Soo, all you custom commander backers...

Ah well, I suppose I'm just looking for reasons as to why this wouldn't work. Commanders just feel sacred to me, seeing as people paid $1000 to get custom commanders and then people just go and mod it in so they get the feature for free.

I feel like there's going to be a lot of phallic shaped commands

Well they payed to get UBER to make a com just for them. All this is doing is letting us make our own coms and then share them with other mod users.

*Sigh* Yes, yes, I suppose so, anyway I'm not going to try to stop you, but I think I'm going to be perfectly fine with my Delta Commander (As soon as I accumulate the funds for Cosmic Limited)/any ACTUAL custom commanders that may come from this thread.

That's the glory of modding; it's all up to you.

Now while does seem a little evil I'd like to point out that technically they never paid just for the commander.. you see.. they paid to fund the game, not for the commander, they get the commander as a bonus! People who backed the 90$ tier didn't do it for Alpha they backed the game and got Alpha as a nice little treat, that's how kickstarter works really!

Yes, I know, but I doubt you are right for the majority of backers at the $90 level, anyway I know I'm nitpicking, and I'm sure you are right for 99% of people at the $1000 level.

besides, the game can either be moddable or locked down. If its moddable, which it is, people tend to be able to make things. So you can't limit only high backers to having it, just to getting it in vanilla, which is a mild convinence.

switch commander models around, you can use anyone elses custom commander, nothing really stops you. You could edit custom commanders into regular ingame ones, although id like the variety. Everyone gets to change anything, but by default the backers get their described reward

**** that noise, I upped my pledge to get the Commander. I also select it every game to lord my superiority over the "lessers".

Actually there is no guarantee that Kickstarter backers will get what has been promised to them. It's up to the company (Uber in this case) to honor the agreement, and to the backers to control that this will actually happen.

This seems like a brilliant idea, and it still puzzled me how Uber couldn't think of something similar in the first place. In fact, what's the sense of promising something *only you can use* when we all know that as soon as those Custom Commander will be in-game, everyone will be able to use them. Or delete them.

This is true only for the Kickstarter itself, rewards are protected under the Kickstarter TOS and you would have a basis for civil legal action should a company fail to deliver on them.

Thanks, I wasn't aware of that.

And, frankly, it may explain why, getting closer to the release date, Custom Commanders had the precedence on other aspects of the game.

well, unless I'm mistaken, that is because graphics workers need stuff to do as well. They are idle as long as programming is going on without graphic work.

however, it is necesary to follow through not for legal action but just yo try and be right. Not some perpetually bleached white sense of giving everyone any demand, but at least a direction of fulfilment just because it is right to do.

Well, it might be. But it is not that we float in variety of units, specially regarding Naval, Air and Orbital. Or typologies of planets and the asteroids belt. There could have been plenty of work for designers on those fronts. Plus, I do not think that making 100 people happy with a custom commander will soften up reviewers and few dozens thousands other customers, who will likely perceive the game as incomplete.

So, since I doubt that at Uber people are less than smart, there should be some precise reasons why they chose to give priority to a frankly secondary aspect of the game, leaving behind what could really affect the success of the game at release. You may disagree, but I am worried about the absence of the Unit Cannon and other promised features, at release.

From my perspective, it has been a big mistake. But of course, I do not possess all the data so I do not know what was at stake. Perhaps Uber had no other choice.

Honestly, I always argue with the above. Like, its awfully harsh to grade a constantly improving first-generation of a game. I could see if it was run into a corner and then abandoned. Not if it is constantly yet steadily trying to catch up with the games in the same genre given 5 or more years of continued polish.

I mean, isn't FA technically a player mod for a game? To grade it against the vanilla supcom would be more accurate. But that is all off topic, I am just saying I am happy as long as things keep headed that direction.

I don't think art design does units. I am pretty sure that would mean them making big balance decisions, implementing a ton of numbers in a config file, sometimes adding new hooks for units to use, and troubleshoot unit use. The first inferno, gunship, and orbital stuff, were models made quickly as a placeholder, a simple shape in blender it looked, or copies an existing model with a name under it. Those were both buggy at first in use, and obviously not started by the art team. The art team doesn't do that, they do commander models and after-unit-creation passes on model-animation.

Besides, plenty of people complain about the commander skin work, as if it wasn't a kickstarter reward and are trying to cause a civil war over it. I mean, to have funded the game, everyone knew this work would have to come down the line, otherwise deals off and there would have been no game.

No, that's FAF.

Fair enough. I don't want to criminalize who bought a Custom Commander. Uber has obviously to honor that commitment.

But I also believe that a simple math could prove how this entire operation hasn't been managed at its very best. I would prefer Uber giving priority to aspects of the game that impact on the gameplay, or that affects the totality of the customers, and not just 100 out of 65.000 (plus all the Steam customers).

Well, what's done is done, so we should probably move on.

The 65,000 would be playing OpenRA, Starcraft2, Supcom, and Zero-k (which they do too, dont get me wrong), if it werent for people like the 100.

Acceptable prioritization.

What do you mean? 'cos my math tells me that the 100 Custom Commanders Operation made basically no difference in the budget for Planetary Annihilation.

it was more than what it raised directly. It was also good pr to list all those rewards. Any game with those when selling under similar circumstances sells better, any with just the initial low one plus maybe an additional one for soundtrack, doesn't.

it worked here, prison architect, and ouya. The difference is comparing to starbound or kerbal although I may say kerbal creeped to fame rather than taking it from the launch.