Dominions 3, in Computer Games Magazine: Most...

isodea · #1 January 2nd, 2006, 04:56 AM

Yes, I played the demo, enjoyed it very much!
Though initially it was a bit overwhelming and unruly.
Played some more today and feel like I'm getting a handle on the basics. Actually about all I've done the last two days is play the demo lol. Very impressed with the deep yet fun gameplay.

I think your right about Dom3. I don't think a whole lot needs to be changed! Ofcourse I haven't even scratched the surface of this demo!

Thanks for the welcome. Thrilled to find a great strategy game. Feels like it's been ages since the last one lol.

Beorne · #2 January 5th, 2006, 05:52 AM

I think instead that having anticipated so much time in advance the upcoming of DomIII has generated only frustation.
The developers should have keep a developers diaty to keep the afictionados close.
Some months ago the forum had about five times (if not ten) daily posts, a lot of the historical members are now gone and so on. And the DomII support is gone too (a handful of very important bugs have not been patched, and some of them are already corrected in dev version)
It has been a terrible marketing move.
Two choiches: you anticipate, and tell us the advances (this can be very easy, some screenshots every now and then would be enough) AND tell a date, or you stay quiet and continue support the old version.
By now Dom2 community is starving.
And if a poor affected playeer makes a post with the legitimate "some news?" question some come to answer "dont' make hurry to the devs! I enjoy a lot waiting! I know this will mean a better game!". Hmpf. This can be right for a free game (i.e.Nethack), NOT for a commercial game.
I thank the devs for this wonderful game, but I think they made a very bad move with DomIII anticipation in conjunction with their absebce fron the forums in these last times.
Sorry for my bad english, my two cents.

isodea · #3 January 5th, 2006, 06:27 AM

Good point Beorne. It's funny but I notice most devs that are really good at making games are really bad at marketing and community interaction and vice versa.
I'll take the kind that make good games over the other kind 9 times out of 10 though.

johan osterman · #4 January 5th, 2006, 06:55 AM

Quote:

Beorne said:
I think instead that having anticipated so much time in advance the upcoming of DomIII has generated only frustation.
The developers should have keep a developers diaty to keep the afictionados close.
Some months ago the forum had about five times (if not ten) daily posts, a lot of the historical members are now gone and so on. And the DomII support is gone too (a handful of very important bugs have not been patched, and some of them are already corrected in dev version)
It has been a terrible marketing move.
Two choiches: you anticipate, and tell us the advances (this can be very easy, some screenshots every now and then would be enough) AND tell a date, or you stay quiet and continue support the old version.
By now Dom2 community is starving.
And if a poor affected playeer makes a post with the legitimate "some news?" question some come to answer "dont' make hurry to the devs! I enjoy a lot waiting! I know this will mean a better game!". Hmpf. This can be right for a free game (i.e.Nethack), NOT for a commercial game.
I thank the devs for this wonderful game, but I think they made a very bad move with DomIII anticipation in conjunction with their absebce fron the forums in these last times.
Sorry for my bad english, my two cents.

If you do a search on Kristoffer you will find that he as posted about 25 times in the last three and a half months or so, not sure what your standards are here but I believe that that is still a reasonable amount of interaction compared to most developers. As for diaries etc. all the usual stuff with JK and KO having real bread winning jobs still applies. Ideally they should also perform round the globe marketing tours with elephants and dancing midgets to hype dom3, unfortunately that is not going to happen either.

Kristoffer O · #5 January 5th, 2006, 07:07 AM

> I thank the devs for this wonderful game, but I think they made a very bad move with DomIII anticipation in conjunction with their absebce fron the forums in these last times.
Sorry for my bad english, my two cents.

The anticipation business is not our business. Shrapnel are the marketing guys and magazines write what and when they like to (mostly).

I do agree that i should have written more dev diaries, but I have been somewhat preoccupied with my regular job the last couple of months. Spare time has not been directed to the fan base. My public contacts have mostly been in the developer forum.

Beorne · #6 January 5th, 2006, 09:24 AM

Quote:

johan osterman said:
If you do a search on Kristoffer you will find that he as posted about 25 times in the last three and a half months or so, not sure what your standards are here but I believe that that is still a reasonable amount of interaction compared to most developers. As for diaries etc. all the usual stuff with JK and KO having real bread winning jobs still applies. Ideally they should also perform round the globe marketing tours with elephants and dancing midgets to hype dom3, unfortunately that is not going to happen either.

Ok, i remebrer times (around Norfleet) that the forums were crowded. Daily posts level similar to SEIV. And you know how important is the fan base to a niche game like this. I think announcments has put a lot of players and fans in stand by. KO told that markenting is not their job nor their decision, so the bad move is not due to them. Pleased to hear this.

johan osterman · #7 January 5th, 2006, 09:48 AM

Frankly I think the drops in posts are mostly a factor of time passing, I guess lack of recent patches etc might have been a factor as well though. Dom2 never had quite the following that SEIV appears to have, nor did the dom2 forum deal with quite that range of topics or appear to have quite as much personal relationships between the posters, perhaps due to the better modding capabilities of SEIV, but who knows. Either way the decline of number posts in the dom2 forum is pretty natural, most threads are rehashes of old subjects, I guess many of the old players have moved on to other games, or felt that the topics they feel like discussing have allready been dealt with, or just don't have the stamina to go over them again.

Nerfix · #8 January 5th, 2006, 09:49 AM

Was the picture from Dom III?

Endoperez · #9 January 5th, 2006, 12:49 PM

Quote:

Nerfix said:
Was the picture from Dom III?

Damn, I really have to try and find that magazine! Where in Finland can you get it? Book shops in big cities? Or was the picture online?

BTW, here are some statistics:
89332 posts total (more when you are reading this, of course). The first posts that appear are 27 months old. This gives us average of (89332 posts / 27 months) 3300 posts per month, or about 110 posts/day. The real number is little less, probably, but even with 28 months the post count is 106/day. Not bad at all. Today, there have already been about 40 posts, in two days there have been 86. So yes, there aren't nearly as many posters as there used to be... but the Old Ones will return.

How many of us even remember Saber Cherry? She took a pause of at least half a year. And she is one of the most mathematically productive people I know of. Besides that, she did the Battle Simulator, which gave lots of raw data on units and their combat effectiveness. I never used her statistics, but they were very interesting to read, and were quite informative.

Truper · #10 January 5th, 2006, 08:57 PM

I think Johan O. has it right. I still read the forum regularly, and contribute fairly often, but not so much as I used to (not that I was ever one of the top contributors). This is mostly because it has all been said already...