One slice from our 3-month sales graph; even those spikes are less than half the usual for promotions. |
So far I've gotten three friends + my mate to buy both AI:War and Tidalis, but that's the extent of my contribution unfortunately.That's pretty good, actually, many thanks :)
Seeing all those great reviews of Tidalis, I was sure you were doing better than ever.Yea, that was really confusing for me too. I mean, AI War got good reviews but it's a really niche game, there's a fairly low percent of the overall market that's even interested in a grand strategy game. But Tidalis has a solid appeal to even casual gamers, and has gotten even better reviews... but it's not making much more money per day than AI War is now (and that's with AI War being over a year since release), and that's after AI War income dropping drastically over the past few months.
We'll do what we can. It's only fair after you guys provided us with countless hours of entertainment with your splendid games. Would hate to see you go down that dark road.
FOR ARCEN!
I don't know if this is possible or not but how about a sale promoting the new micro-expansion? Maybe 10% off of AI War and/or Tidalis?Plans are already laid for promotion when the CoN and 4.0 official release hits :)
Very confusing; we made this puzzle game that many reviewers are raving about... but very few people actually buy it. Maybe that's the puzzle ;)
I don't know how hard it would be, but a browser-based Tidalis demo might do a lot to demonstrate to people that it's not "just another match 3 game." Something that could be passed around on Facebook and the like might more easily get the attention of the causal crowd.
Well, it is on Unity. I have no experience with it, but as far as I am concerned it can be embedded in a browser easily.Not easily, but Unity does support building the game for the Unity Web Player. But we certainly couldn't take Tidalis as-is and do that, because the resolution supported is way different and we have to really minimize the actual amount of data involved (which basically means removing all the music and all but one of the visual themes, and making that one static with no animation, etc). We've certainly been batting around that possibility to provide an easy-entry demo experience, basically.
By the way, Facebook could possibly solve Arcen's financial problems. If you guys could release a free browser based version of Tidalis integrated with Facebook and featuring microtransactions and some social stuff you could have an incredibly profitable cash cow.We haven't actually talked about that specifically but in general we're wary of microtransactions and that kind of thing, feels exploitative. Worth thinking about ways of doing it ethically, though.
I don't know how hard it would be, but a browser-based Tidalis demo might do a lot to demonstrate to people that it's not "just another match 3 game." Something that could be passed around on Facebook and the like might more easily get the attention of the causal crowd.
Well, it is on Unity. I have no experience with it, but as far as I am concerned it can be embedded in a browser easily.
By the way, Facebook could possibly solve Arcen's financial problems. If you guys could release a free browser based version of Tidalis integrated with Facebook and featuring microtransactions and some social stuff you could have an incredibly profitable cash cow.
It might be worth sacrificing a small bit of your soul to keep the company runningNever ;) But good for a laugh.
due to the size of the web player on the screen.
Yeah, I generally hate microtransactions, but I know that Facebook games can be incredibly profitable. It might be worth sacrificing a small bit of your soul to keep the company running and hopefully fill your new swimming pool with 100$ notes. ;)
Then again, I'm not suggesting you should be exploitative, I guess it can be done ethically.
http://www.interstellarmarines.com/
Those guys did some pretty nice demos of their upcoming game in a browser. It is a 3d shooter and it looks and plays really great in the web player.
Ultimately, what I enjoy about Arcen is integrity. That doesn't come often in this world and especially in this industry. The fact that AI Wars is indeed a hidden gem in the weeds makes it all that much more attractive to me; although, this doesn't parallel with monetary success, either. When I read statements like, "It might be worth sacrificing a small bit of your soul"...I get a bit worried cause this is one independent game company which has a "ghost in the machine" in all their products and I'd hate to see anything change too drastically.Yea, I wanted to work at Arcen primarily based on the integrity I saw in how Chris does business (well, C# is nice too). That's why I replied to the (joking) "sacrifice" comment with the word "Never" :) Any economic decision where one of the costs is "Integrity" has an asymptotically high cost:benefit ratio ;)
Shardz, I was joking about sacrificing the soul. ;)
I agree with your concern about a flood of people though, but I think the community of any Facebook game could be hosted separately of the one we are enjoying here, preventing us from being flooded.
Yea, having those speed features mentioned really early on could help avoid unnecessarily giving the wrong impression. Say something like "if this is too slow, turn on fast and dangerous and crank up the speed to +2" ;)
Cliff and I keep in touch pretty closely, actually -- and I know that sale did super well for him. We did a similar sale for ai war, though, and it wasn't the same effect at all. Possibly because it was part of a week where a lot was on sale, but still. I just think there's a lifecycle games need to go through, and if you put them on super sale too early you're doom more harm than good. GSB also had way more press when it went on sale than Tidalis has so far, so that may also have been a factor -- people knee what it was, and were intrigued enough to gamble with a few bucks during such a sale. Maybe I'm being too picky or overthinking it, but that still makes me really uncomfortable.Well, that, and no offense, but AI War falls just about on the extreme end of hardcore strategy gaming. I'd love to see something with more casual appeal (like SupCom2 without the controversy), whether it be another RTS in teh far future or you doing some heavy work on AI war to give it more of that casual side.
I'd like to post more in-depth later, but I want to object to the casual RTS suggestion... the last thing the world needs is another supreme commander. This game is hardcore, no doubt, but I like it that way. That's why I bought it. If Chris made some watered-down select all-> attack game, I wouldn't have bought it.The main reason i don't play AI war is because i get into it, and i feel a little lost in all of the complexity; i don't really have any clearly defined goals other than "go kill the homeworlds" which takes a lot of buildup and work to get to. More often than not, i quit pretty quickly because i'm just wandering around destroying stuff. I most definitely agree that it shouldn't be a "select all -> attack" game, but the way it is now it takes some effort to just get into it, which is hard sometimes (i prefer more fast-paced action generally, though i do like grand strategy). Don't get me wrong, it's a great game, but you're losing out an a tremendous potential market that loves games like SupCom2 and such.
Would that be more profitable? Maybe, I don't know. But I wouldn't have bought it. I'm here because I like what the product is, which is a hardcore epic space strategy game with a tremendous AI. Is the kind of game you can play single player and never get bored. I will post more later. Chris, team, I support all of you in your efforts, I will do what I can.
I also want to give a short personal rant... I find it extremely distressing that my absolute favorite company right now ( you guys!) might not be making games anymore. I have gotten endless enjoyment since the day I bought it, more than any game I own; I consider myself a fan. The whole thing... I would be sour if this joyride were to end. Please don't let your hopes get down, don't give up, and please keep the train going, you do have people who know your name and who care about your work...
I work a long day programming and making things work for everybody else. At night, I want to enjoy myself, and there's no game I enjoy better than AI war. Don't let it die.
The "fast action, light strategy" crowd tends to be much more interested in flashy graphics than the "deep strategy" crowd, I think chasing after them is probably a misuse of resources and certainly not worth compromising the vision behind AI War. Hardcore strategy does just fine for itself, and I gather AI War was doing just fine within that market until just recently. I get the sense the larger problem is Tidalis' sales, and that's got to be as simple as a lack of exposure in the right venues. Let's face it, most of Arcen's pre-existing fanbase is a bunch of hardcore strategy gamers. We'll buy most anything they put out, but our ability to circulate useful word of mouth for a casual puzzle game (albeit a brilliant one) is pretty limited, we just don't run in the right circles.Its not that i want AI war to be light on strategy, just that i want a format of AI war that takes less than 10 hours minimum to complete. :P
Its not that i want AI war to be light on strategy, just that i want a format of AI war that takes less than 10 hours minimum to complete. :PSo do I, actually; I just don't have that much time to play games :) I'm hoping to be able to do something about this via a scenario editor feature in a future expansion; the trick here is getting to make a future expansion ;)
Tidalis needs a trailer that explains exactly how the streams work. I have no idea how it could be done though.
