Seriously. Where are we going from here? Where's the roadmap?

Dear Uber Entertainment,

I am an Early Access adopter. I did not share your journey from the very beginning; in fact, I joined it just some months ago. Still, I am a small part of the large crowd that made this game possible, and I'd like to share my thoughts.

I bought the game because I grew up with RTS titles. You successfully used your past projects to hype this one, and I was hooked. Chasing ARM with CORE and vice versa, wreaking havoc with huge Cybran Spiderbots - I had a blast each and every time. PA looked appealing, so I bought it, and despite all the criticism I have voiced so far, I do not consider my money wasted. I had some fun with PA, and I only spent ~17€, so solely from a cost-benefit POV, that's alright-ish.

However: I'd lie were I to claim that I'm not massively dissapointed. When I pledged my support, I was under the impression that the game would be released in a state at least somewhat close to your promises. Right now, a large amount of these features are missing. Some major, some minor, but enough to turn PA into a solid "meh" experience (which happens to be accurately reflected in professional and user reviews across the web). I cannot in good conscience recommend this game to friends when it doesn't even have a tutorial.

All of these issues wouldn't trouble me if I had a reason to trust in your ability to fix them. But I cannot trust you. You're barely communicating, and when you are, you're so incredibly vague you shouldn't have bothered posting in the first place. Servers? We're working on it. Offline? @squishypon3 has to dig up some ancient quote from the forums for the 27th time. Tutorial? -crickets-. The list goes on. And to add insult to injury, after a solid month of radio silence after release, you're launching another Kickstarter title where you're bold enough to claim you've "delivered" on PA and that it has been "critically lauded". And you expected the PA crowd to actually back that project given these circumstances?

I do not expect you to fix all that can be improved in PA in a matter of days. But I am asking for:

• A road map: Which features are coming, and when?
  
• An honest list of features you will drop (and let's be honest - this will happen)
• An acknowledgement - and an improvement on - your sub-par community communication. You have a great community manager; I bet he can do a lot more than just lock threads if you let him.

My opinion is neither special nor is it unique, but it's important enough for me to spend my time on your forums. I'd very much like you to read, consider and perhaps even reply to it.

Thanks for your attention.

Keep in mind that unless I'm very much mistaken Uber has a full-time employee whose job it is to manage the community.

He is sucking away those Kickstarter funds and I honestly can't see the value we're getting back from it. Where is Brad? I haven't seen him post much or anything unless there's a controversy... then half of the time he is fanning the flames by jumping at the chance to talk about his muscles if somebody brings them up. In a huge grievance thread like this.

He does an adequate job hosting the livestreams but beyond that I can't imagine what he does at his desk all day.

Please don't misunderstand me... I'm not saying fire him... I'm agreeing with you. They should USE him to do his bloody job. Otherwise they might as well just put his salary towards HR because the "community interaction" there is likely to be the same as it was with PA.

I'm actually glad they are doing another kickstarter because it will give us a good gauge on what they can and can't get away with. If this new kickstarter is successfully funded then I might as well give up on these forums because it means Uber can do whatever they want without any consequences. If it fails then Uber may have to reevaluate the way they have been going about things, because they have said that they couldn't imagine developing games any other way (I.e. kickstarter without publishers, etc).

I'm going to chime in with my honest thoughts on things.

PA is a good game that gets many things right. Still there is the issue of offline / lan. That capability was in from the start (and very clearly stated) and it has to be released imo. Everything uber has said states this is coming which is good, although recent developments leave even me (a staunch supporter of you if you check my posts) wondering...?

What is causing me to question this? Well the details in the ks for hr actually.

- you've stated hr is built on the pa engine.

- you've stated that hr is online only even though it will offer an ai skirmish mode.

- if the offline capability for the engine was nearly done and confirmed, what possible reason would you have to not advertise such a laudable and requested feature...?

Now this is just my thoughts at the moment. I really enjoy pa, and I have backed hr as personally internet access isn't a problem. Still it's evident others are worried and I thought it worth pointing out the mental process going on here- currently I can't really see a valid argument against it which worries me.

