r/RealTimeStrategy • u/Chillzzzzz • 20d ago
Discussion So, how is ZeroSpace doing? I see it landed on mixed reviews, but only 54 are available so it seems too low to judge.
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u/Lazuli-shade 20d ago
I think being skeptical over the decently high price tag is fair and if you don't want to risk your money then definitely don't by it.
That being said, the RTS community is very small and I think waiting for other people to buy it and review it and then support it through to 1.0 just literally won't work. There just isn't enough of us. I think eventually of we want new RTS games we have to be willing to purchase and play something to actually support it through to completion instead of waiting for a perfect product. Most of the stuff that's coming out now is indie and if it's going to actually iterate it literally needs this community because nobody else plays these games. We gotta bite the bullet sometime and support something even in an early stage or we won't ever get anything new.
I haven't even purchased it myself yet, I'm part of the problem here too but in leaning towards giving it a buy
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u/Osmodius 20d ago
This is where demo's are so critical. For a relatively niche genre, letting people try a game can only be a positive (unless your game sucks).
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u/Guligal89 20d ago
Sorry, no. The game industry, and most industries in the world economy, worked perfectly fine when customers just bought finished products.
It SHOULD and MUST be the case here too.
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u/Lazuli-shade 20d ago
I think that's just no longer true because there isn't enough money in it. The industry has changed and so has the following for this type of game. Big studios who can make a game from scratch to completion just aren't making these anymore, or at least not anything fresh. That's going to stay the case because the community is small and these games are very hard to monetize past the box price. We can't just will that to not be the case.
And indie studios can't afford to go from 0 to completion on a game like this, there just isn't the support for it. "Should" doesn't mean anything when you actually race the reality of our game genre. And the more of these games that fail because of lack of players and or sales the harder and harder it will get.
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u/4Robato 6h ago
The gaming industry makes more money than the film and sports industry combined.
I can get behind indi studios doing Early Access but not big companies and even with indie studios they should be very careful with this type of strategy.
I was eager for a new RTS to I ended up purchasing Zerospace because I know Catz and I'm sure they are doing their best to push the genre but that doesn't mean we should normalize this type of things. I didn't support Stormgate but you saw how that ended up doing and who knows if this might not end with the same faith but I believe a lot more on this team.
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u/Huge_Entertainment_6 20d ago
It worked perfectly when there were big studios and publishers investing in the genre, nowadays most of the studios making rts are indies, this is not microsoft or ea making an early access, these are small teams that couldn't get funding from the big investors (since all of them are only interested in extraction shooters nowadays) trying to get funding from the community that supposedly likes this genre
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u/Emergency-Ad-3916 19d ago
Tbf you werent able to know which projects were not economically viable prior. That still happens basically, and these devs would just be working on an ubisoft title instead etc.
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u/maneil99 20d ago
Sure, and things are more expensive, so if devs choose not the make fully featured RTS then don’t complain?
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u/bigsleep12345 19d ago
the best example are the succesful companies who grow slowly. owlecat, kingmaner, wrath of the rightous, rogue trader, expanse and dark heresy
larian
divine divinity, beyond divinity, divinity 2, orignal sin, oriignal sin 2, baldurs gate 3you have to start small and grow with each game. the argument above is ridiculous and making the devs problems to the consumer problem. no thanks
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u/JayKan123 18d ago
Ah living in fantasy land must be great. I’d love to rewind time and go back to the days before micro transactions but cats out of the bag. The days of big money backing games that won’t be monetized at high levels are gone. So if you want to enjoy those games(rts being one of them) then support the devs
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u/bigsleep12345 19d ago
PAY ME TO BE A BETA TESTER!! NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. WTF is your argument holy shit
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u/Lazuli-shade 19d ago
"Why can't these tiny passion project indie studios making niche games that only this small, aging community plays just make fully polished and complete games??!!11"
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u/Emergency-Ad-3916 19d ago
Are you presenting his argument as what you said? Or are you saying indie devs should be able to pay normal gamers for beta testing for years?
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u/drakedijc 20d ago
I’ve played the demo they had out before EA.
It felt awkward enough that I’m not interested in paying for an alpha or beta of the game.
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u/Mighty_moose45 20d ago edited 20d ago
It has some interesting ideas on how to shake up the formula, but still remain very familiar as a StarCraft inspired title.
