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Planetary Annihilation begins its Linux onslaught!

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Planetary Annihilation one of the most successful games to hit it on Kickstarter has within the last week pushed out their Linux version! 

Planetary Annihilation is a Real Time Strategy game from Uber Entertainment which includes some of the staff that made Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander two games that have a big place in my heart! I do love RTS games so this is a big, big win for me!

They have also pushed the game out to Steam's Early Access area but beware if you want to get into the Alpha or Beta you will actually have to pay more than you would for the retail release.

It is currently (depending on if you buy from the Uber Store or Steam):
~$90 for Alpha+
~$60 for Beta+
~$40 for Retail only
So the price will come down!

This has actually sparked mass complaints against Uber Entertainment sadly as a lot of people feel they should either get the Alpha/Beta for free or be paid to test it for them.
The main reason behind the prices are that the Alpha/Beta access where used as perks during their Kickstarter so they can't change that for others now or have their already paying customers massively ticked off, so my hats off to them for keeping existing customers happy!
I do agree though that if there was no other reason, charging more for the Alpha/Beta would be silly, pretty much everyone else offers it for free (so it was an odd decision on their Kickstarter to begin with). That said...I love the game already!

Currently it only features one planet that can have three different biome types, eventually it will include multiple planets, moons, asteroids etc in the same game where you will be able to smash an asteroid into an opponents planet!

It's taken me until now to get some shots going as there have been many, many bugs of course being in Alpha and the Linux version was up until the last patch a bit broken with the mouse with issuing orders. I am pleased to report it's no longer much of an issue!

So here is a small timeline for you in pictures (Let's face it, Linux sucks for video+audio recording that syncs properly unless you want to spend A LOT of time or a bit of extra money on a setup that works).

So without further chit-chat, pictures!
imageStart screen after you login.

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The game room when creating a game lobby.

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Just before the battle begins you must select where to spawn!

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My commander taking a stroll through the woods...

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When you zoom out you get strategic icons, much like Supreme Commander.

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Zoom out further and you get the full solar system view, of course in later versions there will be more planets!

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Oh just building a few "bots" to ready my attack!

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I sent my commander in for an attack!

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He was no match for their defences :(, boom, bye bye commander!

Hope you liked my first look at Planetary Annihilation Linux! More will come as the game matures, currently it is of course rather raw but the potential is there, it certainly feels epic when you walk an army around a planet!

I've said it before and will say it again, I think this will be the single best RTS game Linux will have and I doubt that will change for a long time!

Also thank you to the kind reader who donated the final $30 to bump me up the Alpha! Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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About the author -
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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Vandell Jun 25, 2013
What in the world are you thinking? $90 for access to an unfinished game. I don't care how good you think it is, people won't pay for that on a mass scale.

You've made a huge mistake by setting early access at $90 on your Kickstarter; every media site that buys this game early to talk about it will inform their userbase of the price, and if they don't, users that get redirected wanting to buy your game will be met by a ninety dollar paywall! Imagine the fallout this would cause. Hell, that it already caused. 3.5k comments on your Steam-blog post of almost pure vitriolic hate.

Can't believe I was looking forward to this dreck, but I saw the problem early on with the $90 access when this was first Kickstart'd. You've lost respect from your community, and earned untold amounts of enmity from your potential customers in the tradeoff for increased backing. You've blown your one and only chance at the media-exposure boom.


It'd be best if you just stalled new purchases until release, or lower the price regardless of the feelings of your backers. Hell, all a backer wants is a good game and for the company to be successful.
Liam Dawe Jun 25, 2013
@Vandell like I outlined in my article the only reason it's at $90 is because of the Kickstarter where they chose to set Alpha/Beta as rewards.

They aren't bothered about people paying the $90 for Alpha right now, like I also outlined it will be $40 on release, which you can buy now from their store but, you could also buy nothing at all asnothing is forcing anyone to pay it.

If you keep thinking like you are you will just be missing out on a great game and that's a shame.
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