The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
Please vote in the Forum Structure Poll. Polling will close at 2PM EST on January 21, 2025.
[Planetary Annihilation] It's time to exhaust the resources of a galaxy AGAIN
MegaMek
Girls like girls. Registered User regular
Girls like girls. Registered User regular
http://youtu.be/FhEYvOYceNsFROM UBER ENTERTAINMENT, CREATORS OF MONDAY NIGHT COMBAT AND SUPER MONDAY NIGHT COMBAT: ONE BIG-ASS LOVE LETTER TO FANS OF TOTAL ANNIHILATION.
Some quips from the official site:
PLANETARY ANNIHILATION brings Real-Time Strategy to a new generation of gamers in a way they’ve never been seen before: Total Annihilation-inspired gameplay on a planetary scale.
WHY WE WANT TO DO THIS
We all know that the RTS genre has taken a hit. There just aren’t that many quality original RTS games coming out. If you love to play games like Total Annihilation your options are pretty limited. This is where Planetary Annihilation comes in. It is meant to be a truly innovative spin on what RTS games can and should be.
blahblahblah here's the site read it yourself
PC Gamer interview with Jon Mavor, CTO and co-founder, Uber Entertainment.
I'm already bored. Gimme the short version.
Ok, enough with the marketing spiel. Basically, what's going on is that UBER Entertainment, a small development team responsible for this series, has a few dudes who worked on Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander. And these dudes convinced the rest of the team that there weren't any good RTS games coming any time soon, and that they should do one.
So they got a Kickstarter page (woooo another fucking kickstarter) and got like half a million dollars in no time. The project has officially hit it's funding goal!
Well, ok. What is this game about?
Did you ever play Total Annihilation?
No.
Well, the idea is that sometime in the far future, mankind is divided into two factions: Robosexuals and Plebeians. Basically, these dudes were sick of each other's shit and made self-replicating machines to fight their war for them. 4000 years later, mankind is dead and the robots don't even remember why they're fighting in the first place; all they know is that TOTAL ANNIHILATION is the only victory condition.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6mZZiI4ShQ&feature=relatedSo this game is like a sequel?
Eh. Uber isn't saying much yet, other than stuff like "Total Annihilation-inspired gameplay on a planetary scale." It looks like, from the trailer, that a lot of the gameplay concepts will be the same. The music is very similar to the old TA score (one of the best in games, IMO), and they even got the same narrator dude! If it's not a true sequel it'll be the best damn "spiritual successor" on our side of the galaxy.
Ok, that's all cool, I guess. What's the game gonna actually be like? You said it's an RTS? So like... Starcraft?
Uh, no. Starcraft is about microing small numbers of units by clicking a million times a second because individual units have no AI. That shit's for chimps.
TA/SupCom are about maneuvering very large numbers of mixed units into a position where they will be most beneficial to the engagement/war effort/ etc. You don't need to micro your units, since you can queue an unlimited number of commands for them to follow (or set up waypoints for them to follow forever) and your units can defend themselves even while moving. And you can adjust the parameters of their AI, allowing them to maneuver to avoid damage in combat or hunt down nearby enemy units if you want them too. Resource collection is more automated (just drop a metal collector on a patch of metal and bam, you get whatever metal per second). Base management is also fairly automated, since you can queue up unlimited build orders, and tell factories to churn out infinite units as long as you have the resources. Maps tend to be tens of kilometers in size, wide enough to have whole fleets of ships, wings of air units, and armies of ground-pounders.
It's all economy of scale in TA: You build up forever, and crush the enemy under the weight of your robots. And nukes.
Sounds cool, I guess. So what's new with this game. Planetary Annihilation eh?
Yeah, Basically all that crap, but instead of square maps of 20x20 km, you have a whole damn planet to fight over. And it's moons. And nearby asteroids. And then, when every natural resource has been expended, you just MOVE ONTO THE NEXT PLANET. Yup, the game will scale up to whole damn solar systems, so you and up to BIG NUMBERS of people can duke it out in true planetary conquering fashion.
A big thing they're playing up, and you can see it in the trailer, is using natural satellites as ballistic missiles. Some guy kick you off your rock? Drop his moon on him. Fuck him. Time will tell if we can throw planets at each other (my guess is yes because hahahahaha). Hell, maybe we'll get to just go all out and throw planets into our suns. Or our suns into our planets.
Haha, cool. So when's this bitch coming out?
UBER is apparently shooting for July 2013, judging by the kickstarter page. That sounds like a bullshit "Oh we don't really know when, we'll specify at a later time," kinda date to me. Sometime next year is the only answer.
Is time a gift or punishment?
MegaMek on
0
This discussion has been closed.
Posts
I like the ability to throw planets into planets.
I don't like the tiny planets.
How is space travel going to be handled? Will it be handled? Rockets to the moon is one thing, but will it use warp gates for planetary movement?
Probably I will get this. I have a feeling it's just going to make me load up TA again though.
caffron said: "and cat pee is not a laughing matter"
They have specifically shot down any kind of spaceships or space combat tho. They didn't feel that the normal TA-style gameplay would handle well in 3D space.
That seems incredibly disappointing.
I guess that's points for them.
Already kicked them.
Hopefully it will have 50 different kinds of defensive turrets and crazy super weapons. That's all a good TA-style game really needs.
In other news, TotalBiscuit got a nice lengthy interview in with the devs behind PA, where they go into the background on the project and what their objectives are with it. Well worth a watch / listen:
Also, I asked about Information Warfare (things like radar jammers and such, which never really made it into SupCom) and they said it would be in.
I also asked whether there'd be all-terrain spider-bots like in the first TA, they said yes to that as well. Also, bots are going to be segregated from ground vehicles again, like in TA (so I'm guessing they're going to have different roles to Vehicles in general).
Seriously, if you've got anything you want to ask, scroll to the bottom and click "Ask a question", they'll usually respond in a few hours. They seem to be dedicated to answer and getting fan feedback even at this early stage.
EDIT: Haha, the stretchgoal infographic on the front page has changed.
E: Please add something to the OP about how mod support has been confirmed and encouraged, tia.
You may make another thread in 16 days.