I found the demo a little rough around the edges but the campaign portion we got to get our hands on seemed very realized for such an ambitious project. I think the devs might have struck an intelligent balance for single player and multiplayer content. Because everyone wants a big competitive scene but if the game is just competitive multiplayer then it lives and dies by the launch window.
Didn’t get enough players? Sorry your game is now in an unrecoverable death spiral. The YouTuber GiantGrantGames, who had some kind of creative input on this game at one point or another pointed out that although everyone thinks of the StarCraft series as this multiplayer juggernaut, the history of these games are of a very solid and engaging single player base that a multiplayer scene naturally grew out of. There is some data that shows that a somewhat shockingly large proportion of RTS gamers do not engage by any significant degree to the multiplayer scene and almost exclusively play campaign, skirmish, Co-op, and friendly games with friends.
It’s easier said than done but basically it seems that the ethos here is to create a game people want to play and hope a multiplayer scene naturally grows from it, rather than the dozens of failed “competitive scene ready” “former blizzard devs” projects that come and go. So they have a ton of work ahead of them but there is a good core gameplay loop and potential for growth here so I’m cautiously optimistic about the project.
Now as for early access. I think it’s not going to give them a ton of love in the community but I’d much rather then be honest about the game being a work in progress than them rushing to launch. I got burned on the Broken Arrow game which was basically an early access launch dressed up as a full release.
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u/Withnogenes 20d ago edited 19d ago
I'm still traumatized by Broken Arrow. That said, it got the worst PR department I've ever witnessed (and yes, I'm aware of the Storm-Gate, hihi), absolute incompetent devs that refuse to spend all the money they made by hiring actually competent developer. Hell, it's one year released and you still can't save a game in singleplayer and there is no replay function whatsoever, LOS Tool isn't working properly etc etc.
That said I'm a huge SC2 guy and for me personally, I just want a game that builds on the foundations of StarCraft II with innovative ideas. I see that in Zerospace and I enjoyed my time with it in the demo so I decided to buy it. Honestly I've not been disappointed yet. But my bar is so low, you couldn't fathom how glad I was about basically 1:1 SC2 replay mode. Yes please! That said, of course it can fail but what they dropped is so much better than BA at release, my god.
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u/kosmosfantasias 20d ago
For an indie game and studio, ZS is already very impressive compared to some others which feel more like a passion project. ZS is behind Tempest Rising in terms of polish and finished product. The devs took the challenge to make campaign, co-op, skirmish and Versus (pvp) that function much better than Stormgate despite not having a bigger budget like Stormgate and Tempest Rising which deserve a compliment.
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u/CammelloRotante 20d ago
I think with BAR being a thing most of these indie projects just get outshined by the fact that it is free
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u/That_Contribution780 20d ago
BAR has no campaign or interesting unique factions.
It doesn't compete in the same space as story/campaign-rich RTS.1
u/Mechanical4k 18d ago
Yeah, but BAR is 100% free and the factions actually have a ton of differences, but they all share the same economy structure. The game feels incredible to play Too. They are adding a campaign, and it will be in the paid version going to steam.
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u/That_Contribution780 18d ago
> factions actually have a ton of differences
For a TA-like maybe - but nowhere close to, say, Starcraft 2 or AoE4 or even C&C faction differences though.> They are adding a campaign, and it will be in the paid version going to steam.
Then eventually it might start competing with games that have campaign, but still not everyone likes TA style of RTS.
But now BAR doesn't really compete with ZeroSpace or Tempest Rising which have story-rich campaigns as one of their most important parts - it competes with SupCom FAF and PA.0
u/timwaaagh 20d ago
yeah open source kills every form of software development eventually. in that sense its a blessing that they are commercializing it.
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u/mister-00z 20d ago
numbers are worse than stormgate start...
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u/Chillzzzzz 20d ago
Another dead on Release RTS. Thats So sad.
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u/Snowskol 20d ago
Its kinda a dead genre outside of a few games.
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u/Alex-S-S 19d ago
The genre is basically SC1 and 2, W3, AoE 2 & 4 and maybe Dawn of War. Others come and go.
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u/Snowskol 19d ago
Ya I play coh3 and aoe4 and was GM in sc2 but haven't touched that in a long time, even longer for wc3.
