1. I don't really have to say anything about Interstellar Marines as a game, it doesn't interest me...thanks to anyone who actually read all of this.

Your last statement makes the rest of your post irrelevant.

1. I don't really have to say anything about Interstellar Marines as a game, it doesn't interest me...thanks to anyone who actually read all of this.

Your last statement makes the rest of your post irrelevant.

+1

Hey Rapeman, welcome. I am unsure exactly as to your purpose. I am guessing you are trying to incite a fight? Because if you were just here to say a lot of the text around the site is redundant, you could have said so in a single sentence instead of being redundant yourself. However, if you are trying to incite a fight, I'd assume you would bash the game itself as well, which you did not. So, I am confused as to exactly what you are trying to do.

I don't expect you will find much of that here, all the regulars here are quite level-headed. Um... but if there is something I could help you with or if you have any questions, please continue.

If you are expressing your opinion on the use of AAA indie, you are welcome to your own opinion, but in any case, I am unclear as to what your purpose is.

I apologize if I misunderstood your intentions, but by basically saying you have no care for the game and making an account solely for the purpose of that post does not lead me to believe its anything of a useful nature.

A person who would normally go on with calling himself with one of the worst possibly commitable crimes and raging over a simple miscomunication on their end is a troll and therefore should be put under the bridge and well ignored.

The constant descriptions of things AAA is overkill, and meaningless at that. The term AAA is an indicator of review scores... nothing more.

Ah.. No, usually it describes the budget and expected returns.

AAA Indie is bullshit - the term means absolutely nothing, and there is nothing to separate it from traditional independent distribution/development. All it says is that they've got a saccharine-sweetly worded marketing manifesto.

Again, you are bit mistaken because you have misinterpreted the meaning of AAA, usually indie titles are a low budget games since they are not funded by a publisher, the idea behind AAA indie is a big budget game without a publisher.

1. Gamers get a say in what games get to the market

Gamers do get a say in what games get to the market regardless of how it's being developed or distributed - if there is something that is worth supporting, people will support it, and unless a game is completely unworkable for some reason from the developer's perspective, then an eagerly anticipated game is most likely going to make it to market.

Yes sure(To clarify, it is sarcasm), tell that to interplay and all the IP the cling to. sure in the end somebody payed to buy it from them but how long did the consumer had to wait for it? Just look at the fallout series for an example.

1. Gamers can get behind the scenes of the development of games they fancy. No more closed doors development

A lot of devs put out things like development diaries, and there's often a lot of information released about games beforehand, but ultimately, closed door development is a good thing. There's a difference between getting feedback, and letting your audience have a key part of the design/development process.

And by a lot you mean companies like Valve, Blizzard and Bethesda,Infinity Ward, Naughty Dog cause those usually don't release much except teaser trailer when game is announced and then only when game is close to beta.

Most gamers are not interested in what will make the best game, they want whatever is best for how they play the game. They are fickle, have awful taste, and involving them heavily with pre-release development is a good way to end up with a directionless, un-fun, unbalanced game.

Unless you are a good developer and can actually satisfy a variety of needs. If a gamers call out for a simple stealth game or a die hard shooter there is nothing wrong with pleasing both of these demands. You would just need to implement more mechanics and difficulty slider. In no way would it be directionless or unbalanced. In fact having a game as "modular" as possible would be the best way to go, each one would be able to "twink" the way they want it. Which from where I am looking ZPS is trying to do.

1. Games can be priced and distributed much more liberally

Steam's got some pricing issues, I'll admit, and GFW is generally an awful platform. This, however, does not warrant such a focus on how "omg we're indie"

Yes, it does. Let me explain why. Everybody who is involved in publishing a game needs to make a get paid and hopefully profit from it. The less middle men you have the less people need to be paid there for the game could be priced less by the amount you save on the middle man. Just by digitally releasing a game you save the cost of printing and shipping, that cost could be deducted thus the game could be cheaper.

