Messages

31

AI War / Re: Finding people to play with, in-game.

« on: June 14, 2009, 02:53:29 PM »

Well I don't think he should shift the focus of the game, I agree with that. The game is good for what it is. However it's got everything there for multiplayer, might as well make it more easily accessible.

As for "a game with this scale"... well if he can bring the scale down a little for people who like shorter games(Which it seems he can without effecting the longer games) then I don't see a problem. Civilization is very popular and it has a huge scale, but you always had complete control over that scale.


I'v never been a huge fan of PvP myself so I don't have much to add there, i don't think I'v played many competitive games extensively at all. I do enjoy TF2 though, I wonder why that is...

32

AI War Meeting Grounds / Re: Newbie here, looking for a game

« on: June 14, 2009, 11:51:30 AM »

Cool. Meet me in the IRC channel and we can talk more:

http://arcengames.com/irc/aiwar_irc.php

33

AI War / Re: Finding people to play with, in-game.

« on: June 14, 2009, 10:19:39 AM »

though I think that with the RTS genre, and a game with the scope of AI War in general, most of our customers seem to be relatively hardcore by nature.

I felt that too when I tried the demo(Pre-1.000 demo), but after buying the full game and getting to 1.005 I noticed you actually have a pretty good casual experience in the cards. You took the planet count and brought it down to a possible 40, cutting the game time into something a little more manageable and your AI can be brought down to almost anyones level.

Your game has a broader scope than you think. The actual game play is pretty easy to get into and with the right settings anyone can get a game they like going. I could even see some people who would want an even lower planet count. Something they could finnish in around 2 hours.

You're talking about Xfire or Gamespy support, I mentioned in my first post I can see how dropping out can be a problem- one of the reasons you stress matching up schedules and pre-planing games in the match making forum I'm guessing is because of how long they last and once someone drops they have to stop. A server browsing feature from either of those sources would make the 2 or so hour game an important part of everyday play for people who just want to jump in, with the long marathon games still needing to be set up and panned out... social-wise meeting people in small games will have a big impact on how friends are made and big games are set up.

The way your game plays out is beautiful in that early game ships are as viable in late-game, so even games that don't last long enough to reach into the full tech tree still have a wide range of depth and strategic possibility.

34

AI War / Re: Finding people to play with, in-game.

« on: June 14, 2009, 09:41:56 AM »

Understandable.

When I used to work on game development I noticed that no matter how obvious or self explanatory I felt something was I was always proven wrong. I would add a feature or a mechanic that I thought would be interesting, and even when mentioning it in-game a great deal of the playerbase wouldn't use it or notice it unless it was easily accessible.

Most people group players into casual or hardcore, but from my experience I'v noticed that even casual gamers can get lost for hours if they're enjoying themselves(and have the time)... but in general there's also a -huge- group that just doesn't do any out of game searching on the things they buy. They never use mods, they never go to forums, a lot of them probably never even visit the website to get updates that the game doesn't handle for them, they just use what you give them in-game.

A temperary suggestion would be to put some kind of link from the main menu that would lead people to both the forums and the IRC channel on the website, and explain that they can use those to actually hook up with people.

35

AI War / Finding people to play with, in-game.

« on: June 13, 2009, 07:56:05 PM »

I wasn't able to find anything on this. I understand how a server browser would lead to a lot of unfinished PUG games but what about some kind of integrated IRC type channel you can join from the main menu to find people to play with or set up games with?

With the game showing up places like Impulse you're going to have a lot of people buying the game that probably never look at forums. They'll also likely miss out on one of the games coolest features: The Coop.

36

AI War Meeting Grounds / Re: Newbie here, looking for a game

« on: June 13, 2009, 03:06:48 PM »

Thanks. I noticed how active you are with the community, and I also saw you posting on sites I was reading about the game on. It's refreshing.


AI has always intrigued me in games for as long as I can remember, and I pretty much bought the game after reading your explanation of what you did with it here since it's so hard to find games that have decent AI anymore. I probably played Dawn of War a hundred times more using the impressive "AI skirmish mod" than I would have with the stock AI that shipped with it.

37

AI War Meeting Grounds / Newbie here, looking for a game

« on: June 13, 2009, 02:47:45 PM »

I just got the game and am enjoying it a great deal, but I'd love to try the Co-Op aspect. Anyone interested?