What features to cut for round 2

[yllamana]

I think the core new features could be the new graphics and the hopefully much-improved UI. I know many more people who have wanted to enjoy AI War and found it impenetrable or unenjoyable because of the graphics' and UI's shortcomings than I know people who have managed to have fun with it.

A lot of people think the idea of AI War is really awesome and even own the game because of it, but can't enjoy it. AI War 2 is a chance to address the problems that prevent them from enjoying the first game and hopefully enhance the experience for those who do enjoy it. Even if it adds nothing else, if it can hit the graphics and the UI it should be more than worthwhile.

[NichG]

Was going to do a very detailed response, but felt like I was orbiting around the point, so rewriting for another try.

The issue is, if I don't look at this as an Arcen fan, but look at it as a complete outsider, there's a set of things which one might call 'expectations' and a set of things which one might call 'features'. Things like 'the UI is good' or 'there's a good tutorial' or even '3D graphics' aren't features, they're expectations. They're things which if you tell me are absent, I'll have a negative impression, but if you tell me they're present I'm going to think 'so what, every game has to have that, what makes this different?'.

If I'm just checking something out at Steam store, I might not need anything more than having expectations be met for a professional, polished game (if I'm bored, if its on sale, if its a genre I like, etc). But if its a Kickstarter, that's a developer saying 'here's a vision, but I can't afford to make it - this vision will not exist unless I receive support'. If you show me a lot of stuff which meets my expectations, but no revolutionary or radical or risky new features or promises of insights and wonders, well, the natural thing for me to think is 'there's going to be 10 other games like this, probably out on Steam before this KS even finishes, so why should I go out of my way to support this one?'

As an Arcen fan, I'm more likely to think 'well, I know the devs, I know the product line, I trust them to be creative and interesting'. But I don't think that's the right point of view to be taking for aiming a Kickstarter campaign.

[Tridus]

That directly contradict reviews of games like Rimworld, X-Com2, Neverwinter Nights, Skyrim... and also, a large part of the new "exciting" features (at least to me) kind of exists with modding being there. Better tutorial (possibly campaign), ships, player races...

You know what those games have in common besides modding? They're fun without any mods. Modding doesn't save a game that nobody wants to play in the first place. It improves on a fun base game.

[Aklyon]

That directly contradict reviews of games like Rimworld, X-Com2, Neverwinter Nights, Skyrim... and also, a large part of the new "exciting" features (at least to me) kind of exists with modding being there. Better tutorial (possibly campaign), ships, player races...

You know what those games have in common besides modding? They're fun without any mods. Modding doesn't save a game that nobody wants to play in the first place. It improves on a fun base game.

This is the key point here, modding-wise. Modding can be a key feature, but not the key feature. And with a much smaller budget, we won't have much of those unless people really liked AI War to begin with.

[chemical_art]

That directly contradict reviews of games like Rimworld, X-Com2, Neverwinter Nights, Skyrim... and also, a large part of the new "exciting" features (at least to me) kind of exists with modding being there. Better tutorial (possibly campaign), ships, player races...

None of those games were funded by kickstarter. They all had the luxury of years of development or came at a time when the game market was far less competitive.

Apples and Oranges.

[kasnavada]

None of those games were funded by kickstarter. They all had the luxury of years of development or came at a time when the game market was far less competitive.
Apples and Oranges.

Errr, sorry, but... What you're stating that modding is a selling point only if:
- it was sold before this very year ?
- only if they games have years of development ?
- only if they're not funded via a KS ?

That's... well. Nothing more to add. I believe I made my point.

As a whole, the "apple or orange" pattern is kind of the Godwin point of a argumentation to me. It structure basically is "it's different, so you're wrong", basically can be used in any argumentation to justify anything.

So, to both of you... are telling me that AI War ain't fun ? Most of what made the first game fun is still going to be there, or is it not ? (Yeah, snipers and a few other things were planned to go).

I thought we were speaking about what new features to keep, and I assumed that AI War II won't lose the fun features from AI War I. As, it's a sequel.

I'm trying to understand your point here.

[Tridus]

So, to both of you... are telling me that AI War ain't fun ? Most of what made the first game fun is still going to be there, or is it not ? (Yeah, snipers and a few other things were planned to go).

I thought we were speaking about what new features to keep, and I assumed that AI War II won't lose the fun features from AI War I. As, it's a sequel.

