Kickstarter: my wish list for the different tiers

[Cyborg]

I think writing your own taunt (subject to QA) is a great idea, chemical_art. Along the same lines, submit your own graphic art for a ship or something like that.

Although I wonder, would it be awesome if people do that anyways? Crowdsourcing assets (again, subject to approval).

[x4000]

Some general notes:

1. I'm already getting overwhelmed with the feedback here, haha.

2. Talking about how much I do or do not over or under evaluate work for games is kind of irrelevant when we're talking about something more known.  We've never gone over time budget on an expansion to my recollection.  This is much more than an expansion, but still it's familiar territory.  The big unknowns that caused delays in our other games are mostly not here.

3. I think that a discussion of what mechanics should be carried forward and what should not is a discussion for another thread.  However, "all the code is in the base game" is very misleading in the sense that, from a gameplay standpoint, a huge majority of mechanics were invented for expansions.  They are rolled into one DLL, but they never were part of the base game.  Some of those have a lot of complexity AND are rather disliked, and will be cut for sure.  Others are now "fundamental" to the game.

4. Regarding backer tiers and rewards, one expensive one that I was thinking of, and that Pablo agreed to, is this: (maybe $5k) Pablo working with someone who backs at that level in a very direct fashion to do some sort of track that is at their request for the game.  The vast majority of that pledge going to Pablo's work on it.

5. I'm not sure I really want a ton of different AI voices that are really just a big hodgepodge as part of the main game.  There are a few voice actors that I want to work with in order to come up with a couple of distinct AI personalities.

6. In general I'm going to be working on a bunch bunch bunch of documents over the coming weeks, and will be asking for lots of vetting on this stuff.  You'll also be able to see the kickstarter page itself before it launches (well before) so that folks can comment on that, too.

[Cinth]

How did I not know this thread existed?

Take ideas for new content from the usual places, or ask Kahuna/Cyborg/Cinth. They'll have ideas.

I'm actually pretty horrible at coming up with original stuff.  I can however, take someone's idea and twist it into something rather nightmarish  >D

[Misery]

How did I not know this thread existed?

Take ideas for new content from the usual places, or ask Kahuna/Cyborg/Cinth. They'll have ideas.

I'm actually pretty horrible at coming up with original stuff.  I can however, take someone's idea and twist it into something rather nightmarish  >D

Now I'm tempted to give you ideas here and see what happens.   Possibly the apocalypse is the result, who knows?



Anyway, I like a lot of the ideas in this thread.  I also like the "name a planet after you" one in particular.  Normally I don't care about that sort of thing, but in this case my name might actually be fitting for this, considering what the AI sometimes does with those planets it has.


Also I'd gladly pay for "earliest possible access" sort of thing, yessir. 

[Cinth]

Now I'm tempted to give you ideas here and see what happens.   Possibly the apocalypse is the result, who knows?

This isn't the place for that.  Those red button experiments can be conducted elsewhere.

[Draco18s]

However, "all the code is in the base game" is very misleading in the sense that, from a gameplay standpoint, a huge majority of mechanics were invented for expansions.  They are rolled into one DLL, but they never were part of the base game.  Some of those have a lot of complexity AND are rather disliked, and will be cut for sure.  Others are now "fundamental" to the game.

I meant that if you buy the base game today, the expansion mechanics are already on your hard drive (single DLL).  Not that it was "day 1 DCL'd" in that it was segmented off during development and labeled "this is DLC for a future date."

[Kahuna]

Or, you can sell vetos!  +$20 to guarantee your least favor unit (*cough wrath lances cough*) never returns!

Zenith Siege Engines. Please! have mercy on us!

AI War is a ludicrously, insanely cheap game for the hours of fun I've gotten out of it.

Looking at my purchase history on Steam I bought AI War Alien Bundle on Nov 6, 2011 (1760 days ago) for 24,99€. So far I've played it for 2596 hours. So that's about 1 hour 28 minutes 30 seconds every day for 4 years 9 months and 25 days. So the cost would be 0,009626... €/h.