Offline wasnt an if, but a dead cert. It needs to happen in pa. Please please show it really is happening, as that will quell the majority of concerns here. I understand when questions are difficult to answer so I won't ask that. What I would respectfully ask is please can we get an incite into where it is now? A little info on what's happening, and what's still on the hit list would be superb! No dates required

I would like to add/quote something.

I've mentioned it elsewhere: For the life of me I cannot comprehend that Uber don't see that what they're doing is an ongoing PR disaster. From SMNC, to PA's "release", to the HR Kickstarter campaign. Even their community manager has fallen silen.

So I only see two possibilites:

1. Uber are ignorant of what they're doing to their reputation, fail to see the value of proper PR personnel or expertise, and should very, very quickly change that strategy
2. They do know what they're doing, and they don't care, and are looking forward to thriving on the next mediocre product to repeat the cycle.

For the time being, and out of sheer optimism, I'll stick with #1. But I can't help feeling disappointed and increasingly frustrated, and like a lot of people, I'll interpret continued silence as a confirmation of strategy #2.

P.S.: And their CEO is busy posting on social media about buying rolex watches, Corvettes and Ferraris. Obviously Neutrino is entitled to do whatever he likes with his money; a successful businessman should certainly enjoy the fruits of his labor. But perhaps he shouldn't do so publicly while his current flagship project is being showered in criticism by its community.

Sorry, but this sort of thing is absolutely below the belt. You have absolutely no idea, and nor should you, about the personal financial situation of any Uber employee, and it is completely irrelevant to any discussion about the game. How do you know he hasn't just had a massive windfall from a deceased relative? Got lucky on the stock market?

Why even bother making that comment? I've just lost an awful lot of respect for you.

I disagree, but then not everyone has to share the same opinion. As for your respect - we don't know each other, we've barely interacted so far, so I guess I'll manage (even if I obviously do prefer to get along with people).

Low blow? I doubt it. On topic? Definitely. Uber apparently fail to realize how damaging their approach to communication - in all its aspects - is to their reputation. Take a look outside of these forums and the subreddit, both of which are rather constructive in nature, to see how they're currently perceived. Involuntarily, they are very good at dismantling most of the community goodwill and credibility they've established by reimagining TA and SupCom.

If you feel that my comment violates the forum's etiquette, then please remove or modifiy it. I stand by what I wrote - from community manager to CEO, Uber should take a careful look both at what they're (publicly) communicating, and at what they are not.

Look, I'm not going to have this discussion with you. You're not breaking any rules, so I'm not removing it, but I shouldn't have to explain to you why discussing someone's personal finances on a public forum is generally a bad thing to do.

While I am with you on this topic in general, posting that sort of delicate stuff - given that this is accurate information, mind you! - on social media does hardly fully qualify as personal financial information anymore.
But then again I would not attribute to malice that which can so easily be explained with bad timing and poor judgement on Uber's part.

I'd say generally it's an area of discussion that nothing positive can come from, is all, and I don't see why anyone felt the need to bring it up in the context of discussion about video games.

Well neutrino himself made that stuff public. Though I think I've read posts from him about corvettes even during the PA kickstarter already. Let him play with what he likes. Can't see an issue with that really.

This thread wasn't meant to be about video games exactly, it's more about how the community is unhappy that Uber did not deliver on things like offline mode, and we don't get a clear idea of when it will happen. This isn't a "bonus" feature, it was supposed to be delivered and hasn't been. We can't get simple communication pertaining to that but we do get communication of what Uber is doing with the money which frankly I couldn't care less. I want to know where the heck offline mode is at.

Granted, I wouldn't expect those answers to come from the CEO...who knows if he's even aware all his forum-goers are pissed off?

I stopped playing a couple of weeks ago due to lag, tired of it. Figured I'd wait for offline, but I am wondering if it's truly being worked on or if they're just telling us that so we complain less and eventually forget about the game entirely.

It'd be really cool to see all this moderator input on the actual subject at hand, especially the whole offline thing. That's a HUGE part in me backing this project and why I won't touch anything further from Uber since it hasn't been addressed.