I see the charity thing as being a misstep.Please do remember that the decision to make CoN for-charity was made well before we saw signs of financial distress, and that kind of promise can't be gone back on. We have to operate on reasonable assumptions when doing business, and we simply did not expect that our overall income would be lower after the release of Tidalis than before it. If income drops like that, it can make any plan look like a misstep from the outside ;)
Maybe you could end the charity promotion? Maybe, since it isn't released yet, put a date on it where future earnings go towards development.No, we can't do that, we've already publicly promised that all CoN revenue (after distributor cuts and taxes) will go to charity, and that's that.
The last thing I can think of this morning is advertisements on the forums. Don't everyone shoot me at onceOk, we'll take turns ;)
400 mb is a large download? since when..Yea, for someone who games a lot it's not that big a download, but for folks used to 15MB downloads... Part of our difficulty with Tidalis is that it really is a hardcore game with casual appeal; meaning that casual gamers should be able to really enjoy it, but it doesn't fully fit into the "casual" category all around. The download size is one example of that.
Maybe casual gamers have a short attention span, but i can certainly find something else to do while 400mbs download ::)
# signature graphics that may only contain your character name, corporation logo, corporation or personal slogan or other text that is directly related to your in-game persona, or content directly related to Eve Online.Yea, honestly I think CCP is intentionally trying to prevent that kind of visual advertisement of other games. That is their right, and I think we should respect their wishes in that. I don't know about their policy on talking about or verbally advertising other games is, though.
the last one is the real problem :\ I could probably try an AI war banner of some sort, with my avatars face on it, that says something along the lines of 'what Lance does instead of stationspinning', but even then its probably a stretch >:(
400 mb is a large download? since when..
Maybe casual gamers have a short attention span, but i can certainly find something else to do while 400mbs download ::)
Yea, for someone who games a lot it's not that big a download, but for folks used to 15MB downloads... Part of our difficulty with Tidalis is that it really is a hardcore game with casual appeal; meaning that casual gamers should be able to really enjoy it, but it doesn't fully fit into the "casual" category all around. The download size is one example of that.
Making a "demo version" would be tricky since basically it means no music (or only one track, and that majorly compressed below its current quality) and no animation, really limited all around, etc.
and i guess I'm not up to date on my casual games then :x I've certainly downloaded larger demos than 400mb..
Regarding concerns about the download size of Tidalis: I just can't fathom that as the issue, in the main. It's not like we advertise that it's a 400mb download. What do folks imagine is happening -- that people start downloading it, go "oh noes, 400mb" and stop the download instantly? I think that once someone starts downloading something, they're pretty much committed to it unless it's going to be some ridiculous amount of time to get (like days, on dialup).
Granted, it's not doing us favors in terms of capitalizing on their attention immediately, but the reason that the Tidalis game is so large is simple: the art is power of two larger than that in popcap games, and the music is very high quality oggs, rather than what I'm assuming are some sort of synth-based soundsystem (midi, tracker of some sorts, etc).
You do know that the popcap games only run at 640x480, right? Or at least that's true for PvZ. Maybe there isn't desire for a casual puzzle game with high-res graphics and music, but honestly I don't think that's the problem here.
Just out of curiosity, have you guys explored the idea of an AI War 4 pack on Steam? Not that I necessarily think it would result in a flurry of new sales, but it would give the opportunity for some people who are uncertain about the game to buy as part of a group and get a lower price point.I've thought about it, though I haven't mentioned it to Chris. I think it could be a useful option, particularly for our more enthusiastic players who really want to get their friends into the game; getting them a discount on a pack that they can then gift out may be appealing to them to get people in on the base game and see how it goes from there.
One thing that is puzzling me this week is the viral campaign of Minecraft; word of mouth is everywhere and I can't figure out why exactly. The developer (Notch) started taking pre-orders in June 2009 and has racked up over 4,200 units sold at $13 a pop ($26 at retail time) and the game is still in Alpha. :o It's a cool little game and all, but it really offers no real goals, no campaigns, no mechanics...not much of anything other than a rudimentary engine with little to do (being a true sandbox game, though). I ask myself how this came to be other than some sort of user-generated viral campaign to spread the word. The one thing I realized is that they offer no demo of the flagship Alpha product and the free version they do offer is an old, stripped down pre-Alpha version which has long been abandoned by the developer. Perhaps this is a "Draw & Charge" tactic that lures folks to the site and gets them to blindly invest in the product...perhaps it's a legion of 11 year olds that love pixelated, blocky graphics...perhaps people are getting Mario flashbacks playing with those cubes for hours, who knows. One thing is certain, though; their fans are generating a lot of buzz on the Internet and it finally crossed my path last night in my travels.
I'm not promoting that product in this post as it's nowhere near finished and has no common elements with AI War (other than it's on Windows), but the phenomenon that interests me is this viral campaign it seems to be enjoying and I wonder how it all got started. I think we can all help a little bit in our own ways, but I think what we are talking about here is attempting to break into the mainstream media for a little bit of hard earned exposure cause AI War definitely has the meat to compete successfully with anything out there.
Excellent ideas Keith. I guess I will have to record the fighting in-game and convert it to gif's, no biggie, but it will take me a while.Yea; I could probably get the shots a bit faster, I'm just busy porting the various mouseover tooltips for the lobby to the Unity version ;)
I will experiment with the images scrolling under the text, maybe next to it, but I'm not sure if it will be readable.Yea, I thought about that but figured it would be too much with the "I Heart AI War" text also there. I was thinking that during the scroll it could fade to black (or nearly so, maybe not completely out), show the text, fade the text out and fade the scroll back in with the next shot, fade that out, show the next text, etc... The "Will You Even Survive?" could come right after the nuke flash ;D
I'm still really concerned about Arcen's long term prognosis as I am sure a lot of us are, even with all the great stuff that has happened recently with the help of our community. I can't help but feel for Chris, because he's done essentially everything right, but it's that folks sadly don't take to notice the indie scene, especially this new generation that's all into the graphics and FPS-action, maybe because they're ignorant or that they just simply haven't heard about how awesome AI War and Arcen truly are.Don't worry about it too much, it's not worth emotional stress :) Arcen has no debt, and our monthly expenses are actually really low for a company, so it's not like the company has to totally disappear. There are certain rock-bottom-must-be-paid expenses (like LLC fees, and some manner of webhosting, that kind of thing) to prevent real vanishment, but our games aren't selling zero, they're just not selling enough to support the kind of staff-time we need to keep producing games on an acceptable schedule... so most or all of us would be looking for "day jobs", so to speak, which obviously puts a massive hurt on our output. Of course, my perspective is a bit skewed since I'm part-time and am not relying 100% on Arcen income even now; Chris would be able to give a more concrete picture.
I've got some reaction from Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/AI-War-Fleet-Command/143457342376?ref=ts) and the Steam community (http://steamcommunity.com/games/aiwar/announcements/detail/990980149350970040) along with a friend who might be able to gift a few copies of AI War out, but beyond that I'm still worried about the future.
For the galaxy map shots, a mature gamestate is desirable so you can get a reasonably complex border situation; if you don't have one on hand I could post one of the more interesting saves I have ;)
:\ no their rules state any signature must be within their size.. they dont offer any imagehosting..I think it's very clear that CCP doesn't want other games advertised through those banners, even if it does fit within the file size. A more relevant question is how many bytes other forums are likely to tolerate, as that helps determine the number of frames we have to work with.
No promises, but I just wanted to test the waters and get an early reaction from folks. So... thoughts?Yea, we've got some cool ideas, so it wouldn't just be tossing a bunch of stuff in a (virtual) box and selling it... but I really don't want y'all to feel like we're over-milking the AI War cow. I'm very interested in what people think about the idea of another medium-sized expansion.
