[PC] Planetary Annihilation

[christian]

http://www.uberent.com/pa/

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Launch trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enzglv8sLn8

[christian]

Videogame Art - http://culture.vg/reviews/videogame-art ... ation.html

So let's get to properly analyzing what this game does that no other RTS has ever done before, and let's trash all casual criticisms of the game in the process for great justice.
The titular planet-smashing feature, and even the recently added annihilazering, are little more than elaborate versions of superweapons, as I've already mentioned; the real innovations of this game are the following:

1. Spherical battlefields

2. Strategic zoom to a stellar level, as opposed to a mere regional, sub-planetary one as seen in Supreme Commander

3. Multiple fronts (thanks in part to the spherical battlefields, and partly to the multiple planets afforded by the newly introduced stellar systems)

4. A new, 4th layer to add to the previously existing 3 (land, air and naval): the orbital layer

and last but by no means least,

5. Infinite everything: infinite units, players, teams, fronts, planet numbers and even planet sizes

Throw in the revolutionary army-sharing co-op option that was pioneered by the original Age of Empires together with multiplayer lobbies that can accommodate any kind of player setup, from boring outdated 1v1s to 4v4v4v4v4v4v4v4v4s [ > ] to the insane 40v10v13v5v28 games that are already technically possible, or whatever absurd configurations you could come up with, and if you don't already, merely by looking at this list, see why this is the best RTS ever (and indeed the best strategy game ever), then you don't even like strategy at all and are merely confusing it with tactics, like the uneducated mouthbreathing internet shut-in retard that I am sure you are and that you've downright proven yourself to be by your absurdly laughable negative (or even merely lukewarm) judgement on this game. There's no other valid reaction to this game than ecstasy. Either you are ecstatic about it... or you don't like strategy games. That's how much of a monumental masterpiece this game is, so take your pick, and show us your true colors.

[T]he four most important and innovative titles in the history of the genre are Dune II, Age of Empires, Supreme Commander, and Planetary Annihilation, and their major innovations were as follows:

Dune II: Created the genre by fusing the real-time tactics of Herzog Zwei with the real-time "base"-building of SimCity

Age of Empires: Took things to the next level by introducing co-operative play with shared armies between players, thereby allowing for control of much larger bases and armies, just like in real-life, in which no one can possibly hope to effectively manage an entire war effort on his own

Supreme Commander: Introduced a genius user interface which, primarily through strategic zoom, but also through a myriad of other UI innovations, finally made strategic play POSSIBLE in this type of game

and finally,

Planetary Annihilation: Which removed all arbitrary limits from all aspects of the game, allowing for theoretically infinite scalability in all dimensions, which FINALLY made strategic thinking, not merely possible, but the very CORE of the game, the very factor that determines whether you win a war (a WAR, and no longer just a single glorified battle!) or lose it

So, reducing the major innovation of each game to a single term, we get:

Dune II: Fusion

Age of Empires: Co-op multiplayer

Supreme Commander: User interface

Planetary Annihilation: Scalability

[christian]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/65 ... ts/1317661

Backers,

First off I want to personally thank everyone who backed Planetary Annihilation. This project never would have gotten off the ground without your support. Not only did you put money into the project, you put your ideas and your energy in. Without our amazing community and the Kickstarter platform none of this would have happened.

Planetary Annihilation formed in my head over a number of years. As you know, I’ve spent a good portion of my life working on RTS games. My intense interest in space combined with a lot of influences germinated the seed that became PA. If you talk to anyone who was around me during that time, they will all tell you that I simply wouldn’t shut up about wanting to do the game. In many ways, the whole thing has seemed like a dream as I never expected to get the opportunity to do it.

Enter Kickstarter. When Bob Berry came to me in 2012 about doing a Kickstarter campaign at Uber Entertainment, I immediately realized that PA would be a prime candidate. When I ran the idea by Steve Thompson he was immediately as excited as a kid in a candy store. Having Steve as a collaborator is incredible and the artistic vision of PA was 100% his awesomeness.

It’s been a long hard road, longer and harder than any of us though it could be. Some features were cut, some features were added, and some took several iterations to get where they are now. Today, the game is in a great place and in some areas far surpasses the original vision. Overall I would say that PA is the game that’s closest to its original vision of any game that I’ve ever worked on.

The future of PA is great thanks to our community. I see people actively playing and Uber Entertainment continuing to expand the game far into the future. Thank you again for making this happen. What an unbelievable journey it’s been for me and I hope for you as well.

Sincerely,

Jon Mavor
PA Dude

[christian]

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http://www.uberent.com/pa/2015/08/18/surprise

We’re announcing and launching the next chapter in the Planetary Annihilation story,
Planetary Annihilation: TITANS!

TITANS takes everything we’ve learned from Planetary Annihilation over the last two years of development and updates plus feedback from our players and combines it into a new RTS experience. It features 21 game-changing combat units including massive Titan-class units, Bounty Hunter Game Mode, new multi-level terrain and planets, asteroid belts, revamped tutorial, and a host of other features and gameplay.

Titans Launch Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpZWAZwoNz0

[christian]

Planetary Annihilation: The Journey of a Kickstarter - https://gamedevdaily.io/planetary-annih ... .ruf1hwblq

[christian]

PTE 94132 release - http://exodusesports.com/news/pte-94132 ... od-manager

[christian]

http://exodusesports.com/article/legion ... action-mod

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Legion Expansion - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqzdPnJfKMo

[christian]

PTE 94243 release - http://exodusesports.com/news/pte-94243 ... hancements

[christian]

As exciting and as impressive as the Legion expansion is, it was built primarily for 1v1 skirmishes. I had a feeling, based on the multiplayer lobby being composed almost exclusively of 1v1 Legion matches.

http://exodusesports.com/news/balance-g ... expansion/

At first it will seem like games are unnecessarily prolonged because it’s different from the MLA vs MLA gameplay we got used to where it’s a rush to whoever can snowball the other the quickest. However, I think games that constantly have the players going back and forth are better than those where one player gets a sudden decisive advantage. For me an exciting game could be a 2 minute game as much as a 2 hour game – it’s all about the journey.

One of the problems with the MLA pacing I wanted to solve was that 1v1 never felt like it had a natural timing for escalation and progression to T2. It hinged much too heavily on players being equally skilled so that unequal matches tended to be incredibly volatile. While most games will roughly follow the above, you still have options for fast timing attacks though. For example air first Marauder pressure, Purger cliff sniping, Peackeeper/Lancer combo rushing, and maybe other cool combos I haven’t discovered yet.

The expansion represents one way of making a game more interesting. Another way is to simply leave 1v1 behind.

[christian]

Legion overview - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knEpipBCh1M