What the hell is up with Dominions 3??? - Page 2

DominionsFan · #1 March 17th, 2006, 10:36 AM

Quote:

PDF said:
Well, I'm quite puzzled at the lack of any communication effort by IW and SG about Dom3.
This game should be SG workhorse as sales and buzz go, yet in the last 3 months we had to ask for an interview with KO (that he ans SG gently agreed on) to have news and screenshots for Cyberstratege (the french mag I write for...).
IW site is a polar desert, the latest journals should have more than 6 months, and SG don't even assure they'll publish it now (or is it a joke ?) !
Well, I suppose it's a try to get buzz through silence

Exactly my point!! Also, if I remeber correctly the release date for doms 3. was 2006 Q1, no? Ok I can understand that a company is pushing back the release date, BUT! Months passed, I havent seen screenshots, or not even a real feature list. No news since months. Why? The devs are coding and stuff, thats ok, but they have no time to release any informations, screenshots or a planned release date? I think all fans of the game would be excited if Illwinter would release infos so the players would stop to worry that whats going on with the game.

Gandalf Parker · #2 March 17th, 2006, 11:18 AM

Well everything has its pros and cons.

Illwinter is two guys with jobs and familys and lives who also happen to be programming our absolute favorite game. I cant feel right about pestering them to come here and give us a heads up also if it knocks out another item in the update list for Dom3. I guess that a second-hand post saying that they are deeply working on it in the beta will have to keep my fingers from twitching

The PR side is probably more Shrapnels thing? But since I do see them stepping in to calm us, and I do see articles appearing on the net about Dom3, then I guess something is being done. Any more would probably cost us. Any company with a stronger PR push tends to pay for it out of the sales profits somewhere so Im also not going to push to have more of that.

I could probably help abit. I have seen a number of sites that have a Dom3 page with no info other than "its coming" so maybe I will do my little bit to go there and post some excitement building comments. Im not saying that its the prefereable choice but at least its something I can do.

Gandalf Parker

Agrajag · #3 March 17th, 2006, 04:00 PM

Quote:

Gandalf Parker said:
I could probably help abit. I have seen a number of sites that have a Dom3 page with no info other than "its coming" so maybe I will do my little bit to go there and post some excitement building comments. Im not saying that its the prefereable choice but at least its something I can do.

I think that if you can help generate "buzz" for the game, then do it.
Even though we would like to hope otherwise, dominions is not a strong and major title, and I think its loyal community (as is often the case with such games) is one of its prime assets. And if we can help "spread the word" in order to help such a small game, then we should.
I know I use every chance I get to tell other people about Dominions. (Sadly, I think the vast majority of people that hear about from me either don't check it out, or don't enjoy it. But that has more to do with the gaming demographic here in Israel than everything else :\)

Nerfix · #4 March 17th, 2006, 04:17 PM

I've been tinkering with the idea of a website with some basic Dominions info such as nations etc. then some of the key concepts explained. This could provide some "noise" and info.

But I've been occupied with other stuff and I sort of forget HTML... =/

Tim Brooks · #5 March 17th, 2006, 11:24 AM

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.

Endoperez · #6 March 17th, 2006, 12:33 PM

Now, that's some news. I'd just like to hear the rest of them as well...

Other than that, I don't really have much to say. There have been no news in these forums to post, unfortunately. Except that the developers have been (somewhat) more active lately - encouraging comments on mods, on certain threads, etc.
Oh, and Illwinter site isn't a polar desert - last update is "only" from the end of December. That's actually moderately active for that one...

Tyrant · #7 March 17th, 2006, 03:58 PM

Quote:

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.

I saw the Awakening ads and took them for an Omen!

But...you guys really do need to be more forthcoming. The post i have quoted above is perfectly sufficient. Put up a sticky thread and have someone post "there, there, it's ok, we are making progress" every two weeks just so we are reassured.

We live in the Age of Noise, there are 15 gillion new entertainments coming out every week and ADD is epidemic.
Out of sight is out of mind. Your hardcore fans will wait, but you will lose casual customers if they check in once and don't see something. Everyone who plays these type of games has been burned by vaporware at some point, (Matrix ticked me off so badly I won't even buy their games anymore) so you need to be carefull.

Thanks for your post Tim!

DominionsFan · #8 March 17th, 2006, 07:44 PM

Quote:

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 · #9 March 18th, 2006, 01:57 AM

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.

Kristoffer O · #10 March 19th, 2006, 11:50 AM

Do you recognize yourselves? This is a mad cultist:

Dominions 3 is coming along nicely. JK is sitting beside me at our new Mac and experimenting with a random map of 1500 provinces. Not that 1500 provinces is a setting I would reccomend, but it is good for testing purposes. His Ageless Olm pretender is apparently missing a description.