No promises, but I just wanted to test the waters and get an early reaction from folks. So... thoughts?Yea, we've got some cool ideas, so it wouldn't just be tossing a bunch of stuff in a (virtual) box and selling it... but I really don't want y'all to feel like we're over-milking the AI War cow. I'm very interested in what people think about the idea of another medium-sized expansion.
We got in touch with BigFishGames just today. Shockwave just does flash stuff, to my knowledge. RealArcade, Yahoo! Games and such actually already distribute AI War, but my contact there has gone rather cold after AI War didn't do much there (just the wrong market, really). I need to prod him harder to see about Tidalis, you're right.
One other idea we've been batting around is doing a $6.99 micro-expansion for AI War in the November timeframe. A different focus from CoN by a long-shot, but no features have been finalized and it's still just a maybe-maybe sort of idea. The idea would be to lump in a bunch of easy-to-add but high-value new features that would be exciting for folks but that we could get done in a month total. But what are the reactions to that here? Basically, the idea being that this expansion + CoN would equal in total a bit more content and such than TZR did by itself -- then later, the fourth expansion sometime next year would be full-sized on its own.
No promises, but I just wanted to test the waters and get an early reaction from folks. So... thoughts?
http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,7048.0.htmlOh, ok, I just hadn't thought of that one as a showstopper :) Certainly will fix it once the Unity port is in beta, though. And forum posts are much preferable to PMs in general, unless it's something best handled privately (conflicts between users, etc).
This is my bug, the mercenary dock isn't working properly. Even starting a new game...that's why I was initially suggesting I reinstall unless it is due to the configuration of the game that I create.
Do you prefer private messages( do we even do that on this forum?)?
When you get a banner going, post it for everyone to spread the word.
As far as a micro expansion, at that price point it would pretty much be an automatic buy for me. For one thing, anything I can get several hours of entertainment from that costs less than movie tickets is an automatic win. Secondly, you've already cemented your reputation as one of the better development teams out there for community interaction, which clinches it for me, really.
Any expansions (hell, probably any games) from Arcen are insta-buys for me.
The only way to combat piracy is for arcengames to make online account registrations and 1 serial-per-user DRM. That would cut down on piracy, and net you exactly NILL extra sales.Exactly, and then they just make a keygen. They already have, which is kind of amusing since they didn't actually need to, but anyway, I don't want to spend any more words on the subject ;)
the game needs a short game modeI agree, though not a mode that actually "shortens" the overall game (I don't think it would scale in a fun way), but via short scenarios. Like "break the stalemate" stuff, where you can jump into the middle of an interesting gamestate and have a primary objective different than "kill the AI home command stations". So the gameplay itself need not change much, just the positioning of the "start" and "end" points within that campaign.
Also, i think with gamers getting older they also grave for more mature serious storylines (not the kinky mature kind) i call it "hard-sci-fi" but not sure thats the genre... anyhow... I wish there'd be a "story" mode in AI-War, with random events, quests, characters and heck, even my own flagship - but that'd be way too much work....Actually I've thought a lot about that; the main thing isn't the work involved, but that it'd basically be a different game. There's a lot of stuff I'd like to do that just doesn't fit within the scope of AI War, and trying too hard to stuff it in there would hurt everything.
I didn't plan on getting Tidalis but for the extra support to you guys I did anyway, maybe the game will grow on me. (I normally more into action puzzles or whatever you call them like tetris/Chime).Tidalis has both the "brainteaser" type puzzles and the action type puzzles. If you fire the game up and play through the tutorials the last two are basically easy action boards. After that you can try the Action Sampler to see some of the crazy things we do there. Adventure mode is a mix; the actual progression is action levels, but there are "hidden" brainteaser levels.
This place might be a better place to ask this question than the other place I asked it in. I wonder if I can just buy several CoN copies and give away keys to my friends who have AI War?Yes, that works just fine (same for TZR, too); and the proceeds for CoN go to the Child's Play charity :)
@Ixolite, sadly, the game has been all over torrent/warez sites since it got released. I doubt a stripped down version of the game, or a demo would get a lot of attention there.
Have to agree with Mlaskus on that one Ixolite. I know I had no problem finding the game on a torrent as of 5 mins ago. If there is already a cracked copy of the game out there, I sadly doubt a watered down version would do very well on torrent sites. I could be wrong, but if they downloaded the demo/stripped down version, and liked it, but didn't want to pay the 20 bucks for the game, they would find the cracked copy and play that instead. Your idea has some merit though I think. If there was a way to show people who torrent things that AI War is a great game, there is a chance that they would buy it. It really would depend on the community of the torrent site in question.
As for pirates.. pirates are not customers, theres 0 point to focus on piracy to increase sales. And thats that. The only way to combat piracy is for arcengames to make online account registrations and 1 serial-per-user DRM. That would cut down on piracy, and net you exactly NILL extra sales.You're wrong about that. Piracy, like it or not, is a fact and you can argue that some of the pirated copies are lost sales. But in the same time, it is also an advertising and test driving - sort of try before you buy, parallel to official demos (which in case of larger producers often drastically differ from the delivered product). Also, any copy protection can and will be broken as long as the game is running on the "client" computer - there is no 100% successful copy protection. On the other hand, a lot of people are willing to pay for quality product, even if they found out about it via said electronic-five-finger-discount.
I also think that the games should cost more but thats just me. Arcengames has low prices for games, and particularly the CoN expansion is way too cheap.Well, particularly in this market, the relationship between "price per unit" and "price per unit * units sold" is heavily non-linear. It's quite possible to make more money selling something for $10 than $20, for example.
Its also important the Tutorial gets updated and "fancied up" ;) Explosions and Effects, and that stuff. With Unity we FINALLY get shader effects so the graphic quality can go through the roof.Yea, we're hoping to make the tutorial updates a priority soon. As for the graphics that's up to Chris, but we are very excited about getting a proper set of tools in that regard, for sure.
I was merely suggesting using torrent sites as a promo tool - mentioning the piracy was a byproduct of argumentation there since it is common to think torrent=pirate. But I guess I kind of expected that and I won't pursue the matter any further.Yea, I wasn't taking issue with what you said, I just know how discussions even on the periphery of that topic get nasty and unproductive fast and didn't want to derail this very helpful thread.
On a side note, I am trying to spread the word out to my friends ;)Thank you very much :)
...we couldn't add another opponent tobrutally thrashentertain the people wanting that kind of thing :)
Hybrids will get more dangerous, rest assured :) At least with Advanced on; the Basic ones will get more interesting but I want them to be playable by sane players so they don't feel left out....we couldn't add another opponent tobrutally thrashentertain the people wanting that kind of thing :)
Well, I certainly wouldn't mind... ;)
What I really crave for lately though is some kind of non-suicidal, non-static ally that actually develops alongside you while you expand your territory. Something like Hybrids but on your side.Quite funny, actually, just last night I was talking to Chris about an idea very much along those lines, for the November mini-expansion :) I don't want to talk too much about it yet as plans are very much up in the air, etc.
By the way, for those of you trying to get your friends interested in AI War (thank you!), if they don't like it that doesn't mean there's nothing to be gained; if you could give us their feedback (or better yet, herd them to these forums so they can tell us themselves) that could be really helpful. Obviously there are things we can't or won't change but often there's something that we can do. Also, I've found it's often possible to take those stated desires and distill them down to the real "itch", and then find another way of scratching that which does fit with our philosophy.
And yea, I really really love ship design and really wish a proper MoO/MoO2 descendent was with us (I tried SotS briefly but didn't like it, I'll take another look at some point). That was my big motivation behind the module system that's used by the Riot Control Starship (and Avengers and Hybrids, but those are AI-only); what does he think of those?