Moderators (green name in the forums) are just normal community members, not employees of Uber. Usually moderators do not know more than anybody else.
Red names are working for Uber. I agree they should talk about it. Many people may actually be pretty forgiving if they are told what is going on.

Altrough this information is indeed very personnal and delicate to post, it feel like what i felt before : Uber don't care so much about fans anymore.
Yes, you can do whatever you want with your earned money. It's yours.
However, you must be careful if afterwards you create a Kickstarter asking for $1.4M when in the same time you talk about spending half-million $ on personnal expenses.
Kickstarter is not a bank. It is supposed to give a chance to people that can't find any other way to get one...

Just draw a line, i will NOT back another Uber-game until PA is done in parts of "promises" they made.

They have a new project? Fine if they have the workforce to make it and enough to show us their "support" for PA that they claimed we would get after release...dont see it yet. They pushed it out still with missing features...and claiming they would give us them afterwards...i wait until i see it.

Kickstarterfunding is a really dangerous sword for a company...and if they fail to wield it correctly...they will cut their own head off...

Ask Double Fine Studios...

What the **** is their CEO doing. What a total *******. In japan a CEO would probably kill themself if they got caught using a public company account to talk about wasteling money on frivolous things while releasing unfinished broken products.

Is that screenshot even legit? And even if it was, noone has seen neutrino drive around in his alleged new corvette, sporting half a dozen rolexes on each arm.
Seems to be all just big talk to me, just like we are used to. So nothing new here, nothing to see.

That is one of the general questions of Kickstarter projects (and games in general, really) and is one reason I hear from people who refuse to Kickstart anything:

They got their money. The game launched. Other than what's probably a slow trickle of Steam sales, there is no income anymore. Developers are no longer being paid. There is no income model for continued product support. Ideally, "continued product support" is funded by whatever excess profits the title brought in because that's just good business. Want to be funded for another project? Want your next product to bring in interest? Then you need to continue support for existing products and the original income should have included at least 1 year of post-launch developer support.

Exactly what Uber's level of commitment is for PA remains to be seen.

The game is certainly playable but there are still some obvious issues that are going to damage its reputation (and therefore Uber's) until corrected:
* Sim slowdowns with large numbers of units (even, apparently, immobile units and things that don't require pathing, like orbital)
* No official ranked matchmaking service
* Game lobby problems (joining games can get dicey)
* Odd unit behavior (ever watched ships try to hit land units?)


Things like "balance" we can go on about all day, but I think balance is at least reasonable as-is. It's better than TA ever was. But those items I listed are pretty serious. #1 may not have an easy solution but the others are just work waiting to be done.

He works for a living, makes money, and what he does with it in his personal life I couldn't care less about. If he wants a new corvette, or ferrari, or veyron, I don't care one bit. People occasionally need to remind themselves why it is they are on the career they are on; for me, probably neutrino, and a whole bunch of my friends it means buying ourselves things. Cars, a tailored suit, the latest gaming laptop, etc.
I do security architecture as an outside consultant with my own firm. I have to fight, from outside the company no less, against management averse to change and in most cases unwilling to sacrifice even a little comfort to gain security. It's a really high-stress position, mostly because my credentials are on the line when I fight owners and management of multi-million-dollar companies (and one multi-billion-dollar company) to get them to do the right thing and when they resist I have to be twice as convincing. Late nights doing research on the latest security items of interest, long days in a lot of needless meetings, and I'm left with a fairly empty personal life as a result. When I get my paycheck, it's mine and mine alone to decide what to do with it. Not one of my clients has ever remarked about what kind of vehicle I show up in, or what brand of clothing I wear, or what gadget I have because they don't care. I'm there to get a job done, what I do with my limited free time is irrelevant. If they suddenly did start caring, I'd have one less client.
TL;DR- what a working person does with their paycheck is none of my business, and none of yours. Shame on you for even bringing this up in an attempt to whip up a frenzy about neutrino's personal purchasing habits.