AI War 2

Games
41

Up to $72K now. I highly doubt it’ll make its $299K goal, which is sad in many respects, as a company like Arcen who takes chances is much needed in the industry.

But… I admit I can only feel so sorry for an indie company who spends over $400,000 on a game only to have it flounder in a pre-beta state after much hype and get basically a ‘50/50’ shot to be released (it probably won’t see the light of day, IMHO), and then go on KS wanting $300K more to make a game. It appears i’m not the only one hesitating to contribute.

42

Update 13 had an interesting snippet, as people have been asking about Stars Beyond Reach:

So here’s the compromise: if you want to back the AI War 2 kickstarter
at a $275 level or higher, then good grief please have a copy of Stars
Beyond Reach as a thank-you. I can’t promise we’ll ever even make
another update to it (though I certainly hope we will actually FINISH
it), and in general I don’t want to set any expectations about what it
is or is not going to be in the future.

43

I backed at a low level just because I want to support them. I hope one day they make a Bionic Dues 2 kickstarter.

44

If you’re still thinking of doing that, now’s the time. The original is 90% off on Steam today.

45

Thanks, but someone gifted it to me already! Still trying to absorb it, mixed feelings on the depth so far…

46

My big problem with AI War was the sheer volume of ship types and their counters. Most of the time I just fielded vast blob fleets geared towards whatever I was about to attack and tried to roll over them. AI War by way of Katamari. The macro-strategy was great, as was the minimizing of micro, but I just found the battles so messy and unwieldy. In the end I sunk about 26+ hours into it before deciding to move on.

Oh and I meant to add: Infested Planet kind of reminds me of AI War (but on a much more intimate scale) with its asymmetry, hornets nest AI, enemy numbers, surgical strikes, last stand dynamics and control smarts.

47

Seems like they are getting desperate.

[details=Recent KickStarter Update]Community Stretch goals! Or: how we hopefully see our big surge.
Posted by Chris Park/Arcen Games (Creator)
Chris here. Okay, second post on this topic. Last time had a lot of other information and background. This time I’ll be more succinct. Also, a key thing in the prior update – the link itself – gets blocked by Steam because of it using a url shortener. This link, instead, works fine.
The kind folks at kickstarter gave us the advice to “figure out where your players are, and go there.” That seems kinda like “duh” advice, but it’s actually really smart. And our players are on Steam, as well as GOG and similar. But over 300k of them are on Steam.
Here’s how you can help. And there are community stretch goals here! It’s quick, easy, not-annoying, and hopefully the most effective thing our campaign could possibly benefit from:

Step 1
Far more than are easily accessible through social media blasts from the backers of this campaign, are the people who are in your friends lists on Steam.You may not even know they have or play AI War, but if you go to the page for AI War, you’ll see a list on the side that shows exactly who has the game that is your friend.
It looks like this:

Step 2
If no friends own the game, that’s okay – your work is done! Please don’t go spamming anybody. If you have people you know well, please feel free to tell them, but otherwise that’s no worries whatsoever.
Otherwise, click on the white number of friends that own the game, right above some random icons of some that do. You will then see a screen that looks like this:

Step 3
Click any friend’s name, and their profile will pop up:

Step 4
Click Send a Message, and the chat window will pop up.

Frustratingly, it will not actually move to the friend that you clicked to send a message to. No idea why.
Step 5
Back on that list of friends who own the game from Step 2, just go through that list and send each of them a note about this campaign, if you’re willing. Ctrl+F works great in the chat window in chrome, although you will need to expand the OFFLINE group for it to search in there. Messaging people when they are offline will let them see it next time they are online.
A message that you can use, if you like, is as follows:
Easy Message Template
Hey there – sorry to bug if you already know this, but AI War 2 is currently going through a kickstarter that I’m backing, and I thought you might want to know. It’s here (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/arcengames/ai-war-ii?ref=1y7vww), and they’ve really thought it through from the look of their 160-page design document. Their campaign is about halfway through and really needs more visibility, and they have no direct way of reaching their existing Steam customers, so if you like what you see can you also pass along this message to AI War players on your own Steam friends list? There’s easy info on how to best spread the word in here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/arcengames/ai-war-ii/posts/1719283[/details]

48

Yep, something’s got to change if they hope for this thing to reach its goal, and they’re having trouble getting the word out. Most people I’ve spoken to have no idea the Kickstarter is going on, which seems about par for the course with Kickstarter campaigns these days. It’s not a novel thing anymore, so coverage of them is almost non-existent.

49

This is their ardent refusal to collect emails biting them. They have no idea who their customers are.

50

For those trying AI War: Fleet Command I found this pocket reference which has been really helpful; especially with keeping many of the hotkeys and keybindings at hand (since I often can’t remember them). I look at this reference constantly while playing. It isn’t fully comprehensive but includes enough of the most-needed info.

Source document:

51

Nice find!

52

Freaking 3 kickstarter updates today, I am getting tired of the email spam. I might un-backer this if I get one more today! :p

53

Wow I would love those little keyboard guides for all my games!

54

That was something else I loved about AI War: the hotkeys. I remember one that split your selected units up allowing you to quickly divide your fleet into control groups. It would even balance the unit types per split as well. Very clever!

55

Yep, the split -hotkey is the one thing from AI War that I miss in almost every other RTS game.

56

Wow. Yeah, that’s a loud bullhorn of desperation. I’ve told some RL friends and a few Steam friends about it, to do some part to maybe help out, but…if they’re posting this as a suggestion, the writing might be on the wall already for this one.

57

The writing was on the wall by the end of day 2. Without at least $100k by that point, the KS was effectively doomed.

I’m deeply saddened by that, but everything from day 3 onward has been a drawn out realization of that reality.

58

Regarding Kickstarter for game funding, Brian Fargo thinks its best days are behind it. Might explain some of the fatigue and Arcen’s campaign struggle.

This time, it’s that Wasteland 3 isn’t on Kickstarter, but a new platform named Fig. Oh yes: Brian Fargo, perhaps the most visible figurehead and advocate for the merits of Kickstarted games, has moved on.

“I like to think I’m good at knowing what the winds of change are up to,” he explains. “And I felt that they were changing as it related to backing things through Kickstarter, at least at the level we were used to.”

Although Wasteland 2, Torment: Tides of Numenera and The Bard’s Tale IV each pulled in millions of backer dollars for InXile, campaign totals are diminishing across the board. UK market analysts ICO Partners found that gaming Kickstarters raised $8.2m in the first half of 2016, compared to more than $20m in the previous six months.

59

Think they’ll re-do it with a smaller target?

60

Chris has mentioned it as a possibility,as well as looking at publishers.