About Dreamhaven

[Sorrowseer]

I do find the company name hilarious, on one hand its a nice name looking to the future and expressing creativity, on the other its a safe space for abused devs xD

[Erwarth]

"Ex Blizzard employee" doesn't mean quality.

Mark Kern was an "Ex Blizzard Employee".

But Morhaime was good and so was Metzen (IMHO of course)

[Queen of Hamsters]

Then it will fail. Zero profit in mind means it'll take losses, bleed money and close. Every business is about making as much money as possible, paying as little as possible.

Sometimes it has a pr guy that makes it look like jesus but deep down every businessman from the mega Corp ceo to the guy running the mom and pop store wants your money, wants to make as much as possible and deep down is what Star Trek ferengi are based on.

I was being sarcastic based on the fantasies people are conjuring in regards to the company.

[kaminaris]

what I meant by not looking like wow was that it looked worse; it looks cheap. I recognize that some people would prefer a cheap engine render like the one in the video rather than the warm and unique artstyle you can see in classic wow, but the issue is taste in this case for me; I think bad taste is the reason we have so many cheap games that no one care about on steam, also the reason why we have more and more soulless successful games. but it might actually be a blessing, because otherwise we wouldn't have time to play everything

still, dreamhaven shall pay attention to what their games looks like, and if it looks like unity/unreal "defaults look", I'm afraid they won't go as far as some would expect

Wow rendering is exactly what could be described as cheap. And I am willing to bet crate of whiskey that nobody cares about "default look", much more important is how the game plays and if its fun to play.

[Cæli]

Wow rendering is exactly what could be described as cheap. And I am willing to bet crate of whiskey that nobody cares about "default look", much more important is how the game plays and if its fun to play.

wow classic looks awesome, you could recognize it between a thousand games. you're right maybe most people don't care about good taste. I think they would have better tastes and higher standards if they were offered more games with good art style and color palette on top of simply good gameplay. up to the devs to produce historical games, not just fun toys.

[kaminaris]

wow classic looks awesome, you could recognize it between a thousand games. you're right maybe most people don't care about good taste. I think they would have better tastes and higher standards if they were offered more games with good art style and color palette on top of simply good gameplay. up to the devs to produce historical games, not just fun toys.

Its not a good taste, its just some initial archaic rendering. I could recognize tons of old games from various screenshots, doesn't make it any good except I just remembered how it look.

Anyways you can fully replicate that in unity if you have fetish for that kind of stuff, have fun learning the shader code:

https://blogs.unity3d.com/2019/07/31...raphs-in-2019/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOLE4nrK97g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPeZ1mNOxWI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AYf0CRZMuw

The only problem is fiddling around the code until it looks the same.

[Ludek]

As for Dreamhaven I see two possibilities:

1. They will not live up to their hype. Their first game will probably be nice and I wish them good with it, but it will end up as an overhyped disappointment for people who are "omg good guys left Blizzard to form their own company, old style of awesome Blizz games is saved, take that Activision!" - See Mistwalker created by former Square / Final Fantasy people.

2. Since they want to stay away as far as possible from any shareholders / investors influence, they will simply won't have money to make a big scale project (eg an MMORPG as everyone wants them to do). Surely they probably have potential to create something nice above an indie game - the so called "AA"-game, like I don't know a polished RTS (although its a dead genre) or nice single player RPG, but I doubt in them having a "massive" game in their portfolio that way.

[Cosmic Janitor]

2. Since they want to stay away as far as possible from any shareholders / investors influence, they will simply won't have money to make a big scale project (eg an MMORPG as everyone wants them to do). Surely they probably have potential to create something nice above an indie game - the so called "AA"-game, like I don't know a polished RTS (although its a dead genre) or nice single player RPG, but I doubt in them having a "massive" game in their portfolio that way.

Tbh, wanting them to make an mmo is kinda idiotic anyway. MMOs are one of the most limiting genres that exist for various areas of game design, even before it comes to commitment to keep supporting it. Why would they even want to make a shitty game that shackles their creativity like that when that is (in part) why they left Blizzard in the first place?

[Stormdash]

I've been seeing a lot of replies in "Blizzard employee leaves" threads about Dreamhaven. I know it's Mike Morhaime's new company and that's pretty cool, but I went on their website and there wasn't a lot of information in regards to games their studios are making or anything.

Do they have any projects in the works that they've made public or are they still like brand new? Also what former Blizz employees have moved over there out of curiosity?

Other than a general assumption that the people they've hired will make something in the genres they are experienced with, nothing. So it's certainly possible they'll make an MMORPG or an RTS or some kind of dungeon crawler or rogue-like, it's all just a guess.

[Cæli]

Its not a good taste, its just some initial archaic rendering. I could recognize tons of old games from various screenshots, doesn't make it any good except I just remembered how it look.

Anyways you can fully replicate that in unity if you have fetish for that kind of stuff, have fun learning the shader code:

https://blogs.unity3d.com/2019/07/31...raphs-in-2019/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOLE4nrK97g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPeZ1mNOxWI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AYf0CRZMuw

The only problem is fiddling around the code until it looks the same.

sure something recognizable doesn't makes it directly good, but it's a good start to have something recognizable.

the tbc portal looks really off. there's something with the sky and the lightning... if you say it's possible, okay. but is it realistic that a dev care that much about a rendering that both looks good and recognizable on unity? the vast majority of games are so disappointing. maybe it's what's gave me the feeling that unity couldn't do it.

