Quote:
Originally Posted by Meglobob
There website is very, very scary place to visit, its full of fanboys who stomp on any critisim of the game or any reasonable discussion. If those were the type of players who were giving them there beta feedback, then its no wander it has resulted in what is currently a very, 'average' game.
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In all fairness, while "their" website does indeed contain a large number of rampant, vociferous fanboys, "it's" not terribly different from most game websites throughout the world. Sometimes I also "wonder" about the degree of harshness with which those who offer constructive criticism of Dominions are treated here on this website.
What's true is that Brad -- not unlike Johan et al. -- feels that he will and can end up doing his thing, no matter what, and that gives him a certain degree of immunity to criticism. Like Johan et al., Brad has a "real life" in a slightly different context, albeit one that is not quite so different than that a game developer as a schoolteacher is (he runs a software company which also happens to have a small gaming branch); while he has resources and gets paid for Elemental, his bread and butter is elsewhere (various Windows applications), allowing him to create a niche product, if he so wishes. For reasons much like these, the creators of Dominions 3 are also able to say, with a certain degree of reassurance, that if someone doesn't like what they are doing, then they might as well stay away. Unlike the creators of Dom3, however, whose main target group consist of people posting here (in other words, a small, vociferous, fiercly loyal (it seems to me sometimes to the point of being blind), frequently rampant fanbase) -- in other words, the nerds here like you and me --, the creators of Elemental simultaneously wish to be mainstream and reach a much larger target group. I think that is greatly inconsistent and self-contradictory, and I am currently writing a useless, somewhat acerbic post full of well-formulated rantings on their website, mostly because I still suffer from the common delusion that things people write on sites like these will be viewed with patience and goodwill and may even change things in the world. Look for my post there soon. Ah excuse me sidetracked.
I too was a member of the beta "team", and Megablob is more correct than he knows. What he doesn't know: We never actually tested the game. Never. We tested parts of it, but what you can purchase now was never played by a human being outside the laboratories of Stardock, and by them only minimally (by their own admission), before reaching your shelves. You read it here first. Ah excuse me again.