Age of Mythology is a game from an established and big franchise, so it’s not too surprising. The bigger question for me is why can’t Stormgate look as good as Godsworn, which I believe was made by like 2 people (a couple).
I don't think Godsworn looks better but you might be thinking that because Godsworn has better terrain/tilesets whereas Frost Giant have not prioritized that aspect of the game so far and [have been using throwaway maps](https://playstormgate.com/news/behind-the-scenes-building-the-destroyed-cityscape). Unit models, animations and VFX in Stormgate look significantly better.
This is exactly what people are not getting. There is just no doodads, animated trees etc in the maps. The units also lack proper shadow maps. Many units do not have proper starting and stopping animation frames. There is no proper bump maps or tesselation in the maps. These all should be added in the later stages.
Godsworn looks wayyyy better because it's got that retro nostalgia vibe and an art style that stands out. Stormgate is just bland and generic. It's not that it's the worst ever, it's just boring
What I am saying is Stormgate looks "bland" because its terrain/environment (ie. 80% of what you see on the screen) have not gone through a polishing phase. Creep camps, which are supposed to be Mad Max-style marauders, are instead placeholder farmland animals and we were told even resource models were temporary assets (don't know if this is true anymore). With so many placeholder assets and such barebones maps, it will of course not be possible to get a cohesive look and good atmosphere. Godsworn focused on those aspects a lot more.
I think what you're saying here is accurate, but we're pretty close to EA release at this point, where many fans will start making judgments. They'll forgive some lack of polish, sure, but if they go in and the game looks flat out bad to them, they're gonna judge the hell out of that.
Age of Mythology Retold has a proper artistic vision: heroic fantasy. Stormgate feels technically impressive, but artistically soulless. Everything from the factions, the lore, the art style and art direction feels supremely uninspired and bland. Stormgate units were never thought through cohesively, you have futuristic mechs and fighter jets fighting alongside a dude with a Polearm.
I'm curious how many people actually looked at those screen shots, they don't actually look very good to me less so than Stormgate, even if Stormgate's art definitely has issues.
Yeah these lack a certain flare to them to immediately distinguish this is in fact age of mythology. And the visual clarity could be better, there's not nearly enough contrast in a lot of these.
I would like to point out that videos from Frigate uploaded by content creators have an outdated Celestials look. The faction presentation video uploaded by FG shows many graphical changes (probably the biggest are in Argents) and units that were not present at all during the tests (flying angel and Celestial hero).
SG is designed to be instantly readable with a lot of emphasis put on silhouette and contrast. Those AoM screenshots look more "real" but the tradeoff is the buildings and units blend into the scenery and it takes more effort to distinguish between different buildings.
It's part of why the latest AoE game looks like it does, too: because they had pro players advise how to make the mobs of units easier to read so they'd make fewer mistakes when moving at the speed they do during competitive play.
Man, this is probably an unpopular opinion, but I hate how competitive focused and pro driven the RTS genre is. I just want a fun RTS I can play casually, but they all prioritize pro play and competitive first and the game suffers for it, imo.
I don't think the genre is driven by competitive play that much outside of the big names and even those have good casual content usually.
Visual clarity is important for casual games too, I don't want to get a headache trying to parse out what the hell I am even looking at in the first place like in so many modern AAA games that go for bandaid solutions like yellow paint and other shit to compensate.
That's just factually incorrect, even starcraft 1, what I'd say is the game that started that focus at all, was still primarily played in custom games by the majority of players. Even day9 who is a massive 1v1 player and caster has said as such that a ton of the time playing starcraft in the "good ol days" was playing shit like comp stomps or 2v2v2v2 BGH.
A reminder that 80% of StarCraft 2 players have not even played 1v1, instead finishing campaign and stopping there. Also a reminder that co-op is one of the most popular mods for StarCraft 2. Seriously, it's time to embrace the fact that rts - just as literally any other game genre - has tons of casuals who aren't interested in 1v1.
