What sets Battlescape apart from the rest? A comprehensive overview

Hi Community,

I’ve encountered two major hurdles in trying to sell this game to others, so in this thread, I would like to:

  1. Outline what exactly those hurdles are, and
  2. Identify solutions to those hurdles

I’ll use this post as a central hub to collect answers to questions that we, as individuals, might be asked OUTSIDE this community because right now we are getting slaughtered by the rest of the world.

So, starting off…

1) What are the hurdles?
Selling the game to people who have heard of it, and selling it to people who haven’t heard of it. People often ask, and specifically for comparison, “what makes I:B different than the plethora of space games that are already out there? (E:D, SC, NMS)”. Another way to phrase it is “why should we be excited by this?”

2) Identify solutions
This is where you come in. You tell me: what sets I:B apart from the others? What features does I:B have that other games don’t? Why should people who haven’t heard of it be excited for this? Why should people who have heard of it not relegate it to vaporware status?

If possible, one-sentence answers would be best. Be short and to-the-point, because to do otherwise means people will get bored and stop readi-

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The common point is space but that’s all… This game can’t be compared to E:D, SC, NMS since they are TOTALLY different games.

This one will be a planetside in space. Others are space sims.

Totally not the same and incomparable.

I personnally prefer the sim genre but for the effort with the engine I backed this game but I don’t think I’ll play much with it.

[quote=“Helgarth, post:2, topic:1251”]
they are TOTALLY different games.
[/quote]What makes them different? Many people will see “space sim” and leave it at that.

[quote=“Helgarth, post:2, topic:1251”]
This one will be a planetside in space. Others are space sims.
[/quote]Again, what’s the difference? What is planetside? How is I:B not a space sim?

[quote=“Helgarth, post:2, topic:1251”]
I personnally prefer the sim genre but for the effort with the engine I backed this game but I don’t think I’ll play much with it.
[/quote]So what you’re saying is that I:B is not a space sim…? Even though it takes place in space and it simulates flying around?

(Thanks for replying btw - good start to really flesh these out)

Just focus on maximizing support. You can’t get everyone.

Setting it apart means showing the seamless transition and mentioning 100s of players on a server.

I’ll take a stab at it:

What sets it apart is that it’s not a game where you grind for months for a goal. You hop on, fight battles with 300+ players involved, have a blast, and get off.

Full * unlimited * Newtonian flight, seamless transition from space to atmosphere, no loading screens (or their “replacements”) whatsoever, and the ability for several hundred players if not a thousand to fight in a single battle, with absolutely no instancing.

If you’re the type of person who gets squeamish while watching so many lazers explosions and pew pew on SW Ep IV, you have no business owning anything above an integrated graphics accelerator. Go back to Farmville. :stuck_out_tongue:

More serious ;): Because this is the first game to be able to have so many players fight in any point of such a huge area of space.

Because a prototype of the game is ready RIGHT NOW, and is played and has been played, giving those lucky few, in their own words, the most incredible gaming experience they’ve ever had. It’s real, it’s happening, get over it.

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Sorry, I still don’t know how to quote in this forum and I’ll try to figure it out later.

Are you familiar with the X series, freelancer or things like that?

In my opinion space sim has a really more specific definition since it came with games like those cited above. A space sim (according to me) is more than flying in space (which I agree should be the true definition but this implies that a space sim would be just boring), it should contain at least a sandbox part with economy, fighting, exploring.

So I would not qualify this game as a sim genre but more as a “fighting in space” genre.

The targeted crowd for this game and the games like SC, NMS, E:D is totally different since those are sims (in my understanding of the word “sims”) and infinity is not.

As I said, I really do like those 3 games but I don’t think I’ll like infinity:battlescape.

PS: Planetside 2 is a semi-permanent FPS that takes place on giant maps.

Core features I like written sorta shortly:

Drop-in/Drop-out PVP action with fast(ish) progression. Instant action and instant gratification isn’t a bad thing. Why are people saying ‘I want to turn on my game and have a fun time right away’ considered wrong somehow?

Fast paced combat that lasts and lets you sink your teeth into it; instead of either outright slow paced combat or fast paced combat that ends in seconds.

No pesky little speed caps for the Newtonian physics. (Could fill a book on why this is cool and how it works from a gameplay perspective, but you wanted short stuff)

Space to atmosphere flight around 1-1 scale planets and moons, brings in gameplay implications like the risk vs reward of travel speed and ease of detection. (Getting jumped while slowed down by the atmosphere, being all sneaky like, would SUCK for you.)

HUGE ASS BATTLES! 250+ players in one place blasting the crap out of each other.

Capital ship combat! NUKING ALL THE STUFF FROM ORBIT! \o/

Are you familiar with Wing Commander? Star Wars: TIE Fighter? Allegiance?? :slight_smile:

Yes but I thought it would be easier for the OP to understand the difference comparing to the games I cite. I know wing commander but not the Star wars one.

the OP knows they’re different. A lot of people who look at the first half of the kickstarter vid before making assumptions and leaving; don’t. That was kinda the whole point of this post. How to tell the sort of people who would appreciate a game being different that it is, in fact, different.

Simply drag over the quote you want to quote, and a button pops up. :smiley:

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Perfect, thank you! :smile:

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first about “sims”
Simulation: the representation of the behavior or characteristics of one system through the use of another system,
We reference sims to a real system being represented on another system that acts like the original, but it’s not.
(reason why we don’t call Residen’t Evil a zombie survival simulator)

The one system: space
The other system: computer

Is I:B a space simulator?: Yes
Does it have exploration?: Yes
Is exploration its main focus: No
Which is then: Massive online combats in 1 massive map, with seamless space-athmospheric transitions and flight
Does it have social aspects like a commerce system or Goverments? No
Why is it a space sim if it doesn’t have those features? space has no commerce system or goverments as far as We (humans) know.
Why is it a space sim then? it simulates space experience from taking off the surface of a planet, to fly through empty space with no gravity, with celestial bodies affecting your gameplay to full scale, with no interruptions, no loading screens , no instances, no different maps, everything in 1 single enviroment, map and instance, with just 1 single newtonian physics model.
What makes it different from other games then???
-It’s semi-persistent, battles will have an end, and everything starts frmo zero in the next Arena.
-Battles will last from hours to days (TBD)
-It focus on battles, in that aspect, you can say it’s planetside 2 in space, but goes beyond that in some other aspects
-It’s going to have strategy elements
-Planets athmospheres/surfaces and other things will affect gameplay
-It’s going to have an offline mode to explore and try out ships, if you don’t want to be forced to battle in order to play it.

Comparisons are bad:
-it’s an ED ripoff!: ED focus on exploration, I:B scope are seamless massive battles, they are 2 different games.
-we got SC, we don’t need I:B!: SC focus on scy-fi human-in-space experience at different scales, while I:B focus on seamless massive combats in 1 planetary system, they are 2 different games.
-they are all the same!: they just have 1 thing in common overall:

-Space

Just as iRace and Forza have cars, but they focus on different things.

How this concept image could be perfectly representative of the finished game’s mechanics:

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