MOO3 does, indeed, suck (as does Win 3.11) - this will absolutely not turn into a nightmare of micromangement and endless boring repetition. And fully-realized means that it's immersive enough that the AI reflects the differences when dealing with each race, rather than the same exact dialogue regardless of which alien picture is on the screen.

I agree with everything denzacar said except: "We want to see humanoid aliens"... I want to show aliens that are cool, and at least interesting even if they're not completely believable, not photoshop jobs of stock photos (prolly too harsh, but hopefully you understand the intent :D). But, ultimately, the backers are going to make that decision, not me.

Because it's the game I want to make (and, fortunately, at least some other people want to see me and Tim make it, too). And I'm pretty sure Bioshock tells the same story, every time you play - this is going to be more like a set of choose-your-own-adventure books... :D

[As the developer of the game]

Anti: $10 doesn't just get you a star name, it gets you an entire year of talking about the game, and having a vote and a voice in the final product. As for the $30 license (and the $500k Kickstarter comment as well), we're putting everything into it up front, so it's the game we want to make right from the beginning, and the customers/ backers get as much as we can give them (rather than hoping to get funded for stretch goals). There's going to be a lot of content, and it's going to be expensive to generate - aside from paying my living expenses, the rest is going to be spent developing the game. "No DRM foolishness" means everybody in your family can use it if they want (yes, all at the same time), so it's not exactly price-gouging.

Pro: I'd actually rather charge less, but I had to find a balance between reasonable reward levels and enough to meet the Kickstarter goal, and I made a judgment call. And yes, there are some projects on Kickstarter that don't need to be there, or are too high, because the creators don't actually need that much money to complete the project. Timothy Zahn knows my plan for the game, and he was also worried that we might be setting the Kickstarter target too high (but it's not just my name on the line, and there's no way I'm going to waste all the time and energy he is putting into this by turning out a sub-par game that will disappoint the backers, or risk running out of funds because I cut the budget too close).

In general, it's a valid comment/ concern, but it's not as cut and dry as it seems from the outside, when you're dealing with all the myriad variables and considerations.