Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

I know this is a somewhat different case, but since a near-constant sale on the Company of Heroes series on Steam, the game's GameReplays.org site has never been busier, and there have been many, many tournaments, both from the fans and from the developers themselves, with cash prizes from the devs to keep it going.

Yeah, OK, there are new players who are piss poor at the game, but the increased player base has meant for much easier experimentation with the metagame. Which is nice.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

You are the only person making a problem of this. (literaly, I have never seen ANYBODY except you argue this. NOBODY execpt for you wants less dom3 players. (Even I somebody who used to chew people out on IRC for being stupid and not doing their homework want more dom3 players not less. Even if it bring more stupid questions. I rather have stupid questions than the recent silence).

Hell... I even welcome more piracy of dom3. So it has more players. I like the game so much that I do not even care if illwinter is paid. (And as illwinter does not care about the money, they should not care about this either).

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

I wholeheartedly wish the new Dominions 3 price is under 20 usd (or eur thanks to price discrimination being so very easy). Preferably closer to 10 than 20 usd to be honest. I bet pricing like that would earn Illwinter more too, but supposedly they don't care about money. Well, yeah, there are two possible reasons that I find rational for stopping Shrapnel distribution: They want to sell more for more profit or they want to sell more so more people can enjoy the game. I bet that price elasticity of the demand for Dominions 3 is such that the optimal monopoly pricing is closer to $20 than to $30, but I can guarantee the game sells more with $20 than $50 price tag.

That said especially Steam but also Gamersgate and Desura will probabily give a hell of a lot more exposure to the game too than Shrapnel's obscure webshop.

The only single way that would make more players genuinely a bad thing is if you had to take newbies to multiplayer games due to servers being totally open - especially in very team play orientated games and public servers that is a real concern. However, in Dominions 3 you can choose who to play with should you feel like that.

More players means more players for multiplayer and also more user made content. That's just all good.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

I thought the "High price is actually better and Steam/Desura/Gamersgate are worse than Shrapnel" argument was extremely irrational, but apparently it was completely rational!

http://brokenforum.com/index.php?thr...to-steam.4042/

No income from referring people to buy the game when it's on Steam/Gamersgate/Desura instead of Amazon etc! Personal gain does make all these arguments completely rational.

For most of the Dominions 3 community, potential players and even Illwinter Desura/Gamersgate/Steam and potentially (probably) lower pricing are just great. Obviously though people who profited from the old market price and distributor don't think so ;)

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

clearly dominions 3 should only be purchasable by people with a annual income of $400,000 or more, so as to keep out inferior players that we don't want to associate with. more money=better than after all.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

One of the rationales for stopping distribution through Shrapnel that I can think of is retaining (or regaining, depending on what sort of contract they had) full control over aspects of the intellectual property.

All the past arguments about the pricing of Dominions 3 were based on the situation where Shrapnel Games was the exclusive distributor and controlled the price point. As Tim and Annette and Scott explained many times in many threads, for their business model, they found that the high price worked best. Not knowing any of the numbers regarding sales, all I can do is take their word for it.

The new situation with new distribution channels, once that becomes a reality, may well work very differently and we'll see. However, it is absolutely no use arguing about it here now, especially if the arguments are just warmed over rehashes of the earlier ones based on the previous setup, which no longer exists.

Personally, I regard anything that expands the community a good thing. As long as the people who join actually put some thought and effort into it, that is. Buying a game at any given price is absolutely zero indication of the potential caliber of the person to the community, as we have previously witnessed in the forms of the late, unlamented Lord Bob and numerous others of the same sort.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

That has always been something everyone could agree on.

Shrapnel has a PR person who did press releases for each version and delivered them to sites that rate games. As far as I could tell, it was pretty extensive. But as I said, it does make the PR position open for any fanboi who writes well. Search out the sites and make sure they know whats coming.

Steam does seem to have a large crowd who go there regularly and eagerly stays aware of any changes on that site. It will definitely have an impact. Many new players. There are many people here who pressed for the game to go to Steam and some of them said they wished it for the good of Illwinter, and the good of the game in general, not just a price break. Now can be their chance to step into it and be ready to catch that incoming flow of new players. Id love to see that happen.

Well I have certainly done my part there. Ive pushed the server aspect in many forums and helped them get started. There are now easily half a dozen, and another dozen or so doing more private games.

That reminds me. I should scrape those threads.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Shrapnel press releases. Seriously? Does any media of any kind even make news based on those? Well, probably some niche internet sites might mention it. Just putting a -25% on the title and potentially getting it to Steam front page is probably hell of a lot more exposure than that.

That said best publicity for sales is probably just having it available easily (Steam etc), have a low enough price point for impulse buys and have friends who recommend it. First two Shrapnel did not have and the third is pretty much generated by the first two.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Well they generated LPs which generated a lot of people. Whatever. Same thing, different words.

OK so if Steam is going to be the only PR then who is taking in the Steamers? I dont steam so I dont really know. Steam has forums doesnt it? And some sort of game server arrangement?
Problem solved?