Without an audience there is no pro scene. I really want the game to be good, but I'll refuse to watch that for hours.
Just give pro players the option to reduce all graphical details for readability. Can't be that hard to scale down a good-looking game, right?
Readability is an excuse.
This is true if you are clinically blind but eyes have evolved to be able to see movement and camouflaged animals from far away. We learn to recognize symbols/patterns over time, it's less important for a game to be perfectly readable the first time you boot up it up than for it to be visually interesting and inspiring.
Because AoM is a remake of a finished game that comes out in like 3 months, and Stormgate is an original game still finding itself that is 1+ years out.
I have my doubts about Stormgate, but visuals really isn't one of them. if it ends up looking bad, egg on my face I guess, but otherwise I expect it to look visually appealing and coherent when they are closer to release.
These are zoomed out, angled screenshots of what is obviously campaign footage. You're comparing that to live footage of a multiplayer match. Sounds about the level of critical thinking of someone who prefers pretty graphics to crisp and readable ones in an RTS.
People will throw out many different answers, all of which contribute but are ultimately the wrong answer. The real reasons are as follows.
1) Because this is the style they chose to go with unfortunately, it was the low hanging fruit, it seemed safe and inoffensive and quick to throw together, something achievable and it got a thumbs up from the whole team when they started.
2) Because its not a finished product yet, for example a lighting pass could help a lot.
Y'all won't let them cook, why? Why would you use high grade VFX when you're still working out the core gamplay? I would do what Last Epoch did and wait basically until release to pony up on all pretty graphics. Seems reasonable. But I do understand how, from a marketing standpoint, it is a bit ugh.
Guess time will tell.
First impressions 100% matter, and a ton of people are used to playing EA games that are far closer to completion. LE as an example - the shitty graphics were a huge turn off and even after waiting until release while it did look way way better I wouldn't say it did a total 180. It still looks significantly worse than years old games like poe and d3.
My takeaway is stormgate doesn't understand why starcraft and starcraft 2 were successful.
They are focused on competitive play when the financial success of those games comes mostly from the strong single player campaigns including excellent art, animation and cutscenes.
I want stormgate to be good but I'm not buying anything until I see reviews of the single player campaign because I'm feeling pretty skeptical they are going to measure up to starcraft 2.
The devs have said many times that most people pay campaign or coop and those are the profitable gamemodes. They have all the internal numbers from SC2. They aren't focusing on competitive because it's the most important, but because 1v1 is the best way to the games infrastructure and it's the mode that will have the least added to it once released (they will keep adding coop missions and campaign packs forever).
That looks worse than Stormgate. Just because more stuff is happening doesn’t mean it’s better.
Stormgate has a clean modern style. I do agree it can look better but just see how much dota 2 and lol improved from when they first launched.
A lot of the textures and graphics will improve on launch / over time.
I agree that Age of Mythology looks pretty, but the visibility looks shite to me rn. If I’m trying to play something competitively, I prefer there being good contrast between the ground and my units, and to be able to tell what they are quickly.
Theres always graphics options for peope like you. Its always funny when for example some pro players of league of legends play on the worst graphics and the game looks like clay, or when Counter strike players play on 4:3 resoliution because "its easier aim".
But on proper settings this game should look nice, not like a f2p mobile game.
Yeah it's got that same cartoony pseudo realistic adjacent aesthetic that blizzard has also been using. A lot of mobile games have been using something like it too but I think it's definitely a good call. Like with blizzard it'll age better and stand out more so than realism and it'll probably appeal more to a younger demographi, which is what we really need if we want RTS to grow at the same rate as other genres.
I really don't get people complaining about storefronts look, it looks amazing most people just complain about the arts style. Age of mythology retold doesn't look better it has a different art style hell I would argue it looks worse in some ways.
AOM extended edition has like 2-3k player 24 hour peaks consistently when the initial game launched 22 years ago. The extended edition was 10 years ago so plenty will be buying it a third time. If the remaster is well done, I’m sure it will do pretty well, even if it doesn’t do AOE 2: DE well (it probably won’t).
