Real talk.Was the premature release a good idea ?

The unit cannon was a obvious kickstarter goal though, to say it wasn't expected is very wrong

It was a goal, yes.

But being a goal does leave room for failure.

If you feel like uber have failed, then that's cool, no one should say your opinion is wrong.

sure, but the thing is uber commented many times before of how difficult it is to implement allong with multiunittransports .. if people had readen about that they would have realised that it was more likely to be a post release thing ..
another thing i personaly once thought was that stretchgoals were rather to be the content to come postrelease .. but with naval having been in early was a sign that they already changed their developmentpath ... so most that followed the development could see that content didnt come in as we initialy expected ..

Was it? I don't remember it being a stretch goal, and Colin is wrong, a trailer that has no game play and even says "visualization" is not an advert for it. Heck, then why is it not an advert for the t1 tanks with duel barrels, or that lander, or the bots, or that long range artillery that looked like the big bertha! Or even the commander within it?

I'm not saying they failed, all I'm saying is im tired of people bullshitting saying these features weren't atleast confirmed at some point at release.

People are saying that?
Of course they were, they were essentially cancelled (As happens in software development), but they were confirmed.

definitely.

Yes some are defending saying certain features weren't confirmed even though they were.
*stares at squishy*
I mean really ;l

Games have needed patches for ages now, time to get your head out of the sand your eighty years old.

Well squish means well, but yeah, they were confirmed.

Stop being so defiant.

Right. That only could qualify for the Unit Cannon. If it was not going to be in the game however, DON'T put it on the store page when selling the game. It is misleading the customer to think that those concepts will be in the game. The game could have had several in game videos put up instead. But they chose to use the Kickstarter trailer.

Regardless, the other features like 40 man games and offline play were all stated to be present on release.

Here is why people are mad, especially about the no offline mode:

From Kickstarter:

Offline / LAN play support
By popular demand we are happy to announce that we will support LAN play and running your own servers! There will be elements of the game that are online only and will only be available when connected. For example things like player stats, auto-updating, metagame etc. However, we feel it’s important to be able to have an offline experience as well.

DRM-Free
For offline play, the game will be DRM free. For online play that gives you access to the global community and social features, you will need to be logged in.

From Steam Forum:

[Uber] Garat [developer] Sep 17, 2013 @ 10:26pm
Standard skirmish is already supported and will continue to grow as our AI continues to be developed. Galactic War will likely have a number of pre-defined skirmishes for you as you go through it, and the difficulty will determine how many AI's you're typically going up against. We'll be releasing more details about Galactic War as we proress through beta, as it primarily builds upon the core game experience.

But stand alone skirmish (currently online connection required, but will be full offline play at launch) is and will continue to see support and improvement.

[Uber] Garat [developer] Dec 19, 2013 @ 10:50am
Pasopov - that's one of the reasons we very clearly call out that early access requires online to play. Offline singleplayer will not be supported until the game is finished. You can play online singleplayer against the AI, but you are required to login until release.

From Reddit:

steamdude 8 points 1 month ago

Will offline mode and local savegemes (for skirmish games against the AI and galactic war) be available in v1.0?

• uber_neutrinoUber Employee 7 points 1 month ago

I can't really give specific answers as to what's in 1.0 at this point as we are still working it out. Savegames are already partially implemented internally but aren't ready for primetime.
​

From Steam Store earlier this year (no longer there due to editing for release):

Upcoming Features Include:

• Even Bigger Multiplayer - Up to 40-person battles with hundreds to thousands of units.
• Advanced Command and Control - Planetary Annihilation’s order queuing interface lets control massive armies across multiple worlds with ease -- get strategic views of the action anywhere by rotating, zooming in, and zooming out of a planet, and hotkey your armies.
• Galactic War - Join up with friends and fight in a scalable galactic war with your friends, your clan, by yourself over the 'net or even a LAN machine. Take over the galaxy!
• DRM Free - Play connected to the UberNet servers, your own private server, or offline. It’s your choice. Early Access online connectivity is required to play.

From Uber's Website PA FAQ:

Miscellaneous
Why Do I Need An Account, And What Do You Collect With An UberNet Account?
Even though Planetary Annihilation is considered DRM free, to download the game, patch to the latest content, you will need an internet connection and an UberNet account. The only information we keep about you in your account is what you provide: your username and your e-mail address. If you happened to buy something that requires physical shipping, we store your shipping address as well, but only if you require shipping.

No mention of always online connectivity for actual gameplay. NOT DRM FREE.

Balls!

I think we all mean well! lol

We need to somehow get people to understand that PA may be released but it is not "finished". A "finished" game is a game that doesn't have a full dev team working on it. As far as we know Uber continues to work on PA full time.

I love the shamelessly leading title of the thread.

We all know that it is not "finished," but being launched and out of early access does equal *release*. Which *should* have offline based on prior advertising and answers given by employees to potential customers.

More communication is what I take away from this to uber.

If you are selling a game and not labeling it an alpha/beta/early access version, then I think it is reasonable for customers to expect that game to be finished. I don't think nearly as many people would be upset if they just kept this game in early access until all of the promised features were implemented. At this point it would be perfectly fine for websites to start reviewing this game, and given its problems, including the inability to save in-game, I can't see that going well. Getting bad reviews is bad for the game and bad for everyone who wants to see the game do well.

Yep, they needed to do a pre-launch address to say that features ABC are not going to be in at launch, do not expect them.

And bing bang, we could say, feature ABC isn't in at launch, because they implicitly said it won't be in.

Ugh don't read any more steam reviews. It just seems to be comment after comment saying people won't buy the game if it's DRM. The only silver lining is that many say they would get it on sale once the DRM is gone and saves are in.
I can't help feel like maybe this WAS too soon, and I'm someone who LOVES this game

P.s I tried to provide reassurances that offline mode was on the way, but who knows if it will help. I feel like a gnat in a thunderstorm over there...