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[aristabulus]

Thanks for coming around with an olive branch, Iain. 

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There are a few things I see fueling the hearsay...

Firstly, Matrix is swimming against the current on general pricing trends.  I understand why: y'all do mostly strategy, with a lot of historically focused titles...  That wasn't exactly a large market even before the DudeBro Console influx skewed everything towards dumb shooters.  A lot of people either can't grasp that you're catering to a small customer base, or don't care to understand.  It boils down to getting caught in the crossfire between Steam/GOG/Humble sales and common mobile pricing.  That makes Matrix's games look quite expensive by comparison, plus a lot of folks won't make a distinction between "don't like the company's prices" and "don't like the company." 

Second, there's some grumpiness specifically on Distant Worlds being a hundred bucks to get to the most current version, and touted as such a good game by those that have made the leap.  I've seen more grousing about that across the net than anything else, being a strategy focused guy but not seeking out opinions on DW.  As a poor college student in America, I certainly can't afford to blow a hundred bucks on a game + 3 expansions, even if I had time for such an engrossing title.  In other parts of the world, that may be several weeks living costs after currency differentials.

Lastly, the internet tends to be a negative place.  >_<  It's where people come to vent, and sometimes the venting isn't pointed at what caused the need to vent.

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Pandora seems like a good game, and I'll eventually end up getting it, but I may be out of school before that happens.    With my course load, and seriously considering a double major, I don't get to have days off.  Ever.

[Iain McNeil]

Distant Worlds was a complex one. The system was not designed with the content and the features separately forcing players to get expansion 1 before expansion 2 and so on and only with expansion 3 do you get all the features.

We learned from that and have detached content and features. For other games like Panzer Corps you get the features for free in patches and the content is what you have to buy. This means you always have the latest version with all the features no matter what you are playing.

We are also doing a combined pack for Distant Worlds which is going to be out just after Christmas.

On the pricing thing what we do know is the best price to maximize revenue for the developer. I'll give you one example. We recently took control of Pride of Nations as we acquired Ageod. Previously it was sold at very low price points on Steam/Gamers Gate etc. We took it down from all the other sites and made it only available via out store. We fixed the price at $24.99. Since then the overall revenue has increased significantly. I mean its multiple times what it was before. For all those telling us we don't know what we're doing, it just shows to us we are the only ones with the data. I'm not going to discuss pricing any further but it is all based on evidence and data, not some bizarre attempt to kill the hobby as many suggest

[Anvilfolk]

Yeah, you guys had a neat forum post about it a while back, and I think some interaction with Rock, Paper, Shotgun. As much as it pains me (as someone who buys games when they're on sale only), if it makes sense overall, then that's the way it should be.

Looking forward to reviews of Pandora though!

[Tilla]

Firstly, Matrix is swimming against the current on general pricing trends.  I understand why: y'all do mostly strategy, with a lot of historically focused titles...  That wasn't exactly a large market even before the DudeBro Console influx skewed everything towards dumb shooters.  A lot of people either can't grasp that you're catering to a small customer base, or don't care to understand.  It boils down to getting caught in the crossfire between Steam/GOG/Humble sales and common mobile pricing.  That makes Matrix's games look quite expensive by comparison, plus a lot of folks won't make a distinction between "don't like the company's prices" and "don't like the company." 

This whole 'it's strategy so it won't sell' concept falls apart completely when you remember Paradox has their games on Steam. Crusader Kings 2 regularly goes on sale under $20

[aristabulus]

Distant Worlds was a complex one. ...  We are also doing a combined pack for Distant Worlds which is going to be out just after Christmas.

This is good to hear.  I'm sure the bundling will go a long way to winning over some of the skeptics. 

(snip)

This whole 'it's strategy so it won't sell' concept falls apart completely when you remember Paradox has their games on Steam. Crusader Kings 2 regularly goes on sale under $20

That's not what I said.  I said it's not a large market. (compared to overall video game numbers, then or now)  That is quite different than "it won't sell."  Also, one counter-example from a larger publisher on Steam with no sales figures at all isn't a rebuttal, even if I had said what you thought.  There's a lot more to it than whether a game is put on sale deeply or regularly.

Let's get back to talking about Pandora in the Pandora thread, shall we?  ?

Who has taken the leap?  Bring on the LPs!    I'll watch them after the semester ends.  >_>

[Xinvoker]

I've been watching this LP of the release version
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBcRZEIQLUk

It's only 40 minutes, but I still haven't finished it.

[Levi]

Anybody happen to know if the multiplayer has simultaneous turns?  I'm trying to convince a friend to buy it so we can play.   Also is the multiplayer fairly stable?  Endless space drove us insane with its constant going out of sync errors.

[lordcooper]

I was in the beta for this and will be grabbing a copy in a couple of hours. 

Metaphor version: It's like all my favourite things in Alpha Centurai had a baby with all my favourite things in Civ V, then that kid grew up and has started realising who they are as an individual.

Non-metaphor version: It's pretty great and you should probably buy it.  The AI has a surprising amount of I (diplomacy works, as do naval invasions, and it frequently creates units that make sense for their current situation.

[Kaje]

Would love to play this, but £19.99 is out of my price range at the minute unfortunately. I'll wait for a sale or somesuch.

[Fikes]

Thanks for coming out to chat with is Iain, I can tell you the exact reasons why I resisted buying from your store and the reasons I am resisting buying the game.

First the store. If I went ahead and bought Pandora, at the very least I would have to enter in all of my billing and credit card info, none of which I have to do when buying from Steam (because I have already done it). I would also have to provide an email address. As a general rule, that means getting an email from that service/company/whatever once a week to once a month, a lot more for some services. I could provide a fake one, but then it would be hard to find my game, which brings me to my next issue.