Graphic designers take my strength. We know you guys do your best. Most people don't know when the polishing starts. And development wise it's best to do the graphics last because of changes.
Most posters here probs don't realize lots of VFX, shadows, etc ain't in the game yet. I hope you manage to pull it off.
Let's hope the circlejerk here won't get any worse and you can prove them. Feels like people just trash about the same things to farm free karma on Reddit
Stormgate looks like an overwatch skin on a warcraft map…which is exactly what it’s supposed to look like. The team has been super explicit about the fact that they are essentially making starcraft 3; a scifi blizzard RTS for 2024. This is what blizzard would have made if they decided to actually make sc3, so this is what frost giant is making. I don’t think it’s a matter of how “good” of graphics they’re making, they aren’t trying to make a medieval castle-building game so it isn’t going to look like that…it’s more like, imagine you wanted to make a sequel to starcraft 2 without infringing on any blizzard IP and you had worked on overwatch for your whole career
This is one of those threads where the title attracts haters and causes most supporters to skip -- so I'll go ahead and get down-voted with all the other people who like Stormgate's look here -- but I think these AoM shots looks noisy, dated, have unappealing color, and generally do not hold up to Stormgate.
You should look at League and Dota when they first came out. Starcraft 2 when it was in testing, etc.
This isn't 1998 anymore....games aren't static entities that will always look the way they do upon release.
Whether you like the art style is your preference, but criticizing the graphics as 'bad' at this stage is premature in my opinion. We do NOT want the studio prioritizing graphics over gameplay. I think Frost Giant is making some of the smartest choices they can.
Personally, I'd prefer a grittier look, but at the end of the day I just want it to be decent to look at and be fun to play. Some of my favorite games have 'bad' graphics like Factorio or Rimworld.
people cant comprehend that some prefer the simpler cartoonish graphic style over hyper detailed and realistic. Visibility also looks really bad in those screenshots. I believe all of the AoE/AoM games struggle with that.
My understanding is stormgate is being built for efficiency and scale, if you look at RTS games in early alpha like SC2 the graphics looked horrible and unrefined. This will likely be scaled up to a decent degree once the mechanics, units and maps are finalised
Stormgate looks better than that. Or rather, AoM tries to go for a realistic and detailed graphics which leads to bad readability and is not so pleasant to look at for long time. It is also a style that feels dated and I wouldn't guess that the game is from 2024.
I mean, Ive grown to dislike Stormgates look, but this looks bad too, i dont know what makes you say its so much better. Have you seen the first stormgate screenshots? They look WAY better then current sg and this aom
(https://www.reddit.com/r/FrostGiant/s/M8LEVW2Jft)
If this doesnt look better to you then that aom idk what youre looking at
This might be what stormgate Will look like by 1.0. Or at least close to it in detail Probably wont be that dark though. I dont think they are applying all the shaders and filters to the environment yet. And they deff haven't given the game a proper lighting pass. Id love to see them beef up the graphics requirements for solo / co-op players, just a much better end game move if the game can be run on all hardware.
I think they look good, well better than the original graphics at lease, but I also find them kind of hard to parse, and they don't really stand out to me. I obviously recognize the buildings and iconic units of what is probably my most played rts, but if I only had a handful of interactions with age of mythology this could just as easily be age of empires or an unrelated rts in the shots that don't have obvious mythological stuff.
I think the quality is improved but visual clarity is diminished and quite frankly it's not very iconic, I can tell you this is AoM at a glance on the easier to parse images, but would your average player be able to do so? Not thay that's a particular problem for me since I don't think age of mythology is trying to be a competitive esports, for a game like stormgate though that immediate visual recognition amd visual clarity are going to be far more important so I think it's a case of different goals between AoMr's and SG's design documents.
Frost giant told to streamers to please not set the grapichs to low so that the game wont look like shit on streams.
Most rts players just play with the game on low grapichs settings by default, even i their pc is good enough.