[Tyris Flare]

Seems more likely than not they struggle to release anything at all end up in vaporware lock for the next seven years.

[Osmeric]

Because not everyone want to eat McDonalds, which are factually pleasing hundreds of millions of people.
We ratter get good cuisine.

But nothing wrong with your BigMac if that's what you like best.

If that other food is so much better than McDonalds, why does McDonalds sell so well? Those buying it make a choice based on what they perceive to be the overall value. Why is their decision wrong and yours right? (Spoiler: the snide putdown of McDonalds, and other parts of popular culture, is status signaling.)

[kaminaris]

sure something recognizable doesn't makes it directly good, but it's a good start to have something recognizable.

the tbc portal looks really off. there's something with the sky and the lightning... if you say it's possible, okay. but is it realistic that a dev care that much about a rendering that both looks good and recognizable on unity? the vast majority of games are so disappointing. maybe it's what's gave me the feeling that unity couldn't do it.

You do realize Hearthstone is made with unity right? You have some weird fetish for unique looks but people don't care and those engine defaults are simply made realistic. Yet you can do a full WoW clone in those engines (To be fair, unreal has pretty much unlimited options so TECHNICALLY nothing is impossible, Unity does have some limitations).

Subnautica, Hollow Knight, Cuphead - very unique looks, Ori, Beat Saber, Risk Of Rain 2 - another unique look

[DesoPL]

Seems more likely than not they struggle to release anything at all end up in vaporware lock for the next seven years.

I personally think, Dreamheaven may start teasing something, around 2022 - 2024, and first announcement maybe with good winds... 2025?

[Cæli]

You do realize Hearthstone is made with unity right? You have some weird fetish for unique looks but people don't care and those engine defaults are simply made realistic. Yet you can do a full WoW clone in those engines (To be fair, unreal has pretty much unlimited options so TECHNICALLY nothing is impossible, Unity does have some limitations).

Subnautica, Hollow Knight, Cuphead - very unique looks, Ori, Beat Saber, Risk Of Rain 2 - another unique look

not just unique, well made; I think that for a game to be historical, is has to be more than gameplay. the looks used to matter. maybe it's because I lived through the 90s. donkey kong country, final fantasy, all of that stood out not just for the gameplay, it was both unique and had good color palette. we now have much more games, so it's totally normal to want more quality. and when it comes to dreamhaven, since it seems like a reincarnation of blizzard, I'd prefer having them succeeding. so my opinion is that their game shall look good and stand out when people browse the front page of a gaming website, or a youtube/twitch miniature, it has to have more than just gameplay. that is logical from start to finish.

hearthstone was mainly a 2d game (in the sense of a fixed camera). pictures of the battlefields have some kind of slight bright filter, in wow the referenced landscapes have a more "darker" look, or maybe deeper colors, don't know how to describe. but heartstone has a very acceptable rendering I agree, for what it is. if it was in full 3d, I got big doubts.

maybe you convinced me that it's possible, now I just wait to see something of quality. risk of rain 2 might have a decent art style, the rendering still looks like many other steam games. also it seems that unity devs do a lot of this kind of look : https://xboxsquad.fr/wp-content/uplo...o_2643893b.png
even on games that don't look like this, there is still remains of those "poor" (untextured?) graphics. I don't know if it's a lazy graphical work or a carefully chosen rendering, or both, but this art style is in many finished games that use unity. there's a lot of little effects that makes you think of a particular engine. maybe it's the devs that don't do a good job of making the player forget about which engine they used. that would be bad work to me. and I would really prefer if dreamhaven don't do that. you can call me overly critical/elitist, the amount of game that goes out naturally leads you to seek absolute quality, at least for me.

[DesoPL]

You do realize Hearthstone is made with unity right? You have some weird fetish for unique looks but people don't care and those engine defaults are simply made realistic. Yet you can do a full WoW clone in those engines (To be fair, unreal has pretty much unlimited options so TECHNICALLY nothing is impossible, Unity does have some limitations).

Subnautica, Hollow Knight, Cuphead - very unique looks, Ori, Beat Saber, Risk Of Rain 2 - another unique look

Wait. Do we forgot here Bloodstained? Shovel Knight?

[BrintoSFJ]

I can't find that, but I can see on their job listing that they look for people that know about unity. So at least for secret door this question has been answered.

I also can not find that any more. I clearly remember it was written on one of their dev group's introduction that they are working on "bringing back epic strategy game experience".

[kaminaris]

Wait. Do we forgot here Bloodstained? Shovel Knight?

Plenty of games, i just listed the ones I played.

There is absolutely nothing exciting about playing games with ancient lightning when literally default settings of current free* engines.

So lets stop blaming tool manufacturers. Both Unity and UEngine can be successfully used by Dreamhaven. They won't be limited in any way except for their own creativity.

You can only recognize Unreal or unity games if they use same assets like here:
https://assetstore.unity.com/3d/vegetation/trees

Because its easier and faster to just buy stuff like trees rocks for tweeny bucks than to design every single small model yourself.

I see no problem with it since the game content and story is what will matter in overwhelming majority.

[Cosmic Janitor]

I also can not find that any more. I clearly remember it was written on one of their dev group's introduction that they are working on "bringing back epic strategy game experience".

Maybe they changed it? I can only find the ones about epic adventures.