Easter Eggs, Market System, Etc.

Since this is a new generation of gaming, marking the advent of real online community and social media, may I recommend that the developers include some features that can help make the game more interesting for the community?

Just to list a few ideas:

1. Easter Eggs
2. Original Total Annihilation sound track (suggest people listen to it before thinking it's retro)
3. Cosmetic-only changes for unique armies (native support / not through mods)
4. Market / trading / in-game rewards / economy system for above mentioned

Hi @Svek
Welcome to the forums!

1. I'm hoping to see some easter eggs too. I'm sure they will slide a few in there for us.
2. I think TA is now owned by Wargaming.net so that soundtrack is probably off limits.
3. What kind of cosmetic changes would you like to see?
4. Could you elaborate on these? My understanding is that this game will be the classic pay-to-play style.

I may or may not watch the TA opening cinematic before I start playing PA.

"Both bent on complete and total annihilation of the other"

Example
I think the best real example I can suggest is for a developer to go look at AirMech (which is currently in beta)
It is not a "Pay-to-win" model at all. The stuff you buy in the market only allows you to alter the way that the units look in a purely cosmetic way. Which now allows for an endless amount of unique customization = longer playability.

Market System
I think a market will allow for a great way for the developers to get additional money onto the project, where collectors alike can enjoy further into the overall ownership experience.

Unique Armies (Cosmetic Only)
Maybe you could buy or obtain through a reward system unique units that are part of a collection

• Desert/Guerilla
• Winter/Arctic
• Steampunk/Badlands
• Modern
• Limited Editions / Seasonal

I would really enjoy it if playing the game more and more allowed me to unlock through rewards, and then trade such rewards with others to complete the set. If I want to "pay" to complete the set rather than "earn" that's up to me, but the most important aspect is that this gives absolutely no advantage since it is purely cosmetic.

So kind of like if you had a really rare army skin like ultra rare you could make a deal with someone to trade that for a bunch of lower class skins sounds cool would love that.

I'd love a market along those lines. I think an in-game currency that you can both earn and buy might work better through and it also would be nice to be able to make your own skin sets to sell for more credits or distribute to others. I'm also hoping that Uber will slip in a few Easter Eggs since they're always fun.

This was discussed multiple times already.

1. This is not a free-to-play game, having microtransactions in a game that I paid for is a bad business practice, even if everything is just visual.
2. Cosmetics are expensive to make. I would prefer uber to spend their time on making the game better and not on trying to get easy cash.
3. Having ton of different models and textures can be harder to render than what we have, and the game will take a lot more hard drive space (Like TF2. It's freakin' enormous and consists of 85% hats and 10% misc items.).
4. Unit readability is important. If every unit comes in variety of colors and shapes, it makes everything harder to recognize and learn.
5. This game is designed to be highly modable and able to be played offline. You can't really combine those qualities with microtransaction system. And also team army game mode. How are you going to make cosmetics work in there?

It may be okay to sell commanders, but even that is on the edge of acceptability. Anything more is a cash grab.

As for in-game ways of getting stuff, achievements (along the lines of "complete one galactic war to get Commander N) may work for that, but again, modability. Someone will just make a mod that opens everything, so why bother? Maybe something like opening a commander that you didn't knew exists after you triggered some specific easter egg... That would be nice.
But still, I think that just having everything opened from the start is the best option.

Good points. I guess it would be better to stay away from areas like that.

Free to play is a blight on gaming, and such "markets" really need to stop. Plain and simple, you are paying more, for less, and have less of a claim to any rights with respect to that content.

I think it is only a matter of time before people start to realize how serious a consumer protection issue that **** is, and companies start getting into seriously hot water for it.

PA is going to be a gloriously honest pay-to-play for a fair price stated upfront, and then you get access to all the gameplay content. No bullshit, no gimmicks, no in-game "rewards", no "trading" of anything. It's a strategy game.