Whats more puzzling is how Minecraft could even make any sales given that there is not a single "game" in this game. Its just a sandbox with blocks, like a inferior form of lego. Man, i must be getting old or something ;P Or maybe its that i can make better looking things from blocks, for free... the curse of a 3d-designer!I know I haven't posted much so you're liable to ignore me again, but I did explain what I believe to be a good part of the reason minecraft sells so well.
We never did get to riot ships in the couple quick games we tried (demo only;base game only), unfortunately.Damn. If its possible, you should try them. They're great fun. (Not sure if Riots are available in the demo, I bought AI War before they were added).
I shall be as your messenger onto the realms of EVE! Let them hear my songs of praise and respond in kind..
But mostly, itll just be me and zeba going on about how awesome AI war is :( I'm afraid its been tried many times, and I am just not sure the people of eve are willing to convert to such a complex strategy game.. :-\
However, no effort shall be spared in the spreading of the Good Word!
Any expansions (hell, probably any games) from Arcen are insta-buys for me.
I guess I like AI war since I need to think a bit more, and that all the focus is on gameplay. I do not know why it has not cached on more.Actually AI War has sold pretty well for its first 16 months (or something like that) of sales. Considering that it's an indie niche RTS game it's done very well. The issue is that eventually a given title's sales will drop off, and eventually it did. We expected that and that's fine. The problem was that our next product (Tidalis) did not do well (yet, we still have high hopes for it). Thankfully Chris was really conservative in his estimates and we had a lot of savings. But that can only last so long without having to really scale back basically everything.
I know I haven't posted much so you're liable to ignore me again, but I did explain what I believe to be a good part of the reason minecraft sells so well.
Earlier today I read some of the RockPaperShotgun AAR on Minecraft that Quinn is doing, and it looks like a lot of fun.
I guess I like AI war since I need to think a bit more, and that all the focus is on gameplay. I do not know why it has not cached on more.Actually AI War has sold pretty well for its first 16 months (or something like that) of sales. Considering that it's an indie niche RTS game it's done very well. The issue is that eventually a given title's sales will drop off, and eventually it did. We expected that and that's fine. The problem was that our next product (Tidalis) did not do well (yet, we still have high hopes for it). Thankfully Chris was really conservative in his estimates and we had a lot of savings. But that can only last so long without having to really scale back basically everything.
I guess many of us in the community is just not buying the games, as such, we kind of buy into the community, buy into the idea of Arcen. We believe in Arcen as a company. Maybe if you could try and convey that spirit, the spirit of Arcen, out more? I have no idea how that can be done, but I do know that people often buy into things if say the company clearly expresses a belief they hold and cherish, a goal of sorts that has nothing to do with monetary gains. I believes Arcen is such a company in reality, that you really do believe in making good games for the sake of making good games, but maybe to get that message out more clearly?Yea, that spirit, so to speak, is why I'm working here. But it's a tricky thing to try to spread the word about, basically only our customers can do that. We can state our philosophy and motivation, but it's really only you folks that can testify to how true we are to that. And from the discussions I've seen elsewhere y'all have been doing a very good job of that :)
Well the feedback from my friends was that it is too complex and takes ages to play. In virtually every other strategy game you move along a tech path that branches from time to time. Here everything is open from the beginning (after that you only unlock higher tiers).
This is not something i want changed in this game, but this makes this game (somehow expected) not very suitable for casual gamers.
Please comment on this! I'm getting more excited the more I think about it. ;DWell, remember what I said earlier about not trying to shoehorn a different game into AI War ;) But we do try to see these kinds of requests to "bust the envelope" and try to distill them into changes that would only "push the envelope". It's an incremental process, and we have to say "Ok, here's a concrete step we can take that will at least partially scratch that itch without messing up the rest of the game", then take that step, and then ask "Did that help? Did that Hurt? Does it look like we can take another step?". The Hybrid Hives are a good example of this, and we're still in the evaluation phase because they aren't done yet. But they are an example of a kind of AI that is totally contrary to the design philosophy behind the "main" AI. But that's ok, so long as it doesn't mess with said main AI. But because it's an incremental process y'all have to be patient ;)
* a story. I know somebody already mentioned this, and Keith you already replied, but I'm just going to say it... A campaign, even a campaign that is already set up a certain way like a mission... A story would be great for some people.Yea, and we do have some of the pieces in place to make that possible, and I have another step in mind for the November mini-expansion. But this is the sort of thing we have to be really careful about, so it doesn't come off half-baked in some respect.
* optional boss fights. The concept of bosses... People like the challenge of going after some hard to get boss, maybe even a random spawn... This is for achiever personalities ( do you think about gamer psychology?).Tried the Avenger yet? ;D Incidentally there's an achievement for killing it now, though I forget if that's in the public version.
* Something to do after you conquer the galaxy. Maybe it is a rescue mission, a "return home" mission, maybe it is a random in-game cutscene.Not so sure about that, I guess it would be more a question of having a minor faction that isn't pacified after you "win", etc. But mostly I'm interested in stuff that happens before the end-game, since that takes so long to reach anyway.
* ranking at the end of the game. Have the AI analyze some of the game of events for proficiency and give a rundown or some feedback.. Perhaps a ranking like, "score: star commander" ,Fleet Adm., Brig. Gen., dreadnought supreme, so on and so forth....We did some work on that but I never got much farther, Tidalis happened, etc.
* missions in game that would reward you with neutral allies, not just lowering the progress meterOne of the minor factions Chris and I are thinking about for the November mini-expansion would be something along these lines.
Maybe I should be posting this in the suggestion forum?If you want to, and normally we really encourage away from having massive catch-all threads, but in this particular case having this one coherent (hopefully) conversation is a good thing, I think.
Oh well, what do you think?I think these are good things to think about, and I think we can come up with something you'll like. But the initial steps are likely to leave you wanting more, just because we can't invent an RPG-within-an-RTS all in one go ;) Largely because we may get a step or two down that road and everyone realizes "Um, that wasn't such a great idea".
By the way, I think if tidalis attracted different gamer personalities besides just puzzle fans ( think achiever, collector, Explorer, social, mobile...), it would probably sell more copies.Achiever: it has achievements, it has high score boards, it has a fairly extensive list of stats, and it has some very challenging levels.
Tidalis is a block-based puzzle game with casual appeal, hardcore depth, and an addictive new "streams" mechanic. The game is brimming over with riffs and variants on that core mechanic with 20 game modes, dozens of special blocks and items, and 115 levels in the adventure mode alone. The basic rules of the game are this: blocks fall down into the board and have a color and an arrow direction. If a stack of blocks exceeds the height of the board, you lose. In order to clear blocks, you must right-click and drag paths through the arrows to set up chain reactions of like-colored blocks.
If this sounds simple, that's because it is -- you'll be lining up lengthy chains within minutes. But you'll be surprised how much brainpower it takes to set up combos of multiple chains, and the many brainteaser-style puzzles include some real stumpers. Tidalis has co-op and competitive multiplayer modes (both online and offline); action-oriented modes and timer-less brainteasers; a lengthy, casual-friendly adventure mode; twenty unique game modes providing innumerable twists to the basic gameplay; dozens of special blocks and items; and over fifty minutes of beautiful music to go with the painterly art.
In short, several games' worth of content are built on top of this core mechanic, which you'll quickly find to be as iconic as it is novel.
- Puzzle game with casual appeal, hardcore depth, and an addictive new mechanic.
- Two-player co-op and competitive play (both local and networked).
- A wide selection of both action-oriented or brainteaser-like levels.
- Casual-friendly adventure mode, hardcore-focused custom games and vs modes.
- 20+ game styles, and dozens of items and special blocks.
- Rich, painterly art style and beautiful music.
- Players can create and share whole new themes, levels, and adventures.
