How do you feel about something like a news feed at the bottom of the main menu (similar to Mass Effect / Dragon Age) that gives information about any available/upcoming updates or other games?

My preference is for one news item to be displayed on a graphical button that blends nicely into the art of the main menu, and clicking the button goes to the news page (with the piece of news shown in the graphic on top, and older or lower priority news below) using the user's preferred web browser (I hate things that automatically open an IE window).

I can point out things that I don't like on some current TD games:

1. Towers that don't have obvious benefits. For example, a tower that can't kill a unit all by itself, but once you put a large amount of them, like 20, then you can start seeing lots of kills. Without obvious documentation, no players would be able to reap the benefit of such tower. Some players would say it's strategy, but I'd say it's stupid as you have to invest in this tower with a hope that it'd do something. I have seen such tower. Inferno Tower, I think is what it's called. Expensive. It takes 1% of units health, and splash but low attack rate (I found out about this after I used it. No clear documentation whatsoever that it's doing this. Docs say something like "Awesome tower that burns units!!"). Obviously it's pointless building such tower early game, but you better build lots of it late game when units have 1,000,000,000 health points, and my once-glorious turrets who only deal merely 1000 damage/second are now useless.
2. Interest. I've seen a couple of TD games that add interests to your bank. While this could be a good thing and open up a lot of possible strategies, but from players' perspective, it's downright frustrating. How much spending is too much? A player is holding off building better towers thinking that it'd save him up good later, only to find out that he'd lose in the next wave.
3. Imbalanced units between waves. If I got 100% kill rate on wave 1, I'd expect at least 80% kill rate in the next wave if I do not add an additional tower. However, a lot of TD games out there spent too little time thinking about this.

As a coincidence, I had a discussion with a friend about this last weekend.
I haven't played defence grid. I'd like to try it out soon. Nonetheless, for the time being, my current gold standard for tower defence is Burnebog TD, a Warcraft III mod which appears to be both more extensive than other TDs and more balanced. It is of the fixed-path type.

Let's say there was a tower defense game out for PC's that has a price tag of $2 to $5. What features must be included in the game for you, as the customer, to consider purchasing the game?[/quote]A lot of hours and solid, extensive mechanics. If it is multiplayer, a special x4 pack might be nice.

Some flash TD are really polished. But they miss the 'extensive' part. I have been trough "Kingdom Rush" recently and I'd say it's fairly balanced but with (4+4*2) leveled towers they can only take it so far, as a comparison, Burbenog had 8*(8+1) if memory serves and the degree of synergistic interaction was incredible to say the least.

I agree on the obvious benefits and partially agree on the "imbalanced units". While I like the concept, guaranteed 80% kill on wave (n+1) is just too much. As a matter of fact, most TD games think about this and use this properties to balance between hi-damage VS hi-ROF, land-only vs land/air vs air only etc. I'd say that the wave shall go through so it consumes at least 50% of the total lifes... under no circumstances the player shall be allowed to just take a problem dimensionality and shave it off.

Tower defense games are one of my favorite categories of flash games and I even purchased Defense Grid. I agree that a native app (non-flash) TD game in general would be purchase worthy but that alone won't cut it for me. The only reason for native support is to avoid the stutter that comes from large numbers of sprites in a flash game. That said you need to make towers interesting. "Upgrade" is something I expect in a flash game. Customization is something I'd expect from a desktop game.

• Let me min/max stats as I want, for a price of course (in game upgrade points, for example, I mean), let me adjust my towers to fit the needs of the current wave and let me do it in a way that doesn't feel clunky which would only serve to quicken my destruction.
• Tower's should "look" like their purpose. Does my machine gun turret now do a gazillion damage and can attack multiple enemies at once? Then the thing better look like it's shooting plasma beams rather than bullets and have multiple turret heads as well.
• Include nifty side upgrades (like tacks and such from bloon defense) and powers like changing the direction of paths or being able to block off a path for a certain time.
• If a tower doesn't fit exactly what I want to do let me create my own custom towers in between levels or something and give me a way to purchase which components I'd want and even tinker with existing towers with upgrade/customization points.
• Give me a way to redeem damage. If 10 baddies get through my lines let me spend some points or activate a power to redeem that damage. I hate hate hate it when I play a TD and it takes a few hard hitting waves to really get how the game is played only for one or two baddies to get through later on and "oops you're dead."
• Towers should take damage. It makes no sense for a super bad ass boss to come through with a zillion hit points and able to take your "life" down to half if he gets through but avoids your towers on the way. But, balance this by making super hard hitting bosses and the like worth more rewards and cash with which you can rebuild, upgrade and customize towers.
  Something I think would be nifty is if you could customize how towers engage enemies. I've seen some do this by letting you designate shooting weakest/strongest enemies first but I want to be able to do things like having a fire damaged based tower prefer fire weak opponents if it has an option. Also, having levels evolve dynamically would be cool. Like, perhaps, mid way through a zone some enemy "reinforcements" crash into the middle of the map introducing a large amount of baddies and destroying certain paths while creating new paths through the map forcing you to adjust tactics and adapt. Static levels are somewhat boring. I guess the thing I'm saying most is customization, customization, customization and change things up a bit by introducing some more action elements. Also, invest heavily in effects. I don't mean this to say have gobs of them but do them extremely well. This was one of the points that impressed me with Defense Grid.
  
