Planetary Annihilation: Total Annihilation IN SPACE

[doctorfrog]

I finally found a potential reason for PlayFab. It is simple, and I didn't come with it because of how horrible it is.

PlayFab is the infrastructure to allow in game purchases. That is how it "cuts costs" for them.  It actually doesn't, it just boosts their income. I notice if I do not log in to the program, in game purchases are disabled.

Ah, so maybe it's a hopeful storefront. Everything's got to have a storefront, whether you play it, watch it, do actual work on it, read books on it, or scan your computer for viruses with it. Yes, you can access this content, as long as you do it through our FREE storefront.

[chemical_art]

And those people I wrote about in my previous post? They'd still stick to the cracked version and never buy the game for themselves, even though they like the games and could afford to buy them several times. Which is partially why the last couple of sessions have been mostly FTP grindfest shooters, with a few other people taking breaks with some game they own.

For me, the grand factor of older games is not price, but convenience, which is why I think steam does so well.***

There are some who will buy, not matter what.

There are some, who pirate, no matter what.

I feel most people though are in the middle, where there is a balance between price and convenience.  If one has to jump through hoops of any sort for a "paid" version, no matter the reason, the pirated version wins out. However the opposite can be true as well. If the price is cheap, and the convenience (mod support, lan support, whatever) is better for a "paid" version, then people will pay.

True story, I got a game for free with my graphics card. I used to play it every day till the non-steam interface started giving me issues. I haven't played a day since, for I quickly got bored and played games who didn't give me crud.  I could play the game, but now I have many more which give me NO problems.


It is a reality of the game market today. Either keep budgets down and appeal to a few, or expect to have to be across the board friendly to the consumer. There is little middle ground I find.


***I apologize, but there are TONS of other gamer sites that do this as well. I didn't want to view them at all in a negative way, just forgot to mention them. They are all share a theme in common, absolutely minimal DRM (if at all!)

[TheVampire100]

I think everyone has "pirated" in a way at some point in its gamer life. This does however not mean that he will periodically pirate games to save money. It just means in some cases it is, like you said, easier to handle.

I pirated an early version of PvsZ because at that time buying games online was for me an painful act and I had to do multiple steps until I finally could play a game. At that time I preferred buying games in shops, something I do now rarely.
However I bought PvsZ at later dates multiple times on various plattforms. PC, DS, iOS, I got almost every version of the game and I think this makes up for the piracy more than enough.
However when I look now at the new PvsZ it gives me the shivers what has happened to it...


PA looked for pretty awesome in the trailers, screenshots, descriptions and so on. However seeing now how they handle it I won't ever touch the game. I don't like it to let me chain at a online server just to play a game offline. And you hear it everytime that people don't liek a service like this, still it gets used in multiple situations.

[topper]

So, this is some pretty serious thread-necro. But I thought the question could be repeated here where there has already been a lot of discussion.

Is this worth getting now? It is <$5 on the steam sale for the next 23.5 hours and the recent updates and reviews seem to indicate that the game is in a much better state now, but that there are still a lot of angry early purchasers.

Can I get a brief opinion on:
Single player
Competitive multiplayer
Coop multiplayer

and whether I should pick it up on the deal?

[Aklyon]

For $5? Yes, go for it. But treat it as an experimental new kind of map rather than an upgrade from SupCom or TA.

I'd try to help with the brief, but I haven't played in months due to needing the drive space for other things.

[Mick]

I'd say it's not worth $5. I think I bought it for something like that quite a while ago, and I've barely touched it.

[kasnavada]

I like TA and loved both Supreme Commanders.

This game bored me to tears - I was among the early backers. Seeing this on sale for 5 dollars pains me. That's about what it's worth. I paid much more than that for boring and broken versions of the game. There's definitely a game somewhere around this concept, but there's too much micro to handle on multiple planets simultaneously for my taste, and you've got "only" the view of one 10th of a planet at any time.

The "most" fun I had were on limited scenarios on the old limited campaign (which changed since) with units limited to level 1. The way upgrades are to be done... not fun to me. Basically huge concept flaws in the execution. Managing multiple planets (one of the selling point of the game) can be fun with automation, so you don't micro everything. The only automation I've seen is QUEUING.

As such, the game isn't getting "much better". Most people which hates / dislikes the game forgot it and only (more and more hardcore) fans are left, so reviews improve.

[doctorfrog]

At that price point, the question is: Is this game worth my time? (20 or more hours.)

(My time, personally? Doesn't look like it. And that makes me kinda sad because I was pretty excited for the game.)

[Mánagarmr]

For $5 I'd say it's worth it for the single player component and some AI skirmishing, but other than that, no.

[eRe4s3r]

For $5 I'd say it's worth it for the single player component and some AI skirmishing, but other than that, no.

I agree, very soulless game all around.

[Pumpkin]

Can I get a brief opinion on:
Single player

Coming from AI War, obviously, Plan'An is lame in PvE. The PvE is what I prefer in RTS (and it's mostly why I love AI War and why I dislike StarCraft). I played a lot the galactic war (the "campaign" where you explore planets to get tech and go from AI battle to AI battle) but I really didn't like it. It's slow and the limitations aren't forcing you to develop new strategy, they just force you to fight lame AI with few choices.

If you want a good single player RTS, I guess you already have one.

[topper]

If you want a good single player RTS, I guess you already have one.

Very true.  I think I will end up passing on this one for now still for that reason. Plus, I could not convince any of my usual gaming buddies to get on board using the arguments posted here 

Thanks all for the responses!

[Aklyon]

So, Titans are a thing. Except theres still only one faction, which means you have the same experimental-sized units as everyone else. And they announced them on the same day it came out, yesterday.

Unsurprisingly, people are calling shenanigans complaining immensely at its expandaloneness, since its more or less a unit expansion with other bits, and was only given out free to KS backers. But at least the tutorial is interactive now, I guess?

[Toranth]

So, Titans are a thing. Except theres still only one faction, which means you have the same experimental-sized units as everyone else. And they announced them on the same day it came out, yesterday.

Unsurprisingly, people are calling shenanigans complaining immensely at its expandaloneness, since its more or less a unit expansion with other bits, and was only given out free to KS backers. But at least the tutorial is interactive now, I guess?

Hey, those Kickstarter backers deserve something for their absurd payments, don't you think?

Still... do these guys never learn?  I'd fire their entire marketing and PR department.  Who on earth would think that making some minor mods would merit delisting the original game and relaunching at 500% the previous day's price?

[Aklyon]

I'm entirely fine with the free part, after all I was one of those KS backers! (at the lowest price that still got you the game)

But yes. They need much better PR and to not irritate people constantly. The tone of that post is probably the most positive I've heard besides the pcgamer/rps reviews, which are from the viewpoint of someone who really like the idea, and sound like its gonna be a nice review, and then it turns back to why they stopped playing it in the first place, which hasn't changed all that much.