If I get a game from a new service there is a good chance that I will completely forget everything about the game a month after I stop playing it. A good example is a came called Starscape. I bought it for $10 from their webpage probably 10 years ago. Played it for a long time and enjoyed it. Then I stopped playing it. I couldn't even remember what the game was called, let alone who made it, or my user name and password, or anything like that. It is just too hard to have more than a couple major game providers.

There is also the issue that I don't know much of anything about your service. I haven't seen good or bad reviews of it (I haven't looked, to be fair). If I really wanted to go after Pandora, honestly, I start a thread here asking people's impression of the service. Also, since it isn't a major name, I am slightly apprehensive to give out my credit card, even though I have a very low limit one specifically for unknown vendors. I don't even know if I have to download a front end to download from you or if games update automatically.

About the game:

Sounds great. I seriously loved Alpha Centauri and I would love a game that captured the passion I felt for SMAC years ago. A modern day remake gets me excited. On the other hand, I also loved Master of Orion 2, but all the modern day remakes fell seriously short, for one reason or another. Games like this are so deep you really have to research the mechanics of the game to decide if you will like it. There are a lot of things developers can "do wrong" in my opinion. It makes it extremely difficult to say "I will enjoy this game enough to justify my purchase."

In the end, I'd look past all of these issues and pick the game up if it was $10. I am willing to risk 10 or 15 dollars on an unproven developer or service. I can make up that money by cutting out Starbucks for a week. But $30? I could pick up a bunch of old Strategy games I used to enjoy for that much and see if they are still worth it.

Long and off topic post, so, sorry for that but I think Iain deserved an explanation.

Now you more adventurous dwarves tell me how the game is.

[Talvara]

It seems to me the game can also be bough directly off the developers website.
while I don't have the cash to sink in at the moment they do offer a good range of payment offers even one that seems specific to my country (the netherlands)
we don't really have a credit card culture here so most dutch people don't use services requiring a credit card.

in the past me and my female companion only took a temporary creditcard for hotels abroad... I wonder if the google playstore accepts anything beside creditcard these days... (totally unrelated)

Also... to Fikes, you can add non steam games to your steam library if Im not mistaken. they wont have any of the social features I sepose but it does offer you a chance to maintain a centralised library of your games. in your library go to the games tab in the menubar and select add non-steam game to library.

edit: forgot to leave a link to the (I think) dev website.
http://www.slitherine.co.uk/games/PandoraPC
it seems to me that buying directly from the source means the most revenue for the devs... if thats something you care about.

[Majestic7]

This looks very good and interesting on paper. Thank you for making a thread about it, I had never heard of the game before. I guess I'll wait to see some reviews and hear some word of the mouth whether I should buy it or not. I hate it if I get high expectations of a game and then get disappointed. :p MOO3 certainly left some traumas.

[varnish]

Oh, this looks so tempting, but I've got to hold off until I hear more about it. And until I get in a place where I have money in my life. But posting to watch, or whatever.

[azurelao]

Currently playing a game as the money faction (name escapes me at the moment).

The good news is, I have money to buy everything, ever. I have stacks of units totaling 100+ power (quite a bit in this game) and can probably move in on another group in time.

The bad news is that everyone else apparently has a massload of money and research, as they have nukes and even black hole generators. Chances are that if I go to war I'll get nuked/singularitied.

The game is decent and easy to get into, and tooltips explain most everything. The only thing is that some of the data (like pollution/growth rates) is a little hard to put in perspective.

Combat takes some getting used to, as it is unit-vs-unit rather than deathstacks. So the combat projection you see before combat is not necessarily what you might get when you consider ALL units.

It is also a really, really tough game on basic settings. The local fauna gets NASTY and attacks you every turn, and I think it they become hostile faster if you attack their nests. Either way, it get's aggravating to have to fend off their attacks AND deal with the other groups.

Oh, and unit customization is fun and easily handled.

The only other gripe I'd have is the tech tree. It seems randomized and some of the connections don't really make sense tech-wise, so you might find yourself spending valuable turns researching things you don't need to to get something you do.

Overall, though, I'd rate it a good buy for when you have the money.

[Vortex Rikers]

This is what Civilizations 5 should have been.

I've only clocked about 10 hours into the game, and I am enjoying it thoroughly. I love how, as opposed to spawning hostile native wildlife, they freely roam the planet and are docile since Year 1, even the largest, meanest apex predators. Until the pollution starts courtesy of yours truly.

Playing as the science faction. Can't really comment on balance against AI as those cheat in every strategy game ever, but it seems fair as I'm definitely not the best and have been locked in a brutal was with the religious faction for lord knows how many turns now. This is Alpha Centauri with a few mild twists to the formula, hell, even the terraforming vehicles look precisely the same as in the old classic. I much prefer the rock paper shotgun combat system, where, for instance, flamethrowers get a bonus vs biological units, and a penalty towards hurting mechanical units, than the linear power increase from the original.

However, the game really lacks in.. personality. There isn't much that differentiates the factions other than the gameplay bonuses/penalties they get. In Alpha Centauri, researching a technology would usually be followed by a quote by one of the faction leaders, clearly underlying their ideas, reasoning and beliefs. Brief videos following the completion of a secret project were a very pleasing pause to the planning and management, and are sorely missed. In Pandora, this aspect seems rather uninspired.

Considering that's the only real major flaw that I can find, I'd say Pandora is a very solid game that I hope gains much more attention.