I'm trying to understand your point here.

What I've read going around is that the reduced budget version will be more like AI War *before expansions*, rather than the AI War we have today. How much of that other stuff actually comes back depends on stretch goals or whatever. That's quite a lot of stuff disappearing in the sequel, and yes, I have serious doubts that "but it has modding!" will make up the difference.

[Aklyon]

What Tridus said is pretty much what I've been meaning to say as well.

[kasnavada]

What I've read going around is that the reduced budget version will be more like AI War *before expansions*, rather than the AI War we have today. How much of that other stuff actually comes back depends on stretch goals or whatever. That's quite a lot of stuff disappearing in the sequel, and yes, I have serious doubts that "but it has modding!" will make up the difference.

Ah, and thanks, that's much clearer.

Well, I disagree, since... "it has modding", if done right, could just bring back a lot of what those expansions, by the community itself. I'm basing that on the features added to other games by modders. If the game's moddable, then the dev makes features - and basic content, the modders do advanced content from there. It's reducing costs compared to the dev doing both features and the advanced content part.

Also, my opinion, from work, is that between hard-coding everything, and creating loaders for whatever feature you want to do from an human-readable support like xml (including the possibility of overriding objects), the initial investment, if any (depends on the number of objects to make by hand, and the time gained via your loader per item) pays of. So, it makes sense either way even with budget reduction in mind. That said, that part's not my call, it's Arcen's. So I'll leave it at it, I've no clue what they do in the inside after all.

But, if not moddability, what new feature would be a selling point ? graphics ? better perfs ? New UI paint ? A new story ? A better tutorial ?

"It's a sequel" doesn't really cut it for me.

[chemical_art]

None of those games were funded by kickstarter. They all had the luxury of years of development or came at a time when the game market was far less competitive.
Apples and Oranges.

Errr, sorry, but... What you're stating that modding is a selling point only if:
- it was sold before this very year ?
- only if they games have years of development ?
- only if they're not funded via a KS ?

That's... well. Nothing more to add. I believe I made my point.

As a whole, the "apple or orange" pattern is kind of the Godwin point of a argumentation to me. It structure basically is "it's different, so you're wrong", basically can be used in any argumentation to justify anything.

I will give good faith and explain to you:

Games made with several years of development give more content, and thus more potential to mod. In addition, it draws in a larger audience by virtue of its higher production values which in turns increases the odds of quality modders.
Games made in the early 2000's and before had a much less fierce game market then today. It was harder to get published, but once published it was easy to find an audience due to the bottleneck publishing created. With less games there is a greater audience and the virtues that go with it as described earlier.
Games that are published, rather then kickstarted, in general are more stable games. No publisher claims that modability is what carries a game. Modability may be a secondary virtue, but the original game is good enough. A Kickstarter whose claim is the modability is not a pitch for the common person. Which leads to another point: Modability is a niche. Niches don't draw in crowds. A Kickstarter that does not draw in crowds will not get substantial funding.

I say it is apples and oranges because on a fundamental level the pitch for a game to be published is very different then the pitch to make via kickstarter. I think on the publishing side it is easier to sell a game because it can be modded, because that implies you already have a good game. A kickstarter that claims that causes as many worries as benefits.

[NichG]

But, if not moddability, what new feature would be a selling point ? graphics ? better perfs ? New UI paint ? A new story ? A better tutorial ?

"It's a sequel" doesn't really cut it for me.

None of those things would cut it for me either, so I want to know the answer to this too. But I think this answer has to come from Arcen, based on their internal judgement about what is actually feasible given the budget of, say, $30k that they can expect as a bare minimum from the Kickstarter reboot.

The really tricky thing about this conversation is that even though the expected funding level will be less, it may be necessary to add something before other things can be taken away and still leave a game that people will want to support. But since there's less money...

So the mental tack I've been trying to take is, how to call attention to things that were going to be done anyhow but which are being wrapped up in general improvements and changes. Like, if you can make a statement 'AIW1 was great, but 7 years of playtesting and experience has made us wish we could try X, but there was something too rooted in the system to actually do that. So now with this sequel and rewrite, we have the chance to try X!'.

