Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

I was going to recommend Dom 3 to someone and was going to point them to the page to buy the game but have noticed that is says it's not available. It says somthing about checking back on December 1st? Anyone know whats going on? Even the download version is not available.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

They were just running a 50% off sale. Maybe Dom3 is out of stock...

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

But even the download version is not available.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

There will be more news regarding this issue in the near future. No need to panic or worry. However, it is not my place to publicly post information that I have not been given permission divulge.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

And now that Illwinter has made a public announcement on their web page, I can elaborate somewhat.

Shrapnel Games no longer sells Dominions 3, but Illwinter has plans to publish the game on Desura after December 1st, 2012.

So keep your eyes peeled in that regard.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

haha, finally the regime topples

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

This is great news!

So this should mean we can look forward to a primary forum where half the regular workhorses isn't banned? Funtional customer support? A distributor that actually likes and listens to it's customers? An end to the stupid pissing contest? An opening for Steam distribution further ahead? Reasonable pricing?

I'm so happy about this. Thank you Illwinter!

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Desura seem to have automatic forums for each game so there will almost certainly be one over there.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Desura forums give me a headache and this place has a wealth of collected knowledge stuff.
I will miss you, Shrapnel forums!

But I assume this place isn't actually going away?

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

I too hope that Shrapnel will keep this forum open for reference, but I personally think it will die out as a hub for actual player interaction.

dom3mods is already more active than this forum, and without the distribution new players will no longer start out here. I suspect there will be a steadily growing desura forum operating side by side with SA and dom3mods, I think that will turn out much better than the current situation once the confusion ove migrating the community settles.

In any case it might be a good idea to do some kind of project to secure all the information stored here, just to be safe. Like backing up the entire strategy index on the dom3mods lords of war section. That also has the benefit that it could be reordered by validity to some extent.

And so on, in any case we should all try and help ease the migration and minimize the hassles. I know that not everyone likes it at dom3mods but even for those who don't I think it could be a very useful intermediary stable platform while the desura community matures.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

This is unexpected. Edi, could you ask shrapnel if we could get a warning if the dom3 part of the forum is suddenly closed? We would like some sort of archive of it. It still contains a lot of unique game information.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

I don't expect much to change here. The Space Empires 4 forum is still active despite Shrapnel not having been selling that game for years now. Many other forums have simply been archived.

I know that not everyone here is a great fan of Shrapnel and some of their policies, but in this instance an instant shutdown of the forums would not be in their interest in any imaginable way.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Yeah the Dominions 3 Forum I am sure generates a lot of traffic for their Shrapnelgames website so it wouldn't make any sense to close a forum that attracts business..

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

That totally depends on the conversion rate per unique visitor. I would not be surprised if they are running a loss for the dom3 forum.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

People who come to forum.shrapnelgames.com tend to do well for Shrapnel Games. People who have a link that takes them straight to one forum tend to have a different view of how busy, or effective, the site is. Seeing the full days activity on the entire site says things are going ok.

As Edi said, the standard has been to not take down a forum as long as no one is burning bridges. Some uncarried games still beat out Dom3 forum on the scoreboards. And they do generate sales now. A while back a forum format change made sure that some of the screen is ad space and news space even if people are skipping the sites main pages to jump directly into the forum. At the time it made a lot of people mad but its been a good move.

But I am with others in saying that I am not impressed so far with the 3 sites that Illwinter put their other game on. Possibly a fan site can help by providing something more comfortable.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

The Desura forum software has a very barebones functionality and it works for that. It's also fairly fast. It's not as feature rich as this forum or the basic phpbb boards or some others.

The main thing with the Desura forum is that it, like any other successful forum, needs an active management that is on the ball. Especially if the community is active.

Gamer's Gate doesn't seem to even have a forum and the Steam forum is, well, the Steam forum. Didn't like what I saw of it.

An alternative would be to set up their own forum or to use a fan made forum, whether that would be Proboards or Invision or wherever else.

Setting up a dedicated forum takes at the very least time and effort, both in the setup and maintenance, but it gives the most control. It's a question of resources and of how much free time and effort outsiders are willing to dedicate to make things happen if Illwinter cannot go beyond what there is due to their own time and resource limitations.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Without information on the conversion rate of unique visitors. I don't really agree on this. Something that looks pretty busy can still be pretty expensive to maintain if it generates no sales.