Yeah I think I've got my money's worth.

Challenge Scenarios! Okay, so I don't know if this makes any sense really, but there's the various Lobby setup scripts, right?

I think ready made challenge scenarios would be a good idea. Perhaps it could be one of the stretch goals. (If the devs wanna do a kickstarter campaign)

The script things atm are too tedious. You have to actually go to the file and write the script. There could be a save as a challenge/script/whatever button in the game lobby. So the player would select the settings he wants and then press the button and it would save all the selected settings into a challenge/script/whatever. Then the player could upload it on the forums and other people could download it and copy paste the file into the challenge/script/whatever folder in the game directory and volá.

Perhaps this could be combined with some kind of a sandbox mode or a "map editor" (Galaxy Editor?) where the player could give/take planets/ships to/from the player/the AI and then save that as a scenario with the selected settings. (Well that was a mouthful)

I think writing your own taunt (subject to QA) is a great idea, chemical_art.

"They must have been scraping the bottom of the barrel when they hired the programmers to program us."

[Tolc]

Anyway, I like a lot of the ideas in this thread.  I also like the "name a planet after you" one in particular.  Normally I don't care about that sort of thing, but in this case my name might actually be fitting for this, considering what the AI sometimes does with those planets it has.

An AI Homeworld called Misery...yeah, that would be fitting 

So far I've played it for 2596 hours. So that's about 1 hour 28 minutes 30 seconds every day for 4 years 9 months and 25 days.

Holy... 

Maybe give the AI your name at a certain backer level, e.g. AI diff 10 called "Kahuna v1.1" or something like that...(not as an actual descriptor, that should still be AI diff 10 and its type, but rather as a fluff addition to differentiate the AIs ingame.

[Lavenders2]

My 2 cents on tiers (not so much pricing):

- A small tier should be there for those who just want to support the game being made without actually getting it. These people might get it later if they can confirm it is good, but they don't get burned if they feel it isn't
- Definitely a tier with just the game and nothing else
- Lots of kickstarters use digital artbooks/osts or whatever in a "deluxe edition" of the game. From memory AI war actually has all the ost files there for free, but something like concept art or even design documents for game mechanics are interesting to some, if you don't want to go the paid ost route.
- Naming a planet/ship/structure stuff works, great example is Prison Architect, where users could not only name prisoners, but provide their bio. Providing AI taunts sounds awesome as well.
- Someone suggested getting the classic game (with expansions?) along with the new one in a certain tier. I personally think this idea is great.
- That 5k tier (working with Pablo on a track) interests me as someone with a musical background, but that really is expensive! I'm not rich though, so just my 2 cents.
- I agree that designing something like a ship is dangerous. I am immediately reminded of an instance with Planetary Annihilation where one user who backed a design tier had a very specific vision for a unit, but it wasn't clear that you could only pick from certain "chassis" and so he complained about it. I'm not certain how that went down, but from when I last saw it he still didn't have anything of his implemented because he refused to conform to the rules of the design. If a tier like this was to exist, I think it should be REALLY REALLY CLEAR what is allowed and what isn't, especially if the tier is going to be expensive
- My personal idea: I know in some cases multiple designs for a unit or mechanic or whatever is brought up and a decision between them has to be made. Why not add a tier that allows everyone who pledged for it to vote on what gets decided? (Example - There are two art designs for a bomber ship, those who backed the relevant tier can vote on which one they like). Obvious problems would arise if you never needed to make a decision like this however. I'm also not sure how comfortable people are with something like this being a paid tier.

Just my thoughts, hope it helps!

[Tridus]

I haven't see the code, so can't really tell. However, I worked 10 years in development (sadly, not video games, just "standard" banking, xml & pdf editing solfwares), and that experience points me to "base AI war" has most mechanics of the game in place, and therefore most of the code.

