My 2 wishes for Dominions 3!!

[DominionsFan]

1. Lot better singleplayer AI.

2. Please add some improved multiplayer, play by email is a horrible thing. Can we have something like we have in most of the strategy games?
Multiplayer lobby with create/host a game, Join to a game etc. etc. This is a must have, I know many ppl who don't like the Doms II. MP because of the PBEM.

[Soapyfrog]

Whats wrong with the server-based play? Server hosts, clients join, game is played... easy! Just like any other strategy game...

[DominionsFan]

Because a lobby mode is lot better. You can talk with the others in the lobby, you can create a game with a click, the others can see it and join up ASAP. I really hope that we will have something like this. If this gonna happen, Shrapnel should consider to use gamespy as the service provider for this. I just purchased Kohan 2 Kings of War, and the multiplayer lobby is really awesome, and gamespy is hosting it.

[Endoperez]

This is not something that should be pushed to the game developers, because they are GAME, not interface, lobby, chat program etc. developers. Shrapnel Games might be able to get something like this done, and it would be nice, but we will manage even without it. I'm not quite sure we would manage without DomIII...

[DominionsFan]

Yes yes, perhaps someone from Illwinter can tell some details about the MP in Doms III.?

[Kristoffer O]

Details? The game development has recently begun.

[lebarjack]

DominionsFAN said:
I just purchased Kohan 2 Kings of War, and the multiplayer lobby is really awesome, and gamespy is hosting it.

You can't compare Kohan (games are 2-3 hours long) with Dominion where you can play the same game for days.
There is some chat channel and these forum. I think it is sufficient for finding players and starting a game.
Not even mentioning that shrapnel's people has on their todo list setting up a server 'a la' Mosehansen.

[Gandalf Parker]

Its a good idea but I dont know if I want Johan to put it in the gaeme.

GameSpy and such lobbys are available for download. Someone could probably look into making it work with Dom3 (and Dom2 for that matter)

The concept of lobby is closer to the concept of the web servers for games. And the headaches involved with security, compatability, being load friendly, etc is a whole new truckload of garbage for a programmer to bang their head on. Especially since the same thing, at various levels, could be easily done by modifing something like a chat or forum or bbs package.

I think something like that would best be done by a 3rd party programmer. And as was done with my requests, and Esben Mose Hansens requests, I am sure that Johan would be more than willing to consider putting in any switches or handles which such a program would want.

[DominionsFan]

lebarjack said:

You can't compare Kohan (games are 2-3 hours long) with Dominion where you can play the same game for days.
There is some chat channel and these forum. I think it is sufficient for finding players and starting a game.
Not even mentioning that shrapnel's people has on their todo list setting up a server 'a la' Mosehansen.

Wait, hold right there! Example in Kohan 2, you can save the multi game anytime, and just load it up later on!!! Yes all this with a gamespy lobby system!
So if someone has to go....the host just saving the game, and loading it up when everyone available again!

[Thufir]

DominionsFAN said:
Wait, hold right there! Example in Kohan 2, you can save the multi game anytime, and just load it up later on!!! Yes all this with a gamespy lobby system!
So if someone has to go....the host just saving the game, and loading it up when everyone available again!

Pardon me, but this is a ludicrous comparison! Kohan plus GameSpy are provided by two separate companies, that are very comercially oriented, with huge resources.

Illwinter Design is a very talented, non-commercial development house, with two developers. IMNSHO, the fact that Dominions II (and no doubt III), has such an elegant design base, combined with an excellent implementation (especially when consider w/r to the limited dev resources available), that it far outshines any of the more commercial titles available. I am not an anti-commercial snob - I have greatly enjoyed many commercial titles, but if you like epic scoped, turn based strategy games, Dom II is the hands down winner, as far as I am concerned.

Now, when considering Dom III, the Last thing I would put on my wishlist is a game lobby. This is not to say that a game lobby would be a bad thing, but the task of creating a game lobby does overlaps little with game development, and I would far, far prefer to have our most excellent IW game designers/developers doing, well, game design and development.

If a game lobby were to be done, it should be as others have said, done by a third party. If this could be arranged, that might be nice, but I suspect (as was also suggested), that this would have to be set up by Shrapnel, rather than IW (the steps to initiate this would have to be on the business side, rather than development). I suppose it might be nice if GameSpy itself were to take an interest in Dom II (I don't know enough about GameSpy to even know if this were a good thing), but from a business perspective, this sound more than a little unlikely.

But even if a likely third party is identified, there are so many steps that precede game lobbies, that game lobbies still fall down on the list. Before you can talk about game lobbies, you will need servers run by some company, that can afford to maintain them and keep them running. To that end, if Shrapnel stepped up to the plate and provided servers to run Esben Mosehansen's *very* nice (and by my guess, low maintenance) PBW Dom II server, that would be a wonderful thing. I'm not sure that it would pay for Shrapnel to do this, but it would certainly be far cheaper to do this than to provide a game lobby.

- Thufir

PS My apologies if the tone of this sounds hostile, but there is just *so* much to this question that I couldn't help myself from spewing out a lengthy response