Beta vs Release

Hello Everyone,

I have recently only discovered this game (no idea how I did not hear of this earlier). I have played Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander since '97, and I am very excited for Planetary Annihilation.

Should I pay the extra $20 for the Beta and starting playing or just wait the 1-2 months for release? After a quick forum search, it is obvious there is a ton of bugs and whatnot, and I am curious as to how far everyone's input has gone into updating and creating this game.

Looking forward to a response.

I dont regret having spent a rather high sum on KS.
I'd do it again.
=> Beta

im one person who will assist you if you do join beta and have issues.
myself i think its awesome , i love TA and love this, but yes there are bugs being worked on but its still a very enjoyable game (i think it is anyways)

Personally $20 would be a little steep for me to go into the beta now being so close to (potential) December release. But then, as it stands, it is still a very fun game, though I haven't experienced any of the serious crash bugs other players seem to be having (guess I get lucky).

I backed on KS when Beta access was only $40, and that started in September, I couldn't bear the thought of not having it sooner

You can find lots of gameplay videos on Youtube and elsewhere on this forum if you want to see more of the game. Might help you decide.

I view it as a change to watch one of the best games develop and improve right before your eyes. Plus Uber does a great job of trying to fix bugs and asks for ideas/suggestions from the community on a regular basis. I bought the Galactic Edition Alpha package after it was discounted to $70 and never regretted it (so I've been playing since late alpha). I only wish I heard about it while it was on Kickstarter so I could have seen it from the very beginning. So my vote is most certainly for beta!

Ok, thank you for the replies. I am leaning towards joining the Beta

Two more questions.

1. I have an IMac, anyone been playing it on one yet?

2. When the community make suggestions, does it seem that they are well-received and action is taken in some cases? (I am sure I will have a few suggestions of my own, )

have you got windows bootcamped on it??
and what chipset does it have for graphics ??

I do not have Windows on it. I noticed on the homepage that it will run on Mac OS. Is the Beta only for Windows?

I will have to check my stats when I return home in a few hours.

It has Mac OS X 10.7 and 10.8 support atm. If you got that, you might want to be wary of what hardware you have. the game is currently not optimized and requires quite a bit of juice to run, especially RAM (4 GB is bare minimum I would say, though that should change)

As for Uber, in general, yes they are very responsive. You can sift through the forum and very frequently see responses by uber employees to ideas.

Glad to hear that! Why don't you post your hardware stats and what graphics card you have and we can compare it to systems we've played on? (It does support OSX, but there is currently no mac launcher so updating would be a pain until they fix that.) As for your second question that is a most definite yes. Uber does their best to take suggestions from the community (best job I've seen any dev do).

And yes maxpowerz! Ouroboros7 most definitely would benefit from a real OS like Windows 7 or Linux Mint! (No offense, but I'm no lover of apple.)

no the beta runs on mac, but some chipset can be a bit of a fiddle to get things right.
there are some people on the forum that will assist you if you have issues tho , like me and SXX.

ATI based macs seem to have most issues but still work, if your mac is Intel HD or nVidia based then Sweet.

also is it a white mac or a silver metal mac?

It really depends on the quality of the idea and how well it works with Uber's overall intent. Also community reaction to a degree as well.

Mike

We're all hoping for a kick butt game.
So if you make suggestions, expect the community to analyze them under a microscope.
Expect high praise for good ideas.
But also be prepared to be have them shot down. It's just how it goes here, but I think it's for the best.

Uber has take a lot of feedback from us and implemented it.
They have also acknowledged suggestions and said they will test them.
But they are clearly in crunch time, so don't expect too much response from their side now.


If you just want a polished game, then wait.
If you want to help contribute, then please do join!

It is an Intel based Mac, 2011 or 2012 model. It has the silver metal backing.

4GB mem, but i can easily upgrade this (up to 16 - overkill)

Thank you for the information, as soon as i return home. I will copy and paste my the rest of my stats. If you guys think it will run ok, i will download it this evening and begin playing!

Great! This is exactly what I was hoping for! I am looking forward to hearing what everyone will reply with (if i make suggestions)

Glad to hear it!

I kinda struggled finding the 90$ for the Alpha access and I dont regret it at all! this game is awesome bro. has an awesome community as well. I do suggest u get the Beta if u can bro.

4GB should be enough to play on a moderate/small sized planet with a small moon, maybe another really small moon for planet smashing. That being said, I'm on a Windows machine, Mac might handle memory better/worse.

Either way, 4 GB should be enough to get your feet wet until Uber optimizes ram usage.

Getting into large planets though starts eating a TON of memory. I have 8 GB and I've seen a couple large planets and few moons take up 7 GB easily.

Remember, that's not a bad thing.
RAM unused is ram wasted. (Just like Metal )

I'm playing the game on an Acer Iconia Tab W700, it has 4gb ram and its running windows 8 64bit,
I can play 2 small planets and 1-2 moons, or one planet 1000+ in size and a moon, and game runs fine my end.

i can also jam about 1000units into my view with minor slowdown but if i zoom out to the strategy map (icons) wow it runs fine.

my system is a bit slower than a 2011+ imac !!