Messages

46

AI War / Re: Love AI War and/or Tidalis? We could really use your help...

« on: September 18, 2010, 12:24:25 AM »

Anyway, the reason I brought it up was to see if there was anything we could learn from it.  The ship design screen actually reminds me of my own plans for a UI to manage ship modules and that kind of thing (don't want go into too much detail, I'm bad about saying I'll do xyz and while it's quite doable I just don't find time for a while, etc), though of course ours wouldn't be that involved since the underlying tactical simulation doesn't do stuff like directional damage, per-module power management, etc.

Funny thing: Star Ruler doesn't have directional damage or individual module adjustment, either.  At the moment, at least, the ship design screen is basically just defining stats for a ship class you want to build, and the location of the components has no bearing on either the appearance or performance of the ship you are designing.

The tech web idea also sounds interesting though I don't think AI War's tech system could readily be changed into a tree or web, nor do I think Chris would buy that it should

And Chris would be right in that case.  The tech system in Star Ruler is entirely too random and simplistic to fit into AI War and be effective.  I don't think players would like dumping 10,000 knowledge points and 8 minutes of research time into a generic combat ship category only to constantly get everything but those tier 3 bombers they want.

psuedo-edit: Interesting info, Otagan; looking at their production values (i.e. all that 3D art) I had wondered how they managed it as an indie.  I guess the answer is "by the hair of their chinny-chin-chin"   But assuming they make good on the design, etc, I'm glad they did.

As I mentioned above, the ship design screen has no effect on the actual ship model you construct.  There are just a few basic ship models that can be scaled up and down.  It creates the impression that there are hundreds of models when there are really dozens, at most.  They quite literally did scrape by with the hairs of their chinny-chin-chins before release due to the aforementioned financial issues, and now we rely on their pledge to update the game to keep the content flowing for the game to (possibly) fulfill its potential.

47

AI War / Re: Love AI War and/or Tidalis? We could really use your help...

« on: September 18, 2010, 12:10:33 AM »

They're working on putting together a demo, but their main priority at the moment seems to be getting ready for their Steam launch.  I'd imagine a demo would come at some point after that.

Curiously enough, the developers had run completely out of money and were forced to either:

a) Curl up and let their venture die.

or

b) Release a game that did not live up to any of their expectations and then use the funds from their sales to continue development via patches.

They ended up choosing the latter, obviously.

Regarding their sales numbers, they've moved a total of just over 3800 copies (up-to-date number is on their homepage) since launch several weeks ago via Direct2Drive, Gamersgate and Impulse.  Steam release will be any day now.

48

AI War / Re: Love AI War and/or Tidalis? We could really use your help...

« on: September 18, 2010, 12:04:19 AM »

quick glances at their forum seems to indicate taht ai modding is possible though, so its generally only a matter of time until someone fixes that

In its current state (which is, by the developers' own admission, incomplete), I don't really consider the lack of competent AI to be a glaring fault.  It's one of those things that's going to be constantly improved by the devs over the lifetime of the game, along with just about every other aspect of it.

49

AI War / Re: Love AI War and/or Tidalis? We could really use your help...

« on: September 18, 2010, 12:01:14 AM »

I've logged a few hours with an earlier version of Star Ruler and can probably field some more specific questions about the game.  I'll say that the AI in Star Ruler as of when I played it (version 1.0.0.4) was pretty lousy, though, and is nowhere comparable even to SoaSE.

50

AI War / Re: Love AI War and/or Tidalis? We could really use your help...

« on: September 15, 2010, 11:55:14 AM »

Just out of curiosity, have you guys explored the idea of an AI War 4 pack on Steam?  Not that I necessarily think it would result in a flurry of new sales, but it would give the opportunity for some people who are uncertain about the game to buy as part of a group and get a lower price point.

51

AI War / Re: Love AI War and/or Tidalis? We could really use your help...

« on: September 14, 2010, 03:30:57 PM »

If it says "Arcen Games" on it, I have three copies of it.  I've convinced two friends to bite on the AI War/ZR combo.  Looks like my evangelizing will have to continue anew.

52

AI War / Re: Prerelease 3.173 (Bugfixes, Children Of Neinzul Beta Opens!)

« on: August 06, 2010, 12:21:11 AM »

Just wanted to note that I'm having the same issue as Rustayne.

53

Tidalis / Re: *** Had the beta and updated to 1.000 between 7/13 and 717? Read this. ***

« on: July 30, 2010, 05:59:55 PM »

I had a rather nasty issue where the tutorials wouldn't load at all after patching the game within that specified timeframe.  It was easily fixed by just downloading 1.000 fresh from the site, like you said.

54

AI War / Re: Any upcoming promotion?

« on: July 27, 2010, 11:26:52 AM »

The closest you can probably get at the moment is Gamersgate, who are still offering a 10% discount on AI War if you buy Tidalis (and vice versa), but that still leaves it out of your $10 price range.

55

AI War / Re: Do Steam users see Tidalis in their list of games?

« on: July 13, 2010, 10:04:39 AM »

I'm not seeing Tidalis in my games list, but I've noticed ever since their big sale a few weeks back I'll have random games in my profile's game list that I've never paid for/played/even downloaded. They're not in my library. Probly just a bug.

Some games are given for free to all users, such as Moonbase Alpha (NASA's lunar repair sim) and Sam & Max Episode 104.  They show up in your games list regardless of whether you even know they exist or not, but you only add them to your in-Steam library by finding their store page and installing them from there.

56

AI War / Re: Do Steam users see Tidalis in their list of games?

« on: July 12, 2010, 10:30:11 PM »

The $30 from the quote above refers to the price of an "id pack" for the id software games.  It has nothing to do with the reviewer pass.  I imagine that that is free.  However, I also imagine that you have to have a site that is very well-known before you get one.  I can think of a number of reviewers that I enjoy and follow, and that have quite large followings overall, that still don't have this.

Correct.  I omitted a substantial portion of the article I pulled the quote from, which was discussing the release of the id Complete Pack on Steam several years ago.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2007/08/08/comeback-kids/

57

AI War / Re: Do Steam users see Tidalis in their list of games?

« on: July 12, 2010, 10:47:28 AM »

But I'm not aware of any special press list with Steam, most reviewers need a copy directly from the developer/publisher, or buy it themselves, depending.

I'm fairly certain that Steam does give out press accounts to certain people and websites.  I've seen mention of such on the Rock Paper Shotgun website:

More importantly (and I realise that having a Steam press account that grants me everything on it for free does rob me of a certain chunk of objectivity here, but hey – it’s £30 for every id game ever. I’d happily pay that myself.), it’s an utter delight to have what’s in many ways the entire history of FPS laid out before me in one place.

58

AI War / Re: Do Steam users see Tidalis in their list of games?

« on: July 10, 2010, 03:59:47 PM »

Own both Fleet Command and Zenith Remnant, and Tidalis is not available in either the store or my library.