Guns of Icarus Online

WhiteWeasel

GoIO is a team based ship to ship, multiplayer combat game. Also 50% off until may 22

Pretty straight forward, a team of four works together on a ship (with up to 8 ships or 32 players total) and duke it out, with the players piloting, shooting, and maintaining the ship at all times. And even with the smallest ship there are more parts than players to keep track of, meaning that the players must decide whether or not to swap out firepower to keep the ship from blowing up, or in the air and vice-versa. The several components to a ship:
-Hull, the heart of your ship, This goes and everything else with it.
-Engines, what propels your ship. Number depends on class, these go, and you cannot move or turn in only one direction if it's a side engine for example.
-Balloon, vertical movement. Keeps your ship in the air, lose this and you crash into the ground and take DoT until it is fixed or ship is destroyed
-Guns, what else would they be used for. Number and strength (light or heavy) depend on ship class.

The trait pentagon:
Speed - How physically fast your ship can go,
Maneuverability - Turning, more important than what you think, due to the fact that the guns have a limited FoV
Durability - Hp value, some weapons are better at damaging hp than armor and vise-versa
Armor - The armor value
Firepower - The number of gun and what type they are

Classes, note that you can do anyone's job, just that what you specialize in can be done better. What you can do is determined by your classes' equipment.
Gunner: Has the ability to change ammo type, such as the heavy clip which is greater accuracy for less range. Or the incendiary round, which does less normal damage, but gains it back with the DoT. Exactly like the lerk bite dealing less upfront damage vs the skulk bite, but actually does more counting the poison.
Engineer: Tf2 style, just that you can pick an assortment of wrenches that can repair certain items faster, such as the mallet that can fix a damaged item quickly, while a wrench fixes completely broken items faster. But does not repair damaged items as well in turn.
Pilot: The ship buffer, has a spyglass that can IFF at long range, can dump kerosene on the engines to OC them as in more speed for DoT, etc...

Game play: (the videos explain/showoff the game better than me)


(older footage FYI)


Twich tv: Streaming now! (at time of post)
http://www.twitch.tv/qwerty2jam?utm_campaign=live_embed_click&utm_source=gunsoficarus.com

SquishpokePOOPFACE

I'm a big fan of Air Buccaneers as well, but they dumbed down the game a bit from the original.

Svenpa

Got this from a humble bundle but I've yet to actually plunge myself into the multiplayer. The videos I've seen of it seem rather same-ish and uninteresting sadly. I imagine long term players vs each other with commentary would highlight all the subtle things people do and use. Right now it just looks like rush into gangbangs until everyone is dead.

ritualsacrifice

Played during beta, it was a great time. I've got a pretty big boner for naval warfare though, so if you're not into boats you might not like the game. And make no mistake, this is a game about boats.

ANeM

It is worth noting that the current sale is an attempt to get some more interest in the Adventure Mode Kickstarter. Currently they've got the basic co-op adventure funded, but they're looking for some extra cash to make a pseudo-MMO out of the whole thing, that would tie in the new PVE content with the existing PVP content via player-run factions and additional routes and areas.

To be honest they've done a pretty weak job of actually publicizing the kickstarter, considering there wasn't really any notification that the Sale was even going on, let alone the fact that it is supposed to be tying in to the kickstarter.


Overall I've really enjoyed what I've played of GoI Online. There is a lot of depth to the classes, item choices and weapons that it doesn't really do a good enough job of leveraging. For example, the Cannonade weapons are extremely good against balloons, but absolutely awful against ship hulls. A ship kitted entirely with Cannonades would have difficulty directly destroying a ship.. But if you focus just on the balloons you could easily disable it, causing it to crash into the ground and explode. Coupled with the right ammo you can be even more proficient at disabling the enemy. The problem is that the game only tells you this information in the weapon select menu, when you're setting up a ship (As the ship commander.) New players don't really think to look at this (nor are they able to quickly remember which guns are proficient against which systems, or more importantly where they should be shooting at on any of the 5 or 6 possible vessels) so the depth is sort of lost.

