What the hell is up with Dominions 3???

[DominionsFan]

Tim Brooks said:
Dominions 3 is on track, in beta, with alot of effort currently going into getting marketing up and running. Shrapnel Games has a signed contract with Illwinter to publish Dominions III. With a game of this scale, we can't guarantee a release date, so we have been waiting until we are closer to completion, and can at least give a reasonably close schedule, before we announce.

Now, having said all that, look for more infromation, MAJOR information before the end of March.

Has not anyone wondered about the Awakening ads?

See you soon.

Finally!!!! I cant wait to see the update! thx!


Oh Tim btw....can you tell us..will there be diplomacy in singleplayer? I really missed it in Doms 2. :-) I know that this is a real wargame but it would be a nice feature.

[Saber Cherry]

I think a lot of the reason the world went crazy over GalCiv 2 and Oblivion were the huge amount of pre-release exposure, and constant trickling of exciting details (even if they were the same ones that trickled the week before, and the week before that). Oblivion, of course, can't be compared since they had a multi-million dollar PR budget, a guy (Pete) that did nothing but fly around the world pimping the game at the offices of every magazine and website that would let him in the door, and a team dedicated to making content for previews. But Stardock is an indy company, and their constant info trickle (aka "hype") netted a massive community and incredible launch...

I don't know how much of this is luck, how much is due to the specific game, how much is due to being slashdotted or penny-arcaded, and how much is due to netting big interviews and previews with big-name magazines. But all together, they worked very well... since the world has been craving 4x-ish games recently. CivIV largely satisfied the Civ fans, GalCiv2 largely satisifed the Master of Orion fans, and now there are just the Master of Magic / Age of Wonders fans looking for a deep Fantasy TBS... especially when HOMMV has Starforce, and only a 50% chance of being good; and isn't quite in the same genre.

Maybe Dominions 3 can fill the void and become huge, with enough hype. Making one of these purported beta testers into a liason for the forum might allow limited dissemination without interrupting busy people who are doing real work. As for netting magazine interviews and previews... I don't really know the process for that, but it would be great if it happened

To quote Dijkstra: "That was back when I still believed the success of a product had some relation to its quality." (<-with regards to the IBM 360)
Good products fail without hype.

[Tyrian]

For French people, there are an interview and an article about DomIII in the cybertratège magazine. There are some screenshots.
http://www.cyberstratege.com/

For the infos, they talk about:
*subterrean races and castle
*the system of era
*the random map generator
*the awakening system (the pretendant can be in sleep at the start of the game)
*better IA (more castle construction)
*lesser powerful drain life
*lesser "micro-gestion"

(sorry for the bad english)

edit for Dominionsfan: in the interview, they clearly say no diplomatie for the moment

[Saber Cherry]

Neat, a magazine that takes hardcore strategy seriously! Thanks for the translation.

[DominionsFan]

Tyrian said:
For French people, there are an interview and an article about DomIII in the cybertratège magazine. There are some screenshots.
http://www.cyberstratege.com/

For the infos, they talk about:
*subterrean races and castle
*the system of era
*the random map generator
*the awakening system (the pretendant can be in sleep at the start of the game)
*better IA (more castle construction)
*lesser powerful drain life
*lesser "micro-gestion"

(sorry for the bad english)

edit for Dominionsfan: in the interview, they clearly say no diplomatie for the moment

I see!! Can you post these screenshots? I must see them!

[Tyrian]

DominionsFan: I'm not sure it's totally legal... But you can't have this magazie so...
Wait a couple of minutes.

[DominionsFan]

Tyrian said:
DominionsFan: I'm not sure it's totally legal... But you can't have this magazie so...
Wait a couple of minutes.

Thanks ... sure you can post the scans its legal, ive seen pcgamer scans etc on many sites before..

[Tyrian]

here the 2 pages in the zip

[Nerfix]

Tyrian said:For the infos, they talk about:
*subterrean races and castle
*the system of era
*the random map generator
*the awakening system (the pretendant can be in sleep at the start of the game)
*better IA (more castle construction)
*lesser powerful drain life
*lesser "micro-gestion"

[alexti]

Saber Cherry said:
But Stardock is an indy company, and their constant info trickle (aka "hype") netted a massive community and incredible launch...

Stardock is not really an indy company. Games are just not their main focus. So they have existing customer base from non-game products. This makes it hard to compare Stardock with purely game companies...

Saber Cherry said:But all together, they worked very well... since the world has been craving 4x-ish games recently. CivIV largely satisfied the Civ fans, GalCiv2 largely satisifed the Master of Orion fans, and now there are just the Master of Magic / Age of Wonders fans looking for a deep Fantasy TBS... especially when HOMMV has Starforce, and only a 50% chance of being good; and isn't quite in the same genre.

Maybe Dominions 3 can fill the void and become huge, with enough hype.

I don't think so. Dom2 is (and thus, I suppose Dom3 will be) hardcore strategy game while Civ4 or GalCiv2 are more like "strategy light" games. They have sandbox aspect (like building large cities, developing them and seeing the empire grow) which attract casual players. Dominions is much more strategy-centric which probably is interesting for much fewer people. So I would think Dominions is very much a niche game (and I like it to stay that way - as a strategic game it is much better than Civ4 or GalCiv2 :> )