- Options for colorblind players, players averse to lots of light and motion, and older computers.
Wow, are we talking about the same game, Keith?Are we talking about the same features page? :)
At A Glance
- Puzzle game with casual appeal, hardcore depth, and an addictive new mechanic.
- Two-player co-op and competitive play (both local and networked).
- A wide selection of both action-oriented or brainteaser-like levels.
- Casual-friendly adventure mode, hardcore-focused custom games and vs modes.
- 20+ game styles, and dozens of items and special blocks.
- Rich, painterly art style and beautiful music.
- Players can create and share whole new themes, levels, and adventures.
- Options for colorblind players, players averse to lots of light and motion, and older computers.
What Is Tidalis?
Tidalis is a block-based puzzle game with casual appeal, hardcore depth, and an addictive new "streams" mechanic. The basic rules of the game are this: blocks fall down into the board and have a color and an arrow direction. If a stack of blocks exceeds the height of the board, you lose. In order to clear blocks, you must right-click and drag paths through the arrows to set up chain reactions of like-colored blocks.
If this sounds simple, that's because it is -- you'll be lining up lengthy chains within minutes. But you'll be surprised how much brainpower it takes to set up combos of multiple chains, and the many brainteaser-style puzzles include some real stumpers. Tidalis has co-op and competitive multiplayer modes (both online and offline); action-oriented modes and timer-less brainteasers; a lengthy, casual-friendly adventure mode; twenty unique game modes providing innumerable twists to the basic gameplay; dozens of special blocks and items; and over fifty minutes of beautiful music to go with the painterly art.
In short, several games' worth of content are built on top of this core mechanic, which you'll quickly find to be as iconic as it is novel. Get the demo now!
What Makes Tidalis Unique?
What happens when a notable indie strategy developer makes a puzzle game? We have no idea. Our first game happened to be a notable indie strategy game, but we've never considered ourselves tied to any particular genre. Truth is, we made Tidalis because we like puzzle games and we wanted to take our opportunity to innovate in that space.
The "streams" mechanic employed by Tidalis is what makes it so unique -- chain reactions with a dozen blocks are trivially easy to create. This makes the game really easy to get into, but also makes the creation of advanced multi-stage combos more challenging than in other block-based puzzlers. At an advanced level of play, it's the difference between Chess and Checkers; with Tidalis in the hands of an expert, there are more variables to keep in mind as you set up truly elegant interactions.
But never fear: the easier difficulty levels are quite relaxed, and our Zen mode provides a particularly no-rush style of gameplay. The core mechanics are so simple that the two-year-old daughter of one of our staff enjoys playing along with him. And we suppose it goes without saying that many of our mothers are hooked on it, too.
Whether you're just looking for a casual fun time, a deep and strategic puzzle experience, or a series of brain-bending puzzles, we've got you covered. About half of the five staff members working on this game are the hardcore puzzle types, and the other half have completely casual tastes. We've approached this with our usual attention to detail: the mechanics of the timing, chain merging, and other mechanics have been refined to a ridiculous degree to provide an optimal experience in all play styles.
As of 7/14/2010, Version 1.000, The Game Includes:
* Supported Platforms: Mac OSX "Panther" 10.39 or higher, Windows 2000 or later
* Game Styles: Normal, Zen, Sun & Moon, Line Clear, Graviton, Frenzy, Featherweight, Trampoline, Light-Up, Item Survival, Water, Wind, Jumping Bean, Limited Streams, Eater Defense, Solitaire, Speed-Up, Block Swap, Shuffle, Bumpers
* Difficulty ranging from 0-10
* 115 Adventure Levels, 69 Brainteasers, 9 Ranked Boards, 5 Sampler Levels
* Block Sets: Smooth, Faces, Pixel, AI War, Organic, Shapes
* Music/Art Themes: Cavern, Fishing Village, Fishing Village Night, Forest, Forest Night, Night Marsh, Night Marsh Variance, Open Plains, Open Plains Cloudy, Rainy Mud Flats, Tidal Wreckage, Volcano, Windy Mountaintop, Jeweled Palace, River, Snowy Lowlands, Temple, Foothills, Hidden Theme 1, Hidden Theme 2, Hidden Theme 3
* General Special Blocks: Glass, Stone, Tinder, Fire, Ice, Bubble, Charred, Eater, Direction Locked, Color Reactive, Metal Grille, Turnip, Magnet (Repulsor), Magnet (Attractor), Quad Repeater, Flipper (180), Flipper (45), Crystalizer, Color Blocker, Emission Statue, Pit Monster, Sick, Cured, Living Stone, Inverter, Energizer
* Puzzle-only (or special mode) Special Blocks: Plastic, Metal, Wall (Passable), Wall (Solid), Water Fish, Water Balloon, Sponge, Apple, Golden Apple, Empty Block
* Easy, game-integrated game updates
* Mouse or keyboard controls, with keyboard control customization
* Multiple adventure savegames
* In-game tutorials
* Combinations of game modes in custom games
* Fun adventure mode story: Intro Cutscene, 45 Main Story Cutscenes, 6 Hidden Cutscenes, Ending Cutscene
* General Items: Place Color Block, Place Special Block, Can 'O Beans, Extend, Constrain, Crystal, Quake Hammer, Lightning, Question Mark, Huge Boulder, Rainbow, Flood, Icer, Turnipalooza, Color Popper, Fence, Hourglass, Running things on your feet, Feather, Barbells, U-Turn, Wind Burst, Scrambler, Insta-Streams, Molasses-Streams
* Puzzle-only (or special mode) Items: Safety Pin
* VS Modes: Garbage, Endurance, or Freeform
* Co-Op-Only Modes: Sun or Moon, Block Vaporizer, Item Buddies
* Limited Vs AI
* 64 Achievements
* Adventure collectibles and brainteaser titles
* Level Editor, Adventure Editor, and Theme Editor
* Per-player handicaps, co-op items
* Local high scoreboards (daily and overall)
* Network play for up to two computers, with up to two players on each computer (so 2-4 players in all).
* Alternatively, local 2-player multiplayer on a single computer.
* Server listings and filtering.
* Ability to sumbmit high scores and achievements to twitter.
Windows System Requirements
Windows 2000 or later, 32 or 64 bit
* 512 MB RAM (1 GB recommended)
* 1.4Ghz CPU minimum, 1.8 Ghz recommended for background animation or multiplayer
* 600MB Hard Disk Space
* 800x600 or greater screen resolution (32 bit color, 1280x720 recommended)
* Internet Connection or LAN required for networked multiplayer
* There are no particular graphics card requirements; anything from the last 5-8 years should be fine.
Mac OSX System Requirements
Mac OS X "Panther" 10.3.9 or later, Intel or PowerPC based
* 512 MB RAM (1 GB recommended)
* 1.4Ghz CPU minimum, 1.8 Ghz recommended for background animation or multiplayer
* 600MB Hard Disk Space
* 800x600 or greater screen resolution (32 bit color, 1280x720 recommended)
* Internet Connection or LAN required for networked multiplayer
As far as the RPG elements for AI War, I know it's a gradual process, I know it is iterative... However, I think that the idea of randomness where you can find and collect little modifiers for the game but don't break the game but add a little bit of functionality, maybe some visual changes, maybe a non-game breaking ship, this kind of thing encourages people to load up AI War more and more just to find the hidden treasures of the universe. Is worth it, really... Even iteratively, or expansion 4.0.Well, I'm not seeing any kind of concrete steps towards meta-game gameplay-affecting collectibles... but if we ever got as far as an actual campaign (which will be a journey in itself, getting there) and a campaign-with-a-story (another significant several steps) then in theory it could unlock certain other scenarios, etc. But that's certainly a series of serial hypotheticals ;)
Well, I'm almost finished with the banner. Though, I'm disgusted with how it looks after chopping off over half of the stuff that was in it. :(Wow, thanks for working so hard on that, it's looking very cool :) Though I know what you mean about mixed feelings after taking something that's what you want and cutting it to something that fits within the "deployment" restrictions.
