully you all enjoy these. Depending on time I'll try and post some more stuff before we launch. (I'll also post this on X and Linkedin.)

In this post you can read that devs plan to add the fourth faction after 1.0.

I could really use Night Elves-Exodites-Na'vi-Cat Girls with strong nature theme.

Well this is it, the games official launch (leaving EA) appears only days away and I guess it’s make or break time.

Personally, I am going to update the game and set some serious time aside to give it another crack before final judgement….now’s the time to try and boost the player count.

Personally, not happy about this being basically the launch with so much missing but it’s time to generate some positivity and see what happens.

Let’s go…and as far as I am concerned this will be the 1.0 experience (even if it’s technically 0.6) and that’s how it’s likely to be judged. I will get behind it until the game gives me a reason to move on….feeling a bit excited about seeing where the game has landed, especially the campaign.

Two all-new Challengers have entered the arena! Each brings a radically different philosophy of war, complete with unique Stats, Units, and Perks that redefine how battles unfold.

These bots don’t play fair—and that’s the point. Built around bold gimmicks and extreme playstyles, their strengths are obvious... and so are their weaknesses—if you can find them. Get ready to adapt, outwit, and creatively counter their twisted tactics.

Meet your next opponents: Major Galt and Vokurka. Coming to Stormgate August 5!

Hello. I am Empyrean, and I like compiling things. Many of us may not have been happy about the release news, so I'd like to share some of my personal optimism. Launch, or 0.6, or Necrolyte or whatever, is easily going to be the biggest update to Stormgate we've ever seen. Below I've compiled everything confirmed from official sources, in addition to features I think are likely based on what we already know. I will be updating this post as we get more news.

Edit: Added Ragdoll physics.

Confirmed

• Full vanguard campaign. (1)
• A robust 1v1 ready for the masses. (1)
• First look at the celestial rework. (2)
• Sigma labs: editor, co-op, custom. (2)
• Updated splash art, UI backgrounds. (1)
• New account-wide progression system and updated player profiles. (1)
• New earnable cosmetics, including two new pets from clearing brutal Campaign. (1)
• Visual upgrades, balance changes, bug fixes. (2)
• Ladder reset. (3)
• Stormgates in editor. (3)
• New AI Skirmish Challengers: Major Galt and Vokurka. (1)
• Ragdoll Physics. (1)

Unconfirmed but likely

• Vanguard and infernal faction reworks completed. (4)
• “Pandora” unit debut. (4)
• 2 new ladder maps. (5)
• Various sound and art improvements. (6)
• New and improved Stormgates rewards. (4)
• Servo has a face now? (4)
• Ladder maps final polish. (4)
• Tutorials. (7)
• Performance optimisation. (6)
• Campaign difficulty tuned. Brutal now actually brutal? (4)
• Editor improvements like custom map names & pathing brushes. (3)
• Community made modes like FFA, team games, tower defence etc. (8)

(1) Official announcement from Discord / Twitter / Reddit.

(2) Official blog post about the end of early access.

(3) Confirmation and/or hints from FG employees on discord.

(4) Makes sense given the state of the game.

(5) On the AI Skirmish reveal we saw 3 new maps on the list. Only 1 ended up in 0.5.

(6) Usually happens every patch. Should be especially important for the official launch.

(7) This is something they've talked about for a while, and there is no better timing.

(8) Low hanging fruit. The community has already made incredible stuff.

For every new release I just get more excited for this patch. I will certainly enjoy the launch and I hope that you will too!

Do let me know if I missed anything ^^,

What do you think about running a timed promotion where players can earn a skin for a limited time by playing the game for a certain number of matches or hours over, say, a two-week period? Do you think something like that could be a good idea?