And most of the forums here are dead or even stillborn. The mods hardly even reply to simple support question on the main shrapnel forum. (And it has stickies for vista beta testers and site conversion. All stuff that should have been just removed ages ago).

And nobody even replied to this post: http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showp...88&postcount=4. At least half the forums here only contains negative posts ("what happened to the development of this game?", or "why you no fix bug" posts).

I don't want shrapnel to go under or something. I just hope they get their act together and get with the times. But I fear this will not happen. Nor will we hear much from them. I expect it is because they live in the 90's world or due to some extensive "secrecy is important" military background stuff. (I assume the people behind shrapnel have a military background).

To me it just feels like they stopped caring years ago. And that is why I fear for the these old dom3 forums.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

I believe you are right Soy.

Looking around the forums here feels like walking around a ghost town, it's almost eerie. Games with stickied threads and subforums but no actual posts in them, the occasional lone question or complaint echoing out unheard in a digital wasteland.

I have no idea how Shrapnel is doing finacially now that they lost dom3, but it's quite hard to understand how a business with a forum as barren as this could be stable and profitable. If the other games sell well then there should be at least a few users posting in those forums.

I hope I'm wrong, but i requested very politely in the general section that we'd be given some kind of assurance of the forums future or a backup dump of it. No response at all...

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Edi went abit more deeply but it seems we agree.
Hopefully someplace will be found with a friendly forum software to become the official forum, or we can continue to use this one. If not then a fan site will pick it up.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Wouldn't any sort of staff costs dwarf other costs considerably? I'm not surprised there is so little staff activity, I kind of assumed there weren't any.

dom3 is still unmatched, still being patched and deserves a place alongside modern titles. its good to see it move on.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Any chance this means that they'll finally have the money to fix their combat AI?

Just lost 2 gem intensive thugs because they decided to ignore Breath of Winter in favor of Blade Wind since they were worried about freezing each other. Apparently exhausting themselves was preferable.

I would much rather have an AI that erred on the side of messing up by following a script than one that erred on the side of messing up by going off script.

If they had followed the script they would both have had 100% cold resistance, but instead they had 100% fatigue.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

It seems very unlikely...

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

That is simply player error. And a player blaming the casting AI for mages going off-script due to friendly fire concerns (or range, lack of tvalid target issues etc) is just that player looking for lame excuses so that he doesn't have to blame himself for his own mistakes and failings as a player.

Anyone who says this sort of thing is a game bug, casting AI bug, casting AI short-coming, or any other similar object of potential blame transference, needs to spend more time learning better scripting and positioning, and less time finding things to blame their playing mistakes on.

And for every player who says the casting AI should err on the side of recklessness, you will find another player who says it should prefer caution instead. It's impossible to make both camps happy, and futile to even try. At the very least the code would need a massive re-write before progress cold even be started on making "both camps happy". There are far better things for Illwinter to be spending their time on if improving Dominions was the objective. And far better ways of improving the casting AI than your suggestion. (if improving the casting AI/playing AI was the aim)

Maybe think about scripting Cold Resitance instead of BoW next time. Or Cold Resistance followed by BoW if you really need the BoW effect. Or Cold Resistance on the thug that appears higher up on the commander list, followed by BoW on the thug appearing lower down. As that way the first thug will be 100% CR by the time the second thug wants to cast BoW, preventing any friendly fire concerns (assuming no negative CR modifiers are being applied), and that way you will at least have BoW on one of the thugs.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Easy there. We'd prefer a slightly friendlier tone of voice, as it were.

I do think that it is more a matter of miscalculation on the part of the player in Excist's example and that more learning the ins and outs of the casting AI are in order.

Any significant AI rewrites, extensions and other alterations at this point are, to say the least, unlikely.

My apologies, didn't mean to come across as harshly as I did. Just that I have seen this type of player mis-calculation made many times, and players assuming the casting AI was the only cause of the problem. (so wanted to point out that the casting AI is not to blame on this one, on or similar such incidents)

Sorry again.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

... Calahan is back?

