Where's the big parade?

Hey Ya'll, long time lurker and Alpha backer here. I believe in the vision! So, preface: I love this game and everything it stands for.

So, I've been having a hard time this week. Like, I mean, one of the most highly backed games EVER on Kickstarter, years of development and a massively devoted fan-base...

... and where's the frickin' fanfare? The Dev's blog post announcing the release was pretty meager, haven't seen any critical reviews, and the user reviews out there are disappointingly lukewarm...

All I'm saying, is this release seemed like it was... forced? Brad and Garat have only ever told us that the game will be released when it is *done.* That is, feature complete, stable, and resource-efficient. So I'm super curious why the 1.0 release was so suddenly announced, pushed, and in a state that new players rightly observe does not feel feature complete and stable.

I'm, you know, proud of this game! I don't want people to judge it poorly because it was taken out of the oven with a little haste.

Anyone else know what I'm feelin'? Jivving my jive?

Cheers,
-- Me

I know what you mean. I don't know If I've even met a "new" player yet

Meh, it feels like drama. I rather not go there. It really is an alright state. The release probably wasn't the best anyone could hope for, but the alternative may not be as glamourous as everyone says.

And I mean, EVERYONE is saying Uber are scammers and forced 1.0 against the community will and should have to refund everyone, when at the same time a business decision to get a stable build to lay the foundation for patches onto a stable build and get as many features complete as you can so you know you can isolate the ones that take more time isn't a bad decision.

I mean, savegames and server for instance. Those. Notice they are features that work independent of the gameplay? They can be ironed out in seperate code altogether. They focused on the code that share code with other code, getting it as good as possible all for one single uniform build. It is an interesting move, it doesn't "impress the playerbase" but I can't say I personally mind.

But those scammer theorists. They mind very personally.

Personally, I can't enjoy release even if I wanted to, I keep having to correct poor information abundant over release, and it makes me want to pick fights randomly in the streets afterwards. If I actually could enjoy release, it wouldn't be too bad tbh, I occasionally play GW and coop mods and might even try PAStats ladder and matchmaking as a low level I am. But here I am, not enjoying it, the reason entirely independent of the game itself, so I can't comment on what release feels like.

Yes i think the it was released prematurely. They fixed lots of bugs in the recent patch that made it less enjoyable for anyone that wrote those bad reviews. They might have been able to save a few points for each metacritic review by postponing release by a few days.

The kickstarter **** is just plain stupid. Uber did everything we wanted and more.

Overall it was not a bad release though, and people are freaking out because they don't get offline at the exact moment they want it, like children. I don't think offline was ever an official plan for version 1.0 even though Uber might have said it in FAQ.

I overall have enjoyed PA and am sure that all of the features discussed in the Kickstarter will be added eventually, but stating that Uber has done everything we wanted and more... is just not true. No DRM was a huge part of the Kickstarter, as was offline play (local server).

I am not saying those things will not come... but it is a bit frustrating when people apply that everything stated in the Kickstarter was delivered.

I agree. The release was rushed, is missing a lot of features, and could have been better with a lot more build up.

The trailer was awesome, but... that's about it. PA is missing a lot of very important features. Features that were promised to be at release. Uber told us they would release the game when it is done, but I don't think it's done. And I understand they're going to be updating the game over time, but a lot of the initially promised features aren't here. Asteroids, submarines, offline, server, matchmaking, and others.

The core game is here, but it feels like it's missing some of the core game features (offline and server being the biggest two IMO), and it's also lacking a lot of polish.

The other thing that has been disappointing is how quiet Uber has been. Uber doesn't talk much with its fans anymore, nor do they seem to take criticism well.

A lot of these bad reviews, lossed sales, and all around bad press could have been avoided with a little community management, release build up, and all around better communication. A lot of the people that are crying "scam" believe it's a scam because they're missing some information. Information that could have been easily made available, saving PA a lot of bad press, and gaining lots of sales.

PA is an awesome game. There's just some issues with the game and how Uber has been operating as of late.