1. It adds to the diversity of games available
2. It breaks down barriers of entry, opening the games industry up to a new and independant generation of game developers

These last two are intrinsic parts of independent games, again, the new label is completely unwarranted. Also, the second segment of the about AAA Indie page is redundant....

Yes, that is what indie games are, but how many of them are big budget games? They is what point 4 and 5 is all about, recreating success of indie development with hope of biger budget games that do not stick to the "commonly accepted standards".

1. AAA Indie is AAA games done independently from publishers

Again, an intrinsic part of independent development. The others are rehashes of statements from the first segment.

You just angry cause you did not know what AAA meant...

1. AAA Indie is the gamer and the developer, no one else
2. AAA Indie is development with open doors, so gamers can track games in development

These two are essentially point 2 from above.

That is true.

1. AAA Indie lets the gamers 'vote' for the games they want to play - simply by expressing their interest

This is that point about gamers deciding what goes to the market.

True again.

1. AAA Indie is open for anyone with a dream a the will to deliver on that dream

This one is point 5 from before. I could go on, but to do so would be as redundant and unnecessary as the initial premise. I don't really have to say anything about Interstellar Marines as a game, it doesn't interest me...thanks to anyone who actually read all of this.

Ah, you just a kid with a shattered dream, live and let live, let other succeed where you have failed, peace out.

Hello and welcome brouwjon!

I understand where you are coming from, and will go as far to say that a sci-fi shooter isn't exactly uncommon either. But lemme go through your questions/concerns in order as best as I can :D

Uniqueness First, it is unique for several reasons. The first is that it is the sole high quality game that is entirely indie. No publisher of any kind in sight. The only close comparison I'd give would be Miner Wars, but they are sponsored by Intel, but they are very similar. That fact alone is what initially draws a lot of people to this game, who are sick of the publishers and investors having their ways with games making what could be great games into rushed pieces of crap.

Second, they have some cool technology they plan on integrating (eventually) called RTVP (real time voice porting) which means it takes your voice in real time and the game warps it based on your surroundings. Is your team down a corridor from you? Your voice will be distant and echo-ey to them. Is it windy? Your voice will be muffled. And I think (although I cant be absolutely certain) this goes as far as giving voice commands to AI and stuff. One of the videos in the briefing room (which is only accessible to frontliners and spearheads) at the end shows ZPSHicks, one of the developers, aggroing a shark creature only by yelling at it.

Third, (shameless plug) this community is pretty awesome, I am not gonna lie :-P

Fourth through ... ???: I am sure I am missing things, but these are the biggies

Forums Right now, all that you see is all that there is. The general discussion forum and the off topic forum, both of which can be displayed by using the forum homepage. The devs are always around reading your input and opinions, but they are very much overworked (there is only 4 of them right now) and so their responses are not the most common, but they do the best that they can with responses.

We have a cool little initiative where every week, the community votes on a question they would like the dev's to answer (the poll is from Tuesday to Sunday night each week), and every week (on Wednesday) the devs answer the question with the most votes to the best extent they can.

A site and forum re-organization is in the works and is on the to do list. But what that means as a final result, I am unsure and will find out when you find out :D

If I did not completely answer something or you have other questions, feel free to ask away :D

I'm just curious as to what will make IM unique. The market is very saturated with shooters (not sci-fi, though... yet). Customizable weapons is done by everyone. Quite a few shooters have made their levels open and not "corridor-like." Co-op is relatively common in single player modes.

Alternate endings isn't used in the shooter genre very much- I like how you guys are doing that.

I'll try to expand on what Aevaris said about uniqueness of IM gameplay. Let me copy and paste bits that were presented to us by ZPS

Source:IM Gameplay article

"Playing a pre-made character in a game can be great fun, but when designing Interstellar Marines it was pretty clear that we wanted more than that, we wanted to give players the freedom to shape and mold their character themselves.

