New political Grand Strategy RTS is out

[MaxRiga]

Playing it now - http://www.thecoldwarera.com/download.html

 

[Glassmage]

look like crap no thanks

 

[Nintz]

You may have avoided comments like that by pointing out that you are one of the devs. Just a thought.

 

[Anhellia]

You may have avoided comments like that by pointing out that you are one of the devs. Just a thought.

^This.

Also for unknown game, at least to me, it would be nice to provide some sort of demo.

 

[Kyriakos]

Not sure how the game is, the screenshots i found (which are obviously of the game) look like some sort of EU-type map with stats.



Also (if indeed you are one of the people working on that game) it is somewhat not positive to advertise it so directly here. Might be a good game, but indeed it would have been better if you posted some info instead of a link to the online ordering page.

 

[OrsonM]

I had to spend about an hour researching what the game was about since your thread is mainly 3 words and a link. I have just so many questions about the game. And for a 30/20 dollars game from a fellow civer, these become pressing questions:

-Is it true you guys are selling this with DRM?
-Is it true that the DRM will invalidate the game if the name you give is different from the one you gave on paypal?
-What's this about my game being blocked if another player uses my same cd key?

(from the game's website)
6 - Please keep your serial key somewhere safe and do not provide it to anyone else. If more than one player attempts to play the game with the same serial key our activation system will block it automatically. Once the serial key is blocked it cannot be restored! In other words, you will have to buy another copy of the game to continue playing if your serial key becomes blocked.

Wait, WHAT??!!!
-wait, does that mean I always have to be online?

Minimal System requirements
[...]
Access to Internet to play and activation

-So it is online only?
-Is it mainly an MMO?
-On your website you state:

" Not every game company allows their fans to play strategy games on their servers 24/7/365 for free. We figure that's just part of what makes us cool."

But your game costs 20/30 dollars, that's not really free now, is it?

-Your website says this is an "RTS Strategy game", is that like a real time strategy strategy game? (double the strategy?)
-What's the player base right now?
-Could we have a demo?
-I read on a review that the game has no tutorials, is that true?
-Is this you guys Steam Greenlight page?, comments from people that played the game are not kind to the game.
-Weren't you here a while ago also with a another one liner thread about a kickstarter for the same game?
-Why are you guys charging the same price as Civilization V currently charges?
-For 10 extra dollars I get a printable poster file?, like I have to print it myself?
-Why do the game's images look like you guys just swiped them from the internet?, if so, do you guys know that's kind of illegal?, whats the situation there?
-Why are you sending us to the ordering page right away?, we have a few questions first.


-How come there's no refunds?

(from the game's website)
*Please be advised - we cannot offer any refunds on game purchases. There have been some unexpected errors reported by Windows 8 users during TCWE beta tests. Some Win8 users could run the game with no issues, however others experienced complications when trying to play the game. We cannot guarantee 100% that TCWE will run error-free on Win8. However, TCWE works perfectly on all other Windows platforms. We have received no error reports from beta testers using other Windows versions. If you do experience any issues playing TCWE, our customer service team will be happy to help you. Please contact us at support (@) alinadigital (.) com with your issue, and we will do our best to respond with a solution as quickly as possible.

All the stuff I collected from comments online and from your own game's website... its kinda scary. You know what would really help?, you guys coming back here to answer all of these questions instead of just a 1 liner thread.. Some of these questions are sardonic in nature, but some are not. Some are serious concerns for an indie 20 dollars game. The DRM alone is enough for me to never purchase this thing (that and the price).

 

[Sonereal]

That DRM policy alone is enough to get anybody who reads the fine print far, far away from the game. All the reviews posted on the Kickstarter page are VERY suspect, including one that is posted on Facebook.

Edit: One of the reviews that gave an 8.5 gave this

NOTE: Nobody was on MP at time of review, MP review will be up soon.

However, in the Greenlit comments.

Alina Digital [author] Mar 28, 2013 @ 2:46pm
Guys, the game is mostly designed for multiplayer P2P grand strategy battles and at the same time there IS single player option )))

Meaning you better hope you can talk someone else to pay $30 for the game and hope no one accidentally typed in the wrong serial number.

Edit2: For $30, I would just save that and get East versus West, which might cost a tad more, but actually offer ten times more than what this game seems to be offering.

 

[MaxRiga]

not sure I can answer all of your questions on this forum but I promise I will answer all of them on the official forum - http://www.alinadigital.com/forum/ Simply copy-paste it there.

 

[Synobun]

If you can't answer it here, you can't answer it there.

 

[OrsonM]

not sure I can answer all of your questions on this forum but I promise I will answer all of them on the official forum - http://www.alinadigital.com/forum/ Simply copy-paste it there.

It's ok man, I already know most of the answers to most of these questions myself (some of them even had the answer below them). I'm not going to go to your forums to ask the same questions. It's an odd PR move there, but whatever, it's your game. However I really appreciate that at least you replied (a one liner again, but still) and that you were polite, I mean that always counts for something.

I really don't think I would purchase this game in it's current state. The 3 main things that I think will make this a hard sell, at least for me (and probably anyone else), are the MMO focus, the DRM and the pricing. Or to put it in another way:

-Indie MMOs are a dime a dozen and their life expectancy is usually a couple of months at best, I believe this game will be no exception to that rule (eg: Gettysburg Armored Warfare and Starvoid, and both had better marketing). I have the strange feeling that this MMO focus is due to bad AI on single player mode. It is a daunting task to program an engaging AI to play against, but to forgo that and bank for an MMO instead is not a good solution to that problem either. I mean, if there are no players to play this game, then there's no game at all. MMOs need massive amounts of players. How do I know the ai is probably bad?, you guys haven't advertised it much or at all.

-DRM is a big no-no for indie games. To put it succinctly, it's just adding an unnecessary obstacle both to my experience playing this as well as it harms word of mouth. DRM is usually applied to games in which the risk of losing sales through piracy outweigh the promotional aspect of sharing the game. I mean, that's pretty much the basis of shareware and free to play games. Also, the clumsiness of the implemented DRM (the paypal issue and that cd-keys can take up to a day to arrive) coupled with the game's strict no refunds policy makes up for a game that will probably alienate the indie crowd, a crowd that hates DRM with a passion.

-The pricing of 20 dollars is too steep. Your number one concern should be getting this game out to gamers so that they can spread the word about the game (so cheaper prices should be a rule). The game's graphics do not seem to add up to 20 or 30 dollars either (I'm a graphic designer and I can say these are very cheap looking graphics) and finally for an MMO, I just can't see this game ever going up in playerbase considering the price.

From the bits and pieces I've managed to gather, it appears that your game takes place in real time (sort of a race against time) and that the game is not militaristic in nature. Both of those things seem to be pretty novel concepts for a strategy game (if not genius in some level). But that's beside the points I'm making here. You could be sitting on the greatest game ever created, but if you have no clue of who your customers are or who your competitors are, then you won't be selling any copies of the game at all.

Again, most of my views on this come from the point of view of me as a potential costumer, so you know, take them whichever way you'd like to take them. And you know, maybe I'm very wrong about all points and at this very moment your game could be selling through the roof, who knows.

Edit: minor grammar and spelling