  Different play modes would be awesome. Traditional "wave" play, flood style - a single non stop wave until all baddies are eliminated, survival mode, unlimited money mode, etc.

I'd pay a few bucks for the chance to play multiplayer. Maybe some sort of TD variant like Tetris where the better you do the more enemies the other person gets. Or some sort of reverse-TD game where your opponent plays the towers and you get to send the guys (like control the upgrades, monsters per wave, and what type of monsters).

Ive just finished a game and thus are looking for the next idea.
A while ago I was thinking of doing a tower defense game myslef (but reverse i.e. you control the dudes) the pc controls the towers
but didnt cause I thought the market is saturated.
Do ppl think theres still room for yet another tower defense game?

I can point out things that I don't like on some current TD games:

1. Towers that don't have obvious benefits.
2. Interest.
3. Imbalanced units between waves.

1. Definately agree with you. I recently played a TD that had a tower which would root a creep and then give you double profit upon that creeps death. The problem was that the tower was extremely slow, targetted only one unit, and was an expensive tower to build. The tower had no use unless you had a vast quantity, but due to their cost it was bordering the impossible.
2. I have never seen this method before, but I do not think it is a good idea. It adds another level of complexity that is not needed with the potential to give the player game breaking amounts of resource. (Pool huge amount mean you get bigger interest which fuels the next interes) Either that or it is such a small benefit that it's just a waste.
3. I'm on the fence with this one. While I don't believe a model similar to Wave 1 took you 10 seconds to defeat and Wave 2 took 5 minutes, I do believe that the waves should not scale in difficulty through a linear model. I feel that this would lead to predictable game play, and make each decision set in stone instead of "adapt and overcome."

A lot of hours and solid, extensive mechanics. If it is multiplayer, a special x4 pack might be nice.

Some flash TD are really polished. But they miss the 'extensive' part. I have been trough "Kingdom Rush" recently and I'd say it's fairly balanced but with (4+4*2) leveled towers they can only take it so far, as a comparison, Burbenog had 8*(8+1) if memory serves and the degree of synergistic interaction was incredible to say the least.

By a x4 pack, you mean something like a discount for X copies, where X is the number of players available in multiplayer?

I also like the synergistic options. (Mainly because synergy is my favorite word!) The more options, the more you can play the game and still have a new experience each time.

1. Tower's should "look" like their purpose.

2. Include nifty side upgrades (like tacks and such from bloon defense) and powers like changing the direction of paths or being able to block off a path for a certain time.

3. If a tower doesn't fit exactly what I want to do let me create my own custom towers in between levels or something and give me a way to purchase which components I'd want and even tinker with existing towers with upgrade/customization points.

4. Give me a way to redeem damage.

5. Towers should take damage.

6. Customize how towers engage enemies.

7. Also, having levels evolve dynamically would be cool.

8. Also, invest heavily in effects.

9. Different play modes would be awesome.

1. Yes, completely agree!
2. You mean the one time use things, like the road spike / pinapple bombs?
3. Custom towers would be fun, maybe possible in a "sandbox" mode where you choose what a tower does and it's price changes based on the effects
4. Same as #1. I think it sucks when you get far and then one bad wave ends the game with no option of recovery. If anything, defeating X number of waves without taking any damage will restore Y health.
5. I think this would be better as a playmode, a "hardcore" one maybe. I don't want to overload the player with so many things they have to keep track off, because then it loses it's fun appeal and just becomes a micromanaging simulation.
6. I've seen that as well, where the tower targets first in line, last in line, lowest HP, most HP, etc. This is another feature for micromanaging, but I believe this can be implemented with a default option so those that WANT to do it can, and those that don't, won't.
7. That's something we can think of. It would certainly change up the player's strategy mid game.
8. YES! Effects are definately what the budget is accomidating.
9. Additional play modes I would say are a necessity if the game is going commercial.

I'd pay a few bucks for the chance to play multiplayer. Maybe some sort of TD variant like Tetris where the better you do the more enemies the other person gets. Or some sort of reverse-TD game where your opponent plays the towers and you get to send the guys (like control the upgrades, monsters per wave, and what type of monsters).

Similar to how Tetris Attack on the SNES did it? I know some games have tried the version where one player controls the horde and the other is the defender. I think that would be fun as well, with each round switching it up.


Another thing I am getting from this thread is to definately check out Defense Grid because it seems to have many pluses for a commercial TD.