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

To No Name:

"That is simply player error. And a player blaming the casting AI for mages going off-script due to friendly fire concerns (or range, lack of tvalid target issues etc) is just that player looking for lame excuses so that he doesn't have to blame himself for his own mistakes and failings as a player."

Nope. Not knowing the AI's flawed thinking in advance is not "player error". That is like....well...calling a bug an undocumented feature.

"Anyone who says this sort of thing is a game bug, casting AI bug, casting AI short-coming, or any other similar object of potential blame transference, needs to spend more time learning better scripting and positioning, and less time finding things to blame their playing mistakes on."

Anybody that makes a comment like this is compensating for something :)


"And for every player who says the casting AI should err on the side of recklessness, you will find another player who says it should prefer caution instead."

That is a debating strategem called a false choice or false dilemma. The choice here isn't between erring on the side of recklessness or erring on the side of caution (since casting a high fatigue combat spell before wading into melee carries its own risks and recklessness). The choice is between following a script as close as possible or deviating from the script and substituting choices that do not take into account the overall script or strategy employed.

" It's impossible to make both camps happy, and futile to even try. At the very least the code would need a massive re-write before progress cold even be started on making "both camps happy"."

Again, you are assuming the false choice. This conversation in proper context (the one that I had written my patch request with in mind) could be very simply implemented - a) mages do nothing when their spell would have a (to the AI) "reckless" effect, b) mages skip that step and go onto the next scripted order, c) -this would require more than 2 lines of code, but the casting AI could look at the last order (attack melee or cast or retreat) before deciding whether to cast high fatigue spells or not.

"There are far better things for Illwinter to be spending their time on if improving Dominions was the objective."

I know of no other areas needing improvement that have caused people to quit the game. What areas fail the potential of this game more than the battle AI?

"And far better ways of improving the casting AI than your suggestion. (if improving the casting AI/playing AI was the aim)"

I was not too specific, but I'm sure they could use any advice you have. All I was voicing was a wish for a battle AI that will stick to the script a little bit more often. There are many ways that could be done that I would be satisified with.

"Maybe think about scripting Cold Resitance instead of BoW next time. Or Cold Resistance followed by BoW if you really need the BoW effect."

No point having the CR in that case without putting BoW into play for that battle. Scripting both CR and BoW adds additional fatigue and in some scenarios could take more lines of scripting than you have for buffing a thug. If I had known the AI had this particular poorly prioritized concern for the safety of their allies I would have forgone the group buff and positioned them seperately. As it is, I had no reason to suspect that PBAOE cold auras took into consideration friendly fire since Winter Wolves, and casters that have already cast BoW have no qualms about bunching up as close to as many of their unprotected allies as possible during combat. Not to mention, several casters that have cold or poison auras will cast stone skin or invulnerability respectively on themselves given half a chance. No indication at all before having scripted this, that the AI would behave that way.

" Or Cold Resistance on the thug that appears higher up on the commander list, followed by BoW on the thug appearing lower down. As that way the first thug will be 100% CR by the time the second thug wants to cast BoW, preventing any friendly fire concerns (assuming no negative CR modifiers are being applied), and that way you will at least have BoW on one of the thugs."

Yes, I am aware that if you know in advance that the AI is prone to one mistake or another there are sometimes work arounds to prevent them from exhibiting that particular brain fart, but it doesn't mean that the AI doesn't need improvement in order to "deserve a place alongside modern titles".

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Is there some (free) software out there, where you can give it some forum posts and it will analyze the style/syntax/vocabulary and indicate whether the posts come from the same person? :)

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

(No offence intended, but) What makes you think that would have anything to do with money? :) I would wager money would not be the issue....

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

There is such software. But Im not aware of any free ones.

Some crappy simple ones are scripts using wc, sort, uniq. They compare what words are used, how often, and the letter count on uncapitalized words. Not good enough for a conviction but good enough for a "who to watch" list.

Reminds me of one of the songs in the Dom3 Parodies thread joking about the possibility that some of the people in the games or posting here are actually devs or staff or infamous people from our past....
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showp...1&postcount=35

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

I'd like to volunteer GP for this :)

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Heehee. You forgot to add the target to that statement. :target:
In any case, Been there Done that. :) Servers, generators, store, anything Dom3 needed. But its hard to justify the time now. The income is closed off. If it opens up later maybe.

