what about the future?

[Lizardo]

What they did (in D1) was contribute research points individually to the types of casting method rather than pool the points.

----

Having the mages have to learn to cast and having reasons not to multi-train will mean more complexity, and choices. But this isn't an RTS. And yes, it means not having 'do everything/anything' mages. It makes finding those special mages really valuable.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally Posted by Lizardo

What they did (in D1) was contribute research points individually to the types of casting method rather than pool the points.

And? The result is the same, and the micromanagement is less.

Having the mages have to learn to cast and having reasons not to multi-train will mean more complexity, and choices. But this isn't an RTS. And yes, it means not having 'do everything/anything' mages. It makes finding those special mages really valuable.

This isn't a feasible game design decision (ie the resulting mess would be unplayable) unless you are going to limit players to about ten or twenty mages per game.

[Zeldor]

I don't think they have any offices.

50 bucks is because of Shrapnel, they are morons and know **** about doing business.

You don't have to motivate - Amhazair is right, not much can be done to dom3 without writing it from scratch. And tbh there are many things devs have no idea about and I've heard code is not documented and is quite chaotic.

And no, don't count on them parting with rights, so a community can make dom4 [even though it'd be great]. At least not any time soon.

[Squirrelloid]

TNN/Eriu *is* elves. Or at least one version of elves. (Arguably Vanheim is also elves). Its just that IW has retained the mythological rather than fantasy pop-cultural envisioning of them. (Also, we have dwarves. They're just called Svartalfar - literally 'dark elf', but elves and dwarves are kind of indistinguishable in norse mythology...).

[Doo]

NO!

No bloody elves,
No blooming dwarves,
The game is so much richer for it.

[Gandalf Parker]

Your math is great. But alot of the info seems based on the larger game corps. The advertise and shelfware groups. Thats a very different business plan involving large contracts, advanced monies, spending on ads, bulk purchasing, 3rd party sales, etc. Its a gamble on future sales.

Nothing is wrong with that. But if you read the history of Shrapnel thats kindof what Shrapnel was created to offer an alternative to. Instead of years of payback for advanced outlay before the devs see any profit checks; Shrapnel sticks to low outlay, publicity instead of advertising, distribution instead of shelfware. It allows them to take chances on games that the other guys wouldnt touch. Shrapnel is here for niche non-shelfware games.

Thats only some of it. Not really my area. Maybe you want to say that Illwinter should move to a mainstream game company, not that Shrapnel should become one. If you look at the entire game list, I dont think most of those would be here under that arrangment. But everyone involved seem happy. Ive only known of 2 developers to leave. One to try it on his own, and one to try the bigboys (after one game he came back)

[Gandalf Parker]

My online sales experience is more in areas like posters and tshirts and ebooks. But there are some very interesting psych studies, and reports by biz majors, about pricing. In some cases, raising the price of an item actually amounted in more sales. And why certain numbers actually work better than others for prices (just based on peoples preferences). Im not sure it applies here, but the discussions there are great about the real world vs what you think SHOULD happen when dealing with the mass public. The same occurs in those forums with things like art vs scribbles, cute vs shock, sites with many offerings or just a few.

What people think should work, doesnt always.
(isnt there a Spock quote for that?)

[Zeldor]

Dominions is an old niche game with ugly graphics. You can try convincing someone to it, but price tag is just stupid. Especially for digital copy.

It's not like there are any ads for dom [well, there are, but we all wish there weren't]. They have digital download, they can as well make it .torrent link and sell cd-key. Manual is on torrents too. So their costs here are around $0. All they need is to pay IW smth [but we can't know for sure what's the deal], and it's certainly is not $40+ per copy.

So it's all just down to IW that does not care about proper distribution [so they are a bit rude and arrogant towards clients/players] and Shrapnel, which has no idea about doing business or treating people [but it's so common in business, even huge companies like Dell or HP].

And I have bad feeling next IW's game will be released by Shrapnel too It'd be nice to never see them again.

[Squirrelloid]

I'm not sure why everyone is so convinced a game like dom3 needs to be a niche game. Admittedly, it doesn't follow the *current* trends in *computer* games (which seems to be going more and more in the overly clicky direction) - although the Civ series remains tremendously successful and arguably Dom3 is, like MoM, Civ-with-magic.

But it also appeals to other types of gamers (such as Warhammer players or Avalon Hill boardgame players). Surely many of these people own computers and might even be tempted to play a computer game that appeals to their style of gameplay.

If dom3 got half the advertising Civ IV had gotten, it could have been a big hit. Ok, it would probably have wanted to actually rework the base code and improve the AI for that kind of advertising effort. But still, turn-based strategy is hardly a dead genre, or even an unpopular one. There's nothing niche about it.

And in a world where Lord of the Rings had 3 blockbuster movies, Harry Potter is looking to go the distance with all 7 (?) books as movies, and who knows how many other major fantasy motion pictures coming out, to pretend that the game being fantasy would limit its appeal is ridiculous. One of the most popular Civ IV mods was a fantasy mod (FfH2).

So why is this necessarily a niche game?

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

So why is this necessarily a niche game?

Why is it niche?

- Turn based strategy is niche. Very hard to get a AAA publisher for. (Yeah, I know it is a circle definition, it is niche because the big boys say it is niche). There are very few exceptions, civilization, and some handheld tbs games. And only civ has some depth.
- It has a humongous learning curve. As almost all tbs games have. This makes it hard to pick up and play. Which makes it niche.
- Comparing it to Civ isn't totally fair. Civ is the exception to the rule. You should compare it to other AAA tbs games. Ow wait... these don't really exist... why would that be?
- Would the 14 year old the current halo/gears of war crowd play Dom3? Or women? Would your mom play it? For most of these it would be No. So that makes it kinda niche.

Nobody said that fantasy made it a niche game. I think it is the other way around.

And Warhammer and Avalon hill games are also niche. They appeal to a very specific set of people. And this group isn't that large you know.

Just compare tbs games with depth to adventure games. Both have great potential. But remain niche.

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

If dom3 got half the advertising Civ IV had gotten ...

And if the GUI had been fixed, the graphics polished, the micro fixed, the AI better, A single player campaign included etc...

13lackGu4rd, if a AAA publisher would have developed the game they would have thrown a lot of the depth of the game out of it. They are looking to reach a max amount of players. (So the game is less 'nichey'). So sure, it wouldn't be a niche game if it was developed by Blizzard for example. But it also wouldn't be Dom3.

But I agree, it is niche because it has a niche developer. But that is what makes Dom3, Dom3.

Edit: Just fyi, but I think hardcore gamers have become a niche.