The biggest problem, at least in my experience is that the community wasn't very welcoming of new players. Not so much that they were actively hostile, but they have a tendency to stack teams. They'd play it off as not wanting to be on a crew with someone who wouldn't respond to orders or call out stuff, but that never really explained why if you had 8 experienced players would end up with them completely filling 2 crews on the same team. You'd imagine if their intent was a fair game, just without having to directly interact with non-responsive newbies, that they'd be fine fighting each other.

Talesin

As one of the original GoI backers, I'm more than a bit disappointed; I understand cost overruns, but the Adventure Mode was supposed to have already been covered by the first KS, and had made it MOST of the way to the 'MMO' stretch-goal by the end. A lot of the features they had planned apparently were cut, and most of the complexity they were talking about was traded in for fast-action events (repairs were supposed to require puzzles to complete, combat was supposed to take a LOT longer to shoot down enemies, lending the game a more cinematic feel than the run-and-gun deathmatch cheapness it was reduced to).

I still have my gear, and will occasionally load it up for a game with friends, but it's fallen far short of what it was supposed to be... especially with the original goal blown past pretty hard. I won't be chipping in more to have it go the same way.

WhiteWeasel

Talesin wrote: »

As one of the original GoI backers, I'm more than a bit disappointed; I understand cost overruns, but the Adventure Mode was supposed to have already been covered by the first KS, and had made it MOST of the way to the 'MMO' stretch-goal by the end. A lot of the features they had planned apparently were cut, and most of the complexity they were talking about was traded in for fast-action events (repairs were supposed to require puzzles to complete, combat was supposed to take a LOT longer to shoot down enemies, lending the game a more cinematic feel than the run-and-gun deathmatch cheapness it was reduced to).

I still have my gear, and will occasionally load it up for a game with friends, but it's fallen far short of what it was supposed to be... especially with the original goal blown past pretty hard. I won't be chipping in more to have it go the same way.

Oh, I'm sorry. Did you feel like you were scammed, or a case of "what it could have been"? It would be a real shame if a neat concept like this was ruined by greedy devs.

awkm

Talesin wrote: »

As one of the original GoI backers, I'm more than a bit disappointed; I understand cost overruns, but the Adventure Mode was supposed to have already been covered by the first KS, and had made it MOST of the way to the 'MMO' stretch-goal by the end. A lot of the features they had planned apparently were cut, and most of the complexity they were talking about was traded in for fast-action events (repairs were supposed to require puzzles to complete, combat was supposed to take a LOT longer to shoot down enemies, lending the game a more cinematic feel than the run-and-gun deathmatch cheapness it was reduced to).

I still have my gear, and will occasionally load it up for a game with friends, but it's fallen far short of what it was supposed to be... especially with the original goal blown past pretty hard. I won't be chipping in more to have it go the same way.

Hey there,

This is Eric Chung, I'm a game designer with Muse Games—we made Guns of Icarus Online.  I want to first thank you for your initial support way back when.  And to be honest, we didn't have a clear idea about how to use Kickstarter.  In the midst of our inexperience, our message was muddled.  We tried several times to clear it up but it was already to late and the damage was done.  It was never the case that we over budgeted or anything like that, we just weren't clear about where Adventure Mode fit into our original KS campaign.  Ultimately, we should have never mentioned it.  It was meant to show the bigger scheme of where the game might go.  We asked for $10k and received $35k in funding from that campaign.  Neither amount comes close to covering the costs of Guns Online Skirmish Mode, the game that is out right now and we knew that going in.  The original KS campaign was to create an initial player base and it was very successful in that.