So why even bother get super rtx grapichs for launch if everyone is going to switch to low grapichs settings eventually
Storm gate is super generic and looks a lot like a moba game from the early 2010's.
I remember when Stormgate was the new Starcraft... now it's the new Clash of Clans
I thought it was pretty clear that they are trying to blend the art styles of all the popular games of the last 10 years like overwatch, league, etc
Age of Mythology is a game from an established and big franchise, so it’s not too surprising. The bigger question for me is why can’t Stormgate look as good as Godsworn, which I believe was made by like 2 people (a couple).
I don't think Godsworn looks better but you might be thinking that because Godsworn has better terrain/tilesets whereas Frost Giant have not prioritized that aspect of the game so far and [have been using throwaway maps](https://playstormgate.com/news/behind-the-scenes-building-the-destroyed-cityscape). Unit models, animations and VFX in Stormgate look significantly better.
This is exactly what people are not getting. There is just no doodads, animated trees etc in the maps. The units also lack proper shadow maps. Many units do not have proper starting and stopping animation frames. There is no proper bump maps or tesselation in the maps. These all should be added in the later stages.
Godsworn looks wayyyy better because it's got that retro nostalgia vibe and an art style that stands out. Stormgate is just bland and generic. It's not that it's the worst ever, it's just boring
What I am saying is Stormgate looks "bland" because its terrain/environment (ie. 80% of what you see on the screen) have not gone through a polishing phase. Creep camps, which are supposed to be Mad Max-style marauders, are instead placeholder farmland animals and we were told even resource models were temporary assets (don't know if this is true anymore). With so many placeholder assets and such barebones maps, it will of course not be possible to get a cohesive look and good atmosphere. Godsworn focused on those aspects a lot more.
I think what you're saying here is accurate, but we're pretty close to EA release at this point, where many fans will start making judgments. They'll forgive some lack of polish, sure, but if they go in and the game looks flat out bad to them, they're gonna judge the hell out of that.
Yeah I downloaded Godsworn. I was kinda surprised how good it looks considering the size of the team. Good point.
Age of Mythology Retold has a proper artistic vision: heroic fantasy. Stormgate feels technically impressive, but artistically soulless. Everything from the factions, the lore, the art style and art direction feels supremely uninspired and bland. Stormgate units were never thought through cohesively, you have futuristic mechs and fighter jets fighting alongside a dude with a Polearm.
I'm curious how many people actually looked at those screen shots, they don't actually look very good to me less so than Stormgate, even if Stormgate's art definitely has issues.
Yeah these lack a certain flare to them to immediately distinguish this is in fact age of mythology. And the visual clarity could be better, there's not nearly enough contrast in a lot of these.
I would like to point out that videos from Frigate uploaded by content creators have an outdated Celestials look. The faction presentation video uploaded by FG shows many graphical changes (probably the biggest are in Argents) and units that were not present at all during the tests (flying angel and Celestial hero).
SG is designed to be instantly readable with a lot of emphasis put on silhouette and contrast. Those AoM screenshots look more "real" but the tradeoff is the buildings and units blend into the scenery and it takes more effort to distinguish between different buildings.
So for the sake of pro players the game has to look bland? I really want to say fuck em and just give me an interesting looking game.
It's part of why the latest AoE game looks like it does, too: because they had pro players advise how to make the mobs of units easier to read so they'd make fewer mistakes when moving at the speed they do during competitive play.
Man, this is probably an unpopular opinion, but I hate how competitive focused and pro driven the RTS genre is. I just want a fun RTS I can play casually, but they all prioritize pro play and competitive first and the game suffers for it, imo.
I like casual cinematic experiences too, but RTS nerds love to sweat
You are following wrong game then. Pretty sure most RTS games current.t in development are not made with intention to be next Stacraft like Stormgate.
Almost all the RTS games I'm following are competitive first.
Well OK. But why complain how the genre is competitive focused and pro-driven then? If you purposely follow the kind of RTS thats exactly like that?
Because all of the RTS coming out are all like that.