In the game the characters will enter the solar system as rookies, but during the progression of the game all gradually become more and more experienced as the story unfolds. With experience comes new skills and abilities as well as access to new and better weaponry, and it is now all up to each player how they want to build and equip their Marine.

Create a stealthy medic with hacking skills, a heavy armored sniper with explosives or maybe an officer with excellent strategic abilities and a minigun?"

That so far we can see a similar customization that is presented in a game like Bioshock

"When we were to create the world of the Interstellar Marines, plenty of ideas came up for great locations and places for the players to explore. However no matter where the story would take the marines, we were pretty sure about one thing; the places should all be open ended and not in any way force the players to just take a pre-chosen path through.

So we constructed the game in such a way that there are always several ways to achieve the main objectives/complete the levels and players will have the option of using brute force, stealth tactics and/or make use of the various skills as a mean to successfully clear a mission."

Just like you mentioned in your original post about the open level design with multiple ways to approach the problem. Something similar to what you can see in the Single player of Crysis 2

ZPSHicks goes on and says about the designed gameplay of IM

"If you have played System Shock 2, Deus Ex, Stalker or RS3 - Raven shield then you will have a hint about how the levels in IM will be structured.

We want to give the players in IM the freedom to have very cool story objectives and then have it be absolutely up to the players how to approach the situation. So it's kind of the realism in the level design from Raven Shield with the freedom of choice from Deus Ex geared by the focus on story from System Shock 2."

A story is and storytelling is another important part of IM, think of the feeling of wonder and discovery when you walked into the Rapture, add to that the epic feeling of looking from space at the nuke going off in CoD: MW2 and you get what IM is trying to do.

In the end IM is not bring anything new to the table (except RTVP that Aevaris have already mentioned) it just tries to gather all of the best bits from all of the best game and place it into one game. In their own words. It is not a revolution but an evolution.

AAA Indie and IM is not just a game it is a vision to change the game industry forever. It is about empowering gamers .It's about reminding you all that you are not just passive mindless consumers, but individuals with the power to bring games to the market.

I hope that this gives you a bit of insight and answers your question.

I'll also try to add some things :)

• They are planning to build a destructible environment (nothing new, I know). But your destruction is going to have more effects than just producing some trash.
  This means a grenade the wrong place at the wrong time can take out more than the enemies first intended with secondary effects like malfunctioning doors / power systems to allow for more un-scripted events when running around playing Rambo! :)
  Quoted from Ask the Developer - Week 11 (theres also more information about the destructible environment)

• Character customization (gender; body height and fitness; face) and of course adjustable equipment (more about all that in the ATD - Week 9)

• RPG Elements

• Better audio occlusion. I would recommend to try the two examples from this article. Note that they are exaggerated and this technology is still in development.

But I think there are still some aspects missing :D
Oh, and another thing I nearly forgot: Welcome to the forum :)

Not to offend any Spearheaders, but Spearhead seems like shooting yourself in the foot. The money you get from that might cover the costs of the first game, and indeed you seem to be doing very well. But then you have two additional games to develop essentially for free for this presumably big part of the fanbase. Maybe your economic plans pan out this way, I don't know.

And only 40 dollars? Maybe that's enough and other games are just insanely overpriced. But it seems like very little for three games out of an indie studio at this point. Orange Box was a good deal? Try IM Spearhead!

I specifically avoided Spearhead because I didn't want you to commit two free games to me. Maybe I'm missing something and I'm certainly not suggesting that any monetary pledges made to Spearheaders are rescinded.

It just seems like a bad idea.

Because of that the number of Spearheads is limited to 75000, this may sound like a lot but it is not. They need to sell about 1 million copies of the game to bring all the money back which they invested. (Don't nail me on this Numbers) And the second an third game are not going to be made for free, but from the revenue of the first or second game.

But to make this work they need to finish the first game and to do so they made the Spearheads a good offer. And the second and third game are a gift for helping the development of the first game so early on.

Longs story, short meaning. They don't make money withe Spearheads but it allows them to finish the first game.