Out of Pod Experience

It's about freaking time!!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/659943965/planetary-annihilation-a-next-generation-rts

Depends... if it's for ps3 then 6 years will do.

We require more minerals!

Yay Starcraft 3

What is with the sudden influx of kickstarter links? You people get a kick on randomly spending money on things that may or may not happen?

That aside if that is the look of the map then to me it has a total Annihilation meets Stage 3 of Spore. Not a bad thing mind you, just sayin that is how it looks to me.

You don't get charged if the project goes unfunded.
I guess you can still say the project can fail to deliver once funded, but, eh...
Usually kickstarters project carry a pretty low minimum entry fee for the finished product, so even if only half get finished (does anybody have any record of how many kickstarter games went bankrupt before producing anything?), you're still better off financially compared to some mainstream games.


Total Annihilation ruled (back in the day, now it's pretty dated), Supreme Commander was ok and SC:FA was a bit better (can still be improved), but Supreme Commander 2 kinda' sucked (a total letdown, all the good stuff that accumulated across the series, gone in the blink of an eye).

Personally, what I expect from a hypothetical near-perfect RTS is:
- an interface that lets me spawn as many windows as I like (each window being a separate child application, easily moved across multiple monitors if I have them), tracking units or viewing tactical maps, popping up notifications or even "event cameras" when desirable (and customizable when), designing new units, managing factories or resource production, directing research, etc -> can't say I have seen this done by any RTS to date, but I hope somebody will do it eventually
- a HUGE game space with an INSANE amount of individual units, controllable from all as a single entity or down to each individual one separately
- the ability to micromanage exactly as much as I want to micromanage (from almost not at all to almost everything, and should at least be able to not completely crumble to dust even if I go AFK for a while, or, heck, disconnect and need to reconnect) and a widely customizable fake AI for my own troops so that after I go up a level in micromanagement detail they don't do the exact opposite of what I want them to do, with a hierarchical structure (so, I can for instance organize an army in platoons and squads, and have them applying various tactics, with commanders changing tactics based on my presets)
- very large number of simultaneous players, or, heck, make it a persistent world MMO if you like :)
- a nondeterministic combat system that at least partially hinges on unit choices (both ballistic or guided projectiles with travel time and also near-instant energy weapons, varied damage amount and damage effects based on impact point of weapon), units that can TRY to predict enemy unit actions, ideally actually learning what to do (traces of neural nets shared at least partially by units of that type and/or experience level and/or commanded by the same commander and/or any other number of things)
- just-in-time resource management - while some parts of resources should be made available on start of something, most of them (for most things) should only be gradually required (optionally with penalties if you don't have enough when you need it), as opposed to the typical RTS fare of "pay everything up-front" (one of the things they broke in SC2, which I totally hated)
- a wide selection of pre-made units that are also highly customizable with a nonlinear and at least partially nondeterministic research tree, preferably also allowing "technological espionage" from the enemy (or at least reverse engineering)
- visually pleasing but with as little clutter as possible, functionality and ease of following events coming before realism

If these guys would manage to at least touch a bit on each point and go nuts on at least a couple, it's going to be a great game.
They seem to touch a bit on some, but not very much on others.
I guess it has the potential to be an ok game.

this is a really nice find... glad it's for OSX ;] *waits*

TA was awesome. the way you built units was very unique, you could have 1 unit built a building or 20 of them and it would go much faster.
I also liked that you could do the same for units being built from factories...
TA holds up very well and its from what, 1997? sequel please and thankyou!

As a Kickstarter fan and funder of projects, Kickstarter offers like akita said, several ways to avoid being scammed, plus the fact you are funding projects that are completely out of the scope of big brand companies (like EA or SOE, whose touch turns to sh#t everything they touch) makes it appealing to me. I mostly fund or browse their games section, the other genres are a bit too experimental but in the game section have seen GEMS that just need polish ($$$) and I am more than willing to share a few $$$ for something that is genuinely innovative or creative.

If you fail to see the beauty on it, then obviously, kickstarter is not for you, but promoting the use of the site doesnt make you a person willing to blow tons of cash on a whim buying the bridge over there.

Actually I have seen some very neat stuff coming from it, have a friend that supports movies and books and the stuff he has shown me is amazing that he got for cheapz. Also their boardgame projects, when they appear, are very fun to follow. To each their own.

Im waiting on my MAGI card set, project is awesome and love the game mechanic. Even if it turns out not so great, I just love collecting, and the cards have awesome art and with some extras I paid for I get a nice couple of things to admire in my gaming shelf that have my name on them XD

Kickstarter is for me a way to finally have a hand in funding projects I feel are great, how can you hate something like that?