Plus we have had an older crowd for over a decade. I am not sure if even I have the patience and diplomacy to offer support to the $5 horde. I dont know if anyone will.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

I'll be interested to see how the change in distributors (and presumably price point) plays out. What is the potential audience that either balked at the price or just had never heard of the game?

Sure, the game has been out for six years, but cutting edge graphics were never its selling point so players for whom that's key likely wouldn't have been interested in it at launch either. Other things that some TBS players would find deal-breakers (say, the lack of full tactical combat) were just as much the case when the game was released as now. In short, I think the game ages well (I've always viewed Dom as being like a really good board game that you go back to over a long period of time).

And I have to admit to some curiosity as to whether, if the game sells well, it will renew IWs interest in the game. Not so much because of the money involved but because an influx of new players combined with having taken a break from Dom for a few years to concentrate on CoE might leave them ready to focus on Dom for a while.

Regarding Shrapnel, I think they're in a difficult position. It seems to me that their advantage was in providing a distribution channel to indie developers who wouldn't have had a chance at getting retail shelf space. But with the migration of PC gaming to digital distribution it eliminates the need for a lot of the services they provide developers. No physical product means no printing manuals, burning CDs and fulfilling orders. Payment processing can be handled just as easily by a digital distributor. Shrapnel might be able to offer a better revenue share but would that outweigh the much greater audience a digital distributor would provide for a developer's games?

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Well looking at the style of writing, and the type of reactions it elicits (thanks Hishtagat, you are my filthy assistant) it can only be calahan.

Also:
[Sensori] Clint Eastwood was Cal(l)ahan.
[Sensori] Clint Eastwood was also the man with no name.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

To qualify my opinion:

I am a dom3 noob. I'm very happy with my purchase and that I've got my moneys worth from dom3 even if I never played it again.

Modern games have their shortcomings too and rarely do they interest me so much or hold my attention so long. The only other game I can think of that even has unit scripting is dragon-age-origins and thats not multiplayer (I'm sure there's plenty more examples.. i'd be interested to know).

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Ok, you must be a Gand-alt, that's definitely one of Gandalf's themes. *Goes to check JonBrave's post history for the phrase "there's pros and cons to everything" in order to confirm suspicion* :p

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Illwinters other game reflects some of that. Even with no PR staff, steam does get a game noticed. Its definitely a workable option for those that want it.

Illwinter has tried many times to explain their position on this. Money was never a motive. More money is unlikely to change what they do and why. They have day jobs and they do this for their own fun. It is driven and guided more by player appreciation. Over the years they have tried many changes that "knowledgable" players have pushed with accompanying impact on the companys "income"

Everything has its pros and cons. That discussion is also in many threads here. But the support level for DD goes up tremendously. It is hard to fathom but any company can verify it. The big boy business plan tends to carry with it a requirement to want to be a big boy. More people for the support level unless you would rather just have the money and dump the support.

But its all just another option for those who want an option. As long as there are options out there, its just noisy to try and convince any of them to operate like the other. Its worth watching. But not worth arguing. IMHO

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

And I made a point of saying it wouldn't be based on money.


I have no idea what that means. Please clarify.


Do you mean in the sense that more sales equals more players and thus more support requests or are you saying that DD attracts a different (presumably less knowledgeable) audience that has a higher frequency of support requests?

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

I dont HAVE to be non-insulting anymore but I generally try anyway. Not YOU but others over the years have pushed the money aspect rudely while Illwinter has explained the joy and job satisfaction aspect. The two do not go hand in hand. by some methods, they can even be counter.


I dont know. Not my area to study altho I have worked for companies that had people who did. The all important price break point that people feel has been missed involves more than just income. Many mention the phrase target demographics but dont seem to realize that the change in target demographics is also a change in the player community that is created.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Are you seriously that baffled as to why people don't want to pay 60 of your earth dollars for a six year old game? Of course it stops people who would otherwise be interested from buying it.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

What a bunch of elitist drivel. So people with less money are not good enough to play dom3?

Edit:
community management by pricing... that is the most retarded way of managing community ever. And guess what. It doesn't work. *******s also have money.

Edit2:
Proper community management is done in different ways. You want to manage the oldtimers. The way they interact influences how newbies interact. Old timers call others out on unwanted behaviour, and they way they post (or posted, as anybody can view the history) influences new behaviour.

