AI War 2 coverage thread

[cupogoodness]

Early days yet on this front (a little under 36 hours from our announcement time), but here are the coverage results thus far:

Sheepdog Gaming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnMg_jyAoR8
MasterofRoflness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z5DoZNvMm8
Niche Gamer: https://nichegamer.com/2018/10/05/ai-war-2-launches-on-early-access-october-18/
IndieGameNews: https://www.indiegamenews.com/2018/10/ai-war-2-is-coming.html
Gaming Cypher: https://www.gamingcypher.com/ai-war-2-grand-strategy-rts-hybrid-launching-on-steam-early-access-oct-18/
WorthPlaying: https://worthplaying.com/article/2018/10/5/news/111161/
SavingContent.com: https://www.savingcontent.com/2018/10/04/ai-war-2-warps-onto-steam-early-access-on-october-18th/
Dad's Gaming Addiction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZLxaQ2tUjY
Reddit /r/games: https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/9lipow/a_new_ai_war_2_trailer/
TweakTown: https://www.tweaktown.com/pressrelease/11617/grand-strategy-rts-hybrid-ai-war-launches-early-access-october-18th-2018-steam/index.html
Frags of War: https://fragsofwar.com/blog/ai-war-2-drops-into-steam-early-access-on-october-18th-2018
DT Gaming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnEXpwVlDzg
GameTrailers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq5oYngOpX0
NicheGamer.com: https://nichegamer.com/2018/10/05/ai-war-2-launches-on-early-access-october-18/
HGunified: https://www.hgunified.com/gaming/ai-war-2-launches-in-early-access.html
LinuxGameNews: http://linuxgamenews.com/post/178768184666/ai-war-2-rts-announces-early-access-date

I'll do my best to update periodically through Early Access release.

[etheric42]

I think the IndieGameNews link is for the wrong game.

[Sizzle]

Thanks for posting this!

It might make sense at this very early stage to have simple factual statements of where people stumbled with the game, or tutorial to get the first wave of concerns dealt with.

Is this a good place for that kind of stuff, or prefer it elsewhere?

[Dominus Arbitrationis]

I think the IndieGameNews link is for the wrong game.

Thanks, fixed!

[etheric42]

I took one of the youtuber's (Sheepdog) play through the tutorial and turned it into a Mantis issue for Badger.  I intend to do more, but it's pretty time consuming and if anyone else wants to chip in, the more the merrier.

[Sizzle]

th_Pion 's playthrough of the Tutorial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPhkA2CfP_s

Published today, probably played before the latest patch.

th_Pion regularly plays puzzle games, and has dipped into the Programmer-puzzle genre a few times (e.g. Screeps).  In other words, he's certainly capable of paying attention to detail.  Nevertheless, I think there was a lot of things that kept him from following the tutorial:

- he liked that some tutorial segments "reversed" back to the previous segment if he got to the wrong spot
- WASD controls very slow (probably helped by latest patch)
- some tutorial segments advanced before he finished reading them, leading to confusion as he followed the steps WHILE reading, rather than reading the entire pane THEN following the steps
    ** this seems a common problem from other play throughs
- was confused whether he needed to take down shield posts on the second planet -- mentioned it takes a VERY long time, wondered if he didn't need to do that part???
- couldn't find the wormhole (text says "swirly green on right side of gravity well"  - we don't define what a gravity well is;  wormholes aren't green.
- didn't rally his starship to group-1 because the tutorial doesn't make it clear that EACH dock / starship dock has its own rally / group / pause buttons
- can't send colony ship through to third wormhole because tutorial obscures it -- he can't zoom out any more ()
- confused while building during pause -- took him a few seconds to notice that he was paused and thats why nothing was building (maybe make a prominent -- paused -- somewhere top-middle of screen.  Make it obvious, but not obscuring too much the "work area" of a screen (center)
- decided at the end that the "best" way to play was permanent 10x speed with pausing, as taking down shield outposts take too much time otherwise
- Confused at end of tutorial because he missed the text "tutorial will end when third planet defeated" text;  spent some time messing about because the tutorial just stops advancing at the end.

"I guess this completes the Tutorial Maybe? It's not a great tutorial .... it doesn't sell the game well in my opinion. Not challenging, very slow if you don't speed up time"

[x4000]

Thank you!  I'm going to go through the tutorial today and make a lot of improvements, and also based on the things that Sizzle pulled out from the th_Pion playthrough.