1. I don't think there is anything wrong with letting PA have additional content that you can pay for. I don't understand how this is different than the options for Kickstart / pre-Alpha, Alpha and Beta special unlocks. It shouldn't be a big problem if you want to get exclusive content or just collector content by earning it or paying for it. Again, there is no advantage, just cosmetic.
2. If cosmetics are expensive, it makes sense that people are willing to pay for it. Being able to personalize and customize your armies to "make it your own" is a great way to make the "game better".
3. I can hardly see how hard disk space should be a big issue. Would you say that if they had really amazing cinematic scenes (say, for a campaign mode) that required hard disk space?
4. Agreed to an extent. I think there are obvious points especially equipped weaponry and other visual recognitions such as size or UI icons. Besides, with the amounts of armies that people should be building, it's not too 100% important as long as you know if it is a vehicle, bot, air, or orbital. This point is awfully similar (at a macro-level) of to not having the ability to see the battle on every planet, or on the other-side of the planet.
5. "Microtransaction" is in interesting word borrowed from your YouTube link, but I think the reality is that some people are willing to pay and others are patient and are willing to earn it/trade for it. I'm saying give all options, no harm. I don't see how having different units causes an issue on team-play, other RTS games have very different looking units via "races" and team play is not confusing --- you will know if it is a friendly or not.

To tie it back down to my other point about community. Having a trading platform, rewarding system can work as a driver for the community as we can literally interact with one another beyond the 1 dimension of RTS-only.

I just cannot understand how anyone in their right mind would ever actually request that content be locked behind a pay wall. We can disagree over whether we like cosmetics or not, but why on earth would you want to be required to pay for them in order to use them?

It is just insanity.

I think paid cosmetics are both pointless and a technicality to get around it being illegal to charge different people different prices. If you really want to send Uber more money, you can pledge however much you want on Kickstarter, and I doubt they would reject a donation check. But don't force everyone else to deal with a market system just because you want to send the company more money.

Ye gods, the Kool-Aid is strong with this one. No, that is absolutely not acceptable. Interestingly different units are the heart and soul of the game, and you propose to sell that out so that you can be charged to access them?

As soon as anything gameplay relevant, even if the game is designed to be "fair" with some players not having access to gameplay content, I am done with your game. That is flat-out unacceptable. At best, you're forcing the game to be designed so that the units are either redundant, or don't matter. See League of Legends. And at worst, you are requiring everyone pay to unlock that gameplay content, either as pay-to-win, or just pay-to-play using gameplay-significant content. And it is an extremely thin excuse to multiply the price of your content by a factor of 50, sometimes more. You said it yourself, as long as the unit types don't actually matter, everything is OK, right? No. The units must matter. This is a strategy game.

NO market, no microtransactions, nothing of the kind. It's bullshit, and I am sick of hearing fools actually request that a Kickstarted game, or an indie developer, or any publisher at all, engage in the same wallet-sucking corporate maximizing bullshit that large, soulless publishers engage in as they ruin games for a quick profit. Stop requesting this. You do not want it.

I am 100% okay with paying for a good game. Likewise, I am 100% okay to pay for additional content, especially if it has to do with customization or personalization. I guess it's sort of like explaining to someone right now why paying for this game while it's in Beta is still worth it, some people just don't like to pay for good things.

Don't get me confused. I truly don't think that paying to get an advantage is correct. I also am not suggesting that PA becomes a free-to-play. So hopefully we can keep this on topic.

Airmech is a great game with a great f2p model, but it wouldn't fit here. This is a single payment for everything RTS. The only reason Airmech is f2p is so that it has more players. That isn't an issue here.

-1

Why pay for cosmetics when you can make your own with modding?

OK, how about this. Instead of paying to access those customization options, you get them for free?

Like, say, every commander design were unlocked from the get-go?

Because that is what is going to happen. And you are a fool for thinking you would prefer to be required to pay for each commander design.

My suggestion since the start was an option to do both: "buy" and "earn".

The trade system just helps with putting what you "earn" into the market since you might be looking to trade. Others who are willing to pay for it can always choose that on their own.

commander design? what?
what do you mean by commander design? in specifics.

Delta, Theta, Alpha, Raptor, etc. etc. The different commanders.

soooo the choices between the ones we get? the design part done by Uber?

Kickstarter and preorder rewards are special - they are for the people who made this game possible.

I want game to be actually better, not "better" in quotation marks.

Microtransaction is actual word for this system, used by pretty much everyone. And some people want to pay for a game and get the game for money they paid. All of it.
I'm with ledarsi on this one. Why would you want content to be locked? Behind paywall, or "experience" or anything. What's the point of that when you can have everything from the start? And what's the point of "experience" in an RTS game aside from milking money from people who don't want to grind it?

If you already played, you could notice that there is a gamemode where everything is shared. If two players have different cosmetics, which one you are going to use on units they make together?

I wouldn't call an auction house a community interaction.
Microtransactions is not a bad model in general, it just doesn't fit for this game. If you want units to look different - get a mod, there will be plenty of them on release.