Now with our Adventure Mode KS, we're trying to get funds to actually build Adventure Mode.  Our initial goal of $100k covers a portion of it and we will continue to work towards Feature Complete (approx $500k) and we've promised to release it, guaranteed, to all backers of the project.  It's just a question of if we can bundle all of Adventure Mode into one big DLC or will we have to break it up into smaller ones and release incrementally.  Being an indie studio, a constant flow of cash is important for us to pay employees, rent, servers, and all that stuff.  We don't have any big venture capital or investments.  It's all from fans, friends, and family.

We try to be transparent about this to show everyone that we're not just another greedy development studio.  We make games that we want to play and hope that others will enjoy it too.  This is why we've turned to Kickstarter to look for the money to get these projects done because we know that the best investors are the ones who care about the product.

Talesin, if you are unhappy with the results please get back to us and we will work something out with you.  feedback@musegames.com

(Although I'm not sure where puzzles came from... I designed the repair system and even though it went through many iterations, it was never meant to be a puzzle.  Matches were always supposed to take around 20 minutes, similar to TF2 match length.  We played TF2 a lot in the office over several beers.  Down to the core, we wanted to play Guns Online in the same fashion.  Still be good at the game while kinda drunk :P  There might have been another miscommunication here but our design goals and changes from planning to release to now has always been with the best intentions to make the game more fun)

awkm

@WhiteWeasel

And thank you for spreading the word!

WhiteWeasel

awkm said:

@WhiteWeasel

And thank you for spreading the word!

Your welcome, just remember that no matter how tempting it is, umm, don't do what EA does to their games. It would be terrible for a great idea to be ruined by corporate money-milking.  

awkm

@WhiteWeasel

This is exactly why we're indie.  We've suffered from publishers in the past and since have learned on how to work with them if we decide in the future.  It's a tough business but a very fun one at that

WhiteWeasel

 @Awkm Also your forums are one of those "you need a copy of the game to post on here" am I correct? I have nothing against that as it is great deterrent against trolling (Get banned for being a jerk = you have pay for another copy of the game to come back). But the thing is though that it works well expensive and popular AAA titles like starcraft, but I cannot see how it makes sense on such a tiny forum, wouldn't you want to try and get as many people in your community as possible in this delicate stage of growth? 

WhiteWeasel

Angry joe content: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhWEKvA-W9Y

awkm

@whiteweasel

We simply don't have the manpower to support a larger forum. We'd need a full time person managing it and all the insanity that is involved with an open forum.

For example, my primary job is game design.  However, most pieces of marketing/video interviews/and even the new Kickstarter campaign is done by me.  So yeah :P

WhiteWeasel

Awesome that the last day of this game's sale is may 22, my birthday. =D

WhiteWeasel

Svenpa said:

Got this from a humble bundle but I've yet to actually plunge myself into the multiplayer. The videos I've seen of it seem rather same-ish and uninteresting sadly. I imagine long term players vs each other with commentary would highlight all the subtle things people do and use. Right now it just looks like rush into gangbangs until everyone is dead.

Me learning more from the game and there are a few nice things such as; projectile fall off so you have to lead your target, each of the individual weapons, engines, & balloon can be disabled. Very vaguely similar to crippling limbs in fallout. Also each ship has a hardpoints of which you can attach different weapons to, in addition each have a damage type. For instance flechette damage does very against balloons, but poorly against armor and vice-versa with piercing and much more. 

There are supportive weapons like the flare which lights up cloud cover which reveals the shadow of ship hiding inside. The harpoon, which anchors the opponents ship to yours slowing it down, good if you're in a slow ship and you don't want circles flown around you. The flamethrower while low damage, but since you can't fire a gun while it is in flames, a very effective disabler.

Also the very layout of the ship accounts into it, like the spire. All of its guns are within 90 degrees of the front giving it very concentrated firepower, but vulnerable from behind and relatively fragile, making it a glass cannon. The pyramidion has two front and two port guns, meaning bad to your opponents on the left, but bad to you if they are on your right side. And so on.