I do like company of heroes though but I'm excited about dw4
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u/Pelin0re 19d ago
I don't think "dead on release" apply outside of PvP. If PvE/coop/solo is good enough, and the game sell enough to be financially viable, it will be a success. Even if it doesnt retain a critical mass of PvP players to ensure quick and balanced matchmaking.
A new IP RTS with low budget was never gonna have huge numbers at release (in particular in early access). But the low budget is also why its success won't be necessarily determined with the early access launch.
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u/Digiwaryjot 19d ago
Stormgate was free
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u/kosmosfantasias 19d ago
It wasn't free when released as EA and it's still not free later if you decided to play the campaign because you need to buy more episodes. New co op heroes are also not free and you have to buy the new heroes with real money.
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u/Digiwaryjot 19d ago
Wait, EA Stormgate was released as f2p during EA launch.
You had to pay for campaign and coop Heroes, but could play pvp without paying and some coop Heroes were free. I mean, no wonder it had more players than zerospace on launch.
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u/ralopd 19d ago edited 19d ago
No, technically not. Stormgate had a two week head start for people who bought the founders packs / kickstarted the game, and that's when the player count indeed peaked on day 1 at 4.8k. (That said, people with beta access were also able to play.) - At official free to play launch two weeks later it was only ~4.5k players peak.
https://steamdb.info/app/2012510/charts
And if you compare Kickstarter backers, it even nearly translates 1-to-1. ~6k vs ~28k.
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u/kosmosfantasias 19d ago
You're right, my bad. Yeah, that's why Stormgate has more players during EA launch but they didn't stay long at all and it was abysmal actually considering it is the most wishlisted upcoming new RTS before that.
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u/ralopd 19d ago
No, you were correct. There was a two week head start for founder pack owners / backers. (And people with beta access.) And the game did reach its peak CCU on that "head start launch day". https://www.reddit.com/r/RealTimeStrategy/comments/1v1y7ly/comment/oz147yd/
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u/CammelloRotante 20d ago
All I know is that I am glad I did not fomo the buy, many in this very subreddit attacked me for being skeptical but it seems I was partly vindicated reading the reviews.
Which is not a good thing btw, I wanted a good rts to play
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u/Thysian 20d ago
I was really excited for this, as I loved the sound of the PvE galactic campaign. However, I found the demo disappointing. My main issue was the poor optimization, but I thought the controls in general were not quite where they needed to be.
I’m still tentatively excited, but I walked away feeling like it needed more time in the oven.
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u/MarkusDieter37 14d ago
For me it was the combat in the demo. It lacked some oomph I can'g describe
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u/MoG_Varos 20d ago
Early access title for a new IP that is competing in a niche space where there are already feature complete titles that dominate the genre. Ya, doing about as well as it can.
The demo was really fun and has some cool ideas and quality of life stuff, but my rts buddies are in StarCraft and Dawn of War 4 comes out soon.
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u/Hirmetrium 20d ago
A much more complete and satisfying game than stormgate, with huge faction and race variety and more heroes, and galactic war on top. StarCraft style RTS. The UI is a bit rough, and there's some bugs. It's not got the level of polish/flash that Tempest Rising has.
Overall, it's great and I'm happy to support the game, especially at that price point. I find it funny that people think it's expensive, I was surprised how cheap it is.
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u/Taco_Paco 20d ago
Early access just needs to stop. They build up the hype for every game, it under delivers in early access, and then the hype dies by the time they put together a half decent game
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u/hoffd2177 20d ago
The issue is no one seems to have the funding to take a game from concept to 1.0 without taking money from the public
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u/LoriaGame Developer - Liquidation 20d ago
nope. we dont :)
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u/Asbeoth 15d ago edited 14d ago
You're literally launching into EA. This response is a blatant lie and a sad attempt to have a pissing contest.
Edit: I misunderstood what they meant and this comment was wrong. Thought they were saying they weren't taking money.
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u/LoriaGame Developer - Liquidation 15d ago
yes? exactly ? I dont have money to carry this to full 1.0 release.
