Dom3: Expansion Pack

Zeldor · #1 May 23rd, 2009, 09:34 AM

Some people think it's so easy. Dominions has a huge code. And really complicated. And there are many people that know the game better than devs.

Saying "write code from scratch" is easy. But doing so would take tremendous amount of work. I don't think that Johann is able to do it [as it'd have to be in newer language, which more sophisticated and time-taking solutions to handle all that we'd want]. And chance that they will hire someone to just do that is slim. It would be at least one year of coding, let's say 2-3k$ per month. Add new graphics on top of that [you wouldn't want sprites anymore, right?]. With the amount of units we have, let's say we can maybe get a good deal and get it done for just $500k. Or try some worse 2d quality, to get it to $100k. You'd also want to hire a guy to make AI, another $10k here. They probably get no more than 1/3rd of money from that $50 it is selling for. So it makes for minimum 50k copies sold to break even.

[those were just estimates, I may be totally off with those numbers, just wanted to say smth to those that think it's easy and cheap]

lch · #2 May 23rd, 2009, 10:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeldor

Add new graphics on top of that [you wouldn't want sprites anymore, right?]. With the amount of units we have, let's say we can maybe get a good deal and get it done for just $500k. Or try some worse 2d quality, to get it to $100k. You'd also want to hire a guy to make AI, another $10k here.

$100k -$500k for graphics and $10k for the AI coding? I wouldn't want to play that game, and I guess most others here wouldn't either.

Omnirizon · #3 May 23rd, 2009, 12:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lch

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeldor

Add new graphics on top of that [you wouldn't want sprites anymore, right?]. With the amount of units we have, let's say we can maybe get a good deal and get it done for just $500k. Or try some worse 2d quality, to get it to $100k. You'd also want to hire a guy to make AI, another $10k here.

$100k -$500k for graphics and $10k for the AI coding? I wouldn't want to play that game, and I guess most others here wouldn't either.

is it because that's a lot, and thus no one here would want to play such a mainstream-style game, or because that's not very much at all, and no one here would want to play such a poor quality game?

sorry for my naivety, but I really have no metric here...

I think that I play games like Dwarf Fortress more than most other games, and it, in terms of man-hours, is probably under 100k. (assuming 55k a year per person for full-time. I think there's two guys working on it for a few years, and they by no means do it full-time).

Edi · #4 May 23rd, 2009, 03:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeldor

Some people think it's so easy. Dominions has a huge code. And really complicated. And there are many people that know the game better than devs.

Saying "write code from scratch" is easy. But doing so would take tremendous amount of work.

I know the difference between saying something and doing something quite well. I'm perfectly aware that it would be a tremendous task and far from easy. I just happen to have a recollection that it was the devs themselves who said it would need to be redone from scratch if a Dom4 were to be made. Could be I remember wrong, though.

But it is a fact that the engine limits are squeezing everything these days and some of them can't be expanded without breaking a lot of hard (or impossible) to fix things. That was what JK said when I asked about one of the more important ones.