Having seen the layout of some of Arcen's other titles, I can tell you that "the base game" includes all the code.  The expansions are litterally png images, sounds, and other runtime data as well as a doodad that says "expansion installed" to the code.

That'd be true, but a lot of that code wasn't there in the "true" base game. Code was added for the mechanics that are in the expansions, and such. So they're really still part of the expansion even if they're included in the base game.

That's a fairly common strategy for DLC, actually. You can package off the assets and such as the download, but you don't want to start trying to patch the executables with various combinations of DLC, so you put all that in a patch that every owner of the game gets, and the DLCs simply enable the new stuff.

[kasnavada]

- I agree that designing something like a ship is dangerous. I am immediately reminded of an instance with Planetary Annihilation where one user who backed a design tier had a very specific vision for a unit, but it wasn't clear that you could only pick from certain "chassis" and so he complained about it. I'm not certain how that went down, but from when I last saw it he still didn't have anything of his implemented because he refused to conform to the rules of the design. If a tier like this was to exist, I think it should be REALLY REALLY CLEAR what is allowed and what isn't, especially if the tier is going to be expensive

Apart from naming planets and writing their backstories, I'm not sure what elements in AI War could be "fluff in game".

[Steelpoint]

Maybe let certain level backers write more in-depth descriptions for certain fleet ships and starships?

One thing I noticed in Bionic Dues was how in some cases you could hold shift (I think) to get a more expanded and in-depth lore description of the item or weapon in question. Perhaps that could be a interesting reward offer, though the downside is that unless there's a certain theme then most of the descriptions are likely going to be more humorous (if there's even a negative in your opinion).

It would not interfere with the game in any way and is something you have to go out of your way to view.

[Tridus]

In regards to a potential Kickstarter itself, just how many backer rewards do you need? Lots of Kickstarters go wrong by trying to have tons of rewards, and it just makes the whole thing overly complicated to fulfill. I'd especially shy away from physical rewards. Even for digital only ones, lots of successful projects don't have 15 tiers of rewards.

If there's a plan to add new things to the game (rather than just update and improve stuff that was already in AI War), then there is probably a chance to do it. You could for example add an option to select a Leader for your human forces, that comes with traits of its own, at which point a backer tier can be "help design one of the leaders".

[Vinco]

Among the basic options:

Game plus soundtrack (Especially with the quality of Pablo's prior work).  Probably $10ish over the base game
"Arcen complete pack" Probably $25-30ish over the base game
Lorebook (digital) - A collection of lore in the Arcenverse.  Includes some concept art, narratives about development, etc.
Become a character in the game - Remnant fleet commander, historical admiral, etc.
Game multipack - One special copy with bonuses like soundtrack, plus extra copies for multiplayer partners
Super supporter - Get all Arcen games for the next 5-10 years
"KS exclusive" alternate art - special art for the flagship, or another core ship

[Pumpkin]

Lorebook (digital) - A collection of lore in the Arcenverse.  Includes some concept art, narratives about development, etc.

Oh! I would love this one!

Game multipack - One special copy with bonuses like soundtrack, plus extra copies for multiplayer partners

Just "extra copies for friends" sounds good, for me. And it's a neat idea. (I already know who among my friends deserve free copies of my favorite game!)

Super supporter - Get all Arcen games for the next 5-10 years

I would rather say "all previous Arcen games". While several people might already have previous games, future titles sound less appealing (IMO) and feels like shackles for Arcen. I dunno...

"KS exclusive" alternate art - special art for the flagship, or another core ship

I think it might be slightly more than one special art. However, I don't know how easy/difficult it will be to create enough of alternative art. But anyway, alt.arts sounds very interesting, KS or not. I already imagine starting a game with a friend and saying "Hey, dude, zoom on my flagship. Nice, eh? That's 'cause I kickstarted the game."