If that 'X' thing can be made broadly understandable, then it could be considered a feature just as much as 'playable races'. For instance, you could talk about some of the refleet discussions as a negative thing: 'AIW1 had a problem of Netflix time during refleeting, we've solved that', or you could even talk about it as an actual added element 'AIW2 will be designed from the ground up with an eye to how the player spends their time - at every moment, there will be meaningful gameplay decisions to make. From experience, we can recognize the mechanics which create an incentive to wait, and we have either removed those or have filled that wait time with other things to do.' Combined with some kind of explicit in-game recognition of the design idea, I think it would give a better idea to an outsider about what kinds of experiences they might have in playing.

This kind of thing is more like a change in marketing or how things are presented than an actual new feature - it's just taking things that were planned as general improvements and tweaks, and bringing them a bit more into the foreground and making them an idea that gets communicated to the player. I'm not sure how helpful that kind of suggestion is, to be honest, but its the sort of thing I can imagine that seems a realistic answer given the budget constraints.

[kasnavada]

(...)

I still have no clue where you're going with this.

What you're saying may be true - (I don't believe it for a second) - but making the KS succeed is irrelevant if making it succeed means Arcen's back at this in 6 months or a year. If anything, those remarks just show that something's lacking to Arcen to be a long-lasting succesful company with a wide PR reach. To be more "modern", or just to adapt better to the current market's difficulties. New things, preferably that worked in other places.

Sounds "dumb", but whatever the new AI War II KS will be, it needs to be the "foundation for a better tomorrow".

My hope is that in 3 years AI War II has a large "up to date" community, with good PR, good enough sales, and good games to go with all that. I can't see modding as being anything but a boon toward that goal. It, of course, ain't going to be at "complete" efficiency just now, but if it's never started nor planned, it's never going to be. Things have to start to be.


There are, of course, other things that can be done but here's the subject is "what new features"... so. Modding's my choice. I'd have other suggestions, if asked, for other places and topics...

[Draco18s]

That directly contradict reviews of games like Rimworld, X-Com2, Neverwinter Nights, Skyrim... and also, a large part of the new "exciting" features (at least to me) kind of exists with modding being there. Better tutorial (possibly campaign), ships, player races...

You know what those games have in common besides modding? They're fun without any mods. Modding doesn't save a game that nobody wants to play in the first place. It improves on a fun base game.

Going to cut in he real quick:
Bethesda games ARE NOT FUN WITHOUT MODS.
End of story.

I agree with you that for some people, such as myself, a game isn't worth the effort to mod unless it is already fun.

But for Bethesda games, that is not true for 90% of the player base. Nearly every person I have ever met who likes Bethesda titles says, "oh god no, don't play unmodded, you NEED mods. The whole reason to play Bethesda games is to mod them."

[chemical_art]

That directly contradict reviews of games like Rimworld, X-Com2, Neverwinter Nights, Skyrim... and also, a large part of the new "exciting" features (at least to me) kind of exists with modding being there. Better tutorial (possibly campaign), ships, player races...

You know what those games have in common besides modding? They're fun without any mods. Modding doesn't save a game that nobody wants to play in the first place. It improves on a fun base game.

Going to cut in he real quick:
Bethesda games ARE NOT FUN WITHOUT MODS.
End of story.

I agree with you that for some people, such as myself, a game isn't worth the effort to mod unless it is already fun.

But for Bethesda games, that is not true for 90% of the player base. Nearly every person I have ever met who likes Bethesda titles says, "oh god no, don't play unmodded, you NEED mods. The whole reason to play Bethesda games is to mod them."

http://www.statisticbrain.com/skyrim-the-elder-scrolls-v-statistics/

The sales directly contradict this.

Of its over 23,000,000 units for 450,000,000 USD only 14% of its sales were PC, which could be modded in a reasonable method.

You can have the opinion the game is unplayable but the sales, which drives production, tells a different story.

To state it another way: The PC sales alone did not pay for the budget, let alone drive a profit.

[Timerlane]

OTOH, the Skyrim-Steam 'paid mods fiasco', which actually moved Valve to completely backtrack on something, even dragging Gaben out for a spontaneous AMA on Reddit(in which, IIRC, he mentioned their mail system was literally choking on all the protest/concern E-mails).

If there's anything I took away from all the related discussion, it's that Bethesda pretty much leaves their userbase to do their bugfixing/post-release support for them(and kinda drove me off of wanting to buy anything from them).