Love AI War and/or Tidalis? We could really use your help...

[mlaskus]

...we couldn't add another opponent to brutally thrash entertain 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. It is just that I cannot seem to convince my friends to play with me, and especially longer games can feel a bit lonely.

I've been meaning to write about it in the suggestions forum but I haven't gotten around to it yet. I have some ideas how could it work, so I will make a topic later.

[keith.lamothe]

...we couldn't add another opponent to brutally thrash entertain the people wanting that kind of thing

Well, I certainly wouldn't mind...

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.

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.

[mlaskus]

Oh cool

I will make that thread when I finish that banner I'm working on. We will see how similar our ideas were.
I have a bit of a hard time getting those animated scenes to look good. Having such a limited space available makes it hard fit anything there without panning the scene wildly or making it long... and I cannot make it too long, or use too many colours as the file size and the colour pallete are only going to get worse as it grows, but I hope you will like it.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, I think my thoughts on the banner were a bit ambitious   Might be good as part of a trailer, though.

[mlaskus]

Oh man, I just had a nasty surprise.

Photoshop can export at most 500 frames long animation... that's about half of the banner.
I will either have to work around it somehow or significantly shorten the whole thing. Anyway, I will post the end result here.

[keith.lamothe]

Wow, 500 frames would be a lot of bytes, let alone more   But I'll be very interested to see the result, in any event.  Can then see just how much data we're talking about, in relation to not making ourselves a nuisance to forum readers

[mlaskus]

Those 500 frames take only 500kB of space. That is with default compression, I guess I could make it significantly smaller without losing much quality if I played around with different settings. You are right about being a nuisance though, I will refrain from posting about this, until I'm finished, from now on.

[keith.lamothe]

Oh, I certainly don't mean that your posts are a nuisance, haha, I meant that having to download half a meg (or more) of image due to someone's sig might be   But we'll see what it turns out being.

[Sizzle]

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....

[keith.lamothe]

If it's just general feedback rather than concrete suggestions then the plain ol' "AI War" forum is fine; the one this topic is in.

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?  Certainly it's not like full-blown ship-design, but it's pretty good for something that's an RTS/4X instead of an actual 4X.  We've had plans for a while to add more modular ships, we just have massive tons of other stuff keeping us busy (good stuff, just not that).

As for the ships all feeling the same, yea, I'd say that's more of a feeling than an actuality.  But in easier situations it is quite possible to just lump your ships together and throw them in the general direction of the enemy-colored stuff and win.  I found the same to be true in the MoO games   We're also doing various things to make the "blob" approach further and further away from the ideal, although that comes with an increased need to make it easy to execute tactics on the fly (which is pretty good now if you know the advanced features of the interface, but that also takes time to learn).

[mlaskus]

Don't even mention Master of Orion 2 if you want that finished in any realistic time scale!

Sorry, that was my last post on the banner's topic before it's finished. I will go back to cutting my animations and sobbing quietly...

[Sizzle]

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? 

We never did get to riot ships in the couple quick games we tried (demo only;base game only), unfortunately.

[Legendsmith]

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.

Just going to add to my previous post here:
When you're talking to people on the forum you're talking to people who have already bought the game (with some exceptions).
As I said before, there are places where spreading the word would be a good idea, SomethingAwful, 4chan's video games board (if you don't mind the trolls and language) and Facepunch, you're going to be talking to potential customers.

As for minecraft, I play it and it is fun; People like making things. If you've only played creative mode I can see where you're coming from with your comment, but the survival/Alpha is a much more in depth.
There are monsters and animals (mobs), tools, minecarts (everyone loves them), farming, a damage system, day, where you build and night, were you defend yourself or mine for ore.

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).

[keith.lamothe]

Riots are available in the trial version, yes

Earlier today I read some of the RockPaperShotgun AAR on Minecraft that Quinn is doing, and it looks like a lot of fun.

As for interacting on those specific boards... well, personally I do mind trolling and language; a lot.  But I'm also pretty thick-skinned so I can deal with that part.  The other part, however, is the sheer time involved.  We already interact on these forums quite a bit and it's a lot of fun to do so, but we have to actually develop games sometime

[Ozymandiaz]

This is dire news indeed :/.

I will use what channels I got, but tbh Arcen forums is one of the forums I am most active on now a days (in addition to eve-o). I have not been on the Cvi forums or Introvision forums for ages, I guess a revisit is in order

I know of one forum however that might be interested in such a game. I will explore that possibility, and If I am right it might net some interest.

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!

I tired to convince people in EVE as well. But the EVE community is so bitter That will not deter me tho, I shall attempt it more often, if I take forum moderation flak form it I do not care (but I do think it is allowed to talk about it to some degree, since I see posts like that other times) . People seem to be attracted to forbidden fruit