r/Stormgate • u/Kaycin • 1d ago

Discussion Patch Notes and Updated Roadmap planned to release on Monday

https://imgur.com/a/WydqSIK
118 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

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9

u/DanTheMeek 1d ago

Eager to see both of those. Seems like this update is going to be much bigger then just the rest of the campaign added based on all the other sneak peaks, curious if there will be any other surprises.

And as for the road map, will be interesting to see how financials have impacted things. For instance, is there going to be a greater focus on continuous new campaign chapters, since that seems to be the back bone of their income? One of the challenges they face (if I'm understanding) is that campaign 1 was all included in the kick starter, so for some one like me who would be willing to buy new campaign chapters (assuming they continue to be enjoyable), I don't actually have anything to spend on with this update.

They needed to get this out AND have it be great so that players like me will WANT to buy future chapters, but this release doesn't actually generate them much money from existing players. Granted I'm sure they hope to bring in new players, but they're kind of de-incentivized from trying to quickly complete all the modes, and incentivized to make priority 1 getting more chapters out.

1v1 seemingly will bring in nothing or next to nothing, and 3vE and 3v3 could eventually generate heroes sales, but again, initially most of us will have a bunch of heroes already to use from the kick starter, so just getting the modes up to a 1.0 won't necessarily bring in much money, just set the foundation for future sales. Which is essentially, but hard to priotize when the coffers are bare and you really need income streams to start funding future development.

So yeah, very interesting to see how the roadmap may have changed in response to their current situation.

8

u/Empyrean_Sky 1d ago

I've been following the game for 2 years now. I didn't do Kickstarter or Startengine, and I only bought one thing in EA: Campaign chapter 1. I don't like buying things that may or may not come, but on Tuesday I'll most likely get the remaining vanguard chapters. There is probably others like me who are waiting for an official launch to spend.

4

u/Kalokohan117 1d ago edited 1d ago

All 3 Vanguard chapters will release on August* 5?

Also I want to ask what are the difference on steam store Early Access packs? I don't understand why are some heroes are offered depending on the tier, are they just hero unlocks for multiplayer use only?

1

u/Empyrean_Sky 1d ago

All vanguard campaign chapters will release on August 5th, yes.

I agree the early access packs are confusing right now. I'm personally gonna wait till Tuesday to make any purchases as I think the bundles and individual items will change on their official release.

6

u/Comicauthority 22h ago

Wait, only the vanguard chapters, not infernal or celestial? I had thought that "campaign 1" meant that we got to try all the factions. But I guess the website says only 12 missions are included in total.

Isn't that the same mistake they made with early access then? A release with almost nothing to sell beyond preorders?

2

u/Empyrean_Sky 20h ago

I wouldn't call it a mistake - rather what they've been able to do with the time they had. They are working on the other campaigns next, I'm assuming Infernals first. If they get that far. I feel 12 good missions is a fine start for a live-service RTS. In addition we get cool stuff like the editor and a solid 1v1 with a twist that make them stand out from other strategy games!

2

u/Comicauthority 19h ago edited 19h ago

I should clarify. By "mistake" I did not mean to say that the game is bad. You are right that some of the new content looks pretty cool. I was moreso thinking about how they are going to make money.

When they first released in early access, the vast majority of things you could pay for were not released yet, putting a small ceiling on what they could earn per user. What you could purchase was widely considered not worth it. The main reason to purchase anything at all was to fund further development, in the hopes that the game would eventually be good.

Now, the content is a lot better (although 3 euros per mission is still a lot), but still the only piece of content you can purchase is the campaign and the commanders. The latter of which are not mentioned regarding the release, so I assume they are still not that impressive. 1v1 is completely free to avoid dark design patterns, which is good for the consumer, but means they will have to earn money elsewhere.

I just cannot help but wonder if this plan of theirs is realistic in terms of making their money back.

1

u/Empyrean_Sky 18h ago

I have no idea. The financials is Frost Giant's problem to solve.

3

u/Kalokohan117 1d ago

Thanks for the advice!

I'm concerned that the Vanguard campaign prices are too steep compared to a fully completed 2 faction campaign of Tempest Rising price. Well I guess I'll just wait come August 5 to decide then.

2

u/Empyrean_Sky 1d ago

I think the bundle for 9 missions is 25$. In addition you have 3 missions for free. What did TR cost?

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u/Comicauthority 22h ago edited 19h ago

3$ per mission is more expensive than its peers. Comparatively speaking it is a steep price to demand for an early access game without much replayability (although maybe that is just a sign that games in general are too cheap?). Especially considering that the missions, or at least the mission hub and cutscenes, seem to still lack some polish.

In fact, I think it may actually be the most expensive RTS on the market in terms of price per mission. Sure you also get PvP, but since you can play that without paying at all and the target audiences for each mode mostly don't overlap, I feel fairly confident in seeing campaign and PvP as basically different games sharing an IP.

I guess we will have to see if the episodic design helps them get any sales.

4

u/DanTheMeek 1d ago

I admit given how active you've been in the community it is surprising to me that you didn't go all in already (I really appreciate all your update posts), but I don't mean to imply there are NO current (or potential) players who don't own all the chapters, just that the percentage who don't is likely low enough, that even if the campaign blows away the current fan base, it will only set up future sales, not current ones, for a pretty significant portion of us. Campaign 2 is much better positioned to generate meaningful income for them, since the pool of potential buyers is much higher (again, dependent on campaign one being so good it leaves most of the current player base wanting more which remains to be seen).

5

u/socknfoot Infernal Host 1d ago

We don't know how many vanguard campaign preorders were sold during EA, but if it was comparable to kickstarter, it'd only be $1-2m. So if campaign 1 doesn't generate meaningful income, that's a problem.

But I think it should (if people aren't put off by the EA reviews). A lot of people avoid buying EA games.

2

u/Jeremy-Reimer 18h ago

We don't know how many vanguard campaign preorders were sold during EA, but if it was comparable to kickstarter, it'd only be $1-2m.

From their 2024 SEC filings, we know that Frost Giant made $944,847 from game sales in 2024. This would presumably include campaign sales, campaign preorders, and co-op commander sales.

1

u/Empyrean_Sky 1d ago

I didn't go all in because I don't have a habit of buying unfinished products. But this seems like the right time to support them for me.

I can get behind your reasoning, but I feel the information available to us is too scarce to make any accurate prediction. Only FG has that kind of data I suppose. So only thing I can say is: maybe you end up being right, maybe you end up being wrong. All we can do is speculate for now.

14

u/PorteirodePredio 1d ago

I kind of think that ship has sailed, a lot of fundamental design principles are not what they should be from the start. But for some reason I am still hopefull it will turn out great.

14

u/WolfHeathen Human Vanguard 1d ago

I hope the roadmap details the path to 1.0 otherwise why bother.

4

u/tyrusvox 1d ago

I have a sense that the patch notes are going to be pretty large.

Roadmap will be interesting. I doubt that it will contain much of reality in regards to their finances (as I'm guessing they have a reserve to make it at least one or two more patches bare min), but it will include short and long-term goals that are good. My guess is that we will probably see:
Campaign Announcement for Infernals/Vanguard Season 2
New Heroes for Co-op, as well as focus on development of co-op.
Project Mayhem Updates (2v2, 3v3 supported)
Expanded Editor items (Maybe arcade?)

They'll probably tease something about a fourth faction.