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

[x4000]

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/ offered to do some free advertising. If you haven't yet, that'd probably be worth following up on.

He also emailed Phil, I'm pretty sure Phil followed up.

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.

Possibly, we'll have to see when we're looking at features for the november expansion.  It's certainly crossed my mind as a possibility, at least.

[superking]

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?

[x4000]

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?

Right now it's all bundled just because of the beta.  But later there will be separate installers for each, when we come out of beta.  It's basically going to work like it always has, but with an installer for each expansion rather than a zip-file-that's-not-a-zip-file.

[superking]

is there going to be an all inclusive 4.0 bundle, like a gold edition?

[x4000]

Probably not.  We're planning another micro-expansion for early December, so if we do a gold edition it will probably be alongside that.  Not that there won't be more future expansions, but we'd hate to release 4.0 and a gold edition, and then a new expansion a month and a half later.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, I feel a special kind of annoyance when a game series has a "Complete" edition and then later adds an expansion that isn't included in the Complete package   Not that I mind it getting more new stuff, but it's basically a form of deception (albeit unintentional, they might have really thought they were done).

"Gold" isn't as dishonest, but I think people could still get the wrong idea.

[x4000]

I remember Neverwinter nights had gold, platinum, and some others, it seems like.

[mlaskus]

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.

[keith.lamothe]

I think just a different phrase would be better in general, but yea, it can be done

[Ozymandiaz]

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.

Like 4.0 ?

[mlaskus]

Yeah

[vonduus]

Chris, has any Danish TV-companies and newspapers contacted you yet? If not, let me know.

Next week there is a discussion in the Danish parliament on renewed government support to the Danish gaming industry. Unity is/was based here in Copenhagen, but they seem to have gone multinational and moved their HQ to San Francisco. They still have a Copenhagen office, though.

Unity seems to be an international success, I believe they don't need government funding any more. But they are almost unknown here in DK. This surprises me, no one I have talked to, including two programmers I recently met, have ever heard of Unity, or OTTE, as the company was formerly called. Perhaps it is possible to get the media interested in AIWar via the connection to Unity? The upcoming parliament discussion transforms this whole thing into breaking news, and Danish reporters love success stories, ugly ducklings becoming swans and all that stuff. And the fact that you can download the old version of Unity for free, combined with national narcissism, would almost guarantee that at least some reporters would be interested.

One problem could be that the reporters would focus solely on Unity and forget AIWar  (national narcissism again). But on the other hand, a game engine is not something to show off to everybody, but a finished game is. If Unity's PR manager had been Danish, I could have given her an informal call right away and discussed the possibilities, but she is Russian, and my Russian has become rather rusty over the years. Also I don't know how Russians feel about informal calls But anyway, I believe there might be some potential free exposure for you in this current state of affairs.

So far I have just sent a short email to some select reporters (two TV-stations, two national newspapers and a gaming magazine), pointing them at the Arcen web site and leaving them your email address. I could send another email, this time also mentioning Unity, while you send some of your own material and some serials?

What do you think?

[x4000]

Wow... I think that's great!  I hadn't really realized that Unity started there, but I'm not surprised.  I'm happy to talk to anyone you can send my way; I'd write more, but that about sums it up.

[x4000]

To clarify one thing: no one has contacted me yet from the Danish press.

[Mánagarmr]

I know it's a drop in the ocean, but I just purchased another copy of AI:War with both expansions as a gift for a friend of mine.