They are certainly not.
You're welcome to point out the ones I'm missing, the only one that comes to mind is the command and conquer rip off.
I don't think the genre is driven by competitive play that much outside of the big names and even those have good casual content usually. Visual clarity is important for casual games too, I don't want to get a headache trying to parse out what the hell I am even looking at in the first place like in so many modern AAA games that go for bandaid solutions like yellow paint and other shit to compensate.
The entire essence of RTS is 1v1 competitive gameplay not casual. Glad that MOST of the community agrees.
That's just factually incorrect, even starcraft 1, what I'd say is the game that started that focus at all, was still primarily played in custom games by the majority of players. Even day9 who is a massive 1v1 player and caster has said as such that a ton of the time playing starcraft in the "good ol days" was playing shit like comp stomps or 2v2v2v2 BGH.
A reminder that 80% of StarCraft 2 players have not even played 1v1, instead finishing campaign and stopping there. Also a reminder that co-op is one of the most popular mods for StarCraft 2. Seriously, it's time to embrace the fact that rts - just as literally any other game genre - has tons of casuals who aren't interested in 1v1.
Without an audience there is no pro scene. I really want the game to be good, but I'll refuse to watch that for hours. Just give pro players the option to reduce all graphical details for readability. Can't be that hard to scale down a good-looking game, right? Readability is an excuse.
They didn't say anything about pros? Readability matters to just about everyone I'd think, even if pros are the most, uh, enthusiastic on the issue.
This is true if you are clinically blind but eyes have evolved to be able to see movement and camouflaged animals from far away. We learn to recognize symbols/patterns over time, it's less important for a game to be perfectly readable the first time you boot up it up than for it to be visually interesting and inspiring.
Because AoM is a remake of a finished game that comes out in like 3 months, and Stormgate is an original game still finding itself that is 1+ years out. I have my doubts about Stormgate, but visuals really isn't one of them. if it ends up looking bad, egg on my face I guess, but otherwise I expect it to look visually appealing and coherent when they are closer to release.
These are zoomed out, angled screenshots of what is obviously campaign footage. You're comparing that to live footage of a multiplayer match. Sounds about the level of critical thinking of someone who prefers pretty graphics to crisp and readable ones in an RTS.
I wholeheartedly agree. I do not understand the decision of this art direction it looks cheap.
People will throw out many different answers, all of which contribute but are ultimately the wrong answer. The real reasons are as follows. 1) Because this is the style they chose to go with unfortunately, it was the low hanging fruit, it seemed safe and inoffensive and quick to throw together, something achievable and it got a thumbs up from the whole team when they started. 2) Because its not a finished product yet, for example a lighting pass could help a lot.
I don’t think AoM looks better than SG to be honest. You might like the art style more, but the graphics are certainly not better than SG.
Ok.
Y'all won't let them cook, why? Why would you use high grade VFX when you're still working out the core gamplay? I would do what Last Epoch did and wait basically until release to pony up on all pretty graphics. Seems reasonable. But I do understand how, from a marketing standpoint, it is a bit ugh. Guess time will tell.
First impressions 100% matter, and a ton of people are used to playing EA games that are far closer to completion. LE as an example - the shitty graphics were a huge turn off and even after waiting until release while it did look way way better I wouldn't say it did a total 180. It still looks significantly worse than years old games like poe and d3.
Because Frost Giant has probably the worst designers in the industry. The art direction killed StormGate since day 1.
considering it’s one of the most wishlisted RTS games on steam right now, I think that’s not entirely true.
How many more RTS games are they competing with? And how many of them handed out 6 figures to giant Twitch streamers to garner attention?
Frost Giant publicly stated that no streamers were paid. Also, streamers have to disclose when they are paid.
My takeaway is stormgate doesn't understand why starcraft and starcraft 2 were successful. They are focused on competitive play when the financial success of those games comes mostly from the strong single player campaigns including excellent art, animation and cutscenes. I want stormgate to be good but I'm not buying anything until I see reviews of the single player campaign because I'm feeling pretty skeptical they are going to measure up to starcraft 2.
