Kickstarter Opinion Piece

I was recently reading this opinion piece and the associated link and noticed that the good work so far in the early development of this game may be being missed by some. I realise update #18, which is linked on the Planetary Annihilation website, provides links to forum updates by Neutrino along with the TwitchTv demos, but somehow the journalist missed this.

Is there anything that can be done to make things clearer on the progress updates via the official website?

All you can do is properly inform who ever you can, I mean, I dunno about others but I have very little faith in "reporters" or Game Reviewers when it comes to the Games Industry.

For example;

That really(to me) shows their ignorance of the "real world" of Game Development, and specifically in this case, Publishing/The Publishers themselves.

Mike

Strange article, but it have some truth. From all games I backed only Double Fine is doing good job for community management and status reports. Others, including Uber, just trowing their fans into forums and releasing some information via unreliable forum channels (instead of updates).

Problem is that only Double Fine seems to acknowledge that they are not making their own game, but they are making fans' game (including themselfs as fans), so it's nothing to hide from backers.

People that complain about no updates, are you not following them on facebook? They've put very thorough updates there that include all the posts in the forum and any major non-technical updates.

Uber is a small company, and although I am not their financial accountant, I doubt they are making a ton of money off our SMNC cosmetics.

That being said, unlike OTHER kickstarter projects he "shames" in his critique, this one has a preorder (so you are practically buying a product, although like tf2 it could come 10 years later), and public update, and anyone can still get in on a lot of the hype.

In matter of fact, I would dare say Uber read that article or SOMETHING, because it is like they intentionally release the "so what's new" posts in the wording to "show what they did with the money". Like they knew that would be an issue for the beginning.

On an unrelated note, didn't MNC get a lot of Shadowrun players for their initial base? I remember |Deadeye talked a ton about Shadowrun.

You know, social network != internet. And there is much more social networks than facebook. Also, if there is no updates, there is nothing to follow, no matter the media.

Well, actually, video documentary was in the stretch goals we reached. I hope that this crappy "Uber space station" with awful montage wasn't that "documentary".

I do no expect Double Fine level of documentary from them, but at least regular information about what is going on and how they see their game in the end. Hell, we already know almost everything about Star Citizen already, far before it's even in alpha.

Uber is either hideous either they don't have any vision of game they are doing. I'm more and more sure that this is later. There is no update for 3 weeks already, neutrino says that this is because it's only code. So, it looks like Uber team is consists only from programmers and single musician? Art style, 3d models, animation, game design anyone?

Just look at Double Fine documentary. They posting technical information for though few people who care on forums, but video documentary about game design. It doesn't tell much (it doesn't tell a thing, actually), but it tells about general direction.

I dunno what is worst - Uber hiding good information for marketing or Uber don't have that information at all.

Programming is what comes first when doing a "white box" version of the game. That is where you make the game's maps and units and weapons and values for each, without giving them art, making them essentially a white box with a damage-health-speed value. Then, you tweak that until it works well, and THEN give everything cosmetics at once so all the cosmetics match the created units.

The sound guy is just their permanent sound lead, and also he sorta came guranteed with the "full orchestra" stretch goal. More people would be mad if he didn't exist than if he did, because that stretch goal wouldn't seem as important.

Anyway, why is it bad that Uber has no information on a game they don't even have functional on a playable level yet? They can't know much about a game they haven't "blown anything up with an asteroid" in yet.

Personally I don't understand the articles opinion that somehow the game devs have to 'reach out' to the wider community or non-backers during development. If you were so interested in the idea, why wouldn't you back the project? And if you're not that interested, well, wasting time & money trying to get your interest seems like a stupid thing to do. Many of the 'wait and see' customers are going to come at the game with a fresh look when it gets released.

Not only that, but it's obvious the journalist didn't have time to actually look around and find the information that's out there. Yes, right now, it will take you more than 5 seconds of digging to find out more information about PA. Actually it takes you about that long to look past the header page to where it says "Find updates on facebook!". So any criticism on how hard it is to find updates is frankly, unfounded and unfair.

Very interesting articles, thanks for sharing!

1. They already have tech (engine), so they are not developing white boxes version.
2. It's not about 3d models, it's more about game logic and game design (should come after initial game logic)
3. Game logic is what is making game a game, not framework for mods.
4. Game logic is a hardest and greatest part of any game code, cause it's where all real stuff is going on (AI is game logic, pathfinding is underlaying tool for AI. Hit management - hp decrease, armor accounting and so on, is an game logic, ballistics calculation is a tool).
5. Game logic can't be done without solid design and understatement what you are trying to achieve. It should have such roadmap, so game design of something may start asap.

We have artworks and a lot of ACU concepts, so I'm sure that there is a hard work on 3d models under way, actually.