Mods also influence a lot, but as they cannot edit every post that is made. They do not the only thing to blame if a forum goes sour.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Yeah it sounds like crap. It gets done a lot, pricing for target demographic with no basis on the product. Everything from music to clothes and even foods. But its not something corporations own up to much. Even those that dont do it on purpose end up with the results apparently.

I dont think any corp cares who buys it and uses it.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Did I say I was baffled? The question is how much of an impediment has the price been. 20% of potential sales lost? 30%? More? I have no idea. So that's what will be interesting to see.* Though of course in addition to a (presumed) price drop the game will also get additional exposure (and at least some of those purchasers would have also bought the game at the old price point if they had known about it).

* Not that we'll be privy to sales numbers.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Well what does "everybody knows" agree on?
Lower price equals many more players?
Download equals more online questions?
$50 crowd is a different demographic than $5 crowd? by age? by education? working force vs non-working?

Other than "making more money" what are the benefits of the $5 horde, and to who?
The support position is open.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

As a European student, let me just say that if it wasn't for a very good Let's Play topic on the SomethingAwful site, I would have never considered paying $60 for it, especially with an extra cost to be able to download it for longer than about a week, and another from my bank for using a foreign currency. I don't regret my purchase, but if I had anyone other than myself to support, I wouldn't have bought it at that price.

The last real mainstream coverage I can recall for the game was about five years ago, when it got a relatively positive single page review in PC Gamer UK. The supply of grogs with $60 to spend on a game there's so little information about probably isn't exactly massive, especially when they're getting counterbilked by other devs making things like WORST JULY: SOMME. Manage the whole of the Somme, step by bloody step, shot by shot, 3ft hex by 3ft hex (features distressingly accurate pony damage model)'.

I doubt putting it out there for £25/30E/$40 is going to ruin IW.

As to the impact on the community - presumably if it gets released on Steam or whatever, there'll be forums for it there, so you can either ignore the povo scum/give new players some useful tips/recommend MA Marignon with a straight face, etc. etc.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

As far as this goes, I've always liked the fact that IW was highly resistant to the "if you want to make more money you'll do what I say" approach. Which is why I mentioned that if there were an influx of players that could be motivation simply because you have more people who are enjoying and enthusiastic about the game (even if the increase in players was offset by a reduced price such that IW wasn't actually making more money).

That's pretty much the main potential benefit to me of selling more copies/having more players. Obviously I'm not getting a cut of the revenue so that doesn't matter to me. And even with the MP scene split among several forums there isn't really a problem filling games so I don't care overly much about that. And I'm not a competitive enough player to be much concerned with an increased pool of opponents to test myself against.

But probably more than anything it's just an academic interest in how the game will do with a different pricing/distribution model.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

It has been offered to Steam, GamersGate, and Desura. So far no responses.
Steam will automatically create a steam forum open to steam users.
GamersGate does not do forums.
Desura might likely become the "official" forum like Illwinters other game but the forum software does not thrill me.

Starting a forum is easy enough on sites like FreeBoards. Ive done so many times. Snag a domain name for $5 a year, use a site like FreeBoards to make a forum. Also for no money there are sites that will let you create a blog, a newletter, a guestbook, a chat room, a shop to sell things for the game. All can easily be grouped under that $5 domain name.
If anyone wants to do that I will gladly help them with it.

Positions still likely to be filled are Servers, and Wiki. Positions becoming available are Support, PR, Advertising, Newsletter Editor. Step on up folks.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

Out of curiosity, did you play the demo as well or were you sold from reading the LP? I will very rarely buy a game over $20 unless I can play a demo (the Dom 2 demo and Bruce Geryk's walkthrough sold me on Dom).

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

That would be great. That would be wonderful. That could totally turn things around for the better. New players who could appreciate the game and ask for things would be fantastic.

As much as I have hoped for it I am afraid Ive been pushed into cynicism on our chances of that. But I would be thrilled to be proven wrong. If some people make an effort perhaps they could lead the way. Create an environment that would foster that.

Re: Dominions 3 no longer available from Shrapnel?
 

I decided to just risk it for a biscuit. Worked out well.