Understatement of the year.

I have a dirty joke response to that... but I don't want to get banned.

I don't think this is true to be honest. Chucklefish and Uber both communicate a lot with the playerbase. Reguardless, people complain lack of progress, they don't have what they want right then and there and get bored of waiting, makes it a scam.

Seriously, something takes a whole few months to develop a new build, people claim it's a ripoff. Especially Starbound, that game wasn't that expensive, I remember buying 4 copies of it for 60.

Probably no parade because that might imply they are finished developing the game, which would cause a shitstorm of category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale.

I don't think Uber has been communicating much with us at all.

Easy example, all of the controversy over offline and the community thinking we'll have offline and Uber letting us think so.

Forum posts from the devs are few and far between. I understand that they can't spend all of their times on the forums, and some people don't want to spend time on the forums. That's fine.

But even with that, there aren't nearly as many posts from the devs these days as there used to be. And, wouldn't all of this be the job of the community manager? To communicate with the community, answer questions, manage expectations, and the like?

https://forums.uberent.com/threads/release-a-sacred-graal.62180/page-3#post-965713

We knew it in July. Devs don't have time reinterating answers every week though. Well, it cuts from their work at least, Chucklefish keeps a weekly report to it's players on what they are working on now and plan on working on next, but they have to set an alarm to remember to get around to doing it and I am sure it breaks their concentration on work.

The devs could communicate more, but they do communicate, with enough listening we can get a lot of info, they didn't communicate any clearer than the above link to me directly as a Vanguard before, and that is because that is about as clear as development *planning* is. It is pretty maybe-maybenot.

I was just trying to convince a friend to buy PA a few days ago, on account of it being "released", and he said "I don't want to buy an alpha game". I then realized that many more potentially new customers have been put off by the steam reviews and other reports that the game still feels unfinished, with a lackluster unit roster and an abundance of crashes/bugs.

I would have defended the game, I mean it did technically meet all of its goals for release (minus the offline mode), but it just doesn't feel all there. The balance is just a bit off, the campaign seems like bot matches, and it seems like despite PA being complete, I think Uber spread their work too thin in order to meet promises they had made from a concept on Kickstarter. Having been a huge advocate of Kickstarter goals myself, I think they were all awesome ideas, but I don't think Uber had the time or money to build up on any of them and really integrate their mechanics seamlessly.
Just look at: Gas Giants, Water planets/Navy, and Galactic War. All features are present, but none really add to the game in a unique way.

I have got close to 15 people to buy the game up to now. All of them play the game with me almost on a daily basis, and no one has yet uttered so much as a single negative comment about it (we draw enjoyment even out of the lobby bugs now). We have practically stopped playing anything else for 6 weeks now. Where's the "big parade"?

On our Mumble server every day.

Lobby simulator 2014 is the game of the year man!

Question. Did your friend buy minecraft, terraria, starbound, or titanfall?

If so, hypocrite lol. Then again, if it was just a thoughtless way of him saying he isn't interested, I can understand that a rts game isn't everyone's cup of tea.

Idk, even if he did buy minecraft or the like, it has been years and a lot of people are just numb to the alpha thing anymore. They spent years playing a game as it is updated, and eventually got bored of the concept of playing a continually improving game. I can even respect that, getting bored of a trend of game.

I just don't think Planetary Annihilation was that bad a release, like "its an alpha" is really false, I played the alpha and if people call this alpha then I wish they could take a trip to the Twilight Zone with me. Over-privledged players think they know what an alpha is, they call this alpha because they never played a real developers alpha when the engine just started supporting movement, weapons, and controls and nothing else including any form of pathing.

I played that alpha, this is a true release, beyond here any development afterwards fix release bugs and add post-release feature additions. Anything added beyond here is a feature update added to an already finished game. The game isn't finished in the way everyone wanted, but it's finished and you can't call it an alpha.