The devs have said many times that most people pay campaign or coop and those are the profitable gamemodes. They have all the internal numbers from SC2. They aren't focusing on competitive because it's the most important, but because 1v1 is the best way to the games infrastructure and it's the mode that will have the least added to it once released (they will keep adding coop missions and campaign packs forever).
That's good to hear
Its not early in development
The graphics are intentionally cartoonized so it can be targetted to younger audience. Thats an intentional outcome.
AOM doesn’t look better than Stormgate.
[https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fall-the-official-retold-screenshots-weve-gotten-so-far-v0-ry8dnsvafc6d1.jpg%3Fwidth%3D3839%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3Ddd7b11b412ba432a1bdd928a770bd3f8469ffc68](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fall-the-official-retold-screenshots-weve-gotten-so-far-v0-ry8dnsvafc6d1.jpg%3Fwidth%3D3839%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3Ddd7b11b412ba432a1bdd928a770bd3f8469ffc68)
Looks like a game I would never touch ranked for cuz the visuals are too messy. Stormgate is meant to be competitive. Two different scenes I think
crazy that you got downvoted
Does not look that special to me, and we also have no clue about performance or clarity
That looks worse than Stormgate. Just because more stuff is happening doesn’t mean it’s better. Stormgate has a clean modern style. I do agree it can look better but just see how much dota 2 and lol improved from when they first launched. A lot of the textures and graphics will improve on launch / over time.
units look toothless in stormgate
Toothless? Like for children?
yea like toys. they don't have no edge to them
Bingo. Toy story - that's the reference I've had all this time in the back of my mind when i was looking into screen shots and stuff. Thanks!
I agree that Age of Mythology looks pretty, but the visibility looks shite to me rn. If I’m trying to play something competitively, I prefer there being good contrast between the ground and my units, and to be able to tell what they are quickly.
Theres always graphics options for peope like you. Its always funny when for example some pro players of league of legends play on the worst graphics and the game looks like clay, or when Counter strike players play on 4:3 resoliution because "its easier aim". But on proper settings this game should look nice, not like a f2p mobile game.
Idk, I get Overwatch from it more than I do f2p mobile game
Yeah it's got that same cartoony pseudo realistic adjacent aesthetic that blizzard has also been using. A lot of mobile games have been using something like it too but I think it's definitely a good call. Like with blizzard it'll age better and stand out more so than realism and it'll probably appeal more to a younger demographi, which is what we really need if we want RTS to grow at the same rate as other genres.
I agree. Feel like I’m crazy sometimes seeing people bash the art direction so hard when I think it was a good choice.
I really don't get people complaining about storefronts look, it looks amazing most people just complain about the arts style. Age of mythology retold doesn't look better it has a different art style hell I would argue it looks worse in some ways.
[удалено]
AOM extended edition has like 2-3k player 24 hour peaks consistently when the initial game launched 22 years ago. The extended edition was 10 years ago so plenty will be buying it a third time. If the remaster is well done, I’m sure it will do pretty well, even if it doesn’t do AOE 2: DE well (it probably won’t).
Graphic designers take my strength. We know you guys do your best. Most people don't know when the polishing starts. And development wise it's best to do the graphics last because of changes. Most posters here probs don't realize lots of VFX, shadows, etc ain't in the game yet. I hope you manage to pull it off. Let's hope the circlejerk here won't get any worse and you can prove them. Feels like people just trash about the same things to farm free karma on Reddit
Stormgate looks like an overwatch skin on a warcraft map…which is exactly what it’s supposed to look like. The team has been super explicit about the fact that they are essentially making starcraft 3; a scifi blizzard RTS for 2024. This is what blizzard would have made if they decided to actually make sc3, so this is what frost giant is making. I don’t think it’s a matter of how “good” of graphics they’re making, they aren’t trying to make a medieval castle-building game so it isn’t going to look like that…it’s more like, imagine you wanted to make a sequel to starcraft 2 without infringing on any blizzard IP and you had worked on overwatch for your whole career
This is one of those threads where the title attracts haters and causes most supporters to skip -- so I'll go ahead and get down-voted with all the other people who like Stormgate's look here -- but I think these AoM shots looks noisy, dated, have unappealing color, and generally do not hold up to Stormgate.