Every scene was shown from a few perspectives and zoom levels, not only panned around. The text was nicely animated. And it nicely looped as the AI War logo appeared at the end and was moved to the edge of the screen before restarting.
This is how it looks with default compression... ~700kB
(first image)
And this is the effect of me playing around with compression settings... ~300kB
(second image)
The timing of some animations is a bit off right now, as I chopped them off and moved around a lot so expect an update later.
EDIT:
Ah, and I dropped the FPS from 30 to 24 to get under the 500 frames limit, so the animation is choppy... :(
EDIT2:
(third image) ~380kB
Yea, to be clear, we're definitely not talking about anything storytelling-wise for this next expansion, that's just too much of a jump to make at once. And if we ever did anything like that it wouldn't be the only feature of the expansion.
I don't know if you're getting irritated in your post...No, definitely not. On the occasions that I get irritated I usually don't mind making it clear ;) Though more cautious with customers of course, haha.
But I'm just throwing this stuff out there for ideas for you guys, things that could alter your audiences perceptions. You already won your core crowd over, people like me are already going to purchase what you guys create.Yea, and we really appreciate you guys :)
It's everybody else you need to sell.Not everyone else. We just need enough diehard fans like y'all ;) Partly kidding there, that doesn't work so well as a business model. But on the other hand I think we need to learn some lessons about the chances of actually getting much more than say 30,000 or 40,000 copies of any one thing sold in a year, etc.
Yeah, I know that's not on the plate for the November micro-expansion, just figured I'd provide a counterpoint to the (inevitable) campaign requests.Yes, and we do appreciate that people chime in on both sides, particularly when it comes to stuff that's taking the game in a new direction.
Okay, perhaps I shouldn't be comparing us with an arch-villain of a fantasy workI think you may have a permanent injury to the PR lobe of your brain ;) (j/k)
Okay, perhaps I shouldn't be comparing us with an arch-villain of a fantasy workI think you may have a permanent injury to the PR lobe of your brain ;) (j/k)
@Tusoalsob
That's a pretty good idea. I completely forgot about magazines, I haven't read one in a few years.
I just checked, and the biggest PC gaming magazine in Poland(200 000-300 000 readership, I don't remember exactly) has never mentioned AI War nor Tidalis. I guess I could bug them to try it out.
Also, making a deal with a magazine to let them release full version of AI War on their DVD could be a good idea. I don't know how this kind of deal would work. Probably you would earn a lot less than selling those copies individually, but that would mean a large influx of people who would possibly buy the expansions.
I don't know if you guys know it, but here in Germany there was no test od Ai wars in anny Game magazine so the most people don't know about the game.
@Vinraith
RTS games can't tell a story? Have you played Red Alert 2? ;) It is hilarious!
Also, Starcraft II, if you ignore its terrible writing, got the storytelling right.
odd, I'm the opposite - nobody should shoehorn an RTS into a tactical game......
Now, dont get me wrong, I love tactical games too (Ground Control was one of my favorites), but they arent meant to be the same type of game ;)
But those missions were rarely tactical. It was just a puzzle.I beg to differ - tactics is what happens on the battlefield in a limited scope. Choosing who to shoot at once the sides are engaged in battle is a choice of tactics - shooting a guy with a anti-tank gun over the guy with the machinegun is a tactical choice
We'll have to agree to disagree there. For the most part, "story telling" in RTS games means "perform a go-here-do-this series of tasks in the game engine, get rewarded by a story advancing cinematic." To me, that's not the game telling me a story, it's me playing a linear set of largely non-strategic training maps and the game rewarding me with a piece of a movie each time I do so.
I DOTH PROPAGATE OUR EMPIRICAL INFLUENCE OVER AT CASTLE AGE:
http://174.37.115.166/cforum/showthread.php?t=39863
Could probably manage to get a quick panning shot of something shooting at something :DA 200-strong Hybrid fleet attacking a Devourer ;) Of course, that's not really an example of gameplay, just an interesting emergent result.
quick glances at their forum seems to indicate taht ai modding is possible though, so its generally only a matter of time until someone fixes thatIn its current state (which is, by the developers' own admission, incomplete), I don't really consider the lack of competent AI to be a glaring fault. It's one of those things that's going to be constantly improved by the devs over the lifetime of the game, along with just about every other aspect of it.
quick glances at their forum seems to indicate taht ai modding is possible though, so its generally only a matter of time until someone fixes thatWell, modding doesn't necessarily mean that the AI is moddable. SoaSE was very much in that boat, for example. But I hope the Star Ruler AI is moddable; assuming it either doesn't have any major flies in the ointment or they can be successfully modded out, I could see myself enjoying that one for many hours :) I still need to check out Distant Worlds, though.
Anyway, the reason I brought it up was to see if there was anything we could learn from it. The ship design screen actually reminds me of my own plans for a UI to manage ship modules and that kind of thing (don't want go into too much detail, I'm bad about saying I'll do xyz and while it's quite doable I just don't find time for a while, etc), though of course ours wouldn't be that involved since the underlying tactical simulation doesn't do stuff like directional damage, per-module power management, etc.
The tech web idea also sounds interesting though I don't think AI War's tech system could readily be changed into a tree or web, nor do I think Chris would buy that it should ;)
psuedo-edit: Interesting info, Otagan; looking at their production values (i.e. all that 3D art) I had wondered how they managed it as an indie. I guess the answer is "by the hair of their chinny-chin-chin" ;) But assuming they make good on the design, etc, I'm glad they did.As I mentioned above, the ship design screen has no effect on the actual ship model you construct. There are just a few basic ship models that can be scaled up and down. It creates the impression that there are hundreds of models when there are really dozens, at most. They quite literally did scrape by with the hairs of their chinny-chin-chins before release due to the aforementioned financial issues, and now we rely on their pledge to update the game to keep the content flowing for the game to (possibly) fulfill its potential.
By the way, I just now found out about another RTS/4X (Impulse sale) called Star Ruler. I mention it partly because it looks really cool but also because it seems to scratch some itches that AI War doesn't, at least for MoO addicts like me ;) On the other hand, I have no idea what kind of AI it has, but their marketing certainly doesn't emphasize it so I'm expecting something on par with SoaSE (which it looks a lot like in general, but better). Anyway, the point isn't which game is better, just curious what y'all know about it and if it's as good as it looks.
(Holy crap, Eraser, you're everywhere!)
Tidalis is a block-based puzzle game with casual appeal and hardcore depth. This puzzler challenges you to control the flow of streams as you encounter obstacles and trigger bonuses. You will have to think ahead as you perform combos and induce chain reactions to solve each level!
There is endless replayability on that core mechanic with 20 randomizable game modes, dozens of special blocks and collectible items, and 115 levels in the Adventure mode alone. No need to adventure alone, as Tidalis supports innovative cooperative play (including Adventure mode) in addition to competitive modes.
In summary, Tidalis features co-op and competitive multiplayer modes (both online and offline); action-oriented modes and timer-less brainteasers; a lengthy adventure mode with hidden levels and collectible items; twenty unique game modes providing innumerable twists to the basic gameplay; dozens of special blocks and items; and over fifty minutes of beautiful music to go with the painterly art that reacts to your performance as you play each board!
Whether you're just looking for a casual fun time,
cooperative puzzling with friends, a deep and strategic puzzle experience, or a series of brain-bending puzzles, we've got you covered.
At A Glance
- Easy to learn, hard to master
- Two-player co-op and competitive play via Internet lobby or direct connection
- Variable difficulty; a wide selection of both action-oriented or brainteaser-like levels.
