Neutrino: How are the PA sales?

I don't get why so many people buy the game and then get frustrated because it is "too hard".
I bought this game for me and my brother and it is really not that hard of a game to pick up on, considering you have at least "some" experience with an RTS. However, I might say that the most difficult thing, or maybe the only one, in learning how to play is the economics.
The economy system in the game is very different to "Age of Empires", "Starcraft", etc. So maybe if there was a small tutorial about the economy, or a link to a good youtube video on it (in the main menu), we wouldn't lose so many potential players.

Money, a dangerous subject to discuss since 3000 BC.

Really? That's great news! what are some of the big rocks?

#1 on my wish list right now is asteroid belts w/ smashable asteroids

[pun intended. wouldn't it be cool if this is what neutrino meant? that sly dog]

If you really need to know some values:
http://tools.garry.tv/steamchart/?show=4000,261030,233250&range=7
Made by Garry, the guy behind Garry's Mod and Rust.

Here you can see number the steam sales more or less. I do think it has some bugs because the sales of some games sometimes randomly jump to 0.

I also don't know how they get that value because 50 sales in 10 minutes seems a lot to me for steam only. But if it's true then they sell a lot on steam and they have all those other stores where they sell PA as well. So don't be afraid about the sales.

But like Brad said, lets get back to discussing the game itself

I understand polish is required before release, no 1 would argue that, but would I be correct in taking this as an indication that Gamma is the last phase before release and that since Gas Giants, Unit Cannon etc. are confirmed to not be in Gamma are therefore slated for post release?

I realize you plan to nurture the game past release, but if 1.0 is just a number for you would you really mind waiting until you have all the kickstarter (and stretch goal) features before slapping that label on the game? If not, I don't anticipate 1.0 will be met enthusiastically by the backers...

I don't care to be honest if the game will be released with all the features or not, cause they will come sooner or later. We are testing and playing already without these, we won't really feel a difference if the game is officially released or not, we already play it.
If this would be a way to make more money for Uber and make the game even better, that is up to them.

I don't know why everyone is speculating so wildly about PAs features, will they make it, will they not make it?!
So far, the game has come a long way in a short time and PA is already a fun game and it will only get better.

I agree with the above posters. If 1.0 is just something for the press and general public to show that the game is at a state where it is polished enough to be considered done by non-iterative standards, why not spend the time to get the unit cannon and asteroids done?

Out of curiosity, what exactly is the bottleneck with the unit cannon? I would think that it would work by creating transports that units are loaded into with the transports going towards the moon that the unit cannon's targeted at, with the transports exploding ala the orbital launcher rockets upon reaching their destination, dropping the units on the ground like the derpy astreus does now. What exactly is the bottleneck?

The state of the game at official release is crucial for the playerbase and publicity. If it is incomplete, the reviews will be negative and Uber will get lots of criticism from all sides, no matter how much they promise to add the missing features later.

Because money is not infinite.

I am with you on this. But it is also true that it is impossible to make everyone happy.

My guess is that the Unit Cannon is a hell of a math to make it work, tons of small units moving across orbitals. It's like with the One Unit Transporter, there may be some issues in the core, or simply the core has been written without taking some specific aspects in count. They did not chose to make a One Unit Transporter game-play wise. They did it that way, 'cos they couldn't do otherwise.

Now, re-write those part of the core may be extremely time consuming and budget unwise at this point of development.

The bad side of this is that I am afraid we will never see the Unit Cannon, because the Devs just can't make it happen. It is an embarrassing thing for Uber. The Unit Cannon is still one of the very primary points in the Trailer on Steam. But if you notice, is no where else. There is the possibility that people at Uber soon realized how difficult and troublematic the Unit Cannon could have been, and they decided up front to delay, and later delete the feature.

Anyway. With all the respect for the Devs and guys at Uber, and stating that the game is already a success on a single planet match, it is frankly a failure in what concerns the interplanetary mechanic and game-play.

Smashing asteroids is fun. But they promised more than that. And it is not that people didn't trust them and financed their proposal for a bigger game than what it is likely going to be at version 1.0.

That's a fact. They need to do something about, and I wish them good luck in doing it, 'cos apparently they're having quite some trouble in figuring out how to solve this impasse.

I am taking a step back from the forum (lot of work incoming). If I am right, the closer we will get to version 1.0, the more complains about the missing features we will witness.