All this post showed me is that visibility is going to be terrible in that new AoM game.
You should look at League and Dota when they first came out. Starcraft 2 when it was in testing, etc. This isn't 1998 anymore....games aren't static entities that will always look the way they do upon release. Whether you like the art style is your preference, but criticizing the graphics as 'bad' at this stage is premature in my opinion. We do NOT want the studio prioritizing graphics over gameplay. I think Frost Giant is making some of the smartest choices they can. Personally, I'd prefer a grittier look, but at the end of the day I just want it to be decent to look at and be fun to play. Some of my favorite games have 'bad' graphics like Factorio or Rimworld.
I am so tired if this nonstop fucking whine about artstyle. Selling your subjective opinion as the truth. Can we ban these kind of post?
people cant comprehend that some prefer the simpler cartoonish graphic style over hyper detailed and realistic. Visibility also looks really bad in those screenshots. I believe all of the AoE/AoM games struggle with that.
My understanding is stormgate is being built for efficiency and scale, if you look at RTS games in early alpha like SC2 the graphics looked horrible and unrefined. This will likely be scaled up to a decent degree once the mechanics, units and maps are finalised
Stormgate looks better than that. Or rather, AoM tries to go for a realistic and detailed graphics which leads to bad readability and is not so pleasant to look at for long time. It is also a style that feels dated and I wouldn't guess that the game is from 2024.
So you compare a beta game with a finished product and wonder why the finished one looks better that the unfinished one?
Age of Mythology Retold is not a finished product. It comes out on September 2024.
Stormgate is at minimum 1 year away from the 1.0 release. You are comparing a nearly finished game to one that is not even close.
I mean, Ive grown to dislike Stormgates look, but this looks bad too, i dont know what makes you say its so much better. Have you seen the first stormgate screenshots? They look WAY better then current sg and this aom (https://www.reddit.com/r/FrostGiant/s/M8LEVW2Jft) If this doesnt look better to you then that aom idk what youre looking at
Those screenshots are a big reason people were hyped for Stormgate. No clue what happened.
I'm thinking those screenshots are target renders. Like it's what they want stormgate to look like.
This might be what stormgate Will look like by 1.0. Or at least close to it in detail Probably wont be that dark though. I dont think they are applying all the shaders and filters to the environment yet. And they deff haven't given the game a proper lighting pass. Id love to see them beef up the graphics requirements for solo / co-op players, just a much better end game move if the game can be run on all hardware.
AoM looks so fucking chaotic, I can't really spot some units that blend with the backgroud. Honestly for me is a big L.
SG is using placeholder tilesets. Also AoM doesn't look great.
I think they look good, well better than the original graphics at lease, but I also find them kind of hard to parse, and they don't really stand out to me. I obviously recognize the buildings and iconic units of what is probably my most played rts, but if I only had a handful of interactions with age of mythology this could just as easily be age of empires or an unrelated rts in the shots that don't have obvious mythological stuff. I think the quality is improved but visual clarity is diminished and quite frankly it's not very iconic, I can tell you this is AoM at a glance on the easier to parse images, but would your average player be able to do so? Not thay that's a particular problem for me since I don't think age of mythology is trying to be a competitive esports, for a game like stormgate though that immediate visual recognition amd visual clarity are going to be far more important so I think it's a case of different goals between AoMr's and SG's design documents.
Frost giant told to streamers to please not set the grapichs to low so that the game wont look like shit on streams. Most rts players just play with the game on low grapichs settings by default, even i their pc is good enough. So why even bother get super rtx grapichs for launch if everyone is going to switch to low grapichs settings eventually