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

With steam moving in the direction of linux support (http://steamforlinux.com/) dom3 could presumably have a more prominent standing in that market. Perhaps that exposure isn't significant next to the advantage of simply being available on steam for windows though.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Who has decided illwinter doesn't care about money? Just because they aren't money maximising homo economicus doesn't mean that they don't prefer to have more money than less money. That they mostly work on stuff because they enjoy it doesn't mean that they are saintly hermit developers that have turned their backs on the world and reject wordly goods. If they were utterly uninterested in monetary compensation they would obviously not bother with publishers at all. This is not a black and white issue where you either only work for money or only for fun.*

As an aside both JK and Kristoffer has for periods of time cut down on their day jobs, thus earning less in order to work on illwinter stuff. They aren't for the most part dependent on the money from sales, though I know JK at least would quit his day job if illwinter had ever generated enough to live comfortably of.

*I have some trouble expressing myself, but what I am trying to get at is that they make games for fun, and would probably do this or something similar wether people bought the games or not. But that if illwinter generated enough money to provide a comfortable living while still being fun they would prefer to live of that rather than punch the clock.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

I think you are vastly overestimating what sort of revenue illwinters sales generates.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

For the most part JK dosn't seemed to be swamped by the support requirements put up by COE's presence on Desura or steam, it seems to run relatively smoothly with modest interferance.

Edit: I might also add that COE3 sells decently without any active marketing, though obviously the 10usd pricetag is a factor in that.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

I wonder where the "Illwinter doesn't care about money" even came from, probably popped from a certain forum member during CoE3 development and features. Especially seeing how the games aren't freeware "money isn't the first priority" sounds so much more plausible.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Just the usual misunderstanding and exaggeration I'd have thought.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

OH I didnt mean PAID positions with Illwinter. Just that they could be filled if someone wanted to step up.

The complaints about how things were done in the past dont have to be JUST complaints now that people can step up and do them themselves. But thank you for showing up. I will gladly step back now.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

From a previous conversation about how more money might cause Illwinter to do a Dom4:
===================================
[quote Johan Osterman:]
================================================== =======
[also Kristoffer O:]
=====================================
Disclaimer: This is from a large collection of quotes from Illwinter Devs, interns, and associates over the years. My only reference to money was in response to thoughts that more money was a reason to anything in the past, or might make major changes in the future. But of course, things change. I would greatly appreciate any new googlable articles and interviews especially if they shed new light on this subject.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Gandalf, this seems to be a non-issue. No one is arguing that a "do this if you want to make money" approach is an effective way to make requests of IW. But that doesn't mean money is irrelevant to them. As Johan just pointed out, if it had no value there's nothing stopping them from releasing their games as freeware. This isn't a black and white thing were either money doesn't motivate you at all or it's your highest priority.

And I don't see any contradiction between what Johan just said and the comments you quoted. KO appears to tend more towards the ascetic and for all I know perhaps he'd also miss teaching. But JK is also a programmer in his day job and so while parts of game development may be boring I don't imagine all of the projects he works on day to day are that exciting either (and Johan has just said that if IW could make a living as a game developers JK at least would be interested in doing so). In short, making more money from developing games means that they might also be able to have more fun by giving up their day jobs to work on games full time.

So I'm really not sure what point you're trying to make. If it's that it's preferable to be courteous when requesting things from the developers, I think most people would agree with you. And I'd be surprised if IW feels alienated by the Dom community since I think the community has been appreciative both of the game they created and the continuing patches several years after the game was released. While a portion of the community doesn't like Shrapnel, I've never seen that spill over to IW. But appreciating what the developers have done doesn't mean the community can't make suggestions or offer constructive criticism. You give the impression that you think the game(s) are perfect as-is and any criticism or suggestions (regardless of whether the request is politely made or not) are an attack on the game/developers and needs to be countered or dismissed. I don't think that's a helpful approach.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

All I have ever asked is that people drop the expert opinions of "you will crash and burn if you dont", and replace it with please and thankyou.

Or at least, I used to. Pardon me for being trained over time to more cynicism and sarcasm. You defend well. Please, proceed.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Steam has forums, but they're generally not that heavily-used if and when there are alternatives, and tend to only flare up whenever every single server goes on fire or whatever, at which point they get dogpiled with helpful and completely unhelpful users Saying Words About How The Internet Is.

Steam itself is not so much a website (although I suppose it basically is a series of them) as an application which stores and promotes digitally distributed games, and also allows you to have a contact list you can message, and so on.

The kicker is that it has a completely massive base of users. Everyone who ever bought Half-Life 2 back in the day will have Steam (over 6.5 million, or roughly 15 Bristols). Many, many people who have no interest in HL2 but wanted access to the thousands of other games on there will have Steam.

I have no idea about how Valve cut deals on getting stuff on there, and they'll definitely want a commission. But the collection of games on there is extremely broad. I have a pretty alright, if not huge, array of games on there myself, which goes from the original Microprose X-COM series, to a game called AaAaAA!!, about throwing oneself off buildings for points, to Counter-Strike.