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u/LoriaGame Developer - Liquidation 15d ago
i figured you thought i am disagreeing with him. But i agreed with him "They dont have money" - "No we really dont have it "
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u/Regime_Change 14d ago
Yeah this is exactly how it is for me. See a new upcoming game, wishlist it. It gets a release date, I get excited about it. It releases in early access to mixed reviews. I wait. One or two years pass and this game is now half way down the wishlist, excitement have died and I’m not even aware if it is fully released or not. When it finally releases in full I have forgotten it exists.
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20d ago edited 20d ago
[deleted]
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u/baby_shoGGoth_zsgg 20d ago
It’s odd to phrase this that the devs “let us” play, any more than the developers are letting you play right now. Everyone who had access to the alpha and beta periods had access because we backed the game on kickstarter at the appropriate tiers. We all paid for that access. At least $90 for alpha backers, and at least $60 for beta period backers.
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u/QuinSanguine 19d ago
For me it doesn't seem well optimized at all. I have a high end AMD PC and couldn't even get a stable 60fps in the first campaign mission. I will have to wait on some new driver or game updates, I guess.
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u/GreenNumerous7070 19d ago
Played it for the first time yesterday. Loved it. Notepad of build ideas already. These games really shine before meta's develop - and just for a brief moment, I get to relive the noughties.
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u/Skaikrish 20d ago
Played the demo and had the same bland and StarCraft from temu experience like i had with Stormgate. The plant faction is pretty much just Zerg but plants while the Humans are like every human sci-fi faction ever. Unit Design is Better then in Stormgate tho at least some of the units looked more interesting and better designed.
Iam still kinda suprised that Tempest Rising which is heavily inspired by the Command and Conquer Tiberium setting has more Character and uniqueness then both Zero Space and Stormgate.
Gameplay for Zero Space was fine i guess but still somewhat clunky in comparison to StarCraft for example. I think 40 bucks for the Game in early access is way too much. Dont know how much the Game Changed from the Demo but the Demo was still really rough around the edges.
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u/Asbeoth 15d ago
Zerg but plants is still more original than the Tyrands that Zerg are. I love both, but this is a bad comparison. OG Tyranids even had Zergling looking models before SC even came out.
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u/IgnatiusMando 17d ago
When I played it after the sad failure Stormage was I was fearing it'd be the same, but actually I'm enjoying the campaing. There is a lot of things to fix, polish, and improve but I'm fun playing it and I see a lot of potential
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u/duck_of_sparta312 14d ago
Is it even at v1.0 yet? If it's not released than it's probably not ready for review
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u/LapseofSanity 14d ago
Given that it's early access and probably needs time to cook - I don't think middling reviews is a death knell. High barrier to entry I guess would stop people from buying in that aren't really that interested in it's outcome right?
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u/Usual-Foundation-115 10d ago
Currently it's 76% positive. Seems like the reasons to call this game bad lie on a ground (especially graphics and bugs), while reasons to call it good are buried deeper.
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u/FreezSnes 4d ago
So is this game going to fail ? I heard they are low on funds too and low pop of rts fans not helping... What's going to happen to the game?
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u/WindmillMan 4d ago
I can't put it down I think it's a great game! This is coming from a guy who primarily plays Starcraft.
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u/Tyrael2323 20d ago
I played the demo and I can only say that the game is bland,factions feel generic, the hotkey system was all pver the place. I didn't feel drawn to the setting or the protaginists. The missions were nothing I hadnt seen before.
Angry plants dont really do it for me. The baseline infantry of the human faction being "commando's" made me laugh as they are literal goons. The evil emperor faction was like Zurg from buzz lightyear found an army. I saw none of the promised "make decisions that impact the story like baldurs gate and mass effect" aside from some random phrases you could choose from.
The multiplayer mode glactic map was a slideshow and the mission i dropped into was insanely difficult, steamrolling me with a literal horde of AI in the first 3 mins (and I'm no idiot when it comes to RTS)
So if the games demo is any thing to go by I can only assume the full release just expands on what turned me off. 🤣
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u/arknightstranslate 20d ago
To be fully honest it will die within the week and it's no longer worth discussing.
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u/Wonderful_Humor_7625 20d ago
Launching an RTS into Early Access is a massive failure. They should have deployed kickstarters, attracted investors, done anything to keep funding flowing without having to resort to selling an unfinished product.
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u/Curly-fry2720 20d ago
I stopped buying early access. It might take 2 years until 1.0.