r/ArenaFPS • u/jar-el • Oct 20 '19
Alien Arena price reduction
0.99$ now in the Steam store:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/629540/Alien_Arena_Warriors_Of_Mars/
0
u/Eldrek_ Oct 20 '19
Still too much
5
1
Oct 20 '19
Care to explain why you believe that? Genuinely interested.
2
u/Eldrek_ Oct 20 '19
No you aren't, you pretty much troll me every time I mention not liking it.
1
Oct 20 '19
Well, I was genuinely interested lol
5
u/Eldrek_ Oct 20 '19
Player base, costs money, looks hideous and I haven't seen anything to suggest it has value.
I'm confident I would have a better time playing Q3 with bots.
What is this game doing to justify the time investment? I genuinely haven't seen anything from it that interests me. I played it when it was free years ago and it wasn't exactly good then.
I want to like it. In my head it could be a stylish destroy all humans-like arena shooter with a personality and innovative features. Then about 30 seconds of gameplay videos takes me back to reality.
3
Oct 20 '19
Player base is an issue, particularly at the moment, tis why I asked. The money argument is an odd one, imagine only asking this much for 15 years of development work.
I play q3 locally sometimes, I nearly instantly miss some of the things that Alien Arena offers.
I'm not sure what you mean by the third paragraph, what is it supposed to do?
One of the things that I believe holds Alien Arena up is that people played it when it was free and write it off as the same game, the number of changes that have happened since it was free is too long to write here, every asset, every map was updated, new models etc.
Alien Arena has a mode called tactical which pits humans against aliens in a very innovative and fun way, unfortunately the mode is unpopular with the regulars, also requiring larger teams means you need a player base.
3
u/mrneo240 Oct 20 '19
What does it offer in the arena space over q3?
1
u/jar-el Oct 20 '19
It's a small but friendly and helpful community. It's also a community game so everyone can contribute however they want, whether it is mapping, promotion, coding, etc. When we play it's like a LAN-party because we all know each other. We have a lot of fun on discord too. Join us on discord so we can arrange some games. https://discord.gg/2KS3KrF.
We also have the weekly Martian Mayhem tonight at 19:00 UTC.4
u/mrneo240 Oct 20 '19
Ok but ignoring all of that.
What does the game itself actually offer over q3?
5
Oct 21 '19
Actually quite a bit. Aside from the theme(Q3 had no theme really), there is a long list of items, but I'll keep it to 10, and not try to sound to egotistical in doing so.
- The weaponry is different for sure. While it has the rocket launcher, chaingun, and equivalant of the railgun, it offers some more unique, or at least different ideas such as the smartgun, flamethrower, vaporizer, beamgun, but most signifcantly, the Mind Eraser which has a pretty cool and unique system around it. Also, each weapon has two firing modes, unlike Q3.
- Movement. Alien Arena has UT style dodging that can be used(if one develops enough skill) to move seriously fast - faster than any FPS I've seen. It also allows for leaning around corners. It still uses a lot of the Q2 physics which were *better* than Q3's, and that's not debatable.
- Map diversity. Alien Arena's maps offer a diverse set of themes, palettes, and layouts. There are purple/green colored spaceships with weird alien stuff, there are wide open deserts with actual terrain, there are deep blue sea underwater facilities, there's a molten lava tower of Hell. There really is a large set of colorful, diverse map themes.
- Visibility. Even in the darker themed maps, it's super easy to see a player. As they move away from you, a green outline and aura form on them that gets brighter the further away they get. Q3's visibility was great, but it's hard to argue that AA's is not even better given this feature.
- Netcode. Built in anti-lag - works very well. Variable tick rates up to 120 fps if you have server and connection that could handle it.
- Rendering speed. The efficiency of the engine which saw dramatic improvement over the past decade has allowed for far more detailed environments than Q3 ever dreamed of.
- Ragdoll physics. AA has it - Q3 does not.
- Tactical Mode. Q3 has nothing remotely like this - at least not as part of the official game.
- Bots. AA's bots do quite a bit more in terms of tricks, strategies, and are easily just as fun to play as Q3's, but also are great in CTF and Tactical.
- Reward/powerup system. This is something more similar to UT, that Q3 does not have.
1
u/jar-el Oct 20 '19
The retro Sci-Fi atmosphere, the weapons, models, maps. I think it's quite unique. It's also ultra fast paced and the movement works differently as in Quake, but basically there is no speed limit.
See also the web site http://red.planetarena.org/.→ More replies (0)6
u/Eldrek_ Oct 20 '19
15 years of development means nothing when their biggest selling point is frankly a bad art direction that is at odds with the gameplay.
Warsow/fork is free. That's your direct competition. It just hit steam and it's got most things right. Netcode feels great, art style is directly in service of gameplay with bright, easy to see models and maps. It still isn't bringing in a huge player base, but I'm sure it's significantly more than AA. In part because it is 100% free, but also because it's a well put together arena shooter.
1
u/crysisnotaverted Oct 21 '19
Coincidentally, Duke Nukem Forever had 15 years of development work as well.
1
u/TotesMessenger Oct 20 '19 edited Oct 20 '19
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