And they probably have greater vision than "TA with possibility to smash planet into planet". If they don't have it, than... Well... Let's rephrase this as "We are not shooting for AWESOME, we are shooting for EPIC FAIL".

Your post in this thread are so depressing nightnord. From posts in other threads you seem to think that PA has to rival with Starcraft for the competetive scene and that anything else is a failure. The Kickstarter proved that people are willing to buy and support a game like PA.
The Kickstarter have already made people prepurchase tens of thousands copies of the game.
You seem to claim that you know how PA should be developed and claim that Uber is doing it wrongly.

They are game developers.
They know how to develop games.

You are a person that started a thread because you worried that the supposed metal extractors were too close to each other in the trailer.

I doubt that you are good at managing game development.
I believe in Uber.

Wrong. I believe that it's impossible to make a rival StarCraft. Not because it's impossible to make better game, but because starcraft has well-established marked and target audience. Making anything "rival" to starcraft will be just another starcraft.

Kickstarter is not a shop. It's not a preorder, it's more like of investment. That's the difference.

Wrong. I claim that I don't know how it is developed. And that's why I'm worried.
If they know how it should developed and how they see the game - perfect, just tell us.
If they are not telling, they are either don't have a vision, either they keeping it for further marketing.

There are different game developers. There are good game designers with awful programmers and good programmers with awful game designers (or without any). When programming and tech is top-priority it give me worries as it is a high risk of something like Doom 3.

A cool tech for modding is good, perfect, awesome, but they were promising good game, not good tech.

Right, because it's weird inaccuracy. Making such shortcut is just weird, for a lot of reasons, which leads me to assumption that they weren't paying much attention to details of trailer.

I doubt that I'm good at managing anything. I'm a programmer, not manager. But I'm working into gamedev, I know what is most problematic part. Tools and tech are very important, but they are not making good game.

I do not. Why the hell I should? It's some kind of sect or religion?

I'm not trying to judge their opinion or direction. I'm trying to judge their silence. I haven't payed 300$ for option of being free alpha/beta tester of a game I don't know anything about. It's a 4 month past already, and what? One video stream, one blog post, one interview and a few "what's up this week" threads, last one posted month ago?

Just look at "Confirmed features and suggestions" list. How much of them is confirmed by neutrino? Look at neutrino's last posts and most popular threads. He is replying to anything, except gameplay.

It's not Uber's game, it's our (fans) game. Why the hell we shall wait for some marketing reason to release the information?

They got no publisher, so nobody is telling them what to do. But that doesn't mean that they could not answer to anyone. Everything is trade, everything is agreement. We are not giving Uber money for just giving us a game, we are investing into Uber, so they may make a game and make more money from selling this game. We won't got a penny from their future revenue (if any), we can't tell them what to do. But we demand info and openness, so we always know how exactly game is moving on, what decisions are made and what will be or will not be in game.

And don't tell me that they got nothing to put out after 4 month of development in terms of gameplay, with alpha test pre-planned to february.

Of course, they are not obligated to do anything beyond rewards announced on Kickstarter, but that's "We are shooting for EPIC FAIL" part. Such behavior from one of the very successful projects may torpedo all the KS.

Frankly man, I think you need to take a step back and Relax.

And yet, this is already so much more then you'd see out of 90% of Publishers/Developers within the first 2-3 months of Research and 4 Months of Development. You've let your expectations get away from you, you need to reign them in a bit.

Also you can't forget that all the info we've had so far is info that ANYONE can access, which ties in to what I've said prior over here. It's only natural that Uber is going to think about what they kind of info and promises they make public, because like I said there, technically our opinions "don't" matter(obviously they do, and Uber has shown they do in my eyes) and it's the outsiders they have to focus on in terms of the type and specifics of info they release.

I'd wager that once things like the Private Backer forums go up and the Alpha/Beta spin up you's start seeing more concrete info because they'll be at a phase and in an environment where that kind of sharing is feasible.

That's because there is no gameplay yet, Uber is still locking in the Tech for PA, once it's locked in and Integrated they can start locking down gameplay as well, and even then it WILL change throughout the Alpha/Beta Phases. I can't name names sadly(it was a really draconian NDA) but I took part in an early closed beta, and the game that we played, the game that got released and the game as it was patched later were all very different games, giving promises and such about gameplay at this phase would be as foolish as trying to critique the game based solely on the Game Visualization.

Mike

Pretty much this. I'm comfortable with the information we've released so far. When I do tech heavy updates people tend to get confused (don't worry though, there will be plenty more of that).

Quite frankly game development, especially at this stage, is mostly boring. We are working away on the base set of technologies that need to be finished to create this game. For example integrating UI systems, network replication, integration of scripting solution, client/server management issues, resource systems etc. Most of this is tangential to gameplay at this point which is why we aren't talking about that much.

We are filming a ton of this stuff for the documentary BTW (like early test prototypes programs etc).

