Server In 1.0

At the very least, if Uber's dead-set on committing to this baffling decision, this should be omitted from the website.

So should the 40 player thing.

Do you just enjoy making crap up? Seriously if you aren't spamming FAF advertisements you've just been inventing things Uber supposedly said and implying everyone is incompetent. They never said that 1.0 will be the last patch if the game isn't as successful as they hope, or even implied anything like that. They will release the offline server, they will release the competitive features. This is not even a question.

I would argue that that is not on Uber's side at all. What is best for them and what they think is best for them are not necessarily causally related things. I firmly believe I would be supporting Uber, trying to help them so they don't have to make the mistake and learn from the lesson. Me believing this is a horrible thing to not include in 1.0 obviously goes into this viewpoint, but please understand our perspective.

I'll be the last one to type a message on this thread.

Kinda getting tired of these annoyingly long threads about development.

DO IT! YOU WON'T!

- I'm not spamming FAF advertisements. I'm comparing PA to a game/lobby I perfectly know.
- They clearly stated that they are going to support PA if it's a success.
Guess what will happens if it's not.

It's you putting words I didn't said in my mouth.

Also, nothing is telling me they will release competitive features or offline server one day.
They've said they will, but they've said many things that are long gone now (remember the egg for example?).

Same with you. I don't want Uber to make a big mistake, but I don't want to be stuck with the always-on DRM watching me due to business decisions and time constraints.

These are also the people who supported things like SMNC for much longer than they were economically viable. Since these are partially complete features you would literally have to think that all of Uber are legitimately criminal if you didn't think they would ever release them if the game "didn't meet expectations".

They were also the guy saying that SMNC won't be abandonned because PA was coming.

If patching PA is not economically viable, they shouldn't do it. Or they will die as a company doing that.

So you can't say for sure they will patch the game for XX months/years, and you can't say it would be criminal to drop PA either.

I personally think that a RTS need a continuing support to have a chance to exists. But I'm also not convinced with the road they are taking regarding PA (focusing on solo/AI/social media), so I wouldn't care either way.

Name me one game with always online DRM at launch that did not have drama and bad press for the first month.

I can name three games that did have drama.

Assassins Creed
Diablo 3
Sim City

You've already got my money, but I probably won't touch the game for 1-2 months after launch at this rate.

If I could give a suggestion to Uber, they should make a large banner or something in the main menu clearly stating that "Offline mode/dedicated servers coming soon", I still think they'll get flak for having DRM on physical discs (as it means you'll NEED to update no matter what to play offline), but to be fair all console games this generation need to both install and often need an online update and no one went crazy over it.

To be fair here, the game still needs A LOT of polish. Its great and such, but comparing the level of polsih between SupCom at release and PA right now, there is still an awful lot of work to do in my opinion.

Which Supcom?

Initial reputation might not be as important as some people think.

Here is a example, Stardock's Elemental, it was released in a very buggy and unfinished state, and got some pretty bad reviews, but apparently that was not enough to force the developer abandon it for financial reasons. Stardock release the improved versions as independent expansion packs, and got better and better scores on review sites.
http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/elemental-war-of-magic-review/1900-6275189/
http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/fallen-enchantress-review/1900-6400437/
http://www.gamespot.com/reviews/fallen-enchantress-legendary-heroes-review/1900-6409211/

I guess Uber might have a plan similar to this.

Not sure what you mean? The original release i guess.

They also freely gave away the expansions or gave discounts depending on when you bought into the franchise. FE:LH is pretty fun!

I have no idea if they made money or not over the life of the franchise, but Brad made it a point to defend his brand.

I was actually around for the development of the Elemental series - and while I'll admit that things did get better, I'm pretty sure Brad Wardell would rather not have needed to give away free copies of Fallen Enchantress and Legendary Heroes to early buyers like me just to make up for the fact that the game was released in a state where many users were still encountering frequent crashes, and there were serious balance problems.

In terms of stability, PA is looking to be in better shape than Elemental, but all that could amount to little if the game is released with no offline mode and then the servers crash from the strain of post-release traffic. Yes, adding offline mode could require a significant amount of development time, but is that really worse than having to deal with a PR nightmare right when you're trying to get out as much positive information about your game as possible?

Well I seem to remember a lot of people needing to upgrade when Supcom came out, it had a CPU problem I think, the ai still causes slowdown in Sucpom 1, even on my computer. (Not stuttering or anything, but... slowdown?..)

Well Uber's going to continue updating and expanding the game for free.

Doesn't the game slow down on purpose to maintain a framerate that doesn't make you think of Powerpoint?

I bought Elemental at release and after it crashed an burned, I got the FE and FE:LH for free as an apology. Planetary Annihilation is nowhere near as bad as Elemental was at launch. BUT Elemental didn't force you to be always online at launch either!