Regarding servers, it varies by game. Even if it provided its own for Dom3 (not massively likely), taking the P.W. Botha approach and saying 'those crazy steam youths with their jazz music and such can leave us alone, thankyewverymuch' is not the way to keep any game from becoming moribund, though.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

is user "johan ostermann" a relative to IW ?

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

I'm a relative to Kristoffer Osterman, who is half of illwinter. And I did some very minor work on various iterations of dominions, mainly writing fluff descriptions with a bit mechanics input.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Ok, thanks. I was wondering how about how accurate your insight might me. If you know K or J, its probably valid. Thanks for answering.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

I have been the brother of Kristoffer for 38 years and known JK for 18, so I should hope I know them better than people that perform internet exegetics on forum posts.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

+15 bonus points for using exegetics in a sentence.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Indeed! I actually had to look that term up in a dictionary.

With regard to the English language and general online conversations, that usually happens about once or twice a year unless we dive into very specific areas that have their own professional vocabulary (such as medicine for one). This was the second time this year. The previous one was related to a specific type of pattern that appears on the fur of a specific breed of cat.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

JO would definitely be the freshest source of information we have had here for quite a while. It bodes well for the future that he has appeared.:cheers:
So on this forum, any questions would best be directed to him.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Are the invision forums no longer around, or something?

Also, a price drop means more players, which means a bigger, more active, community. Which means more mods, more demand for patching, and a greater motivation for patching. I'm not saying that Illwinter is suddenly going to plunge back into Dominions III, but as human beings, they may be more inclined to help out a more vibrant community than a stagnant one.
And, you know, more mods. Maybe some enterprising young coder will take an interest in the game's AI and release an unofficial patch. We can dream, right?

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

I think there actually are some mage AI mods out there, but I haven't seen any multiplayer games using them.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Dom3Mods is still active, more so than here in fact: http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/index.php

Also I don't think a coder would be able to do anything with the AI no matter how enterprising, that stuff is all locked up in the game's exe file, there's no ini files or anything like that that can be edited. There have been a few attempts at improving the AI casting by making some spells less likely to be cast by unscripted mages through modding though.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

I am a raving lunatic.

Personally I am not a fan of desura, I've seen a lot of really jank stuff on their store, and I feel like sometimes well... desura is the wild west...buyer beware...

Steam though? yeah, I'm a steam fanboy.


It'd be awesome if illwinter would post dominions 3 for greenlight, I'm sure that fans would rally to support it. Many other popular games made it through the greenlight process quite quickly. If dominions 3 could get on steam before the xmas sale was over I bet they could move a metric fragle rock ton of units. dom3 could really move a lot of product on something like steam at like 20$ a pop. At least imo.


I'm starting to fully expect dominions 4 release in 2014 or 2015. I'm going to be wildly excited for no real reasons and run around my home screaming excitedly..brb

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

HUZZAH!
It took a day and over-clocking my meds but I came up with a script to scrape a couple of years of my own threads off of Shrapnel forums (with any attached files). Just for safe keeping until we get some official responses.
http://dom3minions.boards.net/index....splay&thread=1

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Some news about Dominions 3 on Desura?

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Not at the moment. Johan had a trip abroad, not sure if he's back yet. The delay right now is at the Desura end, we'll see how it goes once Johan comes back and starts pushing them.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

He is back home. But Id still consider this to be the grace period for jet lag :)

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Dominions 3 has now been published on Desura. The forums are not up yet, but they will be shortly.

In this instance "shortly" is to be taken that they will be put up tomorrow, as it's getting far too close to midnight here to effectively do anything today, but fortunately I have the day off tomorrow.

Meaning that I won't need to wonder about what to do...

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Is it possible to activate Dom 3 on Desura?

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Was Norfleet a Developer? I just know he wasn't an honest player and had the game cracked.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

No not a developer.
Just a regular player according to history. But like many historical figures he has now achieved a mythological status. He appears in province names, and in dominions songs.

It is also rumored that he can still appear in games under an alias but of course thats not really likely. :)

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

If you mean the copy you purchased from Shrapnel, there is no news on that yet. As soon as there is, it will be posted.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

I just ordered two downloadable copies from Desura. Haven't checked with gift recipients that it actually worked, but my card got charged $29.99

http://www.desura.com/games/dominions-3-the-awakening

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Did you mean, $30 for the pair, or $30 each??

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

$30 each (meaning for each game key).

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Yeah, but you read his post, I was making sure he wasn't getting 2 for 30 bucks. 'Coz over here we have an ancient currency so the price doesn't read the same.... :)

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Yes, $30 / copy. Sorry to be confusing. Friends downloaded and are testing their pretenders now.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

The 300 page Dom3 Manual is now available as a free PDF file from Illwinter.com

there is a new DEMO for Dom3 available from Illwinter.com
(eventually on Desura but that can take up to a week)

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

I always wanted that! I bought the hardcopy, and very happy with it, but searchable would be lovely. In the past it seemed very cloak & dagger if you wanted the pdf when you had not dowloaded, I never did understand quite why...