Author Topic: Plans and Status Updates for AI War 2  (Read 10812 times)

Offline Draco18s

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Re: Plans and Status Updates for AI War 2
« Reply #15 on: October 30, 2017, 02:20:04 pm »
It's okay, but holy cow they want $300 for it in an app.

Definitely not the worst cost I've seen (but yeah, that's kind of expensive).

Vuforia (augmented reality plugin) at one point changed their pricing scheme from $40-one-time to something close to $100 per 1000 recognitions per month. I also ran into a company that wanted $1000 per publication location* on for a 3 minute sound track.

*e.g. publishing a flash game on Newgrounds and Kongregate would be $2000.

Offline x4000

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Re: Plans and Status Updates for AI War 2
« Reply #16 on: October 30, 2017, 04:01:40 pm »
There are simply a variety of places that are more like $30, so that's pretty inflated in my experience for a font.
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Offline Cyborg

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Re: Plans and Status Updates for AI War 2
« Reply #17 on: October 30, 2017, 07:54:12 pm »
I think it's ultimately going to be an iterative process on that.  Hopefully we'll have some degree of increased sanity on it in the next week, but then our main goals are having things truly good by December 6th or so.  If folks like you wait all the way until December 6th to comment, though, I think that we'll have a sub-par experience waiting for people at that date.

Basically I don't mean we need people playtesting for hours right now, or even commenting on the gameplay in depth if the GUI is getting in the way.  But if folks like yourself don't mind hopping in and giving impressions on what the heck is wrong with parts of the GUI, and what immediate points of confusion you have, it's the sort of thing that is useful to us.  And we can later go "okay, does this new version resolve those particular problems."

Different approach from all-out actually playing and testing the game fully; more like hopping on for 5 minutes and poking at it, then writing up what the issues were from a clarity/usability standpoint.

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Offline Cyborg

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Re: Plans and Status Updates for AI War 2
« Reply #18 on: October 30, 2017, 10:15:56 pm »
https://bugtracker.arcengames.com/view.php?id=19264

I'm not done, I will be back with more bugs that I found, but I wanted to start talking about the GUI immediately so that we can just rip off that Band-Aid. Eraser is a fantastic art critic, so you should ask that person. But I did my best on not only telling you that I didn't like something, but why I didn't like it.

Also, you need to start working on branding. You and Keith have coded a fantastic AI and the marketing and branding on that is completely missing. More on that at another time, but you need to start on the selling, and the hero of your story is the AI. Convince folks that this isn't one of those single player games with the AI as an afterthought. It's the writer of your story. It's no different than Rimworld or a game like that advertising it's storyteller. You have a hell of a storyteller also, so you should start parading it around. Don't be afraid to get nerdy when you talk about it. You have something that no one else has here with your AI, your audience are generally of the smart variety, so it's okay to advertise that part of the game.

Don't get down about stuff like the GUI. You need it, it's the lens by which we view and interact, but hopefully this criticism is received well. I have been awake for most of the night and work all day, so excuse the grammar and the rambling. I'll continue later with the other bugs.

https://bugtracker.arcengames.com/view.php?id=19264
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Offline TheVampire100

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Re: Plans and Status Updates for AI War 2
« Reply #19 on: October 30, 2017, 11:27:34 pm »
Also, you need to start working on branding. You and Keith have coded a fantastic AI and the marketing and branding on that is completely missing.
This is actually an interesting point. I was once asked what is so special about the AI in AI War. i cannot recite the exact same qestion but it was somethign along the line, that an AI, that simply has an advantage, both in quality and quantity of ships, seems simply unfair and not very fair, the AI can simply steamroll you with its ships, that does not make the Ai smart.
I struggled to explain,w hat exactly the difference is, but the main aspect for me was the thing,t hat he cirticised: It simply does not do this. Other trategy games work around the princible that as long as teh AI has resources, it will churn out as much as possible and hunt you down with it.

The AI from AI War Classic however does not do this. It thinks you are weak. It thinks you are no threat. It thinks it can swat you down like an insect. It just sends so much units it thinks are enough but NOT overkill in order to defeat you. Does not work? It will send more units int he next wave.
The Ai probes you the entire game with waves and some occassional patrols from other planets to see, where your defneses are weak and if it needs more. it always sends units that it deems "enough" but never more than it think it needs. The AI reacts to your threat (AI progress) instead of simply using its overpowering might to crush you.
This was for me one of the main selling points, you have an AI that values you as player instead of just playing you like a regular opponent like its in other game. Teh Ai respects your threat to it and you can feel this in the game. As player I feel that I have an impact in the game and are not simply "the opponent".

Offline BadgerBadger

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Re: Plans and Status Updates for AI War 2
« Reply #20 on: October 31, 2017, 09:59:27 am »
I feel like thus far the GUI has sortof evolved in a pretty directionless fashion. For making the UI remotely pleasant to use, I think there's no substitute for producing some decent mockups and getting feedback on them. I trust Arcen has been doing this sort of thing internally (I can't imagine trying to create a UI without doing that), so lets share that with the community and see what people think. Or we can all follow Cyborg's example and mock some things up ourselves and see what people think.

Offline x4000

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Re: Plans and Status Updates for AI War 2
« Reply #21 on: October 31, 2017, 11:17:14 am »
Believe it or not, we have not been doing internal mockups for quite some time.  Early in the process (pre first kickstarter), we were indeed approaching it in that very fashion.

However, since then we've had a lot of cases where we've wanted to nail down the functionality before trying to make it pretty, or even getting it organized fully properly.  That's been a lot of iterations from Keith on his own, and so the mockup approach has been set aside for some time now because of that.

We may need to make a shift back the other direction, no doubt.
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Offline x4000

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Re: Plans and Status Updates for AI War 2
« Reply #22 on: October 31, 2017, 11:17:49 am »
@Cyborg: Thank you hugely for all that!  Will respond more in a separate thread.
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