That the game isn't truly finished may be why there are not that many official reviews out yet - my theory, reviewers like the game, want to give it a good score, but cant do so in its current state, so are giving and indie a bit of leeway by waiting a couple of weeks for more lose-ends to be tied up? - saves on having to edit a review later.

I agree with Brian, this game is not finished. Why is it being released now? Where is the explanation? Where is the quote from Uber saying why they are releasing now and when we will get out promised features?

-Where is the save feature?
-Where is offline/hosting your own server
-Where is the polish on many aspects of the game such as the user interface for galactic war? Things are constantly cut off on it, you can't scroll the galaxy map, you can't abandon a war without first going into it.
-where are order queues and build queues as first class citizens? Ie. queue up units to be built from factories and cancel units earlier in the queue like FA. What about build orders for engineers, where is the ability to move the buildings before they are built?

This game has so much potential and Uber has developed so much good functionality, but it's not polished and feels unfinished in lots of areas.

To me the frustration comes from two points:
-we don't have features we were promised we would have by release
-we weren't given any explanation about why the game was rushed to release and when we would get out promised features. I mean seriously, something stating that we needed more revenue but we promise in a few weeks we will give you save, offline etc, would have sufficed.

I also agree with Brian that Uber has been way too quiet of late and this is not good. If they have nothing to hide, then they should answer the fan's and backer's concerns in a post on their main page so it's easily visible.

I think the problem was, things were going well- updates were rolling so Uber decided months ago that "We can release in time for PAX- we got this".... The problem is once you start working towards a physical release like that (PA is on the shelves ) it becomes more and more expensive to delay past the set date. You simply *can't* stop a large scale logistical operation like that once you get to a certain point. The only other option would have been to repeat the 'early access boxed edition' and I don't think that would be a good path to re-tread.

So Uber had a deadline, and they went for it. In their defence the game is good in my opinion. The multi-player side of PA is superb and if the game is reviewed from that perspective it will do very well. Lack of features like save, offline or a scripted tutorial however aren't ideal in terms of single player. Thankfully the game being 'released' has nothing to do with finished and Uber are still very much working on it, and will continue to do so for some time to come.

With respect to communication, the thread with @varrak shows they very much do communicate with us (I'm loving the snippets we've been getting regarding optimisation of memory!). Things like this are interesting and not likely to upset anyone. What we *aren't* getting any more are updates about longer term plans or business strategy as unfortunately these have culminated in arguments when things didn't go as planned. I'm just grateful they're allowing guys like Varrak to still talk to us as much as they do

He did in fact buy all of those except Titanfall, but I actually think some of those early access games are what put him off of buying more unfinished games.

Minecraft has felt complete since Alpha IMO, and I think that falls into a whole other category of an Indie game that went mainstream and got too popular for its own good.

We had a ton of fun playing terraria together with some other friends, but I think Starbound was really the beggining of the end.

When Steam started allowing developers to release their half-baked concept pre-alphas on the basis of "Early Access", I think the joy of investing in an Alpha and watching it grow alongside active feedback from the developers has faded away. Now the computer gaming world is plagued with partially made games, or "eternal betas", because developers get all the money they ever wanted from customers who thought they were investing in a good product, and never need to finish their games.
My friends and I were all dissapointed with Starbound because we payed for it to encourage the devs to continue working off of it, but instead it seems like they just sorta slapped mod support on it, gave it a few small updates, and have since left their customers in the dark as to what they actually plan on doing with their game.

I prepurchased the limited edition of PA because I thought it would have to overcome the "eternal beta" phase and push the developers to a full-fledged release because of the goals they set for themselves on Kickstarter. Instead, it seems to have turned out as the opposite, where it feels like they rushed release to do so and didn't really finish their game.
I am all to familiar with this problem too, as the infamous EA has exhibited in triple A titles like Battlefield 4 and Sim City, games that I was very excited for but were forced out to meet a release date and ended up missing tons of content. Even the developers of both of these games have admitted that they had much more planned and in the works, but were never able to come through because EA forced them to release.