- Adventure mode with collectible items and hidden levels rewarded by your performance, hardcore puzzle enthusiast custom games, and versus modes.
- Endless replayability; 20+ game styles including the popular Sun And Moon solitaire, Frenzy, Bumper mode, and dozens of items and special blocks.
- Rich, painterly art style and captivating music by Pablo Vega that reacts to your gameplay
- Players can create and share whole new themes, levels, and adventures.
- Arcen Games supports accessibility; Options for colorblind players, players averse to lots of light and motion, older computers, customizable keyboard controls or mouse
detrimental to selling your product, such as mentioning limited and AI in the same sentenceFor an exhaustive list like that we have to say that, because it is true that we intentionally cut a pretty obvious corner on the VS AI, namely that it only supports a subset of game modes and special blocks, etc. There are good reasons that we cut that corner, but it's either not mention VS AI at all or mention that it doesn't support everything ;) But for a summary that feature doesn't have to be mentioned at all.
I firmly believe that match three is not going to do you any good here, as that mechanic is overdone. I also believe that match three doesn't really reflect this game, and you should remove it from your steam accolades in the description.We detest the label, but it is true that the basic mechanic of the game kicks in when you create a reaction involving at least 3 matching pieces. But we wouldn't mention it of our own accord. James Allen (OutOfEight) gave the game an 8/8 score, which is pretty significant if you look at how many reviews he's done (660) and how many 8's he's given (29) ; so we kinda want to include his quote ;) But we might be able to find an honest way of structuring it so that the match-3 term is not in there, if Chris is ok with that. We also want to add a blurb from Tom Chick's review, since he also gave it a perfect score.
Chris should pen a novel about AI War for extra moneys. </joke>
* AI War, collectors editionProbably we'll do that, or something like it, actually.
* design a ship contest
* community day
* put the soundtrack for both games on Napster
* woo the Linux crowd by getting reviewers on Linux sites ( after unity release, and maybe before for Tidalis)
I am not sure if this has been mentioned or not, (16 pages is alot of information for me to keep stored in my head), but I noticed on the Unity's website, the engine that Tidalis is made from, that it isn't listed in the game list on their site.
What arcen should do, is checking up on when Diablo II is bound for release, and then do a new relase or a discount sale of AIWar, one or two or three weeks before that. At that time a lot of people will be very favourably disposed towards games with a space theme, while at the same time looking for something to play, while they are waiting for Diablo II to be released, and some of them would probably buy AIWar.
I'll make a post on Facepunch at some point.
We told them about it, but they didn't put it up. Huh It was one of the first unity games to include Steamworks support, too (the first, I'm almost certain, for the Mac).
We told them about it, but they didn't put it up. Huh It was one of the first unity games to include Steamworks support, too (the first, I'm almost certain, for the Mac).
Definitely continue to press them on this, especially when 4.0 actually hits proper. Perhaps they are backlogged with housekeeping in the wake of Version 3---still very much in the best interests of both parties.
Hmm, no one has given some useful article links for would-be recruits' education... :-\Oh, sorry, I did see your post earlier but was really busy. Here's the "summary" page with the feature lists and trailers:
or do think that it's enough to give them the link to your purchase page? ::)
Please log those in the tracker, if you will: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt
You're missing the filter controls: you can filter it to just suggestions easily, or make it show even closed issues and not just open ones, etc. It does everything you described and more, and we can even set up global quick-filters if people want them (or people can do them for themselves, too).
Well, I think the tracker should track suggestions too, at least ones that the suggestor is serious about ;)
But the forums do seem much better suited to an actual discussion environment. Having that tracker record is very valuable, though, particularly if/when implementation actually starts.
Theres a filter yes (Filter by Category), but i can only chose and filter for 1 category, not for multiple. I could SORT the whole thing by category of course, but then i am still shown 90% of stuff i have no use for...
So yeah, this is easily the most confusing filter i have ever seen :) Or maybe i am just easily confused, still... I don't understand how to make my own custom filters either. Theres a manage filters but no CREATE custom filters anywhere... If you do make a selectable filter, please have one called "Suggestions" that lists only suggestions ;p
I have ported a lot of defects to the bug tracker from the forum. I like the bug tracker for maintaining priorities and managing lots of bugs, but it is certainly inaccessible compared to the forum as it relates to adding new defects and searching on them. The forum maintains categories and allows everybody to add their input fairly easily, where the bug tracker is an extra step and does not have those nicely laid out categories (unless you, the user, are savvy enough to figure it out). I think this is going to exclude a lot of people if you make them use the bug tracker for suggestions, which I agree are best discussed on the forum first.
If a suggestion is so awesome as to be approved, then move it over; locking the suggestion forum will only mean people will make more posts in the general thread area. Part of it may be a laziness problem, but the reason they are too lazy to do it is because it is a few extra steps and a bit of a learning curve to open a very simple suggestion.
Theres a filter yes (Filter by Category), but i can only chose and filter for 1 category, not for multiple. I could SORT the whole thing by category of course, but then i am still shown 90% of stuff i have no use for...
So yeah, this is easily the most confusing filter i have ever seen :) Or maybe i am just easily confused, still... I don't understand how to make my own custom filters either. Theres a manage filters but no CREATE custom filters anywhere... If you do make a selectable filter, please have one called "Suggestions" that lists only suggestions ;p
1) Go to http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view_all_bug_page.php (http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view_all_bug_page.php)
2) Click "Advanced Filters"
3) Select an item to filter on (in your case, perhaps "Category" would be a good place to start)
4) Ctrl click on each category you want to include in your view (same methodology as file selection in windows explorer -- shift click to select from your currently selected category to the category you're clicking on, etc.)
5) repeat for "Status" for looking at closed issues, or only "considering" and/or "strongly considering"
6) repeat for any other fields you like
7) Click Apply filter.
Umm, it works like that in...pretty much every program that has drop downs O.o (And you are allowed to select more than one option ofc)
Theres a filter yes (Filter by Category), but i can only chose and filter for 1 category, not for multiple. I could SORT the whole thing by category of course, but then i am still shown 90% of stuff i have no use for...
So yeah, this is easily the most confusing filter i have ever seen :) Or maybe i am just easily confused, still... I don't understand how to make my own custom filters either. Theres a manage filters but no CREATE custom filters anywhere... If you do make a selectable filter, please have one called "Suggestions" that lists only suggestions ;p
1) Go to http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view_all_bug_page.php (http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view_all_bug_page.php)
2) Click "Advanced Filters"
3) Select an item to filter on (in your case, perhaps "Category" would be a good place to start)
4) Ctrl click on each category you want to include in your view (same methodology as file selection in windows explorer -- shift click to select from your currently selected category to the category you're clicking on, etc.)
5) repeat for "Status" for looking at closed issues, or only "considering" and/or "strongly considering"
6) repeat for any other fields you like
7) Click Apply filter.
Thanks, and, wow, that is totally unintuitive. Who puts a Shift Select function in a DROP down menu that instantly closes when you press left mouse button? Why isn't it automatically a shift function and closes when you click apply.....
Ehm yeah, but thank you for the Tutorial ;) That works fine and that reduces my complaints by -1- ;)
Chris, in case you missed it, Revlry in the comments over at http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/09/30/ai-war-and-the-hidden-cost-of-indie-games/ (http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/09/30/ai-war-and-the-hidden-cost-of-indie-games/) offered to do some free advertising. If you haven't yet, that'd probably be worth following up on. :)
Also, 3 of us were talking in IRC several nights ago about how nice PvP would be for the game and that it'd really revitalize the game for us. I know that's a pretty small sample set and that there's a lot on your plate right now with AI War over the next few months, but I figure I'd throw the PvP idea out there as something to think about for the not-too-distant future to try to make the game appealing to more of the RTS audience. I think that AI War in a player-versus-player context would offer up an experience which differs significantly from other games, especially if the AI were included in that experience for terrain, pressure, and interesting happenings. I realize your expertise with RTS games is really skewed toward the co-op, that it's a non-trivial addition because there'd be some balance and gameplay tweaks required to get it just right, and it'd slightly complicate adding new things in the future because their impact on multiplayer would have to be considered. However, when it comes to increasing the size of the potential audience for the game, this seems to me to be a powerful possibility. The PvP crowd, though much smaller than the number of people who play solo, is pretty vocal, and this feature could get the game a lot more mention on forums, as well as additional AARs (with views on both sides of the battle!) that seem to get a lot of attention.