I am gonna ask you one more time. Then I am gonna write my review about PA on Steam.

Which features will the game have at release (version 1.0) and will all the Kickstarter features be present at that point in time? Or will some of them be absent?

Please refer to my previous post for more details about what I am asking:
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/neutrino-how-are-the-pa-sales.57816/page-3#post-894492

In fact, it is quite inelegant to pre-sell a product with some premises, and later telling your customer that what they did expect from you, and what they financed you for, is not longer one of your priority.

It is fine to have technical issues and insurmountable obstacle in development. Also budget may be a concern. A clear statement would solve many things, and I am sure that the most will understand and sympathize with you, 'cos we sincerely like you as people (at least I do). Also the game is already great if played on a single planet.

But you promised more, you would agree. On an interplanery level, if you would ship the game as it is now, it is likely gonna perceived as a failure. Reading that you guys believe that there are already valid options for an interplanetary game-play, doesn't reassure many.

Sure, you called the game Planetary Annihilation and showcased an asteroid impact. But you also showed massive armies travelling from orbit to orbit and clashing against each other. People backed up that idea. And now would like some neat answers.

Fooling around some critical questions from your customer base (will the Unit Cannon be present? Will be other way to invade planets other than smashing? etc), it is not very correct.

So, it is time to advise future customers on Steam about this change of course of the project.

I also do want it to be the most honest and fair review I could write. But I can judge only what I see.

My gut says this is a bit premature, but I'm torn because if Neutrino truly intends to ship without all of the kickstarter features the sooner people are warned the better. I'm holding off on my "What do we do now?" post where backers can discuss the options left to us until I know 100% that is true. Of course, silence on their end for these important questions weighs heavier on a logarithmic scale the longer they leave those questions unanswered...

"If you've got nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all" -Uber

Let's just stop with the weird conspiracy theories. We've been as upfront as possible about the Unit Cannon. At one point, we totally thought we'd fit it into our 1.0 (or "retail") release. That's why you heard so much about it. But, as we started pushing on massive, bedrock type features we lowered its priority so we could provide the best possible experience for the 1.0 version of the game. We're in a polishing phase and we need everyone polishing. The Unit Cannon will take weeks of time from our engineers that we just don't want to spend on this milestone release.

Do we want to do the Unit Cannon? Totally. This sucks for us, too, man. But, we gotta focus on polishing the game for all of you at the moment.

There's only one proper Internet forum response...

But why the sudden rush after the express 'it is done when it is done'? It is not like anyone is holding his breath for seeing that '1.0' on the launcher or main menu. Not with all that EarlyAccess and sales jazz going on since the original release date has been dropped. Features on the other hand people do care about as has become readily apparent.
So why the hurry?

I'm not against the idea of pushing the release date of the game to fit the unit cannon in before 1.0.

Is there some other deadline that has been made that says it has to be made post 1.0?

Sure its just a number on a build, but it means a lot to the community as a milestone before release.

I'll wait till after polish stage to see what happens next...

I think you're way off on your understanding of how the average player thinks about early access.

I think we would all love that Brad. Can you put them to bed with a concrete statement? You could do so by answering either (or both) of these questions with a yes or no answer:

• Is Gamma the last phase before release?
• Will the Unit Cannon be present in the 1.0 version of the game?

This makes me think the answer to the above 2 questions is "yes, no" respectively, which is the biggest fear a lot of posters have with this stuff.

I think this part kind of insulting. If you truly wanted to give us "the best possible experience for the 1.0 version of the game" you would wait until it's finished. Every member of this board has gone on record saying "it's done when it's done" and "take your time" and praised you guys for saying the same. Now to go on and say this makes (me at least) feel taken advantage of, lied to and manipulated. It's 1 way when it's convenient for you, and another when it's no longer convenient. The only 1s rushing the game out the door is you, so don't pretend it's anyone else demanding 1.0 in any sort of time frame. It insults our intelligence.

So push back release a few weeks. That's a super easy solution to make everyone happy. Do you have any good reason not to push it back? Any reason you can think of that the community would want this game declared "finished" without that feature? I can't...

Pushing 1.0 out the door before the kickstarter features are in is a money grab. Please prove me wrong, I hate being right about this stuff...

Well, the less information people have about something, the more conspiracy theories they will end up with, trying to explain what they do not understand.

For me, I always sympathize with whom encounters unexpected difficulties, and still try to make it.

If they try, at least.