So relax and quit being such a drama queen.

It's ok for normal developers, it's not ok for KS. I have a lot of KS projects backed, I know the deal. It's like trying to hide information from investors of your open company. Only difference is that hiding information from investors is a crime and hiding information from KS bakers is not.

I realize that. Private forums will help, but not much. You can ask people gently, but you can't enforce NDA on 10000+ people with beta access and 1000+ people with alpha access. KS itself is a very good promotion - a lot of projects with more than enough budget got into KS just for promotion effect. Occulus Rift is one example, Star Citizen is another.

Technically, yes. But such behavior will ruin the whole KS thing. Developers are happy to remove publishers from equation and users are happy to get more involvement in process (not as alpha/beta - it's more like community service, a lot of games with publishers doing same thing). If only one side is happy, other side feel like being fooled and will abandon KS and crowd-funding as idea. Uber is not small fish in that game, they should understand that. If PA will fail, in any sense, it will fail very loudly.

Uber seems to be not very good at community management, for some reason. I don't understand why they still don't have private forums.

You got a bad experience. That is not how it should happen. There is a lot of focus testing prior releasing. We are releasing an alpha stage game with all game logic and half of assets implemented. Goal is no bug and crashes. Maybe not optimized, maybe not all effects/sounds working, but people should already have full image of gameplay.

You see, that's not a problem. Why not just come and say "Ok, guys. Last week we all coded and made significant improvements into landscape and planet generation. We estimate that we will show this part in a month, once it's more complete than it was last time.

There is still no development in game-design, as we don't have game designer, so you all shall wait while I and other cool programmer Bob are done with all tech tasks prior any game design information.

There is also no development in 3d, as all our one artist is busy with comics-style ACUs (he has more than fifty already, but all incomplete) for your T-shirts. We got to produce more promotional stuff, you know. We are also busy with making TA-inspired stuff for SNMC, so no new concept art.

We still don't have concept art for even single unit (except said ACUs).

But we've are done few agreements with other companies for increased promotion and marketing, though.

Ah, yes, we still don't know what exactly we are doing, so don't expect us involved into any gamedesign discussions. I'll continue to post into fan-art threads, though. We love fan-art. Did you have read the forum rules, BTW?

So, as you can see, we are all very busy with tech and still no game. But, for sure, you'll get nice modding tools at alpha stage, so you may start planning mods right now!".

Actually, just be honest, that's simple. No game design yet? Fine, just tell it. No finished 3d and you don't want to show unfinished result? Great, just tell us that and say approximately when it would be ready.

I don't want any more technical updates. I've seen enough to say that Uber got very cool and experienced programmers that are right people for the job, for sure. I'm confident that they will make great tech. But i'm also interested in other parts. I'm interested in roadmap.

Good to hear that one.

And that.

You see, it's quite simple. Just give answers to questions before they are asked in demanding manner. Even if they are negative, it's still answer. Don't be silent, please. It's not good.

But Uber isn't hiding anything, they aren't lying to us either, as said everything they put out is available to everyone so they have to be careful and more or less double check it all to make sure it's valid.

Well then you're worse at community management than they are, The private Backer forums, along with eventual Alpha/Beta forums wouldn't serve any purpose right now. Until Uber plans to release some info to Backers only or launch the Alpha/Beta they are pointless and only serve to divide the community and just make it harder for Uber to get a clear picture of what the Community is talking about. This is the same reason we do our best to keep discussion in relevant threads, having 5 long and active threads about a topic is a mess, both for Uber and us trying to talk about the topic.

In the End, when Uber is ready to make use of the limited access Forums, they'll go up.

It wasn't a Bad Experience, the game improved from our input and feedback, if the Developer had just used us to find and fix bugs they would have released with a game with huge dominate strategies and prolly would have had a huge amount of fallout for it. You can call yourself a Programmer, but that doesn't entitle you to make assumptions about game testing. You're under this weird impression that the Devs are expected to get it right the first time, every time, but the truth is far from that. Otherwise Games would never be patched cause there'd be nothing to fix.

Take Neutrino's Advice, heck maybe if you jump off the damn pedestal you've placed yourself on you might be able to see the reality being presented to the rest of us.

That is exactly the kind of stuff they have been saying, just because it wasn't handwritten by Mavor and delivered by Scathis directly to you doesn't mean the info isn't going out, just get your head out of the clouds and you'll see it.

Mike

Woah. By "resource systems", you're referring to memory management, garbage collection, libraries, that sort of thing, right?

Specifically the part that handles loading of things like unit blueprints, meshes, texture, maps etc.

Just remember to make it like minecraft (or even C&C Renegade with the objects.ddb editor), and make values addable to the library at will. Would love to stick tons of stuff into the units, meshes, textures, maps, ect..

I believe that's exactly what a moddable resource system is for trophy