Q: how is the 4.0 release working in terms of the expansions etc? is 4.0 released seperate from the past expansions or is everything being bundled into one edition for the big release?
I guess it wouldn't be an issue if you made it clear that this Gold edition does not mean an end to the game's development, but symbolizes a milestone of a sort.
So they banned you and didn't bother to look at what you were spamming about?
Mind you, if it was the sort of copy-and-pasted-looking post that's on a thread which is totally unrelated to your post, I'd understand.
So they banned you and didn't bother to look at what you were spamming about?
Yep.Mind you, if it was the sort of copy-and-pasted-looking post that's on a thread which is totally unrelated to your post, I'd understand.
No, I wrote a response to an existing long thread where someone had asked about games like this, and I mentioned a number of other games and also AI War, in the interest of fairness. I made two such posts. However, this was in May of 2009, and I wasn't even on Impulse yet, let alone Steam or GamersGate or D2D, so I was a complete unknown and just trying to get anyone to look at the game. I even explained what I was doing to the forum mod that banned me, apologized, and said I wouldn't post about my own stuff any more if they didn't want to hear about it, but he didn't care and left me perma-banned.
heh, I know what you mean. I was on this forum that banned me cause they thought I hacked my way into the admin panel (I didn't actually get in), but it was just a bug in the forums. but they banned me anyway, even though I explained. it was also the community I planned to launch my first game... oh well. what can you do. (except rub in their faces how popular AI War is no thanks to them 8) )
(there should be an evil face emoticon here...)
until the 4.0 version is released.
I just can't wait for the trailer. those are the best part!! or at least a good part.
By the way, for those of you trying to get your friends interested in AI War (thank you!), if they don't like it that doesn't mean there's nothing to be gained; if you could give us their feedback (or better yet, herd them to these forums so they can tell us themselves) that could be really helpful. Obviously there are things we can't or won't change but often there's something that we can do. Also, I've found it's often possible to take those stated desires and distill them down to the real "itch", and then find another way of scratching that which does fit with our philosophy.
I tried to get my brother interested, but the gameplay did not turn him on, even though he's very much into conquer the galaxy games like Master of Orion and such -- he particularly enjoys Sword of the Stars by indy developer Kerberos Productions. Usually he's *very* involved in any forums for games he enjoys, so perhaps I can get him to post at least something here....
But the feedback in a nutshell from him is that he felt that with the fleet sizes in AI War that all the units 'felt' the same, or were simply variations on a theme, there may be tons of units but when you have a swarm of a bazillion going around, they're all just flying guns that go pew pew -- build a few hundred ships, fling them at the enemy. (He's much into designing his own ships, also enjoys Gratuitous Space Battles).
Personally I don't think that's the case, but again I'm passing along 'feels like' not 'is'. I'll try to finagle him posting something more lengthy. Do you want the feedback in a particular place? I know we have the Suggestions forum, but for one-off posts that might not have the person coming back....
Wow, that's quite a text. You're one of the first people I've seen who've clearly stated "I don't really like your game, but I respect it" in a very respectful manner. Kudos for that! Giving critizism without critizising is not a common skill :D
As for that actual content, I'll leave that up to Chris and Kieth.
I knew about AI War for sometime now, but I never gave a shot at it until today.Youkoso kudasai! (is that correct?)
I saw 2 or 3 screenshots and thought that it was just one of many RTS wannabe.
Never read any description or watched any trailer.
For that, I want to apologies now.
This morning, I found out that new expansion was out, so I took a quick peek at your trailer and read through STEAM store page.
I never knew that AI War was so original, and it just sounded like an amazing game.
Then I read this forum, and now I just felt a need to support such an honest developer.
I just bought 2 sets of AI War and all both expansion packs. (for my friend and myself)
Please forgive me; I need you people to keep producing great games in the future.
I’m still at work, and haven’t played the game yet, but I really hope I love this game.
By the way, sorry for my shotty English, I’m Japanese. ;)
What an amazing thread!! I've never seen any games company be so honest and open and to ask for help from what looks to be a very supportive community.I can't say much more than that I agree 100% with what you said. Welcome!
After looking at reviews and reading around the forum and website for the game, I've just done my bit and bought a copy. AI War does look fantastic and I'll be spending some time on the tutorial later today.
The Indie and smaller developers are the ones I tend to give my money to these days as the support and personal customer service is generally far better than with the big corporations. Not to mention that the games are (imo) often far more fun and interesting as the indie developer invests more than just their time in creating the software.
Good luck with the future and I really do hope your fortunes turn around. I wish you all the best with the success of the games.
Cheers,
Leaston
I really like SEV (never actually played IV), and the balance mod, but I find that the game bogs down in both turn processing times and the amount of time it takes me to tell it what I want it to do each turn, in ways that don't seem necessary.I agree that late game micromanagement explosion can be a big problem for 4X games in general. It's one of the reasons I've had a somewhat rocky relationship with the Civ franchise over the years.
SEIV was a favourite of mine
So 4.0's been out for a whole 2 days! How are the sales going? :)
forums and IRC are considerably more crowded-feeling than they were before..
I actually had an x4000 account there, and have posted many times. Usually I don't post news, as from trials that has been less successful, but we've had posts from others on the front page of overall reddit twice, and on the top of the gaming section half a dozen or more times. It is indeed a good site, although it was distressing when they basically turned on me at the mention of financial difficulties. You get a lot of self-important comments then from people that sneer and assume one thing without really reading the article. Sigh. But overall it's been a very good site to us.
Hi folks (especially Keith, long time no see!)Indeed, now you see what's been keeping me so busy. I do keep an eye on goings-on back there, but not enough time to split :)
I described it as the "Most powerful AI eva, it's all emergent and it uses REAL strategy. Like it's supposed to take 16 players to beat!"Haha, not quite. It actually just gets more stuff the more players you throw at it.
but it's still a very powerful emergent AI (Which I love to think about as I play and encounter new strategies. Having an AI the intentionally waits for you to overextend yourself and attack from multiple points is very engaging in SP, which is all I have gotten to play so far other then a few casual games with some friends.Chris has done a remarkable job on the AI, I'm often surprised by what it pulls on me (all the more surprised because I've seen the actually rather simple individual rules that produce the behavior). When I add something new it tends to be something more "traditional" (as opposed to emergent) like the Hybrids in CoN or the exogalactic-strikeforces in LotS (though TZR can get them now too through the "Broken Golems - Hard" minor faction), but the "main AI" actually tends to adapt to the presence of those very well. Recently I was testing the end-game of the LotS campaign and had a massive wall of Spire city defenses and capital ships that could easily have taken down the (rather large) exogalactic armada being thrown at it, OR could have reasonably taken the mass of about 2000 AI threat ships stalking me from the other side of the wormhole... but when said stalking group went through the wormhole at the exact same moment as the exogalactic strikeforce (because the firepower balances tipped), they were able to blast their way through. And I totally did not tell them to do that ;)
I prefer Concentric maps, both aesthetically and challenge-wise :)
Of course, a game on the portable scale would need some simplification... Maybe simply one system with players competing for resources, or simply "tower defense", building a base of operations defending waves of AI.